Feb 14(Jowhar)-Madaxweynaha Jamhuuriyadda Federaalka Soomaaliya Mudane Xasan Sheekh Maxamuud ayaa khudbad uu ka jeediyay Shir Madaxeedka Midowga Afrika waxa uu kaga hadlay amniga, dimuqraadiyeynta, midnimada Afrika iyo difaaca madaxbannaanida Soomaaliya.
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Activist Says Trump’s Rollback of Climate Protections Would Be Catastrophic
A Day the Rules Changed: America Unwinds a Climate Bedrock
On a bright, polished stage somewhere between the White House and a television studio, a phrase that had anchored U.S. climate policy for a decade was quietly, radically unmade.
“We are officially terminating the so‑called endangerment finding,” President Donald Trump announced, flanked by the new EPA administrator and allies of the administration. It was billed as the biggest deregulatory move in American history — a tidy, triumphant sentence that carried consequences far beyond the soundbite.
For those who remember the legal scaffolding that led to modern climate rules, the significance is seismic. For ordinary people whose lives intersect with air, water, fuel and heat, it is bewildering and, for many, terrifying. For global diplomats and climate scientists, it is a reminder that policy is as fragile as a signature.
What Was Rolled Back — And Why It Matters
To understand what was done, imagine undoing the plumbing in a house one piece at a time. In 2009 the Environmental Protection Agency declared that greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and others — “endanger” human health and welfare. That finding tied greenhouse gases to the Clean Air Act, giving regulators the legal authority to set emissions standards for cars, trucks, power plants and industrial facilities.
Now, with that legal finding repealed alongside the immediate elimination of tailpipe standards, the plumbing is being opened. The EPA argues that the Clean Air Act was never meant to address a global phenomenon like warming; the pushback is that the law was precisely the instrument the courts and the agency used when the stakes were clear and the political will from Congress was absent.
“This will not just change rules — it will change what’s possible,” said an environmental law professor I spoke with. “Without the endangerment finding, there is no current, statutory foothold for federal greenhouse gas standards. That’s a lot of policy on the line.”
At a glance, the numbers underline why: transportation and electricity generation each account for about a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to EPA figures. Dismantle the rules that regulate those sectors and you change the emissions trajectory of the nation — and with it, the global effort to curb warming.
Immediate winners and losers
The administration framed the move as relief for American consumers and businesses. The EPA estimated that rescinding the standards would save U.S. taxpayers roughly $1.3 trillion — a figure that echoes across Republican messaging about regulatory cost burdens.
But environmental groups were quick to challenge the arithmetic. “You can call it savings on paper, but the long-term costs — from more asthma, more storm damage, more extreme heat — will be paid by ordinary families,” said a spokesperson from the Environmental Defense Fund.
Coal executives hailed the move as a reprieve, hopeful it will slow the retirement of aging coal‑fired plants. Renewable energy developers and electric vehicle manufacturers watched in stunned silence; Congress had already gutted some tax credits that incentivize clean energy and electric vehicles, and now the regulatory backstops that pushed markets toward low‑carbon options are being removed.
Voices from the Ground: People React
Outside of the policy bubble, reactions were raw and revealing. In a small Ohio town where a coal plant still hums, a maintenance worker named Maria Lopez wiped oil from her hands and said, “We’ve depended on this plant for generations. If this keeps jobs, people will be happy. But we also worry — my daughter has asthma.” Her voice held both relief and unease.
In a leafy suburb of San Diego, a young mother, Aisha Malik, sat with a stroller and a handful of research studies. “We bought an electric car because we thought the future would make that easier,” she said. “Now it feels like someone turned the clock backward.”
And on a damp evening outside the EPA offices, climate activists chanted and held handmade signs. “This is not just a political choice,” a marcher named Daniel Kim told me. “It’s a moral one. Who gets to decide whether our children inherit storms, smoke, food scarcity?”
Legal Fireworks and a Long Road Ahead
Unwinding the endangerment finding is not merely an administrative note — it invites litigation. Environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Earthjustice have vowed to head back to court. “There’ll be a lawsuit brought almost immediately, and we will win,” David Doniger, a senior attorney at NRDC, told reporters.
