Kashmir attack: How India might strike Pakistan – what history tells us
Pakistan said on Wednesday that it had “credible intelligence” that India might launch a military strike against it within the next few days. Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi led a series of security meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, adding to speculation of an impending Indian military operation against its archrival, after the April 22 attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir in which 26 people were killed. Since the attack, barely existent relations between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours have nosedived further, with the countries scaling back diplomatic engagement, suspending their participation in bilateral treaties and effectively expelling each other’s citizens. The subcontinent is on edge. But how imminent is an Indian military response to the Pahalgam killings, and what might it look like? Here’s what history tells us: What happened? Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said in a televised statement early on Wednesday that Islamabad had “credible intelligence” that India was planning to take military action against Pakistan in the “next 24 to 36 hours”. Advertisement Tarar added that this action would be India’s response on the “pretext of baseless and concocted allegations of involvement” in Pahalgam. While India has alleged Pakistan’s involvement in the Pahalgam attack, Islamabad has denied this claim. India and Pakistan each administer parts of Kashmir, but both countries claim the territory in full. Tarar’s statement came a day after Modi gave the Indian military “complete operational freedom” to respond to the Pahalgam attack in a closed-door meeting with the country’s security leaders, multiple news agencies reported, citing anonymous senior government sources. On Wednesday, Modi chaired a Cabinet Committee on Security meeting, the second such meeting since the Pahalgam attack, state-run Doordarshan television reported. Meanwhile, as the neighbours continued to exchange gunfire along the Line of Control (LoC) dividing Indian and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, other world leaders stepped up diplomacy to calm tensions. “We are reaching out to both parties, and telling … them to not escalate the situation,” a United States state department spokesperson told reporters on Tuesday, quoting US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is expected to speak to the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan. Also on Tuesday, the spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that he had spoken to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, offering his help in “de-escalation”. What military action could India take? While it is unclear what course of action India could take, it has in the past used a range of military tactics. Here are some of them: Advertisement Covert military operations By design, they aren’t announced – and aren’t confirmed. But over the decades, India and Pakistan have each launched multiple covert raids into territory controlled by the other, targeting military posts, killing soldiers – and on occasion beheading the enemy’s troops. These strikes are often carried out as a retaliatory step by a military unit whose personnel were themselves previously attacked, as a form of retribution. But such raids are never confirmed: The idea is to send the other country a message but not force it to respond, thereby containing the risk of escalation. Public announcements lead to domestic pressure on governments to hit back. Publicised ‘surgical strikes’ Sometimes, though, the idea is not to send subtle messages – but to embarrass the other country by making an attack public. It also doesn’t hurt politically. India has in the past carried out so-called surgical strikes against specific, chosen targets across the LoC – most recently in 2016. Then, after armed fighters killed 17 Indian soldiers in Uri, Indian-administered Kashmir, special forces of the Indian Army crossed the de facto border to attack “launch pads” from where, New Delhi alleged, “terrorists” were planning to strike India again. “The operations were basically focused to ensure that these terrorists do not succeed in their design of infiltration and carrying out destruction and endangering the lives of citizens of our country,” Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, then the director-general of military operations for the Indian Army, said in a public statement, revealing the raid. Advertisement India claimed that the surgical strike had killed dozens of fighters, though independent analysts believe the toll was likely much lower. Aerial strikes In February 2019, a suicide bomber killed 40 Indian paramilitary soldiers in Pulwama in Indian-administered Kashmir, weeks before national elections in the country. This attack was claimed by the Jaish-e-Muhammad, an armed group based in Pakistan. Amid an outpouring of rage, the Indian Air Force launched an aerial raid into Pakistan-administered Kashmir. India claimed it had struck hideouts of “terrorists” and killed several dozen fighters. Pakistan insisted that Indian jets only hit a forested region, and did not kill any fighters. Islamabad claimed it scrambled jets that chased Indian planes back across the LoC. But a day later, Indian and Pakistani fighter jets again engaged in a dogfight – this one ending with Pakistan downing an Indian plane inside territory it controls. An Indian fighter pilot was captured, and returned a few days later. Attempts at taking over Pakistan-controlled land Over the past few years, there have been growing calls in India that New Delhi should take back Pakistan-administered Kashmir. That chorus has only sharpened in recent days after the Pahalgam attack, with even leaders of the opposition Congress Party goading the Modi government to take back that territory. While retaking Pakistan-administered Kashmir remains a policy objective of every Indian government, the closely matched military capabilities of both sides make such an endeavour unlikely. Advertisement Still, India has a track record of successfully taking disputed territory from Pakistan. In 1984, the Indian Army and Indian Air Force launched Operation Meghdoot, in which they rapidly captured the Siachen glacier in the Himalayas, blocking the Pakistan Army from accessing key passes. One of the world’s largest non-polar glaciers, Siachin has since been the planet’s highest battleground, with Indian and Pakistani military outposts positioned against each other. Naval missions In the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, the Indian Navy announced that it had carried out
Pro-Palestinian students confront University of Manchester leadership
NewsFeed Video from the Youth Front for Palestine shows student activists interrupting a meeting of University of Manchester leaders to demand the school sever ties with Israel’s Tel Aviv University. The school’s leadership defended its decision to maintain ties, saying that doing so is not in support of genocide or Israel. Published On 30 Apr 202530 Apr 2025 Adblock test (Why?)
