independence

WASHINGTON — Cornell University has agreed to pay $60 million and accept the Trump administration’s interpretation of civil rights laws in order to restore federal funding and end investigations into the Ivy League school.

Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff announced the agreement on Friday, saying it upholds the university’s academic freedom while restoring more than $250 million in research funding that the government withheld amid investigations into alleged civil rights violations.

The university agreed to pay $30 million directly to the U.S. government along with another $30 million toward research that will support U.S. farmers.

Kotlikoff said the agreement revives the campus’ partnership with the federal government “while affirming the university’s commitment to the principles of academic freedom, independence, and institutional autonomy that, from our founding, have been integral to our excellence.”

The six-page agreement is similar to one signed by the University of Virginia last month. It’s shorter and less prescriptive than others signed by Columbia University and Brown University.

It requires Cornell to comply with the government’s interpretation of civil rights laws on issues involving antisemitism, racial discrimination and transgender issues. A Justice Department memo that orders colleges to abandon diversity, equity and inclusion programs and transgender-friendly policies will be used as a training resource for faculty and staff at Cornell.

The campus must also provide a wealth of admissions data that the government has separately sought from campuses to ensure race is no longer being considered as a factor in admissions decisions. President Trump has suggested some campuses are ignoring a 2023 Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in admissions.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon called it a “transformative commitment” that puts a focus on “merit, rigor, and truth-seeking.”

“These reforms are a huge win in the fight to restore excellence to American higher education and make our schools the greatest in the world,” McMahon said on X.

Cornell’s president must personally certify compliance with the agreement each quarter. The deal is effective through the end of 2028.

It appears to split the difference on a contentious issue colleges have grappled with as they negotiate an exit from federal scrutiny: payments made directly to the government. Columbia agreed to pay $200 million directly to the government, while Brown University reached an agreement to pay $50 million to state workforce organizations. Virginia’s deal included no payment at all.

Binkley writes for the Associated Press.

President Claudia Sheinbaum has made history as the first woman to lead Mexico’s Independence Day celebrations in 215 years, delivering a resolute message against foreign intervention amid ongoing diplomatic pressure from the United States.

From the National Palace balcony in Mexico City, Sheinbaum presided over the traditional “grito” ceremony on Monday night, ringing the bell that symbolises the call to arms during Mexico’s 1810-21 independence struggle against Spain. While Independence Day is officially marked on September 16, the “grito” has been performed the evening before for more than a century.

During Tuesday’s military parade, Sheinbaum firmly declared, “No foreign power makes decisions for us.” Speaking before her cabinet and thousands of soldiers, she emphasised that “no interference is possible in our homeland”. Though she named no specific nation, her statement comes as the US government increases pressure on Mexico to combat drug cartels and enhance border security.

The Trump administration has offered to deploy US troops against cartels — some of which his government has designated as “terrorist” organisations — but Sheinbaum has consistently rejected such proposals.

Her administration has taken stronger action against cartels than her predecessor, extraditing numerous cartel figures to US authorities and highlighting reduced fentanyl seizures at the Mexico-US border. However, Sheinbaum maintains these efforts serve Mexico’s interests rather than responding to US pressure.

Sheinbaum, who assumed office in October, is Mexico’s first female president.

For the 79th year, mariachi musicians, waving Mexican flags and shouts of “Viva Mexico,” flooded Cesar Chavez Avenue in East Los Angeles on Sunday for the annual Mexican Independence Day parade and celebration.

But this year, in the face of the Trump administration’s relentless immigration crackdown — recently bolstered by the Supreme Court decision that allows federal agents to restart their controversial “roving patrols” across Southern California — there was a renewed sense of defiance, and of pride.

For many, it was even more important to show up. To stand tall.

“We’re here and we’re going to continue fighting for our rights and for others who cannot fight for themselves,” Samantha Robles, 21, said as she watched the parade roll by. “I’m happy that many people are here so they can raise their flags — just not the Mexican flag, but also the American flag, because we’re both Mexican American.”

Members of the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles hold a Mexican flag at the East L.A. Mexican Independence Day Parade & Festival on Cesar Chavez Avenue on Sunday in Los Angeles.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

But the parade was also a bittersweet moment for Robles. This year, her grandmother opted to stay home, given ongoing sweeping immigration raids across the region. A new Supreme Court ruling authorized U.S. immigration agents to stop and detain anyone they might suspect is in the U.S. illegally, even if based on little more than their job at a car wash, speaking Spanish or having brown skin. Immigration rights attorneys and local leaders have denounced that as discriminatory and dangerous, and it has stoked fears in Robles, who describes herself as an East L.A. native.

“I have my brown skin, I have my Indigenous features,” Robles said. “I’m afraid not just for myself, [but] for my friends who are also from Mexico and they came here for more opportunities, for a higher education. … I’m afraid for those who are getting taken away from their families.”

The Comité Mexicano Civico Patriotico Inc., which organized Sunday’s parade and celebration, addressed those fears in a press conference on Friday, but decided to move ahead with its celebration of Mexican independence from Spain, as it has done so in September for decades.

That decision seemed to drive a sense of proud resistance on Sunday.

“Aqui estamos y no nos vamos!” (“We are here and we are not leaving!”) yelled Rosario Marín, the former mayor of Huntington Park and the parade’s madrina, or godmother.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass holds TJ’s parrot Pepe Hermon at the East L.A. Mexican Independence Day Parade & Festival on Sunday in Los Angeles.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

When Mayor Karen Bass rode by the crowd, she read aloud a sign from the sidewalk that said: “Trump Must Go!”

The crowd cheered.

“I was just reading the sign,” she said, with a smile on her face. But Bass reiterated her support for her Latino constituents, and her opposition to the ongoing immigration raids, calling them horrible.

“Our city stands united,” Bass told the crowd. “We are a city of immigrants. We understand that 50% of our city is Latino, and the idea that Latinos would be targeted is abhorrent.”

The Trump administration has insisted its immigration actions are merely an attempt to enforce the law, and has blasted Bass and other city leaders for stoking resistance. But many Latino leaders say the administration’s use of force is an abuse of power, stoking fears that have hurt people and the region’s economy.

Alfonso Fox Orozco wears traditional Mexican dress at the East L.A. Parade & Festival on Sunday in Los Angeles.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

Such concerns may have affected Sunday’s parade, which seemed less attended than prior years. Anti-Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE signs, lined the street. Organizations such as the United Teachers Los Angeles yelled out “La migra no, la escuela si.” (“No immigration enforcement, yes schools!”)

Jenny Hernandez, a fifth-generation East L.A. resident, held up a homemade sign that read “Crush ICE.” The 51-year-old has been disturbed by the recent raids, many of which have targeted individuals in the workplace.

“What they’re doing is wrong,” she said. “We are not criminals. We’re Mexican, Hispanic, Latino, Chicano, whatever you want to call it…. We do not deserve this treatment.… There needs to be a change.”

La Catrina Andante sits atop a car in traditional face paint at the parade Sunday in Los Angeles.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

But mostly, the day emanated Latino joy, unseen in recent months. Burnt sage filled the air at one intersection, courtesy of a Danza Azteca group, while attendees — some in traditional embroidered dresses and shirts — relished the cumbia song blasting from a nearby radio.

A young girl, no more than 5 years old, belted out a call for “fresas” alongside her mother, a street vendor. A grandmother sat with her lap covered in a blanket, knitted with the colors of the Mexican flag. Politicians, teenagers, dancers and charros, or men riding dancing horses, shouted, “Viva Mexico!”

Girls dressed as vendors from Patzcuaro, Michoacan, balance on pots at the East L.A. Parade & Festival Sunday in Los Angeles.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

Other ethnic groups joined the popular celebration, including waves of Puerto Ricans, Bolivians and Salvadorans. Notable faces included Snow Tha Product and Real 92.3 FM radio host Big Boy, who at one point took the reins as an elotero vendor. Space shuttle astronaut José M. Hernández led the parade as grand marshal. , His journey from migrant farmworker to NASA astronaut was detailed in the Amazon Prime film “A Million Miles Away.”

Giselle Salgado, also an East L.A. native, said it was important to see a good turnout from her community, as well as from public officials, though she noticed a smaller crowd this year.

“We’re not afraid,” she said. “This is our tradition, we’ve always come out here. … I’m sure a lot of people are scared, but they’re still here. We’re not going to let fear and intimidation work against us.”

