Grimes Rips ‘Anti-Woke’ Forces Behind Ex Elon Musk’s Rise to Power

Sean Craig
Sun, February 2, 2025 

Penske Media via Getty Images

Canadian Musician Grimes has opened up about how she feels deceived by the “anti-woke” forces that helped propel her former partner, Elon Musk, to the center of the U.S. government alongside President Donald Trump.

“I feel like I was tricked by [people] pretending to be into critical thought and consequentialism who are acting like power hungry warlords now and like cruelly enjoying the panic and suffering that obviously creates and it’s disturbing,“ wrote in a tweet Saturday.

Grimes, who shares three children with Musk, was responding in agreement to a post by the mononymous writer Aella, who wrote that she “got friendly with the anti-woke coalition over the past few years, but now it feels like they’re walking off a plank into extremism and I feel frustrated about it.”

A tweet by Grimes shows her expressing regret that she was

Grimes, whose real name is Claire Boucher, said last month that she was “happy to denounce Nazism” after Musk was criticized for making gestures at a Trump inauguration rally that allegedly mirrored the Nazi salute.

She also noted she is not responsible for her former partner’s actions: “I am not him. I will not make a statement every time he does something.”

Musk, Trump’s biggest financial backer and one of his leading campaign surrogates, spent the election echoing the president’s railing against so-called “woke” issues.

Trump—who has already issued multiple executive orders to row back diversity and inclusion initiatives across the U.S. government—said he would fire military officials who adopted diversity initiatives and threatened to use federal funding to force schools to cease “left-wing indoctrination.”

Musk has since been rewarded by Trump for his support with a nebulous but high profile role in the new administration, leading a White House unit with a fake departmental name—the Department of Government Efficiency—tasked with recommending up to $2 trillion in federal spending cuts.

Grimes has stepped in to publicly chide her former partner before. Last year, she offered unconditional support to Musk’s daughter Vivian Wilson, who blasted her father for being absent throughout her childhood.

Musk had claimed Wilson, who is transgender, is “not a girl” and called her “dead.”

“I love and am forever endlessly proud of Vivian,” Grimes said.

She also called Musk “unrecognizable” in November, after disclosing they had resolved a longstanding custody battle regarding their three children.

Musk has also continued stumping for conservative politicians who share his “anti-woke views, extending his reach abroad in support of the Alternative für Deutschland, a German political party that intelligence officials have classified as a “suspected extremist” organization, and Reform UK, an anti-immigrant populist party in Britain.

At a recent party conference, the AfD slammed “transgender hype” and “woke society” in its political positions.

Musk made a surprise appearance at an AfD rally last month via video, during which he said Germans should “move beyond” their guilt from the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.

“There’s too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move on from that,” he told the crowd to cheers.

Trump to cut off funding for South Africa

WHITE NATIONALIST SUPPORTING  AFRIKANERS 

(WHITE SETTLERS)

Idrees Ali and Daphne Psaledakis
Sun, February 2, 2025 


U.S. President Donald Trump departs the White House Washington

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday, without citing evidence, that "certain classes of people" in South Africa were being treated "very badly" and that he would cut off funding for the country until the matter is investigated.

"South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY," Trump said in a Truth Social post.

"The United States won't stand for it, we will act. Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!" he said.
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It is unclear what led to Trump's post.

The South African embassy in Washington D.C. did not respond to a request for comment outside of regular business hours.

The United States obligated nearly $440 million in assistance to South Africa in 2023, the most recent U.S. government data showed.

South Africa currently holds the G20 presidency, after which the U.S. takes over.

Last month, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he was not worried about the country's relationship with Trump. He said he had spoken to Trump after the latter's election victory and looked forward to working with his administration.

During his first administration, Trump said the U.S. would investigate unproven large-scale killings of white farmers in South Africa and violent takeovers of land. Pretoria at the time said Trump was misinformed. It is unclear whether the Trump administration carried out an investigation.
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Trump's close ally Elon Musk was born in South Africa. In 2023, Musk replied on X to a video of a far-left South African political party singing an old anti-apartheid song, "Kill the Boer", by stating: "They are openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa."

"@CyrilRamaphosa, why do you say nothing?" Musk asked.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Sandra Maler and Christopher Cushing)


Trump Vows to Cut Off Aid to South Africa Over Land Policy

Derek Wallbank
Sun, February 2, 2025




(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said the US would stop sending aid to South Africa over its land expropriation policies, sparking a selloff in the rand.

“The United States won’t stand for it, we will act,” Trump said in a Sunday evening post on Truth Social. “Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”

Trump’s comments come less than two weeks after South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a new law making it easier for the state to expropriate land, subject to equitable compensation paid. The African National Congress, the largest political party in South Africa, has pushed to make it easier for the state to take land in an effort to address racially skewed land-ownership patterns dating back to colonial and White-minority rule.

The South African rand slid 2% against the dollar in Asian trading. Emerging-market currencies were also weighed by Trump following through with imposing tariffs on countries including China and Mexico.

The US sent more than $8 billion in bilateral aid to South Africa over the last two decades, according to a 2023 report from the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan office that supplies legislative policy information and analysis to Congress. Much of those funds went to fighting HIV/AIDS and other development projects, CRS said.

Trump has threatened South Africa with economic punishments before. The country is the ‘S’ in the BRICS bloc of nations, which Trump in December threatened with a 100% tariff if the group moved away from using the US dollar.

