AFP - Squid Business

Wimbledon: Djokovic éliminé, nouvelle finale Alcaraz-Sinner

Son of Mexico’s ‘El Chapo’ pleads guilty in US drugs case: report

A son of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman pleaded guilty to narcotics charges in a Chicago court Friday, US media said, part of a deal he struck with prosecutors in return for a reduced sentence.Nicknamed “El Raton,” or “The Mouse,” Ovidio Guzman signed a deal dated June 30 indicating he would enter a guilty plea to avoid a jury trial and a potentially harsher sentence had he been convicted.The guilty plea was formalized during a hearing in a Chicago court after months of negotiation with the justice department — the first time one of El Chapo’s sons has inked a deal with prosecutors. Ovidio Guzman, 35, is accused of conspiring in a continuing criminal enterprise, importing and distributing fentanyl, laundering money, and using firearms.His formal guilty plea, reported by the local CBS2 broadcaster, will likely result in a far shorter prison term than the life sentence given to his father El Chapo following a high-profile trial held in 2018.He could offer US authorities “valuable information” about the cartel and its protectors, Mike Vigil, former head of operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told AFP.His lawyers and prosecutors did not respond to requests for comment.Ovidio Guzman gained prominence in October 2019 when Mexican authorities detained him — only to release him later on orders from then president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador amid a standoff between law enforcement and gang members.Ovidio Guzman was recaptured in January 2023, while Lopez Obrador was still in office, and later extradited to the United States.US authorities accuse Ovidio and his three brothers of leading Los Chapitos, a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel designated by the administration of US President Donald Trump as a global “terrorist” organization. His father, one of the world’s most infamous drug traffickers, is serving a life sentence in a US prison.The United States alleges Ovidio Guzman and his associates trafficked fentanyl into the country, where the opioid epidemic is linked to tens of thousands of deaths.The Sinaloa cartel is one of six Mexican drug trafficking groups that Trump has designated as terrorist organizations.Another son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, was arrested after arriving in the United States last July on a private plane with cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who claimed he had been kidnapped.The arrests sparked cartel infighting that has left more than 1,200 people dead and 1,400 missing in Sinaloa state, located in northwestern Mexico.In its aggressive policy against drug cartels, the Trump administration announced additional sanctions against Los Chapitos in June for fentanyl trafficking and increased the reward to $10 million for each of the fugitive brothers.

US State Department begins laying off more than 1,300 employees

The US State Department began laying off more than 1,300 employees on Friday as part of President Donald Trump’s campaign to massively downsize the federal government workforce.A State Department official said 1,107 members of the civil service and 246 Foreign Service employees were being informed that they were being fired.The layoffs at the department come three days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to begin carrying out mass firings of federal workers.The conservative-dominated top court lifted a temporary block imposed by a lower court on Trump’s plans to potentially lay off tens of thousands of government employees.The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) condemned the State Department layoffs, calling them “a catastrophic blow to our national interests.””At a moment of great global instability — with war raging in Ukraine, conflict between Israel and Iran, and authoritarian regimes testing the boundaries of international order — the United States has chosen to gut its frontline diplomatic workforce,” AFSA said in a statement.”We oppose this decision in the strongest terms.”The State Department employed over 80,000 people worldwide last year, according to a fact sheet, with around 17,700 in domestic roles.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a major restructuring of his department at the end of April, sharing an article on social media site X that suggested plans for cuts to 15 percent of staff.Since returning to the White House, Trump has made reducing the federal workforce one of his main priorities, pursuing drastic cuts to jobs and spending through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) previously headed by Elon Musk.The US Agency for International Development, the primary vehicle to provide US assistance around the world, was among the agencies gutted by DOGE.According to The Washington Post, State Department employees were being informed of their firings by email.Foreign Service officers will lose their jobs 120 days after receiving the notice and will be immediately placed on administrative leave while civil service employees will be separated after 60 days, the newspaper said.Ned Price, who served as State Department spokesman under Democratic former president Joe Biden, condemned the layoffs as haphazard.”For all the talk about ‘merit-based,’ they’re firing officers based on where they happen to be assigned on this arbitrary day,” Price said on X. “It’s the laziest, most inefficient, and most damaging way to lean the workforce.”Former ambassador Barbara Leaf, Biden’s top Middle East diplomat, said the move “will have terrible consequences for our ability to protect American citizens abroad, pursue and defend the national interest and our national security.””This is not a re-org. This is a purge,” Leaf said in a post on LinkedIn.

