NYC schools probed over claims of antisemitism

Oil prices rose Monday while stocks were mixed with the United States and Iran no closer to ending their eight-week-old war after Donald Trump cancelled his envoys' trip for peace talks at the weekend.

Hopes that the two sides could make progress during negotiations in Pakistan were dashed Saturday by the US president, who said there was no point "sitting around talking about nothing".

He said on Fox News that he told his team: "We have all the cards. They can call us anytime they want, but you're not going to be making any more 18-hour flights to sit around talking about nothing."

However, he told reporters a revised proposal from Iran had followed within minutes of his decision.

"They gave us a paper that should have been better and -- interestingly -- immediately, when I cancelled it, within 10 minutes, we got a new paper that was much better," he said, without elaborating.

Asked separately whether the cancellation meant a return to hostilities, Trump said: "No, it doesn't mean that. We haven't thought about it yet."

But even before Trump's move, prospects for talks were uncertain, with Iranian state television saying Araghchi had no plans to meet US officials and that Islamabad would act as a conduit for proposals.

Axios on Sunday cited unnamed sources including a US official as saying Tehran had provided a new offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz -- through which a fifth of global oil and gas passes -- with nuclear talks pushed back to a later date.

Talks between the rivals have reached an impasse, with Iran hitting out at a US blockade of its ports and the White House demanding the Islamic republic allow ships to transit the crucial waterway.

Iranian state media said Monday that the country's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had arrived in Saint Petersburg for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The trip comes after visits to Islamabad and Oman in a flurry of regional diplomacy.

Oil prices rose more than one percent Monday, though lingering hopes that a deal can eventually be reached has tempered the gains.

However, Fawad Razaqzada of Forex.com, warned they could surge again at any time.

"If tensions were to escalate further, particularly into open conflict, there's a clear risk of a sharper spike," he wrote.

"For now though, as long as shipping through the Strait remains constrained, that premium is unlikely to fade. Until there's a credible breakthrough, the path of least resistance still looks higher, with a move beyond $110 appearing increasingly plausible."

Stocks fluctuated through the morning, with Tokyo, Seoul and Taipei sharply up on the back of healthy AI-fuelled tech gains following US giant Intel's healthy revenue forecasts.

There were also gains in Shanghai and Jakarta, while Sydney, Singapore and Manila fell and Hong Kong was flat.

That came after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended Friday at fresh record highs.

Investors were also looking ahead to earnings this week from US tech titans Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple, while the Federal Reserve will hold a closely watched policy meeting at which it is expected to stand pat on interest rates.

- Key figures at 0230 GMT -

West Texas Intermediate: UP 1.1 percent at $95.44 a barrel

Brent North Sea Crude: UP 1.3 percent at $106.66 a barrel

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 1.5 percent at 60,584.37 (break)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: FLAT at 25,982.57

Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.2 percent at 4,087.55

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1725 from $1.1717 on Friday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3534 from $1.3530

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 159.32 yen from 159.42 yen

Euro/pound: UP at 86.64 pence from 86.60 pence

New York - Dow Jones: DOWN 0.2 percent at 49,230.71 (close)

London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.8 percent at 10,379.08 (close)

dan/abs

The US military said Sunday that three men were killed when it struck a boat "engaged in narco-trafficking operations" in the Eastern Pacific ocean.

This latest strike -- which follows dozens of similar attacks in recent months -- brings the US campaign's death toll to at least 185, according to a tally compiled by AFP.

As with many previous attacks, the US military's Southern Command said on X that the boat hit was "operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations" and that "intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes."

The Trump administration has not provided definitive evidence that the vessels it has been striking since September are involved in drug trafficking, prompting debate about the legality of the operations.

Legal experts and rights groups suggest the strikes could amount to extrajudicial killings because they have apparently targeted civilians who do not pose an immediate threat to the United States.

In its X post on Sunday, SOUTHCOM said that no US military forces were injured in the operation.

pnb/ksb

© Agence France-Presse

Victor Wembanyama and De'Aaron Fox led the way as the San Antonio Spurs erased a 19-point deficit to beat the Portland Trail Blazers 114-93 and take a commanding 3-1 lead in their NBA playoff series on Sunday.

Wembanyama, back after missing game three because of a concussion he sustained in game two, scored 27 points with 11 rebounds, three assists, four steals and seven blocked shots.

