Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, head of the Commonwealth and monarch of 15 countries, has died aged 96 after more than 70 years on the throne, Buckingham Palace announced on Thursday. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates and reactions from around the world.

Queen Elizabeth died at the Balmoral royal estate in Scotland after having suffered from health problems since last October.

She was in her Platinum Jubilee year, marking 70 years since she succeeded her father king George VI in 1952.

All her children – including heir to the throne Prince Charles – rushed to be at her side at Balmoral, aides said.

Queen Elizabeth II’s closest family travelled to join the 96-year-old monarch on Thursday after doctors placed her under medical supervision, prompting concern from British political and religious leaders.

Britain’s longest-serving monarch has been dogged by health problems since last October that have left her struggling to walk and stand.

All her children — heir to the throne Prince Charles, 73, Princess Anne, 72, Prince Andrew, 62, and Prince Edward, 58, were either at or heading to join her at the Balmoral royal estate in Scotland, aides said.

Also heading to Balmoral was Charles’s elder son Prince William along with his younger son Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, who have been on a rare visit to Britain after abandoning royal life to move to the United States.

The queen — an instantly recognisable figure to billions of people across the world — is in her Platinum Jubilee year, marking 70 years since she succeeded her father king George VI in 1952.

Moments before Thursday’s announcement, notes were passed in the House of Commons to Prime Minister Liz Truss, her ministers and opposition leaders, prompting them to leave the chamber.

“The whole country will be deeply concerned by the news from Buckingham Palace this lunchtime,” the new premier tweeted, just two days after the queen appointed her at Balmoral to succeed Boris Johnson.

Source: AFP

Former US president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will finally unveil their official portraits at the White House next week after being denied the honor by Donald Trump.

The September 7 ceremony, announced by the administration on Wednesday, traditionally gives presidents the chance to pay homage to their predecessors.

But Trump, who led the United States for a single term after Obama’s eight years in office and frequently attacks his predecessor, declined to continue with the custom.

Instead President Joe Biden — who served as Obama’s vice president — and his wife Jill Biden will host the couple.

The 44th president’s latest visit since he vacated the Oval Office in 2017 comes five months after he made a high-profile homecoming for a public event on health care spending.

Trump, a world-renowned aficionado of the decade-spanning contretemps, demonstrated repeatedly during his tenure that he was untroubled by the mandates of tradition and protocol.

The norm-shredding Republican reportedly removed portraits of presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush from the White House’s Grand Foyer, considered the most prominent position in the executive mansion.

They were not restored until Biden took office last year.

Source: AFP

President Joe Biden’s Covid advisor Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert who became the face of the country’s fight against the pandemic, announced Monday that he will step down in December.

Fauci said in a statement he would be leaving both his position as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and that of chief medical advisor to Biden — though he added: “I am not retiring.”

The 81-year-old, who previously disclosed plans to leave by the end of Biden’s current term, announced he would go in December to “pursue the next chapter of my career.”

Biden extended his “deepest thanks” to Fauci in a White House statement.

“Because of Dr. Fauci’s many contributions to public health, lives here in the United States and around the world have been saved,” the president said, adding that the country is “is stronger, more resilient, and healthier because of him.”

Fauci has helmed the United States’ response to infectious disease outbreaks since the 1980s, from HIV/AIDS to Covid-19, and has served under seven presidents.

When Covid first spread globally from China in 2020, he became a trusted source of reliable information, reassuring the public with his calm and professorial demeanor during frequent media appearances.

But his honest takes on America’s early failures to get to grips with the virus brought Fauci into conflict with former president Donald Trump, and turned the physician-scientist into a hated figure for some on the right.

Fauci now lives with security protection after his family received death threats and harassment.

Biden said that after winning the 2020 election, as he was trying to build a team to lead the Covid-19 response, Fauci was “one of my first calls.”

“In that role, I’ve been able to call him at any hour of the day for his advice as we’ve tackled this once-in-a-generation pandemic,” the president stated.

Source: AFP

FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida this week removed 11 sets of classified documents including some marked “top secret”, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday, while also disclosing it has probable cause to believe he violated the Espionage Act.

The bombshell disclosures were made in legal documents released four days after FBI agents carried out the search of Trump’s residence based on a warrant approved by a federal magistrate judge.

The Justice Department told U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart in its warrant application that it had probable cause to believe that Trump violated the Espionage Act, a federal law that prohibits the possession or transmission of national defense information.

The list of documents is contained in a seven-page document that also includes the warrant to search the premises that was granted to the FBI by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, the newspaper said. The list did not provide any more details about the substance of the documents, it said.

The reported revelations that Trump had documents labeled “top secret” could create major legal jeopardy for him. “Top secret” is the highest level of classification, reserved for the country’s most closely held national security information. It is usually kept in special government facilities because its disclosure could cause grave damage to national security.

