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US President Donald Trump sharply escalated his threats against Venezuela on Saturday with an ominous warning that the country’s airspace should be considered “closed,” raising fears of imminent military action.Caracas, which views a large US military buildup in the Caribbean as a pressure campaign to oust President Nicolas Maduro, slammed Trump’s warning as a “colonialist threat.””To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers,” Trump wrote on social media, “please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.”He did not elaborate, but after months of deadly US strikes on alleged drug-running boats, speculation is mounting that Washington may launch some sort of military operation on Venezuelan soil.Trump’s warning comes days after US aviation regulators told airlines to use increased caution near Venezuela over the mounting tensions, prompting multiple major carriers to suspend flights.Maduro’s government then issued a ban on the airlines for “joining the actions of state terrorism promoted by the United States government.”A statement by the Venezuelan foreign ministry called the US president’s latest remarks a “new extravagant, illegal, and unjustified aggression against the people of Venezuela.”It warned that the airspace disruptions would also mean a halt to repatriation flights of Venezuelan migrants from the United States, a key Trump administration initiative.Venezuela’s military on Saturday also conducted exercises along coastal areas, with video broadcast on state TV showing antiaircraft weapons and other artillery being maneuvered.- ‘By land’ -Though Trump has not publicly threatened to use force to remove Maduro, he said this week that efforts to halt Venezuelan drug trafficking “by land” would begin “very soon.”Maduro’s re-election last year was widely rejected by the international community as fraudulent, while Washington also claims the leftist leader heads an alleged terrorist-designated drug cartel.A steady buildup of US naval and air assets in the region has seen the world’s largest aircraft carrier move to the Caribbean, while American fighter jets and bombers have repeatedly flown off the Venezuelan coast in recent days.US media reported that, despite the bellicose posturing, Trump and Maduro spoke last week.The New York Times reported on Friday that Trump and Maduro had discussed a possible meeting, while the Wall Street Journal on Saturday said the conversation also included conditions of amnesty if Maduro were to step down.Amid fears that Trump may launch a major operation in Venezuela, members of US Congress — both Democrats and the president’s own Republican Party — have expressed anger that he has not sought legislative approval.”President Trump’s reckless actions towards Venezuela are pushing America closer and closer to another costly foreign war,” top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said Sunday on X.”Under our Constitution, Congress has the sole power to declare war,” he added.Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, until recently a close Trump ally, said similarly: “Reminder, Congress has the sole power to declare war.”- Congress -However, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham cheered on Trump, writing on X that the president’s “strong commitment to end this madness in Venezuela will save countless American lives.”Suggesting Maduro should flee, he said: “I hear Turkey and Iran are lovely this time of year…”Trump is also facing congressional pressure over recent media reports that the US military launched a second missle at survivors of a strike on an alleged drug boat in September.Leaders of both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have released separate statements saying they would be investigating the strike, which legal experts say could amount to a war crime.With Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress, the Trump administration has so far largely escaped probing of its controversial anti-trafficking campaign.Since the operation began in September, at least 83 people have been killed in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.Washington has yet to release evidence that the vessels it targeted were used to smuggle drugs or posed a threat to the United States, and experts say the strikes amount to extrajudicial killings even if they target known traffickers.