CHICAGO — President Trump’s plan to dispatch National Guard troops and immigration agents into Chicago has put many Latino residents on edge, prompting some to carry their U.S. passports and giving others pause about openly celebrating the upcoming Mexican Independence Day.

Though the holiday falls on Sept. 16, celebrations in Chicago span more than a week and draw hundreds of thousands of participants. Festivities kicked off with a Saturday parade through the heavily Mexican Pilsen neighborhood and will continue with car caravans and lively street parties.

But this year, the typically joyful period coincides with Trump’s threats to add Chicago to the list of Democratic-led cities he has targeted for expanded federal enforcement.

His administration has said it will step up immigration enforcement in Chicago, as it did in Los Angeles, and would deploy National Guard troops. In addition to sending troops to Los Angeles in June, Trump deployed them last month in Washington, D.C., as part of his unprecedented law enforcement takeover of the nation’s capital.

Trump posted an illustration of himself on his social media site Saturday as the Robert Duvall character in “Apocalypse Now” — the war-loving Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore — against a Chicago-skyline ablaze with flames and helicopters.

“Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” he posted, along with “I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” referencing a famous Kilgore line from the 1979 Vietnam War film. Trump has ordered the Defense Department to be renamed the Department of War.

“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker wrote on the social platform X. “Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”

Although details about the promised Chicago operation have been sparse, there’s already widespread opposition as protesters marched through downtown Saturday evening. State and city leaders have said they plan to sue the Trump administration.

Debate over postponing festivities

The extended Mexican Independence Day celebrations reflect the size and vitality of Chicago’s Mexican American community. Mexicans make up more than one-fifth of the city’s population and about 74% of its Latino residents, according to 2022 U.S. census estimates.

Parade and festival organizers have been divided over whether to move forward with precautions or postpone, in hopes that it will feel safer for many participants to have a true celebration in several months’ time. El Grito Chicago, a downtown Mexican Independence Day festival set for next weekend, was postponed this week by organizers to protect people.

“But also we just refuse to let our festival be a pawn in this political game,” said Germán González, an organizer of El Grito Chicago.

In Pilsen and Little Village, two of the city’s best-known neighborhoods, with restaurants, businesses and cultural ties to Mexican culture, residents expressed disappointment that the potential federal intervention instilled such fear and anxiety in the community at a time usually characterized by joy, togetherness and celebration of Mexican American heritage.

Celebrating, with precautions

Saturday morning, some parade-goers grabbed free, bright-orange whistles and fliers from volunteers standing outside the Lozano branch of the Chicago Public Library. “Blow the whistle on ICE!” the fliers read, encouraging a nonviolent tactic to raise alarm if they saw agents.

Marchers held up cardboard signs painted with monarch butterflies, the migratory species that travels between the U.S. and Mexico. Many cheered, “Viva Mexico!”

Drivers of vintage cars honked their horns and a drummer kept time for a group of dancers bedecked in feathers. Horseback riders clip-clopped down the street, and one lifted up a large Mexican flag.

Claudia Alvarez, whose 10-year-old daughter was nearby riding a pony, said it’s important that politicians see people out celebrating, though the crowd seemed smaller this year.

“At these hours you should be able to see plenty of people in the streets enjoying themselves, but now there’s not really a lot of people,” she said.

Fabio Fernandez, 39, owner of an art and T-shirt company with a residency at a Pilsen streetwear shop, called it “troubling” and “disheartening” that the possibility of federal intervention has dampened celebrations.

He said there’s a mood of anxiety in the neighborhood, which has translated to lower sales and reduced foot traffic for local businesses like his.

“Come back to 18th Street. Support small businesses here. They’re still working hard as hell to keep their businesses alive,” he said.

Alejandro Vences, 30, became a U.S. citizen this year, “which gives me some comfort during this time,” he said while eating pozole verde at a Mexican restaurant. Still, he said, the anxiety is palpable.

“For us, our Independence Day has always been a celebration of our culture,” he said. “It’s always been a celebration of who we are. It feels like we don’t get to celebrate our culture in the same way.”

Protest against ICE

A few miles away in downtown, more than a thousand protesters marched through the streets Saturday evening with signs bearing slogans such as “I.C.E. out of Illinois, I.C.E. out of everywhere.”

Speakers offered the crowd instructions on what to do if encountering Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. They also drew comparisons between the proposed ICE crackdown on Chicago and Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip.

“We are inspired by the steadfastness of Palestinians in Gaza, and it is why we refuse to cower to Trump and his threats,” Nazek Sankari, co-chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, said to the crowd as many waved Palestinian flags and donned kaffiyehs.

Viviana Barajas, a leader with the community organization Palenque LSNA, promised that Chicagoans would “stand up” as Los Angeles had if Trump deploys the National Guard in their city.

“If he thinks these frivolous theatrics to undermine our sovereignty will shut out the passion we have for protecting our people — this is Chicago, and he is sorely mistaken,” Barajas said. “We have been studying L.A.. and D.C., and they have stood up for their cities.”

Fernando, Finley, Walling and Raza write for the Associated Press. Fernando and Walling reported from Chicago, Finley from Norfolk, Va., and Raza from Sioux Falls, S.D. AP writers Morgan Lee in Santa Fe and Cal Woodward in Washington contributed to this report.

Tens of thousands of people gather in Hanoi to celebrate declaration of independence from French colonial rule.

Vietnam has marked the 80th anniversary of its declaration of independence from France with a large military parade in the capital Hanoi.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Hanoi on Tuesday in a strong display of nationalism in the Communist-run country.

Authorities showcased a wide variety of military equipment, including missiles, helicopters and fighter jets, during the celebrations at Ba Dinh Square, where revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh declared independence from colonial rule on September 2, 1945.

Officials said that nearly 16,000 soldiers joined the parade, which also included honour guards from China, Russia, Laos and Cambodia.

In a speech to mark the occasion, To Lam, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, paid tribute to those who died fighting for independence, and reiterated the governing party’s goal for Vietnam to become a “powerful, prosperous and happy nation” by 2045.

“In this sacred moment, we respectfully remember our ancestors,” Lam said.

“Our nation has overcome countless difficulties and challenges. Our country has transformed from a colony into an independent and unified nation, steadily advancing towards modernity.”

University student Vu Thi Trang said she had staked out her position to observe the celebrations two days in advance.

“Something inside just pushed me to be here,” the 19-year-old told the AFP news agency.

“I am grateful for the sacrifices of the previous generation, so that we have peace and freedom to grow up.”

As part of anniversary festivities, Vietnam last week announced it would hand out 100,000 dong ($3.80) to each of its 100 million citizens.

Vietnamese President Luong Cuong also announced that 13,920 prisoners, including 66 foreigners, would be released before the end of their jail terms.

France did not recognise Ho Chi Minh’s declaration of independence, but a disastrous military defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 led to the European power’s full-scale retreat from the country, as well as from neighbouring Laos and Cambodia.

Following the division of Vietnam with the 1954 Geneva Accords, the Communist North and US-backed South fought the two-decade-long Vietnam War.

The Vietnam War ended when Communist forces captured Saigon on April 30, 1975, and the country was unified.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s attempt to fire a member of the Federal Reserve’s governing board has raised alarms among economists and legal experts who see it as the biggest threat to the central bank’s independence in decades.

The consequences could affect most Americans’ everyday lives: Economists worry that if Trump gets what he wants — a loyal Fed that sharply cuts short-term interest rates — the result would likely be higher inflation and, over time, higher borrowing costs for things like mortgages, car loans and business loans.

Trump on Monday sought to fire Lisa Cook, the first Black woman appointed to the Fed’s seven-member Board of Governors. It was the first time in the Fed’s 112-year history that a president has tried to fire a governor.

Fed independence ‘hangs by a thread’

Trump and members of his administration have made no secret about their desire to exert more control over the Fed. Trump has repeatedly demanded that the central bank cut its key rate to as low as 1.3%, from its current level of 4.3%.

Before trying to fire Cook, Trump repeatedly attacked the Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, for not cutting the short-term interest rate and threatened to fire him as well.

“We’ll have a majority very shortly, so that’ll be good,” Trump said Tuesday, a reference to the fact that if he is able to replace Cook, his appointees will control the Fed’s board by a 4-3 vote.

“The particular case of Governor Cook is not as important as what this latest move shows about the escalation in the assaults on the Fed,” said Jon Faust, an economist at Johns Hopkins and former advisor to Powell. “In my view, Fed independence really now hangs by a thread.”

