AMSTERDAM: Law enforcement from five countries have disrupted an intercontinental criminal network that was smuggling migrants from Cuba to the European Union, with the move leading to the arrest of 62 people, Europol and Interpol, who coordinated the international investigation, said on Monday.
A Europol statement said the criminal network focused on Cubans in vulnerable situations, and that for 9,000 euros ($9,969.30), it would organize their journey to Europe and provide false documentation.
In total, it is suspected that the criminal network successfully smuggled around 5,000 Cuban nationals into the EU.
Besides the arrests, police also seized 18 pieces of real estate, 33 vehicles, and 144 bank accounts, alongside vast sums of cash in various currencies.
62 arrested in Europol-Interpol human trafficking crackdown
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62 arrested in Europol-Interpol human trafficking crackdown
- It is suspected that the criminal network successfully smuggled around 5,000 Cuban nationals into the EU
Indigenous Catholics hope the next pope shares Francis’ approach to Native people
- Francis was the first Latin American pope and the first from the order of the Jesuits, who are known for, among other things, their frontline work with society’s most marginalized groups
SIMOJOVEL: At a recent service in the remote southern Mexican community of Simojovel, Catholic and Mayan symbolism mingled at the altar as the deacon — his wife beside him — read the gospel in his native Tsotsil and recalled Pope Francis’ teachings: work together for human rights, justice and Mother Earth.
The scene in the small church in Mexico’s poorest state, Chiapas, conveyed much of the message Francis delivered during his 2016 trip to the region and his other visits to far-flung locales, including the Amazon, Congo and the jungles of Papua New Guinea.
It also illustrated what the world’s Indigenous Catholics don’t want to lose with the death of the first pontiff from the Southern Hemisphere: their relatively newfound voice in an institution that once debated whether “Indians” had souls while backing European powers as they plundered the Americas and Africa.
“We ask God that the work (Francis) did for us not be in vain,” Deacon Juan Pérez Gómez told his small congregation. “We ask you to choose a new pope, a new servant, who hopefully Lord thinks the same way.”
Empowering Indigenous believers
Francis was the first Latin American pope and the first from the order of the Jesuits, who are known for, among other things, their frontline work with society’s most marginalized groups. Although some feel Francis could have done more for their people during his 12 years as pontiff, Indigenous Catholics widely praise him for championing their causes, asking forgiveness for the church’s historical wrongs, and allowing them to incorporate aspects of their Native cultures into practicing their faith.
Among the places where his death has hit particularly hard are the lowlands of the Bolivian Amazon, which was home to Jesuit missions centuries ago that Francis praised for bringing Christianity and European-style education and economic organization to Indigenous people in a more humane way.
Marcial Fabricano, a 73-year-old leader of the Indigenous Mojeño people, remembers crying during Francis’ 2015 visit to Bolivia when the pope sought forgiveness for crimes the church committed against Indigenous people during the colonial-era conquest of the Americas. Before the visit, his and other Indigenous groups sent Francis a message asking him to push the authorities to respect them.
“I believe that Pope Francis read our message and it moved him,” he said. “We are the last bastion of the missions. … We can’t be ignored.”
That South American tour came shortly after the publication of one of Francis’ most important encyclicals in which he called for a revolution to fix a “structurally perverse” global economic system that allows the rich to exploit the poor and turns the Earth into “immense pile of filth.” He also encouraged the church to support movements defending the territory of marginalized people and financing their initiatives.
“For the first time, (a pope) felt like us, thought like us and was our great ally,” said Anitalia Pijachi Kuyuedo, a Colombian member of the Okaira-Muina Murui people who participated in the 2019 Amazon Synod in Rome, where Francis showed interest in everything related to the Amazon, including the roles of women.
Pijachi Kuyuendo, 45, said she hopes the next pope also works closely with Native people. “With his death, we face huge challenges.”
A wider path for the church
Pérez Gómez, 57, is able to help tend to his small Tsotsil Catholic community in Mexico because the church restarted a deaconship program under Francis.
