HONG KONG: US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden sought shelter among Hong Kong refugees after he leaked a huge trove of secret documents in the southern Chinese city, reports said on Wednesday.
The former intelligence contractor had quit his job with the National Security Agency and traveled to Hong Kong in May 2013 where he initiated one of the largest data leaks in US history, fueling a firestorm over the issue of mass surveillance.
Although Snowden stayed in an upscale hotel before the leak, little was known of his situation afterward.
But a report Wednesday revealed he had been given shelter by the city’s 11,000 asylum-seekers.
Many of Hong Kong’s refugees are forced to live in slum-like conditions, the last place anyone would look for one of the highest-profile US fugitives.
The 33-year-old stayed with at least four refugees, according to a New York Times report. It added they were all clients of lawyer Robert Tibbo, who helped hide Snowden.
“It was clear that if Mr. Snowden was placed with a refugee family, this was the last place the government and the majority of Hong Kong society would expect him to be,” Tibbo told the Times.
One Filipino woman with whom Snowden stayed, Vanessa Mae Bondalian Rodel, described him as “scared and very worried.”
Fugitive Snowden took shelter among Hong Kong refugees
Fugitive Snowden took shelter among Hong Kong refugees
Trump is targeting antisemitism in schools. Experts fear other civil rights will be ignored
Trump’s new leader of the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights told staff this week they will be expected to aggressively pursue complaints involving antisemitism and hew closely to Trump’s wishes, according to sources who were on the call with Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights.
Already there are signs of a hard turn on civil rights enforcement, including new actions focused squarely on anti-Jewish bias and transgender issues.
Responding to a White House order last week, the office launched new antisemitism investigations at five universities including Columbia and Northwestern. Days earlier, it opened an inquiry into Denver public schools over an all-gender bathroom that replaced a girls’ bathroom while leaving another one exclusive to boys.
The office’s fleet of lawyers have mostly been sidelined while the new administration shifts priorities. Daily work has been frozen, which is typical when a new president takes office, but sources say there’s a new blackout on communication with schools, colleges or those submitting complaints. Questions about how to enforce Title IX go unanswered, leaving schools in the dark as they navigate a new memo from the agency last week.
The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
In the staff call, Trainor said the office must be more aggressive and faster than it was under former President Joe Biden. He accused the previous administration of neglecting its duty to fight antisemitism, leaving more than 100 cases open. Trump has called for a review of all antisemitism cases opened since Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, including those resolved under Biden.
With a rigid focus on antisemitism and gender identity, there’s fear the office won’t give adequate attention to racial discrimination, mistreatment based on disability, or Islamophobia. The office is required to process all complaints it fields, but politics can play a role in setting priorities and choosing which cases to pursue.
Raymond Pierce, who led the office under Democratic President Bill Clinton, said focusing on antisemitism alone doesn’t fulfill the mission of the office — to enforce civil rights laws.
“Antisemitism is an issue,” he said. “But the Civil Rights Act is broader than just religion.”
In a statement, Trainor promised his office “will vigorously investigate all alleged violations of civil rights laws within its purview.”
Trainor had also warned staff of a coming “restructuring” and acknowledged that Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is examining the Education Department. It raised worries about staffing cuts in a civil rights office that has seen dwindling numbers even as it received a record 22,687 complaints last year.
Additionally, there’s concern Trump in his quest to shut down the Education Department will slash the office’s budget and move it to the Justice Department, as suggested in the Project 2025 blueprint created by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
The impact of Trump’s changes are most likely to be felt by Black students and those who are disabled, according to lawyers and advocates. For decades, the Office for Civil Rights has worked to force equal access for marginalized students, said Derek W. Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina.
If the office finds merit in a complaint, it has the power to withhold federal funding until schools or states comply.
“Are there local and state officials who want to do right by kids? Of course, there are,” Black said. “But are there districts that don’t think it’s a big deal or don’t want to do right by poor kids? Unfortunately, there are.”
Historically, most complaints to the department have involved disability discrimination, but last year accusations of sex discrimination surged to account for more than half of all complaints, according to an annual report. Disability discrimination accounted for 37 percent, while discrimination over race or national origin accounted for 19 percent.
