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A disciplinary court in Poland on Thursday lifted the immunity of a judge who fled the country to neighboring Belarus, an autocratic ally of Russia, paving the way for an international arrest warrant for him on espionage allegations.

Poland's prosecutors and special services launched an investigation this week after Belarus media reported that the judge, Tomasz Szmydt, arrived in the country and asked for protection. Politicians in Poland, which is a NATO and European Union country, vowed to take immediate steps to strip Szmydt of his immunity as a judge, remove him from his post and take actions to bring him to justice.

Szmydt was notorious in Poland for having engaged in a 2019 online smear campaign against other judges that was sponsored by the Justice Ministry under the previous right-wing government.

NOTORIOUS POLISH JUDGE FLEES TO BELARUS, TRIGGERING INVESTIGATION

Justice Minister Adam Bodnar said stripping him of immunity allows for posting an international arrest warrant for Szmydt through Interpol. Even if Belarus ignores it, the warrant would restrict Szmydt's ability to travel.

According to Belarus state media, Szmydt told reporters in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, that he was forced to leave Poland because he did not agree with the new, pro-Western government.

Deputy justice minister in the new government, Arkadiusz Myrcha, said in parliament on Thursday that answers are needed about Szmydt's swift rise under the previous government and why he had access to sensitive information.

Speaking later in parliament, Prime Minister Donald Tusk accused the previously ruling populist Law and Justice party of ties to the intelligence services of Russia and Belarus, and said the scope of the alleged ties will be probed by a special parliamentary commission. Tusk said Szmydt's story was only a small part of those alleged ties.

Szmydt's defection came as a shock in Poland, which supports Ukraine in its war against Russia’s aggression and which has a history of distrust with Russia.

Tusk on Tuesday called for a special meeting of the secret services to discuss alleged Russian and Belarusian infiltration after Szmydt’s defection. He later said the defection was "treason" and vowed swift legal action in response.

A watchdog group is sounding the alarm, saying Gazans are reporting that employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) are allegedly stealing and selling off humanitarian aid materials. 

UN Watch, a non-governmental organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday cited numerous reports published by Palestinians in an UNRWA-related chatroom claiming that UNRWA staff are stealing aid and selling it for profit, while those who report it face reprisals. Israeli and some U.S. officials have accused UNRWA of masquerading as a relief organization while supporting Hamas' attacks on Israel. 

Amid the "rampant theft," the watchdog further claimed that UNRWA Commissioner-General Philipe Lazzarini "turns a blind eye" to serious problems within the management of aid distribution by the agency. Lazzarini, meanwhile, recently called for countries to increase direct cash assistance to Gazans because, although "there is more food available… it still does not mean that the food is accessible."

The chatroom – which the watchdog group notes is also riddled with antisemitic slurs and posts celebrating Iran's attack on Israel – is run by a former UNRWA employee, Haitham al-Sayyed, according to UN Watch. The watchdog group noted that Al-Sayyed was removed from UNRWA in 2016 after he publicly called out the agency for hiding a UNRWA map that denied the existence of Israel while U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon was holding a press conference at a school funded by the agency. 

UN AGENCY ACCUSED OF BEING PART OF HAMAS AFTER ISRAEL STRIKES TERRORIST HQ

"While Haitham al-Sayyed was supposedly fired from UNRWA, he is still considered by many in the chat rooms as an important figure in the organization who holds sway with the senior administration," UN Watch said. The watchdog group said some UNRWA staff, "frustrated by inaction and even complicity of senior staff in these thefts," have confided in al-Sayyed "in the hope that he can get UNRWA’s top officials to listen."

On Jan. 6, al-Sayyed posted a message sent to him by a UNRWA employee working in an emergency shelter set up at a school in Gaza, complaining in Arabic that "the displaced people in the external shelter do not get their right to food and non-food aid, but rather it is distributed at night and sold in front of our eyes." The employee said about 150 bags of diapers were distributed at night to those inside the school. 

The employee also said the school remained without electricity for over a month after someone stole diesel fuel from the shelter, but later "the thief was exposed, and the principal was informed, but to this day he is still working with us." The message also said a "young engineer with great morals" had previously been in charge of the school, but when he prevented "night administration" from stealing from the store after dark, "he was arbitrarily transferred on charges of embezzlement." 

The UNRWA worker reported that a female teacher put in charge of the morning administration "did not take any steps to stop these crimes until we became suspicious that she is complicit with them, and unfortunately, this evening, [the] manager had a hand and support in the operations, so it was very easy for him to transfer whoever he wants on charges of embezzlement." 

LAWMAKERS INTRODUCE LEGISLATION HOLDING UNRWA ACCOUNTABLE FOR JOINING, ASSISTING HAMAS TERROR ATTACK IN ISRAEL

According to a screenshot of a Telegram message published by UN Watch, a member of the chatroom group, Dr. Izzat Shatat, wrote that a "director of a school warehouse came now with 50 cartons of food that were distributed in UNRWA schools and sold them to a merchant for 350 shekels per carton, equivalent to $100." 

"How did he take out this amount of cartons? Where is the administration about this?" Shatat asked.

Another UNRWA employee, Mohammed Musa al-Sawalhi, recounted in the chatroom on Feb. 20 how he witnessed some UNRWA employees stealing aid and heard that others were hoarding aid in their houses. He claimed, "80% of employees in the shelters have no morals or dignity," and said family members of one director were caught on video stealing aid. 

"When will the directors of UNRWA centers in schools, especially Rafah Preparatory Girls School B, stop stealing the food and needs of the displaced?" another group member wrote on March 1. 

UN Watch detailed how, on March 22, "a heated debate erupted in the chat room where some UNRWA employees accused other employees of not giving them access to a medicine cabinet." 

One member commented, "From the past wars, I knew some employees personally, and I trusted them to be good people, but the soul is evil. Some of them were stealing on a daily basis as if it were a prize. This war revealed a lot and some of it was documented with photos, videos, and audio."

India said Thursday that Canada has informed it about the arrest of three Indian men who have been charged with the murder of a Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia last year, but insisted that no relevant information or specific evidence about Delhi's involvement has been shared by the Canadian authorities till date.

India’s External Affairs Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal told reporters that the two countries were discussing the issue but accused Canada of providing shelter to those who are advocating violence against India.

He said that Delhi had complained to the Canadian authorities that the people associated with organized crime in India had been allowed entry and residency in Canada. "Many of our extradition requests are pending."

2 OF 3 SUSPECTS IN CANADIAN SIKH SEPARATIST LEADER'S KILLING APPEAR IN COURT

"Our diplomats have been threatened with impunity and obstructed in their performance of duties," Jaiswal added. We are having discussions at the diplomatic level on all these matters," he said.

The killing of the Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar last year set off a diplomatic spat after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that there were "credible allegations" of Indian involvement. India rejected the accusations.

The three arrested Indian men in Canada haven’t yet sought any access to the Indian diplomats there, Jaiswal said.

The three — Kamalpreet Singh, 22, Karan Brar, 22, and Karanpreet Singh, 28 — appeared in court Tuesday via a video link and agreed to a trial in English. They were ordered to appear in British Columbia Provincial Court again on May 21.

