875 people confirmed dead trying to source food

 

Nearly 900 desperate and hungry Gazans have been killed in recent weeks trying to fetch food, with most deaths linked to private aid hubs run by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on July 15.

“As of July 13, we have recorded 875 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food; 674 of them were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites,” said Thameen Al-Kheetan, OHCHR spokesperson, referencing the U.S.-Israeli-run private organization, which has bypassed regular humanitarian operations.

The remaining 201 victims were killed while seeking food “on the routes of aid convoys or near aid convoys” run by the UN or UN-partners still operating in the war-shattered enclave, Mr. Al-Kheetan told journalists in Geneva.

Killings linked to the controversial U.S. and Israeli-backed aid hubs began shortly after they started operating in southern Gaza on May 27, bypassing the UN and other established NGOs.

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The latest deadly incident happened at around 9:00 a.m. on July 14, when reports indicated that the Israeli military shelled and fired towards Palestinians seeking food at the GHF site in the As-Shakoush area, northwestern Rafah.

According to OHCHR, two Palestinians were killed and at least nine others were injured. Some of the casualties were transported to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hospital in Rafah.

On July 12 medics there received more than 130 patients, the “overwhelming majority” suffering from gunshot wounds and “all responsive individuals” reporting they were attempting to access food distribution sites.

Deadly hunger

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, expressed deep concerns about the continuing killing of civilians trying to access food, while deadly malnutrition spreads among children.

“Our teams on the ground—UNRWA teams and other United Nations teams—have spoken to survivors of these killings, these starving children included, who were shot at while on their way to pick up very little food,” said Juliette Touma, UNRWA Director of Communications.

Speaking via video from Amman, Ms. Touma insisted that the near-total Israeli blockade of Gaza has led to babies dying of the effects of severe acute malnutrition.

“We’ve been banned from bringing in any humanitarian assistance into Gaza for more than four months now,” she said, before pointing to a “significant increase” in child malnutrition since the Israeli blockade began on March 2.

Ms. Touma added: “We have 6,000 trucks waiting in places like Egypt, like Jordan; it’s from Jordan to the Gaza Strip it’s a 3-hour drive, right?”

In addition to food supplies, these UN trucks contain other vital if basic supplies including bars of soap. “Medicine and food are going to soon expire if we’re not able to get those supplies to people in Gaza who need it most, among them one million children who are half of the population of the Gaza Strip,” Ms. Touma continued.

West Bank: ‘Silent war is surging’

Meanwhile in the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem, Palestinians continue to be killed in violence allegedly linked to Israeli settlers and security forces, UN agencies said.

According to OHCHR, 2-year-old Laila Khatib was shot in the head by Israeli security forces on January 25 while she was inside her house in Ash-Shuhada village, in Jenin.

On July 3, 61-year-old Walid Badir was shot and killed by Israeli security forces, reportedly while he was cycling back home from prayers, passing through the outskirts of the Nur Shams camp, the UN rights office continued, pointing to intensifying “killings, attacks and harassment” of Palestinians in past weeks.

“This includes the demolition of hundreds of homes and forced mass displacement of Palestinians,” OHCHR’s Mr. Al-Kheetan noted, with some 30,000 Palestinians forcibly displaced since the launch of Israel’s operation “Iron Wall” in the north of the occupied West Bank earlier this year.

“We should recall that international law is very clear about this in terms of the obligations of the occupying power,” he said. “Bringing about a permanent demographic change inside the occupied territory may amount to a war crime and is tantamount to ethnic cleansing.”

“We continue to have a silent war that is surging, where heavy restrictions on movement continue, where poverty is increasing as people are cut off from their livelihoods and unemployment soars,” said UNRWA’s Ms. Touma.

With its current focus on the northern occupied West Bank, the Israeli military operation has impacted the refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams.

Peace for profit and minerals

 

President Donald Trump holds up a signed document to present to Congo’s Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, right, as Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe, from left, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio watch June 27, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington. Photo: AP Photo/Ali 

Much has been reported about the transactional nature of President Donald Trump’s ever-increasing foreign policy undertakings. In the aftermath of the illegal bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites, the president signed a U.S.-backed peace deal and mineral agreement with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda on June 27.

“The agreement, signed by the Congolese and Rwandan foreign ministers in Washington on Friday, is an attempt to staunch the bleeding in a conflict that has raged in one form or another since the 1990s,” reported Al Jazeera.

“At the signing, Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe called it a ‘turning point,’ while his Congolese counterpart, Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, said the moment had ‘been long in coming,’” the outlet continued. “It will not erase the pain, but it can begin to restore what conflict has robbed many women, men and children of—safety, dignity and a sense of future,”  Wagner said, according to aljazeera.com. 

