North Korea fired short-range missiles this past weekend, just days after the sister of Kim Jong Un threatened the United States and South Korea for holding joint military exercises.

The missile tests were confirmed by two senior Biden administration officials who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. They come as North Korea has ignored offers from the new administration to resume negotiations, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week pressed China to use its “tremendous influence” to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

The officials, however, sought to downplay the significance of the missile tests, noting that they are not covered by UN Security Council resolutions meant to deter North Korea from pursuing a nuclear program.

Biden himself told reporters the missile tests were not a provocation. “There’s no new wrinkle in what they did,” he said.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement Wednesday that it had detected two suspected cruise missile launches by North Korea on Sunday morning. It said the launches were made off North Korea’s west coast and said South Korea is analyzing them.

Source: France 24

Tanzania’s President John Pombe Magufuli is dead.

In a televised address on Thursday night, Tanzania vice-president Samia Suluhu Hassan said that Magufuli had died of heart complications.

“It is with great regret that I inform you that today, 17 March 2021, at 18:00, we have lost our courageous leader, President John Pombe Magufuli of Tanzania,” said Samia Suluhu Hassan, Tanzania Vice President.

Hassan said that Magufuli was hospitalized on March 6 at the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute.

This comes after weeks of speculation on his whereabouts with the suspicion that he had been hospitalized for Covid-19.

Tanzania’s President John Magufuli has not been seen in public for 18 days and rumours have spread that he was ill.

The speculation had led to several arrests, as the government sought to contain the rumours.

On Tuesday, the opposition leader from the Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT Wazalendo) issued a statement demanding Magufuli’s whereabouts.

The party also called for the release of all citizens who have been arrested for circulating rumours about the president’s health.

There has been speculation and rumours flying on social media that the 61-year-old president may have contracted coronavirus and been airlifted to a Kenyan hospital for treatment then flown to India a day later.

Tanzania’s main opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who is exiled in Belgium, said, citing sources that Magufuli was gravely ill from Covid-19, exacerbated by underlying health conditions.

On Tuesday he posted photos on his Twitter account of activity in Dar es Salaam.

Source: Africa News

Prince William on Thursday defended the British royal family after his younger brother Harry and wife Meghan accused them of racism in a bombshell interview watched around the world.

“We’re very much not a racist family,” William told reporters during a visit to a multi-racial school in a deprived area of east London.

The Duke of Cambridge, son of heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles, added that he had yet to speak to Harry in California since the interview first aired in the United States on Sunday.

“No, I haven’t spoken to him yet, but I will do,” he said.

A keenly awaited statement from Queen Elizabeth II issued Tuesday was conciliatory towards her grandson and his mixed-race spouse, after their interview with US chat show host Oprah Winfrey.

But it also stressed that “some recollections may vary”, as Buckingham Palace vowed to look into the couple’s assertion that an unidentified royal had asked how dark their unborn son Archie’s skin would be.

Charles has yet to comment on the controversy but was filmed on Tuesday touring a Nigerian Christian church in London whose pastors are promoting a drive to vaccinate more black people against the coronavirus.

In the interview, Harry also said that his father and brother were “trapped” in a hidebound institution.

Source: AFP

At least 10 rockets targeted a military base in western Iraq that hosts US-led coalition troops on Wednesday, the coalition and the Iraqi military said. The attack came two days before Pope Francis makes a historic visit to Iraq, which the pope said would go ahead as planned.

The rockets struck Ain al-Asad airbase in Anbar province at 7.20am local time, said spokesman Colonel Wayne Marotto.

Later, the Iraqi military released a statement saying the attack did not cause significant losses and that security forces had found the launch pad used for the missiles.

It was the first attack since the US struck Iran-aligned militia targets along the Iraq-Syria border last week that killed one militiaman, stoking fears of a possible repeat of a series of tit-for-tat attacks that escalated last year, culminating in the US-directed drone strike that killed Iran’s top security commander, Qassem Soleimani outside the Baghdad airport.