Numerous federal laws prohibit the mishandling of classified material, including the Espionage Act as well as another statute that prohibits the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. Trump increased the penalties for this while he was in office, making it a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Earlier on Friday, Trump denied a Washington Post report that the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home was for possible classified materials related to nuclear weapons, writing on his social media account that the “nuclear weapons issue is a hoax.”

Reuters could not immediately confirm the Washington Post report. Attorney General Merrick Garland has declined to publicly detail the nature of the investigation.

Monday’s search of Trump’s home marked a significant escalation in one of the many federal and state investigations he is facing from his time in office and in private business, including a separate one by the Justice Department into a failed bid by Trump’s allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election by submitting phony slates of electors.

Garland on Thursday announced that the department had asked Reinhart to unseal the warrant that authorized the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. This followed a claim by Trump that the search was political retribution and a suggestion by him, without evidence, that the FBI may have planted evidence against him.

Trump’s attorneys on Friday afternoon signaled they will not object to having the search warrant for his Florida residence unsealed to the public, the Justice Department said in a court filing, indicating the unsealing could come shortly.

Reinhart had imposed a 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) deadline for prosecutors to let him know if Trump’s legal team will oppose the unsealing of the warrant.

‘Release the documents’

Late on Thursday, Trump released a statement on social media saying he did not intend to oppose its release.

“Release the Documents Now!” Trump wrote.

The investigation into Trump’s removal of records started this year, after the National Archives and Records Administration, an agency charged with safeguarding presidential records that belong to the public, made a referral to the department.

On Friday, Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee called on Garland and FBI Director Chris Wray to release the affidavit underpinning the warrant, saying the public needs to know.

“Because many other options were available to them, we’re very concerned of the method that was used in raiding Mar-a-Lago,” Representative Michael Turner, the committee’s top Republican, told reporters.

If the affidavit remains sealed, “it will still leave many unanswered questions,” Turner added.

In February, Archivist of the United States David Ferriero told House lawmakers that his agency had been in communication with Trump throughout 2021 about the return of 15 boxes of records. He eventually returned them in January 2022.

At the time, the National Archives was still conducting an inventory, but noted some of the boxes contained items “marked as classified national security information.” Trump previously confirmed that he had agreed to return certain records to the Archives, calling it “an ordinary and routine process.” He also claimed the Archives “did not ‘find’ anything.”

Since Monday’s search, the Justice Department has faced fierce criticism and online threats, which Garland condemned. Trump supporters and some of his fellow Republicans in Washington have accused Democrats of weaponizing the federal bureaucracy to target him even as he mulls another run for the presidency in 2024.

In another matter, Trump on Wednesday declined to answer questions during an appearance before New York state’s attorney general in a civil investigation into his family’s business practices, citing his constitutional right against self-incrimination.

Source: Reuters

Donald Trump on Wednesday declined to answer questions under oath in New York over alleged fraud at his family business, as legal pressures pile up for the former president whose house was raided by the FBI just two days ago.

Trump said he had “no choice” but to invoke the fifth amendment, which allows individuals to remain silent to protect against self-incrimination under questioning.

In a statement Trump said “I declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution,” saying he took the advice from his legal counsel.

“When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice,” Trump said.

“If there was any question in my mind, the raid of my home, Mar-a-Lago, on Monday by the FBI, just two days prior to this deposition, wiped out any uncertainty.”

Trump earlier said on social media he was in the offices of New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose investigation is one of several active probes into the brash billionaire’s business practices and other actions.

The former president took to his Truth Social platform to launch a barrage of attacks on James, branding her a “racist” attorney general who is “trying to ‘get Trump.'”

James is conducting “a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in U.S. history!” Trump wrote. “My great company, and myself, are being attacked from all sides. Banana Republic!”

James suspects the Trump Organization fraudulently overstated the value of real estate properties when applying for bank loans, while understating them with the tax authorities in order to pay less in taxes.

Trump and his eldest children, Donald Jr and Ivanka, had been due to start testifying under oath in July but the depositions were postponed due to the death of the former president’s first wife.

Another White House run?

The Trumps have denied any wrongdoing, and the former Republican leader has charged that the probe is politically motivated.

If James, an African-American Democrat, finds any evidence of financial misconduct, she can sue the Trump Organization for damages but can not file criminal charges, as it is a civil investigation.

Trump’s son Eric hit out at James in a tweet Wednesday, saying his father was sitting “for a deposition in front of the most corrupt Attorney General in the United States.”

Donald Trump on Wednesday also posted video clips of James verbally attacking Trump, calling him an “illegitimate president” and vowing a lawsuit.

James’s probe is one of several legal battles in which Trump is embroiled, threatening to complicate any bid for another run for the White House in 2024.

