WASHINGTON: A pro-Russia congressman offered to tell the White House who provided WikiLeaks with hacked Clinton campaign e-mails in exchange for the US dropping its probe into the group’s leader Julian Assange, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher offered a “deal” in which Assange would furnish electronic evidence that would exculpate Russia as the source of the e-mails published last year by the anti-secrecy organization that did significant damage to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential run.
In exchange, the Journal said, Rohrabacher was seeking for Assange “a pardon or other act of clemency from President Donald Trump,” it said.
The US Justice Department has acknowledged investigating Assange and WikiLeaks for the release of a series of top secret US documents and computer hacking tools as well as the Clinton e-mails.
No charges have been unveiled. But Washington is widely believed to have asked London to arrest and extradite the Australian if he steps out of his refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in London, where he has lived for five years.
US intelligence officials have blamed Russia for the theft of Clinton campaign communications and documents last year as part of a deliberate effort to hurt her chances as president. They allege that WikiLeaks, in publishing the documents, knowingly acted in concert with Russian intelligence, and have branded it a “hostile intelligence service.”
WikiLeaks has denied that the source of the material was the Russian government, but stresses it will never divulge the sources of the information in gets.
The Journal said Rohrabacher confirmed that he spoke to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly this week but would not say what was discussed.
Rohrabacher visited Assange in London in August and afterwards said he was seeking a meeting with President Donald Trump to discuss his case.
Rohrabacher told conservative commentator Sean Hannity’s radio show that the assertion that Russia hacked the US election last year was a “con job” to undermine the Trump administration.
Congressman offered White House deal to let off Assange: report
Congressman offered White House deal to let off Assange: report
UK rejects asylum plea from Afghan human rights defender
- Woman worked with Western-backed rights projects before 2021 Taliban takeover
- 2,000 Afghan asylum-seekers had claims rejected in last quarter of 2024, up from 48 in same period of 2023
LONDON: An Afghan woman who risked her life defending human rights in her country has had her UK asylum claim rejected, The Guardian reported on Saturday.
Mina, whose name has been changed for anonymity reasons, supported Western-backed projects across Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover in 2021.
She traveled to Britain following the withdrawal of the Western coalition, but has now been told by the Home Office that it is safe for her to return.
“I assumed my asylum claim would be granted — I am from Afghanistan, I’m a woman, I worked with Western governments,” she said.
“The refusal was an absolute shock. Now every day I fear being sent back to my home country. Having a normal life here looks like a dream for me. I’m really suffering mentally.”
Previously, the Home Office had generally accepted asylum claims from women like Mina, yet 26 Afghan women were rejected in the last three months of 2024, statistics show.
Mina’s solicitor Jamie Bell said: “It is shocking that 26 Afghan women were refused asylum in the last quarter. However this is a particularly upsetting case where the Home Office states that a woman who risked her life defending women’s rights in Afghanistan would not be at risk on return.
“The UK should be proud to offer protection to an individual like her. This refusal letter is offensive to all those who defended Western values in Afghanistan and who ought to be offered protection when they cannot safely return.”
In total, 2,000 Afghan asylum-seekers had their claims rejected in the last three months of 2024 — a surge from 48 in the same period of 2023.
Mina said: “When I was working with Western government projects, I received security training about how to respond if I was caught up in a bombing or a kidnapping. Every day I was a few minutes or a few seconds away from bomb blasts.
“My heart beat so fast when I had to pass the checkpoints. Every morning when I said goodbye to my family to go to work I thought it might be the last time I saw them.
“Some of my colleagues just disappeared. The Taliban changed the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to the Ministry of Vice and Virtue — proper, systematic elimination of women.”
Women and girls face serious risks to their safety in Afghanistan, a Human Rights Watch report published this year found.
Mina had personally told Home Office interviewers of the dangers she faced in Afghanistan as a result of her work.
But the official who rejected her claim said: “It is considered that you do not face a real risk of persecution or harm on your return to Afghanistan on the basis of your claimed adverse attention by the Taliban.”
The letter Mina received detailing her rejection added that she “likely has a great support network” due to her occupation.
The Home Office found that “there are no compassionate factors” in her case that would “warrant a grant of leave to remain outside the immigration rules.”
Mina said: “When I arrived here, I felt safe. I thought I would have a chance to live. In Afghanistan I had not been considered a human. I learned to ride a bicycle here, something I was not allowed to do in my country.
“I was really full of hope that my life would change. But someone pressed pause on my life. I hope someone will press play again.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “It is our longstanding policy not to comment on individual cases.”
Philippines sees new human trafficking trend after 206 rescued from Myanmar scam hub
- Filipinos were among thousands of people held at a complex in Myawaddy on Thai-Myanmar border
- A few dozen more are trapped at another scam center, in an area held by rebels fighting Myanmar’s junta
MANILA: The recent rescue of 206 Filipinos from a scam hub in Myanmar has shed new light on how they have been recruited and trafficked by criminal gangs, which Philippine officials say are increasingly targeting middle-class professionals and graduates.
