US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday threatened bounties on the heads of Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders, sharply escalating the tone as he said more Americans may be detained in the country than previously thought.The threat comes days after the Afghan Taliban government and the United States swapped prisoners in one of the final acts of former president Joe Biden.The new top US diplomat issued the harsh warning via social media, in a rhetorical style strikingly similar to his boss, President Donald Trump.”Just hearing the Taliban is holding more American hostages than has been reported,” Rubio wrote on X.”If this is true, we will have to immediately place a VERY BIG bounty on their top leaders, maybe even bigger than the one we had on bin Laden,” he said, referring to the Al-Qaeda leader killed by US forces in 2011.Rubio did not describe who the other Americans may be, but there have long been accounts of missing Americans whose cases were not formally taken up by the US government as wrongful detentions.In the deal with the Biden administration, the Taliban freed the best-known American detained in Afghanistan, Ryan Corbett, who had been living with his family in the country and was seized in August 2022.Also freed was William McKenty, an American about whom little information has been released.The United States in turn freed Khan Mohammed, who was serving a life sentence in a California prison.Mohammed was convicted of trafficking heroin and opium into the United States and was accused of seeking rockets to kill US troops in Afghanistan.The United States offered a bounty of $25 million for information leading to the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden shortly after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, with Congress later authorizing the secretary of state to offer up to $50 million.No one is believed to have collected the bounty for bin Laden, who was killed in a US raid in Pakistan.- Harder line on Taliban? -Trump is known for brandishing threats in his speeches and on social media. But he is also a critic of US military interventions overseas and in his second inaugural address Monday said he aspired to be a “peacemaker.” In his first term, the Trump administration broke a then-taboo and negotiated directly with the Taliban — with Trump even proposing a summit with the then-insurgents at the Camp David presidential retreat — as he brokered a deal to pull US troops and end America’s longest war.Biden carried out the agreement, with the Western-backed government swiftly collapsing and the Taliban retaking power in August 2021 just after US troops left. The scenes of chaos in Kabul brought strong criticism of Biden, especially when 13 American troops and scores of Afghans died in a suicide bombing at the city’s airport. The Biden administration had low-level contacts with Taliban government representatives but made little headway. Some members of Trump’s Republican Party criticized even the limited US engagements with the Taliban government and especially the humanitarian assistance authorized by the Biden administration, which insisted the money was for urgent needs in the impoverished country and never routed through the Taliban.Rubio on Friday froze nearly all US aid around the world.No country has officially recognized the Taliban government, which has imposed severe restrictions on women and girls under its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam. The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor on Thursday said he was seeking arrest warrants for senior Taliban leaders over the persecution of women.

Donald Trump has long ranted against wind energy — claiming turbines are unsightly, dangerous to wildlife and too expensive — with him threatening to upend decades of industry progress just a few hours after resuming power.”We’re not going to do the wind thing,” Trump said Monday as he returned to the Oval Office for the first time in four years as commander-in-chief.”Big, ugly windmills,” he said as he signed a series of executive orders that has brought the sector into crisis, adding that “they kill your birds, and they ruin your beautiful landscape.”Among the measures were a temporary freeze on federal permitting and loans for all offshore and onshore wind projects.Jason Grumet, president of the American Clean Power Association (ACP), quickly slammed the move, saying it “increases bureaucratic barriers, undermining domestic energy development and harming American businesses and workers.”After the announcements, wind-related stocks fell into the red.”It’s had a real cooling effect on the sector,” Elizabeth Wilson, an offshore wind specialist at Dartmouth University, told AFP.Conflict-weary developers are already “backing away from some of these projects,” she said.Coming at the same time as he has declared a “national energy emergency,” some observers have noted a contradiction in Trump’s assault on wind energy.Though not as robust as in Europe, wind energy in 2023 accounted for some 10 percent of US electricity production — more than twice as much as solar.Onshore wind power is also relatively inexpensive, according to experts, with the price per megawatt-hour ranging from $27 to $73 in 2024, far less than nuclear or coal — though rates could fluctuate in the future.Ember, an energy think tank, warned on Thursday that the United States “risks being left behind in the clean industrial revolution” as major economies such as China are increasingly “embracing wind as a source of cheap, clean electricity.”It remains to be seen what the longterm effects of Trump’s actions will have on the sector, which has already faced struggles in the United States in recent years due to rising costs from inflation and interest rates, along with mounting local opposition to projects.The offshore wind industry, still in its infancy in the United States, is likely to be the hardest hit, according to Wilson, as the majority of exploitable marine areas are in federal waters subject to Trump’s measures.However, “most of the onshore development happens on private lands where the federal government doesn’t really have any control,” she added.- ‘I don’t want even one built’ -Days before taking office, Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform: “I don’t want even one (windmill) built during my Administration.”That pledge has seriously spooked the sector, which is worried he could permanently block subsidies or the environmental approvals needed for certain projects.Such moves would likely be challenged in court and prompt political backlash.”Ninety-nine percent of onshore wind power projects are on private lands, and the private landowners generally like these wind farms, and they get a lot of economic benefit from them,” said Michigan Technological University professor emeritus Barry Solomon.He noted that the projects are also largely in Republican-led states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas and the Dakotas.The ACP also warned that restricting wind development would “increase consumer energy bills.”Despite the headwinds, some experts remain optimistic.”Ultimately… the economics is driving the desire for wind and solar,” said University of Delaware professor Jeremy Firestone.With artificial intelligence, he added, energy needs “are increasing a great deal. So there’s going to be a lot of pressure to continue to build out wind turbines.”