Facing a priest shortage in the 1960s, the church pushed the idea of deacons — married men who can perform some priestly rituals, such as baptisms, but not others, such as conducting Mass and hearing confession.
Samuel Ruiz, who spent four decades as bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas trying to improve the lives of Chiapas’ Indigenous people, saw deaconships as a way to promote the faith among them and form what he called a “Native church.” The deaconship initiative was such a hit in Ruiz’s diocese, though, that the Vatican halted it there in 2002, worried that Ruiz was using it as a step toward allowing married priests and female deacons. The halt was lifted in 2014.
Pérez Gómez, who waited 20 years before he was finally ordained a deacon in 2022, said he was inspired by Ruiz’s vision for a “Native church.” He said Francis reminded him of Ruiz, who died in 2011 and whom he credits with explaining the church’s true purpose to him as “liberator and evangelizer.”
“Francis also talked about liberation,” Pérez Gómez said, adding that he hopes the next pope shares that view.
New ways to celebrate Mass
It had been a half-century since the Vatican allowed Mass to be held in languages other than Latin when Francis visited Chiapas in 2016 and went a step further.
During a Mass that was the highlight of his visit, the Lord’s Prayer was sung in Tsotsil, readings were conducted in two other Mayan languages, Tseltal and Ch’ol, congregants danced while praying and Indigenous women stood at the altar.
Chiapas was a politically sensitive choice for the Pope’s visit, which wasn’t easily negotiated with the Vatican or Mexican government, according to Cardinal Felipe Arizmendi, who was then bishop of San Cristobal. In 1994, it saw an armed uprising by the Zapatistas, who demanded rights for Indigenous peoples.
Getting the Vatican to allow Mayan rituals in the Mass was also tricky, but Arizmendi recalled that there was a helpful precedent: Congo.
In 1988, the Vatican approved the first cultural innovation in a Mass, the so-called Zaire rite, which is a source of national pride and continental inclusion, said the Rev. Abbé Paul Agustin Madimba, a priest in Kinshasa. “It shows the value the church gives Africans.”
Francis cited the Zaire rite, which allowed some local music and dance to be incorporated into Mass, to argue for such accommodations with other Indigenous Catholics around the world.
The decision was made not only to expand Catholicism, which is in retreat in many places, “but also a theological act of deep listening and conversion, where the church recognizes that it is not the owner of cultural truth, but rather servant of the gospel for each people,” said Arturo Lomelí, a Mexican social anthropologist.
It was the Vatican’s way to see Indigenous rituals not as “threats, but rather as legitimate ways to express and live the faith,” he said.
‘No longer objects’
On the Saturday after Francis’ death, Pérez Gómez stopped by a church in the town near his village to pick up the Communion wafers he would give out during his service the next day. Because he’s a deacon, he needs a priest to consecrate them for him ahead of time.
He and his wife, Crecencia López, don’t know who the next pope will be, but they hope he’s someone who shares Francis’ respect for Indigenous people. And they smile at the thought that perhaps one day, he could become a priest and she a deacon.
“We are no longer objects, but rather people” and that is thanks to God and his envoys, “jtatik Samuel (Ruiz)” and “jtatik Francis,” Pérez Gómez said, using a paternal term of great respect in Tseltal.
Ukraine says it shot down 42 drones from Russia but two regions hit
- The military said that Russia also attacked Ukraine with two ballistic missiles that were not shot down
KYIV: Ukraine’s air defense units shot down 42 of 116 drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack that hit the regions of Sumy and Donetsk, the military said on Monday.
It said another 21 drones were lost but did not disclose the fate of the remaining 53, noting that Sumy and Donetsk “suffered as a result of the attack.”
The military said that Russia also attacked Ukraine with two ballistic missiles that were not shot down.
Civilian authorities in Ukraine did not immediately comment on the overnight attacks.
France, EU leaders spearhead effort to lure US scientists
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen host a Paris conference Monday to attract US researchers ready to relocate because of President Donald Trump’s policies.
