US updates: ICC says it is undeterred by Trump sanctions

Nineteen Democratic attorneys general on Friday filed a lawsuit to stop Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing Treasury Department systems which process trillions of dollars in payments.

They claim Musk's cost-cutting initiative DOGE has no legal power to access the records containing sensitive personal information of millions of Americans.

DOGE's access to the system "poses huge cybersecurity risks that put vast amounts of funding for the States and their residents in peril," according to the attorneys general.

Tax refunds, Social Security benefits and veterans' benefits, among others, are handled on the payment system.

President Donald Trump said Friday that he is revoking former President Joe Biden's security clearance and ending his daily intelligence briefings.

"There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information. Therefore, we are immediately revoking Joe Biden's Security Clearances, and stopping his daily Intelligence Briefings," Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly after arriving at Mar-a-Lago for the weekend.

Trump said Biden "set this precedent in 2021, when he instructed the Intelligence Community (IC) to stop the 45th President of the United States (ME!) from accessing details on National Security, a courtesy provided to former Presidents."

Biden halted Trump's intelligence briefings after Trump's role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

At the time, Biden said Trump should not be given access to the classified intelligence briefings due to his "erratic" behavior.

US President Donald Trump said Japan's Nippon Steel was looking at an "investment not a purchase" during Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's first visit to the White House.

The investment specifics are unclear, but Trump announced he would meet with the head of Nippon Steel next week to "mediate and arbitrate" the deal.

Before leaving office, then-President Joe Biden blocked Nippon Steel's $14.9 billion (€14.5 billion) bid to take over US Steel, citing national security threats.

There was no immediate comment from the companies, but two sources close to the buyout deal told Reuters that Nippon Steel had not withdrawn its bid to buy the second-largest US steelmaker.

The United States is planning to sell $7.4 billion (around €7.2 billion) in weapons to Israel, including thousands of bombs and missiles, amid a fragile ceasefire in Gaza.

The announcement came three days after President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.

The sale is another move by Trump to strengthen Israel's weapons supply.

Shortly after his second term began, Trump lifted a hold on sending 2,000-pound bombs to Israel in late January.

The Biden administration had paused the delivery of those bombs over concerns about civilian casualties.

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order formalizing his announcement earlier this week that he'll freeze assistance to South Africa.

The White House claims the order will address human rights issues in the African nation for legislation aimed at addressing some of the wrongs of South Africa's racist apartheid era. In that time, Black people had land taken away from them and were forced to live in areas designated for non-whites.

Washington claims the Expropriation Act, which allows the government to take land in specific instances. The act was signed into law by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa last month.

"As long as South Africa continues to support bad actors on the world stage and allows violent attacks on innocent disfavored minority farmers, the United States will stop aid and assistance to the country," the White House said in a summary of the order.

The White House said Trump would also  announce a program to resettle white South African farmers and their families as refugees.

South African-born  Elon Musk has highlighted that law in recent social media posts, casting it as a threat to South Africa's white minority.

The order also references South Africa's role in accusations of genocide against Israel before the International Court of Justice.

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from putting 2,200 US-based employees of the US Agency for International Development on paid leave.

US District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington said he would issue the order in light of a lawsuit by the largest US government workers' union and an association of foreign service workers.

Both sued on Thursday to stop the administration's attempts to dismantle the agency.

In a notice to the foreign aid agency's workers on Thursday, the administration said it would keep on board 611 essential workers out of a global labor force of more than 10,000. 

"The major reduction in force, as well as the closure of offices, the forced relocation of these individuals were all done in excess of the executive’s authority in violation of the separation of powers," lawyer for the unions Karla Gilbride told the hearing.

Trump's administration has claimed, without providing evidence, that the aid agency is rife with fraud.

The gutting of USAID, which supports humanitarian programs in some of the world's poorest countries, has largely been overseen by the world's richest man, Elon Musk.

US President Donald Trump has said he will "probably" meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy next week.

On the location of the potential meeting, Trump suggested it could be in Washington, DC. "Well, I'm not going there," he told journalists at the White House, presumably referring to Ukraine.

Trump also said he would "probably" be speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin soon. However, he did not give a time frame.

"I'd like to see that war end for one primary reason: They're killing so many people," he said. 

US President Donald Trump said Friday he had asked his "efficiency czar" Elon Musk to carry out a review of spending in the US Department of Defense, which has a proposed budget for 2025 of $850 billion (about €823 billion).

