US to accept white South African refugees while other programs remain paused

US to accept white South African refugees while other programs remain paused
White South Africans supporting US President Donald Trump and South African and US tech billionaire Elon Musk gather in front of the US Embassy in Pretoria. (AFP/File)
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Updated 10 May 2025
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US to accept white South African refugees while other programs remain paused

US to accept white South African refugees while other programs remain paused

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration will welcome more than two dozen white South Africans to the United States as refugees next week, an unusual move because it has suspended most refugee resettlement operations, officials and documents said Friday.
The first Afrikaner refugees are arriving Monday at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press. They are expected to be greeted by a government delegation, including the deputy secretary of state and officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, whose refugee office has organized their resettlement.
The flight will be the first of several in a “much larger-scale relocation effort,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters.
The Trump administration has taken a number of steps against South Africa, accusing the Black-led government of pursuing anti-white policies at home and an anti-American foreign policy. The South African government denies the allegations and says the US criticism is full of misinformation.
While State Department refugee programs have been suspended — halting arrivals from Afghanistan, Iraq, most of sub-Saharan Africa and other countries in a move being challenged in court — President Donald Trump issued an executive order in February prioritizing the processing of white South Africans claiming racial discrimination.
“What’s happening in South Africa fits the textbook definition of why the refugee program was created,” Miller said. “This is persecution based on a protected characteristic — in this case, race. This is race-based persecution.”
Efforts to get white South Africans to the US
Since Trump’s executive order, the US Embassy in Pretoria has been conducting interviews, “prioritizing consideration for US refugee resettlement of Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination,” the State Department said.
The department said nothing about the imminent arrival of what officials said are believed to be more than two dozen white South Africans from roughly four families who applied for resettlement in the US Their arrival had originally been scheduled for early last week but was delayed for reasons that were not immediately clear.
The HHS Office for Refugee Resettlement was ready to offer them support, including with housing, furniture and other household items, and expenses like groceries, clothing, diapers and more, the document says. “This effort is a stated priority of the Administration.”
HHS didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.
Supporters of the refugee program questioned why the Trump administration was moving so quickly to resettle white South Africans while halting the wider refugee program, which brings people to the US who are displaced by war, natural disaster or persecution and involves significant vetting in a process that often takes years.
“We are concerned that the US Government has chosen to fast-track the admission of Afrikaners, while actively fighting court orders to provide life-saving resettlement to other refugee populations who are in desperate need,” Church World Services president Rick Santos said in a statement. His group has been assisting refugees for more than 70 years.
Letting in white South Africans while keeping out Afghans is “hypocrisy,” said Shawn VanDiver, who heads #AfghanEvac, which helps resettle Afghans who assisted the US during the two-decade war.
“Afghans who served alongside US forces, who taught girls, who fought for democracy, and who now face Taliban reprisals, meet every definition of a refugee,” he said. “Afghans risked their lives for us. That should matter,” he said.
Trump administration has accused South Africa of anti-white policies
The Trump administration alleges the South African government has allowed minority white Afrikaner farmers to be persecuted and attacked, while introducing an expropriation law designed to take away their land.
The South African government has said it was surprised by claims of discrimination against Afrikaners because white people still generally have a much higher standard of living than Black people more than 30 years after the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule.
South Africa is the homeland of close Trump adviser Elon Musk, who has been outspoken in his criticism, and it also holds the rotating presidency of the Group of 20 developed and developing nations.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio notably boycotted a G20 foreign ministers meeting in Johannesburg in March because its agenda centered on diversity, inclusion and climate change. He also expelled South Africa’s ambassador to the US in March for comments that the Trump administration interpreted as accusing the president of promoting white supremacy.
Shortly thereafter, the State Department ended all engagement with the G20 during South Africa’s presidency. The US is due to host G20 meetings in 2026.
What South Africa says about the refugees
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement Friday that he had spoken with Trump late last month on issues including US criticism of the country and allegations that Afrikaners are being persecuted. Ramaphosa told Trump that the information the US president had received “was completely false.”
“Therefore, our position is that there are no South African citizens that can be classified as refugees to any part of the world, including the US,” the statement said.
The South African foreign ministry said Deputy Foreign Minister Alvin Botes spoke with US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau on Friday about the refugees. Landau is expected to lead the delegation to welcome the group Monday.
South Africa “expressed concerns” and denied allegations of discrimination against Afrikaners, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“It is most regrettable that it appears that the resettlement of South Africans to the United States under the guise of being ‘refugees’ is entirely politically motivated and designed to question South Africa’s constitutional democracy,” the statement said. It noted that the country has worked to prevent any repeat of the type of persecution and discrimination that happened under apartheid rule.
The foreign ministry said it would not block anyone who wanted to leave as it respected their freedom of movement and choice.
But it said it was seeking information about the “status” of the people leaving South Africa, wanting assurances that they had been properly vetted and did not have outstanding criminal cases.
The foreign ministry added that South Africa was “dedicated to constructive dialogue” with the US.
 


