UK man charged with ‘Russia-backed arson plot’ on Ukraine-linked targets

A 20-year-old British man has been charged with masterminding an arson plot against a Ukrainian-linked target in London for the benefit of the Russian state, prosecutors said on Friday. (X/@BrumPolice/File)

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Updated 26 April 2024

AFP

April 26, 2024 15:34

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UK man charged with ‘Russia-backed arson plot’ on Ukraine-linked targets

Court documents allege that suspect Dylan Earl was connected to the proscribed terrorist group the Wagner Group
He is accused of organizing and paying for an arson attack on two units on an industrial estate in Leyton

Updated 26 April 2024

AFP

April 26, 2024 15:34

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LONDON: A 20-year-old British man has been charged with masterminding an arson plot against a Ukrainian-linked target in London for the benefit of the Russian state, prosecutors said on Friday.
“Included in the alleged activity was involvement in the planning of an arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked commercial property in March 2024,” the Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement.
Court documents allege that suspect Dylan Earl, from Leicestershire in central England, was connected to the proscribed terrorist group the Wagner Group, the domestic Press Association news agency reported.
He is accused of organizing and paying for an arson attack on two units on an industrial estate in Leyton, east London, on March 20, which required 60 firefighters to bring under control.
The alleged target is referred to as “Mr X” in the charges.
The CPS, which brings prosecutions in England and Wales, said two other men — Paul English, 60, and Nii Mensah, 21 — had also been charged with aggravated arson in connection with the case.
A third, Jake Reeves, 22, had been charged with agreeing to accept a material benefit from a foreign intelligence service as well as aggravated arson.
A fifth man, Dmitrijus Paulauska, 22, has been charged with having information about terrorist acts, the CPS added.
UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said: “While we must let the judicial process run its course, I am deeply concerned by allegations of British nationals carrying out criminal activity on UK soil to benefit the Russian state.
“We will use the full weight of the criminal justice system to hold anyone found guilty of crimes linked to foreign interference to account,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police in London’s Counter Terrorism Command which is leading the investigation, said: “This is a highly significant moment and investigation for us.
“Not only are the charges that have been authorized by the CPS extremely serious, but it is also the first time that we have arrested, and now charged anyone using the powers and legislation brought in under the National Security Act.”
The National Security Act 2023 came into effect in December last year, and was designed to respond to “the threat of hostile activity from states targeting the UK’s democracy, economy, and values,” the government said at the time.
All five suspects are due to appear at the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey, London, on May 10.

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Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict UK court Arson Dylan Earl

Trump administration says it’s cutting 90 percent of USAID foreign aid contracts

Updated 6 sec ago

AP

February 27, 2025 04:36

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Trump administration says it’s cutting 90 percent of USAID foreign aid contracts

The disclosures give an idea of the scale of the administration’s retreat from US aid and development assistance overseas