Some economists do think the Fed should cut more quickly, though virtually none agrees with Trump that it should do so by 3 percentage points. Powell has signaled the Fed is likely to cut by a quarter point in September.

Why economists prefer independent central banks

The Fed wields extensive power over the U.S. economy. By cutting the short-term interest rate it controls — which it typically does when the economy falters — the Fed can make borrowing cheaper and encourage more spending, growth and hiring. When it raises the rate to combat the higher prices that come with inflation, it can weaken the economy and cause job losses.

Most economists have long preferred independent central banks because they can take unpopular steps that elected officials are more likely to avoid. Economic research has shown that nations with independent central banks typically have lower inflation over time.

Elected officials like Trump, however, have much greater incentives to push for lower interest rates, which make it easier for Americans to buy homes and cars and would boost the economy in the short run.

A political Fed could boost inflation

Douglas Elmendorf, an economist at Harvard and former director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, said that Trump’s demand for the Fed to cut its key rate by 3 percentage points would overstimulate the economy, lifting consumer demand above what the economy can produce and boosting inflation — similar to what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency.

“If the Federal Reserve falls under control of the president, then we’ll end up with higher inflation in this country probably for years to come,” Elmendorf said.

And while the Fed controls a short-term rate, financial markets determine longer-term borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans. And if investors worry that inflation will stay high, they will demand higher yields on government bonds, pushing up borrowing costs across the economy.

In Turkey, for example, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan forced the central bank to keep interest rates low in the early 2020s, even as inflation spiked to 85%. In 2023, Erdogan allowed the central bank more independence, which has helped bring down inflation, but short-term interest rates rose to 50% to fight inflation, and are still 46%.

Other U.S. presidents have badgered the Fed. President Johnson harassed then-Fed Chair William McChesney Martin in the mid-1960s to keep rates low as Johnson ramped up government spending on the Vietnam War and antipoverty programs. And President Nixon pressured then-Chair Arthur Burns to avoid rate hikes in the run-up to the 1972 election. Both episodes are widely blamed for leading to the stubbornly high inflation of the 1960s and ‘70s.

Trump has also argued that the Fed should lower its rate to make it easier for the federal government to finance its tremendous $37-trillion debt load. Yet that threatens to distract the Fed from its congressional mandates of keeping inflation and unemployment low.

Independence vs. accountability

Presidents do have some influence over the Fed through their ability to appoint members of the board, subject to Senate approval. But the Fed was created to be insulated from short-term political pressures. Fed governors are appointed to staggered, 14-year terms to ensure that no single president can appoint too many.

Jane Manners, a law professor at Fordham University, said there is a reason that Congress decided to create independent agencies like the Fed: Lawmakers preferred “decisions that are made from a kind of objective, neutral vantage point grounded in expertise rather than decisions are that are wholly subject to political pressure.”

Yet some Trump administration officials say they want more democratic accountability at the Fed.

In an interview with USA Today, Vice President JD Vance said, “What people who are saying the president has no authority here are effectively saying is that seven economists and lawyers should be able to make an incredibly critical decision for the American people with no democratic input.”

Stephen Miran, a top White House economic advisor, wrote a paper last year advocating for a restructuring of the Fed, including making it much easier for a president to fire governors.

The “overall goal of this design is delivering the economic benefits” of an independent central bank, Miran wrote, “while maintaining a level of accountability that a democratic society must demand.” Trump has nominated Miran to the Fed’s board to replace Adriana Kugler, who stepped down unexpectedly Aug. 1.

There could be more turmoil ahead

Trump said he wants to oust Cook from the Board of Governors because of allegations raised by one of his advisors that she has committed mortgage fraud.

Cook has argued in a lawsuit seeking to block her firing that the claims are a pretext for Trump’s desire to assert more control over the Fed. A court may decide this week whether to temporarily block Cook’s firing while the case makes its way through the legal process.

Cook is accused of claiming two homes as primary residences in July 2021, before she joined the board, which could have led to a lower mortgage rate than if one had been classified as a second home or an investment property. She has suggested in her lawsuit that it may have been a clerical error but hasn’t directly responded to the accusations.

Trump also has personally insulted Powell for months, but his administration now appears much more focused on the Fed’s broader structure.

The Fed makes its interest rate decisions through a committee that consists of the seven governors, including Powell, as well as the 12 presidents of regional Fed banks in cities such as New York, Kansas City and Atlanta. Five of those presidents vote on rates at each meeting. The New York Fed president has a permanent vote, while four others vote on a rotating basis.

While the reserve banks’ boards choose their presidents, the Fed board in Washington can vote to reject them. All 12 presidents will need to be reappointed and approved by the board in February, which could become more contentious if the board votes down one or more of the 12 presidents.

Reappointing the reserve bank presidents and upending that structure would be “the nuclear scenario,” said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

That, he said, “would be the signal that things are truly going off the rails.”

Rugaber writes for the Associated Press.

Denmark’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday summoned a top United States diplomat in the country to discuss intelligence reports that US citizens have secretly tried to influence people in Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump, to oppose Danish rule.

Here is what Denmark has accused the US of doing and why Trump has ambitions to acquire Greenland.

What has Denmark accused the US of?

Denmark summoned Mark Stroh, the US charge d’affaires in Denmark, after the Danish public broadcaster, DR, reported on Wednesday that at least three Americans with links to Trump had been carrying out covert operations that sought to encourage Greenland to break away from Denmark and instead join the US. DR cited unnamed sources.

Greenland, which is situated between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean, is the world’s largest island and is geographically part of North America.

The three American individuals, who DR reported were being closely watched by Danish authorities, were not named by the broadcaster. Their alleged activities include compiling lists of Greenlanders who support Trump and gathering information about tensions between Denmark and Greenland.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said: “Any interference in internal affairs in the kingdom of Denmark, and Greenlandic democracy, is unacceptable.”

“I note that the Americans have not clearly rejected the DR report today, and that is of course serious,” Fredriksen told Danish television.

Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Lars Lokke Rasmussen also told AFP that he was aware of the “foreign actors” interested in Greenland’s position within Denmark.

Christine Nissen, chief analyst at Copenhagen-based think tank Europa, told Al Jazeera that Denmark’s summoning of a US diplomat was a “very rare” event.

“Summoning the US charge d’affaires for a formal protest is something Denmark only does in exceptional circumstances, and it signals just how seriously Copenhagen views the situation. It is clearly not routine diplomacy but a strong signal of protest,” said Nissen.

“Denmark has only done this once before in recent years – and notably over the same issue, when it summoned the US ambassador in response to a Wall Street Journal report suggesting that US intelligence agencies had been tasked with investigating Greenland’s independence movement and resource potential.”

In May, The Wall Street Journal reported that US intelligence agencies had been instructed by several high-ranking intelligence officials under US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to collect information about Greenland’s independence movement and local views on the US gaining access to Greenland’s natural resources.

The WSJ, which quoted two unnamed sources familiar with the issue, reported that the intelligence agencies had been tasked specifically with identifying Greenlanders and people from Denmark who supported US objectives for Greenland.

In May, when this report was published, Fredriksen told The Associated Press that the report was “rumours”, adding: “You cannot spy against an ally.”

After that report was published, Gabbard’s office released a statement, saying: “The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed of aiding deep state actors who seek to undermine the President by politicising and leaking classified information … Those who leak classified information will be found and held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

How has the US responded?

The US State Department released a statement confirming that the charge d’affaires and deputy chief of the US mission in Copenhagen, Mark Stroh, had met with officials from the Danish Foreign Ministry.

Stroh had “a productive conversation and reaffirmed the strong ties among the Government of Greenland, the United States, and Denmark”, the statement said. It added that the US respects “the right of the people of Greenland to determine their own future”.

However, the US State Department did not comment on the claims about the actions of US citizens. “The US government does not control or direct the actions of private citizens,” it stated.

What has Trump said about Greenland?

Greenland is home to about 56,000 people, most of whom are from the Indigenous Inuit community.

Since Trump’s first term, the US president has expressed an interest in Greenland’s accession to the US. Back then, Trump cancelled a trip to Copenhagen after Denmark refused to sell Greenland to the US.

During his second term as president, Trump has stepped up his interest in Greenland. In late December 2024, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that “the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity”.

