US ending temporary permits for Haitians
AP, Washington
The Trump administration said it is ending a temporary residency permit program that has allowed almost 60,000 citizens from Haiti to live and work in the United States since a powerful earthquake shook the Caribbean nation in 2010.
The Homeland Security Department said conditions in Haiti have improved significantly, so the benefit will be extended one last time – until July 2019 – to give Haitians time to prepare to return home.
UK will honor commitments to EU
Reuters, London
Britain will honor its commitments made while a member of the European Union, but specific figures on how much the country will pay for Brexit are subject to negotiations, a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday.
“All I can point you to is the PM’s position as set out many times in terms of the fact that the UK will honor commitments we’ve made during the period of our membership. No EU member state will need to pay more or receive less over the remainder of the current budget plan,” he told reporters.
HR lawyers jailed in China
AFP, Beijing
A prominent Chinese human rights lawyer was sentenced to two years in prison for “inciting subversion” on Tuesday, the latest jailing in an intensifying crackdown on rights defenders under newly empowered President Xi Jinping.
Germany and human rights groups condemned the jailing of Jiang Tianyong, 46, who had taken on many high-profile cases including those of Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetan protesters and victims of the 2008 contaminated milk powder scandal, before being disbarred in 2009.
Rouhani declares end of IS
Reuters, Beirut
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared the end of Islamic State on Tuesday while a senior military commander thanked the “thousands of martyrs” killed in operations organized by Iran to defeat the militant group in Syria and Iraq.
“Today with God’s guidance and the resistance of people in the region we can say that this evil has either been lifted from the head of the people or has been reduced,” Rouhani said in an address broadcast live on state TV.
German President pushing parties to form govt
AP, Berlin
Germany’s president is to meet with party leaders after talks to form a new government between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc the left-leaning Greens and pro-business Free Democrats broke down earlier this week.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has called on political leaders to rethink their positions and try again to form a new government, will meet the leaders of the Greens and Free Democrats later on Tuesday. The center-left Social Democrats – Merkel’s partners in the outgoing government – say they won’t budge from their refusal to enter a new Merkel administration.
