WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s outgoing administration on Monday returned Cuba to the US blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism, erecting a last-minute roadlock to expected efforts by President-elect Joe Biden to ease tensions.
The terror designation severely hampers foreign investment and can only be removed after a formal review by the Biden administration, meaning it may remain in force for months.
With nine days left in office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited Cuba’s ties with Colombian rebels, alliance with leftist Venezuela and sanctuary to several US fugitives in justifying the blacklisting.
“With this action, we will once again hold Cuba’s government accountable and send a clear message: the Castro regime must end its support for international terrorism and subversion of US justice,” Pompeo said in a statement, referring to former leaders Fidel and Raul Castro.
“The United States will continue to support the Cuban people in their desire for a democratic government and respect for human rights, including freedom of religion, expression and association,” he said.
Then-president Barack Obama in 2015 delisted Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism as he moved to normalize relations and declared the half-century US effort to isolate the communist island to be a failure.
Trump has reversed many of Obama’s overtures to Cuba and also imposed sanctions on Venezuela, winning him support among immigrant communities in Florida, a crucial state in US elections.
Biden has indicated he wants to return at least to some engagement started under Obama and blocked by Trump, including allowing Cuban-Americans to visit family and send money.
Lawmakers from Biden’s Democratic Party had been outraged by signs that Pompeo would move ahead with the designation, saying he should be assisting the transition instead.
Representative Gregory Meeks, the Democrat who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had warned that the decision “would clearly be another stunt by President Trump and Pompeo, trying to tie the hands of the incoming Biden administration on their way out the door.”
“President Obama’s rapprochement with Cuba reversed decades of failed foreign policy which neither advanced our goals or helped the Cuban people,” Meeks said in December.
To remove Cuba from the terror list, Antony Blinken — Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, who the Republican-led Senate is not expected to be confirm in time for the January 20 inauguration — would need to initiate a review that shows that Havana did not engage in terrorism over the previous six months.
The designation is the latest in a blitz of decisions by Pompeo in his final days in office, with most of Washington focused on whether to remove Trump for inciting a deadly riot at the US Capitol of supporters who sought to stop the ceremonial certification of Biden’s victory.
Since Saturday, Pompeo has also designated Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a terrorist group, defying warnings from aid groups, and relaxed rules on US engagement with Taiwan.
John S. Kavulich, president of the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council that looks at commercial ties between the countries, said the immediate effects of Pompeo’s move would include discouraging financial institutions from dealing with Cuba.
Insurance companies could also suspend coverage or jack up rates for operators of ships and aircrafts to Cuba, he said.
“Transactions with the Republic of Cuba would have an increase in scrutiny, resulting in fewer governments and companies wanting to engage with it,” he said.
But he doubted the move would ultimately change Cuba’s policies, including its staunch support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the Trump administration is seeking to topple.
Before Obama’s delisting, the legal grounds for Cuba’s terror designation had come under frequent question.
Providing a legal justification, Pompeo pointed to Cuba’s refusal to extradite commanders from Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) over a January 2019 car bombing at a Bogota police academy that killed 22 people.
Cuba has said it will not hand them over due to its role mediating between the ELN and government.
Pompeo also pointed to Cuba’s sanctuary of Americans including Assata Shakur, a Black Power militant who fled to the island after escaping prison following a conviction over the killing of a New Jersey state trooper.
Only three other countries are on the blacklist — Iran, North Korea and Syria. Trump late last year removed Sudan after its democratic transition, compensation for past attacks and agreement to recognize Israel.
Days before Trump exit, US rebrands Cuba state sponsor of terror
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Days before Trump exit, US rebrands Cuba state sponsor of terror
- The terror designation severely hampers foreign investment
- Pompeo cited Cuba’s ties with Colombian rebels and alliance with Venezuela
Russia’s drones and missile barrage targets Ukraine’s west, kills two
- Western Ukrainian cities of Lviv, Lutsk, and Chernivtsi suffered the most due to the Russian attacks
Western Ukrainian cities of Lviv, Lutsk, and Chernivtsi suffered the most due to the Russian attacks, and other Ukrainian regions were also hit, Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said.
“Russia continues to escalate its terror, launching another barrage of hundreds of drones and missiles, damaging residential areas, killing and injuring civilians,” Sybiha said in a post on X, reiterating the call for stronger sanctions against Moscow.
“Russia’s war machine produces hundreds of means of terror per day.
Its scale poses a threat not only to Ukraine, but to the entire transatlantic community.” Ruslan Zaparaniuk, the governor of the Chernivetskyi region, said that two people were killed and 14 others wounded as Russian drones and a missile struck the city, located about 40 kilometers from Ukraine’s border with Romania.
