Open mike 26/01/2025

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, January 26th, 2025 - 58 comments
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Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

58 comments on “Open mike 26/01/2025 ”

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  1. Jenny 1
    26 January 2025 at 7:30 am

    Israel's propaganda narrative of rape and torture in the 'terror tunnels' of Hamas being inhuman animals that must be exterminated at all costs has taken a blow.

    In what can only be described as a public relations disaster for Netanyahu and the Israeli cabinet, who claim they are determined to continue the war.

    It looks like a giant party, or festival.

    Hamas soldiers in uniform with their distinctive green headbands and Palestinian flag epaulets on their shoulders, overseeing the handover of hostages to the Red Cross

    Joyous scenes in both Gaza and Israel at the release of 4 captured Israeli women soldiers in Israeli uniform, smiling and waving to the gathered crowds in Gaza. The scene captured on a split screen in Tel Aviv as just as joyous Israeli crowds witness the handover.

    Netanyahu has made it very clear that this will be the final ceasefire, there will be no stage 2

    Netanyahu had earlier said he was 'overjoyed' at the number of hostages that Israel had managed to get Hamas to agree to release in this first round of the ceasefire negotiations. Netanyahu also said that Israel will restart the war with the full support of both Biden and Trump to 'eliminate Hamas'. And do it 'stronger'.

    Netanyahu says he is determined to achieve Israel's war aim to completely eliminate Hamas from the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu has extended this campaign to the West Bank, with the Trump administration's support.

    Netanyahu's message is clear, the remaining hostages, mostly male soldiers, that were due to be released in the stage 2 ceasefire agreement will be sacrificed to achieve Israel's war aims of eliminating Hamas. In practice, Israel's war aim can only be achieved with the extermination of the Palestinian people.

    Civil society must do everything we can to prevent Israel restarting their genocide in Gaza.

    • Ad 1.1
      26 January 2025 at 10:08 am

      On October 6th 2023 Syria was ruled by a tyrant and was a Russian client state and was a full-on conduit for armaments for terror groups from the Sinai to Yemen.

      Also on October 6th 2023 Iran was a massive destabilising force right across the Arabian Peninsula and was growing in ambition and influence.

      By January 2025 Hezbollah and Hamas get no arms from anyone and have been shrunken to a husk of their previous organisational strength,

      Syria has a completely new ruler and the Russians have been kicked out of their port,

      Iran no longer destabilises the Middle East,

      Dubai is now clearly the peace broker to the region and the world,

      Saudi Arabia and Jordan moved less than a muscle to help any Arab in trouble,

      Lebanon has a fresh government that has positive relations with the IDF …

      … and in the Israel side they have regathered their regional security after losing it on October 7th, Netanyahu has regained confidence and US Presidential patronage, Israel is getting its remaining captive soldiers back, and they are essentially taking over the West Bank with even more impunity than before.

      Sure, nobody wins this filthy war. But there's no doubt the outcomes have been all beneficial to Israel and to broader Middle Eastern security.

    • SPC 1.2
      26 January 2025 at 9:34 pm

      Netanyahu has extended this campaign to the West Bank, with the Trump administration's support

      Extended ….. . Gaza has been the diversion to the WB settlement and permanent occupation project (post 2000 peace talks failure, intifada and fences and Kadima disengagement phase ended) for nearly two decades. The policy began with Hamas being allowed to stand in a PA parliamentary election, winning and then being removed by the Abbas gun and in turn removing the PA gun from Gaza. No PA elections since. Weak and divided and game played ever since. This is why the Likud regime wants to keep the PA out of Gaza – block unity and legitimacy (via elections).

  2. PsyclingLeft.Always 2
    26 January 2025 at 8:14 am

    That Musk nazi salute revisited.

    Elon Musk addresses German far-right rally by video link

    "The German people are really an ancient nation which goes back thousands of years," he said in Saturday's address.

    Barely hidden code ?….

    "I even read Julius Caesar was very impressed [by] the German tribes," he said, urging the supporters to "fight, fight, fight" for their country's future.