They were arrested last week in Edmonton, Alberta. They have been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Canadian Mounted Police Superintendent Mandeep Mooker said Friday that the investigation into whether the men had ties to India’s government was ongoing.

The three suspects had been living in Canada as non-permanent residents.

The award-winning Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has been sentenced to eight years in prison and lashings just ahead of his planned trip to the Cannes film festival, his lawyer told The Associated Press Thursday.

Rasoulof, 51, known for his film "There Is No Evil," has become the latest artist targeted in a widening crackdown on all dissent in the Islamic Republic following years of mass protests, including over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini.

Iranian authorities haven't acknowledged the sentence but Rasoulof and other artists had co-signed a letter urging authorities to "put your gun down" amid demonstrations over a 2022 building collapse that killed at least 29 people in the southwestern city of Abadan. In the time since then, artists, athletes, celebrities and others have been called for questioning or faced prison sentences.

"This judgment is issued due to Mr. Rasoulof signing statements in support of the Iranian people," his lawyer Babak Paknia told the AP. He said that those statements, along with his tweets and further social activities, were found to be instances of ‘action against national security.’

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S 'MEGALOPOLIS' TO PREMIERE AT CANNES

Rasoulof faced trial in Tehran's Revolutionary Court, Paknia added.

The tribunals, often handling cases of those with Western ties later used in prisoner swaps by Iran, have been internationally criticized for not allowing those on trial to pick their own lawyers or even see the evidence against them in closed-door hearings.

The director also faces lashings, fines and asset seizures, his lawyer said.

Iran's mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment over Rasoulof's sentencing. He had been scheduled to head to Cannes for the premiere of his new film, "The Seed of the Sacred Fig," later this month.

"There Is No Evil," which tells four stories loosely connected to the use of the death penalty in Iran, won the Golden Bear prize at Berlin in 2020. Rasoulof wasn’t there to accept the award due to a travel ban imposed on him by Iranian authorities. Shortly after receiving the award, he was sentenced to a year in prison for three films he made that authorities found to be "propaganda against the system."

He has faced repeated prison sentences and film bans in his native Iran, whose Shiite theocracy long has railed against Western-embraced artists as a part of a "soft war" against its policies. Yet Iran has become known on the international film circuit for daring, thought-provoking movies outlining the challenges of life in the Islamic Republic.

Fellow filmmaker Saeed Roustayi and his producer similarly faced legal action last year after traveling to Cannes to show "Leila’s Brothers."

JERUSALEM — After President Biden compared Hamas to the Nazis in a Holocaust remembrance day speech on Tuesday, his Israeli critics argue he is now backpedaling from his ironclad commitment to the Jewish state by delaying deliveries of vital precision weapons to Jerusalem.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are closing in on the last major bastion of Hamas terror in the city of Rafah in Gaza. Yet, Biden announced on Thursday that "I made it clear that if they go into Rafah, they have not gone into Rafah yet, they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem."

In what seemed like a backhanded response to Biden’s directive, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday during a ceremony ahead of Israel’s Memorial Day to remember the state’s fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism that, "I say from here to Israel’s enemies and its best friends: The State of Israel cannot be subdued — not the IDF, not the Defense Ministry, not the defense establishment, not the State of Israel. We will stand, we will achieve our goals, we will hit Hamas, we will destroy Hezbollah, and we will bring security."

BIDEN VOWS TO WITHHOLD WEAPONS FROM ISRAEL IF NETANYAHU GOES FORWARD WITH RAFAH INVASION

Gallant added, "Whatever the cost, we will ensure the existence of the State of Israel and remember well the directive we signed just a week ago during the Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, the words ‘Never Again.’ For me, it’s not just a directive, it’s a work plan. This is how the defense establishment will work and this is how the IDF will work."

Biden’s remarks have caused spats within Israel’s charged political climate. Israeli President Isaac Herzog took firebrand National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to task for posting on X that "Hamas loves Biden." Ben Gvir used a heart emoji instead of the word love on his X feed. 

Herzog called Ben Gvir’s comment "irresponsible and insulting." 

Herzog added at the ceremony honoring the Allies' victory over Nazi Germany that it is "a notable opportunity to thank the State of Israel’s allies also today, and especially our greatest ally the United States of America. I would like to say thank you to President Biden who is a great friend of the State of Israel, and who has proved as much from the first day of the war."

Fox News Digital reached out to Israelis across the country for their views on Biden’s withdrawal of military arms.

Israeli academic Richard Landes, who lives in Jerusalem, told Fox News Digital that "Intentionally or not, the U.S. is pursuing a course dictated by Hamas. This is a massive cognitive war victory for Hamas, and it could not have happened without the media's compliance with the Palestinian media protocols demand that they manipulate western compassion's addiction to Palestinian suffering."

UN, HUMAN RIGHTS, MEDIA GROUPS RELY ON HAMAS DEATH TOLL IN 'SYSTEMATIC DECEPTION': EXPERT

Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have intensified their warnings over the last few weeks that Israel should not enter Rafah due to the large number of civilians in the city. "I’ve made it clear to Bibi and the war cabinet: They’re not going to get our support, if in fact they go on these population centers," Biden said while invoking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nickname "Bibi."

Thousands of Hamas terrorists and its infamous leader, Yahya Sinwar, are holed up in Rafah — a city of over 1 million Palestinians — and the jihadi organization is using hostages, some of whom may be Americans, as human shields to deter an Israeli incursion. 

The IDF announced this week that it has operational control of the Rafah side crossing to Egypt.

The timing of Biden’s freeze on sending offensive weapons to Israel coincides with a Hamas rocket attack on Sunday that resulted in the murder of four soldiers near the Rafah crossing toward Kerem Shalom.

The Hamas attack also severely wounded three additional soldiers. An IDF spokesman said Hamas launched 14 mortars and rockets at IDF troops, and a residence in a Kibbutz was hit. 

WHY MIDEAST NEIGHBORS WON'T OFFER REFUGE TO PALESTINIANS STUCK IN GAZA WAR ZONE

Some Israelis believe, in addition to a number of American politicians, that Biden is pandering to the far-left and progressive base of the Democratic Party ahead of the November election with his decision to pull the plug on weapons delivery to Israel.

Chaim Noll, an Israeli author who lives in the southern region of Beersheva, told Fox News Digital about Biden that "he betrayed Israel. By cowardly backing away from Hamas because of a few votes. And it won't do him any good."

Caroline Glick, a former advisor to Netanyahu, echoed Noll’s comment. She posted on X the comment that "Israel has not been abandoned by America. It has been abandoned and betrayed by the Biden administration."

Dan Diker, the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told Fox News Digital that, "The Biden administration is punishing Israel by publicly threatening to cut off arms and ammunition, vital to Israel’s self-defense against this Iranian regime-backed jihadi Hamas-Palestinian jihad axis of terror, is actually undermining the United States’ vital interests in the region."

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SILENT OVER HAMAS' USE OF GAZA HOSPITAL AS TERROR HQ

He said the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are "competing to assault the United States" via their "support for campus extremism and radicalism." 

