Gaza killing ‘must stop’, EU foreign policy chief says in Cairo/node/2594619/world
Gaza killing ‘must stop’, EU foreign policy chief says in Cairo
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas speaks during a news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, in Cairo, Mar. 23, 2025. (AP)
Gaza killing ‘must stop’, EU foreign policy chief says in Cairo
EU’s Kaja Kallas held a meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty
UN said that Gaza was facing a 'nightmare' since Israel resumed military operations after a six-week ceasefire
Updated 23 March 2025
AFP
CAIRO: The European Union’s top diplomat called Sunday for an end to the renewed fighting in Gaza during a stop in Egypt, before setting off for Israel and the Palestinian territories to press for resumption of a Gaza truce.
Israel on Tuesday resumed intense air strikes in the Gaza Strip, followed by ground operations, after negotiations with Hamas militants stalled over the next stage in the ceasefire.
“We strongly oppose Israel’s resumption of hostilities, which caused appalling loss of life in Gaza. The killing must stop. In a new war, both sides lose,” the EU’s Kaja Kallas said in Cairo during a press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.
“From the European side, it is very clear that Hamas must release all hostages and Israel must fully reinstate humanitarian aid into Gaza and negotiations must resume.”
Kallas’ team later confirmed she had departed Egypt and arrived in Israel.
During talks there and the Palestinian territories on Monday she is expected to “call for an immediate return to the full implementation of the ceasefire-hostage release agreement,” her office said.
Kallas will also refer to “the importance of unimpeded access and sustained distribution of humanitarian assistance at scale into and throughout Gaza,” it said.
The United Nations said on Friday that Gaza was facing a “nightmare” since Israel resumed military operations after a six-week ceasefire.
Aid workers warned of a desperate situation that had been made worse by Israel’s decision earlier this month to cut off aid and electricity to Gaza over the deadlock in negotiations on the next phase of the ceasefire.
Kallas was due to meet Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and opposition leader Yair Lapid.
She will not meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant “for crimes against humanity and war crimes.”
In the occupied West Bank, Kallas will hold talks with Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas and prime minister Mohammad Mustafa, her office said.
Israel and the United States have sought in recent weeks to change the terms of the ceasefire deal.
Hamas, which runs Gaza, has rejected this as a violation of the agreement all parties signed.
The first phase of the truce had enabled the entry of vital food, shelter and medical assistance, and an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
On October 7, 2023, fighters from Hamas launched a cross-border attack in Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people, most of them civilians, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s ensuing bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza has killed at least 50,021 people in the territory, the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday.
The United Nations considers its figures to be reliable.
Macron urges ‘mercy’ from Algerian leader for jailed writer
Sansal, known for his criticism of Algerian authorities as well of Islamists, found himself in the dock for saying in the interview that colonial-era France unfairly ceded Moroccan territory to Algeria
Updated 02 April 2025
AFP
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday urged Algerian counterpart Abdelmadjid Tebboune to show “mercy and humanity” toward a jailed French-Algerian writer, Boualem Sansal, the Elysee palace said in a statement.
Macron made the plea during a “long, frank and friendly” phone call covering bilateral ties and “tensions that have accumulated over recent months,” it said.
Macron has repeatedly called for Algeria to release Sansal, citing his fragile state of health due to cancer.
The author was sentenced last Thursday to five years in prison after an interview he gave to a French far-right media outlet was deemed to undermine Algeria’s territorial integrity.
Macron “called for a gesture of mercy and humanity toward Mr.Boualem Sansal, given the age and state of health of the writer,” the Elysee statement said.
According to his French publisher, Sansal is 80 years old.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot will visit Algiers on Sunday, at the invitation of the Algerian government, to plan ways to shore up ties, it said.
Sansal’s conviction and sentence further frayed ties between France and Algeria, already strained by migration issues and Macron’s recognition last year of Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara, which is claimed by the Algeria-backed pro-independence Polisario Front.
Sansal, known for his criticism of Algerian authorities as well of Islamists, found himself in the dock for saying in the interview that colonial-era France unfairly ceded Moroccan territory to Algeria.