Updated 6 sec ago

AP

February 27, 2025 04:36

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration said Wednesday it is eliminating more than 90 percent of the US Agency for International Development’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall US assistance around the world, putting numbers on its plans to eliminate the majority of US development and humanitarian help abroad.
The cuts detailed by the administration would leave few surviving USAID projects for advocates to try to save in what are ongoing court battles with the administration.
The Trump administration outlined its plans in both an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press and filings in one of those federal lawsuits Wednesday.
Wednesday’s disclosures also give an idea of the scale of the administration’s retreat from US aid and development assistance overseas, and from decades of US policy that foreign aid helps US interests by stabilizing other countries and economies and building alliances.
The memo said officials were “clearing significant waste stemming from decades of institutional drift.” More changes are planned in how USAID and the State Department deliver foreign assistance, it said.
President Donald Trump and ally Elon Musk have hit foreign aid harder and faster than almost any other target in their push to cut the size of the federal government. Both men say USAID projects advance a liberal agenda and are a waste of money.
Trump on Jan. 20 ordered what he said would be a 90-day program-by-program review of which foreign assistance programs deserved to continue, and cut off all foreign assistance funds almost overnight.
The funding freeze has stopped thousands of US-funded programs abroad, and the administration and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency teams have pulled the majority of USAID staff off the job through forced leave and firings.
In the federal court filings Wednesday, nonprofits owed money on contracts with USAID describe both Trump political appointees and members of Musk’s teams terminating USAID’s contracts around the world at breakneck speed, without time for any meaningful review, they say.
“’There are MANY more terminations coming, so please gear up!“’ a USAID official wrote staff Monday, in an email quoted by lawyers for the nonprofits in the filings.
The nonprofits, among thousands of contractors, owed billions of dollars in payment since the freeze began, called the en masse contract terminations a maneuver to get around complying with the order to lift the funding freeze temporarily.
So did a Democratic lawmaker.
“The administration is brazenly attempting to blow through Congress and the courts by announcing the completion of their sham ‘review’ of foreign aid and the immediate termination of thousands of aid programs all over the world,” said Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The State Department said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had reviewed the terminations.
In all, the Trump administration said it will eliminate 5,800 of 6,200 multiyear USAID contract awards, for a cut of $54 billion. Another 4,100 of 9,100 State Department grants were being eliminated, for a cut of $4.4 billion.
The State Department memo, which was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, described the administration as spurred by a federal court order that gave officials until the end of the day Wednesday to lift the Trump administration’s monthlong block on foreign aid funding.
“In response, State and USAID moved rapidly,” targeting USAID and State Department foreign aid programs in vast numbers for contract terminations, the memo said.
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene Wednesday night as an appeals court refused to lift the midnight deadline.
Trump administration officials — after repeated warnings from the federal judge in the case — also said Wednesday they were finally beginning to send out their first or any payments after more than a month with no known spending. Officials were processing a few million dollars of back payments, officials said, of billions of dollars owed to US and international organizations and companies.

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Topics: Trump Returns

Trump sees ‘a thirst’ for his ‘gold card’ visa idea with $5 million potential path to US citizenship

Updated 27 February 2025

AP

February 27, 2025 02:16

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Trump sees ‘a thirst’ for his ‘gold card’ visa idea with $5 million potential path to US citizenship

Trump said of future possible recipients of the gold visa program: “They’ll be wealthy and they’ll be successful and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people

Updated 27 February 2025

AP

February 27, 2025 02:16

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he plans to start selling a “gold card” visa with a potential pathway to US citizenship for $5 million, seeking to have that new initiative replace a 35-year-old visa program for investors.
“I happen to think it’ll sell like crazy. It’s a market,” Trump said. “But we’ll know very soon.”
During the first meeting of his second-term Cabinet, Trump suggested that the new revenue generated from the program could be used to pay off the country’s debt.
“If we sell a million, that’s $5 trillion dollars,” he said. Of the demand from the business community to participate, he said “I think we will sell a lot because I think there’s really a thirst.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters during the same meeting that Trump’s initiative would replace the EB-5 program, which offers US visas to investors who spent about $1 million on a company that employs at least 10 people.
Lutnick said that program “has been around for many years for investment in projects” but “it was poorly overseen, poorly executed.”
The new program could mark a dramatic shift in US immigration policy but isn’t unprecedented elsewhere. Countries in Europe and elsewhere offer what have become known as “golden visas” that allow participants to pay in order to secure immigration status in desirable places.
Congress, meanwhile, determines qualifications US for citizenship, but the president said “gold cards” would not require congressional approval.
Trump said of future possible recipients of the gold visa program: “They’ll be wealthy and they’ll be successful and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people, and we think it’s going to be extremely successful.”
Henley & Partners, an advisory firm, says more than 100 countries around the world offer “golden visas” to wealthy individuals and investors. That list includes the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Malta, Australia, Canada and Italy.
“Companies can buy gold cards and, in exchange, get those visas to hire new employees,” Trump said. Despite similar programs already occurring outside the US, he insisted, “No other country can do this because people don’t want to go to other countries. They want to come here.”
“Everybody wants to come here, especially since Nov. 5,” he said of his Election Day victory last fall.
Lutnick suggested that the gold card — which would actually work, at least to start, more like a green card, or permanent legal residency — would raise the price of admission for investors and do away with fraud and “nonsense” that he said characterize the EB-5 program.
A pathway to citizenship as part of the new program also would set it apart from the EB-5 program. Trump said vetting people who might be eligible for the gold card will “go through a process” that is still being worked out.
Pressed on if there would be restrictions on people from China or Iran not being allowed to participate, Trump suggested it will likely not “be restricted to much in terms of countries, but maybe in terms of individuals.”
About 8,000 people obtained investor visas in the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, 2022, according to the Homeland Security Department’s most recent Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.
The Congressional Research Service reported in 2021 that EB-5 visas pose risks of fraud, including verification that funds were obtained legally. Then-President Joe Biden signed a 2022 law bringing big changes to the EB-5 program, including steps meant to investigate and sanction individuals or entities engaged in fraud as part of it — meant to curb some of those risks.
Trump offered few details on how the new program might work, including making no mention of existing EB-5 requirements for job creation. While the number of EB-5 visas is capped, meanwhile, the Republican president mused that the federal government could sell 10 million “gold cards” to reduce the deficit. He said it “could be great, maybe it will be fantastic.”
“It’s somewhat like a green card, but at a higher level of sophistication,” the president said. “It’s a road to citizenship for people — and essentially people of wealth or people of great talent, where people of wealth pay for those people of talent to get in, meaning companies will pay for people to get in and to have long, long term status in the country.”