Hondurans go to the polls on Sunday in a presidential election dominated by US President Donald Trump’s threats to cut aid to the country if his right-wing champion loses.Honduras could be the next country in Latin America, after Argentina and Bolivia, to swing right after years of leftist rule.Polls show three candidates neck-and-neck in the race to succeed outgoing President Xiomara Castro: 60-year-old Rixi Moncada of the ruling leftist Libre party, 72-year-old TV host Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party, and 67-year-old Nasry “Tito” Asfura of the right-wing National Party.Trump has threatened to cut US support for one of Latin America’s poorest countries if Asfura loses.”If he (Asfura) doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad,” Truth wrote Friday on his Truth Social platform, echoing threats he made in support of Argentine President Javier Milei’s party in that country’s recent midterms.In a stunning move on Friday, Trump announced he would pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, of Asfura’s National Party, who is serving a 45-year prison sentence in the United States for cocaine trafficking and other charges.Moncada accused the US leader on Saturday of interfering in the campaign.Some Hondurans welcomed Trump’s interventionism, saying they hoped that he might show clemency towards Honduran migrants in the United States if his man won.”We have Donald Trump on our side!” Erick Baca, a 20-year-old student in Tegucigalpa told AFP happily.Esmeralda Rodriguez, a 56-year-old fruit vendor, rejected Trump’s threats however, saying: “I vote for whomever I please, not because of what Trump has said.”Nearly 30,000 Honduran migrants have been deported from the United States since Trump returned to office on January.He has also revoked the temporary protected status of a further 51,000 Honduran migrants, making them vulnerable to expulsion.The clampdown has dealt a severe blow to the country of 11 million people, which received $10 billion in remittances from overseas citizens in 2024, representing 27 percent of GDP.- Fears of election fraud -Moncada has portrayed the election as a choice between a “coup-plotting oligarchy” — a reference to the right’s backing of the 2009 military ouster of then-president Manuel Zelaya — and the current government’s brand of democratic socialism.Moncada has held ministerial portfolios under both Zelaya and Castro, who are married.Nasralla also served in Castro’s government but fell out with the ruling party and has since shifted to the right. Asfura was a building entrepreneur before being elected mayor of the capital, Tegucigalpa, where he served two terms.Preemptive accusations of election fraud, made both by the ruling party and opposition, have sown mistrust in the vote and sparked fears of post-election unrest.Besides electing a president, Hondurans will on Sunday also choose members of the unicameral Congress and local mayors.- ‘Narco state’ president pardoned -Asfura has distanced himself from his party’s figurehead Hernandez, who was imprisoned in the United States last year after being convicted of turning Honduras into a “narco state” while president between 2014 and 2022.”I have no ties (with Hernandez)…the party is not responsible for his personal actions,” Asfura told AFP on Friday.Long a transit point for cocaine exported from Colombia to the United States, Honduras is now also a producer of the drug.Despite making narco-traffickers the target of a major military build-up in the Caribbean, Trump on Friday took Hernandez’s defense.Announcing his decision to pardon the former president, Trump claimed the Honduran “has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly,” without elaborating. 

The United States is freezing all asylum decisions, officials said Friday, as President Donald Trump hardens his anti-migrant stance after an Afghan national allegedly shot two National Guard members this week in Washington.Wednesday’s attack on the soldiers — one of whom died from her injuries — has ignited a fresh crackdown on foreigners in the United States, with Trump also pledging to suspend migration from “third world countries.”Joseph Edlow, director of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), said his agency has “halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”That followed Trump’s announcement late Thursday of plans to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US system to fully recover.”Asked which nationalities would be affected, the Department of Homeland Security pointed AFP to a list of 19 countries — including Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran and Myanmar — already facing US travel restrictions since June.Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that the US had temporarily stopped issuing visas to all individuals traveling on Afghan passports.”The United States has no higher priority than protecting our nation and our people,” he said.- ‘Monster’ -The shooting has brought together three politically explosive issues: Trump’s controversial use of the military on American soil, immigration, and the lingering legacy of the 20-year conflict in Afghanistan.Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, who allegedly opened fire on the guardsmen just a few blocks from the White House, had been part of a CIA-backed “partner force” fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.He entered the United States as part of a resettlement program following the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for Washington DC, said Friday that Lakanwal would be charged with murder over the attack. Sarah Beckstrom, a 20-year-old West Virginia National Guard member deployed in the US capital as part of what Trump called a crackdown on crime, died from her wounds.The second injured soldier, 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, was “fighting for his life,” Pirro told the Fox News program Fox & Friends.Attorney General Pam Bondi has pledged to seek the death penalty against Lakanwal, describing him as a “monster.”- ‘Long planned’ -In his social media post Thursday, Trump also threatened to reverse “millions” of admissions granted under his predecessor Joe Biden, in a new escalation of his anti-immigration stance.Separately, the USCIS said it would reexamine the green cards — permanent residency cards — issued to individuals who had migrated to the US from the same 19 countries also cited by the Department of Homeland Security.More than 1.6 million green card holders, roughly 12 percent of the total permanent resident population, were born in the countries listed, according to US immigration data analyzed by AFP.Afghanistan has over 116,000 green card holders.Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, a group that helped resettle Afghans in the country after the military withdrawal, blasted Rubio’s move to halt all visa issuances.”They are using a single violent individual as cover for a policy they have long planned,” he said in a statement.Lakanwal had been living in the western state of Washington with his family and drove across the country to the capital before Wednesday’s shooting, officials said.Trump has insisted that Lakanwal had been granted unvetted access to the United States because of lax asylum policies after the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan under former president Biden.However, AfghanEvac said the Afghans had undergone “some of the most extensive security vetting” of any migrants. It added that Lakanwal applied for asylum under Biden but received it later, under Trump.