Wednesday’s attack targeted the same base where Iran struck with a barrage of missiles in January last year in retaliation for the killing of Soleimani. Dozens of US service members were injured, suffering concussions in that strike.

Pope reiterates he will go to Iraq

The attack came two days before Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Iraq in a much anticipated trip that will include Baghdad, southern Iraq and the northern city of Erbil.

In his weekly prayer address Wednesday, the pope asked for prayers for the trip, the first ever by a Roman Catholic pontiff to Iraq.

“The day after tomorrow, God willing, I will go to Iraq for a three-day pilgrimage. For a long time I have wanted to meet these people who have suffered so much,” said the 84-year-old pope.

The pope added that he would be going to Iraq, where his predecessor John Paul II was not allowed to go in 2000, because “the people cannot be let down for a second time”.

“The Iraqi people are waiting for us, they were waiting for Saint John Paul II, who was forbidden to go. One cannot disappoint a people for the second time. Let us pray that this journey will be successful,” he said.

He made no mention of Wednesday’s attack on the Ain al-Asad airbase.

Domestic, regional tensions

Wednesday’s attack came amid rising domestic and regional tensions.

Hardline Iraqi groups have an interest in ramping up the pressure on Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi following his pledges to rein in rogue militias.

They may also carry a message from Tehran to Washington, which under US President Joe Biden is offering to revive the Iran nuclear deal abandoned by his predecessor Donald Trump in 2018.

Iran is demanding the US lift sanctions immediately, while the US wants Iran to move first by returning to previous nuclear commitments.

Denmark, which also has troops at the base, condemned the attack, saying that coalition forces at Ain al-Asad are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government, helping to bring stability and security to the country.

“Despicable attacks against Ain al-Asad base in #Iraq are completely unacceptable,” Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod tweeted. The Danish armed forces said two Danes, who were in the camp at the time of the attack, are unharmed.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)

President Joe Biden on Wednesday lifted a freeze on green cards issued by his predecessor during the pandemic that lawyers said was blocking most legal immigration to the United States.

Former President Donald Trump last spring halted the issuance of green cards until the end of 2020 in the name of protecting the coronavirus-wracked job market — a reason that Trump gave to achieve many of the cuts to legal immigration that had eluded him before the pandemic.

Trump on Dec. 31 extended those orders until the end of March.

Trump had deemed immigrants a “risk to the U.S. labor market” and blocked their entry to the United States in issuing Proclamation 10014 and Proclamation 10052.

Biden stated in his proclamation Wednesday that shutting the door on legal immigrants “does not advance the interests of the United States.”

“To the contrary, it harms the United States, including by preventing certain family members of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents from joining their families here. It also harms industries in the United States that utilize talent from around the world,” Biden stated in his proclamation.

Most immigrant visas were blocked by the orders, according to immigration lawyers.

As many as 120,000 family-based preference visas were lost largely because of the pandemic-related freeze in the 2020 budget year, according to the American Immigrant Lawyers Association. Immigrants could not bring over family members unless they were U.S. citizens applying for visas for their spouses or children under the age of 21.

It also barred entry to immigrants with employment-based visas unless they were considered beneficial to the national interest such as health care professionals.

And it slammed the door on thousands of visa lottery winners who were randomly chosen from a pool of about 14 million applicants to be given green cards that would let them live permanently in the United States.

The blocked visas add to a growing backlog that has reached 437,000 for family-based visas alone, said California immigration lawyer Curtis Morrison, who represented thousands of people blocked by the freeze.

“I’m thrilled for my clients who are now in a position that they can now enter the U.S.,” he said. “But that backlog will take years if the administration does not take ambitious measures.”

A federal judge last year issued a ruling that all but lifted Proclamation 10052 by allowing temporary foreign workers to enter the United States if their employers are members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or several other large organizations that represent much of the U.S. economy.

But Proclamation 10014 continued to block thousands of immigrants.

