Ecuador on ‘maximum alert’ over alleged assassination plot
Ecuador on ‘maximum alert’ over alleged assassination plot/node/2597669/world
Ecuador on ‘maximum alert’ over alleged assassination plot
Ecuador's President-reelect Daniel Noboa (C) gives the thumb up to supporters, accompanied by his wife, Lavinia Valbonesi (L), his sons Alvaro and Furio, and Vice-President-reelect Maria Jose Pinto, from a balcony of the Carondelet Presidential Palace during the changing of the guard ceremony in Quito on April 15, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 19 April 2025
AFP
Ecuador on ‘maximum alert’ over alleged assassination plot
Updated 19 April 2025
AFP
QUITO: Ecuador is on maximum alert over an alleged assassination plot against recently reelected President Daniel Noboa, the government said on Saturday.
Noboa won the race in an April 13 runoff vote, but his main rival Luisa Gonzalez has accused him of committing “grotesque electoral fraud.”
A military intelligence report saying that assassins entering Ecuador from Mexico and other countries planned to carry out “terrorist attacks” against Noboa was leaked on social media this week.
“We strongly condemn and repudiate any intention against the life of the president of the Republic, state authorities or public officials,” Ecuador’s Ministry of Government said in a statement early Saturday.
“The state is on maximum alert,” it added.
The government accused “criminal structures in complicity with political sectors defeated at the polls” of hatching the plot, though it did not offer any specific names.
Ecuador’s electoral council and international observers have dismissed claims of fraud in the runoff vote, but Mexico and Colombia have yet to officially recognize Noboa’s win.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has expressed support for leftist Gonzalez, who has said she will seek a recount.
Mexico severed ties with the South American nation a year ago after security forces stormed its embassy in Quito to arrest a former vice president granted asylum.
Noboa, who is expected to be sworn in on May 24, faces the herculean task of uniting his violence-plagued nation, which averaged a killing every hour at the start of the year as cartels vied for control over drug smuggling routes.
Trump administration cuts nearly $8B in clean energy projects in states that backed Harris
Updated 9 sec ago
AP
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration is canceling $7.6 billion in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election.
The move comes as President Donald Trump threatens deep cuts in his fight with congressional Democrats over the government shutdown.
The Energy Department said in a statement Thursday that 223 projects were terminated after a review determined they did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or were not economically viable. Officials did not provide details about which projects are being cut, but said funding came from the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and other DOE bureaus.
The cuts are likely to affect battery plants, hydrogen technology projects, upgrades to the electric grid and carbon-capture efforts, among many others, according to the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.
Russell Vought, the White House budget director, highlighted the cutbacks in a social media post late Wednesday, saying money “to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being canceled.”
He said projects are on the chopping block in: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state.
Vought and the Energy Department did not explain how they came up with their list of targeted states, considering that dozens of states have clean energy projects. But all 16 targeted states supported Harris, and in each of those states, both US senators voted against the Republican’s short-term funding bill to keep the government working.
The cuts include up to $1.2 billion for California’s hydrogen hub that is aimed at accelerating hydrogen technology and production, and up to $1 billion for a hydrogen project in the Pacific Northwest. A Texas hydrogen project and a three-state project in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania were spared, according to clean-energy supporters who obtained a list of the DOE targets.
Trump said in an interview taped Wednesday with One America News, a conservative outlet, that his administration could cut projects Democrats want — “favorite projects, and they’d be permanently cut.”
“I’m allowed to cut things that never should have been approved in the first place and I will probably do that,” Trump said. A clip from the interview was released ahead of the full interview set to air Thursday night.
Trump’s comments show that he and Vought are treating American “families and their livelihoods like pawns in some sort of sick political game,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington
“This administration has had plans in the works for months to cancel critical energy projects, and now they are illegally taking action to kill jobs and raise people’s energy bills,” she said in a statement. “This is a blatant attempt to punish the political opposition.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the private sector has committed $10 billion for the state’s hydrogen project, known as the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems, or ARCHES. The cut threatens over 200,000 jobs, Newsom said.
California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla called cancelation of the project “vindictive, shortsighted and proof this administration is not serious about American energy dominance.”
The California project is one of seven clean-energy projects from West Virginia to Washington state selected by the Biden administration for a $7 billion program to kickstart development and production of hydrogen fuel, part of former President Joe Biden’s agenda to slow climate change.
The Energy Department said it has reviewed billions of dollars awarded by the Biden administration after Trump won the presidential election last November. More than a quarter of the rescinded grants were awarded between Election Day and Inauguration Day, the department said.
