International

Arizona to remove shipping container wall on US-Mexico border

Photo: Patrick T. Fallon / AFP

| By AFP | Paula Ramon |

Arizona agreed Wednesday to dismantle a wall of shipping containers at the Mexican border that critics said was an expensive, ecologically damaging political stunt that did nothing to keep migrants out of the United States.

The state’s Republican Governor Doug Ducey spent $90 million of taxpayers’ money lining up rusting boxes in what he said was a bid to stem the flow of people crossing into the country.

The corrugated containers, which snake for four miles (seven kilometers) through federal lands like a huge stationary cargo train, divide an important conservation area that is home to vulnerable species, but which is so difficult to traverse that people traffickers routinely avoid it.

Now Ducey, who leaves office early next year, will have to get rid of the 915 containers from the Coronado National Forest.

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In an agreement reached Wednesday with the federal government, Ducey’s administration said it will “remove all previously installed shipping containers and associated equipment, materials, vehicles, and other objects from the United States’ properties on National Forest System lands within the Coronado National Forest.”

Biodiversity

From close up, the double-stacked container wall looks like the clumsy handiwork of a giant playing with building blocks.

Its presence is so jarring that, in addition to the federal court case, it was also the subject of two lawsuits by the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental organization that has been active in the area for three decades.

“The biodiversity of this region is off the charts,” Russ McSpadden, a member of the organization, told AFP.

“It’s one of the most important conservation areas in the entire United States.”

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Arizona shares around 370 miles (600 kilometers) of border with Mexico, including environmental preservation areas, national parks, military zones, and indigenous reservations.

Until the 2017 arrival in the White House of Donald Trump — who was propelled to power on his pledge to “Build That Wall” — there was very little in the way of a physical barrier separating it from Mexico.

Now vast stretches of the border have a fence that towers up to nine meters high.

Before the containers arrived in the Coronado National Forest — an area that can only be reached by dirt roads — the border here was demarcated by a wire fence.

That meager barrier was more than equal to the task of keeping people at bay, says McSpadden, whose cameras have picked up jaguars, and who has worked with teams collecting data on ocelots.

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“I’ve never captured migrant traffic on any of the remote cameras,” he said.

“It’s an incredibly wild valley. There’s no real urban population anywhere nearby. It’s a very difficult part of the border for migrants to cross.”

And even if this were a heavily trafficked route, a casual observer can see that the shipping containers would not be very effective.

In several places that AFP visited, the boxes do not line up because of the uneven terrain, leaving gaps easily large enough for a person to walk through.

Others have holes rusted in them, and in some spots, it appears to have been impossible for workers to find a place stable enough to put a container.

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A viral video shows a determined climber scaling the six-meter-high barrier in a matter of seconds, gaining easy purchase on the textured box walls.

But what the shipping containers do block is a waterway and the migration routes of the animals McSpadden studies.

“Jaguars know no borders,” he says.

“Southern Arizona, northern Mexico, it’s the same for them.”

With males known to range hundreds of miles, it’s easy for animals that came north to hunt to get trapped away from breeding populations south of the border.

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“Jaguars want to move back and forth freely,” he says.

“This is their range, and the border wall bisects the jaguars’ home.”

International

Two killed in shooting at restaurant near Frankfurt Airport

Two people were shot dead early Tuesday at a restaurant in Raunheim, near Frankfurt Airport, according to local police.

Preliminary findings indicate that an armed individual entered the establishment at around 03:45 local time (02:45 GMT) and opened fire on the victims, who died at the scene from their injuries.

The suspect fled and remains at large, while the motive behind the shooting is still unclear, German media reported. Authorities have launched a large-scale search operation.

International

U.S. counterterrorism chief resigns over opposition to war in Iran

Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced Tuesday that he has resigned from his post, citing his opposition to the ongoing war in Iran.

In a post on X, Kent said he could not, “in good conscience,” support the conflict, arguing that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States. He also claimed that the war was driven by pressure from Israel and its lobbying influence in Washington.

In a resignation letter addressed to Donald Trump, Kent alleged that at the start of the current administration, senior Israeli officials and influential figures in U.S. media carried out a disinformation campaign that undermined the “America First” platform and fostered pro-war sentiment aimed at triggering a conflict with Iran.

Kent further stated that he could not support sending a new generation of Americans to “fight and die in a war that provides no benefit to the American people and does not justify the cost in American lives.”

Since the United States and Israel launched attacks against Iran on February 28, at least 13 U.S. service members have been killed, while 10 others have been seriously wounded and around 200 have sustained minor injuries, according to a report published by The Wall Street Journal.

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International

German president warns Iran war could spread and disrupt Strait of Hormuz

The president of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, warned Monday that the war involving Iran could expand and further disrupt shipping through the strategic Strait of Hormuz. He urged a swift end to hostilities between Iran, United States and Israel.

Speaking in Panama City during a joint appearance with Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino, Steinmeier said available information suggests Iran has significant capacity to disrupt maritime traffic through the key oil route.

“Iran has considerable potential to interfere with shipping through the Strait of Hormuz,” Steinmeier said through an interpreter. “We should therefore reach an end to the hostilities as soon as possible and call on all parties involved to make that happen.”

The remarks came during Steinmeier’s visit to Panama, the first by a German president to the Central American nation.

The German leader described the possibility of the conflict spreading as “very dangerous,” saying recent developments indicate that such a scenario cannot be ruled out.

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Over the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump urged allied nations to help ensure safe passage for ships through the Strait of Hormuz after Iran moved to block the waterway in response to U.S. strikes. However, several allies—particularly in Europe—have shown little support for the proposal.

“Some are very enthusiastic, others are not, and some are countries we have helped for many years,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We have protected them from terrible external threats, and they’re not that enthusiastic. And the level of enthusiasm is important to me.”

Meanwhile, Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, said the Strait of Hormuz falls “outside NATO’s scope” and stressed that “the war involving Iran is not Europe’s war.”