Gadsden deal when America bought parts of Mexico for 10 million dollars

Two people were injured in a shooting at the Mall of America

Two people were injured after a shooting incident in the “Mall of America”, which is considered the largest commercial market in the United States.

According to the Bloomington Police Department, the shooting occurred in the Mall of America, Minnesota, but the injuries did not pose a threat to the victims.

Police said on Twitter that the mall had resumed normal operations after a short closure, and that the place was now safe.

Police said one of the victims was taken to a local hospital by ambulance.

Police revealed that the shooting came after an argument between the two men.

The authorities emphasized that the Mall of America prohibits the entry of firearms, but that individuals are not screened for weapons upon entry.

Americans greet the new year with a mixture of caution and boredom

Dana Viner was walking down the aisle of a Party City store in Texas, holding New Year's hats and horns, and didn't hesitate for a second to answer a question about her best wishes for 2022.

Her wish was simply "life returns to normal," Viner said Friday, as she was shopping at the store to celebrate quietly indoors according to plans she, her husband and three children had prepared in advance. "I want everything back to normal," she said.

Her words were a clear and simple expression of the common desire of Americans exhausted by the pandemic as they prepare to bid farewell to 2021, amid a sharp increase in Corona injuries driven by the outbreak of the mutated Omicron.

In some places, including Los Angeles, the virus, in the latest outbreak, has wiped out plans for New Year's Eve. But New York and other cities say the celebrations will go ahead, albeit in miniature.

In New York, the icon of American cities, the largest and most famous, the festivities will once again be held in a laconic form, city officials say.

The New Year's celebrations, though, will be much bigger than last year when only a few dozen people turned out to watch the ball go down in Times Square.

For decades, the streets around Times Square were packed with revelers on New Year's Eve. People were standing for hours in the cold waiting for the sparkling crystal ball to come down.

This year, about 15,000 people who show documents proving that they have received the full dose of vaccination will be allowed to enter the fenced area to enjoy watching the ball descend this year, a number equivalent to about a quarter of the year before the pandemic.

And the chief infectious disease expert in the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci, called for avoiding large crowds and gatherings during New Year's celebrations.

"There will be more years (for the big celebrations), but not this year," he told CNN this week.

He added that family gatherings are safe for those who have received the booster dose of the Corona vaccine.

The United States and the European Union condemn the closure of the Russian human rights organization "Memorial"

The United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada and Britain condemned, on Friday, the decisions issued by a court in Russia to close the Memorial Organization , the oldest human rights organization in Russia, and its sister organization, the Russian Memorial Center for Human Rights.

"For more than three decades, Memorial has played a unique role in documenting historical crimes, and in commemorating for generations the tens of millions of victims of political oppression in the country," the countries said in a joint statement issued late Friday.

The countries noted that the decision to close the Memorial came after several months of intensifying systematic repression in Russia against human rights defenders, independent media, journalists, members of the political opposition and the voices of critics.

The statement said, "The claim by the Russian authorities that the peaceful and principled work of Memorial Center for Human Rights "justifies extremism and terrorism" is unacceptable... The work of Memorial is necessary now more than ever."

On Wednesday, a Moscow court ordered the closure of the Russian Memorial Center for Human Rights, a day after its sister, Memorial Group, Russia's oldest human rights organization, was also forced to close.

The Center for Human Rights maintains an open list of those classified as political prisoners, including Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

The list includes the Christian "Jehovah's Witnesses" sect and Muslims convicted of terrorism, which Memorial says are victims of "unproven charges based on fabricated evidence because of their religious affiliations."

The center operates a network of offices throughout the Muslim-majority North Caucasus, where it documents abuses in places such as Chechnya and provides legal and practical assistance to victims.

The United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada and Britain called on Russia to fulfill its international human rights obligations.

The Washington Post: The world's "forgotten" crises will only get worse in 2021

The seemingly endless coronavirus pandemic, along with a variety of other pressures, has led the relatively wealthy liberal democracies in the West to focus on domestic problems, to some extent understandable. As a Washington Post editorial, one side effect of this self-indulgence has been a dangerous lack of interest in the various crises around the world.

