WASHINGTON: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday called upon lawmakers to back a resolution to halt the national emergency declared by US President Donald Trump to fund a wall on the southern border with Mexico.
Trump announced the emergency in order to bypass Congress, which approved only a quarter of the $5.6 billion he wanted for the wall in a spending bill.
Sixteen states earlier this week sued over the declaration, but the Trump administration has continued with plans to pull together around a further $6.6 billion in federal funding, mostly from the Department of Defense.
Texas congressman Joaquin Castro had last week vowed to introduce a resolution to terminate the president’s move.
Lawmakers have until 3:00 p.m. (2000 GMT) on Thursday to co-sponsor it, before it is formally introduced on Friday.
“I write to invite all Members of Congress to cosponsor Congressman Joaquin Castro’s privileged resolution,” Pelosi said in a letter to Democrats and Republicans late Wednesday.”
“The President’s decision to go outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process violates the Constitution and must be terminated,” she said.
“We have a solemn responsibility to uphold the Constitution, and defend our system of checks and balances against the President’s assault.
Democrats were quick to express their support.
“I’m a YES to overturn the declaration,” Democratic Senator Brian Schatz tweeted.
Meanwhile, House Democrat Linda Sanchez, of California, said she was “proud” to support Castro’s resolution.
Pelosi urges support for resolution to block border wall emergency
Pelosi urges support for resolution to block border wall emergency
- Trump announced the emergency in order to bypass Congress
- Sixteen states earlier this week sued over the declaration, but the Trump administration has continued with its plans
Indonesian NGOs demand Israel be held accountable over atrocities in Gaza
- No health facility operational in northern Gaza as of Friday
- Palestinians receiving inadequate aid after prolonged blockade
JAKARTA: Indonesian civil society organizations are urging the international community to hold Israel accountable for its attacks on Gaza, as Tel Aviv’s latest military onslaught on the besieged enclave pushed the territory’s healthcare system to the brink of collapse.
All hospitals in northern Gaza were out of service as of Friday, according to Jakarta-based NGO Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, which funds the Indonesia Hospital located in the Gazan city of Beit Lahiya.
Al-Awda Hospital — the only remaining facility providing health services in north Gaza — evacuated its patients on Thursday following orders from the Israeli military, which launched a wave of new attacks earlier this month across the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of people and forcing most public facilities in the area to close.
“Even after various condemnations and warnings, Israel the colonizer continues to commit crimes across the Gaza Strip,” said Dr. Hadiki Habib, chairman of MER-C’s executive committee.
“MER-C’s stance is in line with the Indonesian constitution, in which we do not recognize colonization in any shape or form … Israel’s colonization and crimes against humanity (in Gaza) must be held accountable at the international level.”
Indonesia is a staunch supporter of Palestine, and sees Palestinian statehood as being mandated by its own constitution, which calls for the abolition of colonialism.
The Indonesia Hospital was one of the first targets hit when Israel began its assault on Gaza, in which it regularly targets medical facilities.
Attacks on health centers, medical personnel and patients constitute war crimes under the 1949 Geneva Convention.
Israel’s latest offensive comes after a two-month blockade on the enclave after Tel Aviv unilaterally broke a ceasefire with the Palestinian group Hamas in March.
It is a continuation of Israel’s onslaught of Gaza that began in October 2023 and has killed more than 54,300 Palestinians and wounded more than 124,000. The deadly attacks have also put 2 million more at risk of starvation after Israeli forces destroyed most of the region’s infrastructure and buildings and blocked humanitarian aid.
Aid only recently began to enter the besieged territory, although only in limited quantities.
“The suffering of the people is massive due to starvation, and there is limited aid because of the blockade,” Habib said. “A humanitarian crisis must not be used as a transactional tool. Stop this war and open the food blockade in Gaza. We will continue to voice this demand.”
Various scholars and human rights organizations have said that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, including Amnesty International and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention.
“Zionist Israel’s crimes in Gaza must be held accountable. They must be put on trial and punished for genocide. There is no longer doubt that their crimes constitute genocide,” Muhammad Anshorullah, who heads the executive committee of the Jakarta-based Aqsa Working Group, told Arab News on Saturday. “Netanyahu’s regime must be arrested, tried and punished, just like how the Allied powers arrested, tried and punished Nazi elites through the Nuremberg Trials. There is nothing more urgent globally aside from stopping the genocide in Gaza.”
A small plane crashes into the terrace of a house in Germany. 2 people are dead
- The plane hit the terrace of the building and a fire broke out
BERLIN: A small plane crashed into the terrace of a residential building in western Germany on Saturday and two people were killed, police said.
The crash happened in Korschenbroich, near the city of Mönchengladbach and not far from the Dutch border.
The plane hit the terrace of the building and a fire broke out. Police said two people died and one of them was probably the plane’s pilot, German news agency dpa reported.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the other person had been on the plane or on the ground.