Courts will face hard questions. The 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA established that the agency had authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act — that was the legal seed for the 2009 finding. Repealing the finding doesn’t erase that precedent; it resets the terrain and forces judges to consider whether the agency’s new interpretation passes legal muster.
“Even if the political winds shift, the law and the science don’t simply vanish,” said an appellate lawyer familiar with environmental litigation. “It may be a long, messy battle, but the courts have been an important check on agency rollbacks in the past.”
Why the World Watches
The U.S. is a giant on the emissions ledger. Historically, America has been one of the largest cumulative contributors to global CO2 — a fact that gives U.S. policy outsized influence at international climate negotiations. When Washington withdraws measures designed to limit emissions, diplomats in Beijing, Brussels, and Nairobi take notice.
“Climate policy is not just domestic; it’s signal-setting,” said a former U.S. climate negotiator. “Other countries watch because our rules affect markets, technology development, and political momentum. Retreat here can embolden fossil fuel lobbies elsewhere.”
That ripple can be measured in trade flows, investment decisions and, increasingly, human consequences. Heatwaves, shifting rainfall patterns and more powerful storms don’t respect national borders. When one of the world’s largest economies loosens its grip on emissions, it becomes harder to sustain a global trajectory aligned with targets set in Paris a decade ago.
So Where Do We Go From Here?
There are blunt choices ahead. Courts may restore the agency’s authority. Future administrations could reissue the endangerment finding, but political cycles make that an uneasy promise. States and cities could step in; already, a patchwork of subnational rules has been the bulwark against federal inaction.
“Policy is only part of the story,” an energy analyst told me. “Markets, innovation, consumer demand — these can still push change. But policy is the accelerant. Remove it, and progress slows.”
As readers, as citizens of a warming planet, as parents and neighbors, we need to ask: what kind of future are we willing to legislate? Are we content to cede regulatory space to markets and to litigators? Or will communities, states, businesses, and voters insist on a different course?
Change often arrives in small, stubborn increments — neighborhood solar co-ops, city bus electrification, corporate procurement policies. Those will matter more than ever now. But policy matters, too. The endangerment finding was never merely legalese; it was a recognition that the air we share can carry risk at planetary scale. Its repeal will be fought in courtrooms, at kitchen tables, and at ballot boxes.
What happens next will be shaped by law and by the quieter, persuasive work of communities refusing to normalize a hotter, more volatile world. Which side of that choice do you want to be on?
Shirkii Golaha Mustaqbalka oo soo dhamaaday, lagana soo saaray…..
Feb 14(Jowhar)-Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaaliya oo shir galabta ku yeeshay magaalada Muqdisho ayaa ka wada hadlay geedi socodka shirarkooda iyo rajada laga qabi karro in uu qabsoomo kulanka Villa Somalia ay casumaadiisa horey u dirtay.
Culleton case heightens anxiety among undocumented Irish in the US
A Hardware Return That Changed a Life: The Arrest of an Irish Immigrant and What It Reveals About a New Era of Border Enforcement
On a brisk September afternoon, a routine errand — a man handing back a hammer at a Home Depot in suburban Boston — turned into a rupture that would send shockwaves back to a small village in County Kilkenny.
Seamus Culleton, who left Glenmore in 2009 chasing work after the Celtic Tiger crash, thought he was doing what so many migrants do: patching a life together, one modest job at a time. He’d built a plastering business, married an American citizen, and was days away from a green-card interview. Then the car behind him flashed lights; an anonymous license-plate check led to his arrest. Within five days he was flown across the breadth of the United States and dumped in a detention center in El Paso, Texas — some 4,000 km from the place he had come to call home.
From the Irish countryside to an ICE cell
“He has always been the quiet kind,” says Caroline, Seamus’s sister, over the phone. “One minute he was on a call about a plaster job, the next he’s cuffed and walked away.” Her voice cracks when she adds, “We never expected a return trip to Ireland to be made of bars and court papers.”
