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Tag: trump

  • Court halts repatriation of Nigerian Ph.D student despite Trump’s renewed immigration crackdown

    Court halts repatriation of Nigerian Ph.D student despite Trump’s renewed immigration crackdown

    Despite a renewed immigration crackdown under President Donald Trump, a federal court in the United States has temporarily blocked the deportation of Matthew Ariwoola, a Nigerian PhD chemistry student at the University of South Carolina.

    The ruling comes in response to a controversial move by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which revoked Ariwoola’s student visa over a case of mistaken identity tied to a 2023 criminal warrant issued in Georgia—a state the student maintains he has never visited.

    The visa revocation on April 8, 2025, abruptly disrupted Ariwoola’s academic journey. He was banned from attending classes, suspended from his research, and faced imminent deportation.

    In a bid to salvage his education and legal status, Ariwoola sought help from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of South Carolina. The organization promptly filed a lawsuit challenging the DHS decision.

    On April 18—the same day the suit was filed—District Judge Jacquelyn Austin granted a 14-day temporary restraining order, blocking deportation proceedings and restoring Ariwoola’s student privileges.

    The swift ruling allowed Ariwoola to resume his studies and suggested the court found merit in his legal challenge. Shortly after, Homeland Security reinstated his visa in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), the federal database tracking international students.

    Judge Austin extended the restraining order three additional times in the weeks that followed. Then on June 13, she issued a preliminary injunction, preventing the federal government from taking further action against Ariwoola until the case is resolved.

    In her decision, Judge Austin confirmed the court’s jurisdiction and held that the case raised a legitimate constitutional question, meeting all the legal standards required for an injunction.

    For Ariwoola, the ruling is more than a legal win—it’s a symbol of hope.

    This victory, though temporary, is a huge source of hope for international students who are unfairly targeted,” he said. “I’m especially thankful to the ACLU-SC and the court for ensuring that justice prevails. I hope this encourages others to speak up and fight back.”

    His case has gained attention amid growing concerns over the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration policies. Since returning to office in January 2025, the administration has ramped up efforts to deport undocumented immigrants, with foreign students increasingly caught in the crossfire.

    For now, Ariwoola remains in the U.S., continuing his studies—and his fight.

  • Trump planning visa ban on Nigerians, others

    Trump planning visa ban on Nigerians, others

    United States President Donald Trump is considering imposing a travel ban on Nigeria and a host of other countries, mostly from Africa.

    The affected countries are expected to meet new requirements laid down by the State Department within 60 days.

    “The new list includes Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Egypt, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

    “The memo identified varied benchmarks that, in the administration’s estimation, these countries were failing to meet.

    Some countries had “no competent or cooperative central government authority to produce reliable identity documents or other civil documents,” or they suffered from widespread government fraud.”

    Others are Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Bhutan, Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Syria, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

    The countries on the new list are also expected to submit to the State Department, on Wednesday, an initial plan of action to meet the new requirements.

    In March, Trump had considered imposing a travel ban on 43 countries, while Nigeria was not on the list.

    The 43 countries were divided into three groups: red, orange, and yellow.
    The red group consists of 11 countries whose nationals would be barred from entering the US.

    The orange group comprises 10 countries whose visas would be sharply restricted.

    The countries under yellow were given 60 days to address concerns.

  • US aims at Iran’s missile ambitions with sanctions on 30 entities

    US aims at Iran’s missile ambitions with sanctions on 30 entities

    The US Treasury Department has announced sanctions against more than 30 individuals and companies accused of helping Iran evade sanctions and launder billions from oil and petrochemical sales to fund its nuclear and missile programmes.

    The sanctioned network operated as a system of “shadow banking” involving front companies in places like Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, the department said in a statement.

    The goal, it said, was to bypass existing sanctions, obscure the origin of oil proceeds, and funnel money into military-linked projects.

    The new sanctions freeze any U.S.-based assets of the targeted entities and bar U.S. citizens from doing business with them.

    The measures also complicate the ability of those sanctioned to operate internationally, especially in transactions involving U.S. dollars.

    Washington and Tehran are engaged in negotiations over the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.

    U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he “aims to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons”.

