Trump says Gaza ceasefire possible ‘within the next week’, gives no details
US president’s claim greeted with surprise as deaths spiral in Gaza and Israeli forces accused of more ‘war crimes’ for shooting starving people seeking food aid. United States President Donald Trump said he believes a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas could be reached within a week. Trump came out with the surprise comment while speaking to reporters on Friday, saying he was hopeful after speaking to some of the people involved in trying to get a truce. “I think it’s close. I just spoke to some of the people involved,” Trump said. “We think within the next week we’re going to get a ceasefire,” the president said, without revealing who he had been in contact with. Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman in Jordan, said Trump’s comment will be “welcome news” to the starved and bombed population of Gaza, but she also cautioned that there are “no negotiations at this moment happening anywhere in the region”. “What we do know is that talk of a ceasefire increased exponentially after the ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Israel does not want to talk about ending the war. In fact, the Israeli prime minister would be risking a lot if he did,” Odeh said. But, she added, there is an understanding, according to many reports, that Netanyahu would have to agree to some sort of ceasefire in exchange for normalisation deals with Arab states, which the Trump administration has promoted. Hamas, on the other hand, requires that Israel stop its war on Gaza and for the Israeli military to withdraw from areas it seized in Gaza after breaking the last ceasefire in March. “Hamas also wants US guarantees that negotiations would continue and that Israel wouldn’t break the ceasefire again if more time was needed for negotiations,” Odeh added. Advertisement Trump’s ceasefire prediction comes at a time of mounting killings by Israeli forces in Gaza and growing international condemnation of Israel’s war amid the latest revelation that soldiers said they were ordered to shoot unarmed Palestinian civilians seeking humanitarian aid in the territory. Authorities in Gaza said the report by the Haaretz media outlet that Israeli commanders ordered the deliberate shooting of starving Palestinians was further proof of Israel’s “war crimes” in the war-torn territory. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz have rejected the report of commanders targeting civilians, Gaza’s Health Ministry has reported that almost 550 Palestinians have been killed near US- and Israel-backed aid distribution points in Gaza since late May. “People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday. “The search for food must never be a death sentence,” he said. Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French acronym MSF) branded the situation in Gaza as “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid”. A spokesperson for the office of Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said they had no information to share about a possible ceasefire breakthrough in Gaza. Witkoff helped former US President Joe Biden’s aides broker a ceasefire and captive release agreement in Gaza shortly before Trump took office in January. But the truce was broken by Israel in March when it launched a wave of surprise bombing attacks across the territory. Israeli officials said that only military action would result in the return of captives held in Gaza, and imposed a blockade on food, water, medicine and fuel entering the territory that led to widespread starvation among the 2.1 million population. Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer is scheduled to visit Washington next week for talks with Trump administration officials on Gaza, Iran and a possible White House visit by Netanyahu, according to a source familiar with the matter. Adblock test (Why?)
