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Category: Politics

China reports robust economic growth, thanks to resilient exports

China reports robust economic growth, thanks to resilient exports

The Wall Street Journal reports: A surge in exports powered China’s growth last year, defying expectations that a trade war with the U.S. would hobble the world’s second-biggest economy. China’s gross domestic product expanded 5% last year when adjusted for deflation, according to data released Monday by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics. That met Beijing’s official growth target and is in line with the 5% real GDP growth notched in 2024. At the beginning of last year, many analysts…

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If Trump tries to annex Greenland he may face a military tribunal outside the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction

If Trump tries to annex Greenland he may face a military tribunal outside the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction

Brett Wagner and J. Holmes Armstead, who both served as professors at the U.S. Naval War College, write: Just because the commander in chief of our nation’s armed forces is also our duly elected president, with all the powers invested in that high office, that does not imply, in any way, that the president has unchecked power over the military. A president must follow the law, too, or face the consequences. Normally, in a situation where subordinates believe themselves to…

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Boycott the 2026 World Cup

Boycott the 2026 World Cup

Jim Souhan, a sportswriter for The Minnesota Star Tribune, writes: Authoritarian governments love sportswashing — using international events to put a smiling face on their grim realities. That’s what the United States will try to do this summer with the World Cup. Eleven U.S. cities are scheduled to play host to World Cup matches this summer. The United States does not deserve this privilege as long as uniformed thugs are attacking people in the streets with the support of the…

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The threat against Greenland shows that we need to stop appeasing Trump

The threat against Greenland shows that we need to stop appeasing Trump

Trine Pertou Mach, Member of the Danish Parliament, writes: For more than a year, US President Donald Trump has openly threatened to “take” the world’s largest island, Greenland, which is currently a semi-autonomous entity within the Kingdom of Denmark. The threats seem to intensify by the hour, and the situation may well have worsened by the time you read this. I am a member of the Danish parliament, the Folketing, and the foreign affairs spokesperson for Enhedslisten, the left-wing Red-Green…

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Trump’s Greenland threats will boomerang against America

Trump’s Greenland threats will boomerang against America

Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador to Washington and currently chairman of the Munich Security Conference, writes: As Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has warned, an attack on Greenland would be the end of NATO. That would rob the United States of an unbeatable web of allies, offer rifts for our common enemies to exploit and eradicate the alliance’s collective moral high ground that has helped project American soft power across Europe and the world for decades. In short, it…

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Europe needs an escape plan from the Trump world order

Europe needs an escape plan from the Trump world order

Gaby Hinsliff writes: One way or the other, President Trump said, he will have Greenland. Well, at least now we know it’s the other; not an invasion that would have sent young men home to their mothers across Europe in coffins, but instead another trade war, designed to kill off jobs and break Europe’s will. Just our hopes of an economic recovery, then, getting taken out and shot on a whim by our supposedly closest ally, months after Britain signed…

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Chairman Trump’s Board of Peace looks like a plan to replace the UN Security Council

Chairman Trump’s Board of Peace looks like a plan to replace the UN Security Council

Paul Beckett and Isabel Ruehl write: Imagine you’re the president of a midsize country, and you’re offered a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The only condition: You have to pay the secretary-general of the United Nations $1 billion. This is something like what Donald Trump is now offering world leaders. The U.S. president has sent letters of invitation to various heads of government to join a new Board of Peace, which he will chair. The organization was…

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The tech billionaires behind Trump’s push to acquire Greenland

The tech billionaires behind Trump’s push to acquire Greenland

Lois Parshley writes: President Donald Trump started his second term with his sights set on Greenland. When Trump first proposed buying the arctic nation during his first administration, it was treated like a joke. But in a phone call last week with Denmark’s prime minister, who controls the autonomous territory’s foreign policy, the president doubled down on his efforts to seize power. In the “aggressive and confrontational” conversation, Trump threatened tariffs if he didn’t get his way. In a news…

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Trump is trying to create a borderless American power