South Africa holds the chairmanship of the Group of 20 this year and Trump, as US president, would be expected to attend. His top billionaire backer, Elon Musk, was born in the country.


--With assistance from Matthew Burgess.

(Updates currency moves in fourth paragraph and details on US aid to South Africa in fifth paragraph.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

Trump wants to undo diversity programs. Some agencies react by scrubbing US history and culture

Kim Chandler And Gary Fields
Sun, February 2, 2025 








The Associated Press

TUSKEGEE, Ala. (AP) — The tails of the Alabama Air National Guard’s F-35 Lightnings are painted red, like those of the Guard's F-16s before them. It's an homage to the famed Alabama-based unit of the Tuskegee Airmen, who flew red-tailed P-51 Mustangs during World War II.

The squadron, which trained in the state, was the nation’s first to be comprised of Black military pilots, shattering racial barriers and racist beliefs about the capabilities of Black pilots. Their success in combat paved the way for the desegregation of the U.S. military, a story that is interwoven in state and U.S. history. Yet for a moment after President Donald Trump took office, that history was almost scrubbed by the Air Force.

The service removed training videos of the Tuskegee Airmen along with ones showing the World War II contributions of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, at its basic training base in San Antonio, where airmen have passed through for generations.

Although the move was swiftly rescinded after a bipartisan outcry, the fact that it happened even momentarily is evidence of the confusion resulting from the avalanche of executive orders and other actions from Trump since he began his second term in the White House. The administration has been forced to walk back some actions that have caused widespread chaos, such as a memorandum freezing federal grants and loans.

The specific one that led to the Air Force decision also was met with with a mix of alarm and confusion over its meaning. The order calls for an end to diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government, including with any contractors or organizations that receive any federal money.

In addition to the Air Force's action, the Army pulled its sexual assault regulations off websites before restoring them. A notice from the Defense Intelligence Agency said it was pausing “until further notice” special observances that included Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Holocaust Days of Remembrance, Women’s Equality Day and National American Indian Heritage Month.

There were reports that employees at the CIA were notified there would be no Black History Month acknowledgements. A CIA spokesman said in a statement that the the agency was complying with the order and “OPM Implementing Guidance," referring to the Office of Personnel Management. “The Office of Diversity and Inclusion has been dissolved, along with component DEI programs,” the CIA statement said.

The wide sweep of reactions to Trump's DEI order alarmed those who have fought for inclusion and recognition for decades and who fear that more than efforts to diversify the federal workforce are at stake. In some cases, the actions taken to comply with the directive risk whitewashing parts of the nation's history and culture.

Adia Harvey Wingfield, a professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, said a 2023 Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions was clear on restricting opportunities to specific groups. But she said it's “a far cry from that to not including information about groups that are basic parts of history like the Tuskegee Airmen.”

She said many places are “unclear about exactly where the legal landscape stands, but very aware about the political landscape and wanting to make sure that they are not doing things that will attract attention, negative press or negative responses" from the Trump administration.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said some agencies may have gone too far in reacting to the DEI executive order.

“As far as I know, this White House certainly still intends to celebrate, and we will continue to celebrate American history and the contributions that all Americans, regardless of race, religion, or creed, have made to our great country,” she said during a media briefing.

Yet confusion continued. On Friday, Trump issued a proclamation recognizing Black History Month, while on the same day the Defense Department issued a news release proclaiming “Identity Months Dead at DOD."

The Air Force's initial action was one of the most publicized when it took down DEI courses that included videos about the Tuskegee Airmen and the WASPs. In later announcing the reversal, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said in a statement that the initial removal was because the service, like other agencies, had to move swiftly to comply with Trump’s executive order with “no equivocation, no slow-rolling, no foot-dragging.”

Speaking Friday on Fox & Friends, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Tuskegee Airmen were an example of “courageous merit” and that cutting their video was “something I like to call malicious implementation.”

“An outfit like the Tuskegee Airmen, we will salute and we will elevate," Hegseth said. "And we want every service member to understand what they did. That’s very different than the DEI programs.”

Amy McGrath, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel who was the first woman to fly an F-18 fighter plane in combat, said the move by the Air Force was understandable because military leaders are trying to avoid missteps with the new administration.

“They're afraid that if they do basic leadership, which is embracing everyone no matter what race, no matter what religion, no matter what gender, that's going to be labeled as ‘woke’ or ‘Marxist’,'” said McGrath, who was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Kentucky in 2020 against Republican incumbent Mitch McConnell.

Including the historical achievements of the Tuskegee Airmen or WASPs never should have been in question, said McGrath, a Naval Academy graduate, adding that she venerated the WASPs.

“They provided an extraordinary service to our country because there were not enough pilots, men or women, to do the jobs that we needed done,” she said, noting that the women did not receive veterans benefits.

Lisa Taylor, executive director of the National WASP WWII Museum in Sweetwater, Texas, said she was incredulous when she heard the content might be removed from the training base.

“The stories are historical and also uplifting and inspiring for all men and women who have found themselves wondering if they were good enough socially, mentally and technologically,” she said. “They are the anecdotes that might provide someone with the final push to take the next step in becoming who she or he longs to be.”

She said she was relieved when the training material was restored.

All around Tuskegee, the accomplishments of the Black fighter squadron are celebrated amid the state's complex history.

The National Park Service has a museum at the site where the airmen trained that tells of the pilots' combat success and their struggles in a segregated nation. Tuskegee's town square has a historic marker that describes the airmen as part of the city’s rich history.