EU commissioners, scientists and ministers for research from member countries will discuss, among other things, financial incentives at the gathering to lure disgruntled American scientists across the Atlantic.
Paris’s Sorbonne university is hosting the conference, called “Choose Europe for Science,” which is to close with speeches by Macron and von der Leyen.
Under Trump, universities and research facilities in the United States have come under increasing political and financial pressure, including from threats of massive federal funding cuts.
Research programs face closure, tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, while foreign students fear possible deportation for their political views.
The European Union hopes to offer an alternative for researchers and, by the same token, “defend our strategic interests and promote a universalist vision,” an official in Macron’s office told AFP.
The French president had already last month appealed to foreign, notably US, researchers to “choose France” and unveiled plans for a funding program to help universities and other research bodies cover the cost of bringing foreign scientists to France.
Shortly before, Aix Marseille University in the south of the country said its “Safe Place for Science” scheme received a flood of applicants after announcing in March it would open its doors to US scientists threatened by cuts.
Last week, France’s flagship scientific research center CNRS launched a new initiative aimed at attracting foreign researchers whose work is threatened and French researchers working abroad, some of whom “don’t want to live and raise their children in Trump’s United States,” according to CNRS President Antoine Petit.
An official in Macron’s office said Monday’s conference comes “at a time when academic freedoms are retreating and under threat in a number of cases and Europe is a continent of attractiveness.”
Experts say, however, that while EU countries can offer competitive research infrastructure and a high quality of life, research funding and researchers’ remuneration both lag far behind US levels.
But CNRS’s Petit said last week he hoped that the pay gap will seem less significant once the lower cost of education and health, and more generous social benefits are taken into account.
Macron’s office said France and the EU are targeting researchers in a number of specific sectors, including health, climate, biodiversity, artificial intelligence and space.
Former Vice President Pence defends US Constitution after getting Profile in Courage Award
- Pence received the award for his refusal to go along with President Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election
- In his acceptance, Pence said the Constitution is "what binds us across time and generations. .... It’s what makes us one people.”
BOSTON: Former Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday repeatedly invoked the Constitution and said it is what “binds us all together” after receiving the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.
Pence received the award for his refusal to go along with President Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election. The award recognizes Pence “for putting his life and career on the line to ensure the constitutional transfer of presidential power on Jan. 6, 2021,” the JFK Library Foundation said.
“To forge a future together, we have to find common ground,” Pence said. “I hope in some small way my presence here tonight is a reminder that whatever differences we may have as Americans, the Constitution is the common ground on which we stand. It’s what binds us across time and generations. .... It’s what makes us one people.”
His comments came hours after an interview with Trump aired in which he was asked whether US citizens and noncitizens both deserve due process as laid out in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. Trump was noncommittal.
“I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” Trump said when pressed in an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker. It was taped Friday at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida and aired Sunday.
Pence never mentioned Trump during his 10-minute speech but made several references to the Trump administration.
Referencing what he called “these divided times, in these anxious days,” he acknowledged that he probably had differences with the Democrats in the room but also with his own Republican Party “on spending, tariffs and my belief that America is the leader of the free world and must stand with Ukraine until the Russian invasion is repelled and a just and lasting peace is secured.”
Trump pressured Pence to reject election results from swing states where the Republican president falsely claimed the vote was marred by fraud. Pence refused, saying he lacked such authority. When a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, some chanted that they wanted to “hang Mike Pence.” Pence was whisked away by Secret Service agents, narrowly avoiding a confrontation with the rioters.
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify,” Trump wrote at the time on X, formerly Twitter, as rioters moved through the Capitol and Pence was in hiding with his family, aides and security detail inside the building.
Pence rejected the Secret Service’s advice that he leave the Capitol, staying to continue the ceremonial election certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential victory once rioters were cleared.
In describing his role, Pence told the audience that “by God’s grace I did my duty that day to support the peaceful transfer of power under the Constitution of the United States of America.”
The Profile in Courage Award, named for a book Kennedy published in 1957 before he became president, honors public officials who take principled stands despite the potential political or personal consequences. Previous recipients of the award include former Presidents Barack Obama, George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford.
