Confusion reigns

 

“Confusion among the heads of the government of the wicked is destroying the foundation of their world. ‘AS THOU HAST DONE SO SHALL IT BE DONE UNTO THEE.’ This World of the wicked has confused the Black Man’s world for six thousand (6,000) years. Now, their world must be removed to make way for a better world and the All-Wise Omnipotent God Is Able and Capable of Confusing us so that we will do the things that we would not do if we were free to exercise sanity of mind and wisdom.

“IN ALL of America’s confusion, which some may refer to as her dilemma—but her condition is beyond that word—this is a grievous confusion of the head officials.

“THE BASIS of this confusion is due to the injustice that the American White people has done to her Black once-slave. Her confusion is also due to her effort to thwart the Aims and Purposes of Almighty God, to Bring About the resurrection of the blind, deaf and dumb Black Man. Allah (God) Who Came in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, to Whom Praises are due forever, Will Do the reverse and Make you (White America), blind, deaf and dumb in what you are trying to do for your own security.”
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad,  Muhammad Speaks, July 13, 1973

It has been less than a month since Donald J. Trump returned to the White House and he has kept some promises: Freeing 1,500 Jan. 6 insurrectionists who fought police and tried to overthrow the 2020 election.

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Clearing out the leadership of the Justice Department and threatening FBI employees as part of his retribution. Halting spending and shutting down U.S. aid programs as well as offering federal employees a dubious buyout, which thousands have taken.

Moving to close federal agencies, like the Education Department, empowering billionaire Elon Musk to break government and conducting witch hunts to make sure federal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs are dead.

Pushing tariffs against Mexico and Canada that led to “concessions” in a policy that shook Wall Street. Going after immigrants, sometimes detaining U.S. citizens and Native Americans, and at times using military planes to remove people from the United States.

On the global stage, he made a major announcement Feb. 4, while hosting accused war criminal and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House. “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Mr. Trump declared at a news conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu.

“You look over the decades, it’s all death in Gaza,” the president also said. “This has been happening for years. It’s all death. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people, permanently, in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed and not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza.”

Mr. Trump said the U.S. will “own” Gaza, redevelop the area as the “Riviera of the Middle East,” and would use military force to accomplish his goals if necessary. It is estimated that just removing Gaza’s rubble, after decimating Israeli bombings, will take 15 years.

“I do see a long-term ownership position, and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East, and maybe the entire Middle East,” Mr. Trump said from the East Room of the White House. “This was not a decision made lightly.

Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent,” he added.

With his clear words dominating global headlines and news coverage, White House officials and supporters were “Trump-splaining” the next day, backing away from military intervention, America owning Gaza, the permanent removal of 1.8 million people and much of what the president said.

Confusion and anger rose in the Muslim world and among other nations.

There was even confusion inside the president’s party. “I thought we voted for America first,” Republican Senator Rand Paul said on social media. “We have no business contemplating yet another occupation to doom our treasure and spill our soldiers blood,” he posted on X.

The Democrats are confused about how to respond to the president and leader of the free world. They don’t know which way to go, which Trump challenge to address and how to appeal to White voters. They are lost, bereft of  new ideas to solve serious problems the U.S. faces. Apparently not even Democratic strategists have found the magic political key.

Lawsuits were filed and federal courts held up some monarchical Trump dictates. Confusion grew. Were the president’s actions legal, would the Supreme Court get involved? What would that mean?

The American people are confused with politics dividing families, growing extremism and anger, economic uncertainty, personal insecurity and fear for the future.

Is any of this good for the United States? Does it bode well for her survival? Can she stop or check her fall? Can she end the confusion?

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and his teacher, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, warn she cannot as God Himself is bringing her to ruin for her evil done to her once slaves and their children and evil perpetrated on the Indigenous people of this land.

“I APPEAL to you Black Brothers and Sisters, you should unite with me and enjoy heaven while you live, now, or suffer the consequences through the lack of the necessities of life,” wrote the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad in a July 1973 edition of the Muhammad Speaks newspaper, which was published by the Nation of Islam.

“THE WORLD OF CONFUSION is breaking up with all kinds of disagreement between factors and factors. Take for instance—never has America had so many strikes. Everyone is against the other. If this is not a CONFUSED WORLD, then point out to me one that is more confused,” he continued.

“IN the government of America, there is nothing that is at peace in it. There is no agreement. Everybody is dissatisfied. Everybody is showing their dissatisfaction by disregarding the way that they have been going. Worker is against worker. Politician is against politician. —A CONFUSED WORLD, AMERICA.”

