OSLO: The father of Otto Warmbier, the US student who died after being held in North Korea, said Tuesday he favored US talks with Pyongyang, a move he hoped would bring “the world’s most barbaric dictatorship...out of its hole.”
Otto Warmbier was arrested in North Korea for a petty offense and held for more than a year before he was released in a comatose state in 2017.
Warmbier, aged 22, died shortly after he was flown home unconscious. Although North Korea claimed he had contracted botulism in detention, the US has since alleged that he was tortured in custody.
US President Donald Trump is planning to hold a historic summit with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.
“The diplomatic track with negotiations, I support them,” Otto’s father Fred Warmbier said at the Oslo Freedom Forum, an annual gathering of human rights activists in the Norwegian capital.
“Not talking to North Korea has helped foster the world’s most threatening, barbaric dictatorship. I don’t know if talking to them is going to change them but at least it will bring them out of their hole and force them to engage.”
The diplomatic efforts have however not prevented Warmbier and his wife Cynthia from pursuing legal action against North Korea.
The couple has accused the Pyongyang regime in a US court of murder and torture of their son, who was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for stealing a propaganda poster.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to force them to be answerable to what they did to my son,” Fred Warmbier said.
Dad of late N.Korea prisoner backs US talks with Pyongyang
Dad of late N.Korea prisoner backs US talks with Pyongyang
- Otto Warmbier was arrested in North Korea for a petty offense
- He was held for more than a year before he was released in a comatose state in 2017.
Lawyers for detained Columbia student ask for his release on bail
His wife, an American citizen, is due to give birth next month
NEW YORK: A Columbia University student detained over his pro-Palestinian activism is not a flight risk and should be allowed to return home for the birth of his first child, his lawyers argued in a motion for bail on Saturday.
Mahmoud Khalil — a 30-year-old permanent US resident of Palestinian descent — was arrested a week ago at his university residence.
He has not been charged with a crime and is being held in immigration custody in Louisiana. His wife, an American citizen, is due to give birth next month.
The case has become a flashpoint for President Donald Trump’s vow to deport some activists who took part in protests on US college campuses against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza following the October 2023 attack by the Palestinian militants. Khalil was a prominent member of the protest movement at Columbia University.
His arrest sparked protests this week. Justice Department lawyers have argued the US government is seeking Khalil’s removal because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reasonable grounds to believe his activities or presence in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”
The US will likely revoke visas of more students in the coming days, Rubio said on Friday.
Under a provision of the US Immigration and Nationality Act, a law passed in 1952, any immigrant may be deported if the secretary of state deems their presence in the country potentially adverse to American foreign policy. Legal experts have said that provision is rarely invoked, and Khalil’s lawyers have said it was not intended to silence dissent.
“His detention unquestionably chills his speech, as the federal government monitors and controls his ability to communicate with the outside world and has complete power over all of the decisions that impact his daily life inside a remote private prison,” his lawyers argued in the motion for bail.
They said if released, Khalil would return home to help his wife prepare for the birth of their child and start a job at a human rights organization in New York. He has the support of many current and former classmates, professors, colleagues and friends who are calling for his release, they said.
“There are no allegations that Mr. Khalil is a flight risk or a danger to the community,” his lawyers argued. “Mr. Khalil has never been arrested or convicted of a crime.”
The US Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Justice Department said on Friday: “Being in the United States as a non-citizen is a privilege, not a right ... Mahmoud won’t be missed.” Since Khalil’s arrest, federal agents have searched two student residences at Columbia University and the Justice Department said on Friday it was looking into what it said were possible violations of terrorism laws during the protests.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem also said on Friday that a Columbia student from India, whose visa was revoked on March 5, had left the country herself on March 11.
Noem said a second woman — a Palestinian from the West Bank who took part in the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University — was arrested for overstaying her expired student visa, which was terminated in 2022 for lack of attendance.
Trump signs a bill funding the government for 6 months, avoiding a shutdown
- The bill largely keeps government funding at levels set during Joe Biden’s presidency, though with changes
- Senate Democrats argued for days over whether to force a shutdown, livid that Republicans in the House had drafted and passed the spending measure without their input
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has signed into law legislation funding the government through the end of September, ending the threat of a partial government shutdown and capping off a struggle in Congress that deeply divided Democrats.
Harrison Fields, White House principal deputy press secretary, said in a post on X that Trump signed the continuing resolution Saturday.
The bill largely keeps government funding at levels set during Joe Biden’s presidency, though with changes. It trims non-defense spending by about $13 billion from the previous year and increases defense spending by about $6 billion, which are marginal changes when talking about a topline spending level of nearly $1.7 trillion.
The Senate cleared the legislation on Friday in a 54-46 party line vote, with 10 members of the Senate Democratic caucus helping the bill advance to passage despite opposition from within their party — most vocally from colleagues in the House, who exhorted them to reject the bill out of hand.
Senate Democrats argued for days over whether to force a shutdown, livid that Republicans in the House had drafted and passed the spending measure without their input. Democrats said the legislation shortchanges health care, housing and other priorities and gives Trump wide leeway to redirect federal spending even as his administration and the Department of Government Efficiency rapidly dismantle congressionally approved agencies and programs.
