World
Jailed TTP militants take hostages after seizing police station
More than 30 Tehreek–e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants were holding several police officers hostage on Monday after breaking free from custody and seizing a police station, officials said.
According to AFP, the TTP members overpowered their jailers on Sunday and snatched weapons.
The militants, held on suspicion of terrorism, are demanding safe passage to Afghanistan, Muhammad Ali Saif, a spokesman for the provincial Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, said in a statement late Sunday.
A senior government official in Bannu, where the incident is unfolding near the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan’s former self-governed tribal areas, said hostages were still being held after a failed operation to free them.
“During the interrogation, some of them snatched guns from the policemen and later took the entire staff hostage,” he told AFP, on condition of anonymity.
“They want us to provide them safe passage via a ground route or by air. They want to take all the hostages with them and to release them later on the Afghan border or inside Afghanistan.”
The TTP claimed responsibility for the incident and demanded authorities provide safe passage to border areas, AFP reported.
“Otherwise, the entire responsibility of the situation will be on the military,” the TTP said in a statement.
A video posted to social media, which the government official confirmed to be from the scene, showed a group of armed men with long beards, with one threatening to kill all the hostages.
He said they had at least eight hostages, including police and military staff.
The TTP emerged in 2007 and carried out a horrific wave of violence in Pakistan that ended with a military crackdown from 2014.
A shaky months-long ceasefire agreed with Islamabad ended last month.
World
Allegations in Epstein files may amount to ‘crimes against humanity,’ UN experts say
A law, approved by Congress with broad bipartisan support in November, requires all Epstein-related files to be made public.
Millions of files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein suggest the existence of a “global criminal enterprise” that carried out acts meeting the legal threshold of crimes against humanity, according to a panel of independent experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The experts said crimes outlined in documents released by the U.S. Justice Department were committed against a backdrop of supremacist beliefs, racism, corruption and extreme misogyny.
The crimes, they said, showed a commodification and dehumanization of women and girls.
“So grave is the scale, nature, systematic character, and transnational reach of these atrocities against women and girls, that a number of them may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity,” the experts said in a statement.
The experts said the allegations contained in the files require an independent, thorough and impartial investigation, and said inquiries should also be launched into how it was possible for such crimes to be committed for so long.
The U.S. Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A law, approved by Congress with broad bipartisan support in November, requires all Epstein-related files to be made public.
The U.N. experts raised concerns about “serious compliance failures and botched redactions” that exposed sensitive victim information. More than 1,200 victims were identified in the documents that have been released so far.
“The reluctance to fully disclose information or broaden investigations, has left many survivors feeling retraumatized and subjected to what they describe as ‘institutional gaslighting,'” the experts said.
The Justice Department’s release of documents has revealed Epstein’s ties to many prominent people in politics, finance, academia and business – both before and after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to prostitution charges, including soliciting an underage girl.
He was found hanged in his jail cell in 2019 after being arrested again on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors. His death was ruled a suicide.
World
Netanyahu says US deal with Iran must dismantle nuclear infrastructure
Netanyahu said he is sceptical of a deal but it must include enriched material leaving Iran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he told U.S. President Donald Trump last week that any U.S. deal with Iran must include the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, not just stopping the enrichment process, Reuters reported.
Speaking at the annual Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Netanyahu also said Israel still needs to “complete the job” of destroying all tunnels in Gaza. Israel, he said, has already dismantled 150 km (93 miles) of an estimated 500 km.
A second round of talks between the U.S. and Iran are slated for this week. Iran is pursuing a nuclear agreement with the U.S. that delivers economic benefits for both sides, an Iranian diplomat was reported as saying on Sunday.
Netanyahu said he is sceptical of a deal but it must include enriched material leaving Iran. “There shall be no enrichment capability – not stopping the enrichment process, but dismantling the equipment and the infrastructure that allows you to enrich in the first place,” he said.
Iran and the U.S. renewed negotiations earlier this month to tackle their decades-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme and avert a new military confrontation. The U.S. has dispatched a second aircraft carrier to the region and is preparing for the possibility of a sustained military campaign if the talks do not succeed, U.S. officials have told Reuters.
Netanyahu also said that he aimed to end U.S. military aid to Israel within the next 10 years, after the current 10-year deal of receiving $3.8 billion a year – which is largely spent in the United States on equipment – ends in 2028.
Due to a thriving economy, “we can afford to phase out the financial component of the military aid that we’re receiving, and I propose a 10-year draw down to zero. Now, in the three years that remain in the present memorandum of understanding and another seven years draw it down to zero,” Netanyahu said.
“We want to move with the United States from aid to partnership,” he said.
World
Courts rule thousands of ICE detentions unlawful under Trump crackdown
Despite the rulings, ICE has continued holding people for prolonged periods, sometimes even after judges ordered their release.
U.S. federal judges have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unlawfully detained immigrants under the Trump administration’s expanded immigration enforcement, according to a review of court records by Reuters.
The rulings represent a broad legal rebuke of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Courts have repeatedly found that the administration abandoned a decades-old interpretation of federal law that allowed many immigrants already living in the U.S. to seek release on bond while their cases proceed.
Despite the rulings, ICE has continued holding people for prolonged periods, sometimes even after judges ordered their release.
Detention levels have surged to about 68,000 people, a roughly 75 percent increase from when Trump returned to office. The White House says it is acting within the law to fulfill the president’s mandate on immigration enforcement.
While a conservative federal appeals court in New Orleans recently sided with the administration in one case, most lower courts have rejected its position. In at least 4,421 cases, more than 400 federal judges ruled that ICE violated the law by denying detainees bond hearings or holding them without proper authority.
With limited alternatives, detained immigrants have filed over 20,200 lawsuits since Trump took office, seeking release from what they argue is unlawful detention. Judges in several states have found that the government failed to comply with court orders, leaving people jailed even after judges ruled in their favor.
Legal experts say the flood of cases has strained the Justice Department, forcing prosecutors to divert resources from criminal cases to defend immigration detentions.
While the Reuters analysis does not break down cases by nationality, Afghan immigrants have also been affected.
Advocacy groups and immigration lawyers have reported that some Afghans have been detained during routine ICE check-ins or traffic stops, despite having no criminal records and active immigration cases.
Like other detainees, Afghan nationals may be denied bond hearings under the administration’s stricter interpretation of detention laws, forcing them to file habeas petitions in federal court.
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