WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s outgoing administration on Monday returned Cuba to the US blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism, erecting a last-minute roadlock to expected efforts by President-elect Joe Biden to ease tensions.
The terror designation severely hampers foreign investment and can only be removed after a formal review by the Biden administration, meaning it may remain in force for months.
With nine days left in office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited Cuba’s ties with Colombian rebels, alliance with leftist Venezuela and sanctuary to several US fugitives in justifying the blacklisting.
“With this action, we will once again hold Cuba’s government accountable and send a clear message: the Castro regime must end its support for international terrorism and subversion of US justice,” Pompeo said in a statement, referring to former leaders Fidel and Raul Castro.
“The United States will continue to support the Cuban people in their desire for a democratic government and respect for human rights, including freedom of religion, expression and association,” he said.
Then-president Barack Obama in 2015 delisted Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism as he moved to normalize relations and declared the half-century US effort to isolate the communist island to be a failure.
Trump has reversed many of Obama’s overtures to Cuba and also imposed sanctions on Venezuela, winning him support among immigrant communities in Florida, a crucial state in US elections.
Biden has indicated he wants to return at least to some engagement started under Obama and blocked by Trump, including allowing Cuban-Americans to visit family and send money.
Lawmakers from Biden’s Democratic Party had been outraged by signs that Pompeo would move ahead with the designation, saying he should be assisting the transition instead.
Representative Gregory Meeks, the Democrat who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had warned that the decision “would clearly be another stunt by President Trump and Pompeo, trying to tie the hands of the incoming Biden administration on their way out the door.”
“President Obama’s rapprochement with Cuba reversed decades of failed foreign policy which neither advanced our goals or helped the Cuban people,” Meeks said in December.
To remove Cuba from the terror list, Antony Blinken — Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, who the Republican-led Senate is not expected to be confirm in time for the January 20 inauguration — would need to initiate a review that shows that Havana did not engage in terrorism over the previous six months.
The designation is the latest in a blitz of decisions by Pompeo in his final days in office, with most of Washington focused on whether to remove Trump for inciting a deadly riot at the US Capitol of supporters who sought to stop the ceremonial certification of Biden’s victory.
Since Saturday, Pompeo has also designated Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a terrorist group, defying warnings from aid groups, and relaxed rules on US engagement with Taiwan.
John S. Kavulich, president of the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council that looks at commercial ties between the countries, said the immediate effects of Pompeo’s move would include discouraging financial institutions from dealing with Cuba.
Insurance companies could also suspend coverage or jack up rates for operators of ships and aircrafts to Cuba, he said.
“Transactions with the Republic of Cuba would have an increase in scrutiny, resulting in fewer governments and companies wanting to engage with it,” he said.
But he doubted the move would ultimately change Cuba’s policies, including its staunch support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the Trump administration is seeking to topple.
Before Obama’s delisting, the legal grounds for Cuba’s terror designation had come under frequent question.
Providing a legal justification, Pompeo pointed to Cuba’s refusal to extradite commanders from Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) over a January 2019 car bombing at a Bogota police academy that killed 22 people.
Cuba has said it will not hand them over due to its role mediating between the ELN and government.
Pompeo also pointed to Cuba’s sanctuary of Americans including Assata Shakur, a Black Power militant who fled to the island after escaping prison following a conviction over the killing of a New Jersey state trooper.
Only three other countries are on the blacklist — Iran, North Korea and Syria. Trump late last year removed Sudan after its democratic transition, compensation for past attacks and agreement to recognize Israel.
Days before Trump exit, US rebrands Cuba state sponsor of terror
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Days before Trump exit, US rebrands Cuba state sponsor of terror

- The terror designation severely hampers foreign investment
- Pompeo cited Cuba’s ties with Colombian rebels and alliance with Venezuela
5 US immigrants deported to Eswatini in Africa are being held in solitary confinement