In an age of abundance and ceasefires, Gaza starves, and the war won’t stop
Gaza City – Israel and Iran fought for 12 days, firing bombs, drones and missiles at each other, with the United States even joining in the bombing. Then, earlier this week, it stopped. Last month, India and Pakistan attacked each other, and the world feared the outbreak of an all-out war between the two nuclear powers. But then, after four days, it stopped. In Gaza, we haven’t been so lucky. The word “ceasefire” doesn’t apply to us – even after 20 months of slaughter, death, and starvation. Instead, as wars erupt and end elsewhere, Gaza is neglected, slipping down the news agenda, and disconnected from the internet for days. World leaders that can end wars decisively can’t deliver medicine to Gaza, can’t bring in food aid without daily bloodshed. That inadequacy has left us Palestinians in Gaza isolated, abandoned, and feeling worthless. We feel humiliated and degraded, as if our dignity has been erased. We prayed that the end of the war between Israel and Iran would perhaps help end the one that is being waged on us. But we were wrong. Even as Iran’s missiles rained down on Tel Aviv, Israel never stopped bombing us. Its tanks rolled on, its evacuation orders never ceased. And the daily charade of “humanitarian aid” has continued to kill starving Palestinians as they wait in line at distribution sites. As Israel’s bombs continued to fall on us, as they have done since October 2023, we watched as Israelis wept over their own bombed hospitals, damaged cities, and disrupted lives. Advertisement “What did we do? Why are we being bombed?” they asked, at the same time as Israel continued to attack Gaza’s hospitals, kill Gaza’s children, and murder those trying to get food. Hating food In Gaza, we don’t have wishes any more. I don’t dare to dream about surviving – my heart can no longer bear the sorrow of being in this world, the absence of any future. We’re exhausted from being stories people read, videos they watch. Every minute: bombing, death, and hunger. Especially hunger. During three months of siege and starvation, Israel initially steadfastly refused to allow food in and then allowed distribution only through a shady and militarised organisation, with Israeli forces shooting in. The situation has made me come to hate food. My relationship with it has forever changed, twisted into resentment and bitterness. I crave everything. I ask myself, “What will we eat? What do we have available?” I imagine myself at a table full of delicacies, throwing everything onto the ground in protest, screaming through tears not out of hunger, but for my wounded dignity. It is this hunger and the basic human instinct to survive that drives tens of thousands of starving men, women and children to the daily slaughter that is the food distribution sites. The hunger dulls every other sense. An empty stomach means an empty mind, a failing body. It makes you do things your brain tells you not to do, to risk everything for a bag of flour, or a bag of lentils. And all of this – the starvation of 2 million people – takes place in the age of global food abundance. The age of pistachio desserts, Dubai chocolates, cheesecakes with layers of cream, gourmet burgers, pizzas, sauces, and creams. For the rest of the world, food is a phone tap away. For us, it taunts us, reminding us of our calamity. The shelves in Gaza’s shops sit almost totally empty [Maram Humaid/Al Jazeera] Taunted by the tablet Every time I open my phone to see photos, recipes, and trending desserts, I feel a pang in my heart reminding me that we are not living in the same world. My nine-year-old daugher Banias watches Instagram reels with me and says, “Mom, every chef says the ingredients are easy and found in every home … but not ours.” Her words pierce me. She says them with sorrow, not complaint. Banias never complains. She accepts the pasta or lentils I offer. But the pain is there. My children watch kids’ shows on a device I bought at great cost, with a backup battery to offset the two-year power blackout. I did it so they could have some joy, some escape. But I didn’t consider what that screen would show them. Advertisement They play songs and videos all day long about apples, bananas, strawberries, watermelon, grapes, milk, eggs, pizza, chicken, ice cream. All the things I can’t give them. The device started playing a song: “Are you hungry?” My heart can’t take it. What is this cursed screen doing? I rushed out of the kitchen, where I had just finished cooking the same pasta with canned sauce – maybe for the 50th time. I looked into my children’s eyes. Iyas, turning two this month, has never tasted any of these fruits or foods. Banias watches and casually says while eating her pasta, “See, Mama? Even the dolls get to eat fruit and grapes and yummy stuff.” Every moment here reminds me that the world lives in one reality, and we live in another. Even children’s songs aren’t made for us any more. We’ve become an exception to life. An exception to joy. Maram Humaid’s children, Banias and Iyas [Maram Humaid/Al Jazeera] The fear of what comes next And yet, we are still among the “lucky” ones, because others have run out of food entirely. I felt that growing dread last week when I opened my last kilo of rice. Fear and despair overwhelmed me. Then, it was the last spoon of milk, then lentils, chickpeas, cornstarch, halva, tomato sauce, the last cans of beans, peas, bulghur. Our stocks are vanishing. There are no replacements. Every empty shelf feels like a blow to the soul. If this famine continues, what comes next? It’s like walking step by step towards death. Every day without a solution brings us closer to a deeper mass starvation. Every trip to the market that ends empty-handed feels like
UK police arrest four after pro-Palestinian protest at military base