Ukraine says it is poised to sign minerals deal with the US
Ukraine’s PM says agreement is ‘good, equal and beneficial’, hopes it will be signed ‘within the next 24 hours’. Ukraine is poised to sign a much-anticipated minerals deal with the United State, Prime Minister Denys Shmygal has said, as both sides finalised details. The agreement would see Washington and Kyiv jointly develop Ukraine’s mineral resources, an arrangement US President Donald Trump has called “money back” for the wartime aid it has received from the United States. “This is truly a good, equal and beneficial international agreement on joint investments in the development and recovery of Ukraine,” Shmygal said on national TV on Wednesday. “I hope that the agreement will be signed in the near future, within the next 24 hours, and we will take the first step,” he added. There was no immediate comment from Washington. Ukraine and the US had planned to sign the agreement weeks ago, but a fiery clash between Trump and Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House temporarily derailed talks. Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from the White House, said, “It seems there are still some details to work out. But the signing of that deal is expected within the next 24 hours”. Advertisement Joint fund Ukraine has been pushing for security guarantees as part of any deal to halt Russia’s three-year invasion. The Trump administration has argued that boosting US business interests in Ukraine will help deter Russia from future aggression in the event of a ceasefire. It was not clear if the deal included any security guarantees for Ukraine. The deal will not be linked to any “debts” for previous assistance Kyiv has received, and will create a “50/50” joint fund split between Kyiv and Washington, a senior source in the Ukrainian presidency said, as cited by the AFP news agency. “It ensures the equality of the parties. An investment fund will be created to invest in reconstruction. It is envisaged that there will be contributions from us and the United States,” it added. When Washington provides new military aid, it will be counted as their contribution to the joint fund, the Reuters news agency reported, citing a draft of the agreement. However, the draft does not spell out how the joint fund’s revenues will be spent, who benefits, or who controls decisions about the spending. According to the draft, the United States, or other entities it designates, will get preferential – but not exclusive – access to new permits, licences and investment opportunities in the field of Ukrainian natural resources, according to the draft. Existing deals are not covered. Previous iterations of the deal during negotiations had said that it would include Ukrainian natural gas infrastructure, which is one of Ukraine’s most valuable assets, sources with knowledge of the matter said earlier this month. Advertisement Gas infrastructure was not covered by the draft cited by Reuters on Wednesday. Adblock test (Why?)
