Category: World news

)LONDON and PRETORIA) — An American missionary allegedly kidnapped at gunpoint during a church service in South Africa last Thursday has been rescued in “a high-intensity shootout” between police and his suspected captors, authorities said on Wednesday.

Three unidentified suspects were killed during Tuesday’s rescue operation, which was led by the South African Police Service’s elite Hawks unit, according to a statement from police spokesman Lt. Col. Avele Fumba.

While police have not yet named the rescued American, the Tennessee church with which he is affiliated has identified him as Josh Sullivan.

“Josh has been released. I just got ‘the go ahead to let it be known,” Tom Hatley, pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church in Maryville, Tennessee, said in a Facebook post early Wednesday. “Thank you for your support and prayers. Please do not stop praying for The Sullivans. Praise The Lord Jesus Christ!”

Investigators discovered that the abducted U.S. citizen, believed to be a pastor at a church in the South African port city of Gqeberha, was being held at a safe house there, Fumba said. As officers approached the house on Tuesday, suspects inside a vehicle opened fire and attempted to flee the scene, Fumba said, “leading to a high-intensity shootout in which three unidentified suspects were fatally wounded.”

“The victim was found inside the same vehicle from which the suspects had launched their attack,” Fumba added. “Miraculously unharmed, he was immediately assessed by medical personnel and is currently in an excellent condition.”

The investigation remains ongoing, according to Fumba.

Sullivan’s mother, Tonya Rinker of Maryville, Tennessee, previously confirmed that her son had been abducted.

“As a mother, you never think about something like this happening to your child, but faith carries you through the uncertainty,” Rinker told ABC News in a statement last week. “Joshua’s humor and wit are a blessing; he’s always ready with a joke, and forever seeking to make people laugh.”

Rinker described her son as “an exceptional father, husband, and son, embodying kindness, strength and generosity. He has a servant’s heart, a kind, compassionate spirit and is filled with selflessness. He has a burden for lost souls and has devoted his life to serving God in South Africa.”

Sullivan was reportedly abducted by armed men who burst into a church in Motherwell, a township near Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, the Fellowship Baptist Church in Maryville said on its Facebook page last week.

The incident unfolded at about 7 p.m. local time on Thursday when the pastor of the church “was allegedly confronted by at least four unknown armed suspects during a church service,” Fumba told ABC News in a statement.

Witnesses told investigators that the suspects forced the minister into his own vehicle and then fled, Fumba said.

According to a biography on what appears to be Sullivan’s website, he describes himself as a “church-planting missionary to the country of South Africa,” who arrived there in November 2018 with his wife, Meagan, and their children to run Fellowship Baptist’s Motherwell church there.

Sullivan has been on the staff at Fellowship Baptist Church in Maryville since 2012, according to his website.

ABC News’ Kevin Shalvey and Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump earlier this month announced far-reaching “reciprocal tariffs” on scores of countries, but he soon suspended the levies on all but one: China.

Instead, Trump ratcheted up China tariffs to a whopping total of 145%. In response, China slapped 125% tariffs on U.S. goods and issued other countermeasures.

The trade war between the world’s two largest economies amounts to a battle of wills in which each stands poised to draw on economic advantages and political pressure points, analysts said. An assessment of each side’s leverage, they added, helps reveal how the standoff may unfold.

“The stakes are extremely high and the only issue remaining is who is going to blink first,” Yasheng Huang, professor of global economics and management at MIT, told ABC News.

Potential economic damage

The U.S. and China each are among the other’s top trade partners, meaning a sizable chunk of each economy depends on the relationship.

U.S. consumers and firms purchase more goods and services from China than the other way around, putting China at risk of a larger loss in economic activity if trading comes to an effective halt, analysts said.

Still, they added, the trade imbalance also threatens acute product shortages and price increases for U.S. consumers.

“The U.S. imports more from China than it exports to China — that gives the U.S. an advantage,” Shang-Jin Wei, a professor of finance and economics at Columbia University who studies the U.S.-China trade relationship, told ABC News.

“But the very fact that the U.S. buys so much from them also means that it is dependent on their supply of low-cost goods,” Wei said.

Last year, the U.S. imported about $438 billion worth of goods and services from China, making it the largest destination for China’s exports. In all, that figure accounts for about 15% of China’s exports, according to the U.S. Trade Representative. China makes up a primary source of consumer electronics like laptops and smartphones, as well as footwear, apparel and toys.

U.S. tariffs are expected to lower China’s gross domestic product growth this year by 0.7%, though the Chinese economy is still forecast to expand by more than 4%, J.P.Morgan said on Tuesday.

The loss of relatively cheap Chinese goods, meanwhile, is expected to raise prices for U.S. shoppers. Over the weekend, the Trump administration issued a tariff exemption for some consumer electronics from China, but price hikes are expected for a host of other goods.

On the other hand, China purchased about $143 billion of U.S. goods last year, including crops such as soybeans and wheat, as well as oil and gas.

Roughly 930,000 U.S. jobs are supported by exports to China, the U.S.-China Business Council said in a report last year. During Trump’s first term, the U.S. provided financial relief to some farmers to make up for lost sales to China.

Essential materials

The U.S. or China could also derive leverage from specialized goods that would be difficult for the other country to replace in the event of trade restrictions.

Earlier this month, China imposed export restrictions on some rare earth elements and magnets that make up critical inputs in some U.S. auto, energy and defense products. For now, Chinese companies can still export to U.S. buyers, though the Chinese firms must receive approval from the Chinese government.

Rare earths are vital for a range of defense technologies, including F-35 fighter jets, Tomahawk missiles and radar systems, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, said on Tuesday.

The U.S. is not prepared to immediately make up for a potential loss of those components through domestic industry, CSIS found.

“The U.S. dependency on China for rare earths is extremely high,” Huang said. “China can shut it off or turn it on at will — that is leverage.”

Meg Rithmire, a professor of business administration at Harvard University, said the U.S. could seek out alternative sources abroad but China remains the dominant source of such materials.

“It doesn’t seem like this is the kind of thing that will cripple anyone in the short term, but the supply chains are such that it could get messy in the medium term,” Rithmire said.

Meanwhile, China relies on the U.S. for some important components of its electronics, auto and technology products, Huang said.

China could likely withstand a temporary shortfall, Huang added, though a long-term shortage of such goods would pose a problem.

“It would definitely hurt them — no question about it,” Huang said.

Tolerance for financial pain

Analysts told ABC News that China’s authoritarian form of government affords it greater capacity to tolerate a prolonged period of economic hardship.

By contrast, separate branches of government and regular elections in the U.S. make it more difficult for the country to hold out through potential widespread financial challenges, they added.

The Chinese public faces limits on public expression and little recourse for bringing its displeasure to bear on political representatives, analysts said.

“There’s a lot structurally built into the Chinese system to withstand political pain, which isn’t the case for the U.S.,” Rithmire said. “The U.S. system incorporates the unhappiness of people as they experience the economic effects.”

The countries’ different responses to COVID-19 exemplify how their respective political systems respond to flagging general welfare, analysts said.

China maintained a zero-COVID policy for several years, severely restricting individual mobility and hamstringing a broad swath of the nation’s economy. In the U.S., on the other hand, eight states never issued COVID lockdowns, while the federal government focused on economic stimulus and expedited vaccine development.

“The trade war, as substantial as it is, doesn’t compare to the COVID lockdown that China implemented,” Huang said. “We have solid evidence that the political system is quite immune from economic hardship.”

Still, that tolerance of economic pain has limits, Wei said. Over the past half century, the Chinese government has drawn legitimacy from its ability to deliver economic growth and improved living standards, he added.

“Anything that hurts that can undermine their power,” Wei said.

Ultimately, the standoff may endure until each country sees a pathway out of the trade spat that promises sufficient political benefit.

“Is there a productive off-ramp for each side?” Huang said.

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(FORT HUACHUCA, AZ) — U.S. Army soldiers will soon be patrolling a 170-mile buffer zone along the southern border with Mexico in a newly created “National Defense Area” in Arizona and New Mexico.

