US spy chief Tulsi Gabbard says UK agreed to drop 'backdoor' mandate for Apple
Gabbard issued the statement on X, saying she had worked for months with Britain, along with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance to arrive at a deal.
U.S. lawmakers said in May that the UK's order to Apple to create a backdoor to its encrypted user data could be exploited by cybercriminals and authoritarian governments.
Apple, which has said it would never build a so-called back door into its encrypted services or devices, had challenged the order at the UK's Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT).
The iPhone maker withdrew its Advanced Data Protection feature for UK users in February following the UK order. Users of Apple's iPhones, Macs and other devices can enable the feature to ensure that only they — and not even Apple — can unlock data stored on its cloud.
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Hindustan Times
23 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Trump Pushes for Peace Summit with U.S., Russia and Ukraine
WASHINGTON—President Trump on Monday urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet face to face at a peace conference he would convene in a long shot bid to end the 3½-year-long war in Ukraine. The plan represents a bold and potentially risky maneuver by Trump to move toward settling the bloody war without achieving a cease-fire first and with Kyiv and Moscow still seemingly far apart on the terms of a final deal. Trump touted the idea for the peace conference during an Oval Office meeting with Zelensky and in talks with European leaders who joined the Ukrainian president at the White House on Monday. He said he would put the idea directly to Putin in a call, and paused his meeting with the leaders to do so, according to European officials. The White House didn't respond to a request for comment. A key issue for Kyiv and their European allies is whether the U.S. is willing to extend security commitments to Ukraine as part of a settlement. Trump said that the U.S. would be involved in a potential European effort to deploy peacekeepers, but didn't specify what the American role might be. The proposal for a three-way summit came three days after Trump failed to persuade Putin to back a cease-fire at a summit meeting in Alaska and shelved his vow to impose economic sanctions on Moscow, the latest zigzag by Trump in his quest to end the conflict. Only hours after insisting in a social-media post it was up to Zelensky to end the war, Trump praised the Ukrainian leader during remarks before their private meeting, a far different than their February Oval Office meeting when Trump and Vice President JD Vance excoriated Zelensky. 'This gentleman wants it to end, and Vladimir Putin wants it to end,' Trump said with Zelensky at his side. 'We're going to get it ended.' It was unclear what concrete proposals the White House might suggest to bridge the differences between Moscow and Kyiv if a three-way meeting is convened and what role the U.S. would play to help European nations secure the peace. As part of a discussion of possible territorial concessions, Trump and Zelensky reviewed a U.S.-prepared map of eastern Ukraine showing the percentage of Ukrainian territory held by Russia. Donetsk, which Russia wants Ukraine troops to leave under its negotiating proposal and contains some of Ukraine's most robust defenses, was shown as 76% held by Russian forces. Mark Rutte, the secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said that the U.S. pledge to help a European peacekeeping effort was a 'breakthrough.' But Trump stopped sort of publicly promising to put U.S. boots on the ground in Ukraine while vowing some form of American support to European nations that deploy a so-called 'reassurance force' there if a peace agreement is reached. What territory Ukraine might be asked to give up was unclear, along with whether Kyiv would be asked to accept the de facto partition of its territory or Russia's legal sovereignty over areas Moscow claims to have annexed. Ukraine's Constitution forbids trading land, Zelensky said in Brussels on Sunday, and such a matter could only be discussed in the talks between Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. Despite the harmony of Monday's meetings, Trump and some European leaders differ over the urgency of a cease-fire. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron proposed in their remarks that a halt in the fighting be put in place before the prospective three-way summit. The point of such a cease-fire would be to prevent Russia from playing for time and trying to gain more ground in Ukraine while the leaders talk. But Trump insisted no cease-fire was necessary to reach a deal, adding that it would be clear within one or two weeks—or perhaps sooner—whether the gambit will go forward. Zelenksy approved the idea, saying 'we are ready' for a trilateral meeting. But the Kremlin said earlier this month that Putin would only meet with Zelensky when 'the appropriate distance is overcome.' The Russian leader has long insisted that no settlement can be agreed without addressing what he calls the 'root causes' of the conflict, his shorthand for Ukraine's drift toward the West and NATO's role in central Europe. Zelensky is likely to face White House pressure to make concessions. After meeting with Putin, Trump wrote in a social media message that Zelensky would never regain Crimea, which Russia annexed after its initial invasion in 2014. On Friday, Trump urged Ukraine in a Fox News interview to compromise with Putin because 'Russia's a very big power, and they are not.' The day began with Zelensky's meeting with Trump and Vance in the Oval Office. Vance, unlike in their February encounter, didn't chime in when the press was present. Zelensky has worked hard to repair his relationship with the White House since then, and this time, the leaders appeared at pains to turn the page. Trump noted that Zelensky had traded his signature military attire for a black suit jacket and button-down shirt. Trump looked him up and down approvingly, shook his hand and both men grinned. 