The Culleton story has become emblematic for thousands of Irish people who took the Visa Waiver route — known in the US as ESTA — for quicker travel, then stayed beyond the permitted 90 days. For years these overstays were an open secret: men and women embedded in local economies, often married to Americans, paying taxes, contributing to communities from Boston to New York and beyond. But enforcement priorities have shifted, and the consequences are rippling through families and neighborhoods on both sides of the Atlantic.
What’s different now: enforcement, not new law
At the heart of the anxiety is a subtle but consequential distinction: the law hasn’t been rewritten, but how it’s enforced has. Officials point out that overstaying a visa has always been a basis for deportation; what has changed is the appetite and the capacity to pursue those cases aggressively.
A number that keeps being cited by lawyers and advocates is the rapid growth of ICE’s workforce. “They were a lean force of roughly 10,000 a year ago,” says an immigration attorney in Boston. “Now you’re hearing figures around the low 20,000s. That changes the math of enforcement.” With more personnel and an explicit mandate to arrest people the agency considers removable, cases that once might have remained low priority are now being actioned.
“There’s a sea change in how ‘equities’ are weighed,” adds Jim O’Malley, an immigration lawyer in Manhattan familiar with visa cases. “Ten years ago, showing community ties — a spouse, a job, children — could delay or deprioritize a removal. Now those factors are still visible, but they don’t carry the same weight.”
The human cost: lives put on pause
Detention centers are an antiseptic, unforgiving world. Seamus described overcrowding, scarce hygiene, and the particular indignity of being far from the people he loves. “You start measuring time in bars and meal trays,” he told a radio programme from custody. “I’m tired of waiting to be told I can go home.”
His wife, Tiffany, who married Seamus this spring, speaks plainly: “I just want him home. He’s not a headline. He’s my husband.” She has started a small online petition, gathered letters from neighbours and clients, and has paced the stairs of their rented condo in Boston, clutching a photo of their wedding day.
Family friends remember Seamus as someone who took pride in his work — a tradesman who could fix a wall and keep a kettle on for a visiting mate. “He’d drink his tea from any mug and share his last pack of biscuits,” one neighbour says. Those details humanize what national debates tend to reduce to numbers.
Broader currents: labor, migration, and trust
This is not only an Irish story. Across democracies, debates about migration increasingly revolve around enforcement capacity, political messaging, and the precarious lives of people who sit in between legal categories. From labor shortages in construction and hospitality to aging demographics in Europe, there is a huge demand for workers; at the same time, many governments are turning to stricter border controls and interior enforcement.
Consider some of the practical facts:
- Under the Visa Waiver or ESTA programme, visitors may stay 90 days and have limited routes to appeal if accused of overstaying.
- The US immigration system offers possible legalisation paths — family-based visas, employment sponsorship, asylum — but these are complex, slow, and sometimes unavailable to those who initially entered without a formal visa or who overstayed.
- Advocates estimate the number of Irish nationals living in the US without current lawful status in the low thousands; official figures are patchy because people move, marry, or return and re-enter over years.
These facts prompt hard questions: When does a person who has contributed for years become a person to be removed? How do societies reconcile the need for orderly migration systems with compassion for lives woven into communities?
Voices across the divide
“Our message is simple: due process is essential,” a spokesperson for a human-rights group in Boston told me. “People deserve a chance to make their case, and families deserve certainty.”
From Washington, a departmental public affairs official pushed back, saying that officers follow the law and that detainees are informed of their rights. “Federal officers are tasked with enforcing immigration statutes,” the official said. “That mandate must be carried out.”
Meanwhile, in Glenmore, locals watch the news with a mixture of disbelief and weary resignation. At the village pub where the GAA photos hang on the walls and the turf fire murmurs, the conversation is not about policy briefs; it’s about neighbors. “We all know a Seamus,” says Nora, who runs the shop. “He’s the sort that’d fix your fence for the price of a stew and a story.”
What now — for families and for policy?
Seamus’s case is still unresolved. His legal team argues procedural irregularities; consular officials in Washington have been engaged, and the Taoiseach has acknowledged other detained Irish nationals exist. But the anxiety is immediate and shared.
For readers around the world, this story raises familiar questions: how do we treat people who live in legal gray zones? What responsibilities do sending and receiving states owe? And how do we reconcile the human impulse to keep families together with the political imperative felt by many governments to enforce borders?