    Tehran insists its nuclear activities are purely for civilian purposes.

    Trump has warned that military action remains on the table if diplomacy fails.

  • Court bars Trump’s ban on foreign Harvard students

    Court bars Trump’s ban on foreign Harvard students

    A U.S. federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a ban that would prevent Harvard University from admitting international students.

    Judge Allison Burroughs, based in Massachusetts, issued the restraining order, stating that Harvard—the oldest university in the United States—would suffer “immediate and irreparable injury” if the ban were implemented.

    The ruling follows a lawsuit filed by Harvard on Thursday, accusing former President Donald Trump of launching a “government vendetta” aimed at silencing free speech on campus.

    Trump defended the policy on national security grounds and criticized Harvard for allegedly failing to combat antisemitism among its student body.

    Judge Burroughs’ order came just hours after Harvard amended an ongoing lawsuit against the federal government, arguing that the president’s actions were “part of a concerted and escalating campaign of retaliation” against the university for exercising its First Amendment rights.

    Harvard President Alan Garber said in a statement that the university is preparing contingency plans for international students who may be unable to travel to campus.

  • China hammers US over Golden Dome missile shield system, says it “undermines global stability”

    China hammers US over Golden Dome missile shield system, says it “undermines global stability”

    China on Wednesday caitioned that US President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile shield system “undermines global stability” after he announced US$25 billion in initial funding for the plan.

    “This undermines global strategic balance and stability. China expresses serious concern over this,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular briefing.

    “The United States puts its own interests first and is obsessed with seeking its own absolute security, which violates the principle that no country’s security should come at the expense of others.

    “(The plan) heightens the risk of space becoming a battlefield, fuels an arms race, and undermines international security.

    “We urge the United States to abandon the development and deployment of a global missile defence system as soon as possible.”

    Trump on Tuesday unveiled new details on the missile shield system to protect the country against attacks, saying it should be operational in about three years.

    Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, speaking alongside the US president, said the system is aimed at protecting “the homeland from cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, drones, whether they’re conventional or nuclear.”

    Trump announced US$25 billion in initial funding, which he said could eventually cost a total of some US$175 billion. (AFP)

  • Trump: The stumble after 100 days – By Chidi Amuta

    Trump: The stumble after 100 days – By Chidi Amuta

    When Donald Trump first peeped into the Presidential wagon to say he wanted to run, the reception was mixed. America was united nonetheless by what we can call ‘Washington fatigue.’  People were tired of the bureaucratic gridlock, the diplomatic rigmarole and the congressional multi speak that yielded little or no progress. The boredom was palpable just as the hunger for novelty was everywhere. The consensus was that something different needed to be injected into the political culture and governmental methods of Washington to get America  out of its overall decline. America was fast degenerating into  a museum of liberal democracy and a rusty showpiece of bureaucratic humdrum. The political drama was jaded just as the institutions were beginning to fray at the limits.

    Donald Trump, long known for his disruptive behavior and public opinion outbursts and disturbing cultural insinuations was still very much a television presence better known for his disruptive interviews and business series “The Apprentice” patented for the cliché ‘You are fired’! When he showed up at a Republican political event  in Atlanta to indicate he might be seeking the forthcoming presidential ticket for the presidency, there was a stir. The media went agog with a mixture of excitement and concern. People were excited that something different was about to disturb the political peace of Washington as it had become known. The majority were concerned that a major cultural disruption was in the making given Mr. Trump’s long held racist overtones. He had discriminated against some of his workers on grounds of skin colour; had taken worrisome sides   in a much publicized case against black youth wrongly accused and convicted in a much publicized Central Park murder case. In the midst of the popular appeal of the Obama presidency, Trump had challenged Obama’s United States nationality by insisting that he was not a US citizen until his birther argument fell flat on its nose.

    For one thing, people looked forward to a replacement of the clow pace of government with a faster pace usually associated with the private sector. The poorer rural and rust belt Americans glorified Trump as one of their own who had made good and could create an atmosphere in which ordinary Americans could aspire to and attain the American dream if only they could chase off immigrants  and ‘strangers’.

