Trump's Second Term Begins, A List Of Concernables, And Belarus Has An "Election"

A detailed recount mixed with meme comedy to mark our times at Week 4 of 2025 featuring source material from Jentry Chau Vs The Underworld, Lower Decks, No. 7 West Mars Street, and Hailey’s On It!

Jan 26, 2025

The Trump Show: Series 2 - The Show Begins

A new era for the United States began on Monday, at noon January 20, Trump was sworn in as the new president of the United States. After leaving Washington in disgrace just four years ago, the current president enjoyed a remarkable return to the White House that included four indictments, 34 felony counts, multiple assassination attempts, and winning a plurality of votes in the last election. Yet for many, they see the second term beginning with a lame duck presidency, given he is term-limited under the 22nd Amendment. With the plethora of promises regarding domestic and foreign policy, especially on his first day in office, everyone was watching the first 24 hours play by.

For Trump’s inauguration and his first day in office, I dedicated a special article writing about the developments. If you haven’t read it yet, or want a catch-up on the craziness, you can check it out below.

Outsider Insights

Dictator On Day One... Or Not...

Wisley Lau

Jan 21

Back in December 2023, Fox News host Sean Hannity gave Donald Trump a chance to rebuke warnings of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, and reassure the public that he would not abuse his power to seek retribution. However, the future president did not assure many voters

Read full story

And now, let’s take a look at what happened for the rest of the week.

Tuesday was a particularly nervous day for Chicago, as plans were leaked last week that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents were planning a major enforcement operation in Chicago. Although that didn’t happen on Tuesday, Trump allowed ICE agents to make arrests in and near churches and schools, a change from avoiding sensitive areas in exchange for using “common sense.” In a bid to please Trump, Bloomberg reported India promised to take back 18,000 citizens to get on the president’s good side. Legal news abounds, as Democratic state AGs and numerous civil rights organizations filed to sue Trump over his executive order banning birthright citizenship, Judge Aileen Cannon blocked the DOJ from sharing the final classified documents case report with selected members of Congress. We learned former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes were among the nearly 1600 January 6 prisoners pardoned by Trump and released from jail, both Tarrio and Rhodes were responsible for planning the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Defending the decision, Trump claimed their sentences were “excessive.” Regarding the economy, Trump ordered officials to draw up retaliatory measures against countries applying “extraterritorial” levies over US multinationals, potentially creating a tax war. On the president’s favorite economic policy, Trump announced February 1 is the date he will impose 10% tariffs on Chinese imports, saying it was a response to the country’s failure to curb fentanyl exports. On technology, the president launched a special task force dedicated to creating new regulations for the industry, as well as an investment worth $500 billion in private sector AI infrastructure called Project Starlight. As Trump gave TikTok a 75-day grace period, SCMP reported China had softened its stance on a deal with the US on the popular social media app. Fulfilling a campaign promise to Libertarian voters, the president pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the scandalous online marketplace Silk Road. On the confirmations, new trouble for Hegseth’s nomination chances as his former sister-in-law made a sworn statement to senators, alleging the SecDef nominee was abusive against his second wife, while another report suggests Hegseth routinely passed out from alcohol abuse. In her Senate confirmation hearing, UN ambassador pick Elise Stefanik pledged an “America First” agenda in the United Nations, saying Israel has a “biblical right” to the West Bank. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported Vivek Ramaswamy left DOGE due to ideological disagreements with Elon Musk, which made their relationship as co-leaders untenable. Finally, in a moment of bravery by the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the bishop pleaded with the president to “have mercy” towards LGBTQ+ people and migrants in the inaugural prayer.