“President Trump promised to protect taxpayer dollars and expand America’s supply of affordable, reliable, and secure energy. Today’s cancelations deliver on that commitment,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.
Wright told CNN Thursday night that the cancelations had nothing to do with the shutdown or politics. “These decisions are made — business decisions on whether it’s a good use of the taxpayer money or not. So, no, these projects will not be restored” when the government reopens, he said.
While the current cancelations are in Democratic-led states, Wright said other projects, including hydrogen proposals in West Virginia, Texas and Louisiana, are being evaluated.
“We’ve announced project cancelations before in red and blue states. And as this fall goes on, you’ll see cancelations in red and blue states,” Wright said. “We’ve got to save Americans money.”
Award recipients have 30 days to appeal the Energy Department’s termination decision.
The Trump administration has broadly targeted climate programs and clean energy grants, and is proposing to roll back vehicle emission and other greenhouse gas rules it says can’t be justified. Last week, the Energy Department rescinded $13 billion that was intended for clean energy projects. The money was authorized by Congress in the 2022 climate law signed by Biden but had not yet been spent.
Democrats and environmental organizations were quick to slam the latest cuts, saying they would raise energy costs.
“This is yet another blow by the Trump administration against innovative technology, jobs and the clean energy needed to meet skyrocketing demand,” said Jackie Wong, a senior vice president at NRDC.
Conrad Schneider, senior director at the Clean Air Task Force, said the move “pulls the rug out” from dozens of communities and workers that are counting on the projects. It also “weakens the US’s position in the global marketplace” for innovative energy technologies, he said.
Apple removes ICE tracking apps after pressure by Trump administration
ICE at the center of Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda
Rights advocates concerned that ICE’s actions can flout due process
Updated 6 min 36 sec ago
Reuters
WASHINGTON: Apple said on Thursday that it had removed ICEBlock, the most popular ICE-tracking app, and other similar apps from its App Store after it was contacted by President Donald Trump’s administration.
The app alerts users to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in their area. ICE has been a central part of Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda and its agents have regularly raided and arrested migrants. The Justice Department says the app could increase the risk of assault on US agents.
“Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store,” Apple said in an emailed statement.
Since Trump took office, ICE has raided multiple facilities with immigrants who are in the US illegally. The agency has also arrested visa holders and permanent US residents targeted by the Trump administration over pro-Palestinian advocacy.
Rights advocates have raised concerns that rights to free speech and due process are often being infringed as the government pushes ahead with its deportation drive.
Fox Business first reported the app’s removal on Thursday, citing a statement by US Attorney General Pam Bondi who said the Justice Department contacted Apple to pull the app on Thursday and that the company complied.
“ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs, and violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line that cannot be crossed,” Bondi said in her statement to Fox Business.
Bondi and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem have previously warned Joshua Aaron, the Texas-based creator of ICEBlock, that he is “not protected” under the Constitution and that they are looking at prosecuting him.
Apple’s actions may also lead to further scrutiny over the warm ties that tech firms have tried to build with the Trump administration during his second term.
Epilepsy has several different causes, and overall around three in 10 cases are down to structural abnormalities in the brain, experts say
These are often missed on MRI scans — especially the smallest lesions, sometimes hidden at the bottom of a brain fold
Updated 14 min 58 sec ago
AFP
TOKYO: An artificial intelligence tool that can detect tiny, hard-to-spot brain malformations in children with epilepsy could help patients access life-changing surgery quicker, Australian researchers said on Wednesday.
It is the latest example of how AI, which can crunch vast amounts of data, is changing health care by assisting doctors with diagnoses.
Epilepsy has several different causes, and overall around three in 10 cases are down to structural abnormalities in the brain, experts say.
These are often missed on MRI scans — especially the smallest lesions, sometimes hidden at the bottom of a brain fold.
A team led by Emma Macdonald-Laurs, a paediatric neurologist at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, trained an AI tool on child brain images to find lesions the size of a blueberry or smaller.
“They’re frequently missed and many children are not considered as surgical candidates,” Macdonald-Laurs told a briefing ahead of the publication of her team’s study in the journal Epilepsia.
“The tool doesn’t replace radiologists or epilepsy doctors, but it’s like a detective that helps us put the puzzle pieces together quicker so we can offer potentially life-changing surgery,” she said.
Of the patients who took part, with conditions known as cortical dysplasia and focal epilepsy, 80 percent had previously had an MRI scan come back as normal.
When the researchers used the AI tool to analyze both MRI and another type of medical scan called a PET, its success rate was 94 percent for one test group and 91 percent for another.