In Monday’s call, Macron and Tebboune spoke of their willingness to repair relations, and to resume cooperation on security.
They also said that “fluid” migration between the two countries should “immediately” be restored — seeking to soothe tensions after Algiers refused to accept the return of undocumented Algerian migrants from France.
A joint panel of historians plumbing the past between France and Algeria, its former colony that won independence in 1962 after a bloody eight-year conflict, will also get back to work, they said.
The two leaders also agreed in “principle” to meet in person at a future date, the statement said.
Tebboune said a week ago that he viewed Macron as the “only point of reference” for mending French-Algerian ties.
Supreme Court may open door to US victim suits against Palestinian authorities
The long-running case involves the jurisdiction of US federal courts to hear lawsuits involving the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization
Updated 02 April 2025
AFP
WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday on whether American victims of attacks in Israel and the West Bank can sue the Palestinian authorities for damages in US courts.
The long-running case involves the jurisdiction of US federal courts to hear lawsuits involving the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Americans killed or injured in attacks in Israel or the West Bank or their relatives have filed a number of suits seeking damages.
In one 2015 case, a jury awarded $654 million to the US victims of attacks which took place in the early 2000s.
Appeals courts dismissed the suits on jurisdiction grounds.
Congress passed a law in 2019 — the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act — that would make the PLO and PA subject to US jurisdiction if they were found to have made payments to the relatives of persons who killed or injured Americans.
Two lower courts ruled that the 2019 law was a violation of the due process rights of the Palestinian authorities but a majority of the justices on the conservative-majority Supreme Court appeared inclined on Tuesday to uphold it.
“Congress and the president are the ones who make fairness judgments when we’re talking about the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” said Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler, representing the Trump administration, agreed, saying the courts should not substitute themselves for Congress or the president.
“Congress and the president made a judgment that is entitled to virtually absolute deference — that it is appropriate to subject the PA and the PLO to jurisdiction,” Kneedler said.
“In this case, respondents had a chance to avoid that by just stopping those activities, but they didn’t,” he said.
Mitchell Berger, representing the PA and PLO, said assigning jurisdiction is “over and above what Congress can prescribe.”
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling before the end of its term in June.
A look at who has been detained or deported in a US crackdown on mostly pro-Palestinian protesters
Updated 02 April 2025
AP
People with ties to American universities, most of whom have shown support for pro-Palestinian causes, have been detained in the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants.
President Donald Trump and other officials have accused protesters and others of being “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Many protesters have said they were speaking out against Israel’s actions in the war against Hamas in Gaza.
Trump’s administration has cited a seldom-invoked statute authorizing the secretary of state to revoke visas of noncitizens who could be considered a threat to foreign policy interests. More than half a dozen people are known to have been taken into custody or deported by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in recent weeks. Rumeysa Ozturk
Federal officers detained 30-year-old Turkish student Rumeysa Ozturk on Tuesday as she walked along a street in suburban Boston. A senior Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said without providing evidence that an investigation found Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts University, “engaged in activities in support of Hamas,” which is also a US-designated terrorist group.
Friends and colleagues of Ozturk said her only known activism was co-authoring an op-ed in a student newspaper that called on Tufts University to engage with student demands to cut ties with Israel. Ozturk has been taken to an ICE detention center in Louisiana. A US District judge in Massachusetts on Friday said Ozturk can’t be deported to Turkiye without a court order and gave the government until Tuesday evening to respond to an updated complaint filed by Ozturk’s attorneys. Mahmoud Khalil
This month, immigration enforcement agents arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a legal US resident, Palestinian activist and graduate student who was prominent in protests at Columbia last year. The administration has said it revoked Khalil’s green card because his role in the campus protests amounted to antisemitic support for Hamas. He is fighting deportation.
Khalil served as a negotiator for Columbia students as they bargained with university officials over ending their campus encampment last spring. He was born in Syria and is married to an American citizen. His lawyers urged a federal judge on Friday to free their client from a Louisiana immigration detention center and argued his case should not be moved to Louisiana courts. The judge said he would issue a decision soon. Yunseo Chung
Yunseo Chung is a Columbia student and lawful US resident who moved to America from Korea as a child. Chung attended and was arrested at a sit-in this month at nearby Barnard College protesting the expulsion of students who participated in pro-Palestinian activism.
