This content originally appeared on Laura Flanders & Friends and was authored by Laura Flanders & Friends.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Although the statement that “power grows out of the barrel of a gun” was made by Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong, it’s an idea that, in one form or another, has motivated a great many people, from the members of teenage street gangs to the statesmen of major nations.
The rising spiral of world military spending provides a striking example of how highly national governments value armed forces. In 2024, the nations of the world spent a record $2.72 trillion on expanding their vast military strength, an increase of 9.4 percent from the previous year. It was the tenth year of consecutive spending increases and the steepest annual rise in military expenditures since the end of the Cold War.
This enormous investment in military might is hardly a new phenomenon. Over the broad sweep of human history, nations have armed themselves―often at great cost―in preparation for war. And an endless stream of wars has followed, resulting in the deaths of perhaps a billion people, most of them civilians. During the 20th century alone, war’s human death toll numbered 231 million.
Even larger numbers of people have been injured in these wars, including many who have been crippled, blinded, hideously burned, or driven mad. In fact, the number of people who have been wounded in war is at least twice the number killed and has sometimes soared to 13 times that number.
War has produced other calamities, as well. The Russian military invasion of Ukraine, for example, has led to the displacement of a third of that nation’s population. In addition, war has caused immense material damage. Entire cities and, sometimes, nations have been reduced to rubble, while even victorious countries sometimes found themselves bankrupted by war’s immense financial costs. Often, wars have brought long-lasting environmental damage, leading to birth defects and other severe health consequences, as the people of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam, and the Middle East can attest.
Even when national military forces were not engaged in waging foreign wars, they often produced very undesirable results. The annals of history are filled with incidents of military officers who have used their armies to stage coups and establish brutal dictatorships in their own countries. Furthermore, the possession of military might has often emboldened national leaders to intimidate weaker nations or to embark upon imperial conquest. It’s no accident that nations with the most powerful military forces (“the great powers”) are particularly prone to war-making.
Moreover, prioritizing the military has deprived other sectors of society of substantial resources. Money that could have gone into programs for education, healthcare, food stamps, and other social programs has been channeled instead into unprecedented levels of spending to enhance military might.
It’s a sorry record for what passes as world civilization―one that will surely grow far worse, or perhaps terminate human existence, with the onset of a nuclear war.
Of course, advocates of military power argue that, in a dangerous world, there is a necessity for deterring a military attack upon their nations. And that is surely a valid concern.
But does military might really meet the need for national security? In addition to the problems spawned by massive military forces, it’s not clear that these forces are doing a good job of deterring foreign attack. After all, every year government officials say that their countries are facing greater danger than ever before. And they are right about this. The world is becoming a more dangerous place. A major reason is that the military might sought by one nation for its national security is regarded by other nations as endangering their national security. The result is an arms race and, frequently, war.
Fortunately, though, there are alternatives to the endless process of military buildups and wars.
The most promising among them is the establishment of international security. This could be accomplished through the development of international treaties and the strengthening of international institutions.
Treaties, of course, can establish rules for international behavior by nations while, at the same time, resolving key problems among them (for example, the location of national boundaries) and setting policies that are of benefit to all (for example, reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere). Through arms control and disarmament agreements they can also address military dangers. For example, in place of the arms race, they could sponsor a peace race, in which each nation would reduce its military spending by 10 per cent per year. Or nations could sign and ratify (as many have already done) the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which would end the menace of nuclear annihilation.
International institutions can also play a significant role in reducing international conflict and, thus, the resort to military action. The United Nations, established in 1945, is tasked with maintaining international peace and security, while the International Court of Justice was established to settle legal disputes among nations and the International Criminal Court to investigate and, where justified, try individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.
Unfortunately, these international organizations are not fully able to accomplish their important tasks―largely because many nations prefer to rely upon their own military might and because some nations (particularly the United States, Russia, and Israel) are enraged that these organizations have criticized their conduct in world affairs. Even so, international organizations have enormous potential and, if strengthened, could play a vital role in creating a less violent world.
Rather than continuing to pour the wealth of nations into the failing system of national military power, how about bolstering these global instruments for attaining international security and peace?
The post The Limitations of Military Might first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Lawrence S. Wittner.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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The award-winning Palestinian American journalist and author Sarah Aziza has released a new book, The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders, in which she examines her recovery from an eating disorder from which she nearly died in 2019, linking it to the generational trauma experienced as part of her Palestinian family’s history of exile. Aziza was born in the U.S. as a daughter and granddaughter of Gazan refugees. “I began to recover memories of my Palestinian grandmother that led to a curiosity … about my family’s history in Gaza, in Palestine, the greater Nakba,” says Aziza. “And as a daughter of the diaspora, I hadn’t tied my own story so viscerally to the story of my people.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Image by Planet Volumes.
“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.” Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 2
Where are all those righteous-sounding people in the Western nations that for years have denounced in the media, to politicians, to the world that the human rights of the people of Venezuela needed to be defended from a supposed “authoritarian” government, first of Chávez then of Maduro? Where are they now when the powerful government of the United States, led by a bone fide authoritarian, trashes the human rights of Venezuelans?
Recent USA governments encouraged Venezuelans to leave their country and enabled them to enter the USA. The Trump administration, however, has rounded them up like criminals, accused them of being members of a defunct local Venezuelan criminal gang, denied them a legal hearing or access to defense lawyers, and sent them, for a handsome fee, handcuffed to a most brutal prison in another country, El Salvador. Others are helpless in domestic detention centres. They were taken out of their homes, out of schools, out of their places of work, given no notice, nor any option, nor allowed to give any explanation. Tattoos on their person were enough to convict them as terrorists and criminals. In El Salvador they were imprisoned and beate.
“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.” Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article
Let there be no mistake: in September 2023 combined forces of the Venezuelan police and military, arrested, disbanded, and eliminated the local thugs called Tren de Aragua. At the same time, the authorities cleaned out Tocorón Prison, in the state of Aragua and re-took control from the gangs. The leaders were captured and those few that escaped had INTERPOL warrants issued against them.
What created this horrific and unjust imprisonment of Venezuelans in El Salvador? The extreme fascist Venezuelan opposition leaders, who live outside the country by choice, committed what is perhaps the worst unpatriotic and immoral crime against their own people. In 2024 Maria Corina Machado, Luis Borges, Leopoldo Lopez, persuaded Ted Cruz that the Venezuelan government had sent members of the (defunct) Tren de Aragua gang to the USA; and furthermore, that the Venezuelan migrants were instruments of that gang. Hence, Trump announced that same false and dangerous lie to the public.
There has been, to this day, no evidence whatsoever of this supposed conspiracy by the Venezuelan government to send criminals to the USA, nor has the criminality of the migrants who were rounded up been proven in a court of law.
Moreover, “a new U.S. intelligence assessment found no coordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government, contradicting statements by Trump administration officials to justify their invocation of the Alien Enemies Act and deporting Venezuelan migrants” (https://apnews.com/article/trump-deportation-courts-aclu-venezuelan-gang-timeline-43e1deafd66fc1ed4e934ad108ead529)
“Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.” Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 11
This is how they rounded up the Jewish people in the Third Reich before gassing them. Even Nazi butchers were given the right of a trial and access to lawyers at Nurenburg – but not Venezuelans.
“Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.” Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 10
The USA has created a concentration camp in El Salvador: it has paid the dictator Bukele $6 million to incarcerate Venezuelans. They are there simply because of their NATIONALITY. If any other country other than the USA had made this deal, it would have been denounced as human trafficking.
Fortunately, Trump has not been able to quite dismantle the US judicial system, despite having “stacked” courts with his followers. Thus, on April 19th the US Supreme Court, in a surprising act of defiance, temporarily blocked the deportation of Venezuelans detained in Texas under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a controversial 18th-century military law. The Court has ordered the Trump administration not to expel these migrants held at a detention center “until further order of this court.” The ruling comes just hours after a federal appeals court similarly blocked the US government from moving forward with eliminating temporary legal protection, better known as TPS, for some 350,000 Venezuelan migrants, who are at risk of imminent deportation.
According to the Migration Policy Institute of the USA, Venezuelan migrants are merely 2% of the 47.8 million registered migrants. Clearly, Venezuelans have been targeted for strictly political reasons: it is another canard aimed at trying to depose the legitimate, democratic, Venezuelan government. “…a criminal gang is clearly being used, with its capacity and reach clearly exaggerated, in order to generate the necessary excuses for renewed attacks against Venezuela: sanctions, tariffs and, naturally, the inhuman treatment of migrants. The worst example so far was the deportation of 238 of them to El Salvador.”
