Connect with us

News

Florida people who beat, blinded gay man charged with hate crimes

Published

on

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

News

US swings behind TotalEnergies’ vast Mozambique gas project

Published

on

US swings behind TotalEnergies’ vast Mozambique gas project

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free

US President Donald Trump’s administration has unlocked almost $5bn in funding for a liquefied natural gas project by France’s TotalEnergies in Mozambique, potentially restarting work on one of Africa’s largest energy investments.

Mozambique’s minister for energy said on Thursday the US Export-Import Bank (Exim) had reapproved a $4.7bn loan for the project, originally granted in 2020 during Trump’s first presidency.

Work has been frozen since 2021, when TotalEnergies put its project on hold after Islamist insurgents killed civilians and workers in attacks near the site in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province.

Advertisement

In a statement on Thursday, Estevão Pale, Mozambique’s minister for energy, told the Financial Times it welcomed the decision by Exim, which would consolidate US leadership in development of a project that “will significantly help global energy security”.

“We are deeply grateful for President Trump and the American people’s support for this important LNG project,” he said.

American jobs are involved in the project, with US subcontractors expected to receive up to 30 per cent of the contract value, and the funding could help maintain US influence in the region, but it comes as Trump and Elon Musk aim to cut back federal spending. The Exim loan was part of $14.9bn in senior debt financing that TotalEnergies agreed with a range of export credit agencies and banks in 2020.

Following the 2021 attacks, the French company made a declaration of force majeure, signalling elements outside its control had stopped the work. The declaration left the funding agreements frozen.

However, TotalEnergies has indicated that the security situation has stabilised in recent months, and it has worked to persuade financial backers to restate their support.

Advertisement

Chief executive Patrick Pouyanné lobbied senior Biden administration officials to approve the funding before Trump’s inauguration. He warned in letters that the transition of power could lead to “additional and lengthy delays” that could “undermine the financing structure, already in place and approved, and bring the entire project to a stop”.

TotalEnergies also enlisted consultancy Primus Responsum to lobby Exim to secure financing, offering a $250,000 bonus if the organisation could successfully confirm the project before Trump’s inauguration in January.

Exim did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The bank granted the approval even though Trump has embarked on a federal cost-cutting programme led by Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). The administration has also frozen most foreign aid.

While the US support was by far the largest element of the funding package, the LNG project also initially received financial backing from the governments of the UK and the Netherlands. Exim’s decision will increase pressure on those governments to offer similar reapproval of their financing.

Pale said he was still expecting the UK and Netherlands to reconfirm their support.

Advertisement

The FT reported last month that the British government was exploring legal remedies to extricate itself from the $1.15bn commitment it made in June 2020 in direct loans and guarantees.

Pouyanné told investors following the company’s annual results last month that he was ready to exercise all his contractual rights if export credit agencies declined their support.

The Total-led project is one of several plans to exploit Mozambique’s gas reserves. Development of the resources could transform the economy of one of southern Africa’s poorest countries and provide a well-located new source of gas to meet growing demand in Asia. The approval is a boost for other projects in the country, including a larger LNG development led by ExxonMobil.

However, environmental campaigners have opposed the development and it has been linked to allegations of human rights abuses by Mozambican soldiers charged with securing the area.

Kate DeAngelis, deputy director of Friends of the Earth US, criticised the re-approval as a “handout to the fossil fuel industry”.

Advertisement

“This is the pinnacle of government waste and an egregious abuse of taxpayer dollars,” she said.

Meanwhile, political instability in Mozambique following disputed elections at the end of 2024 has also delayed progress on restarting the project. President Daniel Chapo, who took office in January, made protection of the gas project and suppression of an anti-government insurgency a plank of his election campaign.

Continue Reading

News

Detroit activists call for release of Palestinian protester arrested in New York

Published

on

Detroit activists call for release of Palestinian protester arrested in New York

A Palestinian activist who helped lead student protests at Columbia University is facing deportation.

Mahmoud Khalil was arrested over the weekend leading to protests planned across the country, including one in Metro Detroit.

Rex Nazarko with the political nonprofit AMEEN, says his primary concern is that the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, assembly, and protest for all people within U.S. jurisdiction, not just citizens.

Advertisement

“Every American should be concerned about their First Amendment rights,” he said. “We think this is a political persecution plot.”

“We want Marco Rubio to hear what we’re saying, we want ICE to hear what we’re saying, and we want the release of him,” said Ali Hassan.

Advertisement

The backstory:

Khalil, 30, was taken into custody by federal immigration officials as he and his wife were returning home to their Columbia University-owned apartment.

According to his attorneys, agents claimed his student visa had been revoked. But when his wife provided documentation showing he was a legal permanent resident, they told her that his status had also been revoked.

Advertisement

“We think it’s optically meant to send a message to anyone who speaks out on the issue of Palestine or any issue that is deemed politically disliked,” said Narko.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked Khalil’s deportation, but his supporters argue his arrest is part of a broader crackdown on campus protests against the war in Gaza.

Advertisement

“The charges simply make no sense from a legal perspective, they have no legal ground to hold,” Nazarko said.

President Donald Trump called Khalil’s arrest “the first of many”, signaling his administration’s intent to take stronger action against demonstrators.

In Detroit and some large US cities, the opposite is happening; some demonstrations are ramping up over this.

Advertisement

The Trump Administration says Khalil is a national security threat and accuses him of distributing pro-Hamas propaganda.

The State Department says US immigration allows for Khalil to be deported if his presence has serious adverse policy consequences  for the United States.

Advertisement

“Being in this country with a visa is a private and you gotta follow certain rules,” said Tom Homan, the border czar.

The Source: Information for this report is taken from interviews with activists and from Tom Homan.