These are not theoretical debates. They are played out in kitchen conversations, in magistrates’ court dockets, in the cramped hours of detention centers. They determine whether someone’s life continues where it began or is redirected across an ocean — by policy, by a plate check, by a single absent court date from 2009.
So I ask you: if someone has built a life, paid their taxes, loved their neighbours, and raised a family — should the paper trail alone determine their fate? What values should govern the way we balance national sovereignty with human mercy?
The answer will shape not just the fate of Seamus and others like him, but the character of the communities they have become part of. For now, a wife waits in Boston. A sister waits in Kilkenny. And a country wrestling with migration looks on.
Starts and stops: The uphill task of revitalizing Europe’s economy
Storming the Castle: Europe’s Race to Rescue Its Economy
There is a peculiar hush at Alden Biesen, a 13th‑century castle in the gentle hills of Limburg, Belgium — an old stone hush that somehow amplifies urgency. Flags snap in a cold wind over the courtyard, leaders hurry past oak doors, and the shadow of history presses against the table where today’s decisions will be carved. This is not a ceremonial retreat. It feels — to diplomats, business chiefs and café‑side listeners alike — like a last call.
“For the first time since the Cold War, we must genuinely fear for our self‑preservation,” one retired prime minister wrote in a blunt report last year, and the sentence stuck in many minds. The message, repeated in more technocratic language by another former premier, was that Europe is being outpaced in technology, capital markets and strategic resilience. That sense of peril has hardened into political momentum, albeit a grudging, imperfect one.
What changed was not only geopolitics — the rattling of tariffs, the talk of territorial ambitions, and new rivalries with Beijing and Moscow — but an uncomfortable mirror held up to the single market itself. The same market that was supposed to be Europe’s engine is riddled with friction: rules that differ from one capital to the next, fragmented packaging standards, confusing professional recognition and, in the striking language of Brussels, intra‑EU barriers that act like internal tariffs.
The “Terrible Ten” — a list that reads like a short novel of frustration
When the European Commission mapped the obstacles, it produced what officials now call the “Terrible Ten.” In plain terms, these are:
- Complex procedures to set up cross‑border businesses
- Overlapping and opaque EU rules
- Member states’ inconsistent implementation
- Limited recognition of professional qualifications
- No common standards on several product categories
- Fragmented packaging and labelling rules
- Uneven product compliance systems
- Restrictive national rules on services
- Complicated rules on posting workers in low‑risk sectors
- Territorial constraints in supply chains pushing up prices
Ask a small business owner from Kraków or a software start‑up founder from Lisbon, and they will tell you that these are not academic annoyances; they are the daily roadblocks to hiring, scaling and competing globally.
Shock Therapy from Across the Atlantic
Then came the geopolitical shakeup — a new round of trade measures introduced abroad that felt like cold water on a fevered forehead. A 15% tariff on EU goods, announced by the United States, turned abstract concerns into boardroom nightmares. Suddenly, the math of “we must reform” had an exclamation mark attached.
“We used to think of trade as insulation,” a senior EU trade official told me. “Now we see it’s a lever someone can pull. That changes the calculus: either we be vulnerable, or we make ourselves less so.”
It is not just external tariffs that are the problem. Researchers in Brussels have tried to quantify the drag: internal barriers effectively add the economic burden equivalent to intra‑EU “tariffs” of up to 110% on some services and as much as 65% on goods. Those numbers are not theoretical — they translate to fewer factories, fewer high‑skilled jobs and more offshoring of innovation.
Blueprints, Compasses and the Politics of Speed
In response, Brussels has rolled out a tidy set of instruments — a Competitiveness Compass, proposals for a Savings and Investment Union (SIU), fresh rules for digital and quantum technologies, and an ambitious “28th Regime” that would allow a company to register once and operate everywhere in the EU. The Commission’s rhetoric is feverish: simplify, harmonise, unleash capital. The estimates are stark. One of the reports that sounded the alarm recommended investment of up to €800 billion per year to catch up in competitiveness and innovation.
