A group of seven asylum seekers, including children, who had been forced to wait in Mexico while their immigration applications were being processed in the US under a controversial Trump policy, have been granted a preliminary injunction allowing them to reunite with loved ones already living in America and “safely pursue” their asylum cases there.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the group in court, has welcomed the injunction as a “victory against a Trump-era policy” that immigration and human rights groups have long warned has put already vulnerable asylum seekers at risk.

Under the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), tens of thousands of asylum seekers, including thousands of children, have been forced to wait in Mexico, while their applications are weighed in America.

The Biden administration has sought to reverse the programme, but has warned that doing so will take time as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) begins allowing access for thousands of asylum seekers with “active claims”.

In the case of the seven asylum seekers represented by the ACLU, US District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued a preliminary injunction in favour of families living in Massachusetts who said their loved ones were wrongly being forced to remain in Mexico.

Among the plaintiffs are a family of five that the ACLU says has been struggling to feed their children while living in a “dilapidated home” in the Mexican border town of Matamoros.

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“The plaintiffs also include two mothers whose children were processed out of the MPP in recent months, one living at the migrant camp in Matamoros and one living in Nuevo Laredo, where she has survived numerous close encounters with cartels,” they said. Both mothers will now be able to reunite with their children in Massachusetts.

“Families belong together, and we are delighted that these families will be brought to safety after well over a year in peril,” Carol Rose, the executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a statement published online.

“Thousands of families, including young children, have been subjected to violence and suffering as a result of (the MPP policy),” she said, however.

“Unwinding Trump’s harmful and unlawful policies are just the start to making our asylum system more efficient, fair, and humane.”

(www.newsnow.co.uk)

Automatic gunfire has been heard at a protest in northern Myanmar amid signs that the military is preparing a crackdown on opposition to the coup it carried out on February 1.

Western embassies in Myanmar urged the military not to use violence as troops were reported on the streets of the largest city, Yangon.

Telecoms companies have been ordered to shut off the internet from 18:30 GMT.

The U.S. advised its citizens in Myanmar to “shelter in place”.

A statement signed by the European Union, United States and Britain said: “We call on security forces to refrain from violence against demonstrators, who are protesting the overthrow of their legitimate government.”

The coup in Myanmar (also known as Burma) removed the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Her party won a resounding victory at the election in November, but the military said the vote was fraudulent.

Ms Suu Kyi is now under house arrest. Hundreds of activists and opposition leaders have been detained.

At a protest in Kachin state, in the north, automatic gunfire could be heard as security forces clashed with anti-coup demonstrators in the city of Myitkyina. It was not clear whether rubber bullets or live rounds were being fired.

In Yangon, there is a heavy military presence, reports the BBC’s South East Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head. Earlier on Sunday, armoured vehicles were seen on the streets for the first time since the coup.

Across the country, hundreds of thousands of protesters rallied against the military for the ninth day in a row.

Telecoms operators in Myanmar are advising their customers that they have been told to shut off internet services from 01:00 to 09:00 local time, yesterday into today (18:30 to 02:30 GMT).

An office of the U.S. embassy in Yangon warned American nationals to stay indoors during curfew hours.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said yesterday that early steps taken by United States (U.S.) President Joe Biden on issues like foreign policy and climate change are “incredibly encouraging” for relations between their countries.

“There’s been some important developments in the way the U.K., U.S. thinking has been coming together in the last few weeks, and particularly on issues like climate change, on NATO, on Iran, but above all, on the ways that the U.S. and the U.K. are going to work together to deal with the environmental challenge that faces our planet,” Johnson said in an interview with “Face the Nation.” “And there, I think some of the stuff we’re now hearing from the new American administration and from the new White House are incredibly encouraging. And we want to work with the president on that.”

Johnson was among the first world leaders to extend congratulations to Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris after they were declared the winners of the November presidential election. The president also spoke with Johnson three days after he was inaugurated, with Mr. Biden conveying “his intention to strengthen the special relationship between our countries and revitalise transatlantic ties,” according to a summary of the call from the White House.

Johnson told “Face the Nation” he is “delighted” to have a good relationship with the White House and said he’s had “fantastic conversations” with Mr. Biden. The U.K. prime minister also said he’s “thrilled” Mr. Biden adopted the slogan “Build Back Better,” particularly when it comes to addressing the coronavirus pandemic, though Johnson joked he used it first.

“It’s the right slogan,” he said. “We’ve got to learn from this pandemic. We’ve got to learn about how to share information, how to share drugs properly, how to make sure we don’t hoard things like personal protective equipment, as you saw earlier on in the pandemic. We’ve got to make sure that we are distributing vaccines.”

Johnson said he hopes the U.S. and the U.K. can work together to learn from the pandemic and said he supports the Biden administration raising concerns about an investigation mounted by the World Health Organization into the origins of COVID-19. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement Saturday the White House has “questions about the process used to reach” the probe’s early findings and stressed it’s “imperative” for the report to be independent, “with expert findings free from intervention or alteration by the Chinese government.”

