Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen is vowing to travel to El Salvador to negotiate the release of a wrongly deported man after the Trump administration ignored a Supreme Court ruling to facilitate his return to the U.S.
In a letter sent to the El Salvadorian Ambassador on April 13 before Trump’s tête-à-tête with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, Van Hollen requested a meeting with Bukele during his U.S. visit to discuss “the illegal detention of [his] constituent, Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” after the Supreme Court agreed on Thursday to unanimously uphold U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’s ruling that he was wrongly deported and that the U.S. government was responsible for bringing him home.
(It’s unclear if Van Hollen ever got to meet with Bukele.)
Chad has taken delivery of the latest generation of Chinese anti-aircraft defence systems. They were supplied by the UAE, which is regularly criticised over their support for the Rapid Support Forces that are battling the regular Sudanese army in the civil war. […]
European Union observers said on Tuesday that they “categorically” reject allegations of fraud in Ecuador’s Sunday presidential elections, joining a chorus of rejections of leftist Luisa Gonzalez’s call for a recount.
Electoral authorities, the Organization of American States, the United States and members of Gonzalez’s own party have said that President Daniel Noboa secured a full term in the vote.
The European Union and Britain pledged on Tuesday (April 15) to increase aid for Sudan, as the country marked its second anniversary of a deadly and devastating conflict, in which a United Nations agency is warning that sexual violence was being used as a systematic weapon of war. Diane To reports.
Bogged down in east Ukraine, Putin’s Russia eyes ‘opportunistic’ gains in northern Sumy– www.france24.com Source Link Excerpt:
Russia’s grisly Palm Sunday attack on the city of Sumy has focused attention on the northern Ukrainian region where Kyiv says an expected Russian spring offensive is already under way. Experts say the push into Sumy is aimed at stretching Ukraine’s defensive lines and projecting an image of Russian progress on the front – even as Moscow’s war of attrition in the east grinds to a bloody stalemate.
El Salvadoran President Nayib Armando Bukele said Monday that he has no intention of returning alleged MS-13 gang member Abrego Garcia back to the United States.
Garcia, 29, was among the hundreds of illegal immigrants—a large percentage of them MS-13 and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang members —expelled from the U.S. to El Salvador last month.
The Trump administration acknowledged in court records that it made an “administrative error” when it deported Garcia without an interview, but has insisted that he has no legal status in the United States.
Garcia crossed the border illegally in 2012 and after he was detained in 2019, claimed he had to flee El Salvador as a teenager to escape gang violence. Both the original immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals found there was sufficient evidence that Garcia was a member of MS-13 and, as such, a danger to the public.
Over the course of April 7-13, cargo handled by China has dropped by 9.7 percent.
Cargo going through ports in China has dropped by 9.7 percent in the second week of April, indicating that tariffs implemented by the Trump administration have been hammering the country’s exports to the US.
Over the course of April 7-13, cargo traffic dropped by 9.7 percent to 244 million tons, according to the Wall Street Journal. The week prior, when President Donald Trump implemented his reciprocal tariffs, there was only a drop of 0.88 percent.
Container throughput dropped by 6.1 percent, the Journal reported, reversing an increase of 1.9 percent the week prior. The outlet reports that there has been a steady increase in port volumes since January 2025, and the last couple weeks have seen that reverse.
The postponement is reportedly linked in part to discussions over the future of the sabotaged Nord Stream pipelines
The EU will once again delay plans to eliminate its dependence on Russian energy, amid ongoing debates within the bloc over the future of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, the Financial Times has reported.
Nord Stream 1, which once delivered Russian natural gas to Germany, and Nord Stream 2 were damaged in a sabotage attack in 2022. However, one string of Nord Stream 2 remains intact. Talks of potentially reviving the pipelines have resurfaced amid recent joint efforts by Russia and the US to end the Ukraine conflict.
Originally slated for release in February, a roadmap detailing steps for cutting the EU’s energy reliance on Russia by 2027 was first put off until March and is now expected to be unveiled in May, the outlet said on Tuesday.
In a major setback for Turkey, three Central Asian republics and members of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS), Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, have come out in support of Cyprus’s sovereignty, effectively ending Ankara’s efforts to use the OTS as a vehicle for recognition of the occupied north Cyprus.
In a joint declaration following the European Union-Central Asia summit in Samarkand on April 4, the three Central Asian nations explicitly endorsed UN Security Council resolutions 541 (1983) and 550 (1984), which condemn Turkey’s unilateral declaration of the so-called “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (TRNC) in 1983 and call on the UN members not to recognize it.
The declaration states: “We reaffirmed our strong commitment to the relevant UNSC Resolution 541(1983) and 550 (1984). We emphasized that engagement in regional cooperation frameworks should fully respect these international principles, which remain essential to the enhancement of EU-Central Asia relations.”