Out of 17 children in the first group, 12 had surgery to remove their brain lesions, and 11 are now seizure-free, said Macdonald-Laurs’s team at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
“Our next plans are to test this detector in more real-life hospital settings on new undiagnosed patients,” she said.
Epilepsy, which causes recurrent seizures, affects about one in 200 children, and about a third of cases are drug-resistent.
“This work is really exciting” as a proof of concept and the results are “really impressive,” Konrad Wagstyl, a biomedical computing expert at King’s College London (KCL), told AFP.
Similar research published in February by a KCL team using AI on MRI data spotted 64 percent of epilepsy-linked brain lesions that were missed by radiologists.
The Australian researchers used MRI with PET, “but some caveats are that PET is expensive, it’s not as widely available as MRI, and there is a dose of radiation like a CT scan or an X-ray associated with it,” Wagstyl noted.
Protests worldwide condemn Israeli interception of Gaza flotilla
Forty-one ships with more than 400 people aboard, including politicians and climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, were halted by the Israeli navy from Wednesday and prevented from reaching the coastal territory
Updated 39 min 27 sec ago
AFP
PARIS: Protesters around the world Thursday railed at Israel’s interception of a flotilla carrying aid for Gaza’s besieged Palestinians, urging greater sanctions in response.
From Europe to Australia and South America, demonstrators took to the streets to condemn the treatment of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which set sail from Barcelona last month to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza, where the United Nations reports famine conditions after nearly two years of war.
Forty-one ships with more than 400 people aboard, including politicians and climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, were halted by the Israeli navy from Wednesday and prevented from reaching the coastal territory, an Israeli official said.
Around 15,000 people marched through Barcelona in protest at Israel’s actions, according to the municipal police force in Spain’s second city, chanting slogans including “Gaza, you are not alone,” “Boycott Israel” and “Freedom for Palestine.”
Riot police beat back a portion of the protesters who attempted to climb over barriers with truncheons, forcing them to retreat, images broadcast on Spanish public television showed.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest in Barcelona, Spain, on Oct. 2, 2025 in solidarity with the Global Sumud Flotilla after ships were intercepted by the Israeli navy. (AP)
A boat carrying former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau was among those prevented from proceeding. Colau and her fellow activists, including Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla Mandela, face deportation by Israel.
Several hundred protesters also marched outside the Irish parliament in Dublin, where support for the Palestinian cause has often been compared to Ireland’s centuries-long struggle against British colonial rule.
Miriam McNally, who said her daughter had set sail with the flotilla, was at the Dublin demonstration.
“I am worried sick for my daughter, but I am so proud of her and of what she’s doing,” McNally told AFP.
“She is standing up for humanity in the face of grave danger.”
Around a thousand people marched in Paris’s Place de la Republique, an AFP journalist saw, while in the port city of Marseille, in southern France, around a hundred pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested in the afternoon after attempting to block access to offices of weapons maker Eurolinks, accused of selling military components to Israel.
Protests were also held in Berlin, The Hague, Tunis, Brasilia and Buenos Aires, according to AFP correspondents.
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In Italy, where the country’s main unions have called a general strike for Friday in solidarity with the flotilla, thousands took to the streets to urge Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to defend the activists.
Besides Rome, where police said 10,000 people joined a march, other protests took place in cities including Milan, Torino, Florence and Bologna.
A day after a similar demonstration Wednesday evening, protesters in the capital gathered at the Colosseum and marched, slamming the far-right prime minister’s support of Israel.
“We are prepared to block everything. The genocidal machine must stop immediately,” demonstrators chanted.
In Turkiye, whose government is among the fiercest critics of Israel’s offensive, a long column of demonstrators marched to the Israeli embassy in Istanbul, with banners including “Total embargo on the occupation.”
“We demand the release of all members of the Sumud fleet and all prisoners, and as university students, we demand that all academic and economic ties with the genocidal Israeli state be terminated at our universities,” 21-year-old student Elif Bozkurt told AFPTV.
Around 3,000 demonstrators also took to the front of the European Parliament building in Brussels, with one banner urging the EU to “break the siege” as smoke bombs and crackers were set off in the crowd.
“The message is that each boat must be protected,” a protester named Isis told AFPTV at the demonstration, urging the European Union’s leadership to halt the “astronomical sums of money sent to Israel” through the bloc’s agreements with the Middle Eastern country.
‘Apartheid state’
A similar-sized crowd rallied in Geneva, according to an AFP journalist at the scene and Swiss broadcasters, with the mostly young protesters lighting a bonfire near the central station.
