#Australian government signs deal to deport former detainees to the tiny island country of Nauru.

Australia and Nauru signed an agreement on Friday to allow the Australian government to deport formerly detained people without valid visas to the tiny island nation, the Australian Associated Press reported.

Under the memorandum of understanding, Australia will pay Nauru 408 million Australian dollars ($267 million) up front once the first people arrive, followed by 70 million Australian dollars ($46 million) annually for the resettlement.

The move is being slammed by refugee advocates, some of whom say the deal could open the door to mass deportations without notice. Human rights organizations have protested deportations to Nauru since a report by the United Nations found “systematic violations” of the International Convention Against Torture.

Tony Burke, Australia’s home affairs minister, said in a statement that the memorandum “contains undertakings for the proper treatment and long-term residence of people who have no legal right to stay in Australia, to be received in Nauru.”

The two countries struck a deal in February to allow Australia to deport three violent criminals to Nauru. They were granted 30-year visas.

An Australian High Court decision in 2023 overturned the government’s policy of indefinite detention for immigrants who could neither get a visa, in some cases because of criminal conduct, nor be deported because they would face persecution or harm in their home countries. More than 200 immigrants have been released from detention as a result of the case. Some were charged with further offenses after their release.

Burke said the Nauru deal would target this group.

“Anyone who doesn’t have a valid visa should leave the country,” he said. “This is a fundamental element of a functioning visa system.”

In a statement posted online, Jana Favero, deputy CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, criticized the agreement.

“This deal is discriminatory, disgraceful and dangerous,” she said. “At a time when the entire country has just voted for unity and rejected fear, rather than embrace this and show leadership, the Albanese Government has launched yet another attack on migrants and refugees.”

Associated Press, The Associated Press

#Lebanese army plans to carry out ‘sensitive missions’ amid U.S.-backed Hezbollah disarmament plan.

#BEIRUT — Lebanon’s military will soon carry out “sensitive missions,” the country’s army chief said Friday, in an apparent reference to the Lebanese government’s U.S.-backed plan to disarm the Hezbollah militant group by the end of the year.

Lebanon’s military will take necessary steps to ensure the missions’ success while preserving peace among the civilian population in the crisis-hit nation, Gen. Rodolphe Haykal said in a statement. Lebanon has a U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hezbollah as well as Palestinian weapons in the country’s refugee camps.

The Lebanese government asked the army in early August to come up with a plan to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the month. The prime minister’s office said in a statement Friday the Cabinet will hold a meeting to discuss the plan on Sept. 5.

Hezbollah’s leadership has vowed not to disarm, saying the national government’s decision to remove the Iran-backed group’s weapons by the end of the year serves Israel’s interests.

“The army is taking major responsibilities at all levels,” Haykal was quoted as saying by an army statement. He made his comments during a meeting with the military’s top generals.

Haykal added that the army is approaching a “delicate stage during which it will carry out sensitive missions and will take all the steps needed to make these missions successful taking into consideration the preservation of civil peace and internal stability.”

Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said earlier this month that the government is to blame if the situation gets out of control and leads to internal conflict in the small nation.

Since the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war ended in November 2024 with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, Hezbollah officials have said the group will not discuss its disarmament until Israel withdraws from five hills it controls inside Lebanon and stops almost daily airstrikes. Those strikes have killed or wounded hundreds of people, most of them Hezbollah members.

On Friday, the Israeli military said it killed an official with Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces in south Lebanon. Lebanese state media reported that one person was killed in a drone strike in the village of Sir el-Gharbiyeh.

Haykal was quoted by the army statement as saying that the military is in contact with Syrian authorities to control the border between the two countries.

Before the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad in December, Hezbollah received much of its weapons from Iran through Syria.

#UN peacekeepers discover Hezbollah bunker in south #Lebanon. El Meri, Lebanon — In a wooded valley close to the Israeli border, United Nations peacekeepers showed AFP journalists a Hezbollah bunker they had uncovered in southern Lebanon, a former bastion of the militant group.

The UN Security Council voted on Thursday to end the mission of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in 2027, with the peacekeeping force facing U.S. and Israeli opposition.

The peacekeepers, first deployed in 1978, have recently been working with the Lebanese army to enforce a November ceasefire that followed more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

The Lebanese group was badly weakened and, as part of the ceasefire deal, is required to withdraw from south Lebanon.

“This morning we conducted a recce in this valley that we identified as... of valuable interest” because it was hit by the Israeli military during the conflict, said Captain Tanguy, commander of the French reconnaissance and intervention troops, on Wednesday.

