Trump condemned for ICC sanctions over Israel, US probes

Trump condemned for ICC sanctions over Israel, US probes
The International Criminal Court slammed sanctions Friday slapped by US President Donald Trump over its probes targeting America and Israel and pledged to press on with its aim to fight for “justice and hope” around the world. (AP/File)
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Updated 07 February 2025
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Trump condemned for ICC sanctions over Israel, US probes

Trump condemned for ICC sanctions over Israel, US probes
  • The sanctions could impact the court’s technical and IT operations, including evidence gathering
  • There are fears victims of alleged atrocities may hesitate to come forward

THE HAGUE: The International Criminal Court slammed sanctions Friday slapped by US President Donald Trump over its probes targeting America and Israel and pledged to press on with its aim to fight for “justice and hope” around the world.
The United Nations and the European Union also urged Trump on Friday to reverse the decision ordering asset freezes and travel bans against ICC officials, employees and their family members, along with anyone deemed to have helped the court’s investigations.
The sanctions could impact the court’s technical and IT operations, including evidence gathering. There are fears victims of alleged atrocities may hesitate to come forward.
Trump signed an executive order Thursday saying the court in The Hague had “abused its power” by issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who held talks with the US president on Tuesday.
The ICC said the move sought to “harm its independent and impartial judicial work.”
“The Court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world,” it said.
The United Nations said it deeply regretted Trump’s decision and urged him to reverse the move.
“The court should be fully able to undertake its independent work — where a state is unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation or prosecution,” UN human rights office OHCHR spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told AFP in an email.
“The rule of law remains essential to our collective peace and security. Seeking accountability globally makes the world a safer place for everyone.”
Antonio Costa, who heads the European Council representing the EU’s 27 member states, wrote on X that the move “undermines the international criminal justice system.”
The European Commission separately expressed “regret,” stressing the ICC’s “key importance in upholding international criminal justice and the fight against impunity.”
The executive order risks “affecting ongoing investigations and proceedings, including as regards Ukraine, impacting years of efforts to ensure accountability around the world,” said a commission spokesman.
The names of the individuals affected by the sanctions were not immediately released, but previous US sanctions under Trump had targeted the court’s prosecutor.
Trump’s order said the tribunal had engaged in “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel,” referring to ICC probes into alleged war crimes by US service members in Afghanistan and Israeli troops in Gaza.
Israel’s foreign minister applauded Trump, calling the court’s actions against Israel illegitimate.
“I strongly commend @POTUS President Trump’s executive order imposing sanctions on the so-called ‘international criminal court’,” Gideon Saar wrote on X, adding that the ICC’s actions were “immoral and have no legal basis.”
Neither the United States nor Israel are members of the court.
Following a request by ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, judges issued arrest warrants on November 21 for Netanyahu, his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif — whom Israel says is dead.
The court said it had found “reasonable grounds” to believe Netanyahu and Gallant bore “criminal responsibility” for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare during the Gaza war, as well as the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.
Netanyahu has accused the court of anti-Semitism.
During his first term, Trump imposed financial sanctions and a visa ban on the ICC’s then prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, and other senior officials and staff in 2020.
His administration made the move after Gambian-born Bensouda launched an investigation into allegations of war crimes against US soldiers in Afghanistan.
While his order at the time did not name Israel, Trump administration officials said they were also angered by Bensouda’s opening of a probe into the situation in the Palestinian territories in 2019.
President Joe Biden lifted the sanctions soon after taking office in 2021.
Prosecutor Khan later effectively dropped the US from the Afghan investigation and focused on the Taliban instead.
Biden strongly condemned the “outrageous” warrant against Netanyahu in November.


Global displacement ‘to rise by 6.7m people by end of 2026’

Charlotte Slente, Secretary-general of Danish Refugee Council. (Supplied)
Charlotte Slente, Secretary-general of Danish Refugee Council. (Supplied)
Updated 42 sec ago
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Global displacement ‘to rise by 6.7m people by end of 2026’

Charlotte Slente, Secretary-general of Danish Refugee Council. (Supplied)
  • Danish Refugee Council’s projection is based on an AI-driven model

GENEVA: Some 6.7 million additional people are expected to be newly displaced worldwide by the end of next year, the Danish Refugee Council said on Friday, just as aid cuts from key donors take effect.

