Category: 2. World

Donald Trump has said he did not know a raid by the FBI on the home of his former adviser turned critic, John Bolton, was planned and that he expected to be briefed by the justice department on it.

“I tell the group I don’t want to know, but just you have to do what you have to do. I don’t want to know about it,” Trump said, adding “I’m not a fan of John Bolton. He’s a real sort of a lowlife. He’s not a smart guy. But he could be very unpatriotic. I’m going to find out.”

JD Vance denied the raid was politically motivated. “We don’t think that we should throw people – even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically – you shouldn’t throw people willy-nilly in prison,” the vice-president told NBC. “You should let the law drive these determinations, and that’s what we’re doing.”

Here are the key Trump administration news stories of the day:

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FBI raids home of Trump’s ex-national security adviser

The FBI raided Bolton’s home on Friday morning.

The federal search of Bolton’s house in the Washington DC area was as part of an investigation involving the handling of classified documents, the Associated Press reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. A government source confirmed the raid to the Guardian, but did not disclose further details.

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DoJ releases Ghislaine Maxwell interview transcripts

The US Department of Justice has released the transcript and audio recording of an interview conducted by Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, with the convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

_{Read the full story}

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Trump targets Chicago and New York as Hegseth orders weapons for DC troops

Donald Trump has threatened to take his federal crackdown on crime and city cleanliness to New York and Chicago, as the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered that national guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington DC under federal control will now be armed.

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Hegseth fires top US general after Iran assessment angers Trump

Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from US strikes angered Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official.

_{Read the full story}

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US man wrongly deported released to await trial

Kilmar Ábrego García has been freed from criminal custody in Tennessee so he can rejoin his family in Maryland while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges, after a court ordered his release.

_{Read the full story}

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Canada to drop counter-tariffs on some US goods

Canada will drop its counter-tariffs on some American goods in the coming days, Mark Carney has said, as the country’s prime minister looks to end a protracted trade war with the US.

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What else happened today:

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Catching up? Here’s what happened on 21 August 2025.

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from US strikes angered Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official.

Lt Gen Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The firing is the latest upheaval in the US military and intelligence agencies, and comes a few months after details of the preliminary assessment leaked to the media. It found that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months by the US strikes, contradicting assertions from Trump and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Republican US president, who had pronounced the Iranian program “completely and fully obliterated”, rejected the report.

In a news conference following the June strikes, Hegseth lambasted the press for focusing on the preliminary assessment but did not offer any direct evidence of the destruction of Iranian nuclear production facilities.

“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated – choose your word. This was an historically successful attack,” Hegseth said then.

Kruse’s exit was reported earlier by the Washington Post.

Trump has a history of removing government officials whose data and analysis he disagrees with. Earlier in August, after a disappointing jobs report, he fired the official in charge of the data. His administration has also stopped posting reports on climate change, canceled studies on vaccine access and removed data on gender identity from government sites.

The firing of the DIA chief culminates a week of broad Trump administration changes to the intelligence community and shakeups to the military leadership. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence – which is responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA – announced that it would slash its staff and budget.

The Pentagon announced this week that the air force’s top uniformed officer, Gen David Allvin, planned to retire two years early.

Hegseth and Trump have been aggressive in dismissing top military officials, often without formal explanation.

The administration has fired Air Force Gen CQ Brown Jr as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, as well as the navy’s top officer, the air force’s second highest-ranking officer, and the top lawyers for three military service branches.

In April, Hegseth fired Gen Tim Haugh as head of the National Security Agency and Vice Adm Shoshana Chatfield, who was a senior official at Nato.

No public explanations have been offered by the Pentagon for any of these firings, though some of the officers were believed by the administration to endorse diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia’s anti-government guerrillas have grown stronger under President Gustavo Petro’s three years in office. That strength was on display in brazen attacks this week that included a car bombing and the downing of a police helicopter — violence that left at least 19 people dead.

Authorities blamed both attacks on Thursday on renegade factions of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the notorious FARC rebel group that for decades fought the government, carrying out assassinations, hijackings and bombings to undermine authorities in Bogota.

And while FARC struck a peace deal with the government in 2016 and some members transitioned into a political party, rebels who split from the mainstream have carried on with a terror campaign.

The attacks underscore the failures of Petro’s signature policy of negotiating simultaneously with multiple illegal groups, analysts say, a strategy that has allowed the renegade rebel groups to gain territory and power in areas with historically limited state presence.