Armenian prime minister set for ‘historic’ Turkiye visit

Armenian prime minister set for ‘historic’ Turkiye visit
Updated 9 sec ago
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Armenian prime minister set for ‘historic’ Turkiye visit

Armenian prime minister set for ‘historic’ Turkiye visit
  • Armenia and Turkiye have never established formal diplomatic ties, and their shared border has been closed since the 1990s
  • Relations are strained over the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire — atrocities Yerevan says amount to genocide

 

ISTANBUL: Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is set to make a rare visit to arch-foe Turkiye on Friday, in what Yerevan has described as a “historic” step toward regional peace.
Armenia and Turkiye have never established formal diplomatic ties, and their shared border has been closed since the 1990s.
Relations are strained over the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire — atrocities Yerevan says amount to genocide. Turkiye rejects the label.
Ankara has also backed its close ally, Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan, in its long-running conflict with Armenia.
Pashinyan is visiting Turkiye at the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonyan told reporters.
“This is a historic visit, as it will be the first time a head of the Republic of Armenia visits Turkiye at this level. All regional issues will be discussed,” he said.
“The risks of war (with Azerbaijan) are currently minimal, and we must work to neutralize them. Pashinyan’s visit to Turkiye is a step in that direction.”
An Armenian foreign ministry official told AFP the two leaders will discuss efforts to sign a comprehensive peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as the regional fallout from the Iran-Israel conflict.
On Thursday — a day before Pashinyan’s visit — Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev traveled to Turkiye for talks with Erdogan and praised Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance as “a significant factor not only regionally but also globally.”
Erdogan repeated his backing for “the establishment of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”
Baku and Yerevan agreed on the text of a peace deal in March, but Baku has since outlined a host of demands — including changes to Armenia’s constitution — before it will sign the document.

Pashinyan has actively sought to normalize relations with both Baku and Ankara.
Earlier this year, he announced Armenia would halt its campaign for international recognition of the 1915 mass killings of Armenians as genocide — a major concession to Turkiye that sparked widespread criticism at home.
Pashinyan has visited Turkiye only once before, for Erdogan’s inauguration in 2023. At the time he was one of the first foreign leaders to congratulate the Turkish president on his re-election.
Ankara and Yerevan appointed special envoys in late 2021 to lead a normalization process, a year after Armenia’s defeat in a war with Azerbaijan over then-disputed Karabakh region.
In 2022, Turkiye and Armenia resumed commercial flights after a two-year pause.
A previous attempt to normalize relations — a 2009 accord to open the border — was never ratified by Armenia and was abandoned in 2018.
 


Appeals court lets Trump keep control National Guard troops deployed to Los Angeles during protests

Appeals court lets Trump keep control National Guard troops deployed to Los Angeles during protests
Updated 14 min 50 sec ago
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Appeals court lets Trump keep control National Guard troops deployed to Los Angeles during protests

Appeals court lets Trump keep control National Guard troops deployed to Los Angeles during protests
  • Decision halts lower court ruling that Trump acted illegally when he activated the soldiers over opposition from California's governor
  • The court case could have wider implications on the president’s power to deploy soldiers within the United States

