GENEVA: The UN’s migration agency should not get itself dragged into domestic policy debates, its chief Antonio Vitorino said, as he seeks a second term leading the organization.
“Migration has become a highly politicized area, and even a highly polarized area,” the 66-year-old former Portuguese deputy prime minister said.
“Some people would like us to be more vocal in some moments of the internal migration debate, but we do not take sides,” he said, noting how the topic is being fiercely debated in countries like Britain, France and the United States.
Vitorino is standing for re-election as director general of the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration.
The vote takes place in mid-May and Vitorino is in the unusual position of being challenged for the job by his American deputy Amy Pope.
The IOM was founded in 1951 to deal with the displacements in Europe following World War II.
But it was only in 2016 that it joined the United Nations fold, and its boss, unlike the chiefs of other UN agencies, does not single out countries for criticism.
Vitorino acknowledged that the organization could communicate better about what it is and what it does.
But he says the IOM must have a balanced approach toward migration and is not set up to praise or criticize countries since it is not there to verify the implementation of an international treaty or agreement, like the better-known UN refugee agency UNHCR or the UN Human Rights office.
Still, he insisted that the IOM knew how to raise its concerns.
“For instance, considering the European Union, we have been claiming for quite some time that there is a need to address the search and rescue needs in the Mediterranean,” he said.
“And we are very pleased with the fact that recently the European Commission has published a document with a strategy for the central Mediterranean that is exactly taking on board our claim.”
A politician and a lawyer, Vitorino was Portugal’s defense minister and deputy PM from 1995 to 1997 in the government of Antonio Guterres, who is now the UN secretary-general.
He was then the European commissioner for justice and home affairs from 1999 to 2004.
Vitorino was elected to the IOM leadership by member states in 2018, becoming only the second non-American to lead the agency in seven decades.
The agency has 175 member states, with the United States followed by the European Union bloc as its main financial contributors.
“All my predecessors for 70 years made two mandates, and I don’t see any reason for a successful first mandate not to be followed by a second mandate,” Vitorino said.
He said he was counting on “very strong support from the European countries” and “strong encouragement” from other nations in other regions.
He declined to comment on being challenged by his deputy, beyond saying: “It is the first time that it happens in IOM.”
As for claims that he has not traveled much in his job, he said: “If I recall correctly, I have been 15 times to Africa until the end of 2022.”
“And I would like the critics to take into consideration that for two years, we were locked down – if they have already forgotten the pandemic.”
“I’m pretty confident that my work deserves to be supported and continuous,” he said, pointing out the key role the IOM is playing in Ukraine and Haiti, two of the world’s major crises.
He wants to continue reforms to improve the IOM’s efficiency and to make the organization more financially stable, as currently 95 percent of its budget depends on voluntary contributions from its member states, who pick which projects they fund.
The IOM must also adapt to new challenges, Vitorino said, such as the growing numbers of children migrating alone, migration flows linked to climate change, and even “digital nomads” – people working remotely from other countries.
And time is pressing because nowadays, “there are more people on the move because of climate change than because of conflicts,” he said.
UN migration agency can not meddle in domestic debates, says boss
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UN migration agency can not meddle in domestic debates, says boss
- Antonio Vitorino is standing for re-election as director general of the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration
Russian shelling kills five in and near eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk
Two people had been killed in Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub
KYIV: Russian shelling killed five people on Thursday in and near the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, the regional governor said, a key target under Russian attack for months.
Vadym Filashkin, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said two people had been killed in Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub, where local authorities have been urging residents to evacuate. Two died in Bylitske, northwest of Pokrovsk, and another in Illinivka, between Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk, another frequent target in Russia’s slow westward advance through Donetsk region.
University of California reiterates ban on student government boycotts of Israel
SAN FRANCISCO: The president of the University of California this week reiterated that student governments are prohibited from financial boycotts of companies associated with any particular country, including Israel, as the Trump administration continues its probe of alleged antisemitism on college campuses.
Michael Drake did not mention Israel by name, but he did single out student governments in a letter he sent to chancellors of the university system. He said that while freedom of speech and inquiry are core commitments of the university, its policies also require that financial decisions be grounded in sound business practices, such as competitive bidding.
“This principle also applies to student governments,” he wrote. “Actions by University entities to implement boycotts of companies based on their association with a particular country would not align with these sound business practices.”
UC spokesperson Rachel Zaentz said in a statement that the letter is in keeping with the university’s opposition to financial boycotts of companies associated with a particular country.