Policing

 

Flags flown at half mast at the Chicago Police Headquarters in Bronzeville in honor of the two officers that were shot during a traffic stop in West Englewood, Sunday, Aug. 8, 2021. (Anthony Vazquez/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

In a country where time is often spent majoring in minor things, issues that should be placed on an elevated level are ignored or neglected—and that neglect can have major consequences.

Consider a “pilot program” underway in Chicago that allows police officers in Englewood, a majority Black neighborhood, to arrest and charge people with felony gun possession crimes without the oversight of prosecutors.

Newly elected Cook County Prosecutor Eileen O’Neil Burke introduced the dangerous approach in a neighborhood that has suffered from police abuses and had Black lives destroyed as a result.

Cook County States Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke

She also introduced a program that demands trusting a police department where planting guns, evidence and forcing false confessions remain major problems and concerns.

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Chicago has a well-documented history of police torture and a police department already under a feckless federal consent decree that is supposed to ensure reforms. It hasn’t.

In Chicago, a “study of federal settlements from 2000-2023 shows the city paid out nearly $538 million in settlements and jury awards for wrongful convictions and nearly $138 million more for private outside legal fees,” ABC News 7 reported last year.

The nefarious new program was implemented in Englewood’s 7th Police District in January with no opportunity for public review. But residents and aldermen came out April 5 for a meeting with the district police commander and representatives of Ms. Burke’s office.

“There was no consultation between us, not from the state’s attorney’s office or from the 7th District commander whom we have a generally good relationship with and open communication,” said Dion McGill.

A member of the Chicago Police District Council in Illinois, representing District 7. He took office in May 2023. His current term ends in May 2027.

He is one of three elected councilors chosen as part of an attempt to bring accountability, work with police and get Englewood’s sentiment and feedback on programs and initiatives.

“Englewood has historically been one of the most overpoliced, over-surveilled, under-resourced communities in our city,” said Mr. McGill, in an exclusive interview the day after the community meeting.

“Englewood has consistently been a place where programs are tested and programs are piloted,” he said. “Another alderman actually made a point that the focus of this is guns. And she said, ‘Well, our gun crimes are down.

They’ve been down, and actually our gun crimes are actually lower than some of the other districts. So why didn’t you go there and pilot this program?’ ”

Instead of prosecutors reviewing body cam footage, police reports and approving charges, cops control the entire process with a police lieutenant deciding if charges are valid.

According to media reports, the program is expanding into the 5th Police District, whose residents are a little over 90 percent Black.

“The Cook County Public Defender’s Office opposes the expansion of this initiative. Strategies that focus solely on end users of firearms do little to address the supply or demand of firearms and often carry unintended and harmful consequences,” the office warned.  

“Public safety must be pursued through strategies rooted in fairness, accountability, and due process—not through shortcuts that compromise the integrity of our legal system and increase the likelihood of harm to those we serve.” 

Bolts, a non-profit that initially broke the story, noted, “Felony review is a first line of defense against unconstitutional stops and searches, flimsy evidence, and other deficiencies that could cause a case to be later thrown out.

After police make a felony arrest, they notify the Cook County prosecutor’s felony review division, where an on-call prosecutor examines each case to determine whether the charges are appropriate and whether they have sufficient evidence.

They might review body camera footage or police reports, interview the arresting officers, or even act like another detective on the case, helping police collect evidence and interrogate suspects.”

The state’s attorney’s office has said the change will put officers back on the street more quickly, instead of waiting for approval of charges from prosecutors. This logic, with a billion dollar police department and one of the major prosecutorial operations in the country, goes nowhere and cannot be trusted.

In addition, how can such power be vested in police in a city with a “reputation as the False Confession Capital of the country?” This is how Alexa Van Brunt, of the MacArthur Justice Center, described the Windy City.

If the program isn’t bad enough, Englewood may be the worst choice for a wrong approach.

In 2017, the “Englewood Four,” who were threatened and coerced into giving false confessions in a rape and murder, reached a $31 million settlement paid for by taxpayers. It is one of the largest settlements in Chicago’s history.

The four Englewood residents were wrongly convicted as teenagers. They served between 12 years and 17 years in prison.

Last year, a separate $50 million settlement was reached with four other Black males wrongly convicted as teenagers.