Internationally, there has been very little outcry from western nations in defense of the kidnapped Venezuelans. This is disgraceful.
Another example of the lawlessness of the Trump regime is its refusal to comply with the April 10th order of the Supreme Court to obtain the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadorean, sent to El Salvador with the Venezuelans, and who the US has admitted was deported in error. “This defiance of a lower court and the Supreme Court is indeed historic and constitute what is correctly referred to as dictatorial action. But if we look around the world at the nations of the collective west, those that claim to be paragons of democratic virtues and condemning other nations for what they call human rights abuses, we see similarly repressive activities.”
Some in the press have falsely claimed that the situation of the migrants somehow favours Nicolas Maduro. Those that think this have no idea firstly, of the public outcry and anguish the people of Venezuela are showing because of their abused compatriots. Secondly, they have no idea of the many initiatives of the government to obtain the return of their citizens. Since 2018 Venezuela has had a program called Return to the Homeland which – free of charge – has flown Venezuelans home from other countries where they migrated to but ended up suffering poverty and abuse. Thousands have returned to Venezuela in these flights and have been received with open arms. Venezuela would send its planes to the US and El Salvador to obtain the return of its citizens were they allowed to do so. President Maduro has said,” if they don’t want them, we do.”
“Do not ask for whom the bells toll, they toll for thee”:
The abuse of human rights of any group or nationality means they are all at risk.
The post Where Are the Defenders of the Human Rights of Venezuelans? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Maria Paez Victor.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Image by Rod Long.
President Trump, in his March 4 State of the Union address, stated:
“And I also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland. We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America. We need Greenland for national security and even international security. And we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it. But we need it really for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it. We will keep you safe. We will make you rich. And together we will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before. It’s a very small population, but very, very large piece of land and very, very important for military security.”[1]
“One way or the other, we’re going to get it” sounds like a threat to me. In fact, Trump’s entire statement could have come out of a mob boss’ mouth.
It was delivered coupled with his offer to buy Greenland from Denmark and make it the 51st state (or 52nd if Trump has his way with Canada). Hence, it is in the crosshairs of U.S. imperialism, as Trump is determined to take control of the island, thus expanding the U.S. empire.
On Tuesday March 11, one week after Trump’s threat, Greenlanders went to the polls to elect their 31-seat Parliament, one factor in how Greenland is governed. Greenland is currently a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, which controls the island’s foreign policy, defense, and other important aspects of its economy. Denmark provides around 50 percent of the budget for Greenland, providing for schools, social services, and cheap gas. And while polls show that over 85 percent of Greenlanders favor independence from Denmark, Greenlanders are divided on the pace of independence.[2]
Local issues dominated the election in Greenland, but Trump’s rhetoric did have an impact. The pro-business Demokraatit party, which favors a slow path to independence that does not disrupt social services or economic growth, won a surprise victory with 29.9 percent of the votes and will now form a coalition government. The second-place finisher was the ardent pro-independence party Naleraq, with 24.5 percent of the vote. In third place was the former governing party, Inuit Ataqatigiit, with 21.4 percent. [3]
Putting teeth into Trump’s rhetoric, just weeks after the Greenland election: Vice-President Vance, along with his wife, Second Lady Usha Chilukuri Vance; National Security Advisor Chris Waltz; and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright paid a visit to the island. The visit was confined to Pituffik Space base, a U.S. military base in Greenland, in order to avoid protests in Nuuk, the capital and largest city. During his visit, Vance accused Denmark of both underinvesting in the island and failing to provide for its defense.[4]
One consequence of the Vice President’s visit was the firing of the base commander, Col. Susannah Meyers, for allegedly undermining the chain of command and subverting President Trump’s agenda. Her sin—sending an email stating that she disagreed with Vance’s criticisms of Denmark.[5]
Why Greenland and Why Now?
Greenland has a population of approximately 56,500 people. This tiny population inhabits the largest island in the world, with an area of 836,330 square miles, more than a fourth of the area of the lower-48 states. And the Greenlanders are sitting on a treasure trove of oil, mineral wealth, and fisheries. What’s more, Greenland straddles increasingly important Arctic Sea lanes that shorten the distance of shipping routes, and therefore the cost of transporting goods from Europe to Asia. Further, the island is militarily significant because it acts as a barrier between Russia and the U.S.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Greenland has approximately 31.4 billion barrels of oil and natural gas. Extraction of these resources is blocked by the Greenland government, which instituted a moratorium on all oil and gas exploration in 2021, citing the environmental costs to the island. Greenland also has deposits of coal and uranium. In addition, Greenland has vast deposits of rare earth elements (REEs) essential for modern technology, renewable energy, and the military industrial complex.[6] Access to this mineral wealth is not only blocked by the government moratorium: Greenland lacks the infrastructure of ports, roads, and pipelines needed to extract this wealth. Nevertheless, Greenland is an important part the Trump administration’s seeking to secure access to mineral wealth across the globe – a strategy necessary for economic domination.[7]
In early April, China, which the U.S. considers its chief competitor, placed restrictions on the export of rare earth elements (REE) and on REE magnets. The REE are essential to many modern technologies such as lasers, computers, and missiles. Powerful REE magnets are used in auto factories and are essential to jet fighters. Ninety percent of the world’s REE magnets are produced in China.[8] Together, these restrictions, directed at U.S. technology and war industries, could cripple the U.S. military.[9] Should China ban exports of REE and REE magnets completely, the U.S. would be even more desperate to find alternative sources – hence the interest in Greenland.
A History of U.S. Intervention
The Inuit people make up over 87 percent of Greenland’s current population. Archeological evidence suggests they arrived on the island at least 3,500 years ago, but as with the evidence for other native peoples we know that this most likely underestimates the date of their arrival. The Norse-Icelandic explorer Erik the Red later established two settlements on the island around 980 CE, giving the island its European name in the hopes of attracting settlers. These European settlements died out or were abandoned in the early 1500s. This did not stop Denmark from claiming the island and asserting control over the native people in 1720.
The U.S. considered buying Greenland from Denmark in 1868, when Secretary of State William Seward (yes—the same Seward who engineered the purchase of Alaska) proposed the purchase of Greenland from Denmark. In 1910 the U.S. again tried to acquire Greenland from Denmark by offering to exchange Greenland for islands in the Philippines, which were then a U.S. colony. This deal also fell through.[10]
U.S. intervention began in earnest with the 1940 German invasion of Denmark. The U.S. took military control of the island to prevent it from falling under German control. Over the course of World War II, tens of thousands of U.S. planes used the island as a stopover on the way to Europe. The weather forecasts from Greenland proved crucial to the success of the D-Day invasion.
After World War II, the island became an important part of the U.S. Cold War against the USSR. The U.S. offered to buy the island again from Denmark for $100 million U.S. dollars. The Danish government rejected the offer. They did, however, sign, in 1951, a treaty giving the U.S. significant rights to station military troops in Greenland. The U.S. constructed the Thule Air Base in northwestern Greenland, which at its peak housed 10,000 U.S. troops. The base still exists, renamed Pituffik Space Base; it’s under the control of U.S. Space Force. The U.S. had also built a second base, which was secret. Located under the Greenland ice cap, about 150 miles from Thule Air Base, it no longer exists but was called Camp Century and powered by a nuclear reactor.[11]
On January 21, 1968, a B-52 from Thule Air Base crashed on the Greenland ice cap carrying four hydrogen bombs. The U.S. tried to clean up as much of the contaminated ice as possible, but one of the bombs is still missing.[12] This missing nuclear weapon could be a major environmental catastrophe should it leak in the melting ice cap. The crash also revealed that during the Cold War with the USSR, the U.S. stationed B-52s and nuclear weapons at Thule Air Base to strike at the USSR. Construction of new U.S. bases in Greenland would be considered crucial to any U.S. plans for nuclear war and would threaten Russia and China.
How might future U.S. intervention play out?
There are several possible scenarios for future U.S. intervention, based on historical precedence.