Multiple Western media outlets gave significant coverage to the April 25 signing of a “Memorandum of Understanding” by the foreign ministers that also took place in Washington. “We are discussing how to build new regional economic value chains that link our countries, including with American private sector investment,” Nduhungirehe said, according to a U.S. Department of State transcript from the April 25 meeting.

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However, the U.S. motive for intervening in the process is being scrutinized. 

“Framed as a step toward regional stability, the accord also marked a deeper shift in U.S. foreign policy. For decades, Washington’s diplomacy followed the oil. Today, it follows cobalt and copper. The initiative by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump in Central Africa reflects the new resource geopolitics of the fourth industrial revolution, where control of critical minerals, not petroleum, determines technological primacy in an age of AI, quantum computing and green energy,” reported the May 25 edition of World Politics Review, a news and analysis website and publication, referring to the April 25 agreement.  

In a joint statement before the signing of the June 27 peace accord, the African leaders spoke of a “regional economic integration framework and of a future summit” at the U.S. capital that would bring together President Trump, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, and DRC President Félix Tshisekedi.

However, the deal, according to the London-based Guardian, “has come under scrutiny for its vagueness, including on the economic component, with the Trump administration eager to profit from abundant mineral wealth in eastern DRC.” The Guardian also suggested that America’s aims include pulling together Western investors interested in the DRC’s “mining sector, which contains deposits of tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper and lithium, while giving the U.S. access to critical minerals.”

After the deal was signed, President Trump told reporters that “the U.S. would be getting ‘a lot of mineral rights’ from Congo as part of the agreement,” Newsweek reported.

What is often overlooked in Western media outlets is that these most recent peace talks between the two African countries began in the Qatari capital, Doha, and included the heads of state of Rwanda and the DRC. The African Union (AU) welcomed these talks. In a statement in March, AU Chairperson Mahamoud Ali Youssouf “commended the two countries for ‘their commitment to dialogue’ and urged all parties to ‘maintain the momentum,’” noted Al Jazeera.

Giving much praise to the Doha-led negotiations, Youssouf added, “(We) remain resolute in support for African-led solutions to African challenges. … The Doha discussions, held in a spirit of constructive engagement, align with these efforts and complement ongoing regional mechanisms.”

According to the business blog Macau Business on macaubusiness.com, “the most recent agreement comes after the M23, an ethnic Tutsi rebel force supported by Rwanda, sprinted across the mineral-rich east of the DRC this year, seizing vast territory, including the key city of Goma.”

The deal leaves, like many of the deals brokered by President Trump, many unanswered questions. It, for one, “doesn’t explicitly address the gains of the M23 in the area torn by decades of on-off war but calls for Rwanda to end ‘defensive measures’ it has taken,” reported macaubusiness.com. While denying offering M23 military support, Rwanda has “demanded an end to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR),” the website reported. It also reported that the FDLR was “created by ethnic Hutus involved in the massacres of Tutsis in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.” Then, U.S. President Bill Clinton ignored the genocide.

Dr. Denis Mukwege, who shares the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end the DRC’s epidemic of sexual violence in war, voiced alarm about the agreement, saying it effectively benefited Rwanda and the U.S., reported the digital news platform, pressreader.com.

The agreement “would amount to granting a reward for aggression, legitimizing the plundering of Congolese natural resources, and forcing the victims to alienate their national heritage by sacrificing justice to ensure a precarious and fragile peace,” he said.

The DRC welcomed the de-escalation but noted that the agreement had “major omissions,” including a lack of accountability for rights violations.

According to reporting by Al-Jazeera, experts say U.S. companies hope to gain access to minerals like tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper and lithium that they desperately need to meet the demand for technology and beat China in the race for Africa’s natural resources.

“But this has raised fears among critics that the U.S.’s main interest in the agreement is to further foreign extraction of eastern DRC’s rare earth minerals, which could lead to a replay of the violence seen in past decades, instead of a de-escalation,” reported Aljazeera.com.

BRICS countries foster cooperation

 

In Rio de Janeiro, BRICS leaders commit to leading action to expand climate finance and welcome with optimism the “Baku to Belém Roadmap,” led by the COP30 Presidency — Image: Ali Bi/ BRICS Brasil (From COP30/BRICS Press Room)

As the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—met at a summit in Rio de Janeiro, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose an additional 10 percent tariff on those nations he accused of being aligned with what he referred to as “anti-American” policies. BRICS has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates.