An attorney in that case said, “three of the officers involved in this case—James Cassidy, Kenneth Boudreau, and Frank Valadez—framed four other teenagers (the ‘Englewood Four’), including my client Terrill Swift, just nine months before the teens in this case were arrested. Yet these officers have never been held to account for stealing so many young lives.”

Even with the oversight of prosecutors, we have suffered massive injustice at the hands of police and prosecutors. In the Englewood Four case, a former prosecutor who broke with the office opened the door for their exoneration.

A Black woman, Kim Foxx, walked away from the county prosecutor’s office after being hounded by the mainstream media, the police union and others after being elected to introduce reforms. She may not have been perfect, but she tried to bring some balance to a grossly biased and imbalanced system. She’s gone now.

As Mr. McGill noted, Ms. O’Neil Burke ran on being tough on crime. “But if tough on crime means decimating communities, I’m not with it,” he said. “I think our carceral system is one of the worst messes known to humankind, and I think it needs to be reformed top to bottom.

So, if we can find ways to keep people out of it, reform, rehabilitate, and restore, and get them into the community to be productive citizens, I’m going to be in favor of that 100 percent.”

“We need third-party review of everything because of that lack of trust. Do I trust you, the state’s attorney? Do I trust the officers who’ve been known to do some nefarious things? Do I trust the judges who’ve been known in the past in Illinois to do some nefarious things?” he asked.

As a beginning, Mr. McGill wants a pause placed on the program in Englewood and a lot more discussion.

We cannot afford to be ignorant, apathetic or oblivious to what is happening around us. Our very survival is at stake, and we must take responsibility for ourselves.

That means organizing, working and actively protecting our communities, our children and our interests. We cannot depend on others for what we can and must do for ourselves.

Trump

 

IR map

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE have told U.S. President Donald Trump, during his recent trip to the trio Persian Gulf states, that they oppose any possible U.S. military strike against Iran, American news outlet Axios reports. 

The U.S. and Iran have held five rounds of nuclear talks since April 12 and are expected to meet again for negotiations aimed at reaching a new agreement. The two countries have been at odds over the level of uranium enrichment.

President Trump said May 28 he has personally warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to disrupt the talks.

Citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the ongoing talks, Axios wrote on May 29 that Saudi, Qatari and Emirati leaders all called on President Trump during his visit to West Asia on May 13-16 to pursue a renewed nuclear agreement with Tehran.

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In 2018, President Trump walked out of the landmark agreement between Iran and several other countries that gave it sanctions relief in return for confidence-building restrictions on its nuclear activities.

Despite their past opposition to the nuclear deal, the three Persian Gulf countries now strongly favor diplomacy over conflict, citing fears that a strike would provoke Iranian retaliation, particularly since all the three states host U.S. military bases, Axios said.

President Trump was told directly by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed and Qatari Emir Tamim al-Thani that their respective countries would bear the brunt of any escalation, it said.

The Arab leaders are also worried about Netanyahu acting unilaterally or influencing the American president to abandon talks in favor of military action, it added.

Riyadh, Doha and Abu Dhabi specifically expressed concern over an Israeli strike against Iran, reiterating their support for diplomatic negotiations.

Since 2015, when the nuclear deal was signed by Iran, the U.S., Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany, the position held by the three Persian Gulf states has shifted, as their current focus is now on regional stability and economic development, the report said.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have taken steps to de-escalate tensions with Iran, including high-level diplomatic visits.

A recent trip to Tehran by Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman, who met with Iran’s Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, signaled Riyadh’s opposition to any military strike, underscoring the Persian Gulf’s new preference for dialogue and diplomacy over confrontation.

Saudi Arabia has gradually been normalizing relations with Iran over the last two years.

Samia Suluhu

 

Samia Suluhu Hassan—a woman many knew merely as Magufuli’s unassuming vice president, always standing quietly at his side, taking notes, offering a gentle nod. Now, she had inherited the highest office.

Suluhu has begun, quite unexpectedly, to rule with an iron fist. Not the gentle, consensus-building hand many had assumed would come with a woman in power, but something far firmer—something that rattled the mahogany podiums of Dodoma.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan, once celebrated as the embodiment of a new era for Tanzanian politics, has quietly drifted into authoritarianism. It is as though a switch has been thrown in the soft-spoken corridors of power—one that many Tanzanians and observers alike scarcely saw coming.

