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Mexico’s ex-president accuses US of plotting to weaken governing party

Mexico’s former president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has accused US officials of trying to weaken the governing party to strengthen the opposition, amid rising tensions between the two countries over Washington’s investigations into several Mexican governors. “Some US officials are plotting to weaken Morena and strengthen the rightwing opposition in Mexico with the aim of restoring a subservient, corrupt, mafia-like, and cruel government,” López Obrador wrote in a lengthy letter posted on X on Wednesday. The former leader, known popularly as Amlo, also accused officials of using “Hitler-like propaganda of repeating and repeating lies with an eye toward the upcoming November elections, to continue blaming Mexico for each and every one of their problems.” Amlo’s letter comes as tensions between Mexico and the US reach a boiling point following revelations that CIA agents were working in Mexico, as well as the Department of Justice’s indictment of the governor of Sinaloa on drug-trafficking charges in April. The LA Times has also reported that two more Mexican governors had their US visas revoked and were under investigation by US authorities. Amlo, who is reportedly living in retirement on a ranch in southern Mexico, continues to hold tremendous influence over the Morena party he founded: Mexico’s current president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has hewn closely to the former leader’s rhetoric and followed through on several of his political projects. On Thursday, she displayed Amlo’s letter during her morning news conference, reading excerpts from the missive and saying with apparent glee: “This debate is so great. Truly. It’s so good! Very important.” In the five-page letter, López Obrador also mused about the “surprising change in President Donald Trump’s attitude, especially regarding relations with Mexico”. Despite Trump’s disparaging comments about Mexicans during his campaign, he and Amlo formed an unlikely alliance as populist leaders. As López Obrador writes in his letter, they found common ground on matters like trade and security. “There were several issues that we resolved, for the good of our people, through reasoned dialogue and without confrontation,” López Obrador writes. Amlo then speculates why the US leader might have changed during his second term, suggesting perhaps it was due to changing circumstances, the fact that he is in his final term or that he “increasingly relies on his inexperienced, resentful, and fanatical advisers for decision-making”. Amlo suggests this latter point is the true reason behind Trump’s apparent transformation: “his false friends and advisers, both internal and external, who have been leading him into vile and sinister adventures.” López Obrador urges Trump to “tell the parasites surrounding him to go to hell” and concludes by saying “for everyone’s sake, let the other Trump return”.