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,161
These are the key events on day 1,161 of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Here is where things stand on Wednesday, April 30: Fighting Swarms of Russian drones attacked the Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv and Dnipro late on Tuesday, killing at least one person and wounding at least 38, including two children, officials said. The Russian Ministry of Defence also said it had captured the Ukrainian village of Doroshivka in the northeastern Kharkiv region. The governor of the Ukrainian province of Sumy said Russian troops are trying to carve out a buffer zone in the northeastern region, which borders Russia’s Kursk, but have “not had any significant success”. Earlier on Tuesday, officials said Russian drone attacks overnight killed a 12-year-old girl in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region and wounded three people in the capital, Kyiv. Ukrainian officials also ordered the evacuation of seven villages in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region which used to be remote from the front lines but are now under threat as Russian forces close in. In Russia, a Ukrainian drone slammed into a car on a highway in the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, killing two people and wounding three, according to the governor there. Earlier in the day, Russia’s Defence Ministry said it destroyed 91 Ukrainian drones overnight, with 40 of them downed over the border Kursk region. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the country lost almost half its domestic gas production during the winter due to Russian attacks, and is still making up for the shortfall through imports. Advertisement Diplomacy Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy again called on Russia to agree to a complete and unconditional ceasefire, after Moscow declared a three-day truce, from May 8-10, to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies in World War II. Zelenskyy also told a summit in Warsaw that Russia was “preparing something” in Belarus this summer, using military drills as an excuse. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the United States would step back as mediator unless Russia and Ukraine delivered “concrete proposals” on ending the three-year war. A spokesperson for Rubio also said that Washington was seeking a “complete, durable ceasefire and an end to the conflict”, not a “three-day moment so you can celebrate something else”. The US has said that this week will be “critical” for peace efforts. The comments came as Russia rejected Ukraine’s proposal to extend the three-day truce to 30 days, saying it would be “difficult to enter into a long-term ceasefire” without first clearing up a number of “questions”. At the Security Council, the UN’s political affairs chief, Rosemary DiCarlo, welcomed the intensified efforts to bring the parties to negotiations, saying they “offer a glimmer of hope for progress towards a ceasefire and an eventual peaceful settlement”. France and the United Kingdom praised US mediation, while criticising Russia. Moscow rejected allegations that Russian forces had targeted civilians in Ukraine, while Kyiv said it could not accept peace at just any cost. France also accused Russia’s military intelligence of staging cyberattacks on a dozen French entities including ministries, defence firms and think tanks since 2021 in an attempt to destabilise the country. Advertisement Politics An investigation by the European nonprofit Forbidden Stories found that Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who died in Russian captivity, was tortured and had organs removed before her body was returned. A Russian military court sentenced a man to 27 years in jail for attempting to kill army pilots with poisoned alcohol and cakes at a graduation party on Ukrainian orders. Ukraine has detained defence officials suspected of supplying the army with faulty mortar shells. Latvia has sentenced one of its citizens to six years in prison for fighting for Russian forces in Ukraine, according to the Latvian prosecutor’s office. Adblock test (Why?)
US begins prosecuting migrants for breaching ‘military zone’ near border
The United States has announced its first criminal prosecutions against migrants and asylum seekers accused of crossing into a newly created military zone along the country’s border with Mexico. Court filings submitted on Monday – and reviewed by US media the following day – show that approximately 28 people have been charged with “violations of security regulations” for breaching the military zone. That charge, though a misdemeanour, carries the possibility of heightened penalties. The US Code stipulates that violations of security regulations can result in a fine of up to $100,000 for individuals or up to a year in prison – or both. Normally, the consequences for unlawful entry into the US are less severe. But as the administration of President Donald Trump ramps up its crackdown on immigration, critics warn of the growing militarisation of the southern border region neighbouring Mexico. The new charges were made possible by the establishment of the “New Mexico National Defence Area” on April 18. Advertisement The Department of Defense ordered that an Army installation called Fort Huachuca be expanded to include 109,651 acres (44,400 hectares) of federal land, previously held by the Department of the Interior. The transfer is effective for three years and turns a strip of border land adjacent to Mexico into a US military zone, where trespassing carries serious consequences. That military zone notably overlaps with routes that migrants and asylum seekers have taken to enter the US irregularly, without official paperwork. Successive presidential administrations, however, have sought to limit asylum applicants from crossing into the US outside of official ports of entry, despite US and international law that protects the right to flee persecution. The threat of increased penalties has been one of the tools used as deterrence. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth meets with US military personnel in New Mexico on February 3 [Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters] Last week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth visited the recently established military zone, where he touted the strip as a new line of defence against what he called an “invasion” of migrants and asylum seekers. “This is Department of Defense property. The National Defense Area, formerly known as the Fort Huachuca annex zone, is federal property. Any illegal attempting to enter that zone is entering a military base – a federal, protected area,” Hegseth said. “You can be detained. You will be detained. You will be interdicted by US troops and border patrol working together.” Advertisement Since January, the Trump administration has surged the number of US troops stationed at the border, bringing the total to an estimated 11,900 soldiers. During his visit, Hegseth revealed that he also plans to expand military zones at other sites along the US border, to add an extra line of defence against irregular migration. He played up the risks of complex criminal prosecutions and lengthy prison sentences. “If you are an illegal crossing, you will be monitored. You will be detained by US troops. You will be detained temporarily and handed over to Customs and Border Patrol,” he said. “If you have cut through a fence or jumped over a fence, that’s destruction of government property. If you have attempted to evade, that’s evading law enforcement, just like you would any other military base. You add up the charges of what you can be charged with – misdemeanours and felonies – you could be looking at up to 10 years in prison when prosecuted.” He added that New Mexico’s attorney general “can’t wait to prosecute” the first group to cross through the military zone. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico have voiced opposition to the new tactic, saying that human rights are at risk when the military is deployed to address civilian offences. “The expansion of military detention powers in the ‘New Mexico National Defence Area’ – also known as the ‘border buffer zone’ – represents a dangerous erosion of the constitutional principle that the military should not be policing civilians,” said Rebecca Sheff, a senior staff lawyer for the group. Advertisement Sheff added there could be unintended consequences beyond the government’s attempts to restrict irregular migration. “We don’t want militarized zones where border residents – including U.S. citizens – face potential prosecution simply for being in the wrong place.” Adblock test (Why?)