In response to President Trump’s tariff threat, the Chinese foreign ministry responded, “BRICS is an important platform for cooperation among emerging markets and developing countries. It advocates openness, inclusiveness and win-win cooperation. It is not a bloc for confrontation. Nor does it target any country.”

“On the U.S. tariff hikes, China has made its position clear more than once. Trade war and tariff war have no winners, and protectionism leads nowhere,” Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said on July 7, reported the ministry’s English translation website, mfa.gove.cn. 

“BRICS is a positive force in the world. It advocates openness, inclusiveness and win-win cooperation. It does not target any country. We oppose trade wars and tariff wars. Tariff(s) should not be used as a tool for coercion and pressuring. Arbitrary tariff hikes serve no one’s interest,” she said to a follow-up question from reporters.

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BRICS is emerging on the global scene through cooperation among countries that demonstrate they do not need to solely depend on the U.S. for trade deals.

Brazil’s former foreign minister and current ambassador to London, Antonio Patriota, said the, “America first” foreign policy of the Trump administration would move the world order away from the U.S. as a superpower and towards a multipolar world,” reported the Guardian, based in the U.K. 

“The U.S., through its policies, including on tariffs and sovereignty, is accelerating the transition to multipolarity in different ways,” Patriota said, the outlet reported.

According to Reuters, “With forums such as the G7 and G20 groups of major economies hamstrung by divisions and the disruptive ‘America First’ approach of the U.S. president, the BRICS is presenting itself as a haven for multilateral diplomacy amid violent conflicts and trade wars.” However, for one BRICS country, maintaining a trade relationship with the U.S. remains important.

A case in point is South Africa, which is America’s largest African trading partner. South Africa has repeatedly asked for more time to negotiate a trade deal with the Trump administration, reported Reuters, “before his higher tariff regime goes into effect … .”

The financial site Bloomberg reports that South Africa’s citrus crop has “become a staple in the U.S.—the world’s largest citrus importer—especially during the off-season summer months when in the southern hemisphere the South African winter harvest is at its peak.” 

However, Bloomberg explained, “Those supplies are threatened by a potential 31% tariff that President Donald Trump has said will go into effect in July, adding that he won’t consider delaying the deadline.”

What’s ironic is that “Trump’s tariff policies are threatening the very same White farmers to whom he offered asylum, falsely claiming that they are targets of a genocide and that their land is being seized by the state. 

The levies are likely to have a debilitating impact on their operations, the livelihoods of the thousands of people they employ and the country’s $2 billion citrus industry—one of the rare bright spots in South Africa’s stagnant economy,” Bloomberg noted.

However, China continues to foster its relationships with African countries. Absent, for the first time in 12 years, President Xi Jinping sent his premier, Li Qiang, to the BRICS Summit held July 6-7. 

China is Africa’s largest trading partner. At a China-Africa co-operation meeting in June, the BBC reported that China “has said it is ready to drop the tariffs it charges on imports from all 53 African countries with which it has diplomatic relations.”

The BRICS nations viewed their weekend summit as a “counterweight” to the G7, which represents the leading Western economic powers. BRICS is now chaired by Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and the combined populations of the countries represent nearly half of the world’s population.

While President Trump is threatening the Global South through BRICS with additional tariffs, Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko has expressed concern about the “erosion of international norms and the growing tendency of some powerful countries to unilaterally impose their own rules,” according to the Global African Times.

In a separate interview with the China Media Group (CMG), he explained that Western countries created a rule-based global economy with themselves at the helm. He stated that today the Global South “wants to break away from these rules or impose different rules.” 

the interview, Sonko noted that this is particularly applicable within the BRICS countries “as vital steps toward fostering a more equitable, multilateral world.”

“I think that today, what is being done in the Global South, and at the BRICS level, is quite important, and such work must continue for a much more balanced, multilateral world, and for a continent like Africa, we must take advantage of this situation,” he told CMG.

Respect YaSelf

 

1. Stop begging others.

2. Stop saying more than necessary.

3. Stop looking for who is not looking for you.

4. Invest in yourself and make yourself happy.

5. Stop entertaining gossip about other people.

6. When people disrespect you, confront them immediately.

7. Don't eat other people's food more than they eat yours.

8. Always look your best; dress the way you should be addressed.

9. Reduce how often you visit some people, especially if they don't reciprocate

10. Think before you talk; 80% of how people value you is what comes out of your mouth.

Malachi 4:4-6

 

The Book of Malachi, meaning, “My Messenger,” which is the last book of your Bible, tells us who we should be looking for: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” I will send you who? Elijah! In what chapter does his name appear? The 4th Chapter, verses 4-6.