It’s part of the Trump administration’s efforts to use the U.S. military to stop the flow of undocumented migrants into the United States.

The large swath of area will stretch 60-feet-deep along federal lands running the length of the border and will be considered a part of Fort Huachuca in Arizona, meaning that, just as at any Army base, trespassers would be apprehended by soldiers and held until turned over to law enforcement.

Some analysts see it as a way to militarize the border and skirt a federal law — the Posse Comitatus Act — that prohibits U.S. military personnel from carrying out law enforcement duties: by declaring the federal property a military base where migrants crossing into can be detained.

“Last week, President Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum directing federal agencies administering federal land on the border to make land available to the Defense Department in a new national defense area,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Tuesday.

“This new National Defense Area spans more than 170 miles across our border in New Mexico,” said Leavitt. “But in in the coming weeks, this administration will add more than 90 miles in the state of Texas.”

“This National Defense Area will enhance our ability to detect, interdict and prosecute the illegal aliens, criminal gangs and terrorists who were able to invade our country without consequence for the past four years under the Biden administration,” said Leavitt. “It will also bolster our defenses against fentanyl and other dangerous narcotics that have been poisoning our communities.”

U.S. officials told ABC News that the initial phase of the new area will stretch from Fort Huachuca in southeastern Arizona eastward into New Mexico.

The designation of a National Defense Area will apply only to federal lands that have been newly transferred to the control of the Defense Department and will not apply to privately held lands or territory belong to Native American reservations. That means it will be non-contiguous but will be in effect for much of New Mexico’s border with Mexico, which stretches for nearly 180 miles of the state’s border.

U.S. Army troops will be operating in what is essentially a buffer zone formally known as the Roosevelt Reservation that includes federal lands in California, Arizona, and New Mexico on the border with Mexico. In 1907, to prevent smuggling, President Theodore Roosevelt declared that a 60-foot-wide buffer zone on public lands along the border with Mexico belongs to the federal government.

Two U.S. officials told ABC News it was still to be determined whether the new authority would be applied to Texas given that the Roosevelt Reservation does not apply to lands in that state.

According to the officials, the U.S. Army will soon begin placing signs on both sides of that 60-foot buffer zone warning that they are about to enter Defense Department property and could be apprehended for trespassing.

Because of natural barriers along the border, the Roosevelt Reservation in some cases may stretch a mile into U.S. territory.

Some of the territory to now be considered an Army base already has existing fencing on the border but in some areas does not. Regardless, the Army will place signage in both English and Spanish warning that any trespassers into the area will be apprehended.

The move by the Trump administration has drawn criticism from legal analysts who describe it as a way to get around the U.S. military having law enforcement on the border which is done by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Currently 10,000 U.S. military personnel have been authorized to serve along the border, but only in a support role to CBP.

“The president’s plan would empower U.S. soldiers patrolling the area to take on a civilian law enforcement function: apprehending and detaining migrants crossing the border into the U.S. Deploying the military to enforce civilian law is a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act,” said Elizabeth Goitein, the senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

“Under emergency powers law, the president is required to seek congressional approval for any transfer of federal land to the Defense Department,” said Goitein.

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International students pursuing degrees at Michigan public universities sought relief from detention and deportation during a federal court hearing on Tuesday, after their student immigration status was terminated this month, jeopardizing their legal status in the U.S.

The students — two citizens of China, one of Nepal and another from India — filed a lawsuit on Friday against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and immigration officials, claiming that their student immigration status in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) was illegally terminated “without sufficient notice and explanation.”

SEVIS is a database that tracks information about nonimmigrant students and exchange visitors in the U.S.

“According to the government, they no longer have legal status in the U.S., and they have to leave the country immediately,” Ramis Wadood, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan who is representing the students, told ABC News.

He noted that the students didn’t get any kind of grace period.

“You no longer have status, and have to leave the country right away,” Wadood said.