In the end, enough of the Democratic senators decided a government shutdown would be even worse than letting the funding bill pass.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a shutdown would have given the Trump administration the ability to deem whole agencies, programs and personnel non-essential, furloughing staff with no promise they would ever be rehired.
“A shutdown will allow DOGE to shift into overdrive,” Schumer said. “Donald Trump and Elon Musk would be free to destroy vital government services at a much faster rate.”
Passage of the funding bill through the House earlier in the week was a victory for Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, who managed to hold Republicans together and muscle the bill to passage without support from Democrats — something they’ve rarely been able to achieve in the past.
Chinese military jet crashes, pilot safely ejects
- The fighter jet, from the Chinese military’s Southern Theater Command, crashed in an open area in the southern island province of Hainan
- The southern command oversees some of the country’s most sensitive areas including the South China Sea
BEIJING: A Chinese naval fighter jet crashed on Saturday during a training exercise but its pilot successfully ejected from the plane, the military said.
The fighter jet, from the Chinese military’s Southern Theater Command, crashed in an open area in the southern island province of Hainan, the navy said in a statement on social media.
The southern command oversees some of the country’s most sensitive areas including the South China Sea, where there has been a spate of violent clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels in recent years around disputed reefs and islands in the area.
“The pilot successfully ejected, and no collateral damage was caused on the ground,” the statement said.
An investigation into the cause of the crash has been launched and the navy is organizing efforts to handle the aftermath, it added.
China has for years sought to expand its presence in contested areas of the sea, brushing aside an international ruling that its claim to most of the waterway has no legal basis.
In recent months, Beijing has more firmly asserted its territorial claims in the South China Sea, where countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines are defending their own claims.
Last month, the Philippine Coast Guard condemned “dangerous” maneuvers by a Chinese Navy helicopter it said had flown within meters of a surveillance flight carrying a group of journalists over the contested Scarborough Shoal.
Scholz calls on Russia to work toward ‘just peace’ in Ukraine
- “It is now up to Russia to put an end to its daily attacks,” Scholz said
BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday called on Russia to finally work toward a just peace in Ukraine after three years of war.
“It is now up to Russia to put an end to its daily attacks against Ukrainian cities and civil infrastructure and to finally take the way of a lasting and just peace,” Scholz said in a statement after participating in a virtual summit hosted by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Pope Francis, showing plans to stay on, starts new Catholic reform process
- Francis approved the new process for reforms on Tuesday from Rome’s Gemelli hospital
- His friends and biographers have insisted, however, that he has no plans to step down
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis approved a new three-year process to consider reforms for the global Catholic Church, the Vatican said on Saturday, in a sign the 88-year-old pontiff plans to continue on as pope despite his ongoing battle with double pneumonia.
Francis has extended the work of the Synod of Bishops, a signature initiative of his 12-year papacy, which has discussed reforms such as the possibility of women serving as Catholic deacons and better inclusion of LGBTQ people in the Church.
The synod, which held an inconclusive Vatican summit of bishops on the future of the Church last October, will now hold consultations with Catholics across the world for the next three years, before hosting a new summit in 2028.
Francis approved the new process for reforms on Tuesday from Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where he is being treated, the Vatican said on Saturday.
The pope has been in hospital for more than a month and his prolonged public absence has stoked speculation that he could choose to follow his predecessor Benedict XVI and resign from the papacy.
His friends and biographers have insisted, however, that he has no plans to step down. The approval of a new three-year process indicated he wants to continue on, despite his age and the possibility he might face a long, fraught road to recovery from pneumonia, given his age and other medical conditions.
“The Holy Father ... is helping push the renewal of the Church toward a new missionary impulse,” Cardinal Mario Grech, the official leading the reform process, told the Vatican’s media outlet. “This is truly a sign of hope.”
BRINGING CHURCH ‘UP TO DATE’
Francis, who has been pope since 2013, is widely seen as trying to open up the staid global Church to the modern world.
However, the pope’s reform agenda has upset some Catholics, including a few senior cardinals. They have accused him of watering down the Church’s teachings on issues such as same-sex marriage, and divorce and remarriage.
Massimo Faggioli, a US academic who has followed the papacy closely, said the new reform process is a way for the pope to signal that he is still the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
“Francis’ pontificate is not over, and this decision he just made for what happens between now and 2028 will have an effect on the rest of (it),” said Faggioli, a professor at Villanova University.
After last October’s inconclusive Vatican summit, which yielded no concrete action on possible reforms, Francis had faced questions of whether his papacy was running out of steam.
Vatican officials had said at the time that Francis was still considering future changes, and was waiting to receive a series of 10 expected reports about possible reforms this June.
The latest medical bulletins from the Vatican on the pope’s condition in hospital have said he is improving and is no longer in immediate danger of death.
They have not said when he will be discharged from hospital.
Well-wishers have been gathering to offer support for Francis outside the hospital each day during the pope’s recovery.
Stefania Gianni, an Italian being treated for cancer at the facility, said on Saturday that Francis “has taken great steps to bring the Church up to date with the times.”
“He is a great man and a great pope, and the Church still needs him,” she said.