The site, on the outskirts of the village of Meri, was hidden among trees and accessible only on foot via a rough mountain path.

Green boxes filled with shells were scattered on the ground, while others were inside a storeroom that appeared to have been bombed.

“Inside the bunker we found an artillery cannon of 152 mm calibre. It’s Russian-made. It was facing eastward and southward,” Tanguy said.
‘Provide security’

“This type of cannon has a range of about 15 kilometres (around 10 miles) effectiveness,” he added.

Next to it were several dozen boxes each containing a 152 mm shell “ready to be used”.

“And as you can see the cannon is still intact”, Tanguy said.

“The next step would be for us to provide security in the area so the Lebanese Armed Forces can intervene and retrieve the valuable assets,” he said.

Under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, Hezbollah and Israel were both required to withdraw from south Lebanon, while UNIFIL has deployed alongside the Lebanese military to dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure there, including a substantial network of tunnels.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said in June that the Lebanese army had dismantled more than 500 Hezbollah military positions and weapons depots in the south.

UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP that since the ceasefire, peacekeepers had found 318 weapons caches in southern Lebanon.

Earlier this month, six Lebanese soldiers were killed in a blast at a weapons depot near the border that a military source said belonged to Hezbollah.

Under heavy U.S. pressure and amid fears of expanded Israeli military action, Lebanon’s government this month tasked the army with drawing up a plan to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the year.

For its part, Israel has retained troops at five points within Lebanon that it deems strategic. This month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested they would be withdrawn if Hezbollah were successfully disarmed.
‘Monitor and report’ violations

Around 10,800 peacekeepers are stationed in southern Lebanon, where UNIFIL has been deployed since shortly after the Israeli invasion of 1978.

Their deployment has spanned the Israeli invasion of 1982, its subsequent occupation of southern Lebanon until 2000, the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah as well as the recent hostilities which began in October 2023 and culminated in open war last year during which Israel sent in ground troops.

The Security Council voted on Thursday to extend UNIFIL’s mandate one last time to the end of next year, with the force withdrawing by the end of 2027.

The definitive end to the mission was pushed for by the United States and welcomed by Israel.

Colonel Arnaud de Coincy, the commanding officer of UNIFIL’s quick-reaction Force Commander Reserve, said the peacekeepers would continue to support the Lebanese army “to provide all the expertise, all the assets we have, in order to help them” restore state authority to Lebanon’s south.

UNIFIL’s main role is to “monitor and to report any violation” of the ceasefire, he noted.

Clearly visible behind him was one of the five sites still held by Israeli troops, between the border towns of Kfar Kila and Burj al-Muluk.

Israel has also kept up regular strikes on what it says are Hezbollah sites and operatives in Lebanon despite the truce.

Tenenti said UNIFIL had recorded 5,095 Israeli air violations since the ceasefire began.

By Laure Al Khoury

#Immigrants waiting years to become permanent residents after applying to Canada’s start-up visa program.

Canada’s Start-up Visa Program was intended to attract innovative entrepreneurs to the country, but immigration experts are concerned about the lengthy delays some applicants are facing in securing their work permits and permanent residency.

Applicants can obtain work permits as they await a decision on their permanent residency applications. But those with work permits face more roadblocks in attempting to set up their business and receive funding than permanent residents, according to Stephen Green, past chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s national section on citizenship and immigration.

The federal government’s Start-up Visa Program is currently the only way business entrepreneurs or senior executives can apply to come to Canada, said Green, who is also managing partner of Toronto-based Green and Spiegel, in a video interview with CTVNews.ca on Tuesday.

He said some provinces have a business program that grants work permits, but there are hurdles.

“There’s a lot of difficulty when someone’s trying to establish a business in a province,” he said. “They may want funding for their business, and a lot of the banks won’t give funding to people that are just on work permits.”

He said the government has limited resources because it has cut back on economic immigration.

“Therefore, the lines have gotten much larger with respect to the Start-up Visa, and it’s really affecting the ability of innovative people to come to Canada and help us economically in Canada,” Green said.

The federal government’s Start-up Visa Program aims to attract immigrant entrepreneurs to Canada. Since it was created in 2013, more than 900 start-ups have launched and more than 3,000 entrepreneurs have become permanent residents through the program.

Foreign entrepreneurs are eligible to apply if they have the committed support of a designated venture capital fund, with an investment of $200,000; an angel investor group, with an investment of $75,000; or a business incubator.

