Today

Trump, send your deportees to Europe not Africa | Migration

On August 5, Rwanda announced it had agreed to accept 250 migrants under the Trump administration’s expanding third-country deportation programme.

Speaking from Kigali, government spokesperson Yolande Makolo said Rwanda would retain the right to decide which deportees to admit for “resettlement”. Those accepted, she added, would receive training, healthcare, and housing to help them “rebuild their lives”.

The programme forms part of President Donald Trump’s controversial pledge to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history.”
It also marks the third deportation agreement of its kind on the African continent.

On July 16, the US sent five convicted criminals from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Cuba, and Yemen to Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland.

Described as “barbaric and violent” and rejected by their countries of origin, they are confined to isolated units at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, near the capital Mbabane, pending eventual repatriation.

Eleven days earlier, on July 5, eight men convicted of murder, sexual assault, and robbery were deported to South Sudan. Reports differ on whether any deportee was South Sudanese.

The deportations have already provoked widespread outrage – from civil society groups in Eswatini, to lawyers in South Sudan, who denounce them as illegal.

South Africa’s government has even lodged a formal protest with Eswatini.

Nigeria, meanwhile, has rebuffed US pressure to accept 300 Venezuelans, with Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar saying the country already has “enough problems” and “over 230 million people” to care for.

These deals are unfair.

The US is strong-arming others at the expense of vulnerable people.

Trump’s established brutality is horrifying. His family separations in 2019 left children terrified and alone, all in the name of policy.

The US is now sending people to Rwanda, Eswatini, and South Sudan – countries already struggling to care for their own citizens.

This truth exposes Trump’s Victorian view of Africa: a desolate, irredeemable continent unworthy of respect or equal partnership. His vision echoes a Western tradition, crystallised in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, where Africa is portrayed as “dark” and “primeval” – a land deemed oppressive and violent, its people cast as incapable of understanding, feeling, or compassion.

That is not who we are.

Yes, Africa has challenges.

Nonetheless, we do not turn the marginalised into pawns, nor do we disguise exile as policy. Our humanity is unshakable and beyond reproach.

Today, Uganda hosts about 1.7 million refugees, making it Africa’s largest refugee-hosting country. This figure exceeds the combined refugee populations under UNHCR’s mandate in the UK, France, and Belgium today.

Europe must assume a far greater share of responsibility for asylum seekers and refugees.

These third-country deportation deals are not credible policy.

They are colonialism reborn.

No self-respecting African leader should ever agree to participate in an organised atrocity – not when Africa still bleeds from the wounds inflicted by the West: Sudan’s civil war, civic unrest in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, environmental devastation in Nigeria’s Delta, and the continuing reach of French monetary imperialism through the CFA.

“Uncle Sam” now plans to send both convicted criminals and desperate asylum seekers to Africa’s shores, instead of the warships of old. Both groups deserve support at home in the US, with extensive rehabilitation for offenders and safe sanctuary for the vulnerable.

If not, Europe can be the only alternative.

Let the architects of empire face the heat.

Let the wealthy, politically obnoxious allies of Washington carry the burden for once.

Rwanda, Eswatini, and South Sudan are among the poorest nations in the world, with per capita incomes just a tiny fraction of their former colonial rulers in Europe. Expecting them to carry the burden of America’s deportees is not only unjust – it is absurd.

A May 2025 study, Unequal Exchange and North-South Relations, undertaken by Gaston Nievas and Thomas Piketty, analysed foreign wealth accumulation over more than two centuries. It shows that by 1914, European powers held net foreign assets approaching 140 percent of GDP, underscoring how colonial transfers, artificially low commodity prices, forced labour, and exploitation fuelled Europe’s enrichment.

From Juba to Kigali, colonial plunder still drives global inequality.

A return to the systemic brutalities unleashed after the disastrous Berlin Conference of 1885, when European powers carved up Africa, cannot be accepted.

No matter what officials in Rwanda, South Sudan, or Eswatini claim in public, sending America’s cast-offs to Africa is colonial exploitation repackaged for today.

This is not a new strategy.

Beginning in the 19th century, many European colonies were reduced to offshore extraction centres and dumping grounds. France banished convicts and political exiles to territories such as present-day Gabon and Djibouti. Spain used Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea as a penal settlement for deportees from Cuba.

The US has revived that same imperial entitlement, delivering a fresh blow to both Africa and the Americas. Most irregular migrants in the US come from Venezuela, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Haiti – nations scarred by centuries of European colonialism and US imperial interference.

These countries embody the ongoing impact of colonial legacies and geopolitical meddling that propel migration.

Yet the West, and Europe above all, denies and disowns the consequences of its crimes, past and present.

European nations have certainly prospered through centuries of colonial exploitation. The UK, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, for instance, boast robust welfare systems, public health networks, and prison rehabilitation programmes – magnificent structures built on centuries of colonial extraction.

They have both the means and the institutions to absorb deportees.

They also have the record.

These same powers have eagerly joined the US in targeting and destabilising sovereign nations across Africa, as well as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya – in wars widely condemned as violations of international law.

Every intervention has unleashed fresh waves of refugees and asylum seekers, hapless men, women, and children fleeing the very chaos Western armies engineered: powerless people whom the West openly ignores or despises.

Africa, by contrast, plays by the rules and adheres to the UN Charter. We honour sovereignty, respect international law, and strive for peace, even while shackled by colonial debt designed to keep us dependent.

Europe breaks the rules, Africa abides by them – yet Africa is asked to shoulder the burden.

The hypocrisy is staggering.

We will not bankroll, legitimise, or inherit the crimes of empire.

After all, we barely control our own destinies. The IMF and World Bank dictate our economies. The UN Security Council enforces old hierarchies. The G7 protects the West’s interests over us, Africans left impoverished and starving. Structural oppression allows the West to keep interfering in the lives of people across Africa and the Americas.

But we will not be complicit.

We will not be silent.

Western policies and interventions drive poverty, displacement, and instability in the Global South.

If the US insists on offloading its deportees, let it send them to those who built and still profit from this system of oppression.

The West must reckon with its spoils.

Leave Africa out of it.

Send Trump’s deportees to Europe.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Source link

Do cash rewards or gifts boost exam grades?

Vanessa Clarke

Education reporter

Imogen Farmer Imogen who has blonde mid length hair and a fringe looks at the camera smiling. Behind her is a brown garden fence and green leaves. Imogen Farmer

Imogen Farmer was taken shopping in London as a reward for her A-level grades last year

Hundreds of thousands of GCSE students are nervously waiting for their results this week – and for some, a shiny, often expensive reward might be at stake.

Ahead of results day on Thursday, BBC News has spoken to students and parents about whether the promise of jewellery, gifts or cash for grades can actually motivate teens to do better in their exams.

Imogen Farmer, from Essex, was taken with her twin sister to London by their parents after they got their A-level results last year and given some money to spend as a reward.

“I bought Vivienne Westwood jewellery and then they took us to quite a fancy restaurant that we’d always wanted to go to,” Imogen says.

“But I think I knew in the back of my head if I did well or even if I didn’t do well, I’m sure our parents would have taken us out anyway for working hard.”

Imogen doesn’t think the reward would have made a difference to the amount she studied as she was always “quite ambitious” – and her parents didn’t mention it until after her exams were over.

Jess Cooper, from Birmingham, jokes that her reward was “not getting kicked out of the house”.

“Good grades were a reflection of how hard you tried at school,” she says.

“My parents are very proud of me and tell me all the time. I’m very working class, we have the grit and we try our hardest.”

Both Imogen and Jess both say some students in their classes were offered money for each top grade they achieved – while others were even promised “first cars” if they got the results they needed.

Jess Cooper Jess has brown curly hair tied back. She is smiling into her camera taking a selfie. There is a red curtain and brown wooden door behind her. Jess Cooper

Student Jess Cooper believes for those that don’t like school, rewards could make them more motivated

Some parents believe the offer of a reward or financial incentive can help with motivation.