“While our community members have the right to express their viewpoints, financial boycotts are inconsistent with UC’s commitment to sound business practices, academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas,” she said.
College campuses exploded with pro-Palestinian protests in the wake of the war in Gaza, including a particularly brutal clash involving police at the University of California, Los Angeles last year. At the start of his term this year, President Donald Trump launched antisemitism probes at several universities, including the University of California, Berkeley.
The US Department of Health and Human Services and National Science Foundation are requiring research grantees to certify they will not engage in boycotts of Israel or promote diversity, inclusion and equity or risk federal funding.
The UC Student Association, which represents students across the campuses, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But its president, Aditi Hariharan, told the Los Angeles Times that she disagreed with the ban.
“Students already have little influence on how the university works, and student government is one of the few places where they can really get involved and have their voices heard,” she said in an interview before the letter was released.
Putin told Trump will not ‘give up’ aims in Ukraine: Kremlin
- The two leaders spoke as US-led peace talks on ending the more than three-year-old conflict in Ukraine have stalled
- Putin said the Russian side was ready to continue negotiation process
MOSCOW: Russian leader Vladimir Putin told US President Donald Trump by telephone on Thursday that Moscow will not “give up” on its aims in Ukraine, the Kremlin said.
The pair spoke as US-led peace talks on ending the more than three-year-old conflict in Ukraine have stalled and after Washington paused some weapons shipments to Kyiv.
The Kremlin said the call lasted almost an hour.
Trump has been frustrated with both Moscow and Kyiv as US efforts to end fighting have yielded no breakthrough.
“Our president said that Russia will achieve the aims it set, that is to say the elimination of the root causes that led to the current state of affairs,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
“Russia will not give up on these aims.”
Moscow has long described its maximalist aims in Ukraine as getting rid of the “root causes” of the conflict, demanding that Kyiv give up its NATO ambitions.
Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine has killed hundreds of thousands of people and Russia now controls large swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine.
Even so, Putin told Trump that Moscow would continue to take part in negotiations.
“He also spoke of the readiness of the Russian side to continue the negotiation process,” Ushakov added.
“Vladimir Putin said that we are continuing to look for a political, negotiated solution to the conflict,” Ushakov said.
Moscow has for months refused to agree to a US-proposed ceasefire in Ukraine.
Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Putin of dragging out the process while pushing on with Russia’s advance in Ukraine.
The Kremlin said that Putin had also “stressed” to Trump that all conflicts in the Middle East should be solved “diplomatically,” after the US struck nuclear sites in Russia’s ally Iran.
Putin and Trump spoke as Kyiv said that Russian strikes on Thursday killed at least eight people in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was visiting ally Denmark on Thursday.
A senior Ukrainian official told AFP that Trump and Zelensky planned to speak to each other on Friday.
The US deciding to pause some weapons shipments has severely hampered Kyiv, which has been reliant on Western military support since Moscow launched its offensive in 2022.
Zelensky told EU allies in Denmark that doubts over US military aid reinforced the need for greater cooperation with Brussels and NATO.
He stressed again that Kyiv had always supported Trump’s “unconditional ceasefire.”
On Wednesday, Kyiv scrambled to clarify with the US what a White House announcement on pausing some weapons shipments meant.
“Continued American support for Ukraine, for our defense, for our people is in our common interest,” Zelensky had said on Wednesday.
Russia has consistently called for Western countries to stop sending weapons to Kyiv.
Violent Togo protest crackdown must be investigated: Amnesty
- At least seven people have been killed, dozens wounded and more than 60 arrested
- At least six people are still reported missing after the protests, said Amnesty
ABIDJAN: Amnesty International called Thursday for an independent investigation into allegations that Togo’s security forces killed, tortured and kidnapped people in a violent crackdown on anti-government protests last month.
Ruled for 58 years by leader Faure Gnassingbe and his late father, Togo has been rocked in recent weeks by rare protests in the capital, Lome, against electricity price hikes, arrests of government critics and a constitutional reform consolidating Gnassingbe’s grip on power.
At least seven people have been killed, dozens wounded and more than 60 arrested, according to civil society groups.
Amnesty International said it had interviewed victims and witnesses who described a series of abuses by security forces at banned protests in late June.
According to witnesses, “men identified as security forces carried out unlawful killings, arbitrary arrests and detentions, acts of torture and other ill-treatment, and several cases of abduction,” said Marceau Sivieude, the rights group’s interim director for west and central Africa.
“These cases must be independently and transparently investigated as a matter of urgency,” he said in a statement.
