International News Briefs for Wednesday, March 26, 2025

HAVANA TIMES – Here are some of the top international news stories compiled by Democracy Now on Wednesday, March 26, 2025.

Mar 26, 2025

In Gaza, Israeli strikes have killed at least 38 Palestinians over the past 24 hours, including a mother and her five children, the youngest a 6-month-old infant. The family was sleeping at the time of the Israeli attack.

An Israeli court has ruled the prominent Palestinian doctor Hossam Abu Safiya can be held for another six months in Israeli prison solely based on secret evidence. Safiya served as the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza until he was abducted by Israeli forces in December.

Mar 26, 2025

In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal was released Tuesday from Israeli detention after being brutally attacked on Monday, first by a mob of masked Israeli settlers and then by Israeli soldiers. Three weeks ago, Ballal won an Oscar for co-directing the documentary “No Other Land” about violent Israeli settlers trying to seize Ballal’s community in Masafer Yatta. Ballal said Israeli soldiers held him overnight blindfolded and handcuffed at a military base. He spoke on Tuesday from a hospital in Hebron, where he was receiving treatment.

Hamdan Ballal: “You know, it’s like — overnight, it’s like many times, but this is first time — OK? — they came, the soldiers, with the settlers, attacking me and beating me and destroyed me. This is first time. And this came — it’s like, first, I got the Oscar awards. So, this, like, lets you, like, think, ‘Why they’re attacking you like this?’ It’s like hard attack after the Oscar. In the beginning, yes, there’s attack, but not like this. The army, they tried to stop the settlers. But this attack, they came, the soldiers. They came, attacking me with the settlers.”

Click here to see our interview Tuesday with Basel Adra, who also co-directed ‘No Other Land’ with Hamdan Ballal.

Mar 26, 2025

Image Credit: The White Helmets

In other news from the Middle East, an Israeli attack on southern Syria killed at least six people on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the United States reportedly launched another 17 strikes on Yemen. The U.S. has been carrying out near-daily strikes on Yemen after Houthi fighters threatened to renew attacks on Red Sea vessels after Israel broke the ceasefire in Gaza.

Mar 26, 2025

In Washington, D.C., several Democratic lawmakers are calling for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Michael Waltz to resign, after they discussed plans to bomb Yemen on a Signal group chat. Waltz had set up the chat and then accidentally invited Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to join. On Tuesday, President Trump defended Waltz, saying he had learned his lesson and was a good man.

Democratic senators grilled Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe over their involvement in the Signal chat. This is Gabbard responding to a question from Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia.

Tulsi Gabbard: “There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal chat.”

Sen. Mark Warner: “So, then, if there was no classified material, share it with the committee. You can’t have it both ways. These are important jobs. This is our national security.”

Tulsi Gabbard refused to say if she was on the group chat, even though there was a participant with the initials T.G. We’ll have more on this story later in the broadcast.

Mar 26, 2025

Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe were testifying before the Senate in a hearing focused on the U.S intelligence community’s new annual threat assessment. The annual report cited fentanyl and international drug gangs as top threats to the country, but the report omits climate change as a major threat. This is independent Senator Angus King questioning Gabbard.

Sen. Angus King: “Who decided climate change should be left out of this report, after it’s been in the prior 11? Where was that decision made?”

Tulsi Gabbard: “I gave direction to our team at ODNI to focus on the most extreme and critical national security threats that we face.”

Sen. Angus King: “Did your direction include no comments on climate change?”

Tulsi Gabbard: “Senator, as I said, I focused on the most extreme and critical national security threats that” —

Sen. Angus King: “That’s not a response to my question.”

The Senate hearing was disrupted by the activist Tighe Barry of CodePink, who called on the United States to stop funding Israel.

Kash Patel: “Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman” —

Tighe Barry: “The greatest threat to global security is Israel, and the whole world knows it!”

Sen. Tom Cotton: “Witness will suspend.”

Tighe Barry: “The greatest threat to global security is Israel, and the whole world knows it! Stop funding Israel! Stop funding Israel!”

A second CodePink activist, the retired Army colonel and former diplomat Anne Wright, was removed from the hearing and arrested after she stood up to dispute a claim by committee chair Tom Cotton that CodePink was funded by the Chinese government.

Mar 26, 2025

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a naval ceasefire in the Black Sea and a halt to attacks on energy infrastructure, after the United States held talks with both countries in Saudi Arabia. But key details still need to be sorted out. Russia said the Black Sea ceasefire will only go into effect after the lifting of international sanctions on Russian agriculture and fertilizer exports.

Mar 26, 2025

Vice President JD Vance has announced in a social media video that he will join a high-level Trump delegation going to Greenland this week following President Trump’s threats to seize the semi-autonomous territory from Denmark.

