Politics
Trump’s Pentagon chief outlines vision for the US military
WASHINGTON: Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth portrayed the US military Tuesday as too fat, too focused on leftist “woke” ideas, and in need of a major shake-up with an emphasis on being tough “war fighters.”
The speech, to an auditorium of hundreds of generals and admirals hastily called to Virginia from around the world, touted a plan for ending what the former Fox News host claimed had been “decades of decay.”
Striding across a stage in front of a giant American flag that mirrored his pocket square, Hegseth took aim at “stupid rules of engagement” on the battlefield and “fat troops” at home, calling for the military to look back to the standards of 1990 for inspiration.
He said he wanted a military focused on lethality, not racial or gender diversity, with an end to what he said were troops “walking on eggshells” over fear of complaints about behavior.
“This speech is about fixing decades of decay, some of it obvious, some of it hidden,” Hegseth told the hundreds of senior officers assembled for the highly unusual get-together.
“Foolish and reckless political leaders set the wrong compass heading, and we lost our way. We became the ´Woke Department.´ But not anymore,” he said.
Hegseth outlined various changes he wants to make as part of his efforts to reshape the military, recapping some previous announcements.
He called for the strict application of grooming standards — which includes a one-year cap on shaving waivers that are disproportionately used by Black troops — as well as for having the current highest male fitness standard apply to all combat forces.
“Standards must be uniform, gender-neutral and high — if not, they´re not standards. They´re just suggestions, suggestions that get our sons and daughters killed,” Hegseth said.
He criticised out-of-shape troops, saying: “It´s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it´s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of Pentagon.”
´Hunt and kill´
Hegseth also said he would institute what he called the “no more walking on eggshells policy,” which entails “no more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints, no more repeat complainants, no more smearing reputations.”
He specifically criticised the Pentagon inspector general — which launched an investigation into his use of the civilian messaging app Signal for classified information this year — saying the office has been “weaponised” and will be overhauled.
Hegseth said that strict rules for when force can be used — measures that are aimed at preventing civilians from being killed — are a thing of the past.
“We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralise, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality, and authority for war fighters,” he said.
That approach has recently been demonstrated in the Caribbean, where the US military has killed more than a dozen people in strikes on alleged drug smugglers traveling in boats.
Trump´s administration has yet to publicly release evidence to back its claims that those targeted were smugglers or that they posed an immediate danger to the United States.
Hegseth warned that anyone not agreeing should quit.
“If the words I´m speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign,” he told the officers.
Trump´s administration has already purged a number of top officers this year, including chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff general Charles “CQ” Brown, who was fired without explanation in February, as well as the heads of the Navy and Coast Guard.
- Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand witness large scale devastation.
- At least 176 people perish in Thailand and three in Malaysia.
- Indonesia’s death toll reaches 502 with 508 more still missing.
PALEMBAYAN: Rescue teams in western Indonesia were battling on Monday to clear roads cut off by cyclone-induced landslides and floods, as improved weather revealed more of the scale of a disaster that has killed close to 700 people in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have seen large scale devastation after a rare tropical storm formed in the Malacca Strait, fuelling torrential rains and wind gusts for a week that hampered efforts to reach people stranded by mudslides and high floodwaters.
At least 176 have been killed in Thailand and three in Malaysia, while the death toll climbed to 502 in Indonesia on Monday with 508 missing, according to official figures.
Under sunshine and clear blue skies in the town of Palembayan in Indonesia’s West Sumatra, hundreds of people were clearing mud, trees and wreckage from roads as some residents tried to salvage valuable items like documents and motorcycles from their damaged homes.
Men in camouflage outfits sifted through piles of mangled poles, concrete and sheet metal roofing as pickup trucks packed with people drove around looking for missing family members and handing out water to people, some trudging through knee-deep mud.
Months of adverse, deadly weather
The government’s recovery efforts include restoring roads, bridges and telecommunication services.
More than 28,000 homes have been damaged in Indonesia and 1.4 million people affected, according to the disaster agency.
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto visited the three affected provinces on Monday and praised residents for their spirit in the face of what he called a catastrophe.
“There are roads that are still cut off, but we’re doing everything we can to overcome difficulties,” he said in North Sumatra.
