KUALA LUMPUR: North Korea guaranteed the safety of Malaysians banned from leaving the country, Malaysia’s prime minister said on Thursday, as two Malaysian UN employees left the isolated state in a possible sign that diplomatic tensions had begun to settle.
North Korea had barred Malaysians from leaving the country on Tuesday, sparking tit-for-tat action by Malaysia as relations soured over its investigation into the murder last month of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
After earlier this week accusing North Korea of assassinating Kim Jong Nam with a banned chemical weapon and of treating Malaysians like hostages, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has taken a softer line to get his citizens out of the secretive, nuclear-armed state.
“Diplomatic relations between Malaysia and North Korea will not be severed, as we need to continue communicating with them to find a solution,” Najib said in a statement on his blog.
But, he added that his government “will not relent from a firm approach” in dealings with North Korea.
The departure of two Malaysians working for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) meant nine still remained at the embassy in Pyongyang. They included three diplomats and six family members.
“The government of North Korea has given a guarantee of safety,” Najib said in a message on social network Twitter. “They are free to do their daily activities, but they cannot leave the country.”
Najib confirmed on Twitter that the two WFP staffers, Stella Lim and Nyanaprakash Muniandy, had left North Korea and reached Beijing.
It was unclear why the pair, who according to a Malaysian government official held UN passports, had been allowed to go.
Malaysian sources familiar with the matter said negotiations were underway between the two countries to resolve their issues, including the removal of the ban on Malaysians leaving North Korea, but were not expected to end soon.
The UN has called for calm between Malaysia and North Korea and urged them to settle their differences through “established diplomatic practice.”
Najib said any negotiations with Pyongyang would be conducted behind closed doors.
“I can only disclose that the government is in the process of establishing the reasons and motives behind the actions of North Korea,” he said.
South Korean intelligence officers say Kim Jong Un had issued standing orders for the elimination of his elder half-brother who was known to have criticized his family’s regime.
Malaysian police have identified eight North Koreans in connection with the case. They say are three still in Kuala Lumpur, hiding at the North Korean embassy.
Malaysia is one of the few countries that has for decades maintained ties with the isolated state. But as relations plunged in the wake of the murder, Malaysia recalled its envoy from Pyongyang and expelled the North Korean ambassador.
A source with direct knowledge of the situation said that no other country was involved in the talks now underway, not even its China, which has friendly relations with both.
“Malaysia has not asked China to get involved,” the source told Reuters. “Malaysia wants to resolve this bilaterally relying on its existing good relations with North Korea.”
Najib said he had spoken by telephone to Mohd Nor Azrin Md Zain, the counsellor at the Malaysian embassy in Pyongyang.
“Thank God he, his family and the other Malaysians are safe,” Najib said on Twitter.
Reuters spoke to Nor Azrin earlier in the week.
“We are still here. We have been given the assurance that nothing has changed,” he said.
Two Malaysians leave N. Korea; talks on to lift travel ban
Two Malaysians leave N. Korea; talks on to lift travel ban
Algeria blasts European Parliament for condemning a French-Algerian author’s arrest
- The 76-year-old is among several imprisoned writers mentioned in the European Parliament’s resolution last week, which also references journalist Abdelwakil Blamm and poet Mohamed Tadjadit
ALGIERS, Algeria: Algerian lawmakers condemned the European Parliament for a resolution criticizing the arrest of French-Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal.
Lawmakers from both chambers of the North African nation’s parliament on Monday signed a statement rebuking the European Parliament’s resolution for “misleading allegations with the sole aim of launching a blatant attack against Algeria.”
Since his Nov. 16 arrest, Sansal’s cause has been taken up by European writers, artists and politicians, particularly those on the French right sympathetic to his criticism of Islam.
Sansal has been charged with violating an anti-terrorism statute that rights groups say Algeria uses to target activists and dissidents and quiet criticism of the government. The 76-year-old is among several imprisoned writers mentioned in the European Parliament’s resolution last week, which also references journalist Abdelwakil Blamm and poet Mohamed Tadjadit.
Algerian lawmakers accused the European Parliament of political inference and cast doubt on whether their motivations had to do with Sansal’s well-being or “harming the image of Algeria.”
The back-and-forth mirrors similar spats between Europe and nations that were once colonized by some members of the 27-nation bloc and see such criticism as paternalistic. In 2023, Moroccan lawmakers blasted the European Parliament for passing a resolution that implored Morocco to respect press freedoms and grant fair trials to three imprisoned journalists.
The clash over the resolution is the latest rupture between Algeria and France. The countries have for nearly a year sparred over immigration and repatriation issues, the disputed Western Sahara and the legacy of French nuclear testing in Algeria’s Sahara Desert, which lawmakers passed a resolution addressing last week.