The decision to remove the videos was met with disbelief from some of the descendants of those who were part of the squadron

“I was angry,” said Alysyn Harvey-Greene. Her 101-year-old father, retired Air Force Lt. Col. James Harvey III, was one of the original Tuskegee Airmen. “It’s been very disturbing. We fought for so long to get this history out.”

Harvey finished his pilot training as the war in Europe was winding down, but flew combat missions in Korea. In 1949, he and other Tuskegee Airmen won the Air Force’s inaugural Fighter Gunnery “Top Gun Meet” — where the best Air Force pilot teams competed — but were not recognized as the winner for 73 years.

“For so long, we were not able to tell the story," Harvey-Greene said.

Janet Harrison, a retired state worker who lives in Tuskegee and was at the town square on a recent day, said she wishes more were taught about Black history, especially the contributions during World War II. She described her spirit being lifted when the training center in Texas reversed its decision and restored the videos.

But the weariness was palpable as she spoke about her initial thoughts when hearing they had been removed: "When is this going to stop?”

———-

Fields reported from Washington.

___

Associated Press writers Tara Copp and Aamer Madhani, in Washington, Jocelyn Gecker, in San Francisco, and Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan, contributed to this report.

'Genocide against Greenland': The country's dark history - and does it want Trump?

Peter Harmsen - Journalist and author of Fury and Ice: Greenland, the United States and Germany in World War II

BBC
Sun, February 2, 2025 

[BBC]


On a hill above Nuuk's cathedral stands a 7ft statue of the protestant missionary Hans Egede. He had reopened Greenland's link with Northern Europe in the early 1700s and laid the groundwork for the establishment of Denmark's proudest colonial possession.

One day in the late 1970s, the bronze figure was suddenly covered in red paint.

I remember that day well - I passed the statue every day on my mile long walk to school. I spent two years living on Greenland while my father taught geography at Nuuk's teacher training college.

It was apparent not everyone among the Inuit majority was happy about the changes that Egede had brought to Greenland a quarter of a millennium earlier.

The clinking of beer bottles in filled plastic bags carried home by the Inuit to their tiny apartments – much smaller, usually, than the ones we Danes lived in – was testimony to pervasive alcoholism, one of the ills that Denmark had brought to Greenland, amid a lot that was undeniably good: modern health, good education.

But apart from the paint-covered statue, the dream of Greenland being independent from Denmark was only slowly beginning to manifest itself.

Greenland, home to 57,000 people, has been an autonomous territory of Denmark since gaining home rule in 1979 [Getty Images]

At the Teacher Training College right next to my school, the closest Greenland got to having a radical student movement was developing - some young people at the college demanded to be taught in their native Greenland language.

By the late 1970s, the capital was called Nuuk and no longer Godthaab, its official name for well over two centuries.

Now, decades on, change is afoot once again, as Donald Trump has his eyes on gaining control of the country.

Asked in January if he would rule out using military or economic force in order to take over the autonomous Danish territory or the Panama canal, he responded: "No, I can't assure you on either of those two. But I can say this, we need them for economic security."

Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, has requested a meeting with Donald Trump [Getty Images]

Later on Air Force One he told reporters: "I think we're going to have it," adding that the island's 57,000 residents "want to be with us".

The question is, do they?

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has, meanwhile, insisted Greenland is not for sale. "Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders," she said. "It's the Greenlanders themselves who have to define their future.

So, what do the island's inhabitants want that future to look like - and if it does not involve them being part of the kingdom of Denmark, then what is the alternative?
Strained ties with the Danes

One poll of Greenlanders suggested only 6% of Greenlanders want their country to become part of the US, with 9% undecided and 85% against. But despite this, Frederiksen knows that the question of what Greenlanders want is a delicate one.

Traditionally, Danes have viewed themselves as the world's nicest imperialists ever since they started to colonise Greenland in the 1720s.

This self-image has been eroded in recent years, however, by a string of revelations about past high-handedness in dealing with the island's population.

In particular, there have been reports of serious wrongs committed against Greenlanders - not in the distant past, but within living memory.

This included a controversial large-scale contraceptive campaign. A joint investigation by authorities in Denmark and Greenland is examining the fitting of intrauterine devices (coils) into women of child-bearing age on the island, often without their consent or even their knowledge.

It has been reported this happened to almost half of all the island's women of child-bearing age between 1966 and 1970.

King Frederik X of Denmark met with Greenland's Prime Minister, Múte Egede last week (Pictured here in July 2024) [Alamy]

Last December, Greenland's prime minister Múte Egede described this as "straightforward genocide, carried out by the Danish state against the Greenland population".

He made the remark while talking to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation in an interview that dealt generally with relations between Greenland and Denmark.

Also, in the 1960s and 1970s hundreds of children from the island were taken from their mothers, often on dubious grounds, to be reared by foster parents in Denmark. In some cases, this happened without the consent of the biological mothers, and in other instances, they were not informed that their ties with their children would be cut completely.

This left a raw emotional wound that often was not healed decades later. Some of the adopted Greenlandic children were later able to trace their biological parents, but many others were not.

A small group demanded compensation from the Danish state in the summer of 2024. If they are successful, it could pave the way for a large number of similar claims by other adoptees.

Greenland is already home to a large U.S. military base [Getty Images]

Iben Mondrup, a novelist who was born in Denmark and spent her childhood in Greenland, sees the recent events as a rude wake-up call for the Danes who have been accustomed to viewing themselves as a benign influence in Greenland.