Leon Smith, from Surrey, has given his children a £50 reward for passing their exams, saying it helps them get into the right mindset beforehand.

“It means that, when they revise, they have the motivation and they will spend an extra hour looking at their books rather than playing video games”, the father-of-six explains.

He says his son Isiah, who has just finished Year 6 and took his Sats earlier this year, was particularly motivated to do well after watching his older sister Reah receive the £50 prize the year before.

“It gives them some form of incentive and the ability to work towards something,” Leon says.

He now plans to offer rewards for his children at GCSE and A-levels too.

Leon Smith The Smith family of eight stand looking at the camera. They all have their hands around each other and are smiling. Leon Smith

Leon Smith plans to offer a financial reward to his children at GCSE and A-levels to help their motivation

Mum-of-two Elaine Dean, from Manchester, says the promise she made of cash-for-grades ended up costing her “more than anticipated”.

The former primary school teacher decided to give her son Zach between £5 and £15 based on each grade for his GCSE exams two years ago, but she says she was really rewarding his effort.

“You don’t want to build up too much pressure on them, praise and parental involvement throughout their school years is far more important,” she says.

Zach received his A-level exam results on Thursday.

“I think his reward is going to be a city break with his brother but he hasn’t decided yet.”

Do rewards for good grades work?

Experts say the effectiveness of rewards very much depends on the student and their relationship with learning.

Rewarding effort rather than grades can be a far more long-term and sustainable strategy for parents, according to psychologist Natasha Tiwari.

“Cash or big-ticket treats can work in the short term,” she says, but they also risk making students think of achievements as “transactional”.

She believes a special day out, or being allowed to redecorate their bedroom or host some family or friends can be a far more powerful reward than “cash in an envelope”.

Different rewards – or none at all – can create tension within friendship groups too, she says.

“There is a distinction to be made between a reward for good grades and a treat to acknowledge their effort,” says Manny Botwe, president of the Association of School and College Leaders.

Secondary school head Manny says he is sceptical of the long-term benefits of trying to reward performance.

“I worry about the youngsters who don’t get good results, it’s ‘deal or no deal’,” he says.

“My advice for parents would be not to make their children feel their value is directly related to the grades they get. From very early on, I like to emphasis the intrinsic value of education.

“That will yield the best outcomes.”

Additional reporting by Emily Doughty

Source link

John Wall, NBA All-Star, announces retirement after 11 seasons | Basketball News

Wall, the No 1 NBA draft pick in 2010, is best known for his spectacular point guard play with the Washington Wizards.

Five-time All-Star and former top overall draft pick John Wall announced his retirement from the NBA on Tuesday.

Wall, who will turn 35 on September 6, last played in the league with the Los Angeles Clippers during the 2022-23 season. Knee injuries have limited him to just 147 games since the start of the 2017-18 season.

“Every jersey I’ve worn meant more than wins and stats,” Wall said in a video posted on social media. “It represented something bigger.”

Wall began the first of his nine seasons with Washington after being selected by the Wizards with the top overall pick of the 2010 NBA draft out of Kentucky. He averaged 19.0 points, 9.2 assists and 4.3 rebounds in 573 career games (561 starts) with Washington.

“One of our franchise all-time greats. The definition of an era. A lasting legacy. A forever Wizard. Congratulations on your retirement,” the team wrote on social media.

Wall, who did not play in 2019-20, was involved in a blockbuster trade with the Houston Rockets on December 2, 2020, that saw Russell Westbrook sent to Washington. The Wizards sent Wall and a first-round pick in the 2023 NBA draft to the Rockets for Westbrook and a lottery-protected first-round pick in the same 2023 draft.

Wall played one season in Houston (2020-21), sat out the 2021-22 season with an injury and came back to compete in 34 games with the Clippers in 2022-23.

John Wall in action.
Wall (2) will be best remembered for his athletic scoring and dynamic playmaking during his 11-season NBA career [File: Nick Wass/AP]

Source link

Trump’s White House takes to TikTok as deadline looms to ban platform | Social Media News

The new account comes as Trump has three times delayed implementing a ‘sell or ban’ law for the Chinese-owned app.

The White House has launched an official TikTok account, even as the future of the Chinese-owned social media app in the United States remains uncertain due to legislation passed by the US Congress last year.

The official White House account’s first post on Tuesday was a 27-second video featuring a voiceover from President Donald Trump, saying: “Every day I wake up determined to deliver a better life for the People all across this nation. I am your voice.”

The account’s description read: “Welcome to the Golden Age of America”.

TikTok, which remains owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance, is popular among young people, and has an estimated 170 million users in the US.

Trump has so far delayed the implementation of a 2024 law that ordered TikTok to either to sell to non-Chinese buyers or be banned in the US, with three 90-day extensions.

The US House of Representatives voted 352 to 65 in favour of the “sell or ban” bill in March 2024, with widespread support from both Republicans and Democrats.

The latest extension delaying the ban is due to expire in early September.

“My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress,” Trump posted on the Truth Social network, which he owns, in April.

Few representatives questioned the bill to ban TikTok at the time it was passed, although then-Democratic representative Barbara Lee asked why only one company was being singled out in an attempt to address problems that relate to social media companies more broadly.

“Rather than target one company in a rushed and secretive process, Congress should pass comprehensive data privacy protections and do a better job of informing the public of the threats these companies may pose to national security,” Lee had posted on the social media platform X.

Although the vast majority of both Democratic and Republican representatives supported the “sell or ban” bill, many members of both parties have used the TikTok platform for campaigning and official communications.

Both Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Trump used the app to campaign in the 2024 Presidential election.

On Tuesday, the US state of Minnesota joined a wave of states suing TikTok, alleging the social media giant preys on young people with addictive algorithms that trap them into becoming compulsive consumers of its short videos.

Minnesota is also among dozens of US states that have sued Meta Platforms for allegedly building features into Instagram and Facebook that addict people. The messaging service Snapchat and the gaming platform Roblox are also facing lawsuits by some other states alleging harm to children.

Source link

‘Sitting on a volcano’: Two Indian temples clash as politics and faith mix | Politics

Digha, India – On a hot and sultry June afternoon, Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of India’s West Bengal state, swept a sun-scorched road to make way for a towering chariot in Digha, a tourist town on the country’s Bay of Bengal coast.

The moment, captured by dozens of cameras and broadcast widely on television, on June 27, marked the launch of the eastern state’s first-ever government-sponsored Rath Yatra (“chariot festival”) to celebrate the construction of a sprawling temple complex built to house the Hindu god, Lord Jagannath.

First announced in December 2018, and completed in May this year, the Digha temple has been pitched by Banerjee and her governing Trinamool Congress (TMC) party as West Bengal’s alternative to the more popular Jagannath Temple in neighbouring Odisha state’s Puri town, about 350km (217 miles) away.

Built in the 12th century, the temple in Puri is one of Hinduism’s four major pilgrimage sites, and home to an annual 800-year-old chariot festival, a weeklong event attended by tens of thousands of devotees. To kick-start the festival, descendants of the erstwhile Puri kingdom’s rulers symbolically sweep the chariot path, like their ancestors in power once did.

At Digha, that task was performed by Banerjee, neither the descendant of an emperor, nor a priest, raising questions about whether the construction of the temple was about faith or politics, a year before one of India’s most politically significant states votes for its next government.

Digha, West Bengal, India; 5th May, 2025 — Two devotees from ISKON (The International Society for Krishna Consciousness), praying in front of the Rath (Chariot), on the final day of Rath Yatra.
Two devotees praying in front of the chariot on the final day of Rath Yatra in Digha, West Bengal, on May 5, 2025 [Subrajit Sen/Al Jazeera]

Move aimed to counter BJP?

West Bengal, home to more than 91 million people, is India’s fourth most-populous state. Nearly 30 percent of its population is Muslim.

For decades, the state was also home to the world’s longest-serving elected communist government, until a feisty Banerjee – leading the centrist TMC party she founded in 1998 – unseated the Left Front coalition in 2011.

