\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ended DEI in America,\u201d Donald Trump boasted during his State of the Union (SOTU) address on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Unlike many things the president said in his excruciatingly long SOTU speech, this was actually half true. The Trump administration\u2019s \u201cwar on woke\u201d has pushed a lot of large companies and institutes to retreat from the diversity, equity and inclusion policies they used to pretend to be proud of.<\/p>\n
But while DEI may be dead, WTF hiring is very much alive. Being Wealthy, Trumpy, and\/or Fox News-famous seem to be the only qualifications you need for success in Trump\u2019s USA. See, for example, the entire Trump administration: a horrifying hodgepodge of unqualified sycophants. See also, hot off the press, Melania Trump\u2019s new gig at the United Nations. It\u2019s been announced that the first lady will lead a session of the United Nations security council on Monday titled Children, Technology, and Education in Conflict.<\/p>\n
It can\u2019t be stressed enough that this is highly unusual. As the White House noted in a statement: \u201cMrs Trump\u2019s leadership will mark the first time a sitting US first lady presides over the security council.\u201d Back in precedented times, you see, you generally needed a qualification or two to lead the security council. Now, however, we\u2019re squarely in the WTF economy: Melania is a Trump, ergo automatically qualified to do anything her little heart desires.<\/p>\n
What I want to know is why exactly Melania\u2019s heart desires this. It\u2019s true that the first lady likes a project and has kept herself very busy with her meme coins and coffee table books and film ventures. She has also made moves to position herself as a leading voice in the area of responsible technology for children and children in conflict. But, despite her pet projects, she\u2019s kept a low profile as first lady and hasn\u2019t seemed particularly enthused about public service or multilateralism.<\/p>\n
It is my working hypothesis that there are only two reasons a Trump ever does anything: money or malice. I\u2019m not sure holding the gavel at Monday\u2019s security council session is particularly lucrative, so file this one under \u201cmalice\u201d. Foisting Melania on the security council as the US assumes the body\u2019s rotating monthly presidency sends a clear message to the world about just how seriously the Trump administration takes the UN. It feels like an attempt to undermine the credibility of the UN and multilateralism more broadly.<\/p>\n
Trump certainly hasn\u2019t tried to hide his contempt for independent intergovernmental institutions. In his first term as president, he withdrew from the World Health Organization (WHO). This was reversed by Joe Biden and then that reversal was overturned by Trump last year: the US formally left the WHO at the end of last month. In January, the president also signed an executive order withdrawing the US from 66 international organizations, agencies and commissions, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Trump justified this by saying the organizations\u2019 interests run \u201ccontrary\u201d to US interests. In other words, they commit the cardinal sin of not doing everything he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe symbolism is unequivocal,\u201d Daniel Forti, head of UN affairs at the International Crisis Group, told NPR about this retreat from the UN system. \u201cIt\u2019s that the US really wants to dictate its own terms to the rest of the multilateral system and wants to work with the UN in a way where it really sets the agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US is certainly setting the agenda in Gaza, with Trump\u2019s so-called Board of Peace. The US owes more than $4bn in UN arrears; it has only paid $160m of this but, according to a recent announcement by Trump, $10bn will be transferred from the US government to the \u201cBoard of Peace\u201d, an international body chaired by the president and full of his lackeys and family \u2013 including son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is on the founding executive board. Rather than bring any sort of relief to Gaza, the board seems like a vehicle for rampant profiteering. And a very exciting personal opportunity for Kushner, who has waxed lyrical about Gaza\u2019s valuable waterfront property.<\/p>\n
Trump has also made it clear that he thinks the board is \u201cgoing to go far beyond Gaza\u201d. While he has said \u201cwe\u2019re working in conjunction with the United Nations,\u201d a number of diplomats worry it will morph into an alternative forum to the UN: one which is quite explicitly controlled by the US.<\/p>\n
All of which must be very exciting for our first lady, who is clearly keen to try her hand at international diplomacy. Perhaps, after her valuable work experience stint at the United Nations on Monday, Melania will also find herself a nice little role on the Board of Peace. And maybe Ivanka Trump, who the president once thought about installing as the head of the World Bank, will also return to public life. Whatever happens, I think we can all agree that we\u2019re terribly lucky to have such a talented ruling family. Fifa, I hope you\u2019re paying attention; time to give Melania her own peace prize, don\u2019t you think?<\/p>\n
Women in EU member states with near-total abortion bans, such as Poland, will be given help to access legal and safe abortions elsewhere, it was announced on Thursday. This is being hailed as a \u201cvictory for women\u201d and was the result of the My Voice, My Choice citizens\u2019 initiative. Nice to see democracy working properly for a change!<\/p>\n
A number of Republican state lawmakers, including representative Monty Fritts, who is also running for governor, recently introduced an amendment to the criminal code which would classify abortion as \u201chomicide of an unborn child\u201d, punishable by life imprisonment or death by lethal injection. It looks like this bill will stall indefinitely, but the fact that it was even introduced shows just how far right the Overton window has shifted.<\/p>\n
According to the Danish newspaper Berlingske, via the Daily Beast, the South Carolina senator called Mette Frederiksen \u201clittle lady\u201d as he looked her \u201cstraight in the eye\u201d and \u201csneered\u201d during an exchange.<\/p>\n
Big news for geriatric millennials like me.<\/p>\n
Very disturbing to see what BBC decided to edit out of the British Academy Film Awards and what they decided to keep in.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not clear if the women will be formally charged, but if they are they could face a life sentence. Back in 2023, Uganda passed one of the harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the world. It includes life imprisonment for same-sex relationships and the death penalty for \u201caggravated homosexuality\u201d.<\/p>\n
Almost 60 Palestinian journalists detained in Israeli prisons have been beaten, starved and subjected to sexual violence, including rape, a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) alleges. Another CPJ report, released on Wednesday, found Israel is responsible for two-thirds of a record 129 press killings in 2025 and to blame for 81% of \u201cintentionally targeted\u201d journalist killings.<\/p>\n
Nearly six in the 10 women in the US will have some sort of cardiovascular diseases by 2050, according to projections outlined in a new statement from the American Heart Association. In more positive news, rates of high cholesterol are expected to decline among nearly all groups of women.<\/p>\n
Moooove over, Moo Deng, the world has a new favourite celebrity zoo animal. Punch, a Japanese macaque, has shot to international prominence after being abandoned by his mother and growing attached to a stuffed orangutan toy from Ikea. It would seem that little Punch is now has a lot of (pri)mates and is generally thriving. So is Ikea, which is now selling out of its Djungelskog orangutan soft toy. Opportunistic resellers are also jacking up the stuffed toy\u2019s price and putting it on eBay. Capitalism really is bananas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWe ended DEI in America,\u201d Donald Trump boasted during his State of the Union (SOTU) address on Tuesday. Unlike many things the president said in his excruciatingly long SOTU speech, this was actually half true. The Trump administration\u2019s \u201cwar on woke\u201d has pushed a lot of large companies and institutes to retreat from the diversity,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[6621,914,4712,6622,582,444,1242,81,550],"class_list":{"0":"post-45555","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-arwa","9":"tag-council","10":"tag-leading","11":"tag-mahdawi","12":"tag-meeting","13":"tag-melania","14":"tag-security","15":"tag-trump","16":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}