"The entire relationship has been based on a narrative that Denmark was helping Greenland, without getting anything in return," she says.

"We have talked about Denmark as the motherland that took Greenland under its wing and taught it gradually to stand on its own feet. There has been a widespread use of educational metaphors.

"We Danes constantly return to the idea that Greenland owes us something, at least gratitude."

'Greenland has now grown up'

Opinion polls carried out in recent years indicate a fairly consistent pattern in which around two-thirds of Greenland's population say they want to be independent. A survey carried out in 2019 showed support of 67.7% for the move among adult Greenlanders.

Jenseeraq Poulsen, director of Oceans North Kalaallit Nunaat, an environmental charity in Nuuk, says: "As I see it, Greenland has now grown up, and our sense of self-worth and our self-confidence requires that we can start making our own decisions as adults on an equal footing with other nations.

King Frederik, pictured with Queen Mary, previously altered the royal coat of arms to emphasise Greenland [Getty Images]

"It's important for a country to not be in a straitjacket," Nunaat continues.

"We shouldn't have to ask for permission to do anything. You know the feeling [as a child] when you have to ask your parents something and they say you can't? That's what it's like."

And yet the word "independence" may not fully capture the complexity of the challenges and choices that Greenland faces, according to Poulsen.

He says he doesn't like the word "since everyone is interdependent in the modern world".

He adds: "Even Denmark, which is a sovereign state, is interdependent… I prefer the word statehood."

Ingredients for independence

Not a huge amount is known about the mechanics of how Trump proposes to acquire Greenland. When he first floated the idea in 2019 he said it would be "essentially a large real-estate deal".

The extent to which Greenland would remain autonomous under US rule is unclear. So too is how its benefits system would work.

After the proposal to buy the island, Trump has now doubled down on his rhetoric, apparently open to satisfying his territorial ambitions in the North Atlantic by military means.

Donald Trump Jr met some Greenlanders during a recent visit who said on camera that they were supportive of the idea of the United States taking control of their country [Getty Images]

The visit by Donald Trump Jr and members of Trump's team added visual emphasis to the then president-elect's words but not everyone on Greenland was wowed.

"That makes us dig in our heels and say, 'Please control yourself,'" says Janus Chemnitz Kleist, an IT manager for the Greenland government. "Some people who might previously have had a positive attitude towards closer ties with the United States have started reconsidering."

Aaja Chemnitz, a member of Danish parliament for the left-leaning party Inuit Ataqatigiit, has her own take on what needs to be done to pave the way for independence, in whatever form that may take.

First, she argues that it is important to reverse what she describes as a mild brain drain out of Greenland. She says only 56% of young Greenlanders who are educated at universities and colleges in Denmark and other countries return upon graduation.

"That's not a very high number. It would be good if we could make it more attractive for them to return home and take up some of the positions that are important in Greenland society," she says.

But in her view there is a broader economic issue too.

Donald Trump Jr described his visit as a "personal day-trip" [Getty Images]

"Political and economic independence are interconnected," she says, "and it's crucial that we cooperate with Denmark on the development of business in Greenland but also work with the Americans on the extraction of raw materials and the development of tourism."

At present, the Greenland economy is heavily reliant on the so-called block grant, a subsidy paid by the Danish government that in 2024 amounted to the equivalent of around £480m a year.

As this subsidy would likely disappear after independence, one of the most important challenges facing the Greenlanders is to find ways to replace it, explains Javier Arnaut, an economist at the University of Greenland in Nuuk.

"The economy is one of the main factors holding back the movement towards independence," he says. "The economy is reliant on the Danish block grant, and if it disappeared, Greenland would have a large hole in the public budget that would need to be filled.

"The question is how. If the gap could be filled, for example, by increasing fiscal revenue through projects in mining with new partners, a clearer path towards economic independence could emerge."

The welfare factor

There is another question – not unimportant in a Nordic-style welfare state where a large part of the economy is under government control – of what would happen to all those health and social benefits that Greenland currently receives as a result of its relationship with Denmark.

Currently, these benefits include access to treatment in Danish hospitals.

Ask Greenlanders whether they want separation from Denmark, and most who say they do have a caveat - only if it does not cost them their welfare system.

The question of what happens to the welfare system would be particularly acute in the event of a US takeover of Greenland given the American welfare state is not only smaller than those in the Nordic countries but of those in most other Western countries.

Donald Trump Jr described his visit to Greenland as an "epic day" [Getty Images]

But not everyone is convinced by suggestions that Greenland's cancer patients, for example, would suddenly have nowhere to go in case of independence. Pele Broberg, Greenland's former foreign minister and now chairman of the political party Naleraq, cites Iceland, which left the Danish kingdom in 1944 as an example.

"Iceland still sends medical patients to Denmark," he says. "They still have students studying in Denmark, and vice versa. I have a hard time seeing what kind of obstacles Denmark would like to put up if we decide to leave the kingdom.

"It's rhetoric meant to scare us from having a discussion about independence," he argues.

However, some Greenlanders believe that true independence may never be accomplished because of these very concerns. Mr Chemnitz Kleist argues: "The kind of independence that you see in countries like Denmark or Belgium or Angola will never happen here.

"With such a small population, some of it not well educated, and with a complex welfare system which we would like to keep, we can never become independent in the way the word is usually understood."

Trump's tactics and the case for the US

All of these issues have been discussed for years, but they have suddenly attained a new sense of urgency with Trump's apparent bid for control of Greenland.

