Category World News

Cesar Baldelomar talks about the shock election of Pope Leo XIV from Chicago and its impact on the Catholic Church.

Pope Leo XIV, the first US pontiff, called his surprise election a “cross” and a blessing as he celebrated his first Mass as pope in the Sistine Chapel. The Chicago-born missionary vowed to be a “faithful administrator” and said the Church must shine through “the dark nights of this world.”

The new head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the United States has warned his staff that he will not tolerate any resistance to President Donald Trump’s agenda for the organisation.

Friday was the first full day of David Richardson’s leadership at FEMA, after the agency saw a shake-up at its helm earlier this week. But he began his tenure as head with a stark warning for the agency.

“I — and I alone in FEMA — speak for FEMA. I’m here to carry out the president’s intent for FEMA,” he reportedly told staff in an agency-wide call.

He predicted that 20 percent of the staff would oppose Trump’s vision for the FEMA, which he has pledged to dismantle.

“Obfuscation, delay, undermining. If you’re one of those 20 percent of people and you think those tactics and techniques are going to help you, they will not, because I will run right over you,” Richardson said.

“Don’t get in my way,” he added. “I know all the tricks.”

FEMA is the agency charged with coordinating and carrying out the federal government’s response to natural disasters and other emergencies, ranging from hurricanes and flooding to domestic attacks.

But it has long been criticised for lagging response times, inadequate resources and disorganisation, particularly during major disasters like 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, which displaced tens of thousands of residents in Louisiana and killed more than 1,300 people.

Trump has responded to such criticisms by pledging to do away with FEMA altogether and redistributing its functions to individual states.

“ When there’s a problem with the state, I think that that problem should be taken care of by the state,” Trump said in January. “That’s what we have states for. They take care of problems. And a governor can handle something very quickly, you know?”

During his campaign for re-election in 2024, he also spread falsehoods about the agency, including that it had refused to offer relief to Republican residents in North Carolina, which had recently suffered widespread flooding from Hurricane Helene.

Since taking office in January, Trump has followed through with his plans to restructure the federal government, reducing the funding and staff to independent entities like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Trump and his allies have framed the cuts as necessary to combat “fraud” and “waste” across the government, though he has not offered definitive proof of wrongdoing.

At FEMA, an estimated 2,000 employees were terminated or accepted buyout offers to resign. A 2023 Government Accountability Office report indicated that FEMA only had 5,000 full-time staff members, as well as a group of reservists and emergency-response workers who could be called up to address a crisis.

To become the administrator of FEMA requires undergoing a Senate confirmation hearing and a vote.

But while those Senate hearings continue for high-level government positions, Trump has named interim leaders to govern the organisation in the meantime.

Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL, served in that role since Trump started his second term.

He had been a prominent critic of FEMA during the administration of former President Joe Biden. But his time as FEMA chief came to an abrupt halt earlier this week, in the wake of an appearance before an appropriations subcommittee in the House of Representatives.

At Wednesday’s hearing, a Democratic Representative, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, asked Hamilton about the idea that FEMA could be shuttered.

Hamilton responded with measured opposition. “I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” he said.

He added that it was ultimately not his decision to make and criticised FEMA as part of an “overextended federal bureaucracy”.

“I’m not in a position to make decisions and impact outcomes on whether or not a determination such as consequential as that should be made. That is a conversation that should be had between the president of the United States and this governing body,” Hamilton told the committee.

But the very next day, Hamilton was removed from his role as FEMA’s interim head and replaced by Richardson, a Marine veteran.

On Friday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Hamilton’s removal was related to his testimony at the subcommittee hearing.

“My understanding is that this individual testified saying something that was contrary to what the President believes and the goals of this administration in regards to FEMA policy,” Leavitt said. “And so, of course, we want to make sure that people in every position are advancing the administration’s goals.”

Critics, including Representative DeLauro, blasted the switch-up as indicative of a White House that will not tolerate dissent, even when necessary.

“The Trump administration must explain why [Hamilton] has been removed from this position,” DeLauro said in a statement. “Integrity and morality should not cost you your job.”

Richardson, meanwhile, has proceeded to set a stricter tone for his tenure, with his fiery Friday phone call. He warned FEMA staff that any actions not “within our missions” would be considered a waste of taxpayer funds.

“We’re going to find out how to do things better. We’re going to find out how to push things down to the states that should be done at state level. Also we’re going to find out how we can do more cost-sharing with the states,” he said.

Trump has been criticised for denying requests for assistance, including from Republican-led states like Arkansas, which suffered tornadoes during the week of March 14, destroying neighbourhoods. Multiple deaths were reported.

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders — who worked as Trump’s press secretary during his first term — has written to the president to appeal his denial of aid.

“Since 2023, Arkansas has experienced an unprecedented frequency of disasters, with four federally declared disasters and ten state-declared disasters. These overlapping events have severely strained the capacity of state and local agencies to respond and recover effectively,” Huckabee Sanders wrote.

Tensions are higher between India and Pakistan than they have been in decades as the two countries trade blame for drone attacks on each other’s territory over the past few days. At the heart of the dispute is what India claims is Pakistan’s support for armed separatist groups operating in Kashmir, a region disputed between the two countries.

