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BRUSSELS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said the leaders of a coalition of Ukraine backers would meet again in Paris next week, hoping to finalize plans to secure a potential truce in the war with Russia.
“We will hold another meeting of the coalition of the willing next Thursday in Paris in presence of President (Volodymyr) Zelensky,” Macron told reporters following an EU summit.
DENVER: A painting of Donald Trump hanging with other presidential portraits at the Colorado state Capitol will be taken down after Trump claimed that his was “purposefully distorted,” according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press.
House Democrats said in a statement that the oil painting would be taken down at the request of Republican leaders in the Legislature. Colorado Republicans raised more than $10,000 through a GoFundMe account to commission the oil painting, which was unveiled in 2019.
Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Republican, said that he requested for Trump’s portrait to be taken down and replaced by one “that depicts his contemporary likeness.”
“If the GOP wants to spend time and money on which portrait of Trump hangs in the Capitol, then that’s up to them,” the Democrats said.
The portrait was installed alongside other paintings of US presidents. Before the installation, a prankster placed a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin near the spot intended for Trump.
Initially, people objected to artist Sarah Boardman’s depiction of Trump as “nonconfrontational” and “thoughtful” in the portrait, according to an interview with Colorado Times Recorder from the time.
But in a Sunday night post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he would prefer no picture at all over the one that hangs in the Colorado Capitol. The Republican lauded a nearby portrait of former President Barack Obama – also by Boardman – saying “he looks wonderful.”
“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the state Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,” Trump wrote.
The portraits are not the purview of the Colorado governor’s office but the Colorado Building Advisory Committee. The ones up to and including President Jimmy Carter were donated as a collection. The others were donated by political parties or, more recently, paid for by outside fundraising.
The Legislature’s executive committee, made up of both Democratic and Republican leadership, signed a letter directing the removal of Trump’s portrait. Lundeen, the Republican senator who requested it, noted that Grover Cleveland, whose presidential terms were separated like Trump’s, had a portrait from his second term.
Boardman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. In interviews from the time with The Denver Post, Boardman said it was important that her depictions of both Obama and Trump looked apolitical.
“There will always be dissent, so pleasing one group will always inflame another. I consider a neutrally thoughtful, and nonconfrontational, portrait allows everyone to reach their own conclusions in their own time,” Boardman told the Colorado Times Recorder in 2019.
Trump’s Sunday night comments had prompted a steady stream of visitors to pose for photos with the painting before the announcement that it would be taken down.
Aaron Howe, visiting from Wyoming on Monday, stood in front of Trump’s portrait, looking down at photos of the president on his phone, then back up at the portrait.
“Honestly he looks a little chubby,” said Howe of the portrait, but “better than I could do.”
“I don’t know anything about the artist,” said Howe, who voted for Trump. “It could be taken one way or the other.”
Kaylee Williamson, an 18-year-old Trump supporter from Arkansas, got a photo with the portrait.
“I think it looks like him. I guess he’s smoother than all the other ones,” she said. “I think it’s fine.”
WASHINGTON: A federal judge on Monday sharply criticized the Trump administration’s summary deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members, saying “Nazis got better treatment” from the United States during World War II.
President Donald Trump sent two planeloads of Venezuelan migrants to a prison in El Salvador on March 15 after invoking an obscure wartime law known as the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA).
James Boasberg, chief judge of the US District Court in Washington, issued a restraining order that same day temporarily barring the Trump administration from carrying out any further deportation flights under the AEA.
The Justice Department is seeking to have the order lifted and a three-judge US Court of Appeals panel heard oral arguments in the closely watched case on Monday.
Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign said the judge’s order “represents an unprecedented and enormous intrusion upon the powers of the executive branch” and “enjoins the president’s exercise of his war and foreign affairs powers.”
Judge Patricia Millett appeared unconvinced and said the lower court judge was not disputing Trump’s presidential authority only the denial of individual court hearings to the deportees.
Attorneys for several of the deported Venezuelans have said that their clients were not members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, had committed no crimes and were targeted largely on the basis of their tattoos.
“Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act,” said Millett, an appointee of former Democratic president Barack Obama. “They had hearing boards before people were removed.”
