On Wednesday, May 21, 2018, this is the situation:
Fighting
Donald Trump, the president of the United States, stated to reporters that he is not concerned about reports that Russia is deploying its forces along Finland’s border. No, he said, “I don’t worry about that at all,” adding that both Finland and Norway “were going to be very safe.”
After Estonia tried and failed to seize a Russian tanker last week in violation of international sanctions, Moscow accused NATO of “aggressive actions.”
Diplomacy
Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, confirmed that Vladimir Putin and the Vatican are willing to hold peace talks in Ukraine.
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, stated that he anticipates Putin to release a peace plan in the coming days, which would indicate his commitment to ending the conflict.
Rubio said Moscow will provide “just broad terms that would allow us to move toward a ceasefire,” and that would also enable us to engage in in-depth negotiations to end the conflict.
In a social media post, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, claimed that Russia is only “trying to buy time to keep its war and occupation.”
A man allegedly assisted Russian foreign intelligence services in putting together a possible assassination attempt against Zelenskyy was indicted in Poland.
Economy
With the intention to disrupt “Putin’s war machine” and its supply chain, the United Kingdom announced sanctions against 100 additional Russian targets. Additionally, Russia’s 18th sanctions package was announced by the European Union.
Sergii Marchenko, the Ukrainian finance minister, was invited by Canada to a G7 finance ministers meeting this week in Banff, Alberta.
Marchenko demanded further lifting of the $60-per-barrel price cap that many nations, including G7 members, have imposed on Russia on the sidelines of the meeting.
A significant G7 summit in June, which will likely address the reconstruction of Ukraine, is scheduled for the day before the meeting.
His office claims that former US president Joe Biden had his “last known” blood test for prostate cancer more than a decade ago but had not been diagnosed with it prior to last week.
The Biden camp’s statement on Tuesday came as criticism of the diagnosis, which has rekindled concerns about whether the former president misled the public about his health while in office, including that of current president Donald Trump.
The brief statement from Biden’s office, which refers to the prostate-specific antigen test used to detect prostate cancer, states that “President Biden’s last known PSA was in 2014”.
“President Biden had never received a prostate cancer diagnosis before Friday.”
Trump claimed on Monday that it surprised him that Biden’s diagnosis was not known to the general public “a long time ago.”
Why did it take so long, exactly? It takes a long time to accomplish this. According to Trump, it can take years for Biden’s cancer to reach this level of danger.
Trump remarked, “Someone is not telling the facts, and that’s a big problem.”
The former president was diagnosed with prostate cancer two days prior, according to Biden’s office, which was disclosed on Sunday.
According to Biden’s office, his cancer had a 9 on the Gleason classification system, which ranks prostate cancer as 6 to 10, making it one of the most aggressive types.
Some doctors have doubted that Biden, 82, was earlier diagnosed because of his access to the best medical care, but others have noted that screening is typically not advised for men his age and that some cancers do not appear in tests.
Due to the risks associated with unnecessary treatment, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other medical organizations do not advise regular screening for prostate cancer for men over 70.
Even a person in President Biden’s position may have a new diagnosis of metastatic prostate cancer, according to Adam Weiner, an urologic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to Al Jazeera. “It is entirely reasonable, albeit sad,” Weiner said.
It is possible that President Biden was tested for prostate cancer up to the recommended age and that his newly discovered prostate cancer has first appeared sometime since then, according to Weiner.
The Biden camp’s account of the diagnosis was “plausible even if a little unusual,” according to Nick James, an expert on prostate cancer at The Institute of Cancer Research in London, because some cancers with low PSA production can not be missed in blood tests.
One of the drawbacks of PSA testing is that such tumors can be missed. According to James, the other test he might have had, also has a false negative rate, according to James.
During his presidency and re-election campaign, Biden abandoned after a subpar debate performance against Trump in June, his age and health were top concerns for voters.
Biden and his team have been accused of concealing the extent of his mental and physical decline while in office.
A new book, Original Sin, was released on Tuesday by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, who allegedly tried to conceal the Biden camp’s alleged efforts to conceal his condition.
According to a judge in the US, reports of deportations to South Sudan appear to contradict his previous court order, according to a judge in the country.
US District Court Judge Brian Murphy held a virtual hearing on behalf of deported migrants reportedly on a flight to South Sudan on Tuesday in Boston, Massachusetts.
He requested the Trump administration’s lawyers identify the locations of the migrants. He also indicated that he could contact the pilots and request that the flight be turned around.