“We have to mobilise savings, not let them slumber,” said Ireland’s finance minister in a corridor interview, pointing out that hundreds of billions sit in bank accounts across the EU, undirected. “If we channel even a fraction into start‑ups and scale‑ups, we change our trajectory.”
But proposals collide with national sensitivities. France worries about sovereignty in supervision; Ireland worries about tax and insolvency regimes; smaller EU capitals fear being steamrolled by a single authority in Paris or Berlin. The friction is not just legalistic. It’s cultural — different routes to entrepreneurship, varied pension norms, and contrasting relationships between state and market.
Enhanced cooperation: a pragmatic split?
One workaround is enhanced cooperation: a mechanism that allows a core group of at least nine member states to press ahead on policies while keeping the door open to others. It’s being floated as the only practical route to launch the SIU, since unanimity among 27 is politically improbable. Some see it as a sensible way to unblock decades of inertia; others fear it creates a two‑speed Europe.
“If nine can act, the rest can join when ready,” a senior trade adviser said. “But we must ensure it doesn’t become an exclusive club.”
On the Ground: Voices from the Market
At the summit, the human texture of these debates became evident. In a café across from the castle, a Belgian logistics manager sighed over an espresso. “We already face fragmented rules when we cross one regional border,” she said. “Imagine doing that with 27 different VAT regimes and packaging requirements.”
A Dublin fintech founder, who asked that her name not be used, spoke with a mixture of impatience and weary optimism. “We don’t need more reports. We need clear, digital registration, tax parity for retail investors and a single company form. Let a startup be born in Dublin and scale to Sofia without lawyers rewriting the playbook every time.”
Environmental NGOs and unions, meanwhile, warn against careless simplification. “The conversation can’t just be speed and profit,” said an advocacy director from a European environmental group. “If deregulation becomes an excuse to relax climate safeguards, we will trade short‑term competitiveness for long‑term catastrophe.”
Where Does This Leave Citizens — and the World?
There is a moral as well as an economic dimension to this scramble. As governments talk about “European Preference” — buy‑European rules for strategic public procurement — they are wrestling with a perennial tension: protect local jobs and industries, or keep borders open to the free exchange that has long underpinned prosperity.
“We must reduce strategic dependencies,” Denmark’s prime minister told reporters at the gates of Alden Biesen. “But we should not close ourselves off. Resilience is not the opposite of openness.”
So what should a citizen take from this drama? First, understand that supply chains and corporate law matter: they determine which innovations are built here and which are shipped abroad. Second, ask your leaders how they will mobilise savings for public good without sacrificing environmental or labour standards. Third, consider that Europe’s future will be decided not only in castles and council chambers, but in the small decisions of ordinary savers and entrepreneurs.
As the summit wound down, there was cautious optimism: commitments to an evidence‑based list of critical sectors for preferential treatment; a pledge to pursue SIU through enhanced cooperation if necessary; a promise to accelerate enforcement where national capitals ignore EU law. Momentum, not miracles, seems to be the order of the day.
Walking away from Alden Biesen, you can still hear the whisper of stone and flag. Europe’s path will not be easy. It will require honest trade‑offs, imaginative policy design and citizens willing to ask hard questions about the kind of continent they want to build: open and competitive, or closed and secure. Which future would you choose?
Amiirka Qatar oo ka dagay Imaaraatka Carabta, kulamana la leh madaxda dalkaasi
Feb 14(Jowhar)-Amiirka dalka Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, ayaa maanta gaaray magaalada Abu Dhabi ee dalka Imaaraadka Carabta, halkaas oo ay uga bilaabatay booqasho rasmi ah.
Rubio: US and Europe Are Meant to Stand Together
At Munich’s Edge: A Plea for Renewal and the Quiet Work of Rebuilding Trust
The conference center in Munich sits like an oversized living room for the anxious and the ambitious—rows of folding chairs, impossible coffee, badges that double as passports to an anxious conversation about the future. Outside, the Bavarian air has a winter bite. Inside, a different chill has settled: the transatlantic alliance, frayed by four years of public burps and private alarms, is trying to stitch itself back together.
