#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.

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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.

After Trump’s #DOGE action, 300 million people’s Social Security data is at risk, whistleblower says.


WASHINGTON — More than 300 million Americans’ Social Security data was put at risk after Department of Government Efficiency officials uploaded sensitive information to a cloud account not subject to oversight, according to a whistleblower disclosure submitted to the special counsel’s office Tuesday.

Whistleblower Charles Borges, who worked as the chief data officer at the Social Security Administration since January, said the potential sensitive information that risks being released includes health diagnoses, income, banking information, familial relationships and personal biographic data.

“Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital healthcare and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for re-issuing every American a new Social Security Number at great cost,” said the complaint.

The complaint was submitted by the Government Accountability Project and addressed to House and Senate oversight lawmakers. It requests that authorities “take appropriate oversight action.”

The whistleblower report is just the latest complaint against President Donald Trump’s DOGE and the unprecedented access it was given by the Republican administration to the vast troves of personal data across the government under the mandate of eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. Labor and retiree groups sued SSA earlier this year for allowing DOGE to access Americans’ sensitive agency data, though a divided appeals panel decided this month that DOGE could access the information.

SSA said in a statement that it takes whistleblower complaints seriously but seemed to downplay Borges’ accusations.

“SSA stores all personal data in secure environments that have robust safeguards in place to protect vital information. The data referenced in the complaint is stored in a long-standing environment used by SSA and walled off from the internet. High-level career SSA officials have administrative access to this system with oversight by SSA’s Information Security team. We are not aware of any compromise to this environment and remain dedicated to protecting sensitive personal data,” the agency wrote.

Borges’ complaint says he disclosed to his superiors that he believed the upload was an abuse of authority and poses a substantial threat to public health and safety, and potentially violates the law.

Andrea Meza, a lawyer representing Borges, said her client released the information “out of a sense of urgency and duty to the American public.”

Fatima Hussein, The Associated Press

Mass evacuations in eastern #Pakistan as India releases water from swollen rivers

#Trump fires Fed Governor Lisa Cook, opening new front in fight for control over central bank.
Trump said in a letter posted on his Truth Social platform that he is removing Cook effective immediately because of allegations that she committed mortgage fraud. Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee to the agency that regulates mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, made the accusations last week.

Pulte alleged that Cook had claimed two primary residences -- in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Atlanta -- in 2021 to get better mortgage terms. Mortgage rates are often higher on second homes or those purchased to rent.

Trump’s move is likely to touch off an extensive legal battle that will probably go to the Supreme Court and could disrupt financial markets, potentially pushing interest rates higher.

The independence of the Fed is considered critical to its ability to fight inflation because it enables it to take unpopular steps like raising interest rates. If bond investors start to lose faith that the Fed will be able to control inflation, they will demand higher rates to own bonds, pushing up borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans and business loans.

Legal scholars noted that the allegations are likely a pretext for the president to open up another seat on the seven-member board so he can appoint a loyalist to push for his long-stated goal of lower interest rates.

Fed governors vote on the central bank’s interest rate decisions and on issues of financial regulation. While they are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, they are not like cabinet secretaries, who serve at the pleasure of the president. They serve 14-year terms that are staggered in an effort to insulate the Fed from political influence.

No president has sought to fire a Fed governor before. In recent decades, presidents of both parties have largely respected Fed independence, though Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson put heavy pressure on the Fed during their presidencies -- mostly behind closed doors.

Still, that behind-the-scenes pressure to keep interest rates low, the same goal sought by Trump, has widely been blamed for touching off rampant inflation in the late 1960s and ’70s.

The announcement came days after Cook said she wouldn’t leave despite Trump previously calling for her to resign. Senate Democrats had expressed support for Cook, who has not been charged with wrongdoing.

“The Federal Reserve has tremendous responsibility for setting interest rates and regulating reserve member banks. The American people must have the full confidence in the honesty of the members entrusted with setting policy and overseeing the Federal Reserve,” Trump wrote in a letter addressed to Cook, a copy of which he posted online. “In light of your deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter, they cannot and I do not have such confidence in your integrity.”

Trump argued that firing Cook was constitutional, even if doing so will raise questions about control of the Fed as an independent entity.

“The executive power of the United States is vested to me as President and, as President, I have a solemn duty that the laws of the United States are faithfully enacted,” the president wrote in the letter to Cook. “I have determined that faithfully enacting the law requires your immediate removal from office.”

Among the unresolved legal questions are if Cook could be allowed to remain in her seat while the case plays out. She may have to fight the legal battle herself, as the injured party, rather than the Fed.

In the meantime, Trump’s announcement drew swift rebuke from advocates and former Fed officials who worry that Trump is trying to exert too much power and control over the nation’s central bank.

“The President’s effort to fire a sitting Federal Reserve Governor is part of a concerted effort to transform the financial regulators from independent watchdogs into obedient lapdogs that do as they’re told. This could have real consequences for Americans feeling the squeeze from higher prices,” Rohit Chopra, former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a statement.

It is the latest effort by the administration to take control over one of the few remaining independent agencies in Washington. Trump has repeatedly attacked the Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, for not cutting its short-term interest rate, and even threatened to fire him.

Forcing Cook off the Fed’s governing board would provide Trump an opportunity to appoint a loyalist. Trump has said he would only appoint officials who would support cutting rates.

Powell signaled last week that the Fed may cut rates soon even as inflation risks remain moderate. Meanwhile, Trump will be able to replace Powell in May 2026, when Powell’s term expires. However, 12 members of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee have a vote on whether to raise or lower interest rates, so even replacing the chair might not guarantee that Fed policy will shift the way Trump wants.

Chris Rugaber, The Associated Press

Trump envoy says officials working ‘very, very hard’ on ending Russia-Ukraine war