Archive August 2, 2025

According to the United States Bureau of Prisons, Gloria Maxwell, the accomplice in Jeffrey Epstein’s high-society sex offender, has been moved to a minimum security facility in Texas, causing some of the pair’s victims to yell out infuriated.

According to the Bureau of Prisons, Maxwell, a former girlfriend of Epstein, was moved from the low-security Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, from the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Tallahassee, Florida.

Without giving an explanation for the transfer, a Bureau of Prisons spokesman said, “We can confirm that Ghislaine Maxwell is in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the Federal Prison Camp [FPC] Bryan in Bryan, Texas.”

David Oscar Markus, Maxwell’s attorney, refrained from revealing the reasons for the move.

In 2021, Maxwell was found guilty of luring teenage girls into having sex with Epstein, a once-friend of the powerful and influential in the US, and given a 20-year prison sentence for her crimes.

Maxwell’s surprise prison release was denounced by two women who claimed Epstein and Maxwell sexually assaulted them and their families, as well as one accuser’s own suicide.

We express our disapproval of the preferential treatment that former sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell received, according to Annie and Maria Farmer and Virginia Giuffre’s family in a statement.

The victims claim that the government moved Maxwell to a Texas minimum security luxury prison overnight without giving any notice to the victims.

They claimed that “Ghislaine Maxwell, a sexual predator, physically assaulted minor children on numerous occasions, and she should never be shown any leniency.”

“This action smells like a cover-up,” the author said. They continued, “The victims deserve better.”

“Real-time government cover-up”

The Texas prison camp’s Bryan prison camp is the lowest of the five minimum security levels in the US federal prison system. According to the bureau, these facilities have few or no perimeter fences, whereas low-security facilities like FCI Tallahassee have double-fenced perimeters and higher staff-to-inmate ratios than prison camps.

In a highly unusual meeting between a convicted felon and a senior Department of Justice official, Vice US Attorney General Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, met Maxwell for two days last week at a Florida courthouse.

Although Blanche has so far declined to comment on the subject matter, Maxwell’s attorney, Markus, claimed that she responded to every inquiry.

According to reports, Maxwell has been asking for a pardon from the US president, who was once a close friend of Epstein, who committed his own suicide in 2019 while holding an immunity test. In addition, he has reportedly offered to testify before Congress about Epstein.

A senior Democratic National Committee official, Tim Hogan, blasted what he claimed was a “government cover-up in real time.”

According to Hogan, “Donald Trump’s FBI, which is led by loyalist Kash Patel, redacted Trump’s name from the Epstein files, which have not yet been made public.”

According to Hogan, “Trump and his administration are trying to cover up the heinous crimes that are contained in those files, but they are also benefiting Ghislaine Maxwell, a former sex trafficker,” in turn.

MAGA base-up in weapons

After the Justice Department announced last month that it would not be releasing any additional information from the investigation into the notorious sex trafficker, Trump has faced weeks of mounting demands from Democrats and many of his conspiracy-minded supporters.

Since the FBI and Justice Department recently claimed that Epstein had not blackmailed any prominent figures and that he did not maintain a “client list,” Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) base has also been in the news.

Trump also sparked further outcry this week when he claimed to have fallen for Epstein after the sex offender “tole” female employees from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Giuffre, one of those employees, claimed that Epstein had abused her and that she had committed suicide in April at her Australian home.

Giuffre’s family appealed to Trump this week, saying that he should not pardon Maxwell, who they described as a “monster who deserves to rot in prison for the rest of her life.”

Trump claimed in an interview on Friday night that Maxwell “had a right to do it,” but that no one had asked him to do it.

Khon, a Laotian fisherman who lives in a floating house made of plastic drums, scrap metal, and wood on the Mekong River, had a successful day today.

“I caught two catfish”, the 52-year-old tells Al Jazeera proudly, lifting his catch for inspection.

On this powerful river, Khon’s simple houseboat has everything he needs, including some nets, a fire to cook food on, and a few clothes to keep warm at night.

Fish is something Khon doesn’t always have.

“There are days when I catch nothing. He remarked, “It’s frustrating.”

“The dams cause the water levels to fluctuate constantly. And now they say the river is polluted, too. They dig in the mountains up there in Myanmar. or something similar. And all that toxic stuff ends up here”, he adds.

As it meanders through the heart of the Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar borderlands, Khon lives in Laos’ northwestern Bokeo province, on one of the most picturesque Mekong River meanders.

This remote area has long been renowned for its drug trafficking and production.

Now it is caught up in the global scramble for gold and rare earth minerals, crucial for the production of new technologies and used in everything from smartphones to electric cars.

According to Thailand’s Pollution Control Department, rivers in this region, including the Ruak, Sai, and Kok, which are all Mekong tributaries, have abnormal levels of arsenic, lead, nickel, and manganese.

Arsenic, in particular, has exceeded World Health Organization safety limits, prompting health warnings for riverside communities.

These tributaries directly feed the Mekong, and some of the river’s mainstream has been contaminated. The Mekong River Commission has since declared the situation “modely serious” because of the effects being observed in Laos.

“Recent official water quality testing clearly indicates that the Mekong River on the Thai-Lao border is contaminated with arsenic”, Pianporn Deetes, Southeast Asia campaigns director for the advocacy group International Rivers, told Al Jazeera.

If the mining continues, Pianporn said, “This is alarming and just the first chapter of the crisis.”

