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The Trump administration said Friday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio "is denying and revoking visas from members of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority" ahead of next month's United Nations General Assembly in New York.The US State Department said Friday that "the Trump administration has been clear: It is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace.""Before the PLO and PA can be considered partners for peace, they must consistently repudiate terrorism—including the October 7 massacre—and end incitement to terrorism in education, as required by US law and as promised by the PLO," the statement continues.No US administration in modern times has ever demanded that Israel repudiate its generations-long illegal occupation and settler colonization of Palestine, its ongoing genocide in Gaza, or any other violation of international law or human rights."The PA must also end its attempts to bypass negotiations through international lawfare campaigns, including appeals to the [International Criminal Court] and [International Court of Justice], and efforts to secure the unilateral recognition of a conjectural Palestinian state," the State Department added. "Both steps materially contributed to Hamas' refusal to release its hostages, and to the breakdown of the Gaza ceasefire talks."The ICC last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and the forced starvation of Palestinians, which is driving a famine that has killed at least hundreds of Palestinians and is starving hundreds of thousands more. The ICJ is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa, not the PA.As for ceasefire talks, Matthew Miller, who served as a State Department spokesperson during the Biden administration, recently admitted that Israel habitually torpedoed ceasefire agreements each time they were nearing a conclusion in what he called a sustained effort to "try and sabotage" a deal. Miller repeatedly stood at his podium and told reporters that Hamas was to blame for thwarting a truce.Miller added that Netanyahu openly admitted to US officials that he wanted to continue the Gaza war for "decades."It is not clear which Palestinian officials will have their visas denied or revoked. The office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement responding to the US announcement that "this decision stands in clear contradiction to international law and the UN Headquarters Agreement—which effectively shields UN member-state officials from US immigration policies—particularly since the state of Palestine is an observer member of the United Nations."Palestinian Presidency statement on US denial of visas for Palestinian officials: pic.twitter.com/cKfRuilBPy— State of Palestine (@Palestine_UN) August 29, 2025 This isn't the first time the US has blocked Palestinian officials from attending a General Assembly. In 1998, the Regan administration denied then-PLO Chair Yasser Arafat a visa and the General Assembly was convened in Geneva instead of New York. There have already been numerous calls to relocate this year's General Assembly to the Swiss city following the US move.The US announcement comes as more and more countries formally recognize Palestinian statehood or move to do so amid Israel's genocidal assault, siege, and famine in Gaza, which, combined, have left more than 230,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and the strip in ruins.Approximately 150 of the UN's 193 member states have officially recognized Palestine. Since October 2023, countries including Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, and Spain have either recognized Palestine or announced their intent to do so.

Beijing will roll out the red carpet for more than two dozen world leaders at two major events in the coming week