This may seem like contempt, Judge Murphy told Elianis Perez, a lawyer for the Trump Justice Department.
Perez claimed that the Department of Homeland Security had deemed this information to be “classified” in response to Murphy’s request for the location of the plane. Perez added that Murphy’s earlier court order had not been broken by the Trump administration.
The US Department of State alleged in a recent annual report that South Sudan had “significant human rights issues,” including torture and extrajudicial killings.
However, the Trump administration has been looking for places to send undocumented immigrants who are currently detained in the US, particularly those whose nations of origin refuse to accept them.
Judge Murphy claimed at the hearing on Tuesday that the flight to South Sudan appeared to be in violation of a preliminary injunction he issued on April 18 that forbade migrants from entering third-party nations other than their own.
The Trump administration had to provide the migrants with a fair chance of appealing their removal in accordance with that injunction.
Judge Murphy ruled that the migrants were simply looking for “an opportunity to explain why such a deportation will likely lead to their persecution, torture, and/or death.”
He cited the US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, which guarantees a fair hearing in the US court system.
Lawyers for the migrants had made the announcement earlier this month that their clients were going to Libya, a second nation with serious human rights concerns, on May 7.
According to Judge Murphy, an appointee of former president Joe Biden, a deportation would violate his injunction.
The lawyers for those migrants emphasized how close a call that incident was in Tuesday’s emergency court filing. When the migrants were being ordered to be returned, they were already on a bus and sat on the tarmac of an airport.
The migrants are only identified by their initials and countries of origin, including Vietnam and Myanmar.
However, it requests immediate court intervention and details what allegedly happened to them over the course of the previous 24 hours.
The lawyers claim that a Myanmari immigrant, identified as NM in the court filings, was given a notice of removal on Monday. South Africa was the destination, according to the report. The sender of the email was recalled within ten minutes, according to the court filing.
A second notice of removal, this time mentioning South Sudan as the destination, allegedly arrived a few hours later.
NM declined to sign the document in both instances. In the emergency petition, the plaintiffs claim that NM had “limited English proficiency” and that they had not been given a translator to understand the English-language document.
By the time their appointment time arrived, NM’s lawyer had already informed him that he had already been taken from his detention facility and was headed for South Sudan, despite a lawyer’s statement that she intended to meet with him on Tuesday morning.
A copy of an email a family member of a deported victim sent to the attorneys is included in the emergency filing.
The email begins with “I believe my husband [name redacted] and ten other people were deported to South Africa or Sudan.
“This is wrong,” he declared. I’m concerned that my husband and his group, which includes Laos, Thailand, Pakistan, Korea, and Mexico residents, are being forced to flee to South Africa or Sudan. Help us, please! They are not permitted to do this.
After being detained in Venezuela for almost six months, a US citizen has been relocated to the US.
Joseph St. Clair, a veteran US Air Force veteran, was detained in November of last year, but his family confirmed his release on Tuesday.
Scott and Patti, St. Clair’s parents, said in a statement that “we are still processing this news, but we are overwhelmed with joy and gratitude.”
Richard Grenell, the US president’s special missions envoy, later stated on social media that he had met with Venezuelan officials to discuss the release.
Grenell attributed St. Clair’s liberation to Trump’s “America First” political platform.
He wrote, “Joe St. Clair is back in America.” “To negotiate an America First strategy, I met Venezuelan officials in a neutral country today. Trump’s campaign puts Americans first, which only makes this happen.
According to a report from anonymous sources with knowledge of the negotiations, Grenell and Jorge Rodriguez, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly and ally of Nicolas Maduro, spoke about St Clair’s case on Tuesday.
A deal was reached to extend Chevron’s license to operate in Venezuela by 60 days, according to a report from Reuters and another news agency, Bloomberg.
In February, the Trump administration announced that it would revoke the permit because Venezuela had not upheld its commitment to fair elections. On May 27, the license was scheduled to expire.
The US Treasury and the Department of State will likely need to approve any extension.
The country’s economy is largely fueled by oil. However, Venezuela has been hit by an economic crisis since the mid-2010s, pushing even the most basic necessities, like food and medicine, beyond what some families can afford.
The UN claims that this and other alleged political repression have led to a nearly 7.9 million person eviction from Venezuela.
Venezuela made a commitment to electoral reforms in 2023 as part of the US-commended Barbados Agreement. Following the signing of the deal, then-US President Joe Biden eased restrictions on Venezuela’s oil industry.
