International
Azerbaijani government sources say AZAL plane was hit by Russian missile
The Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) passenger plane that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 people, was hit by a Russian anti-aircraft missile, two Azerbaijani government sources told EFE on Thursday on condition of anonymity.
According to sources, Flight 8432, from Baku, was hit by shrapnel from a surface-to-air missile while it was in the airspace of the Russian city of Grozny, its destination.
They also said that the authorities did not allow the emergency landing requested by the pilots of the Embraer 190 at Russian airports and diverted it towards the city of Aktau, in Kazakhstan, for which it had to fly over the waters of the Caspian Sea.
According to the pro-government agency Caliber.Az, the missile used against the plane was a Pantsir-S.
The same media outlet reports that Russian sources acknowledge that Russian anti-aircraft defences were trying to shoot down Ukrainian drones in the skies over Chechnya, where the AZAL plane was flying.
In addition, the head of the Center for Combating Disinformation of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Andri Kovalenko, said that the plane was shot down by a Russian air defense system.
“The explosion of an air defense missile damaged the plane and disabled its systems,” Kovalenko wrote on Telegram.
The black boxes are found
The black boxes of the Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) passenger plane that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 people, have been found at the scene of the tragedy, Kazakh officials said today.
“During the inspection of the crash site, two flight recorders were discovered, which will be handed over to the Air Accident Investigation Department,” Abilaibek Ordabaev, the transport prosecutor of Kazakhstan’s Mangystau region, told a press conference.
He added that inspection work at the site of the accident, which covers more than 4,000 square meters, is “in the final stage.”
According to Kazakh sources, specialists from the Brazilian company Embraer will be in charge of decoding the black boxes. They will arrive in the Central Asian country tomorrow to join the investigation.
Attacks on Grozny
The holes in the plane’s fuselage that appeared during the flight and can be seen in the passengers’ images could not have been caused by birds, as initially reported by Russian sources, he said.
“Russia had to close the airspace over Grozny, but it did not do so,” Kovalenko stressed, referring to the risks created by the drone attack that was taking place in Grozny at the same time.
The Russian city was attacked by drones on Wednesday morning, according to the secretary of the Chechen Security Council and nephew of the head of the region, Jamzat Kadyrov.
“Everything that flew was shot down,” he said on Instagram.
The Ukrainian official said the plane “was damaged by the Russians and sent to Kazakhstan instead of making an emergency landing in Grozny and saving lives.”
The Kremlin calls for not rushing into hypotheses
Only the professionalism of the plane’s pilots prevented Russia from “turning this story into a Russian provocation against Ukraine,” he said, warning that Russia will do everything possible to hide its own responsibility for the plane crash and the deaths of people.
On Wednesday morning, 38 of the 67 people on board the plane died in the accident near the city of Aktau (Kazakhstan), after failing to land in the Russian city of Grozny (Chechnya).
Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency earlier said the plane “hit birds” after which its captain decided to land at an alternate airfield in Aktau, Kazakhstan.
The Kremlin today called on people not to rush to conclusions about the causes of the crash.
“It would be a mistake to formulate hypotheses before the conclusions of the investigation. We, of course, will not do so and no one should do so,” said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov at his daily telephone press conference.
Peskov insisted that it was necessary to “wait until the investigation is over.”
NATO calls for a “thorough” investigation
Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office spokesman Kanan Zeinalov said Thursday that Azerbaijani and Kazakh specialists are working together to clarify the causes of the tragedy, and Brazilian experts are also expected to join them.
Several pro-war Russian military bloggers, including Fighterbomber, have added their support to the theory that the aircraft was possibly shot down by Russian air defenses, noting that alleged shrapnel impacts can be seen in images of the wreckage of the plane.
NATO has called for a “thorough” investigation into the crash.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and victims of Azerbaijan Airlines flight J28243. We wish those injured in the accident a speedy recovery and call for a thorough investigation,” NATO spokeswoman Farah Dakhlallah said in a message on social media.
International
Petro compares US deportations with trains sent to Nazi concentration camps
The President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, compared on Wednesday the deportation of illegal immigrants from the United States with the sending of tens of thousands of people to concentration camps in Europe during World War II by Nazi Germany.
“From the episode with Trump (…) there are a series of lessons that must be learned, from them and from us. From them, I suppose, they don’t have to get handcuffs from people who want to get out of their own country,” the president said.
And he added that “There will be a political discussion there, for example, if they are not repeating the same mistake of the Germans in 1943 because they used trains and railways to carry entire wagons full of Jews, socialists and communists to the concentration camp.”
The crisis began after Petro disallowed, through a message on the social network X and not through diplomatic channels, the entry into the country of two planes sent by the United States with deported Colombians, claiming that, by coming handcuffed, they were not receiving “dignified treatment.”
In response to that refusal, Trump ordered the imposition of 25% tariffs on all Colombian products, in addition to other travel and immigration sanctions, and Petro responded with a similar measure, which caused panic throughout the country since the US is Colombia’s main trading partner and strategic ally in political and security matters.
For that reason, between yesterday and today, three flights of the Colombian Aerospace Force (FAC) have already arrived in Bogotá, bringing 306 Colombians, of which, according to Petro this Wednesday, 42 are minors.
“Where here is Mr. Trump going to tell 42 Colombian children that they are criminals?” the president wondered.