The arrests come after the UK government said it would proscribe Palestine Action under anti-terror laws. UK police have arrested four people in connection with a pro-Palestinian protest last week, in which military planes were vandalised at an airbase in England in an action claimed by the Palestine Action group. Two activists from Palestine Action broke into the Royal Air Force base in Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, on June 20, damaging and spraying red paint over two planes used for refuelling and transport. A woman, 29, and two men aged 36 and 24, were arrested on Friday on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of “terrorism”, while another woman, 41, was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender, according to a statement by Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE). The four arrests were made in London and Berkshire, in southeastern England, it said. Palestine Action condemned the arrests, accusing the government of being “in the pocket of the weapons companies arming Israel’s war crimes”. It accused authorities of “cracking down on non-violent protests which disrupt the flow of arms to Israel during its genocide in Palestine”. The group posted footage online last Friday showing people inside the base, with one person appearing to ride an electric scooter up to an Airbus Voyager air-to-air refuelling tanker, before spraying paint into its jet engine. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the act as “disgraceful”. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper made the decision to proscribe Palestine Action following the incident, with the arrests coming just one week before the ban is set to come into force. If parliament approves the proscription, support for the group would become a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Advertisement Cooper has said its methods have become “more aggressive”, with its members showing a “willingness to use violence” and that “such incidents do not represent legitimate or peaceful protest”. “Proscribing Palestine Action is a political gesture to satisfy pro-Israel groups and arms companies who have been lobbying for us to be banned because we’re hitting their profits and having a real impact on Israel’s war machine,” said one of its spokespeople on X. The group also said the move was an attack on free speech and an “unhinged reaction”. The government also said last week that it was reviewing security across all British defence sites following the incident. Palestine Action has staged other demonstrations, including spraying the London offices of Allianz Insurance with red paint and vandalising US President Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire, southern Scotland. Adblock test (Why?)
Political violence is quintessentially American
Violence begets violence, so many religions say. Americans should know. After all, the United States – a nation founded on Indigenous genocide, African enslavement and open rebellion against an imperial power to protect its wealthiest citizens – cannot help but be violent. What’s more, violence in the US is political, and the violence the country has carried out overseas over the generations has always been connected to its imperialist ambitions and racism. From the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites on June 21 to the everyday violence in rhetoric and reality within the US, the likes of President Donald Trump continue to stoke the violent impulses of a violence‑prone nation. The US news cycle serves as continual confirmation. In June alone, there have been several high‑profile shootings and murders. On June 14, Vance Boelter, a white male vigilante, shot and killed former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, after critically wounding State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. That same day, at a No Kings mass protest in Salt Lake City, Utah, peacekeepers with the 50501 Movement accidentally shot and killed Samoan fashion designer Arthur Folasa Ah Loo while attempting to take down Arturo Gamboa, who was allegedly armed with an AR‑15. On June 1, the start of Pride Month, Sigfredo Ceja Alvarez allegedly shot and murdered gay Indigenous actor Jonathan Joss in San Antonio, Texas. On June 12, Secret Service agents forcibly detained and handcuffed US Senator Alex Padilla during Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s news conference in Los Angeles. Advertisement Mass shootings, white vigilante violence, police brutality, and domestic terrorism are all normal occurrences in the United States – and all are political. Yet US leaders still react with hollow platitudes that reveal an elitist and narcissistic detachment from the nation’s violent history. “Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America. God bless the great people of Minnesota…” said Governor Tim Walz after Boelter’s June 14 shootings. On X, Republican Representative Derrick Van Orden wrote: “Political violence has no place in America. I fully condemn this attack…” Despite these weak condemnations, the US often tolerates – and sometimes celebrates – political violence. Van Orden also tweeted, “With one horrible governor that appoints political assassins to boards. Good job, stupid,” in response to Walz’s message. Senator Mike Lee referred to the incident as “Nightmare on Waltz Street” before deleting the post. Political violence in the US is commonplace. President Trump has long fostered it – such as during a presidential debate in Philadelphia, when he falsely claimed Haitian immigrants “eat their neighbours’ pets”. This led to weeks of threats against the roughly 15,000 Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. On June 9, Trump posted on Truth Social: “IF THEY SPIT, WE WILL HIT… harder than they have ever been hit before.” That led to a federally-sanctioned wave of violence against protesters in Los Angeles attempting to end Trump’s immigration crackdowns, including Trump’s takeover and deployment of California’s National Guard in the nation’s second-largest city. But it’s not just that Trump may have a lust for political violence and is stoking such violence. The US has always been a powder keg for violence, a nation-state that cannot help itself. Political violence against elected