Italy’s Meloni torn between Trump and European allegiance

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attends a Group of Ten (G10) breakfast on migration in Brussels, Belgium, on March 20, 2025. (AFP)
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attends a Group of Ten (G10) breakfast on migration in Brussels, Belgium, on March 20, 2025. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 22 March 2025
Follow

Italy’s Meloni torn between Trump and European allegiance

Italy’s Meloni torn between Trump and European allegiance
  • Meloni was the only EU leader to attend Trump’s inauguration in January and has carefully steered clear of any criticism of the US president, even as he has hit Europe with tariffs and threatened to abandon Ukraine in its war with Russia

ROME: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni finds herself playing a political balancing act as Europe moves to bolster its defenses.
A nationalist with deep admiration for US President Donald Trump, she is battling to reconcile the growing gulf between her ideological instincts, which lie with Washington, and Italy’s strategic ties to the European Union, analysts say.
Meloni was the only EU leader to attend Trump’s inauguration in January and has carefully steered clear of any criticism of the US president, even as he has hit Europe with tariffs and threatened to abandon Ukraine in its war with Russia.
While she has taken part in emergency talks with European partners on how to navigate the upheavals caused by Trump’s foreign policy, her engagement at times has seemed unenthusiastic, prompting critics at home to accuse her of isolating Italy within the EU.
Meloni, who has been in power since 2023, dismissed suggestions that she was under the sway of Trump as she headed into a summit of European leaders this week.
“I don’t blindly follow either Europe or the United States ... I am in Europe because Italy is in Europe, so it’s not like we’re thinking of going somewhere else, but I also want the West to be compact,” she told parliament.
Ever since Meloni founded her Brothers of Italy group in 2012, she has placed close ties with the United States at the heart of her foreign policy, while watering down initial, fierce euroskepticism.
Trump’s strong-arm tactics with old allies as he looks to enhance American power has wrong-footed pro-Atlanticists, while forcing Europe to hastily review its geopolitical options and shore up its defenses.
The turmoil has put on hold Meloni’s hopes of serving as a bridge between Europe and the White House, with Europe’s two nuclear powers France and Britain taking the lead in forging a response to Trump, while Germany grabs headlines with plans for a huge spending splurge to scale up its military.
“Right now, Meloni does not have the leverage to play a mediating role with Trump,” said Giovanni Orsina, a politics professor at Rome’s Luiss University.
“If Trumpism enters a second, more constructive phase, she might be able to play a role, leveraging political and personal affinities.”

Defense budget
Meloni last month called for an “immediate summit” between the US and its allies after Trump lambasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House, but Washington ignored her appeal.
Sources in Meloni’s office, who declined to be named, said the Italian leader was seeking a meeting with Trump later in March or early April, when the European Union is due to impose counter tariffs on 26 billion euros ($28 billion) worth of US goods in response to US tariffs on steel and aluminum.
In her address to parliament this week, Meloni questioned the wisdom of retaliatory tariffs and urged Europe to continue its military cooperation with the United States inside NATO.

Spooked by Trump’s suggestion he might not defend NATO members in future, the European Commission has laid out plans to boost the bloc’s military spending by 800 billion euros ($869 billion), while France has offered to consider extending its nuclear umbrella to European allies.

 


Single UK Special Forces officer rejected 1,585 Afghan resettlement applications

Single UK Special Forces officer rejected 1,585 Afghan resettlement applications
Updated 58 min 41 sec ago
Follow

Single UK Special Forces officer rejected 1,585 Afghan resettlement applications

Single UK Special Forces officer rejected 1,585 Afghan resettlement applications
  • UKSF member blocked numerous former Triples soldiers and their families from being resettled despite threats from Taliban
  • Some may have been eyewitnesses to alleged war crimes in Afghanistan; more than 600 cases since overturned

LONDON: A court has been told a UK Special Forces officer personally rejected 1,585 applications from Afghans for resettlement in Britain.

The applications were all from people with credible links to UKSF personnel, the Ministry of Defense told the court, amid an ongoing investigation into alleged war crimes by the Special Air Service in Afghanistan.

The BBC revealed last week that the individual in question may have rejected applications from people with eye-witness testimony relating to the allegations.

Numerous former Afghan special forces soldiers, known as Triples due to their regiment numbers, served alongside UK forces until the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in 2021. 

Thousands of them and their relatives have subsequently struggled to obtain permission to travel to the UK.

The public inquiry into the conduct of UKSF soldiers in Afghanistan, meanwhile, lacks the power to compel former Triples soldiers to testify unless they are in the UK.

In October 2022 Natalie Moore, the head of the Ministry of Defense’s Afghan resettlement team, voiced concern that UKSF involved in applications for resettlement were giving the “appearance of an unpublished mass rejection policy.”

In January last year, former Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer told senior government officials there was a “significant conflict of interest that should be obvious to all” in the processing of resettlement applications by UKSF personnel.

“Decision-making power,” Mercer claimed, over “potential witnesses to the inquiry,” was “deeply inappropriate.”

