Category: East Asia

Former cast member Pete Davidson returned to Saturday Night Live to channel border czar Tom Homan for a cold open sketch rallying a group of federal immigration agents during a pep talk set in Minneapolis.
Davidson’s Homan quipped that it was “crazy” that he appeared to be the only “reasonable adult” present, while the bumbling agents around him — played by cast members — failed to grasp their mission.
The sketch for the 1,000th episode of the long-running series comes just days after President Donald Trump deployed Homan to Minnesota to help defuse tensions sparked by a surge of federal immigration officers who have carried out hundreds of arrests and several fatal shootings, sparking international outrage as the state emered as the epicenter of the president’s mass deportation campaign.
On Thursday, Homan — who previously served under former President Barack Obama — announced “massive changes” would be coming to Minneapolis after reaching an agreement with local and state officials t..

Close'Evil must stop’: Zelenskyy mourns latest Russian attack on miners as he confirms next diplomatic talks in UAEUkraine, Russia, and America are set to hold the second round of trilateral talks this week to discuss a US-drafted plan to end the war on Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The talks were earlier scheduled to take place on Sunday but no reason has been provided from either side for the delay. Zelensky said Ukraine is “interested in ensuring that the outcome brings us closer to a real and dignified end to the war”.
“The dates for the next trilateral meetings have been set – February 4 and 5 in Abu Dhabi,” Zelensky said. Officials from Russia and the US are yet to confirm the new dates.
Just hours later, a Russian drone strike killed at least 12 people after it hit a bus carrying mineworkers in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Sunday.
At least another seven mineworkers who were returning from their shift were injured in the attack, which also sparked a fire that was late..

CloseOmid Djalili: Iranians will fight to the very end against this regimeIran says it now deems all EU militaries to be “terrorist groups”, accusing Europe of “blind obedience to the Americans” at a time of heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington.
The announcement comes after the EU declared Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard a terror group in response to its brutal and deadly crackdown on economic protesters.
Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, also a former Guard member, made the announcement in parliament, where lawmakers later chanted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”.
Tensions remain high in the Middle East as US president Donald Trump sent an “armada” of navy destroyers towards Iran, with the Islamic Republic also planning a military drill for Sunday and Monday in the region's strategic Strait of Hormuz.
On Saturday, Iran was rocked by two explosions, though officials rushed to deny that any assassination attempt had taken place.
Four people were k..

CloseRussia-Ukraine pause on energy strikes amid fragile peace talksVolodymyr Zelensky has suggested that trilateral talks due to take place on Sunday will be delayed until next week as Donald Trump focuses on the “situation with Iran”.
In his nightly video address on Saturday, the Ukrainian President said he was waiting for more information from the US, which is brokering the negotiations, on where and when the talks would next take place.
He had previously suggested that Sunday’s anticipated meeting between Ukraine, Russia and the US could be delayed due to the ongoing tensions between the US and Iran.
“We are in constant communication with the American side and are expecting specific details from them regarding further meetings,” he said. “We are counting on meetings next week and are preparing for them.”
The three sides last met a week ago, and Zelensky said Kyiv was still “ready to work in all formats” to secure an elusive peace deal.
On Saturday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff h..

CloseTrump says Putin agreed to not fire on Kyiv for a week during coldUkrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has suggested that a second round of three-way peace talks with the US and Russia may not go ahead tomorrow as planned.
Delegates from the US, Russia and Ukraine met last week to iron out their respective differences in order to move towards securing a peace deal with a follow-up to be held this weekend in Abu Dhabi.
However, Zelensky hinted that the follow-up planned for Sunday could be delayed with Donald Trump's attention focussed elsewhere on Iran.
“From our point of view, something is happening in the situation between the United States and Iran, and those developments could affect the timing,” Zelensky said.
Trump said earlier that Russian president Vladimir Putin had agreed to not attack Ukrainian energy infrastructure this weekend at a time when the war-hit nation is experiencing particularly harsh winter conditions.
Ukraine has said it will not attack Russia'..