Since then, it is the Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that has emerged as the TMC’s main rival in West Bengal. From winning just two parliamentary seats in 2014, the year Modi stormed to power, the BJP last year won 12 of the state’s 42 seats. The TMC won 29.

In the 2021 state assembly election, Banerjee’s TMC and its allies won a landslide 216 of 292 seats, while the BJP-led coalition won 77. It was also the first election in which the Left or the Indian National Congress, the main opposition in parliament, could not win a single seat in a state both had previously governed.

As the political landscape changed in West Bengal, so did its players.

For almost a decade now, the BJP and its ideological parent, the far-right Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), have used Hindu festivals such as Ram Navami to expand their footprint in the state, often organising large processions that have on occasion passed, provocatively, through areas with large Muslim populations, with participants carried sticks, swords and tridents.

The BJP has also repeatedly accused the TMC of “minority appeasement”, in essence alleging that the party favours Muslim interests over the concerns of Hindu voters.

The TMC appears to be responding to that shift in politics in kind. In recent rallies, its leaders have been seen chanting “Jai Jagannath” (Hail Jagannath) to counter the BJP’s “Jai Shri Ram” (Hail Lord Ram), a slogan that, for millions of Hindus in India, is more a war-cry against Muslims and other minorities than a political chant.

“Now no one will say Jai Shri Ram. Everyone will say Jai Jagannath,” TMC leader Arup Biswas said in Digha in April.

To political scientist Ranabir Samaddar, the TMC’s temple politics is evidence of a brewing battle over the identity of Hinduism itself.

“If you agree Hindu society is not monolithic, then it’s natural that Hindus who reject the majoritarian version will assert a different understanding,” said Samaddar, who is a distinguished chair in migration and forced migration studies at the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group.

He argued that moves like Mamata’s represent a deeper social and cultural contest. “This is not a simple secularism-versus-communalism binary,” he said. “It is a protest against the idea that there is only one kind of Hinduism.”

For years, the BJP’s political opponents have struggled to craft a response to its vision of creating a Hindu-first state without being put on the defensive by Modi’s party, which portrays them as intrinsically anti-Hindu.

The Digha temple, Samaddar suggested, attempts to break that BJP stranglehold.

“As the dominant narrative becomes more rigid, insisting on a singular, state-aligned Hindu identity, the counter-response is also happening within the framework of Hindu identity,” he said. “It’s a dialogue, a form of social argument about plurality.

“This is also an assertion of rights. A claim to say, ‘We too are Hindus, but we won’t let you define what Hinduism is.’ These are attempts to break the monopoly of certain institutions and groups who have long claimed to speak for all Hindus. That’s what makes this moment significant.”

Digha, West Bengal, India; 5th May, 2025. — The Jagannath Temple at Digha, officially and controversially named Digha Jagannath Dham is a Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Jagannath, located in the coastal town of Digha, Purba Medinipur district, West Bengal, India.
The new Jagannath Temple in Digha, West Bengal, India, on May 5, 2025 [Subrajit Sen/Al Jazeera]

Bengal’s shifting religious terrain

Originally introduced by the government as a “cultural centre”, the Digha shrine soon evolved into a 65-metre-tall (213 feet) temple, spread over 8 hectares (20 acres) and costing the state exchequer more than $30m.

“This temple will add a new feather to the state’s cap. Digha will grow into an international tourist attraction. This will serve as a place of harmony. The sea adds a special charm to Digha. If it becomes a place of pilgrimage, more tourists will come,” Trinamool chief Banerjee had said during the structure’s inauguration on April 30. She will seek a fourth straight term as chief minister next year.

But the project has faced pushback.

When the Digha temple opened earlier this year, the BJP’s parliamentarian from Puri, Sambit Patra, declared: “There is only one Jagannath Dham in the world, and it is in Puri.” A dham is a shrine in Sanskrit.

On June 27, the BJP’s most prominent Bengal leader, Suvendu Adhikari, called the temple a “tourist attraction, not a spiritual site”.

“Puri Dham will remain Puri Dham. Mamata Banerjee is a fake Hindu. Temples can’t be built using government funds. It is a cultural centre, not a temple. Don’t mislead the people of Bengal,” he said.

He argued that Hindu temples in independent India have been made using donations – including the Ram temple in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya, built on the ruins of the 16th-century Babri Mosque that Hindu zealots had torn down in 1992. “Hindus make temples on their own. No government fund was used to build the Ram temple. Hindus across the world funded it.”

Priests at the Puri temple were furious too. The temple’s chief servitor, Bhabani Das Mohapatra, called the Digha complex a “crime by Mamata Banerjee”, and accused the West Bengal state government of “arrogantly violating scriptural norms”. Ramakrishna Das Mahapatra, a senior servitor from Puri who attended the Digha consecration, was suspended by the Puri temple authority.

Digha, West Bengal, India; May 5th, 2025 — A young girl, visiting with her family from a nearby city, came to witness the first-ever state-sponsored Rath Yatra festival in Digha. Her family are followers of ISKCON, the organization entrusted by the West Bengal government with arranging and overseeing the event.
A young girl with her family visiting Digha to attend the first ever Rath Yatra at the new shrine, on May 5, 2025. Her family belongs to the organisation tasked with planning the festival [Subrajit Sen/Al Jazeera]

‘Nobody invited us’

The criticism of the Digha temple is not limited to political opponents and representatives of the Digha temple.

As hundreds of people watched the June 27 consecration from behind security barricades, a 64-year-old local and retired government employee, Manik Sarkar, said he was frustrated.

“All the cost is coming from taxpayers like us,” he told Al Jazeera. “But nobody invited us. The government hospital nearby doesn’t even have proper equipment, and they’re spending millions lighting up the temple.”

Another resident, Ashima Devi, said she was anxious about the daily electricity bills. “Lakhs of rupees, every night,” she said. “Unemployment is already so high here. Thousands of government school teachers who lost their jobs because of corruption – they had cleared the exams fairly. Why isn’t this government fixing that? What will happen to them?”

She was referring to a $70m public school hiring scam recently unearthed by India’s top financial crimes office, the Enforcement Directorate, for which the TMC’s former education minister is now jailed.

One man in the crowd, who called himself a TMC supporter, interjected. “Tourism will grow,” he said.

But Sarkar pushed back: “All the hotels [in Digha] are owned by outsiders. What benefit are you talking about?”

Digha, West Bengal, India; 5 May 2025 — One of the three chariots being pulled by designated participants and organizers, while the general public watched from behind barricades.
One of the three chariots being pulled by participants and organisers, while members of the public watch from behind barricades, on May 5, 2025 [Subrajit Sen/Al Jazeera]

‘A politics that centres temples’

Historian Tapati Guha Thakurta said that the state’s involvement in temple building ought to be seen as a part of a larger arc in India’s modern journey.

“There’s been a major slide – from the modern, secular model to a politics that centres temples,” she said.

After India’s independence, the state actively supported projects like the reconstruction of the Somnath temple in Gujarat, backed by leaders like Vallabhbhai Patel — the man credited with bringing together 500 princely states into the Indian union using a mix of allurement and coercion.

But independent India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, opposed state support for the Somnath rebuilding, she noted.

“He stayed away. That moment showed how contested religion was, even within the Nehruvian vision of the state,” Guha Thakurta said to Al Jazeera. “That moment was emblematic. It showed that even at the dawn of Indian secularism, religion was never fully out of the frame.”

Nawsad Siddique, the sole state legislator from the Indian Secular Front, a coalition of the opposition Left groups and Congress party, called the Digha temple a “blurring of governance and faith”. Speaking to reporters on July 10, in Kolkata, he said, “We don’t have jobs. Our youth are migrating. Our schools are crumbling. And we’re building mega temples?”

Guha Thakurta recalled the deliberate separation of state and religion under 34 years of Left government.