US appeals court scraps 9/11 mastermind’s plea deal

A US appeals court on Friday scrapped 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s plea agreement that would have taken the death penalty off the table and helped conclude the long-running legal saga surrounding his case.The agreement had sparked anger among some relatives of victims of the 2001 attacks, and then-US defense secretary Lloyd Austin moved to cancel it last year, saying that both they and the American public deserved to see the defendants stand trial.Austin “acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment,” judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao wrote.Plea deals with Mohammed as well as two alleged accomplices — Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi — were announced in late July last year.The decision appeared to have moved their cases toward resolution after years of being bogged down in pre-trial maneuverings while the defendants remained held at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba.But Austin withdrew the agreements two days after they were announced, saying the decision should be up to him, given its significance.He subsequently said that “the families of the victims, our service members and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commission trials carried out in this case.”A military judge ruled in November that the deals were valid and binding, but the government appealed that decision.The appeals court judges on Friday vacated “the military judge’s order of November 6, 2024, preventing the secretary of defense’s withdrawal from the pretrial agreements.”And they prohibited the military judge “from conducting hearings in which respondents would enter guilty pleas or take any other action pursuant to the withdrawn pretrial agreements.”Much of the legal jousting surrounding the 9/11 defendants’ cases has focused on whether they could be tried fairly after having undergone torture at the hands of the CIA — a thorny issue that the plea agreements would have avoided.Mohammed was regarded as one of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s most trusted lieutenants before his March 2003 capture in Pakistan. He then spent three years in secret CIA prisons before arriving at Guantanamo in 2006.The trained engineer — who has said he masterminded the 9/11 attacks “from A to Z” — was involved in a string of major plots against the United States, where he attended university.The United States used Guantanamo, an isolated naval base, to hold militants captured during the “War on Terror” that followed the September 11 attacks in a bid to keep the defendants from claiming rights under US law.The facility held roughly 800 prisoners at its peak, but they have since slowly been sent to other countries. A small fraction of that number remain.