officials in the US is too extensive to list fully. Assassins murdered Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James A Garfield, William McKinley, and John F Kennedy. In 1804, Vice‑President Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Populist candidate Huey Long was assassinated in 1935; Robert F Kennedy in 1968; Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was wounded in 2011. Many assassins and vigilantes have targeted those fighting for social justice: Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Elijah Parish Lovejoy, Marsha P. Johnson, and civil‑rights activists like Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Viola Liuzzo, and Fred Hampton. Jonathan Joss and Arthur Folasa Ah Loo are more recent examples of marginalised people struck down in a white‑supremacist society. Advertisement The most chilling truth of all is that, because of the violent nature of the US, there is no end in sight – domestically or overseas. The recent US bomb mission over Iran is merely the latest unprovoked preemptive attack the superpower has conducted on another nation. Trump’s unilateral use of military force was done, presumably, in support of Israel’s attacks on Iran, allegedly because of the threat Iran poses if it ever arms itself with nuclear weapons. But these are mere excuses that could also be violations of international law. It wouldn’t be the first time the US has sought to start a war based on questionable intelligence or reasons, however. The most recent example, of course, is the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, a part of George W Bush’s “preemptive war” doctrine, attacking Iraq because they supposedly had a stockpile of WMDs that they could use against the US in the future. There was never any evidence of any stockpile of chemical or biological weapons. As many as 2.4 million Iraqis have died from the resulting violence, statelessness, and civil war that the initial 2003 US invasion created. It has not gone unnoticed that the US mostly bombs and invades nation-states with majority people of colour and non-Christian populations. Malcolm X said it best, a week after Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F Kennedy in 1963: “Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they’ve always made me glad.” Given that Americans consume nine billion chickens a year, that is a huge amount of retribution to consider for the nation’s history of violence. Short of repealing the Second Amendment’s right-to-bear-guns clause in the US Constitution and a real commitment towards eliminating the threat of white male supremacist terrorism, this violence will continue unabated, with repercussions that will include terrorism and revenge, domestically and internationally. A country with a history of violence, elitism, and narcissism like the US – and an individual like Trump – cannot divorce themselves from their own violent DNA, a
‘We wanted to eliminate Khamenei’: Israel’s Defence Minister Katz
Katz says Israel has ‘green light’ from US to attack Iran again if Tehran makes ‘progress’ with its nuclear programme. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has said that his country wanted to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the recent 12-day war between the two sides that ended this week with a ceasefire. Katz said on Thursday that Israel would not have needed permission from the United States to kill Khamenei, appearing to refute previous media reports that Washington vetoed the assassination. “We wanted to eliminate Khamenei, but there was no operational opportunity,” said Katz in an interview with Israel’s Channel 13. Katz claimed that Khamenei knew an attempt on his life was on the cards, and went “underground to very great depths”, breaking off contact with commanders who replaced Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders assassinated in the first wave of Israeli strikes. Khamenei released video messages during the war, and there is no evidence to confirm that he was cut off from his generals. Killing Khamenei would have been a major escalation in the conflict. Besides being the de facto head of state in Iran, the supreme leader is a top spiritual authority for millions of Shia Muslims across the world. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump had both suggested at various times that the war could spark regime change, the latter posting on social media last Sunday that the conflict could “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN”. Katz’s comments came amid conflicting reports on the extent of destruction wrought on Iran’s nuclear capability, primarily as a result of the US bombing of sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Khamenei said on Thursday that the US had “exaggerated” the impact of strikes. Advertisement The Israeli defence minister said that his country has a “green light” from Trump to launch another attack on Iran if it were deemed to be making “progress” with its nuclear programme. “I do not see a situation where Iran will restore the nuclear facilities after the attack,” he said. For his part, Netanyahu said on Thursday that the outcome of the war presented a “window of opportunity” for further formal diplomatic agreements with Arab states. The conflict ended with a US-brokered ceasefire after Iran responded to the US strikes with a missile attack on Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base, which houses US troops. “We have fought with determination against Iran and achieved a great victory. This victory opens the path to dramatically enlarge the peace accords,” Netanyahu said in a video address, in an apparent reference to the Abraham Accords, which established official ties between Israel and several Arab countries in 2020. Iran also declared victory after the war, saying that it thwarted the Israeli objectives – namely ending Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes – and managed to force Netanyahu to end the assault with the missile strikes that left widespread destruction in Israel. Adblock test (Why?)