A handout photo shows supporters of newly elected President of Tanzania John Pombe Magufuli (unseen) attending his inauguration ceremony at the Uhuru Stadium, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, 05 November 2015. Photo: Albi Arhó

For a generation raised on the notion that female leaders would be more compassionate, more collaborative, Suluhu’s recent turn toward heavy-handed tactics feels like a betrayal of hope itself. When she ascended to the presidency in March 2021, it came with a sense of possibility, hope and even jubilation among many Tanzanians.

She was the first woman ever—and the first Zanzibari—to hold the office, and the assumptions were predictable: surely a woman, many argued, would bring a form of leadership seasoned with empathy.

Throughout the world, from Jacinda Ardern’s deft handling of crisis in New Zealand to Angela Merkel’s quiet, steely resolve in Germany, female heads of state had carved out images of temperate strength—authoritative yet measured, firm yet kind. Suluhu, with her soft voice and disarming smile, seemed cut from that same cloth.

Early on, she spoke of “reconciliation” and “rebuilding,” signalling a departure from her predecessor’s combative, even brash, style. But in the shadow of those initial olive branches lay a political calculus that would soon reveal its sharp talons. Many greeted her ascension as a breath of fresh air. And indeed, at first, she offered glimpses of exactly that: she kissed the boots of civil society groups, reopened shuttered media outlets, and invited opposition leaders to her office—even former rivals such as Tundu Lissu, who, in private, recalled her warmth and jocularity during their meetings.

In those early months, it felt as though Tanzania might pivot toward a more open democracy. Suluhu unveiled what came to be known as the “Four Rs”: Reconciliation, Resilience, Reforms, and Rebuilding. True to the first “R,” she dispensed with the broomed-under-the-carpet brand of politics her predecessor had championed, lifting bans on newspapers and easing social restrictions. “We must listen to each other,” she preached, “even when we disagree.” There were subtle smiles, even subtle jokes—she once quipped in public that she hoped microphones wouldn’t betray her “Swahili proverbs” about unity, as though the old radio mics might blurt out Nogadawa (an often slippery Zanzibari colloquialism).

But the promise of a kinder, gentler era, it turned out, was ephemeral.

To understand how a woman who spoke of unity and a new inclusive politics could morph into an uncompromising leader, one must first see the world she emerged from.

Zanzibar

Zanzibar is a small patch of paradise in the Indian Ocean, where coral reefs kiss sugar-white sand and the spice-scented wind drifts daily from ancient plantations inland. Samia was born into a modest family in the mid-1960s, just a few years after the 1964 revolution that merged Zanzibar with Tanganyika to form the United Republic of Tanzania.

She grew up alongside her siblings in a narrow, ochre-hued alley in Makunduchi, at the southern tip of Unguja Island. The houses, with their corrugated tin roofs, jostled for space between clove trees and the occasional coconut grove. Each dawn, the call to prayer from the minaret of the nearby mosque would mingle with the cries of street vendors hawking roasted yams.

Her parents, like most in Makunduchi, had roots in fishing and small-scale agriculture—her father was said to have once been a sailor who worked the shallow reef waters, delivering charcoal and coconuts to dhows bound for mainland markets.

Her mother, a homemaker with a laugh like the tinkle of glass beads, took in tailoring orders, hemming sarongs and resewing tattered shirts late into the night. From them, Samia absorbed the rhythms of hard work and community reliance. She would accompany her mother to the town’s modest bazaar, where Indian spice merchants and Omani shopkeepers haggled over sacks of turmeric and cinnamon.

Suluhu, even then, displayed a kind of quiet confidence—listening more than speaking, observing more than interjecting.

School was a mix of rigorous Islamic instruction at the madrasah and public schooling funded by the fledgling Tanzanian government. She excelled in economics, which some of her teachers attributed to the sharp business acumen she displayed when, at twelve, she set up a makeshift roadside stall selling slices of mango in peak season.

She’d learned from her mother the art of profit margins—buy cheaply from the farmer, sell just high enough to make a little gain without alienating her friends who scrambled for the fruit. Stories from old neighbours suggest that when she was fourteen, she once negotiated with a trader from Stone Town to exchange a heavy sack of coconuts for a school uniform. Those around her saw in Samia a budding negotiator, one who balanced firmness with a welcoming smile. She was the ocean greeting the beach.

Her tertiary education took her to the mainland—first to the Open University of Tanzania and later abroad to the University of Manchester, where she completed a postgraduate diploma in economics.

That spirit of curiosity and a touch of worldliness must have set her apart when she entered Zanzibar’s House of Representatives in 2000. As Minister of Labour, then in subsequent portfolios, her star continued to rise. She built a reputation for meticulousness: files colour-coded, reports footnoted, budgets cross-checked.