“We face this disaster with resilience and solidarity. Our nation is strong right now, able to overcome this.”
The devastation in the three countries follows months of adverse and deadly weather in Southeast Asia, including typhoons that have lashed the Philippines and Vietnam and caused frequent and prolonged flooding elsewhere.
Scientists have warned that extreme weather events will become more frequent as a result of global warming.
Marooned for days
In Thailand, the death toll rose slightly to 176 on Monday from flooding in eight southern provinces that affected about three million people and led to a major mobilisation of its military to evacuate critical patients from hospitals and reach people marooned for days by floodwaters.
In the hardest-hit province of Songkhla, where 138 people were killed, the government said 85% of water services had been restored and would be fully operational by Wednesday.
Much of Thailand’s recovery effort is focused on the worst-affected city Hat Yai, a southern trading hub which on November 21 received 335 mm (13 inches) of rain, its highest single-day tally in 300 years, followed by days of unrelenting downpours.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has set a timeline of seven days for residents to return to their homes, a government spokesperson said on Monday.
In neighbouring Malaysia, 11,600 people were still in evacuation centres, according to the country’s disaster agency, which said it was still on alert for a second and third wave of flooding.
- Ex-Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina, sister Rehana also sentenced.
- Case relates to illegal allocation of a plot of land: local media.
- Prosecutors highlight political influence, collusion abuse of power.
DHAKA: A Bangladesh court sentenced British parliamentarian and former minister Tulip Siddiq to two years in jail in a corruption case involving the alleged illegal allocation of a plot of land, local media reported.
The verdict was delivered in absentia as Siddiq, her aunt and former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and Hasina’s sister Sheikh Rehana — all co-accused in the case — were not present in court.
Hasina was sentenced to five years in jail and Rehana to seven, the local media reports said.
Hasina, who fled to neighbouring India in August 2024 at the height of an uprising against her government, was sentenced to death last month over her government’s violent crackdown on demonstrators during the protests.
Last week, she was handed a combined 21-year prison sentence in other corruption cases.
Prosecutors said that the land was unlawfully allocated through political influence and collusion with senior officials, accusing the three powerful defendants of abusing their authority to secure the plot, measuring roughly 13,610 square feet, during Hasina’s tenure as prime minister.
Most of the 17 accused were absent when the judgement was pronounced.
Siddiq, who resigned in January as the UK’s minister responsible for financial services and anti-corruption efforts following scrutiny over her financial ties to Hasina, has previously dismissed the allegations as a “politically motivated smear”.
Britain does not currently have an extradition treaty with Bangladesh.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said his partner, Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis, is half-Indian and that one of their sons has the middle name “Sekhar” after Indian-American physicist and Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.
Speaking on Zerodha founder Nikhil Kamath’s “WTF is?” podcast, Musk said: “I’m not sure if you know this, but my partner Shivon is half Indian,” adding: “One of my sons with her, his middle name is Sekhar after Chandrasekhar.”
Musk also spoke about Zilis’s background when asked where she grew up, saying she was given up for adoption as a baby and raised in Canada. “She grew up in Canada. She was given up for adoption when she was a baby. I think her father was like an exchange student at the university or something like that… I’m not sure the exact details,” he said.
Zilis joined Musk’s AI company, Neuralink, in 2017 and is currently the Director of Operations and Special Projects. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Philosophy from Yale University. Zilis has four children with Musk — twins Strider and Azure, daughter Arcadia and son Seldon Lycurgus.
Earlier this year, in March, it emerged that Musk had another child, his 14th, with Zilis.
“Discussed with Elon and, in light of beautiful Arcadia’s birthday, we felt it was better to also just share directly about our wonderful and incredible son Seldon Lycurgus,” Zilis said in a post on X, without saying when the child was born. Musk responded with a heart.
Her announcement came two weeks after conservative influencer Ashley St Clair said that she also recently had a child with Musk.
Appearing on the latest episode of Kamath’s podcast, Musk also said that America has “been an immense beneficiary of talent from India, but that seems to be changing now”.
His comments come at a time when the American dream for thousands of Indians is turning sour due to rising US visa restrictions and policy unpredictability.
— With additional input from Reuters
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