DUBAI: During his campaign, Donald Trump said repeatedly that he would be able to end the war between Russia and Ukraine “in 24 hours” upon taking office. He has changed his tone since becoming president again.
As various US emissaries have held talks looking for an end to the war, both Trump and his top officials have become more reserved about the prospects of a peace deal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday suggested the US might soon back away from negotiations altogether without more progress, adding a comment that sounded like a repudiation of the president’s old comments.
“No one’s saying this can be done in 12 hours,” he told reporters.
The promises made by presidential candidates are often felled by the realities of governing. But Trump’s shift is noteworthy given his prior term as president and his long histories with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The White House on Friday did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Trump’s evolving deadline comments.
Here’s a look at Trump’s evolution on the way he talks about the Russia-Ukraine war:
‘A very easy negotiation’
MARCH 2023: “There’s a very easy negotiation to take place. But I don’t want to tell you what it is because then I can’t use that negotiation; it’ll never work,” Trump told Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity, claiming that he could “solve” the war “in 24 hours” if he were back in the White House.
“But it’s a very easy negotiation to take place. I will have it solved within one day, a peace between them,” Trump said of the war, which at that point had been ongoing for more than a year since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
MAY 2023: “They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done in 24 hours,” Trump said during a town hall on CNN.
JULY 2024: When asked to respond to Trump’s one-day claim, Russia’s United Nations Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters that “the Ukrainian crisis cannot be solved in one day.” Afterward, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said that “a top priority in his second term will be to quickly negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.”
AUGUST 2024: “Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” Trump told a National Guard Conference. “I’ll get it settled very fast. I don’t want you guys going over there. I don’t want you going over there.”
After Trump wins in November
DEC. 16, 2024: “I’m going to try,” Trump said during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club, asked if he thought he could still make a deal with Putin and Zelensky to end the war.
JAN. 8, 2025: In a Fox News Channel interview, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg — now serving as Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia — proposed a 100-day deadline to end the war. Friday marked 100 days since that interview. The 100th day of Trump’s presidency is April 30.
Trump becomes president and starts negotiations
JAN. 31: Trump says his new administration has already had “very serious” discussions with Russia and says he and Putin could soon take “significant” action toward ending the grinding conflict.
“We will be speaking, and I think will perhaps do something that’ll be significant,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. “We want to end that war. That war would have not started if I was president.”
FEB. 12: Trump and Putin speak for more than an hour and Trump speaks afterward with Zelensky. Trump says afterward, “I think we’re on the way to getting peace.”
FEB. 19: Trump posts on his Truth Social site that Zelensky is serving as a “dictator without elections.” He adds that “we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do.”
FEB. 28: Trump and Zelensky have a contentious Oval Office meeting. Trump berates Zelensky for being “disrespectful,” then abruptly calls off the signing of a minerals deal that Trump said would have moved Ukraine closer to ending the war.
Declaring himself “in the middle” and not on the side of either Ukraine or Russia in the conflict, Trump went on to deride Zelensky’s “hatred” for Putin as a roadblock to peace.
“You see the hatred he’s got for Putin,” Trump said. “That’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate.”
The Ukrainian leader was asked to leave the White House by top Trump advisers shortly after Trump shouted at him. Trump later told reporters that he wanted an “immediate ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine but expressed doubt that Zelensky was ready to make peace.
MARCH 3: Trump temporarily pauses military aid to Ukraine to pressure Zelensky to seek peace.
Trump claims his 24-hour promise was ‘sarcastic’
MARCH 14: Trump says he was “being a little bit sarcastic” when he repeatedly claimed as a candidate that he would have the Russia-Ukraine war solved within 24 hours.
“Well, I was being a little bit sarcastic when I said that,” Trump says in a clip released from an interview for the “Full Measure” television program. “What I really mean is I’d like to get it settled and, I’ll, I think, I think I’ll be successful.”
MARCH 18-19: Trump speaks with both Zelensky and Putin on successive days.
In a March 18 call, Putin told Trump that he would agree not to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure but refused to back a full 30-day ceasefire that Trump had proposed. Afterward, Trump on social media heralded that move, which he said came “with an understanding that we will be working quickly to have a Complete Ceasefire and, ultimately, an END to this very horrible War between Russia and Ukraine.”
In their own call a day later, Trump suggested that Zelensky should consider giving the US ownership of Ukraine’s power plants to ensure their long-term security. Trump told Zelensky that the UScould be “very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise,” according to a White House statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz.
APRIL 14: Trump says “everybody” is to blame: Zelensky, Putin and Biden.
