American missionary freed from captivity in Niger by Al Qaeda terrorist recounts how ‘it was hell’, US ignoring his ordeal
American officials have said little about the circumstances of Woodke’s release, noting only that it was a collaborative effort and that the US government did not pay a ransom or make other concessions. Woodke was freed alongside a French journalist, Olivier Dubois, even as other hostages remain in the area. Woodke was similarly circumspect, saying that he doesn’t know with certainty what led to his release but that he was recovered by French forces.
US foreign secretary Antony Blinken flies to Beijing in effort to sensibly manage tenuous US-PRC relations
In its readout of the Blinken-Qin phone call, China’s foreign ministry said Qin urged the United States to respect “China’s core concerns” such as the issue of Taiwan’s self-rule, “stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, and stop harming China’s sovereignty, security and development interests in the name of competition.”
Killer sanctions: How US during Trump regime shrank Iran’s accessible foreign reserves from $122.5b to $4b
The problem created by sanctions, according to the company, is less an unwillingness to do business with Iran over legal fears than an inability of Iranian officials to access their own foreign currency reserves to make payments. The sanctions, while not eliminating Iran’s foreign reserves, have frozen Iran’s access to them, sending the country’s accessible reserves from $122.5 billion down to a mere $4 billion between 2018 and 2020, according to International Monetary Fund figures.
Punitive sanctions slapped on Tehran by US are killing Iranian children in numbers as banks, drug makers keep off the Gulf nation
While the US has given assurances that humanitarian trade with Iran will be exempted from sanctions, the lawsuit, which is currently pending appeal after being dismissed, alleges that the large-scale sanctioning of Iran’s banking sector has created a situation in which foreign companies are either unwilling or unable to do any trade with Iran at all.
Probe into US President Biden and son Hunter’s criminal bribery schemes in Ukraine has energised Trump to hem in his successor
The secrecy the FBI says is necessary to protect sources can also obscure the credibility of the source. Still, top Republicans are now citing exactly the kind of evidence – a confidential human source relaying the unverified allegations of a Ukrainian business executive – that they dismissed as unreliable when it came to Trump and the dossier.
Republicans now allege ‘weaponisation’ of justice system to lock Trump out of US presidential race
The mounting legal jeopardy Trump finds himself in has quickly become a political rallying cry for the Republicans, many of whom acknowledged they had not fully read the 49-page federal indictment but are rushing to stand by the indicted former president, adopting his grievances against the federal justice system as their own.
Trump’s showmanship elicits more attention than the felony charges he denied in Florida court
The whirling drama surrounding Trump overshadowed most other news on Tuesday. His GOP presidential rivals largely refrained from any campaign events of their own. One Republican competitor, Vivek Ramaswamy, sought to capitalise on the spectacle by showing up outside the courthouse to tell reporters that he was encouraging other 2024 candidates to commit to pardoning Trump if elected to the White House.
US slams brakes on online appointments for asylum-seekers at Texas border crossing after extortion reports
Several asylum-seekers say Mexican officials in Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas, had threatened to hold them and make them miss their scheduled asylum appointments unless they paid them. Humanitarian groups in Laredo say they had recently warned CBP of the problems and that certain groups were controlling access to the international crossing on the Mexican side.
Support for ex-US President Trump among Republicans remains high despite criminal charges he faces
Trump, who turns 77 on Wednesday, touched down in Miami at 2:54pm (1854 GMT) in a private jet with his name emblazoned on the side. Supporters gathered outside a nearby golf club he owns, where he was due to stay the night.
Great Grift: Full probe of Covid funds theft will decide whether Biden or Trump will be next US president
Fraud in pandemic unemployment assistance programmes stands at $76 billion, according to congressional testimony from Labor Department Inspector General Larry Turner. That’s a conservative estimate. Another $115 billion mistakenly went to people who should not have received the benefits, according to his testimony.