But regardless of who sits in the White House, the question is whether Greenlanders would see any benefit in raising cooperation levels with the United States - and if so, to what extent?

"Greenland's national project is all about spreading out the island's dependence in order to have as many ties as possible with the outside world," says Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and an expert on the Arctic region.

It is in this context that some Greenlanders are warming to the model of a "free association" with either Denmark or the United States – replicating a similar loose arrangement between the United States and certain islands in the Pacific.

"The problem is that Greenland feels swallowed up by Denmark," says Mr Pram Gad. "It aims to feel less constrained and less dependent on just one country. Free association is not so much about 'association' and more about 'free'. It's about having one's own sovereignty."

Donald Trump's threat to take over Greenland may have been unexpected but with the trip to Nuuk his team were well aware there was a thread to be pulled at, that his security concerns come at a time when many Greenlanders are considering their future.

"In recent years all these stories have emerged and placed the modernisation narrative in a different light. The whole idea that Denmark was pursuing an altruistic project in Greenland has been challenged," says Iben Mondrup.

"The project that the Greenlanders were told was for their own good was actually not good for them after all. This gives rise to all kinds of thoughts about the status of the Greenlanders inside the Danish kingdom. It adds fuel to the criticism that has developed in Greenland in recent years about the idea of a community with Denmark."
Norway, Iceland and Canada

But if it's not only Denmark and it's not only America, who else can Greenland turn to? Surveys suggest that a majority of the island's inhabitants would like to step up cooperation with Canada and Iceland. Mr Broberg, the party chairman, likes the idea, and he throws Norway into the equation as well.

"We have more in common with Norway and Iceland than we have with Denmark," he says. "All three of us have a presence in the Arctic, unlike Denmark. The only reason I leave open the possibility of a free association with Denmark after independence is it may put some Greenlanders at ease because they are used to the relationship with Denmark."

Still, the question is: Would Canada and Iceland want to take on the task of providing the social benefits that Greenlanders covet? The answer would almost certainly be no.

In this way, the future presenting itself to the Greenlanders is both exhilaratingly open and at the same time depressingly narrow.

Peter Harmsen is a journalist at Weekendavisen. He spent time as a child living in Greenland.

Top picture credit: Getty Images

BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day.

Turkey hopes Trump will end US cooperation with Syrian Kurdish militia

TYRANT ERDOGAN VS THE PKK AND YPG  AND SDF

Reuters
Sun, February 2, 2025 

DOHA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) -Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Sunday he hoped President Donald Trump would end U.S. cooperation with the Syrian Kurdish YPG, as Turkey continued its military campaign against the group, killing 23 of its fighters.

The Turkish Defence Ministry said the 23 militants killed by Turkey's armed forces in northern Syria belonged to the YPG militia and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.

Turkey regards the PKK and YPG as identical, while the United States views them as separate groups, having banned the PKK as terrorists but recruited the YPG as its main ally in Syria in the campaign against Islamic State.

"We hope that Mr. Trump will make a decision that will put an end to this ongoing mistake in the region," Fidan told a press conference in Doha with his Qatari counterpart.

He said the YPG was incapable of fighting Islamic State and only played a role in keeping the group's prisoners in jail, adding that Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Jordan had held preliminary talks on fighting Islamic State.

Turkey has long called on Washington to withdraw support for the YPG, and Turkish forces and their allies in Syria have repeatedly fought with Kurdish militants there since the toppling of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in December.

Turkey has said the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF - a U.S.-backed umbrella group that includes the Kurdish YPG - must disarm or face military intervention.

Under the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden, the United States had 2,000 troops in Syria fighting alongside the SDF and YPG.

(Reporting by Andrew Mills in Doha and Daren Butler in Istanbul; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Helen Popper)

Thousands rally in downtown Los Angeles, shut down 101 Freeway to protest Trump's immigration policies

Daniel Miller, Ben Poston
Sun, February 2, 2025

Los Angeles Times


Thousands of protesters gathered Sunday in downtown Los Angeles to demonstrate for immigration rights, blocking lanes on the 101 Freeway at times. 

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Thousands of demonstrators rallied in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday and shut down a section of the 101 Freeway to protest President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration and his aggressive deportation policies.

Draped in Mexican and Salvadoran flags, demonstrators gathered near City Hall shortly before noon, blocking traffic at Spring and Temple streets, amid honking horns and solidarity messages from passing motorists. Protesters blasted a mix of traditional and contemporary Mexican music from a loudspeaker, and some danced in the road in traditional feathered headdresses.

Protesters rally on the Alameda overpass of the 101 Freeway against President Trump's deportation policies on Sunday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Trump has declared a crisis at the southern border and released a flurry of executive orders aimed at revamping the country's immigration system and promising to deport millions of undocumented people. Protesters told The Times that it was those actions that prompted them to rally downtown.

By 1 p.m., the number of protesters ballooned to several thousand, with some carrying signs that said, “MAGA — Mexicans always get across”; "Don't bite the hand that feeds you," referring to the state's agricultural workers; and “I drink my horchata warm because f— I.C.E,” a reference to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Nailah Esparza, 18, said that it was her first protest and that she learned about it about a week ago from TikTok videos. She held a sign in Spanish that read, “No more I.C.E. raids, no more fear, we want justice and a better world.”

“It was actually something that was very important, so we decided to show support, because of the youth,” said Esparza, who is Mexican American. “We’re very passionate about what we’re here for.”