Several fires broke out across the city, and residential houses and administrative buildings were damaged, regional officials said.
In the city of Lviv, on Ukraine’s border with Poland, 46 residential houses, a university building, the city’s courts, and about 20 buildings housing small and medium-sized businesses were damaged in the attack, mayor Andriy Sadovyi said.
Taiwan deploys advanced US HIMARS rockets in annual drills
- Two armored trucks with HIMARS were seen maneuvering around the city of Taichung
- Deployment of weapons on fourth of 10 days of Taiwan’s most comprehensive annual exercises yet
TAICHUNG, Taiwan: Taiwan’s military began deploying one of its newest and most precise strike weapons on Saturday, ahead of live-fire drills meant to showcase the island’s determination to resist any Chinese invasion.
Two armored trucks with HIMARS – High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems – were seen maneuvering around the city of Taichung near Taiwan’s central coast on the fourth of 10 days of its most comprehensive annual exercises yet.
The live-fire portion of the Han Kuang drills is expected next week.
In wartime, said Col. Chen Lian-jia, a military spokesperson, it would be vital to conceal HIMARS from enemy aerial reconnaissance, satellites “or even enemy operatives behind our lines” until the order to fire was given.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own and has intensified military pressure around the island over the last five years, staging a string of intense war games and daily naval and air force patrols around the territory.
Taiwan rejects China’s sovereignty claims, with President Lai Ching-te saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.
China’s defense ministry said this week the Han Kuang drills were “nothing but a bluff” while its foreign ministry said its opposition to US-Taiwan military ties was “consistent and very firm.”
Regional military attaches say the HIMARS deployment in a warlike exercise will be closely watched, given that they have been used extensively by Ukraine against Russian forces. Australia has also purchased the Lockheed Martin systems. Taiwan took delivery last year of the first 11 of 29 HIMARS units, testing them for the first time in May. With a range of about 300 kilometers, the weapons could strike coastal targets in China’s southern province of Fujian on the other side of the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwanese military analysts say the weapon would be used with its locally developed Thunderbolt 2000 launchers so Chinese forces could be targeted as they left port or attempted to land on Taiwan’s coast. A Thunderbolt unit was also seen in a park near the HIMARS units.
Senior Taiwanese military officials say the Han Kuang drills are unscripted and designed to replicate full combat conditions, starting with simulated enemy attacks on communications and command systems, leading to a full-blown invasion scenario.
The drills aim to show China and the international community, including Taiwan’s key weapons supplier the US, that Taiwan is determined to defend itself against any Chinese attack or invasion, the officials say.
Cambodian sites of Khmer Rouge brutality added to UNESCO heritage list
- The three locations were inscribed to the list by the United Nations cultural agency on Friday
- The UNESCO inscription was Cambodia’s first nomination for a modern and non-classical archaeological site
PHNOM PENH: Three locations used by Cambodia’s brutal Khmer Rouge regime as torture and execution sites 50 years ago have been added by UNESCO to its World Heritage List.
The three locations were inscribed to the list by the United Nations cultural agency Friday during the 47th Session of the World Heritage Committee in Paris.
The inscription coincided with the 50th anniversary of the rise to power by the communist Khmer Rouge government, which caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians through starvation, torture and mass executions during a four-year reign from 1975 to 1979.
UNESCO’s World Heritage List lists sites considered important to humanity and includes the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India and Cambodia’s Angkor archaeological complex.
The three sites listed Friday include two notorious prisons and an execution site immortalized in a Hollywood film.
Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, located in the capital Phnom Penh, is the site of a former high school used by the Khmer Rouge as a notorious prison. Better known as S-21, about 15,000 people were imprisoned and tortured there.
The M-13 prison, located in rural Kampong Chhnang province in central Cambodia, also was regarded as one of the main prisons of the early Khmer Rouge.
Choeung Ek, located about 15 kilometers south of the capital, was used as an execution site and mass grave. The story of the atrocities committed there are the focus of the 1984 film “The Killing Fields,” based on the experiences of New York Times photojournalist Dith Pran and correspondent Sydney Schanberg.
The Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, and immediately herded almost all the city’s residents into the countryside, where they were forced to toil in harsh conditions until 1979, when the regime was driven from power by an invasion from neighboring Vietnam.
In September 2022, the UN-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, better known as the Khmer Rouge tribunal, concluded its work compiling cases against Khmer Rouge leaders. The tribunal cost $337 million over 16 years but convicted just three men.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet issued a message Friday directing people to beat drums simultaneously across the country Sunday morning to mark the UNESCO listing.