The work permit allows Start-up Visa applicants to establish their business in the country while they wait for a decision on their permanent residence applications.

Afeez Moradeyo described his experience with the program as a “fantastic journey” overall, but he said the long wait made him consider abandoning his application for Canada. He applied to Canada’s Start-up Visa Program to launch his business when he was living in Dubai.

It took about two years and six months for him to get his work permit in Canada in April 2023.

“It’s really too long,” the fintech entrepreneur said in a video interview Wednesday about the wait. “It’s draining but still worth it.”

“More priorities should be given to start-up visa applicants in the course of their immigration processing because the wait period is really, really, discouraging,” Moradeyo said from Peterborough, Ont.

“It’s not just about bringing in bright ideas that would further transform the tech ecosystem in Canada, but also, the amount of investments put into it. So that consideration should be given when it comes to immigration processing so that Canada does not have to lose brilliant minds that could further contribute greatly to the economy here.”
Push for changes to program

Judy Han, an expert on immigrant entrepreneurship and an assistant professor of strategy management at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., told CTVNews.ca in a video interview that the program should target more “quality” start-ups that can scale globally to make the program more efficient.

Marvin Ryder, a professor of marketing and entrepreneurship at McMaster’s DeGroote School of Business, said the program is “well-designed” but has attracted more applicants than expected.

“So the people who have entered the program with the best of intention are getting more frustrated and more frustrated and more frustrated because of the amount of time it’s taking to be validated and approved,” Ryder said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca.

Ryder said the problem could be fixed easily.

“Just resource the program properly, staff it with the right number of people, deal with this backlog, and instantly it would become a much bigger winner than it already is,” he said.
Immigration cap

As of July 22, the program has nearly 42,200 applications, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Of that group, about 16,370 applications have been received but have not yet been finalized for more than 24 months.

To address the backlog and growing wait times, the federal government said it has capped the number of start-ups that designated organizations can support to 10 each year.

“The number of Start-up Visa applications in the program inventory far outnumber the number of planned admissions spaces, which has led to a backlog and longer wait times,” wrote IRCC spokesperson Remi Lariviere in an email to CTVNews.ca on Wednesday. “We have taken a number of steps to limit growth of the Start-up Visa backlog and mitigate wait times by significantly limiting intake under the program and introducing prioritization criteria.”

The federal government is prioritizing the return of immigration to sustainable levels while attracting top talent, Lariviere added. He noted that the target number of federal business admissions set out in the Immigration Levels Plan, which includes both the Start-up Visa and Self Employed programs, was reduced to 2,000 in 2025 and 1,000 in 2026, from 6,000 in 2024.

In the government’s December 2023 report evaluating the program, it acknowledged the longer processing times and backlogs as challenges hurting the program’s “competitiveness and attractiveness.”

#MOSCOW, August 28. Russia has not reached any agreements with Ukraine on establishing an air ceasefire, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"No agreements have been reached on this matter. I repeat: everything that can be discussed in the search for ways to reach a settlement must be discussed discreetly," the spokesman said.

Earlier, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko suggested that a settlement in Ukraine could begin with an air ceasefire.

#IAEA chief says Iran’s co-operation with inspectors is a ‘work in progress’ as sanctions loom.


WASHINGTON — The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog warned Wednesday that the agency is not yet satisfied with Iran’s co-operation with international inspectors, just as European leaders appeared poised to reimpose sanctions on Tehran after a series of last-minute meetings failed to reach a diplomatic resolution on its nuclear program.

Despite Iran allowing inspectors back in for the first time since the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June, regaining access to crucial nuclear facilities is still “a work in progress,” Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told The Associated Press.

“I can say that it is important that the inspectors are back,” Grossi said in an interview. “At the same time, we still need to clarify a number of things, and we still need to address all the issues that are important in terms of the inspections that we have to carry out in Iran.”

Grossi, who has been receiving special police protection following a threat he said was “from the direction” of Iran, spoke with AP after meeting with high-level officials in Washington this week, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also spoke Wednesday with his counterparts from Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

Rubio and Grossi discussed global nuclear safety and “IAEA efforts to conduct monitoring and verification activities, including in Iran,” the State Department said in a brief readout of the meeting.

Leaders from the three European countries — known as the E3 — have spent the past several weeks meeting with Iranian officials, seeking a solution ahead of a deadline this week on a threat to reimpose U.N. sanctions. They have warned that they would invoke the so-called “snapback mechanism” of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal over what the countries have deemed Iran’s lack of compliance.
Inspectors are back in Iran, but not with full access

The Europeans’ concern over the Iranian nuclear program, which had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels before its atomic sites were bombed in the war, had only grown since Tehran cut off all co-operation with the IAEA following the conflict.