Trump is trying to create a borderless American power

Nikhil Pal Singh writes: ‘Kinetic action’ in military terms is the application of force or motion to produce physical damage. Landing a Black Hawk helicopter filled with armed police agents on an apartment building in Chicago’s South Shore, dropping stun grenades and zip-tying residents is kinetic action. Grabbing roofers off the top of a house in upstate New York at gunpoint is kinetic action. Blowing up a small boat loaded with people in the Caribbean Sea: kinetic action. Kinetic action…

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What life is like under federal occupation in Minneapolis

What life is like under federal occupation in Minneapolis

Don Moynihan shares this account from someone living and working in Minneapolis who wishes, for their safety, to remain anonymous: I am writing as an ordinary citizen of Minneapolis/St Paul ─ one of America’s 20 largest metro areas. I have kids in the public schools, own a house, go to work every day, pay taxes, volunteer in my community (e.g., coaching youth sports, helping in the schools). I am certainly not a radical of any kind. I had never done…

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NYT video analysis of ICE shooting sheds light on contested moments

NYT video analysis of ICE shooting sheds light on contested moments

  President Trump and members of his administration have said that Renee Good, the woman killed by a federal agent in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, “weaponized her vehicle” against the agent who shot her — an interpretation they claim is confirmed by the agent’s cellphone video. “She didn’t try to run him over,” Mr. Trump said on the day of the shooting. “She ran him over.” That description has been contested by local and state officials, who have blamed the…

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Two protesters blinded by federal thugs using ‘less-lethal’ munitions

Two protesters blinded by federal thugs using ‘less-lethal’ munitions

The Guardian reports: Two protesters have been blinded by so-called “less-lethal” munitions deployed by federal officers during an anti-ICE protest last week in Santa Ana, California, according to reports. The blindings come amid rising scrutiny of federal authorities’ use-of-force policies, after the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer set off nationwide protests. Widely seen video recorded at the Santa Ana protest showed a homeland security agent shoot Kaden Rummler, 21, in…

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Corruption: Tech companies’ access to UK ministers dwarfs that of child safety groups

Corruption: Tech companies’ access to UK ministers dwarfs that of child safety groups

The Guardian reports: Tech companies have been meeting government ministers at a rate of more than once per working day, enjoying high-level political access that dwarfs that of child safety and copyright campaigners, who called the pattern “shocking” and “disturbing”. Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Elon Musk’s X, whose Grok AI image generator has sparked outrage with its sexualised images of women and children, were among the US tech companies holding hundreds of meetings with people at the heart of government,…

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Judge says Trump, Rubio, and Noem, engaged in ‘an unconstitutional conspiracy’ with targeted deportations

Judge says Trump, Rubio, and Noem, engaged in ‘an unconstitutional conspiracy’ with targeted deportations

Politico reports: A federal judge handling a lawsuit over the deportation of pro-Palestinian activists excoriated top administration officials, including President Donald Trump, for trampling on the First Amendment and for what the judge described as a fearful approach to freedom. “There was no policy here,” said U.S. District Judge William Young, an 85-year-old Reagan appointee who has been on the federal bench in Boston for 40 years. “What happened here is an unconstitutional conspiracy to pick off certain people.” During…

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If Trump invades Greenland, it would result in ‘the end of his presidency,’ GOP Rep. Don Bacon predicts

If Trump invades Greenland, it would result in ‘the end of his presidency,’ GOP Rep. Don Bacon predicts

Omaha World-Herald reports: Rep. Don Bacon on Wednesday ratcheted up his criticism of President Donald Trump’s approach to Greenland, telling The World-Herald that Trump’s comments represent “utter buffoonery” and that invading Greenland would be a “disastrous idea” that could lead to Trump’s impeachment. Bacon, a Nebraska Republican who’s not seeking reelection this fall, said an invasion of Greenland could prompt House Republicans to impeach Trump, who was impeached by the House twice in his first term but acquitted both times…

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Medical examiner believes death of man in ICE concentration camp was homicide

Medical examiner believes death of man in ICE concentration camp was homicide

The Washington Post reports: When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the Jan. 3 death of detainee Geraldo Lunas Campos at a Texas detention camp, the agency said “staff observed him in distress,” and it gave no cause of death. An employee of El Paso County’s Office of the Medical Examiner told Lunas Campos’s daughter this week that, subject to results of a toxicology report, the office is likely to classify the death as a homicide, according to a recording…

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