“People on those planes on that Saturday had no opportunity to challenge their removal under the AEA,” she said. “Y’all could have picked me up on Saturday and thrown me on a plane thinking I’m a member of Tren de Aragua and given me no chance to protest it.
“Somehow it’s a violation of presidential war powers for me to say, ‘Excuse me, no, I’m not. I’d like a hearing?’“
Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, also suggested that court hearings were warranted but appeared more receptive to the arguments that the judge’s order impinged on presidential powers.
The third judge on the panel is an appointee of former Republican president George H.W. Bush.
The AEA, which has previously only been used during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, gives the government vast powers to round up citizens of a “hostile nation” during wartime.
Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit against the deportations, told the appeals court panel that the Trump administration was using the AEA “to try and short circuit immigration proceedings.”
The government would likely immediately resume AEA deportations if the temporary restraining order was lifted, Gelernt said.
“We are talking about people being sent to El Salvador, to one of the worst prisons in the world, incommunicado,” he said. “They’re essentially being disappeared.”
In a 37-page opinion issued on Monday, Boasberg, the district court judge, said that migrants subject to potential deportation under the AEA should be “entitled to individualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to them at all.”
Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Boasberg, even going so far as to call for his impeachment, a remark that drew a rare public rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
The contentious case has raised concerns among legal experts that the Trump administration would potentially ignore the court order, triggering a constitutional crisis.
Ahead of the hearing, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced plans to send three alleged TdA members facing extortion and kidnapping charges to Chile under the AEA.
Blanche said the Justice Department “is taking every step within the bounds of the law to ensure these individuals are promptly sent to Chile to face justice.”
WASHINGTON: Top national security officials for President Donald Trump, including his defense secretary, texted war plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen to a group chat in a secure messaging app that included the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic, the magazine reported in a story posted online Monday. The National Security Council said the text chain “appears to be authentic.”
Trump told reporters he was not aware that the sensitive information had been shared, 2 1/2 hours after it was reported.
The material in the text chain “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Iran-backed Houthi-rebels in Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported.
It was not immediately clear if the specifics of the military operation were classified, but they often are and at the least are kept secure to protect service members and operational security. The US has conducted airstrikes against the Houthis since the militant group began targeting commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea in November 2023.
Just two hours after Goldberg received the details of the attack on March 15, the US began launching a series of airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
The National Security Council is looking into the matter
The National Security Council said in a statement that it was looking into how a journalist’s number was added to the chain in the Signal group chat.
Trump told reporters, “I don’t know anything about it. You’re telling me about it for the first time.” He added that The Atlantic was “not much of a magazine.”
Government officials have used Signal for organizational correspondence, but it is not classified and can be hacked. Privacy and tech experts say the popular end-to-end encrypted messaging and voice call app is more secure than conventional texting.
The sharing of sensitive information comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office has just announced a crackdown on leaks of sensitive information, including the potential use of polygraphs on defense personnel to determine how reporters have received information.
Sean Parnell, a spokesman for Hegseth, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on why the defense secretary posted war operational plans on an unclassified app.
The breach in protocol was swiftly condemned by Democratic lawmakers. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called for a full investigation.
“This is one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in a floor speech Monday afternoon.
“If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen,” said Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a statement.
He said American lives are “on the line. The carelessness shown by Trump’s Cabinet is stunning and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the Administration immediately.”
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that he was “horrified” by the reports.
Himes said if a lower-ranking official “did what is described here, they would likely lose their clearance and be subject to criminal investigation. The American people deserve answers,” which he said he planned to get at Wednesday’s previously scheduled committee hearing.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he wants to learn more about what happened.
“Obviously, we got to to run it to the ground, figure out what went on there,” said Thune, a South Dakota Republican.
There are strict laws around handling defense information
The handling of national defense information is strictly governed by law under the century-old Espionage Act, including provisions that make it a crime to remove such information from its “proper place of custody” even through an act of gross negligence.
The Justice Department in 2015 and 2016 investigated whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broke the law by communicating about classified information with her aides on a private email server she set up, though the FBI ultimately recommended against charges and none were brought.
In the Biden administration, some officials were given permission to download Signal on their White House-issued phones, but were instructed to use the app sparingly, according to a former national security official who served in the Democratic administration.