In response to this, Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede said in a written statement: “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”

In January, ahead of his son Donald Trump Jr’s trip to Greenland, Trump again wrote on Truth Social: “Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation.”

After this, Frederiksen said: “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders.” Rasmussen emphasised that Greenland did not want to become a part of the US.

Trump once again raised his ambitions to acquire Greenland in March, ahead of US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to the island. “We need Greenland. And the world needs us to have Greenland, including Denmark,” Trump told reporters at the White House, adding that the US will go “as far as we have to go” to make it happen.

“I have to say that it is unacceptable pressure being placed on Greenland and Denmark in this situation. And it is pressure that we will resist,” Frederiksen told Danish media at the time.

While Vance was initially slated to visit multiple towns, he cut his itinerary short to one day after news of his visit was met with anger in Europe. He ended up visiting the US Pituffik military base, which Greenland hosts.

During his trip, Vance took aim at Denmark, saying: “You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have underinvested in the people of Greenland and you have underinvested in the security of this incredible, beautiful landmass.”

What is so important about Greenland?

Greenland is rich in minerals, including rare earth minerals essential for manufacturing batteries and high-tech products. A 2023 survey found that Greenland contains 25 out of 34 minerals designated as “critical raw materials” by the European Commission.

However, Greenland does not extract oil and gas since mining is opposed by the Indigenous communities there. The island’s economy relies primarily on its fishing industry.

The island is also strategically important to the US because it sits on the shortest route from North America to Europe, potentially providing the US with a strategic advantage in military operations and its ballistic missile early-warning system.

How have Denmark and Europe responded to Trump’s ambitions to acquire Greenland?

Officials from Denmark and Greenland have rebuked Trump and repeatedly stated that Greenland is “not for sale”.

In December, Denmark announced it would boost defence spending in Greenland by $1.5bn after Trump expressed his desire to take over the autonomous island.

European leaders have expressed solidarity with Denmark.

In January, after Trump refused to rule out military force to take Greenland, European leaders warned Trump against threatening “sovereign borders”.

“Borders must not be moved by force. This principle applies to every country, whether in the East or the West,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote in an X post. France’s foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said that Greenland was “European territory” and there was “no question of the EU letting other nations in the world, whoever they may be … attack its sovereign borders”.

Although Greenland is not a member of the European Union, it is included on the EU’s list of Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs).

In June, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Greenland in a show of solidarity.

“It’s important to show that Denmark and Europe are committed to this territory, which has very high strategic stakes and whose territorial integrity must be respected,” Macron said during his visit.

Prior to his visit, Macron said during a United Nations Ocean Conference that Greenland and the deep seas were not “up for grabs”.

Are there other points of tension between the US and Denmark?

Tension between the US and Denmark emerged recently after the Trump administration stopped work on a nearly complete wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island in the US by Orsted, one of Denmark’s largest companies.

The Revolution Wind project was about 80 percent complete when it received the stop order on August 23. The stop order cited a need to “address concerns related to the protection of national security interests” without providing further details. On Monday, Orsted shares plunged 17 percent, hitting an all-time low.

In January, research by polling agency YouGov, shared with British newspaper The Guardian, showed that 46 percent of people surveyed in Denmark saw the US as either a “fairly big threat” or a “very big threat” to Denmark.

The US and Denmark are both founding members of NATO, and Denmark fought alongside the US in its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

How does Greenland feel about the US and Denmark?

Greenland was ruled by Denmark from the early 1700s until 1979, when it became a self-governing territory. Since 2009, Greenland has had the legal right to declare independence if its people choose to do so through a referendum.

All three major parties in Greenland support independence for the island, but have different ideas about the timeline for this and want Greenlanders to decide for themselves. Prime Minister Egede’s Inuit Ataqatigiit party supports independence but does not want to rush the process.

According to a poll conducted in January by pollster Verian, commissioned by the Danish newspaper Berlingske, 56 percent of Greenlanders would vote for independence if a referendum was held. Seventeen percent of Greenlanders responded saying they “don’t know” whether or not they would vote for Greenland to become an independent state.

Yet there is scant evidence that even those who want independence from Denmark want to join the US.

Meanwhile, tensions with Denmark exist, too.

The Danish government forcefully separated Inuit children from their families in 1951 and forced contraception upon 4,500 Inuit women – at least half of fertile Inuit females – during the 1960s and 1970s.

On Wednesday, Fredriksen apologised to the Inuit women who were forced to wear an intrauterine device (IUD) without their consent.

“We cannot change what has happened. But we can take responsibility. Therefore, on behalf of Denmark, I would like to say: I am sorry,” she said in a statement.

It’s probably safe to say that almost no one following the news believes that Donald Trump has a solid, defensible reason to fire Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, as he purported to do Monday, notwithstanding his assertion that she is guilty of “potentially criminal conduct.”

It’s not only that the charge she falsified information on mortgage applications is unproven, or that even on their face the accusations are thinner than onion-skin paper.

It’s that Trump has telegraphed his true objective loud and clear virtually from the inception of his current term: to destroy the Fed’s independence so he can force it to act in accordance with what he sees as his immediate political advantage, chiefly by cutting interest rates at a time when that would be economically irrational.

He has pursued this objective in several ways. He has consistently denigrated the work of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, questioning why Powell was ever appointed (and forgetting that he was the president who appointed Powell).

He has carried on about the cost of a renovation of the Fed’s Washington headquarters building, even misrepresenting the cost and nature of the project, suggesting that it points to Powell’s managerial ineptitude.

And now he’s trying to fire Cook, one of Powell’s supporters on the Fed board. Whether he can do so in the face of Cook’s refusal to go is unclear, and likely to be judged on by the Supreme Court.

That leads us to the principle of Federal Reserve independence and its critical importance for the health of the U.S. economy.

The Fed isn’t the only central bank that cherishes its independence. Most central banks in developed countries do too, although they solidified their status at different times — the Bank of England gaining operational independence over monetary policy in Britain only in 1997.

To be fair, the character of central bank independence has always been murky. “Central banks do not and should not operate in a vacuum,” Tobias Adrian and Ashraf Khan of the International Monetary Fund observed in 2019, acknowledging that “as public institutions, central banks should be held properly accountable to lawmakers and to society.”

Indeed, to paraphrase Finley Peter Dunne’s Mr. Dooley, throughout its own history the Fed, like the Supreme Court, has “followed the election returns.”

That is, it’s rare for the central bank to range too far from what the public expects from government economic management. In any event, the Fed is a creation of Congress, which could theoretically expand or narrow its monetary policy authority and structure its board to make it more responsive to partisan politics.

The consensus among economists is that doing so would be unwise. Political leaders who have made their central banks subservient to their own policies have almost invariably learned the consequences the hard way, as economists across the economic spectrum observe.

“If a legislature or executive can order the central bank to print money,” wrote Thomas L. Hogan of the conservative American Institute for Economic Research in 2020, “then the government can spend without limit …which can lead to hyperinflation and economic disaster as seen in countries such as Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and Argentina.”

That’s a lesson that economists began urging on Trump as he stepped up his attacks on the Fed. “No one’s claiming that central bankers are going to be perfect at their jobs,” Peter Conti-Brown of the Wharton School said recently. “What we’re saying is that they’re going to be better than the alternative. The alternative is setting interest rate policy from the Oval Office, according to the whims of whatever the president wants to see that day. That’s the main alternative to central banking. And that’s what’s under threat today.”

The United States also learned the value of an independent Fed the hard way. For more than three decades after its creation in 1913, the Fed was largely a handmaiden of the U.S. Treasury; the Treasury secretary and comptroller of the currency were ex officio members of its board, and the Treasury secretary presided over its meetings.

That version of the Fed proved unequal to managing macroeconomic policy as the Great Depression deepened. It had few powers with which to set policy, especially with Franklin Roosevelt taking the reins of economic policy in his own hands.

FDR unilaterally took the U.S. off the gold standard in 1933. He would set the price of gold every morning with aides at his bedside, prompting the British economic sage John Maynard Keynes to complain directly to Roosevelt that “the recent gyrations of the dollar” looked to him “like a gold standard on the booze.”

Roosevelt eventually gave up on manipulating the price of gold and consequently the value of the dollar. He also recognized that the nation needed a firmer, professional hand on the monetary faucet. The solution came from the progressive-minded Utah banker Marriner Eccles, whom FDR tasked with remaking the Fed.