LOS ANGELES: An appeals court on Thursday allowed President Donald Trump to keep control of National Guard troops he deployed to Los Angeles following protests over immigration raids.
The decision halts a ruling from a lower court judge who found Trump acted illegally when he activated the soldiers over opposition from California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The deployment was the first by a president of a state National Guard without the governor’s permission since 1965.
The court case could have wider implications on the president’s power to deploy soldiers within the United States after Trump directed immigration officials to prioritize deportations from other Democratic-run cities.
Trump, a Republican, argued that the troops were necessary to restore order. Newsom, a Democrat, said the move inflamed tensions, usurped local authority and wasted resources. The protests have since appeared to be winding down.
The ruling comes from a panel of three judges on the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, two of whom were appointed by Trump during his first term. During oral arguments Tuesday, all three judges suggested that presidents have wide latitude under the federal law at issue and that courts should be reluctant to step in.
The case started when Newsom sued to block Trump’s command, and he won an early victory from US District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco.
Breyer found that Trump had overstepped his legal authority, which only allows presidents can take control during times of “rebellion or danger of a rebellion.”
“The protests in Los Angeles fall far short of ‘rebellion,’” wrote Breyer, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton and is brother to retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.
The Trump administration, though, argued that courts can’t second guess the president’s decisions and quickly secured a temporary halt from the appeals court.
The ruling means control of the California National Guard will stay in federal hands as the lawsuit continues to unfold.


Juneteenth celebrations across the US commemorate the end of slavery

Juneteenth celebrations across the US commemorate the end of slavery
Updated 20 June 2025
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Juneteenth celebrations across the US commemorate the end of slavery

Juneteenth celebrations across the US commemorate the end of slavery
  • In each of his first four years as president, Trump honored Juneteenth, a day important to Black Americans for marking the end of slavery in the country
  • But on this year’s Juneteenth holiday on Thursday, the usually talkative president kept silent. No words about it from his lips, on paper or through his social media site

PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire: Juneteenth celebrations unfolded across the US on Thursday, marking the day in 1865 when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Texas and attracting participants who said current events strengthened their resolve to be heard.

President Donald Trump honored Juneteenth in each of his first four years as president, even before it became a federal holiday. He even claimed once to have made it “very famous.”
But on this year’s Juneteenth holiday on Thursday, the usually talkative president kept silent about a day important to Black Americans for marking the end of slavery in the country he leads again.
No words about it from his lips, on paper or through his social media site.
The holiday has been celebrated by Black Americans for generations, but became more widely observed after being designated a federal holiday in 2021 by former President Joe Biden, who attended a Juneteenth event at a church in Galveston, Texas, the holiday’s birthplace.
The celebrations come as Trump’s administration has worked to ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or DEI, in the federal government and remove content about Black American history from federal websites. Trump’s travel ban on visitors from select countries has also led to bitter national debate.

In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Robert Reid waved a large Juneteenth flag at the city’s African Burying Ground Memorial Park, where African drummers and dancers led the crowd in song and dance. Reid, 60, said he attended in part to stand against what he called Trump’s “divide and conquer” approach.
“It’s time for people to get pulled together instead of separated,” he said.
Jordyn Sorapuru, 18, visiting New Hampshire from California, called the large turnout a “beautiful thing.”
“It’s nice to be celebrated every once in a while, especially in the political climate right now,” she said. “With the offensive things going on right now, with brown people in the country and a lot of people being put at risk for just existing, having celebrations like this is really important.”
Juneteenth’s origins and this year’s celebrations
The holiday to mark the end of slavery in the US goes back to an order issued on June 19, 1865, as Union troops arrived in Galveston at the end of the Civil War. General Order No. 3 declared that all enslaved people in the state were free and had “absolute equality.”
Juneteenth is recognized at least as an observance in every state, and nearly 30 states and Washington, D.C., have designated it as a permanent paid or legal holiday through legislation or executive action.
In Virginia, a ceremonial groundbreaking was held for rebuilding the First Baptist Church of Williamsburg, one of the nation’s oldest Black churches.
In Fort Worth, Texas, about 2,500 people participated in Opal Lee’s annual Juneteenth walk. The 98-year-old Lee, known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth” for the years she spent advocating to make the day a federal holiday, was recently hospitalized and didn’t participate in public this year. But her granddaughter, Dione Sims, said Lee was “in good spirits.”
“The one thing that she would tell the community and the nation at large is to hold on to your freedoms,” Sims said. “Hold on to your freedom and don’t let it go, because it’s under attack right now.”
Events were planned throughout the day in Galveston, including a parade, a celebration at a park with music and the service at Reedy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church that Biden attended.

