Category World News

Reports of el-Fasher, a city in North Darfur, being massacred by the Rapid Support Forces.

According to reports, the US Department of Justice has placed two federal prosecutors, Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White, on administrative leave after calling the attack on the Capitol “a mob of rioters.”

The two prosecutors&nbsp’s documents were updated to remove references to the January 6 attack in addition to the original documents.

The prosecutors were escorted out of their government equipment on Wednesday, the same day as the new filings were made.

Despite the anonymity of Reuters and The Associated Press, both men worked for the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

The President’s administration recently took action against federal prosecutors who participated in unfavorable cases, as the Republican leader’s punishment was.

Trump has long defended the attackers who carried out the attack on January 6 and has even pardoned more than 1,500 rioters who were still facing criminal charges or convictions in his first year in office.

Another 14 rioters received a commuted sentence. Trump referred to the prosecutions as “grave national injustices” in a presidential statement.

Trump’s false accusations that his 2020 presidential election defeat had been “rigged” contributed to the attack on the Capitol. Thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol the day the Electoral College votes were being certified by insiders due to the false information.

More than 100 police officers were hurt in the attack, with several fatalities linked to it, including a protester shot as they attempted to enter the Speaker’s Lobby, and a police officer who collapsed and suffered multiple strokes, possibly as a result of the stress of being assaulted.

Some police officers received hockey sticks, fire extinguishers, and flag poles as punishment.

The two prosecutors’ suspensions on Wednesday have not yet been made public by the Justice Department.

Taylor Taranto, a veteran of the Navy and one of the pardoned by Trump for his role in the January 6 attack, was scheduled to appear in federal court on Thursday.

He was spotted trying to break into the Speaker’s Chamber, a restricted area, during the altercation. Before Trump pardoned his charges, Taranto was accused of four misdemeanours for those deeds.

Taranto was found guilty in May of a charge not related to the case, which included spreading false information and hoaxes, as well as illegally carrying two firearms and the unlawful possession of ammunition.

On June 29, 2023, Taranto was detained close to a Washington, DC address that was allegedly associated with former US president Barack Obama, one of Trump’s political rivals.

After Trump posted the address on social media, Taranto drove to the area and live-streamed his progress in an effort to find “tunnels” to enter the home.

Secret Service agents confronted him as he entered a restricted area and left his car. According to him, “Gotta get the shot, stop at nothing to get the shot.”

His van reportedly contained more than 500 rounds of ammunition.

A car bomb was suspected to be traveling toward the National Institute of Standards and Technology on a “hoax” video that was released the day before.

He was described as a “journalist” and “comedian,” according to Taranto’s defense attorneys. However, Taranto’s lawyers have requested a sentence that goes beyond two years in prison.

That recommendation for sentencing was kept in the revised documents released on Wednesday.

White and Valdivia, two suspended prosecutors, were praised by US District Judge Carl Nichols at the hearing on Thursday, saying they did a “commendable and excellent job” and that their conduct exhibited the “highest standards of professionalism” in the case.

In the end, Nichols gave Taranto a 21-month prison sentence. Taranto won’t be incarcerated for another 22 months because he has already been.

Regardless of the current presidential administration, career prosecutors are assigned to criminal cases.

However, the Trump White House has repeatedly attempted to intimidate, if not to fire, those accused of prosecuting cases that conflict with the president’s wishes.

For instance, nearly two dozen US Attorney’s Office employees in Washington, DC were fired in January, many of whom had connections to the federal court cases against former President Joe Biden that arose on January 6.

UN Security Council members have been inundated with reports of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) killings in Sudan’s el-Fasher and have expressed concern that the city has “descended into an even darker hell.”

After compelled Sudan’s army to leave its final stronghold in the western Darfur region on Sunday, the RSF took control of the state’s capital, El-Fasher.

At a Security Council emergency session on Thursday, assistant secretary-general of the United Nations for Africa, Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee, said, “The situation is simply horrifying.”

She claimed that there have been credible reports of widespread executions, summary executions, and house-to-house searches carried out by civilians as they attempted to flee.

“The situation is chaotic,” he declared. The number of civilians killed is difficult to calculate in this context. No one is safe in El-Fasher, despite promises to protect civilians, she said. There is no safe exit route for city residents.

According to the humanitarian chief of the United Nations, residents of the city were being subjected to “horrors.”

According to Tom Fletcher, the city has “descended into an even darker hell” and is “already the scene of catastrophic levels of human suffering.”

According to Fletcher, there were “credible reports of widespread executions after Rapid Support Forces fighters entered the city.”

“The horror is continuing as we sit here today, not that we can hear the screams. People are being mutilated and killed with utter impunity, and women and girls are being raped.

Recalls of the attacks are made by survivors.

An RSF siege had forced hundreds of thousands of people inside without food or essentials for 18 months prior to Sudan’s army withdrew from the city.

More than 36, 000 people have reportedly fled on foot to Tawila, a town that is 70 kilometers (43 miles) west of San Diego, and has already taken shelter from 650, 000 displaced people.