In the first, the U.S. could invade directly with military, as Trump has threatened. But Greenland is part of Denmark. Both the U.S. and Denmark are members of NATO, whose sole purpose is as a military alliance. NATO countries are obligated to defend any member that is invaded. If the U.S. were to invade Greenland, this would mean one NATO member, Denmark, being invaded by another, the U.S. This would trigger a crisis in NATO.
In a March 13, 2025 meeting at the White House between Trump and Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary-General Rutte told Trump that NATO would not stop a U.S. military intervention in Greenland, essentially giving the U.S. a green light for a possible invasion. [13]
I think of this as the Spanish-American War scenario. In 1898 the U.S. went to war with Spain, at the time a weak and declining colonial power, to seize the Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.[14]
In case this seems farfetched, note that the U.S. now has an Arctic division – a division consists of 10,000 and 15,000 troops – specialized in fighting in polar regions. In mid-February the Arctic division, the 11th Airborne, deployed to the Arctic regions of Finland in a training exercise.[15] While part of a NATO exercise aimed at Russia, the training served as a practice run for any potential invasion of Greenland.
The U.S. has a history of invading island nations. The most recent case was the island nation of Grenada in 1983 when a force of fewer than 8,000 U.S. troops seized the tiny island nation of fewer than 100,000 on the pretext of protecting American students during a coup within the government. That invasion was hastily planned and powerfully executed. Still, it took the U.S. less than a week to totally control the island. A U.S. invasion of Greenland will be better planned and will most likely start with the seizure of the international airport in Nuuk, the capital and largest city.
In the second scenario, the U.S. would employ non-military means or soft power. It would encourage independence and then meddle in local politics, cultivating pro-U.S. politicians and parties, and extracting considerable economic and political concessions. These concessions would likely include mining rights and additional military bases. Trump has already started this process and may have found a willing partner in Kuno Fencker. A prominent leader of the second-place Naleraq party, Fencker attended Trump’s inauguration and then toured the White House at Trump’s invitation. Fencker has publicly defended Trump in his podcasts and speeches, saying that Trump is misunderstood. Fencker has been called a traitor by leaders of the other parties. Naleraq wants immediate independence from Denmark and closer ties with the U.S.[16]
This second scenario appears to be the current U.S. strategy. In a bombshell front-page article in The New York Times on April 11, it was reported that the White House, under the leadership of the National Security Council (NSC), is moving “forward on a plan to acquire the island from Denmark.” The NSC has sent directives to multiple arms of the U.S. government, is developing a propaganda plan to persuade Greenlanders to join the U.S., and is considering a direct payment to each Greenlander of $10,000 per year, approximately the same amount of money that Denmark gives to the island for education, healthcare, and other social services.[17] At the same time that President Trump is trying to persuade Greenlanders, he is making his case to the American people.
I think of this as the Panama Scenario because it is similar to what the U.S. did in Panama when it encouraged local elites to break away from Colombia and then extracted significant concessions from the new government, including the right to build and control the Panama Canal Zone and maintain a massive U.S. military presence.[18]
In the third, and least likely, scenario, the U.S, would encourage independence, meddle in the political affairs of Greenland, and encourage U.S. investment in and immigration to the island. The immigrants and pro-U.S. Greenlanders could then demand annexation by the U.S. I think of this as the Hawaii Scenario, because it is similar to what the U.S. did when it annexed the Kingdom of Hawai’i in 1893.[19]
If one of these scenarios plays out, there will be two big losers and one big winner. The losers will be the people of Greenland and the environment of their island nation. The big winner will be U.S. imperialism, more specifically the corporate elite that will pillage the resources of the island for their own profit and power. While standing in solidarity with the rights of the Greenlanders to make their own decisions for their nation and independence, we must also oppose all U.S. intervention and exploitation. We must especially raise our voices against Trump and his efforts to convince the American people that “we” need to acquire the island. Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland, not the U.S. capitalist elite!
The post Greenland in the Crosshairs of U.S. Imperialism appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Michael Livingston .This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.
The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – April 28, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.
This content originally appeared on KPFA – The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.
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This content originally appeared on Amnesty International and was authored by Amnesty International.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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TAIPEI, Taiwan – North Korea on Monday acknowledged for the first time that it deployed troops to Russia to support Moscow’s war against Ukraine, saying its soldiers “completely liberated the occupied area of Kursk region.”
Ukraine estimates as many as 14,000 North Korean soldiers, including 3,000 reinforcements to replace its losses, are in Russia to fight Ukrainian forces who occupied parts of Russia’s Kursk in an August counter offensive.
“The operations for liberating the Kursk area to repel the adventurous invasion of the Russian Federation by the Ukrainian authorities were victoriously concluded,” the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, reported, citing the country’s Central Military Commission.
The North’s deployment was made by “the order” of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in accordance with Pyongyang’s mutual defense treaty with Moscow, said the KCNA.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea for talks with Kim in June last year when they announced the treaty, agreeing to offer each other military assistance “without delay” if either were attacked. They also underscored their shared defiance of Western sanctions and expanded cooperation in various sectors.
KCNA cited Kim as describing the activities as “a sacred mission to further consolidate” friendship and solidarity with Russia and “defend the honor” of North Korea.
A monument praising their heroism and bravery will be erected soon in Pyongyang and flowers will be placed before the tombstones of the fallen soldiers to pray for their immortality, said Kim, acknowledging troops killed in combat.
The North’s confirmation of the troop deployment came after Russia acknowledged that North Korean soldiers had been fighting in its war with Ukraine.
Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, confirmed their combat participation during a videoconference with Putin on Saturday, recognizing the crucial role they played in “liberating” the Kursk region.
In response, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Ukraine’s army was still fighting in Russia’s Kursk despite Moscow claiming the “liberation” of its western region.
“Our military continues to perform tasks in the Kursk and Belgorod regions – we are maintaining our presence on Russian territory,” he said.
The U.S. State Department also called for North Korea to stop its troop deployment and for Moscow to end any support to Pyongyang.
“The deployment of North Korean soldiers to Russia must end. Third-party countries like North Korea bear responsibility for the war,” said the State Department in a statement on Sunday.
During his first term, U.S. President Donald Trump met Kim three times, but made no progress on persuading him to give up his nuclear and missile programs in exchange for relief on sanctions.
Since the start of his second term, he has expressed an interest in re-establishing contact with Kim, although no developments appear to be imminent.
U.S. online publication Axios reported on Sunday that the Trump administration has quietly been holding discussions and consulting outside experts as it considers options for potentially resuming dialogue with the North.
Axios cited an unnamed senior U.S. official as saying that U.S. agencies are assessing North Korea’s current position and exploring potential avenues for engagement.
Edited by Mike Firn and Stephen Wright.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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UPDATED 28 April, 2025, 11:15 a.m. ET
BANGKOK – Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has been talking up the benefits of free trade, in the face of a China-U.S. tariff war that threatens the global economy, during a meeting with Vietnam’s top leader To Lam in Hanoi.
The Trump administration’s decision to tax Chinese imports 145% and China’s 125% retaliation on U.S. goods has created what Ishiba called “a complex and multifaceted crisis,” in an article for Vietnam’s Tuoi Tre newspaper.
Cooperation between Japan and Vietnam would contribute to regional stability and prosperity, he wrote in the piece published Sunday as he arrived in the Vietnamese capital for talks with government leaders.
Ishiba and Lam discussed “the impact of U.S. tariffs and China’s retaliatory actions on the global economy” during a meeting on Sunday, Japan’s foreign ministry said.
Ishiba stressed the importance of “maintaining a free and open international order” as well as international free trade.
But both countries face higher U.S. tariffs – 46% for Vietnam and 24% for Japan – unless they can persuade Washington they will reduce their respective trade surpluses. Pressure to cut U.S. exports is providing a further incentive for both countries to find markets other than America for their goods.
Japan and Vietnam signed a free trade agreement in 2008. Japan was the fourth largest exporter to Vietnam last year, shipping US$21.6 billion of goods. Vietnam sent $24.6 billion worth of products to Japan, also its fourth largest export destination.
Vietnam has also proved an attractive manufacturing base for Japanese companies, some of whom shifted operations from China when the country was hit by heavy U.S. tariffs in 2018 during the first Trump administration.
Around 2,000 Japanese companies have set up operations in Vietnam and Ishiba met executives from some of those firms including Canon, Denso Manufacturing and MHI Aerospace as he toured a Hanoi industrial park Sunday, listening to their concerns about the impact of higher tariffs.
Regional security will also be on Ishiba’s agenda as he meets with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Monday.
The two will discuss a unified response to China’s increasingly assertive territorial claims in the East and South China seas. China and Japan have clashed over China’s claims to the Senkaku, or Diaoyu, islands. Vietnam and China have also faced off over contested territory in the Paracel, or Xisha, and Spratly, or Nansha, islands.
Japan wants to “further strengthen security cooperation,” in the face of China’s “unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force,” Kyodo news quoted Ishiba as saying as he boarded the flight to Hanoi.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (L) and his Japanese counterpart Shigeru Ishiba review the guard of honor at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, Vietnam, April 28, 2025. (Luong Thai Linh/AP)Ishiba heads to Manila on Tuesday, where he is expected to cover a similar agenda of trade and regional security when he meets Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
But regional defense agreements may do little to control China’s territorial ambitions and may raise tensions with a powerful neighbor, according to Koichi Nakano, Japanese politics professor at Tokyo’s Sophia University.
“The whole security architecture in the region has been designed with the U.S. as the hub (and the other countries as spokes), so it would be naive to think that the words will be matched by actual deeds on either side,” he told Radio Free Asia.
“It certainly won’t help with the Japanese defense of Senkaku and might simply irritate China with regards to the problems in Southeast Asia.”
Edited by Taejun Kang and Stephen Wright.
Updated with comment from politics professor Koichi Nakano.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Mike Firn for RFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by The Real News Network.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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At every light switch, power socket, and on the road, an unstoppable revolution is already underway.
Technologies that can power our lives and jobs while doing less harm to the global climate — wind, solar, batteries, etc. — are getting cheaper, more efficient, and more abundant. The pace of progress on price, scale, and performance has been so extraordinary that even the most optimistic forecasts about green tech in the past have turned out to be too pessimistic. Clean energy isn’t just powering our devices, tools, and luxuries — it’s growing the global economy, creating a whole suite of new jobs, and reshaping trade.
And despite what headlines may say, there’s no sign these trends will reverse. Political and economic turmoil may slow down clean energy, but the sector has built up so much momentum that it’s become nigh unstoppable.
Take a look at Texas: The largest oil- and gas-producing state in the US is also the largest in wind energy, and it’s installing more solar than any other. Texas utilities have come to realize that investing in clean energy is not just good for the environment; it’s good business. And even without subsidies and preferential treatment, the benefits of clean technologies — in clean air, scalability, distribution, and cost — have become impossible to ignore.
And there’s only more room to grow. The world is still in the early stages of this revolution as market forces become the driver rather than environmental worries. In some US markets, installing new renewable energy is cheaper than running existing coal plants. Last year, the US produced more electricity from wind and solar power than from coal for the first time.
If these energy trends persist, the US economy will see its greenhouse gas emissions diminish faster, reducing its contribution to climate change. The US needs to effectively zero out its carbon dioxide emissions by the middle of the century in order to keep the worst damages of climate change in check.
Now, just a few months into Trump’s second presidency, it’s still an open question just how fragile the country’ s progress on clean energy and climate will be. But the data is clear: There is tremendous potential for economic growth and environmental benefits if the country makes the right moves at this key inflection point.
Certainly incentives like tax credits, business loans, and research and development funding could accelerate decarbonization. On the other hand, pulling back — as the Trump administration wants to do — would slow down clean energy in the US, though it wouldn’t stop it.
But the rest of the world isn’t sitting idle, and if the US decides to slow its head start, its competitors may take the lead in a massive, rocketing industry. —Umair Irfan, Vox climate correspondent
Wind
President Donald Trump does not like wind energy — apparently, in part, because he thinks turbines are ugly.
“We’re not going to do the wind thing,” Trump said after his inauguration during a rally. “Big, ugly windmills, they ruin your neighborhood.”
He’s put some power behind those feelings. Within mere hours of stepping into office,Trump signed an executive order that hamstrung both onshore and offshore wind energy developments, even as he has claimed that the US faces an energy crisis. The order directed federal agencies to temporarily stop issuing approvals for both onshore and offshore wind projects and pause leasing for offshore projects in federal waters.
Policies like this will harm the wind industry, analysts say, as will existing and potential future tariffs, which will likely make turbines more expensive. Those policies could also pose a serious threat to offshore developments. But the sector overall simply has too much inertia to be derailed, according to Eric Larson, a senior research engineer at Princeton University who studies clean energy.
“Because costs have been coming down so dramatically in the last decade, there is a certain momentum there that’s going to carry through,” Larson said.
Since 2010, US wind capacity has more than tripled, spurred by federal tax incentives. But even without those incentives — which Congress may eventually try to cut — onshore wind turbines are the cheapest source of new energy, according to the research firm Lazard. In 2023, the average cost of new onshore wind projects was two-thirds lower than a typical fossil fuel alternative, per a report by the International Renewable Energy Agency.
In fact, wind energy might be the best example of how politics have had little bearing on the growth of renewable energy. Texas, which overwhelmingly supported Trump in the recent election, generates more wind energy than any other state, by far. The next three top states for wind energy production — Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas — all swung for Trump in the last election, too. These states are particularly windy, but they’ve also adopted policies, including tax incentives, that have helped build out their wind-energy sectors.
“It’s just a way to make money,” Larson said of wind. “It has nothing to do with the political position on whether climate change is real or not. People continue to get paid to put up wind turbines, and that’s enough for them to do it.”
In Iowa, for example, wind energy has drawn at least $22 billion in capital investment and has helped lower the cost of electricity. In 2023, wind generated about 60 percent of the state’s energy — more than double any other source, like coal or natural gas.
The wind sector is not without its challenges. In the last two years the cost of wind energy has gone up, due in part to inflation and permitting delays — which raised the costs of other energy sources, too. Construction of new wind farms had begun slowing even before Trump took office. Dozens of counties across the US, in places like Ohio and Virginia, have also successfully blocked or delayed wind projects, citing a range of concerns like noise and impact on property values. Offshore wind, which is far costlier, faces even more opposition. Opponents similarly worry that they’ll affect coastal property values and harm marine life.
Yet ultimately these hurdles will only delay what is likely inevitable, analysts say: a future powered in large part by wind. —Benji Jones, Vox environmental correspondent
Solar
It’s hard to think of a natural wonder more unstoppable than the sun, and harnessing its energy has proven just as formidable. The United States last year saw a record amount of clean energy power up, with solar leading the way. Over the past decade, solar power capacity in the US has risen eightfold.
Why? Solar has just gotten way, way, way cheaper, even more than wind.
The main technology for turning sunlight into electricity, the single-junction photovoltaic panel, has drastically increased the efficiency by which it turns a ray of sunlight into a moving electron. This lets the same-size panel convert more light into electricity. Since the device itself is a printed semiconductor, it has benefited from many of the manufacturing improvements that have come with recent advances in computer chip production.
Solar has also benefited from economies of scale, particularly as China has invested heavily in its production. This has translated into cheaper solar panels around the world, including the US. And since solar panels are modular, small gains in efficiency and cost reduction quickly add up, boosting the business case.
There are some clouds on the horizon, however. The single-junction PV panel may be closing in on its practical efficiency limit. Solar energy is variable, and some power grid operators have struggled to manage the spike in solar production midday and sudden drop-off in the evening, creating the infamous “duck curve” graph of energy demand that shows how fast other generators have to ramp up.
Still, solar energy provides less than 4 percent of electricity in the US, so there is immense room to grow. Overall costs continue to decline, and new technologies are emerging that can get around the constraints imposed by conventional panels. Across the US and around the world, the sun has a long way to rise. —Umair Irfan
Our energy grid
While wind and solar energy have soared upward for more than a decade, storing electricity on the grid with batteries is just taking off.
Grid-scale battery capacity suddenly launched upward around 2020 and has about doubled every year since. That’s good news for intermittent power sources, such as wind and solar: Energy storage is the booster rocket for renewables and one of the key tools for addressing the stubborn duck curve that plagues solar power.
Batteries for the grid aren’t that far removed from those that power phones and computers, so they’ve benefited from cost and performance improvements in consumer batteries. And they still have room to get cheaper.
On the power grid, batteries do a number of jobs that help improve efficiency and cut greenhouse gas emissions. The obvious one is compensating for the capriciousness of wind and solar power: As the sun sets and the wind calms, demand rises, and grid operators can tap into their power reserves to keep the lights on. The specific combination of solar-plus-storage is still a small share of utility-scale projects, but it’s gaining ground in the residential market as these systems get cheaper.