"I had lots of emotions in me before the game, obviously," said Wembanyama, named the 2026 NBA Defensive Player of the Year and in the running for Most Valuable Player.

"Excitement, frustration, so I let it all out tonight," added the 22-year-old Frenchman.

He praised the doctors who oversaw his path through the NBA concussion protocol, but voiced dissatisfaction with the process that requires a gradual return to physical activity under medical supervision.

"The way the situation was handled was very disappointing," Wembanyama said, declining to elaborate.

Fox led all scorers with 28 points, and the Spurs out-scored the Trail Blazers 73-35 in the second half to move within one win of advancing to the Western Conference semi-finals.

They'll try to clinch the best-of-seven series when they host game five on Tuesday.

Wembanyama said they need to get off to a better start in the next game.

"We need to find the answers before having our backs against the wall," he said. "But that also shows the strength of our team. In adversity, we stick together. We get closer to each other. We feed off each other's energy."

Deni Avdija scored 26 points and Jrue Holiday added 20 for the Trail Blazers, but they were the only Portland starters who scored in the second half.

- Celtics rout Sixers -

The Boston Celtics crushed the 76ers 128-96 in Philadelphia to take a 3-1 lead in their Eastern Conference series and a chance to close it out at home on Tuesday.

Payton Pritchard scored 32 points off the bench and Jayson Tatum scored 30 points with seven rebounds and 11 assists for the Celtics, who led by 16 points after one quarter and by double digits the rest of the way.

Joel Embiid led the 76ers with 26 points and 10 rebounds in his first game since an emergency appendectomy on April 9. Tyrese Maxey added 22 points but the 76ers couldn't counter the Celtics' rain of 24 three-pointers.

In Toronto, Scottie Barnes and Brandon Ingram scored 23 points apiece as the Raptors held off the Cleveland Cavaliers 93-89 to knot their Eastern Conference series at 2-2.

The Raptors trailed by five with 2:10 left to play but powered to the lead with a 9-0 scoring burst and held on.

Both teams struggled offensively, the Raptors making a dismal four of 30 from three-point range.

Donovan Mitchell scored 20 points to lead the Cavs and James Harden added 19, but Mitchell missed two attempts in the final 30 seconds as Barnes made six free throws down the stretch to seal it.

bb/pst

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has reaffirmed Pyongyang's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, vowing to help Moscow achieve victory in its "sacred" war, state media reported on Monday.

Pyongyang has sent missiles, munitions and thousands of troops to assist Russia in Ukraine, and analysts say Moscow is sending financial aid, military technology, food and energy to the diplomatically isolated country in return.

A string of high-level Russian officials have visited North Korea in recent days, with Defence Minister Andrey Belousov meeting Kim on Sunday, according to official statements.

North Korea "will as ever fully support the policy of the Russian Federation to defend the national sovereignty, territorial integrity and security interests", Kim told Belousov, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Kim expressed "belief that the Russian army and people would surely win a victory in the just sacred war", KCNA reported.

Both sides said their delegations had discussed deeper military ties, with Belousov saying Moscow was ready to sign a cooperation plan covering the period from 2027 to 2031.

Kim, Belousov and Russian parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin also attended the opening ceremony of a memorial complex honouring North Korean soldiers killed in Ukraine.

The ceremony included a concert, a fireworks display and an air force flyover, KCNA reported.

The audience were moved by portrayals of "life-and-death bloody battles" and "death-defying hand-to-hand fights and heroic suicidal explosions the young soldiers chose without hesitation", it said.

North Korea and Russia signed a military treaty in 2024, obligating both states to provide military assistance "without delay" in the event of an attack on the other.

The opening of the memorial coincides with what Moscow describes as the first anniversary of its recovery of parts of Kursk, a region in Russia where Ukraine launched a major counteroffensive starting in mid-2024.

North Korean soldiers were deployed in the area to help beat back the Ukrainian advance.

In his meeting with Belousov, Kim hailed the "brilliant war results in liberating Kursk", according to KCNA.

Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the "extraordinary bravery and genuine devotion" of North Korean troops in a letter to Kim that was published by KCNA.

Seoul estimates about 2,000 North Koreans have been killed in the Ukraine war.