Immigration lawyers said they were surprised Biden did not immediately lift the freeze like he did with Trump’s travel ban imposed against people from mostly Muslim-majority countries. As a result, some immigrants blocked by the travel ban found they still could not come to the United States because of the freeze.

Biden’s actions come only days after thousands of visa lottery winners at risk of having their visas expire won a court order that put their visas on hold by the judge in the case. Now they will be allowed to use their visas to enter the country.

The United States makes available up to 55,000 visas a year for immigrants whose nationalities are underrepresented in the U.S. population. The visas must be used within six months of being obtained.

Meanwhile, Biden has proposed legislation that would limit presidential authority to issue future bans against immigrants.

The president has not said whether there will be any redress for visa lottery winners who lost out because of the pandemic-era policies. But he is calling for the U.S. to increase the number of diversity visas available via the lottery each year from 55,000 to 80,000.

Source: AP

Iran has stopped the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Safeguards Agreement that allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to carry out short-notice inspections of the country’s nuclear facilities, following a deadline set by Tehran for the removal of US sanctions.

Talking to reporters, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif confirmed that the implementation of the Additional Protocol had been stopped as of Tuesday morning.

Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s permanent representative to Vienna-based international organizations, also announced late on Monday that all the IAEA’s additional access to the nuclear sites would be halted by midnight.

“As of 12:00 p.m. local time (2030 GMT), we have nothing called obligations beyond the Safeguards Agreement,” he said. “Necessary orders have been issued to nuclear facilities.”

Zarif pointed out that Iran will continue to implement its commitments under the NPT Safeguards Agreements and cooperate with the IAEA.

He explained that footage recorded by cameras at Iran’s nuclear sites will now be withheld and no longer shared with the IAEA on a daily and weekly basis as was done in the past.

The foreign minister also noted that Iran will have no official meeting with the US, since Washington is no longer a party to the nuclear deal.

The halt came under the Strategic Action Plan to Counter Sanctions, a law passed last December by the Iranian Parliament.

The legislation set February 23 as a deadline for the Iranian government to further scale back compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), if the US does not lift its sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

The withdrawal from the Protocol adds to Iran’s previous steps away from the JCPOA in response to the US’s unilateral withdrawal in 2018 and the other parties’ failure to fulfill their commitments.

Admin. welcomes Leader’s call for unity with Parliament

Additionally, the administration of President Hassan Rouhani on Monday welcomed a call by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei for it and the Parliament to resolve their rifts and act in unison regarding the anti-sanctions law.

“Negotiations and agreements between the Islamic Republic and the IAEA have been in full compliance with the Constitution and the laws of the country, in particular the resolution of the 759th session of the Supreme National Security Council. All experts and security officials have acknowledged that they (the negotiations and agreements with the IAEA) were the most efficient and the least costly way to fully implement the Parliament’s resolution,” it said in a statement.

“The goal of the Islamic Republic and the definite plan of the government are to realize the rights of the Iranian people, intelligently and decisively confront the illegal actions and policies of the United States, and lift the cruel and inhumane sanctions against the Iranian nation as soon as possible,” it added.

During a visit by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to Tehran on Sunday, the UN nuclear watchdog struck a three-month deal with Iran.

Source: Presstv

The US Supreme Court on Monday allowed the release of Donald Trump’s tax records to criminal prosecutors, rejecting a last-ditch bid by the former president’s lawyers to keep them secret.

Trump, 74, has been waging a protracted legal battle to prevent his tax records from being handed over to New York prosecutors probing hush payments to women and possible fraud.

The nation’s highest court denied the request filed by lawyers for Trump without comment, paving the way for the documents to be handed over to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance.

The prosecutor, a Democrat, has been fighting for over a year to obtain eight years of Trump’s tax returns as part of an investigation into the ex-president’s finances.

Monday’s ruling concerns a subpoena that Vance had issued to Trump’s accountants Mazars USA in August 2019 ordering it to furnish documents stretching back to 2011.