The UN refugee agency said last year that the number of forcibly displaced people around the globe stood at over 117 million people and warned that number could rise.
“These are not cold statistics. These are families forced to flee their homes, carrying next to nothing, and searching for water, food, and shelter,” said Charlotte Slente, secretary-general of the Danish Refugee Council in a statement.

These are not cold statistics. These are families forced to flee their homes, carrying next to nothing, and searching for water, food, and shelter.

Charlotte Slente, Secretary-general of Danish Refugee Council

Twenty-seven countries account for nearly a third of all global displacements.
The projection is based on an AI-driven model that predicts displacement trends by analyzing over 100 indicators, including security, politics, and economics in those countries.
It forecasts that nearly a third of new displacements will be from Sudan, which is already the world’s worst refugee crisis after almost two years of war.
“Starvation has been used as a weapon of war, pushing Sudan from one catastrophic famine to another,” the report said.
Another 1.4 million people are expected to be forcibly displaced from Myanmar, the report said.
The US is cutting billions of dollars in foreign aid programs globally as part of a significant spending overhaul by the world’s biggest aid donor.
The Danish Refugee Council is one of the aid groups hit and has had more than 20 contract terminations.
Cuts from Washington and other key donors are already impacting refugees.
The UN refugee agency said that funding shortages had shuttered programs to protect adolescent girls from child marriage in South Sudan and a safe house for displaced women in danger of being killed in Ethiopia.
“Millions are facing starvation and displacement, and just as they need us most, wealthy nations are slashing aid. It’s a betrayal of the most vulnerable,” said Slente.
She blasted the decision to cancel 83 percent of USAID’s humanitarian aid programs around the world.
Slente said: “We’re in the middle of a global ‘perfect storm’: record displacement, surging needs, and devastating funding cuts.”
She said major donors “are abandoning their duty, leaving millions to suffer. This is more than a crisis. It is a moral failure.”


African Union expresses ‘deep concern’ over crisis in Tigray

African Union expresses ‘deep concern’ over crisis in Tigray
Updated 7 min 38 sec ago
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African Union expresses ‘deep concern’ over crisis in Tigray

African Union expresses ‘deep concern’ over crisis in Tigray
  • “The AU emphasizes that adherence to the 2022 peace agreement is crucial for maintaining the hard-won peace and fostering an environment conducive to sustainable peacebuilding, reconciliation and development,” the statement said

ADDIS ABABA: The African Union said on Friday it was following events in the Ethiopian region of Tigray with “deep concern” as tensions between rival factions threaten a fragile peace agreement.
“The African Union has been closely monitoring the evolving situation within the Tigray People’s Liberation Front with deep concern,” it said in a statement.
A peace agreement in 2022 ended a brutal two-year war between Tigrayan rebels and the federal government that claimed up to 600,000 lives, according to some estimates.
However, a failure to fully implement the terms has fueled divisions within the Tigrayan political elite and, combined with deteriorating ties between Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea, raised fears of a new conflict.
“The AU emphasizes that adherence to the 2022 peace agreement is crucial for maintaining the hard-won peace and fostering an environment conducive to sustainable peacebuilding, reconciliation and development,” the statement said.
Also on Friday, Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, warned that at least 31 people had died from more than 1,500 cholera cases in Ethiopia’s Gambella region over the past month, adding that the outbreak is “rapidly spreading.”
The international NGO said the situation has worsened with the arrival of people fleeing violence in neighboring South Sudan.
“Cholera is rapidly spreading across western Ethiopia and in parallel, the outbreak in South Sudan is ongoing, endangering thousands of lives,” MSF said in a statement.
Several regions of Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous nation with around 120 million people, are battling cholera outbreaks, with Amhara — its second-largest region — among the hardest hit.
In South Sudan’s Akobo County, located in the Upper Nile region, 1,300 cholera cases have been reported in the past four weeks, according to MSF.
It said recent violence in Upper Nile between the South Sudanese government and armed groups is “worsening the outbreak.”
“Thousands are being displaced, losing access to health care, safe water, and sanitation,” MSF said.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation and still hit by chronic instability and poverty, declared a cholera epidemic in October.
The World Health Organization says some 4,000 people died from the “preventable and easily treatable disease” in 2023, up 71 percent on the previous year, mostly in Africa.+

 


Benin’s President Talon rules out third term

Benin’s President Talon rules out third term
Updated 16 min 49 sec ago
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Benin’s President Talon rules out third term

Benin’s President Talon rules out third term
  • “The next president of Benin will be my president, from my country, my family, my community and everything that is dear to me,” he added

