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A sanctions task force of leading Ukraine allies has frozen more than $330 billion in financial resources owned by Russia’s elite and the central bank since Moscow’s troops invaded, the group announced Wednesday. 

The Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs Task Force (REPO) said in a joint statement that they had blocked $30 billion in assets of Russian oligarchs and officials, and immobilized $300 billion owned by the Russian central bank.

They have also detained at least five luxury yachts and frozen opulent real estate owned by the country’s billionaires. 

“Together, we will ensure that our sanctions continue to impose costs on Russia for its unprovoked and continuing aggression in Ukraine,” the group said in a statement released by the US Treasury.

REPO was formed on March 17, three weeks after the invasion of Ukraine, to increase pressure on Moscow economically in hopes of getting Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war.

Its members include top finance and justice officials of the United States, Australia, France, Canada, Germany, Japan, Italy, Britain and the European Commission.

They have moved steadily to take hold of luxury estates and mega-yachts of Russian billionaires known to have ties to Putin.

But they have also worked to isolate Moscow in the global financial system, making it harder for the Kremlin to use its money on the global markets.

They have constrained Moscow’s ability to acquire advanced technologies. 

On Sunday Britain, Canada, Japan and the United States jointly announced they would ban the purchase of gold from Russia in order to prevent the country and its tycoons from using the metal to avoid sanctions.

REPO warned it would continue to pursue the assets of wealthy and powerful Russians.

“REPO’s work is not yet complete,” they said. “We continue to increase Russia’s cost of its war.”

A French court is to hand down verdicts Wednesday against 20 men accused over the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris, after a marathon 10-month trial that reopened the scars of modern France’s worst peacetime atrocity.

One hundred and thirty people were killed on the night of November 13, 2015, when a team of Islamic State group jihadists laid siege to the French capital, attacking the national sports stadium, bars and the Bataclan concert hall.

The trial that began on September 8, 2021, has been the biggest in modern French history, the culmination of a six-year, multi-country investigation whose findings run to more than a million pages.

All the attackers were killed in the aftermath of the assault except Salah Abdeslam, who was captured alive by police four months later.

Abdeslam is the key suspect among the 20 accused on trial, six of whom have been tried in absentia. If convicted, he faces the toughest life sentence available under French law.

The verdicts, drawn up by a panel of five judges who have been deliberating at a secret location since Monday, are expected from 5:00 pm (1500 GMT).

Survivors and relatives of victims have applauded the trial as an important stage in overcoming the trauma. 

“When you take part, you hear about everyone else’s stories, what they suffered, what they lost,” David Fritz Goeppinger, one of the Bataclan hostages, told AFP recently.

Arthur Denouveaux, head of the Life for Paris survivors’ group, said that after nine gruelling months, people were ready for the end.

– Focus on key accused –

“I’m not that interested in the verdicts in themselves. It’s really about saying ‘That’s it. It’s behind us. The justice system has done its work, we can move on’,” he told AFP. 

The main focus will be on Abdeslam, now 32, who discarded his suicide belt on the night of the attack and fled back to his hometown, Brussels, where many of the extremists lived.

He told the court that he had a change of heart and decided not to kill people. But prosecutors have argued that he shared the murderous intent of the rest of the attack team and that his equipment simply malfunctioned.

Abdeslam’s demeanour has also changed throughout the trial. At the beginning he upset proceedings with angry and defiant rants but then in April apologised to the victims and asked them to “hate me with moderation.”

Prosecutors have requested a full-life term, the severest penalty for criminals that can be imposed under French law.

It offers only a small chance of parole after 30 years. Such sentences have been pronounced only four times since being created in 1994. 

“Those who committed these heinous crimes are nothing more than lowlife terrorists and criminals,” prosecutor Nicolas Le Bris said in his closing statement earlier this month.

But Abdeslam’s defence team has urged the judges to make a verdict based strictly on the law and not emotions.

– Trauma for France – 

“I hope that the judges will be able to understand what happened and apply the law as well as possible in order to have the fairest decisions,” Olivia Ronen, one of his lawyers, told France Info radio.

