Donald

President Donald Trump’s description earlier this month of the UK–Mauritius agreement on the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands as “an act of great stupidity”  briefly turned the world’s attention to the remote archipelago.

While most of the coverage and debate focused on the US military base on Diego Garcia island, little attention has been given to the sordid story of US and UK involvement in ongoing crimes against humanity against the islands’ Indigenous people – the Chagossians.

The Chagossians, whose island homeland is in the middle of the Indian Ocean, are largely descended from formerly enslaved East Africans. More than 60 years ago, US officials decided that the largest island, Diego Garcia, would be a suitable location for a remote military base.

The US saw the Chagossian population as a problem, as they wanted the island “clean” of inhabitants. Over the next decade, they secretly plotted with the UK – the colonial power governing Chagos – through a manufactured story based on racism and lies, to force the islanders from their home.

One US admiral, Elmo Zumwalt, said the islanders “absolutely must go”. To scare them into leaving, UK and US personnel gassed their dogs. From 1967 to 1973, the UK proceeded to force all the Chagossians – as many as 2,000 people – from all the islands, not only Diego Garcia. The US built and has now operated the Diego Garcia base for more than 50 years.

Today, the Chagossians live in exile, largely in the UK, Mauritius and the Seychelles. Many remain in poverty and have been prevented by the UK and US from returning to live in their homeland, even though generations have continued to campaign to do so. The islands, apart from the US military base, remain abandoned.

The story of US involvement in this forced displacement has been gradually uncovered, including through a congressional inquiry, the work of the academic David Vine, and the indefatigable struggle of generations of Chagossians to uncover the truth and return home. In 2023, Human Rights Watch found that the UK and US were responsible for crimes against humanity and had a duty to provide reparations – an opportunity to right their wrongs.

As a result, the US State Department for the first time acknowledged “regret” for what had happened to the Chagossians. Subsequently, the UK and Mauritius agreed in principle to a treaty to recognise Mauritian sovereignty over the islands, although the UK will maintain formal control of Diego Garcia island and the US military base will remain.

Forgotten in this settlement are the Chagossians. The treaty talks about historical wrongs, but the crimes are ongoing. The Chagossians are still prevented from returning home: Their islands – apart from the base – remain empty. Some Chagossians hope that the treaty will allow them to live on some of the islands, though this will depend on Mauritius fulfilling its obligations. The treaty itself provides no guarantee of their return and says nothing about the reparations owed to the Chagossians.

The US still appears opposed to Chagossians returning to Diego Garcia, even though the base occupies at most half the island. No Chagossian we’ve spoken to wants the base to close; instead, they would like the opportunity to work there. The US has kept a very low public profile in the negotiations – at least until President Trump’s comments – hiding behind the UK.

But the agreement’s terms make it clear that the US has been influencing the negotiations. The US “regret” for the treatment of the Chagossians has yet to translate into ensuring the Chagossians can return to Diego Garcia.

The treatment of the Chagossians is a crime in which the US has been implicated for more than 50 years, and to which Trump has inadvertently drawn attention. Having acknowledged regret, the US and UK governments should now ensure that their actions align with their obligations under international law, including working with Mauritius to enable the Chagossians to return to their homeland and providing appropriate reparations. Until that happens, the injustice remains unresolved.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Cubans suffer under a US fuel blockade as President Donald Trump calls the Caribbean country a ‘failed nation’.

The United States-imposed fuel crisis in Cuba is also turning into a waste and health crisis, as many collection trucks have been left with empty fuel tanks, causing refuse to pile up on the streets of the capital, Havana, and other cities and towns.

Only 44 of Havana’s 106 rubbish trucks have been able to keep operating due to the fuel shortages, slowing rubbish collection, as waste piles up on Havana’s street corners, the Reuters news agency reported on Monday, citing state-run news outlet Cubadebate.

Other towns are also seeing rubbish pile up, and residents have taken to social media to raise the alarm over the risk to public health, according to Reuters, citing Cuban media.

“It’s all over the city,” said Jose Ramon Cruz, a resident of Havana.

“It’s been ‌more than 10 days since a garbage truck came,” Cruz told Reuters.