The tyrants took advantage of the preoccupation of the “free world” in the pandemic and internal crises to double the repression against the peoples

The editorial indicated that the year 2021 witnessed an exacerbation of severe humanitarian and political disasters in various countries, which could have found more international attention and assistance in a non-epidemic world, as civil wars deepened in the absence of diplomatic initiatives from abroad, and tyrants and tyrants took advantage of the world's preoccupation. Pandemic heat has compounded repression, and the cumulative effects of climate change have only led to insecurity and instability throughout the developing world, exacerbating conflicts.

The newspaper’s editorial board said: “We cannot let these crises fester. The international community stores problems for later, while it is certain that we cannot solve all the world’s problems, but when we do not try, the result is often disastrous for our interests and devastating for countries. that we ignore.”

The only thing we cannot say is that we did not know, the newspaper adds, as at the end of 2020 the International Rescue Committee issued an “emergency watch list” about 10 forgotten crises that were in urgent need of a response by the international community, and the report indicated that the epidemic is inflicting suffering. Disproportionately the poor and the vulnerable, and International Rescue Committee Chairman David Miliband said 2021 will be remembered as the year, “in which we moved away from those who suffer the most.”

The West completely ignored the forgotten world crises in 2021

Also, earlier in 2021, the Rescue Committee issued an updated watch list. The Committee condemned the actions of the international community, and described the changing humanitarian situation prevailing in many crisis-stricken areas as a “systems failure.”

Miliband said that the year 2020 taught the world what it is like to “live in crisis,” but the year 2021 taught us what it will be like when the crisis becomes protracted, normal and even routine, and added that for those who live in the world’s most fragile and conflict-affected countries, the semi-permanent crisis is the normal. the new.

The newspaper pointed out that the countries identified by the International Rescue Committee differ in many respects, but all have been largely ignored by the world as internal crises worsen, and Afghanistan has occupied a place in the news during the failed withdrawal of US forces and the Taliban's takeover of power, but there is little Than to talk about now that the troops have left about mass starvation.

In Yemen, more than half of the population experienced food insecurity in 2021, according to the Rescue Committee, as the civil war there spread into its seventh year. and Somalia in 2021, without proportionate increases in aid from outside the continent.

The Washington Post: "We cannot afford another year of neglect."

The editorial dealt with the military coup in Myanmar, and said that “the vicious cycle of government repression and armed resistance leads to an increase in needs, and works to restrict humanitarian access.” It also referred to the collapse of basic services and the economic crisis in the country, stressing that neither the United States nor any other country has A plan to address the situation there.

And in Ethiopia, once hailed as a model for conflict resolution, a brutal civil war is destroying the country’s ability to function, and with no attempts to resolve deep internal ethnic divisions, war crimes on both sides go daily almost unnoticed and unpunished. Nor is there a realistic international initiative to alleviate the state of utter despair in Syria, where millions of innocent people who refuse to live under the rule of President Bashar al-Assad are trying to avoid COVID-19, famine and their government's bombs at the same time.

The list also includes Lebanon, Haiti, Niger and Venezuela, where all these countries are going through severe hardship and dangerous paths, and the newspaper asked, "How long will it take before one of these crises turns into an international emergency that can no longer be ignored?"

The editorial emphasized that the New Year's resolution should be to significantly expand efforts to alleviate human suffering, and said that the United States and other Western governments should rededicate themselves to efforts that involve revenue to resolve conflicts, and finally, the media should pay greater attention. international crises before they appear on the "shores" of the West.

The newspaper concluded this call by saying that the world should care and do more in 2022 about the forgotten crises of the world, and Western governments should make them a priority in foreign policy, and said: “We cannot afford another year of neglect.”

An American website: The 2022 reforms in Tunisia will increase political and economic unrest

The American “Stravor” website for security and intelligence studies (which is described as being close to American intelligence) said that the road map for institutional reforms during 2022, which was drawn up by Tunisian President Kais Saied, will increase political and economic unrest.

"While these announcements lay out a roadmap for institutional reforms over the next year, they also generate uncertainty about the country's political and economic future, and are likely to influence other governments in the region to slow their democratic transitions," he added.