Close'I told them two things': Trump reveals what he told IranIran is prepared for talks with the United States, but negotiations should be “fair and equitable” and not take place “under the shadow of threats”, the country’s foreign minister has said.
In a post on X, Abbas Araghchi said Tehran had “no problem with negotiations” following repeated threats of US military intervention by Donald Trump.
“They must certainly set aside their threats and change their approach toward a fair and equitable negotiation, as Mr Trump himself said in his post,” Araghchi said.
Trump warned Iran it must do “two things” to avoid US military action, as US forces continue to build in the Middle East ahead of a possible strike.
“Number one, no nuclear. And number two, stop killing protesters,” the US president said.
Iran earlier warned it will retaliate to any US attack “instantly” and that its response would not be limited. A response would likely see it attack the US military bases stationed ..

Overseeing Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign and government-wide anti-immigration efforts is a constellation of longtime loyalists, law enforcement officials and advisers spread across federal agencies.
The president has reshaped the government around his mission to find, arrest and deport tens of thousands of people, deter new arrivals and impose severe restrictions on legal immigration that have stranded refugees and forced immigrants to flee the country.
That mission is dovetailing with his campaign of “retribution” against political opponents, whose cities have been occupied by federal officers and National Guard troops under his direction.
These are some of the agencies and players in charge.
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of policyThe architect of the Trump administration’s draconian immigration policies in his first term returned to the White House last year as an influential force behind mass deportations and the president’s attempts to unilaterally define who..

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers carrying out the Trump administration’s crackdown in Minnesota have been ordered not to engage with “agitators” and focus on arresting migrants with criminal records in an apparent focus switch, according to a report.
A top ICE official shared the new guidance in an email obtained by Reuters following the deaths of two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, at the hands of federal law enforcement during clashes in Minneapolis.
“We are moving to targeted enforcement of aliens with a criminal history,” the official said, according to the news agency. “This includes arrests, not just convictions. ALL TARGETS MUST HAVE A CRIMINAL NEXUS.”
Under former President Joe Biden, the administration ordered ICE to focus on serious criminals, a policy that was rescinded by President Donald Trump, allowing agents to arrest non-criminals without restrictions.
The new guidance states officers can run license plate checks for possible targets and shou..

Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old nurse fatally shot by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis on Saturday, appeared to confront federal agents less than two weeks before his death, newly published video footage shows.
A video published by The News Movement, a digital media company, seemed to show Pretti kicking a government vehicle and being tackled to the ground on a city street January 13.
The BBC reported on Wednesday that the man in the video “has the same coat, facial hair and gait as Alex Pretti and a facial recognition tool suggests a 97% match.” CNN later reported that Pretti’s family confirmed to the outlet that he is the man in the video.
In the two-minute clip, a man can be seen rushing toward a federal vehicle and yelling before kicking out its taillight. He appears to be carrying a gun in his waistband.
An agent then steps out of the vehicle, shoves the man to the ground and receives backup from other agents. Bystanders, some filming and yelling at the federal agents, wa..

A Texas man sentenced to death for fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend has become the first person executed in the United States this year.
Charles Victor Thompson, 55, was pronounced dead at 6.50pm CST after receiving a lethal injection Wednesday at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the April 1998 shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend, Glenda Dennise Hayslip, 39, and her new boyfriend, Darren Keith Cain, 30, at the woman’s suburban Houston apartment.
In his final words, Thompson asked the families of his victims to find it in their hearts to forgive him, adding, “that you can begin to heal and move past this.”
“There are no winners in this situation,” he said after a spiritual adviser prayed over him for about three minutes and shortly before a lethal dose of pentobarbital was administered.
He said his execution “creates more victims and traumatizes more people 28 years later.”
“I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry for what happened, and I ..