UN reports uptick in preventable diseases in Gaza due to Israeli blockade
UN humanitarian agency stresses need for fuel, medical supplies and water in Palestinian territory besieged by Israel. The United Nations humanitarian agency (OCHA) has warned that preventable diseases in Gaza are on the rise and killing civilians due to the lack of desperately needed medicine and clean water. OCHA in a statement on Thursday said that in the past two weeks, “more than 19,000 cases of acute watery diarrhoea have been recorded, alongside over 200 cases each of acute jaundice syndrome and bloody diarrhoea “. “These outbreaks are directly linked to the lack of clean water and sanitation in Gaza, underscoring the urgent need for fuel, medical supplies, and water, sanitation and hygiene items to prevent further collapse of the public health system,” the agency added. Israel’s blockade on fuel entry into Gaza has paralysed the territory’s desalination plants and water system. The Israeli military has destroyed much of Gaza, displaced nearly the entire population of the territory and placed a suffocating siege on the enclave. Besides the dire humanitarian conditions, the Israeli military continues to kill dozens of Palestinians in Gaza daily. Leading rights groups and UN experts have described the Israeli campaign as a genocide. OCHA said on Thursday that more than 20 people were killed and about 70 others were injured after a strike on Deir el-Balah, central Gaza. Medical sources told Al Jazeera Arabic that Israeli attacks killed at least 71 people across Gaza on Thursday. Since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, at least 56,259 people have been killed, and 132,458 others have been wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Advertisement After a more than two-month blockade of essential goods entering Gaza, the Israeli government announced it was allowing aid to re-enter the enclave in May. However, due to Israeli restrictions, the amount of aid entering has been minimal, with aid agencies referring to it as a “drop in the ocean”. Much of the aid allowed in has been through the United States and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has been condemned by aid agencies as a “weaponisation” of humanitarian goods. On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a video message that the army was being asked to draft a new plan to deliver aid to Gaza after unverified footage showed masked men on top of aid trucks in northern Gaza. While Israel has claimed the men were Hamas members, Palestinian clan leaders with no affiliation with the group said the masked men were protecting the truck from being looted. Multiple UN officials have refuted Israel’s claims that Hamas steals humanitarian aid. Last month, Israeli officials acknowledged arming criminal gangs linked to looting the assistance in order to rival Hamas. Adblock test (Why?)