When the United States’ top diplomat took the stage, you could feel the room lean in. Not because an old script was being dusted off, but because the lines being read were deliberately softer, a measure of balm. The message was clear: not a retreat, but a revival. Yet words—however well chosen—have to find purchase in deeds. That is the work people came here to press for.
“We do not seek to separate”—and what that sounds like in a changing world
“We do not seek to separate,” one official paraphrased, describing the tone coming from Washington this week. “We want to revitalize.” It is a sentence meant to be at once reassurance and summons: Europe should be strong—and it will be stronger, the argument goes, if both sides can anchor themselves to a shared sense of purpose.
For some attendees the speech read as a hand extended. For others it was a reminder that the ground beneath the alliance has shifted. “Words are welcome,” said Anna Kovač, who runs a small think-tank in Zagreb, sipping an espresso between sessions. “But we’ve heard promises. This time, we need predictable policy and shared burden—especially on defense and economic resilience.”
Local eyes on a global stage
At a cafe near the conference halls, a security analyst named Elias, who has watched NATO summits from the press pit for more than a decade, offered a wry observation: “You can smell politics here—the cologne of long meetings and short patience. The question now is whether allyship is performative or structural.” He traced his finger along a paper map of Europe and added, “Europe needs room to grow up—not to grow away.”
The mood in Munich was not only about great-power strategy. It was peppered with the small, human realities of geopolitics: an Estonian veteran who worries her country’s voice is getting lost; a Polish NGO coordinator who spoke of refugees of conflict zones; an architect from Lisbon who argued Europe must invest in cyber-defenses as fiercely as in tanks.
Where rhetoric meets reality
Since 2022, European capitals have shifted budgets, ratcheted up stockpiles and recalibrated strategy. NATO’s 2% of GDP guideline—long a lodestar—has become a baseline conversation rather than a goal. Several member states that once viewed defense outlays as a reluctant necessity now cast them as central to their sovereignty. That change is not merely monetary: it is psychological. The old assumption that the United States would always pick up the tab has been tested and found wanting.
“We saw the cracks,” a European foreign ministry official told me off the record. “Now we’re working to fill them—nationally and collectively.”
And Washington’s messaging is adjusting. The call here was for a “reinvigorated alliance,” for Europe to be a partner that can both stand on its own feet and be a reliable co-laborer in global crises. The new tone avoided the culture-war fireworks that have recently detonated in transatlantic relations, even as it reiterated contentious positions on immigration and global institutions.
On institutions and the rules-based order
One of the more provocative themes at the conference was the critique of the post-Cold War complacency—the belief that liberal democracy had, as some once claimed, reached a final form. “Calling it ‘the end of history’ was a mistake,” said a retired ambassador attending the conference. “It assumed uniform progress. It ignored cycles, and those cycles are back.”
That skepticism extended to international institutions. Delegates of varying stripes argued that organizations such as the United Nations still have immense potential, but they are hamstrung by structural weaknesses and political gridlock. “We can’t rely on institutions to solve everything,” an African delegate said, “but we also can’t abandon the architecture that has kept so much of the post-war world functioning.”
Ukraine, Russia and the long test of solidarity
Shadowing every conversation was the war in Ukraine—an event that continues to test the durability of alliances. Leaders from Kyiv have come to Munich repeatedly to press their case for sustained support, and they were present again: a reminder that conflict does not pause while diplomats recalibrate their rhetoric.
“What we hear here matters,” said a Ukrainian liaison in a corridor conversation. “If Europe steps up, it helps deter further aggression. If it falters, the consequences are regional and global.”
European leaders used the platform to stress a new posture: greater autonomy in defense combined with continued partnership with the United States. “We’re not seeking a divorce from the transatlantic relationship,” one Western European minister told me. “We are asking for a marriage with clearer roles.”
The Greenland episode and public trust
Not all setbacks are strategic. Some are theatrical: the episode about Greenland—one of many recent eyebrow-raising moments—left a residue of confusion that many Europeans still say needs addressing. “It felt like an impulse play,” an academic in Copenhagen said, “and impulses don’t build alliances.”
Rebuilding trust, diplomats said, involves both the mundane and the monumental: routine consultations, clearer lines on defense commitments, and a shared doctrine for navigating economic coercion and technological rivalry.