The deposition comes on the heels of a Federal Bureau of Investigation search on Trump’s Florida residence in an escalation of legal probes into the 45th president that has set off a political firestorm.

The FBI, which is led by Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee, declined to provide a reason for the raid.

But US media outlets said agents were conducting a court-authorized search related to the potential mishandling of classified documents that had been sent to Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House in January 2021.

Trump predictably voiced outrage over the search, dubbing it “weaponization of the justice system.”

At the White House, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden did not have any advance notice about the raid and respected the independence of the Justice Department.

Since leaving office, Trump has remained the country’s most divisive figure, continuing to sow falsehoods that he actually won the 2020 vote.

He also has faced intense legal scrutiny for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and over the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.

Source: AFP

The US Department of Homeland Security announced Monday night it will end a Trump-era policy requiring asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico while their applications play out in court.

The DHS announcement comes hours after a judge lifted an injunction that had prevented US President Joe Biden’s administration from ending the so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy.

Under the policy, instituted in 2019 under former president Donald Trump, tens of thousands of asylum-seekers were sent across the border until required to appear in the United States for their immigration hearings.

Critics called the program cruel and dangerous, with vulnerable people sometimes forced to wait in border towns the United States had advised its own citizens against visiting due to violence.

The policy will be rolled back “in a quick, and orderly, manner,” the department wrote in a statement.

No one else will be enrolled and those who cross the border for their court dates will no longer be sent back to Mexico afterwards, the DHS added.

The Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), as the policy is officially called, “has endemic flaws, imposes unjustifiable human costs, and pulls resources and personnel away from other priority efforts to secure our border,” DHS said.

Soon after taking office, Biden attempted to fulfill a campaign promise to end the border measure as part of what he called a more humane approach to immigration.

But a group of Republican-governed states led by Texas sued the administration and a US District Court ordered the policy to be reinstated.

The case eventually ended up before the Supreme Court, which ruled on June 30 that Biden had the authority to end the program.

From the start of the policy in January 2019 until its initial suspension under Biden, at least 70,000 people were sent to Mexico, according to the American Immigration Council.

Human Rights First said there were 1,544 publicly documented cases of murder, rape, torture, kidnapping or other assaults of individuals sent across the border under Remain in Mexico between January 2019 and 2021, with multiple people, including at least one child, dying.

The Trump administration had argued a “zero tolerance” approach was needed to stem illegal immigration to the United States.

Under the resurrected policy, from December 2021 until June 2022, 9,563 people were enrolled in the policy, most of whom were not from Mexico but Nicaragua.

During Biden’s tenure, more than 200,000 people attempting to enter the country illegally have been stopped at the border each month and sent back, either under Remain in Mexico or a separate, Covid-related policy blocking people at the border.

Source: AFP

Iran is technically capable of making a nuclear bomb but has not decided whether to build one, a senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Qatar’s al Jazeera TV on Sunday.

Kamal Kharrazi spoke a day after U.S. President Joe Biden ended his four-day trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia, vowing to stop Iran from “acquiring a nuclear weapon.”

Kharrazi’s comments were a rare suggestion that Iran might have an interest in nuclear weapons, which it has long denied seeking.

“In a few days we were able to enrich uranium up to 60% and we can easily produce 90% enriched uranium … Iran has the technical means to produce a nuclear bomb but there has been no decision by Iran to build one,” Kharrazi said.

Iran is already enriching to up to 60%, far above a cap of 3.67% under Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Uranium enriched to 90% is suitable for a nuclear bomb.

In 2018, former U.S. President Donald Trump ditched the nuclear pact, under which Iran curbed its uranium enrichment work, a potential pathway to nuclear weapons, in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

In reaction to Washington’s withdrawal and its reimposition of harsh sanctions, Tehran started violating the pact’s nuclear restrictions.

Last year, Iran’s intelligence minister said Western pressure could push Tehran to seek nuclear weapons, the development of which Khamenei banned in a fatwa, or religious decree, in the early 2000s.

Iran says it is refining uranium only for civilian energy uses, and has said its breaches of the international deal are reversible if the United States lifts sanctions and rejoins the agreement.

The broad outline of a revived deal was essentially agreed in March after 11 months of indirect talks between Tehran and Biden’s administration in Vienna.

But talks then broke down over obstacles including Tehran’s demand that Washington should give guarantees that no U.S. president will abandon the deal, the same way Trump did.

Biden cannot promise this because the nuclear deal is a non-binding political understanding, not a legally-binding treaty.

“The United States has not provided guarantees on preserving the nuclear deal and this ruins the possibility of any agreement,” Kharrazi said.

Israel, which Iran does not recognise, has threatened to attack Iranian nuclear sites if diplomacy fails to contain Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Kharrazi said Iran would never negotiate its balistic missile programme and regional policy, as demanded by the West and its allies in the Middle East.