The November 2015 attacks deeply traumatised France, with the choice of targets — music and sports venues, the capital’s famed bars and cafes — and the manner of the violence seemingly designed to inflict maximum shock.

The huge loss of life marked the start of a gruesome and violent period in Europe, as IS claimed responsibility for numerous attacks across the continent, leading Paris to ramp up its military campaign to defeat the extremists in Syria and Iraq.

In the absence of the rest of the attackers, the men on trial besides Abdeslam are suspected of offering logistical support or plotting other attacks.

One of them, Mohamed Abrini, has admitted to driving some of the Paris attackers to the capital and explained how he was meant to take part but backed out.

The 37-year-old also started out justifying IS violence as part of a fight against Western countries but ended by apologising to victims in the trial’s final stages. 

Also facing a life term is Swedish citizen Osama Krayem, who has been identified in a notorious IS video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage.

Six of the 20 people on trial in Paris are missing, including the overall commander, senior Syria-based IS figure and veteran jihadist Oussama Atar, who is presumed dead.

Ecuador’s president survived an impeachment vote on Tuesday, as negotiations to end more than two weeks of cost-of-living protests by Indigenous groups were suspended following the death of a soldier.

The opposition-led congress had sought to remove right-wing President Guillermo Lasso over “the serious political crisis and internal commotion” caused by the protests.

But the motion garnered only 80 of the 92 votes needed, according to results read aloud by the parliament’s secretary, Alvaro Salazar, in a virtual session broadcast on social media.

“In spite of the coup attempts, today the country’s institutions prevailed,” Lasso said after the vote. “It is evident who works for the political mafias. Meanwhile, we continue to work for Ecuador.”

Earlier in the day, Lasso had accused Indigenous protest leader Leonidas Iza of self-serving politics, saying: “We will not negotiate with those who hold Ecuador hostage.”

Iza’s powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), in turn, accused the government of “authoritarianism,” and said Lasso would bear the consequences for “his hawkish policy.”

On Tuesday morning, the military said a soldier died and five police and seven soldiers were injured in an attack on a tanker truck escort in the country’s east.

It said a group armed with “spears and guns” attacked uniformed personnel protecting an early-morning convoy of tankers headed for the so-called ITT block of oil fields in Orellana province, where more than a billion barrels are stored.

Interior Minister Patricio Carillo expressed condolences to the family of fallen soldier Jose Chimarro in a tweet, and described the attackers as “violent demonstrators.”

The secretary of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, also denounced the attack, saying on Twitter that “protests should be peaceful and democratic.”

– ‘Brutal attack’ –

A second day of talks with Indigenous representatives scheduled for Tuesday morning failed to get under way as negotiators from the government did not show up.

Mediator Virgilio Saquicela, president of the National Assembly, announced that the government was “not present” as it was “conducting an analysis” of the early-morning events.

Iza referred to a “brutal attack” but said there was no proof protesters were responsible.

Lasso, meanwhile, touted “the efforts we have made to establish a fruitful and sincere dialogue.”

“But we will not sit down again to dialogue with Leonidas Iza, who only defends his political interests and not those of his base,” he added.

Tuesday’s fatality came on top of five demonstrators dead and hundreds of civilians and security personnel wounded in clashes between the security forces and protesters blockading key roads and disrupting supply lines.

Some 150 people have been arrested, according to observers.

At night, protesters clashed with public forces again in the north of the capital, setting two police stations on fire.

“One cannot understand the irrationality and lack of reason in the protests. Ecuador needs peace,” Interior Minister Carrillo said on Twitter.

Crude is the South American country’s main export, but production has been halved from about 520,000 barrels per day prior to the protests, the government said.

Operations at more than 1,100 wells have been affected.

An estimated 14,000 protesters are taking part in a nationwide show of discontent against rising hardship in an economy dealt a serious blow by the coronavirus pandemic.

Conaie, which called the protest, is credited with unseating three presidents between 1997 and 2005.

Indigenous people make up more than a million of the South American nation’s 17.7 million people. 

Most of the demonstrators’ ire is concentrated in the capital Quito, where some 10,000 people are gathered, most of them from other parts of the country.