When Magufuli chose her as his running mate in 2015, it was partly to balance the ticket—Zanzibari inclusion, gender diversity, and some measure of technocratic credibility. Together, they stormed to victory, buoyed by Magufuli’s promise to eradicate corruption and inject “Hapa Kazi tu!”

Work, nothing else!

Suluhu became the first female Vice President of Tanzania, and with that title came the expectation that she would temper her boss’s rough edges. Indeed, during state events, she often stood quietly behind him, making notes, nodding, but rarely interjecting—like a chess grandmaster calculating moves from behind the board.

File photo: Tanzanian President John Magufuli joins a clean-up event outside the State House in Dar es Salaam on December 9, 2015. Photo: Arhó Albi

Yet, in March 2021, the unexpected happened: President Magufuli died, and Samia was suddenly vaulted into the presidency. The nation held its breath. Would she continue Magufuli’s legacy of muscular state control, or would she carve out a new path of openness?

Initially, she did the latter. She reopened independent newspapers, invited foreign epidemiologists back to Dar es Salaam, and re-joined the COVAX program to procure vaccines. Instead of dismissing COVID-19 as a “Western plot,” she rolled up her sleeve and got vaccinated publicly, even encouraging Tanzanians to do the same.

Suluhu was a marionette dancing free of its strings for the first time, delightfully.

And yet, Suluhu’s political instincts were forged in the crucible of CCM, a party that has prided itself on unity and unwavering dominance since Tanganyika’s independence in 1961. Beneath the outward humility, Suluhu was no pushover. She moved quickly to consolidate her base, building alliances with key regional and party elites.

Those who murmured criticisms of her initial media détente soon found themselves reassigned, if not altogether sidelined. By the end of 2022, whispers within the CCM suggested that Samia had grown uncomfortable with the thickening air of liberalization. What began as a genuine musing on inclusivity slowly metastasized into a conviction that dissent was dangerous—too messy, too unpredictable. It was then that the subtle shift became visible. Opposition rallies that had been permitted in early 2023 started triggering police roadblocks. Prominent figures in CHADEMA, the leading opposition party, found themselves hauled before courts on nebulous charges of “inciting public disorder.” 

In villages across the Great Lakes region, youth organizers reported that meetings about land rights or election fairness were abruptly shuttered; activists went underground or to exile. High-profile lawyers who took up election petitions discovered their phones tapped, their offices visited by plainclothes officers. Even journalists who had returned from exile sensed a tightening noose. One veteran editor joked, though with more bitterness than humour, that his blinking “live” sign in the newsroom now felt like a crosshair.

It’s here, in the murky space between Ella Baker’s grassroots organizing and Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa (familyhood) ideal, that Suluhu’s presidency took on a decidedly authoritarian tinge. The country that had once celebrated a woman’s ascendancy to its highest office now watched as that same woman deployed the levers of state to dampen opposition.

It was a dramatic reversal, and yet not entirely unprecedented among female leaders. Though many point to Jacinda Ardern’s empathy or Angela Merkel’s consensus-driven style as templates, history offers examples of women who embraced—and wielded—power in harsh ways. Consider Indira Gandhi, whose 1975–77 Emergency in India saw censorship, imprisonment of political opponents, and a suspension of democracy. Or Spain’s Victoria Eugenie, arguably less directly, but who nonetheless staggered towards the end of monarchy with ruthless political gamesmanship. Even Cleopatra, in her ornate palaces along the Nile, was known to be both beguiling and ruthless, brokering assassinations to secure her throne.

None of this is to suggest that Suluhu intended initially to be a dictator. Rather, power has a way of bending principles to pragmatism. Once the machinery of CCM consolidated behind her, and the cost of dissent rose—imagine that clattering policeman’s baton meeting your abrazo of a gentle explanatory speech—she may have concluded that control was the only reliable currency.

That, of course, has disappointed many who believed women might break the cycle. There is a certain irony: for decades, feminists around the world have championed increased female participation in politics precisely because they assumed women would infuse governance with empathy, compassion and cooperation. But the example of President Suluhu reveals a discomfiting truth: gender alone does not inoculate one from the temptation of absolute power.

For everyday Tanzanians, the transformation in their leader cuts deep. They had hoped that a woman, reared amidst the reverberation of muezzin calls and guided by the gentle hands of “Mama”, her mother, would bring a kinder touch. Instead, some now wonder if she has simply learned, after all these years, that the promise of softness makes for easy opportunity to tighten one’s grip.