In addition to its duty to investigate complaints, the office creates federal rules to interpret federal law for schools and colleges. That role has been at the center of a political tug-of-war over Title IX, with recent administrations repeatedly rewriting the rules governing investigations of campus sexual misconduct.
The Biden administration issued new rules last year expanding Title IX to protect transgender and LGBTQ+ students, and boosting victims’ rights. A federal judge overturned the rules in January, reverting to a previous set of rules from Trump’s first term.
In a memo to schools and colleges last week, the Office for Civil Rights emphasized that the earlier Trump rules would be enforced, but it created confusion about how to handle cases that were opened when Biden’s rules were in effect. With no communication from the department, there has been little clarity for schools.
There are also questions about how antisemitism investigations will change. Trump has used heated rhetoric to push for more aggressive action against colleges found to have tolerated antisemitism, and Trainor blasted the Biden administration for signing “toothless” agreements to resolve cases. No new guidance has been issued to lawyers who investigate cases.
As the office awaits orders to resume its work, it faces a growing backlog of complaints.
Before Trump took office, there were more than 140 open investigations involving shared ancestry, many of them dealing with antisemitism or Islamophobia. The Biden administration opened more than 100 investigations after Oct. 7, 2023. A flurry of schools reached deals to settle the cases before Trump took office amid fears that he would issue heavier sanctions.
Trump’s demand that US aid workers return home sparks outrage in Washington and anxiety overseas
- USAID has been one of the agencies hardest hit as the new administration and Musk’s budget-cutting team target federal programs they say are wasteful or not aligned with a conservative agenda
- Supporters of USAID from both the GOP and Democrats say USAID's work overseas is essential to countering the influence of Russia, China and other adversaries and rivals abroad
WASHINGTON: Frustration boiled over Wednesday among supporters of the United States’ lead aid agency at a Washington rally, and anxious aid workers abroad scrambled to pack up households after the Trump administration abruptly pulled almost all agency staffers off the job and out of the field.
The order issued Tuesday followed 2 1/2 weeks that have seen the Trump administration and teams led by billionaire ally Elon Musk dismantle much of the US Agency for International Development, shutting down a six-decade mission intended to shore up US security by educating children, fighting epidemics and advancing other development abroad.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has been touring Central America on his first visit in office, defended the administration’s broad shutdown of aid funding and other actions while saying, “Our preference would have been to do this in a more orderly fashion.”
But, Rubio said, the administration faced a lack of cooperation in an attempt to review the worth of each agency program. He gave no evidence, and agency staffers deny his and Musk’s claims of obstruction. As a result, Rubio said, the administration would now “work from the bottom up” to determine which US aid and development missions abroad were in the national interest and would be allowed to resume.
“This is not about ending foreign aid. It is about structuring it in a way that furthers the national interest of the United States,” he said in the Guatemalan capital of Guatemala City.
In Washington, Democratic lawmakers and hundreds of others rallied outside the Capitol to protest the fast-moving shutdown of an independent government agency. “This is illegal and this is a coup,” California Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs cried.
“We are witnessing in real time the most corrupt bargain in American history,” Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen shouted to supporters at the rally, referring to Musk, his support for President Donald Trump and his role in challenging USAID and other targeted agencies.
“Lock him up!” members of the crowd chanted. Addressing Democratic lawmakers, who have promised court battles and other efforts but have been unable to slow the assault on USAID, they said: “Do your job!”
Scott Paul, a director at the Oxfam American humanitarian nonprofit, said the damage already done meant that key parts of the global aid and development system would have to be rebuilt “from scratch.”
Jennifer Kates, senior vice president and director of the global health and HIV policy program at KFF, cited one large organization alone that expects to close up to 1,226 maternal and child-care clinics serving more than 630,000 women.
“The health care system is not one that you just press on and off,” Kates said. If the US shutdown lays off staffers and closes those clinics, “you can’t just say, ‘All right, we’re ready to start again. Let’s go.’”
USAID has been one of the agencies hardest hit as the new administration and Musk’s budget-cutting team target federal programs they say are wasteful or not aligned with a conservative agenda.
US embassies in many of the more than 100 countries where USAID operates convened emergency town hall meetings for the thousands of agency staffers and contractors looking for answers. Embassy officials said they had been given no guidance on what to tell staffers, particularly local hires, about their employment status.