Eccles is almost entirely unknown to the public, but he’s revered among economic policy wonks — which explains why his name is on the Fed headquarters building. After FDR appointed him to head the Federal Reserve Board, Eccles oversaw the drafting of the Banking Act of 1935, which centralized monetary policy in the Fed board and gave it new powers to manage the money supply. Eccles remained the board’s chairman until 1948 and remained a board member until 1951.

Despite those reforms, however, the Fed remained tied to political imperatives, chiefly the financing of America’s fiscal needs during World War II, policies firmly under the control of the Treasury. “We are not masters in our own house,” one Fed bank governor lamented.

That began to change in 1950, when the process of paying for war expenses had triggered an inflationary spiral. The consumer price index rose by 17.6% in 1946-47 and another 9.5% the following fiscal year, thanks in part by the end of wartime price controls and the “pegging” of long-term treasury bond rates at 2.5%.

The onset of the Korean War in 1950 threatened more inflation. President Truman insisted on leaving the peg at 2.5% in order to limit the cost of government spending on the new war. Eccles and others on the Fed board feared, however, that keeping the rate from rising above 2.5% would require the Fed to keep buying T-bonds, which pumped more dollars into the money supply and fueled inflation. The Fed wanted to allow rates to rise, which was anathema to the White House.

This concern placed the Fed in open conflict with Truman and his Treasury secretary, his crony John Wesley Snyder. The Fed and Snyder engaged in increasingly acrimonious meetings, after one of which the White House issued a communique that falsely stated that the Fed had agreed to follow the administration’s demands. The Fed then issued its own statement, directly contradicting Truman’s.

Truman maintained publicly that keeping rates low was crucial for the fight against communism. “I hope the Board will … not allow the bottom to drop from under our securities,” Truman said, referring to the decline of treasury prices if the board let rates rise. “If that happens, that is exactly what Mr. Stalin wants.” Eccles, for his part, told Congress that if the Fed were forced to maintain the 2.5% peg, that would make the Fed itself “an engine of inflation.”

The war of words continued, until Assistant Treasury Secretary William McChesney Martin took over negotiations with the Fed from Snyder, who was recovering from surgery. Martin broke the logjam. The result was the Treasury-Fed Accord of March 4, 1951, a landmark document in Federal Reserve history. The accord gave the Fed full rein to manage short-term interest rates in return for its keeping long-term rates within the peg until the end of that year.

Truman appointed Martin as Fed chairman a few weeks later; some saw the appointment as a Treasury takeover, but Martin proved to be a firm advocate of Fed independence. The accord, as explained by Robert L. Hetzel of the Richmond Fed and Ralph Leach, who personally witnessed the 1951 negotiations, “marked the start of the modern Federal Reserve System” and established the central bank’s “dual mandate” of promoting stable prices and maximizing employment.

That doesn’t mean that the Fed rigorously honored its hard-won independence. Fed Chairman Arthur Burns acceded to Richard Nixon’s urging to keep rates low in advance of the 1972 presidential election. It was a disastrous misstep. Inflation soared, especially during the Arab oil embargo, peaking at nearly 15% in 1980.

It fell to Paul Volcker, who became chairman in 1979, to use the Fed’s authority to slay the inflationary beast. Volcker drove the Fed’s key rate nearly to 20%, provoking a recession and a sharp rise in unemployment. But the inflation rate fell back to 3.8% by 1983 and as low as 1.1% in 1986. Volckeer’s actions arguably set the stage for Ronald Reagan’s defeat of Jimmy Carter in 1980, but arguably he could not have taken the stringent measures needed to bring inflation down if he bowed to Carter’s electoral needs.

Former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke set forth the perils of political influence on the Fed in 2020, warning that central banks subjected to political pressure might “overstimulate the economy to achieve short-term … gains.” Those may be “popular at first, and thus helpful in an election campaign, but they are not sustainable and soon evaporate, leaving behind only inflationary pressures that worsen the economy’s longer-term prospects.”

That’s the prospect facing the U.S. as Trump keeps trying to erode the Fed’s independence, insisting on a rate cut no matter the overall economic environment. As it happens, he may get the rate cut he desires, but only because his tariff and immigration policies are sapping America’s economic strength, producing a slump that warrants a reduction.

Where will we go from here? Powell’s term as Fed chair expires next May. He has been admirably protective of the bank’s independence while in office, but it’s a safe bet that his Trump-appointed successor won’t be so solicitous. Harder times for the Fed, and the economy, may lurk over the horizon.

UKRAINIAN forces claim to have killed three perpetrators of the Bucha massacre in a slew of revenge bombings.

It comes as Kyiv marked its Independence Day by unleashing a wave of drone strikes crippling key energy infrastructure in Russia.

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Ukraine‘s military intelligence unit GUR said three Russian soldiers dubbed “Butchers of Bucha” were wiped out in surgical bombings in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region.

They were targeted in the Luhansk region while operating as a mobile air defence group to cover a Russian military-repair base.

Bucha is a town close to Kyiv where Russian troops were accused of perpetrating appalling war crimes as they sought to storm Kyiv in 2022.

Hundreds of Ukrainian people were subjected to executions, torture, mutilation, and sexual violence including rape used by as weapon of war.

After the Russian retreat, mass graves were found where dozens of bodies were hastily buried by Putin’s occupying force.

There were numerous accounts of indiscriminate killings of civilians, including those seeking to flee the violence.

The revenge attack came in Kalynove village, where the Russian soldiers were linked to the Bucha atrocities.

Ukrainian military officials said: “In 2022, [these dead] Russian occupiers directly took part in committing war crimes in the city of Bucha.

“The detonation was in the yard of an apartment building where six Russian invaders were staying with their military transport.

“As a result of the explosion, two enemy pickups with machine guns were destroyed, one landed with ammunition.”

“There will be just retribution for every war crime committed against the Ukrainian people.”

Meanwhile, the Russia‘s defence ministry said at least 95 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted across more than a dozen Russian regions.

The attaclc come on August 24, the day that Ukraine celebrates its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

One of the drones was shot down over the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in western Russia, one of the country’s biggest energy nuclear facility.

It detonated upon impact and sparked a fire, forcing a sharp fall in the capacity of a reactor at according to the facility.

The plant said the fire had been extinguished, adding there were no casualties or increased radiation levels.

There was damage to a transformer which supplies the plant, and the power of reactor number three was reduced by 50 per cent.

Russian authorities said Ukrainian drones had also been shot down over areas sometimes far from the front, including Saint Petersburg in the northwest.

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The attacks caused tourist mayhem at St Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport as more than 99 flights were diverted or delayed at the busy hub.

Ten drones were shot down over the port of Ust-Luga on the Gulf of Finland, sparking a fire at a fuel terminal owned by Russian energy group Novatek, regional governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said: “This is how Ukraine strikes when its calls for peace are ignored.

“Today, both the US and Europe agree: Ukraine has not yet fully won, but it will certainly not lose. Ukraine has secured its independence. Ukraine is not a victim; it is a fighter.”

Ukraine meanwhile said Russia had attacked it overnight with a ballistic missile and 72 Iranian-made Shahed attack drones, 48 of which the air force said had been shot down.

A Russian drone strike killed a 47-year-old woman in the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, the governor said.

It came amid Donald Trump’s rising frustration with Putin for dragging out the war.

Washington is now trying to get Moscow to agree to a one-on-one meeting with Zelensky.

Pressure has been mounting on Putin to sit down with Zelensky since the White House summit – but the latest language from Russia looks suspiciously like well-worn stalling tactics.

Trump hoped he would be able to convince Putin to stop the bloodshed when he met the dictator in Anchorage.

But since then, little tangible progress has been made towards a peace deal.

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In a social media post, Trump appeared to hint that he is open to Ukraine launching more attacks on Russia.

He suggested that it would be “impossible” for Ukraine to win the war without attacking Russia.

He said: “It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invader’s country.

“It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defence, but is not allowed to play offence.

“There is no chance of winning! It is like that with Ukraine and Russia.”

Trump sets deadline

He set a two-week time frame for assessing peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

Don told Todd Starnes on Newsmax: “I would say within two weeks we’re going to know one way or the other.

“After that, we’ll have to maybe take a different tack.”

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Putin is ready to meet Zelensky only after working through a list of vague “issues”.

Lavrov said: “Our president has repeatedly said that he is ready to meet, including with Mr Zelensky.”

But he insisted the meeting would only happen “with the understanding that all issues that require consideration at the highest level will be well worked out”.