Diker said "Hamas reads the American punishing rhetoric of Israel as a vindication of Hamas’ October 7 mass murder, rape, brutality and kidnapping of U.S. hostages, not only Israeli hostages, and this sends a very troubling signal to America’s allies throughout the region, beginning with Saudi Arabia."

Hamas murdered nearly 1,200 people on Oct. 7 in southern Israel, including over 30 Americans. A November hostage deal secured the freedom of more than 100 hostages in exchange for Israel’s release of dozens of Palestinian terrorists. 

Wim Kortenoeven, a former Dutch Member of Parliament who converted to Judaism and made aliyah and lives in Eli in the biblical heartland of Samaria with his family since 2019, told Fox News Digital that "Biden was never a friend. He has always been a political opportunist. And remember the exchange with Menachem Begin?"

Biden and former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin famously clashed in 1982 over then-39-year-old Senator Biden’s threat to withhold aid to Israel. The 68-year-old Begin fired back at Biden, "Don't threaten us with cutting off aid to give up our principles. I'm not a Jew with trembling knees."

Begin reportedly continued that "I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid."

Kortenoeven said "Blinken is personally responsible for reversing the pro-Israel/pro-Jewish rights policy of Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo. He is a dedicated ‘Two-Stater’ and as such a declared opponent of the Jewish right to live in the Jewish heartland since 3.5 millennia: Judea and Samaria." Judea and Samaria is more commonly known as the West Bank.

Biden and Blinken argue that a two-state solution — where a Palestinian state coexists with Israel — will ensure the security of the Jewish state. 

Kortenoeven noted that "It is as sickening that Biden and Blinken are now doing exactly the same after the Iranian missile attack of April 14. They want to push a Palestinian state down Israel’s throat and effectively embolden Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the PLO, all of which are genocidal entities that want to destroy the Jewish State and massacre the Jews."

A Fox News Digital request to Netanyahu's office for comment was not answered by press time. 

Fox News' Yonat Friling contributed to this report from Jerusalem.

At least one person was killed and four others were injured after a huge fire broke out at a chemical storage tank in an Eastern Thailand industrial park on Thursday.

The fire in Mab Ta Phut Industrial Estate, which was first reported in the morning, was contained more than six hours later. Fire workers estimated it might take more than 10 hours to be able to fully extinguish the flames, according to the Rayong province’s public relations department.

About 400 workers and residents have been evacuated to a temporary shelter, the department said.

THAILAND'S PRIME MINISTER MOVES TO OUTLAW MARIJUANA 2 YEARS AFTER ITS DECRIMINALIZATION

Officials said the tank, which has a storage capacity of 2,500 cubic meters, belongs to the Mab Ta Phut Tank Terminal company, which operates a commercial port and storage terminal for petrochemical products. They said the tank contained Pyrolysis gasoline, a mixture of chemicals commonly used in gasoline blending.

Videos and photos from the scene show a huge plume of black smoke and raging fire engulfing a white tank that was standing close to several others.

The company said in a statement that it is investigating the cause of the fire and will implement measures to prevent it from happening again. It expressed its condolences and said the company is ready to provide compensation to those affected.

In 2021, the company was ordered to cease operations temporarily after another one of its storage tanks erupted and caught fire, killing three and seriously injuring two.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that there was nothing unusual in a planned exercise involving the practice deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in southern Russia along with ally Belarus.

Russia said on Monday it would practise the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as part of a military exercise after what the Moscow said were threats from France, Britain and the United States.

"There is nothing unusual here, this is planned work," Putin said, state news agency TASS reported. "It is training."

RUSSIA ANNOUNCES NUCLEAR DRILLS IN RESPONSE TO 'PROVOCATIVE' COMMENTS BY WESTERN OFFICIALS

Russia's defense ministry, in its announcement on Monday, explicitly linked the nuclear exercise to "provocative statements and threats by certain Western officials against the Russian Federation".

Putin said last year that Moscow had transferred some tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, Russia's first move of such warheads outside Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

Putin said that he had suggested to Belarus that it take part in one of the parts of the nuclear exercise announced on Monday.

"We hold them regularly," Putin said. "This time they are held in three stages. At the second stage, Belarusian colleagues will join our joint actions."

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, speaking alongside Putin, said that this was the third such training exercise.

"There were probably dozens in Russia, so we synchronized. And the general staffs, as the Russian defense minister told me, have already begun to execute these instructions," Lukashenko said.

Russia and the United States are by far the world's biggest nuclear powers, holding more than 10,600 of the world's 12,100 nuclear warheads. China has the third-largest nuclear arsenal, followed by France and Britain.

Russia has about 1,558 non-strategic nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists, though there is uncertainty about exact figures for such weapons due to a lack of transparency.

There is still much uncertainty among arms controls experts about what weapons Russia has supplied to Belarus and the nature of their storage.

Typically, it would take some time to create the storage, security and barracks for such a deployment - and Russian nuclear weapons are controlled by the Russian defense ministry's 12th Main Directorate (known as 12th GUMO). It is unclear if 12th GUMO is in Belarus, according to Western experts.

No power has used nuclear weapons in war since the United States unleashed the first atomic bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The Pentagon said on Monday that it had not seen a change to Russia's disposition of its strategic nuclear forces, despite what it called "irresponsible rhetoric" from Moscow detailing plans for exercises involving the deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons.

A former Saudi Arabian intelligence officer is claiming that the national government is killing individuals for refusing eviction ahead of construction of a futuristic eco-city.

Colonel Rabih Alenezi, who was taken into protection by the United Kingdom last year, told the BBC that lethal force has been approved for clearing residents from land sanctioned for the Neom development project.

"Whoever continues to resist [eviction] should be killed, so it licensed the use of lethal force against whoever stayed in their home," Alenezi told the BBC.

FITNESS INFLUENCER GOT 11 YEARS IN PRISON FOR 'TERRORIST OFFENSES,' SAUDI ARABIA CONFIRMS

The region is mostly populated by the Huwaitat tribe, who have suffered mass-arrests and crackdowns for not complying with eviction orders.

Multiple villages have already been torn down in pursuit of furthering the Neom project, an eco-friendly urban development program heavily funded by Western nations.

"[Neom] is the centerpiece of Mohamed Bin Salman's ideas," Alenezi reportedly told the BBC. "That's why he was so brutal in dealing with the Huwaitat."

SAUDI ARABIA'S ROYAL FAMILY: THE WOMEN OF THE HOUSE OF SAUD, A WEALTHY DYNASTY

A main pillar of the Neom project is "The Line," a proposed eco-city without the need of automotive vehicles. 

The 106-mile metropolis will be arranged in the titular "line" layout with public transportation allowing quick travel through the skinny urban area.

Saudi prime minister Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman has focused his attention and vast resources on the project, with hopes its completion will mark a new era in the modernization of his father's kingdom.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington, D.C. for comment and has not yet received a response.

The Neom project and its Line city are both part of the nation's Saudi Vision 2030 agenda. 

Just a little over two kilometers of The Line are expected to be completed by 2030, with further construction to continue throughout the decade.

