International
Afghanistan envoy withdraws from General Assembly debate: UN

AFP
Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United Nations pulled out of delivering an address to world leaders at the General Assembly later Monday, a UN spokesperson said.
Ghulam Isaczai, who represented president Ashraf Ghani’s regime that was ousted last month, had been due to defy the Taliban with a speech but his name was removed from the list of speakers early Monday.
“The country withdraws its participation in the general debate,” Monica Grayley, a spokeswoman for the assembly’s president, confirmed to AFP.
She added that Afghanistan’s mission to the UN had not cited a reason for the withdrawal.
The Taliban wrote a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week requesting that its new foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, be allowed to “participate.”
The letter insisted that Isaczai “no longer represents” Afghanistan at the global body.
The letter said that the Taliban had nominated their Doha-based spokesman Suhail Shaheen as Afghanistan’s permanent representative to the UN.
The note came after Guterres had received a separate letter from Isaczai, dated September 15, containing the list of Afghanistan’s delegation for the session.
That letter listed Isaczai as Afghanistan’s permanent representative.
The UN still considers Isaczai the head of Afghanistan’s mission.
“Only the mission can withdraw,” from addressing the assembly, a UN official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The Afghan mission was not immediately available for comment.
A nine-member credentials committee that included the United States, Russia and China, has to approve the Taliban’s request but it did not meet in time.
International
Trump urges Putin to reach peace deal

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his desire for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “reach a deal” to end the war in Ukraine, while also reaffirming his willingness to impose sanctions on Russia.
“I want to see him reach an agreement to prevent Russian, Ukrainian, and other people from dying,” Trump stated during a press conference in the Oval Office at the White House.
“I think he will. I don’t want to have to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil,” the Republican leader added, recalling that he had already taken similar measures against Venezuela by sanctioning buyers of the South American country’s crude oil.
Trump also reiterated his frustration over Ukraine’s resistance to an agreement that would allow the United States to exploit natural resources in the country—a condition he set in negotiations to end the war.
International
Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links

A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.
Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.
However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.
International
Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”

The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.
“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.
The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.
His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”
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