    And of course his moral and economic support for new US fascist Pres pays off. The new department of "government efficiency" has an ominous sound. Musk ever more openly channelling his burgeoning inner nazi?

    Musk is a close associate of US President Donald Trump, who has appointed him to head a new department of "government efficiency" in his administration.

    Like minds….

    Like Trump, the AfD opposes immigration, denies climate change, rails against gender politics and has declared war on a political establishment and mainstream media it condemns as censorious.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/539959/elon-musk-addresses-german-far-right-rally-by-video-link

    • dv 2.1
      26 January 2025 at 8:30 am

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/539957/chilling-purge-trump-fires-17-independent-watchdogs-at-federal-agencies

      Donald Trump fired 17 independent watchdogs at multiple government agencies on Friday, a person with knowledge of the matter said, eliminating a critical oversight component and clearing the way to replace them with loyalists.

    • francesca 2.2
      26 January 2025 at 9:04 am

      And yet Musk is an ardent supporter of Israel .Netanyahu defends him.Does this mean it is possible for a Jew to also collaborate with those who hold Nazi sympathies?

      Azov regiment and Bandera comes to mind

      https://www.politico.eu/article/benjamin-netanyahu-elon-musk-is-being-falsely-smeared-over-controversial-salute/

      • Subliminal 2.2.1
        26 January 2025 at 9:55 am

        Yes, of course it does. All ethnicities and nationalities had Nazi collaborators.

        Zionism has an especially 'proud' history of Nazi collaboration.

        After the March 1944 German invasion of Hungary, Kasztner, a local member of the Zionist leadership, worked directly with the Nazis.

        He agreed to help maintain calm in the Hungarian Jewish community, particularly the 20,000 Jews of Kasztner’s native town of Kluj. The Nazis wanted to ensure there was no repeat of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in Poland the year prior.

        The Jews of Kluj were concentrated in a ghetto prior to deportation, and were told a tale about “Kenyermeze,” a work camp in a German-occupied area where they would supposedly be sent and kept alive.

        But this was a deadly lie: The trains were actually taking people to Auschwitz, the death camp in occupied Poland, where the Nazis murdered 12,000 Hungarian Jews per day.

        Almost half a million Hungarian Jews were ultimately exterminated.

        To ensure there was no rebellion, Kasztner’s men told the Jewish community that they would be safe. Fake postcards and letters from “Kenyermeze” were distributed or read by his group assuring the Jews in Kluj that all was well. Thinking they were being deported to labor camps, Jews in Hungary mostly did not resist.

        As Ben Hecht writes in Perfidy, his 1961 book on the affair, the Jews of Kluj were guarded in their ghetto by fewer than two dozen Nazi and Hungarian guards. They could have easily overcome them and escaped to safety across the Romanian border, just three miles away, had Kasztner told them what fate he knew really awaited them.

        But Kasztner had personally negotiated a deal with senior Hitler aide and Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann. Kasztner knew where the “resettlement” trains were actually headed, but remained silent.

        “A success for Zionism”

        In exchange for deceiving his community, the Nazis agreed to let Kasztner select a group – mostly fellow Zionists, friends and family – who would be permitted to escape Hungary on a train to Switzerland. The idea was that the elite group would join the Zionist settler-colony in Palestine.

        Zionists and Nazis both agreed on the goal of removing European Jews from Europe.

        https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-owen-jones-justifies-labours-purge-socialists/33831

        Ali Abunimah, a founding editor of The Electronic Intifada and the most passionate humanist in the Palestinian cause has just been arrested one day after entering Zurich on a speaking tour

        https://electronicintifada.net/content/eis-ali-abunimah-arrested-switzerland/50333

        • francesca 2.2.1.1
          26 January 2025 at 10:21 am

          Thanks

          It seems expediency will always rule the day , and propaganda will cover the cracks

          I'm thinking Al Qaeda,(HTS) who once again have become freedom fighters, with a mere stroke of the pen , they've been reprogrammed .How many incarnations now?

