Category World News

In his most radical and swift reform of the administration, Donald Trump has made the most of his most radical and quick move by giving most federal employees the option to leave their jobs by the following week in exchange for eight months of severance pay.

As Trump attempts to fulfill one of his campaign promises to shrink the government, an Office of Personnel Management (OPM) memorandum was released on Tuesday.

Additionally, the memo warned of potential downsizing and that the Trump administration would begin imposing “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct” on all federal employees.

People who voluntarily leave their posts will receive about eight months of pay, according to an email sent to millions of employees, but they must make a choice by February 6.

Katie Miller, a member of the Department of Government Efficiency, a Trump administration department under the leadership of Tesla’s Elon Musk, posted on X: “This email is being sent to more than TWO MILLION federal employees.

According to the Pew Research Center, over three million people were employed by the US government as of November, making up nearly 1.9 percent of the entire civilian workforce.

According to a Pew analysis of OPM data, the average tenure for a federal employee is nearly 12 years.

According to a senior administration official, the White House anticipated the departure of 5 to 10% of federal employees, which would have saved an estimated $100 billion.

Even a small percentage of the workforce who consents to buyouts could shock the economy and cause widespread disruptions in society as a whole, leading to unknowable and unfulfilled implications for the delivery, timeliness, and effectiveness of federal services nationwide.

Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, responded by saying that the offers should not be seen as voluntary buyouts but as a form of pressure on employees who are not expected to support the new administration.

According to Kelley, “Purging the federal government of dedicated career federal employees will have enormous, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for Americans who depend on a functioning federal government.” It is obvious that the Trump administration’s goal is to make the federal government a toxic environment where employees can stay even if they want to, according to &nbsp.

When Musk acquired the social media platform in the late 2022, the email to public workers resembled the tweet sent to Twitter users. If they wanted to stay with the business, which Musk later changed to X, they requested an email response.

Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley’s personal security detail and security clearance have been removed from the US.

The former army chief, who has irked the newly re-elected President Donald Trump, was named as the subject of a Pentagon announcement on Tuesday. Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense of the United States, has also ordered an investigation into his conduct.

Hegseth has instructed the Inspector General of the Department of Defense to launch an investigation into Milley’s behavior to determine whether reopening a Milley-related military grade assessment, according to a statement from the Pentagon on Tuesday.

“Undermining the chain of command is corrosive to our national security”, Joe Kasper, the Defense Department chief of staff, said in a statement.

Shortly after Trump took the oath of office, Milley’s image was taken from the Pentagon. The Pentagon’s second and final portrait, in the opinion of US news outlet Fox News, will also be taken down.

In response to growing hostility between the two, Trump fired Milley from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council earlier this month.

Milley called Beijing to reassure China of the US stability following the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021.

Trump called the phone call “an act so egregious that the punishment would have been death” in the past.

Former Trump appointee Milley once claimed that the Republican leader was “fascist to the core.”

Former President Joe Biden granted a&nbsp, a preemptive pardon from Milley on his last day in office, a request for which the 66-year-old former general expressed gratitude.

The ex-military chief and others “do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions,” according to Biden.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) has moved the Doomsday Clock by one second to 89 seconds before midnight, indicating a greater risk of global catastrophe for the first time in three years.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ science and security board is satisfied that the world has not made sufficient progress in addressing the existential risks that threaten humanity as a whole. We thus move the clock forward”, Daniel Holz, chair of the organisation’s science and security board, said during a livestreamed event on Tuesday.

Ongoing threats from nuclear weapons, climate change, bioweapons, infectious disease, and disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) have brought the clock to its latest time in 78 years.

What is the Doomsday Clock?

According to BAS, a nonprofit organization with headquarters in Chicago, the Doomsday Clock is a symbolic timepiece that illustrates how close we are to “destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making.”

It describes&nbsp, it as “many things all at once: It’s a metaphor, it’s a logo, it’s a brand, and it’s one of the most recognisable symbols in the past 100 years”.