Outrage in Argentina after two teen girls murdered as femicide crisis endures

Argentina has reacted with fury after the bodies of two murdered teenage girls were found just two days apart. The latest killings underscore the South American country’s enduring femicide crisis despite years of feminist campaigning, and have prompted alarm over the decision to cut support for victims of gender-based violence under the far-right administration of Javier Milei. Police found the remains of Agostina Vega, 14, on Saturday, in a field on the outskirts of the city of Córdoba. She had been fatally strangled and her body had been dismembered, according to local media reports. She had left home on the night of Saturday 23 May, and took a taxi to the home of Claudio Barrelier, 33, a friend of the family. He was arrested after a taxi driver told police that he had taken Vega to an intersection that matched the location of Barrelier’s house. CCTV footage showed her entering the house, but there was no sign of her leaving. The case is being investigated as femicide: killing of a woman or girl because of her gender. Barrelier is in custody and denies murder. “Just like they murdered my daughter, there are going to be loads of Agostinas, and this can’t happen again,” said Agostina’s father, Gabriel Vega, during a press conference on Wednesday evening. He also questioned online speculation about her lifestyle. “People are posting photos of her when she went out dancing,” he said. “Why don’t they post photos of her going to school?” Barrelier was already involved in a legal case for allegedly kidnapping a woman in 2025. He was held for 20 days in that case before being released on bail. The body of Dulce Candia, 17, was found in a septic tank at an abandoned building site in the town of Eldorado, in Misiones province, on 28 May. She had been missing for 12 days, and pathologists believe she had been dead for five or six days. Like Vega, the cause of her death was strangulation. A 47-year-old taxi driver has been arrested on suspicion of her murder. Raúl Maslowski, director general of security for Misiones provincial police, told local TV channel 6 that Candia had been in a “romantic relationship” with the man, who was 30 years her senior. The two girls were found just days before feminist activists held the 11th annual Ni Una Menos (Not a single woman less) anti-femicide march on Wednesday. The protest, which became the nucleus of a new wave of feminist activism across Latin America, was first held on 3 June 2015 after 14-year-old Chiara Páez was murdered by her boyfriend. This year’s march came two and a half years into the presidency of Milei, a far-right economist whose government has shuttered the ministry of women, genders and diversity, axed support for women fleeing gender-based violence, and moved to remove the crime of femicide (as distinct from murder), from the nation’s criminal code. Data compiled by the supreme court indicates that rates of femicide have fallen from 250 in 2023 – the final year of the previous government – to 200 in 2025. The government has argued that its economic reforms create a stronger and more stable economy, which they say leads to lower rates of violence without the need for state intervention. Feminist campaigners have rejected this narrative. They say much of the decline is because fewer femicides are properly registered. Moreover, the main jurisdiction that appears to be seeing a genuine drop in cases is the populous province of Buenos Aires – but this is controlled by the opposition, and unlike the national government, it still has a provincial ministry of women and diversity. “This decline that the government is claiming, which isn’t true, has to do with refusals to register a crime as a femicide,” said Lucía de la Vega, who coordinates work on violence against women at the Center for Legal and Social Studies, a human rights non-profit. “It also has to do with the elimination of places and entities that gathered statistics and registered violence against women.” Senator Carolina Losada, of the government-aligned Juntos por el Cambio party, has pushed a draft law that would introduce harsher punishments for false accusations of rape and other sexual crimes. However, a recent analysis by the public prosecutor’s office showed that just 0.09% of gender-based violence reports were false. Meanwhile, an estimated 77% of all crimes are never reported. The bill, and similar projects, have not been approved at present but, as support for survivors is withdrawn, such discourse makes it even harder for them to seek justice, said feminist lawyer Soledad Deza. When she heard of Agostina and Dulce’s cases, Deza felt “a great sense of powerlessness”, she said. “Given what we feminists have been warning of all along, it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy,” she added. Amid the outcry over the deaths of Vega and Candia, news broke of the killing of a 30-year-old woman on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Noelia Romero had called the police and told them that her boyfriend, Tomás Adrián Núñez, was holding her hostage. Officers went to the house, but while they spent hours waiting to be granted a warrant, Romero was murdered. Immediately afterwards, Núñez attempted to take his own life, according to local media. He was taken to hospital, where he was accused of the murder and formally placed in police custody. Núñez had previously been reported for gender-based violence by both Romero and a former partner.

Jamaican police officer charged with murder after woman shot during protest

Authorities in Jamaica have taken the rare step of charging a police officer with murder after he was accused of shooting a 45-year-old woman in a case that prompted violent protests. According to the Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom), Constable Andrew Wilson appeared in court on Wednesday and was denied bail. Another hearing is scheduled for mid-June. The killing of Latoya “Buju” Bulgin on 17 May in north-west Jamaica sparked protests after footage circulated on social media showing an officer firing at her vehicle during a demonstration over police violence. According to Indecom, police were “conducting crowd control duties” during a protest in Granville, St James, against a police shooting days earlier, in which 17-year-old Tjey Edwards, identified by local media as Bulgin’s cousin, was killed. In the CCTV footage, Bulgin’s minivan is seen stationary at the side of the road as several people climb out. Police officers can be seen standing nearby. With one of the side doors still open, the vehicle starts to pull out into the road. Apparently without warning, an officer standing a few feet in front of the vehicle pulls a handgun and shoots at the driver, amid screams and cries from people nearby. Some people are seen running. Police officers are seen dragging Bulgin’s limp body out of the car and on to the ground and putting her in the back of a police pickup truck. The officers do not appear to make any attempt to offer first aid to the injured woman. Indecom and Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ), a human rights group, have been calling for strengthened accountability in police fatal shootings through mechanisms such as body-worn cameras. No body camera was worn by the police officer accused of shooting Bulgin, and JFJ said the incident demonstrated the importance of independent footage. “Without the availability of that CCTV footage, we would not be in the position to even be having this conversation and we would not perhaps have seen the JCF high command responding,” the group’s executive director, Mickel Jackson, told Radio Jamaica News last month. In a statement on Wednesday, Indecom said the “prompt collection and analysis of video evidence” during its independent investigation into Bulgin’s death “assisted in establishing an objective understanding of this fatal shooting incident”. The commission has reported 140 fatal shootings so far this year in the country of 2.8 million people. Last year, JFJ staged a protest against what it described as a “significant and alarming” increase in fatal shootings by police. The PNP Women’s Movement, a branch of the opposition People’s National party, said the CCTV footage “raises serious questions about the use of lethal force by members of the security forces”. It also said it was “disturbing” how Bulgin’s body was thrown into the back of a police vehicle after she was shot. “This conduct falls below the respect that should be afforded to our citizens by members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force,” the group said. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights denounced Bulgin’s killing and urged a “prompt, independent, impartial and transparent inquiry”. With reporting by the Associated Press

