Speaking from a private plane on his way to The Hague, former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said he is “responsible” for the drug crackdown that landed him an ICC arrest warrant and he will protect the police and military from consequences.
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States has announced the elimination of more than two dozen air and water protections.
In a statement on social media, administrator Lee Zeldin said that the EPA would slash protections regulating areas such as tailpipe pollution, waterway protections and power plant emissions.
“EPA is initiating 31 historic actions to Power the Great American Comeback in the greatest day of deregulation in American history”! Zeldin wrote.
The move comes as President Donald Trump and his allies continue their push to dismantle or radically restructure the federal agencies they see as obstacles to their agenda.
Among the regulations Zeldin identified were standards concerning mercury and other air-based toxins released from coal-fired power plants.
He also said he would reform regulations surrounding coal ash, a dangerous byproduct of the burning process that often contains carcinogens and heavy metals that can pollute waterways.
Climate-change initiatives were also in the crosshairs of Wednesday’s announcement.
“We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the US and more”, Zeldin said in an accompanying statement.
As part of his announcement, Zeldin expressed support for rewriting a 2009 EPA finding that declares that pollutants that worsen climate change — like greenhouse gases — are a danger to public health and welfare.
Under his leadership, the EPA is also set to abolish a series of offices set up to address disproportionate levels of pollution — and commensurate health issues — in low-income areas across the country.
“President Trump wants us to help usher in a golden age in America that is for all Americans, regardless of race, gender, background”, Zeldin said of the move.
Conservatives in the US have long sought to curtail environmental protections that they say constrain businesses. In that vein, Trump has issued an executive order calling on federal agencies to repeal 10 regulations for every new one they impose.
He has also signalled a shift away from clean energy initiatives, often repeating the slogan “drill, baby, drill” on the campaign trail. He has asserted that “clean coal” and unregulated oil and natural gas exploration could boost the US economy.
Within the federal government, Trump has also pushed an agenda of widespread layoffs, in the name of reducing alleged fraud and wasteful spending.
The EPA, for example, is slated to cut about 65 percent of its workforce.
Environmental protection groups have responded with anger to Wednesday’s deregulation push, noting that many of the rules singled out have played a central role in tackling air and water pollution.
“President Trump and his allies have no regard for the wellbeing of people living in America and care only about protecting the profits of polluters”, said Chitra Kumar, the managing director of the climate and energy programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy organisation.
Hundreds of people have rallied outside a New York City courtroom to demand the release of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, whose arrest over the weekend sparked condemnation and fears of a crackdown on free speech in the United States.
The demonstrators gathered on Wednesday outside Manhattan’s federal court for the first formal hearing in Khalil’s case, as he faces possible deportation for his activism.
“Release Mahmoud Khalil now”! they chanted.
During the brief hearing, Khalil’s lawyer Ramzi Kassem said his client had been allowed just one call with his legal team from the detention centre where he is being held in the southern state of Louisiana.
But Kassem said that the call was cut off prematurely and was on a line recorded and monitored by the government.
US District Judge Jesse Furman ruled that Khalil and his lawyers should have one phone call on Wednesday and another on Thursday, covered by attorney-client privilege, meaning the government would not have access to their conversation.
Furman on Monday temporarily blocked Khalil’s deportation.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Khalil, a 29-year-old Columbia University graduate and US permanent resident, at his residence in New York City at the weekend.
ICE officials said they planned to revoke his green card at the behest of the US Department of State.
Khalil had been at the forefront of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University last year, which saw students demanding an end to Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip. He largely served as a spokesperson and negotiator.
But as he campaigned for a second term in the White House, US President Donald Trump pledged to stop the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that erupted after Israel launched a deadly war on Gaza in October 2023 and deport any foreign students involved.
Upon taking office, he began to issue executive actions signalling he would carry out his threats.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you”, Trump said in a White House fact sheet.
“I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before”.
Trump recently welcomed Khalil’s arrest, saying on Monday that it was “the first of many to come”.
He accused students across the country of being engaged in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity” that his administration “will not tolerate”.
But experts say Khalil’s detention highlights a widening attack on pro-Palestinian activism in the US, as well as a worrying sign for freedom of expression and dissent under the Trump administration.
“Objectively, what is really happening is an effort to silence all public expression of support for Palestinian human rights to placate right-wing supporters of Israel within the Republican Party”, Nader Hashemi, a professor at Georgetown University, told Al Jazeera this week.
Legal questions
The legal basis for Khalil’s detention also has been called into question.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio could revoke Khalil’s green card if Rubio determined his presence in the US runs contrary to the country’s national security and foreign policy interests.
Citing a government document detailing the civil charges Khalil faces, The Washington Post also reported on Wednesday that Rubio’s determination “is so far the Trump administration’s sole justification” for trying to deport him.
Separately, Rubio told reporters that Khalil’s case “is not about free speech”.
“This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with”, the top US diplomat told reporters at Ireland’s Shannon Airport during a refuelling stop after a trip to Saudi Arabia.
“No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way”, Rubio said.