Archer strikes on Test return before India’s Gill falls cheaply

England fast bowler Jofra Archer struck an early blow as he made a thrilling return to Test cricket at Lord’s on Friday before in-form India captain Shubman Gill fell cheaply.Archer removed Yashasvi Jaiswal with just his third ball after more than four years of injury-induced exile from Test cricket.Gill, who had previously made a mammoth 585 runs in four innings this series, including three hundreds, was later caught behind for a mere 16.India were 145-3 in reply to England’s first-innings 387 at stumps on the second day of the third Test, a deficit of 242 runs.KL Rahul was 53 not out alongside Rishabh Pant, unbeaten on 19. Express quick Archer shone at Lord’s during England’s 2019 50-over World Cup final win and also made his Test debut that season at the ground, where his bouncer concussed Australia’s Steve Smith.With just his third ball Friday, the 30-year-old unleashed a 90 mph full-length delivery that had a squared-up Jaiswal edging to Harry Brook at second slip.Archer roared in celebration, with the often restrained crowd at a sun-drenched Lord’s joining in.- ‘X-factor’ Archer -England’s backing for Archer, in the hope he can star in the 2025/26 Ashes in Australia, has often been questioned during his lengthy absence.But the way he several times topped 90 mph during a miserly return of 1-22 in 10 overs was a reminder of Archer’s quality.”The noise, the pure joy everyone has seeing him (Archer) back in whites, everyone’s genuine excitement to see him playing Test cricket again, it created a great atmosphere,” England’s Joe Root told Sky Sports after stumps.”He’s X-factor,” added Root, who completed a hundred on Friday before setting a new Test record of 211 catches by an outfielder.England captain Ben Stokes’s career has been blighted by injuries and there were fresh concerns when he suffered a groin strain batting on Thursday.But the lively seamer, in no obvious discomfort, reduced India to 74-2 when Karun Nair (40) edged him low to first slip where Root held a brilliant left-handed catch to take outright possession of a record he had shared with India great Rahul Dravid. Veteran all-rounder Chris Woakes’ three previous wickets this series had come at a hugely expensive average of nearly 97 apiece.But the 36-year-old still had Gill edging defensively to wicketkeeper Jamie Smith, who held a good catch standing up to the stumps, with India now 107-3.Earlier, Jasprit Bumrah gained a coveted place on the Lord’s honours boards with a five-wicket haul before England paceman Brydon Carse’s maiden Test fifty frustrated India. Bumrah, the world’s top-ranked Test bowler, took 5-74 in 27 overs as England were dismissed after lunch.Bumrah’s haul included a sensational spell of 3-1 in seven balls Friday, with the fast bowler dismissing Stokes, century-maker Root and Woakes.”It’s really special,” the 31-year-old Bumrah told the BBC. “We don’t come here (to Lord’s) very often, maybe every four years… Being on the honours board feels good.”But Carse made 56 after he shared an eighth-wicket stand of 84 with Smith, out for 51 after Rahul dropped him in the slips on five.That followed Smith’s excellent 184 not out and 88 during India’s crushing 336-run win in the second Test at Edgbaston last week, where the tourists levelled this five-match series at 1-1 despite resting Bumrah.Root, 99 not out overnight, went to a hundred Friday with a first-ball boundary off Bumrah.His 37th Test century took Root into fifth place on an all-time list headed by India’s Sachin Tendulkar with 51 hundreds.”I don’t think I’ve been 99 not out overnight before,” said Root. “I woke up in the night and couldn’t get back to sleep.”Stokes had added just five runs to his overnight 39 when he was bowled by a Bumrah delivery that jagged back. Next ball, Woakes fell for a golden duck following a thin edge to reserve wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel, deputising for the injured Pant. Carse survived the hat-trick delivery but Bumrah later bowled Archer to complete his five-wicket haul.Carse was dropped either side of completing a 77-ball fifty in style by driving Mohammed Siraj for six before the paceman bowled him to end England’s innings.

Après un premier désarmement symbolique, le PKK prêt à la politique sous condition