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Afghanistan has marked the anniversary of its independence from British influence with a military display staged by the Taliban’s defence ministry. The event commemorates the signing of the Anglo-Afghan Treaty in 1919.

Medan, Indonesia – Indonesia is celebrating 80 years of independence from Dutch colonial rule, but not everyone is in a celebratory mood, and an unusual protest movement has rallied around a cartoon pirate flag.

The flag, which features a skull and crossbones wearing a straw hat, has been spotted adorning homes, cars, trucks, motorcycles and boats across Indonesia.

Popularised by the hit Japanese anime One Piece, the flag has even been flown beneath the Indonesian flag – known as the merah-putih (red and white) – which is widely raised throughout the month of August in the lead-up to Independence Day on Sunday.

In the anime series, which was adapted by Netflix in 2023, the hatted skull and crossbones flag is used by adventurer Monkey D Luffy – who one day hopes to become a pirate king – and is seen as a sign of hope, freedom and a pushback against authoritarianism.

In Indonesia, the flag has been raised as a sign of protest amid increasing public frustration with the government.

“Rising prices, difficulties in getting a job and the incompetencies of the government have prompted the people to use satire and sarcasm,” Radityo Dharmaputra, a lecturer in international relations at Airlangga University in Surabaya, told Al Jazeera.

Raising the pirate flag is a sign of “growing dissatisfaction in society, even with all the so-called progress that the government has claimed”, Dharmaputra said.

Prabowo Subianto was sworn in as the new president of Indonesia in October, promising fast economic growth and social change in this country of almost 286 million people.

But Southeast Asia’s largest economy and most populous democracy is faltering.

‘A symbol of my disappointment and resistance’

Indonesia has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in Southeast Asia, with an estimated 16 percent of the 44 million Indonesians aged 15-24 unemployed, while foreign investors are pulling capital out of the country and the government is cutting the budget.

In a survey published by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore in January, about 58 percent of young Indonesians said they were optimistic about the government’s economic plans, compared with an average of 75 percent across five other countries in the region – Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Before the flag protest, in February, the “Indonesia Gelap” or “Dark Indonesia” movement gained momentum, with citizens using the #IndonesiaGelap hashtag on social media to vent their frustrations about the future of the country following widespread budget cuts and proposed changes in legislation allowing the military to have a greater role in the government.

The online protest was followed by student demonstrations, which erupted across a number of cities.

President Prabowo accused the Dark Indonesia movement of being backed by “corruptors” bent on creating pessimism in the country.

“This is fabricated, paid for, by whom?” Prabowo said, according to Indonesian news outlet Tempo.

“By those who want Indonesia to always be chaotic, Indonesia to always be poor. Yes, those corruptors are the ones financing the demonstrations. Indonesia is dark, Indonesia is dark. Sorry, Indonesia is bright, Indonesia’s future is bright,” the president said.

Adi*, a truck driver in the city of Malang in East Java, told Al Jazeera that he has been flying the anime pirate flag on the side of his truck for the past three weeks.

“Many, many people have been flying it in East Java. To me, it is a symbol of my disappointment and resistance against the government,” he said.

Adi said that he had long been frustrated, but that the flag had provided him with a new way of displaying this frustration.

Members of his family had died, Adi said, when police fired tear gas into the Kanjuruhan Stadium in East Java’s Malang city on October 1, 2022, following what police claimed was a pitch invasion by fans at the end of a football match.

This tear gas led to panic and a crowd crush at locked exit gates that killed 135 people.

Three police officers and two match officials were prosecuted for their roles in the tragedy, one of the worst in international footballing history.

“I am disappointed by the lack of justice for the victims of Kanjuruhan. Until now, we have received none of the restitution we were promised. I am also disappointed by other problems in Indonesia, including rising prices,” he said.

‘An attempt to divide unity’

The One Piece pirate flag has caught the attention of the government, with Budi Gunawan, the coordinating minister for political and security affairs, warning that authorities would take “firm action” if the flag was flown on Sunday’s Independence Day.

“There will be criminal consequences for actions that violate the honour of the red and white flag,” he said.

Indonesia’s Deputy House Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad branded the hoisting of the pirate flag an attempt to deliberately sow dissent.

“We have detected and received input from security agencies that there is indeed an attempt to divide unity. My appeal to all the nation’s children is to unite and fight against such things,” he said.

Yohanes Sulaiman, a lecturer in international relations at Jenderal Achmad Yani University, told Al Jazeera that the government’s warnings were likely an attempt to clamp down on the show of symbolic dissent.

“I suspect they didn’t know how Prabowo would react and thus thought it better to show their loyalty and take the extreme position than be sorry later,” Sulaiman said.

The government threats had “backfired spectacularly”, he said, adding that it was left looking like a “laughing stock”.

“Saying that the flag has the potential of breaking apart the nation is too much. It is hyperbolic and nobody takes it seriously,” he said.

Sulaiman said the origins of the flag’s use in Indonesia could be traced back to truck drivers.

“Truckers were the ones first flying it to protest a recent regulation that forbade overweight trucks from hitting the road. If the government had just ignored it, the flag would have ended up on the back of trucks and nobody would have taken it seriously,” Sulaiman said.

“But, they had to make it about a national threat, a threat to national unity and disrespect of the national flag,” he said.

He added that the increased visibility of the pirate flag comes at a sensitive time in Indonesia – ahead of Independence Day – which is traditionally a moment for the government and the public to celebrate.

Ian Wilson, a lecturer in politics and security studies at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, said the flag furore demonstrated “sensitivity around perceptions of popularity” in the current government.

The flag as a symbol of protest appeared to be a more fragmented movement than recent and historical protests in Indonesia, Wilson said, which have traditionally been largely driven by students.

“Students are a more singular group, but this is a more dispersed phenomenon across different groups and parts of the country, which is indicative of widespread dissatisfaction. It touches a nerve due to the diffused representation,” he said.

“We are seeing this phenomenon in places like villages and by regular people in semi-rural areas, which are not conventional sites of dissent in Indonesia,” he added.

‘An expression of creativity’

According to reports by local Indonesian media, anime pirate flags have been seized in raids by authorities in East Java, while citizens found displaying them have been questioned in the Riau Islands.

So far, no one has been criminally charged, as flying the pirate flag is not technically illegal.

Usman Hamid, Amnesty International Indonesia’s executive director, said the raids were “a flagrant violation of the right to freedom of expression”.

“Raising an anime flag is not ‘treason’ or ‘propaganda to disunite the country’, as suggested by government officials,” Hamid said in a statement.

“Authorities, including lawmakers, must stop harassing people by threatening them with jail terms for ‘disrespecting the national flag’ and ‘treason’ if they raise One Piece flags,” he added.

Truck driver Adi told Al Jazeera that he had seen no indications that the government’s threats had had any impact on those flying the flag and that they could still be seen prominently on display across East Java – both on trucks and buildings.

“Why would I be scared of any sanctions?” Adi asked.

The president’s office has denied any involvement in the police confiscating flags or questioning civilians.

For his part, Prabowo – a retired army general who oversaw crackdowns on the 1998 student protests that precipitated the fall of the country’s longtime dictator President Soeharto – said that the flag was “an expression of creativity”.

Murdoch University’s Wilson said that the government had perhaps been rattled by the Dark Indonesia protests, which came early on in Prabowo’s presidency.

“No one wants that at the start [of a presidency], as they are trying to generate optimism,” Wilson said.

“But now, further down the track, people have some serious issues with government performance,” he said.

*Adi is a pseudonym as the interviewee did not want his name revealed for personal safety reasons when criticising the government.

About 350 French soldiers are leaving Senegal, marking the end of a departure process that began in March.

France has officially handed over its two remaining military bases in Senegal, leaving the onetime colonial power with no permanent presence in either West or Central Africa.

France returned Camp Geille, its largest base in Senegal, and its airfield at Dakar’s airport in a ceremony on Thursday attended by top French and Senegalese officials, including Senegalese Chief of the General Staff Mbaye Cisse and General Pascal Ianni, the head of the French forces in Africa.

The pullout ends the French army’s 65-year presence in Senegal and comes after similar withdrawals across the continent as former colonies increasingly turn their backs on the nation that once ruled them.

France’s withdrawal from Senegal also comes as the Sahel region faces a growing conflict. The violence across Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger is threatening Gulf of Guinea nations to the south.