    Time has since passed. Trump has been elected President once before. He had inaugurated and presided over a divided America, promoted divisive policies that discriminated against blacks, Muslims and immigants especially from the rest of Latin America and the world. Stiff opposition to his divisive policies and stance has yielded the emergence of separatist movements including white supremacist factions like Proud Boys, MAGA. Black Lives Matter etc. His illiterate opposition to Covid-19 vaccinations and mask mandate facilitated his defeat by Joe Biden and the Democrats. In turn, a rather tepid  and unimpressive tenure by the Democrats has ushered Mr. Trump back into the White House with a rousing mandate dominated by mostly white supremacist Americans and a hostile atmosphere against immigrants and a more diverse nation.

    Armed with a fundamentalist agenda and fanatical hostility to immigrants, diversity, equality and integrative policies, Trump has in the last over 100 days presided over an isolationist, divisive and belligerent America, mistaking his new mandate for a vote for his extremist positions. His aggressive hostility towards individual nations-Mexico, Canada, Panama, Greenland, Denmark and other selected destinations has attracted to America the hostility and danger of erstwhile allies and presumed friends. In a thoughtless sweep of tariff wars against virtually every imaginable nation, Trump was in the process of upending the American economy when common sense pulled him back from the brinks. The Chines wrestled him to the ground and taught him the wisdom of discernment.

    In an attempt to regain the acclaim which his ego values over and above basic common sense, he seems to have stumbled back to the original appeal of his presidential template. Trump was first admired for bringing the “can do” spirit of a business mogul to ‘drain the swamp’ of Washington. People looked forward to   a new ethos, the ethos of a business culture and deal making to drive the stalled business of American governance. While the cultural and diplomatic hostilities that he has ignited glow in the background, Trump has reawakened  the art of ‘deal making’ as his original primary appeal. In addition, he is dangling global salesmanship of America as a substitute for conventional diplomacy and foreign relations. To the American business community, he is dangling the prospect of heavy financial returns in the form of mega investments in the US economy to speed up economic growth and recovery.

    In the last one week or more, this note of self rediscovery has turned Mr. Trump’s attention to salesmanship and marketing of America more as a merchandise than as a global power leader.

    When reminded that his tariff blunders were beginning to drive the American economy to tank and isolate the United States into an isolated cubicle, Mr. Trump has revised his rhetoric  into a desire to lure major partners to negotiate and make a deal. Predictably, the language of deal making as a strategy can only appeal to countries with large resource base and with an eye on leveraging the United States’ strategic and economic advantages.

    Like the business man that he is, Mr. Trump has predictably surrounded himself with the major pillars of American finance and capital. Right from his inauguration, he has deliberately surrounded himself with the richest names in the United States. He even offered Elon Musk a slot in his cabinet to help him reduce the costs of government through a conscious disorganization of the machinery of government in  Washington. In the process, the basic infrastructure of American soft power both at home and globally has been disoriented. Worldwide, American is being weakened progressively. Mr. Musk has beaten an untidy retreat to tend the business of Tesla and other matters.

    Lacking the capacity to conduct diplomacy as the time honoured language of international relations, Mr. Trump has taken to hectoring allies and seeking to entice new allies into profitable deals. In this pursuit to replace diplomacy with transactional deals, Mr. Trump decided to head to carefully chosen Middle East countries in quest of new alliances and deals. He just returned from a four day trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. During the trips, Mr. Trip signed over 250 deals on a wide range of  transactions covering investment, defense, technology, Artificial Intelligence etc.

    In all of these deal making encounters, Mr. Trump, the quitessential business man and real estate wheeler dealer,  did not forget his personal interests. In all the countries he chose to visit, there is a thinly disguised Trump mega investment and private project. These range from luxury resorts to Golf Courses, high rise towers to vast real estate ventures.

    Easily the most conspicuous spin-off of these deal making ventures was the offer of a $450 million Boeing 747 clone jet Air Force One to Mr. Trump from the government of Qatar, a wealthy known financier of  Hamas and other terrorist squads in the Middle East. This offer left Mr. Trump gasping for moral breadth as he was reminded of the constitutional,  ethical and security barriers to his acceptance of such an unusual grandiose gift.

