Colombian forces edge into guerrilla strongholds

Agence France-Presse
January 21, 2025

Army soldiers patrol in Tibu, Norte de Santander province, Colombia, on January 21, 2025, after recent clashes between rival left-wing guerrillas. Colombia vowed "war" against left-wing guerrillas Monday, declaring a state of emergency and deploying thousands of soldiers to contain violence that killed at least 100 people and threatens to scupper the country's fragile peace process. (AFP)

Colombian special forces edged into guerrilla-controlled territory near the border with Venezuela Tuesday, trying to reassert state control amid violence that has forced 20,000 people to flee their homes.

The mountainous northeastern Catatumbo region has been the epicentre of a sudden surge in fighting between armed leftist groups vying for territory and control of lucrative coca plantations and trafficking routes.

Over six days, the bloodshed has killed more than 100 people across three regions.

But it is the situation near the border that prompted the government to declare a state of emergency and deploy some 5,000 troops.

ALSO READ: Inside the parade of right-wing world leaders flocking to D.C. for Trump's inauguration

Special forces deployed to the town of Tibu on Tuesday pushed out from urban strongpoints in a convoy of camouflaged armoured personnel carriers.
It was a tentative show of force, designed to convince sceptical locals that the government is back in charge and that some of the worst violence Colombia had seen in years was being contained.

For many Colombians, the recent bloodshed carries echoes of a civil war that killed 450,000 over more than half a century and made the country a byword for armed violence.

In addition to the 20,000 people displaced, the United Nations on Tuesday reported about 30 people had been kidnapped and 1,000 trapped in their homes by the violence.

On the outskirts of Tibu, government soldiers set up temporary posts on crumbling asphalt roads flanked by thick vegetation.Troops -- warned by commanding officers to "remember, someone is waiting for you back home" -- nervously eyed the occasional rumbling truck or van that broke the jungle silence.

Others, with fingers close to the trigger, practised manoeuvrers or carried out foot patrols on empty lanes partially reclaimed by the equatorial forest.

- Factions -

Security officials say this spasm of bloodshed was caused by rivalry between Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) dissidents and the National Liberation Army (ELN).

In empty settlements around Tibu, soldiers found ample evidence of who is usually in charge -- and of the rivalries between the two armed groups.

Stickers on sheds and shops celebrated late commanders of the once powerful FARC -- a Marxist group that signed a peace accord almost a decade ago.

On the same empty streets, scores of buildings were daubed with graffiti declaring "the ELN is present" or vowing to seek "liberty or death".

Most FARC members laid down arms from 2016, but dissident factions have continued to thrive in pockets of the country, enmeshing themselves in organised crime and the lucrative drug trade.

The ELN believed to number 6,000 fighters, has occasionally flirted with peace talks before walking away.

Experts say the ELN's leadership has been troubled by the FARC factions' growth in the region.

UN chief Antonio Guterres called Tuesday for Colombian non-combatants to be protected amid the fighting, urging "an immediate cessation of acts of violence against the civilian population."

Oyster ‘blood’ holds promise for combating drug-resistant superbugs: new research

The Conversation
January 21, 2025 

Oysters (Shutterstock)

Superbugs that are resistant to existing antibiotics are a growing health problem around the world. Globally, nearly five million people die from antimicrobial resistant infections each year. The annual toll of antimicrobial resistant infections is expected to rise by 70%, with an estimated 40 million deaths between now and 2050.

To address this, researchers must discover new antibiotics and agents that improve the efficacy of existing antibiotics.

Hope may come from a surprising source: oysters.

In new research published today in PLOS ONE, we show that antimicrobial proteins isolated from oyster hemolymph (the equivalent of blood) can kill certain bacteria responsible for a range of infections. The proteins can also improve the efficacy of conventional antibiotics against problematic bacteria species.
Robust, resistant bacteria cause common infections

Pneumonia is an acute infection of the lungs, commonly caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae. It is the leading cause of death among children under five years of age, and a common cause of hospitalisation and death in older people.

Upper respiratory tract infections, such as tonsillitis, are also common. In fact, they are the most frequent reason children are prescribed antibiotics.

Persistent skin and throat infections caused by Streptococcus pyogenes can lead to the development of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease.

The high prevalence of these bacterial infections and overuse of antibiotics have contributed to the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria. This makes these infections difficult to treat.


The formation of biofilms compounds the problem.

Biofilms are populations of millions of bacterial cells embedded in a self-secreted substance that sticks to surfaces. They protect bacteria from the host’s immune system – and from antibiotics. Almost all bacterial infections involve biofilms.

Because of this, new antibiotic treatments that can inhibit, disrupt or penetrate biofilms are very valuable.



Sydney rock oysters from aquaculture in the Richmond River, New South Wales.
Kirsten Benkendorff

Oysters as a source of new antimicrobial agents

Over 90% of antibiotics we currently use are derived from nature. The same is true for over 65% of antibiotics under recent development.

In the search for new antimicrobial drugs, researchers will usually start by looking at organisms that produce antimicrobial chemicals for self defence.

Oysters are exposed to high concentrations of diverse microorganisms in their natural marine environment. Because of this, they have evolved strong immune defences. For example, they rely heavily on antimicrobial proteins and strings of molecules known as peptides in their hemolymph (blood) to protect them from infection.

Research over the past few decades has found that oyster hemolymph contains antiviral and antibacterial proteins and peptides. These are active against a range of human and marine pathogens.

Oysters, along with other molluscs, plants and animals, have a long history of use as traditional medicines to treat infectious diseases.

In traditional Chinese medicine, various preparations from oysters are recommended for treating symptoms of respiratory infection and inflammatory conditions. Oysters have also played a significant role in the health of Indigenous people in Australia for millennia. This provides useful clues for drug discovery.

Our latest research confirms that antimicrobial proteins in the hemolymph of Sydney rock oysters (Saccostrea glomerata) are particularly effective at killing Streptococcus spp. bacteria.

The proteins were also effective at inhibiting Streptococcus spp. biofilm formation and could penetrate biofilms that had already formed.


Extracting hemolymph from a Sydney rock oyster.
Kate Summer

Boosting the drugs we have

To improve how well currently available drugs work, they are increasingly combined with antimicrobial peptides and proteins.

These peptides and proteins can disrupt bacterial cell membranes, helping conventional antibiotics reach their targets more easily. Many of these proteins and peptides can also boost the host’s immune system, making treatment even more effective.

We tested Sydney rock oyster hemolymph proteins for activity against a range of bacterial pathogens in combination with different commercially available antibiotics. At very low concentrations, the proteins improved the effectiveness of antibiotics between two- and 32-fold.


The results were particularly promising for Streptococcus spp., Staphylococcus aureus (also known as “golden staph”, a primary cause of drug-resistant skin and bloodstream infections) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (a major problem for immune-compromised patients with cystic fibrosis). There were also no toxic effects on healthy human cells.


The hemolymph proteins of Sydney rock oysters are able to kill Streptococcus spp. bacteria embedded in biofilms, as well as improve the efficacy of conventional antibiotics against a range of bacteria species.
Kate Summer

What next?

Overall, oyster hemolymph proteins hold promise for future development as an antimicrobial therapy. They can kill pathogens embedded in biofilms, work in synergy with conventional antibiotics, and are non-toxic.

However, more work is needed, including testing in animals and clinical human trials.

Sustainable supply of the proteins for research and medical use is an important consideration, but this is helped by the fact Sydney rock oysters are commercially available.

