US official sought to end aid for Rohingya refugees, email says

US official sought to end aid for Rohingya refugees, email says
The Trump administration official overseeing the dismantling of the main U.S. foreign aid agency proposed phasing out help for crisis-torn Lebanon and the Rohingya, the world's largest stateless population. (AFP/File)
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Updated 15 March 2025
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US official sought to end aid for Rohingya refugees, email says

US official sought to end aid for Rohingya refugees, email says
  • The email provides a window into some of the thinking behind the administration’s drive to terminate aid programs that it does not believe benefit the US
  • Marocco appeared to want the Rohingya and Lebanon to express their gratitude for US support

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration official overseeing the dismantling of the main US foreign aid agency proposed phasing out help for crisis-torn Lebanon and the Rohingya, the world’s largest stateless population, according to an email reviewed by Reuters.
Written on February 16 by Peter Marocco, the acting USAID deputy administrator, the email provides a window into some of the thinking behind the administration’s drive to terminate aid programs that it does not believe benefit the US
In it, Marocco appeared to want the Rohingya and Lebanon to express their gratitude for US support, saying the US “should procure some type of consideration or good faith from the recipient populations to the American people.”
The email directed Tim Meisburger, the head of USAID’s humanitarian affairs bureau, to draft an “Action memo” drawing US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s attention to “the odd dependency” of Lebanon and the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar on US aid.
It should outline options for “how we recommend, immediately, sending the signal, that though we have compassion, people had the warning on November 5, and things will have to change,” Marocco wrote, referring to Trump’s 2024 re-election.
“Please propose the best method and timeline of weening this dependency and what we might seek, from them – or partners. Nothing is owed,” he wrote, apparently meaning an absence of any US obligation to provide further support.
A source with knowledge of the issue confirmed the authenticity of the email and that Marocco sought to phase out aid to the Rohingya and Lebanon.
Marocco “is not convinced these people need more aid,” the source said.
The State Department declined to comment. Marocco and Meisburger did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters could not determine whether Meisburger sent the requested memo to Rubio or how much US aid continues to flow to Lebanon or the more than 1 million Rohingyas who have fled violent persecution in Myanmar that the US in 2022 declared a genocide.
The United States provides military, humanitarian and other assistance to Lebanon.
Marocco sent the email as he and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency were launching a drive to shrink USAID and merge its remnants into the State Department.
They have fired hundreds of staff and contractors and terminated billions of dollars in services on which tens of millions of people around the world depend. Rubio on Monday said more than 80 percent of all USAID programs have been canceled.

ROHINGYA AID COVERED BY WAIVER
The drive began hours after Trump took office on January 20, with the Republican president ordering a 90-day freeze on all foreign assistance pending reviews of whether aid programs conformed with his America First foreign policy.
Food aid for the Rohingya and Lebanon was shielded by a waiver from the freeze for emergency food aid issued by Rubio on February 24, the source said.
Four days later, Rubio granted a waiver for all life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance, supplies and reasonable administrative costs as necessary to deliver such aid.
The US has been the largest provider of aid to the Rohingya refugees, contributing nearly $2.4 billion since 2017, according to a State Department website.
More than 1 million Rohingyas live in squalid camps in the Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh, which borders Myanmar, and according to the UN refugee agency, 95 percent of Rohingya households depend on humanitarian assistance.
Others have sought refuge in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Thailand and elsewhere.
The United Nations earlier this month warned it will have to cut monthly food rations to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh from $12.50 to $6 next month, unless it can raise more funds.
Visiting Cox’s Bazar on Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the UN will do all it can to help prevent cuts to the refugees’ rations.
Lebanon has been rocked by a series of crises, including an influx of refugees from Syria, political paralysis, a financial collapse, a blast that devastated Beirut’s port and fighting that erupted in October 2023 between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement that uprooted tens of thousands.
The US long has viewed Lebanon’s stability as critical to that of the region and sought to counter the influence that Iran has exerted there through Hezbollah, part of Tehran’s Axis of Resistance against Israel.
To that end, successive Democratic and Republican presidents, including Trump in his first term, have approved since 2001 more than $5.5 billion in humanitarian, military and other aid for Lebanon, according to a USAID website.


