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Officials say calm restored to province day after dozens killed in suicide and gun attacks in at least 10 citiesPakistan’s security forces have intensified their operations against separatist militants in Balochistan province who launched a large-scale assault on Saturday in which at least 31 civilians and 17 security personnel were killed.A day after the militants carried out suicide attacks in the heart of the province’s capital, Quetta, the chief minister of the south-western region, Sarfraz Bugti, said 145 people he described as militants had been killed in 40 hours and that their bodies were in the custody of the authorities. Continue reading...

America’s economic system has never been fair or perfect but for more than a century it rested on basic guardrails that kept instability in check and allowed us to fight for progress and win. Those guardrails are now being stripped away by policies that favor wealth and power over accountability and long-term stability.For over a hundred years, the United States has been the cornerstone of international economic stability. The independence of our central bank (the “Fed”) has been a part of it, as has the strength of the dollar, which comes about in large part because the rest of the world relies on our currency as the default for international trade.And now Donald Trump and the GOP are threatening it all.Trump has added $2 trillion to our national debt in the past 12 months, and he’s on course to do it again (or worse) this year. While our entire GDP — the entirety of all goods and services produced in America every year — is roughly $31.1 trillion, our national debt stands at $38.4 trillion.Fed Chairman Jerome Powell pointed out on Wednesday:“Right now we’re running a very large deficit at essentially full employment and so the fiscal picture needs to be addressed, and it’s not really being addressed,” adding, “the path is unsustainable and the sooner we work on it, the better.”When Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981, our national debt was less than $1 trillion, because every president from FDR to Truman to Eisenhower to Kennedy to Johnson to Nixon to Ford to Carter had worked to pay down the roughly 140 percent of GDP debt we ran up fighting World War II.Across those same presidencies, America had also built a broad and strong social safety net for its citizens, primarily through the New Deal and Great Society programs. And Republicans hated it all, particularly because it’d been paid for with a 74 percent to 91 percent income tax on billionaires and a 50 percent income tax on corporate profits.They were desperate to find a way to force Democrats to gut their own “Santa” social welfare programs, so, Republicans reasoned, if they just cut taxes on rich people and then ran the debt up hard and fast enough it would freak out Democrats and force them to dial back social spending.They called it their “Two Santas” strategy, which I detail here, and over the course of the Reagan, Bush, and Trump tax cuts and two illegal wars, four Republican presidents managed to add over $37 trillion to our national debt.The grimmest consequence of this is that we’re spending $1.2 trillion every year on interest payments on our national debt. That’s money that could otherwise have gone to create a national healthcare system, provide free college education, or help people buy their first homes but, instead, is going to payments to wealthy investors here and abroad who hold US Treasuries.Up until recently, we were able to pull this off because the US Dollar has been the world’s reserve currency for the better part of a century. All sorts of international transactions (especially oil) are denominated in dollars, so there’s a huge worldwide demand for our currency because you can’t trade without them; that keeps the dollar’s value strong and lets us borrow at what would otherwise be absurdly low rates.That, in turn, is essentially a subsidy for Americans of all stripes: lower mortgage rates, lower car loan rates, easier credit, and US-based companies can more easily finance growth and new product development.It also gives our government more power on the international stage because we control the dollars everybody must use, so we can exploit that leverage to seize other countries’ dollar-denominated assets, enforce embargos, and freeze economic activity.But twice in the past twelve months the value of the dollar has taken a huge hit, in both cases because the world freaked out at Trump’s insanity and started to sell dollars.The first was in April of last year (a 6 percent drop in value) when Trump announced his bizarre worldwide tariffs; the second was last week when he went to Davos and blithered through a semi-coherent speech that left international leaders wondering about his sanity, his judgement, and his reliability. And, by inference, the judgment and reliability of the United States itself.Trump’s own economic illiteracy and impulse-driven tariff policies, in other words, have damaged the value of our currency and may have put the status of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency at risk.The most visible consequence of this collapse in the dollar’s value are spikes in the prices of gold (now over $5,000/ounce, up from $1,077 in 2015) and silver, and how much more expensive foreign travel has become. Three years ago, the euro was at parity with the dollar (one dollar buys one euro), but today a dollar only buys €0.84 (84 cents).As the dollar drops in value, that’s ultimately reflected in everything imported becoming more expensive (which drives inflation), although it does help companies that export things as it makes their goods and services cheaper.The big impact, though, could come if international investors and other countries conclude it’s unlikely that the US will be able to repay our debts.Ever since the Bush Crash of 2008 revealed how deregulation had corrupted our banking system, foreign investors holdings of US debt have steadily declined.For the rest of the world to have “full faith and confidence” in the US and our currency, they must be convinced we operate with economic transparency and consistently abide by the rule of law.Trump’s willy-nilly tariffs, often used to extort other nations into giving his family a new hotel or golf course, his constant lies on the international stage about everything from renewable energy to our “right” to invade a foreign country and capture its leader, to his killing fishermen off the coast of Venezuela and his current threats against Iran, all argue against trusting us.Trump’s already destroyed our soft power by gutting USAID, ruined our relationships with our allies by embracing Putin and trash-talking NATO and the EU, and now is shaking the confidence of our remaining democratic allies by imposing police-state tactics on Blue cities.The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) countries are on the move, with Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the UAE having joined recently in an agreement to use their alternative currencies instead of dollars. China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) is now also challenging our SWIFT system, and South Africa and Brazil are the most recent countries to integrate it into their own financial systems. They’re using the real and the yuan to trade things like soybeans, going entirely around the dollar.India and the UAE are now trading in rupees and the dirham, and China is using yuan to buy natural gas from the UAE. China has almost entirely abandoned the dollar for their trade with Russia, the UAE, and Iran. Like South Africa, Brazil has increasingly been using the real and the yuan to settle bilateral trade with China, bypassing the US dollar.Thus, in recent years, alternatives to the greenback are gaining traction. Even Trump’s good buddy Javier Milei in Argentina is now trading with China in yuan instead of dollars.We still have enormous momentum and a collapse of the dollar or the international system based on it is unlikely to happen in the near term, but if Trump continues to badger our Federal Reserve or appoints a toady to its chair, and continues with his erratic, illegal, and unconstitutional behavior here and abroad, there’s a good chance that a concerted international effort to de-dollarize will pick up even more steam than it already has.Economic collapse isn’t inevitable, but it becomes more likely when demagogues choose inequality, debt, and instability over responsibility and shared prosperity.Whether this era is remembered as a turning point or just a warning from our Fed chief will depend on whether we ignore those choices Republicans have made for 45 years, or if we finally confront and reverse them.Hang on, keep your eyes open, and follow these trends. Forewarned is forearmed.Thom Hartmann is a New York Times best-selling author and SiriusXM talk show host. His Substack can be found here.