What of Suluhu’s own narrative? Some say she was never “soft” at all—only strategic, cultivated to be agreeable so as to survive in the unforgiving game of CCM politics. Others recall how, as Vice President, she quietly manoeuvred behind the scenes, shepherding budgets and personnel shifts without fanfare.

Perhaps that is the paradox of power: a woman who grew up listening to the evening call to prayer, her hands stained with the red dust of tobacco fields, who walked the alleys of Stone Town as a young legislator, was just as susceptible to the intoxicating current of authority as any man, and now has hands stained with the red blood of her compatriots.

In Suluhu’s rise and subsequent consolidation, one sees not only the imprint of her own personality but also the enduring strength of a political structure that prizes unity and control above all. It is a cautionary tale of how, even when a break in the glass ceiling is achieved—shards of hope glinting in the sunlight—the underlying machinery of control can pull a leader back into conformity.

A Good Man

 Lawmakers and green groups on Monday sounded the alarm on the energy and environmental provisions in the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee's section of a Republican-backed tax and spending megabill, which is slated to be marked up in a committee meeting on Tuesday.

Critics are warning the proposal will harm regular Americans by seeking savings through a take back of funds from various programs in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the signature climate legislation signed into law under former U.S. President Joe Biden, and includes "giveaways" for oil and gas companies.

Congressional Republicans are pressing ahead with a spending and tax cuts bill that will primarily benefit the wealthy and would be paid for in part through steep cuts to Medicaid, despite widespread opposition. Those cuts were first fleshed out in a House budget blueprint earlier this year and are part of the budget bill from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the text of which was unveiled on Sunday. But Medicaid cuts are not the only aspect of the bill drawing scrutiny.

"Giving giant tax breaks to billionaires while increasing electric bills for American families is wrong. Republicans are sacrificing America's energy dominance while setting up a 'pay to play' scheme for polluters to bribe the Trump Administration to obtain energy permits," said Energy Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) on Monday. "Dismantling our landmark Inflation Reduction Act will kill jobs, hurt businesses, and drive-up Americans' energy costs."

The legislation includes a provision that would allow energy developers to access an expedited permitting review if they pay $10 million or one percent of the anticipated cost of the construction of the project.

Another provision would have companies applying to export or import natural gas pay a nonrefundable $1 million fee and in return have their project "deemed to be in the public interest."

"The idea that corporate polluters can pay a fee to freely pollute our communities is beyond the pale," said Mahyar Sorour, a director of the Beyond Fossil Fuels Policy at the Sierra Club, on Monday.

"While it slashes much-needed support for clean energy and climate resilience, it would allow fossil fuel companies to pay to get their project approved. That's not just wrong, it's un-American," said Alexandra Adams, chief policy advocacy officer at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

According to E&E News, the legislation aims to rescind "the unobligated balance" of IRA funds for multiple Department of Energy programs, such as money meant for the Tribal Energy Loan Guarantee Program.

"Republicans just proposed cutting thousands of jobs, billions of dollars in clean energy funding, and billions of dollars in healthcare funding from their own districts. Why? Because Big Oil and healthcare CEOs told them to. This is not how a democracy should function. This is oligarchy in action," said Sunrise Movement executive director Aru Shiney-Ajay in a statement on Monday.

"Young people fought tooth and nail for the funding now on the chopping block," added Shiney-Ajay, invoking the organizing and activism that went into pressuring lawmakers to pass the IRA.

Republicans are also planning to rescind the unobligated balances from the Environmental Protection Agency's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, an IRA program that is supposed to support clean energy projects primarily for historically marginalized and low-income communities, per E&E.

What's more, according to E&E, the plan would go after a variety of IRA programs, such as those designed to reduce air pollution at schools and ports and limit emissions from diesel engines. Also it takes aim at the IRA's methane fee, which levies a fee on oil and gas companies who produce too much planet-warming methane.

"House Republicans are bending over backwards to give handouts to big polluters while their constituents pay the price of worse pollution and higher energy bills," said Sorour. "This is a terrible bill for the American people. The House should get their priorities straight and reject this proposal."

Sabbath Queen

 Filmed over 20 years, Sabbath Queen follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie's epic journey as the dynastic heir of thirty-nine generations of Orthodox rabbis who rejects his destiny and becomes a drag-queen rebel, a queer father, and the founder of Lab/Shul: an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation. Sabbath Queen joins director Sandi DuBowski and his rabbi, Amichai, on a lifelong and cinematic quest to creatively and radically reinvent religion, ritual, and love for a challenging, rapidly changing twenty-first century.