Days after Trump pardoned the January 6 rioters, which sparked concerns by security experts of an increased extremist threat, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert has invited all the pardoned rioters on a guided tour of the US Capitol, four years after they broke into it illegally. Among the visitors is Stewart Rhodes, who was just released from prison days ago. If you think Trump has put much thought into pardoning the January 6 prisoners, don’t be. Axios reported that as his staff struggled to vet through the prisoners one by one to see who should be pardoned, a frustrated president said "F--k it: Release 'em all." CNN obtained a State Department memo that wrote refugees who were slated to travel to the US had their flights canceled, it followed an executive order by the current administration suspending refugee admissions. Continuing on the president’s brutal crackdown on immigration, the Justice Department has been directing its federal prosecutors to investigate state or local officials who might stand in the way of ramped-up enforcement of immigration laws under the new administration, the Pentagon would send up to 1,500 active-duty troops to help secure the US-Mexico border, and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) returned to calling immigrants as “aliens” in a return to pre-DEI policy. Marking the first bill Trump has passed in his second term, the House voted to support the Laken Riley Act, a tough legislation that would allow ICE agents to detain undocumented immigrants accused of theft-related crimes, raising questions about due process. As Trump seeks to enforce his hardline policies, police departments across the country are pushing back against deportation raids and won’t cooperate with the federal government on this issue. Fanning the flames of hate, the KKK distributed flyers in Kentucky telling immigrants to “leave now,” on the same day Trump was inaugurated In the department of “everyone saw this coming a mile ago,” 160 National Security Council staffers were grilled about their loyalty to the president amid a reshaping of the federal workforce. A day after Trump announced the major artificial intelligence investment plan Project Starlight, it was criticized by one of the closest allies of his administration. Elon Musk claimed on his Twitter (X) social media site, "They don't actually have the money." In the meantime, the WSJ reported the Trump administration was preparing an executive order halting federal funding for gain-of-function research, a controversial kind of virus research that makes viruses more virulent or contagious. Trump ranted on Truth Social demanding the bishop Mariann Edgar Budde make an apology, calling her “a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.” In response, the bishop did not apologize and said, "I wanted to emphasize respecting the honor and dignity of every human being." In one of the president’s new appointments, Trump tapped Sean Curran, the person who sprung to cover him during the Butler rally, to lead the Secret Service. Trump also selected Andrew Puzder, who was nominated in 2017 to be President Trump’s labor secretary but had to withdraw from nomination due to bipartisan scrutiny, to be the ambassador to the European Union. However, Trump's nominee to be director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is in even dire waters, as support by whistleblower Edward Snowden is jeopardizing her chances of getting confirmed to the role. On Marco Rubio’s first day as Secretary of State, he met with Asian diplomats from India, Japan, and Australia, as well as told State Department employees that Trump’s changes “are not meant to be destructive, they’re not meant to be punitive.” For the parting note on Wednesday’s US politics news, we learned the contents of what Biden wrote to Trump before he departed the White House, the former president noted: “As I take leave of this sacred office I wish you and your family all the best in the next four years. The American people - and people around the world - look to this house for steadiness in the inevitable storms of history, and my prayer is that in the coming years will be a time of prosperity, peace, and grace for our nation.”

During the president’s interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Donald Trump, who ran on a campaign that the economy is terrible and the cost of living is too high, said “I don’t care” about the economy, insisting Biden’s pardons were more important. The president claimed he would “demand” interest rates to come down, ordered OPEC to cut oil prices, and Europe for threatening tariffs on the continent during a virtual address at the World Economic Forum. A federal judge in Seattle blocked Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship, issuing a temporary restraining order while calling the president’s act “blatantly unconstitutional.” Trump’s crackdown on immigration seems to be expanding the force of law-enforcement officials to the entire federal government, the WSJ reported the Department of Homeland Security is “granting immigration-enforcement authority to several agencies at the Justice Department, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the US Marshals Service.” Boosting an industry that resented the Biden administration, Trump signed an executive order calling for a new plan to support the crypto field, an area in which he has made personal investments regarding his NFTs and Trump digital coins. In Congress, John Ratcliffe was approved as CIA director with bipartisan support. At the same time, Pete Hegseth’s chances of becoming Defense Secretary rose significantly after he won a critical procedural vote, despite two Republican senators voting against him. In a boost in relations between Trump and Saudia Arabia’s Mohammed Bin Salman, the Crown Prince says the kingdom wants to invest $600 billion in the United States. Checking into the miscellaneous department, Trump declassified assassination files for John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr, arguing "Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay."