For the first time in American history, a foreign government official took "a major ownership stake in an incoming U.S. president's company," according to a report Saturday night.According to the Wall Street Journal's reporting, a so-called "spy Sheikh" signed an "unprecedented" deal to buy part of Trump's company for half of a billion dollars.According to the report, "Four days before Donald Trump’s inauguration last year, lieutenants to an Abu Dhabi royal secretly signed a deal with the Trump family to purchase a 49% stake in their fledgling cryptocurrency venture for half a billion dollars, according to company documents and people familiar with the matter."The article continues:"The buyers would pay half up front, steering $187 million to Trump family entities. The deal with World Liberty Financial, which hasn’t previously been reported, was signed by Eric Trump, the president’s son. At least $31 million was also slated to flow to entities affiliated with the family of Steve Witkoff, a World Liberty co-founder who weeks earlier had been named U.S. envoy to the Middle East, the documents said."It further states that the "investment was backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, an Abu Dhabi royal who has been pushing the U.S. for access to tightly guarded artificial intelligence chips, according to people familiar with the matter. Tahnoon—sometimes referred to as the 'spy sheikh'—is brother to the United Arab Emirates’ president, the government’s national security adviser, as well as the leader of the oil-rich country’s largest wealth fund. He oversees a more than $1.3 trillion empire funded by his personal fortune and state money that spans from fish farms to AI to surveillance, making him one of the most powerful single investors in the world."Read it here.

Five years after the junta’s coup, the civil war devastating Myanmar has reached a turning point. The military is carrying out large-scale counter-offensives across the country to reclaim territory seized by pro-democracy rebels of various ethnic and religious backgroundsIn Tanintharyi, the southernmost region of Myanmar, the local resistance has managed to contain the military. After five years of guerrilla warfare, the revolutionary youth there remain determined to restore democracy through armed struggle.A long, narrow stretch of land at the southern tip of Myanmar, between the Andaman Sea to the west and Thailand to the east, Tanintharyi region is one of the areas where the resistance challenges the military’s authority. For decades, the region has been home to an armed rebellion led by the Karen ethnic minority, which operated mainly in the peripheral mountains.Soldiers from the Karen National Union (KNU) inspect the ruins of a Buddhist monastery destroyed by a junta airstrike in Myeik district, Tanintharyi region Continue reading...