“Our generation grew up under a firewall between religion and the state,” said Guha Thakurta, whose research into Durga Puja – the celebration of Goddess Durga that is the pre-eminent annual festival for Bengalis – helped secure a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage tag for the festival.

At the time, Marxist cultural elites dismissed even Durga Puja as “opo-sanskriti” or a degenerate ritual, to be merely tolerated.

That changed post-2011, when Banerjee first came to power.

“From $100 in grants, it’s now $1,200,” she said, referring to state funds for Durga Puja committees. “Durga Puja is now a state event. And this model is spreading.”

“We’re sitting on a volcano about to erupt. That’s all I’ll say.”

Source link

Councils consider legal action over asylum hotels

PA Media A group of police in high-vis vests stand outside a sign for The Bell Hotel in Epping.PA Media

Councils across England are poised to take legal action to remove asylum seekers from hotels in their areas.

It follows the High Court granting a district council a temporary injunction blocking asylum seekers from lodging at The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex.

All 10 councils controlled by Reform UK will “do everything in their power to follow Epping’s lead”, the party’s leader Nigel Farage said. A Conservative-run council in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, also said it is considering taking similar action.

Border Security Minister Dame Angela Eagle said the government will “continue working with local authorities and communities to address legitimate concerns”.

Writing in the Telegraph, Farage urged people “concerned about the threat posed by young undocumented males living in local hotels” to “follow the example of the town in Essex” in peaceful protest.

Tory-run Borough of Broxbourne Council has since become the first to declare it is seeking legal advice “as a matter of urgency about whether it could take a similar action” over a hotel in Cheshunt.

Meanwhile, the leader of South Norfolk District Council, also run by the Conservatives, said it will not go down the same route over a hotel housing asylum seekers in Diss which has been the subject of protest.

Daniel Elmer said the council was using planning rules to ensure it was families being housed in the area rather than single adult males.

Government ministers say they are braced for other councils to follow Epping’s lead.

Dame Angela added: “Our work continues to close all asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament.”

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, the MP for the neighbouring constituency of North West Essex, said Epping was “one of the many towns struggling” with asylum hotels.

She added she had a plan to “bring back a proper deterrent and remove all illegal arrivals immediately.”

Epping saw thousands of people protest against the hotel after an asylum seeker living there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. Hadush Kebatu, 41, denies the charges against him, while a second man who resides at the hotel, 32-year-old Syrian national Mohammed Sharwarq has been charged with two counts of common assault and four of assault by beating – concerning four complainants.

Essex Police said the protests, which were also attended by those in support of asylum seekers, became violent on occasion. Sixteen people have been charged with offences relating to disturbances during the demonstrations.

Conservative-run Epping Forest District Council was granted an injunction to block migrants staying at the hotel after an eleventh-hour effort from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to have the council’s case dismissed was ignored.

Similar cases in recent years have seen judges refuse to intervene but Epping Forest told the court its case was different as the hotel had become a safety risk, as well as a breach of planning law.

During the case, the government’s lawyer said any injunction granted could act as “an impetus for further violent protests” and could “substantially interfere” with the statutory duty of the Home Office to avoid a breach of the asylum seekers’ human rights.

Asylum seekers staying at the hotel must move out of The Bell Hotel by 16:00 BST on 12 September, the judge ruled.

Source link

N Korea says S Korea ‘cannot be a diplomatic partner’ as US drills continue | News

Powerful sister of North Korea’s leader rejects peace overtures from South Korea, denouncing its continued military drills with the US.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister has again dismissed peace overtures from South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, declaring that Pyongyang will never see Seoul as a partner for diplomacy, according to state media.

The report by KCNA on Wednesday came as South Korea and its ally, the United States, continued their joint military drills, which includes testing an upgraded response to North Korea’s growing nuclear capabilities.

Kim Yo Jong, who is among her brother’s top foreign policy officials, denounced the exercises as a “reckless” invasion rehearsal, according to KCNA, and said that Lee had a “dual personality” by talking about wanting to pursue peace while continuing the war games.

She made the comments during a meeting on Tuesday with senior Foreign Ministry officials about her brother’s diplomatic strategies in the face of persistent threats from rivals and a rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape, KCNA reported.

“The Republic of Korea [ROK], which is not serious, weighty and honest, will not have even a subordinate work in the regional diplomatic arena centred on the DPRK [The Democratic Republic of Korea],” Kim said, using the official names for the two countries.

“The ROK cannot be a diplomatic partner of the DPRK,” she added.

The statement followed the latest outreach by Lee, who said last week that Seoul would seek to restore a 2018 military agreement between the two countries aimed at reducing border tensions, while urging Pyongyang to reciprocate by rebuilding trust and resuming dialogue.

Since taking office in June, Lee has moved to repair relations that worsened under his conservative predecessor’s hardline policies, including removing front-line speakers that broadcast anti-North Korean propaganda and K-pop.

In a nationally televised speech on Friday, Lee said his government respects North Korea’s current system and that Seoul “will not pursue any form of unification by absorption and has no intention of engaging in hostile acts”.

But he also stressed that South Korea remains committed to an international push to denuclearise North Korea and urged Pyongyang to resume dialogue with Washington and Seoul.

Kim Yo Jong, who previously dismissed Lee’s overtures as a “miscalculation”, described the latest gestures as “a fancy and a pipe dream”.

“We have witnessed and experienced the dirty political system of the ROK for decades… and now we are sick and tired of it,” she said, claiming that South Korea’s “ambition for confrontation” with North Korea has persisted both under the conservative and liberal governments.

“Lee Jae-myung is not that man to change this flow of history” she continued, adding that “the South Korean “government continues to speak rambling pretence about peace and improving relations in order to lay the blame on us for inter-Korean relations never returning again”.

Kim Yo Jong’s comments follow Kim Jong Un’s statements, carried by KCNA on Tuesday, which called the US-South Korea military exercises an “obvious expression of their will to provoke war”. He also promised a rapid expansion of his nuclear forces as he inspected his most advanced warship being fitted with nuclear-capable systems.

The North Korean leader last year declared that North Korea was abandoning longstanding goals of a peaceful unification with South Korea and rewrote Pyongyang’s constitution to mark Seoul as a permanent enemy.

His government has repeatedly dismissed calls by Washington and Seoul to revive negotiations aimed at winding down his nuclear and missile programmes, which derailed in 2019, after a collapsed summit with US President Donald Trump during his first term.

Kim has also made Moscow the priority of his foreign policy since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, sending troops and weapons to support President Vladimir Putin’s war, while also using the conflict as a distraction to accelerate his military nuclear programme.

Source link

Mbappe leads Real Madrid to narrow win against Osasuna in La Liga | Football News

Real Madrid open their La Liga season with a nervy 1-0 home win against Osasuna at Santiago Bernabeu.

Kylian Mbappe struck from the penalty spot as Real Madrid beat a dogged Osasuna 1-0 to make a winning start in La Liga under new coach Xabi Alonso.

The French striker, last season’s European Golden Shoe winner, scored early in the second half on Tuesday after he was fouled in the area by Osasuna defender Juan Cruz.

It was enough to seal the points in Alonso’s first game in charge at the Santiago Bernabeu, with Madrid now unbeaten in their opening fixture of a league campaign since 2008.

“It was special to be back here as a coach, unforgettable,” Alonso said. “Hopefully, it was the first of many victories celebrated here.

“There were positives, beginning with the result. We still need a few things that will give us stability to keep progressing.”

Trent Alexander-Arnold made his La Liga debut after his move from Liverpool, with former Bournemouth defender Dean Huijsen and left-back Alvaro Carreras, the other summer arrivals included in the starting lineup.

Madrid, though, were without England midfielder Jude Bellingham, who is expected to be sidelined until October as he recovers from an operation to solve a recurrent shoulder issue.

Kylian Mbappé of Real Madrid scores his team's first goal
Kylian Mbappe of Real Madrid scores his team’s winning goal [Angel Martinez/Getty Images]

Madrid are looking to turn the page on a disappointing end to the Carlo Ancelotti era after relinquishing both their domestic and European crowns last season.