The Department of Homeland Security wants to deport Chung and has said she “engaged in concerning conduct,” including being arrested on a misdemeanor charge. A judge ordered immigration agents not to detain Chung while her legal challenge is pending. Badar Khan Suri
Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown scholar from India, was arrested outside his Virginia home and detained by masked Homeland Security agents on allegations that he spread Hamas propaganda. Suri’s attorney wrote in a court filing that he was targeted because of his social media posts and his wife’s “identity as a Palestinian and her constitutionally protected speech.” Suri holds a visa authorizing him to be in the US as a visiting scholar, and his wife is a US citizen, according to court documents.
Suri was taken to a detention facility in Louisiana, according to a government website. His lawyers are seeking his immediate release and to halt deportation proceedings. Leqaa Kordia
Leqaa Kordia, a resident of Newark, New Jersey, was detained and accused of failing to leave the US after her student visa expired. Federal authorities said Kordia is a Palestinian from the West Bank and that she was arrested at or near Columbia during pro-Palestinian protests. Columbia has said it has no record of her being a student there.
Kordia is being held in an immigration detention center in Alvarado, Texas, according to a government database. Ranjani Srinivasan
Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian citizen and doctoral student at Columbia, fled the US after immigration agents searched for her at her university residence. The Trump administration has said it revoked Srinivasan’s visa for “advocating for violence and terrorism.” Srinivasan opted to “self-deport.”
Officials didn’t say what evidence they have that Srinivasan advocated violence. Her lawyers deny the accusations, and she told The New York Times that she didn’t help to organize protests at Columbia. Alireza Doroudi
University of Alabama doctoral student Alireza Doroudi of Iran was detained by ICE on Tuesday. David Rozas, a lawyer representing Doroudi, says Douridi was studying mechanical engineering. His student visa was revoked in 2023, but his lawyer has said he was eligible to continue his studies as long as he maintained his student status and met other requirements of his entry into the United States.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Friday that the arrest was made over the revocation of Doroudi’s student visa, saying he “posed significant national security concerns.” A spokesperson said they could not share additional details.
Unlike some other students targeted by ICE, Dorudi’s lawyer said there is no indication that his client was involved in any political protests. Doroudi told his lawyer he isn’t aware of any suspected criminal activity or violations. He was detained in Alabama but will be moved to an immigration facility in Jena, Louisiana. Dr. Rasha Alawieh
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist from Lebanon who previously worked and lived in Rhode Island, was deported this month, even though a federal judge ordered that she not be removed until a hearing could be held. Homeland Security officials said Alawieh was deported as soon as she returned to the US from Lebanon, despite having a US visa, because she “openly admitted” supporting former Hezbollah leaderHassan Nasrallah. Alawieh told officers she followed him for his religious and spiritual teachings and not his politics, court documents said.
She was to start work at Brown University as an assistant professor of medicine. Stephanie Marzouk, Alawieh’s lawyer, has said she will fight to get the 34-year-old doctor back to the US. Momodou Taal
Momodou Taal is a doctoral student at Cornell University whose visa was revoked after he participated in campus demonstrations.
Taal, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Gambia, has asked a federal judge to halt his detention during his court challenge. The government says it revoked Taal’s student visa because of his alleged involvement in “disruptive protests.”
His attorneys say the 31-year-old doctoral student in Africana studies was exercising free speech rights. Taal said he will surrender to immigration authorities if the court determines the government is acting legally. Taal said in a court declaration that “I feel like a prisoner already, although all I have done is exercise my rights.”
UK government urged to condemn Taliban over arrest of elderly Brits
Peter and Barbie Reynolds, both in their 70s, were detained in February, accused of using false passports
Daughter demands action from UK government after US authorities secured release of American citizen
Updated 02 April 2025
Arab News
LONDON: The daughter of an elderly British couple being held in Afghanistan has called on the UK government to publicly condemn the Taliban over the detention.