          Bans against military aid to Azov lifted when convenient

          Similarly Centuria, trained by the Canadian military .

          https://jacobin.com/2022/12/canadian-military-train-ukrainian-fascists-azov-centuria

          On it goes

          • Subliminal 2.2.1.1.1
            26 January 2025 at 12:58 pm

            The rehabilitation of the Saudi national, al Jolani, as a Syrian freedom fighter is indeed mindboggling.

            Meanwhile, freedom fighters that have the weight of international law behind them (Hamas) and those that carry out actions to prevent or make more difficult the prosecution of a genocide (Ansarallah, Hezbollah), in line with the requirements of international law, are called terrorists.

    • Karolyn_IS 2.3
      26 January 2025 at 9:16 am

      "Government efficiency" sounds like Seymour as Minister for Regulation.

      And yesterday, Peter Dutton, Aussie opposition leader, announced his

      "shadow minister for government efficiency — a move appearing to come directly from Donald Trump's playbook"

      All this hyper-capitalist, anti-democratic, pro-plutocrat right seem to be in lock-step.

    • joe90 2.4
      26 January 2025 at 2:11 pm

      Like minds….

      Who could take this young woman's advice to just do it.

      @out5p0ken.bsky.social‬

      Do it.

      https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:eezrj7dplg2goacopghccdgq/post/3lgitmiezwc2o?

  3. Dennis Frank 3
    26 January 2025 at 9:27 am

    Trump reprimanded top capitalist for doing wokeism: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/25/business/trump-corporate-executives-davos/index.html

    it wasn’t Trump’s vision for lower corporate taxes or tariffs that dominated Thursday’s happy hour, according to the New York Times’ Lauren Hirsch.

    Instead, the chatter centered on Brian Moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America, who thought he was teeing up a softball for the president but soon found himself in Trump’s crosshairs. What happened next was a public berating of one of the most powerful financiers in the world — a warning shot to the private sector, direct from Trump’s mouth: The administration won’t stand for “woke” ideology in the ranks of the federal government, and companies had better get on board, too.

    "I hope you start opening your bank to conservatives, because many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank,” Trump said. “You and Jamie and everybody… What you’re doing is wrong.” Jaws hit the floor, the Times reported.

    What Trump was referring to is an allegation that major lenders, including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase (run by Jamie Dimon), have been “debanking” conservative and religious groups over their politics.

    Top capitalists being naughty is business as usual, but

    It’s a stunning shift for a Republican Party that, up until recently, embraced a laissez-faire approach to business… The “debanking” claim echoes a broader sense among some on the right who believe they are victims of a left-wing agenda that has taken root in Corporate America.

    So the commies got in thro the back door, took over the board-room & are operating their elite control system to sideline conservatives. You can see why T is irritated.

  4. Dennis Frank 4
    26 January 2025 at 10:02 am

    Public opinion in Britain is giving their Labour govt a clear steer:

    The MRP survey of almost 15,000 people by YouGov for the Best for Britain thinktank shows more people in every constituency in England, Scotland and Wales back closer arrangements with the EU rather than more transatlantic trade with Washington. MRP polls use large data samples to estimate opinion at a local level. Even in Nigel Farage’s seat of Clacton, more people think the UK is better off trading more with its neighbours on the continent than with the US under the Reform UK leader’s ally Donald Trump. The poll found that 46% of respondents said the EU should be the government’s top priority when it comes to trade, whereas less than half this number (21%) opted for the US. The poll for Best for Britain found the desire for closer EU-UK ties was even stronger among voters who switched from Conservative to Labour at the last election (57%).