Alonso’s side had to show patience against an Osasuna team that finished ninth last term, with the hosts largely restricted to long-range efforts from centre-backs Huijsen and Eder Militao in the first half.

Osasuna goalkeeper Sergio Herrera was equal to both, while Mbappe failed to connect cleanly after being picked out by Vinicius Junior before he curled another shot wide as Madrid struggled to break down their opponents.

But Mbappe grabbed the only goal six minutes after half-time, after he went down following a clumsy challenge by Cruz as he tried to cut past the defender.

Mbappe, who was La Liga’s top scorer, with 31 goals in his first season in Spain, got up and running for the new campaign as he sent Herrera the wrong way from the spot.

Alonso handed 18-year-old Argentinian winger Franco Mastantuono his debut midway through the second half, as Madrid controlled the game and seldom looked troubled.

Ante Budimir headed over in a rare opportunity for Osasuna, and Mastantuono was denied late on by Herrera.

Osasuna finished the match with 10 men, with Abel Bretones sent off in stoppage time for throwing an arm to block the run of Gonzalo Garcia.

Source link

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,273 | Russia-Ukraine war News

Here are the key events on day 1,273 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, August 20:

Fighting

  • Russian authorities have returned the remains of 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers, Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on Monday, according to The Kyiv Independent news outlet.
  • Russia’s state-run TASS news agency confirmed that Russia returned the bodies of 1,000 soldiers, adding that Ukraine returned the bodies of 19 Russian soldiers.
  • Separately, TASS reported that about 1,370 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in a single day, citing the Russian Ministry of Defence. Al Jazeera could not verify this claim independently.
  • Russian forces dropped 250kg (550 lbs) bombs on the city of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Serhii Horbunov, the head of the Kostiantynivka City Military Administration, wrote on Facebook on Monday. At least two people were injured, and apartments and an education building were damaged, Horbunov said.
  • A Russian drone attack on an ambulance injured two emergency workers in the Kupiansk district of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, regional police said in a post on Telegram.
  • TASS reports that a Ukrainian drone attack caused a power outage in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, according to the governor of Russian-occupied Zaporizhia, Yevgeny Balitsky.
  • The attack did not affect the operation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, TASS later reported.
  • Local officials in the front-line city of Kamianka-Dniprovska in Russian-occupied Zaporizhia reported “massive” shelling from Ukrainian forces, causing at least six explosions and damaging a hospital, according to a TASS report that did not mention casualties.
  • The brother of Vitaly Milonov, a representative in Russia’s State Duma, the lower house in parliament, died after being injured “as a result of military action” in Ukraine’s Luhansk region, TASS said. The lawmaker’s brother was serving as a volunteer in Russian army intelligence when he was injured, TASS reports.
  • Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote in a post on the Telegram messaging app that 52,000 people have been evacuated from Ukraine’s Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions in recent months due to fighting.

Peace talks

  • Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “are in the process of setting it up”, Trump said in relation to a proposed bilateral meeting between the two leaders. Trump made the comment in a radio show a day after he met with Zelenskyy and several European leaders at the White House.
  • Switzerland would be ready to host Putin for peace talks, despite an existing arrest warrant for his arrest from the International Criminal Court, the country’s foreign minister, Ignazio Cassis, said.
  • Trump provided details to Fox News on the nature of potential US involvement in security guarantees for Ukraine, saying that US support would probably be “by air”, whereas European countries “are willing to put people on the ground”.
  • White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed US air support was “an option and a possibility”, but, like Trump, did not provide details.
  • “The president has definitively stated US boots will not be on the ground in Ukraine, but we can certainly help in the coordination and perhaps provide other means of security guarantees to our European allies,” Leavitt told a news briefing.
  • Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte discussed security guarantees for Ukraine in a phone call on Tuesday, the Turkish presidency said in a statement.
  • European Council President Antonio Costa said that the process to make Ukraine a member of the European Union needs to advance, and Europe has to be part of future peace negotiations alongside Ukraine, Russia and the United States.
  • US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that India was profiteering on its purchases of Russian oil. “This… Indian arbitrage – buying cheap Russian oil, reselling it as product has just sprung during the war – which is unacceptable,” Bessent said.

  • Putin discussed his recent meeting with Trump in Alaska on a call with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Kremlin said.

Source link

Netanyahu accuses Australian PM Albanese of ‘betraying’ Israel

Israel’s prime minister accused his Australian counterpart of having “betrayed Israel” and “abandoned” Australia’s Jewish community, after days of growing strain between the two countries.

Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that history would remember Anthony Albanese “for what he is: a weak politician”.

Australia barred a far-right member of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition from entering the country on Monday, and Israel in turn revoked the visas of Australian representatives to the Palestinian Authority.

Australian Immigration Minister Tony Burke said Netanyahu was “lashing out” in response to Canberra recently announcing it would join the UK, France and Canada in recognising a Palestinian state.

“Strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up or how many people you can leave hungry,” Burke told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Wednesday.

Israel’s opposition leader criticised Netanyahu’s remarks, branding them a “gift” to the Australian leader.

Yair Lapid wrote on X: “The thing that most strengthens a leader in the democratic world today is a confrontation with Netanyahu, the most politically toxic leader in the Western world.

“It is unclear why Bibi is rushing to give the Prime Minister of Australia this gift.”

Diplomatic tensions flared on Monday after far-right Israeli politician Simcha Rothman’s Australian visa was cancelled ahead of a visit to the country, where he had been due to speak at events organised by the Australian Jewish Association (AJA).

Burke told local media at the time the government took “a hard line” on people seeking to “spread division”.

“If you are coming to Australia to spread a message of hate and division, we don’t want you here,” he said.

Last year, Burke also denied a visa to Israel’s former justice minister Ayelet Shaked, a right-wing politician who left parliament in 2022.

A few hours after the revocation of Rothman’s visa was announced, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar said he had instructed the Israeli Embassy in Canberra to “carefully examine any official Australian visa application for entry to Israel”.

He added in a post on X: “While antisemitism is raging in Australia, including manifestations of violence against Jews and Jewish institutions, the Australian government is choosing to fuel it”.

In recent months, there have been a string of antisemitic attacks in Australiawhich is home to one of the world’s largest populations of Holocaust survivors per capita.

On Tuesday, the AJA said Rothman would still appear at their speaking event virtually.

“The Jewish community won’t bow down to Tony Burke or [Foreign Minister] Penny Wong,” it said in a social media post.

Australia announced in early August that it would recognise a Palestinian state, with Prime Minister Albanese saying at the time that Netanyahu was “in denial” about the consequences of the war on innocent people.

“The stopping of aid that we’ve seen and then the loss of life that we’re seeing around those aid distribution points, where people queuing for food and water are losing their lives, is just completely unacceptable,” he said.

The state of Palestine is currently recognised by 147 of the UN’s 193 member states, and Australia’s announcement came about two weeks after similar moves by the UK, France and Canada.

In response, Netanyahu launched a scathing attack on the leaders of the three countries, accusing Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.

More than 62,004 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s military campaign since 7 October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel launched the offensive in response to the Hamas-led attack on 7 October, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Source link

Horoscope today, August 20, 2025: Daily star sign guide from Mystic Meg

OUR much-loved astrologer Meg sadly died in 2023 but her column will be kept alive by her friend and protégée Maggie Innes.

Read on to see what’s written in the stars for you today. 

♈ ARIES

March 21 to April 20

Sticking to an out-of-date view of who you are and what you can do, is not the best way to move mountains, or just make the day the best it can be.

You have such core stability in your chart, you can afford to risk a little.

hat’s stopping you? A long-time dream of a certain address can take a step forward.

an advertisement for mystic meg with maggie innes on wednesday

2

Your daily horoscope for Wednesday

♉ TAURUS

April 21 to May 21

Feeling you have to monitor everything you say, and tone your words down depending on who you are talking to can leave conversations unsatisfying.