‘Sense of fear’: Harvard reports find anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim bias
Students and staff at Harvard University have faced both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia amid a deeply polarised atmosphere on the campus of one of the top universities in the United States, separate reports have found. The release of the reports on Tuesday follows the establishment of separate task forces on combating anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim sentiment last year amid campus protests over Israel’s war on Gaza. It also comes as Harvard is embroiled in a legal fight with US President Donald Trump over his administration’s decision to freeze more than $2bn in funding for the university, a move Trump claims was taken in response to rampant anti-Semitism on campus. In a statement announcing the findings, Harvard president Alan Garber said that Jewish, Israeli and Zionist community members reported hiding “overt markers of their identities to avoid confrontation”, while Muslim, Arab and Palestinian community members described feeling “judged, misrepresented, and silenced”. “Especially disturbing is the reported willingness of some students to treat each other with disdain rather than sympathy, eager to criticise and ostracize, particularly when afforded the anonymity and distance that social media provides,” Garber said. Advertisement “Some students reported being pushed by their peers to the periphery of campus life because of who they are or what they believe, eroding our shared sense of community in the process.” The task force on combating anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli bias said in its report that bias had been “fomented, practiced, and tolerated” at Harvard and within academia more widely. In an online survey, 26 percent of Jewish students reported feeling physically unsafe, while 39 percent said they did not feel at home at the university, the task force said. Nearly 60 percent of Jewish students reported experiencing “discrimination, stereotyping, or negative bias” due to their opinions, with only 25 percent believing there was no “academic or professional penalty” for expressing their views, the task force said. Among other examples of bias cited in the report, the task force quoted an unnamed Israeli Arab student as saying that Israelis “get used to social discrimination” from their first day on campus. “People refusing to speak to you. Not even pretending to be nice. Some people pretend to be nice and end conversation in [a] polite manner when they find out [I am] Israeli and then don’t talk to [me] again,” the report quoted the student as saying. The task force on combating anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias found a similar climate of hostility, describing a “deep-seated sense of fear” among students and a state of “uncertainty, abandonment, threat, and isolation” on campus. Advertisement “Muslim women who wear hijab and pro-Palestinian students wearing keffiyehs spoke about facing verbal harassment, being called ‘terrorists,’ and even being spat upon,” the task force said. “The issue of doxxing was particularly highlighted as a significant concern that affects not only physical safety and mental well-being, but also future career prospects,” it added, referring to the practice of disclosing a person’s personal or identifying information online. Nearly half of Muslim students and staff surveyed reported feeling physically unsafe on campus, while 92 percent said they believed they would face professional or academic penalties for expressing political views. “As Muslim students we have been living in constant fear,” the taskforce quoted an unnamed student as saying. “There have been trucks driving around campus for months, displaying the faces of Muslim students… my peers who have lost their jobs simply for being in the leadership of Muslim faith organisations have been left out to dry once they had their offers revoked… If there were antisemitic trucks driving around campus and planes flying over with antisemitic slogans, I cannot help but believe Harvard would have done more to stop it.” Both task forces issued a series of recommendations for combating bias on campus, including expanding access to legal services equipped to combat doxxing and prioritising the admission of students who support open inquiry. Garber said the university would redouble its efforts to ensure it is a place where “ideas are welcomed, entertained, and contested in the spirit of seeking truth” and “mutual respect is the norm”. Advertisement “Especially when tensions are high, we must embrace the challenge of seeing one another as we truly are, unique individuals with complex beliefs and identities, leaving our preconceptions behind and meeting one another with kindness and concern,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)
Indian tourist on zipline inadvertently filmed Kashmir attack
[unable to retrieve full-text content] An Indian tourist unknowingly caught the deadly shooting in Pahalgam on camera as he filmed himself riding a zipline.