“That’s a war that should have never been allowed to start and Biden could have stopped it and Zelensky could have stopped it and Putin should have never started it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Talk of moving on
APRIL 18: Rubio says that the US may “move on” from trying to secure a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress in the coming days.
He spoke in Paris after landmark talks among US, Ukrainian and European officials produced outlines for steps toward peace and appeared to make some long-awaited progress. A new meeting is expected next week in London, and Rubio suggested it could be decisive in determining whether the Trump administration continues its involvement.
“We are now reaching a point where we need to decide whether this is even possible or not,” Rubio told reporters. “Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on. It’s not our war. We have other priorities to focus on.”
He said the US administration wants to decide “in a matter of days.”
Later that day, Trump told reporters at the White House that he agreed with Rubio that a Ukraine peace deal must be done “quickly.”
“I have no specific number of days but quickly. We want to get it done,” he said.
Saying “Marco is right” that the dynamic of the negotiations must change, Trump stopped short of saying he’s ready to walk away from peace negotiations.
“Well, I don’t want to say that,” Trump said. “But we want to see it end.”
How Trump backed away from promising to end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours
https://arab.news/7mn4j
How Trump backed away from promising to end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours
- He has changed his tone since becoming president again.
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday suggested the U.S. might soon back away from negotiations altogether without more progress.
UK will roll out chemical castration for sex offenders
LONDON: The British government will roll out the use of medication to suppress the sex drive of sex offenders, as part of a package of measures to reduce the risk of reoffending and alleviate the pressures on the prison system, which is running out of space.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said Thursday that so-called chemical castration would be used in 20 prisons in two regions and that she was considering making it mandatory.
“Of course, it is vital that this approach is taken alongside psychological interventions that target other causes of offending, like asserting power and control,” she said in a statement to Parliament following the release of an independent sentencing review,
Though the review highlighted the treatment wouldn’t be relevant for some sex offenders such as rapists driven by power and control, rather than sexual preoccupation, Mahmood said that studies show that chemical castration can lead to a 60 percent reduction in reoffending.
It’s been used in Germany and Denmark on a voluntary basis, and in Poland as mandatory for some offenders.
The recommendation was part of a wide-ranging review led by former Justice Secretary David Gauke. As well as looking at ways to cut reoffending, Gauke recommended reforms to overhaul the prisons system, which is running at near capacity.
One of the first things Mahmood did as justice minister after Labour returned to power after 14 years last July was sanction an early-release program for prisoners to free up space. She says she inherited a judicial system that had been neglected for years by the previous Conservative government and set up the review as a means to stabilize it.
“If our prisons collapse, courts are forced to suspend trials,” she said. “The police must halt their arrests, crime goes unpunished, criminals run amok and chaos reigns. We face the breakdown of law and order in this country.”
The review recommended that criminals could be released from prison earlier than they are now for good behavior, while judges could be given more flexibility to impose punishments such as driving bans. It also recommended that sentences of less than 12 months would also be scrapped for tougher community sentences. It also called for the immediate deportation for foreign nationals handed a three-year sentence or less.
The review called for higher investment in the probation service to allow officers to spend more time with offenders for their rehabilitation and extra funding for the many more who are monitored with electronic tags in the community.
Mahmood responded by giving a 700 million-pound a year for probation within years.
“If the government doesn’t put the resources into probation that is necessary, then the risk here is that we won’t make progress on rehabilitation that we need, and there will be a public backlash against it,” Gauke said.
The prison population in England and Wales has doubled over the past three decades or so to nearly 90,000. That’s despite a fall in crime rates and is driven in part by the fact that longer sentences are being handed out amid pressure to be tough on crime.
Robert Jenrick, the justice spokesman for the Conservatives, warned that scrapping short sentences would be effectively “decriminalizing” offenses like burglary, theft and assault. And monitoring tags, he said, are as useful as “smoke alarms putting out bonfires” in stopping reoffending.
In response, Mahmood said that she was clearing up the mess left by the Conservatives and that the government has also embarked on the largest expansion of prisons since Victorian times in the 19th century.
Trump to sign orders to boost nuclear power as soon as Friday, sources say
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will sign executive orders as soon as Friday that aim to jumpstart the nuclear energy industry by easing the regulatory process on approvals for new reactors and strengthening fuel supply chains, four sources familiar said.
Facing the first rise in power demand in two decades from the boom in artificial intelligence, Trump declared an energy emergency on his first day in office.
Chris Wright, the energy secretary, has said the race to develop power sources and data centers needed for AI is “Manhattan Project 2,” referring to the massive US program during World War II to develop atomic bombs.