Thousands of protesters gathered Sunday in downtown Los Angeles to demonstrate for immigration rights. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Another protester, who identified himself only as Rey out of privacy concerns, brought a sign that read, “Trump eat caca! Beware the Nazis.” He said he protested Trump's immigration policies during his first term as president.
“We thought we were done with his administration,” said Rey, who is Mexican American. “And now we have to do this again.”

The demonstration was largely peaceful, with some enterprising street vendors taking advantage of the moment to sell bacon-wrapped hot dogs, ice cream, churros, beer and even shots of Patron tequila.

But things appeared to ratchet up when the driver of a silver Mustang began doing doughnuts in a usually busy intersection near City Hall. Soon after, a few police cars arrived as dozens of protesters walked onto the nearby 101 Freeway, while hundreds more crowded overpasses, waving flags and holding signs.

But police — whose presence was minimal — did not converge on the demonstrators, even as throngs made their way onto the freeway. A section of the freeway near the 110 Freeway interchange was shut down around noon and remained closed shortly after 4 p.m., officials said.

Los Angeles police spokesman Tony Im said there had been no arrests or injuries on city streets related to the protests. Im said the department was “staffed adequately” to handle the protests but declined to elaborate on staffing details.

Protesters gather Sunday on 101 Freeway overpasses while others block freeway traffic. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

A short time after the freeway takeover began, the acrid smell of burning tires hung in the air as trucks and motorcycles did noisy burnouts on an overpass, drawing cheers and cameras amid the noisy din of car horns, police sirens and helicopters overhead.

Promising the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, Trump, in his first days in office, declared a national emergency at the southern border, deploying troops there.

His executive orders sharply limit legal pathways for entering the U.S., bolster enforcement efforts to seal off the U.S.-Mexico border, and promote aggressive sweeps to round up and deport people living in the United States illegally. Some of the orders have been challenged in court, and advocates said others could be soon.

There are an estimated 11 million to 15 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., including more than 2 million in California.

They include people who crossed the border illegally, people who overstayed their visas and people who have requested asylum. It does not include people who entered the country under various temporary humanitarian programs, or who have obtained temporary protected status, which gives people the right to live and work in the U.S. temporarily because of disasters or strife in their home countries.

Times staff reporters Jessica Garrison and Rebecca Plevin contributed to this report.

Dozens of protesters march along the 101 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday while others watch from above. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.



Marchers protesting planned deportations block major freeway in Los Angeles
Associated Press
Updated Sun, February 2, 2025 


LOS ANGELES (AP) — Thousands of people protesting mass deportations planned by President Donald Trump marched in Southern California on Sunday, including in downtown Los Angeles where demonstrators blocked a major freeway for several hours.

Protesters gathered in the morning on LA's historic Olvera Street, which dates to Spanish and Mexican rule, before marching to City Hall. They called for immigration reform and carried banners with slogans like “Nobody is illegal.”

By the afternoon, marchers had blocked all lanes of U.S. 101, causing traffic to back up in both directions and on surface streets. The demonstrators sat down in lanes, while a cordon of California Highway Patrol officers stood by. It took more than five hours for the freeway to fully reopen, CHP Lt. Matt Gutierrez said Sunday evening.

The CHP and the Los Angeles Police Department said there were no reports of arrests.

To the east, hundreds of people protested in the city of Riverside. Passing motorists honked and yelled out in support of demonstrators waving flags at an intersection, the Southern California News Group reported.

And in San Diego, hundreds rallied near the city's convention center on Sunday.

In Texas, demonstrators gathered in downtown Dallas on Sunday in a pair of protests against recent arrests by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Dallas police told The Associated Press that approximately 1,600 people gathered between the two rallies.

Marchers carried Mexican and American flags and speakers expressed outrage about the rhetoric from Trump and his administration's moves to increase deportations.

Signs held by the protesters included one that read “Immigrants Make America Great.”


Protest Against Trump’s Deportation Policies Blocks Traffic in Downtown L.A. Ahead of Grammys

J. Kim Murphy
Sun, February 2, 2025

VARIETY

Thousands of protesters gathered Sunday in downtown Los Angeles to protest President Trump’s aggressive policies against undocumented immigrants and promise of mass deportations, causing traffic gridlock in the hours ahead of the Grammy Awards at Crypto.com Arena.

The protest began in the morning and grew in number through the afternoon, per the Los Angeles Times, with protesters sporting Mexican and Salvadoran flags and signs reading slogans like, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” referring to California’s agricultural industry and its reliance on undocumented immigrants. At one point, a group of protesters marched onto the 101 Freeway, putting traffic to a stop on one of the city’s main commuting roadways.

The afternoon has sparked concerns about punctuality for some Grammy attendees, with one rep mentioning that the blocked roads in downtown L.A. could cause late red carpet arrivals. The ceremony itself begins at 5 p.m.; no delays for the show are being forecast at this time.

Notably, there is no indication that the protest is targeting the Grammys specifically. Awards shows have drawn activist movements, as a pro-Palestine gathering formed directly outside the Grammys last year. But Sunday’s protest against the Trump administration is just one of several that’s come together across the U.S. in the past week, including demonstrations in Chicago and St. Louis.