A USAID contractor posted in an often violent region of the Middle East said the shutdown had placed the contractor and the contractor’s family in danger because they were unable to reach the US government for help if needed.
The contractor woke up one morning earlier this week blocked from access to government email and other systems, and an emergency “panic button” app was wiped off the contractor’s smartphone.
“You really do feel cut off from a lifeline,” the contract staffer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a Trump administration ban forbidding USAID workers from speaking to people outside their agency.
USAID staffers and families had already faced wrenching decisions as the rumored order loomed, including whether to pull children out of school midyear. Some gave away pet cats and dogs, fearing the administration would not give workers time to complete the paperwork to bring the animals with them.
Despite the administration’s assurances that the US government would bring the agency’s workers safely home as ordered within 30 days, some feared being stranded and left to make their own way back.
Most agency spending has been ordered frozen, and most workers at the Washington headquarters have been taken off the job, making it unclear how the administration will manage and pay for the sudden relocation of thousands of staffers and their families.
The mass removal of thousands of staffers would doom billions of dollars in projects in some 120 countries, including security assistance for Ukraine and other countries, as well as development work for clean water, job training and education, including for schoolgirls under Taliban rule in Afghanistan.
The online notification to USAID workers and contractors said they would be off the job, effective just before midnight Friday, unless deemed essential. Direct hires of the agency overseas got 30 days to return home, the notice said.
The United States is the world’s largest humanitarian donor by far. It spends less than 1 percent of its budget on foreign assistance, a smaller share of its budget than some countries.
Hundreds of millions of dollars of food and medication already delivered by US companies are sitting in ports because of the shutdown.
Health programs like those credited with helping end polio and smallpox epidemics and an acclaimed HIV/AIDS program that saved more than 20 million lives in Africa have stopped. So have programs for monitoring and deploying rapid-response teams for contagious diseases such as Ebola.
South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi told Parliament on Wednesday that officials scrambled to meet with US Embassy staff for information after receiving no warning the Trump administration would freeze crucial funding for the world’s biggest national HIV/AIDS program.
South Africa has the world’s highest number of people living with HIV, at around 8 million, and the United States funds around 17 percent of its $2.3 billion-a-year program through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. The health minister did not say whether US exemptions for lifesaving care affect that work.
Democrats and others say the USAID is enshrined in legislation as an independent agency and cannot be shut down without congressional approval. Supporters of USAID from both political parties say its work overseas is essential to countering the influence of Russia, China and other adversaries and rivals abroad, and to cementing alliances and partnerships.
In Istanbul on Wednesday, Hakan Bilgin sat in the downsized office of his medical-care nonprofit, surrounded by half-unpacked boxes and worried colleagues. Days ago, Doctors of the World Turkiye received an unexpected stop-work order from USAID, forcing them to close 12 field hospitals and lay off over 300 staff members in northern Syria.
“As a medical organization providing lifesaving services, you’re basically saying, ‘Close all the clinics, stop all your doctors, and you’re not providing services to women, children and the elderly,”’ Bilgin said.
Ukraine wants partner countries to join in postwar development worth billions
- Ukraine has “huge potential” to become a guarantor of energy security in Europe by buying liquefied natural gas from the United States
KYIV, Ukraine: Ukraine wants to collaborate with partner countries on postwar projects worth billions of dollars not just in mining rare earth elements, but also in energy and construction sectors to help rebuild the country, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Wednesday.
Sybiha responded to comments by President Donald Trump who said Monday that he wanted to gain access to Ukraine’s valuable rare earth materials as a condition for continuing support for its war against Russia.
Ukrainian officials have said Russia wants to get its hands on Ukraine’s vast natural resources.
Kyiv intends to offer “guarantees of the presence of major businesses in Ukraine and the vested interests of our closest allies — the United States — in developing these (rare earth) deposits and ensuring their protection,” the foreign minister said.
But cooperation should not be limited to rare earth materials, Sybiha said in a news conference alongside visiting UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
Ukraine has “huge potential” to become a guarantor of energy security in Europe by buying liquefied natural gas from the United States and storing it in its massive underground tanks for later distribution, he said.
Sybiha also said there was “joint interest” from Ukrainian and American businesses in the postwar reconstruction of Ukraine, estimated to cost more than $400 billion. “This will be one of the largest projects of this century and, accordingly, one of the largest opportunities for our allies.”