Australia struck a new security deal with Tuvalu on Thursday after critics complained that a previous pact created an Australian veto power over any other agreement the tiny South Pacific island nation pursued with a third country, such as China.

Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Teo and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong committed to a new memorandum of understanding that addresses the sovereignty concerns of Teo’s government, which was elected in January.

"It’s quite significant, the security guarantee that the treaty provides is something that is quite unique," Teo said at a joint press conference in his tiny nation with a population of around 11,500 people.

TUVALU'S NEW LEADERSHIP COMMITS TO CONTINUED DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH TAIWAN INSTEAD OF BEIJING

Teo’s predecessor, Kausea Natano, struck a landmark treaty agreement in November last year that offered Tuvaluans a lifeline to escape rising seas and increased storms that threaten their country, a collection of low-lying atolls about halfway between Australia and Hawaii.

Australia would initially resettle up to 280 Tuvaluans a year under the treaty. The deal also committed Australia to help Tuvalu in response to major natural disasters, pandemics and military aggression.

The treaty also gave Australia a veto power over any security or defense-related agreement Tuvalu wants to make with any other country, including China.

Meg Keen, director of the Pacific Island Program at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank on international policy, said the new agreement made no substantive changes to the treaty announced last year.

Teo "is re-assured that provisions related to the veto-of-third-party arrangements are not intended to impinge on Tuvalu’s sovereignty, but rather to ensure effective responsiveness/coordination and interoperability in times of crisis response," Keen said in an email.

"There are provisions, if either party feels this understanding is not being honored, to withdraw," Keen added.

Australia on Thursday announced an investment of more than $72 million into Tuvalu's priority projects, including $33 million toward creating Tuvalu’s first undersea telecommunications cable.

The Tuvalu agreement is part of the coordinated efforts of the United States and its allies to curb China’s growing influence in the South Pacific, particularly in the security domain.

Campaign issues at the January election included whether Tuvalu should switch its diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing.

Teo told the AP in March in his first international media interview since taking power that his government would maintain diplomatic ties with self-governing Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.

Japan's Fisheries Agency on Thursday proposed a plan to allow catching fin whales in addition to three smaller whale species currently permitted under the country's commercial whaling around its coasts.

The proposal comes five years after Japan resumed commercial whaling within its exclusive economic zone after withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission in July 2019. It ended 30 years of what Japan called "research whaling" that had been criticized by conservationists as a cover for commercial hunts banned by the IWC in 1988.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, whose electoral district is traditionally known for whaling, said his government supports sustainable use of whales as part of Japan's traditional food culture and plans to promote the industry.

BASIC BUILDING BLOCKS OF SPERM WHALE LANGUAGE HAVE BEEN UNCOVERED, SCIENTISTS SAY

"Whales are important food resources and we believe they should be sustainably utilized just like any other marine resources, based on scientific evidence," Hayashi told reporters. "It is also important to inherit Japan's traditional food culture."

The Fisheries Agency said Thursday it has started seeking public comment on the proposed revision to its marine resource control plan. The public comment process ends on June 5, and the agency hopes to get the plan approved at its next review meeting in mid-June, officials said.

The agency decided to propose adding fin whales to the allowable catch list after stock survey results confirmed a sufficient recovery of the fin whale population in the North Pacific, officials said.

The plan is not meant to increase whale meat supply and whalers who catch fin whales do not necessarily have to meet a quota, an agency official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

For this year, the agency has set a combined catch quota of 379 for the three other whale species.

The commercial whaling industry within the Japanese EEZ last year caught 294 minke, Bryde's and sei whales, less than 80% of the quota and fewer than the number it once hunted in the Antarctic and the northwestern Pacific under the research program.

Japan’s whaling has long been a source of controversy and attacks from conservationists, but anti-whaling protests have largely subsided since Japan terminated its much-criticized Antarctic research hunts in 2019 and returned to commercial whaling limited to Japanese coasts. Japan's whale research beyond its EEZ is limited to non-lethal surveys.

Whale meat consumption in Japan was an affordable source of protein during Japan's malnourished years after World War II, with annual consumption peaking at more than 230,000 tons in the early 1960s. Whale was quickly replaced by other meats and supply has since fallen to around 2,000 tons in recent years, Fisheries Agency statistics show.

Whaling officials want to increase that to about 5,000 tons to keep the industry afloat as it started promoting whale meat consumption. A whaling operator Kyodo Senpaku Co. last year launched whale meat vending machines. The company also completed construction of its new $48 million Kangei Maru, its 9,300-ton mother ship, as the operator pledges to use it for sustainable commercial whaling.

A Moscow court rejected Wednesday an appeal filed by a Russian deputy defense minister's lawyers who sought to have him moved from prison to house arrest as he faces bribery charges.

Timur Ivanov, who was in charge of military construction projects, was arrested on April 23 and charged with accepting bribes on a large scale. After the hearing in Moscow City Court, Russian news agencies quoted his attorney Murad Musayev as saying the case involved allegations of about $11 million and that Ivanov has been suspended from duty.

Two other men have been arrested in the case.

RUSSIA THREATENS STRIKES ON BRITISH MILITARY INSTALLATIONS, PLANS NUCLEAR DRILLS AFTER CAMERON'S REMARKS

It is rare for such a high-ranking official to be charged with a crime in Russia and it is unclear what sparked the decision to arrest him.

The team of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny conducted anti-corruption investigations and accused Ivanov, an ally of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, of living a lavish lifestyle.

Ivanov, 48, was sanctioned by both the United States and European Union in 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russian media reported that Ivanov oversaw some of the construction in Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city that was devastated by bombardment and occupied by Russian forces early in the war.

Zvezda, the official TV channel of the Russian military, reported in summer 2022 that the ministry was building an entire residential block in Mariupol and showed Ivanov inspecting construction sites and newly erected buildings.

Few other high-level officials have been prosecuted in Russia.

In April 2023, former Deputy Culture Minister Olga Yarilova was arrested and charged with embezzling more than $2.2 million. Yarilova, who held her post from 2018 to 2022, is on trial and facing a possible seven-year jail term.

Former Economics Minister Alexei Ulyukayev received an eight-year prison sentence in 2017 for accepting a $2 million bribe from one of Putin’s top associates. The high-profile trial was widely seen as part of infighting between Kremlin clans. Ulyukayev, now 68, was granted early release from prison in May 2022.

A transitional council tasked with choosing new leaders for Haiti is changing the way it operates in a move that surprised many as gang violence consumes the country.

Instead of having a single council president, four longtime politicians will take turns leading the council every five months, according to two members who were not authorized to publicly share the changes because they had not yet been announced.

The members told The Associated Press late Wednesday that the council also will now consider five members a majority, instead of four. The council is composed of nine members, seven of which have voting powers.

US NATIONAL SECURITY FACES MAJOR RISKS AS GANGS BATTLE FOR CONTROL OVER HAITI

"That’s a real switch," Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, said of the changes. "I think it’s a good thing that they’re really going to share power now. … It is something that is very rare in Haitian politics."

The four members who will share power are original council president Edgard Leblanc Fils, ex-senator Louis Gérald Gilles, former presidential candidate Leslie Voltaire and ex-ambassador for the Dominican Republic Smith Augustin.

