Video: US Attorney General tours Alcatraz prison with eye toward reopening
US Attorney General Pam Bondi visited the infamous Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay, weeks after US President Trump said he wanted to reopen the long-shuttered facility to hold violent criminals.
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Al Jazeera
2 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Ecuador's biggest drug lord ‘Fito' extradited to US
Ecuadorean gang leader Adolfo Macias Villamar, also known as 'Fito', is set to appear in a federal court in the United States, where he will plead not guilty to international charges of drug and weapons trafficking, his lawyer says. The Ecuadorean government on Sunday extradited the notorious drug trafficker, a month after he was recaptured following a 2024 escape from a maximum-security penitentiary, the country's prison authority said. Macias, the leader of the Los Choneros gang, was serving a 34-year sentence at a prison in Guayaquil for a slew of crimes, including drug trafficking, organised crime, and murder. The flight transporting Macias landed in New York state on Sunday night, the report said. His lawyer told the Reuters news agency that Macias 'will plead not guilty' before the Brooklyn federal court on Monday. Details of the handover to the US government and the extradition were not specified. The US government has yet to issue an official statement following the extradition. The US Attorney's Office had filed charges in April against Macias on suspicion of cocaine distribution, conspiracy and firearms violations, including weapons smuggling. The former taxi driver turned crime boss agreed in a Quito court last week to be extradited to the US to face the charges. He is the first Ecuadorean extradited by his country since a new measure was written into law last year, after a referendum in which President Daniel Noboa sought the approval of moves to boost his war on criminal gangs. Ecuador, once a peaceful haven between the world's two top cocaine exporters, Colombia and Peru, has seen violence erupt in recent years as rival gangs with ties to Mexican and Colombian cartels vie for control. Cult following Soon after Macias escaped from prison in January 2024, Noboa declared Ecuador to be in a state of 'internal armed conflict' and ordered the military and tanks into the streets to 'neutralise' the gangs. The move has been criticised by human rights organisations. As a drug lord, Macias cultivated a cult status among fellow gang members and the public. While behind bars in 2023, he released a video addressed to 'the Ecuadorian people' while flanked by armed men. He also threw parties in prison, where he had access to everything from liquor to roosters for cockfighting matches. Macias's Los Choneros has ties to Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, Colombia's Gulf Clan, which is considered the world's largest cocaine exporter, as well as Balkan mafias, according to the Ecuadorian Organised Crime Observatory. His escape from prison prompted widespread violence and a massive military and police recapture operation, including government 'wanted' posters offering $1m for information leading to his arrest. On June 25, Macias was found hiding in a bunker concealed under floor tiles in a luxury home in the fishing port of Manta, the centre of operations for Los Choneros. Noboa declared he would be extradited, 'the sooner the better'. 'We will gladly send him and let him answer to the North American law,' Noboa told CNN at the time. More than 70 percent of all cocaine produced in the world now passes through Ecuador's ports, according to government data. In 2024, the country seized a record 294 tonnes of drugs, mainly cocaine.
Al Jazeera
4 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
The Take: What do mass ICE raids mean for migrant farmworkers?
As President Trump cracks down in the fields on immigration, and an ICE raid in California left one farmworker dead, United States Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says there will be no amnesty for the undocumented. But who will replace those agricultural workers? 'Able-bodied' Medicaid recipients, according to Rollins. The experiment was tried before. It didn't work. In this episode: Manuel Cunha Jr – President of the Nisei Farmers League Episode credits: This episode was produced by Tracie Hunte, Noor Wazwaz, Diana Ferrero and Chloe K. Li, with Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Melanie Marich, Marya Khan, and our guest host, Manuel Rapalo. It was edited by Sari el-Khalili and Kylene Kiang. The Take production team is Marcos Bartolomé, Sonia Bhagat, Spencer Cline, Sarí el-Khalili, Diana Ferrero, Tracie Hunte, Tamara Khandaker, Kylene Kiang, Phillip Lanos, Chloe K. Li, Manuel Rápalo, Melanie Marich, Catherine Nouhan, Amy Walters, and Noor Wazwaz. Our editorial interns are Marya Khan and Kisaa Zehra. Our engagement producers are Adam Abou-Gad and Vienna Maglio. Aya Elmileik is lead of audience engagement. Alex Roldan is our sound designer. Joe Plourde mixed this episode. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad Al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take's executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio. We'll be back tomorrow. Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Instagram, X, Facebook, Threads and YouTube
Qatar Tribune
10 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
As US and Europe cut aid budgets, China's star is on the rise in Southeast Asia: Report
Agencies China's role as Southeast Asia's largest infrastructure financier is increasing its regional influence at a time when the United States and the European Union are slashing their foreign aid budgets, a new report by an Australian think tank said. With the Trump administration in the United States scrapping about US$60 billion in aid and European countries pulling back more than US$25 billion, 'the centre of gravity' in Southeast Asia's development finance landscape 'looks set to drift East, notably to Beijing, but also Tokyo and Seoul', the Lowy Institute report, which was released today, said. 'China is the single largest partner on infrastructure financing in Southeast Asia, but traditional donors combined still outspend it,' the report's lead authors, Alexandre Dayant, Grace Stanhope and Roland Rajah, wrote. 'As Western aid declines and China recalibrates its strategy, Beijing is well positioned to regain dominance.' Southeast Asia's traditional partners include countries such as the US and Australia, and international organisations such as the United Nations, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank. With the US expected to cut its foreign assistance by 83 per cent this year, the retrenchment of funds from Europe and tariff uncertainties undermining trade ties between the US and other countries, China is enhancing its influence in the region through infrastructure connections. Recent examples include work on high-speed railway links with Vietnam and Thailand. China International Development Cooperation Agency spokesman Li Ming told a news conference in March that China's 'principles related to foreign aid, including non-interference in internal affairs, no political strings attached and no empty promises made, will not change'.'A major country should act like a major country by shouldering its due international obligations and fulfilling its responsibilities, rather than renege on its promises, be mercenary or bullying,' he Lowy Institute report said that in 2023, China had 'ramped up' non-concessional loan disbursements by almost 50 per cent compared to 2022, accelerating major infrastructure projects such as the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway in Indonesia and the East Coast Rail Link in Malaysia. 'Even as the infrastructure race slows, China's relative importance as a development actor in the region will rise as Western development support recedes,' the report said. 'Beijing retains a substantial pipeline of infrastructure projects and has shown continued appetite to take on major projects.' Lower-middle-income economies such as the Philippines and Vietnam would engage with China when doing so aligned with their domestic priorities, the report said, while poorer economies such as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar – which had limited access to alternative financing – remained 'heavily reliant' on China and had 'much less room to negotiate'. There was a fourfold increase in Chinese infrastructure project commitments from a low of US$2.5 billion in 2022 to almost US$10 billion in 2023 due to the revival of the Kyaukphyu Deep Sea Port project in Myanmar, the report said. It said the European Union and the governments of seven European countries – France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Austria and Italy – had announced plans last year to implement US$17.2 billion in foreign aid cuts between this year and 2029, while the United Kingdom was cutting around US$7.6 billion a year. Total development finance to Southeast Asia could decline by 8 per cent, or more than US$2 billion, to US$26.5 billion next year, according to Lowy Institute estimates based on budget documents, public announcements and calculations by other researchers.