Meanwhile, Zelensky said in an interview broadcast Tuesday night that the war has killed 45,100 Ukrainian troops. The fighting also has injured close to 390,000 troops, he told Piers Morgan Uncensored on YouTube.
On Dec. 8, he said Ukraine had lost some 43,000 soldiers on the battlefield and 370,000 wounded.
Russia hasn’t given its number of killed since September 2022, seven months after its all-out invasion.
If the US stops sending vital military aid, that could also jeopardize European support, Zelensky said in the interview. “Without a doubt, we cannot do without this kind of (Western) support,” he said.
Zelensky said Wednesday that the United States must be part of any Western troop deployment to safeguard a peace deal with Russia and shield against another invasion. Sending only European troops would not be enough, he said.
“Because this is not just a matter of numbers, it is about sharing responsibility and ensuring security guarantees. This cannot be done without the United States of America,” he said at a news conference with Lammy.
Ukrainian forces are slowly losing ground, especially in eastern areas, where they are being pushed backward by their bigger foe.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed Wednesday that Russian troops had captured the villages of Baranivka in the eastern Donetsk region and Novomlynsk in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
Baranivka’s capture is part of Russia’s effort to envelop Pokrovsk, a key road and rail hub whose loss would compromise a wider area of defense, while the seizure of Novomlynsk is part of Russia’s onslaught toward Kupiansk, another important train junction.
Ukraine keeps hitting the Russian military’s rear areas and supply lines in an effort to disrupt the creeping advance.
Ukraine’s Army General staff claimed Wednesday that Ukrainian forces struck an oil refinery in the Krasnodar region of Russia overnight, setting it on fire.
According to the General Staff, the oil refinery and petroleum product manufacturing plant supplies gasoline and diesel to the Russian army.
The governor of the Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratyev, claimed that fragments of a downed Ukrainian drone hit an oil tank at an oil depot in the village of Novominskaya early Wednesday, sparking a fire.
The fire was put out shortly after and there were no injuries, emergency officials said.
Russian diplomat says US must make first step to improve ties
- Relations between Russia and the United States have plunged to lows not seen in decades due to Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine
The United States must make the first move in improving ties with Russia after years of failing to listen to the Kremlin and misguided policies intended to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Moscow, a senior Russian diplomat said on Wednesday.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also said it was wrong to base a foreign policy on the need to “come to an agreement with the White House at any price.”
Relations between Russia and the United States have plunged to lows not seen in decades due to Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
But since the election and inauguration of Donald Trump, Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin has made a point of describing the US president as smart and pragmatic and said he would like to meet him soon.
In a commentary on the Foreign Ministry website, Ryabkov said the Kremlin had long sought to be a partner with the West, “but no one was listening or, in theory, wanted to listen.
“And that is because the underlying aim was to weaken the geopolitical rival to the maximum,” he said.
Russia, he said, had regained “its lawful place in world geopolitics by frustrating the plans of Joe Biden’s administration ... to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Moscow in a hybrid war ‘to the last Ukrainian.’“
“Against the background of this failed policy and with the change of administration, it is the United States that must take the first step in normalizing relations on the basis of mutual respect and equal rights,” Ryabkov wrote.
Ryabkov said Russia was “open to dialogue and ready to reach agreement through hard bargaining while taking account of realities on the ground ... So it is up to D. Trump and his team to make a decision.”
PRELIMINARY CONTACTS
Russia’s ambassador to Britain, Andrei Kelin, quoted by the RIA news agency, described the contacts between the White House and the Kremlin as “very preliminary.” RIA said Kelin told ITV news that the discussions were “only to assess positions, to determine the boundaries of what is possible.”
Putin has said any talks on ending the war in Ukraine must take account of the realities of Russia holding large chunks of Ukrainian territory.
He has also questioned the legitimacy of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a negotiating partner, saying he has remained in office beyond his mandate.
Zelensky, in his nightly video address, spoke of further diplomatic efforts with Washington to advance peace efforts.
“We are significantly intensifying our contacts with the American administration,” he said. “And we also have quite meaningful contacts with other partners.”
Trump has pledged to end the war in Ukraine as soon as possible and said he is ready to meet Putin.