The rebels are likely to step up their attacks in attempts to assert their power in the lead-up to Colombia’s presidential election next May, the analysts predict.

The police helicopter was transporting personnel to an area in the northern Antioquia region to help with efforts to eradicate coca leaf crops, the raw material for cocaine, when it was brought down. Thirteen police officers died.

Colombia’s police director, Maj. Gen. Carlos Fernando Triana, told reporters on Friday that the rebels used explosive devices, such as homemade dynamite rocket launchers, as well as drones in the attack. But he did not confirm that a drone was solely responsible for downing the helicopter.

The use of the drone showcases not only the insurgents’ access to more modern warfare technology but also their new ability to disrupt the country’s airspace, long dominated by the Colombian military.

“The use of drones is a worrying and important change in the way insurgent groups are attacking the state,” said Cynthia Arnson, an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

“They don’t need shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles” anymore, she added.

Petro, who in his youth was also in a rebel group, launched negotiations with nine separate insurgent groups and drug trafficking gangs since taking office in 2022 under his “total peace” strategy. But so far, only one small group has agreed to begin a transition toward civilian life.

By 2018, dissidents from FARC and other illegal groups began fighting for the territories the state had failed to protect after FARC disarmed and abandoned the land.

According to Arnson, Petro’s policy then allowed the armed groups “to take advantage of ceasefires to strengthen themselves and their control” over specific areas.

The area under coca leaf cultivation in Colombia reached a record 253,000 hectares (about 625,000 acres) in 2023, according to the latest report available from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

Police said Thursday’s deployment of the helicopter to Antioquia’s rural Amalfi area followed an attack with explosives and gunfire on officers working on eradicating coca leaf crops. The aircraft was hit as it attempted to provide support to the officers who were being attacked on the ground.

Military data show there were 108 drone attacks in Colombia in 2024, while 118 have been reported so far this year. The drones are used to drop explosives and also to monitor army troops and areas of drug shipments, for example.

In the southwest city of Cali, authorities said a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school on Thursday, killing six people and injuring more than 70 — all civilians.

Colombians were deeply shaken by the death earlier this month of senator and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay, who was shot in the head during a political rally in a park in Bogota in June.

The senator died in hospital more than two months after the shooting — an attack that harked back to the political violence of the 1990s, when Medellin drug lord Pablo Escobar declared war on the state.

Uribe Turbay had become one of the strongest critics of Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president who is barred from seeking reelection under Colombia’s constitution.

Whoever takes the top job after the May elections, will have to factor in the growing footprint of the insurgents, according to Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Petro inherited a complex situation of territorial vacuums in the countryside that dates back to the aftermath of the signing of the peace accord with the FARC, and under his presidency, conditions have deteriorated with “increased rates of forced displacement, confinement, massacres,” Freeman said.

The illegal groups are likely to carry out more “tactical displays of violence” as the election nears, he added.

“Demonstrating their power through these kind of spectacular public attacks is a way to improve their negotiating position or send a strong message,” Freeman said.

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Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City.

DUBAI: Iran said Friday its foreign minister spoke by phone with his French, German and British counterparts to avoid the reimposition of UN sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear program, just days ahead of a European deadline.

The call by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi came as the three countries threatened to invoke the “snapback” provision of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal by month’s end, allowing any party to reimpose sanctions if they find Iran out of compliance with requirements such as international monitoring of its nuclear program.

The Europeans’ concern over the Iranian program, which had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels before the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June saw its atomic sites bombed, has only grown since Tehran cut off all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency in the conflict’s wake. That has left the international community further blinded to Iran’s program — as well as the status of its stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, a short, technical step to weapons-grade levels of 90 percent.

Iran has long insisted its program is peaceful, though it is the only non-nuclear-armed nation enriching uranium at that level. The US, the IAEA and others say Iran had a nuclear weapons program up until 2003.

After the call, a statement released on Araghchi’s behalf via Telegram said he criticized the countries’ “legal and moral qualifications” to threaten to reinstate the sanctions, but insisted talks would continue.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran, just as it acts authoritatively in self defense, has never abandoned the path of diplomacy and is ready for any diplomatic solution that guarantees the rights and interests of the Iranian people,” the statement said.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot confirmed on the social platform X that the talks took place, and said another round of discussions would happen next week.