The U.S. and the E3 agreed to set an Aug. 31 deadline for invoking the snapback mechanism if Iran fails to meet several conditions, including resuming negotiations with the U.S. over its nuclear program, allowing U.N. inspectors access to its nuclear sites and accounting for over 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.

Grossi said it was a breakthrough that IAEA inspectors have been allowed to return to Iran for the first time since Israel and the U.S. attacked Iranian nuclear sites, including with bunker-buster bombs.

“This is important given that the attacks began in the aftermath” of the Israeli and U.S. strikes, he told AP before a briefing Wednesday with reporters. “There were many voices in Iran advocating the end of any co-operation with the agency, and there were voices in the world arguing that perhaps the IAEA would never go back and that we would lose this indispensable work that we carry out on behalf of the international community.”

So far, Grossi said IAEA inspectors have returned to Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant but not yet the other sites, including those targeted by the U.S. strikes. He said he had no immediate plans to return to Iran — he last visited the country early this year — but remains in contact with Iranian officials to go over the logistics of IAEA access to all the sites.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Wednesday confirmed inspectors were at the facility to watch a fuel replacement, according to a report by the state-run IRNA news agency. But he reportedly cautioned that it didn’t represent a breakthrough on the IAEA visiting other sites.

Iran has long insisted its program is peaceful, though it is the only non-nuclear-armed nation enriching uranium at such a high level. The United States, the IAEA and others say Iran had a nuclear weapons program up until 2003.
U.S. and European leaders hold call as sanctions deadline looms

Rubio had a phone call Wednesday with the foreign ministers of Germany, France and the U.K. after the three European countries held meetings with the Iranians over the past week.

“All reiterated their commitment to ensuring that Iran never develops or obtains a nuclear weapon,” Tommy Pigott, deputy State Department spokesperson, said in a statement.

The call follows talks Tuesday in Switzerland between representatives of the E3 and Iran that “ended without a final outcome,” said a diplomat with knowledge of the meeting. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the sensitive discussions.

Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, said on X after the meeting that Tehran “remains committed to diplomacy″ and that it was “high time” for the European countries “to make the right choice, and give diplomacy time and space.”
Elite police unit guards Grossi

Grossi, who plans to run for United Nations secretary-general, is being protected by an Austrian police Cobra unit following a threat he said is from “the direction” of Iran.

“It’s very regrettable that some people threaten the lives of international civil servants, the head of an international organization,” Grossi told AP, adding that ”we will continue our work.”

The elite unit under the Austrian Federal Ministry of Interior mainly handles counterterrorism operations, hostage rescues and responses to mass shootings. It also engages in personal protection and the protection of Austrian foreign representations abroad. In Austria, Cobra operatives are known for protecting the president and chancellor as well as the U.S. and Israeli ambassadors.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the additional security for Grossi, an Argentine diplomat who has raised the profile of the IAEA with his trips into Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion and the agency’s work on Iran.

Israel attacked Iran in June after the IAEA’s Board of Governors voted to censure Iran over its non-co-operation with the agency, the first such censure in 20 years. Iran accused the IAEA, without providing evidence, of aiding Israel and, later, the United States in its airstrikes targeting its nuclear sites.

Top Iranian officials and Iranian media called for Grossi to be arrested and put on trial if he returned to the country.

___

Amiri reported from the United Nations, and Liechtenstein from Vienna. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Matthew Lee, Farnoush Amiri And Stephanie Liechtenstein, The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — Mexico said Wednesday its postal service was suspending package shipments to the United States ahead of an end to the exemption on tariff duties for low-value packages by the Trump administration.

The announcement follows similar moves by postal services from the European Union and several other countries to pause shipping as they await more clarity on the U.S. measure. It also comes amid months-long negotiations between the Mexican government and the Trump administration to avoid wider tariffs.

The exemption -- known as the " de minimis" exemption, which allows packages worth less than $800 to come into the U.S. duty free -- is ending on Friday. A total of 1.36 billion packages were sent in 2024 under this exemption, for goods worth $64.6 billion, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Mexico’s government said its postal service, Correos de Mexico, will temporarily suspend package deliveries to the U.S., starting Wednesday.

“Mexico continues its dialogue with U.S. authorities and international postal organizations to define mechanisms that will allow for the orderly resumption of services, providing certainty to users and avoiding setbacks in the delivery of goods,” the statement read.