Israel to continue ground operation in southern Lebanon despite agreed ceasefire – as it happened

Iran’s supreme leader Motjaba Khamenei said in a written statement read out by a cleric that “the enemy is experiencing a meaningful and profound humiliation in the field and the streets, and it is now focused on trickery.” “After Iran was able to repel the enemy, who was defeated on the battlefield, it now seeks to undermine the resilience of the Iranian people and sow discord. The US created a military base called Israel, and Iran will not back down from its stance toward Israel,” Khamenei wrote. Lebanon’s Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said on Thursday that as long as Lebanese villages were being bombed and people were being killed, northern Israel will not be safe. It comes as Israeli strikes killed at least four people in Lebanon, according to local authorities, and a UN peacekeeper was killed in the crossfire on Thursday. Qassem also said that Hezbollah has rejected the latest ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and the Lebanese government, demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal. In a written statement read on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV on Thursday, the Iran-backed group’s leader said the agreement’s demand that Hezbollah fighters leave southern Lebanon under fire would mean “surrender, defeat and achieving the enemy’s goals.” Donald Trump has brushed off a House vote to rein in his powers to attack Iran without approval from Congress (see post at 12:34), saying it was “meaningless”. He singled out the four Republicans who joined Democrats to pass the bill in a vote of 215 to 208 yesterday. Lebanese prime minister Nawaf Salam said that the army would begin deploying in ‘pilot zones’ in the country’s south, a day after Israel and Lebanon agreed in Washington to implement a ceasefire. “The next step is practical and tangible: the deployment of the Lebanese army in pilot zones as a first phase,” Salam said, according to remarks read out by information minister Paul Morcos after a cabinet meeting, adding that “this does not prejudice our right to a full [Israeli] withdrawal, but brings us closer to it”. Israel’s Supreme Court has said Israel must allow visits to Palestinian prisoners by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), ruling in favour of a petition against a ban that was brought in at the start of the Gaza war. The bar on Red Cross visits to Palestinian detainees has restricted independent verification of their treatment, following reports of systemic abuse, starvation, and denial of medical care towards Palestinian prisoners. The UN peacekeeper who was killed in southern Lebanon (see post at 10:08) has been identified as a Serbian soldier. The Serbian defence ministry issued a statement naming the soldier as Milovan Jovanović. The UN nuclear watchdog has sent a report to member states repeating its calls on Iran to urgently inform the agency of the fate of its enriched uranium since its atomic sites were bombed a year ago and let inspections resume fully. “The [International Atomic Energy Agency] director-general has emphasised to Iran that it is indispensable and urgent to implement effectively the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) Safeguards Agreement... and that its implementation cannot be suspended by Iran under any circumstances,” the confidential report, seen by Reuters, said. Four Iranian-flagged oil tankers passed through the strait of Hormuz on Monday, a first since 15 April and the US blockade of Iranian ports, according to maritime tracking firm Kpler. In data published on Thursday, the firm detected the passage of the Hilda I, the Amber, the Silvia 1, and the Happiness I, which were carrying a total of seven million barrels of oil. In Gaza, at least nine people have been killed in overnight Israeli strikes, including members of the same family, according to Palestinian health officials. They were killed in at least four separate strikes in Gaza City, the al-Shifa hospital said, which received the bodies. Five members of one family were killed in a strike north-east of the city, the hospital reported, adding that 15 others were injured in the attacks.