    Of those who voted Labour at the last election, two-thirds (66%) thought the government should prioritise trade with the EU, compared with only 9% for Trump’s US. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/25/move-closer-to-europe-not-trump-voters-tell-starmer-in-major-uk-poll

    Action man to implement the implied strategy is Starmer's trade minister, a lawyer like him but a Scot from Glasgow who

    joined the Labour Party as a schoolboy in 1982. Alexander has been a vocal critic of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party and is a supporting member of one of the oldest socialist societies affiliated to the Party: the Jewish Labour Movement. He is a Council Member of the European Council on Foreign Relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Alexander

  5. Anne 5
    26 January 2025 at 10:36 am

    A British professor came up with this analysis of Trump "Is he mad or bad?"

    Simple in its delivery, compelling and ultimately "terrifying".

    And only 9 minutes long.

    • Dennis Frank 5.1
      26 January 2025 at 11:22 am

      To see an authoritative accountant defining reality, mad & bad, is rather entertaining. I did like him saying that most Labour MPs will vote that black is white. That makes him seem realistic. That was 6 mins in, then he made the point that T's plethora of executive orders recently signed off in the media spotlight may not get enacted easily due to the potential for 2/3 congress defectors removing Republican majority control.

      That's a crucial point. But he's one of those people who conflate bad & evil, which makes him seem too simple-minded to take seriously…

      • Anne 5.1.1
        26 January 2025 at 11:42 am

        He's talking to normal everyday people… not self-styled wannabe academics who like to use lengthy, contorted prose to describe anything as simple as turning on a tap.

        He is a professor. Are you?

        And btw, he used "Labour" as an argument because they are in government – not because they are any more prone to arguing "black is white" than the other lot. I think that is obvious. 🙄

  6. weka 6
    26 January 2025 at 10:43 am

    can anyone make sense of this? Is the outgoing CIA director saying we don't know where covid came from? And the incoming one is saying it was China?

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/539965/cia-now-says-covid-19-more-likely-to-have-come-from-lab

    • Dennis Frank 6.1
      26 January 2025 at 11:35 am

      Yes & yes, with a but wait and see…

      In an interview with Breitbart following his confirmation by the US Senate on Friday, CIA director John Ratcliffe said one of his first priorities was getting his agency to make a public assessment on the pandemic's origins.

      "That's a day-one thing for me," he said. "I've been on record as saying I think our intelligence, our science, and our common sense all really dictate that the origins of Covid was a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

      Yet he seems willing to consider the possibility that his staffers will form a consensual view opposing his personal belief. Forming opinions based on circumstantial evidence is part of the basis of law court operation, but opinions always differ on truth. Science seems to have pointed to the meat market as likeliest origin. How a virus gets from the Wuhan Institute to the meat market is the missing link in the conspiracist theory: an enterprising employee telling criminal associates about the labs organic disposal system is a likely hack. Chinese govt investigators may have found who done it already.

    • Karolyn_IS 6.2
      26 January 2025 at 11:39 am

      Yeah. Sounds like there's some political fiddling going on.

      From LA Times:

      "The CIA now believes the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic most likely originated from a laboratory, according to an assessment released Saturday that points the finger at China — even while acknowledging that the spy agency has “low confidence” in its own conclusion"

      "suggesting the evidence is deficient, inconclusive or contradictory."

      "intelligence officials say it may never be resolved, due to a lack of cooperation from Chinese authorities."

      "scientists think the most likely hypothesis is that it circulated in bats, like many coronaviruses, before infecting another species, probably racoon dogs, civet cats or bamboo rats. In turn, the infection spread to humans handling or butchering those animals at a market in Wuhan, where the first human cases appeared in late November 2019."

    • Incognito 6.3
      26 January 2025 at 11:49 am

      The pile of dead cats on the table is taking twin-towers shape and proportions. Trump is also going to release the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassination files.

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/539865/trump-orders-release-of-last-jfk-rfk-king-assassination-files

      The media will rejoice and the people will be infotained ad infinitum while the oligarchs will collect clicks and dollars.

      • Shanreagh 6.3.1
        26 January 2025 at 3:27 pm

        But Incognito you've left off the important, to the current weirdo in the White House, ability to spawn alternative facts. Armed with 'alternative facts' I forsee we will see a brand new and more palatable modern history where even bleach is found to rid the body of Covid, not to mention the body also.