“May this inscription serve as a lasting reminder that peace must always be defended,” Hun Manet said in a video message posted online. “From the darkest chapters of history, we can draw strength to build a better future for humanity.”
Youk Chhang, executive director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, said the country is “still grappling with the painful legacies of genocide, torture, and mass atrocity.” But naming the three sites to the UNESCO list will play a role in educating younger generations of Cambodians and others worldwide.
“Though they were the landscape of violence, they too will and can contribute to heal the wounds inflicted during that era that have yet to heal,” he said.
The UNESCO inscription was Cambodia’s first nomination for a modern and non-classical archaeological site and is among the first in the world to be submitted as a site associated with recent conflict, Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts said in a statement Friday.
Four Cambodian archaeological sites were previously inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites including Angkor, Preah Vihear, Sambo Prei Kuk and Koh Ker, the ministry said.
Colombian authorities arrest alleged leader of Italian mafia in Latin America
- Italian Giuseppe Palermo, also known as ‘Peppe,’ was wanted under an Interpol red notice, which called for his arrest in 196 countries
- He was apprehended on the street in Colombia’s capital Bogota during a coordinated operation
BOGOTA: Colombian authorities said Friday they captured an alleged leader of the Italian ‘ndrangheta mafia in Latin America who is accused of overseeing cocaine shipments and managing illegal trafficking routes to Europe.
Police identified the suspect as Giuseppe Palermo, also known as “Peppe,” an Italian who was wanted under an Interpol red notice, which called for his arrest in 196 countries.
He was apprehended on the street in Colombia’s capital Bogota during a coordinated operation between Colombian, Italian and British authorities, as well as Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, according to an official report.
Palermo is believed to be part of “one of the most tightly knit cells” of the ‘ndrangheta mafia, said Carlos Fernando Triana, head of the Colombian police, in a message posted on X.
The ‘ndrangheta, one of Italy’s most powerful and secretive criminal organizations, has extended its influence abroad and is widely accused of importing cocaine into Europe.
The suspect “not only led the purchase of large shipments of cocaine in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador, but also controlled the maritime and land routes used to transport the drugs to European markets,” Triana added.
Illegal cocaine production reached 3,708 tons in 2023, an increase of nearly 34 percent from the previous year, driven mainly by the expansion of coca leaf cultivation in Colombia, according to the United Nations.
US appeals court scraps 9/11 mastermind’s plea deal
- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was regarded as one of bin Laden’s most trusted lieutenants
- He had spent three years in secret CIA prisons before arriving at Guantanamo in 2006
WASHINGTON: A US appeals court on Friday scrapped 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s plea agreement that would have taken the death penalty off the table and helped conclude the long-running legal saga surrounding his case.
The agreement had sparked anger among some relatives of victims of the 2001 attacks, and then-US defense secretary Lloyd Austin moved to cancel it last year, saying that both they and the American public deserved to see the defendants stand trial.
Austin “acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment,” judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao wrote.
Plea deals with Mohammed as well as two alleged accomplices — Walid bin Attash and Mustafa Al-Hawsawi — were announced in late July last year.
The decision appeared to have moved their cases toward resolution after years of being bogged down in pre-trial maneuverings while the defendants remained held at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba.
But Austin withdrew the agreements two days after they were announced, saying the decision should be up to him, given its significance.
He subsequently said that “the families of the victims, our service members and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commission trials carried out in this case.”
A military judge ruled in November that the deals were valid and binding, but the government appealed that decision.
The appeals court judges on Friday vacated “the military judge’s order of November 6, 2024, preventing the secretary of defense’s withdrawal from the pretrial agreements.”
And they prohibited the military judge “from conducting hearings in which respondents would enter guilty pleas or take any other action pursuant to the withdrawn pretrial agreements.”
Much of the legal jousting surrounding the 9/11 defendants’ cases has focused on whether they could be tried fairly after having undergone torture at the hands of the CIA — a thorny issue that the plea agreements would have avoided.
Mohammed was regarded as one of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s most trusted lieutenants before his March 2003 capture in Pakistan. He then spent three years in secret CIA prisons before arriving at Guantanamo in 2006.
The trained engineer — who has said he masterminded the 9/11 attacks “from A to Z” — was involved in a string of major plots against the United States, where he attended university.
The United States used Guantanamo, an isolated naval base, to hold militants captured during the “War on Terror” that followed the September 11 attacks in a bid to keep the defendants from claiming rights under US law.
The facility held roughly 800 prisoners at its peak, but they have since slowly been sent to other countries. A small fraction of that number remains.