Pence has emerged as one of the few Republicans willing to take on the Trump administration.
His political action group, Advancing American Freedom, campaigned against the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the nation’s health agencies. He’s delivered speeches urging the president to stand with longtime foreign allies and posted an article he penned more than a decade ago on the limits of presidential power after Trump claimed that, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
Trump, in a new interview, says he doesn’t know if he backs due process rights
- Says courts are getting in his way as he moves to deport “some of the worst, most dangerous people on Earth”
- Thinks military action against Canada is ‘highly unlikely.’ As for Greenland, “something could happen”
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: President Donald Trump is circumspect about his duties to uphold due process rights laid out in the Constitution, saying in a new interview that he does not know whether US citizens and noncitizens alike deserve that guarantee.
He also said he does not think military force will be needed to make Canada the “51st state” and played down the possibility he would look to run for a third term in the White House.
The comments in a wide-ranging, and at moments combative, interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” came as the Republican president’s efforts to quickly enact his agenda face sharper headwinds with Americans just as his second administration crossed the 100-day mark, according to a recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Trump, however, made clear that he is not backing away from a to-do list that he insists the American electorate broadly supported when they elected him in November.
Here are some of the highlights from the interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker that was taped Friday at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida and aired Sunday.
Trump doesn’t commit to due process
Critics on the left have tried to make the case that Trump is chipping away at due process in the United States. Most notably, they cite the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who was living in Maryland when he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador and imprisoned without communication.
Trump says Abrego Garcia is part of a violent transnational gang. The Republican president has sought to turn deportation into a test case for his campaign against illegal immigration despite a Supreme Court order saying the administration must work to return Abrego Garcia to the US
Asked in the interview whether US citizens and noncitizens both deserve due process as laid out in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, Trump was noncommittal.
“I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” Trump said when pressed by Welker.
The Fifth Amendment provides “due process of law,” meaning a person has certain rights when it comes to being prosecuted for a crime. Also, the 14th Amendment says no state can “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Trump said he has “brilliant lawyers ... and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”
He said he was pushing to deport “some of the worst, most dangerous people on Earth,” but that courts are getting in his way.
“I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” Trump said.
Military action against Canada is ‘highly unlikely’
The president has repeatedly threatened that he intends to make Canada the “51st state.”
Before his White House meeting on Tuesday with newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump is not backing away from the rhetoric that has angered Canadians.
Trump, however, told NBC that it was “highly unlikely” that the US would need to use military force to make Canada the 51st state.
He offered less certainty about whether his repeated calls for the US to take over Greenland from NATO-ally Denmark can be achieved without military action.
“Something could happen with Greenland,” Trump said. “I’ll be honest, we need that for national and international security. ... I don’t see it with Canada. I just don’t see it, I have to be honest with you.”
President bristles at recession forecasts
Trump said the US economy is in a “transition period” but he expects it to do “fantastically” despite the economic turmoil sparked by his tariffs.
He offered sharp pushback when Welker noted that some Wall Street analysts now say the chances of a recession are increasing.
“Well, you know, you say, some people on Wall Street say,” Trump said. “Well, I tell you something else. Some people on Wall Street say that we’re going to have the greatest economy in history.”
He also deflected blame for the 0.3 percent decline in the US economy in the first quarter. He said he was not responsible for it.
“I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy because he’s done a terrible job,” referring to his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.
Trump doubled down on his recent comments at a Cabinet meeting that children might have to have two dolls instead of 30, denying that is an acknowledgment his tariffs will lead to supply shortages.
“I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.”
Trump plays down third-term talk
The president has repeatedly suggested he could seek a third term in the White House even though the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution says that “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
Trump told NBC there is considerable support for him to run for a third term.
“But this is not something I’m looking to do,” Trump said. “I’m looking to have four great years and turn it over to somebody, ideally a great Republican, a great Republican to carry it forward.”
Trump’s previous comments about a third term sometimes seem more about provoking outrage on the political left. The Trump Organization is even selling red caps with the words “Trump 2028.”