        And more seriously he is intent on bullying the Danes over Greenland that has been a Danish territory since 1814?

        https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360559876/denmark-crisis-mode-after-horrendous-phone-call-trump-demanding-buy-greenland

        I think all of us in NZ with Danish ancestry should rise up and free Hawaii for the Spaniards. I am sure that there will be some newly released papers somewhere that will show that the annexation of Hawaii by the US following the US/Spanish war was unjust.

        It certainly shows that annexation of territory for military and economic reasons is a part of the US playbook, something I've long thought odd bearing in mind the railing and wailing of the US over itself being colonised.

        After signing the order Trump asked that the sharpie he used to sign the order be given to RFK Jnr.

        • francesca 6.3.1.1
          26 January 2025 at 3:43 pm

          The Spanish never owned Hawaii

          And the overthrow of the Hawaiian royal family by plantation owners aided by the Americans certainly was unjust .

        • SPC 6.3.1.2
          26 January 2025 at 10:48 pm

          McKinley, imperialism and tariffs. The restoration of power and privilege, an agenda of Manifest Destiny (Polk vs Mexico) and the carpetbaggers.

          GOP oligarchy central (see Joseph Wharton).

          A reaction to the greater freedom

          The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the first antitrust law in the United States. It was passed by Congress to protect competition and prohibit monopolies. The law is named after Senator John Sherman, who was its primary author

          https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/sherman-anti-trust-act

          As a member of the Republican Party, he led a realignment that made Republicans largely dominant in the industrial states and nationwide for decades.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McKinley

      • Obtrectator 6.3.2
        26 January 2025 at 6:11 pm

        “Trump is also going to release the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassination files.”

        How certain can we be that the stuff he releases will be the actual files?

        • Incognito 6.3.2.1
          26 January 2025 at 6:35 pm

          It doesn’t matter, whatever he releases will do the trick. That’s my point.

          • Shanreagh 6.3.2.1.1
            26 January 2025 at 11:37 pm

            And here is an excellent article on why he bewilders many of us, just as many of us are bewildered by the US citizens who voted for such a crass person.

            https://londondaily.com/british-writer-pens-the-best-description-of-trump-i-ve-read.

            • SPC 6.3.2.1.1.1
              27 January 2025 at 12:09 am

              Nate White must have read a few of those speeches in the Roman Senate.

              Fasces are a bundle of wooden rods and an axe that were used as a symbol of authority and power in ancient Rome. The word "fasces" comes from the Latin word fascis, which means "bundle"

              Trump is popular with the real American of the GOP because he appeals to their bundle of prejudices.

              A "bundle of prejudices" refers to a collection of negative, preconceived opinions or beliefs about different groups of people, often based on stereotypes and lacking substantial evidence, essentially meaning someone who holds a large number of biased attitudes towards others across various categories.

              It was part of HUAC, it was part of Moral Majority, Christian Coalition and Dominionism ambition for a turning point in the USA – where they come into power and make their judgement of others.

              Can anything good come out of the Galilee Street? They have no learning, but want to be a mob in judgment of others.

            • Tom Hunter 6.3.2.1.1.2
              27 January 2025 at 8:14 am

              Very 2017, and a complete failure in persuasion except with the commentators who already agreed with all those points.

              The writer doesn't seem to recognise this and has failed to learn from it, which is actually a hallmark of true stupidity. Moreover his analysis leads him to the stale conclusion that tens of millions of Americans are stupid, awful people because they voted for a stupid, awful [insert abusive words of choice] Trump.

              Instead, how about this analysis from commentator Stephen Smith on Bill Maher's show just the other day. He voted for Harris but is under no illusions about her failure or that of the Democrat Party. You can watch all 11 minutes but I've teed up a different link to this comment from the same show:

              Here’s the deal: the man was impeached twice, he was convicted on 34 felony counts, and the American people still said, ‘He’s closer to normal than what we see on the left.'