However, Venezuela’s presidential election on July 28, 2024, received a lot of negative press for being illiberal. The electoral authorities did not provide any evidence of Maduro’s victory despite his and his supporters’ claims that he had won a third term.
Instead, the opposition coalition released voting records that it claimed demonstrated its candidate’s landslide victory. That led to widespread protests and a deadly law enforcement crackdown.
Trump had pursued a “maximum pressure” campaign against Maduro’s government during his first term in office, offering a $15 million bounty for information leading to the Venezuelan leader’s arrest from 2017 to 2021.
However, in his second term, Trump may need Venezuela’s assistance in achieving his “mass deportation” goals.
Trump has indicated a willingness to negotiate with Maduro since taking office in January. In Caracas’ capital, he even invited Grenell to meet with Maduro in person in late January. All Americans detained in the country were also provided with a copy of Grenell’s directive.
Grenell made it known that he was traveling with six Americans who had previously been held in Venezuela.
According to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, nine Americans were still in Venezuela’s custody in March.
Venezuela has started accepting deportation flights from the US, despite having previously rejected immigrants who had been taken out of the country.
For the “Golden Dome” missile defense program, which would include putting weapons in space for the first time, President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have laid out their most detailed plans.
Trump claimed on Tuesday that he had “officially selected an architecture” for the system, which was meant to defeat “hypersonic missiles, ballistic missiles, and advanced cruise missiles.”
Trump addressed reporters in the Oval Office, “I promised the American people that I would construct a cutting-edge missile defense shield to shield our country from any threat of foreign missile attack.”
He added that “space-based sensors and interceptors” would be used in the Golden Dome system.
The Golden Dome, according to Trump, will be able to intercept missiles once it has been built, whether they are launched from space or from other locations. The “best system ever created” will be in place.
Just four months after Trump enacted an executive order to begin the program’s development, the announcement comes. The program will be managed by General Michael Guetlein, who is currently the US military’s vice chief of space operations.
Hegseth praised the plan as a “generational investment in security of America and Americans” during a speech at the event.
[Mark Schiefelbein/The Associated Press] The White House displays posters for the proposed Golden Dome missile defense shield.
The Pentagon is reportedly still developing its capabilities and requirements, despite the White House’s failure to immediately provide more information about the missile defense system.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this month that the Golden Dome’s space-based components could cost as much as $542 billion over the course of 20 years.
A space-based system would require a lot of sensors and interceptors, the report noted, especially as foreign militaries like those from North Korea become more sophisticated.
Trump, however, provided details on a much less expensive and realistic timeline on Tuesday.
“It should be operational by the time my term is up. So it will be finished in three years, according to Trump.
He stated that he planned to use the system’s existing defense resources, which would add up to about $175 billion.
However, the program’s funding has not yet been secured. Trump stated at the news conference on Tuesday that the system’s $ 25 billion request would be included in a tax-cut bill currently being considered by Congress, though negotiations are still pending.
The overall cost of the project is likely to vary a little. For instance, an unnamed government official, according to an Associated Press citation, claimed Trump had received three versions of the plan, which were “medium”, “high,” and “extra high.”
As part of the program, those tiers were proportional to how many satellites, sensors, and interceptors would be stationed in space. According to the news agency, Trump chose the “high” variant, which starts out between $30 billion and $100 billion.
Viability-related questions
Trump cited several sources of inspiration, including Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defense system, which is partially funded by the US, as he explained his plans for the Golden Dome on Tuesday.
He also cited Ronald Reagan, a fellow Republican who served in the White House during the Cold War in the 1980s.
Reagan had proposed a space-based technology-based nuclear weapons barrier as part of his Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983.
Trump declared, “We will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland.”
However, questions remain as to whether a space-based defense system is viable, how expensive, and whether it will spark a new arms race.
Democrats have also questioned Elon Musk’s potential involvement with SpaceX, a leader in the field of technology companies looking to create crucial system components.
A group of 42 Democratic lawmakers has demanded that Musk’s role in the bidding process be investigated, citing both his significant campaign contributions to the president and his position as a special adviser to Trump.
“This would be yet another example of Mr. Musk’s improper influence over the Golden Dome contract. The Democrats wrote in a letter urging the investigation, “outlining a disturbing pattern of Mr. Musk breaking conflict of interest laws.”
Trump did not respond to a question on Tuesday regarding the companies that would be in the Golden Dome. Instead, he emphasized that states like Georgia, Florida, and Alaska would benefit from the system.