    Beyond this hasty reversion to deal making in place of diplomacy, Mr. Trump has returned to Washington to face the real challenges of presiding over the United States as the lead nation of the world with real life challenges  at home and abroad. The calamity of Israel’s atrocious war in Gaza is festering. The prospect of a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine remains as untidy and in tatters as ever.  No one knows how the stand off between India and Pakistan will end. A good number of the tariff wars set off by Mr. Trump remain smoldering and largely unresolved and may now return to haunt him.

    There is a limit to deal making and deliberate provocation as strategies of national leadership. National and international leadership by a major global power remains a task of grit and grind demanding the old arts of governance and bureaucratic due process at home and diplomatic nuance abroad. The ways of government are as a long and winding as the corridors and hallways of the offices in which the business of state is run.

    Sometimes, governments work best with crowds of employees milling around numerous questionable offices unlike a private corporation in which each occupied seat or cubicle is accounted for. One of the unexplored secrets of governments all over the world is that of why governments build foolish structures, observe stupid ceremonies and say foolish things. Sometimes, what is called the wisdom of state is elementary idiocy. That is government 101!

    In the post 100-day period, Mr. trump and his handlers will come to grips with the reality that governance is still an ancient madness. It has its methods, its peculiar language and body language.

    Even more peculiar are the demands of diplomacy and the demands of international relations. Nations bend and bow for each other in a peculiar manner that also has its language , demands and expectations. Wars are not commanded to end in 24 hours. Long held treaties do not just end abruptly. International boundaries drawn up after centuries old negotiations and treaties do not just end because some tyrant desires it to be so. Above all, the sovereignty of nations is not a function of the size of their territories or armies but the sanctity of their national histories   and the reciprocal respect to which such history entitles each nation.

    Back at home, Mr. Trump will have to decide whether presidential power is all about Trump and his billionaire friends or the welfare of the common American whose life circumstances are determined by prices in the grocery shop. Matters like gasoline prices, price of eggs, basic medications, rents, access to food etc. will come to override the movements of figures on Wall Street. Trump now has to make a deal with ordinary Americans over these issues of bread and butter.

    By the mid term, the footprints of what may become the Trump legacy will have been firmly imprinted on the American landscape. The rough and tumble of the Trump era will have become something to prolong or forever discard as a bad dream. The hour is coming when Trump’s trade mark rhetoric will no longer appeal to anyone. The insults will be directed at himself. America will by then have come to decide whether it opted for positive reform of its democratic heritage or the institution of a pseudo monarchy of the Trump family and friends.

    Like Trump is right now telling Iran: the United States can never ever have a king or a monarchy!

  • Africa must react positively to Trump’s 2.0 Foreign Policy -Onyibe [Photos]

    Africa must react positively to Trump’s 2.0 Foreign Policy -Onyibe [Photos]

    Magnus Onyibe, an international public affairs analyst and Commonwealth Institute Scholar, has advised African countries and leaders to react positively to President Donald Trump’s policies.

    He made the call in Lagos while delivering a lecture at the Commonwealth Institute of Advanced and Professional Studies titled “Trump 2.0 and Africa: Dangers and Prospects”. The hybrid event aimed at policymakers, business leaders, academics, and citizens from various African and Commonwealth countries who participated online and physically also featured Anthony Kila, a renowned political economist and Vimbai Mutinhiri, an International Broadcaster and Journalist.

    In his intervention, Magnus Onyibe pointed out that the USA does not view Africa or Africans as a threat and that African leaders need to engage with the Trump administration to negotiate and reaffirm previous agreements with the USA.

    “Donald Trump’s primary interest is to win back the lost ground that past administrations have ceded to countries like China.

    He urged African governments and businesses to position themselves to take advantage of the new realignment and world order that Trump was creating.

    “Now is the time to reflect on Africa’s underwhelming role in global trade and find pragmatic ways to reposition the continent as a vital node in the evolving global value chain,” Onyibe stated. He added that President Trump’s sweeping tariff policies, while disruptive, are also catalytic, creating both risks and opportunities for economies willing to adapt.