              • SPC …
                27 January 2025 at 8:20 am

                Moreover his analysis leads him to the stale conclusion that tens of millions of Americans are stupid, awful people

                No he said they had done something dumb.

                He wrote this

                Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

                Care to explain the voting in 1930's Germany, if you think this validates the person who receives votes.

  7. francesca 7
    26 January 2025 at 10:54 am

    Who can make sense of anything coming out of the US right now?

    It's all political bluster rather than any sense

    Denmark is a founding member of NATO.

    What happens if Trump follows through and attempts to take Greenland by military force?

    Article 5 invoked ?

    • tc 7.1
      26 January 2025 at 11:58 am

      Same as what's happening now with his exec orders and appointments IMO as plenty are meeting resistance with Republicans not all toeing the line.

      He had issues with the joints chiefs last time IIRC so maybe watch that space.

  8. PsyclingLeft.Always 8
    26 January 2025 at 4:56 pm

    Climate Change? IMO evident.

    Live: Trees down, roofs lifted, power out after tornado wallops Mangawhai

    FENZ Northland manager Wipari Henwood said the initial estimate is 50 homes damaged, but he expects that number will go up due to homes and businesses in the wider area damaged by falling trees.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/539954/live-trees-down-roofs-lifted-power-out-after-tornado-wallops-mangawhai

    Last year… 4 Tornadoes. More to come ?

    Four tornadoes in three days – what's going on?

    As for why there are so many tornadoes right now? Record high sea temperatures, causing evaporation.

    Dr Kevin Trenberth said March is tornado season because it's when sea temperatures are already usually at their highest and La Niña weather patterns and global warming had sent them soaring higher.

    The extra moisture and heat means more energy is available to fuel storms.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/487736/four-tornadoes-in-three-days-what-s-going-on

    Sea Temps rising….Of course all these things are cumulative, look out, batten the hatches !

    Oceanic and coastal water temperatures highest since records began

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/521714/oceanic-and-coastal-water-temperatures-highest-since-records-began

    • tc 8.1
      26 January 2025 at 5:19 pm

      Winds in the one that just went through Ireland set new records. It closed scotlands rail system for a day with a red 'loss of life' warning declared.

      Hey it's just weather.

  9. Jenny 9
    26 January 2025 at 4:59 pm

    Where are our journalists? IDF snipers fire on Palestinian civilians in a breach of the ceasefire agreement, and not a word about it in our mainstream media.
    What are they waiting for? Are they waiting for Hamas to retaliate, so that they can blame the Palestinians for the collapse of the ceasefire?
    Netanyahu is itching to continue the war, and says he has the full backing of Trump administration, and the support of the outgoing Biden administration, to go "stronger".

  10. joe90 10
    26 January 2025 at 8:33 pm

    Apparently a long standing civil rights-era executive order that banned workplace discrimination against federal government workers was never codified.

    US Department of Labor to cease and desist all investigative and enforcement activity under rescinded Executive Order 11246

    WASHINGTON – Acting Secretary of Labor Vince Micone today transmitted Secretary’s Order 03-2025 to all department employees, directing them to cease and desist all investigative and enforcement activity under the rescinded Executive Order 11246 and the regulations promulgated under it.

    The order applies to all department employees, including the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, the Office of Administrative Law Judges and the Administrative Review Board.

    The department no longer has any authority under the rescinded Executive Order 11246 or its regulations.

    https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/osec/osec20250124

    https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ofccp/executive-order-11246/as-amended

  11. joe90 11
    26 January 2025 at 8:53 pm

    I guess this is part of the plan to 'just clean out' the whole thing.

    /

    President Donald Trump’s administration ordered the Pentagon to release a hold on supplying 2,000-pound bombs to Israel imposed by his predecessor Joe Biden, a White House official said.

    Under Biden, the US paused delivery of about 3,500 bombs to Israel — including the 2,000-pound explosives — in May in a bid to limit civilian casualties in the densely packed city of Rafah during Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-25/trump-frees-up-2-000-pound-bombs-for-israel-after-biden-s-halt?

    https://archive.li/YBebv

  12. joe90 12
    26 January 2025 at 9:03 pm

    ICYMI – Trump has halted funding for the president’s emergency plan for AIDS relief set up by George W Bush.