White House meeting

 

Al Jazeera reported that it was President Trump’s first time hosting an African head of state since taking office in January. The state visit came on the heels of the U.S. granting refugee status to 59 Afrikaners (White South Africans), who were afforded “Priority 1” refugee status and arrived in America on May 12.

According to the U.S. State Department’s website, “Priority 1” is a designation within the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) that “allows consideration of refugee claims from persons of any nationality, usually with compelling protection needs, for whom resettlement appears to be the appropriate durable solution.”

As President Trump repeated false claims about White farmers being killed in South Africa at the hands of Black people, President Ramaphosa denied that it was occurring. Several news outlets have previously debunked the claims made by President Trump.

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The New York Times took the president to task, writing, “Mr. Trump made debunked claims that White farmers are being killed in genocide.” According to many news outlets, including The Nation, “(They) are not being persecuted,” referring to White South African farmers.  

Days before President Ramaphosa arrived in the U.S., in Bothaville, South Africa, “thousands of farmers gathered for a lively agricultural fair with everything from grains to guns on display, even some conservative White Afrikaner groups debunked the Trump administration’s ‘genocide’ and land seizure claims that led it to cut all financial aid to South Africa,” reported the Associated Press.

Though there are many news articles in Western corporate-run media outlets debunking President Trump’s latest deviations from the truth, these outlets often fail to consider—in the case of White South Africans—the historical, economic, and geographical context that is always relevant to Western countries’ colonial past on the African continent.  

Whites make up 7-8 % of the population in South Africa, but in 2025, they represent more than 62 percent of corporate leadership positions in South Africa. According to the Nation magazine, roughly “two in every three Black South Africans are impoverished, while just one percent of White South Africans are.”

“The White minority still holds a staggering 75 percent of the country’s land, thanks to a 1913 law that drove Black farmers off 93 percent of the country’s lands…,” the magazine noted.

In his 1916 book, “Native Life in South Africa,” author Sol T. Plaatje chronicles events after the implementation of the 1913 Native Land Act in the country.

This act institutionalized the exploitation of South Africa’s native population, similar to the post slavery American system of exploitation called sharecropping. This system grew out of the need for former slave masters to exploit the labor of their recently freed slaves.

According to Plaatie, “There were two reasons for the introduction of the Natives’ Land Act: Black farmers were proving to be too competitively successful as against White farming and there was a demand for a flow of cheap labor to the gold mines.”

In 1912, Plaatie was chosen as the first Secretary-General of the South African Native National Congress, later to be renamed the African National Congress (ANC), the party of Nelson Mandela, the first president of South Africa in the post-apartheid era. 

In South Africa, not only were Black farmers forced off the land of their ancestors, but if they stayed, they were required to labor exclusively for their new White masters.

Before the new law, Blacks paid 50 percent of their harvest for the right to live on the land. Afterward, they could no longer benefit from the cattle they owned since the law said livestock was now under the control of the White landowner.

South Africa, the continent’s most influential and developed nation-state, is America’s largest African trading partner. In addition, in 2024 the country assumed the G20 presidency, with President Ramaphosa scheduled to host a meeting of heads of state, later this year, November 22-25.

Prior to the May 21 meeting between President Ramaphosa and President Trump, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) posed the question, “How difficult will it be (during his U.S. visit) for Ramaphosa to reverse or suspend this downward spiral of (U.S., SA) relations?”

The downward spiral also includes South Africa’s International Court of Justice case, accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians. Ramaphosa is faced with a Trump administration, like the previous Biden administration, with a strong pro-Israel constituency.

The CSIS also noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has argued that “South Africa is intentionally advancing an anti-American, globalist agenda by siding with Russia, China, and Iran.”

This may be another way for the Trump administration to express its chagrin at the growing developments and membership and influence of BRICS, chaired by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

The true substance of the Trump-Ramaphosa meeting and how it unfolds, in a growing, unstable global climate, is anyone’s guess. After their White House meeting, President Ramaphosa stated that he was “rather pleased that there was a firm agreement and undertaking that we’re going to continue engaging so that there is no disengagement,” he said in part.

UN maps

 

It has been almost three years since the 24 February 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has killed thousands of civilians and destroyed vital infrastructure, putting the economy under enormous strain.