'We love them,' Trump said when asked for his message to the Ukrainian people. Zelensky thanked Trump and the U.S. eight times in his opening remarks, after being accused on his last White House visit of failing to sufficiently show appreciation for U.S. assistance. Trump, who on Friday labeled Zelensky, a 'dictator,' repeatedly addressed him Monday as 'president.' For many Ukrainians, Monday's meetings started off as an uphill struggle. Before his Alaska summit with Putin on Friday, Trump said there would be 'very severe consequences' if Putin didn't agree to end the war and vowed to press for a cease-fire. But Trump has put aside the talk of imposing tougher sanctions despite Russia's refusal to agree to a fighting moratorium Trump also must navigate some hazards as he pursues a peace deal. His political base is deeply suspicious of getting the U.S. involved in foreign conflicts, and he came to power with an isolationist message. Trump's former top adviser, Steve Bannon, offered a taste of where Trump's base might go. 'These DEMON EU LEADERS coming to the White House want us funding a forever war. Fighting to the last Ukrainian,' Bannon posted on X. 'Sending 60-year-olds as cannon fodder while their kids dodge the draft. And they still want our boys and girls? NO! MAGA WILL NOT CAVE!' Write to Michael R. Gordon at and Annie Linskey at
Hindustan Times
23 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Trump's Stunning Foreign Policy
The Alaska summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on Friday, followed by President Trump's meeting Monday with Volodymyr Zelensky, stunned the world. Commentators railed against what they saw as Mr. Trump's pusillanimous concessions to Mr. Putin in Alaska. They were then shocked by the U.S. president's warm welcome to Mr. Zelensky at the White House, and shocked again by the Euro-American lovefest that followed the bilateral summit. That shouldn't surprise us. The relationship between Russia and the U.S., like the one between the U.S. and Israel, is important, emotionally charged and widely misunderstood. Except for the Lend-Lease era during World War II, when American assistance was a matter of life and death for the Soviet Union, the two countries have historically not mattered much to each other as economic partners. A mix of geopolitics, culture and ideology have largely driven relations. Rivalry with Great Britain led Russia to tilt toward the Americans during our Revolution. That rivalry also helped persuade Russia to sell Alaska to the U.S. as a way of keeping Britain from adding the territory to its North American domains. Opposition to Germany's drive to dominate Europe brought the U.S. and Moscow together during the two world wars. American resistance to the Soviet Union's efforts to dominate both Europe and Asia drove the two countries into the Cold War. Currently, the geopolitical dimension of the relationship is debated in both capitals. In Washington, the bipartisan foreign-policy establishment argues that Russia's threat to the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization imperils American security. A minority view values Russia's potential as a counterweight against China more than any Russian threat to Europe. In Moscow, Mr. Putin's critics whisper that better economic and political relations with the West and especially the U.S. could help Russia deal with the greater long-term threat arising from Beijing. Culture and ideology also play a role. Except during rare periods of relatively liberal governance in Russia (the reign of Alexander II, the brief interlude between the democratic February Revolution of 1917 and Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik Revolution later in the year, and the Gorbachev-Yeltsin era toward the end of the 20th century), autocratic Russian rulers and liberal Americans have usually occupied opposite ideological poles in world affairs. Many Americans remain skeptical both of Russia generally and of Mr. Putin personally. But some American hard-right 'postliberals' see him as an ideological ally in their battle against what they regard as the moral, intellectual and political decadence of the West. Further poisoning and polarizing the American debate over Russia policy are the controversies over Russia's alleged actions in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the efforts of Obama administration officials to weaponize these allegations against President Trump. The geopolitics of U.S.-Russian relations are fiendishly complex. Much Western commentary on the Alaska summit reflected an assumption that the Trump administration was making massive concessions to the Russian side. That probably isn't how Mr. Putin sees things when he looks at America's Russia policy in a global context. The Trump administration's recent intervention in the Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute was a direct shot at the heart of Russian power and at Mr. Putin's strategy to recover territories controlled by Moscow in the Soviet era. By convening the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in the White House to ratify an agreement that could end Russia's ability to block the flow of Central Asian oil and gas to Western markets, the Trump administration embarrassed Mr. Putin and threw a wrench in his plans to restore Russian power in the Caucasus. Further, the agreement potentially weakens Moscow's position across Central Asia, a region that was once part of the Soviet Union but where China now plays a growing role. The Kremlin must also analyze recent signals from the White House that Washington is interested in improving U.S.-China relations. Chinese support for Russia's war effort in Ukraine at least partially reflects Beijing's search for bargaining chips in trade negotiations with the U.S. Would a Washington-Beijing thaw that provided relief for China's troubled economy diminish Xi Jinping's enthusiasm for his Russian allies? Mr. Trump has again imposed his will on his European allies. European leader after leader effusively praised the his leadership. They clearly understand that they can affect events only by persuading Mr. Trump to take their side. 'Emmanuel,' Mr. Trump said, calling on President Macron by his first name. 'Mr. President,' the French leader responded, like a schoolboy speaking to his teacher. That's how President Trump likes his allies to behave, and although the leaders were still meeting as this column went to press, he appears to have whipped them into shape.