In his first weeks in office, President Trump has declared a national emergency at the southern border, deploying troops to the area and signing executive orders that allow for more extreme sweeps conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Trump has also ordered a detention facility in Guantanamo Bay to house migrants that have been detained.
Anti-ICE Protestors Shut Down Los Angeles 101 Freeway Over Trump-Ordered Deportations | Video

Stephanie Kaloi
Sun, February 2, 2025

THE WRAP



Anti-ICE protestors shut down both directions of the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles on Sunday as part of an organized response to President Trump’s deportations of undocumented immigrants in the United States. The protest began at Placita Olvera on Olvera Street, and had grown to thousands by midday.

The protestors first walked onto the southbound lanes of the 101 and blocked both lanes of traffic by 12:30 p.m., KTLA reported. Minutes later, LAPD issued a traffic advisory on X, writing: “Spring St, Main St, Los Angeles St as well as Arcadia and the 101 Freeway both North and South are under major gridlock in the DTLA area.”

Both lanes of traffic briefly reopened an hour later only to be shut down again by the group. At 4 p.m. PST LAPD again issued a traffic advisory. “Demonstrators have exited the 101 freeway. Aliso and Main St have lanes blocked with vehicles and people standing on the roadway. Demonstrators are forming at the steps of City Hall as well,” the police wrote on X.



Trump used his first day in office to sign several executive orders meant to severely restrict the flow of immigration into the United States. One order was meant to end birthright citizenship in the U.S.; in a second, Trump put a pause on the admission of refugees into the country.

Officials from ICE began to arrest undocumented immigrants within days.

 TheWrap.

AP  DEMO FOTOS 


















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Law enforcement personnel stage on the 110 freeway during a protest calling for immigration reform Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025, in Los Angeles.

 (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)

FRACKQUAKES

Two years ago, Ovintiv, a multinational oil and gas company, announced it would expand fracking for gas at a new site built on a hill about a kilometre from Richard Kabzems's home in Farmington, B.C.

CBC
Sat, February 1, 2025 

 (Samuel Martin/CBC - image credit)

Standing in his living room, Richard Kabzems brandishes a thick binder stuffed with letters and notes of his two-year fight to stop fracking wells near his home in Farmington, B.C.

Ovintiv, a multinational oil and gas company, announced two years ago that it would expand fracking for gas at a new site built on a hill about a kilometre from Kabzems's home in the rural Lebell subdivision. The BC Energy Regulator (BCER) approved the permit.

Over the last 24 months, Kabzems and his wife, Sandy Burton, have written six detailed letters to the gas company opposing the project, and another series of emails and letters to the provincial regulator.

But drilling is scheduled to begin on Feb. 9, on the first of a projected 24 wells at the site.

"We are bearing the risk, and they are saying, 'Don't worry,'" Kabzems said.

He is, in fact, worried. That's because in 2024, the number of magnitude 3 or higher earthquakes linked to hydraulic fracturing and the underground storage of its wastewater reached a record high in the Montney Formation, a gas-rich area straddling northeastern B.C. and northwestern Alberta.

According to monitoring data from Natural Resources Canada, there were 34 recorded earthquakes at magnitude 3 and above (M>3.0) in Montney, more than three times the amount 10 years ago.

The correlation between oil and gas activity and induced earthquakes is well-documented around the world.

Magnitude 3 quakes can be felt and even cause damage, according to seismicity experts, depending on where they occur. Every step up in magnitude releases 10 times the amount of energy.

Kabzems and Burton have felt quakes before — from fracking farther away than the new drill site.

Over the last 24 months, Richard Kabzems, right, and his wife, Sandy Burton, left, have written six detailed letters to the gas company opposing the Farmington, B.C., fracking project, and another series of emails and letters to the provincial regulator. 

(Jill English/CBC)

"It felt like a truck was hitting the side of our house, and the engine rumbling — this deep, low rumbling — and things would shift," he said, recalling a series of quakes four years ago.

But Kabzems and Burton's home insurer notified them in June 2023 that earthquake insurance would be excluded from their policy.

Allan Chapman, a former senior geoscientist with the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission who analyzed the data, concluded the frequency of significant earthquakes will only increase as fracking expands in the Peace River area.

Kabzems says the first few times he experienced a quake, "you didn't know what was happening; You didn't have any experience. And again, with earthquakes, you just don't know when they will occur."

Industry acknowledges risk

Hydraulic fracturing in the Montney Formation involves drilling deep vertically and then boring horizontally as much as four kilometres. A mixture of water, sand and chemicals is then forced into the well bore at high pressure, splitting the rock to release gas or oil.

If the process hits a fault, it can cause seismic activity.

In B.C, the industry has acknowledged the risk. But Ovintiv's website states "the occurrence and risk of seismicity is generally very low," and says it has a framework for "proactively addressing seismic activity through partnerships with independent research institutions and regulatory agencies to minimize any associated or perceived risks.

The company has hosted consultation sessions with residents in Kabzems's subdivision, but declined an interview with CBC News.

The incidence of stronger quakes isn't confined to the Peace River region. In both B.C. and Alberta's gas and oil areas, the number of higher-magnitude earthquakes has gone up.

"In 2021, we saw about 60 earthquakes a year, and in 2024, we were up to 160," said Gail Atkinson, a consulting seismologist and former professor at Western University in London, Ont.

Atkinson, who has studied "induced seismicity" for decades, says there's a direct link between the rising number of quakes and stronger seismic events.

"Most of the quakes that you get are smaller magnitudes," she said. But more earthquakes means a higher incidence of quakes at every magnitude, including strong ones.

In November 2018, construction workers building the Site C dam on Peace River were forced to evacuate the work site because of an induced quake measuring magnitude 4.6. (Samuel Martin/CBC)

"The more fracking we do, the more oil and gas we take, the more earthquakes we will have. And the larger is the chance that one of those earthquakes will have an undesirable consequence," she said. "It's a trade-off."

In November 2018, construction workers building the Site C dam on Peace River were forced to evacuate the work site because of an induced quake measuring 4.6.

Atkinson urges regulators to pay more attention to the rising risks and create larger buffer zones.

"I think that for critical infrastructure, like major dams [...] it makes far more sense to have exclusion zones for fracking around high-value targets," she said.

'That's a big one'

The urgency to address the risk is exacerbated by a renewed boom in fracking in northeastern B.C. to feed a new, hungry pipeline just starting to send natural gas west to a LNG terminal in Kitimat, B.C. The terminal will liquify natural gas for export, for the first time opening overseas markets to Canadian gas.

It's projected the pipeline will carry two million cubic feet of gas per day, and that production in the Montney could double in the next 20 years.

U.S. President Donald Trump's invocation to "drill, baby, drill," suggests he'll support more production of oil and gas. His nominee for secretary of energy, Chris Wright, the CEO of Liberty Energy, is bullish on fracking.

But signs of an uptick in fracking-induced earthquakes are also apparent in the Texas oil patch.

WATCH | Fracking is causing earthquakes in Texas:

Last July, 60 tremors in one week — ranging from small to significant — shook the area around Snyder, Texas.

Jay Callaway was on duty as the city's emergency management co-ordinator on July 26.

"It sounded like a herd of cattle coming. And then it was just an eerie feeling. And then it sounded like the cattle was leaving," he told CBC, standing in the local fire department building.

His first thought was: "There's a big one." It was magnitude 5.1.

Jay Callaway was on duty as the emergency management co-ordinator last July, when 60 tremors in one week shook the area around Snyder, Texas. (Hugo Levesque/CBC)

Callaway started getting calls.

"Reports of cracks in walls, driveways, foundations — [that] was the main damage," he said. An emergency team had to repair a crack in a city water line.

The quakes also popped up on monitors at a lab at the University of Texas in Austin, where seismologist Alexandros Savvaidis can watch earthquake activity in real time.

Normally, he says, there are a couple hundred earthquakes a day — most of them small, less than magnitude 1.5.

While the oil industry itself was slow to admit any connection between fracking and earthquakes, Savvaidis was recruited from Europe to help run TexNet, a state-funded program to monitor seismic events from the Texas oil patch.

A few years ago, Alexandros Savvaidis was recruited from Europe to help run TexNet, a state-funded program to monitor seismic events from the Texas oil patch.

 (Hugo Levesque/CBC)

They now have 200 sensors around the state.

"When I came here in 2016, [the producers] were in denial. That was really not the best thing," said Savvaidis. "I think in the last five years, it's been accepted by the industry and the public."

Midland's gamble

The industry's hub is Midland, in the oil-rich Permian Basin. Oil exploration is so embedded in the culture, it's even the location of the new Paramount+ drama Landman.

In Midland, drilling and fracking is so pervasive, it now happens in town. A tall rig towers over a parking lot and strip mall. Underneath, horizontal wells will extend far beyond the pad itself, stretching several kilometres under the city.

In the Texas town of Midland, drilling and fracking is so pervasive, a tall rig towers over a parking lot and strip mall. (CBC)

"This operator, they have a belief that they just get better wells where no one's drilled before," said Steve Melzer, an oil industry consultant and engineer. "He's betting that this is fertile ground that hasn't been touched, because it was in town."

But Melzer recognizes the seismic activity this past summer is posing a risk to industry, too.

Fracking relies on enormous amounts of water, which needs to be stored. According to Savvaidis, the water storage is causing most of the induced-earthquakes in Texas.

"If we have another big one, especially near an urban centre, it's going to impact us big-time," Melzer said. "Hopefully we'll be able to manage it, engineer more uses of that water, instead of putting it back in the ground."

Storing the liquid is delicate, and the wrong pressure, depth or quantity can trigger seismic activity. It's a problem Melzer is focused on solving, both by improving the process and looking at other uses for the water, to reduce underground storage volumes.

"If we can't reduce the water volumes going into the [underground] formations, we're going to have to slow drilling down."

Steve Melzer, an oil industry consultant and engineer in Texas, says the seismic activity this past summer is posing a risk to the industry, too. (Jill English/CBC)

Warning system

Kabzems has officially appealed the permit for the fracking pad in Farmington, B.C., but he's had no response since October. Meanwhile, construction continues.

The BC Energy Regulator points to safeguards such as the 35 seismic monitors in the Montney area, and a "traffic light system" that warns the regulator of seismic activity. At levels of magnitude 3 and above, operators must stop fracking and investigate.

Gail Atkinson says the measures are useful but not foolproof, because bigger earthquakes aren't always preceded by smaller ones.

Leading Canadian seismologist Gail Atkinson has been studying induced-earthquakes in B.C. (Dillon Hodgin/CBC)

"If you have one that just lights up right away and gives you a magnitude 4 or 5 as its very first salvo, the traffic light will not work," she said.

"I don't blame the oil and gas companies for following the existing regulations. They have a business. They have their own models of how they look at risk," she said.

"It's really up to the regulators and the government to protect populations and also to protect the industry as a whole to ensure that we don't end up with an environmental catastrophe as a result of an earthquake being generated in the wrong place."