Lawyers for Brazil’s ex-president Jair Bolsonaro filed a new appeal Friday requesting the annulment of his coup-plotting conviction, which saw him sentenced to 27 years in prison.The defense is requesting “the annulment of the criminal process” and that Bolsonaro be acquitted, according to a document seen by AFP, three days after the Supreme Court ordered Bolsonaro to begin serving his prison term.Bolsonaro was tried and convicted by a five-member section of the Supreme Court by a vote of 4-1.Now his lawyers are appealing to the full 11-member court for it to throw out his trial, citing that lone, initial vote against conviction as grounds for the new appeal. An earlier appeal was already thrown out.”The unfair conviction imposed on Jair Messias Bolsonaro,” the defense petition says, “must be submitted for the scrutiny of the Full Chamber of the Federal Supreme Court so that, in the end, his innocence is recognized and declared.”It was not immediately clear if this appeal can proceed with a chance of success.The smaller court section that convicted Bolsonaro and rejected an initial appeal said all avenues for such challenges had been exhausted.Bolsonaro, the brash former army captain who fired up Brazil’s right and reshaped the country’s politics, is ending a divisive career jailed at a police headquarters in Brasilia.The 70-year-old was convicted in September over a scheme to stop Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office as president after winning the 2022 elections. The plan included a plot to kill the veteran leftist.Prosecutors said the scheme failed only due to a lack of support from military top brass.- Ankle monitor -Section number one of the Supreme Court rejected an appeal to his sentence earlier this month, and on Tuesday ruled the judgment was final.Bolsonaro, who was president from 2019 to 2022, maintains that he is innocent and a victim of political persecution.He has won support from US President Donald Trump, who has slammed a “witch hunt” of his ally and imposed sanctions and punitive tariffs on Brazil. Many of the tariffs have since been rolled back.Bolsonaro had been under house arrest until last Saturday, when he was detained at police headquarters in the capital Brasilia for tampering with his ankle monitor using a soldering iron.Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes said there were signs Bolsonaro was planning to flee during a planned vigil organized by his son outside his home.The justice pointed to the location of the nearby US embassy, and Bolsonaro’s close relationship with Trump, suggesting he may have tried to escape to seek political asylum.Bolsonaro has since been detained in the police headquarters, in a room equipped with a TV, mini-fridge, and air-conditioning.His lawyers are seeking a return to home confinement, citing health issues related to a 2018 stabbing attack.With Bolsonaro out of the running, Brazil’s large conservative electorate is without a champion heading into 2026 presidential elections, in which Lula, 80, has said he will seek a fourth term.