By Friday, the deportations had begun in New Jersey, and some were alarmed that many undocumented immigrants were taken away without warrants. According to an internal memo obtained by the NYT, Trump officials instructed ICE officers to quickly deport migrants who were allowed temporary residence under Biden-era policies. On the same day, the White House claimed migrant deportation flights with military aircraft had already begun, although some reports have suggested that Mexico refused to take in one of the deportation planes from landing in their country. During the president’s first trip to North Carolina to survey the damage by Hurricane Helene, he told reporters he was preparing to set conditional aid to California, including a demand to change voter ID rules in the state plus something about protecting fish. During the same Q&A session with reporters, Trump mused about either overhauling or eliminating FEMA through an executive order, even though the cost and damage of natural disasters continued to increase due to climate change. Then in California, Trump told officials something even stupider than drinking bleach to cure COVID: "The trees are loaded with water. They suck that water out of the ground ... it's called management of the floor." Hours before a final vote in the Senate to confirm Pete Hegseth, the NYT reported he admitted to Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren that he paid $50,000 as part of a legal settlement to a woman who accused him of rape. Unfortunately, despite McConnell joining Collins and Murkowski in voting against Hegseth, he still got enough votes to become Defence Secretary after Vance cast the tiebreaking vote. Concerning foreign policy, the president insisted he wanted to have Greenland during a testy phone call with Denmark’s prime minister. Following the president’s comments overnight that he “would rather not” impose tariffs on China, Chinese stocks in the mainland and Hong Kong rose in response. Behind the scenes, Marco Rubio directed the State Department to halt nearly all US foreign aid, while the Trump DOJ curtailed all prosections for individuals accused of blocking reproductive health care facilities. On tech, we learned more about the details of Trump’s AI project, as the FT reported the administration’s Stargate project will exclusively serve ChatGPT maker OpenAI, while cabinet officials were deeply annoyed by Musk’s complaints over the initiative. In the Supreme Court, the judges agreed to rule on whether states may reject religious charter schools from receiving public funding, setting up a fight on the separation between church and state.

Overnight between Friday and Saturday, Trump fired inspectors general of at least 15 major agencies playing crucial roles in identifying fraud, waste, and abuse in the government. The late-night purge could lead to replacing independent members with MAGA loyalists and was criticized by legal experts who say it is a violation of federal law. In the anti-DEI spite division, Axios reported that the Trump administration is already informing government agencies to begin firing DEI staff. In Congress, Kristi Noem was confirmed as the Department of Homeland Security secretary. Behind the scenes, NPR first reported that the White House is in talks with software company Oracle and a group of outside investors to take control of TikTok, giving its parent owner ByteDance a minor stake in the company. In a move that critics fear might increase the chances of detaining non-criminals, Trump officials have set quotas for ICE officers from 1200 to 1500 people, which could lead to a ramping up in arrests. By Sunday, US officials said Colombia had denied entry to two US deportation flights, which was confirmed by the country’s leader Gustavo Petro, who said on Twitter (X) that the United States should not treat Colombian migrants as criminals. In response, Trump issued tariffs and visa restrictions on Colombia and kickstarted a new trade war, a move analysts say is great news for China’s growing role in Central and South America. Domestically, the Trump Administration began immigration arrests in Chicago, Illinois officials, including the governor, did not get advanced notice.

The Department Of Alarming Developments - Inaugural Edition

Dateline Washington, USA:

I know, everything from The Trump Show warrants an alarming development, but in this feature, I want to highlight the smaller, but not less alarming, headlines that might have flown past the news radar for many readers.