    The major problems Africa faces, according to Magnus Onyibe, are energy and infrastructure, and these are issues that limit Africa’s potential to succeed on the global stage.

    Onyibe, however, proposes that collaboration between African business and political leaders and their counterparts in the USA can help solve this issue, creating a win-win situation for both sides of the Atlantic.

    He pointed out that before China became a success story, it faced the same situation that Nigeria is currently in, adding that today China is a major producer of energy and the fastest-growing economy in the world.

    He challenged US business magnates to consider Africa a frontier for economic expansion, paralleling President Nixon’s normalisation of US-China relations.

    “If Trump’s second term results in a decoupling from China, why shouldn’t Africa aspire to become America’s new strategic partner?” he questioned. To realise this vision, Onyeibe recommended that African governments prioritise: Trade facilitation – by simplifying customs procedures and eliminating bureaucratic red tape; Infrastructure developmening in transport, energy, and digital infrastructure to support industrial growth and Business environment reform – enacting pro-investment policies and regulations to attract global capital.

    When quizzed on whether it is proper for the Trump-led administration to collect oil from Ukraine to prosecute the war with Russia, Onyibe stated that the practice did not start with the Trump administration.

    According to him, it was done when America defended Kuwait from being annexed by the late President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, during the Gulf War. In his opening remarks, the Institute Director of CIAPS, Anthony Kila, emphasised the Commonwealth Institute’s commitment to fostering meaningful dialogue on pressing global and regional issues.

    “This event forms part of our Roundtable Series and Open Lecture platform. “It reflects our dedication to shaping public discourse and influencing narratives to drive informed action,” Kila noted.

  • U.S. appeals court rejects Trump bid to revoke thousands of migrants’ status

    U.S. appeals court rejects Trump bid to revoke thousands of migrants’ status

    A federal appeals court on Monday rejected a request by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to allow it to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans living in the United States.

    The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put on hold a judge’s order halting the Department of Homeland Security’s move to cut short a two-year “parole” granted to the migrants under Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.

    The administration’s action marked an expansion of the Republican president’s hardline crackdown on immigration and push to ramp up deportations, including of noncitizens previously granted a legal right to live and work in the United States.

    The administration argued that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had discretion to categorically end the migrants’ status and that the judge’s order was forcing the U.S. government to “retain hundreds of thousands of aliens in the country against its will.”

    But a three-judge panel comprised entirely of appointees of Democratic presidents said Noem “has not at this point made a ‘strong showing’ that her categorical termination of plaintiffs’ parole is likely to be sustained on appeal.”

    Karen Tumlin, a lawyer whose immigrant rights group Justice Action Center pursued the case, welcomed the court’s decision.

    She called the administration’s actions “reckless and illegal.”

    The administration could now ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

    “The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law to our immigration system,” Homeland Security Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

    “No lawsuit, not this one or any other, is going to stop us from doing that.”

    A lawsuit by immigrant rights advocates representing migrants challenged the agency decision to pause various Biden-era programs that have allowed Ukrainian, Afghan, Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan migrants to enter the country.

    While the case was pending, the Homeland Security Department on March 25 announced in a Federal Register notice that it had decided to terminate the two-year parole granted to about 400,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelan migrants.

    U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, on April 25 halted the agency’s action, which she said revoked previously granted parole and work authorisations for migrants on a categorical basis and without a necessary case-by-case review.

    She said the department’s sole basis for declining to allow the migrants’ parole status to naturally expire was based on a legal error, as it wrongly concluded doing so would foreclose the department’s ability to legally expedite their deportations.

  • Human rights attacks fueled by Trump’s second term, says Amnesty

    Human rights attacks fueled by Trump’s second term, says Amnesty

    The global system of law and human rights is under threat from a “multiplicity of assaults” which have accelerated since US President Donald Trump’s return to power, Amnesty International said Tuesday in its annual report.

    “Unprecedented forces are hunting down the ideals of human rights for all, seeking to destroy an international system forged in the blood and grief of World War Two and its Holocaust,” said the rights group’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard.

    The lives of millions of people had been “devastated” in 2024 as a result of conflicts and abuses committed in the Middle East, Sudan, Ukraine and Afghanistan where women’s freedoms continue to be curtailed.