An armed group called The Resistance Front (TRF) claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam attack in Indian-administered Kashmir last month in which 26 people were killed. India alleges that TRF is an offshoot of another Pakistan-based armed group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and has blamed Pakistan for supporting such groups.

Pakistan has denied this. It condemned the attack in April and called for an independent investigation.

Here is more about who the armed groups are and the major attacks they’ve claimed or been blamed for.

The TRF emerged in 2019 following the Indian government’s suspension of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, stripping Indian-administered Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status.

However, the group was not widely known before the Pahalgam attack, which it took responsibility for in April via the Telegram messaging app, on which it said it was opposed to the granting of residency permits to “outsiders”.

Since the repeal of Article 370, non-Kashmiris have been granted residency permits to settle in Indian-administered Kashmir. This has stoked fears that the Indian government is trying to change the demographics of Kashmir, whose population is nearly all Muslim.

Unlike other armed rebel groups in Kashmir, the TRF does not have an Islamic name.

However, the Indian government maintains that it is an offshoot of, or a front for, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based armed group whose name means “Army of the Pure”.

In 2020, TRF started claiming responsibility for minor attacks, including some targeted killings. TRF recruits included rebels from different splinter rebel groups. Indian security agents say they have arrested multiple TRF members since then.

According to Indian government records, most armed fighters killed in gunfights in Kashmir were affiliated with the TRF in 2022.

The LeT, which calls for the “liberation” of Indian-administered Kashmir, was founded around 1990 by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who is also known as Hafiz Saeed.

In 2008, armed gunmen opened fire on civilians at several sites in Mumbai, India, killing 166 people. Ajmal Kasab, the only attacker captured alive, said the attackers were members of LeT. Saeed denied any involvement in that attack, however. Kasab was executed by India in 2012.

India also blamed Pakistani intelligence agencies for the attack. While Pakistan conceded that the attack may have been partly planned on Pakistani soil, it maintained that its government and intelligence agencies were not involved.

According to the United Nations, LeT was also involved in a 2001 attack on India’s parliament and a 2006 attack on Mumbai commuter trains that killed 189 people. 

On May 7, India launched missile attacks on several cities in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. One of these cities was Muridke in the Punjab province. India claims that Muridke was the location of the headquarters of the Jamat-ud-Dawa, a charity organisation that New Delhi insists is a front for the LeT.

Last week, the Indian army claimed it had struck LeT’s Markaz Taiba camp in Muridke. The army also claimed Kasab had been trained at this camp.

Pakistan says LeT has been banned, however. Following an attack on Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pulwama in 2019, Pakistan also reimposed a lapsed ban on Jamat-ud-Dawa. Saeed was arrested in 2019 and is in the custody of the Pakistani government, serving a 31-year prison sentence after being convicted in two “terror financing” cases.

Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), or “The Army of Muhammad”, was formed around 2000 by Masood Azhar, who had been released from Indian prison in 1999.

Azhar, who had been arrested on “terrorism” charges, was released in exchange for 155 hostages being held by hijackers of an Indian Airlines plane.

Azhar previously fought under the banner of a group called Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, which calls for Kashmir to be united with Pakistan, and has been linked to al-Qaeda.

According to the UN Security Council, JeM has also had links with al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.

Pakistan banned JeM in 2002 after the group, alongside LeT, was blamed for an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.

The British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was convicted of killing US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002, was also a member of JeM. Pearl was the Wall Street Journal’s South Asia bureau chief. However, a 2011 report released by the Pearl Project at Georgetown University following its own investigation claimed that Pearl had not been murdered by Sheikh. The report instead alleged that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 attacks, was responsible. In 2021, a panel of three judges at Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered Sheikh’s release.

Despite the ban, Indian authorities claim the group continues to operate in Bahawalpur, in Pakistan’s Punjab province. On May 7, the Indian army claimed its strikes had also targeted the headquarters of JeM there.

In 2019, JeM claimed a suicide bomb attack that killed 40 Indian paramilitary soldiers in Pulwama in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Azhar has been arrested by Pakistani authorities twice, but was released and has never been charged. He has since disappeared from the public eye and his current whereabouts are not known.

Hizbul-ul-Mujahideen

Hizbul-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), or “Party of Holy Fighters” was formed in 1989 by Kashmiri separatist leader Muhammad Ahsan Dar.

The group emerged out of the 1988 protests in Kashmir against the Indian government. The group, also called Hizb, has become the largest Indigenous rebel group based in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Rather than calling for independence, HuM calls for the whole of Kashmir to be allowed to accede to Pakistan.

The group has a huge network of fighters in Shopian, Kulgam and Pulwama districts in the south of Indian-administered Kashmir.

In 2016, the killing of popular HuM commander Burhan Wani triggered widespread protests in Indian-administered Kashmir, resulting in a crackdown by Indian security forces.

The following year, the US designated HuM as a “foreign terrorist organisation” and placed sanctions on the group.

HuM leader Riyaz Naikoo spoke to Al Jazeera in 2018. “It is the nature of the occupying Indian state that has compelled us to resort to violent methods of resistance,” he said.

When asked what the group’s demands were, Naikoo said: “Our demand is very simple – freedom. Freedom, for us, means the complete dismantling of India’s illegal occupation of Kashmir and all the structures that support it, be they military or economic.”