Now, here is the meaning: The first “4” represents 4,000 years from Moses. Why Moses? Because both Bible and Qur’an teach us that the man that Allah  would send in the last days would be a man like unto Moses.

How could you have a man like Moses unless you have a people like the Children of Israel, and, a wicked ruler like Pharaoh and his deceitful magicians? The second “4” represents our 400 years of bondage; and, the “6” represents the end of the 6,000-year rule of Caucasian people.

The far planet Platoon, or Pluto, is 4,600,000,000 miles away from the sun; yet, the light of the sun reaches her and has her spinning at the same speed of the other planets (1,037 and 1/3 miles per hour).

What does this mean? It means that when the Light of Allah (God) touches you, you will start turning and you will be going at the same speed of all the people of wisdom on the planet, as long as you stay in the light, acknowledge the light, submit to the light, bow down to the light and the God Who raised you and brought you to the light.

The nations of the Earth are in distress

And when the scripture mentions “men’s hearts failing them for fear”: What is the “No. 1 killer” of people in America? I have read that it is “heart failure.” What are you “afraid” of, America? Look up above your head: Look at the storms! Look at the tornadoes! Look at the hurricanes! Look at the water! Look at the fire! Look at the wind! Look at freezing cold! God is after us. Men’s hearts are failing them with fear for what they see coming upon the Earth.

And if you’ll read, or look at the news, “Are the nations in distress?” My God! There are 17 nations in Europe that were taking austerity measures to address their debt crisis—they are “in distress” because their economies are collapsing. I even read in a news article that France’s Labor Minister, Michel Sapin, was telling the French people that the country is, quote, “totally bankrupt.” 

And there are scholars of economics in America that are warning that America is nearly “completely bankrupt” because the “Gross Domestic Product” (GDP) is under the “debt ceiling,” here you have over $16 trillion in debt that is swamping, drowning the GDP. Those are not “good” signs. Those are the signs of distress and affliction.

The nations of the Earth are in distress—with perplexity, which means “confusion.” Are the heads of our government confused? You mean you can’t sit down in a room and agree on “a way forward” to solve the problems of the American people? Yes. … The confusion that you wanted to produce, and have produced, among us: Now God is taking it off of us, and putting it on you. These are the signs of the end.

Study The Fall of America, Chapter 35, “America Surrounded with The Judgment of Allah” (page 154) and Chapter 36, “Four Great Judgments of America” (page 157).

In Chapter 35, he writes: “The four great judgments that Almighty Allah is bringing upon America are rain, hail, snow and earthquakes. We see them now covering all sides of America, as the Holy Qur’an prophesies, ‘curtailing her on all her sides.’ And these judgments would push the people into the center of the country, and there they would realize that it is God Who is bringing them and their country to a naught.”

What do you mean “pushing the people into the center of the country”? He told me to tell you, and he wrote it himself, that the coastlines—all of them—will be destroyed. And some of your own scientists are talking about “global warming” and the “melting of the glaciers”: This is not an “accident.”

You want to say that it’s what “we are doing to the environment, etc.,” and we have some responsibility, however The God of Heaven is doing this. And as these glaciers melt, the waters of  The Pacific and The Atlantic Oceans are going to rise. And as they rise, they will overspread, and destroy your borders in the East with The Atlantic Coast; in the West with The Pacific Coast, and in The South with The Gulf Coast. 

It’s happening now. But it will get worse as you continue your rebellion against God, and His Call of what you must do in order to escape “loss.”

And in Chapter 36, he writes: “To be plagued with too much rain will destroy property and lives. It swells the rivers and creeks. Too much rain floods cities and towns. … Rain makes the atmosphere too heavy with moisture causing sickness. Wind with rain can bring destruction to towns and cities, bringing various germs, causing sickness to the people.

Ice Cube!

The Legend

 Uncovered

Celebrating Womens Beauty_ Adornments Unveiled!

Adornments

 Celebrating Women

Transform Hell on Earth to Heaven!

 

Transform Hell

Earth to Heaven

Unveiling 2Pac

The Man Behind the Legend

 Tupac

Gathering Hearts_ A Powerful Promise

Powerful

 Promise

Unstoppable Pride_ America Stands Together!

America

 Unstoppable

Understanding the Messenger_ Language Matters!

Understanding

 Knowledge

Unveiling Earths Secrets_ A Dual History

Secrets

 History

Discover the Hidden Powerhouse Nation!

Fourth Most Populous Country

 Home more Muslims than Egypt, Iran, Iraq

Truth of God

Unveiling the Hidden Truth of God

 Unveiling the Hidden 

God's Nature

Understanding

 God's Nature

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.