Le Parti des Travailleurs du Kurdistan (PKK) a entamé vendredi dans le nord de l’Irak un désarmement symbolique censé mettre fin à l’un des plus anciens conflits de la région, mais réclame la libération de son chef historique pour aller plus avant.Lors d’une cérémonie dans le nord de l’Irak, au coeur de la région autonome du Kurdistan, une trentaine de combattants en treillis, hommes et femmes, dont quatre commandants, ont jeté tour à tour fusils et cartouchières dans une grande vasque à laquelle ils ont mis le feu.Deux hauts responsables du mouvement, une femme, Bese Hozat, puis un homme, Behzat Carçel, se sont relayés pour lire un communiqué saluant une “opération historique et démocratique”, sous les vivats de quelque 300 personnes émues aux larmes, selon une journaliste de l’AFP.”Nous espérons que cette démarche apportera la paix et la liberté. Notre peuple a plus que jamais besoin d’une vie pacifique, libre, équitable et démocratique”, ont-ils dit.Mais dans un entretien sur place à l’AFP, Bese Hozat, coprésidente du Parti, a exigé la libération de son fondateur et chef historique Abdullah Öcalan, 76 ans, détenu en Turquie depuis 26 ans sur une île au large d’Istanbul.”C’est notre exigence première et une condition fondamentale” pour poursuivre le processus de paix, a-t-elle insisté, en réclamant par ailleurs des garanties de sécurité et des réformes pour que les combattants kurdes regagnent la Turquie et pour y rejoindre la vie politique.- “Turquie sans terrorisme” -Le président turc Recep Tayyip Erdogan, qui ne s’est pas engagé sur ce point, a salué avec cette cérémonie une “étape importante vers une Turquie sans terrorisme”.Le PKK est considéré comme terroriste par la Turquie et ses alliés occidentaux.Des représentants des autorités irakiennes et kurdes d’Irak ainsi que du parti turc pro-kurde DEM et des membres des services de renseignement turcs, selon des médias locaux, ont assisté à la destruction des armes devant la grotte de Casene, à 50 km à l’ouest de Souleimaniyeh, connue pour avoir notamment abrité l’imprimerie qui a publié l’un des premiers journaux kurdes.Les combattants ont ensuite regagné leurs bases dans les montagnes irakiennes de Qandil où ils sont basés, selon un responsable du parti.Avec ce désarmement, le PKK, affaibli militairement, peut sauver la face, tout en permettant au président Erdogan de revendiquer une victoire sur une insurrection qui dure depuis des décennies, selon les analystes.Ankara s’est félicité d’un “tournant irréversible”, d’une “opportunité de protéger des vies innocentes”, assurant sa “détermination à soutenir tous les efforts en faveur du désarmement, de la stabilité et d’une réconciliation durable dans la région”.De son côté, la France “souhaite que la dissolution du PKK se poursuive, soit effective et vérifiable, qu’elle permette de tourner définitivement la page de la violence (…)”, selon un communiqué du Quai d’Orsay. Le processus de paix initié à l’automne doit permettre de tourner la page de décennies de violences qui ont fait au moins 40.000 morts et tenter d’apporter des réponses à la question kurde aux niveaux national et régional, selon les experts.Le 27 février, Abdullah Öcalan avait appelé le mouvement à “déposer les armes et (…) à se dissoudre”, affirmant “assumer la responsabilité historique de cet appel”.C’est paradoxalement l’allié du président Erdogan, le chef du parti nationaliste MHP, Devlet Bahceli, qui a tendu la main à l’ennemi public, lui proposant d’appeler les combattants à renoncer à la lutte armée.Mercredi, dans un message vidéo en turc, “Apo” (oncle) comme l’appellent les fidèles d’Öcalan, a confirmé l’imminence du désarmement.- “Politique et paix sociale” -“Je crois au pouvoir de la politique et de la paix sociale et non des armes. Et je vous appelle à mettre ce principe en pratique”, a-t-il insisté.Le chef de l’Etat turc avait récemment dit son espoir que ce processus se conclurait “le plus rapidement possible, sans obstacle, ni risque de sabotage”.Avec ce premier succès, il souhaite apparaître comme celui qui a maîtrisé l’insurrection kurde et espère ainsi diviser les deux principaux partis d’opposition, le CHP et le DEM pro-kurde.Selon un commandant du PKK, cette première cérémonie était un “geste de bonne volonté”.L’historien des mouvements kurdes Boris James a relevé l’absence “d’acteur tiers pour garantir la probité du processus”. Selon lui, “une très forte défiance subsiste entre le PKK et l’Etat turc; l’Etat a donné peu de gages” aux combattants kurdes auxquels aucune amnistie n’a été promise à ce stade.Ils ont régulièrement dénoncé la poursuite des bombardements turcs sur leurs positions en Irak malgré le processus en cours dont une attaque de drones vendredi avant le début de la cérémonie.Depuis les derniers violents combats dans la ville turque à majorité kurde de Diyarbakir (sud-est) en 2015, les combattants du PKK sont principalement restés cantonnés dans les montagnes de Qandil, en Irak, soumis également aux opérations de ratissage de l’armée turque.

Après un premier désarmement symbolique, le PKK prêt à la politique sous condition