Sarkozy’s son signs up for French far-right magazine
- Louis Sarkozy, born to Sarkozy’s second wife Cecilia Attias, spent most of his childhood in the United States but has appeared on French television recently as a commentator on American politics
- Valeurs Actuelles, which is hoping to shed its association with the far-right, backed virulently anti-Islam politician Eric Zemmour in France’s 2022 presidential election and regularly focuses on immigration and crime
PARIS: The third son of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been unveiled as a surprise columnist for far-right news magazine Valeurs Actuelles, reinforcing speculation about his possible political ambitions.
The first contribution from Louis Sarkozy, 27, is set to appear in a relaunched edition of the magazine on Wednesday and will be devoted to “the values of the right.”
“He’s ebullient, cultured, creative: it’s the perfect combination for a column at the end of the magazine,” director Tugdual Denis told AFP.
Valeurs Actuelles, which is hoping to shed its association with the far-right, backed virulently anti-Islam politician Eric Zemmour in France’s 2022 presidential election and regularly focuses on immigration and crime.
Louis Sarkozy, born to Sarkozy’s second wife Cecilia Attias, spent most of his childhood in the United States but has appeared on French television recently as a commentator on American politics.
He raised eyebrows with a speech last month at a meeting in Paris of the youth wing of his father’s Republicans party — and was invited to Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president in Washington last week.
Nicolas Sarkozy, who is now married to former supermodel Carla Bruni, remains mired in legal problems since his single 2007-2012 term in office.
Already convicted in two cases, he is currently on trial over allegations he and his entourage conspired with late Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi to receive millions of euros in illegal campaign financing.
Sarkozy’s eldest son Pierre has become a DJ and hip hop producer, while his second son Jean briefly entered politics before becoming embroiled in a favoritism scandal.
Asked about Louis’s growing presence in the media, Sarkozy told the CNews channel last month that he was “proud of him and his courage.”
Ukraine drone attacks target Russian power, oil facilities, officials and media say
Debris from a destroyed drone sparked a fire at an industrial facility in Kstovo, in Nizhny Novgorod, governor of the region that lies east of Moscow said on the Telegram messaging app.
“According to preliminary data, there are no casualties,” Gleb Nikitin, the governor, said.
He did not disclose further detail. Baza, a Russian Telegram news channel, which is close to Russia’s security services, reported that an oil refinery in Kstovo was on fire.
In the western Russia region of Smolensk, which borders Belarus, air defense systems destroyed a drone attempting to attack a nuclear power facility, Governor Vasily Anokhin said. He added that parts of the region were under a “massive” drone attack.
“According to preliminary information, one of the drones was shot down during an attempt to attack a nuclear power facility,” Anokhin said on the Telegram messaging app. “There were no casualties or damage.”
Another 26 drones were downed over the Bryansk region that borders Ukraine, and 20 drones over the Tver region that borders the Moscow region to its south, regional governors said. There were no damage or casualties, they said.
Russian aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said on Telegram that in order to ensure safety it was halting all flights at the Kazan airport. Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, lies some 830 km (516 miles) east of Moscow.
The full scale of attacks was not immediately known. Reuters could not independently verify the reports and there was no comment from Ukraine.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in their attacks in
the war
that Russia started with a full-scale invasion in February 2022. Kyiv says that its attacks inside Russia aim to destroy infrastructure key to Moscow’s war efforts.
OpenAI tailors version of ChatGPT for US government
- The new ChatGPT Gov version of OpenAI’s popular chatbot provides a tailored AI tool to assist the work of US government agencies and their employees
SAN FRANCISCO: OpenAI on Tuesday launched a bespoke version of its ChatGPT artificial intelligence tool for use by the United States government.
Big money government contracts are often tech firm targets, and OpenAI already boasts some 90,000 users of ChatGPT across federal, state and local governments in the United States.
The new ChatGPT Gov version of OpenAI’s popular chatbot provides a tailored AI tool to assist the work of US government agencies and their employees.
“By making our products available to the US government, we aim to ensure AI serves the national interest and the public good, aligned with democratic values, while empowering policymakers to responsibly integrate these capabilities to deliver better services to the American people,” OpenAI said in an online post.
The cost of ChatGPT Gov, if any, was not disclosed.
ChatGPT Gov builds on an enterprise version of the chatbot designed for use by businesses and can run on Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, according to OpenAI.
“Self-hosting ChatGPT Gov enables agencies to more easily manage their own security, privacy, and compliance requirements,” OpenAI said.
The company believes the new offering will speed up authorization for OpenAI tools to be used to handle sensitive non-public data in government agencies, according to the post.
In his first full day in the White House, US President Donald Trump announced a major investment to build infrastructure for artificial intelligence led by Japanese giant SoftBank and OpenAI.
Trump said the venture, called Stargate, “will invest $500 billion, at least, in AI infrastructure in the United States.”