What we know about power outage in Spain, Portugal
Spain and Portugal have regained access to electricity after one of Europe’s worst blackouts paralysed transport systems, disrupted mobile communications and postponed medical procedures. For almost a day from Monday to early on Tuesday, tens of millions of people were plunged into darkness. In major cities like Barcelona, Madrid and Lisbon, people were trapped in lifts, stuck on trains and unable to access the internet. Meanwhile, queues snaked outside the few supermarkets running on backup generators as people stocked up on dried goods, water and battery-powered flashlights. The Spanish and Portuguese governments quickly convened emergency meetings after the outage, which hit Spain and Portugal about 12:30 (10:30 GMT) on Monday and also briefly affected southern France. Almost no one in the Iberian Peninsula, which has a population of almost 60 million people, escaped the blackout. Madrid was forced to declare a state of emergency. Although power has been largely restored, transport remains in dire straits, with trains and flights reporting delays. No firm cause for the shutdown has yet emerged. Advertisement With the power back on, attention is turning to what caused such a widespread failure of the region’s networks. What caused the power outage? Portugal’s electricity provider, Redes Energeticas Nacionais (REN), said a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” had caused a severe imbalance in temperatures that led to the widespread shutdowns. REN said: “Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration’.” The Portuguese prime minister, Luis Montenegro, also said the issue originated in Spain. However, in a statement on Tuesday, Spain’s national meteorological office, Aemet, appeared to rule out the weather as a culprit. “During the day of 28 April, no unusual meteorological or atmospheric phenomena were detected, and nor were there sudden variations in the temperature in our network of meteorological stations,” Aemet said. The Spanish government said the cause of the power cut is still unknown and warned against speculation. “My gut feeling is that multiple factors were behind the blackout,” Kang Li, smart energy systems chairman at the University of Leeds, told Al Jazeera. “It usually takes several months for forensic grid data to be properly analysed,” he added, “though an interim report could be done in several weeks.” Bloomberg News reported that Spain has seen a record number of hours with negative power prices in recent months as more wind and solar energy supplies the grid. Until now, however, oversupply hadn’t led to blackouts. Advertisement In 2024, renewable energy sources accounted for 56 percent of all electricity used in Spain, a record high. By 2030, that proportion is expected to reach 81 percent. According to Li, “it’s harder to manage energy output when infrastructure is changing so quickly. A higher penetration of renewables with existing systems creates more fluctuation in the operating system.” For his part, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said, “We have never had a complete collapse of the system,” explaining how Spain’s power grid lost 15 gigawatts, the equivalent of 60 percent of its national demand, in just five seconds. While there’s no evidence yet of a cyberattack, Sanchez said he isn’t ruling anything out. He warned against speculation but said “no cause can be discredited at this point”. Could a cyberattack have caused the blackout? Although investigations into the cause of the outage are ongoing, Portugal’s National Cybersecurity Centre threw cold water on the idea of foul play, saying there was no sign that the outage resulted from a cyberattack. Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro also said there was “no indication” of a cyberattack. Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Teresa Ribera, an executive vice president of the European Commission, also ruled out sabotage. Nonetheless, the outage “is one of the most serious episodes recorded in Europe in recent times”, she said. For now, the Spanish government said it is waiting for more information on the cause of the blackout. State officials said they hope in the coming days to know what the cause was. Advertisement Which countries were affected? Spain and Portugal were the worst affected, but outages occurred elsewhere too: Spain: Urban centres such as Avila, Madrid, Murcia, Galicia, Alicante, Zaragoza, Barcelona and Seville reported widespread disruptions. The Canary and Balearic islands were not affected. Portugal: Lisbon and Porto experienced comparable challenges. Southern France: Parts of the French Basque Country saw brief power outages. But officials from the French electricity transmission network said the interruptions lasted only a few minutes. Morocco: Some reports suggested internet providers in Morocco struggled briefly to keep their services running because of network connections with France and the outages there. Greenland: Remote regions of Greenland lost access to key satellite services, including internet and