About 350 French soldiers, who had primarily been tasked with conducting joint operations with the Senegalese army, are now leaving the country, marking the end of a departure process that began in March.

General Cisse said the handover marked “an important turning point in the rich and long military journey of our two countries”.

France is “reinventing partnerships in a dynamic Africa”, Ianni said. “We are turning a page in the military history of our two countries, … a very special relationship and one essential for the countries of the region.”

After storming to victory in elections last year by promising dramatic change, Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye demanded France withdraw its soldiers by 2025.

However, unlike the leaders of other former French colonies such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which are run by military governments, Faye has insisted that Senegal will keep working with Paris.

After gaining independence in 1960, Senegal became one of France’s staunchest African allies, playing host to French troops throughout its history.

Faye has also urged France to apologise for colonial atrocities, including the massacre on December 1, 1944, of dozens of African troops who had fought for France in World War II.

With governments across Africa increasingly questioning France’s military presence, Paris has closed or reduced the numbers of its soldiers at bases across its former empire.

In February, France handed back its sole remaining base in Ivory Coast, ending decades of French presence there.

The month before, France turned over the Kossei base in Chad, its last military foothold in the Sahel region.

Coups in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali from 2020 to 2023 have swept military strongmen to power. Their governments have collectively ejected 4,300 French soldiers. All three countries have cut ties with France and turned to Russia instead for help in fighting the Sahel’s decade-long unrest.

The Central African Republic, also a former French colony to which the Kremlin has sent mercenaries, has likewise demanded a French pullout.

Meanwhile, the French army has turned its base in Gabon into a camp shared with its Central African host.

Only the tiny Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti will be home to a permanent French army base after Thursday’s withdrawal. France intends to make that base with about 1,500 people its military headquarters for Africa.

Agreement allows the archipelago that endured unrest last year to be its own state but remain within French fold.

France has announced a “historic” deal with New Caledonia in which the South Pacific overseas territory, which was rocked by a wave of unrest last year over controversial electoral reforms, will be declared a new state.

The 13-page accord, reached on Saturday after negotiations in Paris between the French government and groups on both sides of the territory’s independence debate, proposes the creation of a “State of New Caledonia”, with its own nationality, but stops short of the independence sought by many Indigenous Kanaks.

“A State of New Caledonia within the Republic: it’s a bet on trust,” French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X, saying that the time had come for “respect, stability, and… goodwill to build a shared future”.

Under the agreement, New Caledonia would immediately control its foreign policy, but could put the transfer of additional sovereign powers over defence, currency, security and justice to a public vote, potentially paving the way to becoming a member state of the United Nations, according to French newspaper Le Monde.

Unrest broke out in May 2024, after Paris proposed a law allowing thousands of non-Indigenous long-term residents living in the territory to vote in provincial elections, diluting a 1998 accord that restricted these rights.

Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the territory’s population of nearly 300,000, feared the move would leave them in a permanent minority, diluting their influence and crushing their chances of winning independence.

The violence, in which 14 people were killed, is estimated to have cost the territory two billion euros ($2.3bn), shaving 10 percent off its gross domestic product (GDP), according to Manuel Valls, France’s minister for overseas territories.

The accord will help “us get out of the spiral of violence”, said Emmanuel Tjibaou, a Kanak lawmaker who took part in the talks.

Lawmaker Nicolas Metzdorf, who is in favour of remaining in the French fold, said the compromise deal was born of “demanding dialogue”, describing Caledonian nationality as a “real concession”.

Both chambers of France’s parliament are to meet in the fourth quarter of this year to vote on approving the deal, which is then to be submitted to New Caledonians in a referendum in 2026.

‘Intelligent compromise’

Located nearly 17,000km (10,600 miles) from Paris, New Caledonia has been governed from Paris since the 1800s.

Many Indigenous Kanaks still resent France’s power over their islands and want fuller autonomy or independence.

The last independence referendum in New Caledonia was held in 2021.

But it was boycotted by pro-independence groups over the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Kanak population, and the political situation in the archipelago has since been deadlocked.

Valls called Saturday’s deal an “intelligent compromise” that maintains links between France and New Caledonia, but with more sovereignty for the Pacific island.

The deal also calls for an economic and financial recovery pact that would include a renewal of the territory’s nickel processing capabilities.

July 4 (UPI) — Most Americans are all familiar with the reason we celebrate July Fourth as Independence Day.

This was the day in 1776 that the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence explaining why the Founding Fathers wanted to separate from Britain.

Though the American Revolutionary War formally began a year earlier with the Battles of Lexington and Concord and ended several years later, July 4, 1776, would forever come to mark the founding of the United States of America.

But in the years since, there have been other important events to take place on July 4th, marking great achievements and solemn moments in American history.

1802 — West Point opens

File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

Less than two decades after the conclusion of the American Revolution, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., opened on July 4, 1802. Two people graduated that first year; in 2025, that number had risen to 1,002.

1817 — Construction on Erie Canal begins

File Photo by Stephen Drew/National Park Service

The United States’ first man-made waterway, the Erie Canal was formally started on July 4, 1817. It was completed less than a decade later, in 1825. One of the most important trade routes of the 19th century, it connected the Great Lakes in the Midwest to the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River.

President George W. Bush named the canal the nation’s 23rd heritage corridor in 2000.

1826 — Two presidents die

Both Thomas Jefferson, a statue of whom is pictured, and John Adams contributed to the writing of the Declaration of Independence. File Photo by Pat Benic/UPI

In one of history’s most notable coincidences, John Adams (the second U.S. president) and Thomas Jefferson (the third) both died on July 4, 1826. Both of these Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence 50 years earlier. The one-time rivals maintained correspondence with each other in their years after leaving Washington, D.C.

1863 — Confederates surrender at Vicksburg

The Siege of Vicksburg, Miss., was seen as a major victor for Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who later went on to become president. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

On July 4, 1863, the yearlong Siege of Vicksburg came to an end amid the American Civil War. Confederate troops surrendered to the Union in Vicksburg, Miss., one day after defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. These two events marked a turning point in the war in favor of the North.

1884 — Statue of Liberty

File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

In a gesture not commonly seen at this size anymore, France gifted the United States the 305-foot Statue of Liberty on this day in 1884 to mark 100 years of independence. The government presented the copper statue to the U.S. ambassador in a ceremony in Paris. The statue would come to be one of the single most recognizable symbols of American freedom and identity.

The monument sustained damage in 2012 from Superstorm Sandy, but reopened to the public in 2013 after extensive repairs.

1895 — “America the Beautiful”

Katharine Lee Bates published her poem “America” on July 4, 1895. She said she was inspired to write the poem — initially called “Pikes Peak” and then simply “America” — during an 1893 trip to Pike’s Peak in Colorado. A church organist later added music to the poem and it became the famed song “America the Beautiful.”

1939 — The luckiest man on the face of the Earth

File Photo courtesy of Pacific & Atlantic Photos, Inc

On July 4, 1939, fans of America’s favorite pastime were rocked when one of the sports’s most beloved figures — Lou Gehrig — announced his retirement. Even worse, he revealed his diagnosis of a disease that would come to be known by his name, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a debilitating motor neuron disease.

Gehrig gave the emotional and memorable speech during Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day at Yankee Stadium in New York. He said:

“For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.”

1963 — Presidential Medal of Freedom

Opera singer Marion Anderson, pictured in 1987, was among the first 31 honorees of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. UPI File Photo

Nine months before his assassination, President John F. Kennedy signed an order establishing the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Each July 4th, the president would bestow the medals to people who have made exceptional contributions to the interests or national security of the United States.

On July 4, 1963, Kennedy announced the first 31 honorees, including opera singer Marian Anderson, ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, writer E.B. White, and artist Andrew Wyeth.

Kennedy died before a ceremony could be held to honor the winners, so it was held instead by President Lyndon B. Johnson in December 1963.

1965 — Annual Reminder

File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI

Taking part in one of the most American of traditions, LGBTQ demonstrators organized outside Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on July 4, 1965. Held each year through 1969, the demonstrators gathered at the site of the Second Continental Congress — where the Declaration was signed — to remind fellow Americans that LGBTQ people did not enjoy the same constitutional rights as the rest of the country. It was one of the earliest public events of the modern gay rights movement.

1997 — Pathfinder finds Mars

File Photo courtesy of NASA

On July 4, 1997, NASA landed its Pathfinder roving probe on Mars, the first U.S. spacecraft to land there in more than two decades. The mission ended a year later, but during that time it demonstrated a new way of landing on the Red Planet using airbags, analyzed the composition of rocks and soil, and used three cameras to take countless photos and document experiments.