Brazil announces compensation for dictatorship victim Vladimir Herzog
The government of Brazil has announced an agreement to acknowledge its responsibility in the murder of Vladimir Herzog, a journalist and dissident who was killed during the country’s dictatorship period. On Thursday, the government agreed to a statement of liability and a compensation package for Herzog’s family, amounting to 3 million Brazilian reais, or $544,800. The settlement also affirmed the decision of a federal court earlier this year to grant Herzog’s widow, Clarice Herzog, retroactive payments of a pension she should have received after her husband’s death, amounting to about $6,000 per month. In a statement recorded by The Associated Press news agency, Herzog’s son, Ivo Herzog, applauded the government’s decision to accept responsibility. “This apology is not merely symbolic,” Ivo said. “It is an act by the state that makes us believe the current Brazilian state doesn’t think like the Brazilian state of that time.” He added that his family’s story represented hundreds, if not thousands, of others who had their loved ones killed during the dictatorship period from 1964 to 1985. Having the government acknowledge its wrongdoing, he explained, has been a decades-long fight. “This has been a struggle not only of the Herzog family, but of all the families of the murdered and disappeared,” said Ivo, who now runs a human rights nonprofit named for his father, the Vladimir Herzog Institute. Vladimir Herzog was 38 years old at the time of his death in 1975, midway through the dictatorship period. Advertisement The Brazilian army had overthrown left-wing President Joao Goulart a decade earlier and installed a government that became known for human rights abuses, including the arbitrary arrest and torture of dissidents, students, politicians, Indigenous people and anyone else deemed to be a threat. Many went into exile. Some were killed or simply disappeared without a trace. The number of deaths is estimated to be about 500, though some experts place that figure at 10,000 or higher. Herzog was a prominent journalist, and initially, he too went into exile in the United Kingdom. But he returned to Brazil to serve as the news editor for a public television station, TV Cultura. It was in that role that, on October 24, 1975, Herzog was summoned by authorities to an army barrack. There, military officials indicated he would be asked to testify about his political connections. Herzog voluntarily left to offer his statement. But he never returned home. The military later claimed Herzog’s death was a suicide, and it released a staged photo of his body hanging from a rope. But a rabbi who later examined Herzog’s body found signs of torture. Herzog’s funeral, conducted with full religious rites, turned into a moment of reckoning for the Brazilian dictatorship, and the staged photograph became a symbol of its abuses. His son Ivo was only nine years old at the time. Earlier this year, he spoke to Al Jazeera about the release of a film called I’m Still Here that highlighted another murder committed under the dictatorship: that of Rubens Paiva, a politician. Like Herzog, Paiva voluntarily left to give testimony at the request of military officials and was never seen alive again. His body was never found. It took decades for Paiva’s family to receive a death certificate that acknowledged the military’s role in his death. Ivo praised the film I’m Still Here for raising awareness about the injustices of the dictatorship. He also told Al Jazeera that he hoped for the Brazilian government to acknowledge the harm it had done to his family and to amend the 1979 Amnesty Law that shielded many military officials from facing accountability. “What are they waiting for? For everyone connected to that period to die?” Herzog told journalist Eleonore Hughes. “Brazil has a politics of forgetfulness, and we have evolved very, very little.” On Thursday, Jorge Messias, Brazil’s federal legal counsellor, framed the agreement with the Herzog family as a step forward. “Today, we are witnessing something unprecedented: The Brazilian state formally honouring the memory of Vladimir Herzog,” he said. Advertisement He also compared the 1964 coup d’etat with the modern circumstances of Brazilian politics. On January 8, 2023, thousands of supporters of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro stormed government buildings in Brazil’s capital, after the 2022 election saw their candidate defeated. The current president, left-wing leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has compared that incident to a coup. Bolsonaro testified this month in court over charges he helped orchestrate an effort to overturn the election result. “In the 2022 election, we stood at a crossroads: Either to reaffirm democracy or move toward the closure of the Brazilian state, with all the horrors we lived through for 21 years,” Messias said, referencing the horrors of the dictatorship. Adblock test (Why?)
Did the US and Israel really obliterate Iran’s nuclear facilities?
NewsFeed A leaked intelligence report has cast doubt on Trump and Netanyahu’s claims that their attacks on Iran destroyed its nuclear programme. Analysts say some facilities weren’t even hit, while 400kg of uranium is unaccounted for. Soraya Lennie takes a look. Published On 25 Jun 202525 Jun 2025 Adblock test (Why?)