Peter and Barbie Reynolds, both of whom are also Afghan citizens, were arrested in February as they returned to their home in Bamiyan province. They are accused of traveling on fake passports.
An American woman, Faye Hall, who was detained along with the couple was released last week after US officials reached a deal with Afghan authorities.
Sarah Entwistle, the daughter of the Reynolds, told The Telegraph newspaper that the family wants UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy to make a public statement condemning the Taliban for detaining her parents “without any evidence of wrongdoing.”
She said that if US authorities were able to secure Hall’s release, the UK government should be able to do the same for her parents.
“We understand that there have been reasons for caution over previous weeks but now that America has Faye back, we are desperately hoping there is more the British Government can do,” Entwistle said.
She added that her 75-year-old mother is suffering from malnutrition, while her father, 79, has had a chest infection, an eye infection and severe digestive issues. The family previously warned that his life is at risk.
“We continue to hope that the Taliban will embrace all that is decent and just by granting clemency during this meaningful time of Eid,” Entwistle said.
A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: “We are supporting the family of two British nationals who are detained in Afghanistan.”
The couple, who have lived in the country for 18 years, run a company there that provides education and training programs. The Telegraph reported that they were arrested by members of the Haqqani network, a powerful Taliban faction, in an attempt to gain concessions from the governments of the UK and US. Last week, the US lifted a $10 million bounty from Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior figure in the network.
’I bought their dream’: How a US company’s huge land deal in Senegal went bust
The failed project has undermined community trust, said herder Adama Sow, 74: “Before, we lived in peace, but now there’s conflict for those of us who supported them”
Updated 02 April 2025
AFP
DAKAR, Senegal: Rusting pipes in a barren field and unpaid workers are what remain after a US company promised to turn a huge piece of land in Senegal — about twice the size of Paris — into an agricultural project and create thousands of jobs.
In interviews with company officials and residents, The Associated Press explored one of the growing number of foreign investment projects targeting Africa, home to about 60 percent of the world’s remaining uncultivated arable land. Like this one, many fail, often far from public notice.
Internal company documents seen by the AP show how the plans, endorsed by the Senegalese government, for exporting animal feed to wealthy Gulf nations fell apart.
Herders and farmers from left, Adama Sow, Oumar Ba and Daka Sow walk outside Niéti Yone, northern Senegal, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP)
At first glance, the landscape of stark acacia trees on the edge of the Sahara Desert doesn’t hold much agricultural promise. But in an age of climate change, foreign investors are looking at this and other African landscapes.
The continent has seen a third of the world’s large-scale land acquisitions between 2000 and 2020, mostly for agriculture, according to researchers from the International Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands.
But 23 percent of those deals have failed, after sometimes ambitious plans to feed the world.
Union leader Doudou Ndiaye Mboup speaks to reporters in Niéti Yone, northern Senegal, Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)
Why target land on the edge of the Sahara Desert?
In 2021, the Senegalese village of Niéti Yone welcomed investors Frank Timis and Gora Seck from a US-registered company, African Agriculture. Over cups of sweet green tea, the visitors promised to employ hundreds of locals and, one day, thousands.
Timis, originally from Romania, was the majority stakeholder. His companies have mined for gold, minerals and fossil fuels across West Africa.
Rusting pipes stand in a barren field outside Niéti Yone, northern Senegal, Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)
Seck, a Senegalese mining investor, chaired an Italian company whose biofuel plans for the land parcel had failed. It sold the 50-year lease for 20,000 hectares to Timis for $7.9 million. Seck came on as president of African Agriculture’s Senegalese subsidiary and holds 4.8 percent of its shares.
Now the company wanted the community’s approval.
The land was next to Senegal’s largest freshwater lake, for which the company obtained water rights.
The proposal divided the community of subsistence farmers. Herders who had raised livestock on the land for generations opposed it. Others, like Doudou Ndiaye Mboup, thought it could help ease Senegal’s unemployment crisis.
“I bought their dream. I saw thousands of young Africans with jobs and prosperity,” said Mboup, who was later employed as an electrician and now leads a union of employees.