The results of this work present an opportunity for pharmaceutical and aquaculture industries to collaborate with researchers on new, more effective antibiotics development.

Kate Summer, Postdoctoral research fellow, Southern Cross University and Kirsten Benkendorff, Professor, National Marine Science Centre, Southern Cross University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Smog chokes Baghdad as oil-fired factories belch out smoke


By AFP
January 23, 2025


Smoke belches from the Dora power station, one of several plants that residents blame for poor air quality in Baghdad - Copyright AFP AHMAD AL-RUBAYE

Christy-Belle Geha

Iraqi grocery store owner Abu Amjad al-Zubaidi is grappling with asthma, a condition his doctor blames on emissions from a nearby power plant that fills his Baghdad neighbourhood with noxious smoke.

In winter, a thick smog frequently envelops the city of nine million people as the fumes belched out by its many oil-fired factories are trapped by a layer of cold air.

The stench of sulphur permeates some districts, where brick and asphalt factories run on heavy fuel oil, taking advantage of generous state subsidies in the world’s sixth biggest oil producer.

In a bid to tackle the worsening air quality, authorities recently shut down dozens of oil-fired factories and instructed others to phase out their use of heavy fuel oil.

“Every time I went to the doctor he told me to stop smoking. But I don’t smoke,” Zubaidi told AFP.

When his doctor finally realised that Zubaidi lived just metres from the Dora power plant in south Baghdad, he told him its emissions were the likely cause of his asthma.

Power plants and refineries spew thick grey smoke over several areas of Baghdad.

“We can’t go up to our roofs because of the fumes,” Zubaidi said.

“We appealed to the prime minister, the government and parliament. Lawmakers have come to see us but to no avail,” the 53-year-old complained.

He is not the only victim of air pollution. Many of his neighbours suffer from chronic asthma or allergies, he said.

Waste incineration and the proliferation of private generators in the face of patchy mains supply also contribute significantly to Baghdad’s air pollution.



– Sixth most polluted –



In 2023, the air monitoring site IQAir ranked Iraq as the sixth most polluted country in terms of air quality.

Levels of the cancer-causing PM2.5 pollutants, microparticles small enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs, are seven to 10 times the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline values.

IQAir warned that exposure to PM2.5 “leads to and exacerbates numerous health conditions, including but not limited to asthma, cancer, stroke and lung disease”.

It found that air pollution levels in Baghdad were “unhealthy for sensitive groups”.

According to the US embassy, air quality in the capital frequently enters the red zone, leading to “health effects”, particularly for vulnerable groups.

In October, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered a committee to investigate the causes of the “odorous sulphur emissions” so that they can be stopped.

Environment ministry spokesperson Amir Ali attributed the pollution to “industrial activities near the capital” — particularly the brickworks and asphalt plants in the Nahrawan industrial zone in southeast Baghdad.

There lie “the largest number of factories responsible for the emissions”, he said.

Ali also blamed private generators and refineries, including in Dora.

The pollution was exacerbated by “weather conditions, shifts in temperature, the direction of the wind, and increased humidity”, his ministry said.



– Green belt –



In December, authorities announced the closure of 111 brickworks “due to emissions” that breach environmental standards, along with 57 asphalt plants in the Nahrawan industrial zone.

The industry ministry has also instructed brickworks to phase out their use of heavy fuel oil within 18 months and replace it with liquefied natural gas.

The government has banned waste incineration inside and outside landfills and has said it will improve “fuel quality at Dora refinery and address gas emissions and wastewater discharges”.

Iraq is one of the world’s largest oil producers, and sales of crude oil account for 90 percent of state revenues, so its transition to renewable fuels remains a distant goal.

Environmental activist Husam Sobhi urged authorities to keep up their efforts to phase out heavy fuel oil.

“It is difficult for a country like Iraq to let go of oil but we can use better quality oil than heavy fuel oil,” Sobhi said.

He also called on planning authorities to put a stop to the city’s sprawl into the surrounding countryside.

“Baghdad is in dire need of a green belt which would serve as a lung for the city to breathe,” he said.

Major fire at Iraq’s Rumaila refinery injures four; flames uncontrolled

2025-01-24

Shafaq News/ On Friday, a massive fire erupted at a refinery in the Rumaila oil field in southern Iraq, injuring several workers with varying degrees of severity, according to a source from the site.

The source told Shafaq News Agency, "Four refinery workers were injured, including one with a broken leg, another with facial burns, and two suffering from smoke inhalation."

The fire broke out at the fifth gas-oil separation station in the Rumaila field, the source added, noting that “the flames remain uncontrolled despite ongoing efforts by firefighting teams.”

Units from the Ninth Brigade of the Energy Police reportedly assisted in extinguishing the blaze, with a tight security cordon imposed around the affected area.

‘Nerve-racking’: Inside the aerial battle to tame Los Angeles fires


By AFP
January 24, 2025


The aerial firefight has been crucial in the battle to tame huge wildfires that roared through Los Angeles - Copyright AFP Peter PARKS

Paula RAMON

Helicopter pilot Tim Thomas has fought dozens of wildfires all over the world, but nothing prepared him for the scale and the challenge of the devastating blazes that ripped through Los Angeles.

“I’ve never seen anything the scale that we saw the first night,” he told AFP.

Fires erupted almost simultaneously in two separate neighborhoods during a furious windstorm on January 7.

Whole streets were engulfed as hurricane-force gusts flung fireballs from house to house.

Forecasters had been warning of extreme fire risk for days because of punishing dryness and winds up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) an hour, saying any small fire would quickly spread.

Extra resources were positioned all over the at-risk region, which extended for miles around the sprawling metropolis.

But the fires, when they came, were overwhelming, defeating the hundreds of firefighters on the ground.

Only an air assault would stop them.



– Transfixed –



A terrifying 24 hours after the first smoke blackened the air, winds dropped just enough for helicopters to take to the skies.

“It was some of the most turbulent wind I’ve seen,” said helicopter coordinator John Williamson.

Under the careful eye of experienced operators like Williamson, each pilot took turns in an elaborate airborne ballet.

The life-saving airshow they put on for nearly two weeks became a defining feature of the fires, watched with awe and gratitude by a terrified region.

Television viewers were transfixed by the incredible skills of helicopter pilots loading up hundreds of gallons (liters) of water into the bellies of their aircraft while hovering over a reservoir, then dumping it with pinpoint accuracy on a wall of flames.

The sight of huge jet planes swooping over a fire line and unleashing a trail of bright red retardant thrilled and relieved those whose homes were threatened.

But while they might have made it look easy, the pilots say the reality was far from it, with strong winds and unfamiliar terrain a constant challenge.

“There were definitely some uneasy moments going over the mountains where the crew was looking for me to see if I’m comfortable,” said Thomas.

“There’s definitely some times where the aircraft’s 23,000 pound (11.5 tons), and you’re getting rocked around, thrown around in the air.”



– ‘Takes your breath away’ –



Paul Karpus, who has overseen operations at an airbase in Camarillo, 45 miles (70 kilometers) west of Los Angeles, said the opening days of the firefight were like nothing he has experienced in 23 years.

“Every season, you say, I’ve seen it all… And then you’re surprised,” he told AFP.

“Seeing the amount of devastation for the first time, when the sun was coming up, and the amount of structures lost, it takes your breath away.”

Aerial teams operated 24 hours, pulling long shifts that left them exhausted and fraught.

“On a scale of one to 10, this one was a 10, stress-wise,” said Karpus.