    The report singled out some of the world’s biggest powers such as the US, Russia and China for “undermining” the achievements of international law, as well as the fight against poverty and discrimination.

    While these “reckless and punishing offensives” had been underway for several years, according to Amnesty, Trump had served as a “super-accelerator” of those trends.

    The new administration has frozen US international aid and reduced its funding to several UN organisations.

    The start of Trump’s second term had been marked by a “multiplicity of assaults — against human rights accountability, against international law, and against the UN”, Callamard said, calling for “concerted resistance”.

    “While international justice mechanisms have taken important steps towards accountability in some cases, powerful governments have repeatedly blocked attempts to take meaningful action to end atrocities,” Amnesty said.

    In particular, it took aim at countries that had challenged decisions by the International Court of Justice in The Hague against Israel, following a complaint of “genocide” against the Palestinians in Gaza filed by South Africa.

    Others, like Hungary, were criticised for refusing to enforce arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against several Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    The year would be remembered for how “Israel’s military occupation grew ever more brazen and deadly” and how “the USA, Germany and a handful of other European states supported Israel”, the report added.

    Amnesty accused Israel of committing a “live-streamed genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

    It said Israel had acted with “specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide”. Israel has repeatedly denied such charges.

    The war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023 with an unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas militants from Gaza resulting in the deaths of 1,218 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli data.

    Hamas also kidnapped 251 people, 58 of whom remain in the hands of the Islamist group, although the Israeli military says 34 are dead.

    In response, Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and is conducting a military offensive that has left more than 52,000 dead, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

    In December, Amnesty condemned the ongoing “genocide” in Gaza, an accusation since echoed by other NGOs such as HRW and Doctors Without Borders, but strongly rejected by Israel.

    Amnesty also highlighted the suffering in Sudan from famine and a conflict between the regular army and the RSF paramilitaries.

    The conflict had led to the “largest forced displacement crisis in the world” today, uprooting some 12 million people but had been met with “near-complete global indifference”, Amnesty said.

    On another front, the rights body said violence and discrimination against women had “soared” in 2024, both in conflicts, such as in Sudan, and in Afghanistan.

    Women in the south Asian country are subject to draconian legislation restricting their freedoms under the Taliban.

    Finally, the report highlighted an “urgent need” for governments to do more to regulate AI technologies to safeguard human rights.

    It warned also that a growing number of governments were abusing spyware and other surveillance tools against opponents.

  • Trump, Zelensky, others arrive at Pope Francis’s funeral, pay last respect

    Trump, Zelensky, others arrive at Pope Francis’s funeral, pay last respect

    Some 250,000 people paid their respects before his coffin during its three days of lying in state at St Peter’s Basilica, and huge numbers gathered from dawn on Friday to attend his final send-off.

    US President Donald Trump paid his respects to Pope Francis at his coffin after arriving at the Vatican on Saturday for the pontiff’s funeral.

    US President Donald Trump (C) and First Lady Melania Trump (C/R) stand alongside leaders as they watch the arrival of the coffin while they attend the late Pope Francis’ funeral ceremony at St Peter’s Square at the Vatican on April 26, 2025.

    Official Vatican images showed Trump and his wife, Melania, stopping by the closed coffin in St Peter’s Basilica after his motorcade had arrived at the Vatican.

    Nuns react before late Pope Francis’ funeral ceremony at St Peter’s Square in The Vatican on April 26, 2025.

    Cardinals walk to take their places ahead of the late Pope Francis’ funeral ceremony at St Peter’s Square at The Vatican on April 26, 2025.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Rome Saturday to attend Pope Francis’s funeral, his spokesman said.

    “Volodymyr Zelensky, First Lady Olena Zelenska … will take part in the ceremony,” Sergiy Nykyforov said. Zelensky had said on Friday he was not sure if he would have the time to go to Rome for the funeral.

    Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (C) and his wife Olena Zelenska (L) stand alongside other leaders including India’s President.

    Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Germany’s outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz, were also seen arriving for late Pope Francis’ funeral ceremony at St Peter’s Square in the Vatican.