What comes next—and what you can watch for
If Munich was a reset button, it was a tentative one. Expect several markers in the coming months that will show whether the hour is the start of true repair or merely a pause in tension:
- Concrete defense cooperation frameworks from Brussels and selected capitals, not just vague pledges.
- Visible coordination on sanctions and energy security linked to the war in Ukraine.
- Reforms in international institutions that actually allocate decision-making to those on the front lines of crises.
Ask yourself: do you believe alliances are built by speeches or by structures? By optics or by ordnance? The answer matters because the next decade will test these bonds in ways that outstrip one bad year or one controversial tweet. The cost of miscalculation is not just political embarrassment; it is lives, markets and the fragile sense of security communities have come to expect.
Closing notes from Munich
Walking back through the conference hall toward the tram, I overheard a young diplomat from Latvia say, “We came here to be seen as needed, not as an afterthought.” That line lingered because it captures the essential bargain being renegotiated: mutual respect, predictable support, and shared responsibility.
The task ahead is both practical and moral. If transatlantic leaders can move past rhetoric to durable policies—investment in defense, governance reforms, and a credible commitment to shared values—then Munich will prove to be a beginning, not an elegy. If they cannot, the alliance risks becoming a museum of past glories rather than a living instrument for navigating a turbulent century.
Which path will leaders choose? The answer will unfold not just in summit communiqués, but in the lives of people across Europe, North America, and beyond who depend on a world where agreements are kept and trust is not merely proclaimed—it is lived.
Farmaajo oo la kulmay Deni iyo Axmed Madoobe
Feb 14(Jowhar)-Madaxweynihii 9-aad ee dalka Farmaajo ayaa kulamo gaar ah wadajir ula yeeshay madaxweynayaasha maamulada Puntlqnd iyo Jubaland ee degan Airport Hotel oo xeyndaabka Xalane ku yaala.
Markabkii ugu horeeyay ee Sahminta Qodista Shidaalka oo beri kusoo wajahan Soomaaliya
Feb 14(Jowhar)-Warar aan helnay ayaa sheegaya Maalinta Barito ah oo Axada 15 Febraayo uu Magaalada Muqdisho Kusoo wajahanyahay markabkii ugu horreeyay ee sahaminta qodista Shidaalka.
Judge finds ICE denied Minnesota detainees access to attorneys
When Access to a Lawyer Becomes a Luxury: Inside Minnesota’s ICE Surge
On a cold January morning in Minneapolis, lawyers huddled outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building with steaming cups of coffee and crisp legal pads, their breath hanging in the air like the questions they could not yet answer. They had come prepared — folders full of case files, a list of numbers, a calendar packed with hearings — only to be told that many of their clients had already been moved, sometimes hours earlier, sometimes without a forwarding address.
It is an image that refuses to leave the mind: skilled advocates left in the lobby while people they represent are shuffled through a system so opaque that even those who run it lose track. Last week, a federal judge in Minneapolis stepped into that breach. Judge Nancy Brasel issued a temporary—but urgent—order requiring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to stop sweeping detainees out of Minnesota in a manner that, the court found, “all but extinguish[es] a detainee’s access to counsel.” The order will remain in effect for 14 days as the case proceeds.
A surge that scattered people and lawyers alike
The case centers on a recent enforcement initiative dubbed Operation Metro Surge. According to filings and testimony reviewed by the court, ICE deployed thousands of agents to the region, detained thousands of people, and used facilities not intended for long-term custody. What emerged in litigation was not merely a logistical mess but a pattern: detainees routinely moved quickly and silently out of state; phone calls were restricted or monitored; attorney-client visits became difficult or impossible.
“We had clients who literally vanished from our docket,” said Maya López, an immigration attorney who has represented detainees in Hennepin County for seven years. “One day I prepare for a bond hearing; the next, I’m told they were transported to a facility three states away with no notification. How do you mount a defense, how do you prepare a family, when people are relocated like chess pieces?”