The official, who requested anonymity to speak about methods used to share sensitive information, said Signal was most commonly used to communicate what they internally referred to as “tippers” to notify someone when they were away from the office or traveling overseas that they should check their “high side” inbox for a classified message.
The app was sometimes also used by officials during the Biden administration to communicate about scheduling of sensitive meetings or classified phone calls when they were outside the office, the official said.
The use of Signal became more prevalent during the last year of the Biden administration after federal law enforcement officials warned that China and Iran were hacking the White House as well as officials in the first Trump administration, according to the official.
The official was unaware of top Biden administration officials — such as Vice President Kamala Harris, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and national security adviser Jake Sullivan — using Signal to discuss sensitive plans as the Trump administration officials did.
Some of the toughest criticism targeted Hegseth, a former Fox News Channel weekend host. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran, said on social media that Hegseth, “the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in history, is demonstrating his incompetence by literally leaking classified war plans in the group chat.”
ADDIS ABABA: Eight survivors of the devastating conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region have accused 12 high-ranking Ethiopian and Eritrean civilian and military officials of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the legal rights group representing them said on Monday.
The Tigray region, bordering Eritrea, endured a war between 2020 and 2022 that claimed up to 600,000 lives, according to some estimates.
The conflict pitted Tigray People’s Liberation Front rebels against federal Ethiopian forces, supported by local militias and the Eritrean army.
Both sides were accused of committing atrocities, with the government sealing off Tigray for most of the war and restricting humanitarian aid to the region.
Eight survivors “have filed a groundbreaking criminal complaint with the German Federal Public Prosecutor, alleging that 12 senior Ethiopian and Eritrean government officials and military officers committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the conflict,” nonprofit Legal Action Worldwide said in a statement.
The Swiss-based organization did not disclose the identities of those accused in the filing, submitted in 2024 but announced last week.
A LAW spokesperson said on Monday they could not “confirm or deny” whether Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed or Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki were mentioned.
The case is being filed in Germany under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows the prosecution of crimes regardless of where they were committed, as they violate international law.
“We are asking the German authorities to open a criminal investigation and to issue arrest warrants for 12 suspects,” Nick Leddy, head of LAW’s strategic litigation department and a former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, told AFP.
He said they would not be naming the suspects as it could “jeopardize the chances of their arrest.”
The identities of the plaintiffs have not been made public either. “I’ve lost two of the most important people in my life in this war: my younger brother and my mom,” LAW quoted one of them as saying.
“The suffering and agony continues.”
“Tigrayans are still dying every day,” they added, saying justice must be brought to those “who orchestrated and engineered these unimaginable crimes.”
Allegations of massacres, mass rapes, and other atrocities by all sides marked the two-year conflict. In 2022, a United Nations commission said it had “reasonable grounds to believe that, in several instances, these violations amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Anna Oehmichen, a lawyer involved in the case, said the “gravity of the crimes in Tigray is dramatic.”
It requires investigation and prosecution.
She said: “To put an end to the ongoing violations of international law and to prevent other heads of state from committing similarly devastating crimes.”
Although a peace agreement was signed in November 2022, around 1 million of the region’s pre-war population of 6 million remain displaced.
In recent weeks, a rift within the TPLF has reignited fears of renewed conflict.
MAPUTO: Mozambican President Daniel Chapo met main opposition figure Venancio Mondlane for talks to ease tension following months of violent clashes between protesters and security forces, the president’s office said late on Sunday.
Political turmoil has gripped the nation since October’s disputed general election.
The election, which several international observer missions said was tainted by irregularities, was followed by more than two months of demonstrations and blockades, during which more than 360 people died, according to a local civil society group.
Chapo and Mondlane met in the capital, Maputo, to “discuss solutions to the challenges facing the country,” the presidency said.
“The meeting is part of the ongoing effort to promote national stability and reinforce the commitment to reconciliation,” it said.
Mondlane confirmed the meeting in a social media post, saying it had been aimed at “embarking on a mutual process in answer to the calls and desires of the Mozambican people.”
He said he would soon provide more details of the meeting as well as lay out the next steps.