Starting his moves against the military leadership, the Trump administration removed the Coast Guard’s top admiral Admiral Linda Fagan on Tuesday, acting Secretary of Homeland Security Benjamine Huffman did not provide a reason for the decision. The same goes for career officials from the Justice Department, and all federal DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) staff were put on leave before being laid off. Trump’s pettiness also led him to terminate the Secret Service detail for his former national security adviser John Bolton, who had faced threats such as assassination attempts against him. At the same time, Trump revoked security protection from his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and former top aide Brian Cook. Lina Khan, the most widely despised Biden administration official for big business, will resign from the FTC in the following weeks. Before her departure, she warned of “catastrophic consequences” if Trump gives a free hand to private equity.

Continuing the crusade against DEI measures, the president revoked the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1965 on Wednesday. The EEO is a bedrock civil rights measure that aimed to prevent hiring discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin signed during the civil rights era. In case that wasn’t enough, the new administration is encouraging government employees to snitch on each other, if they suspect fellow colleagues are continuing to follow DEI policies. (Fun postscript: Spammers have bombarded the DEI snitch email since the announcement, spamming the address with NGO newsletters)The president also stalled $300 billion in infrastructure funds in a bid to ditch Biden’s climate agenda, while the Justice Department froze all of its civil rights cases left over from the Biden administration, banned the use of pride flags in federal buildings and US embassies, and ordered the civil rights department not to pursue any new cases or settlements.

On Thursday, the GOP Congress re-started an investigation into January 6, a few years after a bipartisan committee published its report on the Capitol riots. Leading the charge is Representative Barry Loudermilk, who gave a tour on January 5, 2021, to several individuals, who coincidentally stormed the US Capitol the next day. However, we learned through the Washington Post that an aide to Speaker Mike Johnson advised GOP colleagues not to subpoena former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson as part of their investigation, citing concerns about lawmakers sending her “sexual texts” and fears of them getting released. On other headlines, a meteorologist was fired from a local TV station after criticizing Elon Musk’s salute, the US Army plans to eliminate a Pentagon office that was created to reduce civilian harm in conflict areas, and Marco Rubio instructed State Department staff to freeze passport applications with “X” sex markers.

Friday’s alarming development starts from the office of Representative Andy Ogles, who announced he is introducing a resolution to amend the 22nd Amendment. If successful, this amendment would allow Trump to run for a third term. On the department of utter pettiness, Trump removed Dr. Antony Fauci’s government-financed security protection, while the National Gallery of Art in Washington announced it would end DEI programs due to Trump’s executive order against such initiatives. But not all companies are bowing down to anti-DEI pressure, the supermarket chain Costco vowed to continue its DEI measures after its shareholders voted overwhelmingly in support of it. The Interior Department officially began calling the “Gulf of Mexico” the “Gulf of America,” even as the AP style guide said they are still referring to the region by its old name. Trump’s actions have global consequences, as Ontario’s Conservative leader Doug Ford announced he would call early elections to have a stronger hand in dealing with Trump’s tariff threat. Ford has seen a surge in popularity thanks to his opposition to Trump’s proposed tariffs against Canada, often seen wearing a “Canada is not for sale” hat and threatening to cut off resources produced by Ontario to the US.

According to Time magazine, its analysis found that nearly two-thirds of the executive actions the president has issued mirror or partially mirror proposals from Project 2025, the same proposal Trump claims he has no association with. In weekend legal news, Idaho lawmakers have filed a request to the Supreme Court, wanting the highest court in the land to overturn the same-sex marriage decision, ten years after justices ruled in support of it. Inside the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump has stocked it with oil, gas, and chemical lobbyists who seek to erase the agency’s climate rules and pollution controls. At the same time, the US Air Force was ordered to stop teaching a course featuring the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African American pilots, in their curriculum. Different outlets reported on the hiring requirements to the new White House, which included questions on their “MAGA revelation” moments.

