Foreign News
Pakistan wants undocumented migrants to leave by November 1 or get deported
Pakistan has ordered all undocumented immigrants, mainly nearly 1.73 million Afghan nationals, to voluntarily leave the country or face deportations.
“We have given them a November 1 deadline,” Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti said on Tuesday amid claims by Islamabad that 14 of 24 suicide bombings in the country this year were carried out by Afghan nationals.
Bugti said an estimated 1.73 million Afghan nationals in Pakistan have no legal documents to stay, adding that a total of 4.4 million Afghan refugees live in Pakistan. “There are no two opinions that we are attacked from within Afghanistan and Afghan nationals are involved in attacks on us,” he said. “We have evidence.”
Islamabad has received the largest influx of Afghan refugees since the Soviet invasion of their country in 1979. About 1.3 million Afghans are registered refugees in Pakistan and 880,000 more have legal status to remain, according to the latest United Nations figures.
“If they do not go, then all the law enforcement agencies in the provinces or federal government will be utilised to deport them,” Bugti said.
It was not immediately clear how Pakistani authorities could ensure the undocumented immigrants leave or how they could find them to expel them.
Pakistan’s announcement, called “harassment” by the Afghan embassy in Islamabad, marked a new low in its relations with Kabul, which have deteriorated since border clashes between the South Asian neighbours last month.
(Aljazeera)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has nominated a former Navy commander to head the country’s domestic security services, despite the courts having blocked his bid to fire the previous head of Shin Bet.
Netanyahu’s office announced on Monday that he had nominated Vice Admiral Eli Sharvit to lead the agency, which surveils attacks from abroad and at home, including by armed groups based in Palestine and Lebanon. However, a halt to the sacking of Ronen Bar as head of Shin Bet, ordered by the Supreme Court, remains in place.
[Aljazeera]
The Trump administration has deported 17 more alleged gang members to El Salvador, the US state department has said, despite legal battles over removing people to the Central American country’s supermax prison.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the group included members of the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs.
Salvadoran government officials told the BBC they included a mix of Venezuelans and Salvadorans.
Earlier this month a court ordered a halt to deportations carried out under the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law previously used only in wartime. However, US media, citing administration sources, reported that the recent deportations were made under general immigration laws.
In a statement, Rubio said the group included “murderers and rapists”, but did not provide names or details of the alleged crimes or of any convictions.
In a post on X, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele shared a dramatically edited video showing shackled men being loaded off a plane and their heads being shaved before they were put into prison cells.
“All individuals are confirmed murderers and high-profile offenders, including six child rapists,” he wrote. “This operation is another step in the fight against terrorism and organized crime.”
President Trump reposted the message, blamed the administration of his predecessor Joe Biden for allowing the deportees into the US and thanked Bukele for “giving them such a wonderful place to live”.
El Salvador has agreed to take in deportees in exchange for $6m (£4.6m).
Family members of some of those who were previously sent to the maximum security prison have denied they have any gang ties.
After Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to remove more than 100 Venezuelans from the US earlier this month, groups including the American Civil Liberties Union filed a legal challenge alleging the administration had illegally denied the immigrants due process.
In a hearing on 15 March, James Boasberg, the top federal judge in Washington DC, imposed a temporary restraining order on the use of the law and ordered deportation flights that were in the air to be turned around.
But the deportations proceeded. The next hearing in the case will be held on Thursday.
[BBC]
Foreign News
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen barred from running for public office for five years
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been barred from running for public office for five years, meaning she would not be able to run in the 2027 French presidential election
She was found guilty of embezeeling European funds to finance her French far-right National Rally (RN) party.
[BBC]
Heavy rainfall of about 100 mm are likely at some places in Central, Sabaragamuwa, Western, Southern and Uva provinces and in Kurunegala and Polonnaruwa districts
Netanyahu nominates new Israeli spy chief despite court order
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