Galveston Mayor Craig Brown presents former President Joe Biden with a commemorative plaque during a Juneteenth event at the Reedy Chapel AME Church on June 19, 2025, in Galveston, Texas. (AP Photo)

During a Juneteenth speech in Maryland, Gov. Wes Moore announced pardons for 6,938 cases of simple marijuana possession, which can hinder employment and educational opportunities and have disproportionally affected the Black community.
Moore, a Democrat who is Maryland’s first Black governor and the only Black governor currently serving, last year ordered tens of thousands of pardons for marijuana possession. The newly announced pardons weren’t included in that initial announcement because they’d been incorrectly coded.
In New Hampshire, Thursday’s gathering capped nearly two weeks of events organized by the Black History Trail of New Hampshire aimed at both celebrating Juneteenth and highlighting contradictions in the familiar narratives about the nation’s founding fathers ahead of next year’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
“In a time when efforts to suppress Black history are on the rise, and by extension, to suppress American history, we stand firm in the truth,” said JerriAnne Boggis, the Heritage Trail’s executive director. “This is not just Black history, it is all of our history.”
What Trump has said about Juneteenth
During his first administration, Trump issued statements each June 19, including one that ended with “On Juneteenth 2017, we honor the countless contributions made by African Americans to our Nation and pledge to support America’s promise as the land of the free.”
When White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked during her Thursday media briefing whether the president would commemorate the holiday this year, she replied, “I’m not tracking his signature on a proclamation today.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holds a press briefing at the White House in Washington on June 19, 2025. (REUTERS)

Later Thursday Trump complained on his social media site about “too many non-working holidays” and said it is “costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed.” Most retailers are open on Juneteenth, while federal workers generally get a day off because the government is closed.
New Hampshire, one of the nation’s whitest states, is not among those with a permanent, paid or legal Juneteenth holiday, and Boggis said her hope that lawmakers would take action making it one is waning.
“I am not so sure anymore given the political environment we’re in,” she said. “I think we’ve taken a whole bunch of steps backwards in understanding our history, civil rights and inclusion.”
Still, she hopes New Hampshire’s events and those elsewhere will make a difference.
“It’s not a divisive tool to know the truth. Knowing the truth helps us understand some of the current issues that we’re going through,” she said.
And if spreading that truth comes with a bit of fun, all the better, she said.
“When we come together, when we break bread together, we enjoy music together, we learn together, we dance together, we’re creating these bonds of community,” she said. “As much was we educate, we also want to celebrate together.”


New study says planting trees alone to offset effects of fossil fuels is not enough

New study says planting trees alone to offset effects of fossil fuels is not enough
Updated 20 June 2025
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New study says planting trees alone to offset effects of fossil fuels is not enough

New study says planting trees alone to offset effects of fossil fuels is not enough
  • Many respected climate scientists and institutions say removing carbon emissions — not just reducing them — is essential to tackling climate change

Planting trees has plenty of benefits, but this popular carbon-removal method alone can’t possibly counteract the planet-warming emissions caused by the world’s largest fossil-fuel companies. To do that, trees would have to cover the entire land mass of North and Central America, according to a study out Thursday.
Many respected climate scientists and institutions say removing carbon emissions — not just reducing them — is essential to tackling climate change. And trees remove carbon simply by “breathing.” But crunching the numbers, researchers found that the trees’ collective ability to remove carbon through photosynthesis can’t stand up to the potential emissions from the fossil fuel reserves of the 200 largest oil, gas and coal fuel companies — there’s not enough available land on Earth to feasibly accomplish that.
And even if there were, if those 200 companies had to pay for planting all those trees, it would cost $10.8 trillion, more than their entire combined market valuation of $7.01 trillion. The researchers also determined that the companies would be in the red if they were responsible for the social costs of the carbon in their reserves, which scientists compute around $185 per metric ton of carbon dioxide.
“The general public maybe understand offsetting to be a sort of magic eraser, and that’s just not where we’re at,” said Nina Friggens, a research fellow at the University of Exeter who co-authored the paper published in Communications Earth & Environment, a Nature Portfolio journal.

A car drives between trees in a small park in Frankfurt, Germany, April 8, 2024. (AP Photo/File)

Carbon offsetting essentially means investing in tree planting or other environmental projects to attempt to compensate for carbon emissions. Trees are one of the cheapest ways to do this because they naturally suck up planet-warming carbon. Fossil fuel corporations, along with other companies and institutions, have promoted tree-planting as key part of carbon offset programs in recent years.
For example, TotalEnergies, a global energy company, said in a statement that it is “investing heavily in carbon capture and storage (CCS) and nature-based solutions (NBS) projects.”
To do their calculations, the researchers looked at the 200 largest holders of fossil fuel reserves — the fuel that companies promise shareholders they can extract in the future — and calculated how much carbon dioxide would be released if this fuel is burned. The researchers also focused solely on tree planting because the expense and technological development needed for other forms of carbon capture are still mostly cost-prohibitive.
Forestry expert Éliane Ubalijoro, who was not involved with the research, called the study “elegant.”
It “gives people a sense of proportion around carbon,” said Ubalijoro, CEO of CIFOR-ICRAF, an international forestry research center.