Kurdish PKK fighters destroy weapons at disarmament ceremony

Thirty PKK fighters destroyed their weapons at a symbolic ceremony in Iraqi Kurdistan on Friday, two months after the Kurdish rebels ended their decades-long armed struggle against the Turkish state.The ceremony marked a major step in the transition of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) from armed insurgency to democratic politics as part of a broader effort to end one of the region’s longest-running conflicts.Analysts say that with the PKK weakened and the Kurdish public exhausted by decades of violence, Turkey’s peace offer handed its jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan a chance to make the long-desired switch away from armed struggle. The PKK’s disarmament also grants President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the distinction of being the Turkish leader who managed to draw a line under a conflict that has cost more than 40,000 lives and wrought havoc in Turkey and beyond. Outside the ancient cave of Casene, a group of 30 PKK fighters, men and women, gathered on a stage in khaki fatigues, their faces uncovered, in front of an audience of around 300 people, an AFP correspondent reported. One by one, they walked down to lay their weapons in a cauldron in which a fire was lit. Most were rifles but there was one machine gun and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. As they looked on, people in the crowd started cheering while others could be heard weeping. After the ceremony, the fighters returned to the mountains, a PKK commander said.- Ocalan’s freedom ‘essential’ -Speaking to AFP after the ceremony, the PKK’s top female commander Bese Hozat said that for the process to succeed, it was essential to release Ocalan — known to his followers as ‘Apo’ — who has been serving life in solitary confinement since 1999. “Ensuring Leader Apo’s physical freedom via legal guarantees is essential… he should be able to freely lead and manage this process. This is our primary condition and demand,” she said. “Without this development, it is highly unlikely that the process will continue successfully.”Erdogan hailed the ceremony as an “important step” on the path to a “terror-free Turkey”, expressing hope it would lead to “the establishment of lasting peace in our region”. A senior Turkish official source described it as “an irreversible turning point”, saying the move to decommission weapons was part of a broader process that would ultimately involve the legal return of former fighters and their reintegration into society. PKK militants have insisted on the need for legal reform in Turkey to allow them to return home and engage in democratic politics, commander Hozat told AFP. “If Turkey… enacts laws and implements radical legal reforms… we will go to Turkey and engage in politics,” she said. “If there is no legal constitutional arrangements, we will either end up in prison or being killed.”- ‘New era’ for Kurds -Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM party, which played a key role in facilitating contacts between Ocalan and Ankara, hailed the ceremony as the start of a “new era for the Kurdish issue”. It also filed a legal petition for the release of former top pro-Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas, who was jailed in 2016 and sentenced last year to 42 years for his alleged role in a series of deadly 2014 protests. France’s foreign ministry said it welcomed Friday’s ceremony, adding it hoped the PKK’s dissolution would “be effective and verifiable”, bring an end to the violence, and “give rise to an inclusive political process”.The PKK took up arms in 1984, beginning a string of bloody attacks on Turkish soil.But more than four decades on, the PKK in May announced its dissolution and said it would pursue a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority in line with a historic call by Ocalan.Earlier this week, Ocalan said the disarmament process would be “implemented swiftly”.In recent months, the PKK has taken several historic steps, starting with a ceasefire and culminating in its formal dissolution announced on May 12.The shift followed a historic appeal at the end of February by Ocalan, 76, who has spent the past 26 years behind bars.

“Douleur dans l’âme”: la Bosnie commémore le génocide de Srebrenica, 30 ans après