- The men , who the US says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the US illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos
- Eswatini is the latest nation to accept third-country deportees from the US. The others are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, and South Sudan
CAPE TOWN, South Africa: Five immigrants deported by the United States to the small southern African nation of Eswatini under the Trump administration’s third-country program are in prison, where they will be held in solitary confinement for an undetermined time, a government spokesperson said.
Thabile Mdluli, the spokesperson, declined to identify the correctional facility or facilities where the five men are, citing security concerns. She said Eswatini planned to ultimately repatriate the five to their home countries with the help of a United Nations agency.
In cell phone messages to The Associated Press on Thursday, Mdluli said it wasn’t clear how long that would take.
The men, who the US says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the US illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos. Their convictions included murder and child rape, the US Department of Homeland Security said, describing them as “uniquely barbaric.”
Their deportations were announced by Homeland Security on Tuesday and mark the continuation of President Donald Trump’s plan to send deportees to third countries they have no ties with after it was stalled by a legal challenge in the United States.
Here’s what we know and don’t know about the deportations:
A new country for deportees
Eswatini, a country of 1.2 million people bordering South Africa, is the latest nation to accept third-country deportees from the US. The Trump administration has sent hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama, and deported eight men earlier this month to South Sudan, also an African country.
The deportees to South Sudan are citizens of Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan. They were held for weeks in a converted shipping container at a US military base in the nearby country of Djibouti until a Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for them to be finally sent to South Sudan. The US also described them as violent criminals.
Eswatini’s government confirmed on Wednesday that the latest five deportees were in its custody after landing on a deportation plane from the US.
Local media reported they are being held at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, outside the country’s administrative capital of Mbabane, which includes Eswatini’s top maximum-security prison.
The men’s fate is unclear
The Eswatini government said the men are “in transit” and will eventually be sent to their home countries. The US and Eswatini governments would work with the UN migration agency to do that, it said.
The UN agency — the International Organization for Migration or IOM — said it was not involved in the operation and has not been approached to assist in the matter but would be willing to help “in line with its humanitarian mandate.”
Eswatini’s statement that the men would be sent home was in contrast to US claims they were sent to Eswatini because their home countries refused to take them back.
It’s unclear how sending the men to Eswatini would make it easier for them to be deported home. There was also no timeframe for that as it depends on several factors, including engagements with the IOM, Mdluli said.
“We are not yet in a position to determine the timelines for the repatriation,” she wrote.
Four of the five countries where the men are from have historically resisted taking back some of their citizens deported from the US, which has been a reoccurring problem for Homeland Security. Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the administration was happy the men were “off of American soil” when she announced their deportations.
Another secretive deal
There have been no details on why Eswatini agreed to take the men and Mdluli, the government spokesperson, said “the terms of the agreement between the US and Eswatini remain classified.”
Eswatini has said it was the result of months of negotiations between the two governments. South Sudan has also given no details of its agreement with the US to take deportees and has declined to say where the eight men sent there are being held.
Some analysts say African nations might be willing to take deportees from the US in return for more favorable relations with the Trump administration, which has cut foreign aid to poor countries and threatened them with trade tariffs.
The Trump administration has also said it’s seeking more deportation deals with other countries.
Rights groups have questioned the countries the US has chosen to deal with, as South Sudan and Eswatini have both been criticized for having repressive governments.
Eswatini is Africa’s only absolute monarchy, meaning the king has power over government and rules by decree. Political parties are banned and pro-democracy protests have been quelled violently in the past.
Several rights groups have criticized Eswatini since pro-democracy protests erupted there in 2021, citing deadly crackdowns by security forces and abusive conditions in prisons, including at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, where pro-democracy activists are held.
UN chief calls Cyprus peace talks ‘constructive’

- Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when a Turkish invasion followed a coup in Nicosia backed by Greece’s then-military junta
UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday that meetings between Cyprus’s rival leaders at the organization’s New York headquarters were “constructive,” even as questions remained about crossing points on the divided island.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar have been holding talks and had reached a breakthrough on forming a committee on youth and three other topics, Guterres said.
The opening of four crossing points, and the exploitation of solar energy in the buffer zone between the two sides of the island remained unresolved, he said.
“It is critical to implement these initiatives, all of them, as soon as possible, and for the benefit of all Cypriots,” Guterres said.
The meeting follows one in Geneva in March, which marked the first meaningful progress in years.
At that gathering, both sides agreed on a set of confidence-building measures, including opening more crossing points across the divide, cooperating on solar energy, and removing land mines.
Guterres said there were specific technical issues still to be resolved on the issues of crossing points, but did not give details.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when a Turkish invasion followed a coup in Nicosia backed by Greece’s then-military junta. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, declared in 1983, is recognized only by Ankara.
The internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus, a member of the European Union, controls the island’s majority Greek Cypriot south.
The last major round of peace talks collapsed in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, in July 2017.
“I think we are building, step-by-step, confidence and creating conditions to do concrete things to benefit the Cypriot people,” Guterres said in remarks to reporters.
US designates group that claimed Kashmir attack as terrorists