Hindustan Times
23 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank
TURMUS AYYA, West Bank—Amid the olive trees and rolling hills of the central West Bank sits a little slice of Americana. The villages of Turmus Ayya and Sinjil are full of American dual nationals who have come to retire or to raise families in a place where their dollars go further and it feels like home. Many speak English as their go-to language, live in large suburban houses and eat in East Coast-style pizza parlors. It is easy to forget where you are until you see the tall, new barbed-wire fence that divides parts of Sinjil and separates much of it from a main road used by both Israeli settlers and Palestinians. It crosses the land of Fuad Daoud, a 55-year-old who splits his time between Sinjil and Florida's breezy west coast, where his wife and 26-year-old son remain. 'It isn't something you can get used to,' he said of the fence, which he watched go up earlier this year. Israel's military said it was erected to prevent rock-throwing onto the roadway below. Now, it is a symbol of the growing tension between Israeli troops and settlers and Palestinians that has shattered the hopes that pulled émigrés back from America to the villages. The fence that was put up earlier this year that crosses Daoud's land. The West Bank village of Turmus Ayya. Daoud, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1993 and spent the bulk of his adult life there before returning to Sinjil to be with his aging father, said there was a time when he would have encouraged his son to live there as well. 'But honestly right now, seeing what I have been seeing, I say no,' he said. Violence by settlers against Palestinians has risen sharply since the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza. Places like Turmus Ayya are bearing the brunt. The village sits in a low-lying valley. To its north is a line of around a dozen Israeli settlements and several military positions towering above it from the hilltops. At least three Palestinian-Americans have been killed by Israeli military fire or during attacks from Israeli settlers this year. In April, 14-year-old Palestinian-American Amir Rabee was shot and killed by Israeli forces. Two friends with him were shot, too, including another American teen who survived and is undergoing treatment in New Jersey. The Israeli military said its troops fired at the boys after identifying them as 'three terrorists who were throwing rocks' at a roadway, 'eliminating one and injuring the two others.' The Rabee family disputes that account and says the boys were picking almonds, when Israeli troops sprayed them with gunfire. Rabee was struck 11 times, according to the medical examination conducted after his death. In Sinjil, Sayfollah Musallet, a 20-year-old Palestinian-American from Florida who was visiting relatives in the West Bank, was beaten to death during an Israeli settler attack in July. The Israeli military said it is investigating the incident and that its mission is to ensure the security of all residents. 'It's a ghost town now,' said Diana Halum, Musallet's 27-year-old Palestinian-American cousin. 'Everybody is really worried, and it is driving people away.' Diana Halum in Ramallah, in the West Bank. Palestinians from the villages emigrated to the Americas in waves beginning early in the 20th century, as clans of peasant farmers sought economic opportunity. Many succeeded in their new lives and then began flowing back to the occupied West Bank in recent decades, bringing the wealth they amassed in the West to build houses and fund infrastructure projects and community centers. Dual nationals make up an estimated 85% of the residents of Turmus Ayya. Many have palatial, red-tiled homes. The municipality has an estimated full-time population of around 3,000, a number that typically swells during the summer, when Palestinian-Americans from the U.S. visit their relatives. 'Palestinian-Americans here are a bridge to the outside world,' said Yaser Alkam, a semiretired family-law attorney who emigrated from Turmus Ayya to Orange County, Calif., in 1987 then returned 35 years later to live out his retirement. 'When I am here, there are freedoms and luxuries in the U.S. that I miss. But when I am in the U.S., I miss the feeling of home, of community—a society where everybody knows each other and you might run into someone four times in a day and shake hands every time.' Dual nationals make up an estimated 85% of the residents of Turmus Ayya. But as Palestinian-Americans began returning home, growing numbers of Israelis began building their own settlements across the West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan in 1967. Palestinians and much of the world consider the Israeli settlements illegal. Israel regards the West Bank as disputed territory and says most of the settlements are legal. Proponents of the settlements see them as a way to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and ultimately achieve full