Pentagon to pull Milley’s security clearance, Fox News reports

In this file photo taken on October 7, 2019 US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper (L) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Mark A. Milley (R) listen while US President Donald Trump speaks before a meeting with senior military leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington DC. (AFP)
In this file photo taken on October 7, 2019 US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper (L) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Mark A. Milley (R) listen while US President Donald Trump speaks before a meeting with senior military leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington DC. (AFP)
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Updated 29 January 2025
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Pentagon to pull Milley’s security clearance, Fox News reports

Pentagon to pull Milley’s security clearance, Fox News reports
  • Milley was among the preemptive pardons that former President Joe Biden issued on Jan. 20, his last day in office

WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will announce he is revoking the security clearance and personal security detail for retired Army General and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Fox News reported on Tuesday cited multiple senior administration officials.
Hegseth will also direct a review to consider if Milley should be stripped of a star in retirement based on actions that “undermine the chain of command,” Fox News reported on Tuesday.
The last portrait of Milley will also be removed from the Pentagon, Fox News reported. Milley was among the preemptive pardons that former President Joe Biden issued on Jan. 20, his last day in office.

 


15 dead in India after stampede at Hindu mega-festival

 15 dead in India after stampede at Hindu mega-festival
Updated 9 sec ago
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15 dead in India after stampede at Hindu mega-festival

 15 dead in India after stampede at Hindu mega-festival
  • Kumbh Mela, with its unfathomable throngs of devotees, already has a grim track record of deadly crowd crushes
  • Six-week festival is single biggest milestone on Hindu religious calendar, millions expected to be present on Wednesday

PRAYAGRAJ, India: A stampede at the world’s largest religious gathering in India killed at least 15 people with many more injured, a doctor at the Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj told AFP Wednesday.
“At least 15 people have died for now. Others are being treated,” said the doctor in Prayagraj city, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to media.
An AFP photographer saw rescuers and worshippers evacuating victims from the scene and people climbing over a barrier.
Deadly crowd crushes are a notorious feature of Indian religious festivals, and the Kumbh Mela, with its unfathomable throngs of devotees, already had a grim track record of deadly crowd crushes before the latest incident overnight.
Local government official Akanksha Rana told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency that the stampede began after crowd control barriers “broke.”
The six-week festival is the single biggest milestone on the Hindu religious calendar, and millions of people were expected to be present on Wednesday for a sacred day of ritual bathing at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.

 


Trump says Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok

Trump says Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok
Updated 2 min 14 sec ago
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Trump says Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok

Trump says Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok
  • Trump has previously said he was in discussions with several parties to buy TikTok 
  • Trump says he expects to make a decision on app’s future within the next 30 days

US President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok and that he would like to see a bidding war over the app.
Microsoft and TikTok did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for a comment outside regular business hours.
Trump has previously said that he was in discussions with several parties about purchasing TikTok and expects to make a decision on the app’s future within the next 30 days.
The app, which has about 170 million American users, was briefly taken offline just before a law requiring ByteDance to either sell it on national security grounds or face a ban took effect on Jan. 19.
Trump, after taking office on Jan. 20, signed an executive order seeking to delay by 75 days the enforcement of the law that was put in place after US officials warned that there was a risk of Americans’ data being misused under ByteDance.


Ethiopia in ‘relentless assault’ on rights groups: HRW

Ethiopia in ‘relentless assault’ on rights groups: HRW
Updated 24 sec ago
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Ethiopia in ‘relentless assault’ on rights groups: HRW

Ethiopia in ‘relentless assault’ on rights groups: HRW

ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia is waging an “escalating crackdown” on civil society, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday, denouncing the suspension of two independent human rights groups in recent weeks.
In December, a government body overseeing civil society suspended the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRC), the country’s oldest independent rights group, and the Ethiopian Human Rights Defenders Center (EHRDC).
The suspensions were based on “allegations they lacked independence and were acting beyond their mandate,” HRW said in a statement. The government move was “part of their escalating crackdown against civil society.”
“The Ethiopian authorities over the past year have waged a relentless assault against human rights groups,” said Mausi Segun, HRW’s Africa director.
“By suspending groups engaged in critical human rights documentation and advocacy, the government is showcasing its intolerance of independent scrutiny,” she added.
It follows the suspension of three other rights groups in December, the Center for the Advancement of Rights and Democracy, Lawyers for Human Rights and the Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia.
Only the latter has since had its suspension lifted.
Billene Seyoum, spokesperson for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, said since 2018 — when Abiy came to power — “significant measures” had been taken to create “a more inclusive and legally grounded environment for all actors to engage meaningfully in Ethiopia.”
“This includes transforming a once restricted and tightly controlled civil society space into one that allows organizations to operate freely and in a non-partisan manner, in compliance with the laws of the land,” she added.
The country of around 120 million people in the Horn of Africa is facing several armed conflicts, particularly in the most populous regions of Amhara and Oromia where federal forces are fighting armed militias.
Both federal forces and militias have been accused of human rights violations.