Hezbollah rejects Israel-Lebanon truce as Trump scrambles to end Iran war

Hezbollah has rejected a US-brokered ceasefire plan agreed by the Lebanese and Israeli governments, throwing the future of a truce in Lebanon and regional peace negotiations into question. The group’s leader, Naim Qassem, called the plan a “roadmap to annihilate part of the Lebanese people” in a statement on Thursday. He demanded a complete ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, and said that as long as Lebanese villages were being bombed, northern Israel would not be safe. “As long as the occupation exists, the resistance will continue,” he said. “We call upon the officials to put an end to this farce and humiliation called direct negotiations.” The Israeli and the Lebanese governments had agreed a ceasefire to end hostilities on Monday night. The deal called for a complete cessation of fire from Hezbollah, which is aligned with Iran, and the evacuation of all its fighters south of the Litani River. Despite the agreement between the two governments, the Lebanese army is not a party to the conflict because the fighting has been between Hezbollah and Israel. The Lebanese government has been negotiating with Israel without Hezbollah as part of its effort to reassert control over the country and disarm the group. Hezbollah’s rejection of the ceasefire flies in the face of the Lebanese government’s announcement that it would come into effect in 24 hours, and raises further questions about how the Lebanese government can negotiate a ceasefire with Israel without Hezbollah at the table. The Lebanese prime minister, Nawaf Salam, said those that delayed or rejected a ceasefire would bear responsibility for the consequences, and that negotiations were the best option for Lebanon. “The negotiation track we chose is the fastest and least costly road for Lebanon, the Lebanese people, the south and its residents,” Salam said. Hezbollah’s response also calls into question the arrangement in Lebanon after the 17 April ceasefire, under which Washington constrained Israel from striking Beirut in return for a halt in Hezbollah fire towards northern Israel. The group’s rejection of the ceasefire seems to echo demands from Tehran, which said hours after the ceasefire was announced that Israel should withdraw to its prewar positions. The head of the Quds Force, part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said: “Supporting the resistance in Lebanon is the duty of all of us, and removing Israel from the region is an attainable goal for Muslims.” Esmail Qaani wrote in a post on a domestic social media platform: “The minimum demand of the resistance is the withdrawal of the usurping regime to the position it held before the start of the 40-day war.” Tehran has previously said that its own ceasefire with the US and Israel must include a halt to the fighting in Lebanon. It is unclear how Hezbollah’s rejection of a ceasefire in Lebanon will affect Tehran’s negotiations with Washington. Iran’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that Lebanon was an “integral part of any ceasefire and any final agreement”. Despite the earlier joint commitment to a ceasefire, both Israel and Hezbollah continued fighting on Thursday. Israel carried out several airstrikes in the Nabatieh area of southern Lebanon and the western Bekaa valley, killing four people, while Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli soldiers in the village of Qantara, southern Lebanon. Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said his country had “freedom of action, backed by the United States, to strike Beirut in response to attacks on Israeli communities and territory”. He said Israeli troops would remain in south Lebanon to maintain a “buffer zone”, which Israel says is designed to protect its residents in the north. It controls more than 600 sq km (230 sq miles) of territory in southern Lebanon, and has destroyed dozens of border villages, preventing hundreds of Lebanese people from returning to their homes. Lebanon and Israel, which do not have formal diplomatic relations, have also agreed to create “pilot zones” in which the Lebanese armed forces would “take exclusive control of the territory to the exclusion of all non-state actors”. Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, told reporters he had suggested the first pilot zone be in the area of Beaufort Castle, which Israeli soldiers captured earlier in the week. Lebanese media reported on Thursday that Israeli troops had begun withdrawing from the villages of Dibbine and Marjayoun and were being replaced by their Lebanese counterparts. The meetings in Washington were the fourth round of direct talks between Lebanese and Israeli diplomats since fighting erupted on 2 March, when Hezbollah launched attacks against Israel in support of Iran, which had been bombed by the US and Israel. The joint statement said the meetings would continue to flesh out a ceasefire and implement it in phases. The joint statement resembles a previous ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel in 2024, in which Hezbollah agreed to pull back from south of the Litani River so Lebanese armed forces could deploy there. The full disarmament of Hezbollah failed, and in the next 15 months Israel carried out more that 10,000 strikes in violation of the ceasefire. Donald Trump said on Wednesday he wanted to separate talks on the conflict in Lebanon and those on the war with Iran, but Tehran insists the two situations are linked and this week threatened to suspend talks with the US in protest against Israel’s offensive in Lebanon. The US president said on Monday that he had stopped an imminent Israeli strike on Beirut and had spoken to Benjamin Netanyahu, and Hezbollah representatives who had agreed that “all shooting will stop”. When asked by reporters on Wednesday about the flagging Lebanon ceasefire, Trump responded that “it’s a different part of the world.” “You know, I’d say in that part of the world, a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner,” Trump said. He also confirmed reports that he had described the Israeli prime minister as “crazy”, saying he was “a little bit perturbed” that Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah was complicating US-led efforts to advance peace talks with Iran. According to analysts, Israel wants to inflict as much damage as possible on Hezbollah before any peace deal with Iran stops its offensive. Israeli strikes have killed at least 3,516 people in Lebanon, while Hezbollah strikes have killed two civilians in Israel and at least 21 Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. Trump is under pressure to resolve the Iran war, as rising energy prices and economic uncertainty threaten Republican prospects in the US midterm elections and hamper global trade.

