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Rishi Sunak is under pressure to back an immediate ceasefire in Gaza after 10 senior Conservative MPs accused Israel of carrying out the “brutalisation of the civilian Palestinian population” – which they argue risks fuelling more extremism in the region.

The MPs, including former cabinet ministers, have written to Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron to argue that the case for an immediate ceasefire is now “unanswerable”.

It comes before the prime minister is due to face questioning from MPs on the Liaison Committee on Tuesday, in which the war between Hamas and Israel is likely to feature prominently.

In the letter signed by 10 Tory MPs – including former education secretary Kit Malthouse and former environment secretary George Eustice – the group said Israel’s actions appeared to be neither “proportionate or targeted”, with “many thousands of civilians dead and injured, and close to two million forcibly displaced”.

“Thousands of bodies must surely still lie under the rubble,” they continued.

“In particular, the number of women and children who have been killed is profoundly shocking. As you have said yourself, too many Palestinians have died.”

Politics latest: Tory MPs sign letter calling for immediate ceasefire

Their intervention comes as Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration faces mounting international criticism over the scale of civilian casualties.

The conflict in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’s attack on 7 October which saw 1,200 people killed and 240 more taken hostage, has flattened much of northern Gaza and has driven 85% of the territory’s population of 2.3 million from their homes.

Meanwhile, aid groups have warned of a spiralling humanitarian crisis as the bombardment continues.

Last weekend, the United Nations General Assembly held a vote in which 153 out of 193 members supported a ceasefire in Gaza. The US voted against the move, while the UK abstained.

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10 Tory MPs call for Gaza ceasefire

On Sunday Lord Cameron called for a “sustainable ceasefire” in the escalating conflict in a move that added to growing global pressure on Israel.

The foreign secretary said “too many civilians have been killed” and urged Israel to do more to “discriminate sufficiently between terrorists and civilians, ensuring its campaign targets Hamas leaders and operatives”.

His language strongly echoed that of US President Joe Biden, who described Israel’s bombing in Gaza following the Hamas terrorist attack on 7 October as “indiscriminate”.

However, Lord Cameron stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire, something that has been a recurring demand by pro-Palestinian campaigners as the death count in Gaza continues to grow.

MPs ‘dismayed’ by UK’s UN stance

The Tory group of MPs who wrote to Mr Sunak said they were “dismayed” that the UK abstained on the UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza when allies including France, Canada and Australia supported it.

Paul Bristow, the Tory MP for Peterborough who was sacked from his government post in October for calling for a ceasefire and who signed the letter, told Sky News’s Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge that on top of the 10 MPs who had written to Lord Cameron, there were “many more behind the scenes” who wanted the UK to push for that outcome.

The letter followed an article from former defence secretary Ben Wallace who warned at the weekend that Israel risked losing its “legal” and “moral” authority if it continued with its “killing rage” in Gaza as he appealed to all sides to pursue a two-state solution.

Asked about Mr Wallace’s article during a trip to Scotland, Rishi Sunak said that while Israel “obviously has a right to defend itself against what was an appalling terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas… it must do that in accordance with humanitarian law”.

“It’s clear that too many civilian lives have been lost and nobody wants to see this conflict go on a day longer than it has to,” the prime minister added.

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‘Too many civilian lives lost’ in Gaza

Elsewhere in the letter to the foreign secretary, the 10 Conservative MPs went on to warn that the risk of disease and starvation was “imminent” as the Palestinian population is “kettled into ever smaller areas”.

“By any measure we are witnessing a catastrophe of precisely the kind the 1949 Geneva Conventions were supposed to prevent. As such, it is unconscionable that we should make Gaza an exception to the rules and obligations those accords created,” the letter by the MPs said.

Read more:
MP worried family trapped in Gaza church will not survive
Israel claims to have discovered biggest Hamas tunnel yet in Gaza

The MPs added they had all “privately expressed our anguish and dismay at the position taken by His Majesty’s government following the terrible atrocities of 7 October”.

“We said we did not believe it was in the United Kingdom’s or Israel’s best long-term interests for them to flatten Gaza and massacre innocent Palestinians in pursuit of Hamas, nor that there was a viable military solution to dealing with such a terrorist organisation and to securing the urgent return of Israeli hostages,” they wrote.

The letter added: “On the contrary, the brutalisation of the civilian Palestinian population is sure to lead to more extremism in the future.

“Furthermore, it is increasingly clear that the Israeli military strategy is neither proportionate nor targeted and that there is no serious prospect of success, whatever that might mean.”

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Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

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Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

The new trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump may place added pressure on the Bitcoin mining ecosystem both domestically and globally, according to one industry executive.

While the US is home to Bitcoin (BTC) mining manufacturing firms such as Auradine, it’s still “not possible to make the whole supply chain, including materials, US-based,” Kristian Csepcsar, chief marketing officer at BTC mining tech provider Braiins, told Cointelegraph.

On April 2, Trump announced sweeping tariffs, imposing a 10% tariff on all countries that export to the US and introducing “reciprocal” levies targeting America’s key trading partners.

Community members have debated the potential effects of the tariffs on Bitcoin, with some saying their impact has been overstated, while others see them as a significant threat.

Tariffs compound existing mining challenges

Csepcsar said the mining industry is already experiencing tough times, pointing to key indicators like the BTC hashprice.

Hashprice — a measure of a miner’s daily revenue per unit of hash power spent to mine BTC blocks — has been on the decline since 2022 and dropped to all-time lows of $50 for the first time in 2024.

According to data from Bitbo, the BTC hashprice was still hovering around all-time low levels of $53 on March 30.

Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

Bitcoin hashprice since late 2013. Source: Bitbo

“Hashprice is the key metric miners follow to understand their bottom line. It is how many dollars one terahash makes a day. A key profitability metric, and it is at all-time lows, ever,” Csepcsar said.