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Topics: Trump Returns US citizenship Gold card visa Golden visas

Musk and his ‘humble tech support’ effort get star turn at Trump’s Cabinet meeting

Updated 27 February 2025

AP

February 27, 2025 00:34

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Musk and his ‘humble tech support’ effort get star turn at Trump’s Cabinet meeting

“If we don’t do this, America will go bankrupt,” Musk told department heads assembled around a large wooden table in the Cabinet Room

Updated 27 February 2025

AP

February 27, 2025 00:34

WASHINGTON: Elon Musk took a star turn at the first Cabinet meeting of President Donald Trump’s new term, holding forth in a black “Make America Great Again” campaign hat on Wednesday about his role as “humble tech support” for the federal government — and laying out dire stakes if his cost-cutting efforts fail.
“If we don’t do this, America will go bankrupt,” Musk told department heads assembled around a large wooden table in the Cabinet Room.
Trump, not one to easily share the spotlight, seemed happy to turn the top of the hour-plus meeting over to Musk for a “little summary” of what the Department of Government Efficiency has been up to, saying that Musk’s team had found evidence of “horrible things” afoot in the government.
“He’s sacrificing a lot,” Trump said of Musk, referencing the time the world’s richest man is taking away from his many business ventures. “He’s also getting hit.”
Musk, for his part, said his lightning-fast efforts to right-size the government had drawn death threats and he jokingly knocked his fist on his “wooden head” as he said he hoped to find $1 trillion to trim from the federal budget, an effort that has caused extensive disruption among federal workers and those who rely on their services.
Musk defended his weekend attempt to require government workers to justify their prior week’s work under penalty of termination — a move that drew pushback from many in the room on national security and privacy grounds — as merely a “pulse check” to ensure that those working for the government have “a pulse and two neurons,” adding that “this is not a high bar” for workers to meet.
Speculating that some workers are either dead or fictional, Musk added that the goal was to see that workers are real, alive and can “write an email.”
Asked if members of the Cabinet were happy with Musk, the DOGE guru started to answer the question. But Trump interjected and said he might want to let Cabinet members answer. Then Trump joked that if anyone disagreed, he might “throw them out.”
That drew applause from Cabinet members.
Trump then turned things back to Musk, who said the president had “put together, I think, the best Cabinet ever.”
“And I don’t give false praise,” he added.
Musk did volunteer that his efforts to slash government spending would “make mistakes.”
He cited as an example that, while hustling to dramatically shrink the US Agency for International Development, “One of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola prevention.” Musk insisted that “there was no interruption” in services before the funding was restored.
But a USAID official said Wednesday that no funds for the agency’s Ebola response had been released under President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 funding freeze for foreign aid, including for efforts to combat the spread of the deadly virus.
After about 15 minutes of focus on Musk and DOGE, Trump shifted the spotlight of the Cabinet meeting back to his own accomplishments in his first weeks in office.
The Cabinet sat mostly silently for more than an hour, as Trump opened the floor to questions from an invited group of reporters.
Asked if he expected his Cabinet to follow his directives without exception, Trump initially scoffed at the question before answering, “of course, no exceptions.”

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Topics: Trump Returns Elon Musk

Who are the militants using the Sahel as a hunting ground?

Updated 26 February 2025

AFP

February 26, 2025 22:14

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Who are the militants using the Sahel as a hunting ground?