Trump’s Iran war messaging is not winning over Americans – or their representatives

Donald Trump has two things to say about his war with Iran. The first is that it’s already over. And second, a symbolic congressional vote to end it – carried by four members of his own party – is a stab in the back that could derail the peace talks he’s conducting for the war that’s already over. By a 215-208 margin on Wednesday, the US House of Representatives voted to direct the president to withdraw US forces from hostilities with Iran, the first time either chamber has passed such a measure in the little over three months since Operation Epic Fury began on 28 February. By Thursday morning, Trump was on Truth Social calling the vote “unpatriotic” and blaming it on “Trump Derangement Syndrome”. The four Republicans who crossed the aisle, each with different ideologies, don’t exactly fit the bill for such a diagnosis. Thomas Massie of Kentucky is a libertarian-leaning constitutionalist who has opposed the war from day one, lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, and has, in Trump’s estimation, nothing left to lose. Warren Davidson of Ohio is a West Point graduate, former army ranger, and ex-Freedom Caucus member who voted against the war alongside Massie in March, but flipped back until recently. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, a former FBI agent representing Philadelphia’s suburbs, is well known as a moderate who framed his vote in the plainest possible terms “You either follow the law, or you change the law,” he said. “You can’t violate the law. That’s not an option.” Tom Barrett of Michigan voted in March against a war powers resolution, saying Trump had “earned the opportunity to resolve this conflict quickly”. By May, however, he had changed his mind, citing the economic pain hitting his constituents. All four lawmakers coalesced for last night’s vote. But none of this has stopped the administration from declaring, with some confidence, that the war is already over. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, told Congress this week that Operation Epic Fury had “concluded”. The Trump administration insists the US is now only conducting “completely defensive” strikes. And yet gas prices are averaging close to $4.24 per gallon nationwide, per AAA, and nearly $6 in California. The strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil normally flows, remains effectively closed, three months after the first strikes on Iran. Trump’s own Truth Social post – in which he condemned Wednesday’s vote as unpatriotic – describes active “final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran”. The war that has concluded is, apparently, still being negotiated to a conclusion. The absurdity of calling anyone out for noticing the contradiction as disloyal does not appear to be winning over most Americans. A May Economist/YouGov survey found 59% disapproved of Trump’s handling of Iran, while only 31% approved. About two-thirds of Americans told Reuters/Ipsos that rising gas prices had hurt their household finances, and Moody’s Analytics estimates the conflict has cost US households roughly $100bn in aggregate through higher energy costs. Now attention turns to the Senate, where four Republicans have already broken rank with the administration to advance a similar war powers measure, and a final vote still looms. And should it pass, it would require Trump’s signature. The Senate reached the simple 50-vote majority after Bill Cassidy, a senator of Louisiana, flipped his vote to yes, days after Trump helped defeat him in the Louisiana GOP primary. The Texas senator John Cornyn, who has since lost in the primary to Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton, is one of three Republicans who have so far sat out the vote, alongside Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville and retiring North Carolina senator and Trump critic Thom Tillis. Wednesday’s House vote is, as the White House correctly notes, largely symbolic. But symbols have a way of accumulating. In the Senate, the math is moving. The war remains unpopular. The strait of Hormuz is still closed. Trump is insisting the conflict is over and, in the same breath, that talking about it is unpatriotic. For a growing number of Americans, and their representatives on Capitol Hill, this is not a winning message.

