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(FILES) Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel (R) attends the vigil for the 8th anniversary of Cuban late leader Fidel Castro’s physical disappearance in Havana on November 25,…
Smoke rises from a burning forest on a hillside behind a home near Longwood as bushfires continue to burn under severe fire weather conditions in Longwood,…
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen begins a crucial appeal in Paris this week that will determine whether she can run in the 2027 presidential election, after being barred from public office over a conviction for misusing EU funds.Le Pen, the long-time leader of the far-right National Rally (RN), was seen as a likely frontrunner in the 2027 race until she was found guilty last year of misappropriating more than 4mn euros ($4.7mn) of EU funds and given a five-year ban from running for public office, effective immediately.Le Pen appealed, as did the RN and 10 others found guilty of diverting European Parliament funds. The hearing begins on today and should end on February 12.A ruling is expected before the summer, meaning her hopes of running in 2027 remain alive if her five-year ban is revoked or drastically curtailed.If she cannot run, Le Pen has said her protege, 30-year-old RN party president Jordan Bardella, will do so in her stead.US President Donald Trump and senior members of his team voiced support for Le Pen after her conviction, and any move to stop her from running would likely be seized on by them in their campaign to portray European courts and officials as seeking to unfairly block far-right politicians from power.Trump officials last year held internal discussions about sanctioning French prosecutors and judges involved in barring Le Pen, four sources told Reuters, although those talks no longer appear to be active.The news, first reported by German magazine Der Spiegel, was denied by Under Secretary of State Sarah B Rogers on X on Thursday, describing it as a “fake story”.A State Department spokesperson said: “We do not preview potential actions.”French government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon said on Thursday the government would remain vigilant to potential US meddling after Peimane Ghaleh-Marzban, the president of the Paris judicial court, said any move against a French judge would “constitute an unacceptable and intolerable interference in the internal affairs of our country”. Over the past year, the US has imposed sanctions against 11 International Criminal Court judges involved in cases against Israel.Le Pen’s lawyers, Rodolphe Bosselut and Sandra Chirac Kollarik, declined to comment ahead of the trial.Following her conviction, Le Pen accused the judiciary of politically motivated targeting, echoing rhetoric used in the US.”In the country of human rights, judges have implemented practices that we thought were reserved for authoritarian regimes,” Le Pen told French TV channel TF1 at the time.The judges explained in their ruling that they had decided to make the ban effective immediately “to avoid irreparable harm to democratic public order”.Opinion polls indicated that most French people supported the ruling.The European Parliament’s lawyer Patrick Maisonneuve said he hoped Le Pen and her co-defendants’ convictions would be upheld, including more than 3mn euro awarded in damages to the European Parliament. The RN was also ordered to pay a 2mn euro fine, with half the amount suspended.Judges said in last March’s ruling that, between 2004 and 2016, Le Pen and others had used funds destined for work at the European Parliament to pay staff who were actually working for the party.Le Pen said the way she and her co-defendants used the money was legitimate.Le Pen’s legal woes appear to have benefited Bardella. A poll last autumn found Bardella would win the presidency, no matter who his opponent was in the second round. Source link
Uganda’s opposition leader said Monday that he would call for protests if President Yoweri Museveni rigs this week’s election and said he would welcome an intervention by the US.More than 20mn people are registered to vote in the east African country on Thursday, with 81-year-old Museveni widely expected to continue his four-decade rule thanks to his near-total control of the state and security apparatus.His main opponent is singer-turned-politician Bobi Wine, 43 — real name Robert Kyagulanyi — who is taking a second run at the presidency after his 2021 campaign was met with violent repression and alleged rigging.”If General Museveni rigs the election, we shall call for protests,” Wine saod at his home in the capital Kampala.”We’ve told the people not to wait for our instruction,” he added.The UN and Amnesty International are among the watchdogs accusing Uganda’s government of repression ahead of the polls, including hundreds of arrests of Wine’s supporters.There has been increasing political unrest across east Africa as the region’s youthful population protests the erosion of democracy and lack of jobs in Kenya, Tanzania and beyond.Wine acknowledged that protests were likely to provoke more crackdown.”I know that General Museveni’s government responds to everything with violence… But I also know that even violent regimes get thrown out by protests,” he told AFP.”We did not promise comfort. We did not promise that they will not unleash violence upon us. But we have insisted that our people must be non-violent because we know non-violence defeats violence.”Asked if he would welcome a direct intervention by the US, such as seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Wine said: “Yeah. I would.””I believe that any assistance that comes our way is helpful. However, that assistance should not be to take over our country,” he said.”I firmly believe that the responsibility to liberate our country, to govern our country, and to move it forward, lies entirely with the people of Uganda.” Related Story Source link