    This includes the HIV treatment provided to 20 million people through PEPFAR, people who will die without treatment. And of course millions more will be infected.

    .

    On Day 1 of taking office as US President, Donald Trump signed an executive order that banned any new government spending on foreign aid projects. This was followed by an unexpected “stop-work order” issued on 24 January, which means that funding to PEPFAR, even for existing grants and contracts, is frozen.

    […]

    PEPFAR is the largest commitment by any country, ever, to address a single disease. Since it established PEPFAR in 2003, the US government has invested over USD 110 billion in the global HIV response. It has saved 26 million lives and prevented millions of HIV acquisitions in more than 50 countries

    https://www.iasociety.org/ias-statement/pepfar-freeze-threatens-millions-lives

  14. SPC 14
    26 January 2025 at 10:25 pm

    She said the current Crown Research Institute chairpeople had already been looking at staffing and downsizing …

    They were required to lay off so many staff they were no able to function.

    .. and were all supportive of the move.

    "They've been knowing that they are going to have to right-size and they knew that there was change coming, so much so that every one of the Crown Research Institute chairs is supportive of what we're doing.

    "They're excited about this."

    Will they lose their "golden handshake" if they say otherwise?

    This is not an improvement but a downsizing to a barely functioning state – less research. And limited capacity for concentration of specialists in any field.

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/01/23/govt-reveals-biggest-reset-of-nzs-science-system-in-3-decades-collins/

  15. SPC 15
    26 January 2025 at 11:27 pm

    In the USA people voted Trump to end the "war" in Gaza.

    Now trump is determined on Israeli victory on their terms. And calling it peace.

    Trump is aligning with those who want room for onshore gas facilities, a return to Jewish settlement and IDF presence in Gaza (the WB permanent occupation model).

    US President Donald Trump said he’d like to see Jordan, Egypt and other Arab nations increase the number of Palestinian refugees they are accepting from the Gaza Strip – potentially moving out enough of the population to “just clean out” the war-torn area to create a virtual clean slate.

    Trump has offered non-traditional views on the future of Gaza in the past. He suggested after he was inaugurated on Monday that Gaza has “really got to be rebuilt in a different way."

    The new president added then, “Gaza is interesting. It’s a phenomenal location, on the sea. The best weather, you know, everything is good. It’s like, some beautiful things could be done with it, but it’s very interesting.”

    The transaction being promoted moving the Palestinian people out, (ethnic cleansing).

    Praise for Jordan having WB refugees (some became citizens, some not).

    On his larger vision for Gaza, Trump said he had call earlier in the day with King Abdullah II of Jordan and would speak on Sunday with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt.

    “I’d like Egypt to take people,” Trump said. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say, ‘You know, it’s over.’”

    Trump said he complimented Jordan for having successfully accepted Palestinian refugees and that he told the king, “I’d love for you to take on more, cause I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess.”

    There is no reason to build elsewhere.

    He said of such a mass movement of Palestinians, “it could be temporary or long term,”

    “Something has to happen," Trump said. “But it’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything’s demolished, and people are dying there.” He added: “So, I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations, and build housing in a different location, where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”

    Peace via people removal – ethnic cleansing. One can guess that under Trump, the USA will formally end recognition of and participation in a Palestinian state peace plan process. And seek to bring along others to this course.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360560028/trump-wants-jordan-and-egypt-accept-more-refugees-and-floats-plan-just-clean-out-gaza

    • Res Publica 15.1
      27 January 2025 at 9:02 am

      I guess that's a way of ending the conflict in the Middle East.

      I suspect the pro-Palestinian crowd that refused to vote for Biden, as well as pro-Trump tankies everywhere must be kicking themselves now.

      Then again, they've got what they deserved. It's not like they weren't aware of their great and glorious orange saviour's plans.