This is your moment to harness moon insight and speak honestly.

This may mean a less smooth passage – but a more rewarding one.

Luck circles “MM”.

Get all the latest Taurus horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

♊ GEMINI

May 22 to June 21

Any shadows, however fleeting, that hang over a love bond need to be tackled. Instead of letting imagination run riot, talk calmly with special people.

Or, if you’re in the dating field, go beyond flattery to seek something more substantial.

This applies in both directions. A “V” group can be winners.

Get all the latest Gemini horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

♋ CANCER

June 22 to July 22

Maybe it’s not in your nature to call a halt to a money flow – but if you feel you’ve given too much already, then you must do so.

Set limits around your cash, and your time.

Showing you value both equally can start a new phase of sharing.

Love is all about you in some green eyes – you just may be last to realise!

Get all the latest Cancer horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

♌ LEO

July 23 to August 23

As Mercury confidence grows, your task is to use it wisely. Do so try to choose one goal at a time – and give it your full focus.

It may be only when you hear yourself talking that you realise what you really need to say – so recording your voice can be a game-changer.

The luck factor soars where strangers compete.

Get all the latest Leo horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

♍ VIRGO

August 24 to September 22

Love and luck both have a community connection – this can link to a group you’ve often considered joining, yet never have.

Or a face you see almost every day that you somehow can’t ignore.

Taking the next step is easier when you trust your intuition.

Numbers in scarlet can have a winning streak.

Get all the latest Virgo horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

a purple circle with the zodiac signs in it
The combined chart power of the sun and Mercury is a real push towards at least one major personal changeCredit: Getty

♎ LIBRA

September 23 to October 23

You may try to ignore it, but the fire of Mars is so strong in your sign right now.

This can lead to intense attractions that sweep your usual active mind aside. For people, yes – but also for projects or adventures you would usually resist.

The new you is more impulsive and sexy, and this makes for an intriguing day.

Get all the latest Libra horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

List of 12 star signs

The traditional dates used by Mystic Meg for each sign are below.

♏ SCORPIO

October 24 to November 22

Stepping out of leadership shoes can show you where your true skills lie – and your chart suggests a more caring field of work could be part of this.

To seem strong, you may try to hide weaknesses, but these are what make you unique – so take a risk and share more with a partner.

Single? A hot Aries yearns for you.

Get all the latest Scorpio horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

♐ SAGITTARIUS

November 23 to December 21

For you, the mix of the moon and Venus is such an important one – as it shows you can change, and how you can start this process.

You have such a happy-go-lucky side, but sometimes people need to see your serious self, the one that can be counted on.

A location to the south, and pastel colours, can be lucky.

Get all the latest Sagittarius horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

♑ CAPRICORN

December 22 to January 20

The combined chart power of the sun and Mercury is a real push towards at least one major personal change.

Everything may not be in place yet, but you can still make that one move that’s been on your mind for a few days.

Love-wise, connections that mean most to you may be less flashy – but more “real”.

Get all the latest Capricorn horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

a zodiac circle with the signs of the zodiac on it

2

A shy Cancer, who seems so careful in what he or she says, has so much that’s special to shareCredit: Supplied

♒ AQUARIUS

January 21 to February 18

Moving away from an atmosphere of blame or shame can free your inner self.

You may not realise how hard you have been on yourself, or how much you expect.

Accepting you make mistakes, yet still keep moving forward, can be a breakthrough.

Three names you love most in music, can combine in a prize entry.

Get all the latest Aquarius horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

♓ PISCES

February 19 to March 20

Your natural fashion flair is ready to show through – this can happen when you stop drying to dress, or behave, according to someone else’s rules.

Your own way is the right way, all day.

A shy Cancer, who seems so careful in what he or she says, has so much that’s special to share.

Pisces couples can re-create a special date.

Get all the latest Pisces horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

Source link

Greek opposition denounces sale of defense company to Israeli SK Group – Middle East Monitor

A left-wing Greek opposition party denounced the sale Tuesday of a major domestic defense company to the Israeli SK Group, whose portfolio includes Israeli Military Industries (IMI) and Israeli Shipyards, Anadolu reports.

“It is not a simple sell-out, but another act of complicity of the (Kyriakos) Mitsotakis regime with the genocide in Palestine,” the New Left party said in a statement.

“At the time of the genocide, the Mitsotakis government, is tying the country to Israel’s chariot, proceeding with a nationally detrimental choice that gives away critical sectors on terms of servitude,” is said.

The party underlined that the sale of ELVO to the Israeli holding company is another episode in the selling out of critical public infrastructure and strategic industries.

“The loss of the most important Greek defense industry to foreign hands undermines the country’s national security and technological self-sufficiency,” it said.

Thessaloniki-based ELVO (Hellenic Vehicle Industry) has, for around five decades, produced buses, heavy utility trucks, military jeeps, armored vehicles and tanks, mostly under licenses from third parties, for the Greek Armed Forces.

In 2020, the sale of ELVO to an Israeli-interest consortium that comprises Plasan Sasa, Naska Industries — SK Group and Greek businessman Aristidis Glinis, was concluded for around $3.4 million.

SK Group announced Tuesday that it completed the 100% takeover of ELVO.

Source link

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum denies knowledge of US drug initiative | Government News

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has denied reports that her government is teaming up with the United States for a “major new initiative” to combat drug-trafficking cartels.

In her Tuesday morning news conference, Sheinbaum addressed the initiative, dubbed “Project Portero”, which was touted in the US as an effort to “strengthen collaboration between the United States and Mexico”.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had unveiled the initiative only one day prior.

“I want to clarify something. The DEA put out a statement yesterday saying that there is an agreement with the Mexican government for an operation called Portero,” Sheinbaum said.

“There is no agreement with the DEA. The DEA puts out this statement, based on what we don’t know. We have not reached any agreement; none of the security institutions [have] with the DEA.”

Sheinbaum emphasised that only her administration, not individual government agencies, would be announcing such an agreement on behalf of Mexico.

She also emphasised that the DEA needed to follow established protocols for making joint announcements.

Project Portero is part of an ongoing push under US President Donald Trump to stamp out cross-border drug trafficking and aggressively pursue the cartels and criminal networks that profit from such trade.

In its statement on Monday, the DEA called Project Portero its “flagship operation” aimed at shutting down drug-smuggling corridors along the border.

It described its partnership with Mexico as “a multi-week training and collaboration program” that would bring Mexican investigators together with US enforcement officials at an intelligence site on the southwest border.

Part of their task, the statement said, was to “identify joint targets” for the two countries to pursue.

“Project Portero and this new training program show how we will fight — by planning and operating side by side with our Mexican partners,” DEA administrator Terrance Cole said in the statement

“This is a bold first step in a new era of cross-border enforcement.”

But Sheinbaum said no such bilateral action was planned, though she speculated that the DEA might be referring to a small training exercise involving four Mexican police officers.

“The only thing we have is a group of police officers from the Secretariat of Citizen Security who were conducting a workshop in Texas,” she explained.

She did, however, point out that her government was actively working with the Trump administration to cement a border security agreement, based on mutual acknowledgements of sovereignty and respectful coordination.

Since taking office for a second term in January, Trump has repeatedly pressured the Sheinbaum government to stem the flow of immigrants and drugs across their countries’ shared border.

That includes through the threat of tariffs, a kind of tax imposed on imports. In late July, Trump announced he would keep tariffs on Mexican products at their current rate for 90 days.

Previously, he had threatened to hike the tariff rate to 30 percent on the basis that fentanyl was still reaching US soil.

“Mexico still has not stopped the Cartels who are trying to turn all of North America into a Narco-Trafficking Playground,” Trump wrote in a letter to Sheinbaum earlier that month.

Even with the 90-day pause, Mexico still faces a 25-percent tax — which Trump calls a “fentanyl tariff” — on all products that do not fall under the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement (USMCA).