An aerial view shows saplings line one of many fields where several hundred thousand trees are being planted to reforest the area which will be dubbed "La Foret de Maubuisson" (Maubuisson Forest) in Mery-sur-Oise, France, on April 29, 2025. (AFP)

But she cautioned against oversimplifying the equation by looking only at carbon capture, noting that tree planting done right can foster food security and biodiversity and protect communities from natural disasters.
The paper effectively makes the point that it's financially impossible to offset enough carbon to compensate for future fossil fuel burning, said Daphne Yin, director of land policy at Carbon180, where her team advocates for US policy support for land-based carbon removal. And the idea that companies would be required to account for the downstream emissions from the fossil fuel they extract is a “fantasy,” she said.
The idea of planting trees is appealing to the public and to politicians because it’s tangible — people can literally see the carbon being incorporated into branches and leaves as a tree grows, Friggens said. But she says other methods shouldn't be overlooked — microbes underground store carbon too, but they can't be seen.
And it's a physically and mathematically inescapable fact, illustrated in part by this study, that there's no getting around it — we have to stop emitting carbon, said Jonathan Foley, the executive director of Project Drawdown, who also was not part of the study. Carbon emissions are like an overflowing bathtub, he says: Before you start cleaning up, you have to turn off the water.
“Trees are the sponges and the mops we use to clean up the mess," he said. "But if the taps are still running and the water’s pouring out over the edges of your bathtub, destroying your bathroom and your home, maybe you’ve got to learn to turn off the taps too.”
 


British FM says ‘window now exists’ for diplomacy with Iran

British FM says ‘window now exists’ for diplomacy with Iran
Updated 20 June 2025
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British FM says ‘window now exists’ for diplomacy with Iran

British FM says ‘window now exists’ for diplomacy with Iran

WASHINGTON: On the eve of European talks with Iran over its nuclear program, Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Thursday after meeting high-level US officials that there is still time to reach a diplomatic solution with Tehran.
Lammy met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff at the White House, before talks on Friday in Geneva with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi alongside his French, German and EU counterparts.
The diplomatic flurry came as European countries call for de-escalation in the face of Israel’s bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear program — and as US President Donald Trump weighs up whether or not to join the strikes against Tehran.
“The situation in the Middle East remains perilous,” Lammy said in a statement released by the UK embassy in Washington.
“We discussed how Iran must make a deal to avoid a deepening conflict. A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution,” Lammy said.
“Tomorrow, I will be heading to Geneva to meet with the Iranian foreign minister alongside my French, German and EU counterparts,” the British minister said.
“Now is the time to put a stop to the grave scenes in the Middle East and prevent a regional escalation that would benefit no one.”
The State Department said Lammy and Rubio had “agreed Iran can never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon.”
Araghchi earlier confirmed he would “meet with the European delegation in Geneva on Friday,” in a statement carried by Iranian state news agency IRNA.
The talks are set to include Lammy, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, as well as EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.
Trump has said he is weighing military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities as Israel pummels the country and Tehran responds with missile fire.
France, Germany, Britain and the European Union were all signatories of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, which Trump sunk during his first term in office.
The EU’s Kallas, in coordination with European countries, has insisted that diplomacy remains the best path toward ensuring that Iran does not develop a nuclear bomb.
On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said European nations were planning to suggest a negotiated solution to end the Iran-Israel conflict. He asked his foreign minister to draw up an initiative with “close partners” to that end.
Barrot has been in regular touch with his German and British counterparts since Israel launched massive air strikes against Iran on Friday.
“We are ready to take part in negotiations aimed at obtaining from Iran a lasting rollback of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” Barrot said.
Israel says its air campaign is aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iran had been enriching uranium to 60 percent — far above the 3.67 percent limit set by a 2015 deal with international powers, but still short of the 90 percent threshold needed for a nuclear warhead. Iran denies it is building nuclear weapons.
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