sovereignty over the West Bank. Earlier this month, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel would move ahead with a controversial settlement expansion near East Jerusalem that 'finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state.' The result is worsening friction. Along the drive to his house in Turmus Ayya, Alkam pointed out plots of land owned by Palestinians that were torched during Israeli settler attacks and others rendered inaccessible by Israeli military restrictions. He drove by the large, empty houses of Palestinian-American neighbors who had left Turmus Ayya out of fear. Village officials say the municipality used to receive applications for about two dozen construction permits a year. Since the war in Gaza began, it has received about four. 'I would rather die in my home than leave,' said Yaser Alkam. 'People are thinking twice about building new homes or moving back here,' said Alkam, who with the mayor's approval set up a municipal department of foreign relations to deal with diaspora affairs and manage Western media attention. 'But I speak for myself when I say I would rather die in my home than leave.' Rights groups and Palestinian-American residents of the villages say settlers who carry out attacks are rarely prosecuted or punished and act with impunity. The Palestinian-Americans said they don't feel protected by the U.S. government and are calling for more American pressure on Israel to rein in extremist settlers and lethal military force on unarmed civilians. American administrations had long condemned the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, seeing them as obstacles to peace and the prospects of an eventual Palestinian state. President Joe Biden raised the pressure by imposing sanctions on settlers linked to violent attacks. President Trump lifted those sanctions and appointed an ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who openly supports settlements. In the home of Amir Rabee, the 14-year-old killed in the almond grove, Palestinian and American flags hung side by side on the wall next to a memorial for the boy. Mohammed Rabee, his father, teared up as he held the bloodied, punctured clothes his son was wearing when he was killed. Mohammed Rabee, whose 14-year-old son Amir was killed by Israeli forces in April. 'In Palestine, we are not treated as Americans,' said Rabee, who has alternated between living in the West Bank and New Jersey, where his family still has a home. 'I don't need the American Embassy to be a messenger between me and Israel. I need them to fight for me.' In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Huckabee said he is sympathetic to concerns from Palestinian-Americans in the West Bank who say the U.S. isn't doing enough to protect them. 'I wouldn't argue with them over it, because until you have been in someone's shoes and lived their lives, you can't know what people feel. So, all I would say is I respect if people feel that way,' Huckabee said. 'Maybe we need to do a better job of communicating, a better job of showing a level of respect.' Huckabee toured Taybeh, another town with a large population of U.S. citizens and one of the few majority-Christian villages in the West Bank, after several Israeli settler attacks, including one that left fields at the foot of an ancient church ablaze, according to local leaders. Fire damage near a church in Taybeh, a majority-Christian village in the West Bank. The church dates back centuries, and the town has many U.S. citizens. Huckabee said he expects Israeli forces to protect Palestinians during settler attacks and apply the law evenly. 'As an American that is so fundamental to what we are supposed to believe—that justice does not wink at some people committing a crime and open both eyes at another,' Huckabee said. Religious, business and political leaders in Taybeh say they are worried the West Bank's depressed economy and intensifying attacks will lead to wide-scale exodus from the tiny town. Its economy relied heavily on tourists coming to view sites mentioned in the Bible, as well as summer visits from its American diaspora. Both have been all but frozen since the war began. The knock-on effect is clearly apparent. Taybeh entrepreneur Nadim Khoury brewed beer in his Boston dorm room while at college in the 1980s. When he returned to his hometown in 1994 to launch a brewery with his brother, it became the most renowned Palestinian brewery and grew to include a winery, distillery and eco-hotel. Nadim Khoury in his brewery in Taybeh. Production today is down 90% from prewar levels, and the hotel is closed for lack of visitors. Checkpoints, settler attacks around a crucial source of spring water and difficulties obtaining permits have hampered imports and exports, Khoury said. 'There has been so much strain,' Khoury said as he sank in his chair, sipping a beer in his now largely quiet brewery. Write to Omar Abdel-Baqui at An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank
