At least 69 migrants killed in shipwreck off Morocco on deadly route to Spain

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s attorney-general’s chambers has sought a gag order to ban public discussion of former Prime Minister Najib Razak’s judicial review claim that a document exists allowing him to serve his remaining prison sentence under house arrest, according to state news agency Bernama.
Najib, jailed for his role in the multi-billion dollar 1MDB scandal, is pursuing a legal bid to compel authorities to confirm the existence of and execute an “addendum order” that he said was issued last year as part of a pardon by then-King Al-Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah, entitling him to serve the remainder of his sentence at home.
The issue has caused a huge stir in Malaysia, with disgraced political heavyweight Najib insisting the former king’s addendum order was ignored by authorities when they announced the halving of his sentence last year.
The former king’s palace has issued a letter saying the document does exist, but Malaysia’s law ministry said it has no record of it, its home minister has denied knowledge and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has said “we did not hide anything.”
Bernama on Monday quoted Shamsul Bolhassan, deputy chief of the chambers’ civil division, as saying the gag order request had been filed to a court.
The official had previously said the case touched on sensitive issues, according to Bernama.
Najib was found guilty in 2020 of criminal breach of trust and abuse of power for illegally receiving funds misappropriated from a unit of state investor 1Malaysia Development Berhad.
He is on trial for corruption in several other 1MDB-linked cases and denies wrongdoing. Najib this month hailed as “one step forward” the Court of Appeal’s decision to overturn the dismissal of his attempt to access the document. The case will go back to court to be heard by another judge.

WASHINGTON: Nearly 1,660 Afghans cleared by the US government to resettle in the US, including family members of active-duty US military personnel, are having their flights canceled under President Donald Trump’s order suspending US refugee programs, a US official and a leading refugee resettlement advocate said on Monday.
The group includes unaccompanied minors awaiting reunification with their families in the US as well as Afghans at risk of Taliban retribution because they fought for the former US-backed Afghan government, said Shawn VanDiver, head of the #AfghanEvac coalition of US veterans and advocacy groups and the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The US decision also leaves in limbo thousands of other Afghans who have been approved for resettlement as refugees in the US but have not yet been assigned flights from Afghanistan or from neighboring Pakistan, they said.
Trump made an immigration crackdown a major promise of his victorious 2024 election campaign, leaving the fate of US refugee programs up in the air.
The White House and the State Department, which oversees US refugee programs, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Afghans and advocates are panicking,” said VanDiver. “I’ve had to recharge my phone four times already today because so many are calling me.
“We warned them that this was going to happen, but they did it anyway. We hope they will reconsider,” he said of contacts with Trump’s transition team.
VanDiver’s organization is the main coalition that has been working with the US government to evacuate and resettle Afghans in the US since the Taliban seized Kabul as the last US forces left Afghanistan in August 2021 after two decades of war.
Nearly 200,000 Afghans have been brought to the US by former President Joe Biden’s administration since the chaotic US troop withdrawal from Kabul.
One of the dozens of executive orders Trump is expected to sign after being sworn in for a second term on Monday suspended US refugee programs for at least four months.
The new White House website said that Trump “is suspending refugee resettlement, after communities were forced to house large and unsustainable populations of migrants, straining community safety and resources.”
“We know this means that unaccompanied children, (Afghan) partner forces who trained, fought and died or were injured alongside our troops, and families of active-duty US service members are going to be stuck,” said VanDiver.
VanDiver and the US official said that the Afghans approved to resettle as refugees in the US were being removed from the manifests of flights they were due to take from Kabul between now and April.
Minority Democrats on the House Foreign Relations Committee blasted the move, saying in a post on X that “this is what abandonment looks like. Leaving vetted, verified Afghan Allies at the mercy of the Taliban is shameful.”
They include nearly 200 family members of Afghan-American active-duty US service personnel born in the US or of Afghans who came to the US, joined the military and became naturalized citizens, they said.
Those being removed from flights also include an unknown number of Afghans who fought for the former US-backed Kabul government and some 200 unaccompanied children of Afghan refugees or Afghan parents whose children were brought alone to the United States during the US withdrawal, said VanDiver and the US official.
An unknown number of Afghans who qualified for refugee status because they worked for US contractors or US-affiliated organizations also are in the group, they said.