‘Embarrassing’: pressure on Merz after Germany’s failure to win UN security council seat

Germany’s unprecedented failure to win one of the rotating seats on the UN security council has prompted an intense round of soul searching in Berlin, and raised questions about its claims to international leadership under Friedrich Merz. The council vote on Wednesday, which elected Austria and Portugal to a two-year term along with Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe, was a blow to Merz’s struggling government, which has sought to position itself as a leading European voice on the world stage. In an awkward rivalry among EU partners, Portugal took 134 votes and Austria 131 while Germany garnered just 104, significantly below the required 127 votes despite Berlin’s expressed confidence just hours before that it would prevail. Both winners were seen to represent the interests of smaller countries, while Austria could benefit from its perceived neutrality as a non-Nato member and Portugal touted its strong ties in Africa and Latin America. The German foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, who had lobbied hard for the seat, attributed the “bitter defeat” to Germany’s active role in rallying support for Ukraine and its staunch backing for Israel. “We have always taken a clear stance on certain issues, and these are positions that not all member states share,” Wadephul told reporters. He called it “no secret” that Russia had rallied sentiment against Germany, now Kyiv’s biggest national provider of military aid. “There is our firm support for Ukraine; the fact that [permanent member] Russia does not want such a voice at the security council,” he said. “The fact that Germany must always assume a special responsibility for Israel in the Middle East conflict may also have cost votes,” he added, referring to Germany’s support for Israel as a key plank of its foreign policy in atonement for the Holocaust. Wadephul said Germany would stand by Israel even if it did voice criticism of its government’s actions in Gaza, West Bank settlements and military strikes in Lebanon. Merz himself, whose popularity has plunged in his first year in power, congratulated the winners of the secret ballot for five seats on the 15-member council and said Berlin’s commitment to the UN would remain unwavering. Germany, the second-largest contributor country to the UN, remains a “reliable pillar of multilateralism,” he said, “acting with determination and a sense of responsibility”. Since Merz took office last May at the helm of a loveless right-left coalition government, he has tried to steer Europe’s biggest economic power back to strength while making Berlin’s voice heard on global issues, backed up by a sharp increase in military spending. The results at home and abroad have been mixed, even prompting speculation in recent days that Merz could be replaced as chancellor by a fellow conservative, Hendrik Wüst, the premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, if he fails to right the ship. While such a scenario still seems highly unlikely, critics from across the political spectrum said Merz and his allies had themselves to blame for the latest debacle. The opposition Greens called it an “embarrassing defeat”, with its deputy parliamentary group leader, Agnieszka Brugger, calling out a failure to “underpin this bid with modern ideas” about leadership on climate protection, the international rules-based order and development aid. Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, now leading in German opinion polls, and a fierce critic of Berlin’s support for Kyiv, said in a scathing post on X that it confirmed a narrative of national decline. “One embarrassment follows the next: while Merz had intended to bring our country ‘back on to the international stage’ at the start of his chancellorship, Germany now finds itself without a seat on the UN security council,” she said. The Social Democrats, junior partners in the ruling coalition, joined in the criticism, saying the vote was “not a mere hiccup, but a warning sign”. Its foreign policy spokesperson, Adis Ahmetović, said Berlin was paying the price for perceived hypocrisy with its restraint in criticising allies including Israel and the US. “Anyone who claims to be the guardian of the rules-based international order must not apply double standards when it comes to international law,” he told Spiegel magazine. Merz initially withheld judgment on Donald Trump’s military attacks in Venezuela and Iran and their compliance with international law, before drawing the US president’s fury by saying the Americans were being “humiliated” by Tehran with their ill-prepared campaign. Because of Germany’s militaristic past and fears of its renewed dominance in Europe, during most of the postwar period the country has leveraged its power within international institutions with “chequebook diplomacy”, making the freeze-out at the UN particularly painful. Germany has served six times on the council, most recently in 2019-20. Manuel Fröhlich, a political scientist at the University of Trier, in western Germany, said the high-profile campaign to win the seat right down to the wire would be a further drag on Merz’s drive for a comeback. “The government would certainly have celebrated it as a success, and in that sense it will no doubt have to take responsibility for this defeat,” he told public broadcaster Phoenix. “In that sense, it is a significant setback.”

