Justice Department overseer to review use of federal agents
The Justice Department inspector general said Thursday that it will conduct a review of the conduct of federal agents who responded to unrest in Portland, Oregon, and Washington, D.C., following concerns from members of Congress and the public.
The watchdog investigation will examine use-of-force allegations in Portland, where the city’s top federal prosecutor and mayor have publicly complained. In Washington, investigators will look at the training and instruction provided to the federal agents who responded to protest activity at Lafayette Square, near the White House.
Among the questions being studied are whether the agents followed Justice Department guidelines, including on identification requirements and in the deployment of chemical agents and use of force.
Meanwhile, a collection of Chicago activist groups want a judge to block federal agents sent to that city, arguing in a lawsuit filed Thursday that that the surge will inhibit residents’ ability to hold demonstrations.
Kuwaiti leader lands in US for medical treatment
Kuwait’s 91-year-old ruling emir landed in the United States on Thursday after being flown across the world in a U.S. Air Force C-17 flying hospital, and just days after undergoing an unspecified surgery at home. The dramatic airlift reflected the close ties between the two nations but also raised concerns over the ruler’s medical condition.
Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah survived the 16-hour trip under the watch of U.S. medical professionals and Kuwaitis, according to Kuwait’s state-run news agency KUNA. The agency did not say where Sheikh Sabah went in the U.S., though flight-tracking data showed the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III that took off from Kuwait International Airport landed in Rochester, Minnesota, after a brief stopover at Germany’s Ramstein Air Base.
Rochester is home to the flagship campus of the Mayo Clinic, one of America’s best hospitals, where Sheikh
Sabah has been treated in the past.
Kuwait has not released any information on what medical ailment Sheikh Sabah faces, other than to say he was hospitalized Saturday and underwent a surgery Sunday.
Tensions grow between Greece, Turkey over seabed rights
Greece warned Thursday it will do “whatever is necessary” to defend its sovereign rights in response to plans by neighboring Turkey to proceed with an oiland-gas research mission south of Greek islands in the eastern Mediterranean.
The dispute over seabed mineral rights has led to increased navy deployments by both NATO members in the region, where a Turkish research vessel, the Oruc Reis, is being prepared for a survey mission.
Turkey has drawn growing criticism from Western allies, with French President Emmanuel Macron joining calls for European Union sanctions against Ankara
if the dispute escalates further.
Greece and Turkey have been at odds for decades over sea boundaries, but recent discoveries of natural gas and drilling plans across the eastern Mediterranean have exacerbated the dispute.
Government urged to stop stashing migrant kids in hotels
A court-appointed monitor for immigrant youth called on the U.S. government to stop detaining children as young as 1 in hotels before expelling them to their home countries, saying the practice could lead to emotional and physical harm.
In a report filed late Wednesday in Houston, Andrea Ordin said there appears to be a “lack of formal oversight” over the contractors hired by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain children at Hampton Inn & Suites hotels in three cities.
“Isolating a child alone in a hotel room for 10-14 days can have a more harmful emotional impact than that seen in adults,” she wrote.
The Trump administration is detaining children instead of turning them over to government shelters under an emergency declaration citing the coronavirus.
Elderly SS guard handed 2-year suspended sentence
A German court on Thursday convicted a 93-year-old former SS private of being an accessory to murder at the Stutthof concentration camp, where he served as a guard in the final months of World War II. He was given a two-year suspended sentence.
Bruno Dey was convicted of 5,232 counts of accessory to murder by the Hamburg state court, the news agency dpa reported. That is equal to the number of people believed to have been killed at Stutthof during his service there in 1944 and 1945.
Because he was 17 and 18 at the time of his crimes, Dey’s case was heard in juvenile court.
The trial opened in October. In a closing statement this week, the German retiree apologized for his role in the Nazis’ machinery of destruction, saying “it must never be repeated.”
China calls consulate remarks ‘malicious slander’ by US
China said Thursday that “malicious slander” is behind an order by the U.S. government to close its consulate in Houston, Texas, maintaining that its officials never operated outside ordinary diplomatic rules.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the move against the consulate, the first one China opened in the U.S. after the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1979, goes against the basic norms of international relations.
Wang dismissed U.S. allegations of espionage and intellectual property theft, calling them “completely malicious slander.”
The U.S. on Tuesday ordered the consulate closed within 72 hours, alleging that Chinese agents had tried to steal data from facilities in Texas, including the Texas A&M medical system and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.