Officials had no immediate information on the cause of the crash.
Georgia’s foreign-agents act ‘a serious setback’: EU officials
- Georgia’s law is inspired by US legislation which makes it mandatory for any person or organization representing a foreign country, group or party to declare its activities to authorities
BRUSSELS: A new law in Georgia that from Saturday requires NGOs and media outlets to register as “foreign agents” if they receive funding from abroad is a “serious setback,” for the country, two top EU officials said.
Alongside other laws on broadcasting and grants, “these repressive measures threaten the very survival of Georgia’s democratic foundations and the future of its citizens in a free and open society,” EU diplomatic chief Kaja Kallas and EU enlargement commissioner Marta Kos said in a joint statement.
They stressed that the law, which they dubbed a tool “by the Georgian authorities to suppress dissent (and) restrict freedoms,” jeopardized the country’s ambitions of one day joining the European Union.
“Georgia’s Foreign Agents Registration Act marks a serious setback for the country’s democracy,” they said.
Georgia’s law is inspired by US legislation which makes it mandatory for any person or organization representing a foreign country, group or party to declare its activities to authorities.
But NGOs believe it will be used by Georgia’s illiberal and Euroskeptic government to further repression of civil society and the opposition.
The Black Sea nation has been rocked by daily demonstrations since late last year, with protesters decrying what they see as an increasingly authoritarian and pro-Russia government.
Tensions escalated in November when Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that Georgia would postpone EU membership talks until 2028.
“The EU is ready to consider the return of Georgia to the EU accession path if the authorities take credible steps to reverse democratic backsliding,” Kallas and Kos said in their statement.
France’s prison population reaches all-time high
- Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, who has called the overcrowding crisis “unacceptable,” has suggested building new facilities to accommodate the growing prison population
PARIS: France’s prison population hit a record high on May 1, with 83,681 inmates held in facilities that have a capacity of just 62,570, justice ministry data showed on Saturday.
Over the past year, France’s prison population grew by 6,000 inmates, taking the occupancy rate to 133.7 percent.
The record overcrowding has even seen 23 out of France’s 186 detention facilities operating at more than twice their capacity.
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, who has called the overcrowding crisis “unacceptable,” has suggested building new facilities to accommodate the growing prison population.
The hard-line minister announced in mid-May a plan to build a high-security prison in French Guiana — an overseas territory situated north of Brazil — for the most “dangerous” criminals, including drug kingpins.
Prison overcrowding is “bad for absolutely everyone,” said Darmanin in late April, citing the “appalling conditions” for prisoners and “the insecurity and violence” faced by prison officers.
A series of coordinated attacks on French prisons in April saw assailants torching cars, spraying the entrance of one prison with automatic gunfire, and leaving mysterious inscriptions.
The assaults embarrassed the right-leaning government, whose tough-talking ministers — Darmanin and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau — have vowed to step up the fight against narcotics.
And in late April, lawmakers approved a major new bill to combat drug-related crime, with some of France’s most dangerous drug traffickers facing detention in high-security prison units in the coming months.
France ranks among the worst countries in Europe for prison overcrowding, placing third behind Cyprus and Romania, according to a Council of Europe study published in June 2024.
Evacuation order for 11 villages on Ukraine border with Russia
- Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said its forces had taken another Sumy village, Vodolagy, known as Vodolahy in Ukrainian
KYIV: Authorities in Ukraine’s Sumy region bordering Russia on Saturday ordered the mandatory evacuation of 11 villages because of bombardments, as Kyiv feared a Russian offensive there.
“This decision takes into account the constant threat to civilian lives because of the bombardments of border communities,” Sumy’s administration said.
Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said its forces had taken another Sumy village, Vodolagy, known as Vodolahy in Ukrainian.
Russia in recent weeks has claimed to have taken several villages in the northeastern region, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week that Moscow was massing more than 50,000 soldiers nearby in a sign of a possible offensive.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s border guard service, Andriy Demchenko, on Thursday said that Russia was poised to “attempt an attack” on Sumy.
He said the Russian troop build-up began when Moscow’s forces fought Ukrainian soldiers who last year had entered the Russian side of the border, in the Kursk region.
Russia has recently retaken control of virtually all of Kursk.
Currently, Russia — which launched its all-out invasion in February 2022 — controls around 20 percent of Ukrainian territory. The ongoing conflict has killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians on both sides.
Washington has been leading diplomatic efforts to try to bring about a ceasefire, but Kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of not wanting peace.
The Kremlin has proposed further negotiations in Istanbul on Monday, after a May 16 round of talks that yielded little beyond a large prisoner-of-war exchange.
Kyiv has not yet said whether it will attend the Istanbul meeting, and is demanding that Moscow drop its opposition to an immediate truce.
