This Friday in The World this Week, we talk about: The implications of a fatal week in Minneapolis, Iran & the ‘Armada’ ultimatum, What’s Trump’s goal for Gaza ?
The implications of a fatal week in Minneapolis
In a week where video evidence and citizen journalism has shown its fundamental importance in holding governments to account. In this case, eye-witness footage stood up against the rapid-response accounts of the Trump administration in the hours following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, as government officials tried to define the story, framing Pretti as a domestic terrorist and would-be assassin – narratives which had little bearing on what we could see and hear, thanks to the recordings of eye witnesses. Two Border Force agents have since been placed on leave, and the issue is causing splits in the Republican Party and within the MAGA movement. It also brought a rare concession from President Trump more famous for the attack as form of defence route. And ICE operations now look set to be reduced in Minneapolis.
Iran & the ‘Armada’ ultimatum
It’s been a week of final warnings for the Iranian regime. Time is running out, was the explicit threat spelt out on Trump’s Truth Social, with a quote “massive Armada” of US military might making its way into the Arabian Sea. The USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear powered aircraft carrier has now sailed into the strategic waters leaving a binary choice: face the wrath of the US military for a second time in less than a year, or agree a new deal on the nuclear programme. And this comes two weeks after an uprising was savagely suppressed, the death toll of protestors now estimated to be in the tens of thousands. Iran’s regime has hit back saying they’re waiting with quote, “fingers on the trigger”.
What’s Trump’s goal for Gaza ?
It’s been the week that Israel held a final funeral for the last hostage in Gaza, Master Sargent Ran Gvili, whose remains were identified by IDF troops in a search of a cemetery in Gaza City, and confirmed as his on Monday. It brought to a close a 2 year and four month search for the police officer known as the Shield, who was killed as he defended a Kibbutz during the Hamas massacre on October the 7th. With neither war nor peace for the population in Gaza dealing with a bleak winter, we look at the next steps of the Truce Plan: disarming Hamas.
Produced by Gavin Lee, Théophile Vareille, Juliette Laffont, Alessandro Xenos.