– ‘Nerve-racking’ –



Williamson, whose job is to sit next to the pilot, guiding him to his designated zone and monitoring dozens of radio messages, said the complexity of the operation was a challenge.

“The first three nights, really was pretty nerve-racking,” he said.

Zach Boyce, who ran daytime operations said the sheer volume of aircraft in a tight space made things tricky.

“We’re coordinating a lot of helicopters in a very tight area, and then we introduce fixed wing operations and air tankers and air attack… and everything becomes super compressed,” he said.

More than two weeks after the fires erupted, killing more than two dozen people and reducing 40,000 acres (16,000 hectares) to ash, the biggest blazes are under control.

But the value of the aerial firefighters continues to be seen, with a fast-moving fire that erupted on Wednesday corralled by the time night fell after an airborne assault.

For the people of Los Angeles, the men and women who have fought this battle are second to none.

“We should never stop thanking them,” Los Angeles-based talk show host Jimmy Kimmel said.

“Real superheroes.”

No home, no insurance: The double hit from Los Angeles fires


By AFP
January 21, 2025

Sebastian Harrison was not insured when the huge Pacific Palisades fire erupted after premiums became unaffordable - Copyright AFP VALERIE MACON

Romain FONSEGRIVES

As he looks at the ruins of his home razed when deadly fires tore through the Los Angeles area, Sebastian Harrison knows it will never be the same again, because he was not insured.

“I knew it was risky, but I had no choice,” he told AFP.

Harrison is one of tens of thousands of Californians forced in recent years to live without a safety net, either because their insurance company dropped them, or because the premiums just got too high.

Some of them are now counting the crippling cost, after enormous blazes ripped through America’s second largest city, killing more than two dozen people and levelling 12,000 structures, Harrison’s home among them.

His own slice of what he called “paradise” stood on a mountainside overlooking the Pacific Ocean, where Malibu runs into the badly hit Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

The three-acre plot, which contained his home and a few other buildings, was always costly to insure, and in 2010 was already $8,000 a year.

When the bill hit $40,000 in the aftermath of the pandemic, he decided he simply couldn’t afford it.

“It’s not like I bought myself a fancy car instead of getting insurance,” the 59-year-old said.

“It’s just that food for myself and my family was more important.”

For Harrison, a former actor, the emotional strain of losing the home he had lived in for 14 years is magnified by the knowledge that without a handout from the state or the national government, he has lost everything — he even still has mortgage payments to make.

“I’m very worried, because this property is everything I had,” he said.

– Climate costs –

Insuring property in California has become increasingly difficult.

Well-intentioned legislation that prevents insurance companies from hiking prices unfairly has collided with growing risks from a changing climate in a part of the world that now regularly sees devastating wildfires near populated areas.

Faced with burgeoning claims — more damage, and higher repair costs because of the soaring price of labor and materials — insurance companies turned tail and left the state en masse, dropping existing clients and refusing to write new policies.

Even enormous names in the market, like State Farm and Allstate, have pulled back.

Officials in state capital Sacramento have been worried for a while.

Last year Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara introduced reforms aimed at encouraging companies to return, including allowing them more leeway to increase their premiums to better match their costs.

But huge and inevitably very expensive fires erupting in what is supposed to be California’s rainy season — it hasn’t rained for eight months around Los Angeles — have reinforced the idea that the state is becoming uninsurable.

“I don’t know now, because… my greatest fear was that we were going to have a catastrophe of this nature,” Lara told the San Francisco Chronicle at the weekend.

Even the state-mandated insurer of last resort, a scheme designed to provide bare-bones coverage for those locked out of the private sector, could be struggling.

The California FAIR Plan was created in 1968 and is underpinned by every insurance company that operates in the state, as a requirement of their license to operate.

But the number of people now resorting to the scheme means its $200 million reserves are dwarfed by its liabilities. (A reinsurance sector helps to keep it liquid.)

– ‘They’re going to drop me’ –

With the enormous losses expected from the Palisades and Eaton fires set to test the insurance sector even further, California has issued an edict preventing companies from dropping customers or refusing to renew them in certain affected areas, for one year.

That’s scant consolation for Gabrielle Gottlieb, whose house in Pacific Palisades survived the flames.

“My insurer dropped a lot of friends of mine… and I’m concerned that they’re going to drop me as well eventually,” he told AFP.

“They’re basically already putting it out there that ‘lots of luck after a year!'”

Even in a best case scenario, home insurance looks set to be a lot more expensive in California, as state reforms filter through allowing increased prices in places more susceptible to wildfire.

“Real estate and taxes are already very high in California,” said Robert Spoeri, a Pacific Palisades homeowner who was dropped by his insurer last year.

“If the insurance gets even higher, who is going to want to live in this state?”

Tajikistan launches crackdown on ‘witchcraft’ and fortune-telling


By AFP
January 24, 2025


Mountainous Tajikistan has recently launched a crackdown against fortune tellers, clairvoyants, mediums and 'witches' - Copyright AFP JADE GAO

Bruno KALOUAZ

In a block of flats in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe, a turbaned woman cautiously opened the door of her apartment a chink, letting out a waft of incense.

“I’m not taking on new clients. It could be a set-up,” she says, as she closes the door again and locks it.

“I risk a heavy fine. I do not want people outside on my landing,” speaking through the door.

A majority Muslim country in Central Asia, mountainous and impoverished Tajikistan has recently launched a crackdown against fortune tellers, clairvoyants, mediums and “witches”.

Practitioners of the occult are keeping a low profile to avoid arrest and public shaming because of a government-led campaign against them.

Tajik police have stepped up raids against what they call “parasites engaged in some of the most detestable activities imaginable — divination and witchcraft”.

Other countries in Central Asia are also cracking down on what have become widespread practices with roots in pre-Islamic traditions.

– Thousands of arrests –

The fight against occult practices is part of wider strict controls imposed in the authoritarian country, which is seeking to curb both radical Islam and ancestral beliefs.

“Illegal religious teaching leads to scams, divination and witchcraft. Tajiks! The Prophet categorically forbade going to diviners and sorcerers,” President Emomali Rakhmon, who has ruled the country since 1992, said last year.

Rakhmon also last year announced the arrest of 1,500 people “engaged in witchcraft and divination” as well as “more than 5,000 mullahs” who promised healing through prayer.

A repeat offence is now punishable by two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 12,800 euros ($13,300) — the equivalent of six years’ average salary for a Tajik.

Witches and fortune tellers have adapted to avoid police raids.

“I no longer receive people in my home. I go to them,” Adalat, a 56-year-old fortune teller, said during a session on the outskirts of Dushanbe.

She swung a string of pearls over some instructions scribbled on a piece of paper, mumbling a few words after asking her client some questions.

She said she is particularly skilled at reconciling fighting couples and seeing their future.

“Even as a child, I was tormented by nightmares which made me want to help people. But I only show my gift to people close to me,” she said.

The price of consultations can range from a few euros to gold jewels depending on the client requests but Adalat said she “cannot live” off her fortune telling and relies on money sent to her by her son who works in Russia.

– ‘Social inequality’ –

One of her clients, Gulbakhor, said she had “turned to fortune tellers and healers mainly because of health problems”.

“It’s cheaper than conventional medicine, which is very expensive,” the 42-year-old housewife told AFP.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union and a civil war in the early 1990s, Tajikistan has been plunged into poverty.

According to Mehrigiul Ablezova, a professor of sociology at the American University of Central Asia, “the attraction of witchcraft and fortune-telling may be linked to social inequality and a lack of access to public services”.