“Fishmen have just recently caught young, ill catfish.” This is a matter of regional public health, and it needs urgent action from governments”, she added.

In Myanmar’s Shan State, where dozens of unregulated mines have sprung up as the search for rare earth minerals gets more sophisticated, it is thought that the heavy metals are being contaminated upriver.

Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington and an expert on Southeast Asia, said at least a dozen, and possibly as many as 20, mines focused on gold and rare earth extraction have been established in southern Shan State over the past year alone.

The border region, which is controlled by two powerful ethnic armed groups, the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), is now four years into a civil war.

Apart from maintaining Tachileik town, the region’s main border crossing between Thailand and Myanmar, the military government of Myanmar has “no real control,” according to Abuza.

Neither the RCSS nor the UWSA are “fighting the junta”, he said, explaining how both are busy enriching themselves from the chaos in the region and the rush to open mines.

“Mining has exploded in this vacuum, most likely with Chinese traders involved. Although the military retains control over the profits, Abuza said, they cannot issue permits or enforce environmental regulations.

‘ Alarming decline ‘

The Mekong River’s only health issue is mining-related pollution.

A growing number of hydropower dams have severely altered the river’s health for years, severely affecting its natural rhythm and ecology.

In the Mekong’s upper reaches, inside China, almost a dozen huge hydropower dams have been built, including the Xiaowan and Nuozhadu dams, which are said to be capable of holding back a huge amount of the river’s flow.

Further downstream, Laos has skewed hydropower’s economic viability.

At least 75 dams are currently operating on the Mekong’s tributaries, according to the Mekong Dam Monitor, which is hosted by the Stimson Centre think tank in Washington, DC, and two are directly on the mainstream river in Laos.

As a rule, hydropower is a cleaner alternative to coal.

Another type of environmental crisis is being caused by the Mekong dam’s rush.

The Mekong River basin once supported about 60 million people and managed up to 25% of the world’s freshwater fish catch, according to WWF and the Mekong River Commission.

Today, one in five fish species in the Mekong is at risk of extinction, and the river’s sediment and nutrient flows have been severely reduced, as documented in a 2023–2024 Mekong Dam Monitor report and research by International Rivers.

At the launch of a 2024 report titled The Mekong’s Forgotten Fishes, the WWF’s Asia Pacific Regional Director Lan Mercado remarked, “The alarming decline in fish populations in the Mekong is an urgent wake-up call for action to save these extraordinary – and extraordinarily important – species.

During a recent visit, the fish markets in Houayxay, the provincial capital, appeared largely unstocked.

At Kad Wang View, the town’s main market, the fish stalls were nearly deserted.

“Maybe this afternoon, or perhaps tomorrow,” said Mali, a 60-year-old vendor. Mali had circled her small stock of fish in front of her to make the display appear larger to potential customers.

At another market, Sydonemy, just outside Houayxay town, the story was the same. The fish stalls were bare.

“Some fish come, some don’t, and sometimes they don’t.” We just wait”, another vendor said.

The 53-year-old Vilasai, who is a member of a fishing family but currently works as a taxi driver, recalls that “there used to be giant fish here.”

The river now offers little for us. Even the water for irrigation – people are scared to use it. No one knows whether the environment is still clean, he told Al Jazeera, referring to the mine pollution in Myanmar.

‘ The river used to be predictable ‘

Upstream dams, especially those in China, have had significant downstream effects in northern Thailand and Laos, according to Ian G. Baird, professor of geography and Southeast Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

According to Baird, “The ecosystem and the lives that depend on the river evolved to adapt to particular hydrological conditions.”

“But since the dams were built, those conditions have changed dramatically. He said that the rapid water level fluctuations of the dry season, which were once uncommon, now have a negative effect on both the river and the population.

The natural cycle of the river reverses, which is another significant factor.

“Now there is more water in the dry season and less during the rainy season. That lessens flooding and the annual flood pulse’s beneficial ecological effects, Baird said.

“To maximize energy output and profits, the dams hold water during the rainy season and release it during the dry season. But that also kills seasonally flooded forests and disrupts the river’s ecological function”, he said.

Bun Chan, 45, and his 40-year-old wife Nanna Kuhd reside on a floating home close to Houayxay. He fishes while his wife sells what he catches at the local market.

On a recent morning, he cast his net again and again – but for nothing.

As he raised his empty net, Bun Chan said, “Looks like I won’t catch anything today.”

“We didn’t sell them, but I caught a few the other day.” We’re keeping them in cages in the water, so at least we have something to eat if I don’t catch more”, he said.

Hom Phan has spent his entire life fishing in the Mekong.

He steers his wooden boat across the river, following a route he knows by instinct. The 67-year-old claims that the current is strong enough to dragged everything under in some of the river’s edges.

Only the chug of his small outboard engine and distant bird calls break the silence in his immediate vicinity.

“The river used to be predictable. We are currently unsure of whether it will rise or fall, Hom Phan said.

Fish are unable to locate their spawning grounds. They’re disappearing. If nothing is changed, we might as well, he said, citing Al Jazeera.

In Houayxay, Khon, the fisherman, rolls up his nets and prepares dinner in his floating home as evening rolls around.

As he waits for the fire to catch to cook a meal, he quietly contemplates the great river he lives on.

Khon was contemplating his next day of fishing with a smile on his face as he considered the dams in China, the pollution from the mines in neighboring Myanmar, and the growing difficulty in catching the catch he relies on to survive.