“The work continues,” Vance said in a three-word statement issued after the ruling.

Vance’s probe was initially focused on payments made before the 2016 presidential election to two women who claim they had affairs with Trump, including porn star Stormy Daniels.

But the state-level investigation is also now examining possible allegations of tax evasion, and insurance and bank fraud.

Trump, who left the White House last month, called the investigation “a continuation of the greatest political witch hunt in the history of our country.”

“The Supreme Court never should have let this ‘fishing expedition’ happen, but they did,” he said in a statement following the ruling.

US presidents are not required by law to release details of their personal finances but every US leader since Richard Nixon has done so.

Trump repeatedly said he would release them pending an audit but ultimately broke with the tradition.

Vance’s investigators have interviewed Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who received a three-year prison term after admitting making hush payments to the two women.

The ex-lawyer had testified to Congress that Trump and his company artificially inflated and devalued the worth of their assets to both obtain bank loans and reduce their taxes.   

Civil probe

If Trump were charged and convicted he could face a possible jail term. Unlike federal offenses, state crimes are not subject to presidential pardons.

Investigators also recently interviewed employees of Deutsche Bank, which has long backed the former president and the Trump Organization, US media reported.

They spoke to staff at Trump’s insurance broker Aon, too.

Vance’s investigation is taking place behind closed doors in front of a Grand Jury.

It is unclear if and when it will lead to a prosecution, which would be the first of a former US president.

In July, the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s argument that as a sitting president he was immune from prosecution.

Trump’s lawyers then challenged the scope of the requested documents, saying it was too broad.

Ahead of the November 3 election, The New York Times alleged that Trump had avoided paying federal taxes in 11 out of the 18 years for which it had obtained returns.

The newspaper also reported that Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017, a claim the former president denies.

New York state’s Attorney General Letitia James is also investigating allegations of bank fraud and insurance fraud through civil proceedings.

Trump’s legal troubles may not end there.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has said that as a civilian Trump “is liable for everything he did while he was in office.”

At his historic second impeachment trial, the US Senate acquitted Trump of inciting the crowd that stormed the US Capitol in January, but McConnell suggested Trump could face criminal and civil action over the riot.

In February, prosecutors in Georgia opened an investigation “into attempts to influence” the presidential election in the state.

Trump had pressured officials to overturn his loss in the key battleground.

Source: AFP

Britain’s Prince Harry will relinquish his honorary military appointments and patronages after confirming to Queen Elizabeth II that he and his wife Meghan Markle will not return as working royals, Buckingham Palace announced Friday.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as they are formally known, rocked the British monarchy when they quit frontline royal duties a year ago.

They have since embarked on a new life involving several commercial ventures in the United States, and now live in California.

Under the initial terms of their departure thrashed out at an emergency summit with the queen in early 2020, Harry had agreed to review the decision a year on.

“The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have confirmed to Her Majesty The Queen that they will not be returning as working members of The Royal Family,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement.

“The Queen has written confirming that in stepping away from the work of The Royal Family it is not possible to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service.

“The honorary military appointments and Royal patronages held by The Duke and Duchess will therefore be returned to Her Majesty, before being redistributed among working members of The Royal Family.”

Prince Harry, a former soldier, holds several honorary military titles, as well as Commonwealth appointments and some other patronages.

Meghan was also handed several honorary roles after she wed Harry in a fairytale ceremony at Windsor Castle in May, 2018.

The couple, who are expecting their second child, are poised to give an “intimate” interview about their lives with US chat show host Oprah Winfrey.

Source: AFP

The US Senate voted Saturday acquit former president Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection charges linked to the deadly January 6 invasion of the Capitol building.