Fatima Abdulrahman, a woman who had fled from El-Fasher, reported to Al Jazeera from Tawila, “There was a lot of shelling.” Shells have also affected me personally. My son was paralyzed and my daughter was killed by screaming. My body has a lot of wounds and swelling.

El-Fasher’s departure from the RSF could signal yet another Sudan’s division, more than a decade after its creation. The most recent conflict began in Khartoum in April 2023 when tensions between the military and RSF erupted into fighting. More than 12 million people have been displaced and tens of thousands of have been killed in the conflict that followed.

Sudan’s ambassador to the UN, Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed, stated to the Security Council, “This is not an isolated incident.” Instead, it is a continuation of this militia’s ongoing slaughter and ethnic cleansing since its uprising in April 2023.

In Sudan’s conflict, over 300 Colombians have been killed. What makes them present? pic. twitter.com/iKSryvNG2V

Hiba Morgan from Khartoum reported for Al Jazeera that thousands of people are still attempting to flee El-Fasher. The International Organization for Migration estimates that the conflict has caused more than 652, 000 people to be internally displaced.

A woman displaced from El-Fasher, Aisha Ismael, told Al Jazeera from Tawila, “Shelling and drone attacks were happening all the time. When we hid in the homes, they would fire back at us all day and night.

fears that the situation will get worse

As more internally displaced people leave El-Fasher and the supply of food and medicine continue to decline, aid workers in Tawila worry.

According to Mary Brace, technical protection advisor for Nonviolent Peaceforce, “the conditions are catastrophic, as we’ve been hearing.” There is no guarantee of safe passage for civilians trying to reach Tawila because the conflict is still ongoing.

Food, water, and emergency medical attention are provided to those fleeing El-Fasher in the immediate aftermath of an emergency.

Brace told Al Jazeera, “The last few months have been absolutely harrowing.” “People were only discussing the extreme fear of constant bombardment,” they said. The number of people who have been forced to relocate here is simply incredible. Just extreme trauma, to be exact.

‘Genocide’

Al-Harith Mohamed referred to the egregious events in el-Fasher as “genocide by all legal standards and definitions” in a gloomy address to the UN Security Council.

According to him, “Women and girls are attacked in broad daylight,” and Sudan is inquisitive about the Security Council’s location.

The Sudanese ambassador demanded that the UN impose a year-old arms embargo on the RSF, designate the organization as a “terrorist,” demand that the paramilitary group leave El-Fasher, impose a “terrorist” designation, and sanction any outside forces supporting the RSF.

El-Fasher’s motto is “No one is safe.” In response to rumors of atrocities committed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, the UN Security Council condemned the escalating violence in Sudan’s Darfur region. Sudan accuses the UAE of supporting the RSF, and the ambassadors to Sudan and the United Arab Emirates heatedly exchanged.

Donald Trump has set the lowest refugee admission cap in the country’s history, limiting entry to just 7,500 for the fiscal year 2026.

The Trump administration stated in a presidential document from September 30 that the refugee system in the US would remain largely unaffected by the millions of refugees fleeing unsafe conditions.

Instead of white South Africans receiving the highest priority among the 7,500 slots available,

According to Executive Order 14204, “The admissions numbers shall primarily be distributed among Afrikaners from South Africa and other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands,” the document stated.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that white South Africans are facing persecution there because of their Black status, a claim that the country’s top Afrikaner officials and the government have refuted.

The Trump administration’s decision to focus on the organizations that deal with refugee services went beyond Thursday’s filings.

Instead, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement will be rerouted to the current refugee resettlement grants and contracts, which are currently distributed to a number of public and private organizations.

A separate declaration stated that “the transfer ensures better alignment of resources, oversight, and accountability] of] resettlement activities that take place entirely within the United States.

Since the 1980 Refugee Act codified a formal procedure for admitting and relocating refugees to the US, Trump’s refugee cap is the lowest.

At least two million refugees have emigrated since then through the USRAP, or US Refugee Admissions Program. Immigrant rights organizations successfully challenged Trump’s plan to suspend the program when he took office.

The 7,500-person cap on Thursday represents only a small portion of the 125, 000 refugees who were permitted to enter under former president Joe Biden during his final year in office. The new, lower cap will run from October 2025 to September 2026.

There are currently 42.7 million refugees on the planet, according to the UNHCR.

There is no bottom cap, but presidents have the power to impose a cap on annual refugee admissions under the US Refugee Act. That has long raised the possibility that Trump, who cut admissions in his first term, could bring USRAP to a halt.

“Death for a crown jewel”

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, noted that Trump’s declaration appeared to change the definition of who is a refugee in a post on the social media platform X.

Trump’s new refugee determination, he wrote, “seems to call for the admission of refugees who wouldn’t fall under the definition of a refugee — someone who faces persecution (not ‘discrimination’) on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, affiliation with a particular social group, or political opinion.”

He added that “people fleeing ethnic cleansing and other horrors” have been acknowledged by the US refugee program for decades.

He said, “Now it will be used as a pathway for White immigration.” What a failure for America’s most renowned international humanitarian initiatives.

