Bangladesh’s Yunus to visit China this month

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration in court filings has for the first time acknowledged that it fired nearly 25,000 recently hired workers, and said agencies were working to bring all of them back after a judge ruled that their terminations were likely illegal.
The filings made in Baltimore, Maryland, federal court late Monday include statements from officials at 18 agencies, all of whom said the reinstated probationary workers were being placed on administrative leave at least temporarily.
The mass firings, part of President Donald Trump’s broader purge of the federal workforce, were widely reported, but the court filings are the first full accounting of the terminations by the administration.
Most of the agencies said they had fired a few hundred workers. The Treasury Department terminated about 7,600 people, the Department of Agriculture about 5,700 and the Department of Health and Human Services more than 3,200, according to the filings.
US District Judge James Bredar on March 13 said the mass firings of probationary workers that began last month violated regulations governing the mass layoffs of federal employees, and ordered them to be reinstated pending further litigation.
Probationary workers typically have less than one year of service in their current roles, though some are longtime federal employees.
Bredar’s ruling came in a lawsuit by 19 Democrat-led states and Washington, D.C., who said the mass firings would trigger a spike in unemployment claims and greater demand for social services provided by states.
The office of Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, which is spearheading the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
The Trump administration has appealed Bredar’s decision and on Monday asked a Richmond, Virginia-based appeals court to pause the ruling pending the outcome of the case.
Hours before Bredar issued his ruling, a federal judge in San Francisco had ordered that probationary workers be reinstated at six agencies, including five also covered by Bredar’s order and the US Department of Defense. The administration has also appealed that decision.
In the filings late Monday, agency officials said they had either reinstated all of the fired employees or were working to do so, but warned that bringing back large numbers of workers had imposed significant burdens and caused confusion and turmoil.
The officials also noted that an appeals court ruling reversing Bredar’s order would allow agencies to again fire the workers, subjecting them to multiple changes in their employment status in a matter of weeks.
“The tremendous uncertainty associated with this confusion and these administrative burdens impede supervisors from appropriately managing their workforce,” Mark Green, deputy assistant secretary at the US Department of the Interior, wrote in one of the filings. “Work schedules and assignments are effectively being tied to hearing and briefing schedules set by the courts.”
Bredar has scheduled a hearing for March 26 on whether to keep his ruling in place pending the outcome of the lawsuit, which could take months or longer to resolve.

SYDNEY: Australia voiced unease on Tuesday over anonymous letters reportedly offering hefty rewards for information on a Hong Kong activist now living in Melbourne.
Australian citizen Kevin Yam, a lawyer and longtime Hong Kong pro-democracy activist, was targeted in letters that carried his photo and alleged national security offenses.
The letters, first reported in The Guardian newspaper, offered a reward of HK$1 million ($128,000) to anyone who could provide information about him and the allegations or “take him to Hong Kong or Australia Metropolitan Police.”
They were sent to homes next to two Melbourne locations cited in the notices as being linked to Yam, the paper said.
“The Australian government will not tolerate surveillance, harassment or intimidation against individuals or family members here in Australia — this undermines our national sovereignty and the security and safety of Australians,” said a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Penny Wong.
“We are raising our concerns directly with Chinese and Hong Kong authorities.”
In a message on social media, Yam said he would continue to live his “everyday life.”
“I will not voluntarily return to Hong Kong before it is free,” he said.
“I will not kill myself.”
Beijing expressed “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” to what it called “Australia’s blatant interference” in Hong Kong’s law.
“Hong Kong affairs are purely a Chinese internal affair and brook no interference from any outside powers,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular briefing, when asked about the case concerning Yam.
“China urges Australia to earnestly respect China’s sovereignty... and create favorable conditions and atmosphere for the sustainable development of China-Australia relations,” she added.
The letters were not signed but asked for information to be sent to a Hong Kong police email address used for tip-offs on wanted people.
The Hong Kong government said it does not issue anonymous letters.
Recipients should “remain cautious to verify the authenticity” of any such letters and seek help from local police if needed, a government spokesman told AFP.
Hong Kong law enforcement will pursue overseas suspects in accordance with the law and “take every measure” to stop them from continuing to endanger national security, the spokesman added.
Yam reportedly returned to Australia in 2022 after two decades in Hong Kong.
In 2023, Hong Kong chief executive John Lee called on eight overseas activists including Yam to turn themselves in for violating the national security law.
At the time, he backed a police decision to offer HK$1 million for information leading to their arrests, and warned the activists to surrender or “spend their days in fear.”
All eight fled Hong Kong after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on the financial hub in 2020 to quell dissent after huge, sometimes violent, pro-democracy protests in 2019 were quashed.