The plaintiffs — a class of noncitizen detainees — argued their constitutional access to counsel had been infringed. In court, ICE acknowledged that detainees have a right to counsel but defended its practices, pointing to resource constraints and operational priorities. Judge Brasel did not find that explanation convincing. “Defendants allocated substantial resources to sending thousands of agents to Minnesota,” she wrote, “and cannot suddenly lack resources when it comes to protecting detainees’ constitutional rights.”
What the judge ordered — and why it matters
The temporary court order is straightforward on paper but seismic in effect. It requires ICE to stop rapidly & covertly transferring detainees out of the state; to permit private attorney-client visits; and to allow detainees confidential phone calls with their lawyers. For lawyers who had been running in circles, it was at once relief and vindication.
“The right to counsel is not optional,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, the nonprofit that filed the suit on behalf of detainees. “You can’t detain people in a building never meant for long-term custody, put them in shackles, move them in secret, and call that due process.”
Advocates say the case lays bare a broader problem: enforcement strategies that prioritize rapid arrests and removals over procedural fairness and oversight. In practice, that can mean families lose contact with loved ones, legal claims go unfiled, and courts lack the information needed to ensure people’s rights are protected.
Lives in transit: stories behind the headlines
Listen to the people, and the legal language becomes visceral. There is Amina, a mother who called her sister from a detention center phone and heard static on the line. By the time her lawyer could track her, she was in a facility three states away, her case calendar a blank space. “They moved her like luggage,” Amina’s sister told a reporter. “She could not tell us where she was. My children ask for their mother. What do we tell them?”
There is also Jacob Ramirez, a community organizer who spent the night in the cold outside the federal building representing volunteers checking on detainee welfare. “People think this is far away from them,” he said, rubbing his hands against his coat. “But the neighbors who bring soup, the kids who go to school here — they are connected. When counsel is cut off, the whole community feels it.”
And then there are the attorneys who learned ingenuity the hard way: establishing circle-of-trust contacts at detention centers, building phone trees, and even coordinating with social workers to piece together where someone might have been taken. “It’s detective work,” said an attorney who asked not to be named. “But it shouldn’t have to be.”
Context and consequences
On a structural level, the Minnesota case raises questions about how modern immigration enforcement balances speed and scale against legal safeguards. Enforcement surges are not new; they are often framed as necessary for public safety. But judges and civil-rights advocates increasingly warn that surges can lead to corners being cut.
Consider some of the stakes:
- Legal representation dramatically improves outcomes in immigration proceedings: studies show that noncitizens with lawyers are far more likely to obtain relief or avoid deportation than those without counsel.
- Transparency and consistent tracking of detainees are essential to prevent family separation and to allow oversight of detention conditions.
- Rapid transfers complicate access to medical care, delay case processing, and can undermine the integrity of the legal process itself.
These are not abstract risks. They affect parent-child bonds, employment and housing stability, community trust in institutions, and the United States’ ability to live up to its legal commitments.
Bigger questions: What kind of system do we want?
We can read the court’s order as a narrow injunction concerned with access to counsel, but the ripples run deeper. What obligations do enforcement agencies have when carrying out large-scale operations? How do we ensure accountability when power is concentrated and actions are shrouded behind logistical rationales?
Ask yourself: is speed worth the cost of due process? When systems trade notice and transparency for operational advantage, who bears the harm? The detainees shuffled across state lines are not faceless statistics — they are parents, workers, dreamers, neighbors. Their access to legal counsel is the hinge on which fairness swings.
Looking ahead
The immediate relief provided by the judge’s order is only temporary. The litigation will continue, and the broader policy debates will not be resolved in two weeks. But the spotlight on Minnesota has already pushed questions into public view: whether enforcement strategies can be retooled to preserve legal access, and whether oversight mechanisms are robust enough to catch and correct abuses.
“This isn’t about being soft on enforcement,” Maya López said. “It’s about being faithful to the rule of law. We can have enforcement and we can have fairness — the two are not mutually exclusive.”
As the legal clock ticks, lawyers will keep knocking on detention doors — and families will keep waiting by the phone. For a democracy that prides itself on legal process, the outcome in Minnesota will resonate well beyond its courthouse walls.
It asks us, quietly and insistently, to decide what we’re willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of order: efficiency, perhaps — but not the right to be heard.
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