A court has acquitted Austrian ex-leader Sebastian Kurz of making false statements

Updated 24 sec ago
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A court has acquitted Austrian ex-leader Sebastian Kurz of making false statements

A court has acquitted Austrian ex-leader Sebastian Kurz of making false statements
VIENNA: A court in Vienna on Monday acquitted former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of making false statements to a parliamentary inquiry into alleged corruption in his government, reversing a verdict from last year in which Kurz was given a suspended prison sentence.
A panel of judges at Vienna’s upper state court acquitted Kurz after a short appeal hearing, the Austria Press Agency reported.
The case centered on Kurz’s testimony to an inquiry that focused on the coalition he led from 2017, when his conservative Austrian People’s Party formed a coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, until its collapse in 2019.
Prosecutors accused the 38-year-old of having given false evidence in June 2020 regarding his role in the setting up of a holding company, OeBAG, which administers the state’s role in some companies, and the appointment of his former close confidant Thomas Schmid to its leadership.
In February 2024, Kurz was found guilty of making false statements about the appointment of the company’s supervisory board, though not about that of Schmid. He was given an eight-month suspended sentence.

India’s monsoon lashes Mumbai as rains arrive early

India’s monsoon lashes Mumbai as rains arrive early
Updated 37 min 3 sec ago
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India’s monsoon lashes Mumbai as rains arrive early

India’s monsoon lashes Mumbai as rains arrive early

MUMBAI:Lashing rains swamped India’s financial capital Mumbai on Monday as the annual monsoon rains arrived some two weeks earlier than usual, according to weather forecasters.
Heavy rains cooling temperatures — welcomed by farmers for their crops but which cause havoc each year in cities by flooding transport infrastructure — are normally expected in the southwestern state of Maharashtra in early June.
Mumbai weather chief Shubhangi Bhute, from the Indian Meteorological Department, said it was the earliest the rains had arrived since their records began in 2011.
“This is the earliest the monsoon has arrived in the state since then, so this is the earliest in 14 years,” Bhute said.
South Asia is getting hotter and in recent years has seen shifting weather patterns, but scientists are unclear on how exactly a warming planet is affecting the highly complex monsoon.
The southwest monsoon is a colossal sea breeze that brings South Asia 70-80 percent of its annual rainfall between June and September every year.
It occurs when summer heat warms the landmass of the subcontinent, causing the air to rise and sucking in cooler Indian Ocean winds which then produce enormous volumes of rain.
The monsoon is vital for agriculture and therefore for the livelihoods of millions of farmers and for food security.
But it brings destruction every year in landslides and floods.
In India, the southwest monsoon normally arrives on the southern tip at Kerala around June 1, and moves north to cover the country by early July. The rains typically reach Maharashtra around June 7.


India rushes to contain oil spill as vessel sinks off Kerala coast

India rushes to contain oil spill as vessel sinks off Kerala coast
Updated 26 May 2025
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India rushes to contain oil spill as vessel sinks off Kerala coast

India rushes to contain oil spill as vessel sinks off Kerala coast
  • The vessel was carrying 640 containers, including 13 with ‘hazardous cargo’ and 12 with calcium carbide, coast guard says
  • The Kerala coast has been put on high alert, with local coastal authorities instructed not to touch or go near the containers

KOCHI/BENGALURU: Authorities in the southern Indian state of Kerala were scrambling to contain an oil spill on Monday after a container vessel sank, leaking fuel into the Arabian Sea and releasing 100 cargo containers into the water.

The Liberia-flagged MSC ELSA3 ship was traveling from Vizhinjam on India’s southern tip to Kochi when it capsized about 38 nautical miles off Kerala on Saturday, officials said, adding that all 24 crew members had been rescued.

The entire ship has since been “submerged,” the Kerala chief minister’s office said in a statement on Sunday without elaborating on the cause of the incident.

“The Coast Guard is taking steps to block the oil with two ships. A Dornier aircraft is also being used to spray oil-destroying powder on the oil slick,” the statement said.

The vessel was carrying 640 containers, including 13 with “hazardous cargo” and 12 with calcium carbide, the Indian coast guard said, without disclosing the contents of the containers that fell into the sea.

Cyprus-based MSC Shipmanagement, which owns the vessel, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Kerala coast has been put on high alert, with local coastal bodies instructed not to touch or go near the containers — some of which began washing up on beaches on Monday — and fishermen advised not to venture into the sea.

Authorities in the state’s Kollam region have encouraged people living nearby to move to safer places.

Accidental oil spills in the ocean can have far-reaching effects, putting marine ecosystems to the local fishing industry at risk.

The collision of a BW LPG vessel and a local ship carrying heavy fuel oil caused a similar oil spill in 2017 near the southern city of Chennai, which harmed aquatic life and affected the livelihood of thousands of fishermen. 