Other than fuel price cuts, the protesters want jobs, food price controls, and more public spending on healthcare and education.

– Economic cost –

The action has been costly, with losses of some $50 million per day to the economy, according to the government, which has warned oil production could come to a complete halt soon.

Ecuador’s economy is highly dependent on oil revenues, with 65 percent of output exported in the first four months of 2022.

Protesters have set up roadblocks in most of the country’s 24 provinces, hampering the delivery of food and flowers — another key export — and dealing a blow to tourism.

On Sunday, Lasso announced a 10-cents-per-gallon reduction in diesel and gasoline prices, but this was deemed insufficient by Conaie.

The president has also lifted a state of emergency that had been in place in six provinces and a night-time curfew in Quito.

After the concessions, the two sides met for the first time Monday for talks on ending the protest.

Hundreds of police were deployed in an Indian city on Wednesday following the murder of a Hindu tailor allegedly by two Muslim men after comments by a ruling party official about the Prophet Mohammed that have inflamed sectarian tensions.

The cold-blooded attack in the western city of Udaipur was captured on video, quickly going viral online and gripping a country with a long and explosive history of deadly communal violence. 

The video showed the tailor Kanhaiya Lal being attacked in his shop. Further footage showed the two accused purportedly brandishing large knives and threatening to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

They then justified their murder for Lal’s alleged support of comments about the Prophet Mohammed by a spokeswoman for Modi’s Hindu nationalist ruling BJP party, remarks that have triggered protests across parts of the Muslim world in recent weeks.

Hundreds had gathered outside Lal’s house ahead of his funeral on Wednesday, a day after several hundred gathered to protest and chant Hindu slogans in response to the killing. 

People on motorcycles and cars waved saffron flags — the colour of the Hindu faith — and shouted slogans demanding the death penalty for the accused.

The two young men were arrested on Tuesday as they attempted to flee Udaipur by motorbike, news reports said.

To prevent potential sectarian violence, authorities deployed 600 extra police and put the city of around 450,000 people under curfew, snapping mobile internet access there and in other parts of Rajasthan state.

Local authorities issued a month-long order banning four or more people from gathering anywhere in the state.

“Both the accused in the killing have been arrested and we will ensure strict punishment and speedy justice,” said Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot. 

Gehlot appealed to people to not share the video as it would “serve the attackers’ motive of creating discord in society”.

On social media members of the ruling BJP party and supporters depicted the killing as an attack on all Hindus, with thousands of tweets carrying hashtags like #IslamicTerrorismInIndia.

– Diplomatic storm –

The remarks about Mohammed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesman Nupur Sharma at a TV debate in late May sparked protests that turned violent in some parts of India and demonstrations across the Islamic world.

She was sacked by the party after her comments, which saw the governments of nearly 20 countries summoning their Indian envoys to express their displeasure.

Lal’s wife told broadcaster NDTV that on June 10 her husband was arrested over a social media post supporting Sharma and released on bail a day later. 

Five days later the father of two said he had received death threats but on Tuesday returned to work in his shop, she said.

The purported video of the killing — which police have not yet confirmed is genuine — showed Lal measuring one of the men for new clothes before he and his accomplice attack him. 

Indian Home Minister Amit Shah said the National Investigation Agency (NIA) would take over the investigation of the “brutal murder”.

“The involvement of any organisation and international links will be thoroughly investigated,” Shah tweeted.

– Sporadic violence –

India has a seen sporadic sectarian violence between majority Hindus and Muslims, who make up around 14 percent of the 1.4-billion-strong population.

Inter-religious riots in the capital New Delhi left 53 people dead in 2020, while in 2013 62 people were killed in the nearby city of Muzaffarnagar.

In 2002 at least 1,000 perished in Gujarat when Modi was state premier. Most of the victims were Muslims. 

Rajasthan also saw riots earlier this year, when almost 100 people were arrested after police fired tear gas to stop fighting and stone-pelting.

Modi’s party has been accused of marginalising the Muslim community and sewing divisions with Hindus since coming to power in 2014.

The row over Sharma’s comments followed anger across the Muslim world in 2020 after French President Emmanuel Macron defended the right of a satirical magazine to publish caricatures of the prophet.