Britain’s Labour government hopes to stay in US President Donald Trump’s good books by mobilising the royal family and a former spin doctor dubbed the “Prince of Darkness”.Trump’s affection for his mother’s ancestral home, Scotland, where he owns two golf resorts, and a mooted second state visit to the UK could also help maintain good relations, observers say.”He’s liable to be buttered up, right? So anything you can throw at him (will help),” Steven Fielding, a politics professor at the University of Nottingham, told AFP.From the Russia-Ukraine war and possible trade tariffs to differences over climate change and China, the US-UK “special relationship” looks set for a rollercoaster ride over the next four years.Trump’s unpredictable nature threatens to derail UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s overarching ambition for his premiership — to fire up Britain’s anaemic post-Brexit, post-Covid economy.Added to the mix are unflattering comments about Trump made by senior Labour figures in the past, and recent verbal attacks on Starmer by Trump ally Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.- Charm offensive -Now a British charm offensive is under way, highlighted by Buckingham Palace revealing on Monday that King Charles III had sent a personal message of congratulations to Trump on his second inauguration.Trump is known to be a big fan of the royal family. Heir-to-the-throne Prince William was dispatched to Paris last month, where he chatted with Trump on the sidelines of the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral.”A good man, this one!” Trump said of William, adding: “He’s doing a fantastic job” as the prince laughed.The Times reported this week that senior royals were being lined up to visit the United States to boost relations with Trump. That may be in 2026, when America celebrates the 250th anniversary of the signing of its declaration of independence.The late Queen Elizabeth II hosted Trump and his wife Melania in 2019, when they were last in the White House, and the British government may be tempted to roll out the red carpet for another state visit.Trump’s son Eric has already said his golf-mad father plans to visit Scotland this summer for the opening of a new golf course at his club near the northeastern city of Aberdeen. Trump’s mother Mary Anne MacLeod was from the northwestern Isle of Lewis.- ‘Trump respects power’ -Crucial to smooth relations with the Trump administration will likely be Peter Mandelson. His work as Labour’s director of communications in the 1980s helped set the party on its way to three consecutive election wins under then prime minister Tony Blair.The UK government has nominated him as its next ambassador to the US, although Trump still needs to approve the appointment, and there is speculation that he could block it.Mandelson is renowned for his powers of persuasion and, as a former European commissioner for trade, would bring considerable deal-making experience to Washington.”What Trump respects is power and he will know that Mandelson is obviously a powerful player within British politics,” Patrick Diamond, a special adviser to Mandelson when Labour was last in government, told AFP.Centre-left Labour has spent recent months trying to build bridges with the US Republican’s team. Senior figures have love-bombed Trump with compliments to try and atone for previous unflattering comments.Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who once called Trump a “tyrant in a toupee”, this week praised his “incredible grace”, recalling a dinner he and Starmer had had with Trump in New York in September.”I think strategically they have to (row back) because Trump isn’t a particularly forgiving man,” said Evie Aspinall, director of the British Foreign Policy Group think tank.The British government has been noticeably careful not to criticise Trump’s first moves since he returned to the White House on Monday.Starmer’s official spokesman refused to condemn Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization — entities the UK supports.It remains to be seen how long the UK government can maintain that silence.Fielding noted that it was probably going to have to “live through a lot of degrading rhetoric”.”I think holding of tongues is what it will be,” Aspinall told AFP.”Even if we’re using diplomatic channels to persuade, our outward front will always be quite smiling and constructive,” she added.Fielding reckoned the British government should stress the “mutual benefits” of UK-US cooperation. It should put its case “as clearly and as transactionally as possible”, he said.”Don’t be craven. Don’t let him bully you. Just play it straight.”

The Central Intelligence Agency has shifted its official stance on the origin of Covid-19, saying Saturday that the virus was “more likely” leaked from a Chinese lab than transmitted by animals.The new assessment came after John Ratcliffe was confirmed Thursday as the CIA director under the second White House administration of Donald Trump.Ratcliffe, who served as the director of national intelligence from 2020-2021 during Trump’s first term, said in an interview published Friday that a “day-one” priority would be making an assessment on Covid’s origins.”The agency is going to get off the sidelines,” Ratcliffe — who believes Covid-19 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology — told right-wing outlet Breitbart.”CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting,” a CIA spokesperson said in a statement Saturday.The agency had not previously made any determination on whether Covid had been unleashed by a laboratory mishap or spilled over from animals.”CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible,” the spokesperson noted.A US official told AFP the shift was based on a new analysis of existing intelligence ordered by previous CIA director William Burns, which was completed before Ratcliffe’s arrival this week.Some US agencies, like the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Energy, support the lab-leak theory, albeit with varying levels of confidence, while most elements of the intelligence community lean toward natural origins.Proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis highlight that the earliest known Covid-19 cases emerged in Wuhan, China — a major coronavirus research hub — roughly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from the nearest bat populations carrying similar SARS-like viruses.