Batteries also help grid operators cope with demand peaks: They can bank power when it’s cheap and sell those electrons when electricity is more expensive. They also maintain grid stability and provide the juice to restart power generators after outages or maintenance. That means there’s a huge demand for grid batteries beyond backing up renewables.
Right now, the main way the US saves electricity on the grid is pumped hydropower, which currently provides about 96 percent of utility-scale storage. Water is pumped uphill into a reservoir when power is cheap and then runs downhill through turbines when it’s needed. This method tends to lose a lot of energy in the process and is limited to landscapes with the ideal terrain to move water up and down.
Batteries get around these hurdles with higher efficiencies, scalability, and modularity. And since they stay parked in one place, energy density and portability don’t matter as much on the grid as they would in a car or a phone. That opens up several more options. Car batteries that have lost too much capacity to be worthwhile in a vehicle can get a second life on the power grid. Designs like flow batteries that store energy by the megawatt-hour and molten salt batteries that stash power for months could outperform the reigning lithium-ion battery. —Umair Irfan
The electric vehicle transition
Transportation is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Fossil fuels currently account for nearly 90 percent of the energy consumption in the transportation sector, which makes it an obvious target for decarbonization. And while it will take some time to figure out how to electrify planes, trains, and container ships, the growth of EVs, including passenger cars and trucks, has reached a tipping point.
The price of a new EV is nearly equivalent to a new gas-powered car, when you include state and federal subsidies. And the US charging infrastructure is getting better by the day: With over 200,000 chargers currently online, the number is growing. Even though the Trump administration has effectively waged war on the EV transition by pulling funding for charging infrastructure expansion and threatening to end subsidies for new EV purchases, at best those moves may slow a largely unstoppable EV transition in the long term. The automotive industry is all in on the electric transition. Buoyed by strong and growing EV sales trends in China and increasing EV offerings, global demand is growing.
There are signs, however, that the number of people buying EVs in the US and Europe is slowing, even as subsidies remain available. Experts say this is likely due, in part, to more consumer choice, as the number of EV offerings, including off-road trucks and minivans, continues to grow. But even here we see encouraging signs: As more EVs have come to market, more plug-in hybrid models have also appeared. And plug-in hybrids tend to be slightly cheaper and help people deal with range anxiety, the umbrella term for the fear of not being able to find a charger, while still reducing emissions.
“The early adopters who are just all in on that EV tech, they’ve adopted it,” Nicole Wakelin, editor at large of CarBuzz, told Vox in January. “So now it’s up to everybody else to dip their toes in that water.”
Around the world, cheap EVs are surging in popularity. Prices of EV batteries, the most expensive component of the vehicle, are dropping globally even as their capacity grows. That trend is leading to more and more inexpensive EV models hitting the market. China, once again, is leading the charge here. The cheapest model from Chinese front-runner BYD now costs less than $10,000, and by 2027, Volkswagen promises it will sell a cheap EV in Europe for about $20,000. Meanwhile, in the US, the average price for a used EV in mid-2024 was $33,000, compared to $27,000 for an internal combustion engine vehicle. Those Chinese EVs aren’t currently available in the US.
It remains to be seen how far Trump will go to keep America hooked on fossil fuels. It’s clear, however, that more and more people want EVs and are buying them, charging them, and quite frankly, loving them. —Adam Clark Estes, Vox senior technology correspondent
Jobs
For any of these clean energy sectors to reach their highest potential, there’s an essential requirement they all share: a robust, skilled workforce. The good news for the clean energy industry is that data show the jobs are rolling in.
The 2024 Clean Jobs America report by E2, a national group focused on climate solutions across industries, paints a positive picture for clean jobs. Renewable energy jobs increased by 14 percent from 2020 to 2023 — a surge boosted by the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) climate-focused policies. Jobs in the solar sector have grown by 15 percent in that same period, with 12 percent growth for wind and 11 percent growth for geothermal. In just 2023 alone, 150,000 jobs in the clean energy industry were added. All together, clean energy outpaced economy-wide employment growth for the last five years.
And while the Trump administration has targeted the wind industry, rolled back some climate-friendly policies, and griped about solar, the administration’s policies have yet to put a dent on positive job growth in clean jobs.
“I expect [the administration] will go after some provisions, but there is quite a bit in the IRA that will be very difficult to repeal since large-scale clean energy investments have been made, and a majority of those in red states whose politicians will not want to give them up,” one former US official told Heatmap News. Republican districts have benefited far more than progressive ones from clean tech manufacturing investments to the tune of over $161 billion, Bloomberg reported. Going after clean jobs would mean stalling economic growth in communities that helped deliver Trump a second term — a move that most would call politically unwise.
The clean industry is growing beyond the United States. Globally, clean energy sectors added over 4.7 million jobs to a total of 35 million from 2019 to 2022 — exceeding the amount of fossil fuel jobs internationally.
While the data bodes well for the industry, there are concerns from workers, unions, and communities that the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy may leave many skilled employees behind. One paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that fewer than 1 percent of fossil fuel workers have transitioned to green jobs, citing a lack of translatable skills — operating an oil derrick isn’t as applicable to installing solar panels, for example. Another paper from Nature found that while some fossil fuel workers might have the right skills for clean energy jobs, the location of green jobs often aren’t where fossil fuel workers are based.
Several policy routes can be taken to create a more equitable transition for these workers, such as funding early retirement programs for fossil fuel workers who lose their jobs or heavily investing in fossil fuel communities where there is potential for creating renewable energy hubs.
Clean energy jobs are growing, and it doesn’t have to be at the cost of the 1.7 million workers in the US with fossil fuel occupations. —Sam Delgado
Geothermal
While President Trump has largely been hostile to renewable energy, there’s one clean energy source that the administration actually supports: geothermal.
Geothermal has long lived in the shadows of other renewables — especially as wind and solar have surged. But geothermal’s potential may be greater than any of those, and ironically, being in Trump’s good graces may give this sector the final boost it needs.
If you know President Trump’s motto of “drill, baby, drill,” this might not come as a surprise. Geothermal energy is tapped by drilling into the ground and extracting heat from the earth, and it uses similar technology to the oil and gas industry. US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has long praised geothermal, and the fracking company he oversaw prior to joining the Trump administration invested in Fervo Energy, a company that specializes in geothermal technologies.
Despite the fact that the first geothermal plant was built in 1904 in Italy, the energy source is still in its infancy. In 2023, geothermal energy produced less than half a percent of total US utility-scale electricity generation, far behind other renewables like solar and wind.
Historically, developing geothermal energy has been constrained by geography and relatively few have been built. Most geothermal production happens in the western United States because of the region’s access to underground hot water that can drive turbines isn’t too far from the surface. California dominates the geothermal landscape, with 67 percent of US geothermal electricity generation coming from the state — the outcome of state policy priorities and the right geologic conditions. The regional specificity has been a big barrier to geothermal taking off more broadly.
Then there’s the issue of cost. Compared to solar and wind development and operations, building geothermal plants and drilling is much more expensive. And it currently costs more per megawatt hour than solar and wind.
But these geographic and financial barriers could be broken down. Geothermal companies have been exploring enhanced geothermal, a method that could make it possible to drill for geothermal energy everywhere. Coupling enhanced geothermal with drilling technology and techniques from the oil and gas industry can also help with efficiency and bring down costs — a parallel to how advances in fracking in the early 2000s helped supercharge the US oil and gas industry.
What geothermal lacks in current scale, it makes up for in future potential. Because it’s not intermittent and doesn’t rely on specific weather conditions (the way that solar, wind, and hydropower do) geothermal has a capacity advantage over other renewables. In 2023, geothermal had a capacity factor, or how often an energy source is running at maximum power, of 69 percent, compared to 33 percent and 23 percent for wind and solar, respectively — meaning it’s more capable of producing reliable power.
That advantage could be critical for US decarbonization goals. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), enhanced geothermal has the potential to power more than 65 million homes and businesses in the US.
Right now, stakeholders from energy policymakers to climate scientists to geothermal company executives, are determined to turn potential into reality.