The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court by the ACLU of Michigan on behalf of the students — Xiangyun Bu, Qiuyi Yang, Yogesh Joshi and Chinmay Deore. According to the complaint, in addition to their student immigration status being terminated, Yang and Joshi were told that their F-1 student visas, which allowed them to enter the country, were also revoked.

“None of them has been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime in the United States,” the complaint said. “None has violated any immigration law. Nor have they been active in on-campus protests regarding any political issue.”

The students’ attorneys argued during a Tuesday morning hearing in a Detroit federal court for a temporary restraining order that would restore their legal status and protect them from arrest or deportation as the case moves forward.

According to Wadood, the judge indicated that he “recognized the urgency of the situation and said he would rule soon.”

Wadood told ABC News on Monday that his clients are at risk of being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and are “scared” and have stopped showing up to classes in person.

“Our clients have been allowed to continue their studies to the extent that their professors and their programs will accommodate,” Wadood said, adding that they are trying to resume their studies remotely since “they’re at risk of arrest and detention at any point.”

The lawsuit names DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and ICE Detroit Field Office Director Robert Lynch. ABC News reached out to the officials but requests for comment were not immediately returned.

“DHS did not provide the students or their schools any meaningful explanation for terminating their F-1 student status,” the complaint said. “At most, what seems to connect students targeted by this newfound and unlawful policy is that the students had some encounter with some American law enforcement official at some point in the past, no matter how innocuous — including receiving a speeding or parking ticket (or even a warning) or lawfully withdrawing an application to enter the United States.”

Court records show four separate letters that each of the students received from their prospective universities informing them that their student immigration status has been terminated. The reason cited by DHS in all cases is “individual identified in criminal records check,” and for Yang and Joshi it also says “and/or revoked visa.”

The Trump administration filed a response on Monday evening to the plaintiff’s motion for a temporary restraining order, urging the judge to “deny this request because it is procedurally and substantively improper.”

“An emergency motion for a temporary restraining order may only be used to maintain the status quo; it cannot be used to obtain the ultimate relief plaintiffs seek in this case, which is the alteration of their SEVIS record,” it said.

The government also alleged in Monday’s filing that the students have criminal records, but did not provide additional details.

“DHS searched criminal records for each of the plaintiffs and criminal history matches were returned for each of the plaintiffs,” its response said.

Wadood denied that any of his clients have ever been charged with or convicted of a crime. He said that in explaining their reference to “criminal records,” the government cited three of his clients who were detained for alleged domestic disputes.

They were subsequently released and not charged with any crimes, while one plaintiff “doesn’t have as much as a simple speeding ticket or parking ticket” on their record, according to Wadood

“Our plaintiffs’ criminal history is clean. They have no convictions, no charges,” he said.

The federal lawsuit comes as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown strikes higher education, prompting a slew of lawsuits against White House officials. Similar lawsuits have been filed across the country in states like New Hampshire, Indiana and California.

According to Inside Higher Ed — a publication that tracks news in higher education — as of Tuesday over 180 colleges and universities have identified nearly 1,200 international students and recent graduates who have had their legal status changed by the State Department.

“If the courts don’t put an end to this arbitrary government action, then generations of future international students are going to see what’s happening today and decide, ‘You know what, it’s probably not safe for me to go to the U.S to study'” Wadood said. “And our academic institutions, our academic communities, are going to be so much worse off because of it.”

The Trump administration appears to be targeting some international students with student visas and green card holders for their participation in pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses or for alleged criminal records.

“A visa is a gift. It’s a voluntary thing. We decide to give you a visa,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during a March 28 press conference. “We deny visas all over the world every day for a variety of reasons, and that means we can also revoke those visas. No one is entitled to a visa.”

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(LONDON and PRETORIA) — An American missionary who was allegedly kidnapped at gunpoint during a church service in South Africa last Thursday evening was rescued in “a high-intensity shootout” several days later, South African police said Wednesday.

Three unidentified suspects were killed during Tuesday’s operation, which was led by the South African Police Service’s elite Hawks unit, according to a statement from spokesman Lt. Col. Avele Fumba.