Russian officials have denied any direct contacts with the US about preparations for a phone call between the two leaders as a first step to an eventual meeting later this year.
Two Russian sources with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters this week that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are seen by Russia as possible venues for a summit.
ICC prosecutors seek war crimes evidence as Rwanda-backed M23 rebels launch new offensive in DR Congo
- UN said at least 2,780 people have been killed in the Congo's eastern city of Goma since the M23 attack
- The DRC’s top diplomat accused the international community of being all talk and no action on the conflict
CONGO: The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on Wednesday called for the presentation of information and evidence regarding atrocities committed in eastern Congo, where at least 2,900 people were killed in violence since the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel movement seized the eastern city of Goma last week.
“The Office will continue to investigate alleged crimes committed by any person, irrespective of affiliation or nationality and will not be limited to particular individuals, parties or members of specific groups,” the prosecutor's offfice said in a statement.
As Goma counted its dead, Vivian van de Perre, deputy chief of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO), gave an updated toll from the battle for the city.
“So far, 2,000 bodies have been collected from the Goma streets in recent days, and 900 bodies remain in the morgues of the Goma hospitals,” she told a video news conference, saying the toll could still rise.
ICC prosecutors said in a statement they were “closely following” events in the eastern DRC, “including the grave escalation of violence over the past weeks.”
Despite announcing a unilateral ceasefire on Monday, the rebels mounted a fresh offensive gained ground in eastern Congo on Wednesday despite the unilateral ceasefire they declared earlier this week, taking control of a town 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the provincial capital of Bukavu, civil society officials and residents told The Associated Press.
Citing pleas for the safe passage of aid and hundreds of thousands of displaced people, the M23 announced the ceasefire, but Congo’s government has described the ceasefire as “false communication,” and the United Nations has noted reports of heavy fighting with Congolese forces in the mineral-rich region.
The new offensive came days before the Rwandan and Congolese presidents are due to attend a crisis summit.
Intense clashes broke out at dawn on Wednesday as M23 fighters and Rwandan forces seized the mining town of Nyabibwe, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Bukavu and 70 kilometers from the province’s airport, security and humanitarian sources told AFP.
The M23 had said in declaring the ceasefire that it had “no intention of taking control of Bukavu or other localities.”
“This is proof that the unilateral ceasefire that has been declared was, as usual, a ploy,” Congolese government spokesman Patrick Muyaya told AFP.
In more than three years of fighting between the Rwanda-backed group and the Congolese army, half a dozen ceasefires and truces have been declared, before being unceremoniously broken.
Local and military sources said in recent days that all sides were reinforcing troops and equipment in the region.
Last week’s capture of Goma was a major escalation in the mineral-rich region, scarred by relentless conflict involving dozens of armed groups over three decades.
“We want peace”
In Bukavu, a city of one million people that residents fear will become the next battleground, a crowd gathered for an ecumenical prayer service for peace, organized by local women.
“We are tired of the non-stop wars. We want peace,” one attendee, Jacqueline Ngengele, told AFP.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame are due to attend a joint summit of the eight-country East African Community and 16-member Southern African Development Community in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam on Saturday.
A day earlier, the UN Human Rights Council will convene a special session on the crisis, at Kinshasa’s request.
Diplomatic sources say the M23’s advance in the east of the vast central African nation could weaken Tshisekedi, who won a second term in December 2023.
Fears the violence could spark a wider conflict have galvanized regional bodies, mediators such as Angola and Kenya, as well as the United Nations, European Union and other countries in diplomatic efforts for a peaceful resolution.
But the DRC’s top diplomat accused the international community of being all talk and no action on the conflict.
“We see a lot of declarations but we don’t see actions,” Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner told journalists in Brussels.
Several neighboring countries have already said they are bolstering their defenses, wary of the crisis spilling over.
A UN expert report said last year that Rwanda had up to 4,000 troops in the DRC, seeking to profit from its vast mineral wealth, and that Kigali has “de facto” control over the M23.
The eastern DRC has deposits of coltan, a metallic ore that is vital in making phones and laptops, as well as gold and other minerals.
Rwanda has never explicitly admitted to military involvement in support of the M23 and alleges that the DRC supports and shelters the FDLR, an armed group created by ethnic Hutus who massacred Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