“In countries where health or welfare systems are limited, people may seek alternative sources of treatment and support,” she told AFP.

She said repression alone would not be enough to counteract these “deeply rooted traditions and beliefs in Central Asia that predate the introduction of Islam”.

Dushanbe,Stalin's capital for all of Asia

by Vladimir Rozanskij

It was founded in 1931 to transform a desert area into a model metropolis by mobilizing the best architects, engineers and builders of the Soviet Union. And despite the country's backwardness even today this city continues to be enriched with new streets, squares and city parks.

Dushanbe (AsiaNews) - Tajikistan's capital city of Dushanbe celebrated a very special anniversary on Jan. 21, that of its founding 93 years ago on this date in 1931. By then in the midst of the Soviet Stalinist regime, one of the most symbolic projects of the time, the so-called Tadžikgosproekt, of a city that was intended to become the “capital of all Asia,” was begun.

It concentrated the efforts of many architects, engineers and builders who came together in what was then still called Djušambe-Stalinabad, to transform a highland desert area into one of the most beautiful metropolises in Central Asia.

By 1930, by which time Stalin had taken full control of the party, it was decided to make Tajikistan's capital a pilot project, uniting centers and worker villages in a demonstration “five-year building plan” for the entire Soviet Union.

In the first three months of 1931 the project took off, and Dushanbe grew very fast, in ways that amazed even specialists in the field. Thus wrote in the early 1930s one of Tajikistan's leading scientists, the founder of modern mineralogy Nikolai Fedorovsky: “The city is being planned by ghost-architects, with houses far apart from each other, it is clear that they want to build the new capital of the whole of Asia.”

Famed Soviet geochemist Aleksandr Fersman gave an interview in 1935, in which he recounted that the “new Stalinabad, which is being built in the localities of Djušambe villages, represents a new type of particularly visionary planning,” as a model “for the Urals, for Siberia, the Polar Circle and other central regions of the Union.” It extolled the “special and original thinking of a new city, taking into account the special climatic conditions, with the excesses of sun and dust, positive and negative factors.”

In ten years, between 1931 and 1941, top Soviet specialists had hundreds of social and residential buildings built, including the “S. Ajni” Opera and Ballet Theater, the Supreme Soviet building that now houses the Olij Mažilis, the Parliament of Tajikistan, the Academy of Sciences, the Safina Philharmonic, and many other first-rate institutions.

In 1938 the Tadžikgosproekt was divided into two sectors, that of planning and building more cities and towns throughout the country. In 1941 most of the architects and other specialists were called into the Red Army troops to counter the invasion of Hitler's army in “Operation Barbarossa.”

Dušanbe was thus directed to wartime needs, including to house industrial companies evacuated from war zones. After the wartime phase, construction projects were resumed in 1957, incorporating Tadžikgosproekt into state institutions, where it remained until the end of the Soviet Union.

In the 1950s and 1960s, projects multiplied for many cities in Tajikistan, as a model for the entire region, resulting in the cities of Nurek, Rogun, Turnuzade, Javan, and others, with an exhaustive complex of social, production, logistical, and engineering infrastructure.

The project institute was transformed into a joint-stock company with the end of the USSR, and to this day it remains one of the key project organizations for urban management in Tajikistan.

What is now called the “ ŠakhrodarCompany ” is in charge of the construction and development plans for a number of cities including Bokhtar, Khudžand, Kuljab, with continuous plans for new city spaces including in the capital Dushanbe, new streets and squares, city parks, and very contemporary suburbs with multi-story buildings and new office facilities.

Despite being the most economically backward country in Central Asia, Tajikistan shows more than most the progress inherited from the Soviet period, striving not to be marginalized, but to make a particularly significant contribution to the development of the entire region.

'Particularly dangerous': Concentration camp historian calls Musk a 'right-wing extremist'

Carl Gibson

January 24, 2025
ALTERNET

Elon Musk — the world's richest man and top advisor of President Donald Trump — is now being directly criticized by a historian who runs a memorial honoring the victims of one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps.

Newsweek recently reported on an interview professor Jens-Christian Wagner — who runs the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial and museum — gave to the Times of London. That interview came in the wake of Musk throwing up a gesture during an Inauguration Day rally that fascism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat called a "Nazi salute," who added that it was "very belligerent."

"One can only say to him, 'Take a history book and withdraw for three days, read the history book and please be quiet with the poison he's spreading,'" Wagner told the Times. "I think Musk is a mixture of mad and right-wing extremist and that is particularly dangerous."

READ MORE: 'The Holocaust is not a joke': Group that initially defended Musk's salute turns on him

Wagner's comments come amid a wave of scrutiny over Musk's more recent controversial public statements. Earlier this week, Musk made puns referencing several Nazi leaders on his X account with a crying-laughing emoji, writing: "Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations! Some people will Goebbels anything down! Stop Gőring your enemies! His pronouns would’ve been He/Himmler! Bet you did nazi that coming."

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO's tweet was met with swift condemnation from both the Anti-Defamation League and its CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt. In a quote-post, Greenblatt told Musk that "the Holocaust is not a joke," and added that it was "inappropriate and offensive to make light of it."

While Musk has yet to face any major consequences for his gesture or statements, a TV meteorologist was recently fired from her job after five years after criticizing the salute. WDJT-TV in Milwaukee, Wisconsin announced Thursday that Samantha Kuffel was no longer with the station after a conservative talk radio host highlighted two of Kuffel's posts to her personal Instagram account.

One of Kuffel's posts showed a video of the salute with the text: ""Dude Nazi saluted twice. TWICE. During the inauguration. You f— with this man, I don't f— with you. Full stop." The other was a screenshot from the sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, with the character Mac saying: ""Screw that old b—. He's a Nazi."

READ MORE: Local meteorologist fired after social media post criticizing Musk's salute

Click here to read Newsweek's article, and click here to read Wagner's interview in the Times of London.

Congress' top antisemitism investigator: Musk's gesture clearly a 'Sieg Heil salute'

Matthew Chapman
January 21, 2025 

RAW STORY

Elon Musk gestures at the podium inside the Capital One arena on the inauguration day of U.S. President Donald Trump's second term, in Washington, U.S., January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Mike Segar

President Donald Trump's close ally, tech billionaire Elon Musk, caused an explosion of controversy on the day of Trump's swearing-in by repeatedly making an arm gesture that social media commentators and historians compared to a Nazi salute.

Trump allies quickly denied that Musk had any Nazi intentions, along with Musk himself, and some suggested he was just enthusiastically gesturing at his heart. But Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), a Jewish lawmaker who heads up the House's antisemitism task force, said in a statement there was no mistaking what we all saw.

"Elon Musk has repeatedly pushed for the racist and antisemitic 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory, endorsed the Nazi-sympathizing German Political Party AfD, and allowed anti-Jewish hate to proliferate unabated on his website, X," said Goldman. "Viewed in that context, and regardless of any justification, his salute last night at Donald Trump's inauguration rally can only be interpreted as a Seig Heil salute that is synonymous with Nazi support for Hitler."

"Just as the Proud Boys understood Donald Trump's urging to 'stand back and stand by' as a direction to mastermind the January 6 riot, neo-Nazi and far-right extremists have interpreted Musk's salute to refer to the Seig Heil salute to Hitler," Goldman continued. "It is no coincidence that Musk's fascistic salute occurred just hours before President Trump pardoned far-right, violent domestic extremists who assaulted law enforcement officers at President Trump's direction in an effort to overturn the 2020 election."