“When you have a zoonotic plague like coronavirus, we need to know exactly how it happened. Indeed, if it’s zoonotic, if it really originated from human contact with the animal kingdom, that’s what is asserted. But we need to know exactly what happened. Was it in a wet market? Did it come from the bats? Were the bats associated with the pangolins? All these questions are now matters of speculation,” Johnson said. “We need to see the data. We need to see all the evidence. So I thoroughly support what President Biden has said about that.”

Agency Reporter

More than a quarter of Israel’s 9.3 million citizens have received the second dose of the U.S.-German Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19, Israel’s health minister said on Sunday.

Some 3,832,000 Israelis have been inoculated against the coronavirus, of whom almost 2.5 million have already received the second dose, Yuli Edelstein wrote on Twitter.

Calling on other Israelis to get inoculated as well, he wrote: “and what about you? Will you get to go to the gym and culture performances, or stay behind? Go get vaccinated!’’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet was scheduled to meet in the afternoon to discuss the possible lifting of more restrictions, as Israel is gradually emerging from its third lockdown.

Tensions between Netanyahu of the right-wing Likud party, and Defence Minister Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White faction, have peaked since their strained emergency unity government collapsed late in December.

READ ALSO: Netanyahu appears in court for corruption trial in Israel

This prompted early parliamentary elections in March 23 for the fourth time in only two years.

Gantz demands lifting restrictions sooner, while Netanyahu urges caution.

It has taken far longer than expected for the effect of the biggest vaccination campaign in Israel’s history to be felt, likely due to what appears to be a more aggressive and more contagious coronavirus variant that originated in Britain.

Israel has seen 5,368 COVID-19-related deaths since the novel virus reached the Mediterranean country in 2019. (dpa/NAN)

Our Reporter

The University of Oxford has launched a study to assess the safety and immune response of the COVID-19 vaccine it has developed with AstraZeneca in children for the first time.

The new mid-stage trial will determine whether the vaccine is effective for people between the ages of six and 17, according to a statement from the university on Saturday.

About 300 volunteers will be enrolled and first inoculations are expected this month, Oxford said.

Up to 240 subjects will receive the vaccine, while the rest will receive a controlled drug.\

READ ALSO: French minister criticises UK’s ‘risky’ Covid vaccine strategy

Andrew Pollard, professor of paediatric infection and immunity and chief investigator on the Oxford vaccine trial, said: “While most children are relatively unaffected by coronavirus and are unlikely to become unwell with the infection, it is important to establish the safety and immune response to the vaccine in children and young people as some children may benefit from vaccination.”

The two-dose Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been hailed as a “vaccine for the world” because it is cheaper and easier to distribute than some rivals.

AstraZeneca has a target to produce three billion doses this year and aims to produce more than 200 million doses per month by April.
(www.newsnow.co.uk)

Our Reporter

At least 19 people were killed and dozens hurt in a blast at a firecracker factory in India, authorities said Saturday.

The blast on Friday afternoon in Virudhunagar district was one of the worst such incidents in years in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Local official R. Kannan told AFP that the death toll was likely to go up in the next few hours.

“So far 34 people have been injured and are undergoing treatment. Some of them are severely burnt,” he said.

Mr Kannan said there were around 74 people in the factory at the time of the incident.

According to media reports, the factory was being run illegally.

READ ALSO:India confirms outbreak of Avian flu

dozens hurt in a blast at a firecracker factory in India, authorities said Saturday.
The blast on Friday afternoon in Virudhunagar district was one of the worst such incidents in years in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Local official R. Kannan told AFP that the death toll was likely to go up in the next few hours.
News portal The Newsminute said the owner was missing and that the police were still investigating the cause of the accident.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced compensation of 200,000 rupees (S$3,650) to the families of the deceased.

(www.newsnow.co.uk)

Our Reporter

Britain’s Karim Khan has been elected as the next chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. He will take over from Fatou Bensouda, who was hit with US sanctions last year.

Member states of the International Criminal Court on Friday elected British human rights lawyer Karim Khan as the new chief prosecutor.

Khan is scheduled to start his nine-year term on June 16.

The 50-year-old barrister is known for being at the helm of a special UN investigation into crimes by the Islamic State, during which he put his weight behind a trial similar to the Nuremberg trials for Nazi war criminals.

In a career that spans over 27 years, Khan — who is also a Queen’s Counsel — has worked for almost every international criminal tribunal in prosecution and defense roles, as well as counsel for victims.

He represented late Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam.

Khan was pitted against three other contenders to replace the incumbent Fatou Bensouda, who was slapped with US sanctions under the Trump administration last year for continuing to probe war crimes allegations against Americans.

READ ALSO: Is Baga a case for International Criminal Court

The vote was triggered in New York after parties to ICC could not reach a consensus on a name.

Khan failed to garner a majority in the first round but won the second ballot with 72 votes.

“Karim’s extensive experience in international law will be pivotal in ensuring we hold those responsible for the most heinous crimes to account and gain justice for their victims,” Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Twitter.

The Hague-based ICC consists of 123 member states. It has been constrained from the start with the refusal of the United States, Russia and China to join. The court has also faced criticism for mainly focusing on poorer African countries.

Khan’s first tasks in office will include deciding the course of the investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan and the controversial probe into the 2014 Israel-Palestinian conflict in Gaza.

(www.newsnow.co.uk)