Several thousand people from various countries were freed in late February and March from online scam centers run by syndicates operating along Myanmar’s border with Thailand, where many of them are believed to have been forced to deceive strangers online into transferring large amounts of money.
They were released in a weeks-long, highly publicized crackdown by Thai, Myanmar and Chinese forces.
Among the freed people were the Filipinos, who arrived in their homeland last week. They were lured by well-paid job offers in Thailand.
“But when they got to Thailand, they were taken to another place where they ended up with scammers,” Department of Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Eduardo De Vega told Arab News.
“All right, what they would do is pretend to be women, beautiful women who would lure people via the Internet to send money, and then they would disappear. And if they didn’t meet their quota of clients, or if they failed to scam someone, they would be given corporal punishment.”
The rescued Filipinos were held by scammers at an office complex in the town of Myawaddy — one of the many such compounds in the region, where the UN estimates that more than 100,000 people have been trafficked to generate income from online gambling, fraudulent investment schemes and romance scams.
Those in Myawaddy were repatriated after their scam hubs were forced to close after Thailand cut off electricity, Internet and fuel supplies to the area and local armed groups transferred them to Myanmar authorities, which allowed them to cross the border river and exit to Thailand.
At least a few dozen Filipinos remain at another scam center, trapped in an area held by rebels fighting Myanmar’s ruling junta, according to the Philippine embassy in Yangon.
“They think there are about 59 or 60 left. They can’t move from their location,” De Vega said. “They need to be rescued ... Our embassies are working on it.”
Investigations show that while some people volunteer to work in the scam compounds, most are lured by promises of well-paying office jobs — a new trend which in the Philippines became visible in 2022, when the first reports and complaints started to be filed by victims or their relatives.
“The victim profile has significantly changed from what it was before. Before, you would get people from remote areas, those that were economically deprived,” Department of Justice Assistant Secretary Jose Dominic Clavano IV, spokesperson for the Interagency Council Against Trafficking, told Arab News.
“The victims that we found in Myanmar were more from the middle class, educated, not necessarily unemployed when they were here in the Philippines, but looking for greener pastures abroad.”
The jobs they were offered — usually through unofficial channels such as social media — were at call centers, in marketing, customer sales, or as chat support agents at companies in Thailand.
But after being transported through the Thai border, they were forced to work in scam centers — settlements with new office buildings suddenly popping up in rural areas.
“Actually, it wasn’t the worst conditions. It was a community, a self-sustaining community within a compound in a remote area ... There are restaurants, there are accommodations, obviously the office space, and forms of entertainment as well,” Clavano said.
“They were very organized. One section would be dedicated to just reaching out to people and trying to get them to hook onto the whole conversation. And then once they’re hooked, they’re passed to a different division ... And then, finally to another division, where they’d send the money and they’d never see that again.”
The Philippines Bureau of Immigration said earlier this week that its probe shows the repatriated Philippine nationals developed a new model to target Filipino migrants in the US, tricking them to invest in fraudulent cryptocurrency accounts.
They used different scamming methods, including investment scam, crypto scam, and dusting scam — attacks on cryptocurrency wallets that send tiny amounts of cryptocurrency, known as “dust” in order to uncover the identity its owner and allow phishing and extortion.
Work at the scam centers resembled the models that Filipinos know from POGO hubs — companies in the Philippines offering online gambling services to players outside the country.
While some POGOs are legal and licensed by the government, there are also illegal ones linked to online scam.
“People think that they are earning an honest living when in fact, they’re illegally impacting other people’s lives .... We fall prey to these big syndicates who represent themselves as dutiful employers who are offering real jobs,” Clavano said.
“And it’s become a perennial problem. It’s been a lot more prevalent over the past few years because, precisely, of the advent of technology and social media.”
Ukraine mourns 18 killed in Russian missile strike
KYIV: Ukraine on Saturday mourned 18 people, including nine children, killed in a Russian ballistic missile strike on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s home city of Kryvyi Rig, as the region’s governor said it was “the kind of pain you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.”
Sixty-one people were wounded, 12 of them children, Dnipropetrovsk governor Sergiy Lysak said after emergency operations were completed overnight.
The missile attack on Friday, one of the deadliest in recent weeks, struck a residential area near a children’s playground, said Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of Kryvyi Rig’s military administration.
“On 7, 8 and 9 April, days of mourning will be declared in Kryvyi Rig for those killed as a result of yesterday’s terrorist attacks on our city by the killer country,” he said.
“Children, families, the elderly... Ballistic missile and shakedown attacks on residential areas and playgrounds... This is nothing less than a mass murder of civilians.”
Pictures circulated by rescue services showed several bodies, one stretched out near a playground swing.
“This is the kind of pain you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy,” Lysak said.
Russia’s defense ministry said it “delivered a precision strike with a high-explosive missile on a restaurant” in the city “where commanders of formations and Western instructors were meeting.”