US President Donald Trump on Friday made a major intervention into Honduran politics days before the country’s presidential election, pardoning a convicted ex-leader and threatening to cut US support if his preferred candidate loses.Trump said he will pardon ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted last year in a US court of drug trafficking charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison.Hernandez, who led the Central American nation from 2014 to 2022, was accused by US prosecutors of facilitating the import of some 400 tons of cocaine into the United States.He was extradited to the United States just weeks after leaving office, when the current president, leftist Xiomara Castro, came to power.Trump’s stunning announcement came in a social media post proclaiming support for Nasry Asfura, the candidate of Hernandez’s right-wing party in Honduras’s presidential election on Sunday.The US president had earlier endorsed Asfura, but his latest comments went further, apparently conditioning future aid to Honduras on his victory.”If he doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country, no matter which country it is,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.Trump had made a similar threat before Argentina’s election last month.Asfura, when reached by AFP on the phone, denied any links to Hernandez but celebrated Trump’s re-upped endorsement.Hernandez “was president of the Republic, the party is not responsible for his personal actions,” Asfura said.- Three-way race -Asfura, a 67-year-old construction magnate and former mayor of the Honduran capital, is running in a tight three-way race against leftist lawyer Rixi Moncada and fellow right-wing TV host Salvador Nasralla.Trump on Friday accused Nasralla, 72, of running as a spoiler candidate to draw votes away from Asfura.Noting that Nasralla served as Castro’s vice president before resigning, Trump said he “is now pretending to be an anti-Communist only for the purposes of splitting Asfura’s vote.”Trump also bashed Moncada, the political heir to Castro, as a “communist” and said her victory would be a win for Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro “and his Narcoterrorists.”The pardoning of Hernandez comes despite a major US operation in Latin America, which Washington says aims to halt drug trafficking, in which over 80 people have been killed in strikes in international waters.A jury in New York convicted Hernandez in March 2024 of having facilitated the smuggling of hundreds of tons of cocaine — mainly from Colombia and Venezuela — to the United States via Honduras since 2004, starting long before he became president.Former US president Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, said after Hernandez’s sentencing last year that he had “abused his power to support one of the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world.”Trump said in his social media post on Friday that Hernandez “has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly,” without elaborating.

An Afghan citizen accused of shooting two National Guard members will be charged with first-degree murder, a US official said Friday, after one of the soldiers died of her wounds as President Donald Trump pledged to suspend migration from “third world countries.”The announcement marks an escalation in charges facing the assailant, identified as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who allegedly opened fire on the guardsmen just a few blocks from the White House on Wednesday, the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday.”There are certainly many more charges to come, but we are upgrading the initial charges of assault to murder in the first degree,” Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for Washington DC, told the Fox News program Fox & Friends.”It is a premeditated murder. There was an ambush with a gun toward people who didn’t know what was coming.”Pirro’s announcement comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi pledged on Thursday to seek the death penalty against Lakanwal, describing him as a “monster.”US media said Lakanwal was part of the “Zero Units” — a CIA-backed Afghan paramilitary force — and entered the United States as part of a resettlement program following the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.Sarah Beckstrom, a 20-year-old West Virginia National Guard member deployed in the US capital as part of what Trump called a crackdown on crime, died from her wounds, the president said on Thursday.He said the other soldier wounded in the attack, 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, was “fighting for his life.””We still have hope,” Pirro said of Wolfe.”He’s still in critical condition.”Lakanwal, who was also wounded and in custody, was said to have opened fire with a .357 Smith and Wesson revolver.The shooting has brought together three politically explosive issues: Trump’s controversial use of the military on American soil, immigration, and the lingering legacy of the 20-year conflict in Afghanistan — America’s longest war.