Still, Trump has expressed warmth towards Sheinbaum, and the Mexican leader has largely avoided public confrontations with the US since taking office in October 2024.

Recently, Sheinbaum’s government coordinated with Trump’s to transfer 26 high-profile drug-trafficking suspects to the US for prosecution.

In February, she made a similar deal, sending 29 alleged cartel leaders from Mexican prisons to the US shortly before Trump threatened to impose tariffs on her country’s imports. It was Mexico’s largest prisoner transfer to the US in years.

But Sheinbaum has also faced scrutiny over her handling of Trump’s aggressive foreign policy platform.

Earlier this month, for instance, Trump’s State Department issued travel warnings for 30 of Mexico’s 32 states, warning Americans of “terrorist” activities in those areas.

Trump has also designated multiple Latin American criminal groups as “foreign terrorist organisations”, and he reportedly signed an order authorising military action to combat them.

Critics fear that order could translate into a military incursion on Mexican soil. But Sheinbaum has repeatedly downplayed those concerns, saying, “There will be no invasion of Mexico.”

Still, she has nevertheless asserted that any unauthorised US action on Mexican land would be considered a violation of her country’s sovereignty.

Source link

Will a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy end the war in Ukraine? | Russia-Ukraine war

Donald Trump says he’s arranging a summit between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy returned to the White House for a much-anticipated meeting with United States President Donald Trump on Monday.

His last trip earlier this year was widely considered a failure, as it was dominated by a tense public berating from Trump.

But on this trip, he had considerable backup – from world leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

They got what they went for – a security guarantee, for Ukraine, from Washington.

The next step is a meeting between Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the hopes of signing a long-term peace agreement.

But what would be the terms?

Presenter: Mohammed Jamjoom

Guests: 

Maria Mezentseva – Member of Ukraine’s parliament and head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

Jim Townsend – Adjunct senior fellow in the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security

Pavel Felgenhauer –  Russian defence and foreign policy analyst

Source link

Epping council wins bid to stop Bell Hotel housing asylum seekers

Dominic Casciani

BBC News, Home and Legal Correspondent@BBCDomC
Lewis Adams

BBC News, Essex

PA Media A group of police officers in fluorescent tabards speaking into talkback devices and holding riot helmets - there is a large police van in the background at the entrance to a building with a Bell Hotel sign PA Media

The Bell Hotel has been at the centre of intense protests, and counter-protests over the summer

Asylum seekers are due to be removed from an Essex hotel after a council was granted a temporary High Court injunction blocking them from being housed there.

The injunction was sought by Epping Forest District Council to stop migrants being placed at The Bell Hotel in Epping, which is owned by Somani Hotels Limited.

Thousands of people have protested near the hotel in recent weeks after an asylum seeker living there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in the town.

Mr Justice Eyre made his judgement after refusing an 11th-hour effort from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to get the council’s case dismissed.

Asylum seekers must be moved out of the hotel by 16:00 BST on 12 September, the judge ruled.

All 80 rooms at the hotel are seemingly occupied and, as of last month, it was home to about 140 men.

The Home Office had warned the decision would “substantially impact” its ability to house asylum seekers in hotels across the UK.

Footage from 17 July showed projectiles being thrown towards police officers

Protests staged outside The Bell Hotel have been attended by both people against its use for asylum seekers and those in support of migrant rights.

But Conservative council leader Chris Whitbread said the repeated demonstrations were escalating tensions in the area and risked causing “irreparable harm”.

Reacting to the court ruling, he added: “The last few weeks have placed an intolerable strain on our community but today we have some great news.

“We have seen the protests that started off quite violently become peaceful protests, run by the people of Epping Forest.

“What I call upon the residents tonight is if they decide to go outside The Bell Hotel, don’t protest, don’t over-celebrate. This is the beginning. It is not the end.”

A small crowd had gathered outside the hotel on Tuesday evening.

PA Media Chris Whitbread, wearing a blue suit, white shirt, and blue and white spotted tie, outside the the Royal Courts of Justice, talking into microphones, with his leg hand raised. He has short grey hair. Another man is behind him, and an archway is behind him. PA Media

Chris Whitbread said the court victory showed “the government cannot ignore planning rules, just like no-one else can ignore planning rules”

Sixteen people have been charged with offences relating to disturbances during several protests, which Essex Police said became violent on occasion.

Representing the council, Philip Coppel KC agreed some protests “have unfortunately been attended by violence and disorder”.

He said Somani Hotels “did not advise or notify the local planning authority” to seek its views on the use of the site which he argued was not a hotel in the usual sense any more.

He told the court it was “no more a hotel than a borstal [was] to a young offender”.

Lawyers for the hotel and home secretary confirmed in court they wished to appeal against the injunction before a full hearing was listed in the autumn.

It followed a failed last-minute attempt by the Home Office to get the case dismissed.

Edward Brown KC, for the government, said any injunction could lead to other councils making similar applications.

“That would aggravate the pressures on the asylum estate,” he added.

‘Sidestepped scrutiny’

The council’s win comes three years after a string of judgments in similar cases in which judges refused to intevene.

However, Epping Forest told the court last Friday that its case was different because use of the hotel had become a public safety risk, as well as a breach of planning law.

In his judgement Mr Justice Eyre said: “Although the defendant’s [Somani Hotels Limited] actions were not flagrant or surreptitious they were deliberate.

“The defendant acted in good faith but chose to take its stand on the position that there was no material change of use.

“The defendant did so in the knowledge the claimant, as local planning authority, took a different view and believed that permission was necessary.

“It thereby sidestepped the public scrutiny and explanation which would otherwise have taken place if an application for planning permission or for a certificate of lawful use had been made.”

A crowd of protesters holding signs stand on the pavement outside a hotel as cars pass them on the road in front of them.

A small crowd gathered outside The Bell Hotel in the evening following the High Court judgement

Imram Hussain, from the Refugee Council, said: “We think asylum seekers should not be in hotels – there are cheaper, better ways of supporting people and we think the government should end the use of hotels as fast as it can.”

He said such migrants should be in “dispersal accommodation around the country”, as it was more cost-effective and it wanted the government to “work with local authorities to go back to that kind of system and not use hotels”.

The Bell Hotel, a white building, is on the left with an entrance to the right which says The Bell Hotel, Best Western. A tree is in front of the two-storey building with three traffic cones outside.

Epping Forest District Council applied for the injunction on 12 August

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage welcomed the ruling and said: “This community stood up bravely, despite being slandered as far right, and have won.”

His deputy leader, Richard Tice, said his party would look at pursuing similar cases for hotels within the 10 council areas it controls, which included both North and West Northamptonshire councils, Doncaster, and Kent and Staffordshire county councils.

Angela Eagle, Border Security Minister, said: “This government inherited a broken asylum system; at the peak there were over 400 hotels open.

“We will continue working with local authorities and communities to address legitimate concerns. Our work continues to close all asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament.

“We will carefully consider this judgment.”

Protests began outside The Bell after 41-year-old Hadush Kebatu, from Ethiopia, was charged with sexual assault, harassment and inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity.

He denied the offences and remained in custody ahead of a two-day trial, due to begin next Tuesday.

A second man, living at the same hotel, Mohammed Sharwarq, 32, a Syrian national, has been charged with two counts of common assault and four of assault by beating – concerning four complainants.

Following a hearing before magistrates in Chelmsford, he was remanded into custody.

The BBC understands the alleged offences took place within The Bell Hotel.



Source link

Mexican boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr deported from US: Authorities | US-Mexico Border News

Son of a legendary former world champion boxer, Julio Cesar Chavez is deported by the US, facing charges of arms trafficking and organised crime in Mexico.

Former champion boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr has been detained in Mexico after being deported by the United States to face drug trafficking-related charges, Mexican authorities said.

Chavez, the son of legendary boxer Julio Cesar Chavez, was handed over at midday on Monday and transferred to a prison in Mexico’s northwest Sonora state, according to information published Tuesday on the country’s National Detention Registry.

