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Germany Resumes Petroleum Imports from Iran despite Sanctions: Eurostat

Apadana Central — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 09:59:19 +0000

Germany resumed its petroleum imports from Iran after five years earlier this year despite a continued American sanction that bans any trade of energy products with Iran.

Data cited in a Monday report by ٍEurostat showed that Germany had taken delivery of a large petroleum shipment from Iran in March.

The report cited data from the European Union’s statistics agency the Eurostat which showed the shipment imported by Germany had contained nearly 70,000 metric tons of Iranian crude oil or petroleum products, PressTV reported.

Germany halted imports of crude oil or petroleum products from Iran after taking delivery of a 10,000-mt shipment in October 2018 and after the US withdrew from an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program and imposed sanctions on the country’s oil exports.

Eurostat figures showed that total petroleum imports from Iran by EU countries this year have reached 66,884 million/ton with Germany and Bulgaria being the only tow buyers.

The figures showed that EU’s petroleum imports from Iran had reached 4,181 mt in 2022.

The figures indicate that EU states are becoming increasingly reluctant to comply with US sanctions on Iran mainly because of a crunch in the international energy markets that has been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.

That comes as some EU states have ignored Western sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine war by continuing to import crude oil and gas from the country.

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France mulls rescue plan for beluga whale stranded in River Seine

Apadana Central — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 07:14:26 +0000

A beluga whale has been spotted in France’s River Seine, and officials are now deciding how to save a mammal more suited to cold Arctic waters.

They say the animal is currently near a lock at Vernon, about 70km (43 miles) north-west of Paris.

Members of the public are being urged to keep away from the whale that appears to be underweight.

Experts are puzzled as to why the whale has strayed so far south from its natural habitat.

“The challenge now will be to help feed it, and try to accompany it towards the ocean,” Lamya Essemlali, the head of environmental group Sea Shepherd France, was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency.

She said taking the animal out of the water was out of the question as it was too risky.

Pictures have emerged showing the whale swimming slowly in the river.

The officials have not reported on the size of the animal, but an adult beluga can grow to more than four metres (13ft) in length.

In May, a killer whale was found dead after swimming up the River Seine in Normandy. A plan to guide the four-metre male orca back to the sea using sound stimuli failed, and experts later concluded it was seriously ill.

In 2019, a dead whale was found in the River Thames near Gravesend, UK officials said.

This came just weeks after a humpback whale seen swimming in the same stretch of water had died. It was thought to have found its way into the Thames because of a navigational error, possibly during high tides.

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North Korea took $2 billion in cyber attacks to fund weapons program: U.N. report

Marjaneh Rouhani — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 18:40:32 +0000

August 5, 2019

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – North Korea has generated an estimated $2 billion for its weapons of mass destruction programs using “widespread and increasingly sophisticated” cyber attacks to steal from banks and cryptocurrency exchanges, according to a confidential U.N. report seen by Reuters on Monday.

Pyongyang also “continued to enhance its nuclear and missile programmes although it did not conduct a nuclear test or ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) launch,” said the report to the U.N. Security Council North Korea sanctions committee by independent experts monitoring compliance over six months.

The North Korean mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment on the report, which was submitted to the Security Council committee last week.

The experts said North Korea “used cyberspace to launch increasingly sophisticated attacks to steal funds from financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges to generate income.” They also used cyberspace to launder the stolen money, the report said.

“Democratic People’s Republic of Korea cyber actors, many operating under the direction of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, raise money for its WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programmes, with total proceeds to date estimated at up to two billion US dollars,” the report said.

North Korea is formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The Reconnaissance General Bureau is a top North Korean military intelligence agency.

The U.N. experts said North Korea’s attacks against cryptocurrency exchanges allowed it “to generate income in ways that are harder to trace and subject to less government oversight and regulation than the traditional banking sector.”

The Security Council has unanimously imposed sanctions on North Korea since 2006 in a bid to choke off funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The Council has banned exports including coal, iron, lead, textiles and seafood, and capped imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products.

U.S. President Donald Trump has met with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un three times, most recently in June when he became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korea at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas.

They agreed to resume stalled talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program. The talks have yet to resume and in July and early August, North Korea carried out three short-range missiles tests in eight days.

The U.N. report was completed before last week’s missile launches by North Korea, but noted that “missile launches in May and July enhanced its overall ballistic missile capabilities.”

The U.N. experts said that despite the diplomatic efforts, their “investigations show continued violations” of U.N. sanctions.

“For example, the DPRK continued to violate sanctions through ongoing illicit ship-to-ship transfers and procurement of WMD-related items and luxury goods,” the U.N. report said.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Grant McCool)

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