In an environment where "Jews around the world are scared because of the contemptible rise in antisemitism," Goldman continued, the only acceptable recourse is for Musk to issue an "immediate apology," and for Trump to "disavow and denounce his actions."

"If not, Donald Trump cannot credibly claim to be a friend of the Jewish people with Elon Musk by his side," Goldman concluded.

'The gesture speaks for itself': German newspaper blasts Elon Musk’s 'Hitler salute'

Elon Musk gestures at the podium inside the Capital One arena on the inauguration day of U.S. President Donald Trump's second term, in Washington, U.S., January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Mike Segar

Carl Gibson

January 21, 2025
ALTERNET

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk – who is one of President Donald Trump's top advisors — went viral on Monday for throwing up a gesture described by a fascism expert as a "Nazi salute." Now, a leading German newspaper is criticizing both the gesture itself and the American press for trivializing it.

In an op-ed published in Tuesday's edition of Berlin's Die Zeit newspaper, journalist Lenz Jacobsen said it was clear that anyone "who raises their right arm in a sweeping and diagonal manner several times during a political speech in front of a partly right-wing extremist audience is doing the Hitler salute," and that there was "no need to make this unnecessarily complicated." He added that terms like "allegedly" or "similar" or "controversial" were also unnecessary in describing what happened.

"The gesture speaks for itself, it is documented in the video," Jacobsen wrote in German. "Anyone who then wants to reinterpret it, anyone who does not want to see the Hitler salute, does so on their own account."

READ MORE: 'What did he just do?' Elon Musk sends hate groups 'buzzing' with 'Roman salute' at Trump rally

Jacobsen lamented that the future was "foreseeable," writing that "neo-Nazis and right-wing radicals can interpret the stretched right arm as a gesture of fraternization and encouragement." He also predicted Trump and Musk's more "well-meaning supporters" would view the salute "as an escalated gesture of celebration."

"Everyone else is faced with an impossible choice: Either ignore the taboo being broken and thus contribute to its removal. Or mark it as a taboo violation and thus produce outrage, which the other side then takes pleasure in and gets worked up about," he wrote. "One can complain about this, but one must probably expect that a significant part of humanity now sees scandalizing the Hitler salute as nothing more than virtue signaling."

After the video of Musk's salute spread on social media, hate groups — as Jacobsen predicted — viewed the gesture as a show of solidarity with their cause. Andrew Torba, who founded the far-right social media platform Gab (where the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter was radicalized), responded by writing: "Incredible things are happening already."

"I don’t care if this was a mistake. I’m going to enjoy the tears over it," neo-Nazi leader Christopher Pohlhaus posted to Telegram.

READ MORE: Elon Musk — who rails against 'illegals in America' – revealed to be an illegal immigrant

Click here to read Jacobsen's essay in Die Zeit (subscription required).

Lemkin Institute Issues 'Red Flag Alert for Genocide' After Musk's Nazi Salutes

"Trans people, refugees, and migrants are not the threats," the group said. "The billionaires with close ties to our new president who flash the Nazi salute and seek to replace the old elites with a new caste—that is the real threat to America."


Tesla CEO Elon Musk gestures as he speaks during the inaugural parade in Washington, D.C. on January 20, 2025.
(Photo: Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jan 21, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

A group named after the Polish-born lawyer of Jewish descent who coined the term genocide issued a "red flag alert" for the United States on Monday after billionaire Elon Musk—a top ally of President Donald Trump—twice flashed what was widely seen as a Nazi salute during a post-inauguration event.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Studies and Prevention said that "Musk's act is a frightening signal of things to come" and rejected the notion that the billionaire's gestures were unintentional.


"In light of Musk's important influence on the new administration," the group said in a statement, "the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention is issuing a Red Flag Alert for genocide in the United States."


The Lemkin Institute urged Americans to "respond with critical thinking" to any suggestion that Musk's salutes were merely awkward or odd-looking—but ultimately benign—expressions of enthusiasm.


"Is it possible that any person—especially in South Africa (where support for Nazism was very strong) or the USA (where the History Channel has introduced almost all but the youngest generations to the Nazi salute)—is unaware of this salute or what it means?" the group asked. "It is almost impossible that this was an unfortunate mistake. Finally, can we really believe that someone who is so often in the public eye would risk an arm gesture—twice—that looks almost exactly like the Nazi salute while he is supposedly celebrating Donald Trump's election to president? We strongly believe that Elon Musk's gesture was intentional. We will be happy to be proven wrong."


"Musk's Hitler salute cannot and must not be swept under the rug. The U.S. press, cowed as it has been under President Biden, cannot be trusted to cover the new president's administration with any backbone or honesty. It is up to the American people to defend the Constitution and this country's core values against all threats," the organization continued. "Trans people, refugees, and migrants are not the threats. The billionaires with close ties to our new president who flash the Nazi salute and seek to replace the old elites with a new caste—that is the real threat to America."

Musk's salutes drew widespread alarm, including from public officials in Europe—where Musk has attempted to boost far-right parties.

"Such a gesture, given his already known proximity to right-wing populists in the fascist tradition, must worry every democrat," German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach wrote in response.

Far-right extremists, for their part, celebrated Musk's gestures, which they appear to have had no trouble interpreting.

As Rolling Stonereported, "The Proud Boys Ohio chapter posted a clip of the Musk video to its Telegram channel with the text, 'Hail Trump!'"

'Unthinkable': Trump FTC chair shuts down public comments on corporate pricing tactics

Image via Free Malaysia Today/Creative Commons.

Jake Johnson
Common Dreams

January 24, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump's Federal Trade Commission chair began his stint at the helm of the key agency this week by shutting down requests for public comment on corporate surveillance pricing and other exploitative tactics that were a focus of the FTC under the leadership of Lina Khan.

Shortly after taking over as FTC chair earlier this week, Andrew Ferguson declared that "DEI is over" at the agency and demanded a swift vote on a motion giving him sweeping authority to "comply with President Trump's orders ending DEI across the federal government."

Meanwhile, with no such fanfare, Ferguson shuttered FTC requests for information and public comments on corporate mergers and acquisitions, "protecting workers from illegal business practices," "predatory pricing," and "surveillance pricing practices," which refer to companies' use of personal data to set individualized prices.

Democratic FTC commissioners expressed alarm over Ferguson's early actions and said they're a telling indication of his priorities.

"Andrew Ferguson could have made his first public act as chairman a motion to study the rising cost of groceries," Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said in a statement Thursday. "He could have acted on a pending public petition from a group of wall and ceiling contractors to investigate how lawbreaking contractors can effectively rig contract competitions in the commercial construction industry."

"Chairman Ferguson could have done any number of things to actually lower the cost of living and create opportunities for American businesses and workers. He did none of them," Bedoya continued. "Instead, he canceled 'DEI.'"

Douglas Farrar, former director of the FTC's public affairs office, said it is "unthinkable that the new chair of the FTC starts his tenure by censoring small businesses facing down monopolies, and American consumers already struggling with high prices."

"The American people deserve to have a voice in government," Farrar added, "not just be dictated to by oligarchs."

Ferguson defended his focus on DEI on the grounds that Trump "campaigned openly" on ending diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the federal government.

But Bedoya noted that Trump, on the day of his inauguration, also ordered "the heads of all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief, consistent with applicable law, to the American people and increase the prosperity of the American worker."

"Chairman Ferguson seems uninterested in the challenges that regular human beings face," Bedoya said Thursday. "One of his first actions as Chairman was to quietly remove the opportunity for the public to comment on five different requests for information."