The Trump administration has ramped up its pressure campaign on the US central bank, threatening to indict Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over comments he made to Congress about a building renovation project, prompting the Fed chief to call the move a ‘pretext’ to gain more influence over the setting of interest rates. The latest development in a long-running effort by US President Donald Trump to push the Fed to dramatically lower rates had immediate fallout in Washington and on global markets.US Republican Senator Thom Tillis, a member of the Senate Banking Committee that vets presidential nominees for the Fed, said the threatened indictment puts the US Justice Department's ‘independence and credibility’ in question. Tillis, who is not running for re-election this year, said he would oppose any Trump nominees to the Fed, including whoever is named to succeed Powell as central bank chief, ‘until this legal matter is fully resolved.’Rates on longer-term US Treasury bonds rose as investors parsed what a less independent Fed could mean for inflation and monetary policy, the sort of reaction that could, if amplified, constrain Trump's efforts to reshape the Fed, considered the most influential central bank in the world and a cornerstone of the world financial system.Trump's efforts to address broad concerns about ‘affordability,’ particularly when it comes to financing home mortgages, could be upended if long-term borrowing costs rise, as they may if investors come to view the Fed as no longer setting monetary policy with a view to controlling inflation.Gold hit a record high and the dollar fell. Major US stock indexes opened lower, with bank stocks under pressure over a Trump proposal to cap interest rates on credit cards. ‘Obviously there are more concerns that Fed independence is going to be under the gun, with the latest news on the criminal investigation into Chair Powell really having reinforced those concerns,’ Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, said at the investment bank's annual global strategy conference in London.At stake is the independence of the Fed to set US monetary policy without undue influence by elected officials like Trump who would prefer cheaper borrowing costs for political reasons – at the possible expense of long-run inflation control that can require a central bank to slow the economy and take steps that raise the unemployment rate. Powell – who was nominated by Trump to lead the Fed in late 2017 and confirmed by the Senate to the position in early 2018 – will complete his term as Fed chief in May, but he is not obligated to leave its Washington-based Board of Governors until 2028, and a number of analysts saw the latest move by the administration as adding to the chances that he will defiantly remain at the central bank. The criminal indictment threat emerged about two weeks before Trump's effort to fire another Fed official, Governor Lisa Cook, will be argued before the Supreme Court.The latest move was met with a guarded reaction on Wall Street. Investors have been warily watching as the sparring match between the White House and the Fed has played out ever since Trump was elected to a second term in November 2024 on promises to improve affordability for Americans after a run of high inflation. The investigation and Powell's pointed response sharply escalate a row that risks upending the independence of the Fed, a bedrock of US economic policy and a cornerstone of its financial system, investors said.Trump officials' latest salvo was revealed late on Sunday by Powell, who said the Fed had received subpoenas from the US Justice Department last week pertaining to remarks he made to Congress last summer over cost overruns for a $2.5bn building renovation project at the Fed's headquarters complex in Washington. ‘On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June,’ Powell said.’I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one – certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve – is above the law.’ ‘But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure’ for lower interest rates and more broadly for greater say over the Fed, he said. ‘This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress's oversight role … Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President.’ Trump told NBC News Sunday that he had no knowledge of the Justice Department's actions. ‘I don't know anything about it, but he's certainly not very good at the Fed, and he's not very good at building buildings,’ Trump said.A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on the case but added: ‘The attorney-general has instructed her US attorneys to prioritise investigating any abuse of taxpayer dollars.’Trump has demanded the Fed cut rates sharply since returning to the White House in January, blaming the central bank for holding back the economy and musing about firing Powell despite the legal protections ostensibly covering the Fed chief from removal.The independence of central banks, at least in setting rates in order to control inflation, is considered a central tenet of robust economic policy, insulating monetary policymakers from short-term political considerations and allowing them to focus on longer-term efforts to keep prices relatively stable. The inquiry into Powell ‘is a low point in Trump's presidency and a low point in the history of central banking in America,’ said Peter Conti-Brown, a Fed historian at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Source link
Workers conduct a rescue operation at the collapsed landfill in Binaliw, Cebu, Philippines, Sunday. Hopes of finding survivors days after the collapse of a massive mountain of trash in the central Philippines were fading, officials said Sunday, as rescue workers dug through tons of rubble.The recovery of a body Sunday brought the confirmed death toll to seven, with at least 29 people still missing as the crucial 72-hour window since the landslide in Cebu City came to an end.About 50 sanitation workers were buried on Thursday when the mountain of garbage toppled onto them from an estimated height of 20 storeys at the Binaliw Landfill, a privately operated facility that handles refuse for the city of nearly 1mn.”On Saturday, we detected two signs of life through our specialised radar. There were still heartbeats 98 feet below the debris, but right now, there are no reports of that anymore,” local fire officer Wendell Villanueva said Sunday.He said it was unlikely “for people to still be alive” three days after “tonnes of debris and trash had collapsed over them”.So far 12 employees have been pulled alive from the garbage and hospitalised.On Saturday, a rescue official said emergency workers had faced the danger of further collapse by the still-shifting mountain of refuse, forcing pauses in their efforts.Rain had only increased that danger, Villanueva said.The focus was expected to turn from rescue to recovery today, Villanueva said adding that the final decision would be up to an inter-agency team.A public information officer separately said the focus was likely to shift to recovering bodies.Outside the disaster site, dozens of family members huddled under tents provided to shield them from the sun, while others found spots nearer the facility to watch the rescue efforts.”What we want now is to find them. Alive or dead – so we can properly take care of them,” said Jezille Matabid, whose brother Junelle, a welder at the site, was among the missing.Another woman, who declined to give her name, said the lack of information about her older sister, a landfill employee, had been agonising.”We feel like we’re going crazy here just waiting for an update. She’s three-months pregnant,” she said.Elmer Aguilar, whose brother Larry, a welder, was among the missing, said he had come with 10 others hoping to aid in the search effort, only to be turned away.”We went here because we thought we could help dig, but when we arrived, the guards did not allow us to enter.”Joel Garganera, a Cebu City council member, described the height from which the trash fell as “alarming”, estimating the top of the pile had stood 20 storeys above the area struck.Images released by police showed a massive mound of trash atop a hill directly behind buildings that officials contained administrative offices and housing for employees.In an interview with local media, Cebu mayor Nestor Archival pointed to a recent earthquake and typhoon-driven rains as potential precipitating circumstances.But Garganera said the mountain of garbage had been an obvious danger.”Every now and then, when it rains, there are landslides happening around the city,” with “a landfill or a mountain that is made of garbage” posing a particular danger, Garganera said.”The garbage is like a sponge, it really absorbs water. It doesn’t (take) a rocket scientist to say that eventually, the incident will happen.”He said the disaster was a “double whammy” for the city, noting that the facility was the lone service provider for Cebu and adjacent communities.According to the website of operator Prime Integrated Waste Solutions, the landfill processed 1,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste daily.Calls to the company went unanswered Sunday. Related Story Source link
Tens of thousands of people marched through Minneapolis on Saturday to decry the fatal shooting of a woman by a US immigration agent, part of more than 1,000 rallies planned nationwide this weekend against the federal government’s deportation drive.The massive turnout in Minneapolis despite a whipping, cold wind underscores how the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer on Wednesday has struck a chord, fueling protests in major cities and some towns.At the start of the protest, a voice called out, “Say her name!” The crowd shouted back: “Renee Good!” A woman with a sign beside her feet takes part in a protest outside the ICE facility in Portland, Oregon, US. – Reuters Her death has sparked strong emotions in this Democratic stronghold, and across the nation.”We got ICE shooting women in the face for self-defence. It doesn’t make any sense,” said Alex Vega, a protester in Boston. “Let them come around here with that, and let’s see what’s really going to happen to ICE.”Minnesota’s Democratic leaders and the administration of President Donald Trump, a Republican, have offered starkly different accounts of the incident.Led by a team of Indigenous Mexican dancers, demonstrators in Minneapolis, which has a metropolitan population of 3.8mn, marched towards the residential street where Good was shot in her car. People…