Vice President JD Vance: “Speaking for President Trump, we want to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it’s important to protecting the security of the entire world. Unfortunately, leaders in both America and in Denmark, I think, ignored Greenland for far too long. That’s been bad for Greenland. It’s also been bad for the security of the entire world. We think we can take things in a different direction, so I’m going to go check it out.”

On the delegation, Vance will join his wife, second lady Usha Vance, national security adviser Michael Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Greenland and Denmark have accused the United States of putting unacceptable and aggressive pressure on Greenland by sending the uninvited delegation.

Mar 26, 2025

The American Civil Liberties Union has accused President Trump of “despotic, unpresidential behavior” after he signed a new executive order targeting the law firm Jenner & Block — the sixth law firm hit with sanctions in recent weeks. The ACLU said, “This is part of a larger effort to knock out the pillars of a free society — journalists, universities, the legal profession and the courts.” Jenner & Block has been involved in several lawsuits against the Trump administration’s policies targeting transgender individuals and asylum seekers. Trump criticized the firm in part for once employing Andrew Weissmann, who served as lead prosecutor in Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office that investigated Trump’s ties to Russia.
In related news, The Washington Post reports many big law firms are now refusing to represent critics of Trump, including former Biden officials, out of fear the president may target their firms, as well.

Mar 26, 2025

The American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association have sued to block the Trump administration from arresting, detaining or deporting international students and faculty involved in Palestinian rights protests. One lawyer involved in the case accused the Trump administration of creating a “climate of repression and fear on university campuses across the country.”

In related news, a judge has blocked the Trump administration from deporting Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old Columbia University student who participated in pro-Palestine demonstrations on campus. She is a legal permanent resident who has lived in the U.S. since she was 7 years old.

Mar 26, 2025

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is arriving in El Salvador today, where she will tour the maximum-security mega-prison complex detaining hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants and asylum seekers sent by the United States after the Trump administration accused them, without evidence, of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Human rights groups have documented gross violations at the mega-prison, built by the government of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in 2022 after he began enforcing a state of emergency. Protesters took to the streets of San Salvador on Tuesday.

Carolina Rivas: “We condemn the use of our land as an imperial prison and the attempt to turn our territory into free zones for neofascist experimentation. We demand the immediate release of all kidnapped Venezuelan migrants. We demand unrestricted respect for their human rights, due process and the right to migrate.”

On Monday, a U.S. federal judge condemned how the Trump administration expelled the Venezuelans to El Salvador without due process. U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett said, “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here.” She was citing how the wartime act was invoked during World War II.

Mar 26, 2025

In Sudan, at least 54 people were killed Tuesday in a military airstrike on a market in the western village of Tora in North Darfur. Meanwhile, the United Nations is warning South Sudan is on the brink of a renewed civil war as fighting escalates between government forces and a rebel militia known as the White Army.

Mar 26, 2025

Image Credit: Korea Forest Service

In South Korea, at least 24 people have died in the nation’s worst-ever wildfires. More than 27,000 people have been forced to evacuate due to the blazes that have scorched buildings, factories and two 1,000-year-old Buddhist temples.

Mar 26, 2025

The head of UNAIDS is warning the withdrawal of U.S. foreign aid could lead to 2,000 new HIV infections every day around the world. UNAIDS chief Winnie Byanyima says millions could die if U.S. funding is not restored.

Winnie Byanyima: “There will be an additional, in the next four years, 6.3 million AIDS-related deaths — 6.3 million more in the next four years. At the last count, 2023, we had 600,000 deaths globally, AIDS-related deaths. So you’re talking of a tenfold increase.”

Mar 26, 2025

Reuters has published a major exposé on one of Elon Musk’s top technologists at DOGE: the 19-year-old Edward Coristine, whose nickname is “Big Balls.” Reuters reports that beginning in 2022, the then-high-school student provided technical support to a cybercrime gang that cyberstalked an FBI agent and trafficked in stolen data.

Mar 26, 2025

In other Trump news, the Senate Finance Committee has advanced the nomination of Dr. Mehmet Oz to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The former TV host and doctor has a long record of supporting the privatization of Medicare.

The Senate also held a confirmation hearing for Mike Huckabee, Trump’s pick to be U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is the former governor of Arkansas and a self-described Christian Zionist who has long supported Israel annexing the occupied West Bank.

Mar 26, 2025

President Trump has signed a sweeping new executive order that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Voting rights advocates fear the move could disenfranchise tens of millions of voters. Trump’s order also aims to prohibit any votes from being counted after Election Day, including absentee ballots sent by mail. The ACLU has threatened to sue to block the order, which the group says marks a significant overreach of executive power.

Read more news here on Havana Times