But at moments, he has suggested he was seriously looking into a third term. In a late March phone interview with NBC, Trump said, “I’m not joking. There are methods which you could do it.”
So JD Vance in 2028? Marco Rubio? Not so fast.
Trump said in the interview that Vice President JD Vance is doing a “fantastic job” and is “brilliant.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whom Trump last week tasked to simultaneously serve as acting national security adviser, is “great,” the president said.
But Trump said it is “far too early” to begin talking about his potential successor.
He is confident that his “Make America Great Again” movement will flourish beyond his time in the White House.
“You look at Marco, you look at JD Vance, who’s fantastic,” Trump said. “You look at — I could name 10, 15, 20 people right now just sitting here. No, I think we have a tremendous party. And you know what I can’t name? I can’t name one Democrat.”
Hegseth is ‘totally safe’
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been under fire for his participation in Signal text chains in which sensitive information about military planning was shared. But Trump said he is not looking to replace his Pentagon chief.
“No. Not even a little bit. No. Pete’s going to be great,” Trump said. Hegseth’s job is “totally safe.”
The president also said his decision to nominate national security adviser Mike Waltz to be the US ambassador to the United Nations was not punishment for starting the chain to which Waltz inadvertently added a reporter.
“No. I just think he’ll do a nice job in the new position,” Trump said. He said his decision to have Rubio take over Waltz’s duties will likely be temporary.
“Marco’s very busy doing other things, so he’s not going to keep it long term. We’re going to put somebody else in,” Trump said, adding that it would nonetheless be possible to do both jobs indefinitely. “You know, there’s a theory. Henry Kissinger did both. There’s a theory that you don’t need two people. But I think I have some really great people that could do a good job.”
One person he said he is not considering for the post? Top policy aide Stephen Miller.
“Well, I’d love to have Stephen there, but that would be a downgrade,” he said. “Stephen is much higher on the totem pole than that, in my opinion.”
Trump insists he’s not profiting from the presidency, plans to donate his salary once again
Trump denied he is profiting from the presidency, even as he continues to promote a series of business ventures, including cryptocurrency holdings.
“I’m not profiting from anything. All I’m doing is, I started this long before the election. I want crypto. I think crypto’s important because if we don’t do it, China’s going to. And it’s new, it’s very popular, it’s very hot,” Trump said, adding that he hasn’t even “even looked” at how much he’s made from the venture.
Just days before taking office, Trump launched his own meme coin, which surged in value after it announced that top holders would be invited to an exclusive dinner at the president’s Washington-area golf club later this month and a tour of the White House. He also helped launch World Liberty Financial, another cryptocurrency venture, last year.
That’s in addition to a long list of other business ventures, from Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs his Truth Social site, to branded sneakers, watches and colognes and perfumes.
“Being president probably cost me money if you really look,” Trump said. “In fact, I do something that no other president has done, they think maybe George Washington has done.”
He added: “I contribute my entire salary to the government, back to the government. And I’m doing it again.”
Another TikTok deal extension
Trump said he is open to extending the deadline for a deal on TikTok once again.
“I’d like to see it done,” he said. “I have a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok. TikTok is — it’s very interesting, but it’ll be protected.
He later added: “If it needs an extension, I would be willing to give it an extension, might not need it.”
Last month, Trump used executive action to keep TikTok running in the US for another 75 days to give his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership.
White House officials had believed they were close to a deal in which the app’s operations would have been spun off into a new company based in the US and owned and operated by a majority of American investors. But Beijing hit the brakes after Trump slapped wide-ranging tariffs on nations across the globe.
“We actually have a deal. We have a group of purchasers, very substantial people. They’re going to pay a lot of money. It’s a good thing for us. It’s a good thing for China. It’s going to be, I think, very good,” he said. “But because of the fact that I’ve essentially cut off China right now with the tariffs that are so high that they’re not going to be able to do much business with the United States. But if we make a deal with China I’m sure that’ll be a subject, and it’ll be a very easy subject to solve.”