EU countries should weigh whether to set up a combined military force that could eventually replace US troops in Europe, the bloc’s defence chief said yesterday. EU defence commissioner Andrius Kubilius floated creating a “powerful, standing ‘European military force’ of 100,000 troops” as a possible option to better protect the continent. “How will we replace the 100,000-strong American standing military force, which is the back-bone military force in Europe?” he asked in a speech in Sweden. The suggestion comes as US President Donald Trump has heightened fears among Nato allies over Washington’s reliability by insisting he wants to take over Greenland. Worries over Trump’s commitment to Europe have already spurred countries to step up efforts to bolster their militaries in the face of the threat posed by Russia. Ideas about establishing a central European army have floated around for years but have largely failed to gain traction as nations are wary of relinquishing control over their militaries. The US has pushed its European allies to increasingly take over responsibility for their own security, and raised the prospect it could shift forces from Europe to focus on China. “In such times, we should not run away from the most pressing questions on our institutional defence readiness,” said Kubilius, a former Lithuanian prime minister. In his speech Kubilius also advocated for the creation of a “European Security Council” of key powers – including potentially Britain – that could help the continent take decisions over its own defence quicker.“The European Security Council could be composed of key permanent members, along with several rotational members,” he said. Source link
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that the escalating conflict over Greenland could have direct reprecussions for NATO security, stressing that any threat to the self-governing territory would undermine the Alliance’s collective security that has been established since the end of the World War II. Speaking at a party leader debate at a political rally on Sunday, Frederiksen said that Greenland is going through a “fateful moment”آ amid escalating US pressure and President Donald Trump’s efforts to impose Washington’s control over the Arctic island. “There is a conflict over Greenland,” she said, adding “What is at stake is bigger than what the eye can see.”In posts on Facebook and Instagram, Frederiksen stressed that Denmark is “a historically close ally”,and said “we are ready to defend our values — wherever it is necessary — also in the Arctic. We believe in international law and in peoples’ right to self-determination”. In this context, the Danish Prime Minister announced that her country’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen will meet with his US counterpart Marco Rubio next week for talks on Greenland, following a joint request from Denmark and the Greenland government to initiate a dialogue with Washington. Frederiksen said that “Denmark stands at a crossroads”, without specifying a precise date or location for the meeting. This comes as the US President repeatedly emphasizes that US control over Greenland, which is rich in natural resources, is a matter of “paramount importance†for US national security in response to what Washington considers a rise in Russian and Chinese influence in the Arctic. In a New York Times interview published previously, Trump acknowledgedآ that “it may be a choice” betweenآ preservingآ theآ NATO alliance or acquiring Greenland. Greenland, which has a population of fewer than 57,000 and is covered by ice over roughly four-fifths of its territory, enjoys self-governance within the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO member. The territory’s residents have repeatedly affirmed their opposition to joining the United States, while Copenhagen maintains its commitment to the principles of sovereignty and the right to self-determination under international law. Source link
China’s foreign minister said Beijing supported Somalia in safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity in a phone call yesterday with his Somali counterpart, a Chinese ministry statement said. Foreign Minister Wang Yi held the phone call during his visit to Africa, and said China opposed so-called Somaliland’s “collusion with Taiwan authorities to seek independence”, referring in the statement to Somalia’s breakaway region.Somalia was scheduled to be part of the Chinese diplomat’s annual New Year tour of Africa, which also includes Ethiopia, Tanzania and Lesotho, but the visit to the East African nation was postponed due to what the Chinese embassy said was a “schedule change”. Source link