CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C.: A US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a yearslong legal battle and raised alarms at the highest levels of government will remain on active duty.
A three-member panel of Marines found Tuesday that while Maj. Joshua Mast acted in a way unbecoming of an officer in his zealous quest to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military.
Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan in 2019.
Mast and his wife, Stephanie, then lived in rural Fluvanna County, Virginia. They persuaded a judge there to grant them an adoption of the child, even though she remained in Afghanistan as the government there tracked down her extended family and reunited her with them. Mast helped the family flee Afghanistan after the Taliban took over in 2021. Once in the US, Mast used the adoption papers to get the federal government to take the child from her Afghan relatives and give her to him. She has remained with his family ever since.
A five-day board of inquiry hearing held partially behind closed doors at the Marine Forces Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune was administrative, not criminal, and intended to determine whether Mast was fit to remain in the military. The worst outcome Mast might have faced was an other-than-honorable discharge.
Mast, 41, who now lives in Hampstead, North Carolina, denied the allegations against him, insisting he never disobeyed orders but was encouraged by his supervisors, and was simply upholding the code of the Marine Corps by working tirelessly to ensure the girl was safe. At the front of the room, he set up poster-sized photos of the child as a baby at Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield and as a smiling toddler in North Carolina.
But because the board substantiated misconduct, a report will be entered into Mast’s file, which could affect promotions and assignments, the Marines said Tuesday. The board’s report will be sent up the ladder to the Secretary of the Navy, who will close the case against Mast.
The child’s fate, however, remains in limbo. The Afghan couple who raised the child for 18 months in Afghanistan is seeking to have Mast’s adoption of her undone. The US Department of Justice has intervened and contended that Mast lied to the Virginia court and federal officials to justify taking the girl, and his actions threaten America’s standing around the world.
The Virginia Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that the adoption should have never been granted but the case is stalled at the Virginia Supreme Court.
Lawyers for the Afghan couple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Much of the government’s case in the hearing was held in secret because lawyers were presenting classified information. Everyone present in the nondescript conference room was dressed identically in camouflage. And Mast chose to make an unsworn statement in a closed session, which meant he was not subject to cross-examination.
But his wife, Stephanie, testified publicly, offering rare insight into the couple’s motivation for working so vigorously to bring the child into their home. The Masts have long declined to talk to The Associated Press about their actions and the Virginia court file remains sealed. The Masts, as well as the Afghan couple, are now barred from speaking to the media about the state court case.
Stephanie Mast wept as she described her husband’s decision to work to bring the girl back to the United States as exemplary of his commitment to Marine Corps values.
“It was very much an American response,” she said. “We value human life. As Marines, you serve and protect.”
The deciding panel of two lieutenant colonels and a colonel was allowed to ask questions, and one asked Stephanie Mast why she and her husband continued to try to adopt the girl even after she had been reunited with relatives in Afghanistan. They noted that multiple high-ranking officials, including then-Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and a federal judge, told them to stop.
When she responded that getting the child to the United States was their highest priority, the board asked whether the assumption that a child would be better off in the US rather than Afghanistan was a product of Western bias.
“They have a survival mentality,” she said of Afghans. “We believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we wanted her to have that.”
Military board substantiates misconduct but declines to fire Marine who adopted Afghan orphan
https://arab.news/pnvz9
Military board substantiates misconduct but declines to fire Marine who adopted Afghan orphan
- The Afghan couple who raised the child for 18 months in Afghanistan is seeking to have Mast’s adoption of her undone
More records found linking Credit Suisse, Nazi accounts: US panel
- US Senate Budget Committee says Credit Suisse concealed information during previous inquiries into Nazi-controlled bank accounts during World War II
- Credit Suisse, now a subsidiary of investment bank UBS, agreed in 1998 to take part in a $1.25 billion settlement of lawsuits brought by Holocaust survivors
WASHINGTON: An investigation by a US Senate panel has found that troubled investment bank Credit Suisse concealed information during previous inquiries into Nazi-controlled bank accounts during World War II.
Tens of thousands of documents discovered during an ongoing examination have provided new proof of the existence of account holders linked to the Nazis, the Senate Budget Committee said in a statement released Saturday.
The bank did not reveal the existence of these accounts during previous investigations, notably in the 1990s, the committee said.
Credit Suisse, now a subsidiary of investment bank UBS, agreed in 1998 to take part in a $1.25 billion settlement of lawsuits brought by Holocaust survivors, but it has been accused of not being completely open about its past dealings with Nazis.
