Tag: US

  • US official visits mega-prison in El Salvador, repeats accusation that deported migrants are “criminals”, “terrorists”

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    Original article by Pablo Meriguet republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    US Secretary of Homeland Security tours CECOT mega-prison, and signs a new security cooperation agreement between San Salvador and Washington.

    Last Wednesday, March 26, the US Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, traveled to El Salvador to visit the mega-prison called Confinement Center for Terrorism (CECOT), where the Salvadoran government has detained hundreds of Venezuelan migrants deported by the United States.

    On X, the US Embassy in El Salvador explained that during her visit, “Secretary Noem will address cooperation between the two countries in the fight against illegal migration, reinforcing joint efforts to strengthen border security and ensure a safer region.”

    Noem strengthens US-El Salvador alliance on mass deportations

    In a clear gesture of support for the Bukele administration, Noem met with the Salvadoran President to strengthen the crackdown on immigration that the Trump administration has initiated since he took office on January 20, 2025. According to the US Embassy in El Salvador, the meeting formalized “bilateral cooperation on security and migration. During the meeting, Secretary Noem thanked the President for El Salvador’s commitment to the fight against illegal migration.”

    For his part, El Salvador’s Secretary of Security, Gustavo Villatoro explained that during Noem’s visit, “We toured CECOT, the largest maximum-security prison in the Americas. In addition, we signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to update the Security Alliance for Fugitive Enforcement (SAFE) between our countries. With this agreement, we will have a more streamlined exchange of information and criminal records on fugitives, so that these criminals are not inadvertently released or remain unnoticed in the communities. This will undoubtedly be an enriching experience to share our security achievements and strengthen our strategies to combat transnational organized crime and terrorism.”

    Noem’s prison video sparks controversy over US policy and human rights

    One of the most controversial moments of the visit was disseminated by Secretary Noem herself, who recorded a video inside the CECOT mega-prison, in front of a cell holding dozens of shirtless inmates posing in silence.

    “I want to thank El Salvador and their President for the partnership with the US to bring the terrorists here, and to incarcerate them and to have consequences for the violence they have perpetuated in our communities.” But most seriously, she warned in a threatening tone, that if anyone dared to enter the United States illegally, “this is one of the consequences you can face… [CECOT] is one of the facilities that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people”.

    Despite Noem repeating that the detained men are “terrorists” and “criminals”, none of the 238 migrants who were irregularly deported from the US to El Salvador were granted a trial – a constitutional right – meaning they have not been proven guilty of anything. In fact, family members of many of those deported have shared that their relatives’ only crime was being a poor migrant with tattoos.

    Read more: Venezuelan families demand justice for their relatives deported to El Salvador

    The agreement to receive deported migrants and lock them up was signed between the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, and the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. 

    According to official information leaked by AP, El Salvador will receive around USD 20,000 per year for each person the US government sends to the Central American country.

    Venezuela continues to demand the immediate and safe return of its citizens from El Salvador, and has received several deportation flights this past week.

    Trump doubles down on deportations and detainment 

    For now, Trump shows no signs of abandoning his immigration policy, including the deportation of migrants to El Salvador. Despite the objections of several human rights organizations and the Venezuelan government, Trump has ordered a blackout on information regarding deportation operations to the Central American country. Everything related to the flights of Venezuelans to El Salvador has been declared a “State Secret” by the US president. 

    Meanwhile, hundreds of Venezuelan families, along with the Maduro government, continue to demand the release and repatriation of their compatriots to Venezuela.

    Original article by Pablo Meriguet republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
  • US and UK escalate aggression on Yemen as Signal scandal unfolds

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    Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    US aircraft launched 41 airstrikes early Friday morning across Yemen. Photo: Al Manar news

    The last couple of weeks saw an unprecedent escalation by the Western coalition against Yemen, after Ansar Allah resumed Red Sea operations in retaliation for Israel’s renewed genocide and aid ban in Gaza.

    For nearly two weeks, the US has conducted daily airstrikes on Yemen. The UK also took part in the heavy, non-stop aggression in different areas across Yemen. 

    In the early hours of Friday, March 28, US fighter jets hit more than 40 locations in the Arab country including the capital Sana’a, Saada, Marib, Al-Jawf, and Hodeidah governorates. The airstrikes reportedly left several people across the country injured. 

    On Thursday, March 27, at least two people were killed and two others wounded in a series of US airstrikes that targeted the Yemeni capital Sana’a.

    The aggression was launched one day after the US launched 15 airstrikes on the southern and northeastern regions of Sanaa, in addition to the vicinity of Sanaa International Airport. The US and the UK targeted the Saada governorate in northwestern Yemen with dozens of airstrikes on the same day as well.