The changes follow inner turmoil that threatened to derail the council after it was sworn in on April 25. The bickering began five days later, when four council members announced not only a council president but also a prime minister to the shock of many.

However, it remains to be seen if former sports minister Fritz Bélizaire will remain as the chosen prime minister. One council member told AP that they expect to make an announcement next week.

After a prime minister is announced, the council expects to choose a new Cabinet, a process many expect will involve long and heavy negotiations with powerful politicians.

"That’s going to be the other major issue," Fatton warned.

The changes come as Haiti prepares for the U.N.-backed deployment of a Kenyan police force to help fight gangs that have decimated swaths of the capital of Port-au-Prince.

On Feb. 29, gangs launched coordinated attacks; they burned police stations, opened fire on the main international airport that has remained closed since March 4 and stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates. The country’s largest seaport also remains paralyzed as food, medication and other critical items dwindle.

At least 1.4 million Haitians are on the verge of famine, according to the U.N.’s World Food Program.

U.S. military planes have landed in recent days with supplies including medicine and oral hydration fluids as well as civilian contractors to prepare for the arrival of foreign forces, although it’s not clear exactly when the Kenyan police would deploy.

A team of top Kenyan security officials are in Washington D.C. this week to finalize deployment plans, including the number of police that will be sent.

As Haiti awaits foreign forces, gang violence has surged in recent days. They have attacked several communities near downtown Port-au-Prince, forcing more than 3,700 people to flee their homes.

On Tuesday, at least four people died, and several others were injured when someone opened fire on a bus driving through Martissant, a gang-controlled area in southwestern Port-au-Prince.

Kidnappings also have increased, with a female police officer killed Wednesday morning while trying to fight off gangs who tried to abduct her, said police union leader Lionel Lazarre.

More than 2,500 people have been killed or injured in the first three months of the year, a 50% increase compared with the same period last year, according to the U.N.

A Ukrainian-born American pastor is contributing to supporting efforts for chaplains on the front lines against the ongoing Russian invasion.

Andrew Moroz — a lead elder at Gospel Community Church in Lynchburg, Virginia — is currently volunteering in Ukraine, helping military chaplains to recuperate from the traumas of the conflict.

"I show up where I’m needed and invited. I come to listen and to learn first," Moroz told Fox News Digital. "If I can model a faith that is curious and humble, as well as courageous — that’s what I want these chaplains to bring to the soldiers they serve."

Fox News Digital reached out to Moroz to learn more about the very recent creation of Ukraine's chaplaincy corps, how its clerics and faith leaders operate, and the challenges they face alongside normal combatants.

UKRAINE BUSTS UP RUSSIA'S ZELENSKYY ASSASSINATION PLOT IN MASSIVE 'FAILURE' OF PUTIN'S SPIES

Chaplains in the Ukrainian conflict are divided into two groups — enlisted soldiers and volunteers supported by churches or regional dioceses.

The Military Chaplaincy Service is a brand-new structure within the Ukrainian armed forces, introduced in 2022 by an act of the nation's parliament. Prior to its introduction, the only spiritual support provided to soldiers was auxiliary programs run independently by churches.

Training for chaplains inside and outside the armed forces is disorganized and lacks standardization. Many are forced to learn on the job and pick up pastoral skills as they go.

Ukraine is an overwhelmingly Christian country with a solid Eastern Orthodox majority, followed by a smaller contingency of Catholics, and an even smaller Protestant minority.

Sergii Dadsko — a chaplain who began volunteering in 2014 working with civilian refugees — now puts most of his effort into serving soldiers. He studied at a seminary before the invasion, but says most of his training has been through his wartime ministry.

RUSSIA'S KREMLIN PARADES WESTERN EQUIPMENT CAPTURES FROM UKRAINIAN ARMY AT EXHIBITION

Mykhailo Hryhoruk is a member of Olive Branch, an organization coordinating religious support for years across Ukraine. Olive Branch has given Mykhailo opportunities to take courses and attend seminary classes in Kyiv and Ryvne.

The pair work together, often coordinating relief for soldiers coming out of combat to resupply or due to injuries. The chaplains help soldiers find showers and a place to rest. They serve all members of the military, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof.

In between the logistical work of caring for the wounded and exhausted, they find time to read Scripture and invite others to join them.

The work is crucial, Moroz says, as Ukrainian society continues suffering an overwhelming mental toll in the face of massive casualties.

"In the midst of trauma and conflict, I have personally experienced both individuals who are finding their faith and actively expressing it, and individuals who are experiencing a crisis of faith," Moroz told Fox News Digital. "I would say the longer this war goes, the more I see discouragement and hardening of hearts. I heard one of the volunteers say this week, trauma will either drown you (harden you) or it will teach you how to float (it will tenderize your heart)."

Moroz, through his Renewal Initiative program, is one of many foreign faith leaders entering Ukraine in order to support those aiding the soldiers. 

"I just finished a three-day retreat on a beautiful (and peaceful) camp property outside of Kyiv. We had between 80–100 chaplains and civilian volunteers that have been actively serving others during the last two years (some longer - since 2014)," Moroz said. "I brought four mental health specialists with me and three other pastors. We had self-care/self-assessment sessions based around physical, emotional, and spiritual care. Outside of the sessions, the guests set counseling appointments with the therapists."

He continued, "With the help of donors from the United States, we were able to purchase delicious and wholesome food, hire massage therapists, and provide a sauna experience. There were also moments of prayer for personal health and the country of Ukraine. We were told that this is something that is desperately needed in Ukraine and does not exist broadly."

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is now in its second year. Hard figures on military and civilian casualties are impossible to accurately calculate, but numbers in the tens of thousands for both sides.

South Korea’s president on Thursday dismissed calls for independent investigations into allegations involving his wife and top officials, drawing quick, strong rebukes from his political rivals.

After his conservative ruling party suffered a heavy loss in the recent April 10 parliamentary elections, President Yoon Suk Yeol faces what appears to be his biggest political challenge yet as opposition parties would extend their control of the National Assembly to 2028.

The opposition has recently stepped up its demand for an independent investigation into first lady Kim Keon Hee over various scandals, such as her alleged involvement in a stock price manipulation scheme and the release of spy camera footage showing her receiving a luxury bag from a Korean American pastor.

SOUTH KOREA EXPLORES POSSIBILITY OF JOINING ALLIANCE FOR SHARING MILITARY TECHNOLOGY WITH US

In a news conference marking his two years in office, Yoon said he apologizes for what he calls "my wife’s unwise behavior" in accepting the Christian Dior bag but refused to elaborate because the scandal is under investigation by prosecutors.

Yoon described the demand for a new, special investigation on Kim’s shares price allegation as a political offensive, as Kim wasn’t charged or convicted from investigations that began when the Democratic Party was in power. Yoon in January had vetoed a bill calling for the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate his wife’s stock price allegations.

During Thursday’s conference, Yoon also made it clear that he opposes another Democratic Party-led push for a special investigation into suspicions surrounding the death of a marine who drowned during a search for flood victims in 2023.