Khalil’s lawyer Ramzi Kassem speaks to reporters in New York City on March 12]Mike Segar/Reuters]
But speaking outside the Manhattan court, Khalil’s lawyer Kassem told reporters that the rarely used legal provision that the Trump administration seems to be invoking was not meant to silence dissent.
“It is not intended to be used to silence pro-Palestinian speech or any other speech that the government doesn’t like”, Kassem said.
Khalil’s lawyers also asked Furman — the judge overseeing the case — to order that their client be returned from Louisiana to New York.
Reporting from New York on Wednesday afternoon, Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey said Khalil’s legal team argued that he should be returned to the city because he is far from his lawyers and pregnant wife.
“And they also allege that he is being targeted simply because of his activism in support of Palestinian rights and calling for an end to genocide in Gaza”, Saloomey said.
At the hearing, government lawyer Brandon Waterman said they planned to challenge Furman’s authority to decide the case.
Waterman said Khalil’s petition should have been filed in Louisiana or in New Jersey, where he was initially brought after his arrest.
Former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has arrived in the Netherlands and has been surrendered to the custody of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on allegations of crimes against humanity over his deadly “war on drugs”.
Duterte was arrested on Tuesday in the Philippine capital, Manila, after returning from a trip to Hong Kong, and placed on a plane to Rotterdam by police.
In a statement on Wednesday, the ICC said Duterte, 79, had been “arrested by the authorities of the Republic of the Philippines in accordance with an arrest warrant issued by Pre-Trial Chamber I for charges of murder as a crime against humanity”.
He will be brought before an ICC judge in The Hague in the coming days for an initial appearance, the statement said. He was transferred to a detention unit on the Dutch coast.
The ICC’s warrant for his arrest stated that as president, Duterte created, funded and armed death squads that took part in the murders of alleged drug users and dealers.
He could become the first Asian former head of state to go on trial in The Hague.
Rival protests
Outside the ICC building in The Hague, anti-Duterte protesters hailed his arrest and held banners that read, “We demand justice and accountability, Rodrigo Duterte is a war criminal”!
Menandro Abanes told the Reuters news agency that Duterte’s arrest was “great news for Filipino people”.
“I’m here to show my appreciation to]the] ICC for doing its job to end impunity”, Abanes added.
Another protester, Mary-Grace Labasan, also told Reuters that Duterte was “lucky”.
“He is experiencing the due process of law compared to the victims who were just being shot and killed without any due process”, she said.
Pro-Duterte protesters also gathered at the court building.
Supporters of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte wait for his arrival at the Scheveningen Prison following his arrest at the request of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands]Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters]
In 2021, the ICC opened its inquiry into the mass killings linked to the war on drugs, which was overseen by Duterte while he was mayor of the city of Davao and later as president.
According to the warrant, ICC judges who examined the prosecution’s evidence to support their request for his arrest found “reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Duterte is individually responsible for the crime against humanity of murder” as an “indirect co-perpetrator for having allegedly overseen the killings when he was mayor of Davao and later president of the Philippines”.
During Duterte’s six years as president, 6, 200 suspects were killed during anti-drug operations, according to police. Human rights advocates estimate some 30, 000 people were killed.
Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says the United States ‘ offer to hold talks on its nuclear programme is an attempt to deceive global public opinion, as a letter arrived from US President Donald Trump urging negotiations.
Trump said last week that he had sent a letter to the Iranian leadership seeking negotiations over a new deal with Tehran to restrain its rapidly advancing nuclear programme.
The letter was handed over to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Wednesday by Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates.
While the two officials were meeting, the supreme leader told a group of university students that Trump’s offer “is a deception aimed at shaping global opinion”.
“We negotiated for years, reached a complete and signed agreement, and then this individual tore it up”, Khamanei said. “How can one negotiate under such circumstances? … When we know they won’t, what is the point of negotiating”?
He referred to the 2015 nuclear accord that Tehran signed with world powers to curtail its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. In 2018, during his first term in office, Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the deal and imposed new economic restrictions on Iran. Tehran responded a year later by violating the deal’s nuclear curbs.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has signalled his desire to negotiate while also reinstating his policy on “maximum pressure” on Iran.
Khamenei said negotiating with the Trump administration, which he said has excessive demands, “will tighten the knot of sanctions and increase pressure on Iran”.
Iran has long denied seeking to develop a nuclear weapon.
“If we wanted to build nuclear weapons, the US would not be able to stop it. We ourselves do not want it”, Khamenei said.
However, Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, has jumped, the International Atomic Energy Agency said late last month.
UNSC meeting
Araghchi also denounced a closed-door United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting on Wednesday about Iran’s nuclear work as a new process that puts in doubt the goodwill of the states requesting it.
Six of the council’s 15 members – France, Greece, Panama, South Korea, Britain and the US – requested the meeting over Iran’s expansion of its stock of close to weapons-grade uranium.
Araghchi said Iran would soon have a fifth round of talks with France, Britain and Germany – parties to Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact.
“Our talks with Europeans have been ongoing and will continue … however, any decision by the UN Security Council or board of governors of the UN nuclear watchdog to pressure us will put under question the legitimacy of these talks”, Araghchi said, according to state media.
