International
Donald Trump sworn in as 47th US President
• Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th president of the United States by Chief Justice John Roberts as Melania Trump holds the Bible during the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (Photo by Morry Gash / POOL / AFP)
Donald Trump was sworn in for a historic second term as president on Monday, pledging a blitz of immediate orders on immigration and the US culture wars as he caps his extraordinary comeback.
With one hand raised in the air and the other on a Bible given to him by his mother, the 47th US president solemnly took the oath of office beneath the huge Rotunda of the US Capitol.
Republican Trump and outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden had earlier traveled by motorcade together to the Capitol, where the ceremony was being held indoors — and with a much smaller crowd — for the first time in decades due to frigid weather.
Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th president of the United States by Chief Justice John Roberts as Melania Trump holds the Bible during the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (Photo by Morry Gash / POOL / AFP)
Earlier, they and their spouses met for a traditional tea at the White House.
“Welcome home,” Biden said to Trump as he and First Lady Jill Biden greeted their successors at the front door to the presidential residence.
While Trump refused to attend Biden’s 2021 inauguration after falsely claiming electoral fraud by the Democrat, this time Biden has been keen to restore the sense of tradition.
Biden joined former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at the Capitol. Former first ladies Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush were there but ex-first lady Michelle Obama pointedly stayed away.
Trump, 78, was a political outsider at his first inauguration in 2017 as the 45th president, but this time around he is surrounded by America’s wealthy and powerful.
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and Google CEO Sundar Pichai all had prime seats in the Capitol alongside Trump’s family and cabinet members.
J.D. Vance is sworn in as US Vice President as his wife Usha Vance looks on during the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump at the Rotunda of the US Capitol in Washington, on January 20, 2025. Trump takes office for his second non-consecutive term as the 47th president of the United States. (Photo by Kevin Lamarque / POOL / AFP)
Musk, who bankrolled Trump’s election campaign to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars and promotes far-right policies on the X social network, will lead a cost-cutting drive in the new administration.
While Trump refused to attend Biden’s 2021 inauguration after falsely claiming electoral fraud by the Democrat, this time Biden has been keen to restore the sense of tradition.
Biden joined former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at the Capitol. Former first ladies Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush were there but ex-first lady Michelle Obama pointedly stayed away.
Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th US President in the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / POOL / AFP)
– ‘American decline’ –
Unusually for an inauguration where foreign leaders are normally not invited, Argentina’s hard-right president Javier Milei was attending, along with Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The bitter cold weather has forced Trump’s inauguration indoors for the first time since Ronald Reagan’s in 1985, missing out on the customary massive crowds along the National Mall.
Behind the pomp and ceremony, the billionaire is kickstarting his nationalist, right-wing agenda with a barrage of around 100 executive orders undoing Biden’s legacy.
Trump will declare a national emergency at the Mexico border, give the US military a key role on the frontier, and end birthright citizenship, as he seeks clamp down on undocumented migrants, an official from his incoming administration said.
Trump has pledged to start immediate deportations of undocumented migrants.
He will also sign an order for the US government to recognize only two biological sexes and seek to eliminate federal government diversity programs as he takes office.
The announcement of the hardline policies came a day after Trump had promised a “brand new day” and to end “four years of American decline.”
“I will act with historic speed and strength and fix every single crisis facing our country,” Trump told an inauguration eve rally where he danced with the Village People band.
– ‘Ecstatic’ –
Despite promising a new “golden era,” populist Trump also campaigned on often apocalyptic depictions of the country in his victorious election campaign against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
At sunrise on Monday, the National Mall, where the inauguration was originally due to be held, was largely empty — save for the Fairchild family, who traveled from Michigan to pay tribute to Trump.
“Ecstatic,” said grandmother Barb, when asked how they were feeling, adding she thought the move indoors was made “to protect our president.”
With minutes left in his presidency, Biden issued extraordinary pre-emptive pardons for his brothers and sister to shield them from “baseless and politically motivated investigations.”
He also pardoned former Covid-19 advisor Anthony Fauci, retired general Mark Milley, and members of a US House committee probing the violent January 6, 2021 US Capitol attack by Trump’s supporters.
Biden said he had also restored the tradition of leaving a letter for his successor — though he said the contents were between him and Trump.
Trump will make history by replacing Biden as the oldest president to be sworn in. He is also just the second president in US history to return to power after being voted out, after Grover Cleveland in 1893.
Another first is Trump’s criminal record, related to paying a porn star hush money during his first presidential run — and a string of far more serious criminal probes that were dropped once he won the election in November.
For the rest of the world, Trump’s return means expecting the unexpected.
From promising sweeping tariffs, to making territorial threats to Greenland and Panama and calling US aid for Ukraine into question, Trump looks set to rattle the global order once again.