“He was deported,” President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters, adding that there was an arrest warrant for him in Mexico.

She previously said there was a warrant for his arrest for charges of arms trafficking and organised crime, and that prosecutors were working on the case.

The Mexican attorney general’s office declined to comment.

Chavez Jr, the son of a legendary former world champion boxer, Julio Cesar Chavez, was detained by US immigration authorities shortly after losing in a sold-out match to American influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul.

Retired boxer Julio Cesar Chavez urges on his son Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. as he fights against Sergio Martinez during their title fight at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada September 15, 2012. REUTERS/Steve Marcus (UNITED STATES - Tags: SPORT BOXING)
Retired boxer Julio Cesar Chavez urges on his son Julio as he fights against Sergio Martinez during their title bout at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, the US, September 15, 2012 [Steve Marcus/Reuters]

Mexican prosecutors allege he acted as a henchman for the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, which Washington designated a “foreign terrorist organisation” earlier this year.

Chavez Jr’s lawyer and family have rejected the accusations.

Mexico’s national registry showed that the boxer was arrested at a checkpoint in the Mexican border city of Nogales at 11:53am (18:53 GMT) and transferred to a federal institution in Sonora’s capital of Hermosillo. Chavez Jr was wearing a black hoodie and red sneakers, it said.

Chavez Jr won the World Boxing Council middleweight championship in 2011, but lost the title the following year.

His career has been overshadowed by controversies, including a suspension after testing positive for a banned substance in 2009, and a fine and suspension after testing positive for cannabis in 2013.

Source link

US wants equity stake in Intel for cash grants given under Biden | Technology News

Officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration made comments saying the equity stake was not to run the firm.

United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said the US government wants an equity stake in Intel in exchange for cash grants approved during the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Separately, also on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said any US investment in Intel would be aimed at helping the troubled chipmaker stabilise.

Asked about reports that the US was considering taking a 10 percent stake in Intel, Bessent told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” programme: “The stake would be a conversion of the grants and maybe increase the investment into Intel to help stabilise the company for chip production here in the US.”

Bessent gave no details about the size or timing of any US stake in Intel, but said any investment would not be aimed at forcing US companies to buy chips from Intel.

Bessent’s comments were the first official response from the Trump administration after Bloomberg News reported on Monday that the US government is in talks to take a 10 percent Intel stake in exchange for $7.9bn in grants that were approved for the US chip company during the Biden administration.

‘Not governance’

“We should get an equity stake for our money,” Lutnick told CNBC. “We’ll get equity in return for that … instead of just giving grants away.”

Lutnick said the US does not want control of the company.

“It’s not governance, we are just converting what was a grant under Biden into equity for the Trump administration for the American people.” He suggested any stake would be “non-voting,” meaning it would not enable the US government to tell the company how to run its business.

He made his comments a day after SoftBank Group agreed to invest $2bn into the chipmaker, which has struggled to compete after years of management blunders.

“The Biden administration literally was giving Intel money for free and giving TSMC money for free, and all these companies just giving the money for free, and Donald Trump turned it into saying, ‘Hey, we want equity for the money. If we’re going to give you the money, we want a piece of the action for the American taxpayer,’” Lutnick said.

Intel and TSMC, a Taiwan-based chipmaker, did not immediately comment.

Intel helped launch Silicon Valley, but has fallen behind rivals like Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc and is shedding thousands of workers and slashing costs under its new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan. It recorded an annual loss of $18.8bn in 2024, its first such loss since 1986.

Intel plans to end the year with 75,000 “core” workers, excluding subsidiaries, through layoffs and attrition, down from 99,500 core employees at the end of 2024. The company previously announced a 15 percent workforce reduction.

Trump recently said Tan, who was made CEO in March, should resign. But after meeting with him last week, Trump relented, saying Tan had an “amazing story”.

Source link

Starmer hails breakthrough on Ukraine

Joe Pike

Political correspondent

EPA Keir Starmer sitting at glossed wooden table in White House meeting with other leaders. The camera is on him as he speaks. Starmer is gesturing with his left hand and is wearing a black blazer, a white shirt and a patterned blue tie. There are blue flowers in front of him on the table. Behind, sit three men against the wall - the heads are out of shot, but they are wearing suits, white shirts and a stripy navy and white tie, a red tie and a red tie respectively from left to right. EPA

Sir Keir Starmer has called US President Donald Trump’s commitment to security guarantees for Ukraine a breakthrough, as he hailed the movement towards a meeting between Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin.

The prime minister joined the leaders’ summit at the White House on Monday, having cut short his family holiday in Scotland. From what Sir Keir said overnight, it seems he believes that small sacrifice was well worth it.

He chaired a virtual meeting of European and Commonwealth allies, the coalition of the willing, on Tuesday to update leaders and to discuss next steps.

Diplomatic risks

Sir Keir has long been a proponent of so-called gratitude diplomacy – thanking and praising Donald Trump – so he was hardly likely to be critical about the outcomes.

And while anxiety in UK government circles about Ukraine’s future remains, the prime minister seems happy with what he argues is significant progress.

He told the BBC after the meeting that it “has shown that we have moved forward, and that in the end for me has always been the test – are we making real progress.”

Behind the scenes, European officials had worried the White House meeting was fraught with risk.

One told me they felt there was a danger of President Trump sensing President Zelensky was not committed to a US-led peace process, concluding that European leaders were digging in behind the Ukrainians, and making his frustration clear on camera.

Such division would have been a gift to Moscow so all the leaders involved were at pains to make clear that was not their approach.

Before he left Washington, Sir Keir said there was “a real sense of unity” between them.

The prime minister told the BBC he was “very pleased” with the outcomes, including progress on security guarantees, saying this would “reassure people in Europe, in Ukraine, but particularly in the United Kingdom.”

He also welcomed the “real movement forward” on bilateral and trilateral meetings between Russia, Ukraine and the US, saying this would help achieve a “peace that is lasting and just”.

Ukraine and Europe’s leaders have clearly decided together to go all in on Donald Trump’s peace plans.

The assessment of diplomats from various countries involved is that if the process ultimately fails, they will not have contributed to that failure.

PA Media All the leaders standing in line for a photo ahead of the meeting. They are in the White HousePA Media

Negotiation preparations

The UK government now seems focused on ensuring Ukraine is in the strongest possible position for any possible peace negotiations.

From my conversations with UK officials, they believe yesterday’s White House meeting was helpful in this effort on two points.

Firstly, Trump did not echo Putin’s demands for Ukrainian territory and put Zelensky on the spot on what is a sensitive and emotive issue – at least in front of the cameras.

There now seems to be an unspoken acceptance in the White House that Ukraine will need to move carefully and slowly on any discussions over land. No 10 has repeatedly said that questions of territory are a matter for Ukraine, and Ukraine alone.

“No decision should be made about Ukraine without Ukraine,” the prime minister stressed after Monday’s talks.

Secondly, flexibility is important in any negotiation. UK officials argue that Trump’s commitment to US involvement in “cast iron” security guarantees means Zelensky can now be far more flexible in his approach knowing that Ukraine will be protected by its allies.

Prospects of a pre-negotiation ceasefire seem to have been junked. Trump has dismissed the need for ceasefire and wants to move directly to agreeing peace terms.

The importance of having a ceasefire was mentioned in the White House talks by the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron.

The UK’s assessment is that a ceasefire was never a central aim of the US administration and therefore Sir Keir should not risk being what one source called a “lone point of tension” on the issue.

The prime minister has returned to the UK, but military officials are travelling in the opposite direction ahead of detailed discussions about US involvement in security guarantees.

Trump has yet to provide much detail on what US forces might offer, but European leaders seem content to take his public commitment as important progress.

The major unknown is what Moscow will do next.

One involved argues Putin could retreat from the pathway towards peace that has been created for him. If he does so they are hoping the US sides with Europe and not Russia.

Source link