North Korean soldiers are said to have been instructed to kill themselves rather than be captured in battle.

Only two North Korean troops have been taken alive and are currently in custody of Ukrainian authorities.

sjh/mjw/abs

Images of bareheaded women sipping coffee in cafes in Tehran, in apparent defiance of the Islamic republic's strict dress rule, have stirred interest outside Iran -- but for Elnaz, 32, it is no breakthrough.

"It is not at all a sign of any change in the government in my opinion. Because no achievement has been made regarding women's rights," said Elnaz, a painter in Tehran, who like other women in the capital and elsewhere contacted by AFP in Paris asked that her full name not be published.

"Under the surface, in reality, no real change has taken place in people's freedom, especially when it comes to women's basic rights," she said.

Wearing the headscarf in public has been mandatory for women since shortly after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in what was long seen as an ideological pillar of the clerical leadership.

But enforcement of the rule appears to have slackened, at least in parts of Tehran and other cities.

The trend began following the 2022-2023 protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested in Tehran for allegedly ignoring the dress code.

It continued through the June 2025 war with Israel, January protests sparked by the cost of living and now the war against the US and Israel that is on hold with a ceasefire.

There is little sign of the dreaded white patrol vans of the so-called morality police that used to lurk in squares and on street corners to haul in women deemed to have violated the rules.

But the picture remains mixed and the situation evolving, with wearing hijab still a matter of choice for some women. It is not uncommon even in more liberal areas of Tehran to see women with and without the headscarf walking together.

- Years ago 'only a dream' -

In some areas the change has been startling, with scenes of women casually strolling without a headscarf that would have been unthinkable half a decade ago.

"I'm happy for all of them, because until just three years ago this was only a dream," said Zahra, 57, a housewife from Isfahan in central Iran.

"My youth has passed and I didn't get to have this experience; now I don't wear it anymore, but I wish I could have experienced these days when I was young."

But women can still be summoned by authorities for not wearing hijab, and cafes shut down for failing to enforce the rule, while often women must wear the garment to enter banks, educational establishments and official buildings.

Moreover, the rights of women are still restricted and they live under a system that arrested tens of thousands of people following the January protests and thousands more, including women, in the current war, according to rights groups.

"Beautiful photos of cafes and girls are being shared everywhere, but as cafe owners, we've been paying a lot for that," said Negin, 34, who owns a cafe in Tehran.

"We've been treated very harshly over these years, continuing until this day. We've been shut down multiple times, fined and had to pay bribes... What makes me even angrier is when they call this 'freedom' and they say women are being freer," she added.

- 'More widespread' -

Amnesty International said this month that "widespread resistance" to the obligatory hijab "forced authorities to retreat from the violent mass arrests and assaults of previous years".

"However, authorities continued to use existing laws and regulations to enforce compulsory veiling in workplaces, universities and other public sector institutions, leaving women and girls who resisted facing harassment, assault, arbitrary arrest, fines and expulsion from employment and education," it added.

One noticeable change has been state television broadcasting images of Iranian women not wearing hijab -- but only so long as they back the Islamic republic and denounce Iran's enemies in what critics see as a cynical ploy.

"More women are putting their fear aside each day and trying out what it's like to go out without hijab, and it's gradually becoming more widespread," said Shahrzad, 39, a Tehran housewife.

"But I don't see any change in the government system. It's the same as before, aside from those videos of girls going in front of state news cameras without hijab and saying 'my leader, my leader, I will sacrifice myself for him'."

- 'Don't see any significant change' -

The situation is far from uniform across Iran.

Mahsa, a 32-year-old student, said rules and observance are tighter in the major eastern city of Mashhad, home to one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam.

"Before the 12-day war (against Israel in June), in Mashhad they wouldn't let us in anywhere without hijab," she said.

"Now they do let people in, but unfortunately, we haven't had the same level of change that people in Tehran have seen over the past three years."

Farnaz, 41 from Isfahan, which is generally seen as one of Iran's more conservative big cities, said she had been summoned to appear in court over hijab observance later this month.

"In Isfahan, for the past few days they've started sealing cafes again over hijab issues. They didn't even wait for the situation with the war to be clarified.

"Here, you're dealing both with the government and with people. Like before in some neighbourhoods, religious people sometimes warn you and harass you. It's not just about the morality police."