The Senate committee said Saturday that one set of newly discovered files, including 3,600 physical documents and 40,000 microfilms, was found to have a “high relevance rate” of Nazi connections.
It said the revelations stem from an interim report by former prosecutor Neil Barofsky, who was fired as an “independent ombudsperson” by the bank in 2022 after being pressed to limit his investigative work.
Barofsky was reinstated in the role in 2023 “as a result of the Committee’s investigation,” and after UBS’s takeover of Credit Suisse.
In a letter to the panel released Saturday, Barofsky noted the “extraordinary level of cooperation that Credit Suisse, under the leadership of UBS, has provided” since he rejoined the company.
But he said Credit Suisse had yet to share all the information it held.
The Barofsky team has discovered, among other things, accounts controlled by high-ranking SS officers, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In his letter, Barofsky highlighted “especially noteworthy” discoveries from a Credit Suisse research department.
“Numerous client files in the sample are marked with a stamp stating ‘Amerikanische schwarze Liste’ — meaning ‘American Black List’ — a list maintained by the Allies of individuals and companies that were directly financed by, or were known to regularly trade with, Axis powers,” he wrote.
“One file bearing this stamp relates to an entity that was involved in selling looted Jewish assets.”
Contacted by AFP, UBS said it was committed to providing a complete record of the former Nazi-linked accounts in Credit Suisse’s predecessor banks.
It said it would provide Barofsky with all necessary assistance in his work to shed light “on this tragic period.”
The Senate panel’s investigation is continuing.
End of Ukraine gas transit deal plunges Moldova’s pro-Russian region into crisis
- Kyiv refuses to renew the deal, leaving the breakaway region of Transdniestria without gas
- With longer rolling blackouts, residents are left without heating, hot water
KYIV: The pro-Russian breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria, left without Russian gas supplies no longer transiting through neighboring Ukraine, faced longer periods of rolling power cuts on Saturday, local authorities said.
Flows of Russian gas via Ukraine to central and eastern Europe stopped on New Year’s Day after a transit deal expired between the warring countries and Kyiv refused to extend it.
Transdniestria, a mainly Russian-speaking enclave which has lived side-by-side with Moldova since breaking away from it in the last days of Soviet rule, received gas from Russian giant Gazprom through the pipeline crossing Ukraine.
The gas was used to operate a thermal plant which provided electricity locally and for much of Moldova under the control of the pro-European central government.
The region’s self-styled president, Vadim Krasnoselsky, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said rolling power cuts in various districts would be extended to four hours on Sunday.
Hour-long cuts were first imposed on Friday evening after heating and hot water supplies were curtailed. The cuts were then extended to three hours on Saturday.
“Yesterday’s introduction of rolling cuts was a test. And it confirmed that an hour-long break to keep the electrical supply system operating was insufficient,” Krasnoselsky wrote. “The power generated is not covering sharply rising demand.”
All industries except those producing food have been shut down. The official Telegram news channel of the region’s separatist authorities announced the official closure on Saturday of a steel mill and bakery in the town of Rybnitsa.
Regional officials announced new measures to help residents, especially the elderly, and warned that overnight temperatures would fall to -10 Celsius (+14 Fahrenheit). Residents were told not to put strain on the region’s mobile phone network.
Using firewood
The news channel warned against using heaters in disrepair after two residents died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a stove. Online pictures showed servicemen loading up trucks with firewood for distribution.
“Don’t put off gathering in firewood,” Krasnoselsky told residents. “It is better to ensure your supply in advance, especially since the weather is favorable so far.”
Moldova’s government blames Russia for the crisis and has called on Gazprom to ship gas through the Turkstream pipeline and then through Bulgaria and Romania.
Russia denies using gas as a weapon to coerce Moldova, and blames Kyiv for refusing to renew the gas transit deal.
The Transdniestria power cuts are a problem for Moldova particularly because the enclave is home to a power plant which provides most of the power for government-controlled areas of Moldova at a fixed and low price.
Prime Minister Dorin Recean said on Friday his country faced a security crisis after Transdniestria imposed the rolling blackouts, but he also said the Chisinau government had prepared alternative arrangements, with a mixture of domestic production and electricity imports from Romania.
Even before the halt of supplies via Ukraine, Gazprom had said it would suspend exports to Moldova on Jan. 1 because of what Russia says are unpaid Moldovan debts of $709 million. Moldova disputes that and put the figure at $8.6 million.
Mali’s army claims arrest of Daesh group leader
BAMAKO: Mali’s army said Saturday its forces had arrested two men, one of them a leading figure in the Sahel branch of the Daesh group.