The mounting rubbish crisis has added to the suffering on the tiny island-state, which US President Donald Trump described on Monday as a “failed nation”.

“Cuba is now a failed nation. They don’t even have jet fuels to get their aeroplanes to take off, they’re plugging up their runway,” Trump said.

“We’re talking to Cuba right now, and Marco Rubio is talking to Cuba right now, and they should absolutely make a deal. Because it’s really a humanitarian threat,” he said.

Cuba’s severe fuel crisis is a result of the US cutting off crucial oil supplies once imported from Venezuela. Washington’s move followed the bloody US military raid on Caracas and the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife in early January.

US ‘violations of peace, security and international law’

Trump has been threatening Cuba and its leadership for months, and increased his choke-hold on the Cuban economy by recently passing an executive order that allows the US to impose crippling sanctions on any country that supplies oil to Cuba.

Asked if the US intended to remove the Cuban government, akin to Washington’s abduction of Maduro in Venezuela, Trump said: “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

Last month, Trump warned Cuban leaders to “make a deal, before it is too late”, without specifying the consequences of not meeting his demand.

Amid the crisis, Mexico sent two navy ships carrying 800 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Cuba last week, and on Monday, Spain said it would use the Spanish Agency for International Development and the United Nations to channel aid to Havana.

The announcement was made as Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Jose Manuel Albares met with his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, in Madrid on Monday, where the pair “addressed the current situation in Cuba following the tightening of the embargo”.

In a post on X, Rodriguez criticised “the violations of peace, security and international law and the increasing hostility of the United States against Cuba”.

The Cuban foreign minister’s stop in Madrid followed visits to China and Vietnam, where he has sought support amid the US’s de facto blockade.

Pritzker steps down as Hyatt executive chairman, effective immediately, due to his relationship with the late sex offender.

Billionaire Thomas J Pritzker has announced that he is retiring as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels Corporation over his long association with sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, which came to light in recently released US Justice Department files.

Pritzker, 75, who has served in the role of Hyatt Hotels’ executive chairman since 2004, also said on Monday that he will not seek re-election to the company’s board at its 2026 annual stockholder meeting.

In a letter to the Hyatt board and a related statement, Pritzker expressed deep regret over maintaining contact with Epstein, who took his own life in prison in 2019, and Maxwell, describing it as “terrible judgement”, with no excuse for not distancing himself sooner.

“Good stewardship also means protecting Hyatt, particularly in the context of my association with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell which I deeply ‌regret,” he said in the statement.

“I exercised terrible judgement in maintaining contact with them, and there is no excuse for failing to distance myself sooner.”

Newly released documents by the Justice Department show that Pritzker had ongoing and regular contact with Epstein for years after the financier’s conviction on sex crime charges in 2008, according to The New York Times.

Pritzker is the latest powerful figure facing repercussions after the release of millions of pages of documents showing the depth of Epstein’s network of business, political and cultural elites in the US and around the world.

Goldman Sachs chief legal counsel Kathryn Ruemmler resigned last week over her ties to Epstein. Norwegian police said they had conducted searches of properties owned by former Prime Minister Thorbjorn Jagland as part of a corruption investigation into his connections with the late sex offender.

The head of DP Ports World, the world’s largest port operator, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, was also replaced over his close friendship with Epstein, while economist Larry Summers resigned from the OpenAI board late last year.

Former United Kingdom ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, has been asked to submit himself for an interview and answer questions as part of a US congressional investigation into Epstein.

In a letter sent to Mandelson by Democratic Representatives Robert Garcia and Suhas Subramanyam, both members of the US House of Representatives Oversight Committee, the lawmakers said it was “clear” that the former ambassador “possessed extensive social and business ties” to Epstein and requested that he make himself available for a transcribed interview.

Mandelson took up the prestigious post as the UK’s ambassador to the US in February 2025. He was removed from the role in September 2025 after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government said new information had come to light showing the much deeper nature of his longstanding ties with Epstein.

The Mandelson controversy has led to calls for Starmer to stand down as prime minister, with critics questioning his judgement in appointing him to the ambassador’s role.

Starmer’s chief of staff and cabinet secretary have also stood down due to the scandal .