Mercer also noted that a number of former Triples soldiers had been killed by the Taliban after being left to wait in Afghanistan, including one whose application was rejected having “previously confronted UKSF leadership about EJKs (extrajudicial killings) in Afghanistan.”

The MoD initially denied UKSF personnel had a veto over the applications of former Triples soldiers, who having been armed, trained and funded by the UK, were deemed at risk of reprisals if left in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of coalition forces.

However, more than 2,000 applications deemed credible by caseworkers have been rejected by the UKSF. The MoD subsequently announced a review of the applications over fears the process was not “robust.”

An additional 2,500 rejected applications were placed under review this week by the government. So far, more than 600 of the 1,585 rejections attributed to the single UKSF officer have been overturned.

The revelations about the UKSF member who rejected the 1,585 applications were made at a judicial review hearing brought by former Triples soldiers over the conflict of interest in resettlement decision-making, which also heard the MoD had launched two investigations into UKSF practices.

One investigation, known as Operation X, said that it “did not obtain any evidence of hidden motives on the part of the UKSF liaison officer.”

It added it found “no evidence of automatic/instant/mass rejections,” but failed to provide evidence in its conclusion, instead suggesting the decisions were made as a result of “slack and unprofessional verification processes” by the UKSF officer and “lax procedures followed by the officer in not following up on all lines of enquiry before issuing rejections.”

Tom de la Mare KC, representing the Afghan Triple soldier who brought the case, accused the MoD of failing to disclose evidence of blanket application rejections, and of “providing misleading responses to requests for information,” the BBC said.

Cathryn McGahey KC, acting for the MoD, said “there might have been a better way of doing (the applications process), but that doesn’t make it unlawful.”

Daniel Carey, partner at law firm DPG, acting for the former Triples soldier, told the BBC: “My client spent years asking the MoD to rectify the blanket refusals of Triples personnel and has seen many killed and harmed by the Taliban in that time.

“He is pleased that the MoD have agreed to inform everyone of the decisions in their cases and to tell the persons affected whether their cases are under review or not, but it should not have required litigation to achieve basic fairness.”


Harvard sues Trump over block on foreign students

Harvard sues Trump over block on foreign students
Updated 23 May 2025
Follow

Harvard sues Trump over block on foreign students

Harvard sues Trump over block on foreign students
  • “It is the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights,” said the lawsuit

NEW YORK: Harvard sued the Trump administration on Friday over its move to block the prestigious university from enrolling and hosting foreign students in a broadening dispute, a court filing showed.


“It is the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students,” said the lawsuit filed in Massachusetts federal court.

 


Greek court charges 17 coast guard officers over 2023 migrant shipwreck, say sources

Greek court charges 17 coast guard officers over 2023 migrant shipwreck, say sources
Updated 23 May 2025
Follow

Greek court charges 17 coast guard officers over 2023 migrant shipwreck, say sources

Greek court charges 17 coast guard officers over 2023 migrant shipwreck, say sources
  • The 17 coast guard officers would be summoned by a judge to respond to accusations
  • A Greek coast guard official said the service had not been officially informed about the charges

ATHENS: A Greek naval court has charged 17 coast guard officers over one of the Mediterranean’s worst shipwrecks two years ago, in which hundreds of people are believed to have drowned, three sources said on Friday.

The shipwreck of an overloaded migrant boat in international waters off the southwestern Greek town of Pylos on June 14, 2023, sent shockwaves across Europe and beyond. The naval court is still investigating the circumstances around the incident.

A coast guard vessel had been monitoring the boat, named Adriana, for 15 hours before it capsized and sank. It had left Libya for Italy with about 750 people on board. Only 104 of them are known to have survived.

Greek coast guard authorities have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing over the handling of the case.

Three legal sources said the 17 coast guard officers would be summoned by a judge to respond to accusations ranging from obstructing transport to causing or helping cause a shipwreck.

Contacted by Reuters, a Greek coast guard official said the service had not been officially informed about the charges and had asked to be briefed by the naval court.

Greece’s judicial system has several preparatory stages and the compilation of charges does not necessarily mean that an individual will face trial.

Human rights activists and other protesters plan rallies across Greece on June 21 to mark the second anniversary of the Pylos shipwreck.

In February, the Greek Ombudsman recommended disciplinary action against eight coast guard officers, the first national probe into the incident to conclude.

Greece says that the coast guard operates with respect to human rights and that it has rescued more than 250,000 people since 2015, when the country was at the frontline of Europe’s migration crisis.


Russia, Ukraine each free first 390 prisoners in start of war's biggest swap

Russia, Ukraine each free first 390 prisoners in start of war's biggest swap
Updated 23 May 2025
Follow

Russia, Ukraine each free first 390 prisoners in start of war's biggest swap

Russia, Ukraine each free first 390 prisoners in start of war's biggest swap
  • Kyiv and Moscow are due to swap 1,000 people each in a deal agreed at talks in Istanbul
  • Trump said on his Truth Social platform that the swap had been “completed,” but an official said the exchange was ongoing

CHERNIHIV REGION, Ukraine: Russia and Ukraine each released 390 prisoners on Friday and said they would free more in the coming days, in what is expected to be the biggest prisoner swap of the war so far.