- Gunmen in April shot dead 26 people, almost all Hindus, in Pahalgam, a tourist hub in the Indian-administered side of divided Kashmir
WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday designated as terrorists a shadowy group that claimed an April attack in Kashmir, which triggered Indian strikes on Pakistani territory.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio described The Resistance Front as a “front and proxy” of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist group based in Pakistan.
The terrorist designation “demonstrates the Trump administration’s commitment to protecting our national security interests, countering terrorism, and enforcing President (Donald) Trump’s call for justice for the Pahalgam attack,” Rubio said in a statement.
Gunmen in April shot dead 26 people, almost all Hindus, in Pahalgam, a tourist hub in the Indian-administered side of divided Kashmir.
Little had been previously known about The Resistance Front, which claimed responsibility for the attack.
India designates TRF as a terrorist organization and the India-based Observer Research Foundation calls it “a smokescreen and an offshoot of LeT.”
Pakistan has denied responsibility for the attack.
US House passes landmark crypto bills in win for Trump

- It will now head to the Senate, where Republicans hold a thin majority
WASHINGTON: The US House passed landmark cryptocurrency bills on Thursday, delivering on the Trump administration’s embrace of the once-controversial industry.
US lawmakers easily passed the CLARITY Act, which establishes a clearer regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets.
The bill is intended to clarify rules governing the industry and divides regulatory authority between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission .
It will now head to the Senate, where Republicans hold a thin majority.
House legislators also easily passed the GENIUS Act, which codifies the use of stablecoins — cryptocurrencies pegged to safe assets like the dollar. That bill was due to immediately go to Trump for his signature to become law.
The GENIUS Act was passed by the Senate last month and sets rules such as requiring issuers to have reserves of assets equal in value to that of their outstanding cryptocurrency.
The raft of legislation comes after years of suspicion against the crypto industry amid the belief that the sector, born out of the success of bitcoin, should be kept on a tight leash and away from mainstream investors.
But after crypto investors poured millions of dollars into his presidential campaign last year, Trump reversed his own doubts about the industry, even launching a Trump meme coin and other ventures as he prepared for his return to the White House.
Trump has, among other moves, appointed crypto advocate Paul Atkins to head the Securities and Exchange Commission .
He has also established a federal “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” aimed at auditing the government’s bitcoin holdings, which were mainly accumulated by law enforcement from judicial seizures.
The Republican-led House is also considering a bill it calls the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act that aims to block the issuance of a central bank digital currency — a digital dollar issued by the US Federal Reserve.
Republicans argue that a CBDC could enable the federal government to monitor, track, and potentially control the financial transactions of private citizens, undermining privacy and civil liberties.
It would require a not-easily-won passage in the Senate before going to Trump for his signature.
An aborted effort to set the anti-CBDC bill aside caused a furor among a small group of Republicans and delayed the passage of the two other bills before a solution was found.
‘A trap’ — Asylum seekers arrested after attending US courts

NEW YORK: In gloomy corridors outside a Manhattan courtroom, masked agents target and arrest migrants attending mandatory hearings — part of US President Donald Trump’s escalating immigration crackdown.
Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to deport many migrants, has encouraged authorities to be more aggressive as he seeks to hit his widely-reported target of one million deportations annually.
Since Trump’s return to the White House, Homeland Security agents have adopted the tactic of waiting outside immigration courts nationwide and arresting migrants as they leave at the end of asylum hearings.
Missing an immigration court hearing is a crime in some cases and can itself make migrants liable to be deported, leaving many with little choice but to attend and face arrest.
Armed agents with shields from different federal agencies loitered outside the court hearings in a tower block in central New York, holding paperwork with photographs of migrants to be targeted, an AFP correspondent saw this week.
The agents arrested almost a dozen migrants from different countries in just a few hours on the 12th floor of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building.
Brad Lander, a city official who was briefly detained last month by ICE agents as he attempted to accompany a migrant targeted for removal, called the hearings “a trap.”
“It has the trappings of a judicial hearing, but it’s just a trap to have made them come in the first place,” he said Wednesday outside the building.
Lander recounted several asylum seekers being arrested by immigration officers including Carlos, a Paraguayan man who Lander said had an application pending for asylum under the Convention Against Torture — as well as a future court date.
“The judge carefully instructed him on how to prepare to bring his case to provide additional information about his interactions with the Paraguayan police and make his case under the global convention against torture for why he is entitled to asylum,” Lander said.
After his hearing, agents “without any identifying information or badges or warrants grabbed Carlos, and then quickly moved him toward the back stairwell,” he said.
Lander, a Democrat, claimed the agents were threatening and that they pushed to the ground Carlos’s sister who had accompanied him to the hearing.
The White House said recently that “the brave men and women of ICE are under siege by deranged Democrats — but undeterred in their mission.”
“Every day, these heroes put their own lives on the line to get the worst of the worst... off our streets and out of our neighborhoods.”
Back at the building in lower Manhattan, Lander said that “anyone who comes down here to observe could see... the rule of law is being eroded.”