A draft summary of the orders said Trump will invoke the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to declare a national emergency over US dependence on Russia and China for enriched uranium, nuclear fuel processing and advanced reactor inputs.
The summary also directs agencies to permit and site new nuclear facilities and directs the Departments of Energy and Defense to identify federal lands and facilities for nuclear deployment and to streamline processes to get them built.
It also encourages the Energy Department to use loan guarantees and direct loans to increase the build out of reactors. Trump only used the Loan Programs Office in his first administration to support a large nuclear plant in Georgia.
The LPO has now has hundreds of billions of dollars in financing thanks to legislation passed during former President Joe Biden’s administration, but has been hit hard by job cuts during Trump’s second administration.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The exact text and wording of draft executive orders is subject to frequent changes and there is no guarantee elements of the EOs will not be excised or modified during the final stages of the review process.
The United States was the first developer of nuclear power and has the most nuclear power capacity in the world, but the energy source is now growing the fastest in China.
One of the sources said officials from the industry including the Nuclear Energy Institute and Constellation , a utility with the biggest US reactor capacity, were invited to attend a signing ceremony Friday afternoon. Constellation and NEI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Trump administration has been debating four draft executive orders to boost nuclear power that sought ways to give the administration more power to approve reactors and reform the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the body of five panelists that approves reactors.
Nuclear is popular with Democrats for being virtually free in carbon emissions and with Republicans for providing reliable electricity compared to wind and solar power which can be intermittent, a problem that can be managed with battery storage.
Nuclear power produces radioactive waste which for which there is no permanent repository in the United States.
Several dead in fiery plane crash on California neighborhood
SAN DIEGO: Several people were killed when a small plane crashed onto a California neighborhood before dawn Thursday, destroying a home and setting more than a dozen cars on fire.
At least 10 houses were hit by debris and vehicles on both sides of one street went up in flames when the Cessna 550 slammed into the ground, spewing burning jet fuel in a part of San Diego that is home to military families.
San Diego Fire Department Assistant Chief Dan Eddy told reporters one house had been badly damaged, but that no one on the ground had been seriously hurt.
“When (the plane) hit the street, as the jet fuel went down, it took out every single car that was on both sides of the street,” he said.
“We have jet fuel all over the place.”
One of the dead was named as Dave Shapiro, a music agent who founded San Diego-based Sound Talent Group (STG).
The company said two other members of staff who were aboard the plane had also died.
“We are devastated by the loss of our co-founder, colleagues and friends,” an STG spokesperson told US media.
“Our hearts go out to their families and to everyone impacted by today’s tragedy.”
There was no official confirmation of the death toll, but first responders at the scene said the plane — versions of which can carry up to 10 people, including the pilots — had been totally destroyed and they expected the toll to rise.
Yasmine Sierra told AFP how she had helped her neighbors escape their burning house in the middle of the night after being awakened by what she initially thought was an earthquake.
“It looked like all the homes were on fire because I could see the smoke and the flames, it looked like the trees were on fire,” she said.
Moments later she heard screams from her neighbors who were trapped in their back garden.
“Me and my son grabbed the ladder, we jumped on our trampoline, and we tried to bounce as much as we possibly could, to throw that ladder over so that they can climb onto the ladder into our backyard,” said Sierra, 35.
A woman, two children and two small dogs climbed to safety over the ladder.
“She was very distraught when she came over. I brought her to the front of the house, and I told her that, you know, we needed to leave.”
Jeremy Serna, 31, who is in the Navy, said he and his wife had been awoken by a loud bang.
“We looked outside, and the sky was orange. And then I came running outside to see what it was, and everything was on fire over here,” he told AFP.
“I saw the corner house was just engulfed in flames. And then came back over here and told my wife, hey, we have to get out of here.”
Investigators were combing the scene Thursday, picking through the scattered debris of the plane, which appeared to have broken into hundreds of pieces.
Bits of fiberglass were scattered among the twisted and charred remains of cars, and the smell of fuel hung in the air.
The accident happened in thick fog when the plane, which had come via Kansas, was nearing the Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport.
It was not immediately clear what had happened, but the fire department’s Eddy said a nearby power line appeared to have been clipped.
The plane went down around 3:45 am (1045 GMT), according to the Federal Aviation Administration, striking the Murphy Canyon neighborhood.
The residential area is largely military housing. San Diego is home to US Navy facilities, Marine Corps bases and Coast Guard stations.
The accident came at a time of heightened tension in the skies above America.
Air traffic control outages have struck the busy Newark airport on the East Coast at least twice in recent weeks, and in January there was a mid-air collision over Washington between a passenger plane and a military helicopter.
This month two people died when their small plane crashed into a residential neighborhood northwest of Los Angeles.