    The western coalition had already intensified its airstrikes against Yemen for several days before Wednesday, March 26. Dozens of people, including women and children, were reported killed in the fierce aerial campaign. 

    US national security exposed after Signal chat on Yemen’s aggression plan leaked 

    A huge scandal has rocked the Trump administration after internal national security deliberations related to the US plans to strike Yemen were mistakenly leaked through the Signal messaging application, on Monday, March 24. 

    Contents of the Signal chat were published in The Atlantic after its Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg was seemingly inadvertently added to the chat by US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.

    Goldberg disclosed the content of the chat, which was considered a huge breach of data security via a story published by The Atlantic. The journalist revealed that he knew that the US was planning to bomb different targets belonging to Ansar Allah across Yemen on March 15, two hours before the first airstrike was launched.  

    Goldberg elaborated that he became aware of the plan once the US Secretary of Defense Pete Hesgeth texted him the information at 11:44 am. Goldberg said that “the plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.”

    The breach has provoked criticism and raised questions about the accountability in Trump’s cabinet as it has not only revealed sensitive details related to military-operations, but also what was perceived as institutional dishonesty inside the Trump administration. 

    Downplaying the seriousness of the leak, Trump called the incident a “witch hunt” while speaking to reporters at the Oval Office. The US President instead focused on the success of the US airstrikes in Yemen. The White House also said that the leaked information shared via the commercial messaging application was not classified.

    The Democrats slammed the Trump administration calling on the officials involved to resign. Meanwhile, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee issued a bipartisan call for an expedited investigation into the breach.

    Progressive movements and commentators have noted that amid the scandal, the attacks on Yemen themselves and their legality seem to be an afterthought for the Democrats who have instead focused their criticisms on the security violations of the officials’ communication.

    Der Spiegel exposes new data security breach of Trump’s top officials 

    While the Trump administration is trying to dismiss the embarrassing scandal, German news website Der Spiegel reported on Thursday, March 27 that it found the contact data of Trump’s most important security advisers via hacked data dumps and commercial providers. 

    The leaked data included password details for Mike Waltz, Pete Hegseth, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, in addition to mobile phone numbers and email addresses. 

    The website pointed out that these phone numbers and email addresses are apparently still in use, some of which are linked to accounts on social media networks like Instagram and LinkedIn.

    Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

  • Israel murders Gaza journalists Hossam Shbat, Mohammad Mansour

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    Original article by Aseel Saleh republished form peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    Attacks on journalists and hospitals continue in Gaza. Pictured here are Hossam Shabat and Mohammad Mansour who were killed on Monday, March 24 in airstrikes. Photos via X

    Israel’s genocide in Gaza is in full swing as the Trump administration unleashes its ally and provides it with all the weapons it needs.

    One week after the resumption of Israel’s genocidal aggression on Gaza, Netanyahu appears determined to continue on a path of massacres and devastation rather than return to negotiations to restore the ceasefire.

    For almost a year and a half, using the most advanced military technology, Israel systematically targeted journalists and media workers, hospitals, and shelters full of civilians. The attacking of such “strategic” targets across Gaza by Israeli forces has resumed with the return to genocide.

    Bombardment of hospitals 

    The Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital

    On Friday, March 21, the IOF blew up the only cancer health facility in the war-torn enclave; the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in central Gaza. The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza clarified that the IOF detonated the hospital after using it “as a headquarters” for its troops throughout the time they have been occupying the Netzarim Corridor, which separates the northern part of the Gaza strip from its south.

    The ministry described the bombardment of the hospital as a “heinous crime” and affirmed that “this criminal behavior by the occupier is consistent with the systematic destruction of the healthcare system and is part of the ongoing genocide.”

    For its part, the Turkish Foreign Ministry denounced the destruction of the hospital, which was built by Türkiye and operated by local authorities in Gaza, in a statement on Friday. The ministry said that the attack is part of Israel’s broader policy that aims at “making Gaza uninhabitable”.

    “The deliberate targeting of a hospital providing healthcare services to civilians in Gaza is part of Israel’s policy to render Gaza unlivable and force the Palestinian people to displacement,” the statement said.

    The ministry further urged the international community to take “firm and effective steps against Israel’s unlawful attacks and systematic state terrorism.”

    Nasser Hospital

    Israel’s systematic targeting of hospitals and healthcare workers has continued with a new deadly air strike that hit the surgical unit at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in Northern Gaza on Sunday, March 23.