"Rather than let the American people speak to him," Bedoya added, "Chairman Ferguson shut them out."

Panama complains to UN over Trump canal threat, starts audit

Agence France-Presse
January 22, 2025  

The Panama Canal generates six percent of Panama's national economic output and 20 percent of its fiscal revenues (ARNULFO FRANCO/AFP)

Panama has complained to the United Nations over U.S. President Donald Trump's "worrying" threat to seize the Panama Canal, even as it launched an audit of the Hong Kong-linked operator of two ports on the interoceanic waterway.

In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the government in Panama City referred to an article of the UN Charter precluding any member from "the threat or use of force" against the territorial integrity or political independence of another.

The missive, distributed to reporters Tuesday, urges Guterres to refer the matter to the UN Security Council, without asking for a meeting to be convened.

Trump, in his inaugural address Monday, repeated his complaint that China was effectively "operating" the Panama Canal through its growing presence around the waterway, which the United States handed over at the end of 1999.

"We didn't give it to China, we gave it to Panama. And we're taking it back," Trump said.

Panama's President Jose Raul Mulino hit back that the canal was not a gift from the United States during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.


"We reject in its entirety everything that Mr Trump has said. First because it is false and second because the Panama Canal belongs to Panama and will continue to belong to Panama," Mulino said Wednesday.

The president has previously denied that any other nation was interfering in the canal, which he said was operated on a principle of neutrality.

Asked Wednesday about the spat, Beijing denied it had ever "interfered" in the canal.

"China has always respected Panama's sovereignty over the canal and recognized the canal as a permanent neutral international waterway," foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.

- U.S. pressure -

The Panamanian comptroller's office that oversees public entities announced "an exhaustive audit" would be launched "aimed at ensuring the efficient and transparent use of public resources" at the Panama Ports Company.

The company, part of Hutchison Ports, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings, operates the ports of Balboa and Cristobal on either end of the canal.

The comptroller's office said the aim was to determine whether the company was complying with its concession agreements, including adequate reporting of income, payments and contributions to the state.

Hutchison Ports PPC said in a statement that it has "maintained and will continue to maintain a transparent and collaborative relationship" with Panamanian authorities.

"We remain steadfast in our commitment to comply with all laws and regulations, fully exercising our contractual responsibilities," the firm said.

"Our financial results, audited by an independent external auditor, have been shared annually with our partner, the Panamanian State, ensuring trust and clarity in our management."

Trump has been raising pressure for weeks over the canal, through which 40 percent of US container traffic travels. He has refused to rule out using military force to reclaim it.


The Panama Ports Company's concession agreement was extended by 25 years in 2021.

The United States is the canal's main user, followed by China.

Since 2000, the waterway has contributed more than $30 billion to Panama's state coffers, including nearly $2.5 billion in the last fiscal year.


© Agence France-Presse


FILE PHOTO: Singapore MAERSK TAURUS container ship transits the expanded canal through Cocoli Locks at the Panama Canal, on the outskirts of Panama City, Panama August 12, 2024. REUTERS/Enea Lebrun/File PhotoFILE PHOTO: Singapore MAERSK TAURUS container ship transits the expanded canal through Cocoli Locks at the Panama Canal, on the outskirts of Panama City, Panama August 12, 2024.

 REUTERS/Enea Lebrun/File Photo

'Freaked out': Details emerge from Trump’s 'horrendous' call with Denmark over Greenland

Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during a press conference at Trump Tower in New York City, U.S., September 6, 2024. REUTERS/David Dee Delgado//File Photo

Carl Gibson

January 24, 2025

ALTERNET

A call between President Donald Trump and Denmark Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen about Greenland recently spiraled out of control, according to several officials briefed on the call.

The Financial Times first reported Friday on the 45-minute call between Trump and Frederiksen, which took place last week. Five unnamed "current and former senior European officials" told the Times that the call went "very badly." Trump insisted to the Danish leader that Greenland — which belongs to Denmark — should be the property of the United States, arguing that it was necessary for "national security" purposes.

While Frederiksen insisted that the island was "not for sale," she reportedly suggested alternatives to Trump, like allowing the U.S. military to expand its presence there and for the U.S. to have the ability to extract the island's resources while still keeping the island under Danish control. However, Trump was apparently unmoved by the counter-proposal, with the Times' sources describing the U.S. president as "aggressive and confrontational."

READ MORE: 'Touchy subject': Denmark's king responds to 'headache' of Trump's push to own Greenland

"It was horrendous,” one source told the publication.

"“He was very firm. It was a cold shower," another anonymous official said. "Before, it was hard to take it seriously. But I do think it is serious, and potentially very dangerous.”

The U.S. currently has a Space Force base in the northwestern part of Greenland, though Trump has been pushing for the island to become a U.S. territory, and sent his eldest son, Donald Jr., to Greenland's capital city of Nuuk earlier this month to meet with Greenlandic officials. According to a 2021 report from Deutsche Welle, Greenland has slowly become ensnared in a geopolitical chess game between the U.S. and China, as it is a significant source of oil, gas and mineral resources.

"The intent was very clear. They want it," one person familiar with the call told the Financial Times. "The Danes are now in crisis mode."

READ MORE: 'Will never be for sale': Trump's proposal to buy Greenland gets 'resounding no'

"The Danes are utterly freaked out by this," another official said.

During the call with Frederiksen, Trump reportedly threatened Denmark — a key NATO ally — with targeted tariffs if she didn't agree to sell Greenland. Frederiksen's office disputed the account relayed by the Times' sources, telling the outlet it did "not recognize the interpretation of the conversation given by anonymous sources."

In December, Denmark's King Frederik X notably changed the country's coat of arms for the first time in decades to make the polar bear symbolizing Greenland more significant, giving it its own quadrant on the royal crest. As for the island itself, the 57,000 residents of Greenland have indicated they don't wish to be the property of Denmark or the United States, and instead hope to become a sovereign nation in the near future.

Aside from Greenland, Trump has also indicated he aims to reclaim the Panama Canal for the United States and has even suggested at annexing Canada. During a January press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump didn't rule out using the military to seize both Greenland and the Panama Canal

Click here to read the Financial Times' report in its entirety.

'Let the squealing begin': Ex-GOP chair warns DOGE cuts to hit red states more than blue

Sarah K. Burris
January 21, 2025 

RAW STORY

Former Republican Party chairman Michael Steele warned that expected cuts coming from the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, will harm MAGA areas more than Democratic cities.

Although Congress has not officially created Elon Musk's largely symbolic department, he is pursuing his promise of $2 trillion in government cuts.

Steele called it a "hot mess."

Aside from there being no ethical or government oversight, Steele called it Musk's own "little fiefdom."

"Here's the rub: no one in Washington gives a damn," said Steele. "Not on Capitol Hill, not on K Street, because they're all trying to figure out how they get a piece of it or get protected...So, we're all bought in here onto this. The American people signed on the dotted line. Do more of this. And they think that they're going to benefit."


He explained that $2 trillion in cuts would have to impact the MAGA world. One of Trump's first actions was to roll back President Joe Biden's 2022 executive order lowering prescription drug prices for those in Medicare and Medicaid.

"They're not telling you where it's coming from. And you know who's going to ultimately pay for it? All the MAGA in places like Alabama and Mississippi, who already rely on a lot of federal dollars to make their ends meet in those states," said Steele. "It's not going to hurt California. It's not going to hurt New York. They contribute massive amounts of dollars and get back very few federal dollars. Where this comes home to roost is in the very center of MAGA land, and they seem to be okay with that. So cut away, my friend, and just let the squealing begin."