The agreement to exchange 1,000 prisoners each was the only concrete step toward peace to emerge last week from the first direct talks between the warring sides in more than three years, when they failed to agree a ceasefire.

Both sides said they had each released 270 soldiers and 120 civilians so far, with more due to be released on Saturday and Sunday.

The freed Russians are currently in Belarus, which neighbors Ukraine, receiving psychological and medical assistance before being moved to Russia for further care, the Russian Defense Ministry said. They include civilians captured inside Russia’s Kursk region during a Ukrainian incursion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted photographs of released captives, all with shaven heads, celebrating their release and wrapped in Ukrainian flags.

Ukrainian media outlet Espreso TV published a video of the wife of a prisoner crying tears of joy, wrapped in a flag on Kyiv’s Independence Square. She said she had been waiting for her husband’s release since 2022, and had just received the call from Ukrainian authorities confirming the good news.

“We waited, hoped and fought,” said the woman, whose name was given as Victoria.

Earlier, Ukrainian authorities told reporters to assemble at a location in the northern Chernihiv region in anticipation that some freed prisoners could be brought there.

Referring to the prisoner swap earlier on Friday, US President Donald Trump, who had pressed the sides to meet last week, wrote on Truth Social: “Congratulations to both sides on this negotiation. This could lead to something big???“

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides are believed to have been wounded or killed in Europe’s deadliest war since World War Two, although neither side publishes accurate casualty figures. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have also died as Russian forces have besieged and bombarded Ukrainian cities.

CEASEFIRE?

Ukraine says it is ready for a 30-day ceasefire immediately.

Russia, which launched the war by invading its neighbor in 2022 and now occupies about a fifth of Ukraine, says it will not pause its assaults until conditions are met first. A member of the Ukrainian delegation called those conditions “non-starters.”

Trump, who has shifted US policy from supporting Ukraine toward accepting some of Russia’s account of the war, had said he could tighten sanctions on Moscow if it blocked peace. But after speaking to Putin on Monday he decided to take no action for now.

Moscow says it is ready for talks while the fighting goes on, and wants to discuss what it calls the war’s “root causes,” including its demands Ukraine cede more territory, and be disarmed and barred from military alliances with the West. Kyiv says that is tantamount to surrender and would leave it defenseless in the face of future Russian attacks.

Russia claimed on Friday to have captured a settlement called Rakivka in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region.

The governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region, Oleh Kiper, said Russia had struck port infrastructure there with two missiles on Friday afternoon, killing one person and wounding eight.


Indonesian pilgrims embark on Hajj journey under Makkah Route expansion

Indonesian pilgrims embark on Hajj journey under Makkah Route expansion
Updated 23 May 2025
Follow

Indonesian pilgrims embark on Hajj journey under Makkah Route expansion

Indonesian pilgrims embark on Hajj journey under Makkah Route expansion
  • Saudi Arabia’s Makkah Route initiative is facilitating travel for pilgrims in Jakarta, Surabaya and Solo
  • Over 125,000 Indonesian Hajj pilgrims have already arrived in the Kingdom as of Tuesday

JAKARTA: More than 120,000 Indonesian pilgrims are benefiting from the Makkah Route initiative this year, as they embark on Hajj after the flagship Saudi program was expanded to three cities across the country.

Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation, sends the largest Hajj contingent of pilgrims every year to perform the spiritual journey that is one of the five pillars of Islam.

In 2025, Saudi Arabia granted Indonesia a quota of 221,000 pilgrims. With the Hajj expected to take place on June 4 and end on June 9, special pilgrimage flights from Indonesia started on May 2.

Over half of the pilgrims are departing under the pre-travel program, which was launched by the Kingdom in 2019 to help pilgrims meet all the visa, customs and health requirements at their airport of origin and save them long hours of waiting before and upon arrival in the Kingdom.

“In Indonesia, Makkah Route is implemented in three airports, Soekarno-Hatta in Jakarta, and then in the cities of Solo and Surabaya,” Mohammed Zain, director of domestic Hajj services at the Ministry of Religious Affairs, told Arab News.

The initiative was only expanded in 2024 to reach more Indonesian pilgrims in different parts of the country.

This year, a total of 122,156 Indonesian pilgrims, who are departing from the three selected cities, are benefiting from the program.

“This is very helpful in sorting all of the pilgrims’ document requirements, like visa and passport, so that when the pilgrims reach Saudi Arabia, they simply head to their buses and go on their spiritual journey safely and comfortably,” Zain said.

“We hope that for Hajj next year, the Makkah Route initiative will be further expanded in Indonesia, so that we can offer more high-quality Hajj service.”

In Jakarta, the program is implemented at the new Hajj and Umrah terminal in Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, which was inaugurated by President Prabowo Subianto earlier this month.

Over 125,000 pilgrims have arrived in the Kingdom as of Tuesday.

Indonesia is among seven Muslim-majority countries — including Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Morocco, Turkiye and Cote d’Ivoire — where Saudi Arabia is operating its Makkah Route initiative.