    The assault killed at least two people and injured several staff members. One of those killed was identified as Ismail Barhoum, a member of Hamas’s political bureau in the Gaza strip, who was receiving medical treatment in the surgical unit at the time of the assault. The other slain person is a 17-year-old boy.

    Barhoum was reportedly admitted to Nasser hospital as he had sustained critical injuries in an Israeli airstrike around one week ago.

    Many believe the attack was launched to assassinate Barhoum. However, analysts and activists suggest that it also targeted four non-Palestinian physicians, who were frequently interviewed by western media outlets about the crimes committed by the IOF that they witnessed during the genocide in Gaza.

    These physicians are:

    • Dr. Mark Perlmutter
    • Dr. Feroze Sidwha
    • Dr. Tanya Haj Hassan
    • Dr. Tammy Abughnaim

    They were operating for hundreds of days on ICU patients and saving lives with limited medical supplies amid daily power outages.

    Analyzing the attack, the Palestinian Youth Movement highlighted the significant role these physicians would play as witnesses at future international tribunals against Israeli officials via a post published on Instagram.

    “The ability of these world-class surgeons to serve as highly educated, Western-based, ‘credible’ outside witnesses to the genocide, put their lives at existential risk from the moment they began their work during the genocide. The doctors knew this, yet despite the grave danger they continued to be under, they never stopped working and serving their patients, refusing to abandon them even after Israel’s ceasefire violations that caused the all-out war to resume,” the group wrote.

    Surviving the attack, American trauma surgeon Dr. Feroze Sidwha wrote on his account on X: “I was at Nasser Hospital in Gaza when it was bombed today. One of my patients, a 17-year-old boy, was killed. He would have gone home tomorrow. If I had been changing his dressings, as I planned to this evening, I probably would have been killed too. Attacking hospitals is a war crime, and it needs to stop.”

    Two Palestinian journalists killed in one hour

    Amidst the resumption of its genocidal aggression on the Gaza strip, Israel has resumed the systematic targeting of journalists in an attempt to silence the truth. On Monday, March 24 two Palestinian journalists were assassinated in two separate attacks in one hour.

    Palestine Today correspondent Mohammad Mansour was killed in an Israeli airstrike north of Khan Younis, before another airstrike hit the car of Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent Hossam Shabat in Salah al-Din Street in the northern Gaza strip.

    Videos of Mansour’s family bidding him a farewell were posted online. The videos showed the journalist’s grief-stricken father carrying his microphone and trying to make Mansour hold it again with his lifeless hands.

    “Speak up, speak up, tell the whole world about what has been happening, the image can express everything,” Mansour’s father said as he was sobbing over his son’s dead body.

    Hossam Shabat’s team shared his final message via his official X account, which he seems to have requested be published after his death.

    “If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed—most likely targeted—by the Israeli occupation forces. When this all began, I was only 21 years old—a college student with dreams like anyone else. For the past 18 months, I have dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury. I slept on pavements, in schools, in tents—anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival. I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my people’s side,” he wrote.

    “By God, I fulfilled my duty as a journalist. I risked everything to report the truth, and now, I am finally at rest—something I haven’t known in the past 18 months. I did all this because I believe in the Palestinian cause. I believe this land is ours, and it has been the highest honor of my life to die defending it and serving its people.”

    “I ask you now: do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories—until Palestine is free,” Hossam urged the free people of the world at the end of his message.

    The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned the assassination of the two journalists in a statement on Monday.

    “CPJ is appalled that we are once again seeing Palestinians weeping over the bodies of dead journalists in Gaza,” CPJ’s Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna said.

    “This nightmare in Gaza has to end. The international community must act fast to ensure that journalists are kept safe and hold Israel to account for the deaths of Hossam Shabat and Mohammed Mansour. Journalists are civilians and it is illegal to attack them in a war zone,” De la Serna added.

    Israel appears indifferent about the lives of its captives

    Since October 2023, Israeli fighter jets have been launching arbitrary shelling across the Gaza strip putting the lives of everyone there at imminent risk, including Israeli captives.

    The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, released a new video on Monday showing the two Israeli captives Elkana Bohbot and Yosef Haim Ohana, speaking to the Israeli public about their suffering.

    Ohana emphasized that the video was not broadcast as an act of psychological warfare on Hamas’ part, but was instead something that he and Bohbot requested from their captors to have their voices heard by their people.

    The captive stressed that closing the border-crossings and blockading humanitarian aid to Gaza by their government has left them with no food to consume. He also affirmed that Hamas fighters were “keen and concerned”, providing them with everything they needed.