Trump did not appear to have adhered to the necessary congressional consultation process before announcing the cap, according to the International Refugee Assistance Project. The group criticized the action as being overtly political.

The organization’s president, Sharif Aly, said in a statement that “Today’s announcement highlights how far this administration has gone in terms of reneging on its obligations to displaced people around the world.

The statement read, “America’s refugee program was created to reflect our values, and the thousands of people we’ve closed our doors to represent the thousands of missed opportunities of people who could have strengthened a local community or economy,” according to the statement.

Trump’s declaration did not provide a justification for the dramatic drop in refugee admissions, stating only that it was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.”

Some advocates had hoped that the refugee program, which historically had broad bipartisan support, might be spared, but the US president has led a massive crackdown on all forms of immigration since taking office.

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan has increased the cross-aisle support in recent years, with many politicians supporting Afghans who worked for or with allies or their allies as aides to immigration.

While other specialized immigration programs are still obstructed or behind schedule, many Afghans have relied on the refugee program.

Trump has focused primarily on white Afrikaners since taking office for a second term. For instance, Trump cut aid to South Africa in Executive Order 14204, which was issued in February, on the grounds that it showed “shocking disregard” for Afrikaners.

White South Africans were “victims of unjust racial discrimination,” according to the order’s recommendation that they should receive humanitarian assistance, including refugee admissions.

A day after a string of deadly Israeli strikes across the besieged enclave destroyed the fragile Gaza ceasefire, Hamas claims that Hamas has handed over two bodies that it claims were of deceased Israeli prisoners.

The two bodies had been received by Israeli forces via the Red Cross in Gaza, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Thursday, according to a statement released by the organization. They would then be transported into Israel for identification.

In exchange for Israel releasing nearly 2, 000 Palestinian political prisoners, Hamas released 20 living prisoners under the US-brokered agreement to end Israel’s two-year occupation of Gaza. Additionally, Israeli forces have partially withdrawn from Gaza’s urban centers.

However, dozens of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in the area since the ceasefire started on October 10. 104 people were killed in Israeli attacks, including 20 women and 46 children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry from Tuesday through Wednesday.

In exchange for the bodies of Palestinians killed in the war, Hamas agreed to release the remains of all 28 captives. It claimed on Thursday that it had collected 15 sets of remains and that it is still pressing for proper equipment and support to comb through the dense rubble and debris where thousands of Palestinians who were killed in Israeli airstrikes are still buried.

Israel contends that Hamas has returned the bodies of Israeli prisoners who are still being held in Gaza too slowly.

According to Tareq Abu Azzoum, a reporter for Al Jazeera from az-Zuwayda in central Gaza, Hamas is still dealing with “logistical and operational difficulties regarding the retrieval of the bodies, particularly in areas that have been impacted by the Israeli bombardment.”

“Hamas has been calling for the use of heavy bulldozers and machines to speed up the recovery of bodies. However, Israel is still accusing Hamas of purposefully putting off the bodies’ release, according to Abu Azzoum.

One of the issues preventing US President Donald Trump from ending the war for good has been the recovery and handover of bodies.

The future administration of Gaza and Hamas’ need to disarm are two major challenges that remain.

“Essential role of NGOs”

Before dawn, witnesses claimed tanks shelled areas east of Gaza City in the north and Israeli planes carried out 10 air strikes in areas east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

In the areas of Gaza where its forces are still present, the Israeli military claimed to have carried out “precise” strikes against “terrorist infrastructure that posed a threat to the troops.”

A UN official called for the aid’s distribution to be made available to NGOs in the meantime, noting that more than 24 000 tonnes of UN aid have already arrived in Gaza since the ceasefire’s start.

Humanitarians continue to face funding shortfalls as well as coordination issues with Israeli authorities, which are still securing crucial border crossings, according to the UN. Aid volumes have increased significantly since the ceasefire.

In the 20 days following the ceasefire, the Middle East Regional Director of the World Food Programme, Samer Abdel Jaber, reported that they had “collected about 20 000 metric tons of food inside Gaza.”

The main focus and prerequisite for us to be able to provide humanitarian assistance in a holistic manner is still the implementation of the 20-point [ceasefire] plan, according to Alakbarov.

He demanded that Israel grant permission for more NGOs to distribute aid to Gaza, which Israel has prohibited.

“The persistent issue with NGOs’ registration continues to be a bottleneck.” We have raised the priority of national NGOs’ involvement in humanitarian operations in Gaza, and we continue to emphasize this,” he said.

The majority of Gaza’s more than two million people have been displaced by Israel’s assault several times. The majority of residents of their devastated neighborhoods have not yet returned, fearing that Israeli forces may soon retake control of their neighborhoods.

On Thursday, the Israeli army demolished homes east of the Tuffah and Shujayea neighborhoods in eastern Gaza City, according to sources.

As part of what residents describe as a coordinated campaign to clear large swaths of residential blocks, Israel has been demolishing homes since the beginning of its renewed ground incursion in the area earlier this month.