Here is the latest top stories from Press TV on March 2, 2021.
Israeli settlements
Israeli authorities have reportedly approved the construction of 930 new settler units in the occupied Palestinian territories.According to Palestinian media reports, the new units will be built in an area northeast of Jerusalem al-Quds. All Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian land are illegal under international law. Several UN resolutions have also called for a halt to the projects. The Israeli regime, however, has been pressing ahead with expanding its settlements over the past years. Palestinians are outraged at the projects and see them as a main hurdle to resolving their decades-long conflict with Israel.
Anti-Russia sanctions
The US has imposed sanctions on Seven Russian officials over the case of jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny. Senior white house officials have been quoted as saying that the US move came after concluding that Moscow was behind last year’s poisoning of Navalny. They also said that the sanctions measures were taken in coordination with the European Union. Moscow had earlier warned it would reciprocate any new sanctions. Moscow has already denied any involvement in the poisoning of the opposition figure who was rushed to Berlin after falling ill on a domestic flight. Navalny was arrested in January after his return from Germany and sentenced to over two years in prison over a 2014 parole violation.
France church child sex abuse
An investigation has revised up more than three-fold its estimate of the number of children who have fallen victim to sex abuse in the French Catholic Church since 1950. It now says the figure could be as high as 10-thousand. The head of the independent inquiry into sexual abuse in the French church said the commission’s previous projection of 3-thousand victims had been 'certainly an underestimate'. Jean-Marc Sauve had earlier said that 15-hundred clergy and church officials had sexually abused minors in the past 70 years. The French church has been plagued by such scandals. Last year, a French priest admitted to abusing around 80 boys aged between seven and 10 over two decades while he was a scout leader. Bernard Preynat said his superiors then turned a blind eye to his behavior.