27/01/2025

MONDAY | JAN 27, 2025

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Australia Day protesters deface monuments

Vegas victory rally caps whirlwind week for president LAS VEGAS: US President Donald Trump held a victory rally in Las Vegas on Saturday, wrapping up a tumultuous week that saw him double down on promises to reshape American politics and culture. He was back in front of an adoring crowd in the nation’s gambling capital hours after a dramatic late-night purge of internal federal agency watchdogs. After visits to disaster sites in North Carolina and California, the Vegas stop was a feel-good campaign-style event for the president. A relaxed Trump laughed and joked his way through a modified version of his pre election stump speech, including repeatedly bashing his predecessor Joe Biden. “Since I became the 47th president at noon on Monday, I’ve been moving with urgency and historic speed to fix every single calamity of the Biden administration that they’ve created,” he told cheering supporters. “This week alone, I took nearly 350 executive actions to reverse the horrible values and betrayals that we inherited from a group of people that didn’t know what the hell they were doing.” Trump won Nevada in the 2024 election – the first Republican candidate to take the state in 20 years – and he said he was back to thank voters. He pledged to follow through on a pre election promise to make tips tax-free – an enormously popular move in a city built on the hospitality industry. The speech was in sharp contrast with his visits on Friday to communities devastated by floods and wildfires, during which he threatened to shut down FEMA, the US federal disaster agency. Shortly after arriving in Vegas, it emerged that Trump had sacked with immediate effect the independent inspectors general of at least 12 federal agencies. The late-night firing of officials charged with rooting out fraud, waste and abuse capped a series of directives widely seen as ensuring a federal bureaucracy that is acquiescent and loyal. – AFP BERLIN: The people of Greenland would like to be part of the United States, President Donald Trump said aboard Air Force One, journalists travelling with the president reported. “I think we’re going to have it. And I think the people want to be with us. There’re 55,000 people there, want to be with us,”Trump said. He said he did not really know what claim Denmark had to the autonomous territory, but added that a Danish refusal would be “a very unfriendly act”. Greenland Prime Minister Mute B Egede has said that the people of Greenland would decide the territory’s future. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen supported his comments. – Bernama MAN HELD OVER TRAIN STATION STABBING TOKYO: Japanese police said yesterday they had arrested a man over a stabbing at a train station which left one person dead and two wounded. The Wednesday evening attack took place outside the JR Nagano Station in central Japan. Police detained a 46-year-old man, initially arresting him for attempted murder. He could face further charges at a later stage. A 49-year-old man was killed, while a man in his 30s sustained serious injuries and a woman in her 40s was lightly wounded. The three victims were apparently targeted at random. – AFP GREENLANDERS WANT TO BE WITH US: TRUMP

o Unite under one flag, says opposition leader

“Invasion day. It’s just about the survival of our people. We’re still here. We ain’t going nowhere. Like you know, you can try to assimilate all you want, but we’re still here,” indigenous Australian Amanda Hill said. “It’s about changing the date, but it’s more about making people aware of our injustices that have been since, and still ongoing since white man came,” said Tammy Miller. “We’re still here fighting the same things that my grandparents were, but seeing all the people here makes me so proud,” she said. In Sydney, the artwork of Wiradjuri-Biripi artist James P. Simon was projected on the sails of the Opera House. Police estimated that 15,000 people took part in protests and music events in Sydney throughout the day. In Melbourne’s central business district, police estimated some 25,000 people had taken to the streets. Speakers at the protests talked about issues important to Aboriginal Australians, including the high numbers of Aboriginal deaths in custody, missing and murdered Aboriginal women, land rights and the push to establish a treaty to support indigenous people. Efforts by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

to establish a constitutional voice for Aboriginal people to parliament was soundly defeated in a 2023 referendum. Opposition leader Peter Dutton said in a post on social media that Australians “shouldn’t be afraid of celebrating” their country on Australia Day. Dutton has said the country must unite under one flag, and that he will remove Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags from government press conferences if he becomes prime minister in an election that must take place by mid-May. At a citizenship ceremony in Canberra for 24 immigrants Albanese hailed “the unique privilege that we have of sharing this oldest continent with the world’s oldest continuous culture”. “It is a responsibility all of us owe to future generations to safeguard our social cohesion, to uphold Australian fairness and continue Australia’s progress,” he said. Indigenous people have a life expectancy eight years shorter than other Australians, higher rates of incarceration, more youth unemployment and poorer education. – Reuters/AFP

MELBOURNE: Two statues were damaged in Melbourne ahead of Australia Day celebrations yesterday, with tens of thousands of people joining protests in support of Aboriginal groups. A statue of colonist John Batman, a founder of the country’s second-largest city and who was involved in the killing of indigenous people, was sawn in half, while a monument commemorating Australian soldiers in World War I was daubed in red paint and the words “land back”, according to police. Australia’s National Day on Jan 26 is a date of mourning for many indigenous Australians because it marks the day Captain James Cook landed in Sydney Cove and the beginning of the country’s colonisation by the British. Protesters were also carrying Palestinian flags, and speakers spoke of similarities between Aboriginal and Palestinian experiences.

BR I E F S

Demonstrators marching through Melbourne yesterday. – AFPPIC

Brazil slams US after deportees arrive handcuffed SAO PAULO: Brazil’s government expressed outrage on Saturday after dozens of immigrants deported from the United States arrived by plane in handcuffs, calling it a “flagrant disregard” for their rights. Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski told President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of “the flagrant disregard for the fundamental rights of Brazilian citizens”, the statement said. freelancer, recounted the “nightmare” of people with “respiratory problems” during “four hours without air conditioning”due to technical issues on the plane.

“Things have already changed (with Trump), immigrants are treated as criminals,” he said. The flight was destined for the southeastern city of Belo Horizonte, but encountered a technical issue forcing it to land in Manaus. A government source said the deportation flight was not directly linked to any immigration orders issued by Trump upon taking office, but rather stemmed from a 2017 bilateral agreement. Brazil’s Minister of Human Rights, Macae Evaristo said “children with autism ... who went through very serious experiences” were also on the flight. – AFP

Brazil will request “explanations from the US government about the degrading treatment of passengers” on the Friday night flight, the Foreign Ministry said on X. The government said 88 Brazilians were aboard the aircraft. Edgar Da Silva Moura, a 31-year-old computer technician, was on the flight, after seven months in detention in the United States. “On the plane they didn’t give us water, we were tied hands and feet, they wouldn’t even let us go to the bathroom,” he said. “It was very hot, some people fainted.” Luis Antonio Rodrigues Santos, a 21-year-old

The Foreign Ministry said it would demand an explanation from Washington over the “degrading treatment of passengers on the flight”. The spat comes as Latin America grapples with US President Donald Trump’s return to power bringing a hard-line anti-immigration agenda, promising crackdowns on irregular migration and mass deportations. When the plane landed in the northern city of Manaus, Brazilian authorities ordered US officials to “immediately remove the handcuffs”, the Justice Ministry said in a statement.