“Any targeting of our security from neighbouring countries will be met with direct response to these countries and Israel.”

Source: REUTERS

An autopsy has been carried out on in Spain on former Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who died last week in Barcelona, at the request of one of his daughters who suspects foul play, her lawyers said Monday.

The results of the autopsy are not yet available, a spokesperson for Tchize dos Santos’ lawyers said.

A Barcelona court authorised the post-mortem on Friday, the day of his death, a court spokeswoman said.

Dos Santos, who ruled Angola between 1979 and 2017, had lived in Barcelona since April 2019.

The 79-year-old was taken to hospital and placed in intensive care after suffering a cardiac arrest on June 23.

His 44-year-old daughter — whose full name is Welwitschia dos Santos — swiftly demanded the hospital retain his body “until an appropriate autopsy is carried out.”

She said in a statement on Saturday there were “a series of signs” that her father’s death occurred under “suspicious circumstances”.

Tchize has filed a legal case in Spain against the former Angolan president’s widow, Ana Paula, and his personal physician for “attempted murder”.

The complaint also includes allegations relating to “failure to exercise a duty of care, injury resulting from gross negligence and disclosure of secrets by people close to him,” her lawyers said in a statement on Friday.

Tchize claimed her father and his wife had been separated for some time, meaning that his spouse had no right to make decisions about his health.

Police confirmed receiving the complaint and said they had opened an inquiry.

Tchize also argues her father wanted to be buried privately in Spain and not in Angola in a state funeral “which could favour the current government” in the former Portuguese colony.

Born in the slums of Luanda, dos Santos was one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders.

Critics say he used his nation’s oil wealth to enrich his family while leaving his people among the poorest on the planet.

When he stepped down, dos Santos handed over to former defence minister Joao Lourenco whom he had handpicked to succeed him.

But Lourenco quickly turned on his erstwhile patron, starting an anti-corruption drive to recoup the billions he suspected had been embezzled under dos Santos.

Source: AFP

Shinzo Abe smashed records as Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, championing ambitious economic reform and forging key diplomatic relationships while weathering scandals.

Nearly two years after poor health forced him to leave office, the 67-year-old has died after being shot during a campaign event on Friday.

Abe was a sprightly 52 when he first became prime minister in 2006, the youngest person to occupy the job in the postwar era.

He was seen as a symbol of change and youth, but also brought the pedigree of a third-generation politician groomed from birth by an elite, conservative family.

Abe’s first term was turbulent, plagued by scandals and discord, and capped by an abrupt resignation.

After initially suggesting he was stepping down for political reasons, he acknowledged he was suffering an ailment later diagnosed as ulcerative colitis.

They called it ‘Abenomics’

The debilitating bowel condition necessitated months of treatment but was, Abe said, eventually overcome with the help of new medication.

He ran again, and Japan’s revolving prime ministerial door brought him back to office in 2012.

It ended a turbulent period in which prime ministers changed sometimes at the rate of one a year.

With Japan still staggering from the effects of the 2011 tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster at Fukushima – and a brief opposition government lashed for flip-flopping and incompetence – Abe offered a seemingly safe pair of hands.

And he had a plan: Abenomics.

The scheme to revive Japan’s economy – the world’s third-biggest, but more than two decades into stagnation – involved vast government spending, massive monetary easing, and cutting red tape.

Abe also sought to boost the country’s flagging birth rate by making workplaces more friendly to parents, particularly mothers.

He pushed through controversial consumption tax hikes to help finance nurseries and plug gaps in Japan’s overstretched social security system.

While there was some progress with reform, the economy’s bigger structural problems remained.

Deflation proved stubborn and the economy was in recession even before the coronavirus struck in 2020.

Abe’s star waned further during the pandemic, with his approach criticised as confused and slow, driving his approval ratings down to some of the lowest of his tenure.

Political storms

On the international stage, Abe took a hard line on North Korea, but sought a peacemaker role between the United States and Iran.

He prioritised a close personal relationship with Donald Trump in a bid to protect Japan’s key alliance from the then-US president’s “America First” mantra, and tried to mend ties with Russia and China.

But the results were mixed: Trump remained eager to force Japan to pay more for US troops stationed in the country, a deal with Russia on disputed northern islands stayed elusive, and a plan to invite Xi Jinping for a state visit fell by the wayside.

Abe also pursued a hard line with South Korea over unresolved wartime disputes and continued to float plans to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution.

Throughout his tenure, he weathered political storms including cronyism allegations that dented approval ratings but did little to affect his power, in part thanks to the weakness of the opposition.

Abe had been due to stay on until late 2021, giving him an opportunity to see out one final event in his historic tenure – the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games.

But in a shock announcement, he stepped down in August 2020, with a recurrence of ulcerative colitis ending his second term too.

Source: AFP