See the video below or at the link here.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

'Ridiculous!' Trump frees creator of darknet market Silk Road to thank Libertarian backers

Daniel Hampton
January 21, 2025


Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the website Silk Road, appears in an undated photograph made from his computer and presented as an exhibit during his 2015 criminal trial in New York federal court. U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York/Handout via REUTERS





President Donald Trump said Tuesday evening he has issued a full pardon to a man serving a life sentence for creating and running what prosecutors have called the "sprawling black-market bazaar" Silk Road.



Ross William Ulbricht, known online by the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts," ran the website from 2011 until his arrest two years later. Ulbricht, a Texas native and Eagle Scout, operated the site as a hidden service on the Tor network, facilitating the sales of more than $200 million in narcotics and other illegal products and services, authorities said.

The vast majority of items for sale on Silk Road were illegal drugs, which were openly advertised as such on the site. In September 2013, the site's home page displayed nearly 13,000 listings for controlled substances, listed under such categories as “Cannabis,” “Dissociatives,” “Ecstasy,” “Intoxicants,” “Opioids,” “Precursors,” “Prescription,” “Psychedelics,” and “Stimulants,” prosecutors said at the time.























































ALSO READ: Inside the parade of right-wing world leaders flocking to D.C. for Trump's inauguration

Narcotics distributed on Silk Road were linked to at least six overdose deaths worldwide, including the death of a 27-year-old Microsoft employee who was found unresponsive in front of his computer, which was logged onto Silk Road at the time. The man died as a result of heroin and other prescription drugs that he had ordered off the site.

Ulbricht was arrested by the FBI and convicted in 2015 of charges including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, distributing narcotics, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit computer hacking.


“Make no mistake: Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people’s addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people,” Preet Bharara, then-U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at the time. “Ulbricht went from hiding his cybercrime identity to becoming the face of cybercrime and as today’s sentence proves, no one is above the law.”

But Ulbricht's incarceration at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson is about to end, Trump announced Tuesday on his social media platform Truth Social.

"I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbright to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross," he said. "The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!"


Trump pledged last year to free Ulbricht.

'She was nasty': Trump blasts 'so-called Bishop' who embarrassed him at prayer service

David McAfee
January 22, 2025 
RAW STORY

Donald Trump at around midnight on Wednesday lashed out against a bishop who stood up to him at the National Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral the day before.

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde appeared on a stage with 11 other faith leaders gave a speech where she asked that the world pray for "unity," which she said wasn't the same as "agreement, political or otherwise."

Budde turned to deliver a message directly to Trump and other politicians by saying, "There isn't much to be gained by our prayers if we act in ways that further deepen the divisions among us. Our scriptures are quite clear about this, that God is never impressed with prayers when actions are not informed by them. Nor does God spare us from the consequences of our Deeds which always, in the end, matter more than the words we pray."

She further asked him to show mercy to some individuals, including immigrants.

Trump responded in an overnight rant on his own social media site, Truth Social.

"The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way," the President said. "She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people."

He then added, "Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!"

See the post right here.

Trump demands apology, criticizes bishop’s prayer service remarks

by Alex Gangitano - 01/22/25 

THE HILL


President Trump early Wednesday morning slammed the bishop at a National Cathedral prayer service for the inauguration who called on him to have mercy on transgender children and immigrant families.

Trump, in a lengthy post on Truth Social, called the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde’s remarks “nasty” and not smart.


“The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart,” he said.

“She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions,” the president added. “It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one.”

Trump also called on her and the church to apologize to him.

“She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!”

Hours earlier, Budde made a plea to Trump during her sermon as he was sitting in the first pew at the service.

“I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared. There are gay, lesbian, transgender children, Democratic, Republican, independent families — some who fear for their lives,” she said.

“The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals — they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals,” she added.

During her comments about migrants, Budde noted migrant workers “pay taxes” and are “faithful members” of U.S. churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, arguing their children “fear their parents are going to be taken away.” And, she called on Trump to aid people fleeing war zones and persecution.

Budde also told Trump that people in our country are scared of his presidency.

When Trump returned to the White House after the prayer service, he told reporters it “wasn’t too exciting.”

“They can do much better,” he added.

Others have joined Trump in criticizing the Bishop’s remarks, including Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), who said on the social platform X that “the person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.”

Trump signed a flurry of executive orders Monday, including one recognizing only two sexes — male and female — and others restricting immigration, carrying out his campaign promise to target migrants, especially those who have committed crimes in the U.S.

He signed an order effectively pausing refugee admissions for a minimum of three months, signed an order that seeks to boost detention capacity in the U.S. to house migrants and said he would end birthright citizenship for children born to people living without legal status in the U.S.

He also reinstituted the “Remain in Mexico” program, which requires asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico until their U.S. immigration court date, and he shut down the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) One app that facilitated appointments for immigration proceedings.

Reminder: Trump is a demented criminal president

John Stoehr
January 24, 2025 

Donald Trump (Reuters)

I just want to remind everyone that America elected a demented criminal president and as a consequence, we can no longer assume what we used to assume when it came to matters of law and politics.

I know that sounds like a sweeping generalization, but sometimes you gotta swing hard if you’re going to get people’s attention, and right now, given that liberals and Democrats got their heads in the sand, I think it’s prudent to swing hard, even if I’m proven wrong in the end.

And I know that saying something as sweeping as this can sound pessimistic, as if I’m suggesting that nothing can be done about a demented criminal president, but I don’t see it that way. I think liberals and Democrats still believe Donald Trump is going to overreach, and they still believe public opinion is going to turn, and when it does, thank God! Liberals and Democrats won’t have to fight so hard!

Again, we elected a demented criminal president.

We can no longer assume what we used to assume.

Case in point is the reaction to Donald Trump’s executive order claiming to “end birthright citizenship,” in the words of USA Today.

Liberals and Democrats were correct to point out that the president can’t do any such thing on his own, as ending the legal right to be called a US citizen due to being born on US soil would require a constitutional amendment. It was said that the order would be stopped almost immediately by the courts. Yesterday, 22 attorneys general from states run by Democrats filed suit to do just that.

While this reaction is correct as a matter of fact, it is wrong as a matter of politics. This is a demented criminal president we are talking about, and while the courts may end up stopping his order, the courts can’t stop a demented criminal president from ignoring the courts and acting, you know, like a criminal. We assume that a demented criminal president will obey the law and I don’t see why we should assume that.

Even if the president himself said OK, OK, I can’t end birthright citizenship by myself, there are plenty of people in his administration, not just political appointees, who would be happy to break the law and just pretend that the children of immigrants who are born on US soil are not citizens. They would also be happy to stop doing for them what they would do for any other (white) baby born on US soil, such as issuing Social Security cards or other important federal documents.

Even if it came to light that this rogue federal agency was responsible for infringing the rights and privilege of tens of thousands of natural-born citizens, who would prosecute the offense? The same Justice Department that is, right now, planning payback against the members of the Congress who investigated the J6 insurrection?

Even if that Justice Department actually did manage to prosecute and convict these rogue federal agents (who were only doing what Trump wanted them to do), should we assume that the same demented criminal president who pardoned virtually all the paramilitaries who sacked and looted the US Capitol would not pardon them as well?

And even if public opinion turned against Trump’s lawlessness, what reaction could we reasonably expect? The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch said the inauguration was “a dangerous display of rapid mental decline” and that the biggest takeaway was “seeing how rapidly the oldest new president in America is declining right in front of us.”