When asked if defense was on Musk's agenda for cuts, Trump confirmed that it was.

"I've instructed him to go check out education, to check out the Pentagon, which is the military," he told reporters at the White House. "And you know, sadly, you'll find some things that are pretty bad."

The United States and Japan have agreed to work together against Beijing and strengthen their own economic ties.

"We have agreed to cooperate more closely to combat Chinese economic aggression," said US President Donald Trump at a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, after the pair shared a two-hour working lunch.

Trump also announced that Japan would be increasing imports of American liquefied natural gas "in record numbers" in order to rebalance the trade deficit between the two countries.

Also on the agenda was the threat posed by North Korea, with Ishiba affirming the need to "address Pyongyang's nuclear program" and promising that Japan and the US would "work together toward complete denuclearization."

US President Donald Trump has attempted to fire the commissioner and chair of the US Federal Election Commission (FEC), Ellen Weintraub, who has questioned the legality of the move.

Weintraub, a Democrat who has served on the FEC since 2002, took to social media to post a picture of a letter signed by President Trump informing her that she was "hereby removed as a Member of the Federal Election Commission, effective immediately."

Accompanying the image, Weintraub wrote: "There's a legal way to replace FEC commissioners – this isn't it. I've been lucky to serve the American people and stir up some good trouble along the way. That's not changing anytime soon."

Trump has begun his second term in office by firing and sidelining hundreds of civil servants and top officials at government agencies, and installing more loyalists, presenting it as a drive to downsize and reshape the bureaucracy.

"I'm not really surprised that I'm on his radar," Weintraub told the New York Times, given how she had publicly reported on complaints made against Trump.

The newspaper also pointed out that, legally, Weintraub can only be removed from her post once a successor has been confirmed by the Senate.

Venezuela has condemned the US seizure of one of its government planes as "brazen theft," branding President Donald Trump's top diplomat "an aircraft thief."

Caracas said it "denounces the brazen theft of a plane belonging to the Venezuelan nation carried out on the order of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio."

"Marco Rubio, from hate mercenary to aircraft thief!" a foreign ministry statement said.

The ministry also promised to "take all necessary actions to denounce this theft and demand the immediate return of its aircraft."

Rubio, on a visit to the Dominican Republic capital Santo Domingo on Thursday,  supervised the seizure of a second Venezuelan government aircraft in less than a year.

Trump has vowed to crack down on Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro after unsuccessfully seeking to topple him during his first term in the White House. 

The United States, European Union, G7 and several democratic neighbors have refused to recognize the 62-year-old Maduro's reelection.

In September, former president Joe Biden announced the seizure of a first Venezuelan government airplane in the Dominican Republic. The aircraft had been used to transport Maduro on international trips and was in the Dominican Republic for maintenance.

France will continue to aid the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC), French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Christophe Lemoine said at a press conference.

"We reaffirm our unwavering support for the ICC," Lemoine said in response to a question on Paris' position on US President Donald Trump's sanctioning of the judicial body and its staff.

He said that ICC staff were "essential … in the fight against impunity," adding that Paris would continue to work with its partners to ensure the "independent" and "impartial" functioning of the court.

The spokesperson also criticized Trump's proposal to resettle Palestinians out of Gaza, saying such a move would constitute a "serious violation of international law" that would impede the implementation of a two-state solution in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

US President Donald Trump is set to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba for the first time on Friday.

"It will be our first face-to-face talks, so I would like to focus on building a personal relationship of trust between the two of us," Ishiba told reporters before heading to Washington.

Trump imposed a 10% tariff on all imports from China shortly after taking office.  Japan is a major exporter and has strong economic ties to China.

Ishiba took office in October, replacing Fumio Kishida.

Over 100 Indians were recently deported from the US on a military aircraft as part of the Trump administration's deportation drive.

DW spoke to two men who tried to reach the US, only to be sent back in handcuffs.

Read the full story here.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz criticized US President Donald Trump's decision to impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC).

"Sanctions are the wrong tool. They jeopardize an institution that is supposed to ensure that the dictators of this world cannot simply persecute people and start wars, and that is very important," Scholz said.

The chancellor made the comments at a campaign event ahead of snap elections scheduled for February 23.

Germany is regarded as one of the biggest supporters of the ICC.

Last year, Scholz's government said it was "examining" whether it would be obliged to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he were to enter German territory after the ICC issued an arrest warrant against him.