Congo’s M23 rebels consolidate control over a devastated Goma

Congo’s M23 rebels consolidate control over a devastated Goma
Updated 7 min 46 sec ago
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Congo’s M23 rebels consolidate control over a devastated Goma

Congo’s M23 rebels consolidate control over a devastated Goma

GOMA: Rwandan-backed M23 rebels appeared to have consolidated their control over Goma, with eastern Congo’s largest city mostly quiet on Wednesday apart from sporadic gunfire in some outlying districts, residents said.
Rebel fighters, supported by Rwandan troops, marched into the lakeside city of nearly 2 million on Monday in the worst escalation of a long-running conflict in more than a decade, leaving bodies lying in the streets and
hospitals overwhelmed.
They seized the city’s international airport on Tuesday, which could cut off the main route for aid to reach hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
“There are some sporadic shots that are heard here in the neighborhood. They are certainly Wazalendo,” said one resident of the northern Majengo neighborhood, referring to militias that allied with the government in 2022 to resist M23 advances in the hinterlands.
The assault on Goma has led to widespread international condemnation of Rwanda and calls for a ceasefire. The United States urged the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday to consider unspecified measures to halt the offensive.
In a post on X, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said he had agreed in a phone call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the need for a ceasefire but gave no indication of bowing to demands for a withdrawal from Goma.
“Had a productive conversation with Secretary Rubio on the need to ensure a ceasefire in Eastern DRC and address the root causes of the conflict once and for all,” Kagame wrote.
Rubio told Kagame Washington was “deeply troubled” by the escalation and urged respect for “sovereign territorial integrity,” the US State Department said in a statement.
M23 is the latest in a string of ethnic Tutsi-led, Rwandan-backed insurgencies that have roiled Congo since the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda 30 years ago, when Hutu extremists killed Tutsis and moderate Hutus, and then were toppled by the Tutsi-led forces led by Kagame.
Rwanda says some of the ousted perpetrators have been sheltering in Congo since the genocide, forming militias with alliances with the Congolese government, and pose a threat to Congolese Tutsis and Rwanda itself.
Congo rejects Rwanda’s complaints, and says Rwanda has used its proxy militias to control and loot lucrative minerals such as coltan, which is used in smartphones.
The Congolese and Rwandan army exchanged fire across their shared border on Monday, with Rwanda reporting at least nine deaths.

SPORADIC GUNFIRE, LOOTING
At a stadium in Goma on Tuesday, hundreds of unarmed government soldiers and militia fighters sat on the football pitch while others lined up in what the M23 fighters described as a disarmament process, according to an unverified video seen by Reuters.
Bertrand Bisimwa, who leads the M23’s political wing, said on X that the last pockets of resistance in Goma had been put down.
“Our army is working hard to guarantee total security, complete tranquillity and definitive peace as is the case for all their compatriots living in liberated zones,” he said.
Congo and the head of UN peacekeeping have said Rwandan troops are present in Goma, backing their M23 allies. Rwanda has said it is defending itself against the threat from Congolese militias, without directly commenting on whether its troops have crossed the border.
M23 captured Goma in 2012 during its last major insurgency but withdrew after a few days following intense international pressure and threats to withdraw aid to Rwanda.
Analysts and diplomats say that kind of pressure is
unlikely to materialize
this time due to a reluctance by world powers to take on Rwanda, which has positioned itself as a stable partner in a tumultuous region.
In the Congolese capital Kinshasa, 1,600 km (1,000 miles) west of Goma, protesters attacked a UN compound and embassies including those of Rwanda, France and the United States on Tuesday, angered at what they said was foreign interference.
Goma’s four main hospitals have treated at least 760 people wounded by the fighting, medical and humanitarian sources told Reuters on Tuesday, cautioning that an accurate death toll could not be established since many people were dying outside hospitals.
“We had to drain gasoline from ambulances to power the generator because there are people on respirators who couldn’t survive without electricity,” said the manager of one hospital in Goma.
“The injuries are often very severe. Some people die before they even get there.”


Brazil to set up deportee reception center after contentious flight from US

Brazil to set up deportee reception center after contentious flight from US
Updated 53 min 37 sec ago
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Brazil to set up deportee reception center after contentious flight from US

Brazil to set up deportee reception center after contentious flight from US

RIO DE JANEIRO: The Brazilian government Tuesday said it will create a reception center for deported migrants from the United States following controversy over conditions on a recent deportation flight.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva gave the green light to establish a humanitarian reception post at Confins, a municipality in Minas Gerais state, Brazil’s Minister of Human Rights and Citizenship Macaé Evaristo told journalists in the capital Brasilia.
That decision was made because of the possibility that more flights will follow the arrival of an initial flight to Brazil under the new Trump administration with 88 deportees on board this weekend. That followed dozens of flights during the Biden administration.
Local media reported that government officials were disturbed by the fact that Brazilians were kept handcuffed after an unscheduled stop in the Amazon’s biggest city, Manaus, prompted by technical problems with the plane.
A Brazilian military plane brought them to their destination, the city of Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais, on Saturday afternoon.
The next day, Brazil’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was seeking answers from Washington regarding the “degrading treatment” of nationals during the recent flight. It cited “the use of handcuffs and chains, the poor condition of the aircraft, with a broken air conditioning system, among other problems.”
The US Embassy declined to comment and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency didn’t respond to an email request for comment.
It was unclear whether the 88 Brazilian deportees were taken into custody during the tenure of President Donald Trump, who took office Jan. 20, or former President Joe Biden.
There have been almost four dozen deportation flights from the US to Brazil over the past three years. Brazil has no desire to interrupt them and held talks with the American charge d’affaires on Monday, according to a government source with knowledge of the matter. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
Brazil has permitted the use of handcuffs in exceptional circumstances, but not indiscriminately and there must be an evaluation of risk, the person said.
Authorities are looking into how many were handcuffed. There have been passenger reports that the plane’s air conditioning suffered problems, causing intense heat in the cabin, and they exited through the emergency door upon landing in Manaus.
Commenting on the humanitarian center, Evaristo said the objective was to “ensure that these passengers have good conditions for water, food and even temperature, which I think was the most damaging aspect” in the first flight.
“We don’t want to provoke the American government, but it’s essential that deported Brazilians are treated with dignity,” Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski said on Monday.