    Ohana said that he received a “severe blow” by his government when it decided to resume its aggression on Gaza on March 18, as the IOF’s aerial attacks could have killed them, and that they saw death before their eyes.

    With an obvious outrage at the Israeli government, Bohbot said: “Enough with this government silencing our voice.”

    “The prisoners who were with us before and now released, give them a chance to speak and express their opinions. Stop silencing their voices. Let them Speak. Let the truth come out,” he added.

    Ohana and Bohbot called on released captive Ohad Ben Ami to recount his experiences in captivity, thus, that would pressure the Israeli government for speeding up their release.

    The US has “unleashed Israel” with all the weapons it needs to proceed with genocide

    Confirming the US’s full support and partnership in the renewed genocide in Gaza, Deputy US Special Envoy to “the Middle East” Morgan Ortagus told Fox News on Sunday, that the Trump administration “has unleashed Israel and provided all the weapons needed to continue the war.”

    While the US seeks to reaffirm its partnership in murdering Palestinians, Israel continues to commit daily massacres across the Gaza strip, raising the official death toll to over 50,021 people killed since October 2023, according to the latest report published by Palestinian health authorities.

    Widely respected institutions such as The Lancet medical journal, and UN human rights bodies have asserted that the death tally is likely severely undercounted, with the actual number being up to 40% higher.

    Original article by Aseel Saleh republished form peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
  • ‘Completely Delusional’: Trump Calls for Reinvigorating Domestic Use of US Coal

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    Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    U.S. President Donald Trump salutes his supporters at a political rally at Charleston Civic Center in Charleston, West Virginia on August 21, 2018.
     (Photo: Mandel Ngan / AFP)

    “Donald Trump is not concerned with Americans’ health or economic wellbeing. He is only concerned with helping out his billionaire buddies in the fossil fuel industry,” said one climate advocate.

    After U.S. President Donald Trump declared on Truth Social on Monday night that he is ordering his administration “to immediately begin producing Energy with BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL,” a leader at the grassroots environmental group Sierra Club quickly hit back, calling the move “completely delusional.”

    Trump said he was announcing the move as a means to counter China’s economic edge. The announcement comes “after years of being held captive by Environmental Extremists, Lunatics, Radicals, and Thugs, allowing other Countries, in particular China, to gain tremendous Economic advantage over us by opening up hundreds of all Coal Fire Power Plants,” Trump wrote.

    It was not immediately clear what Trump’s directive was referring to or how his announcement on social media would impact U.S. policy, according to Bloomberg.

    “There is no such thing as clean coal. There is only coal that pollutes our air and water so severely that nearly half a million Americans have died prematurely from coal in the last two decades,” said Sierra Club director of climate policy Patrick Drupp in a statement Tuesday. “Donald Trump is not concerned with Americans’ health or economic wellbeing. He is only concerned with helping out his billionaire buddies in the fossil fuel industry.”

    Trump’s cabinet includes a number figures who are friendly to the fossil fuel industry, such as Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who was a fracking industry CEO, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a known ally of oil and gas companies.

    On his first day in office, Trump declared a national energy emergency to ensure “an affordable and reliable domestic supply of energy,” called for expedited “permitting and leasing of energy and natural resource projects in Alaska,” and withdrew the United States from the the world’s main climate pact.

    The U.S. is mulling using emergency authority to bring coal-fired plants back online and halt others from shutting, Burgum told Bloomberg Television in an interview last week.

    “Under the national energy emergency, which President Trump has declared, we’ve got to keep every coal plant open,” Burgum said while at the energy sector gathering CERAWeek. “And if there had been units at a coal plant that have been shut down, we need to bring those back.”

    Meanwhile, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin earlier this month announced a new effort to rollback a host of EPA regulations, including some that will impact coal producers.

    The coal mining company Peabody Energy saw their stock rise 3.5% after Trump’s Monday post on social media about “clean coal,” according to Tuesday morning reporting from Schaeffer’s Investment Research.

    As of 2023, coal accounted for 16.2% of U.S. electricity generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That year, 21.4% came from renewables.

    In its statement released on Tuesday, Sierra Club took issue with Trump’s assertion that investing in coal has provided an economic boost to other countries. “Trump refers to the ‘Economic advantage’ that burning coal has afforded other nations. In reality, renewable energy is quickly becoming more affordable and reliable than coal,” they wrote.

    In 2023, the think tank Energy Innovation Policy & Technology released an analysis which found that 99% of coal plants are more expensive to run compared to replacing their generation capacity with either solar or wind power, when taking into account credits that were made available through the Inflation Reduction Act.

    Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.