COTONOU: Benin President Patrice Talon on Friday said he would not stand for an unconstitutional third term in office but would be watching the choice of his successor closely.
The former businessman has been in charge of the nation since 2016, and his second office term ends next year.
“I’m telling you again for the umpteenth time, no, I will not be a candidate,” he said in an interview with Jeune Afrique.
“This question troubles me. I have strengthened the constitution myself to stipulate that no one can serve more than two terms in their life.”
The question over his succession was revived in September last year when one of his close friends, Olivier Boko, was arrested on suspicion of attempting a coup with the former sports minister Oswald Homeky.
The two men were sentenced to 20 years in prison in January for “plotting against the authority of the state.”
“I experienced the Olivier Boko episode like a drama and personal tragedy,” Talon was quoted as saying in the interview.
He said he would also be “careful” about the choice of his successor and intended to ensure that whoever took over did not want to reverse what he said was a decade of reforms.
“The next president of Benin will be my president, from my country, my family, my community and everything that is dear to me,” he added. Talon went on to criticize “deteriorating” relations with Benin’s Sahelien neighbors Niger and Burkina Faso and the lack of security cooperation.
“We contact them regularly,” he said. “We don’t get a response.”
“Our army is facing terrorist groups that operate freely in sanctuaries deserted by the defense and security forces” of Niger and Burkina Faso, “which allows them to regroup and attack en masse,” he added.
Niger and Burkina Faso, with which Benin shares a northern border, are governed by military juntas which have turned their back on Western support.
Extremist violence has spilled over Benin’s border, but the authorities in Niamey and Ouagadougou accuse Benin of hosting foreign military bases to destabilize them.
“There is obviously nothing like this on Beninese soil,” he added.

 


US says South Africa’s ambassador ‘is no longer welcome’

US says South Africa’s ambassador ‘is no longer welcome’
Updated 5 min 33 sec ago
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US says South Africa’s ambassador ‘is no longer welcome’

US says South Africa’s ambassador ‘is no longer welcome’
  • Rubio accused Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool of being a “race-baiting politician” and Trump hater
  • Trump earlier signed an executive order that cut aid and assistance to the Black-led South African government

WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that South Africa’s ambassador to the United States “is no longer welcome” in the country.
Rubio, in a post on X, accused Ebrahim Rasool of being a “race-baiting politician” who hates President Donald Trump and declared him “persona non grata.” He didn’t give further reasoning.
The State Department did not have additional details, and it was unclear whether the ambassador was even in the US at the time the decision was made. Rubio posted as he was flying back to Washington from a Group of 7 foreign ministers in Quebec.
It is highly unusual for the US to expel a foreign ambassador, although lower-ranking diplomats are more frequently targeted with persona non grata status.
At the height of US-Russia diplomatic expulsions during the Cold War and then again over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, allegations of interference in the 2016 election and the Skripal poisoning case in Britain, neither Washington nor Moscow saw fit to expel the respective ambassadors.
It comes after Trump signed an executive order that cut aid and assistance to the Black-led South African government. In the order, Trump said South Africa’s Afrikaners, who are descendants of mainly Dutch colonial settlers, were being targeted by a new law that allows the government to expropriate private land.
The South African government has denied its new law is tied to race and says Trump’s claims over the country and the law have been full of misinformation and distortions.
Phone calls to the South African Embassy seeking comment, made at the end of the work day, were not answered.
Rasool previously served as his country’s ambassador to the US from 2010 to 2015 before returning this year.
As a child, he and his family were evicted from a Cape Town neighborhood designated for whites. Rasool became an active anti-apartheid campaigner, serving time in prison and proudly identifying as a comrade of the country’s first post-apartheid president, Nelson Mandela. He later became a politician in Mandela’s African National Congress political party.
Trump said land was being expropriated from Afrikaners — which the order referred to as “racially disfavored landowners” — when no land has been taken under the law.
Trump also announced a plan to offer Afrikaners refugee status in the US They are only one part of South Africa’s white minority.
The Expropriation Act was signed into law by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this year and allows the government to take land in specific instances where it is not being used, or where it would be in the public interest if it is redistributed.
It aims to address some of the wrongs of South Africa’s racist apartheid era, when Black people had land taken away from them and were forced to live in areas designated for non-whites.
Elon Musk, a close Trump ally and head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, has highlighted that law in social media posts and cast it as a threat to South Africa’s white minority. Musk grew up in South Africa.