Ending on a hilarious note, remember when Trump signed an executive order designating two genders: male and female? The order says gender will be defined based on reproductive cells at conception, but biologists point out that the default configuration of a human zygote is female. So, signing the executive order accidentally made everyone legally classified as female—oops!

Dateline Halle, Germany:

Days after Elon Musk was in hot water over the alleged Nazi salute controversy, in which he made non-denial denials on his social media platform, the billionaire made a surprise appearance at a rally for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Urging the fervent crowd to not be ashamed of their country’s history, Musk seemed to make a subtle reference to Germany’s Nazi era by saying “There is too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that. Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents.” Musk added, “It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything.”

Dateline Canberra, Australia:

Amid a wave of hate and violent incidents across the country, Australian police said “overseas actors” may be funding a wave of antisemitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne. The country’s PM Anthony Albanese added the spade of attacks in New South Wales and Victoria were conducted by “paid actors” instead of ideologically motivated offenders. At the time of writing, there were no indications of which country or countries are directing the attacks, as the investigations into antisemitic incidents are still ongoing. Nonetheless, it sparked fears of online radicalization, especially among young people.

Dateline Bogotá, Columbia:

In the country’s deadliest wave of violence since the peace accords in 2016, more than 80 people were killed in ongoing clashes between rival guerrilla groups in Catatumbo, a northeast coca-growing region near the Venezuelan border. More than 20,000 people are displaced, and the fighting could jeopardize the “total peace” program of Columbia’s first leftist president Gustavo Petro, as well as worsen an already strained situation in America’s southern border.

Dateline Kabul, Afghanistan:
The ICC’s top prosecutor Karim Khan announced he is seeking an arrest warrant for Taliban leaders, citing them for being “criminally responsible for persecuting Afghan girls and women, as well as persons whom the Taliban perceived as not conforming with their ideological expectations of gender identity or expression, and persons whom the Taliban perceived as allies of girls and women.” Khan said there were reasonable grounds to suspect the country’s Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani bore criminal responsibility for crimes against humanity based on gender discrimination, which some critics have described as “gender apartheid.”

Dateline Baghdad, Iraq:

On Tuesday, the Iraqi parliament passed a law that allows religious authorities to have the power to decide family affairs such as marriage, divorce, and the caring of children. However, women’s rights groups and activists are alarmed as the country’s parliament abolished a previous ban on child marriages that was in place since the 1950s. Under new laws, children as young as nine years old could be allowed to marry, while activists argue it would effectively “legalize child rape.”

Dateline WHO HQ, New York:
Following Donald Trump’s executive order pulling the US out of the WHO, the impact has been immediate. On Thursday night, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told staff America’s departure “has made our financial situation more acute” and expressed regret for the US’s decision. To adjust to the new situation, the WHO is “freezing recruitment, except in the most critical areas” and “significantly reducing travel expenditure.” New changes include mandatory fully virtual meetings unless necessary, while missions to provide technical support to different countries are “limited to the most essential.” This is while Gaza is dealing with a public health crisis, African nations are still containing the worst of mPox, and the US is suffering from a rise of Avian flu (Funny enough, that also affects food prices the Trump voters claim to care so much about).

Voterama 2025 - Lukashenko’s Guaranteed Re-election

On Sunday, Belarus held its election, in which its leader and self-described the last dictator of Europe, Alexander Lukashenko, almost certainly won his re-election bid. Ruling over the country since 1994, Belarusian elections have long been marred by allegations of voter fraud and election rigging. Last year, Belarusians voted in parliamentary elections in which all four parties on the ballot backed Lukashenko’s regime. This happened after the president dissolved all political parties since the 2020 Belarusian election, which was widely seen as fraudulent and condemned by the West.

Back in 2020, Lukashenko faced Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a strong challenger who got into the race after her husband, a leading opposition candidate, was arrested and sentenced to jail for 18 years. Many analysts widely believe Tsikhanouskaya would have won the election if not for voter fraud, and massive protests popped up in the days after the election that nearly brought down the dictator. However, thanks to a brutal suppression campaign of arbitrary arrests and detentions, backed by Vladimir Putin, the protests were crushed, and Tsikhanouskaya is now living in exile.