- ‘Great fear’ -Late Thursday Trump pledged on Truth Social to “permanently pause” migration from “all Third World Countries” and threatened to reverse “millions” of admissions granted under his predecessor Joe Biden, in a new escalation of his anti-immigration stance.When asked which specific nationalities would be affected, the US Department of Homeland Security pointed AFP to a list of 19 countries — including Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran and Myanmar — facing US travel restrictions under an order from Trump in June.Separately, Joseph Edlow, Trump’s director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), said on Thursday he had ordered a “full-scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.”When asked to specify the countries, the USCIS referred AFP to the same list of 19 nations.More than 1.6 million US green card holders, roughly 12 percent of the total permanent resident population, were born in the countries listed, according to the latest immigration data available on the agency’s “Eligible to Naturalize Dashboard” analyzed by AFP.Afghanistan, which has over 116,000 green card holders, is also affected by a total halt of immigration application processing, ordered by the Trump administration after the recent shooting.Afghans across the United States were feeling “great fear” as Trump escalates his anti-immigration rhetoric, said Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, a group that helped resettle Afghans in the country after the military withdrawal.”They’re worried that the president and his team are going to use this deranged man’s actions as a cudgel to kick them out of a place that they’ve spent their entire lives serving,” VanDiver told CNN. “That’s an awful feeling.”CIA director John Ratcliffe said Lakanwal entered the United States as part of a program to evacuate Afghans allied with the agency after the Taliban toppled the American-backed government in 2021.Lakanwal had been living in the western state of Washington with his family and drove across the country to the capital, officials said.The heads of the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security and other senior Trump appointees all insisted that Lakanwal had been granted unvetted access to the US because of what they called lax asylum policies after the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan under former president Biden.However, AfghanEvac said they had undergone “some of the most extensive security vetting” of any migrants. It added that Lakanwal applied for asylum under Biden but received it later, under Trump.

Global stocks mostly rose Friday, extending a positive winning streak based in part on expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates again next month.US indices completed a week of gains in a lightly traded half-session following Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday. Stocks rose all four days the market was open.”Stocks have erased November’s losses during today’s shortened trading session, as confidence of a December rate cut coincide with favorable seasonals for markets,” said a note from Interactive Brokers’ Jose Torres that highlighted the possibility of further gains in December.Earlier Friday, European bourses also pushed higher.Without direction overnight from New York, Asian markets moved with little conviction.While investors have been preoccupied at times in November with worry about excessive valuations for artificial intelligence stocks, that sentiment has been countered by growing confidence in further Fed rate cuts.Attention now turns to data releases over the next week or so that could play a role in the bank’s final decision, with private hiring, services activity and personal consumption expenditure — the Fed’s preferred gauge of inflation.With the recent government shutdown postponing or cancelling the release of some key data, closely watched non-farm payrolls figures are now due in mid-December, after the Fed’s policy decision.Markets see around an 87-percent chance of a cut next month and three more in 2026.Trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, one of the world’s major operators, was halted by a technical outage first reported at 0240 GMT Friday.”Due to a cooling issue at CyrusOne data centers, our markets are currently halted,” the CME said in a statement.”All CME Group markets are open and trading,” it said in a later statement.Market participants rely heavily on CME platforms to manage risk through futures contracts tied, for example, to stock indices, interest rates and currencies.- Key figures at around 2030 GMT -New York – Dow: UP 0.6 percent at 47,716.42 (close)New York – S&P 500: UP 0.5 percent at 6,849.09 (close)New York – Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.7 percent at 23,365.69 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.3 percent at 9,720.51 (close)Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.3 percent at 8,122.71 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.3 percent at 23,836.79 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 0.2 percent at 50,253.91 (close) Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.3 percent at 25,858.89 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.3 percent at 3,888.60 (close)Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1604 from $1.1596 on ThursdayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3245 from $1.3240Dollar/yen: DOWN at 156.10 yen from 156.31 yenEuro/pound: UP at 87.60 pence from 87.58 penceBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.2 percent at $63.20 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.2 percent at $58.55 per barrelburs-jmb/des