Tens of thousands killed in violence that began in Mali in 2012, spread to Burkina Faso and Niger

Updated 26 February 2025

AFP

February 26, 2025 22:14

ABIDJAN: For well over a decade, terrorist violence has plagued the Sahel, a semi-arid belt stretching along the Sahara desert’s southern rim from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in violence that began in Mali in 2012, spread to Burkina Faso and Niger, and now threatens coastal west African states.

Two militant organizations dominate the central Sahelian region that includes Mali, Niger and Burkina: the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims and the Islamic State — Sahel Province or ISSP.

Affiliated to Al-Qaeda, the JNIM was founded in 2017 after militant groups merged under the leadership of Iyad Ag Ghali, a Tuareg chief from the northern Malian town of Kidal.

The rival ISSP is linked to the Daesh group and was created two years earlier by Moroccan terrorist Adnan Abou Walid Al-Sahraoui, who was killed in Mali in 2021 by a French military force.

Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad — in the Lake Chad Basin — are battling two other jihadist groups: Boko Haram and its offshoot, the Islamic State in West Africa or ISWAP.

The groups mainly roam rural areas. “Controlling the towns is very difficult for them,” International Crisis Group researcher Ibrahim Yahaya said.

From their camps in the bush, they use intimidation tactics such as abduction and killings to menace villagers and organize attacks on towns, Yahaya said.

The JNIM has a wide presence in Mali, Niger and Burkina and is increasingly extending its influence toward the northern parts of the Gulf of Guinea countries.

“The group plans to make new areas of instability on the borders of Burkina Faso with Benin and Togo,” Seidik Abba, head of the International Center of Reflection and Studies on the Sahel, said.

The ISSP is concentrated in the border area encompassing Mali, Burkina and Niger. The group “struggles to expand” because of the JNIM which is “militarily stronger” and has more local support, Liam Karr, analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said.

Their ambitions differ. The ISSP follows the hard line of the Daesh group, using indiscriminate violence against civilians and soldiers with the aim of establishing an Islamic caliphate in the Sahel under Shariah law.

The JNIM also carries out deadly attacks but seeks local footholds by presenting itself as the defender of marginalized communities.

“In the JNIM narrative, there is the reference to the Islamic ideology, but linked to forms of local demands,” said Bakary Sambe, director of the Timbuktu Institute in Dakar. “While Daesh has remained in a form of global jihad that is failing to take root in local communities,” he added.

Daesh frequently broadcasts videos showing violence committed by security forces and their allies in order to legitimize its discourse, a UN Security Council report said this month.

There is often violent rivalry between the groups.

The militant groups exploit social and ethnic tensions to enlist fighters.

The JNIM, initially composed of Fulani, a community of mainly semi-nomadic herders, and of ethnic Tuaregs, has widened its base to include other communities, in particular ethnic Bambaras.

Exact figures are difficult to estimate, but according to a UN report in July last year, the JNIM has 5,000-6,000 fighters and the ISSP 2,000-3,000.

Their weaponry comes largely from the armies of the region and was pillaged during attacks, or from arms trafficking from Libya.

Financing ranges from kidnappings, especially of Westerners, to the theft and resale of cattle and forcing locals to pay the “zakat,” an annual tax in charity.

The militant groups use ambush, abduction, long-range shelling, improvised explosive devices and recently started using drones to drop explosives.

Civilians suspected of collaboration with the army are kidnapped or killed.

Militants also impose embargoes, burn harvests and abduct community leaders to force villagers into submission.

The response of the region’s armies has proven limited as the groups are constantly on the move and feed on local grievances.

Mali, Burkina and Niger have formed the Alliance of Sahel States confederation and said they will soon set up a 5,000-strong anti-militant force.

“At a time when the Sahelian armies are killing 3,000 militants, 12,000 others are being recruited,” Abba, head of the International Center of Reflection and Studies on the Sahel, said.

“So, if we do not solve the problem of youth unemployment in these countries, they will remain at the mercy of militant groups,” he added.