“We have just made an important call to our Iranian counterpart regarding the nuclear program and the sanctions against Iran that we are preparing to reapply,” he said. “Time is running out.”

That was echoed by Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, who said “time is very short.”

“Iran needs to engage substantively in order to avoid the activation of snapback,” he wrote on X. “We have been clear that we will not let the snapback of sanctions expire unless there is a verifiable and durable deal.”

European letter set deadline

In a letter Aug. 8, the three European nations warned Iran it would proceed with “snapback” if Tehran didn’t reach a “satisfactory solution” to the nuclear issues. That deadline would be Aug. 31, in nine days, leaving little time for Iran to likely reach any agreement with the Europeans, who have grown increasingly skeptical of Iran over years of inconclusive negotiations over its nuclear program.

Restoring the IAEA’s access is a key part of the talks. Iran has blamed the war with Israel in part on the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, without offering any evidence. The IAEA issues quarterly reports on Iran’s program and the 2015 deal gave the agency greater access to keep track of it. Its Board of Governors voted to find Iran out of compliance with its obligations to the agency the day before the Iran-Israel war began.

Iran has also threatened its director-general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, with arrest if he comes to Iran, further complicating talks. Grossi is considering running to become the UN’s secretary-general, something Tehran has seized on as well in its criticisms of the Argentine diplomat.

Alongside the European call with Iran, IAEA officials in Vienna were to meet with Iranian officials, a diplomat close to the agency told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting. Those talks would be a continuation of a discussion held during an Aug. 11 visit to Tehran by Massimo Aparo, a deputy to Grossi, the diplomat added. Iranian state television also acknowledged the meeting would happen.

Iran tries to downplay ‘snapback’ threat

Araghchi has sought to downplay the threat that “snapback” poses. In his statement after the call, he said Iran would discuss the “snapback” threat with its friends, likely meaning China and Russia.

The “snapback” power in the nuclear accord expires in October, also putting pressure on the Europeans to potentially use it as leverage with Iran before losing that ability.

Under “snapback,” any party to the deal can find Iran in noncompliance, reimposing the sanctions. After it expires, any sanctions effort could face a veto from UN Security Council members China and Russia, two nations that have provided some support to Iran in the past but stayed out of the June war.

Published on: August 23, 2025 1:40 AM

AP
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from US strikes angered President Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Hegseth also fired Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, who is chief of the Navy Reserve, as well as Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversees Naval Special Warfare Command, another US official said.

The reasons for their firings, the latest in a series targeting military leaders, were not clear Friday.

The Trump administration increasingly has moved against both the military leadership and the intelligence community. Some current and former national security officials saw their security clearances revoked this week in a tactic that the administration has used against perceived foes.

Critics say the administration’s actions could chill dissent and send a signal that the intelligence community should be careful in reaching conclusions at odds with Trump’s interests.

Kruse’s firing comes a few months after details of a preliminary assessment of US airstrikes against Iran leaked to the media. It found that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months, contradicting assertions from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Republican president, who had pronounced the Iranian program “completely and fully obliterated,” rejected the report.

In a news conference following the June strikes, Hegseth lambasted the press for focusing on the preliminary assessment but did not offer any direct evidence of the destruction of Iranian nuclear production facilities.

“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated — choose your word. This was an historically successful attack,” Hegseth said then.

While the Pentagon has offered no details on the firings, Democrats in Congress have raised alarm over the precedent Kruse’s ouster sets for the intelligence community.

“The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administration’s dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country,” said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called on the administration to show why Kruse was fired or “otherwise, we can only assume that this is another politically motivated decision intended to create an atmosphere of fear” within the intelligence community.

The firing of Kruse, Lacore, and Sands was earlier reported by The Washington Post.

Trump has a history of removing government officials whose data and analysis he disagrees with. Earlier this month, after a lousy jobs report, he fired the official in charge of the data. His administration has also stopped posting reports on climate change, canceled studies on vaccine access and removed data on gender identity from government sites.

The new firings culminate a week of broad Trump administration changes to the intelligence community and shakeups to the military leadership. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence — which is responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including DIA — announced that it would slash its staff and budget.

The Pentagon announced this week that the Air Force’s top uniformed officer, Gen. David Allvin, planned to retire two years early.

Hegseth and Trump have been aggressive in dismissing top military officials, often without formal explanation.

The administration has fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the Navy’s top officer, the Air Force’s second highest-ranking officer, and the top lawyers for three military service branches.