Judge suspends dismantling of US Education Department
WASHINGTON: A US federal judge on Thursday suspended President Donald Trump’s executive order that effectively eliminates the country’s Education Department and ordered the reinstatement of hundreds of fired employees.
In March, the department announced that it was slashing staff numbers by nearly half, shortly after Trump issued an executive order instructing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “put herself out of a job.”
That move was hailed by Trump’s supporters on the right, but by law, the department created in 1979 cannot be shuttered without the approval of Congress.
Around 20 states, along with teachers’ unions have challenged the decisions in court, arguing that the government is violating the principle of separation of powers by encroaching on Congress’s prerogatives.
A federal judge in the northeastern city of Boston agreed with the plaintiffs, suspending the executive order and ordering the reinstatement of hundreds of dismissed employees.
“This court cannot be asked to cover its eyes while the Department’s employees are continuously fired and units are transferred out until the Department becomes a shell of itself,” Judge Myong Joun said in his ruling.
Traditionally, the federal government has had a limited role in education in the United States, with only about 13 percent of funding for primary and secondary schools coming from federal coffers, the rest being funded by states and local communities.
But federal funding is invaluable for low-income schools and students with special needs. And the federal government has been essential in enforcing key civil rights protections for students.
The Education Department cannot be completely dismantled without Congress’s approval, including 60 votes in the Senate where the ruling Republicans currently hold 53 seats.
Trump administration bars Harvard from enrolling foreign students
- Kristi Noem: ‘This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus’
- Harvard: ‘We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the University’
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students in its escalating battle with the Ivy League school, saying thousands of current students must transfer to other schools or leave the country.
The Department of Homeland Security announced the action Thursday, saying Harvard has created an unsafe campus environment by allowing “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators” to assault Jewish students on campus. It also accused Harvard of coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party, saying it hosted and trained members of a Chinese paramilitary group as recently as 2024.
“This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status,” the agency said in a statement.
Harvard enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, accounting for more than a quarter of its student body. Most are graduate students, coming from more than 100 countries.
Harvard called the action unlawful and said it’s working to provide guidance to students.
“This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission,” the university said in a statement.
The dispute stems from an April 16 request from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The letter demanded that Harvard turn over information about foreign students that might implicate them in violence or protests that could lead to their deportation.
In a letter to Harvard on Thursday, Noem said the school’s sanction is “the unfortunate result of Harvard’s failure to comply with simple reporting requirements.” It bars Harvard from hosting international students for the upcoming 2025-26 school year.
Noem said Harvard can regain its ability to host foreign students if it produces a trove of records on foreign students within 72 hours. Her updated request demands all records, including audio or video footage, of foreign students participating in protests or dangerous activity on campus.
“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” Noem said in a statement.
The action revoked Harvard’s certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which gives the school the ability to sponsor international students to get their visas and attend school in the United States.
Students in Harvard College Democrats said the Trump administration is playing with students’ lives to push a radical agenda and to quiet dissent. “Trump’s attack on international students is text book authoritarianism — Harvard must continue to hold the line,” the group said in a statement.
The administration drew condemnation from free speech groups including the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which said Noem is demanding a “surveillance state.”
“This sweeping fishing expedition reaches protected expression and must be flatly rejected,” the group said in a statement.
Noem’s sanction opens a new front in the Trump administration’s battle with Harvard. The nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, Harvard was the first to openly defy White House demands to limit pro-Palestinian protests and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
The federal government has responded by cutting $2.6 billion in federal grants at Harvard, forcing it to self-fund much of its sprawling research operation. President Donald Trump has said he wants to strip the university of its tax-exempt status.
Many of Harvard’s punishments have come through a federal antisemitism task force that says the university failed to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence amid a nationwide wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
Homeland Security officials echoed those concerns in its Thursday announcement. It offered examples including a recent internal report at Harvard finding that many Jewish students reported facing discrimination or bias on campus.
It also tapped into concerns that congressional Republicans have raised about ties between US universities and China. Homeland Security officials said Harvard provided training to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps as recently as 2024. As evidence, it provided a link to a Fox News article which in turn cited a letter from House Republicans.
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, called the latest action an “illegal, small-minded” overreach.
“I worry that this is sending a very chilling effect to international students looking to come to America for education,” he said.
The Trump administration has leveraged the system for tracking international students’ legal status as part of its broader attempts to crack down on higher education. What was once a largely administrative database has become a tool of enforcement, as immigration officials revoked students’ legal status directly in the system.
Those efforts were challenged in court, leading to restorations of status and a nationwide injunction blocking the administration from pursuing further terminations.