telephones. Authorities said they own satellite equipment in Spain although a direct cause has not yet been established. Has power been restored? By mid-afternoon on Monday, Spain’s electricity operator, Red Electrica (REE), said it had started to recover voltage in the north, south and west of the country. The recovery process was carried out gradually to avoid overloading the grid as generators linked up. Power also returned to Portugal bit by bit. By Monday night, REN said 85 of its 89 power substations were back online. By Tuesday morning, power had almost fully returned to Spain and Portugal. At 6:30am (04:30 GMT) more than 99 percent of energy demand in Spain had been restored, REE said. Elsewhere, power was restored overnight to 6.2 million of Portugal’s 6.5 million households. Advertisement At the city level, Madrid’s metro system said service was restored on all but one line by 8am (06:00 GMT), meaning that 80 percent of trains were operating during Tuesday morning’s rush hour. Has Europe suffered from blackouts of this scale before? While outages are not unheard of in Europe, the scale of Iberia’s power failure was one of the largest in recent history. In 2019, England and Wales suffered regional blackouts amid lightning strikes at a gas-fired power plant in Bedfordshire and an
Russia dismisses Ukraine’s proposal to extend brief ceasefire to 30 days
Kremlin spokesman slams Kyiv after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Moscow’s brief unilateral ceasefire is ‘manipulation’. Russia has rejected a proposal from Ukraine to extend Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unilateral three-day ceasefire as the United States grows increasingly impatient with stalled efforts to find a long-term solution to end the war. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Tuesday that Moscow had seen Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s offer to extend Putin’s brief early May pause in fighting to 30 days. But Peskov said it would be “difficult to enter into a long-term ceasefire” without first clearing up a number of “questions”. Zelenskyy had branded Putin’s unilateral truce, which will last from May 8 to 10 and coincides with Moscow’s celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of its victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, as an “attempt at manipulation”. The Ukrainian leader also questioned why Moscow would not agree to Kyiv’s call for a ceasefire lasting at least 30 days and starting immediately. Peskov threw the Ukrainian president’s words back at him, saying that the absence of a “direct response” from Ukraine to Putin’s three-day pause, which the spokesman described as a “gesture of goodwill”, was itself “a manipulation”. The to-and-fro comes amid pressure from an increasingly impatient White House to agree on a deal to end the conflict. Advertisement On Sunday, US President Donald Trump told Putin to “stop shooting” and sign an agreement, after earlier voicing concerns that Putin was “just tapping me along”. Last month, Russia stymied a US proposal for a 30-day halt in fighting by calling for far-reaching conditions, including a ban on Ukraine using the pause to regroup and rearm its forces and on Western arms supplies to Kyiv. It offered no concessions in return for those demands. Ukraine has accepted the US proposal, with Zelenskyy saying late on Monday that the ceasefire “must be immediate, full, and unconditional – for at least 30 days to ensure it is secure and guaranteed”. Deadly drone attacks Meanwhile, Russian and Ukrainian forces carried out dozens of drone attacks early on Tuesday. A Russian attack on Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region killed a 12-year-old girl and wounded three others, including a six-year-old. Russia also launched 20 drones and 31 powerful guided bombs at Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Debris from an intercepted Russian drone started a fire in a neighbourhood of the capital, Kyiv, according to officials. In total, Russia fired 100 drones at Ukraine between late Monday and early Tuesday, the Ukrainian air force said. In Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, “an enemy drone deliberately struck a moving vehicle carrying five men”, said regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, who reported that two people were killed. The Russian army said it shot down 40 drones over various regions overnight, including four over the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsula. Advertisement Reporting from Moscow, Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova said civilians living in Russian border communities have faced regular attacks. “They’ve been suffering since the beginning of this conflict; dozens of towns and villages in Russia’s border regions, in particular in Belgorod … they constantly come under attack,” she said. “Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced,” Shapovalova added. “And there are also reports that the Ukrainian army is continuing to build up near the border with the Belgorod region.” Adblock test (Why?)