The army announced they had also killed several of the group’s fighters during an operation in the north of the country.
A statement from the army said they had arrested “Mahamad Ould Erkehile alias Abu Rakia,” as well as “Abu Hash,” who they said was a leading figure in the group.
They blamed him for coordinating atrocities against people in the Menaka and Gao regions in the northeast of the country, as well as attacks against the army.
Mali has faced profound unrest since 2012 linked both to militants associated with Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group, and to local criminal gangs.
The country’s military rulers have broken ties with former colonial power France and turned, militarily and politically, to Russia.
Iran protests Afghan dam project in new water dispute
- The dam in Herat province will store approximately 54 million cubic meters of water, irrigate 13,000 hectares of agricultural land and generate two megawatts of electricity
TEHRAN: Iran’s foreign ministry said on Friday that an upstream dam being built by neighboring Afghanistan on the Harirud River restricts water flow and could be in violation of bilateral treaties.
Water rights have long been a source of friction in ties between the two countries, which share a more than 900-kilometer (560-mile) border.
Esmaeil Baqaei, spokesman for Tehran’s foreign ministry, voiced on Friday “strong protest and concern over the disproportionate restriction of water entering Iran” due to the Pashdan Dam project.
He said in a statement that the Iranian concerns had been communicated “in contact with relevant Afghan authorities.”
“Exploitation of water resources and basins cannot be carried out without respecting Iran’s rights in accordance with bilateral treaties or applicable customary principles and rules, as well as the important principle of good neighborliness and environmental considerations,” Baqaei added.
Abdul Ghani Baradar, Afghanistan’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs, said in a video statement last month that the Pashdan project was “nearing completion and water storage has commenced.”
According to the video, the dam in Herat province will store approximately 54 million cubic meters of water, irrigate 13,000 hectares of agricultural land and generate two megawatts of electricity.
In April, Baradar said the dam was a “vital and strategic project” for Herat province.
The foreign ministry statement on Friday follows remarks by an Iranian water official, similarly criticizing the dam construction.
“The situation has led to social and environmental issues, particularly affecting the drinking water supply for the holy city of Mashhad,” Iran’s second-largest and home to a revered Shiite Muslim shrine near the Afghan border, national water industry spokesman Issa Bozorgzadeh was quoted as saying on Monday by official news agency IRNA.
Harirud River, also known as Hari and Tejen, flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to Turkmenistan, passing along Iran’s borders with both countries.
In his statement, Baqaei said Iran expects “Afghanistan... to cooperate in continuing the flow of water from border rivers” and to “remove the obstacles created” along their path.
In May 2023, Iran issued a stern warning to Afghan officials over another dam project, on the Helmand River, saying that it violates the water rights of residents of Sistan-Baluchistan, a drought-hit province in southeastern Iran.
Series of Ethiopia earthquakes trigger evacuations
- The earthquakes have damaged houses and threatened to trigger a volcanic eruption of the previously dormant Mount Dofan, near Segento in the northeast Afar region
ADDIS ABABA: Evacuations were underway in Ethiopia Saturday after a series of earthquakes, the strongest of which, a 5.8-magnitude jolt, rocked the remote north of the Horn of Africa nation.
The quakes were centered on the largely rural Afar, Oromia and Amhara regions after months of intense seismic activity.
No casualties have been reported so far.
Ethiopia’s government Communication Service said around 80,000 people were living in the affected regions and the most vulnerable were being moved to temporary shelters.
“The earthquakes are increasing in terms of magnitude and recurrences,” it said in a statement, adding that experts had been dispatched to assess the damage.
The Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission said 20,573 people had been evacuated to safer areas in Afar and Oromia, from a tally of over 51,000 “vulnerable” people.
Plans were underway to move more than 8,000 people in Oromia “in the coming days,” the agency said in a statement.
The latest shallow 4.7 magnitude quake hit just before 12:40 p.m. (0940 GMT) about 33 kilometers north of Metehara town in Oromia, according to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center.
The earthquakes have damaged houses and threatened to trigger a volcanic eruption of the previously dormant Mount Dofan, near Segento in the northeast Afar region.
The crater has stopped releasing plumes of smoke, but nearby residents have left their homes in panic.
Earthquakes are common in Ethiopia due to its location along the Great Rift Valley, one of the world’s most seismically active areas.
Experts have said the tremors and eruptions are being caused by the expansion of tectonic plates under the Great Rift Valley.