Des milliers de personnes endeuillées ont commémoré vendredi à Srebrenica le génocide commis il y a trente ans par les forces serbes de Bosnie, l’un des pires massacres perpétrés sur le sol européen depuis la Deuxième Guerre mondiale.Les restes de sept victimes ont été inhumés pendant les commémorations de cet épisode le plus sanglant du conflit intercommunautaire bosnien des années 1990.Ils comprenaient ceux de Sejdalija Alic, qui faisait partie des plus de 8.000 musulmans tués par les combattants serbes de Bosnie qui venaient de s’emparer de cette ville de l’est du pays, le 11 juillet 1995. – “Pas de mots pour le décrire” -Sa petite-fille, Anela Anic, dont le père a aussi péri dans ce massacre et a été enterré plus tôt, assiste aux funérailles: “Je n’ai jamais vu mon père (…) et, aujourd’hui, mon grand-père est enterré, juste quelques ossements, à côté de son fils”, dit-elle. “C’est une profonde tristesse (…). Je n’ai pas de mots pour le décrire”, ajoute cette femme de 32 ans en pleurs. Elle est née au début de l’année 1994 après l’évacuation de sa mère enceinte hors de Srebrenica par un convoi de la Croix-Rouge. Les corps des personnes tuées dans cette ville, à l’époque une enclave protégée par les Nations unies, avaient été jetés dans des fosses communes. A ce jour, 7.000 d’entre elles ont été identifiées et enterrées tandis que quelque 1.000 autres sont toujours recherchées. Essayant de dissimuler la gravité des crimes, les forces serbes bosniennes avaient organisé des opérations de déplacements de cadavres, souvent déchiquetés par les machines lourdes et transportés vers plusieurs fosses communes dites “secondaires”, selon les experts.- “Une pierre tombale à caresser” -“Depuis trente ans, nous portons la douleur dans nos âmes. Nos enfants ont été tués innocents dans la zone protégée de l’ONU. L’Europe et le monde ont observé, muets, la tuerie de nos enfants”, explique Munira Subasic, la présidente de l’association des mères de Srebrenica, dont le mari Hilmo et le fils Nermin, 17 ans, ont alors péri.Un homme et une femme respectivement âgés de 19 ans et de 67 ans au moment du massacre font aussi partie des sept victimes enterrées sous des pierres tombales blanches après une prière commune au cours des commémorations au Centre mémorial Srebrenica-Potocari. Leurs familles ont patienté pendant plusieurs années avant de les inhumer, espérant que d’autres restes seraient retrouvés.Mais Mevlida Omerovic a décidé de ne plus attendre et a donné son accord pour l’enterrement des restes de son mari, Hasib, tué à 33 ans sur l’un des cinq lieux d’exécutions de masse au moment de ce massacre, le seul épisode du conflit bosnien (1992-1995) qualifié de génocide par la justice internationale. “Trente années sont passées et je n’ai plus rien à attendre”, raconte Mme Omerovic, 55 ans, qui souhaite pouvoir se recueillir sur la tombe de son mari, même si, dans le cercueil, il n’y aura que sa mâchoire.En se rendant sur leurs sépultures, les proches des victimes essaient de trouver du réconfort. “Je n’ai que cette pierre tombale à caresser, pour prier”, déplore Sefika Mustafic, debout à côté des tombes de ses fils Enis et Salim, tous les deux adolescents quand ils ont perdu la vie. “J’aimerais rêver d’eux mais je n’y arrive pas,” ajoute-t-elle.- Une “profonde cicatrice” -L’ancien combattant canadien Daniel Chénard, déployé sur place avec les forces de maintien de la paix de l’ONU d’octobre 1993 à mars 1994, a assisté aux commémorations. Depuis des décennies, il est hanté par un sentiment de culpabilité. “Je me suis pardonné (…). J’ai trouvé la paix. J’ai toujours voulu leur dire (aux familles) je suis désolé (…), je suis désolé de vous avoir abandonnés”, dit-il. Avec les troupes de l’ONU, “on a fait ce qu’on pouvait (…) mais en vrai la tragédie est arrivée”, confie cet homme de 58 ans, en pleurs.”Srebrenica reste une profonde cicatrice dans l’histoire européenne”, a résumé la commissaire européenne à l’Elargissement Marta Kos, qui a assisté aux cérémonies. “Il est de notre devoir de nous en souvenir”, a-t-elle ajouté.Les anciens chefs politiques et militaires des Serbes de Bosnie, Radovan Karadzic et Ratko Mladic, ont été condamnés à la perpétuité par la justice internationale pour crimes de guerre et génocide. Mais la gravité de ce crime continue à être relativisée par de nombreux dirigeants politiques serbes, en Bosnie et en Serbie.L’ONU a créé en 2024 une Journée internationale de commémoration du génocide de Srebrenica, le 11 juillet, malgré les protestations de Belgrade et des Serbes de Bosnie. Le président de la Serbie Aleksandar Vucic a présenté vendredi ses condoléances aux familles des personnes tuées à Srebrenica au nom des citoyens de son pays, qualifiant le massacre de “crime terrible”. “Nous ne pouvons pas modifier le passé mais nous devons changer l’avenir”, a-t-il posté sur X.Dans la soirée, plusieurs dizaines de personnes se sont rassemblées à l’appel d’organisations non gouvernementales dans le centre de Belgrade pour allumer des bougies à la mémoire des victimes de la tuerie de Srebrenica.rus-al-oz-ljv/bds/liu