It said its air defense units had intercepted and destroyed 49 Ukrainian drones overnight.
The commander of the Ukrainian army retorted that Moscow was “trying to cover up its cynical crime” and “spreading false information” about the target of the strike.
He accused Russia of “war crimes.”
The Ukrainian air force said on Saturday Russia had launched 92 drones across Ukraine overnight.
Fifty one had been shot down and around 30 others had landed without causing damage.
US President Donald Trump, who said during his re-election campaign he could end the three-year conflict within days, is pushing the two sides to agree a ceasefire but his administration has failed to broker an accord acceptable to both.
Zelensky said the missile attack showed Russia had no interest in stopping its full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022.
“There is only one reason why this continues — Russia does not want a ceasefire and we see it. The whole world sees it,” he said.
“The missile struck an area near residential buildings, a playground and ordinary streets.
“People who are capable of that kind of thing aren’t human, They are bastards,” Zelensky said.
Zelensky on Friday met the heads of the British and French military in Kyiv to discuss a plan by London and Paris to send a “reassurance” force to Ukraine if and when a peace deal is reached.
This is one of the latest efforts by European leaders to agree a coordinated policy after Trump sidelined them and opened direct talks with the Kremlin.
“Together, we want to guarantee a lasting and solid peace in Ukraine, an essential condition for the security of the European continent,” Thierry Burkhard, chief of the French defense staff, said on X on Saturday.
Burkhard and his British counterpart, Tony Radakin, also met their Ukrainian counterpart Oleksandr Syrsky and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov.
Kryvyi Rig, in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, is about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the front line, and has regularly been targeted by Russian drones and missiles.
Zelensky was born in the industrial city, which had a pre-war population of around 600,000 people.
Netanyahu expected to talk tariffs with Trump in Washington on Monday, officials say
BUDAPEST/WASHINGTON: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit the White House on Monday to discuss recently announced tariffs with US President Donald Trump, three Israeli officials said on Saturday.
The impromptu visit was first reported by Axios, which said that if the visit takes place, the Israeli leader would be the first foreign leader to meet with Trump in person to try to negotiate a deal to remove tariffs.
Netanyahu’s office has not confirmed the visit, that would likely also include discussions on Iran and Israel’s war against Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.
The surprise invite by Trump came in a phone-call on Thursday with Netanyahu, who is presently on a visit to Hungary, when the Israeli leader raised the tariff issue, according to the Israeli officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
As part of a sweeping new tariff policy announced by Trump, unspecified Israeli goods exports to the United States face a 17 percent tariff. The US is Israel’s closest ally and largest single trading partner.
An Israeli finance ministry official said on Thursday that Trump’s latest tariff announcement could impact Israel’s exports of machinery and medical equipment.
Israel had already moved to cancel its remaining tariffs on US imports on Tuesday. The two countries signed a free trade agreement 40 years ago and about 98 percent of goods from the US are now tax-free.
Thousands rally for South Korea’s impeached ex-president Yoon
- The Constitutional Court unanimously ruled on Friday to remove Yoon over the December 3 attempt to subvert civilian rule
SEOUL: Thousands protested in the South Korean capital Saturday in support of disgraced ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol, who was removed from office a day earlier over his bungled martial law declaration.
South Korea’s Constitutional Court unanimously ruled on Friday to remove Yoon over the December 3 attempt to subvert civilian rule, triggering fresh elections to be held by June after months of political turmoil.
A long wait for the court’s ruling had heightened tensions in the Asian nation, fueling far-right support for Yoon and weekly rival rallies in capital Seoul.
His supporters took to the streets in the capital and braved the rain on Saturday, chanting “impeachment is invalid!” and “nullify the snap election!“
“The Constitutional Court’s decision destroyed our country’s free democracy,” said protester Yang Joo-young, 26.
“Speaking as someone in my 20s or 30s, I’m deeply worried about the future.”
Yoon had defended his martial law attempt as necessary to root out “anti-state forces” and what he claimed were threats from North Korea.
But there were many scenes of jubilation in Seoul on Friday from those opposed to Yoon’s rule, with people hugging and crying after the ruling was delivered.
Yet Yoon had found backing from extreme religious figures and right-wing YouTubers who experts say used misinformation to court support for the former star prosecutor.
“Yoon’s presidency has revealed the societal cracks based on political polarization and misinformation,” Minseon Ku, a postdoctoral fellow at William & Mary Global Research Institute, told AFP.
The court ruled that Yoon’s actions in December had posed a “grave threat” to the country’s stability.
Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung is seen as the frontrunner in the next election, experts say, and his party has taken a more conciliatory approach toward North Korea.
Some Yoon supporters were worried about the prospect of a Lee presidency.
“I honestly believe South Korea is finished,” said pro-Yoon supporter Park Jong-hwan, 59.
“It feels like we’ve already transitioned into a socialist, communist state.”