Fasting on the frontline: Karachi ambulance driver navigates chaos to save lives during Ramadan

The Edhi Foundation, one of the world’s largest charities, operates nearly 1,800 ambulances. (Supplied)
The Edhi Foundation, one of the world’s largest charities, operates nearly 1,800 ambulances. (Supplied)
Updated 15 March 2025
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Fasting on the frontline: Karachi ambulance driver navigates chaos to save lives during Ramadan

The Edhi Foundation, one of the world’s largest charities, operates nearly 1,800 ambulances. (Supplied)
  • For Ghulam Nabi and hundreds of other Edhi ambulance drivers, Ramadan does not change their daily duties
  • Nabi says his iftar often consists of just dates and water, eaten on the road between emergencies

KARACHI: In Karachi, where traffic is relentless and sirens are a constant, 63-year-old Ghulam Nabi has spent the past 14 years behind the wheel of an Edhi Foundation ambulance, responding to emergencies in a city where every second can mean the difference between life and death.

The Edhi Foundation, one of the world’s largest charities, operates nearly 1,800 ambulances, including over 200 in Karachi, where it was founded by the late veteran philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi, who passed away in July 2016. Nabi is one of the hundreds of drivers keeping the wheels of these ambulances going.

Even during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, he remains committed to his duty. Often, his iftar — the evening meal to break the fast, which most people share with their families at home — happens on the road, between dispatches.

“Whether it’s sunny, hot, stormy, rainy, Ramadan or Eid, no matter what, we have to do our duty and serve humanity,” he said in a recent conversation with Arab News.

Living in an old apartment in the city’s historic Kharadar area, he begins his day by walking to the Edhi headquarters nearly a kilometer away. From there, his shift unfolds unpredictably, sometimes requiring him to attend to road accidents, rush cardiac arrest patients to hospitals or transport the deceased to their final resting places.

“Just yesterday, it was time to break the fast. Five-to-ten minutes before iftar, we were informed that an accident had occurred on Mai Kolachi Road,” Nabi recalled, adding that he had to leave iftar and rush to the spot.

“On the way, someone gave us dates, and we broke our fast with them,” he added.

Nabi recalled that at one point during Ramadan, he was asked to pick up a corpse from a house where it had remained unattended for nearly a week. As he reached the place, he realized it was decomposed and in such a condition that no one wanted to go near it.

But Nabi handled it, giving it to the relatives in a casket after completing the required legal procedures.

“We had to carry the body while fasting,” he said.

‘FRONTLINE HEROES’

Muhammad Amin, who oversees the Karachi Control Room at the Edhi Foundation, holds his team, particularly Nabi, in high esteem.

“He is an excellent driver, and all the qualities required in his job are found in him,” he told Arab News. “From keeping the ambulance clean to its general upkeep, following driving protocols and handling emergencies, Ghulam Nabi excels in all these aspects.”

Amin noted Ramadan always brought unique challenges to the drivers since their workload never decreased.

“There was a fire near Chakar Hotel on the Super Highway (yesterday), where our team, which included the drivers, went,” he said. “The drivers were fasting, but they worked through the fire and performed their duties.

“If you look at it, these drivers can truly be called our frontline heroes,” he added.

Nabi said his entry into this line of work was unexpected. He used to run a small business that suffered losses, forcing him to shut it down. As he started looking for employment opportunities, a friend referred him to Edhi in 2010.

“Since that day, I have been engaged in humanitarian work,” he said.

‘SAVING HUMANITY’

Karachi, a megacity with over 20 million people, suffers from broken roads, congested streets and widespread disregard for traffic rules. These conditions significantly increase the challenges of Nabi’s job, making him fear that he might not be able to reach people in need on time.

Despite such hardships, he said he was proud of his work and found fulfillment in transporting patients and the injured to hospitals for treatment.

“Whoever saves a life, saves all of humanity,” he said, his eyes shining.

To Nabi, his work is a continuation of the legacy of Abdul Sattar Edhi, the late humanitarian whose foundation has provided free ambulance services for decades.

“Here, we are carrying forward Edhi Sahib’s mission,” he said. “Humanitarian work will never stop.”

As dusk falls and families across Karachi gather for iftar at home, Nabi finds himself away from his loved ones.

“Our hearts also long to break our fast with our children, but our iftar is often on the road or in the ambulance, and we have to break our fast with dates or water,” he said, as he ended his fast with the evening prayer call while sitting on a roadside bench in a Karachi street.