Indian Premier League cricket championship sparks deadly stampede
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Al Jazeera
10 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Trump administration sanctions International Criminal Court judges
The administration of President Donald Trump has followed through with a threat to sanction officials on the International Criminal Court (ICC), naming four judges whom it accuses of taking 'illegitimate and baseless actions' against the United States and its allies. On Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions in a sharply worded written statement. 'The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion to investigate, charge, and prosecute nationals of the United States and our allies,' Rubio wrote. 'This dangerous assertion and abuse of power infringes upon the sovereignty and national security of the United States and our allies, including Israel.' The four sanctioned judges include Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin and Beti Hohler of Slovenia. As a result of the sanctions, the judges will see their US-based property and assets blocked. US-based entities are also forbidden from engaging in transactions with them, including through the 'provision of funds, goods or services'. The ICC quickly issued a statement in response, saying it stood behind its judges and 'deplores' the Trump administration's decision. 'These measures are a clear attempt to undermine the independence of an international judicial institution which operates under the mandate from 125 States Parties from all corners of the globe,' the statement said. 'Targeting those working for accountability does nothing to help civilians trapped in conflict. It only emboldens those who believe they can act with impunity.' In a fact sheet, the State Department explained that Bossa and Ibanez Carranza were sanctioned for authorising an investigation into US troops in Afghanistan in 2020, during Trump's first term as president. Previously, the ICC had blocked a request to probe alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, where the US had been leading a slow-grinding war from 2001 to 2021. But it reversed course the following year, granting a prosecutor's request to investigate US forces and members of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for war crimes in 'secret detention facilities' in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Afghanistan, the court noted, was a member of the Rome Statute, which includes the 125 countries where the ICC has jurisdiction. But the Trump administration at the time blasted the court's decision, calling the ICC a 'political institution masquerading as a legal body'. It has long argued that the US, which is not party to the Rome Statute, lies outside the ICC's jurisdiction. Another country that is not a member of the Rome Statute is Israel, which has used similar arguments to reject the ICC's power over its actions in Palestine. The second pair of judges named in Thursday's sanctions — Alapini Gansou and Hohler — were sanctioned for their actions against Israeli leaders, according to the US State Department. The US is Israel's oldest ally, having been the first to recognise the country in 1948. It has since offered Israel strong support, including for its ongoing war in Gaza, which has killed an estimated 54,607 Palestinians so far. Experts at the United Nations and human rights organisations have compared Israel's military campaign in Gaza to a genocide, as reports continue to emerge of alleged human rights abuses. In November 2024, those accusations spurred the ICC to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who have both been accused of war crimes in Gaza, including intentional attacks on civilians. Alapini Gansou and Hohler reportedly took part in those proceedings. This is not the first time that the US has issued restrictions against an ICC official since Trump returned to office for a second term on January 20. Shortly after taking office, Trump issued a broad executive order threatening anyone who participates in ICC investigations with sanctions. Critics warned that such sweeping language could pervert the course of justice, for example by dissuading witnesses from coming forward with evidence. But Trump argued that the recent arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant necessitated such measures. He also claimed that the US and Israel were 'thriving democracies' that 'strictly adhere to the laws of war' and that the ICC's investigations threatened military members with 'harassment, abuse and possible arrest'. 'This malign conduct in turn threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States and undermines the critical national security and foreign policy work of the United States Government and our allies, including Israel,' the executive order said. Under that order, the US sanctioned ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, who had petitioned the court for the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. That, in turn, slowed the investigation into Israel's actions in Gaza, and Khan later stepped away from his role amid allegations of sexual misconduct. But Trump has a history of opposing the ICC, stretching back to his first term. In 2019, for instance, Trump announced his administration would deny or yank visas for ICC officials involved in investigating US troops in Afghanistan. Then, in 2020, he sanctioned ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and a court official named Phakiso Mochochoko for their involvement in the investigation. Those actions were later overturned under President Joe Biden. Critics, however, warn that Trump's actions could have dire consequences over the long term for the ICC, which relies on its member countries to execute orders like arrest warrants. The court itself has called for an end to the threats.
Al Jazeera
11 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Donald Trump's travel ban: Why? And why now?