In March 2024, the DOE released a lengthy report on the necessary steps to unlocking enhanced geothermal’s full potential on a commercial scale. In October of last year, the federal government approved a massive geothermal project in Utah that plans to provide power for more than 2 million homes and aims to be operational by 2026. The company behind the project and one of the leading enhanced geothermal startups, Fervo Energy, secured $255 million in funding from investors just before the year came to a close.
Geothermal also has bipartisan support (and is perhaps one of the few issues that the Biden and Trump administration would share similar views on). And because it’s borrowing technology from the gas and oil industry, it can tap into former fossil fuel workers to staff these plants.
But it’s key to note that getting to take off will be really, really expensive — the DOE projects that it will take $20 billion to $25 billion to get geothermal ready for a commercial breakout by 2030. Geothermal’s breakthrough isn’t assured, but it’s on the cusp of takeoff. If the necessary financial investments are made, and companies can show that advances in technology can be scaled up beyond the western US, it could usher in the age of a geothermal energy revolution. —Sam Delgado, former Future Perfect fellow
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline 10 charts prove that clean energy is winning — even in the Trump era on Apr 27, 2025.
This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Umair Irfan.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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First, Ralph welcomes Washington Post tech journalist Faiz Siddiqui to discuss his new book “Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk.” Then, our resident legal expert Bruce Fein stops by to explain how Elon Musk and DOGE are breaking the law. Finally, David picks up our interview with Ralph about Ralph’s new book “Civic Self-Respect.”
Faiz Siddiqui is a technology journalist who writes for the Washington Post and has covered companies such as Tesla, Uber, and Twitter (now X) for the Business Desk. His reporting has focused on transportation, social media and government transformation, among other issues. He is the author of Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk (excerpted here).
Over and over throughout this book, there’s this recurring theme of victimhood, or at least Elon feeling like his back is against the wall. And why? For what? He and his fans felt they were doing the right things, and yet they were being scrutinized and punished for it.
Faiz Siddiqui
In the wake of many Facebook scandals, many Uber scandals, Tesla was the company to work for. Elon was the person to work for. There was no figure as magnetic, who inspired people in the way that Elon did. So recruiting was a strong suit of that company. And the pitch was: come here and change the world.
Faiz Siddiqui
I think what this book brings is a healthy dose of reality and skepticism… that so far has been lacking from the overall conversation around Musk. And what I you’ll find is (I hope you’ll find) that you can identify with some of the folks in the book who were lured in by the promises (or just enamored by the guy and what he might be able to bring to society if his goals were ultimately realized) but then ended up feeling disappointed or feeling like—hey, this guy was not all he was cracked up to be. Even if the goals were noble, even if the ambitions were the right ones, the ends might not have justified the means. And so I want people to find, ideally, that their understanding of one of the most powerful people in society today is enriched.
Faiz Siddiqui
Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.
[Elon Musk is] just a walking violation of the federal code.
Bruce Fein
There’s nowhere to go but up in terms of being a smart consumer. Unfortunately, our Elementary and high schools don’t teach consumer skills (they prefer to teach computer skills) and consumer skills result in what is, in effect, a pay raise.
Ralph Nader
Adam Smith once said many centuries ago that the purpose of production is consumption. And if consumption is informed and feeds back, it can lead to a high-quality economy. It can lead to more integrity to your consumer dollar and to your health and safety. It can lead to less environmental damage. It could lead to stronger regulation of product defects and services that are harmful. It’s sort of a bottom-up economic democracy.
Ralph Nader
Complexity is a tool of power. Complex tax regulations are often blamed on the federal bureaucracy. No, it’s the corporate tax lawyers.
Ralph Nader
News 4/25/25
1. On Monday, April 21st, Vatican News announced the death of Pope Francis. This came just one day after Easter Sunday, when Francis met with Vice-President JD Vance. The day prior, Francis had snubbed the VP, sending in his place Cardinal Pietro Parolintoto to “deliver a lecture on compassion,” per the Daily Beast. Pope Francis led the Catholic Church since 2013 and during his tenure sought to move the church in a vastly more progressive direction – preaching against capitalism’s destruction of the environment, advocating for abolition of the death penalty and greater acceptance for LGBTQ Catholics within the church, and expanding the reach of the church into non-traditional areas such as Mongolia among many other initiatives. This won him the admiration of many around the world, but also drew the ire of the conservative clergy, particularly in the United States. Francis was the first Jesuit Pope and the first Pope to hail from the New World. Senior churchmen will now assemble to elect a new pope. This conclave is expected to be contentious, with progressives seeking to consolidate Francis’ reforms, while the conservatives see an opening to take back the formal organs of the church.
2. Instead of death, our next story concerns birth. Noor Abdalla – wife of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian Columbia University student currently being held by ICE in Louisiana – gave birth to their son on Monday. According to a statement by Abdalla, reported by Arya Sundaram of WNYC, ICE denied a request for Khalil to be temporarily released to meet their son, a “purposeful decision by ICE to make [her], Mahmoud, and our son suffer.” Later in this statement, Abdalla writes, “I will continue to fight every day for Mahmoud to come home to us. I know when Mahmoud is freed, he will show our son how to be brave, thoughtful, and compassionate just like his dad.” Khalil’s case continues to wind its way through the courts; the result of this case will have significant ramifications for the Trump administration’s ability to remove individuals with legal status on the basis of political speech.
3. In an encouraging sign, more and more congressional Democrats are getting personally involved in cases of Trump administration overreach on immigration. In addition to Senator Chris Van Hollen’s highly-publicized visit to El Salvador, TruthOut reports that Senator Peter Welch met with Mohsen Mahdawi, the Columbia University student entrapped with a false citizenship test, in Vermont. Meanwhile Cape Cod Times reports that on April 22nd, Senator Ed Markey and Representatives Ayanna Pressley and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts – along with Democratic members of the House Troy Carter and Bennie Thompson – traveled to a Louisiana detention facility to demand the release of Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University grad student who was abducted off the street last month by masked ICE agents. This delegation met with Öztürk herself, as well as Mahmoud Khalil. And CBS reports Representatives Robert Garcia, Maxwell Frost, Yassamin Ansari and Maxine Dexter traveled to El Salvador as well, keeping pressure up regarding the Kilmar Garcia case. Still, hundreds of immigrants of varying status have been deported to the ominous and shadowy CECOT prison camp in El Salvador without due process since Trump began this mass deportation campaign.
4. In more troubling Congressional news, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa wrote a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel on April 16th calling for investigations into the progressive activist group CodePink as well as the New York City cultural center known as the People’s Forum. This letter is almost textbook McCarthyite red-baiting, claiming CodePink and the People’s Forum are nothing more than mouthpieces for the Chinese Communist Party, thereby violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Beyond the fact that these groups are engaging in nothing more than constitutionally protected political speech, it is clear from the citations within the letter that they are targeting these groups because of their pro-Palestine positions. This is just another escalation in the Orwellian suppression of free-speech critical of the Israel’s illegal occupation. Unfortunately, just as with McCarthyism itself, we cannot count on congressional Democrats to go to bat for the free speech rights of the Left.
5. In a win for consumers, Bloomberg reports Airbnb announced it will now display the total price of stays – including all fees – to comply with a Federal Trade Commission rule set to go into effect next month. Many worried that the FTC would rescind this rule with the changing of the administration, but for now at least, the Trump FTC seems poised to keep it. This new rule is expected to “nudge hosts to lower their cleaning fees to make rentals more affordable, as the sometimes-exorbitant fees have become a key reason why some customers preferred hotels over Airbnb.”
6. Another positive move is that the Trump Department of Justice has proceeded with an anti-trust case against Google’s advertising technology, or “adtech.” On April 17th, a judge found Google liable for “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power,” in two markets for online advertising technology, per Reuters. This follows a similar judgment against Google regarding a monopoly on search, which is only amplified by its adoption of AI. Another trial will determine the remedy for this monopoly, which could include Google being forced to sell off aspects of its business. According to this report, “Google has previously explored selling its ad exchange to appease European antitrust regulators.” Senator Amy Klobuchar, former chair of the antitrust subcommittee, called the ruling “a big win for consumers, small businesses, and content creators that will open digital markets to more innovation and lower prices.”