Since then, Lukashenko has ramped up his efforts in suppressing critics and opposition voices, most notably sending a fighter jet in 2021 to intercept a Ryanair flight and force it to land on the ground, just to arrest the dissident Roman Protasevich. In the same year, Lukashenko lured global migrants to Belarus with the false promise of easy entry to the EU, telling them to cross the border between Belarus and Poland which led to a humanitarian crisis. When Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, Lukashenko was a key supporter of the Russian dictator’s plans, often acting as an intermediary actor between Putin and the outside world. Lukashenko also used his power to consolidate himself in high office, signing a law in 2024 that grants him immunity, lifelong protection, and state-provided property if he resigns from the presidential office.

By this election, there were no potential challengers influential enough to challenge Lukahsenko, and Tsikhanouskaya had openly called for Western countries to denounce the results when the election date was set last October. In the days leading up to the election, Human Rights Watch has called the election a “no-choice election” and “little more than a ritual,” opposition leaders called it a “farce,” while the exiled Tikhanovskaya decried it as “a sham. This is a military-style operation; a performance staged by the regime to hold on to power." After the polling stations have closed, exit polls claim Lukahsenko had won 87.6% of the vote, which was widely denounced by the West.

War Watch - Post-Trump Reactions

As the first day of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire continued, Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners as part of its deal. Hundreds of aid trucks entered Gaza, as the ceasefire held for at least 24 hours. After Trump was inaugurated at the White House, he told reporters he wasn’t confident that the ceasefire would last, saying Gaza “is interesting. It's a phenomenal location. On the sea. The best weather. Some beautiful things could be done with it.” As Israel began launching an “extensive” military operation in the West Bank following Trump rescinding Biden-era sanctions on Israeli settlers and Jewish extremists who raided Palestinian villages, Israel’s military chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi announced he is stepping down for his failures that led to the October 7 attack. In what was described as a “shift in security strategy,” Israeli forces surrounded a Palestinian government hospital in Jenin and a refugee camp inside the West Bank, trapping hundreds of people as ambulances were denied entry. Despite being significantly weakened by Israel’s military, Hamas has returned to power in Gaza, remaining in control over the Palestinian territory as the ceasefire held. On Friday, Hamas and Israel confirmed the next four hostages to be released in a prisoner swap are: Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, and Naama Levy. Regarding last year’s Lebanon ceasefire, it seems Israel is still not budging on keeping its troops in Lebanon, despite agreeing to pull its forces out of the neighboring country in the ceasefire deal. As the four Israeli hostages were released to the International Red Cross, at least 200 Palestinian detainees were released to Egypt in return. As the Gaza ceasefire continues to hold, Trump said he’s urging Jordan and Egypt to take in Palestinians from Gaza, floating a plan to “just clean out” the territory that shocked many in the Middle East as comparisons have emerged to ethnic cleansing. This came moments after Trump removed Biden's hold on 2000-pound bombs to Israel. On Sunday, Israeli troops still did not withdraw from Lebanon after the deadline expired, which infuriated Lebanese leaders. In the meantime, Hamas accused Israel of breaching the ceasefire deal. Making both ceasefires even more perilous, the IDF opened fire in both Lebanon and Gaza, killing at least 22 people and injuring more.