DetroitMiddle EastIsrael Hamas war
Advertisement
Continue Reading

News

Trump’s Travel Ban Threatens Afghan Allies

Published

on

Trump’s Travel Ban Threatens Afghan Allies

The fate of thousands of Afghans waiting to reach the United States after serving with American troops was thrown into limbo after President Trump took office. Now military veterans are scrambling to bring as many of them as possible to the country before the administration introduces a travel ban that could restrict their entry.

In an executive order on Jan. 20, Mr. Trump instructed cabinet members, including the secretary of state, to compile a list of countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.”

The order called for the list to to be completed within 60 days. As that deadline nears, supporters of the Afghan allies have accelerated efforts to bring those eligible to the United States.

“We have been engaged in high-intensity, frenetic work,” said Andrew Sullivan, a military veteran and the executive director of No One Left Behind, a nonprofit whose team has been working marathon days to raise money and arrange flights.

Amid the chaotic pullout from Afghanistan in August 2021, the U.S. military helped evacuate 78,000 Afghans who worked as interpreters and in other capacities during the war. Tens of thousands of others who aided U.S. forces are still trying to reach the United States.

Advertisement

The wartime allies can apply for a Special Immigrant Visa, which allows them to travel to the United States with their families and receive permanent residence. Many have been waiting for months or longer in neighboring Pakistan and in Albania and Qatar to complete processing by U.S. authorities.

In his first term, Mr. Trump barred nationals from seven majority Muslim countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — from entering the United States. This time, Afghanistan is among the countries whose citizens could be categorically blocked, according to U.S. officials. The officials said that Cuba and Venezuela could also be added.

If Mr. Trump includes Afghanistan in a new travel ban, Afghans who helped the United States could be stranded indefinitely.

After his inauguration, the president also signed an executive order that paused funding for refugee resettlement, suspending travel to the United States for thousands of people around the world who had been screened and approved for entry.

Afghans who had obtained Special Immigrant Visas were not barred from relocating to the United States. But in shutting down refugee admissions, the State Department canceled the contracts that had also covered the costs of transporting the Afghan allies. Suddenly they had to pay their own way, and many could not afford the cost.

Advertisement

“People with visas in their passports saw their pathway to safety stripped away overnight,” said Sonia Norton, advocacy director for No One Left Behind, which is based in Arlington, Va.

The organization’s main role had been to supplement government support by providing Afghan families with loans to buy cars, further their education and adjust to the United States. After the executive orders, it quickly pivoted to an emergency fund-raising campaign.

About 37,000 Afghans, and their families, have been issued Special Immigrant Visas since 2009, when the program began. The Taliban, which rules Afghanistan, regards those Afghans as traitors. Thousands have faced retaliatory violence and hundreds have been killed for assisting the United States, according to a 2022 report by No One Left Behind.

At the time that Mr. Trump signed the executive orders in January, some 1,000 Afghans and their family members had visas to come to the United States. Returning to Afghanistan is not an option for them, Mr. Sullivan said.

“There’s a very real chance that they could get kicked back to the Taliban with a U.S. visa in their passport, and that could be deadly to these allies,” Mr. Sullivan, 38, who was an Army infantry company commander in Afghanistan, said in an interview from Doha, Qatar, where his team was on the ground in recent days.

Advertisement

“If we don’t know what’s going to happen with immigration policy, we’re not going to sit idly by,” he said. “We’re going to come and support them.”

No One Left Behind, established in 2014, has raised millions of dollars in a matter of weeks from veterans and other Americans to buy airplane tickets for Afghan families who had already been cleared to travel to the United States from Albania, Qatar and Pakistan.

Several veteran groups, including Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, have voiced concern for the fate of the Afghan allies.

Three Republican members of Congress said in a letter to President Trump that his executive orders had resulted in the “immediate shutdown” of Afghan relocation efforts. “These are not random applicants or illegal migrants who’ve crossed the southern border,” said the March 4 letter signed by Michael Lawler of New York, Michael McCaul of Texas and Richard Hudson of North Carolina.

“For many Afghans in the pipeline, staying in Afghanistan is a death sentence,” they said.

Advertisement

The White House did not respond to request for comments on the impact of the executive orders or the effects of a potential travel ban on Afghans who supported the U.S. mission.

Aman Jafari, who interpreted for U.S. Navy Seals, arrived in Portland, Ore., from Albania on March 5 with his wife and four young children.

“When Mr. Trump canceled flights, we didn’t have money to book our own flights to America,” said Mr. Jafari, 33. ”We just worried terribly what would happen next.”

Then No One Left Behind stepped in, he said.

On Tuesday, Mr. Sullivan arrived in Los Angeles from Doha to meet potential donors.

Advertisement

Evelyn Moore, 67, who has no military connections, said she had donated to the organization’s effort because Mr. Trump’s policies could have “dire consequences” for those who risked their lives for the United States.

“We must keep our allies on a path to the U.S., as promised,” she said.

By the end of this week, No One Left Behind hopes to have flown to the United States every Afghan who already has a visa.

It must also help them get on their feet in their adopted country.

Mr. Trump’s executive order halted funding to nonprofits like the International Rescue Committee and HIAS, which used to provide services such as rental assistance and job placement to refugees and Afghan allies for at least 90 days after their arrival.

Advertisement

No One Left Behind has partnered with community organizations and volunteers in cities like Portland, Rochester, N.Y., and Sacramento to fill the void.

Mr. Jafari’s family is living in an Extended Stay America hotel outside Portland while he waits for an apartment to be leased for his family. Rent will be paid by No One Left Behind and a local group, the Afghan Support Network, until Mr. Jafari becomes self-sufficient.

“I am so glad that I arrived in America,” he said. “I want to work hard for my family to have a good and bright future.”

Alain Delaquérière contributed research.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Trending