France’s Macron calls for world order ‘based on law’ in Vietnam

France’s Macron calls for world order ‘based on law’ in Vietnam
Updated 26 May 2025
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France’s Macron calls for world order ‘based on law’ in Vietnam

France’s Macron calls for world order ‘based on law’ in Vietnam

HANOI: France’s Emmanuel Macron called in Vietnam on Monday for the preservation of a world order “based on law,” as he started a tour of Southeast Asia, a region caught up in the confrontation between the United States and China.
During a press statement alongside his Vietnamese counterpart Luong Cuong in Hanoi, Macron said a rules-based order was necessary at “a time of both great imbalance and a return to power-driven rhetoric and intimidation.”
The president presented France as a reliable alternative for Vietnam, caught between Washington, which is threatening to impose enormous levies on its exports to the United States, and Beijing, an important trade partner with which it is also embroiled in territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
After his arrival in Hanoi late Sunday, the first stop of a six-day trip that will take in Indonesia and Singapore, Macron emphasized a shared vision with Vietnam, a country of 100 million people experiencing stellar growth.
On Monday, around a dozen agreements were signed between the two countries, including in the field of nuclear power, which Hanoi is keen to develop as it seeks to meet soaring energy demands.
Budget airline Vietjet also announced an order for 20 widebody Airbus A330-900 planes, doubling its purchases of the model from the aviation giant in a deal worth an estimated $8 billion.
“It is truly a new page being written between our two countries... a desire to write an even more ambitious page of the relationship between Vietnam and France, between ASEAN and the European Union,” Macron said.
After paying tribute at a Hanoi war memorial to those who fought against French colonial occupation, Macron met his counterpart Cuong.
The president later had lunch with Communist Party General Secretary To Lam at the capital’s star attraction, the Temple of Literature.
Lam is considered the most powerful leader in Vietnam, a one-party state which tolerates no dissent and moves quickly to suppress any criticism.
Ahead of Macron’s first official visit to the country, Human Rights Watch pressed him to voice concerns about “the Vietnamese government’s worsening rights record.”
Vietnam has more than 170 political prisoners who have been charged and convicted under “draconian laws” that criminalize free expression and peaceful activism for human rights and democracy, HRW said.
A public appeal would be out of character for the French president, who regularly says he prefers to raise sensitive issues behind closed doors.


Macron hopes to sell Hanoi his offer of a “third way” between Washington and Beijing.
“Vietnam is really on the front line of all the tensions that are growing in the South China Sea,” a senior French diplomatic official told AFP.
Hanoi shares Washington’s concerns about Beijing’s increasing assertiveness in the contested waterway, but it has close economic ties with its giant neighbor.
Vietnam has also been threatened with a hefty 46 percent tariff by US President Donald Trump as part of his global trade blitz.
Macron’s “Indo-Pacific strategy” — which proposes a third way to the countries of the region — has gained new relevance due to Trump’s trade war, according to the aide.
He said the president was “defending the idea of international trade rules, we don’t want a jungle where the law of the strongest prevails.”
Vietnam has been careful to follow its own balancing act between China and the United States.
It has adopted a “bamboo diplomacy” approach of seeking strength through flexibility, or looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers.
 


Trump’s immigration crackdown unnerves Cuban exiles long shielded from deportation

Trump’s immigration crackdown unnerves Cuban exiles long shielded from deportation
Updated 26 May 2025
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Trump’s immigration crackdown unnerves Cuban exiles long shielded from deportation

Trump’s immigration crackdown unnerves Cuban exiles long shielded from deportation
  • US President Donald Trump intends to deport recent arrivals from Cuba back to their country
  • Many Cubans feel betrayed by the decision after supporting President Trump during his election