Since Trump’s inauguration, the newly inaugurated president made a rare criticism of Putin by saying he is “destroying Russia.” Hours after the new president was sworn into office, Putin and Xi held a phone call pledging to bring bilateral ties to "greater heights” based “on friendship, mutual trust and support." In Davos, Switzerland, Zelensky implored world leaders that Europe needs to “learn how to take care of itself.” Zelensky added a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine would require 200,000 allied troops, urging the continent to stand firm against Russia. Ramping up pressure on Russia, Trump threatened more tariffs and he is doing Putin and Russia “a very big FAVOR.” During an interview with Bloomberg, Zelensky said US troops must be included in any effective peacekeeping force deployed in Ukraine, trying to curb the current president’s ego by saying “The end of the war should be a victory for Trump, not Putin.” What did Trump think about Zelensky? During an interview with Fox News, Trump claimed the Ukrainian president “shouldn't have allowed this to happen either. He's no angel. He shouldn't have allowed this war to happen." During Trump’s Davos speech, many were surprised when the president called on Saudi Arabia to lower oil prices and called on China to help him with a ceasefire deal, stances that were more pro-Ukraine than many critics had worried. Continuing to stroke the current US president’s ego, Putin claimed the war would not have happened if Trump had been in charge, echoing a favorite talking point by MAGA allies throughout the war. While behind the scenes, Reuters reported that Putin is worried about his country’s economy as Trump ramps up pressure to reach a ceasefire deal. On the battlefield, Ukranian drones hit a Russian oil refinery in the Ryazan region, just near Moscow, in one of the largest drone attacks against the Russian capital to date.

In Sudan, the undercovered war continues to escalate as forces loyal to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) set the country’s largest oil refinery ablaze, capturing a long-sought prize owned by the Sudanese government and the state-run China National Petroleum Corp, and a symbolic win against the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF). On a broader humanitarian scale, the UN noted over a million Sudanese citizens fled to neighboring South Sudan since the war began, while the BBC reported widespread sexual and physical abuse many Sudanese women face after being trafficked to Libya. After visiting the Adré border post in Chad and meeting war victims face-to-face, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said “It's some of the most horrific things I've ever heard and seen in my life.”

Because I’m Too Busy For Memeing: A Global Wrap-Up

Dateline Bangkok, Thailand:

On Thursday, a historic same-sex marriage law took effect in Thailand, the largest Asian nation to recognize equal marriage rights, as well as transgender protections and extending adoption and inheritance rights to LGBT couples. Hundreds of LGBT couples registered their marriages at a luxury mall in Bangkok. It capped a joyful occasion to an uphill battle that one activist described as a "long fight full of tears." At the end of the day, thousands of LGBT couples celebrated their marriage. Thailand marks an outlier in support of LGBT rights, as only Taiwan and Nepal are the two other regions in Asia to recognize gay marriage.

Dateline Seoul, South Korea:

During South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s first appearance in his impeachment trial, the disgraced president denied ordering the arrest of lawmakers during his attempt to impose martial law, after military leaders alleged Yoon had given such an order on the day martial law was declared. Yoon told the Constitutional Court that the martial law order was "a formality that was not meant to be executed.” Days later, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO) referred Yoon’s case to the prosecution, calling for insurrection charges to be charged against Yoon, citing his abuse of power. However, the prosecution hit a snag on Friday, as a South Korean court denied extending Yoon’s detention period. On Sunday evening, Yoon was officially indicted of insurrection by the prosecution, following recommendations by anti-corruption investigators.

Dateline Dublin, Ireland:

After weeks of chaos in parliament, Micheál Martin was finally appointed as Ireland’s new taoiseach (prime minister) on Thursday. Following weeks of coalition talks and political horse-trading, the Irish parliament descended into chaos on Wednesday as opposition parties took to their feet in loud protest, furious at the granting of extended speaking rights to government-supporting independents. A day later, the government acknowledged that there was “ambiguity” in speaking rights and agreed to back down from the proposed move.

Dateline London, UK:

In an attempt to save millions of taxpayer money spent on consultants, the Starmer government introduced a new government AI assistant with a familiar name. Named after the “machiavellian” character from Yes Minister, a British sitcom rife with political satire, “Humphrey” was tasked with boosting productivity and replacing “archaic” technology to save money. But as the UK’s Independent newspaper noted, the fictional character later became the cabinet secretary, the most powerful position in the civil service. Hopefully, that doesn’t bring ominous signs for the current AI representative.