In April, Hegseth fired Gen. Tim Haugh as head of the National Security Agency and Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, who was a senior official at NATO.

No public explanations have been offered by the Pentagon for any of these firings, though some of the officers were believed by the administration to endorse diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

This story has been updated with additional details.

Is China unhappy, if not annoyed, with Kabul’s position on groups that it considers detrimental to the interests of the entire region? Does China’s interest in Afghanistan limited to counter-terrorism (CT) only or extends beyond CT? How does its positioning vis a vis the “ETIM threat” define Beijing’s South Asia policy? For how long can the Afghan Taliban expect largess while staying indifferent, if not insensitive, to concerns of friendly countries?

This week took Wang Yi, the Chinese Foreign Minister, to an unusual trip first to India and then to Islamabad and Kabul. The India leg was an attempt to reconnect with a country that basked in glory as the “strategic partner of the US and Europe” until Donald Trump’s reentry into the White House. India’s “darling of the US” also drew both New Delhi and Beijing apart for several years. After enduring slurs from Trump, the Indian leaders have warmed up again to China.

The best outcome of the thaw with New Delhi probably was Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar’s reiteration that “Taiwan is part of China.” It obviously lent a special flavour to Wang Yi’s re-warming visit — a fence-mending underway.

Though skepticism still surrounds this bonhomie as to whether it will survive after Trump’s exit from the White House in three years from now. And this calls for China to be extremely cautious about the long-term strategic partner of the Western alliances; as a member BRICS and SCO, India may not be a facilitator for these organisations which Donald Trump views as anti-dollar.

We should not, therefore, disregard the deep trust deficit that clouds the thus-far uneasy Sino-India relations too. And that stems from New Delhi’s strategic posturing which smells more like a western geo-strategic potpourri than an organically carved menu. And hence the fog of mistrust which also deepened when the Indian officials issued a clarification on the Taiwan issue and claimed Jaishankar had been misquoted by Chinese officials.

It incensed Beijing, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning hoped that India will earnestly abide by the one-China principle. This clearly underlined the devious nature of the Indian diplomacy aimed at not displeasing the US.

The same looks true for Afghanistan too. Despite the immense goodwill it has enjoyed because of its long sufferings, the country’s leadership apparently lacks the trust even of its long-term partners such as China and Pakistan. This, it is evident, turns Afghanistan in to a formidable roadblock in the way of building up relations beyond CT.

During his visit to Kabul on August 20 for bilateral and the sixth round trilateral dialogues, Wang Yi urged the Taliban government to resume joint patrols along the Wakhan Corridor, the narrow 74-kilometre-long strip that links Afghanistan with China’s Xinjiang region. Beijing is concerned about the possible infiltration of Uyghur militants, particularly from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which it sees as a key terrorist threat.

“China supports the prompt resumption of bilateral patrols in the Wakhan Corridor to maintain peace and stability in the border region,” Wang Yi said during a meeting with the Afghan acting Minister of Interior Affairs, Sirajuddin Haqqani.

While describing Afghanistan as an “indispensable” partner in regional peace and modernisation, the Chinese foreign minister called on the Taliban to step up counterterrorism efforts and not to allow any group to use Afghan soil to threaten China, while emphasising that security cooperation would also enable deeper economic ties.

The absence of a formal joint statement after Wang Yi’s meetings with Afghan officials indicates a troubling reality i.e. Beijing may not be happy with the Afghan Emirate’s position on groups such as TTP and ETIM — constant irritants respectively for Beijing and Islamabad.

A Tolo News report quoted Wais Naseri, an Afghan political analyst, as saying: “Like China, Pakistan is also interested in improving Kabul-Islamabad relations; however, the conditions set by Pakistan are the same as those posed by China to Afghanistan’s current authorities. Therefore, it is necessary to seek solutions to the concerns these countries have about security developments.”

This quote sums up the dilemma that both Pakistan and China face in dealing with Afghanistan’s present rulers. Wais Naseri is essentially urging Kabul to heed requests by friendly countries and act against groups that threaten the security of these two countries.

One would hope that Kabul takes such advice in positive stride. International relations rest on quid pro quo. You cannot expect political and economic support from countries while disregarding their requests about the groups which these countries view as external proxies out to jeopardise internal security and hurt their interests. The Taliban regime, which has brought about considerable stability and peace to their country, should dispel the perception that they are pursuing a cloak and dagger policy.