The UN has recorded more than 28,000 civilian casualties and over 10,000 deaths, but acknowledges that the actual toll is very likely to be higher.

As the frontline shifts and hostilities increase, more than 14 million Ukrainians are estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance. The conflict is responsible for the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War. Over 6.3 million refugees have fled to neighbouring countries and 3.7 million people are internally displaced.

That means nearly one-third of the population has been forced to flee their homes, including more than half of all Ukrainian children. Some 30 per cent of the jobs that existed before the invasion have been erased, and the population has faced tax hikes and funding shortages, not to mention frequent power outages resulting from attacks on energy infrastructure.

© UNOCHA/Viktoriia Andriievska

 

The capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, was heavily targeted in the early days of the war. (file)

UN aid lifeline: Millions supported amidst devastation

Throughout the conflict, the UN has been at the core of relief operations, working closely with Ukrainian authorities, local partner organizations and volunteers to make sure that assistance reaches those who need it, particularly in frontline communities.

In every part of the country, emergency assistance is mobilized in the wake of attacks. UN agencies are helping to demine, remove debris, provide basic services, find shelter for displaced people and provide healthcare, including mental health and psycho-social support. Last year alone, the World Food Programme (WFP) supported 1.6 million Ukrainians each month by providing food and cash assistance, demining agricultural land and supporting feeding programmes in schools and other institutions, whilst the UN humanitarian office reached 2.6 million people with health-related assistance over the course of 2024.

Despite the ongoing bombardments, Ukraine is rebuilding. . Dozens of projects are in the pipeline, focusing on the construction and repair of schools, kindergartens, hospitals, social housing, heating and water systems, and other social infrastructure.

Efforts to rebuild damaged energy infrastructure are not deterred by the continuing attacks. UN agencies and partners are providing over 500 MW of critical power generation and solar capacity, to ensure access to electricity, heating, and water.

There has been a decisive focus on decentralization to ensure that every region, including small towns and villages, is less reliant on electricity supplies from large, centralized power stations, reducing vulnerability to blackouts in the case of an airstrike. 

Whilst the destruction of a large power plant could paralyse a wide area and cut off tens of thousands of people from the grid, a decentralized system with a large number of small, renewable plants is better able to resist an attack: solar panels hit in a bombardment can be replaced within a single day. The UN Development Programme is fostering this new approach, assisting with everything from contract negotiations to training in solar panel installation.

© UNDP Ukraine

 

A debris recycling initiative in Ukraine (file)

‘The future starts as soon as sirens stop’

Despite the large numbers who have left the country, many of those who have stayed are content to remain, according to senior UN officials. For Matthias Schmale, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine, the willingness of the population to endure and even thrive throughout the conflict is a remarkable sign of their resilience.

Speaking to UN News, Mr. Schmale expressed his hope that the UN’s commitment to support Ukrainians for as long as needed would give them hope for a more dignified future. “I see that people start rebuilding as soon as possible, whether it’s businesses, homes or lives. The future starts as soon as sirens stop. People don’t want to leave.”

The strength of the population is also praised by Kenan Madi, Chief of Field Operations at the Ukraine UNICEF (UN children's agency) office. “Despite the challenges, despite everything they are going through, they all want to stay in their area, in their villages. They don't want to leave,” he told UN News in a recent interview. No one is dreaming about leaving. It's the opposite. Everyone is dreaming about staying. It gives me the assurance that hopefully when this war stops, the Ukrainian population is ready to immediately start rebuilding in a better way and build back better”.

The characterization of Ukrainians as a resilient people goes beyond the anecdotal: a large scale UN-backed 2024 study, based on in-depth interviews with over 7,000 respondents in all of the territories under government control, showed that Ukrainians continue to demonstrate a strong sense of national identity and belonging to their homeland. The findings highlight the strength of Ukraine’s national identity as an important unifying force in the face of the ongoing war.

© UNICEF

 

Solid fuel is delivered to families in Derhachi, Kharkiv region, near the front line.

A costly path to recovery

Nevertheless, the challenges facing the country are enormous, and extremely costly. The full cost of reconstruction and recovery is now estimated to be around $468 billion, according to a joint assessment by the Ukrainian government, World Bank, European Commission and the UN.

With winter temperatures dropping well below freezing, the UN’s humanitarian winter response plan aims to address emergency needs, including providing solid fuel, cash assistance, and water system repairs. Some $500 million is required to fully implement these efforts by March 2025.