A team of lawyers representing the families of 30 Venezuelans sent by the United States to a mega prison in El Salvador asked the Salvadoran Supreme Court of Justice on Monday to evaluate the legality of their detention.

One of the attorneys, Jaime Ortega, said they were hired by the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to file an appeal before the Constitutional Chamber of the Salvadoran Supreme Court, which would also apply to the rest of the 238 Venezuelans deported on the orders of US President Donald Trump.

“We are asking the court to review their legal status and issue a ruling. If their detention is illegal, it should immediately order their release,” Ortega told reporters.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said last week that the US sent 238 alleged members of the Tren de Aragua criminal organization, though he didn’t identify them or provide evidence for that claim. El Salvador agreed to take them in and lock them up at its Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), considered the largest prison in Latin America. US authorities have acknowledged that not all deportees had criminal records.

The Trump administration said 137 of those migrants were deported under the Alien Enemies Act. Use of the act, previously used only in wartime, under these circumstances is currently under judicial scrutiny in the US.

The lawyers in El Salvador said that if this is an immigration matter, they hope the Salvadoran Supreme Court will order that the Venezuelans be sent back to their countries.

The judges have no set deadline to resolve the appeal.

Juan Pappier, Americas Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch, cautioned that it was “unrealistic” to expect the court to go against the Bukele administration.

“I understand (the families’) desperation and I think they should use whatever avenue they can find available,” Pappier said.

Pappier argued that these types of deportations violate UN principles that forbid countries from transferring individuals to a place “where they can risk facing torture and other grave human rights violations.”

The National Commission on Human Rights and Freedom of Expression, a Salvadoran government agency, said families of Venezuelan deportees held in Cecot could petition the Salvadoran government for their release.

“We will process each case and carry out the corresponding verifications,” presidential commissioner Andrés Guzmán said.

A court ordered the dissolution of the Unification Church in Japan, upholding a government request for a revocation spurred by the investigation into the 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The Tokyo District Court’s revocation of the church’s legal status means it will lose its tax-exempt privilege and must liquidate its assets. However, the church can still appeal the decision to higher courts.

The order follows a request by Japan’s Education Ministry in 2023 to dissolve the influential South Korea-based sect, citing manipulative fundraising and recruitment tactics that sowed fear among followers and harmed their families.

The Japanese branch of the church had criticized the request as a serious threat to religious freedom and the human rights of its followers.

The investigation into the 2022 assassination of Abe revealed decades of cozy ties between the South Korea-based church and Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Party. The church obtained legal status as a religious organization in Japan in 1968 amid an anti-communist movement supported by Abe’s grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi.

The man accused of killing Abe resented the church and blamed it for his family’s financial troubles.

The church, which officially calls itself the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, is the first religious group to face a revocation order under Japan’s civil code. Two earlier case involved criminal charges – the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, which carried out a sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, and Myokakuji group, whose executives were convicted of fraud.

Japan has in place hurdles for restraining religious activities due to lessons from the prewar and wartime oppression of freedom of religion and thought.

A prominent Indian comedian is standing by his right to make jokes after an angry mob attacked a comedy club where he had made an onstage jibe at a right-wing politician.

Kunal Kamra, known for his quips about popular culture and politics, is under investigation for alleged defamation by police in the western state of Maharashtra after he told a joke about the state’s Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. The case is the latest to underscore the country’s declining freedoms and the sensitivities of India’s right-wing politicians, some of whom have called for the artist’s arrest.

A video of the skit, posted to Kamra’s YouTube channel Sunday, shows the comedian apparently taking a jibe at Shinde. In the video, Kamra does not explicitly name the politician but, in a song, refers to a “gaddar,” or “traitor” – taken to be a reference to Shinde’s leadership of a rebellion in 2022 that caused the state’s previous government to collapse.

The joke sparked a furious backlash within Shinde’s Hindu supremacist Shiv Sena political party. An angry mob later descended upon The Habitat comedy venue where Kamra had performed in Mumbai. A video of the incident shows dozens of men – some wearing scarves with the Shiv Sena logo – smashing chairs and ripping the venue’s interior apart.

Shiv Sena spokesperson Krishna Hegde said Kamra’s words “insulted” the people of Maharashtra. “Mumbai police should take Kunal Kamra into custody, arrest him, lock him up behind bars and open a case against him,” he said in a video statement.

Another party lawmaker, Naresh Mhaske, warned that Kamra would be unable to walk in public.

“Let alone Maharashtra, you won’t be able to roam around in all of India,” he said in a video statement.

Kamra has said he will not apologize for his comments and, in a post on X, criticized the “inability to take a joke at the expense of a powerful public figure.”

“As far as I know, it is not against the law to poke fun at our leaders and the circus that is our political system,” he wrote. “I don’t fear this mob and I will not be hiding under my bed waiting for this to die down.”

Some opposition politicians in Maharashtra have rallied to Kamra’s defense in light of the political storm. Shinde’s former political ally Aditya Thackeray said: “Only an insecure coward would react to a song by someone.”

The Habitat said it was “shocked, worried and extremely broken by the vandalism,” and would be temporarily shutting down the comedy club.

“We have never been involved in the content performed by any artist but the recent events have made us rethink about how we get blamed and targeted,” it said on Instagram, adding that the venue would be closed “till we figure out the best way to provide a platform for free expression without putting ourselves and our property in jeopardy.”

Growing intolerance

This isn’t Kamra’s first run in with the law.

In December 2020, the Supreme Court held him in contempt of court for allegedly disparaging the judiciary and judges in his social media posts. In one Twitter post, he criticized the court’s handling of a case involving a right-wing commentator.

Freedom of speech is enshrined in India’s democratic constitution, but comedians in the world’s largest democracy have previously faced the wrath of angry politicians for their jokes.

In November 2021, right-wing politicians called for comedian Vir Das’ arrest after he gave a powerful monologue addressing the country’s rape crisis and then-year-long farmer’s protest.

At the time, Ashutosh Dubey, a legal adviser to India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, accused Das of “defaming” India and filed a complaint with the police over his “inflammatory” comments.

Das has not been formally charged with any crime and continues to perform. But others who have faced similar situations have had their livelihoods upended.

Kamra, meanwhile, said the new investigation into his comments “does not change the nature of his right” to make fun of politicians.

Welcome to the Age of Adaptation, when a growing number of people are coming to realize that the Big, Bad Climate Wolf isn’t going away — and is only getting stronger.

As the children’s story warns, many homeowners will learn the hard way that their shelter is no match for the huffs and puffs, or floods and fires of an overheating planet, so we must take inspiration from the Third Little Pig, who built a house so strong, it became shelter for the others — and a base of wolf eradication.

When my little boy was born in 2020, that old story took on new relevance every time I’d kiss him goodbye to go cover another unnatural disaster. I wondered: Where should he live? What kind of building? What about air and water? What kind of community has the best chance to survive and thrive, come what may?

The result is “Adaptation Nation: A Climate Crisis Survival Guide,” my global search for the most promising solutions and most resilient communities.

Outside Amsterdam, I strolled the floating Schoonschip neighborhood, which is pioneering innovative ways to live on top of water as sea levels rise. In Florida, I met the NFL wife and mom who was so shaken by her first hurricane, she started an innovative construction company to build disaster-proof domiciles on the Gulf Coast.

As urban wildfires ravaged Los Angeles County, I focused on the homes that didn’t burn. I called up the architect for design tips, and we kept going back to Paradise, California, to learn from survivors five years after the Camp Fire turned most of their mountain town to ash.

And in Babcock Ranch, Florida, I leaned what it took to build America’s first solar-powered town and how it has survived two major hurricanes without flooding or losing power.

On journeys from London to Silicon Valley, I met dozens of brilliant innovators devoted to rebuilding healthier, wealthier and happier communities from every sector, like the “fix-a-flat” for leaky homes that can cut heating bills in half and the van-size drones that could move supply chains from the roads to the sky.

Since solar and wind energy now cost less than oil and gas, some Democrats think the way to beat Big Oil is by building better, faster, cheaper alternatives, which just happen to be cleaner and stronger.

“What if we made it so that the thing that had the best unit economics was also best for the planet?” inventor and climate investor Tom Chi asked me.

But just as the Inflation Reduction Act was drawing hundreds of billions of dollars of private investment into clean tech, resilience and Earth repair, America re-elected President Donald Trump — a leader likely to tell our metaphorical pigs that the climate wolf is a myth and straw houses are terrific. Amid protests from Republican districts enjoying the IRA’s manufacturing boom, Trump is vowing to kill many of these ideas in the cradle.

Can blue cities and states, nonprofits and good-hearted corporations keep up the fight without any federal help? It’s too soon to tell, and before we know it, my son’s Generation Alpha will be old enough to tally what’s left and wonder what could have been.

The survivors will be the fortunate ones, surrounded by helpers with the wisdom and freedom to adapt and the planning of a Third Little Pig.

Israeli operations intensified in southern Gaza with the military ordering evacuations and Hamas reporting the death of a senior figure in an airstrike.

The militant group said Salah al-Bardawil, a member of the group’s political bureau, was killed along with his wife in an Israeli strike on their tent in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.

The Israeli military resumed air and ground operations in Gaza earlier this week, blaming Hamas for refusing to agree revised terms on extending the first phase of the ceasefire.

Israel blocked aid going into Gaza ahead of its renewed operations, in an attempt to force Hamas to accept the new terms and release the hostages it is still holding.

Early on Sunday the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued a warning to people to leave the Tel Sultan area of Rafah in southern Gaza immediately as its troops launched an offensive in the area.

The IDF said it had “launched an attack to strike at terrorist organizations… The area you are in is considered a dangerous combat zone,” the post said, instructing civilians to move north to the Mawasi area immediately.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said four of its ambulances had been surrounded after responding to an Israeli attack in Rafah. Contact had been lost with a civil defense crew west of Rafah that was trying to rescue an ambulance crew.

Also in the south, Hamas-affiliated media reported that three people had been killed when a municipal vehicle in Khan Younis was struck.

The IDF is continuing its ground operations in northern Gaza. It said on Saturday that troops had begun operating in the Beit Hanoun area “to target Hamas’ terror infrastructure sites in order to expand the security zone in northern Gaza.”

It added that fighter jets struck several Hamas targets.

On Saturday, the Health Ministry in Gaza said that 130 bodies had been brought into Gaza hospitals after being killed by the Israeli operations, and 263 people had been injured in the previous 48 hours.

The ministry said that since Israel resumed attacks in Gaza, 634 people had been killed, bringing the total to 49,747 since October 7 2023.

The South African ambassador who was expelled from the United States and declared persona non grata by the Trump administration was given a hero’s welcome on his return home Sunday, when hundreds of supporters gathered at an airport and sang songs praising him.

The crowds at Cape Town International Airport surrounded Ebrahim Rasool and his wife Rosieda as they emerged in the arrivals terminal in their hometown, and they needed a police escort to help them navigate their way through the building.

“A declaration of persona non grata is meant to humiliate you,” Rasool told the supporters as he addressed them with a megaphone. “But when you return to crowds like this, and with warmth… like this, then I will wear my persona non grata as a badge of dignity.”

“It was not our choice to come home, but we come home with no regrets.”

Rasool also said it was important for South Africa to fix its relationship with the US after President Donald Trump punished the country and accused it of taking an anti-American stance even before the decision to expel Rasool.

The US president issued an executive order last month cutting all funding to South Africa, alleging its government is supporting the Palestinian group Hamas and Iran, and pursuing anti-white policies at home.

“We don’t come here to say we are anti-American,” Rasool said to the crowd. “We are not here to call on you to throw away our interests with the United States.”

Rasool stands by the comments cited by Rubio

They were the ex-ambassador’s first public comments since the Trump administration declared him persona non grata over a week ago, removed his diplomatic immunities and privileges, and gave him until this Friday to leave the US.

It is highly unusual for the US to expel a foreign ambassador.

Rasool was declared persona non grata by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a post on X on March 14. Rubio said Rasool was a “race-baiting politician” who hates the US and Trump.

Rubio’s post linked to a story by the conservative Breitbart news site that reported on a talk Rasool gave on a webinar organized by a South African think tank. In his talk, Rasool spoke in academic language of the Trump administration’s crackdowns on diversity and equity programs and immigration and mentioned the possibility of a US where white people soon would no longer be in the majority.

“The supremacist assault on incumbency, we see it in the domestic politics of the USA, the MAGA movement, the Make America Great Again movement, as a response not simply to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the USA in which the voting electorate in the USA is projected to become 48% white,” Rasool said in the talk.

On his return home Sunday, he said he stood by those comments, and characterized them as merely alerting intellectuals and political leaders in South Africa that the US and its politics had changed.

“It is not the US of Obama, it is not the US of Clinton, it is a different US and therefore our language must change,” Rasool said. “I would stand by my analysis because we were analyzing a political phenomenon, not a personality, not a nation, and not even a government.”

He also said that South Africa would resist pressure from the US — and anyone else — to drop its case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The Trump administration has cited that case against US ally Israel as one of the reasons it alleges South Africa is anti-American.

The Breitbart story Rubio cited when announcing Rasool’s expulsion was written by South African-born senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak, who is Jewish and an ally of the Trump administration. Pollak is also a contender to be the new US ambassador to South Africa, according to South African media.

Some of the supporters welcoming Rasool, who is Muslim, home to Cape Town waved Palestinian flags and chanted “free Palestine.”

“As we stand here, the bombing (in Gaza) has continued and the shooting has continued, and if South Africa was not in the (International Court of Justice), Israel would not be exposed, and the Palestinians would have no hope,” Rasool said. “We cannot sacrifice the Palestinians… but we will also not give up with our relationship with the United States. We must fight for it, but we must keep our dignity.”

Families of Venezuelan deportees held in El Salvador’s infamous Cecot prison can petition the Salvadoran government for their release – but the fruitfulness of that process is an open question in a country accused of arbitrary detention by rights groups and even the US State Department.

Families of 238 Venezuelans deported from the United States have been anxiously waiting for news about their loved ones.

US President Donald Trump deported the Venezuelans, along with 23 Salvadorans, to El Salvador last weekend, accusing them of having ties to gangs like Tren de Aragua. The deportees were then transferred to the Center for Terrorism Confinement, known as Cecot, the largest prison in the Americas.

Several relatives say they’ve identified family members among the deportees and have denied the allegations.

Venezuela’s government and multiple families have criticized the treatment their loved ones have received in El Salvador, saying that neither the Salvadorans nor the US have presented evidence that the deportees are gang members.

The mega-prison with a 40,000-person capacity has long been criticized by rights groups for the alleged inhumane treatment of detainees. The US State Department even acknowledged “torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by security forces” in a 2023 report that also pointed to “harsh and life-threatening prison conditions” and “arbitrary arrest or detention” by the country’s law enforcement.

Some 10,000 to 20,000 prisoners are currently thought to be housed there. But so far, neither the US nor El Salvador have identified the Venezuelans they deported and imprisoned.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has said that the detainees would serve a year in prison, but possibly longer.

Guzmán’s office has no decision-making power; it receives and passes on information about those believed to be unjustly detained to the relevant authorities. The detainees’ loved ones and experts are not convinced Guzmán’s office has much to offer.

Gustavo Flores-Macias, professor of government and public policy at Cornell University, says the offer from the commission is “unlikely to yield results.” Guzmán, being a Bukele-appointed official, is more concerned with defending the government’s record than advocating for the detainees and their families, according to Flores-Macias.

Controversial deal

Cecot is at the center of an unprecedented deal between the US and El Salvador. Bukele had offered to house the US deportees in the prison in exchange for $6 million dollars – intended help sustain El Salvador’s penitentiary system, which currently costs $200 million a year.

Bukele’s administration denies allegations of wrongdoing and touts its “firm hand” approach as having virtually eliminated organized crime. Under the 2022 state of emergency, authorities were given sweeping powers, carrying out what rights groups called arbitrary detentions and violations of due process, with security forces being able to detain suspects without charge for up to 15 days. The measure continues to this day.

On Saturday, Venezuela’s special envoy for peace talks, Jorge Rodríguez Gómez, announced an agreement with the US to repatriate Venezuelans detained in the US back to Venezuela. The initial repatriation flight scheduled for Sunday, he said.

“Migrating is not a crime, and we will not rest until we achieve the return of all those who require it and until we rescue our brothers kidnapped in El Salvador,” Rodríguez said.

The Salvadoran government insists that the rights of the deported detainees have been respected, and that foreign detainees are not treated any different than Salvadoran ones. “In the case of those deprived of liberty who come from another nationality, the treatment is completely identical to any other deprived of liberty within the Salvadoran prison system,” Guzmán said.

But the rhetoric has done little to quell mass discontent and the escalating tensions between the US and Venezuela.

On Tuesday, groups of Venezuelans demonstrated in Caracas, some saying they had identified relatives among the deportees. They rejected the criminal allegations against their relatives, and demanded they be returned home.

South Korea’s Constitutional Court struck down the impeachment of the country’s prime minister Han Duck-soo and restored his powers on Monday, the latest twist in a political saga that started when the President declared martial law last year.

The ruling comes as South Korea waits for the same court to decide whether it will impeach suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol, who declared martial law on December 3, plunging the US treaty ally and economic powerhouse into turmoil.

Yoon’s martial law declaration briefly banned political activity and sent troops to the heart of the nation’s democracy. Six hours later he reversed it, after lawmakers forced their way into parliament and voted unanimously to block it.

After Yoon was suspended by lawmakers on December 14, Han assumed the role of acting president for 13 days, during which he refused to appoint one of the three vacant seats in the Constitutional Court, leading the main opposition Democratic party to file an impeachment motion against him.

In the motion, the Democratic Party called his refusal to appoint justices “an act violating the duty of protecting the Constitution and seriously undermining the rule of law.”

It also held him responsible for refusing to pass a special investigation law into first lady Kim Keon-hee, plotting the martial law, and attempting to co-run state affairs with the ruling party before Yoon was suspended.

Only one of the eight judges voted to uphold the motion. In its statement the court said there was no evidence Han had sought to neutralize the constitution by failing to appoint judges and so should not be impeached.

The ruling reinstates Han to the position of acting President while Yoon’s court case continues.

Han told journalists after the ruling that he welcomed the court’s “wise” decision.

The court is yet to rule on whether Yoon should be impeached for his declaration of martial law, which he made in an unannounced television address, accusing the main opposition party of sympathizing with North Korea and of “anti-state activities.”

He cited a motion by the Democratic Party, which has a majority in parliament, to impeach top prosecutors and reject a government budget proposal.

Yet within just six hours, he was forced to back down, after lawmakers forced their way past soldiers into parliament to unanimously strike down the decree.

During his trial at the Constitutional Court last month, Han denied plotting martial law with Yoon. He claimed that he tried “to dissuade” Yoon during the short Cabinet meeting that was held just before Yoon announced the martial law.