MIAMI: Immigration officials said Tomás Hernández worked in high-level posts for Cuba’s foreign intelligence agency for decades before migrating to the United States to pursue the American dream.
The 71-year-old was detained by federal agents outside his Miami-area home in March and accused of hiding his ties to Cuba’s Communist Party when he obtained permanent residency.
Cuban-Americans in South Florida have long clamored for a firmer hand with Havana and the recent apprehensions of Hernández and several other former Cuban officials for deportation have been extremely popular among the politically powerful exile community.
“It’s a political gift to Cuban-American hard-liners,” said Eduardo Gamarra, a Latin American expert at Florida International University. But many Cubans fear they could be next on Trump’s list, he said, and “some in the community see it as a betrayal.”
Some pleased among Trump fans, others worried
While President Donald Trump’s mass deportation pledge has frightened migrants from many nations, it has come as something of a shock to the 2.4 million Cuban-Americans, who strongly backed the Republican twice and have long enjoyed a place of privilege in the US immigration system.
Amid record arrivals of migrants from the Caribbean island, Trump in March revoked temporary humanitarian parole for about 300,000 Cubans. Many have been detained ahead of possible deportation.
Among those facing deportation is a pro-Trump Cuban rapper behind a hit song “Patria y Vida” — “Homeland and Life” — that became the unofficial anthem of anti-communist protests on the island in 2021 and drew praise from the likes of then Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State. Eliéxer Márquez, who raps under the name El Funky, said he received notice this month that he had 30 days to leave the US
Thanks to Cold War laws aimed at removing Fidel Castro, Cuban migrants for many decades enjoyed almost automatic refugee status in the US and could obtain green cards a year after entry, unlike migrants from virtually every other country.
Support for Trump among likely Cuban-American voters in Miami was at an all-time high on the eve of last year’s election, according to a poll by Florida International University, which has been tracking the Cuban-American community since 1991. Trump rarely mentions Cubans in his attacks on migrant targets including Venezuelans and Haitians. That has given many Cubans hope that they will remain immune to immigration enforcement actions.
Politics of a crackdown
Democrats, meanwhile, have been trying to turn the immigration crackdown to their advantage. In April, grassroots groups erected two giant billboards on Miami highways calling Rubio and Republican Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart, María Elvira Salazar and Carlos Giménez “traitors” to the Cuban-American community for failing to protect tens of thousands of migrants from Trump’s immigration policies.
The arrest of former Cuban state agents is one way to bolster Trump allies, Gamarra said.
In March, Giménez sent Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a letter with the names of 108 people he said were former Cuban state agents or Communist Party officials living unlawfully in the US
“It is imperative that the Department of Homeland Security enforce existing US laws to identify, deport and repatriate these individuals who pose a direct threat to our national security, the integrity of our immigration system and the safety of Cuban exiles and American citizens alike,” Giménez wrote, adding that the US remains a “beacon of hope and freedom for those escaping tyranny.”
A mission to topple the government
Giménez’s target list was compiled by Luis Dominguez, who left Cuba in 1971 and has made it his mission to topple Cuba’s government. In 2009, when the Internet was still a novelty in Cuba, Dominguez said he posed as a 27-year-old female sports journalist from Colombia to lure Castro’s son Antonio into an online romance.
“Some people dream with making money, or with growing old and going on vacation,” said Dominguez, who lives in Connecticut. “I dream with seeing my country free.”
With support from the right-wing Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, he started combing social media and relying on a well-oiled network of anti-socialist sources, inside Cuba and outside the country, to dox officials allegedly behind human rights abuses and violations of democratic norms. To date, his website, Represores Cubanos — Cuban Repressors — has identified more than 1,200 such state agents, some 150 in the United States.
“They’re chasing the American dream, but previously they condemned it while pursuing the Cuban dream,” Dominguez said. “It’s the typical double life of any Communist regime. When they were in power they criticized anything about the US But now that they’re here, they love it.”
Dominguez, 62, said he regularly shares his findings with federal law enforcement but a spokesman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t comment on the agency’s relationship with the activist.
An elite spy department
Enrique Garcia, a former colleague, said he studied with Hernández in the former Soviet Union in the 1970s. Upon their return, Hernández was sent to work in the spy agency’s elite “North America” department, said Garcia.
Garcia, who defected to the US in the 1990s and has devoted himself to helping American spy catchers unmask Cuban agents, said one-time Cuban agents have infiltrated the current migration wave while hiding their past and even current loyalties to the Cuban government.
“You can’t be on both sides at the same time,” he said.
It’s not known when Hernández entered the US and why. US immigration law generally bars people who’ve belonged to Communist parties. Anyone caught lying on their green card application can be deported or prosecuted.
But removing Cubans who are no longer welcome in the US could prove challenging.
The Trump administration sends a single 60-passenger plane to Cuba every month as part of its deportation drive, unchanged from the past year’s average, according to Witness at the Border, which tracks removal flights. At that rate, it would take almost 700 years to send back the estimated 500,000 Cubans who arrived during the Biden administration and now lack protected status.
Crackdown on loyal fans
At Versailles Restaurant, the epicenter of Miami’s Little Havana, few among its anti-Communist clientele seemed poised to turn on Trump, who visited the iconic cafe twice during the recent presidential campaign. One regular retiree, 83-year-old Rafael Nieto, even wore a giant Trump 2024 hat and pin.
Most of the aging exiles applauded Trump’s migration crackdown overhaul but there were a few cracks in the GOP armor. As the late afternoon banter switched between talk of CIA plots to assassinate Castro and President John F. Kennedy’s failure to provide air cover during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, one retiree stood up and quietly stepped away from his friends.
“People are trembling,” Tony Freitas, who came to the US from Cuba in the 1980 Mariel boatlift, said in a hushed voice. “For any little thing, you could be deported.”