AFP

The US Supreme Court dealt a setback to the rights of undocumented migrants detained after crossing into the country in cases that pitted the administration of President Joe Biden against immigration advocates.

The high court ruled that migrants do not have a constitutional right to a bond hearing that could permit their release after spending six months in detention.

Two cases decided in tandem by the court Monday addressed the bond hearing requests of Mexican citizens who had been arrested by US officials after illegally crossing the southern border.

In both cases, the men had been previously deported from the United States and attempted to reenter the country.

The detainees argued against being sent back to Mexico on grounds that they faced threats of persecution or torture, and in one of the cases sought asylum.

US authorities, holding the men for months ahead of official removal proceedings, opposed a bond hearing on the grounds that it could lead to the men’s release and disappearance.

But their attorneys argued that denying them a bond hearing after lengthy detention was unjust and unconstitutional.

In 2019 lower courts ruled they had rights to such hearings after being held for six months.

But the high court ruled Monday that US law in these cases does not guarantee migrants like them that right. 

The original case was brought to the Supreme Court by the administration of president Donald Trump, who, as part of his fight against immigration, took a hard line against rights for undocumented migrants.

The case was inherited by the Biden administration, which although more sympathetic to migrants, continued to pursue it.

The American Civil Liberties Union criticized Biden at the time as being “decidedly on the wrong side of this fight.”

The ACLU noted that one of the men after being sent back to Mexico the first time had been kidnapped by police officers and held for ransom.

Another was tortured by gang members “because of his sexual orientation,” the ACLU said.

The Supreme Court justices said their ruling applied only to the claim of a right to a bond hearing, and not to the broader issue of constitutional protection against indefinite detention.

Ukraine said Monday its forces had been pushed back from the centre of key industrial city Severodonetsk, where President Volodymyr Zelensky described a fight for “literally every metre”.

The cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which are separated by a river, have been targeted for weeks as the last areas still under Ukrainian control in the eastern Lugansk region.

Regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said Monday Russian forces were “gathering more and more equipment” to “encircle” Severodonetsk.

Moscow’s troops had “pushed our units from the centre and continue to destroy our city”, he said.

Severodonetsk had been “de facto” blocked off after Russian forces blew up the “last” bridge connecting it to Lysychansk on Sunday, Eduard Basurin, a representative for pro-Russian separatists, said Monday.

Ukrainian forces in the area had two choices, he said, “to surrender or die”.

The capture of Severodonetsk would open the road for Moscow to Slovyansk and another major city, Kramatorsk, in their push to conquer the whole of Donbas, a mainly Russian-speaking region partly held by pro-Kremlin separatists since 2014.

Ukrainian forces were fighting for “every town and village where the occupiers came”, Zelensky said on Monday in a message to mark the eighth anniversary of the liberation of Mariupol in the earlier conflict.

In May, Russian troops captured the port city in southern Ukraine after a weeks-long siege.

“We are once again fighting for it and all of Ukraine,” Zelensky said.

– ‘War crimes’ –

On Monday, Amnesty International accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine, saying that attacks on the northeastern city of Kharkiv — many using banned cluster bombs — had killed hundreds of civilians. 

“The repeated bombardments of residential neighbourhoods in Kharkiv are indiscriminate attacks which killed and injured hundreds of civilians, and as such constitute war crimes,” the rights group said in a report on Ukraine’s second biggest city.

In Bucha, a town near Kyiv synonymous with war crimes allegations, local police said Monday they had discovered another seven bodies in a grave.

“Several victims had their hands tied and knees bound,” Kyiv regional police chief Andriy Nebytov said on Facebook.

Dozens of bodies in civilian clothing were found in the town in April after Russian troops withdrew from the area following a month-long occupation.

Elsewhere in northern Ukraine on Monday, Russian rocket strikes hit the town of Pryluky, local authorities said. 

Pryluky, which lies about 150 kilometres (90 miles) east of the capital, is home to a military airfield.

In Lysychansk, Russian bombardments killed three civilians in the last 24 hours, including a six-year-old boy, Lugansk governor Gaiday said Monday.

While in the city of Donetsk, separatist authorities said three people were killed and four wounded in Ukrainian shelling on a market in the Budonivskyi district of the city.

– Weapons call –

Russia’s invasion of its neighbour has prompted Finland and Sweden to give up decades of military non-alignment and seek to join the NATO alliance. 

In terms of security, Sweden was “in a better place now than before it applied”, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday, even though its application is in limbo with Turkey currently withholding its approval.

In a joint press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, Stoltenberg said NATO was working “hard and actively” to resolve Ankara’s concerns “as soon as possible” ahead of a meeting on June 15.

It was at the summit in Brussels that Kyiv said Monday it was hoping for a decision on further Western arms deliveries to support its war effort.