Senate Democrats led by impeachment manager Jamie Raskin began laying out the case against Trump on Tuesday. In three days of testimony, they accused the former president of directly inciting the mob that left his January 6 rally near the White House and invaded the Capitol building to halt the certification of Electoral College votes giving Joe Biden the presidency. Democrats used dramatic video of the mob to underscore the dangers lawmakers faced that day, with Raskin stating bluntly that the trial is about “setting standards of conduct for the president of the United States so this never happens to us again”.

In counter arguments on Friday, Trump’s defense lawyers maintained that Trump’s statements on January 6 could not be directly linked to the storming of the Capitol hours later and urged the Senate to acquit. Defense lawyer Michael van der Veen told the chamber Trump’s exhortation to the crowd to “fight like hell” was merely “political rhetoric”, adding: “Countless politicians have spoken of ‘fighting’ for our principles.”

Five people including a Capitol Police officer died in the unrest. Two other officers who responded to the insurgency committed suicide in the days following.

Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on January 13, making him the only US president to be impeached twice. He is also the first to face trial after leaving office. 

Source: France 24

Anti-coup protesters on Thursday took to the streets of Myanmar for a sixth consecutive day, after US President Joe Biden announced sanctions against the Southeast Asian nation’s generals and demanded they relinquish power.

There has been an outpouring of anger and defiance since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi last week and detained her along with other senior figures of her National League for Democracy party.

Security forces have used tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets against the protesters, with isolated reports of live rounds also being fired. Police also ramped up their harassment of the NLD with a raid on its headquarters.

But demonstrators again marched peacefully on Thursday in Naypyidaw—the capital and military stronghold—as well as Yangon, the largest city and commercial hub.

“Don’t go to the office,” chanted a group of protesters outside Myanmar’s central bank in Yangon, part of a civil disobedience effort urging civil servants and people in other industries to boycott work and put pressure on the junta.

“We aren’t doing this for a week or a month—we are determined to do this until the end when (Suu Kyi) and President U Win Myint are released,” one bank employee who had joined the protest told AFP.

There were also fresh rallies in the cities of Dawei and Mandalay, with protesters carrying signs that said “Restore our Democracy!” and “We condemn the military coup”.

US sanctions

Western nations have repeatedly denounced the coup, with the United States leading calls for the generals to relinquish power.

In the most significant concrete action to pressure the junta, Biden announced Wednesday that his administration was cutting of the generals’ access to $1 billion in funds in the United States.

“I again call on the Burmese military to immediately release democratic political leaders and activists,” Biden said, as he flagged further sanctions.

“The military must relinquish power.”   

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has also warned the bloc could impose fresh sanctions on Myanmar’s military.

“This seems like a well calibrated set of measures… Also a strong signal that President Biden himself announced them,” Myanmar-based political analyst Richard Horsey tweeted, describing the sanctions as a “clear message” to the military.

Crackdown deepens

There were more reports of arrests on Thursday, including the deputy speaker of the parliament’s lower house and a key aide to Suu Kyi, taking the number of coup-linked detentions to more than 200, according to monitor Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

The military justified last week’s power grab by claiming widespread voter fraud in the November polls, which saw a landslide for Suu Kyi’s party.

It quickly moved to stack courts and political offices with loyalists as it ended a decade of civilian rule.

Fears are growing over how long the junta will tolerate the masses of people taking to the streets.

Live rounds were fired at a rally in Naypyidaw this week, critically wounding two people—including a woman who was shot in the head.

Images depicting the woman have been shared widely online alongside expressions of grief and fury.

“They can shoot a young woman but they can’t steal the hope and resolve of a determined people,” UN special rapporteur Tom Andrews tweeted Wednesday.

The military’s clampdown on information using internet blackouts—with tech companies ordered to cut communications intermittently—has drawn widespread condemnation.

Concern was also building Thursday that the junta was planning to impose a much harsher and sustained internet crackdown.

Tech-focused Myanmar civil society organisation MIDO tweeted that a draft cyber security bill had been sent to telecom companies, which would allow the military to order blackouts and website bans.

It would also require social media platforms to hand over users’ metadata.

Source: AFP