Washington, DC – Donald Trump's travel ban is the latest instalment in the United States president's anti-immigration push, which plays to his right-wing base, advocates say, stressing that the order is not about public safety. The decree, released late on Wednesday, bars and restricts travellers from 12 countries, including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. While Trump has argued that the ban was put in place to protect the US from 'foreign terrorists', many believe the president has other motivations for implementing it. 'The latest travel ban is absolutely part and parcel of the administration's agenda to weaponise immigration laws to target people who are racial and religious minorities and people with whom they disagree,' said Laurie Ball Cooper, vice president for US legal programmes at the International Refugee Assistance Project. Abed Ayoub, executive director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), said that while the administration is presenting the ban as related to vetting travellers, the move aims to 'placate' Trump's supporters. 'It's the 'tough on immigration' stance that this administration has taken on a number of issues since coming into office,' Ayoub told Al Jazeera. Since his inauguration in January, the Trump administration has gutted the US refugee programme, aggressively stepped up deportations and targeted foreign students critical of Israel – in some cases, pushing to remove them from the country. Immigration experts said they had been anticipating the travel ban since Trump signed an executive order in January that paved the way for it. That order directed US officials to compile a list of nations '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'. Trump said in the statement announcing the ban that the targeted countries 'remain deficient with regards to screening and vetting'. This is not the first time Trump has ordered a travel ban. Wednesday's order has several predecessors – multiple iterations of a ban that the US president imposed during his first term as president. One week after taking office in 2017, Trump barred citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, an order that became widely known as the 'Muslim ban'. As a candidate in 2015, he called for 'a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States', and the 2017 proclamation appeared to be a reflection of that proposal. However, there are key differences between the latest order and the one implemented in 2017, which sparked disorder and protests at airports and initially applied to legal permanent residents and people who already had visas. Wednesday's order lists specific exemptions, including for existing visa holders, who will still be able to come to the US using their visas, which will remain valid. Immediate relatives of US citizens will also be able to apply for and obtain visas. Trump has also ordered it to go into effect on Monday – five days after the executive order was signed – whereas the original 'Muslim ban' was implemented immediately and chaotically as soon as he announced it. Moreover, the latest travel ban targets countries with people from different religious backgrounds across four continents, making it difficult to argue religious bias in any court challenge. Also, the early bans of Trump's first term were struck down by federal judges before the Supreme Court eventually upheld the third and last version his administration issued. 'It seems like a lot more thought went into this, a lot more reasoning from their end,' Ayoub said. He added that in some ways, the ban is 'not as bad' as the 2017 one and it will be difficult to challenge. With the courts unlikely to block the order, Ayoub said he hopes the administration will issue more exemptions and work with the targeted countries to take steps that would remove them from the list. Cooper said the impact of the ban will be devastating. For example, the exemption on immediate relatives does not include the parents and children of permanent residents – people who have followed the rules and may have been waiting for years to get their immigration interviews to join their loved ones in the US. 'There are still people on the cusp of reuniting with their families, on the cusp of arriving to safety in the United States who will be cut off from that family reunification and from that access to safety by this travel ban,' Cooper told Al Jazeera. 'Families will be kept apart.' The timing of Wednesday's decree also differs from the original 'Muslim ban'. It came more than five months into Trump's second term. Trump has tied the travel ban to an attack on Sunday that US authorities attributed to an Egyptian asylum seeker. They accused him of using a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to injure 12 people who were protesting in Boulder, Colorado in support of Israeli captives held in Gaza. However, Egypt is not on the list of banned countries, and when asked why not on Thursday, Trump told reporters that the country is a US ally that has 'things under control'. 'And why now? I can say that it can't come soon enough, frankly,' Trump said. 'We want to keep bad people out of our country. The Biden administration allowed some horrendous people, and we are getting them out one by one.' Cooper said the Trump administration is 'exploiting the tragedy' in Colorado by rolling out the order in its aftermath. 'Ultimately, if you look at the travel ban and the way that it operates, I am not convinced that this is a response to that,' she said. 'But even if it were, even when there is a tragedy, even when something awful happens, punishing groups of people based on their nationality because of what one other person allegedly did is not the right answer.' Cooper added that the order is 'arbitrary', noting that it includes exemptions for athletes competing in next year's World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics but not for students. Some Democrats have accused Trump of imposing the ban now to distract from his issues at home, including an enormous tax bill advancing through Congress and his feud with his former billionaire aide Elon Musk. 'Anytime you ban people coming to the United States from other countries, it has a real impact,' Senator Chris Murphy told MSNBC. 'But it is chiefly in service of trying to get us all talking about that … instead of talking about the centrepiece of this story, which is this bill to make the rich even richer at the expense of everybody else.'
Al Jazeera
18 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
World reacts to Trump's travel ban, hits several nations mired in conflict
Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning citizens from 12 countries from entering the country in a move he said was to protect the US from 'foreign terrorists', mirroring a contentious policy from his first term as United States president. As part of Trump's intensified crackdown on immigration, a cornerstone of his previous time in the White House and on the campaign trail, he announced on Wednesday that nationals from 12 countries – Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen – will be banned. Seven countries will also be subject to partial restrictions, which will mean they will no longer be able to apply for immigrant or non-immigrant temporary visas. However, some temporary work visas will still be allowed. Trump cited an attack in Boulder, Colorado, where a man threw a petrol bomb into a crowd of pro-Israel demonstrators, as proof of the need for immigration curbs. 'The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted,' Trump said in a video message from the Oval Office posted on X. 'We don't want them,' he added. This latest travel ban follows Trump's executive order during his first term, in which he banned nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries, also known as the 'Muslim ban,' in 2017. Seven of the countries on the new list of those banned also have Muslim-majority populations and several are beset by ongoing conflicts. Despite the new suspensions, the ban will not apply to existing visa holders, foreign diplomats, athletes and their teams, among other exemptions. The ban is expected to come into effect on June 9 at 12:01 am EDT (04:01 GMT). Here's how the world has reacted to the ban. The AU, which has seven of the 12 nations on the travel ban list, said the ban would harm 'people-to-people ties, educational exchange, commercial engagement, and broader diplomatic relations' that were built with the US over past decades. 'The African Union Commission respectfully calls upon the US administration to consider adopting a more consultative approach and to engage in constructive dialogue with the countries concerned,' the bloc said in a statement. President of Oxfam America, Abby Maxman, said the decision was not about 'national security'. 'It is about sowing division and vilifying communities that are seeking safety and opportunity in the United States,' Maxman said. The Somali ambassador to the US, Dahir Hassan Abdi, said in a statement that Mogadishu 'values its longstanding relationship with the United States'. '[Somalia] stands ready to engage in dialogue to address the concerns raised,' Abdi said. Interior minister Diosdado Cabello described the ban as a 'great risk for anyone, not just Venezuelans'. 'They persecute our countrymen, our people, for no reason,' he said. Venezuelan migrants in the US have been targeted by the Trump administration for deportation to El Salvador, many on unproven allegations of being gang members.