Yoon called the marine’s death heartbreaking, but stressed that police and an anti-corruption investigation agency have already been examining the case. Yoon said he would approve a new independent investigation if police and the anti-corruption investigation agency fail to address public suspicions over the case. Questions over why the marine was mobilized without safety gear and whether the government tried to prevent top officials from being held accountable have persisted.

Last week, the opposition-controlled parliament passed a bill calling for an independent investigation of the death, after ruling party members boycotted a floor vote in protest.

Later Thursday, the Democratic Party’s floor leader, Park Chan-dae, lambasted Yoon for rejecting its call for the special investigation of the marine’s death. "I can’t help questioning whether he sympathizes with the public indignant over the wrongful death of the marine at all," Park said.

Party spokesperson Han Min-soo also said Yoon’s opposition to his wife’s new investigation proves she is "a sanctuary" in criminal investigations.

Despite the election defeat, Yoon’s major foreign policy agenda is likely to be unchanged as he does not need parliamentary endorsements. Yoon has made a bolstered military alliance with the U.S. the heart of his foreign policy, while pushing to expand trilateral Seoul-Washington-Tokyo cooperation to cope with North Korean nuclear threats and other challenges.

Yoon also Thursday criticized North Korea’s alleged arms exports to Russia to fuel its warfighting in Ukraine and maintained that Seoul will stick to its principle of providing only non-lethal support to Ukraine.

"We have a very clear policy that we do not provide lethal, offensive weapons to any side" in active conflict, Yoon said.

Since the start of the war, South Korea has sold artillery rounds to the United States, saying that the rounds were meant to backfill depleted U.S. stocks. The country also signed several arms deals with European powers eager to bolster their defenses in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

"North Korea’s export of these weapons is not only an illicit activity to support the war in Ukraine, but also a clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions over the North Korean nuclear issue," Yoon said. "So, we are taking necessary actions in coordination with the U.N. and international community."

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a bombing in Afghanistan’s northeast that killed police officers who were part of an anti-poppy crop campaign.

A motorcycle was booby-trapped and exploded, targeting a Taliban patrol in Faizabad town in Badakhshan province, killing and wounding 12 members of the patrol as well as destroying a four-wheel drive vehicle, the group said in a statement late Wednesday.

Abdul Mateen Qani, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said the officers were on their way to destroy poppy crops in the area.

US FACES 'INEVITABLE' ISIS ATTACKS AT HOME FOLLOWING MOSCOW MASSACRE: RETIRED GENERAL

The Islamic State group’s affiliate in Afghanistan, a major Taliban rival, has conducted attacks on schools, hospitals, mosques and Shiite areas throughout the country. In March, the group said one of its suicide bombers detonated an explosive belt among Taliban gathered near a Kandahar bank to receive their salaries.

The Taliban pledged to wipe out the country’s drug cultivation industry and imposed a formal ban in April 2022, dealing a heavy blow to hundreds of thousands of farmers and day laborers who relied on proceeds from the crop to survive. Opium cultivation crashed by 95% after the ban, a report from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said last November.

Protests are rare in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, but there was a backlash in Badakhshan last week in response to the poppy eradication campaign.

It prompted a high-ranking delegation led by the chief of military staff Fasihudin Fitrat to visit the region and negotiate with protesters.

Protests erupted last Friday after a man was shot and killed by the Taliban for resisting poppy eradication attempts in Darayum district. Another was killed on Saturday during a protest in Argo district.

China’s military criticized a U.S. destroyer’s passage through the Taiwan Strait less than two weeks before the island's new president takes office and while Washington and Beijing are making uneven efforts to restore regular military exchanges.

Navy Senior Capt. Li Xi, spokesperson for China's Eastern Theater Command, accused the U.S. of having "publicly hyped" the passage of the USS Halsey on Wednesday. In a statement, Li said the command, which oversees operations around the strait, "organized naval and air forces to monitor" the ship's transit.

The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet said the Halsey "conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit on May 8 through waters where high-seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law."

TAIWAN STANDS AS MAJOR LINE OF DEFENSE AGAINST GLOBAL WAR WITH CHINA, CRITICAL FOR US SECURITY

The guided-missile destroyer transited through a corridor in the strait that is "beyond the territorial sea" of any coastal state, the fleet said in a statement.

"Halsey’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to upholding freedom of navigation for all nations as a principle," it said. "No member of the international community should be intimidated or coerced into giving up their rights and freedoms. The United States military flies, sails, and operates anywhere international law allows."

China's accusation that the transit was "publicly hyped" — essentially meaning it was played up for maximum political effect — has been standard practice when Beijing sees the announcements as a means of pushing back against China’s claim to some degree of control over who can pass freely through the strait. There was no indication the U.S. Navy had operated any differently in the latest case, nor that the Chinese response was any more vociferous.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it was fully aware of the destroyer's passage.

CHINA INCREASES AGGRESSIVE MOVES AGAINST TAIWAN AS ISLAND PREPARES TO INAUGURATE NEW PRESIDENT

"Throughout the transit, the Taiwanese military was closely monitoring the surrounding sea and airspace, and the situation remained normal," the ministry said.

The last such passage was on April 17, a day after U.S. and Chinese defense chiefs held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. Military-to-military contact stalled in August 2022, when Beijing suspended all such communication after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. China responded by firing missiles over Taiwan and staging a surge in military maneuvers, including what appeared to be a rehearsal of a naval and aerial blockade of the island.

The critical strait is 100 miles wide and divides China from Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy where President-elect William Lai Ching-te will be inaugurated on May 20. Lai's Democratic Progressive Party favors Taiwan's de facto independent status under which it maintains strong unofficial relations with the U.S. and other major nations.

Taiwan's military heightens its alert status around sensitive dates, such as this January's presidential and legislative elections, wary that China might use its vastly more powerful military to attempt to intimidate voters and sway public opinion in favor of Beijing's insistence that unification between the sides is inevitable.

The two sides split during a civil war in 1949, and as recently as 1996, China fired missiles just north and south of the island and held military exercises in an ultimately counterproductive bid to deter voters from backing candidates they opposed. Since then, China has largely kept a low profile around elections, favoring instead to curry favor with business groups and treat unification-oriented politicians and grassroots officials to all-expenses paid visits to the mainland.

Although the heavily transited Taiwan Strait is international waters and vital to global trade, China considers the passage of warships from the U.S., Britain and other nations as a challenge to its sovereignty.

China sends navy ships and warplanes into the strait and other areas around the island almost daily to wear down Taiwan’s defenses and seek to intimidate its 23 million people, who firmly back their de facto independence.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry said 23 Chinese military aircraft and eight naval ships were detected operating around Taiwan in the 24 hours up to 6 a.m. Thursday. Eight of the planes crossed the median line in the strait and entered Taiwan's air defense identification zone, prompting Taiwan to scramble jets and put coastal missile batteries and naval craft on alert.

In addition to sailing through the Taiwan Strait, the U.S. Navy conducts what it calls freedom of navigation operations in which it sails and flies in close proximity to Chinese-held features in the South China Sea, many of them human-made islands that have been 'militarized over the years with air strips, radar stations and other capabilities.