7. On the other hand, Public Citizen’s Rick Claypool reports, “58 corporations facing federal investigations & enforcement lawsuits collectively gave $50 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. Cases against 11 of these corporations have already been dismissed or withdrawn, and 6 have been halted.” More granular information about each of these enforcement actions is available through Public Citizen’s Corporate Enforcement Tracker database, but the big picture is clear: If a corporation wants the government off its back, all they have to do is make a handsome contribution. The Trump administration is pay-to-play and open for business.
8. In another instance of the administration tying the hands of key federal regulators, the Food and Drug Administration will “End its Routine Food Safety Inspections,” according to the National Public Health Information Coalition. The FDA plans to “shift most…food safety inspections to state and local agencies.” While some food inspections are conducted at the state and local level, public health advocates are raising concerns about “oversight and consistency.” According to CBS, these plans have not been finalized.
9. Turning to the very worst part of this administration, NOTUS reports “The DOGE website, the only public accounting of Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s attempts to reduce federal government spending…[has posted]…revisions that suggest DOGE was previously overstating its savings by hundreds of millions of dollars.” These stunning, if not altogether surprising, overestimations are staggering in scale. “On Tuesday [April 15th] alone, DOGE removed around $962 million in previously claimed cuts and altered hundreds of others to boost individual items’ purported ‘savings’ values.” The incompetence of DOGE has led Musk to reduce the target goal of spending cuts, down from $1 trillion to just $150 billion – a drop in the bucket when it comes to federal spending and certainly not worth the evisceration of Social Security and other programs these cuts have entailed.
10. Finally, in more bad news for Elon Musk, Reuters reports the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is tightening electric vehicle battery safety standards, specifically to “ensure…batteries won’t catch fire or explode.” This is quite a humble regulatory goal. However, this new regulation could spell disaster for Tesla. According to Tesla-fire.com, there have been 232 confirmed cases of Tesla fires and “83 Fatalities Involving a Tesla Car Fire.” If I were a Chinese EV regulator, I would be wary of allowing Tesla vehicles on the roads. But that’s just me.
This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.
Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe
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Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.
The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – April 25, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.
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We speak with two brothers who are fighting Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI over its massive data center in Memphis, Tennessee, used to run its chatbot Grok. The facility is next to historically Black neighborhoods and is powered by 35 pollution-spewing methane gas turbines the company is using without legal permits. Musk says he wants to continue expanding the project.
“What’s happening in Memphis is a human rights violation,” says KeShaun Pearson, executive director of the environmental justice organization Memphis Community Against Pollution. “Elon Musk and xAI are violating our human right to clean air and a clean, healthy environment.” His brother Justin J. Pearson, a Tennessee state representative for Memphis, says Musk is “perpetuating environmental racism” by ignoring the wishes of local residents: “They are abusing our community, and they’re exploiting us.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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We speak with two brothers who are fighting Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI over its massive data center in Memphis, Tennessee, used to run its chatbot Grok. The facility is next to historically Black neighborhoods and is powered by 35 pollution-spewing methane gas turbines the company is using without legal permits. Musk says he wants to continue expanding the project.
“What’s happening in Memphis is a human rights violation,” says KeShaun Pearson, executive director of the environmental justice organization Memphis Community Against Pollution. “Elon Musk and xAI are violating our human right to clean air and a clean, healthy environment.” His brother Justin J. Pearson, a Tennessee state representative for Memphis, says Musk is “perpetuating environmental racism” by ignoring the wishes of local residents: “They are abusing our community, and they’re exploiting us.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.
Among candidates to be the next head of the Catholic Church, several prominent cardinals in Asia are thought to be under consideration.
Pope Francis passed away on Monday at the age of 88, concluding a 12-year papacy. A papal conclave is expected to convene at the Vatican within the next 15 to 20 days to elect his successor.
While the official appointment of a pope requires the votes of 90 out of 135 cardinals in the Vatican, prominent candidates span 71 countries, with several overseeing dioceses in Asia from Sri Lanka, South Korea, the Philippines and Myanmar. Any candidate from these countries would be the first Asian pope to sit in the Vatican.
The 76-year-old Charles Maung Bo, born in northwest Myanmar’s now-embattled Sagaing region, resided over the Lashio diocese in the country’s northern Shan state from 1986 until 2003, when he was appointed Archbishop of Yangon and later became a cardinal under the authority of Pope Francis in 2015.
Pope Francis celebrates a Mass with Cardinal Charles Maung Bo in Yangon, Myanmar, Nov. 28, 2017. (L’Osservatore Romano via AP)Despite Catholics comprising just over 1% of Myanmar’s majority-Buddhist population, sources close to Myanmar’s Cardinal Charles Maung Bo said that the College of Cardinals may be looking at finding a candidate with a diplomatic and humanitarian-oriented approach similar to Pope Francis.
Charles Maung Bo became more prominent in 2021 following the country’s military coup when he called for a peaceful solution in the face of armed rebel movements across the country.
In an interview with Radio Free Asia in 2023, he referred to the population of Myanmar as “brothers and sisters,” calling on all sides to lay down their weapons.
“Guns beget more guns. Bullets beget more bullets. If violence is met with violence, it will only lead to more violence,” he said. “All of us, no matter which side we are on, all those who are armed, should lay down our weapons and be family.”
Sri Lanka’s Cardinal Albert Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo, leads mass at the San Lorenzo In Lucino church in Rome March 10, 2013. (Chris Helgren/Reuters)In Sri Lanka, another Buddhist-majority country, 77-year-old Malcolm Ranjith, who serves as the Archbishop of Colombo, the nation’s capital, is eligible for appointment.
Others have speculated that the next pope-elect may come from South Korea, where around 30% of the population is Christian, or the Philippines, a Catholic-majority country. Both have leaders in the Catholic church eligible for the Vatican.
Then-South Korean bishop Lazzaro You Heung-sik talks during a news conference at the Holy See press office at the Vatican Oct. 11, 2018. (Max Rossi/Reuters)South Korea’s 74-year-old Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung-sik may be considered, given the Catholic church’s growth in the country in the last few decades and its large financial contributions to the Vatican. He was appointed to a role within the Vatican as Dicastery for the Clergy as a prefect in 2021 and as a cardinal in 2022.
The Philippines’ Luis Antonio Tagle, 67 years old, has often been compared to Pope Francis and named by experts as a favorite of the late pope for his humanitarian and progressive social views on issues such as migration and same sex marriage, but may prove to be too young for the conclave, who typically select a candidate in his 70s.
Pope Francis hugs Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle (L) before blessing a mosaic of St. Pedro Calungsod’s image during a meeting with the Philippine community at the St Peter Basilica in Vatican Nov. 21, 2013. (Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters)As of 2025, there have been 266 popes recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, starting from St. Peter, considered the first pope, to Pope Francis, who became the 266th pontiff in 2013.
Historically, no pope of fully Asian descent has ever led the Catholic Church.
Discussions have been reignited around the possibility of a non-European pope – particularly from Asia – with reports suggesting that an Asian pope would carry deep symbolic and strategic significance, reflecting Catholicism’s rapid growth across the region and reinforcing the Church’s shift toward a more global identity.
As of the end of 2023, Asia was home to approximately 121 million Catholics, accounting for about 11% of the global Catholic population, which totals around 1.4 billion. This represents a growth of 0.6% from the previous year, indicating steady expansion in the region.
The Philippines and India remain the largest contributors to Asia’s Catholic population, with 93 million and 23 million Catholics respectively, together comprising over three-quarters of the region’s total.
Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese and Kiana Duncan for RFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.
Among candidates to be the next head of the Catholic Church, several prominent cardinals in Asia are thought to be under consideration.
Pope Francis passed away on Monday at the age of 88, concluding a 12-year papacy. A papal conclave is expected to convene at the Vatican within the next 15 to 20 days to elect his successor.
While the official appointment of a pope requires the votes of 90 out of 135 cardinals in the Vatican, prominent candidates span 71 countries, with several overseeing dioceses in Asia from Sri Lanka, South Korea, the Philippines and Myanmar. Any candidate from these countries would be the first Asian pope to sit in the Vatican.
The 76-year-old Charles Maung Bo, born in northwest Myanmar’s now-embattled Sagaing region, resided over the Lashio diocese in the country’s northern Shan state from 1986 until 2003, when he was appointed Archbishop of Yangon and later became a cardinal under the authority of Pope Francis in 2015.