With the announcement, Mexico joins several European and other countries, including Australia and Japan, in suspending the shipments to the U.S. amid confusion over new import duties.

Yunnueth Hernandez brought her two children to the post office on Wednesday to send a letter to a relative in the U.S., to show them “how we used to communicate” before emails and internet, but left disappointed.

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t send it because they told us with the tariffs, shipments to the U.S. were canceled,” she said.

Outside the building, a woman was in tears after being unable to send a 10-page letter and photographs to her boyfriend in the U.S.

Mexico has tried to negotiate with U.S. President Donald Trump to avoid increased tariffs by taking more aggressive security measures against the country’s drug cartels and sending dozens of imprisoned cartel figures to the U.S. for prosecution.

Megan Janetsky, The Associated Press

Police in Haiti regain control of key #telecom hub seized by gangs. PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Police in Haiti announced Tuesday that they regained control of a critical telecommunications hub that heavily armed gangs had seized last week, briefly disrupting air traffic and internet connections.

The takeover was a rare success for Haitian authorities and a UN-backed mission led by Kenyan police that have struggled to push back powerful gangs seeking full control of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

The police operation at the Téléco site in the once peaceful community of Kenscoff began before dawn on Monday and lasted about two hours, according to Michel-Ange Louis Jeune, spokesperson for Haiti’s National Police.

“This is a strong message that the new police chief sent,” he said, referring to André Jonas Vladimir Paraison, who was appointed to the post earlier this month.

Jeune did not take questions during the news conference and did not say how many people, if any, were killed during the operation.

He said police found numerous guns, including automatic weapons with scratched-out serial numbers, and more than 1,000 bullets.

“When the population is sleeping, the police are not sleeping. They are working to ensure that people can sleep,” he said.

Last week, gangs filmed themselves taking over the Téléco site, telling the government it had less than a week to start negotiations. The person in the video did not say what, if anything, the gangs were demanding.

“You see, this is not a rumour. I am in Téléco,” a gang member who goes by the name of Didi says in the video. “If I don’t receive any calls from you guys, I’m going to get my clan to come burn the whole system now, and there won’t be any communications.”

In another video, one gang member is seen apparently switching off multiple buttons on a large server and using a screwdriver to disassemble another server as the room he’s in stops humming. He later stacks several motherboards outside and films them as he says, “I’m taking everything.”

Two days after the takeover, Haiti’s civil aviation agency condemned the action but noted that it only caused minor disruptions since it was able to implement certain measures to circumvent the crisis.

The attack was blamed on Viv Ansanm, a powerful gang federation that struck other key government infrastructure last year and was designated as a foreign terror organization by the U.S. earlier this year. Early last year, gunmen forced Haiti’s main international airport to close for nearly three months and raided the country’s two biggest prisons, releasing some 4,000 inmates.

In the video where gunmen raided Téléco last week, Didi called on the government to hand out bullets to police so they could come and go after gang members.

Godfrey Otunge, the Kenyan commander of the multinational force in Haiti, was present at Tuesday’s news conference but spoke only briefly.

“Be patient; you will see results,” he said as the police spokesperson promised similar raids in other gang-controlled areas.

Téléco is located in the same community as an orphanage that gangs raided earlier this month. They kidnapped eight people, including an Irish missionary and a 3-year-old child, who remain missing.

Gangs are estimated to control about 90% of Port-au-Prince, and they have repeatedly attacked Kenscoff this year to try and take over the area.

Experts say they are concerned about a recent video posted on social media in which Jimmy Chérizier, best known as Barbecue and one of the leaders of Viv Ansanm, is seen having a friendly chat with Kempes Sanon, who used to be one of his fiercest rivals.

Sanon is the leader of Haut Belair/Les Argentins, an armed group that was a member of G- Pèp, a gang federation that used to clash heavily with Chérizier’s G9 coalition.

“It was a bit unusual,” Diego Da Rin, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, said of the video, noting it’s the first time Sanon publicly shows his face in that manner.

Both Chérizier and Sanon used to be police officers, and experts wonder what the apparent new friendship might bode for Haiti.

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Evens Sanon And Dánica Coto, The Associated Press

#Ukraine acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday that Russia’s army has entered the Dnipropetrovsk region, a central administrative area previously spared from intense fighting.

The #Israeli military on Tuesday said its forces were targeting a camera operated by Hamas in two strikes that killed five journalists at a hospital a day earlier, triggering a wave of international condemnation.