China claims virtually all of the South China Sea, a principal maritime highway for global trade, and reacts furiously to such moves, accusing the U.S. of destabilizing the region. It often shadows the U.S. vessels and planes with its own assets, demanding they leave the area immediately. The U.S. claims it has the right under international law to sail in the area and a U.N.-backed arbitration panel has tossed out China's claims, a ruling Beijing ignored.

Former Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama was sentenced Thursday to a year in prison for interfering in a criminal investigation while he headed the government of his South Pacific island nation.

Acting High Court of Fiji Chief Justice Salesi Temo sentenced the 70-year-old in the capital Suva on a conviction for attempting to pervert the course of justice. Suspended Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho received a 2-year prison sentence on a conviction for abuse of office, The Fiji Times newspaper reported.

Bainimarama had led his government for 16 years, first as a military dictator following a 2006 coup and then as a prime minister who was democratically elected in 2014 and 2018. After the 2022 election, he was succeeded by Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, who also first seized power as a coup leader in 1987.

FIJI EYES CHINESE PARTNERSHIP IN UPGRADING ITS PORTS

Bainimarama was prime minister in 2019 when he ended a police investigation into allegations of financial mismanagement at the University of the South Pacific.

The university is owned by 12 Pacific Island nations and its main campus is in Suva. The university’s administration had alleged to police that abuses of funding and mismanagement had been happening for a decade.

Prosecutors alleged the prime minister and police commissioner ended an active police investigation into former university staff members. Prosecutors said police were continuing their investigation and could lay more charges.

A lower court judge had acquitted Bainimarama and Qiliho of the charges last October. But prosecutors successfully appealed to the High Court, which convicted them both.

Bainimarama did not react when his sentence was read out, but his wife Mary Bainimarama broke down in tears as she sat by his side in court, Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

His lawyers said they would appeal, but Temo rejected their application to have Bainimarama released on bail pending an appeals court hearing.

Police led Bainimarama from court in handcuffs to a van that took him to a prison outside Suva.

The U.S. will face a difficult decision if the Palestinians should succeed in establishing a workaround toward official recognition, which could trigger America pulling all funding from the U.N. in protest, according to experts.

"If the draft resolution as it currently stands is adopted, U.S. law demands that the U.S. withhold all funds from the U.N.," Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro University Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, told Fox News Digital. "The question is: Where is Congress? It needs to make it very clear, very publicly, that American law will be upheld and take immediate steps to do so."

The U.S. in 1990 passed Public Law 101-246, which focused on authorizing appropriations for fiscal 1990 and 1991 for the Department of State. Section 414 of the bill highlighted concerns over the inclusion of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the United Nations and specialized agencies.

The section states, "No funds authorized to be appropriated from this act or any other Act shall be available for the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states."

UN AGENCY ACCUSED OF BEING PART OF HAMAS AFTER ISRAEL STRIKES TERRORIST HQ

The broad language – "any other Act" – has created some confusion about what the U.S. would need to do if the PLO, a group internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people, were to obtain the privileges and powers of a full and recognized U.N. member. 

"It is no surprise that Biden officials are not hitting the airwaves clearly announcing that a General Assembly end run around the U.N. charter, purporting to grant the so-called state of Palestine the trappings of full-member state status, is not only contrary to the spirit and intent of the U.N.'s own charter but is contrary to American law," Bayefsky said.

"A majority of U.N. member states are not free democracies," she said. "The Islamic and Arab blocs of states, a large percentage of which continue to dispute even Israel's right to exist, wield enormous power, and despite American isolation in U.N. circles on issue after issue of importance to the United States, including the constant aggression and antisemitism meted out to Israel, American citizens still bankroll the place and host the institution in its midst."

The U.S. likely did not think it would have to wrangle with this problem, especially as American representatives at the U.N. continue to veto measures to recognize the Palestinians as a full member of the organization.

However, a new draft resolution would seek what some have called a "workaround" that would seek the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to approve powers to vote and veto without official recognition as a full member of the organization.

"They're still carelessly killing Americans and killing Israelis through terrorism and then giving those who do it if they're arrested, if they don't die to a suicide bomb, payments and a guaranteed position in the PLA when they get out of prison," Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., told Fox News Digital. "That's [one] of the ugliest, most anti-democracy and anti-human rights policies I've ever heard of." 

LAWMAKERS INTRODUCE LEGISLATION HOLDING UNRWA ACCOUNTABLE FOR JOINING, ASSISTING HAMAS TERROR ATTACK IN ISRAEL

"Pay-to-slay is exactly what happened with Hamas just recently; obviously it's been an ongoing problem with Oct. 7, [and] they're part of the Palestinian effort," Smith said, calling the approach an "impermissible act" and asking "how do you reward" an organization like Hamas that "calls for the evisceration of Israel."

"If you're going to play some game at the United Nations that somehow this isn't a full-blown membership, [then] this shows a deceptive approach to dealing with member states," Smith added. "How dare they even think of doing this? It may pass in the General Assembly – they need two thirds, as we all know – but they also need the Security Council to do it as well, and thankfully, the United States will veto that."

A U.S. State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the U.S. is "aware of the draft resolution and reiterate[s] our concerns with any effort to extend certain benefits to entities when there are unresolved questions as to whether the Palestinians currently meet the criteria under the U.N. charter."

"The United States is committed to intensifying its engagement – with the Palestinians and the rest of the region – not only to address the current crisis in Gaza but to advance a political settlement that will create a path to Palestinian statehood and membership in the United Nations," the spokesperson added, noting "direct negotiations" as the path toward statehood.

Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan said the resolution provides de facto status and rights of a state and that he fully expects the U.S. to "completely stop funding the U.N. and its institutions, in accordance with American law" should the resolution pass, he said in a recorded video statement.

Then-President Obama, for example, cut funding to UNESCO (U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 2011 after the organization granted full membership to the Palestinians, which crippled the agency as the U.S. accounted for 22% of the budget. UNESCO froze job hires and cut programs after losing U.S. funding, according to Reuters. 

EXTREMISTS RISE IN NEW PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY GOVERNMENT AS BIDEN THREATENS ISRAEL OVER GAZA WAR

"We are coping in very difficult circumstances," UNESCO's Irina Bokova told reporters at the time. "We're fundraising this year, but it's not sustainable on a long-term basis. We're not closing UNESCO, but member states will have to rethink the way forward. UNESCO will be crippled."

The U.S. fully left the organization in 2017 as part of concerns over perceived anti-Israel bias from the group, with Israel following out the door in 2018. The U.S. rejoined UNESCO in July 2023 over concerns that China had gained an outsized level of influence in the group during America’s absence.

But that absence provided a glimpse of the impact the U.S. could have if it cut its broader funding to the United Nations. Brett Schaefer, the senior research fellow in international regulatory affairs at the Heritage Foundation, noted the U.S. currently accounts for around a quarter of all funding to the U.N. regular budget and the peacekeeping budget.

"In one fell swoop, one rash decision, they could essentially prohibit the U.S. from providing a fifth of the U.N.’s funding," Schaefer told Fox News Digital. But he noted that the way the resolution’s adoption plays out could provide the U.S. some wiggle room.