"I don't see any significant change," she added.

Maryam, 35, also from Isfahan, said women without hijab would not be served in some banks and shopworkers have to wear it.

"If you are involved in social or economic activity, you are expected to observe hijab."

Zahra, the housewife from Isfahan, said "we paid a very high price to get here", after the crackdown on the Mahsa Amini protests killed hundreds of people according to rights groups.

"Right now, they (the authorities) are just distracted by the war. But after that, who knows what they will do about it," she said.

bur-sjw/amj/tc

A Sumatran orangutan has been filmed for the first time crossing a man-made canopy bridge constructed to help the endangered animals bypass a tarred road on the Indonesian island, an NGO said Sunday.

Conservation group Tangguh Hutan Khatulistiwa, in partnership with the UK-based charity Sumatra Orangutan Society (SOS) and local authorities, built five canopy bridges in the North Sumatra province in 2024, after a road that serves as a lifeline for remote communities had been expanded, cutting through the rainforest.

The first Sumatran orangutan has now been caught on camera using one of the hanging bridges, SOS said in a statement sent to AFP Sunday.

While other species including gibbons and long-tailed macaques have also been spotted crossing there, "this is a world first for Sumatran orangutans," it added.

The bridge's use by the orangutan was a "huge milestone for conservation", SOS chief executive Helen Buckland said.

"These canopy bridges demonstrate that human development and wildlife don't have to be at odds. Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the most effective," Buckland added.

The road is an important social and economic link for communities in Sumatra's Pakpak Bharat district.

But it has also split a population of some 350 orangutans, SOS said.

Erwin Alamsyah Siregar, executive director at Tangguh Hutan Khatulistiwa, said habitat fragmentation was "one of the greatest challenges in contemporary conservation".

He said he hoped canopy bridges would become a "standard feature" of infrastructure planning across the region.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies Sumatran orangutans, endemic to the island of Sumatra, as critically endangered, with just over 13,587 individuals at the last count.

Their decline is blamed on habitat loss and fragmentation as well as illegal hunting.

In the wild, orangutans are found only on Sumatra and the nearby island of Borneo, which is shared between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

mrc/mlr/ami

North Korea is taking advantage of the Middle East war to speed up its weapons development and cement its nuclear status in a world where international norms have broken down, analysts say.

Since US-Israeli strikes on Iran began in late February, North Korea has conducted five missile launches, including four so far in April -- the most in a single month since January 2024, according to an AFP tally.

They follow a pledge by leader Kim Jong Un to bolster nuclear forces, as Pyongyang reaps the benefits of deeper ties with Russia and sharpens its invective against US ally South Korea.

The launches "appear to be part of a sophisticated strategy" to balance military upgrades against shifting dynamics between the United States, Russia and China, said Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at the South's Kyungnam University.

"The current global security landscape has transformed into a 'lawless zone' where existing international norms no longer function," he said.

"North Korea is exploiting this vacuum... to complete its nuclear arsenal."

Pyongyang has condemned US attacks on Iran as "gangster-like", but is not thought to have supplied arms to Tehran and has notably refrained from directly criticising President Donald Trump, who is expected to visit China for a summit next month.

There has been speculation that Trump may meet Kim around that time.

"With the summit likely to draw attention to the North Korea agenda, Pyongyang may have seized the moment to reinforce its message that it is an irreversible nuclear state," Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told AFP.

However, it also wants to send "a continuous signal that it possesses a fundamentally different deterrent posture from Iran's".

- Nuclear options -

The flurry of missile launches began soon after the Workers' Party congress in February, a once-in-five-years event that directs state efforts.

The timing suggests that North Korea wants to "front-load visible achievements" in its weapons capabilities, Hong said.

At that congress, Kim said North Korea's "position as a nuclear weapons state has been consolidated to be irreversible and permanent".

The launches have involved sanctioned ballistic missiles, anti-warship cruise missiles and cluster munitions.

Analysts told AFP the manoeuvres displayed certain technical advancements and growing proficiency with dual-use weapons, designed for both nuclear and conventional roles.

They included evidence of North Korea's ability to mount miniaturised nuclear warheads and conduct "saturation attacks" that overwhelm enemy interception networks with sheer quantity, Lim said.