Images of the prophet are strictly forbidden in Sunni Islam. French teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded in October 2020 by a Chechen refugee after showing the cartoons to his class in a lesson on free speech.

NATO leaders were set Wednesday to invite Finland and Sweden to join after Turkey dropped objections, as the alliance looked to revamp its defences at a summit dominated by the war in Ukraine.  

More than four months after Russia invaded Ukraine, upending the European security landscape, leaders gather in Madrid for what NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg called a “historic and transformative summit” for the alliance’s future. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to address the meeting via videolink to renew Kyiv’s pleas for accelerated weapons deliveries from its allies. 

NATO countries, which have already committed billions of dollars in military assistance to Kyiv, will agree a “comprehensive assistance package to Ukraine, to help them uphold the right for self-defence”.

“We meet in the midst of the most serious security crisis we have faced since the Second World War,” Stoltenberg said.” 

“We’ll state clearly that Russia poses a direct threat to our security.”

NATO is due to launch the largest revamp of its defence and deterrence capabilities since the end of the Cold War by strengthening the forces on its eastern flank and massively ramping up the number of troops it has at high readiness.

“Russia now is an aggressor in Ukraine, Russia attacked Ukraine and Russia is a threat for Europe but not only for Europe, for all NATO,” Poland President Andrzej Duda said. 

“This is very clear situation now.”

– Turkey drops opposition –

Beyond Ukraine, the summit will see a revamp of NATO’s strategic concept — which outlines its main security tasks, but has not been revised since 2010 — to mention challenges posed by China for the first time.

Finland and Sweden will be invited to join the alliance at the summit after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday lifted his opposition following crunch talks with the leaders of the two Nordic countries in Madrid.

The move is a blow to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who launched his war in Ukraine saying he wanted to stop NATO expansion but is now set to see his border with the alliance more than double. 

Erdogan had stubbornly refused to back the applications from the Nordic pair — lodged in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine — despite pressure for a change of course from his NATO allies.

But Erdogan’s office said it had agreed to support them as Ankara had “got what it wanted”.

Ankara had accused Finland, and especially Sweden, of offering a safe haven to Kurdish militants who have been waging decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.

US President Joe Biden congratulated Turkey, Finland and Sweden on reaching an agreement. 

“As we begin this historic NATO summit in Madrid, our alliance is stronger, more united and more resolute than ever,” he said in a statement. 

But it will still take months for Finland and Sweden to officially join NATO, as their entry needs to be ratified by the parliaments of the 30 member states. 

– ‘Stop Russian terror’ –

The summit comes as war rages across Ukraine, particularly in the eastern Donbas region where Moscow has been focusing its offensive after failing to capture Kyiv in the conflict’s early days. 

There was global outrage Monday after a missile strike on a shopping mall in the central city of Kremenchuk killed at least 18 people and injured dozens. 

Russia claims its missile salvo was aimed at an arms depot. But AFP talked to civilians in Kremenchuk, and none of them knew of any weapons store in the neighbourhood.

“Everything burned, really everything, like a spark to a touchpaper. I heard people screaming. It was horror,” witness Polina Puchintseva said.

All that was left of the mall was charred debris, chunks of blackened walls and lettering from a smashed storefront.

“Only total insane terrorists, who should have no place on Earth, can strike missiles at civilian objects,” said Zelensky on his social media channels. 

“Russia must be recognised as a state sponsor of terrorism. The world can and therefore must stop Russian terror,” he added.

Addressing the UN Security Council Tuesday, Zelensky called for the United Nations to visit the site so they can independently assess whether the destruction was caused by a Russian missile strike.

At their summit in Germany, G7 leaders agreed to impose new sanctions targeting Moscow’s defence industry, raising tariffs and banning gold imports from the country.

But the Kremlin was unfazed, insisting that Ukrainian forces had to surrender to end the fighting.

“The Ukrainian side can stop everything before the end of today,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

“An order for the nationalist units to lay down their arms is necessary,” he said, adding Kyiv had to fulfil a list of Moscow’s demands.

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