"If the Palestinians don't join other organizations, technically, that funding could continue to the special interest groups," he said. "However, every single one of those specialized agencies basically grants membership opportunities to any other member of the United Nations." 

"They have been successful in getting into several U.N. special organizations, especially agencies including UNESCO," Schaefer added. "So, if they have the votes to get into the U.N. in this manner, what's to stop them from doing and following a similar path with specialized agencies?"

UN ATOMIC WATCHDOG CHIEF TRAVELS TO IRAN, GRAPPLES WITH TEHRAN'S ESCALATING NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Schaefer laid out the ongoing issues that admitting the Palestinians into the United Nations would pose, such as the fact that Hamas remains the official ruling party of the Gaza Strip, which would mean admitting a terrorist organization into the United Nations with the power and benefits of a member state. 

"There is no question that Palestinians do not meet that criteria," Schaefer insisted. Referring to Hamas, he noted that "their founding documents call for the destruction of Israel. They have sponsored terrorist acts for decades."

"Even the Palestinian Authority, which the United States has been negotiating with … celebrated the terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, so this is not a situation where there is a peace-loving state," he added.

More importantly, however, Schaefer said China has become the second-largest funding source for the United Nations, which would revive U.S. concerns over what influence Beijing could command in the absence of the U.S. 

According to Schaefer, China tripled its contributions over the past decade to account for around 15% of the regular budget. Other wealthy nations, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, contribute about 1% to 2% of the U.N. general budget, respectively.

But the impact of America cutting its funds from the U.N. would still prove crippling to the organization, according to Schaefer. 

"Your entire operations would come to a halt right away," he said. "It doesn’t mean you couldn’t do your job, but it would have a massive impact on your daily operations" and that the bulk of the U.N. general budget goes toward staff salaries and benefits, utilities and maintenance.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The reputation of the U.S. globally has taken a hit over the last year and the majority of citizens believe election integrity threatens the country's democracy, while immigration is now one of the top concerns among Europeans, according to a global study published on Wednesday.

The drop in positive attitudes towards the U.S. is particularly stark in the Muslim-majority countries surveyed, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, Morocco, Egypt, and Algeria, as well as in European countries such as Switzerland, Ireland, Ukraine and Germany. 

Still, the U.S. remains positively viewed globally, although Russia and China are now seen as positively as the U.S. in most Middle East and North African countries surveyed, according to the study.

BIDEN PLAN TO EXTEND OBAMACARE ELIGIBILITY TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS GETS PUSHBACK IN CONGRESS: 'MADNESS'

In Europe, countries have witnessed a sharp increase in the share of people who say that "reducing immigration" should be a top government priority as concerns about climate change fall, according to a global study published on Wednesday. About 5.1 million immigrants entered the EU from non-EU countries in 2022, an increase of around 117%, or 2.7 million, compared to 2021, European data shows.

Germany was in the lead with 44% when it came to people wanting their government to focus on reducing immigration, followed by Ireland and France.

The study, called the Democracy Perception Index (DPI) is one of the world’s largest annual studies on how people perceive the state of democracy in their respective countries and consisted of 63,000 interviews from people across 53 countries. It was conducted by the Denmark-based think tank Alliance of Democracies Foundation and the research group Latana. It did not provide a reason for the U.S. reputation decline. 

The DPI found that faith in democracy has remained high across the globe over the past six years with 85% of those polled saying that it’s important to have democracy in their country.

However, governments don’t always live up to people’s expectations. While 58% of respondents were satisfied with the state of democracy in their country, the remainder were not.

In the U.S., 60% of respondents said that unfair elections and/or election fraud threatens the country's democracy, while about 77% said that corruption is a threat to democracy. 

LESS THAN 1 IN 4 AMERICANS HAVE FAVORABLE OPINION OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: POLL

The study said dissatisfaction was not limited to non-democratic countries. It was also prevalent in the U.S., Europe and in other places with a long democratic tradition. 

In Europe, about a third of Hungarians believe they live in a democracy.

About half of the people around the world, in both democratic and non-democratic countries, feel that their government is acting only in the interest of a small group of people. Over the past four years, this perception has remained highest in Latin America, lowest in Asia and has steadily increased in Europe since 2020 – particularly in Germany, the study shows. 

Israel, Ukraine and Russia have all experienced a "rally around the flag" effect, with the public perception that the government is acting in the interest of the majority of the people increasing rapidly after the start of their respective conflicts. In Ukraine, however, this perception declined sharply after it peaked in 2022.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the chair of the Alliance of Democracies Foundation and former Danish Prime Minister, says that these figures are an eye-opener and the trend shows there is a risk of losing the Global South to the autocracies.

"Around the world people want to live under democracy but these figures are a wake-up call for all democratic governments," Rasmussen said.

"Defending democracy means advancing freedom around the world, but it also means listening to voters’ concerns at home… We are witnessing an axis of autocracies forming from China to Russia to Iran. We must act now to make freedom more attractive than dictatorship and unite through an alliance of democracies to push back against the emboldened autocrats.

War and violent conflict is increasingly seen as the most important global challenge, followed by poverty and hunger, and climate change. The last year has seen a global rise in the share of people who say that migration and terrorism are among the world’s largest challenges, particularly among Europeans. 

At the national level, most people want their governments to focus more on poverty reduction, corruption and economic growth. 

However, there are strong regional differences in priorities: Europeans and Americans are much more likely to want their government to prioritize improving healthcare, fighting climate change and reducing immigration than countries in Asia and Latin America, where fighting corruption and promoting growth are seen as more important.

Globally, 33% of those surveyed believe climate change is one of the world’s three main challenges, but only 14% say fighting it should be among the top three priorities for their government.

Immigration is likely to play a major role in next month’s European elections where nationalist parties are expected to make significant gains.  

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

After nearly a decade, Nicaragua's congress finally canceled on Wednesday a controversial canal concession granted to a Chinese businessman that critics said endangered the environment and threatened to displace rural communities.

Despite a symbolic "groundbreaking" in 2014, no work was done on the canal that was to link Nicaragua’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts. At one point, crews broke ground on access roads near the canal but digging the waterway never started.

A NEW STUDY SAYS ABOUT HALF OF NICARAGUA'S POPULATION WANTS TO EMIGRATE

Thousands of Nicaraguan farmers had protested against land seizures meant to create a route for the government-backed project.

In 2019, a Nicaraguan judge sentenced three farmers’ leaders who participated in the protests to prison for 216 years, 210 years and 159 years. They were accused of promoting a "failed coup" against the government. Nicaraguan law caps prison time actually served at 30 years.

The proposed $50 billion, 172-mile (278-kilometer) canal across this Central American nation was long viewed as a joke that later turned deadly serious. The canal and its potential effect on the environment became a symbol of the odd and arbitrary nature of President Daniel Ortega's increasingly repressive regime.

Ortega’s government claimed the canal would create tens of thousands of jobs and stimulate the poor Central American nation’s economy.

Detractors argued it posed serious environmental risks, would displace thousands of families in the countryside and was financially unfeasible.

The canal concession was granted to the Hong Kong-based company HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co. Limited, owned by Chinese businessman Wang Jing.