Trump administration sues Maryland court system over deportation rulings
The administration of United States President Donald Trump has filed an extraordinary lawsuit against the Maryland district court system and its federal judges, accusing them of having “used and abused” their powers to stymie deportations. The complaint was lodged late on Tuesday. In its 22 pages, the administration accuses Maryland’s federal courts of “unlawful, anti-democratic” behaviour for placing limits on Trump’s deportation policies. Fifteen district judges are named among the defendants, as is a clerk of court, one of the administrative officials in the court system. The complaint advances an argument that Trump and his allies have long made publicly: that the president has a mandate from voters to carry out his campaign of mass deportation — and that the courts are standing in the way. “Injunctions against the Executive Branch are particularly extraordinary because they interfere with that democratically accountable branch’s exercise of its constitutional powers,” the lawsuit reads. It seeks an immediate injunction against a recent ruling from Chief Judge George Russell III, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. Russell had issued a standing order that would automatically take effect each time an immigrant files a petition for habeas corpus — in other words, a petition contesting their detention. The chief judge’s order prevents the Trump administration from deporting the immigrant in question for a period of two business days after the petition is filed. That time frame, Russell added, can be extended at the discretion of the court. Advertisement The idea is to protect an immigrant’s right to due process — their right to a fair hearing in the legal system — so that they have the time to appeal their deportation if necessary. But the Trump administration said that Russell’s order, and other orders from federal judges in Maryland, do little more than subvert the president’s power to exercise his authority over immigration policy. “Every unlawful order entered by the district courts robs the Executive Branch of its most scarce resource: time to put its policies into effect,” the lawsuit argued. Trump’s immigration policies have faced hundreds of legal challenges since the president took office for his second term in January. Tuesday’s lawsuit admits as much, citing that fact as evidence of judicial bias against Trump’s immigration agenda. “In the first 100 days of President Trump’s current term, district courts have entered more nationwide injunctions than in the 100 years from 1900 to 2000, requiring the Supreme Court to intervene again and again in recent weeks,” the lawsuit said. The Supreme Court has upheld the right to due process, writing in recent cases like JGG v Trump that immigrants must be able to seek judicial review for their cases. But critics have argued that other recent decisions have undermined that commitment. Earlier this week, for instance, the Supreme Court lifted a lower court’s ruling that barred the US government from deporting immigrants to third-party countries without prior notice. Tuesday’s lawsuit against the Maryland federal court system appears poised to test whether the judicial branch can continue to serve as a check against the executive branch’s powers, at least as far as immigration is concerned. The lawsuit attacks Maryland’s immigration-related court orders on several fronts. For example, it questions whether “immediate and irreparable injury” is likely in the deportation cases. It also asserts that the federal courts are impeding immigration courts — which fall under the authority of the executive branch — from greenlighting deportations. But the complaint also emphasises the need for speed in executing the removals of immigrants from the US. “Removals can take months of sensitive diplomacy to arrange and often do not completely come together until the last minute,” the Trump administration’s lawsuit said. “A delay can undo all of those arrangements and require months of additional work before removal can be attempted again.” Maryland is a reliably Democratic-leaning state, and the Trump administration has been dealt some significant setbacks in its federal courts. Advertisement That, in turn, has led the president and his allies to denounce the courts for “judicial overreach”, a theme reprised in Tuesday’s court filing. One of the most prominent immigration cases unfolding in the US is that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant and resident of Maryland who was deported despite a protection order allowing him to remain in the country. His lawyers have maintained he fled El Salvador to escape gang violence. His deportation was challenged before District Judge Paula Xinis, one of the judges named in Tuesday’s complaint. Xinis ruled in early April that the US must “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return from the El Salvador prison where he was being held, and the Supreme Court upheld that decision — though it struck the word “effectuate” for being unclear. The Maryland judge then ordered the Trump administration to provide updates about the steps it was taking to return Abrego Garcia to the US. She has since indicated the administration could be held in contempt of court for failing to do so. Abrego Garcia was abruptly returned to the US on June 6, after more than two and a half months imprisoned in El Salvador. The Trump administration said it brought him back to face criminal charges for human trafficking in Tennessee. That case is currently ongoing, and Abrego Garcia has denied the charges against him. That legal proceeding, and Xinis’s orders, were not explicitly named in Tuesday’s lawsuit. But the complaint offered a broad critique of orders like hers. “Defendants’ lawless standing orders are nothing more than a particularly egregious example of judicial overreach interfering with Executive Branch prerogatives,” the lawsuit argued, “and thus undermining the democratic process.” Adblock test (Why?)