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) was among several lawmakers grilling Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the US attacks on Venezuela. Kaine called out Rubio and the Trump administration for not seeking congressional approval or consulting lawmakers in the five months since initiating strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea, sending troops into the conflict and the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. "We started this operation on September 2nd with the attack on Venezuelans and boats in open waters, and now we are nearly five months in. Next week is five months. Finally, a public hearing! Wow! How novel," Kaine said. "Finally, a public hearing in the Senate or House. This is the first public hearing we've had. Two hundred folks who are on secret designated combatant lists have been killed, U.S. troops have been injured, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent, an armada amassed the announcement of a new Monroe Doctrine, which does not land well in the Americas. Democrats have been asking over and over again, can we have a public hearing? Can we share what we know with the American public? Finally, a public hearing. But even that hearing is constrained."Kaine delivered a sharp critique against Rubio and the Trump administration, expressing his frustration over the attack. "I'd like to talk about the complete weakness of the legal rationale about the strikes on boats in international waters. But I can't, because the administration has only shared it with members in a classified setting," Kaine said. "I can't tell you why the domestic rationale is hollow and the international rationale is hollow. I can't tell you why the rationale for attacking Venezuela is hollow, because, again, the rationale has been shared with us in a closed setting. I can't share with you the grim details of the murder of shipwrecked survivors in open waters that we all know, because we've seen the videos and we've questioned the US military officials involved about legality, because the administration will not release that publicly. They release the boat strike videos publicly, but they hid the second strike that killed struggling shipwreck survivors, even from Congress, for nearly three months. But I can't really talk to you about it." Kaine questioned what the administration was hiding and why they were targeting these boats. "I can't talk to you about the weakness of the targeting criteria being used to attack boats in the Caribbean and Pacific," he added. "I would encourage any colleague, if you have not go to the classified setting and ask for a briefing on each strike and ask this question, 'what was the evidence that there were narcotics on that craft?' You will be very surprised if you ask that question about every strike. And so even in this first public hearing, five months in, there's a lot we can't talk about. If it was such a righteous operation, why is the administration and the majority in the senate so jealously protecting the details about it from being revealed to the American public?" Kaine also described how his constituents have asked him about the American military actions in Venezuela. "I have Virginians deployed in this operation. I can't answer their families questions," Kaine said. "Thank God we're having a public hearing five months in. This is supposed to be the greatest deliberative body in the world."

Ecuador lodged a complaint after claiming that at least one U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent tried to force his way into the country's diplomatically protected consulate in Minneapolis.According to Reuters, Ecuador's Foreign Ministry sent a "note of protest" to the U.S. Embassy, insisting that future incidents "not be repeated."Ecuador's protest described Monday's incident as an "attempted incursion into the Ecuadorean Consulate in Minneapolis by ICE agents."In a video obtained by BN, consulate staffers could be seen blocking an ICE agent."This is a consulate, you cannot enter here," one of the staff members says in the video.

A President Donald Trump ally described his concern and shock over the president's mental state, according to a report Wednesday. Robert Fico, the Prime Minister of Slovakia, apparently made a private comment after a recent trip to Mar-a-Lago and described his surprise over Trump's disposition, Politico's PL reported. “Slovakia’s prime minister told EU leaders at a summit last week that a meeting with Donald Trump left him shocked by the U.S. president’s state of mind, five European diplomats briefed on the conversation said," Politico reported. The MAGA-friendly EU leader has been one of the few European leaders to continue his support for Trump, including the president's stance on "Europe's weakness," according to Politico. Fico was "concerned about the U.S. president’s ‘psychological state,’ two of the diplomats said.”“Fico used the word ‘dangerous’ to describe how the U.S. president came across during their face-to-face meeting,” according to Politico. Trump has faced mounting questions about his health, which have increased as the president continues to be spotted in public with swollen ankles and bruised hands. His increased instances of rambling during speeches, along with his MRI scan last year that has yet to be fully explained have also raised concerns among critics.

President Donald Trump announced a possible military action against Iran in an early morning social media post.The USS Abraham Lincoln and three other warships arrived Tuesday in the Middle East as the 79-year-old president considers airstrikes over Iran's crackdown on protesters, which may have resulted in the deaths of nearly 6,000 people and detentions of nearly 42,000 more."A massive Armada is heading to Iran," Trump posted Wednesday morning on Truth Social. "It is moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose. It is a larger fleet, headed by the great Aircraft Carrier Abraham Lincoln, than that sent to Venezuela. Like with Venezuela, it is, ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary."The deployment is intended to pressure Iran to negotiate an end to its nuclear program, Trump said, which U.S. forces targeted in June."Hopefully Iran will quickly 'Come to the Table' and negotiate a fair and equitable deal - NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS - one that is good for all parties," he posted. "Time is running out, it is truly of the essence! As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was 'Operation Midnight Hammer,' a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP."