International News Briefs for Friday, August 22, 2025
HAVANA TIMES – We bring you some of the top international news stories compiled by Democracy Now on Friday, August 22, 2025.
U.N. Declares a Famine in Gaza, Where Over 500,000 Face “Starvation, Destitution and Death”
Aug 22, 2025
The United Nations has formally declared a famine in the Gaza Strip, where more than a half-million Palestinians face widespread starvation, destitution and preventable deaths. The declaration follows 22 months of near-constant Israeli bombardment, along with the repeated forced displacement of Palestinians, severe restrictions on access to food, water and medicine, and the collapse of health, sanitation and market systems. The U.N.’s top humanitarian official, Tom Fletcher, spoke from Geneva earlier today.
Tom Fletcher: “It is a famine in 2025, a 21st-century famine, watched over by drones and the most advanced military technology in history. It is a famine openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war. It is a famine on all of our watch. Everyone owns this. The Gaza famine is the world’s famine.”
Netanyahu Says He’ll Restart Ceasefire Talks While Proceeding with Gaza City Invasion
Aug 22, 2025
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday he would restart indirect negotiations with Hamas aimed at returning the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza. But Netanyahu said he would not halt Israel’s military campaign to seize Gaza City while forcibly displacing its nearly 1 million inhabitants.
Israel’s unrelenting attacks continued overnight, with at least 25 Palestinians killed since the early hours of Friday. Among the dead are at least 12 civilians killed when Israel bombed a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. In Deir al-Balah, 23-year-old Saja Hamad is recovering from injuries after her dramatic rescue from the rubble of her home following an Israeli airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Saja Hamad: “I didn’t feel anything. I was just sleeping in the other room, and suddenly I heard nothing. I just found myself under the rubble. Everything fell onto my face. I was screaming, calling for my family. I thought they were dead. … I did not expect they would still be alive. I thought I would end up alone.”
An internal Israeli intelligence database indicates that at least 83% of Palestinians killed in Israel’s onslaught on Gaza were civilians. That’s according to a joint investigation by The Guardian and the Israeli news sites Local Call and +972 Magazine, who report the proportion of civilians slaughtered by Israel has few parallels in modern warfare.
California to Hold Special Election for Redrawn Maps to Counter Texas GOP Gerrymander
Aug 22, 2025
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation Thursday approving a special election in November that will ask voters whether to waive an independent redistricting process to approve a new, partisan congressional map favoring Democrats. Newsom’s signature came just hours after lawmakers in Sacramento approved the measures. State Assembly speaker and Democrat Robert Rivas called the proposed map a direct response to a new congressional map approved by Texas’s Republican-controlled House this week, at the behest of President Trump, that’s designed to flip five House seats in the 2026 midterm elections.
Robert Rivas: “We will not let our political system be hijacked by authoritarianism. And today, we give every Californian the power to say no, to say no to Donald Trump’s power grab, and yes to our people, to our state and to our democracy.”
Trump Praises Troops and Officers over Federal Takeover of D.C. Law Enforcement
Aug 22, 2025
Protests continue in Washington, D.C., opposing President Trump’s federal takeover and military occupation of the capital. On Thursday, Trump paid a visit to hundreds of National Guard troops and federal law enforcement agents deployed to the district, delivering pizza and hamburgers to them and praising their crackdown, which the White House says has netted some 600 arrests since early August.
ICE Agents in D.C. Coordinate with Police to Target Immigrants in Moped Traffic Stops
Aug 22, 2025
Image Credit: X/@ICEgov
Hundreds of immigrants have been arrested in recent days as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are now accompanying D.C. police officers on traffic stops targeting delivery workers on mopeds. ICE agents are reportedly using driver’s license, registration and insurance information to determine the immigration status of people stopped by police. Over 200 immigrants have been arrested since Trump’s federal takeover of D.C., according to the White House. The shift violates D.C.’s sanctuary policies, which restrict collaboration between local police and federal immigration agencies. This comes as the Pentagon is recruiting civilian employees to join Trump’s crackdown on immigrants, asking them to voluntarily enlist to aid in immigration raids.
Federal Judge Halts Expansion of “Alligator Alcatraz” over Environmental Violations
Aug 22, 2025
A federal judge in Miami has ordered the Trump administration to stop transferring immigrants to a remote, poorly constructed immigration jail on an airfield in the Florida Everglades swamp, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by Republicans. Thursday’s ruling finds Florida and the federal government acted illegally by omitting an environmental review before building and opening Alligator Alcatraz. Trump officials will now have to dismantle much of the detention camp to remove “all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles” that were installed, due to environmental violations. This has raised concerns of how the facility could remain operational with hundreds of immigrants still inside. The decision came as part of a federal lawsuit filed by environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe.
State Department Is Vetting 55 Million U.S. Visa Holders for “Deportable” Offenses
Aug 22, 2025
The State Department is reviewing the records of more than 55 million immigrants who hold valid U.S. visas, threatening to revoke protections if any violations are found deemed deportable by the Trump administration. This includes what Trump officials declare engaging in any form of “terrorist activity.” Earlier this week, the Trump administration said it would expand its rigorous screening and vetting of social media posts of immigrant visa applicants to search for so-called anti-American views and activity. References to “anti-Americanism” can be found in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which at the time of its enactment primarily focused on targeting suspected communists.
Kremlin Rules Out European Troops in Ukraine, Casts Doubts on Putin-Zelensky Summit
Aug 22, 2025
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday a European proposal to deploy troops in a future postwar Ukraine would amount to “foreign intervention” and is therefore unacceptable to Moscow. The statement cast further doubt on President Trump’s bid to bring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian leader Vladimir Putin together for peace talks. On Thursday, Zelensky said Russia had already telegraphed its intentions to continue its war on Ukraine, through large-scale drone and missile strikes, including a cruise missile attack on a U.S.-owned electronics factory in western Ukraine Thursday that left 15 people injured.
President Volodymyr Zelensky: “The Russians knew perfectly well where they were aiming. It was a missile strike. We believe it was a deliberate strike precisely on American property here in Ukraine, a very telling strike, like this whole massive attack, at the very time when the world waits for a clear answer from the Russians, an answer regarding negotiations to end the war.”
Ukrainian Man Accused of Sabotaging Nord Stream Pipelines Is Arrested in Italy
Aug 22, 2025
Police in Italy say they’ve arrested a Ukrainian man suspected of coordinating the sabotage of three Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022. The undersea explosions caused severe damage to infrastructure built to carry natural gas from Russia to Western Europe. The United States initially blamed the sabotage on Russia. German federal prosecutors have identified the suspect only as 49-year-old “Serhii K.” He’s allegedly part of a small team of Ukrainians who used a rented yacht, satellite navigation, sonar and seabed maps to plant timer-controlled explosives on pipelines on the bottom of the Baltic Sea.
SCOTUS Clears Path for Trump to Cancel Nearly $800 Million in NIH Research Grants
Aug 22, 2025
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration can proceed with plans to cancel nearly $800 million in National Institutes of Health research grants tied to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The court’s narrow 5-4 ruling overturns a lower court order that blocked the Trump administration’s abrupt cancellation of some 1,700 grants focused on heart disease, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, substance abuse and mental health.
Trump Administration Ignores Congressional Directive to Fully Fund HIV/AIDS Program
Aug 22, 2025
The New York Times reports the Trump administration is ignoring a congressional directive to fully fund PEPFAR, an HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention program credited with saving 26 million lives since President George W. Bush signed it into law in 2003. The Times reports the Office of Management and Budget, led by Russell Vought, has apportioned less than half of the $6 billion appropriated by Congress to PEPFAR for the current fiscal year.
Meanwhile, a union representing federal workers said Thursday the Trump administration has permanently fired 600 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, adding to mass layoffs proposed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Trump Administration Cancels Grants for Sex Education, English as a Second Language
Aug 22, 2025
The Trump administration has canceled a grant providing millions of dollars for a California sex education program after educators refused to remove all references to gender identity, trans and nonbinary people from its curriculum. The program seeks to help prevent unwanted childhood pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.
Separately, the Education Department this week quietly rescinded guidance directing schools to accommodate students learning English as a second language. This follows President Trump’s executive order seeking to establish English as the “official language” of the United States.
Court Rules Alina Habba Has Been Unlawfully Serving as U.S. Prosecutor for New Jersey
Aug 22, 2025
A federal judge ruled Thursday that Trump’s former personal attorney, Alina Habba, has been unlawfully serving as the U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey. Habba had been serving as interim U.S. attorney until her appointment expired in July. After a panel of judges selected veteran New Jersey prosecutor Desiree Grace to replace her, Trump’s Justice Department promptly fired Grace and reinstalled Habba as her replacement.
New York Appeals Court Voids “Excessive” Civil Fraud Judgment Against Trump Organization
Aug 22, 2025
A New York appeals court has voided a roughly half-billion dollar civil fraud judgment against Donald Trump, two of his sons and the Trump Organization but the court upheld the fraud judgment against the president.
Thursday’s decision by a panel of five New York appellate judges ruled the financial penalty to be an “excessive fine” that violates the Eighth Amendment. Donald Trump and his sons Eric and Donald Jr. are still temporarily barred from doing business in New York. State Attorney General Letitia James promised an appeal, adding in a statement, “It should not be lost to history: yet another court has ruled that the president violated the law, and that our case has merit.”
Eric Adams Adviser Indicted on Fresh Bribery Charges; Another Adviser Attempts to Bribe Reporter
Aug 22, 2025
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is facing fresh scrutiny after one of his former advisers attempted to pay off a reporter from The City following a campaign event Wednesday. Winnie Greco handed reporter Katie Honan a stack of cash in a red envelope stuffed inside an opened bag of potato chips. The envelope contained at least one $100 bill and several twenties. Greco resigned last year while under FBI investigation and had been volunteering in Mayor Adams’s reelection campaign. Her attorney claimed the attempted bribe was a Chinese cultural gesture in which money is used to express gratitude. The newspaper The City immediately reported the incident to authorities.
Another one of Adams’s longtime allies, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, has been indicted on a second wave of bribery charges, accused of accepting over $75,000 in bribes in a scheme ranging from 2022 and 2024, while she served as chief adviser to Adams. Last year, Lewis-Martin and her son were also indicted on separate charges of bribery, money laundering and conspiracy.
FBI Raids Home of Trump’s Former National Security Adviser John Bolton
Aug 22, 2025
In breaking news, federal agents are raiding the Maryland home of John Bolton, who served as national security adviser during Trump’s first term, before resigning and becoming an outspoken critic of the president. Citing an unnamed source, the Associated Press reported the search is part of an investigation involving the handling of classified documents. Ahead of this morning’s raid, FBI Director Kash Patel posted a cryptic message on the social media site X, writing, “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission.”