NATO countries’ budgets compared: Defence vs healthcare and education
NATO leaders signed a deal to increase defence spending as the annual alliance summit in The Hague drew to a close after two days of meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday. At the top of the agenda was a big new defence spending target demanded by US President Donald Trump, which will see NATO members spend 5 percent of their economic output on core defence and security. The new spending target, which is to be achieved over the next 10 years, is a jump worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year from the current goal of 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Which countries meet the current target of two percent? In 2006, NATO defence ministers agreed to commit at least 2 percent of their GDP to defence spending. However, few did. It wasn’t until Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 that member states agreed to spend 2 percent of GDP on defence by 2024 at the NATO summit in Wales in 2014. Currently, 23 of the 32 member countries have met this target, with the alliance as a whole spending 2.61 percent of its combined GDP on defence last year. Poland leads NATO countries in defence spending, committing 4.1 percent of its GDP, followed by Estonia and the United States at 3.4 percent each, Latvia at 3.2 percent, and Greece at 3.1 percent. NATO countries bordering Russia, such as Estonia and Lithuania, have significantly increased their defence spending — from less than one percent of their GDP just 10 years ago. The only NATO country whose defence spending in 2024 was less, as a percentage of its GDP, than in 2014? The United States. Advertisement How will the new target of 5 percent work? The new target of 5 percent GDP is measured in two parts: 3.5 percent of GDP on pure defence spending, such as troops and weapons 1.5 percent of GDP on broader defence and security investments, such as: upgrading infrastructure including roads, bridges, ports, airfields, military vehicles, cybersecurity and protection for energy pipelines This surge in NATO defence spending comes amid perceived threats from Russia, in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war. Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary general and the Netherlands’ former prime minister, described Russia as “the most significant and direct threat” to NATO. Alliance members will be expected to meet the target by 2035, but the target will be reviewed again in 2029. Where will the money come from? NATO members will have to decide on their own where they’ll find the extra cash to allocate to defence. Rutte stated it was “not a difficult thing” for members to agree to raise defence spending to 5 percent of GDP because of the rising threat from Russia. But ministers in the UK, for example, have not made it clear where they will get the extra money to spend on defence. The European Union, meanwhile, is allowing member states to raise defence spending by 1.5 percent of GDP each year for four years without any disciplinary steps that would come into effect once a national deficit is above 3 percent of GDP. Additionally, EU ministers approved the creation of a 150-billion euro ($174bn) arms fund using EU borrowing to give loans to countries for joint defence projects. When asked whether NATO members should commit to the 5 percent target, US President Donald Trump told reporters on Friday, “I think they should. We’ve been supporting NATO so long, in many cases, I believe, paying almost 100 percent of the cost.” How does defence spending compare to other areas? When a country is asked to spend more on defence, that money has to come from somewhere. Unless governments expand their budgets or raise new revenue, increased military spending can strain other sectors that people rely on every day — like healthcare and education. Currently, none of NATO’s 32 members spends more on defence than either healthcare or education. However, if the new 5 percent defence spending target is adopted, then 21 countries that currently invest less than five percent in education would end up allocating more to the military than to schooling. The table below compares NATO countries’ budgets, highlighting how defence spending measures up against healthcare and education expenditures. Advertisement Adblock test (Why?)