The annual “Black Friday” kickoff to the US holiday shopping season drew crowds Friday as millions of Americans seized on the time-tested custom at physical stores and through e-commerce.A preliminary retailer assessment of the big shopping day — which falls the day after the Thanksgiving holiday — won’t be available until next week.But images from Boston, Houston and elsewhere showed the event still attracted hordes of bargain hunters, even if it has lost some luster compared with yesteryear.Consumers lured to the Big Apple for Black Friday were met with cool temperatures but a bright sun as stores of varying size and price point pulled out the stops.There were few takers early Friday morning at Target’s big-box store near Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, where shoppers seemed to be outnumbered by staff who were rearranging merchandise and affixing signs boasting of 40 percent discounts.Foot traffic was heavier outside Macy’s Manhattan flagship store, where window displays featured scenes from Barbie and Lego in which characters bobbed and weaved.Windows with interactive features drew the most interest, including one that beamed out the viewer’s face in a giant star on Broadway.”We were here because we were in the city already,” said Michelle Stotts-Gillespie, after playing a game-like display on the 34th Street side of the giant department store.More glitzy features awaited customers inside Macy’s, the biggest department store in the country, with merchandise spread over 10 floors.Some moved purposely towards choice brands, while others plunked themselves in the middle of the walkway, comparing prices in the store with those on their smartphones.While Stotts-Gillespie, who lives in Florida, was thrilled by the Thursday’s Thanksgiving Day parade, she wasn’t planning to shop the day after.”In the past, Black Friday used be a big deal but now it’s kind of not because they have all the sales beforehand,” she said.- Worth waiting for -But some shoppers still view Black Friday as “that time to just get it,” Tranay Robinson explained after exiting a shop on 125th Street in Harlem. “Black Friday is a humongous day for me.”An inveterate coupon-clipper, Robinson said the discounts on Black Friday dwarf those throughout the year and are worth waiting for.Not that Robinson’s philosophy always results in brick-and-mortar purchases. Rather, her strategy is to check store prices against online offers before pulling the trigger.The approach for the 2025 holiday season is “fewer gifts but more expensive,” said Robinson, who works two jobs. “We’re doing alright.”A block or so away, Jordan Williams and his family expressed contentment with their take from the morning, which included a pair of Air Jordan sneakers, perfume and items for two young children. Williams expects to spend more this holiday season compared with last year, having relocated from Texas to New York in search of better professional opportunity.”In Texas, it was just so slow,” said Williams, who works as a bartender. “Here it’s work after work after work.”

Colombia’s spymaster on Friday told AFP that intelligence-sharing with the CIA and other US agencies is “completely fluid” despite an angry public spat between the country’s two leaders.  “They are collaborating a lot, and so are we,” Jorge Lemus, head of the National Intelligence Directorate, said in a rare interview, seeking to scotch talk of a rupture with the US spy agency.Decades of close security cooperation between Colombia and the United States were upended last month when Washington slapped sanctions on Gustavo Petro, accusing the guerrilla-turned leftist president of aiding drug traffickers.Petro responded by lambasting Donald Trump’s “murder” of alleged traffickers in the Caribbean Sea and declaring that Colombia would no longer share intelligence with the United States.  That threat was later rowed back by Petro’s aides. But Lemus’s comments are the first high-level confirmation that intelligence cooperation continues unabated despite the diplomatic rancor. Lemus said Colombia had destroyed 10,000 cocaine labs this year and operations are still being carried out “many times together with them, hand in hand with them.”Experts had warned that a break in intelligence cooperation could spark a surge in cocaine exports to the United States and strengthen the hand of cartels.  Several Colombian ex-military and intelligence bosses had told AFP Petro’s threat to cut intelligence sharing was “absurd” and “makes no sense.”One former US intelligence official said information gleaned from human sources by Colombian officers was often vital in supporting American eavesdropping and satellite intelligence.Lemus insisted that cooperation continues “not only with the CIA, but with all agencies, they have various. With all of the US intelligence agencies, it remains completely fluid,” he said.  “We continue exactly as before,” he added.  “At the end of the day, we are both fighting against drug trafficking”.  – No CIA leak -Lemus, himself a former guerrilla, was appointed by Petro earlier this year.In recent weeks, his powerful agency has been rocked by accusations that a senior spy colluded with guerrilla groups, helping them to buy arms and evade detection.  Lemus told AFP that the operative in question, Wilmar Mejia, had been suspended from duty pending investigation.  At the same time, he argued that Mejia had been an excellent spy who had rose quickly through the ranks and that the evidence against him may have been “staged.”Local media have published alleged chats between Mejia, an army general, and a guerrilla commander of a FARC splinter group that opposed the 2016 peace process.  The Caracol TV report alleged that Mejia worked with the rebels to set up a security company that allowed them to travel undetected in armored vehicles and carry weapons.  Petro has claimed the information is false, accusing the CIA of being behind the leak.Lemus denied the CIA was involved and said the president had “perhaps received incorrect information.”  “No, we don’t support it [this accusation], and the president also knows that the issue comes from other sources.”  