“Being straightforward — to end the war we need heavy weapons,” Ukrainian presidential advisor Mikhaylo Podolyak said on Twitter.

Podolyak listed items he said the Ukrainian army requires, including hundreds of howitzers, tanks and armoured vehicles.

Russian forces said Sunday they had struck a site in the town of Chortkiv in western Ukraine storing US- and EU-supplied weapons. 

The strike — a rare attack by Russia in the relatively calm west of Ukraine — left 22 people injured, regional governor Volodymyr Trush said.

– WTO meeting –

Away from the battlefield, World Trade Organization members gathered in Geneva Sunday, with the threat posed to global food security by Russia’s war top of the agenda.

Tensions ran high during a closed-door session, in which around three dozen delegates “walked out” before a speech by Russia’s deputy economic development minister Vladimir Ilichev, WTO spokesman Dan Pruzin told journalists.

On a farm near the southern Ukrainian city Mykolaiv, the harvest has been delayed by the need to undo the damage done by Russian troops that passed through the area in March.

“We planted really late because we needed to clear everything beforehand,” including bombshells, Nadiia Ivanova, 42, told AFP.

The farm’s warehouses currently hold 2,000 tonnes of last season’s grain but there are no takers.

The railways have been partially destroyed by the Russian army, while any ship that sails faces the threat of being sunk.

burs-sea/spm

Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey has been formally charged with sexual assault and will appear before a court in London later this week, police said on Monday.

The Metropolitan Police said the 62-year-old actor would appear at Westminster Magistrates Court at 0900 GMT on Thursday to face four counts of sexual assault against three men.

Prosecutors announced last month that they had authorised charges against the two-time Oscar winner, who was artistic director of The Old Vic theatre in London between 2004 and 2015.

Spacey said in response he was “disappointed” with the decision, but promised to voluntarily appear in the UK to defend himself.

He said in a statement to the Good Morning America TV show that he was confident of proving his innocence.

Allegations against Spacey first emerged in the wake of the #MeToo movement that saw numerous claims of sexual assault and harassment in the movie industry.

That prompted an investigation by the Met and a review by The Old Vic of Spacey’s time in charge there.

Reporting restrictions are in place that prevent the media going into detail about the charges to avoid prejudicing a jury at any trial.

The Met has said that the first two charges of sexual assault date from March 2005 in London, and concern the same man, who is now in his 40s.

The third is alleged to have happened in London in August 2008 against a man who is now in his 30s. 

Spacey has also been charged “with causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent” against the same man.

The fourth sexual assault charge is alleged to have occurred in Gloucestershire, western England, in April 2013 against a third man, who is now in his 30s.

None of the alleged victims can be identified under English law.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said the Pfizer Covid vaccine is safe and effective in children under five, ahead of a meeting to weigh its authorization later this week.

Children under five are the only age group not yet eligible for vaccination in the United States and most countries, a pressing need since rates of hospitalization and death “are higher than among children and adolescents 5-17 years of age,” the FDA said in a document posted on its website Sunday.

The agency has called a meeting of experts on June 15 to decide whether to recommend the Pfizer vaccine, given as three shots to children aged six months through four years, as well as the Moderna vaccine, given as two shots to children aged six months through five years.

Pfizer’s first two shots are given three weeks apart, then the third is given eight weeks after the second. They are all dosed at three micrograms, as opposed to 30 micrograms the company gives those 12 and up, and 10 micrograms to those five and up, levels chosen to mitigate adverse reactions.

Both Pfizer and Moderna had previously posted their results in press statements, but the FDA then had to review the data in detail and carry out its own evaluation. It posted a favorable analysis about Moderna on Friday.

Its comments towards Pfizer also appear favorable, based on the levels of infection-blocking antibodies it evoked in trial participants, and a similar side-effect profile to higher age groups. The total trial population was around 4,500 children.

A preliminary estimate placed vaccine efficacy at 80.3 percent, but the FDA noted this was based on very few positive cases — just 10, as opposed to the 21 sought for a more accurate figure.

There are some 20 million US children aged four years and under, or six percent of the population. If, as expected, the FDA-appointed experts recommend the two vaccines, then the matter will go to another committee convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a final say.

White House officials last week said rollout of millions of shots at pharmacies and doctors’ offices could begin as soon as June 21, following the Juneteenth holiday on June 20.

Of the total US Covid deaths, 481 have come in children under five, according to the latest official data. Obesity, neurological disorders and asthma are associated with increased risk of severe disease, “however, a majority of children hospitalized for Covid-19 have no underlying medical conditions,” the FDA said.

Children can also go on to contract multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a rare but serious post-viral condition. Data on long Covid in children is sparse, but “a national survey in the United Kingdom found that among children ages two to 11 years who tested positive for COVID-19, 7.2 percent reported continued symptoms at 12 weeks,” the document said.