He added: “In the same way he told 42 children, he will tell hundreds of thousands, who are criminals, that’s what they thought in 1943.”
The president also said that in the United States “everyone who is Latin American, indigenous, black, will be treated as a criminal.”
“It’s called collectivizing crime, it was invented by (Adolf) Hitler,” he concluded.
Petro also assured on Wednesday that his country will have difficulties in its foreign relations due to global changes that, he said, lead to the emergence of “monsters”.
“In the case of Colombia’s foreign relations, we see neither more nor less that what there will be are difficulties. It is a world that enters a phase of profound changes,” said the president when taking office to his new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Laura Sarabia.
Pointing out that the world is in a phase of change, Petro quoted the Italian philosopher and politician Antonio Gramsci to say that while the new does not fully appear or the old is extinguished, “the monsters appear.”
“And monsters is what we are going to have, hopefully not within Colombian society but I’m afraid so are you too,” he said.
Petro assured that those who fight “for a better world” must “put on their boots” and form “an army of life, a united humanity, a united Latin America, a group that knows how to defend democracy and freedom.”
At that point he referred to Sarabia, his right hand, and who at 30 years of age is the youngest chancellor that Colombia has ever had, to indicate that she has to carry the voice of the country in that fight.
International
The White House rescums its order to freeze federal aid and loans
The White House rescinded on Wednesday the order promulgated on the eve of immediately freezing all federal subsidies and loans, a measure that had already been temporarily blocked by a judge.
“The Office of Administration and Budget (WBO) memorandum M-25-13 is terminated,” this office said in a new memorandum addressed to “heads of departments and executive agencies.”
The order to freeze aid and loans had created some chaos and confusion in its implementation, even causing the fall of the federal payment portals of the public health insurance program Medicaid.
The Government had justified the measure by arguing the need to ensure that all funds comply with the recent executive orders signed by Trump, which include restrictions on the rights of transgender people and cuts in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
Trump’s pause put at risk the disbursement of billions of dollars for various programs, including student loans, and could have a negative impact on health research, food assistance and funding of support organizations for veterans and people with disabilities.
The measure could also affect aid for areas devastated by fires in California and floods in North Carolina, regions that Trump visited last week and where he had promised federal support.
Hours after publishing the order, a federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked its implementation for a week.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt had said on Wednesday morning that the Trump administration was “prepared to fight this battle in court.”
For his part, the leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, warned that Trump “will try to find another way” to do it, but he welcomed the decision to terminate the order: “The Americans defended themselves and Donald Trump backed down,” he said.
International
Trump signs a law against migrants with minor crimes, the first since his return to power
US President Donald Trump signed his first law on Wednesday since he returned to power, a measure that allows immigration authorities to arrest migrants for robbery and other minor crimes before they have been convicted.
Trump initialed the law, the first since the beginning of his second term on January 20, in the East Room of the White House, before a hundred guests, including relatives of Laken Riley, a young woman murdered by an undocumented migrant whose death inspired the legislation.
“The United States will never forget Laken Riley,” said Trump, who said that the migrant who murdered her, from Venezuela, should have been deported.
“Instead of being expelled, as should have happened, he was released in the United States, like millions of other people, many of them very dangerous, but you see what we are doing: we are getting them out of here,” he stressed.
During his speech, Trump told the story of Laken Riley, whose name the law bears. Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered in the state of Georgia in February 2024 by an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant, José Ibarra.
Ibarra resided irregularly in the United States and had been arrested for a minor crime of shoplifting, but was allowed to stay in the country while his immigration case was in process. The migrant found guilty of Riley’s murder at the end of 2024 and is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
His death fueled the debate on immigration in the final stretch of the November 2024 elections, in which the Democratic candidate and then vice president, Kamala Harris, lost to Trump, who had promised the largest deportations in the history of the country.
The initiative, approved on January 22 by the House of Representatives, by a Republican majority, with the almost unanimous support of that bench – except for one legislator who did not vote – and the support of 46 Democratic congressmen.
The law also received the approval of the Senate, where the Republicans have a majority, with the support of 12 Democratic senators, despite the opposition of activists for the rights of immigrants, traditionally aligned with the Democratic Party.
These groups denounced the measure for considering it too radical, to the point that it could trigger massive raids against people accused of minor crimes, such as shoplifting.
Civil rights and immigrant organizations also warned that the law eliminates due process for those accused of non-violent crimes.
The arrests contemplated in the new legislation include petty thefts in supermarkets or stores and detainees will be placed in the custody of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The text will also authorize the attorneys general of the states of the country to intervene in the immigration policy decisions of the federal government. Among the new powers, they will be allowed to force the State Department to no longer grant visas to citizens of countries that do not accept deportations from the United States.
According to US media estimates, the government would need to spend more than 3 billion dollars and increase the capacity to detain migrants to more than 60,000 beds in order to enforce that law.
Trump put migration at the focus of his campaign and has pressured government agencies to impose a minimum daily arrests quota per agent and raise the total number of arrests to between 1,200 and 1,500 per day.
The US president suggested that the approval of this law is just the beginning. At a conference of Republican legislators at his hotel in Doral, near Florida, he highlighted on Monday that he shows the potential of bills that will help them take vigorous measures “against criminal foreigners and fully restore the rule of law in the country.”
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