“We’ve just flipped the car keys of this 248-year-old republic to a grandpa who starts his four-year road trip already in a serious state of mental decline, with all the guardrails of yesteryear stripped away by a corrupt Supreme Court, a feckless and increasingly useless Democratic Party, and a bended-knee elite media,” he said (my italics).

Again, it bears repeating: this is a demented criminal president we are talking about. The things that would normally constrain a president – the institutions, the courts and public opinion – are probably not going to constrain this one. I would suggest that they almost certainly won’t.

And while liberals and Democrats console themselves into believing the only way to end birthright citizenship is by amending the Constitution, they’re missing the real goal, which is getting around all those quaint little rules that everyone else plays by and going straight to the US Supreme Court. Trump’s executive order really could end birthright citizenship if he can force five justices to agree with it.

Like a lot of liberals and Democrats, I don’t yet know how to resist a president who is criminal enough to ignore the courts (or turn a blind eye to crimes committed in his name) and demented enough to ignore public opinion. I don’t yet know how to think about politics as applied to a president who won’t act like any president who came before him.

What I do know is we have to try – if not for ourselves, then for our children, and for those who came before us and did figure it out.

NOW READ: Trump's MAGA America revives a Confederate nightmare

Democracy under siege as Trump's reign of terror begins

D. Earl Stephens
January 22, 2025
RAW STORY

REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

It is worse than many of us imagined.

Not because we didn't know it would be bad, but because I reckon we practiced self-care by not fixating on it every hour of every terrible day since the horrid election in November.

So we licked our wounds, bucked each other up, and prepared for whatever hell was coming.

On Monday, it arrived.

On the first day of his reign of terror, the sick, vengeful king released 1,500 dangerous thugs, who beat the life out of cops and tried to set fire to our country, by violently stopping the certification of our election.

The people he said that he “loved” now have safe harbor, but only as long as they vow to work for him, because, you see, he has proven he is both capable of getting them in and out of their terrible messes.

Such power.

I have long ago lost confidence that our pathetic, horse-race media would report this at all properly when the gruesome day arrived, so let this old print guy break it to you cold this way:

WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A NATIONAL EMERGENCY


We simply cannot survive this obscene level of anti-Democratic lawlessness from the fascist White House, and that makes it incredibly important how this moment in history is framed for the public.

Every day of the next 100 will be key, because hell is rolling downhill fast right now.

-Does our mainstream media finally do its job and sound the alarms?

-Do they relentlessly call (demand) power to account for their actions?
-Do they tell us just what in the hell is really going on here, by giving the incineration of our democracy and our law and order the bandwidth and context they deserve?
-Do they break into their horses--- regular broadcasting to let America know it is under attack?

-Do they report on what Americans should be doing to mitigate and stay safe from this onslaught?

I know what you are thinking ...

We are but weeks away from all this being normalized. In a matter of days Trump, with the backing of fawning oligarchs and a corrupt political enterprise, will have amassed an enormous amount of centralized power. Before you know it he will have made it all but impossible to drill into the core, to get at its terrible source.


He is in a breathtaking race right now to shield himself from anything that might be coming so that he can rain hell down on the rest of us from the safety of the Capitol he attacked but four short years ago and finally captured on Monday.

Once he’s insulated, it’s over.

No surprise. He has flooded the zone on social media today saying the military will be his No. 1 priority as he gets at America’s true enemies. He means us, of course.


This is predictable as hell, and back in November I warned you of this:

NOTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect the citizens of the United States of America.
EVERYTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect himself from the citizens of the United States of America.

We will be here shortly unless something jars us from our deep sleep.

America has not seen anything like this since our Civil War. That one didn’t end us, but its echoes are pounding in our ears like never before. The white heat is turned up to 10.

History shows us 1935 Germany can also be terrifyingly instructive. The accumulation of unchecked power can happen insanely fast. Hitler himself was actually surprised how easy things were, and expected a helluva lot more pushback than he got on his way to complete power.

Now 90 years later, all the dogs are once again lying down. While we nap, evil has crept up to our doors.

Human beings will be rounded up and shipped out.

Comply, or else.

This is a five-alarm fire, good people. It is far beyond what any reasonable person who has been around for a while feared in their lifetimes. Our Democracy is burning out of control, and the response from our Democratic representatives on the frontlines in Washington has been appalling.

They literally have no answers for us right now, as they scramble to find their asses with both hands. It is as if they have been living someplace else, while the rest of us have yelled for them to do something — ANYTHING.

This is why people like us were screaming bloody murder when Merrick Garland did nothing. Not ONE lawmaker was tried or jailed for the January 6th attack -- including of course the dangerous, orange ringleader who means to finish us off.

I genuinely need to know what the f--- just happened the past four years, that left us so completely unarmed for this.

I have no answers for you, my friends, but those need to be demanded. I will put on my activist hat before finishing up here, and suggest if you haven’t already that you call your representatives and demand an accounting of what they are planning to do to defend us from the end.

Winning some election that may or may not happen two years from now is NOT an acceptable answer.

Here’s the number, if it isn’t already burned into your fried brain: 202-224-3121. I’d also suggest you contact what passes for your local news sources and ask them what they have planned in their coverage of this attack on our freedom. Write a letter to the editor today. Some of you other rough-and-readies will have suggestions, and the comments are open.

UNDERSTAND THIS: We must stay together right now. We must check on each other, and report out what we are seeing and hearing. Information is power.

America is under attack.

This is not a drill.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.

Trump 'wants a paramilitary arm' for his 'war with half of America': analysis

Jennifer Bowers Bahney
January 21, 2025 
RAW STORY

Seth Wenig/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

President Donald Trump views himself as a "wartime president," according to a new article in The Bulwark, but his enemy isn't a rogue state — it's the American people themselves.

In an article published Tuesday, Bulwark Editor Jonathan V. Last wrote, "I don’t think there’s any way to read yesterday except as President Trump deciding that with the Republican party fully subservient to him, he can subjugate the other remaining power centers in American life. He can finally be a wartime president. It’s just that he’s going to war against America."

Last wrote that Trump's war with America is unprecedented, "Or at least: We haven’t had a president view Americans this way since Reconstruction.

Trump made it clear during the inauguration that he's "governing not for all Americans—and not even just for the benefit of 'his' voters—but as an attack on the half of America that opposed him," Last wrote.

According to the article, Trump "believes that Democratic voters should not be bargained with or bribed, but intimidated, punished, subdued—and rendered unable to oppose him in his quest for total power."

And Trump is going to use all the power at his presidential fingertips to ensure everyone falls in line. This includes using the courts, government bureaucracy, and mob rule to get what he wants. Last wrote that Trump released the J6 rioters, even the violent ones, for a purpose: "The message is unambiguous: Trump wants supporters who engage in street violence on the loose. He wants a paramilitary arm for which he has plausible deniability."

Last continued, "Freeing those convicted of violence is a go-ahead signal for future violent acts and an implicit promise that Trump will take care of those who fight on his behalf."

The target of Trump's power campaign is anyone who lives in a blue state, Last wrote. "Trump understands that blue states are the last bastions of meaningful popular opposition to his rule, so he will use the federal government to subdue them. That’s what deportations—and tariffs—are for. These are executive powers which can be used in highly-targeted ways to hurt on local economies."

So, "If you live in a blue state, President Trump is going to use the power of the federal government to make your life harder."

Read The Bulwark article here.