Latest news with #AmericanThinker
Scotsman
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Scotsman
Readers' Letters: Donald Trump's Act of hostility
President Donald Trump holds up a printed article from "American Thinker" while accusing South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa of state-sanctioned violence against white farmers in South Africa during a press availability in the Oval Office at the White House on May 21 One reader is appalled at Donald Trump's allegations against South Africa. Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Donald Trump's false charge of race discrimination by the South African government against white farmers and offering them refuge in the US is an act of hostility against South Africa. Since South Africa took Israel to the International Court of Justice charging it with genocide the US has ramped up its actions against South Africa. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Trump's Presidential Order 'Addressing the Egregious Actions of South Africa', promoted the re-settlement of Afrikaners in the US and stated that South Africa had taken aggressive positions towards the United States including 'accusing Israel of genocide.' The Presidential Order added, 'The United States cannot support the government of South Africa in its undermining United States foreign policy which poses national security threats to our Nation… and our interests.' It concluded 'the United States shall not provide aid or assistance to South Africa.' It could not be made clearer that if you disagree with US support for Israel's actions then you will be punished. In South Africa's colonial and apartheid past, land distribution was grossly unequal on the basis of race. This remains the case. Whites own 70 per cent of the land while being only 7 per cent of the population. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad South Africa in addressing this issue passed the Land Expropriation Act. Land can be expropriated without compensation only in strictly defined circumstances. The United States intervention, making false claims about the Act and what is happening to white farmers, whilst offering fast-tracked refuge to Afrikaners is a disruptive interference in the affairs of a sovereign country. The US actions seem designed to destabilise South Africa and stop its support for the Palestinians. South Africa should be applauded for its humanitarian stance in support of the Palestinians and should also be assisted in its journey to overcome 300 years of colonialism and apartheid. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Brian Filling, Chair, Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) Scotland (Successor organisation of the Anti-Apartheid Movement) For Reform read Trump I quite agree with William Loneskie (letters, 10th June) that terms like 'hate' and 'poison' have no place in any political discussion. But Mr Loneskie, after reviewing Reform UK's manifesto, while denying they are 'far right', suggests that they are simply 'common sense'. Quite possibly, it's he who is in denial. To see Reform UK's policies in action, you have only to look across the Atlantic and view Trump's America. There, you most certainly will find far right policies, which are far from common sense, even down to the doomed DOGE, which Nigel Farage is keen to adopt. For Trump's 'America first', read Farage's 'Britain first', or perhaps more accurately, 'England first' with all that that entails, including isolation from the wider world and zero immigration. For 'Trump's Presidency', read Farage's 'Premiership' and, heaven forbid, quite possibly, dictatorship. That should be cautionary enough. Ian Petrie, Edinburgh Indy fatigue Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I hope someone in the SNP will tell us when they have pressed the 'independence button' they keep threatening to activate. Otherwise, I think for the vast majority of Scots, including many SNP sympathisers, there will not be an iota of difference to what we have suffered for the last few decades; the button must be stuck in the independence selection. How about a 'Truth Button' instead? Alexander McKay, Edinburgh Workers want more I suppose that we can only expect John Swinney to attempt to take crumbs of comfort from whatever he can in last week's election. However, neither the SNP, nor Labour were exactly impressive. The Conservatives especially were the clear victims of Reform's approaching steamroller. As Reform UK lists a number of policies which are left-wing (eg nationalisation) with fairly right-wing ones, they appeal to the average man and, indeed the average woman in the street. The public is fed up of parties who tax and spend to no visible effect. Both the SNP and Labour typify this. The tyranny of the liberal-lefty/lefty-separatist regimes which have ruled the UK and Scotland for the past three decades represent the yahoos who demonstrate on the streets in such numbers. They do not, however, represent the average adult who has to budget for a mortgage and often for feeding and clothing children, but who want to enjoy the benefit of some of their own hard-earned income. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The failure to understand that people are motivated by a wish to see their children in a better world than they grew up in is the problem in a post-industrial world. When the horizons are covered with Chinese-built wind turbines and the pay-packet is taxed more highly than the rest of the UK, is it any surprise that Scottish voters are sick fed up with a party which takes their money from them and which allows foreigners to vote? When Scots are struggling to pay their bills, is it any surprise that people are livid when illegal economic migrants who are overwhelmingly fit young men who come from perfectly peaceful countries are put up in hotels and fed at our expense? John Fraser, Glasgow Winter gruel The UK rules regarding right to winter fuel allowance are clear i.e. earnings of £35 thousand or less being cut off point. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The Scottish Government have decided on three categories a) £200 for those on pension credit, knowing that a huge number of pensioners miss out on that benefit due to small works pensions b) £100 those not on pension credit c) those 'wealthy' people who can opt out of their £100. Why does the Scottish Government always have to be different? They know we pay more tax than the rest of the UK but will receive less winter fuel allowance. They also know we are colder longer over the winter than the rest of the UK. Let us hope that once they get the extra Barnet Formula money that they increase the payment rather sidetrack the money for something else. Elizabeth Hands, Armadale Something fishy Recently Keir Starmer sucker-punched our fishermen by gifting EU vessels a 12-year licence to rape and loot UK fishing grounds – as they have done with their own. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Shockingly, when he was questioned about this Starmer responded by claiming that this is a 'win for our fishing industry because of Scottish salmon exports' – a response which is not only contemptuous of fisher folk but reveals his total ignorance of the modus operandi of the fishing industry. Few would describe keeping unhealthy salmon densely packed in cages and feeding them highly processed food, as fishing. Let us be honest, the reason Starmer and crew gets away with this, and with record numbers of migrants channel-crossing, a failed NHS, a failed railway system and a desperate housing shortage etc etc is due to our own negligent burnout – because we let him. Doug Clark, Currie Keep the lights on Recent threats of serious blackouts in late May and lately the blackout in Exeter raises concerns of more impending blackouts and electrical emergencies. All this from the perilous, unstable and un-modernised state of UK's National Grid, unable to cope with intermittent renewable power. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Some might conclude the UK needs either a change in Net Zero renewable energy policy or a change in government, for it is a given that no government can prevail if it cannot keep the lights on. For surely Net Zero renewable energy political fantasies cannot continue unsustainably hiking UK electricity to between four and six times European prices, economically crippling both industries and households. Yet UK electricity demand is expected to double in the short term to service the banks of computers needed for the new artificial intelligence industry and potentially millions of new electric vehicles. Expensive imports of gas and electricity will not solve the economic issues. Yet the UK could build, service and have operational in less than three years reliable British designed gas combined cycle power stations using its UK's own gas resources. All this at a fraction of the cost of nuclear plant. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad So-how long will this government take to smell the coffee? Will it indeed be too late when the Whitehall lights go out and the coffee percolators fail? Elizabeth Marshall, Edinburgh Nuclear target Just how stupid can our government be? In the same week that the 'powers that be' said that expenditure on our armed forces should rise from about 2 per cent to nearer 5 per cent, they decide to spend £14.2 billion on a new Sizewell C power station. While no-one knows when or why some future war will start, we can currently see Russia attempting to systematically destroy Ukraine's power stations. It will only take one guided missile to knock out this proposed new UK power station and rob several million people of power for a very long time! Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Why not spend that money on building many smaller and more localised power stations? One mammoth power station will just be 'crying out' to be destroyed in any future conflict. Archibald A. Lawrie, Kingskettle, Fife Write to The Scotsman
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
South Africa's President Reveals True Feelings About Bizarre Trump Meeting
South Africa's president couldn't stop giggling about his encounter with Donald Trump. Cyril Ramaphosa said he got flashbacks to his meeting with the U.S. president when he took the stage at the Sustainable Infrastructure Development Symposium in Cape Town on Tuesday. 'When I came in, I saw the room going a bit dark. They darkened the room. And for a moment, I wondered, 'What is this? It's happening to me again,'' he said with a chuckle as the crowd burst into laughter. Trump's otherwise cordial meeting with Ramaphosa at the White House last week took a Zelensky-style turn when he played a video of what he claimed to be the burial grounds of white farmers allegedly killed by Black South Africans trying to take their land. 'At that moment, we were seated very nicely and I was beginning to get into a groove of interacting with this man, and I suddenly hear him say, 'No, dim the lights,'' Ramaphosa told the Cape Town audience, who again broke out into laughter. Trump used their meeting to confront Ramaphosa with unsubstantiated claims that South Africa's Black-led government is anti-white and perpetrating a 'white genocide' against local farmers while Elon Musk, the South African billionaire, stood on the sidelines of the Oval Office. Fact-checkers have found, however, that the footage Trump played didn't actually show the 'burial sites' of 'over a thousand' white farmers. Instead, the white crosses on display were temporarily erected as a memorial to a white farming couple shot dead on their premises in 2020. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged that 'the video shows crosses that represent the dead bodies of people who were racially persecuted by their government,' but glossed over questions that pointed out Trump claimed they were 'burial sites.' The interaction with Ramaphosa was reminiscent of a similarly tense meeting Trump had with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, when he dressed down the Ukrainian president in front of the cameras. 'I must say, a number of people have said, 'This was an ambush. This was an ambush,'' Ramaphosa said Tuesday. 'And I was bemused. I was saying, 'What's happening?'' The Sunday Times, a prominent South African newspaper, blasted Trump for 'blindsiding' Ramaphosa with claims of a 'white genocide.' During the Oval Office meeting, Trump also held up a printout of an American Thinker article as proof that white farmers are 'being buried' in South Africa. But the image that accompanied the article—showing humanitarian workers lifting body bags—was, in fact, taken in Congo. American Thinker managing editor Andrea Widburg, who authored the post Trump cited, told Reuters that the president 'misidentified the image.' The White House did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Russia Today