He added that mining equipment tariffs were already increasing under the Biden administration in 2024, and cited comments from Summer Meng, general manager at Chinese crypto mining supplier Bitmars.

Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

Source: Summer Meng

“But they keep getting stricter under Trump,” Csepcsar added, referring to companies such as the China-based Bitmain — the world’s largest ASIC manufacturer — which is subject to the new tariffs.

Trump’s latest measures include a 34% additional tariff on top of an existing 20% levy for Chinese mining imports. In response, China reportedly imposed its own retaliatory tariffs on April 4.

BTC mining firms to “lose in the short term”

Csepcsar also noted that cutting-edge chips for crypto mining are currently massively produced in countries like Taiwan and South Korea, which were hit by new 32% and 25% tariffs, respectively.

“It will take a decade for the US to catch up with cutting-edge chip manufacturing. So again, companies, including American ones, lose in the short term,” he said.

Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

Source: jmhorp

Csepcsar also observed that some countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States region, including Russia and Kazakhstan, have been beefing up mining efforts and could potentially overtake the US in hashrate dominance.

Related: Bitcoin mining using coal energy down 43% since 2011 — Report

“If we continue to see trade war, these regions with low tariffs and more favorable mining conditions can see a major boom,” Csepcsar warned.

As the newly announced tariffs potentially hurt Bitcoin mining both globally and in the US, it may become more difficult for Trump to keep his promise of making the US the global mining leader.

Trump’s stance on crypto has shifted multiple times over the years. As his administration embraces a more pro-crypto agenda, it remains to be seen how the latest economic policies will impact his long-term strategy for digital assets.

Magazine: Bitcoin ATH sooner than expected? XRP may drop 40%, and more: Hodler’s Digest, March 23 – 29

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Malta regulator fines OKX crypto exchange $1.2M for past AML breaches

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Malta regulator fines OKX crypto exchange .2M for past AML breaches

Malta regulator fines OKX crypto exchange .2M for past AML breaches

Cryptocurrency exchange OKX is under renewed regulatory scrutiny in Europe after Maltese authorities issued a major fine for violations of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws.

Malta’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) fined Okcoin Europe — OKX’s Europe-based subsidiary — 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million) after detecting multiple AML failures on the platform in the past, the authority announced on April 3.

While admitting that OKX has significantly improved its AML policies in the past 18 months, the authority “could not ignore” its past compliance failures from 2023, “some of which were deemed to be serious and systematic,” the FIAU notice said.

OKX was among the first crypto exchanges to receive a license under Europe’s new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation via its Malta hub in January 2025.

The news of the $1.2 million penalty in Malta came after Bloomberg in March reported that European Union regulators were probing OKX for laundering $100 million in funds from the Bybit hack.

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou previously claimed that OKX’s Web3 proxy allowed hackers to launder about $100 million, or 40,233 Ether (ETH), from the $1.5 billion hack that occurred in February.

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.

Magazine: Stablecoin for cyber-scammers launches, Sony L2 drama: Asia Express

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US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global $428K for wash trading

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US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global 8K for wash trading

US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global 8K for wash trading

Authorities in the US state of Massachusetts continue targeting unlawful cryptocurrency market practices, with a local court fining crypto financial services firm CLS Global.

A federal court in Boston on April 2 sentenced CLS Global on criminal charges related to fraudulent manipulation of crypto trading volume, according to an announcement from the Massachusetts US Attorney’s Office.

In addition to a $428,059 fine, the court prohibited CLS Global from offering services in the US for a probation period of three years.

CLS Global, a crypto market maker registered in the United Arab Emirates, in January pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit market manipulation and one count of wire fraud.

CLS agreed to manipulate the FBI’s “trap token” NexFundAI

The charges against CLS Global followed an undercover law enforcement operation involving NexFundAI, a token created by the FBI as part of a sting operation in May 2024.

CLS Global was among at least three firms that took the FBI’s bait and agreed to provide “market maker services” for NexFundAI, including a fraudulent scheme to attract investors to purchase the token.

In October 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges against CLS and its employee, Andrey Zhorzhes. The US securities regulator also filed complaints against two other NexFundAI manipulators, Hong Kong-linked ZM Quant Investment and Russia-linked Gotbit Consulting.

CLS Global’s profile

According to CLS Global CEO Filipp Veselov, the company was founded in 2017 to fill in a “huge gap in the market for high-quality market-making solutions and trading consulting.”

Prior to CLS, Veselov worked at the Russian cryptocurrency exchange platform Latoken, which is advertised as a “global digital asset exchange” and has about 370,000 followers on X.

The CLS team also includes chief revenue officer Pavel Singaevskii, who previously served as sales manager at Stex, a crypto platform that reportedly ceased operations without warning in 2023.

US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global $428K for wash trading

Source: CLS Global

According to CLS Global’s X page, the platform continues operating and has more than 110,000 followers at the time of publication.

How much wash trading is in crypto?

Wash trading is an illegal practice involving artificially inflating trading volume by repeatedly buying and selling the same asset, generating a misleading perception of demand.

According to a January 2025 report by the US blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, the crypto market has at least $2.6 billion in estimated wash traded volumes, or just about 2% of total daily crypto trading volumes, as reported by CoinGecko.

US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global $428K for wash trading

Estimated wash trade volume in crypto. Source: Chainalysis

Related: Russian Gotbit founder strikes $23M plea deal with US prosecutors

Some studies indicate that wash trading makes up a bigger share of the crypto market.

In 2022, the US National Bureau of Economic Research reported that illegal wash trading may account for as much as 70% of average trading volumes on unregulated exchanges.

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