Pope Francis celebrates a Mass with Cardinal Charles Maung Bo in Yangon, Myanmar, Nov. 28, 2017. (L’Osservatore Romano via AP)Despite Catholics comprising just over 1% of Myanmar’s majority-Buddhist population, sources close to Myanmar’s Cardinal Charles Maung Bo said that the College of Cardinals may be looking at finding a candidate with a diplomatic and humanitarian-oriented approach similar to Pope Francis.
Charles Maung Bo became more prominent in 2021 following the country’s military coup when he called for a peaceful solution in the face of armed rebel movements across the country.
In an interview with Radio Free Asia in 2023, he referred to the population of Myanmar as “brothers and sisters,” calling on all sides to lay down their weapons.
“Guns beget more guns. Bullets beget more bullets. If violence is met with violence, it will only lead to more violence,” he said. “All of us, no matter which side we are on, all those who are armed, should lay down our weapons and be family.”
Sri Lanka’s Cardinal Albert Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo, leads mass at the San Lorenzo In Lucino church in Rome March 10, 2013. (Chris Helgren/Reuters)In Sri Lanka, another Buddhist-majority country, 77-year-old Malcolm Ranjith, who serves as the Archbishop of Colombo, the nation’s capital, is eligible for appointment.
Others have speculated that the next pope-elect may come from South Korea, where around 30% of the population is Christian, or the Philippines, a Catholic-majority country. Both have leaders in the Catholic church eligible for the Vatican.
Then-South Korean bishop Lazzaro You Heung-sik talks during a news conference at the Holy See press office at the Vatican Oct. 11, 2018. (Max Rossi/Reuters)South Korea’s 74-year-old Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung-sik may be considered, given the Catholic church’s growth in the country in the last few decades and its large financial contributions to the Vatican. He was appointed to a role within the Vatican as Dicastery for the Clergy as a prefect in 2021 and as a cardinal in 2022.
The Philippines’ Luis Antonio Tagle, 67 years old, has often been compared to Pope Francis and named by experts as a favorite of the late pope for his humanitarian and progressive social views on issues such as migration and same sex marriage, but may prove to be too young for the conclave, who typically select a candidate in his 70s.
Pope Francis hugs Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle (L) before blessing a mosaic of St. Pedro Calungsod’s image during a meeting with the Philippine community at the St Peter Basilica in Vatican Nov. 21, 2013. (Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters)As of 2025, there have been 266 popes recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, starting from St. Peter, considered the first pope, to Pope Francis, who became the 266th pontiff in 2013.
Historically, no pope of fully Asian descent has ever led the Catholic Church.
Discussions have been reignited around the possibility of a non-European pope – particularly from Asia – with reports suggesting that an Asian pope would carry deep symbolic and strategic significance, reflecting Catholicism’s rapid growth across the region and reinforcing the Church’s shift toward a more global identity.
As of the end of 2023, Asia was home to approximately 121 million Catholics, accounting for about 11% of the global Catholic population, which totals around 1.4 billion. This represents a growth of 0.6% from the previous year, indicating steady expansion in the region.
The Philippines and India remain the largest contributors to Asia’s Catholic population, with 93 million and 23 million Catholics respectively, together comprising over three-quarters of the region’s total.
Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese and Kiana Duncan for RFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Read “Cross-strait shadows: Inside the Chinese influence campaign against Taiwan” (Part I here and Part II here)
TAIPEI, Taiwan – Marketed as a cross-strait collaboration, “Taiwan’s Voice” presents itself as a local commentary platform. But behind the familiar hosts and studio lies a deeper link to China’s state-run media.
Over the past year, the Asia Fact Check Lab has traced how content produced in Taiwan, yet aligned with Chinese narratives, is seeping into the island’s media landscape through what it calls the “Fujian Network.”
With slick production and recognizable faces, these shows blur the line between domestic discourse and foreign influence – part of Beijing’s quiet push to shape public opinion in Taiwan.
What is ‘Taiwan’s Voice’?
The show “Taiwan’s voice,” or “寶島, 報到!” in Chinese, is marketed as an original cross-strait news and commentary program designed to “speak through borrowed mouths,” by inviting Taiwan’s pan-blue “opinion leaders” to serve as guest commentators and enhance the effectiveness of messaging directed at Taiwan.
The show – launched in 2019 – is operated by “Straits TV,” a subsidiary of China’s Fujian Broadcasting and Television Group.
The show “Taiwan’s voice” branded itself as a cross-strait collaboration “jointly produced by news teams from both sides,” without mentioning which Taiwanese team was actually working with China’s Straits TV. (Baidu)According to a news release from the Fujian Provincial Radio and Television Bureau, the program was recognized as a “Model Case of Media Integration in Fujian Province in 2021” and recommended for commendation by China’s National Radio and Television Administration.
The program branded itself as a cross-strait collaboration “jointly produced by news teams from both sides,” without mentioning which Taiwanese team was actually working with Straits TV.
Despite this framing, the program prominently features pro-China Taiwanese commentators and content crafted for Chinese audiences, frequently using mainland Chinese terminology.
Who actually produces the show?
While monitoring broadcasts, AFCL noticed a detail: in one episode, a guest of the show, New Party Taipei City councilor Hou Han-ting, thanks live viewers at the start and mentions he had just come from a budget review session at the city council and took a taxi to the studio. This suggests the recording took place in Taiwan.
In another video, the guest host interacted with off-screen staff, confirming a cooperative relationship between Straits TV and Chung T’ien Television, or CTiTV, a Taipei-based broadcaster.
Interviews with media insiders later confirmed the program is recorded in a studio operated by CTiTV in Taipei.
CTiTV, owned by the pro-China Want Want Group, is known for promoting Beijing-friendly narratives. In 2020, Taiwan’s media regulator revoked its license over repeated disinformation and biased reporting.
CTiTV denied the allegations and accused regulators of bias, but the channel reportedly failed to explain the nature of its China-related content and collaborations.
Since then, the broadcaster transitioned to digital platforms to continue its operations, streaming its content online via its YouTube channel and through its dedicated mobile app.
Empty recording studios are seen in the CTi station in Taipei, Taiwan, Dec. 10, 2020. (Ann Wang/Reuters)Interviews and content comparisons confirm at least a practical partnership between CTiTV and Straits TV. This includes content sharing and the provision of production facilities and personnel, jointly producing the politically focused program “Taiwan’s Voice.”
When questioned about whether the scripts originated from China, a CTiTV employee denied the claim, saying that the producers choose the topics and the guests are responsible for preparing their own scripts.
Two CTiTV employees, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFCL they did not believe Chinese authorities had directly intervened in the broadcaster’s operations.
However, they pointed to Want Want Group chairman Tsai Eng-meng’s pro-China stance, suggesting that CTiTV’s editorial direction may already be influenced by Tsai in ways that align with Beijing’s narrative.
CTiTV has not responded to AFCL’s inquiries.
Legal gray zone
While Taiwanese law prohibits unauthorized political collaboration between local organizations and Chinese entities, enforcement remains a challenge.
Under the current law, such collaborations must be approved by the relevant authority – yet what constitutes “political content” or “cooperation” remains vague.
The Mainland Affairs Council, a Taiwanese administrative agency that oversees cross-strait relations policy targeting mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, confirmed to AFCL that any cross-strait political co-productions require pre-approval.
But in practice, responsibility is diffused among various agencies such as the Ministry of Culture, the National Communications Commission, or NCC, and the Ministry of Digital Affairs.
Members of the media use a mobile phone to live-stream the presser after the second live policy address ahead of January’s election in Taipei, Taiwan, Dec. 25, 2019. (Ann Wang/Reuters)National Taiwan University’s journalism professor Hung Chen-ling noted that while such activities may breach the law, penalties are weak.
“Even if someone reports a violation, the fine might be just a few thousand dollars. For those involved, the benefits often outweigh the cost,” she said.
Another hurdle is the challenge of regulating cross-strait media co-productions in the digital era. While cable broadcasts in Taiwan are subject to licensing and oversight, these mechanisms have limited reach online.
Although traditional television content must comply with established regulations, the rise of digital platforms and internet-native programming has introduced enforcement gaps.
As more broadcasters pivot to online distribution, it becomes harder for authorities to monitor content – potentially enabling foreign-affiliated media to reach Taiwanese audiences with less regulatory scrutiny.
Edited by Chih Te Lee and Taejun Kang.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zhuang Jing, Dong Zhe and Alan Lu for Asia Fact Check Lab.This post was originally published on Radio Free.