The closer it moves to midnight, the closer humanity is to the end of the world.

Apocalyptic threats could arise from political tensions, weapons, technology, climate change or pandemics.

How is the clock set?

According to the scientists’ interpretations of existential threats at a specific time, the clock’s hands are moved closer to or farther away from midnight.

BAS updates the time annually. 10 Nobel laureates are among the members of a board that meets annually to discuss global events and decide where to put the clock’s feet on the ground.

“The Bulletin is a bit like a doctor making a diagnosis”, the BAS website says.

“We look at data, as physicians look at lab tests and x-rays, and also take harder-to-quantify factors into account, as physicians do when talking with patients and family members. We consider as many symptoms, measurements, and circumstances as we can. Then, it concludes, we have a conclusion that encapsulates what might occur if politicians and citizens don’t take action to improve the situation.

Has there ever been a turn-around?

The signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between US President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 helped to reduce their respective nations’ nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

The clock was reset by seven seconds as a result. The clock has been running since midnight for 17 minutes.

When was the Doomsday Clock created?

The&nbsp, clock was created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which was founded two years earlier by scientists Albert Einstein, J Robert Oppenheimer and Eugene Rabinowitch along with University of Chicago scholars.

During that time, the clock was set at seven minutes to midnight. But after the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb in 1949, Rabinowitch, who was then the bulletin’s editor, moved the clock to three minutes to midnight.

According to the University of Chicago, until recently, the closest it had ever been set was at&nbsp, two minutes to midnight: &nbsp, in 1953 when the US and the Soviet Union tested thermonuclear weapons and in 2018 because of “a breakdown in the international order, of nuclear actors, as well as the continuing lack of action on climate change”.

The University of Chicago’s BAS offices are home to the Doomsday Clock.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has withdrawn from the military governments of Niger, Mali, and Burkinabe.

The regional bloc’s presence in Nigeria made the official withdrawal announcement in a statement on Wednesday. ECOWAS has become a target for the three countries as a result of a string of coups, fighting with Muslim armed groups, and regional conflict.

The culmination of a yearlong process, the trio’s exit “has become effective today”, ECOWAS said. Following a military coup, the bloc demanded the resumption of democratic rule in Niger. They first made their intentions to leave in January 2024.

The bloc stated in the statement that it would “keep ECOWAS’ doors open” in the spirit of “regional solidarity” and that it would make an effort to prevent its unprecedented demise.

The remaining member states were asked to continue providing citizens from the three nations with membership benefits, including the right to free movement of goods and people.

PRESS STATEMENT Burkinabe, Mali, and Niger are all set to leave ECOWAS on January 29, 2025. twitter.com/3sydwMwh3R

The 15-nation bloc, which was established in 1975, has since become the region’s most powerful political force, frequently working with states to address domestic issues ranging from politics to security.

However, amid a series of military takeovers, continuing struggles with religious armed groups, and competition for influence between Russia and former colonial power France, the bloc has found itself in the crosshairs.

In Niger and Burkinabe, hundreds of people showed up on Tuesday to back the action.

They chanted slogans opposing French President Emmanuel Macron and other regional leaders with whom Niger has strained relations, such as Benin, Nigeria, or Ivory Coast, under the direction of members of the military-led government in Niamey, in the country’s capital.

In Burkina, thousands, including Prime Minister Rimtalba Jean-Emmanuel Ouedraogo and other members of the government, gathered in Ouagadougou’s Nation Square.

According to Ouedraogo, “To cut the cord of imperialism, we must use an axe rather than the delicate hands of a midwife.”

The military leaders of the three nations have accused ECOWAS of being influenced by France’s interests after taking office over the past five years amid a wave of coups. Amid the tensions, they have increasingly turned to Russia.

The Alliance of Sahel States, a security partnership established by the trio in September, aims to assist one another in preventing armed uprisings or external aggression.

Al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS)-linked arm groups have long battled for territory in all three countries, launching years of bloodshed.