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump ahead of the inauguration and said Monday he was open to talks on the Ukraine conflict, adding he hoped any settlement would ensure “lasting peace”.
AFP
Thousands of people turned back from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and returned to Morocco’s Fnideq began boarding buses home on Friday, with the operation continuing on Saturday, according to AFP journalists at the scene.
A Moroccan source close to the operation told AFP on condition of anonymity that the people sent back by Spain are to be transported home directly by bus or via the railway station in Tangier, 70 kilometres (45 miles) away.
According to the source, the Fnideq border crossing is now “completely secure”, as are the hills overlooking it, from which hundreds of people, mostly young men, had thrown stones at security forces on Friday.
The Spanish government announced on Friday evening that at least 48,000 of the 60,000 people who entered Ceuta in recent days had returned to Morocco.
Late Friday, AFP journalists saw around twenty 54-person-capacity buses depart, for a total of about a thousand people.
Fnideq is a small town of just 70,000 inhabitants, roughly equivalent to the population of the enclave of Ceuta, one of Spain’s two North African enclaves.
The buses were headed for Tangier, Tetouan, or the economic capital Casablanca, all equipped with rail facilities to redirect people who had come from as far away as Marrakech, more than 500 kilometres to the south.
“I heard that buses had arrived to take us back home. Honestly, I just want to see my children again. I regret having come all the way here,” said Rachid Aouchari, 32, from Ksar el Kebir, 170 kilometres from Fnideq, who was turned back from Ceuta during the night from Thursday to Friday.
Until midday Friday, clashes had pitted the security forces against migrants seeking to cross into Spain, either by swimming or on foot along a narrow wall leading to the Ceuta crossing point.
Police responded with water cannons and tear gas against hundreds of young men, arresting dozens of them, according to an AFP journalist.
AFP
A fighter jet crashed and erupted into flames at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California on Friday, sending smoke billowing into the sky that could be seen from miles away.
The single-seat F-35B Lightning II aircraft from Marine Aircraft Group 11, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, went down short of the runway just before 10 a.m. PT.
“The pilot ejected (and) was transported to a local medical facility in stable condition for evaluation and treatment of non-life-threatening injuries,” according to a statement from the wing.
Airport fire crews sprayed the wreckage with firefighting foam and worked to extinguish a grass fire surrounding the crash site.
“F-35 short final crash,” the Miramar air traffic control tower told firefighters in audio recorded by LiveATC.net. “It appeared that the parachute did deploy … and a pilot ejected.”
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. Military plane crashes are typically investigated by the military as opposed to civilian crashes which are investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Billed as “the most advanced jet fighter in the world” by its manufacturer, the F-35B is a stealth aircraft that can land like a conventional plane, or vertically, similar to a helicopter. The more than 50-foot-long jet is operated by the US Marines, the United Kingdom and the Italian Air Force. The planes cost about $102 million each, according to the manufacturer.
About 15,000 service members from all branches of the military are based at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, located in San Diego. (CNN)
India’s Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, has resigned following days of youth-led demonstrations demanding sweeping reforms to the country’s education system.
Thousands of young people had taken to the streets of New Delhi and other parts of the country under the banner of the social media-driven Cockroach Janta Party, mounting pressure on the government to address their demands and remove Pradhan from office.
The protests, which were largely centred around the Jantar Mantar demonstration site in central New Delhi, intensified during the week as demonstrators attempted to march towards parliament.
Police fired tear gas and used batons against some protesters during the demonstrations.
Announcing his decision, Pradhan said the unrest witnessed over the previous 10 days had caused him concern, stressing that remaining in office was not a matter of personal prestige.
“I am pained to see the events of the past 10 days. This is not a matter of personal prestige for me,” Pradhan said in a statement posted on X.
The minister subsequently confirmed that he had submitted his resignation to the Prime Minister.
“I have sent my resignation letter to the prime minister,” he said in the letter written in Hindi.
Pradhan also acknowledged the importance of young people to India’s development, pledging that their concerns should not be ignored.
“India’s youth power is the real strength of this nation. My resolve is that we will not let the country’s youth get trapped in a vicious cycle of confusion,” he added.
The Indian government had opened negotiations with leaders of the CJP in an attempt to end the demonstrations.
Two rounds of talks were held on Monday and Friday, but the initial negotiations reportedly failed to produce significant progress as the youth-led movement insisted that its demands must be addressed.
The protesters had demanded reforms to the education system alongside Pradhan’s resignation.
The minister announced his resignation ahead of a planned third round of negotiations between government representatives and the protest leaders.
Following Pradhan’s resignation, the CJP announced that its demands had been met after another round of discussions with the government.
The group subsequently called off the protests at Jantar Mantar and other locations.
The demonstrations had attracted thousands of young Indians and gained momentum through social media, putting the government under mounting pressure over the country’s education system.
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