How falsehoods drove Trump’s immigration crackdown in his first 100 days
In his first 100 days in office, United States President Donald Trump invoked archaic immigration laws, questioned judges’ power to rule against his decisions and attempted to end several legal immigration pathways. Trump began laying the groundwork for his immigration plans long before his January 20 inauguration. For years, Trump and his allies have said falsely or without evidence that the US is being invaded by immigrants who are driving up crime rates and that foreign countries are sending their prisoners and mentally ill people to the US. Several Trump administration officials also said courts cannot and should not rule on Trump’s immigration actions because they deal with national security and foreign policy issues. In doing so, Trump “is seeking a lack of accountability to do things that the law otherwise prohibits”, said Matthew Lindsay, a University of Baltimore law professor. The Trump administration’s use of national security or foreign policy as a shield against judicial overview is a stark difference from other administrations, Lindsay said. Advertisement We talked to lawyers, historians and criminologists to examine the false narratives and spin propelling Trump’s immigration policies in the first 100 days. Trump’s case for an ‘invasion’ leads to mass deportation efforts In 2018, during his first term, Trump described a caravan of thousands of immigrants walking towards the US southern border as an invasion. Many of them were expected to request asylum in the US. Constitutional law experts say that what legally counts as an invasion is an armed attack by militaries or paramilitaries. Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border. Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process. This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2018 During the 2024 presidential campaign, as immigration reached historic highs during Joe Biden’s presidency, Trump began tying the invasion narrative to one of his signature policy promises: Mass deportations. “I will stop the migrant invasion, and we will begin the largest deportation operation in the history of our country,” he said at an October rally. Ten days later, at another rally, he said: “We will not be occupied. We will not be conquered. That’s what they’re doing. This is an invasion into our country of a foreign military.” So Trump upon taking office issued an executive order declaring a national emergency at the southern border. In two other directives, he described immigration as an invasion. Advertisement One of the laws he eventually invoked – the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 – lets the president detain and deport people from a “hostile nation or government” without a hearing when the US is either at war with that country or the country has “perpetrated, attempted, or threatened” an invasion against the US. “This is a time of war because Biden allowed millions of people, many of them criminals, many of them at the highest level,” Trump told reporters on March 16. “That’s an invasion. They invaded our country.” The Alien Enemies Act has been used only three times in US history, each during wartime. In February, the State Department designated Tren de Aragua – a gang that formed between 2013 and 2015 in a Venezuelan prison – as a foreign “terrorist” organisation. In March, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of Venezuelans whom he said were Tren de Aragua gang members who had “infiltrated” cities across the country. They were sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. They were deported without due process; the government didn’t present evidence of their gang membership before a judge and the migrants weren’t given the opportunity to defend themselves. CECOT is the largest prison in Latin America and has been decried for human rights abuses, such as torture and lack of medical care. Trump broadly portrays immigrants as criminals, but the data says otherwise Trump has repeatedly said that countries – namely the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Venezuela – send people from prisons and mental hospitals to the US. He has not cited evidence. Advertisement “We were elected to clean up the mess of this country, and we had millions and millions of people come in who were criminals, who were murderers, who were everything you can imagine,” Trump said on April 21. “Drug lords, drug dealers, they came in from prisons and from mental institutions. And I was elected to move them out.” The immigrant crime narrative drove his successful presidential campaign. Vice President JD Vance pointed to Haitian immigration in Springfield, Ohio, cherry-picking from limited statistics to say immigrants raised the number of murders. In addition to targeting Springfield, Trump said Tren de Aragua took over Aurora, Colorado. To support its deportation efforts, the White House said Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant who the US government said it mistakenly deported to CECOT, is an MS-13 gang member. The administration has exaggerated findings from earlier judges on his case and highlighted tattoos that don’t correspond with MS-13. Criminologists who study potential links between migration and crime say despite some high-profile crimes committed by immigrants, they commit crimes at lower rates than native-born US citizens. The Marshall Project found no link between crime and migrant arrivals from April 2022 to May 2023 in New York, Chicago, Washington, DC and Denver, after Texas Governor Greg Abbott began busing immigrants into those cities. The Marshall Project’s 2024 report looked at policing data in cases involving crimes such as robbery, murders and shootings. Advertisement A 2018 national study by University of Wisconsin and Purdue University sociologists found that increases in the immigrant population in the US are associated with significant decreases in violence. The study analysed violent crime from 1990 to 2014, examining the association between changes in undocumented migration and violent crime at the state level in all 50 states and Washington, DC. A National Institute