Trump’s funding freeze triggers worry, Democrats say it hits Medicaid program
- Order sows confusion among US agencies
- Foreign aid also frozen, lifesaving medicines withheld
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s order to pause all federal grants and loans sowed widespread confusion on Tuesday over its impact on far-reaching programs such as Medicaid, sending nonprofits and government agencies scrambling to understand its scope and prompting immediate legal challenges. The sweeping directive was the latest step in Trump’s dramatic effort to overhaul the federal government, which has already seen the new president halt foreign aid, impose a hiring freeze and shutter diversity programs across dozens of agencies. Democrats castigated the funding freeze as an illegal assault on Congress’ authority over federal spending, while Republicans largely defended the order as a fulfillment of Trump’s campaign promise to rein in a bloated budget.
Despite assurances from the Trump administration that programs delivering critical benefits to Americans would not be affected, US Senator Ron Wyden, the top finance committee Democrat, said his office had confirmed that the portal doctors use to secure payments from Medicaid had been deactivated in all 50 states.
Medicaid, which covers about 70 million people, is jointly funded by both the states and the federal government, and each state runs its own program.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt could not say whether the program had been frozen, telling reporters at her first briefing since Trump took office on Jan. 20, “I’ll get back to you.”
Leavitt later posted on X that the federal government was aware of the Medicaid portal outage and that no payments had been affected. The website will be back online “shortly,” she said. The order, laid out in a memo from the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees the federal budget, will freeze federal grants and loans as of 5 p.m. Tuesday (2200 GMT) while the administration ensures they are aligned with the Republican president’s priorities, including executive orders he signed ending diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Federal grants and loans reach into virtually every corner of Americans’ lives, with trillions of dollars flowing into education, health care and anti-poverty programs, housing assistance, disaster relief, infrastructure and a host of other initiatives.
The memo said Tuesday’s freeze included any money intended “for foreign aid” and for “nongovernmental organizations,” among other categories.
The White House said the pause would not impact Social Security or Medicare payments to the elderly or “assistance provided directly to individuals,” such as some food aid and welfare programs for the poor.
In a second memo released on Tuesday, OMB officials said funds for Medicaid, Head Start, farmers, small businesses and rental assistance would continue without interruption. The freeze followed the Republican president’s suspension of foreign aid last week, a move that began cutting off the supply of lifesaving medicines on Tuesday to countries around the world that depend on US development assistance.
Disputed effects
Four groups representing nonprofits, public health professionals and small businesses filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the directive, saying it “will have a devastating impact on hundreds of thousands of grant recipients.” Democratic state attorneys general also said they would ask a court on Tuesday to block the freeze from taking effect.
“From pausing research on cures for childhood cancer to halting food assistance, safety from domestic violence, and closing suicide hotlines, the impact of even a short pause in funding could be devastating and cost lives,” Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, one of the four groups that sued on Tuesday, said in a statement.
In Connecticut, the reimbursement system for Head Start — a government program that provides early education and other benefits to low-income families — was shut down, preventing preschools from paying staff, Democratic US Senator Chris Murphy said on X. The OMB memo did not appear to exempt disaster aid to areas like Los Angeles and western North Carolina that have been devastated by natural disasters. Trump pledged government support when he visited both places last week.
At the Tuesday briefing, Leavitt would not specifically say whether Head Start or disaster aid would be frozen.
Agencies were trying to understand how to implement the new order.
The Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs, its largest grant-making arm, will pause $4 billion in funding for community-based programs, nonprofits, states and municipalities, according to a person familiar with the matter and a memo seen by Reuters. Among the affected programs include the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which receives more than $30 million a year from the Justice Department.
The OMB memo asserted the federal government spent nearly $10 trillion in fiscal year 2024, with more than $3 trillion devoted to financial assistance such as grants and loans. But those figures appeared to include money authorized by Congress but not actually spent — the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated government spending in 2024 at a much lower $6.75 trillion.
Trump’s Republican allies have been pushing for dramatic spending cuts, though he has promised to spare Social Security and Medicare, which make up roughly one-third of the budget. Another 11 percent of the budget goes toward government interest payments, which cannot be touched without triggering a default that would rock the world economy.
Democrats challenge ‘lawless’ move
Democrats immediately criticized the spending freeze as unlawful and dangerous.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the administration did not have the authority to prevent spending approved by Congress.
“This decision is lawless, destructive, cruel,” Schumer said in a speech to the Senate. “It’s American families that are going to suffer most.”
The US Constitution gives Congress control over spending matters, but Trump said during his campaign that he believes the president has the power to withhold money for programs he dislikes. His nominee for White House budget director, Russell Vought, who has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, headed a think tank that has argued Congress cannot require a president to spend money.
US Representative Tom Emmer, the No. 3 Republican in the House of Representatives, said Trump was simply following through on his campaign promises.
“You need to understand he was elected to shake up the status quo. That is what he’s going to do. It’s not going to be business as usual,” Emmer told reporters at a Republican policy retreat in Miami.
At least one Republican centrist, US Representative Don Bacon, said he hoped the order would be short-lived after hearing from worried constituents, including a woman who runs an after-school program that depends on federal grant money.
“We’ve already appropriated this money,” he said. “We don’t live in an autocracy. It’s divided government. We’ve got separation of powers.”