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Topics: Sahel ISSP

Pope Francis shows further improvement, no longer has kidney issue, Vatican says

Updated 26 February 2025

Reuters

February 26, 2025 21:06

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Pope Francis shows further improvement, no longer has kidney issue, Vatican says

The pope is spending his 13th night at Rome’s Gemelli hospital
“The clinical condition of the Holy Father in the last 24 hours has shown a further, slight improvement,” the latest detailed health update read

Updated 26 February 2025

Reuters

February 26, 2025 21:06

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has shown a “further, slight improvement” in his medical condition, the Vatican said on Wednesday, in a sign of progress as the 88-year-old pontiff battles double pneumonia.
The pope is spending his 13th night at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, the longest hospital stay of his nearly 12-year-old papacy.
“The clinical condition of the Holy Father in the last 24 hours has shown a further, slight improvement,” the latest detailed health update read.
The pope, it said, is continuing to receive oxygen but has not experienced any further respiratory crises. A CT scan of his chest, performed on Tuesday, “showed a normal evolution” of the inflammation in his lungs, it added.
Over the weekend, the Vatican said the pontiff had shown a “mild kidney insufficiency,” raising fears he might be about to suffer kidney failure. On Wednesday, it said the issue had been “resolved.”
The statement did not specify whether the pope was still considered to be in critical condition, as he has been listed since Saturday. Despite the pope’s improvements, it said his prognosis was still “guarded.”
A Vatican official, who did not wish to be named because he was not authorized to discuss the pope’s condition, said earlier on Wednesday that Francis was alert through the day and was able to eat normally and move about his hospital room.

ARGENTINIANS IN ROME PRAY FOR POPE
Francis, who has been pope since 2013, is originally from Argentina and is the first Catholic pontiff from the Americas. On Tuesday evening, many in Rome’s Argentinian community gathered at the Our Lady of Sorrows Church to pray for him.
“We pray for his health, that he can continue to govern the Church,” said Reverend Mario Aler, who referred to the ongoing 2025 Catholic Holy Year.
“(Francis) should continue to accompany this important event for the whole Church,” he said.
Paraguay’s ambassador to the Vatican, Romina Taboada Tonina, who was attending the service, called the pope “a great leader, without a doubt.”
“Not only for Catholics, but he is a great political leader as well,” she said.
At the Vatican on Tuesday evening, for the second day running, hundreds gathered in St. Peter’s Square for a prayer vigil attended by pilgrims and senior Church figures. The service is being repeated daily this week.
Double pneumonia is a serious infection of both lungs that can inflame and scar them, making it difficult to breathe. The Vatican has said the pope’s infection is “complex,” and caused by two or more microorganisms.
Francis has suffered several bouts of ill health over the past two years. He is prone to lung infections because he developed pleurisy as a young adult and had part of one lung removed.
Francis has been working occasionally from the hospital as Vatican business
continues apace during his illness. The Vatican announced several new appointments on Wednesday that would have needed the pope’s approval.

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Topics: Vatican Pope Francis Pneumonia

UK man charged with ‘Russia-backed arson plot’ on Ukraine-linked targets

UK man charged with ‘Russia-backed arson plot’ on Ukraine-linked targets

UK police arrest three over migrants’ deaths in Channel

Man extradited from Pakistan convicted of killing UK police officer

Trump administration says it’s cutting 90 percent of USAID foreign aid contracts

Trump administration says it’s cutting 90 percent of USAID foreign aid contracts

Trump sees ‘a thirst’ for his ‘gold card’ visa idea with $5 million potential path to US citizenship

Trump sees ‘a thirst’ for his ‘gold card’ visa idea with $5 million potential path to US citizenship

The White House says it ‘will determine’ which news outlets cover Trump, rotating traditional ones

Trump administration eliminating 1,600 USAID jobs in the US

Musk and his ‘humble tech support’ effort get star turn at Trump’s Cabinet meeting

Musk and his ‘humble tech support’ effort get star turn at Trump’s Cabinet meeting

Key federal agencies refuse to comply with Musk’s latest demand in his cost-cutting diktat

Musk says US government workers must explain their work week or lose jobs

Who are the militants using the Sahel as a hunting ground?

Who are the militants using the Sahel as a hunting ground?

Still awaiting thanks for stopping extremists in Sahel, Macron says

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Pope Francis shows further improvement, no longer has kidney issue, Vatican says

Pope Francis shows further improvement, no longer has kidney issue, Vatican says

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UK man charged with ‘Russia-backed arson plot’ on Ukraine-linked targets

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