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Trump backs South Africa ‘white genocide' claims with Congo footage
A screengrab from a video that US President Donald Trump presented as evidence of white farmers being killed in South Africa originated from footage of unrest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Reuters reported on Friday. Trump showed the image during a White House meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday, holding up a printout of an article that featured a screengrab from the footage, which Reuters said it originally published on February 3. According to the news agency, the video shows humanitarian workers handling body bags in Goma, one of the main cities in eastern Congo captured by M23 rebels amid intense fighting in late January. The screengrab appeared in a blog post by conservative outlet American Thinker, which discussed conflicts in both South Africa and the DRC, but did not caption the image. 'These are all white farmers that are being buried,' Trump said. 'You have hundreds of people, thousands of people trying to come into our country because they feel they're going to be killed and their land is going to be confiscated. And you do have laws that were passed that give you the right to confiscate land,' he claimed. Andrea Widburg, the managing editor at American Thinker and author of the post, told Reuters that Trump 'misidentified the image.' She said the article raised concerns about 'increasing pressure placed on white South Africans.' Ramaphosa's visit to Washington was aimed at repairing diplomatic ties amid heightened tensions with the US over land policy, foreign affairs, and Trump's accusations of discrimination against the white minority. During the meeting, the US president played a five-minute montage that included clips of South African political figures and images he claimed show graves of white farmers. Ramaphosa rejected the claims, stating that South Africa is a multi-party democracy and that crime affects all communities. 'There's no genocide in South Africa. That is a fact that's borne out of a lot of evidence,' he said, adding that those shown in the video were not part of his government.
Egypt Independent
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Egypt Independent
Trump's image of dead ‘white farmers' came from Congo, not South Africa
Reuters — US President Donald Trump showed a screenshot of Reuters video taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of what he US President Donald Trump showed a screenshot of Reuters video taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of what he falsely presented on Wednesday as evidence of mass killings of white South Africans. 'These are all white farmers that are being buried,' said Trump, holding up a print-out of an article accompanied by the picture during a contentious Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. In fact, the video, published by Reuters on February 3 and subsequently verified by the news agency's fact check team, showed humanitarian workers lifting body bags in the Congolese city of Goma. The image was pulled from Reuters footage shot following deadly battles with Rwanda-backed M23 rebels. The blog post showed to Ramaphosa by Trump during the White House meeting was published by American Thinker, a conservative online magazine, about conflict and racial tensions in South Africa and Congo. The post did not caption the image but identified it as a 'YouTube screen grab' with a link to a video news report about Congo on YouTube, which credited Reuters. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Andrea Widburg, managing editor at American Thinker and the author of the post in question, wrote in reply to a Reuters query that Trump had 'misidentified the image.' She added, however, that the post, which referred to what it called Ramaphosa's 'dysfunctional, race-obsessed Marxist government', had 'pointed out the increasing pressure placed on white South Africans.' The footage from which the picture was taken shows a mass burial following an M23 assault on Goma, filmed by Reuters video journalist Djaffar Al Katanty. 'That day, it was extremely difficult for journalists to get in… I had to negotiate directly with M23 and coordinate with the ICRC to be allowed to film,' Al Katanty said. 'Only Reuters has video.' Al Katanty said seeing Trump holding the article with the screengrab of his video came as a shock. 'In view of all the world, President Trump used my image, used what I filmed in DRC to try to convince President Ramaphosa that in his country, white people are being killed by Black people,' Al Katanty said. Ramaphosa visited Washington this week to try to mend ties with the United States after persistent criticism from Trump in recent months over South Africa's land laws, foreign policy, and alleged bad treatment of its white minority, which South Africa denies. Trump interrupted the televised meeting with Ramaphosa to play a video, which he said showed evidence of genocide of white farmers in South Africa. This conspiracy theory, which has circulated in far-right chat rooms for years, is based on false claims. Trump then proceeded to flip through printed copies of articles that he said detailed murders of white South Africans, saying 'death, death, death, horrible death.'
Time of India
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
'Pix Trump showed to Ramaphosa of dead white farmers came from Congo, not SA'
JOHANNESBURG: US President Donald Trump showed a screenshot of Reuters video taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of what he falsely presented on Wednesday as evidence of mass killings of white South Africans. "These are all white farmers that are being buried," said Trump, holding up a print-out of an article accompanied by the picture during a contentious Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. The video, published on Feb 3 and subsequently verified by Reuters' fact check team, showed workers lifting body bags in Congo's Goma. The image was pulled from Reuters footage shot following deadly battles with Rwanda-backed M23 rebels. The blog post showed by Trump was published by American Thinker, a conservative online magazine, about conflict in South Africa and Congo. The post did not caption the image but identified it as a "YouTube screen grab" with a link to a video news report about Congo on YouTube, which credited Reuters. Andrea Widburg, managing editor at American Thinker and author of the post, said Trump had "misidentified the image".