Happy birthday!

File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

And finally, don’t forget these famous Americans born on the nation’s birthday: writer Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1804; songwriter Stephen Foster in 1826; circus operator James Bailey in 1847; astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt in 1868; Calvin Coolidge, 30th president of the United States, in 1872; cartoonist Rube Goldberg in 1883; Louis B. Mayer, film mogul /co-founder of MGM, in 1885; actor Gloria Stuart in 1910; advice columnists Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, twin sisters, in 1918; actor Eva Marie Saint in 1924 (age 101); playwright Neil Simon in 1927; New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in 1930; musician Bill Withers in 1938; TV reporter Geraldo Rivera in 1943 (age 82); musician Annette Beard (Martha and the Vandellas) in 1943 (age 82); activist Ron Kovic in 1946 (age 79); musician Ralph Johnson (Earth, Wind & Fire) in 1951 (age 74); chef Andrew Zimmern in 1961 (age 64); tennis player Pam Shriver in 1962 (age 63); musician Matt Malley (Counting Crows) in 1963 (age 62); actor/playwright Tracy Letts in 1965 (age 60); actor Becki Newton in 1978 (age 47); musician Post Malone in 1995 (age 30); Malia Obama, daughter of former President Barack Obama, in 1998 (age 27); actor Alex Hibbert in 2004 (age 21).

July 4 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming U.S. independence from Britain.

In 1826, in one of history’s notable coincidences, former U.S. Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died, 50 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

In 1863, Union troops defeated Confederate forces in a battle at Vicksburg, Miss.

In 1895, the poem “America the Beautiful,” by Wellesley College Professor Katherine Lee Bates, was published. The poem with music by Samuel A. Ward was published as a song in 1910.

In 1910, American boxer Jack Johnson took on former undefeated heavyweight champion James J. Jeffries, beating him in 15 rounds, to stake his claim as the as the greatest heavyweight in the world.

File Photo by Library of Congress/UPI

In 1939, Lou Gehrig gave his “luckiest man on the face of the Earth” speech in announcing his retirement from the New York Yankees. Gehrig had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a debilitating motor neuron disease. United Press writer Jack Cuddy wasn’t impressed with the Yankees’ “Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day,” saying doctors made up his ailment to explain his unexpected retirement.

In 1976, Israeli commandos raided the airport at Entebbe, Uganda, rescuing 103 hostages held by Arab militants.

In 1986, more than 250 sailing ships and the United States’ biggest fireworks display honored the Statue of Liberty in its 100th birthday year.

In 1995, the British Parliament reconfirmed John Majors as prime minister.

In 1997, NASA’s Pathfinder reached Mars to become the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the planet in more than two decades. Pathfinder returned more than 16,000 images and some 8.5 million measurements back to Earth before its final transmission on September, 27, 1997.

File Photo courtesy of NASA

In 2006, North Korea test-launched seven ballistic missiles in what it called “routine military exercises,” causing a firestorm of anger among its neighbors and the United States.

In 2010, U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus took command of the Afghan war, acknowledging the “tough fight” ahead for NATO forces while pledging “We are in this to win.”

In 2013, the Statue of Liberty reopened to the public nine months after it was closed because of damage caused by Hurricane Sandy.

In 2018, Hong Kong’s high court ruled unanimously that same-sex couples are entitled to spousal visas like married heterosexual couples.

In 2022, seven people died and dozens others were injured in a mass shooting during an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Ill., near Chicago. Far-right activist Robert Crimo III, then 22, was charged with murder for the shooting.

A participant of the March Fourth rally to ban assault weapons holds a sign for Eduardo Uvaldo, a victim of the Highland Park shooting, outside the Senate office buildings at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on July 13, 2022. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI

May 30 (UPI) — Nearly 100 million Mexicans are set to take part in an unprecedented election on June 1 that will reshape the country’s judiciary.

Voters will elect 881 judicial officials, including Supreme Court justices, electoral magistrates, district judges and circuit court magistrates, under a sweeping reform originally pushed by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and backed by current President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Initially presented in 2014 as a step toward democratizing justice and combating corruption, the reform has drawn mounting criticism from legal experts, academics and civil society organizations. Many warn it could erode judicial independence, increase political interference, and weaken the rule of law.

An analysis by Stanford Law School’s Rule of Law Impact Lab and the Mexican Bar Association warns that electing judges by popular vote compromises their independence and impartiality by aligning judicial decisions with public opinion rather than strictly with the law.

It also highlights the risk that judicial rulings will be influenced by judicial election campaign donors.

Academics, legal experts and civil society organizations have raised concerns about the complexity of the electoral process, highlighting several key issues.

First, the proposed reform has been criticized for a lack of clear criteria to assess candidates’ qualifications.

Candidates are only required to hold a law degree, have at least five years of professional experience, no criminal record, and a good reputation. Candidates are also asked to submit a legal essay and letters of recommendation.

Studies show that the selected candidates have, on average, 20 fewer years of experience than the judges they are replacing under the reform. Many of the candidates also come from outside the judiciary and lack the training and background needed to carry out judicial duties effectively.

Second, voters in Mexico have received limited information despite the complexity of the process, which includes six ballots and more than 7,000 candidates competing for 2,600 local and federal judicial seats.

The Judicial Electoral Observatory, or OEJ, has warned that voters are not receiving adequate information, compromising electoral fairness. One factor is that the National Electoral Institute, or INE, received 52% less funding than it requested, limiting its ability to provide outreach and education.

The OEJ also criticized the ballot design and inconsistent selection standards across the evaluation committees, saying these issues undermine the legitimacy of the process and make it difficult for voters to make informed choices.

Third, the judicial reform has raised serious concerns about the influence of political actors and power groups in the process. The complexity of the changes and the short, eight-month timeline to organize the election may have created openings for political parties to assert control in parts of the country.

Organizations including México Evalúa, the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics, or CIDE, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM, have warned that the system could allow political, economic or criminal interests to infiltrate the judiciary, especially in regions where organized crime is strong.

Many of the candidates have ties to the ruling party, said Luis F. Fernández, executive director of Practica: Laboratorio para la Democracia, in an interview with CNN en Español.

“We’ve identified others linked to the country’s 10 wealthiest businessmen, and more than 15 candidates connected to drug trafficking,” he said.

The popular election of judges is rare internationally and, where it exists, is usually limited to local or mid-level courts.

In most democratic countries, judges are appointed by technical committees, the judiciary or the executive branch with legislative approval. The goal is to preserve judicial independence and prevent politicization.

Mexico’s proposed model — a direct, large-scale, nationwide election of judges at all levels, including the Supreme Court — is unprecedented.

May 20 (UPI) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, marked the 123rd anniversary of Cuban Independence Day on Tuesday.

“On Cuba’s Independence Day, I want to express my unwavering support and solidarity for the Cuban people,” Rubio said in a prepared statement.

“I commend all those who have stood up against over six decades of brutal repression, censorship and human rights violations at the hands of the illegitimate Cuban regime,” Rubio said.

“Their tireless advocacy for a free, democratic and prosperous Cuba remains a beacon of hope and resistance for the world,” he added. “Today we honor their sacrifice, courage and resilience.”

Cuban Independence Day marks the anniversary of the date when Cuba officially became independent of Spain in 1902.

Cuban pro-democracy groups in the greater Miami area also are celebrating Cuban Independence Day with a rally scheduled in Tamiami Park during the evening hours, WFLA reported.

The rally’s aim is to pressure the Cuban dictatorship and communist government to leave the island nation.

Bay of Pigs Assault Brigade veteran Rafael Montalvo said President Donald Trump could help remove the Cuban regime through his foreign policy and “restore the island into a first-class destination,” according to the WFLA report.

Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants and in February expanded visa restrictions on Cuban officials and others who are forcing Cuban citizens to participate in the Cuban labor export programs.

Rubio said Cuban elites profit from the forced labor of workers, including skilled healthcare workers who are forced to provide healthcare services overseas.

The Cuban labor export program deprives Cubans of much-needed medical care, he said.

“The United States is committed to countering forced labor practices around the globe,” he added.

“To do so, we must promote accountability, not just for Cuban officials responsible for these policies, but also those complicit in the exploitation and forced labor of Cuban workers,” Rubio said.