Despite the formation of an opposition group called the Ndiael Collective, African Agriculture moved ahead, hiring about 70 of the community’s 10,000 residents.
Stock exchange vision: One year later, almost worth nothing
After planting a 300-hectare (740-acre) pilot plot of alfalfa, the company announced in November 2022 it would go public to raise funds.
African Agriculture valued the company at $450 million. The Oakland Institute, an environmental think tank in the US, questioned that amount and called the deal bad for food security as well as greenhouse gas emissions.
The company went public in December 2023, with shares trading at $8 on the NASDAQ exchange. It raised $22.6 million during the offering but had to pay $19 million to the listed but inactive company it had merged with.
That payment signaled trouble to investors. It showed that the other company, 0X Capital Venture Acquisition Corp. II, didn’t want to hold its 98 percent of stock. And it highlighted the way African Agriculture had used the merger to bypass the vetting process needed for listing.
One year later, shares in African Agriculture were worth almost nothing.
Now, security guards patrol the land’s barbed-wire perimeter, blocking herders and farmers from using it. The company has been delisted.
Big ambitions leave big impacts for the local community
Mboup said he and others haven’t been paid for six months. The workers took the company to employment court in Senegal to claim about $180,000 in unpaid wages. In February, they burned tires outside the company’s office. Mboup later said an agreement was reached for back wages to be paid in June.
“I took out loans to build a house and now I can’t pay it back,” said Mboup, who had been making $200 a month, just above average for Senegal. “I’ve sold my motorbike and sheep to feed my children and send them to school, but many are not so lucky.”
Timis didn’t respond to questions. Seck told the AP he was no longer affiliated with African Agriculture. Current CEO Mike Rhodes said he had been advised to not comment.
Herders and farmers are furious and have urged Senegal’s government to let them use the land. But that rarely happens. In a study of 63 such foreign deals, the International Institute of Social Studies found only 11 percent of land was returned to the community. In most cases, the land is offered to other investors.
“We want to work with the government to rectify this situation. If not, we will fight,” warned Bayal Sow, the area’s deputy mayor.
The Senegalese minister of agriculture, food sovereignty and herding, Mabouba Diagne, did not respond to questions. The African Agriculture deal occurred under the previous administration.
The failed project has undermined community trust, said herder Adama Sow, 74: “Before, we lived in peace, but now there’s conflict for those of us who supported them.”
Former CEO announces acquisition in Cameroon and Congo
Meanwhile, African Agriculture’s former CEO has moved on to a bigger land deal elsewhere on the continent — with experts raising questions again.
In August, South African Alan Kessler announced his new company, African Food Security, partnering with a Cameroonian, Baba Danpullo. It has announced a project roughly 30 times the size of the one in Senegal, with 635,000 hectares in Congo and Cameroon.
The new company seeks $875 million in investment. The company’s investor prospectus, obtained by the AP, says it plans to register in Abu Dhabi.
In an interview with the AP in January, Kessler blamed the failure of the Senegal project on the way African Agriculture’s public offering was structured. He said there were no plans for a public offering this time.
He claimed his new company’s project would double corn production in these countries, and described African Food Security as the “most incredibly important development company on the planet.” He said they have started to grow corn on 200 hectares in Cameroon.
Experts who looked over the prospectus raised concerns about its claims, including an unusually high projection for corn yields. Kessler rejected those concerns.
“When he was CEO of African Agriculture, Kessler also made lofty claims about food production, job creation, exports and investment returns that did not pan out,” said Renée Vellvé, co-founder of GRAIN, a Spain-based nonprofit for land rights.
Hype without proof was a key strategy for African Agriculture, said its former chief operating officer, Javier Orellana, who said he is owed 165,000 euros ($178,000) in unpaid salary after leaving the company in 2023.
He told the AP he had been suspicious of the company’s $450 million valuation.
“I know the agriculture industry well and ($450 million) didn’t add up,” Orellana said, adding he stayed on because the company gave him what he called a very attractive offer.
In the end, a share in African Agriculture is now worth less than a penny.
“We are looking forward to going back to Senegal,” Kessler said. “We were appreciated there. We’ve been welcomed back there.”
