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President Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered government authorities to prepare a new sanctions operation against Russia’s military industry, saying delays allow Moscow to adapt to existing restrictions.

According to Zelensky’s statement on Thursday, Aug. 6, he held a coordination meeting on sanctions against Russia, covering all categories of restrictions as the war approaches its fifth year. Denying Russia time to adjust to restrictions already in place remains the top priority, he said.

“We also discussed Russia’s use of machine tools and technologies that Moscow is a generation behind on and definitely could not have created on its own,” Zelensky said, adding that “more pressure is needed to limit such ties between the aggressor state and the world.”

According to Zelensky, every participant in the meeting was assigned concrete tasks that are expected to be fully carried out.

The announcement builds on the EU’s finalized 21st sanctions package against Russia in mid-July, which targeted specific companies, entities and individuals tied to Moscow’s war effort.

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Iran's parliament is reviewing a plan to ban ships linked to the U.S., Israel and other "hostile countries" from transiting the Strait of Hormuz until Tehran is compensated for war damage, according to Iranian state media.

The plan would impose fees of up to 7% of cargo value on commercial vessels that pass through the strait. It would also fine ships 20% of cargo if they violate Iran's conditions.

Iran on Wednesday said it was finalizing an agreement on shipping routes with Oman, a U.S. ally that sits on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian state media quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying that ships would enter through the strait's northern corridor near the Iranian coast and exit through the southern corridor near the Omani coast.

Oman has not commented.

The Trump administration has disputed Iran's characterization of the agreement.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday to press for urgently needed air defense interceptors after a devastating Russian missile and drone attack killed 17 people and wounded more than 40 in Kyiv and the surrounding region.

The high-level call came just hours after Ukrainian air defenses failed to intercept any of the missiles Russia launched overnight – exposing one of the most dangerous gaps in the country’s defenses as Moscow intensifies ballistic attacks against Ukrainian cities.

“Today, I spoke with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte about the overall situation,” Zelensky wrote on social media.

“Mark is well-informed about the threats, and we coordinated our efforts regarding countries that have the necessary missiles and the capacity to help.”

“It is important to cut through all red tape and make the necessary political decisions,” he wrote.

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Donald Trump’s legal team is making an 11th-hour attempt to block a court order that would grant the BBC access to the president’s financial records, as part of his multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the British broadcaster.

Trump claims that the BBC’s 2024 documentary on the January 6 attacks have damaged the president’s business interests. In July, a Miami-based judge ruled that the president would have to start handing over detailed financial records to the BBC by 6 August. The records would reveal details into the hundreds of businesses owned by the US president’s family trust.

Trump’s attorneys asked the court on Wednesday to temporarily pause the enforcement of the court order, arguing the BBC had demanded a “shockingly broad amount of information based on clearly political motivations”.

Trump’s lawyers also asked the court to amend their initial lawsuit to instead focus on the “reputation harm” that was caused by the documentary, which would keep necessary disclosures “proportional to the needs of the case”, the lawyers said.

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Palestinians on Tuesday buried 112 members of a single clan killed in Israeli air strikes in November 2023, after their remains were recovered from beneath the rubble last month.

Relatives of the Abu Shari'a and al-Hasayna family gathered in Gaza City to bid a final farewell to their loved ones, whose bodies lay in rows draped in Palestinian flags.

For many, it was a moment of both relief and renewed grief after nearly 1,000 days of waiting to recover the bodies of their relatives.

"There is a feeling of both pain and joy," Amer Abu Shari'a, who lost relatives in the attack, told Middle East Eye.

"Joy because we will bury and honour these martyrs after three years. But the sorrow has returned, as if the massacre happened today."

The strike on the Sabra neighbourhood was one of the deadliest single-strike casualty events of the two-year genocide.

Israeli warplanes flattened an entire residential block where hundreds of members of the Abu Shari'a and al-Hasayna clan had been living and sheltering.

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A joint intervention between Japan and the Trump administration has caused the U.S. dollar to sink against the yen. 

Markets show the U.S. dollar sits at 156.80 yen as of Monday morning after reaching a 40-year high of 164 yen in July.

The drop follows the Treasury Department’s decision to sell off euros for yen on Friday in an effort to intervene on behalf of Tokyo’s deflating currency. 

The amount of euros used to purchase yen was not made clear by the Financial Times, which reported the move launched by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Sales were conducted through Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, two people familiar with the matter told the outlet.

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