Investigators discovered that the abducted U.S. citizen, believed to be a pastor at a church in the South African port city of Gqeberha, was being held at a safe house there, Fumba said. As officers approached the house on Tuesday, suspects inside a vehicle opened fire on law enforcement and attempted to flee the scene, Fumba said, “leading to a high-intensity shootout in which three unidentified suspects were fatally wounded.”

“The victim was found inside the same vehicle from which the suspects had launched their attack,” Fumba added. “Miraculously unharmed, he was immediately assessed by medical personnel and is currently in an excellent condition.”

Police have not yet identified the rescued American by name. The investigation remains ongoing, according to Fumba.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — For the first time, newly released security footage shows the moment an alleged stowaway sneaked onto a transatlantic flight just before last Thanksgiving in a stunning breach of security.

Svetlana Dali is accused of boarding an overnight Delta flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City on Nov. 26 and traveling to Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport in France without having a ticket.

Dali can be seen in a video obtained by ABC News walking up to gate B38 at Terminal 4 while other passengers have their boarding passes and passports checked. After gate attendants assisted a separate group of customers and ushered them toward the jet bridge, Dali followed immediately behind, the video shows.

Wearing a gray hoodie and carrying both a green backpack and a black bag, Dali appeared to blend in with the crowd, passing by the gate attendants and walking toward the flight.

“This was very unusual and disconcerting,” Richard Frankel, a former FBI special agent in charge of investigations at JFK who is now an ABC News contributor, said after reviewing the video. “She just basically gloms onto the back of that group and goes in as if she’s part of a group.”

“Delta agents, who were busy helping ticketed passengers board, did not stop her or ask her to present a boarding pass before she boarded the plane,” an FBI complaint said, adding that Dali later stated “she knew her conduct was illegal.”

Dali later pleaded not guilty to a federal stowaway charge.

“Our review affirms that Delta’s security infrastructure, as part of our Safety Management System framework, is sound and that deviation from standard procedures is the root cause of this event,” a Delta spokesperson told ABC News. “As nothing is of greater importance than safety and security, we will continue to work closely with our regulators, law enforcement and other relevant stakeholders.”

A separate closed-circuit video from earlier that evening shows Dali going through the TSA screening machine at Terminal 4 and being patted down by a TSA agent.

“I think she planned it, but it’s also luck of the draw,” Frankel said. “I think she had her game plan and … her game plan really worked.”

Dali, a Russian citizen and U.S. permanent resident who most recently lived in Philadelphia, was ultimately spotted by Delta employees before the plane landed in France, according to the FBI complaint. The complaint stated that Dali was unable to provide a boarding pass and that once the plane landed, French law enforcement would not allow her to pass the customs area.

Officials attempted to send Dali back to the United States on another flight shortly after, ABC News previously reported, but Dali was removed from the plane after insisting against her return.

She was eventually brought back to New York to face charges. After being released, Dali allegedly cut off her ankle monitor and traveled to Buffalo, where she tried to cross over the Peace Bridge into Canada.

Dali’s public defender declined to comment.

The surveillance videos were released in response to a request ABC News filed in December with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airports in the New York metropolitan area.

The FBI’s complaint against Dali stated that there is also surveillance footage of Dali “bypassing TSA officials” at JFK. The FBI alleges that Dali had been turned away by a TSA official the night of the flight for not having a boarding pass, but was eventually able to make it through the TSA area “without a boarding pass by entering through a special lane for airline employees masked by a large Air Europa flight crew.”

Footage of Dali in that area was not released by the Port Authority. The agency told ABC News that releasing additional video footage “could jeopardize the security of the buildings or facilities or the persons therein,” adding that “providing multiple camera angles of a facility or incident could allow for inferences to be made as to vulnerabilities or blind spots in surveillance cameras.”

In a statement to ABC News, TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein said that a review of the incident has been conducted.

“As a result of our review, additional security measures are now in place,” Farbstein said. “TSA’s security measures are always evolving to ensure this type of incident does not happen again.”

Dali is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. She is due back in federal court on April 22.

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