Pyongyang is likely to pursue "continuous" ballistic missile testing as it pivots from simple weapons development towards the "normalisation of nuclear operations", he said.

"The regime judges that while the US is tied down in the Middle East, it is the optimal time to accelerate offensive deterrence and the parallel development of nuclear and conventional forces."

- More bangs, more bucks -

The launches also show North Korea's willingness to flaunt its backing from Russia, which has given Pyongyang valuable economic and technical assistance in return for thousands of North Korean troops sent to help its invasion of Ukraine.

"This is an attempt to demonstrate that they have a powerful ally in Russia despite pressure from the US and China, effectively rendering sanctions obsolete," Lim said.

In recent high-level exchanges, Pyongyang and Moscow have celebrated the connection of their first road bridge, the start of construction of a "friendship hospital", and the inauguration of a North Korean military memorial complex.

Russia's defence, interior, natural resources and health ministers, as well as its parliamentary speaker, the head of its trade union federation and the chief of the TASS news agency, have all visited the diplomatically isolated nation.

Pyongyang's ambassador to Moscow reportedly even discussed agricultural cooperation with the Russian-installed leader of Kherson, in occupied Ukraine.

"North Korea is one of the few countries that would not be afraid to operate in occupied Ukraine, and both sides are making use of this," said Fyodor Tertitskiy, a Russian-born scholar at Seoul's Korea University who studies the North.

Cultural bonds have deepened too, with Russia hosting an exhibition of North Korean art glorifying the Ukraine war, and a North Korean restaurant operating in Moscow.

"There is no 'boom' or sharp increase, but there are always clients interested in this country," said Olga, the administrator of a Moscow travel agency that offers tours to North Korea for around $1,500.

But Tertitskiy said he doubted that the friendship would live long beyond the Ukraine war, saying it was "driven almost exclusively by the ongoing invasion".

"Putin needs ammunition; everything else is secondary."

mjw/cdl/aks/abs

At a makeshift morgue in Khartoum, engineer turned mortician Ali Gebbai clicked through a spreadsheet of the dead. Thousands of entries, each with a photo and burial site, keep a harrowing record of Sudan's war.

Every time the team of volunteers finds a body, they post to social media and wait 72 hours in the hopes that the victim's loved ones will come across the picture and claim the person.

"We photograph every body. We check if there's anything in their pockets to help us identify them, and we mark the spot where we buried them," Gebbai told AFP.

It was a blazing April day and a dead woman lay on the ground of the small, air-conditioned room in the Sudanese capital, her brown-speckled thobe pulled over her face and body.

If no one came to identify her, the team would prepare a clean white shroud, wash her according to Muslim custom and bury her nearby.

It is all anyone in Khartoum can hope for by way of a morgue. And it is far more than what most victims of Sudan's war receive: a shallow grave, hastily dug into the dirt where they fell.

The conflict, now in its fourth year, between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has no confirmed toll, though it has killed at least tens of thousands, and aid workers give estimates of more than 200,000.

"It's disheartening, all these estimations. When you have a population not knowing what has happened, that trauma and the impact cannot be overlooked," Jose Luis Pozo Gil, the International Committee of the Red Cross's deputy Sudan chief, told AFP.

In the year since the army recaptured Khartoum, authorities have exhumed and reburied "around 28,000 people", Hisham Zein al-Abdeen, head of forensic medicine at Sudan's health ministry, told AFP. And they have only cleared a little over half the capital.

Gebbai said he and his teams have buried 7,000 dead since the war began.

Ethnic massacres in Darfur, meanwhile, have killed thousands of people at a time, and this year alone at least 700 died in drone strikes on Kordofan.

- Morgues destroyed -

Across the country, there is nowhere to store the dead, and no way to count them.

During the worst massacres, when firebombs tear through mosques and markets, rescuers routinely run out of shrouds. The dead are buried where they lay, wrapped in their own clothes or plastic bags, often in villages with no clinic to speak of, much less a morgue that can send information to a central authority.

Zein al-Abdeen, one of only two forensic doctors in Khartoum, said the capital's morgues "were already full before the war".

According to the ICRC, Khartoum's four morgues were all forced out of service by the war, but the dead remained inside.

"When we went inside the Omdurman morgue, there were still many bodies. And there hadn't been any electricity for a long time -- you can imagine the state," Pozo Gil said.

The Omdurman morgue was "completely destroyed" in a strike, Zein al-Abdeen said, its compressors looted while bodies lay rotting everywhere they looked.

His team has been exhuming Khartoum's dead for a year, focusing on "those buried in shallow graves, in public spaces, in sewers and along the Nile".

As bullets flew and artillery arched over the river to crash into homes and hospitals, trapped civilians could not reach the next street over, much less the cemetery. So people buried their loved ones in courtyards, at playgrounds and on street corners.

Over three years, it turned Khartoum into an open-air graveyard. 

"That leaves a mark on society, it destroys human dignity and it normalises death," Zein al-Abdeen said.

The same is true for the rest of Sudan: in Darfur, where pools of blood could be seen in satellite images; in al-Jazira, where bodies were dumped in canals; and in Kordofan, where killer drones still stalk civilians.

- Finding the missing -

Most of those exhumed and reburied in Khartoum are identified, Zein al-Abdeen said, by families who buried their loved ones themselves but needed authorities to give them a proper resting place.

But many are not. From every anonymous body, authorities remove a small bone or a piece of hair, in hopes they will one day be identified. But Sudan has no working DNA labs to test the samples, and nowhere to store them until then.

"The safest place to keep the DNA samples is buried separately in the ground, and marked clearly," Zein al-Abdeen told AFP, "or we'll exhume the bodies again later."

According to the ICRC, there are at least 11,000 missing persons in Sudan.

"We know that the lack of closure for families leaves an open wound. In any kind of recovery in the future, in order to find closure, to rebuild trust, the issue of the missing has to be addressed," Pozo Gil said.

Gebbai the mortician spoke with steely-eyed resolve, but it began to crack when he remembered one young man.

"He was looking for his father and his uncle for over a year. When he came to us, he found out they had both been shot dead in the street in the early weeks of the war. It broke him, he collapsed and cried for a long time."

But at last, at least, he could visit their graves.

ab-bha/amj/tc

Stuck for over a year behind a perimeter fence on a defunct American base on Doha's edge, 1,100 former Afghan allies of US forces and their families have escaped Afghanistan with their lives only to find themselves trapped in uncertainty. 

"We are all living in extreme anxiety, we feel that we are in limbo, not only me and my family, but other people here," Rasouly, a former interpreter for US forces in Afghanistan, and now a 19-month resident at Camp As Sayliyah (CAS) in Qatar, told AFP by phone.

Set in a hinterland of desert scrub and truck depots on the outskirts of the Qatari capital, CAS has served as a holding site for Afghans going through the base for processing in the hope of resettling in America since the 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The Afghans on the base, who were evacuated for their ties to the US, fear reprisals by the Taliban authorities should they return. 

But processing halted after US President Donald Trump paused refugee admissions in January 2025 and in November suspended all Afghan immigration cases.

"Returning to Afghanistan is not safe for us, and we do not have any clear alternative option," said Rasouly, 36.

Like other Afghans who spoke to AFP either by messaging app or over the phone from CAS, Rasouly asked to be identified by a pseudonym for fear of endangering family still in Afghanistan or prejudicing resettlement cases in the US or elsewhere. 

Now campaigners say Washington is preparing to force the 1,100 inhabitants of the camp to choose between returning to Afghanistan or resettling in the conflict-riven Democratic Republic of Congo.

AfghanEvac, a group supporting the Afghan allies, confirmed the proposal was under consideration by Trump's administration after it was first reported in US media.

- 'Enough war' -

In an open letter shared by the campaign group on Wednesday, the Afghan CAS residents rejected the proposal. 

"We have been in enough war. We cannot take our children into another one. We also cannot return to Afghanistan. The Taliban will kill many of us for what we did for the United States," the letter read. 

Shabnam, whose father worked with US and allied forces in western Afghanistan arrived at CAS in January 2025.

She said camp residents had received no official information about the DR Congo resettlement but the news had caused "uncertainty and stress". 

"Our concern is safety... We are asking for a better and safer country where we can rebuild our lives," said Shabnam, who with her now three-year-old son has never left the camp following their arrival in Qatar.

Mahmoud, 38, who worked with US and international forces in Afghanistan and has lived on CAS with his family for over a year, told AFP "different rumours have circulated," whether about resettlement or the camp's closure.

"Rumours such as sending people to the Democratic Republic of the Congo... are being spread to increase psychological pressure," he said. 

The State Department has declined to confirm DR Congo as a destination but said relocating camp residents to a third country would offer safety and a chance to start a new life.

DR Congo officials had no comment when asked by AFP about reported plans to send the Afghans there.

In a statement responding to the US plans, Afghanistan's foreign ministry said nationals abroad could return in "confidence and peace of mind", insisting there was no safety threat.

- 'Helpless' -

The United Nations has reported that in Afghanistan between November 6 and January 25, there were 29 arbitrary arrests and detentions and six instances of torture and ill-treatment of former officials and former security forces members, including those who returned to Afghanistan.

When missiles streaked the skies and blasts reverberated across Doha in March and April, during Iranian attacks on Gulf neighbours, Tehran repeatedly targeted US bases, raising fears among Afghan residents at CAS although the base is no longer active. 

Shabnam described how inhabitants "witnessed interceptions in the sky and heard loud explosions" from the exposed camp. 

"In one incident, debris nearly landed inside the camp and struck one of our neighbour's rooms," she said.

Living in cramped, windowless containers and only able to leave for serious medical emergencies, she said inhabitants "felt helpless" during the Iranian attacks.

"It reminded us of Afghanistan, the sounds of explosions, the fear of sudden attacks and the uncertainty," she said.

"Many of us came here to escape conflict... it felt like we were reliving those same fears."

The State Department confirmed in February that Washington had offered CAS inhabitants cash to return to Afghanistan, with roughly 150 individuals at the base taking the payments.

AfghanEvac and residents at the camp said authorities offer $4,500 per main applicant and $1,200 per dependent to return.

Rasouly, who moved from house to house in fear for his life in the three years before his evacuation, said "security is not something that can be negotiated" for money. 

"If they pay me $50,000 for me and my family, I cannot go to Afghanistan because my life is in danger," he added.

csp/jfx/tc

Elon Musk's lawsuit accusing high-profile artificial intelligence company OpenAI of betraying its non-profit mission heads for trial on Monday with the selection of jurors.

The legal clash in a courtroom across the bay from San Francisco pits the world's richest person against a startup Musk once backed and now competes with in the booming AI sector.

OpenAI's ChatGPT is a formidable rival to the chatbot Grok, made by Musk's xAI lab.

While Musk's lawsuit is part of a feud between him and OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman, it spotlights a debate as to whether AI should ultimately serve to benefit a privileged few or society as a whole.

Court filings lay out how Altman convinced Musk to back OpenAI in 2015, acting as a co-founder for a non-profit lab whose technology "would belong to the world."

Musk pumped millions of dollars into the lab, which he subsequently left.

However, OpenAI established a commercial subsidiary as it needed hundreds of billions of dollars for data centers to power its technology.

Microsoft has poured billions of dollars into OpenAI and its CEO Satya Nadella is among those slated to testify at the trial.

Musk argues in his lawsuit that he was deceived about OpenAI's mission being altruistic.

San Francisco-based OpenAI has countered in court filings that its break-up with Musk was due to his quest for absolute control rather than its nonprofit status.

"This case has always been about Elon generating more power and more money for what he wants," OpenAI said in a recent X post. "His lawsuit remains nothing more than a harassment campaign that's driven by ego, jealousy and a desire to slow down a competitor."

The startup noted that days after Musk entered the AI race in 2023 he called for a six-month moratorium on development of advanced AI.

The judge presiding over the trial will decide by mid-May -- guided by an advisory jury's findings -- whether OpenAI broke a promise to Musk in a drive to lead in AI or just smartly rode the technology to glory.

Along with calling for OpenAI to be forced to revert to a pure nonprofit, Musk's suit urges the ouster of Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman, who is startup president.

Musk, who had sought as much as $134 billion in damages, has since renounced any personal benefit, pledging to redirect any award to the OpenAI nonprofit. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has reserved the right to determine any remedies herself, without the jury’s input.

OpenAI now has a hybrid governance structure giving its nonprofit foundation control over a for-profit arm.

Musk, who gutted the trust and safety team at Twitter after buying the social media platform that he renamed X, faces the challenge of convincing a jury and a judge that the company behind ChatGPT was built on a lie.

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