An Afghan national accused of shooting two National Guard members will be charged with first-degree murder, a US official said Friday, after one of the soldiers died of her wounds as President Donald Trump pledged to suspend migration from “third world countries.”The announcement marks an escalation in charges facing the assailant, identified as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who opened fire on the guardsmen just a few blocks from the White House on Wednesday, the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday.”There are certainly many more charges to come, but we are upgrading the initial charges of assault to murder in the first degree,” Jeanine Pirro, the attorney for Washington DC, told the Fox News program Fox & Friends.”It is a premeditated murder. There was an ambush with a gun toward people who didn’t know what was coming.”Pirro’s announcement comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi pledged on Thursday to seek the death penalty against Lakanwal, describing him as a “monster.”US media said Lakanwal was part of the “Zero Units” — a CIA-backed Afghan paramilitary force — and entered the United States as part of a resettlement program following the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.Sarah Beckstrom, a 20-year-old West Virginia National Guard member deployed in the US capital as part of Trump’s crackdown on crime, died from her wounds, the president said on Thursday.He said the other soldier wounded in the attack, 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, was “fighting for his life.””We still have hope,” Pirro said of Wolfe.”He’s still in critical condition. We are doing everything we can to assist his family.”Lakanwal, who was also wounded and is in custody, was said to have opened fire with a .357 Smith and Wesson revolver.The shooting has brought together three politically explosive issues: Trump’s controversial use of the military on American soil, immigration, and the lingering legacy of the 20-year conflict in Afghanistan — America’s longest war.- ‘Rigorous reexamination’ -Late Thursday Trump pledged on Truth Social to “permanently pause” migration from “all Third World Countries” and threatened to reverse “millions” of admissions granted under his predecessor Joe Biden, in a new escalation in his anti-immigration stance.When asked which specific nationalities would be affected, the US Department of Homeland Security, pointed AFP to a list of 19 countries — including Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran and Myanmar — facing US travel restrictions under an order from Trump in June.Separately, Joseph Edlow, Trump’s director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), said on Thursday he had ordered a “full-scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.”When asked to specify the countries, the USCIS referred AFP to the same list of 19 nations.More than 1.6 million US green card holders, roughly 12 percent of the total permanent resident population, were born in the countries listed, according to the latest immigration data available on the agency’s “Eligible to Naturalize Dashboard” analyzed by AFP.Afghanistan, which has over 116,000 green card holders, is also affected by a total halt of immigration application processing, ordered by the Trump administration after the recent shooting.CIA director John Ratcliffe said Lakanwal had been part of a US “partner force” fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. He added that Lakanwal had been brought to the United States as part of a program to evacuate Afghans allied with the agency after the Taliban toppled the American-backed government in 2021.Lakanwal had been living in the western state of Washington with his family and drove across the country to the capital, officials said.The heads of the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security and other senior Trump appointees all insisted that Lakanwal had been granted unvetted access to the US because of what they called lax asylum policies in the wake of the chaotic final US withdrawal from Afghanistan under former president Biden.However, AfghanEvac, a group that helped resettle Afghans in the US after the military withdrawal, said they had undergone “some of the most extensive security vetting” of any migrants. It said Lakanwal applied for asylum under Biden but received it later, under Trump.”This individual’s isolated and violent act should not be used as an excuse to define or diminish an entire community,” AfghanEvac wrote on the platform X, drawing a barrage of hateful comments.