The protesters then headed to the Swiss city’s Mont Blanc bridge, at the end of Lake Geneva, to be met by a line of police in riot gear, who pushed the demonstrators back after brief clashes.
Protesters take part in a rally in support of the Gaza flotilla boats, in Geneva, Switzerland, on Oct. 2, 2025. (Keystone via AP)
In the Greek capital Athens, a throng of protesters set off fireworks and flares.
“The attack against the flotilla Sumud, it was a barbaric escalation from the Israeli apartheid state. They don’t want to even open a passage for humanitarian help to Gaza,” Petros Konstantinou, coordinator of Greece’s World Against Racism and Fascism (KEERFA) group, told AFPTV.
Dozens also rallied in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, in front of the embassy of the United States, Israel’s key ally.
“We are very upset... Upset, angry, disgusted because what they are doing is for humanity,” said Ili Farhan, 43.
“They are just bringing in aid and baby food... This arrest is unjust.”
Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza as Hamas considers its response to Trump’s peace proposal
Updated 56 min 44 sec ago
AP
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 57 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, health officials said Thursday, as Hamas was still considering its response to US President Donald Trump’s proposal for ending the nearly two-year war.
The plan requires Hamas to return all 48 hostages — about 20 of them thought by Israel to be alive — give up power and disarm in return for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and an end to fighting. However, the proposal, which has been accepted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sets no path to Palestinian statehood.
Palestinians long for the war to end but many believe the plan favors Israel, and a Hamas official told The Associated Press that some elements were unacceptable, without elaborating. Qatar and Egypt, two key mediators, said it requires more negotiations on certain elements. Israel intercepts activist aid flotilla
At least 29 people were killed by Israeli fire in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies. Officials there said 14 of them were killed in an Israeli military corridor where there have been frequent shootings around the distribution of humanitarian aid.
Officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir Al-Balah said they had received 16 dead from Israeli strikes.
Doctors Without Borders said one of its occupational therapists was killed while waiting for a bus in Deir Al-Balah, in a strike that seriously wounded four other people. The international charity described Omar Hayek, 42, as a “quiet man of profound kindness and professionalism.”
Hayek, who had recently fled south from Gaza City, is the 14th staffer from the organization to have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, it said.
In Gaza City, health officials at Shifa Hospital said they received five bodies and several wounded people, adding that its staff are having difficulties reaching the hospital as Israel wages a major offensive aimed at occupying the city.
Other hospitals reported an additional seven deaths from Israeli fire. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which says it only strikes militants and accuses Hamas of putting civilians in danger by operating in populated areas.
Israel has meanwhile intercepted most of the more than 40 vessels in a widely watched flotilla carrying a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid for Palestinians and aiming to break Israel’s 18-year blockade of Gaza, according to organizers.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on social media that activists on board – including Greta Thunberg and several European lawmakers – were safe and were being taken to Israel to begin “procedures” for their deportation.
In the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian militant was killed and another arrested on Thursday after they carried out a car-ramming and shooting attack on an Israeli army checkpoint, the military said, adding that no soldiers were wounded. Awaiting word from Hamas
A senior Hamas official told The Associated Press on Wednesday that some points in the proposal agreed upon by Trump and Netanyahu are unacceptable and must be amended, without elaborating.
He said the official response will only come after consultations with other Palestinian factions. Speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media about the ongoing talks, the official said Hamas had conveyed its concerns to Qatar and Egypt.
The Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that triggered the war killed some 1,200 people while 251 others were abducted. Most of the hostages have been freed under previous ceasefire deals.
The Trump plan would guarantee the flow of humanitarian aid and promises reconstruction in Gaza, placing its more than 2 million Palestinians under international governance. Mounting toll in Gaza
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 66,200 Palestinians and wounded nearly 170,000 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and militants in its toll, but has said women and children make up around half the dead.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government. UN agencies and many independent experts view its figures as the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.
Around 400,000 Palestinians have fled famine-stricken Gaza City since Israel launched a major offensive there last month. On Thursday morning, smoke could be seen in northern Gaza and people were fleeing the area headed south.
Israel’s defense minister on Wednesday ordered all remaining Palestinians to leave Gaza City, saying it was their “last opportunity” and that anyone who stayed would be considered a militant supporter.
While Hamas’ military capabilities have been vastly depleted, it still carries out sporadic attacks. On Wednesday, at least seven projectiles were launched into Israel from Gaza, but all were either intercepted or fell in open areas, with no reports of casualties, the Israeli military said.