Experts criticise plan for American-only Ebola quarantine centre in Kenya

Former top US officials and other experts are urging the Trump administration to abandon plans for an Ebola quarantine and treatment centre in Kenya, as the union for workers with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls for Americans exposed to Ebola to be brought home for treatment. Soon after the US revealed it was setting up a field hospital in Kenya for the Ebola quarantine and treatment of Americans, the Kenyan high court blocked the order – but the Kenyan and US governments moved forward anyway, with the first American responders reportedly landing at the Laikipia airbase on Saturday. Several former US health leaders, including previous top-level CDC officials, laid out their objections in a letter to Congress. “This policy raises profound clinical, ethical, operational and legal concerns,” they wrote. Daniel Jernigan, who spent 31 years at the CDC, including overseeing the agency’s Ebola response in 2014-15, before resigning last year, said it was not clear how current officials had arrived at this plan “because it’s against so many ethical underpinnings that we have relied on for all of the past responses”. The US is in the process of building a 50-bed unit at the airbase. Patients would have access to medications and some respiratory support, but those needing higher levels of care would be flown to as-yet unidentified hospitals in Europe. Yolanda Jacobs, the president of the AFGE Local 2883 government employees’ union, said in a statement that the Trump administration was “abandoning” CDC workers responding to the outbreak, in “a sharp departure from the standard upheld by every previous administration”. The White House did not respond to inquires about whether the facility would be accessible to Kenyans and others working on the Ebola response, and whether all Americans working on the Ebola response would be required to quarantine or whether it would be required only of Americans with high-risk exposures. Previously, the White House did not say whether Americans wishing to return home rather than going to Kenya would be allowed to do so. The US Department of Health and Human Services referred inquiries to the state department, which has been approached for comment. Last week the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said: “We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States.”. During the 2014 Ebola epidemic in west Africa, several people treating patients were safely evacuated to and treated at US facilities in Atlanta, Bethesda, Omaha and New York, with no onward transmission. The US president, Donald Trump, vehemently opposed the move at the time, saying that returning volunteers “must suffer the consequences” and should not be allowed into the US. Ronald Nahass, the president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the medical director of research at ID Care, said Americans could safely quarantine in place after a high-risk exposure to Ebola, and that if they developed symptoms, the US had some of the best quarantine and treatment facilities in the world. “We’ve spent taxpayer dollars to create some really first-class biocontainment units to specifically address this type of an issue and have trained staff who are extraordinarily expert in dealing with this,” Nahass said. Those facilities “can handle it in a better way than a field hospital in Kenya”, he added. “Why wouldn’t you evacuate American citizens if you’re concerned?” During the 2014 outbreak, the US created a field hospital specifically for health workers from all countries who might need Ebola care. “If you come over to west Africa to help, we’ve got your back,” Jernigan said of the 2014 approach. Creating a quarantine centre in another country for Americans only would be highly unusual and a major reversal from such plans, he said. It is also not clear what would happen to Americans in quarantine if they needed outside medical care for non-Ebola causes, such as a heart attack or appendicitis, Jernigan said. “Are you going to send them to Kenyatta hospital in Nairobi, and if so, are you going to send them in a bubble and have a dedicated ward there? If you would just send them back to the United States to a designated facility that has already been established with millions of dollars to do it, they’re surrounded by specialists.” Travel bans and restrictions such as these were ineffective at stopping the spread of disease, Nahass said. “Borders are porous, you can’t keep infectious diseases out of the country” in this way, he said. Instead, Nahass said, tried-and-true public health measures such as monitoring potential exposures and making sure health care providers are prepared for potential cases wooould be much more effective. International collaboration is also crucial for controlling outbreaks, Nahass said. “These are global events and not being part of the global discussion in which the platform for that is the WHO [World Health Organization] is problematic.” America’s absence on the world stage is notable and will have lasting repercussions, he added.