On 15 April, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service Head Sergey Naryshkin accused NATO of escalating military activity near Russia’s borders. He warned that Poland and the Baltic states would be the first to suffer in the event of a war between Moscow and the Alliance, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Russia plans to train and station up to 150,000 additional troops in Belarus this year. He has emphasized that these forces could be used not only to attack Ukraine again but also to threaten NATO countries, including the Baltic states and Poland. In response to this growing threat, the Baltic countries and Poland are increasing their defense spending and preparing their borders by laying minefields and strengthening fortifications.
China has suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to choke off supplies of components central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world.
Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while the Chinese government drafts a new regulatory system. Once in place, the new system could permanently prevent supplies from reaching certain companies, including American military contractors.
The official crackdown is part of China’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs that started on April 2.
The United States and China– two of the world’s largest economies– are locked in a dangerous trade stand-off that may have no winners. As the US tries to arm-twist China — with mounting tariffs– into seeking a deal from his administration, it is becoming increasingly clear that Beijing may have more leverage than President Donald Trump and his aides think.
The United States remains an almost irreplaceable market for China for its manufactured goods. However, experts caution Washington not to underestimate Beijing’s capacity to resist the Trump administration’s coercive tactics. The combination of Beijing’s centralised political control, diversified export markets and stronghold over some strategically vital materials, including rare earth metals and magnets, gives China plenty of room to negotiate with the US.
The complexity of the United States’ dependence on China was evident over the weekend when the Trump administration exempted smartphones, laptops and TVs from its new tariffs — goods that the US primarily imports from China.
We’re certainly working very hard with Keir Starmer’s government. The president really loves the UK. He loved the queen. He admires and loves the king. It is a very important relationship. And he’s a businessman and has a number of important business relationships in [the UK].
But I think it’s much deeper than that. There’s a real cultural affinity. And of course, fundamentally America is an Anglo country. I think there’s a good chance that, yes, we’ll come to a great agreement that’s in the best interest of both countries.
Pennsylvania Gov Josh Shapiro angrily called for an end to rising political violence just hours after a man broke into the governor’s mansion and set it on fire, forcing Shapiro and his family to flee into the night.
It was the latest in a string of partisan political attacks in the United States.
“This kind of violence is becoming far too common in our society. And I don’t give a damn if it’s coming from one particular side or the other,” Shapiro said. “It has to stop.”
While police have not said what might have motivated the attack early Sunday, court documents say the suspect admitted he hated Shapiro and was plotting to beat him with a hammer.
“The attacker basically wasn’t a fan of anybody,” President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday. “And certainly, a thing like that cannot be allowed to happen.”
The federal government says it’s freezing more than $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard University, after the institution said Monday it won’t comply with the Trump administration’s demands to limit activism on campus.
In a letter to Harvard Friday, the administration called for broad government and leadership reforms, “merit-based” admissions and hiring policies, and an audit of the study body, faculty and leadership on their views about diversity.
The demands, which are an update from an earlier letter, also call for a ban on face masks — a measure that appears to target pro-Palestinian protesters — and pressure the university to stop recognizing or funding “any student group or club that endorses or promotes criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment.”
Hamburg police are searching for a machete-wielding migrant gang that reportedly stormed a high-rise building in the early hours of Monday, resulting in a 15-year-old boy falling to his death from the eighth floor.
As reported by Bild, the incident unfolded around 1:15 a.m. at Soltauer Ring in the Harburg district of the German port city. Armed with at least one machete, the gang of young men forced their way into an apartment on the eighth floor, according to police reports.
Inside, they launched a violent attack on those present. Moments later, the teenage victim — identified as an Iraqi national — crashed into the courtyard below from the balcony of the apartment.
Despite emergency services rushing to the scene and attempting resuscitation, the boy died shortly after their arrival.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said he would not return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to America.
“The question is preposterous,” said Bukele. “How can I smuggle a terrorist with the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
Abrego Garcia belonged to the El Salvadoran MS-13 gang and entered America illegally. He lost his attempts to stay in America through the immigration and asylum system but received removal protection in 2019.
Abrego Garcia had to be removed…except to El Salvador because he feared for his life.
“We’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country,” continued Bukele. “We just turned the murder capital of the world to the safest country of the western hemisphere and he wants to go back into the releasing criminal so we can go back to being the murdered capital of the world. That’s not going to happen.”
German chemical companies and French utility firms have both suggested the necessity of importing cheap Russian energy
Germany’s chemical industry is in a “severe crisis” and in dire need of a return to cheap Russian gas, Reuters reported on Monday, citing executives in the sector. French energy majors Engie and Total have also told the agency that they could see a restart of imports of hydrocarbon from Russia.
With a turnover of €225.5 billion in 2023, chemicals and pharmaceuticals are Germany’s third-largest industry, behind automotive and machinery and equipment, according to the European Chemical Industry Council.
The EU committed to eliminating Russian gas imports by 2027, following the escalation of conflict between Kiev and Moscow three years ago. Brussels aimed to replace them with more expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar and the United States.