At least six people are still reported missing after the protests, said Amnesty, which also condemned the alleged torture of protesters at another series of demonstrations in early June against Gnassingbe, 59, who took power in 2005 after the death of his father.
Authorities said Sunday that two bodies found in a lagoon after the protests were victims of drownings.
A lawyer for victims, Darius Atsoo, told the rights group the number of people detained in connection with the protests was unknown.
As of Monday, at least 31 were still in custody, he said.
Republicans muscle Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill through Congress
- Republicans overcome internal divides to pass massive tax-cut and spending bill
- Bill to add $3.4 trillion to US debt over a decade
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s tax-cut package cleared its final hurdle in the US Congress on Thursday, as the Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly approved the massive bill and sent it to him to sign into law.
The 218-214 vote amounts to a significant victory for the Republican president that will fund his immigration crackdown, make his 2017 tax cuts permanent and deliver new tax breaks that he promised during his 2024 campaign.
It also cuts health and food safety net programs and zeroes out dozens of green energy incentives. It would add $3.4 trillion to the nation’s $36.2 trillion debt, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Despite concerns within Trump’s party over the 869-page bill’s price tag and its hit to health care programs, in the end just two of the House’s 220 Republicans voting against it, following an overnight standoff. The bill has already cleared the Republican-controlled Senate by the narrowest possible margin.
The White House said Trump will sign it into law at 5 p.m. ET (2100 GMT) on Friday, the July 4 Independence Day holiday.
Republicans said the legislation will lower taxes for Americans across the income spectrum and spur economic growth.
“This is jet fuel for the economy, and all boats are going to rise,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said.
Every Democrat in Congress voted against it, blasting the bill as a giveaway to the wealthy that would leave millions uninsured.
“The focus of this bill, the justification for all of the cuts that will hurt everyday Americans, is to provide massive tax breaks for billionaires,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in an eight-hour, 46-minute speech that was the longest in the chamber’s history.
Trump kept up the pressure throughout, cajoling and threatening lawmakers as he pressed them to finish the job.
“FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE. RIDICULOUS!!!” he wrote on social media.
Though roughly a dozen House Republicans threatened to vote against the bill, only two ended up doing so: Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, a centrist, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a conservative who said it did not cut spending enough.
Marathon weekend
Republicans raced to meet Trump’s July 4 deadline, working through last weekend and holding all-night debates in the House and the Senate. The bill passed the Senate on Tuesday in a 51-50 vote in that saw Vice President JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote.
According to the CBO, the bill would lower tax revenues by $4.5 trillion over 10 years and cut spending by $1.1 trillion.
Those spending cuts largely come from Medicaid, the health program that covers 71 million low-income Americans. The bill would tighten enrollment standards, institute a work requirement and clamp down on a funding mechanism used by states to boost federal payments — changes that would leave nearly 12 million people uninsured, according to the CBO.
Republicans added $50 billion for rural health providers to address concerns that those cutbacks would force them out of business.
Nonpartisan analysts have found that the wealthiest Americans would see the biggest benefits from the bill, while lower-income people would effectively see their incomes drop as the safety-net cuts would outweigh their tax cuts.
The increased debt load created by the bill would also effectively transfer money from younger to older generations, analysts say. Ratings firm Moody’s downgraded US debt in May, citing the mounting debt, and some foreign investors say the bill is making US Treasury bonds less attractive.
The bill raises the US debt ceiling by $5 trillion, averting the prospect of a default in the short term. But some investors worry the debt overhang could curtail the economic stimulus in the bill and create a long-term risk of higher borrowing costs.
On the other side of the ledger, the bill staves off tax increases that were due to hit most Americans at the end of this year, when Trump’s 2017 individual and business tax cuts were due to expire. Those cuts are now made permanent, while tax breaks for parents and businesses are expanded.
The bill also sets up new tax breaks for tipped income, overtime pay, seniors and auto loans, fulfilling Trump campaign promises.
The final version of the bill includes more substantial tax cuts and more aggressive health care cuts than an initial version that passed the House in May.
During deliberations in the Senate, Republicans also dropped a provision that would have banned state-level regulations on artificial intelligence, and a “retaliatory tax” on foreign investment that had spurred alarm on Wall Street.
The bill is likely to feature prominently in the 2026 midterm elections, when Democrats hope to recapture at least one chamber of Congress. Republican leaders contend the bill’s tax breaks will goose the economy before then, and many of its benefit cuts are not scheduled to kick in until after that election. Opinion polls show many Americans are concerned about the bill’s cost and its effect on lower income people.