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainment of J.R. Tucker High School student Armand Momand constitutes a constitutional outrage.Because of his father’s service to the U.S. government in Afghanistan, Momand has legal U.S. immigration status. Yet ICE agents took him into custody Aug. 8 after convictions in an Henrico County court for driving more than 20 miles an hour over the speed limit and disorderly conduct, both misdemeanors. Now, the government that Momand’s father risked his life to serve in fighting terrorism wants to deport his 19-year-old son, despite the young man’s lawful presence in the United States.The deportation debacle ordered by President Donald Trump has turned into a nightmare of lies and unconstitutional behavior.Trump’s demonization of immigrants in the name of nationalism doesn’t get much worse than betraying those who placed themselves in harm’s way to support this country.On its website, ICE lists criminal convictions which would cause the service to detain an immigrant because they pose “a public safety or national security threat.”The list includes burglaries and robberies. It includes kidnapping, homicide, sexual assault, and weapons offenses. It includes drug trafficking, and human trafficking.What the list does not include are Momand’s convictions for reckless driving for going more than 20 miles an hour over the speed or misdemeanor disorderly conduct, a charge which prosecutors reduced from an original felony charge for eluding or disregarding police. To detain an immigrant, federal law requires ICE to have “probable cause” to believe the immigrant has committed a federal crime or is illegally residing in this country.Momand has done neither, his lawyer, Miriam Airington-Fisher, told me in an interview. Public records that I looked at show that a Virginia district court judge gave Momand no jail time for his state convictions on August 8. Yet ICE detained him to consider for deportation. According to Airington-Fisher, Momand is a legal resident of this country who is pursuing permanent legal status and eventually U.S. citizenship. Momand was born in Afghanistan. Momand’s father received a Special Immigration Visa to bring his wife and children to America because he helped the U.S. military during its fight against Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan. The visas granted to Momand’s father and his family come with extensive vetting and reflect the deadly Taliban retribution faced by Afghanis who worked with Americans.Virginia court records show no other criminal history for Momand. Airington-Fisher told me that is because the teenager has none. Ironically, Momand’s continued detention by ICE forced him to reschedule a green card interview set for Aug. 14, Airington-Fisher said.ICE has offered no legal explanation for Momand’s imprisonment to his lawyers or family, Airington-Fisher added. “We received a notice to appear at a hearing to initiate deportation,” she explained.That Aug. 25 hearing was postponed because of a “crowded” court docket, Airington-Fisher told me a day later. Now, to argue for bond, Momand, a legal U.S. resident, must wait until a rescheduled hearing on Sept. 8. He must spend a month in a federal detention center and miss the first two weeks of school. This is what passes for a speedy trial in Trump’s nationalist crackdown on a legal teen immigrant. Momand, his family, and lawyers remain “completely in the dark” about the legal justification for the young man’s imprisonment, Airington-Fisher said. “ICE can’t dissolve his visa status,” Airington-Fisher told me. “We do not believe his detention is legal.” The ICE detainee database shows Momand is being held at the Abyon Farmville Detention Center. On Aug. 19, I asked ICE if Momand had been charged with any crimes, and if so, what crimes. The media office acknowledged my request, but has yet to get back to me with an answer. “You can’t just arrest someone and then figure out whether they did anything wrong,” immigration lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, a partner with the firm Murray Osorio, said in an interview on Aug. 19. “What was the probable cause to think this person committed a federal crime or was illegally in the country?”Sandoval-Moshenberg represents Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the man ICE seized and was mistakenly deported by the Trump administration to a brutal El Salvadoran prison in defiance of a federal court order.As Momand’s Aug. 25 hearing was being postponed in Virginia, ICE was again detaining Abrego Garcia for deportation three days after a judge ordered his release from custody as he awaits trial on federal criminal charges by the Trump administration. Sandoval-Moshenberg stressed that situations like Momand’s are very different from the Abrego Garcia case, which involves allegations of criminal felonies.Momand’s case deals with basic constitutional rights such as being told of the charges against him and the right to a bond hearing so he could go to school between legal hearings and the constitutional requirement that the government must justify its legal right to deport him.Most of all, Momand’s case involves the Trump administration’s detention of immigrants living legally in the United States without probable cause.Finally, Momand’s case deals with Trump’s disrespect for the Special Immigration Visas meant to protect people who faced death constantly to help America fight ruthless terrorists. This is why the law provides Special Immigrant Visa holders an opportunity to get a green card and an eventual path to American citizenship.Asked about Momand’s detention by journalists, Virginia Gov. Glen Youngkin treated the young man as a dangerous criminal who deserved to be in custody while he is investigated for charges that had already been litigated and resolved. Youngkin got it backwards. And he took the position that misdemeanor convictions in a traffic incident qualify as proof of a national security risk.Under Trump’s indiscriminate immigrant removal policies, immigrants can no longer rely on being in the U.S. legally to protect themselves from being harassed and possibly deported, Adam Bates, senior supervisory lawyer for the International Refugee Assistance Project, told me.“People now do everything they are supposed to, but they get grabbed off the street for doing nothing wrong,” Bates told me. I have met two Afghans who worked with the American government and who currently live in the U.S. One barely eluded capture by the Taliban as he set up forward communications systems for U.S. Marines. The other risked attack each day for translating in public for an American military contractor.They, and others like them, worked knowing the fate of people like Sohail Pardis, an Afghani interpreter beheaded by the Taliban for aiding the American government.The system for granting immigrants who helped America fight terrorism special visas is exhaustive and time-consuming.For the Trump administration to now turn its back on foreigners who risked their lives on America’s behalf to pursue a nationalist deportation policy that demonizes all immigrants is cruel and self-destructive. The policy betrays constitutional and moral principles, not to mention national security. “It is horrific the extent to which we put people in mortal danger to help with our war effort and then toss them aside like used candy wrappers,” said Sandoval-Moshenberg. “It is going to have disastrous long-term foreign policy consequences.”In Virginia, the ICE handling of Arman Momand should also have consequences. If it proves anything, it proves that immigrants are not and have never been America’s enemy.

Israeli military announces move in Gaza City as it steps up attacks before planned offensiveIsrael’s military will no longer pause fighting to allow aid deliveries in Gaza City, a military spokesperson has said, in a decision likely to deepen the famine already gripping the north of the territory.Israeli forces have been stepping up attacks in and around Gaza City as the military prepares for a ground operation that humanitarian groups and many of Israel’s closest allies have warned will be catastrophic for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians already struggling to survive hunger, disease and Israeli attacks. Continue reading...

Bolivian opposition leader Luis Fernando Camacho has been released from jail after nearly three years in pretrial detention

While the Trump administration has rationalized its escalating hostilities with Venezuela as an effort to combat drug trafficking, several officials within the Trump administration are suggesting there to be an ulterior motive behind the escalation.President Donald Trump ordered eight warships carrying 4,500 troops this week to sit off the coast of Venezuela in what the administration described as an “enhanced counter narcotics operation.” Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro has seen a $50 million bounty placed on him by Trump for what his administration says is his involvement in drug trafficking.Three Trump officials, however, say there’s more to the operation than meets the eye, speaking with Axios under the condition of anonymity and reported by the outlet on Friday.“Leaving Maduro in power in Venezuela is like making Jeffrey Epstein the head of a daycare,” said a Trump official, suggesting regime change may be an unofficial goal of the increased hostilities.Another Trump official likened the operation to the United States’ operation to capture Panama President Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno, who in 1989 was captured after the United States invaded the Central American nation.“This could be Noriega part 2,” a second Trump official told Axios. “The president has asked for a menu of options, and ultimately, this is the president's decision about what to do next, but Maduro should be s------- bricks.”The United States has a long history of enacting regime change in South America, sometimes through direct military intervention, and others, through more covert operations. Perhaps the most prominent example is the United States-backed coup in 1973 that overthrew the democratically-elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, done so largely at the behest of American mining and communications companies that were stripped of their control of Chile’s labor and resources under Allende’s leadership.A third Trump official told Axios that, while the operation was still largely about combatting drug trafficking, ousting Maduro would also be a favorable outcome.“This is 105% about narco-terrorism,” the official said. “But if Maduro winds up no longer in power, no one will be crying.”

President Trump is slashing $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid funding through a rarely-used budgetary maneuver known as pocket rescissions, an administration official said.

Israeli forces operating in the Gaza Strip recovered the body of a 55-year-old man who was taken hostage and murdered by Hamas during their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, officials said Friday.