Philippine ministerial delegation tours Middle East for trade, agriculture deals

MEXICO CITY: Mexico’s president warned the United States on Thursday her country would never tolerate an “invasion” of its national sovereignty and vowed fresh legal action against US gunmakers after Washington designated cartels as terrorist organizations.
The remarks were the latest in a series hitting back at the administration of President Donald Trump, which has ramped up pressure on its southern neighbor to curb illegal flows of drugs and migrants.
Mexico is trying to avoid the sweeping 25-percent tariffs threatened by Trump by increasing cooperation in the fight against narcotics trafficked by the cartels in his sights.
The eight Latin American drug trafficking groups designated as terrorist organizations include Mexican gangs such as the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels — two of the country’s most powerful and violent criminal organizations.
But the designation “cannot be an opportunity for the US to invade our sovereignty,” President Claudia Sheinbaum told a news conference.
“They can call them (the cartels) whatever they want, but with Mexico, it is collaboration and coordination, never subordination or interventionism, and even less invasion.”
Sheinbaum said Mexico would expand its legal action against US gun manufacturers, which her government accuses of negligence in the sale of weapons that end up in the hands of drug traffickers.
The lawsuit could lead to a new charge of alleged “complicity” with terrorist groups, she said.
Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in the White House last month saying that the cartels “constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that the designations “provide law enforcement additional tools to stop these groups.”
“Terrorist designations play a critical role in our fight against terrorism and are an effective way to curtail support for terrorist activities,” he said in a statement.
While he did not mention it, the move has raised speculation about possible military action against the cartels.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been given a prominent role in the Trump administration, suggested the designation “means they’re eligible for drone strikes.”
On Wednesday, Sheinbaum confirmed that the United States had been operating drones spying on Mexican cartels as part of a collaboration that has existed for years.
According to The New York Times, Washington has stepped up secret drone flights over Mexico in search of fentanyl labs as part of Trump’s campaign against drug cartels.
Military threats from the United States always generate resentment in Mexico, which lost half of its territory to the United States in the 19th century.
Sheinbaum said that she would present to Congress a constitutional reform to protect “the integrity, independence and sovereignty of the nation” including against the violation of its territory by land, air or sea.
Mexico says that between 200,000 and 750,000 weapons manufactured by US gunmakers are smuggled across the border from the United States every year, often being used in crime.
The Latin American country tightly controls firearm sales, making them practically impossible to obtain legally.
Even so, drug-related violence has seen around 480,000 people killed in Mexico since the government deployed the army to combat trafficking in 2006, according to official figures.
While she has ruled out declaring “war” on drug cartels, Sheinbaum has quietly dropped her predecessor’s “hugs not bullets” strategy, which prioritized tackling the root causes of criminal violence over security operations.
Her government has announced a series of major drug seizures and deployed more troops to the border with the United States in return for Trump pausing tariffs for one month.
Mexican authorities also announced the arrest this week of two prominent members of the Sinaloa Cartel, including the head of security for one of its warring factions.

MOSCOW: Russian military courts sentenced more than 1,000 people on terrorist charges last year, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, referring to a massive wave of prosecutions during the Ukraine offensive.
Russia’s secretive military courts prosecute captured Ukrainian soldiers, Russians accused of working with Kyiv or sabotaging Moscow’s army, domestic opponents of the Kremlin, and alleged radicals and terrorist groups.
“Military courts have a key role in deciding on criminal cases with a terrorist direction,” Putin said in a speech to Russia’s top judges.
“Last year, around 950 such cases were looked at, 1,075 people were sentenced.”
Russia regularly sentences people over opposition to the Ukraine offensive, while convicting captured Ukrainian soldiers on treason and terrorist charges.
The Geneva Conventions prohibit the prosecution of prisoners of war (POW) for taking part in armed hostilities.
Moscow has also intensified its targeting of alleged jihadist cells since the March 2024 massacre at a Moscow concert hall that killed 145 people — an attack claimed by the Islamic State.
The crackdown at home is of a scale not seen since the Soviet era.
The OVD-Info rights group says 1,184 people have been prosecuted in Russia for their opposition to the Ukraine conflict — including 258 for justifying “terrorism” and 58 for “acts of terrorism.”
The Memorial rights group says Russia has 868 political prisoners, though its co-founder Oleg Orlov told AFP last year there were “a lot more” that campaigners did not know about.
Jailed for “discrediting” Russia’s armed forces, he was then released in a prisoner exchange with the United States.
Putin on Thursday praised Russia’s judges for their “dedication” in overseeing the ballooning case load.
He said Russia had created 100 courts and appointed 570 judges in occupied parts of eastern Ukraine, where Moscow has jailed an unknown number of Ukrainians for opposing Moscow’s military offensive.
“They are completely integrated in the united Russian judicial system,” Russia’s Supreme Court chief Irina Podnosova told Putin.
She said military courts had seen a steep rise in overall cases during the Ukraine campaign.
“In 2024, they looked at 18,000 criminal (cases), 13,000 administrative (cases) and 9,000 civilian (cases),” she added.
Little is known of the fate of Ukrainians sentenced by Russian-installed courts in the four Ukrainian regions Russia annexed in 2022 — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia.
Russian courts are known for their low acquittal rates.