The American website indicated that Tunisian President Kais Saied announced on December 13 that a constitutional referendum would be held in July 2022, and that the country's Legislative Council would remain suspended until new elections are held next December.

He stated that some of the major reforms will include changing the way the Tunisian parliament operates, which will lead to uncertainty about the authority of the Legislative Council in the short term, but may increase its efficiency in the long term.

Stratfor noted that the reforms could also lead to a more authoritarian Tunisian political system if they included a broad increase in presidential powers, which could lead to a popular backlash.

With Saeed assuming the presidency of the upcoming transitional period, it is possible that he expand his presidential authority to include more branches of government and state institutions, and this possibility increases with the continued suspension of Parliament and thus its inability to function in an official manner, and this would greatly affect the political stability in Tunisia from By upsetting the carefully established balance of power between the executive and legislative branches of the country.

The site believes that next year's political transition is likely to complicate rather than solve Tunisia's current economic problems. In order for the Tunisian economy to grow sustainably, the government will have to introduce a mix of structural reforms to the underperforming private sector.

The global economic climate will also need to improve before Tunisia can enjoy a return in demand for its exports, as well as services such as tourism, and finally the Tunisian business community will need to show sincere support for the political path proposed by Said.

However, it is unlikely that any of these three preconditions for Tunisia's economic growth will be met in 2022, which means that Saied has a limited time period during which he can lead the country through a political transition, while retaining popular support that depends largely on whether Was the Tunisian economy performing well or not.

Stratfor concluded his analysis that other Arab governments will closely monitor Tunisia's reform efforts over the next year, to determine the type of realistic political change in their countries.

Gadsden deal when America bought parts of Mexico for 10 million dollars

Since its inception, the United States has managed to multiply its area several times, whether through wars, agreements and deals, and December 30th marks the anniversary of the signing of a deal in which the United States acquired land the size of Denmark for only $10 million.

Since its inception, the United States has managed to multiply its area several times, whether through wars, agreements and deals, and December 30th coincides with the anniversary of the signing of a deal in which the United States acquired lands the size of Denmark for only 10 million dollars.

James Gadsden is the architect of the deal in which America acquired about 30,000 square miles of land in what is now southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico by way of a treaty with Mexico signed on December 30, 1853.

How did the story begin?

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War in 1848. While much of Arizona became US territory, the area south of the Gila River, all the way from Yuma to the New Mexico border including Tucson, was disputed.

But this treaty left the borders, which were not accurately surveyed and based on surface maps, somewhat ambiguous, with the disputed territories of the fertile Messila Valley west of El Paso, and the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson, and the United States of America and Mexico lived in a border dispute over the region of the Valley Mesila, as both parties considered these lands to be their own.

In addition, with the development of the railroad age, the United States set its sights on the southern route of the transcontinental railroad, and sought to complete a railroad project to connect the Atlantic and Pacific regions, to enhance trade opportunities.

But the terrain of the southern part of the original border of the United States was mountainous and did not allow direct road construction, and for the success of this project it was necessary for the railroad to pass over Mexican territory.

But due to tension with the United States, Mexico expelled in 1853 the American citizens residing in the Mesila Valley and sent its armies to the region, fading out of hope for obtaining those lands.

Money diplomacy

At that time, the administration of US President Franklin Pierce appointed a special envoy to Mexico called James Gadsden and sent him with five offers to make to the Mexican president, which would obtain land for the railroads.

The US administration's instructions were to discuss an agreement to obtain large areas of northern Mexico for an amount of 50 million dollars, or to obtain an agreement to guarantee the Mexican side relinquish a plot of land that allows the passage of the railway for an amount not exceeding 15 million dollars.

Then-Mexican President Santa Anna refused to give up large areas of northern Mexico, but he needed the money to pay his soldiers who threatened to overthrow his rule. For this reason, he signed in late December 1853 an initial agreement to sell some areas of the north of the country for $15 million.

But the US Congress revised the agreement on April 25, 1854, when the United States subsequently agreed to pay $10 million in return for acquiring lands in northern Mexico with an area of ​​about 30,000 square miles.

After it was signed by US President Franklin Pierce, Ambassador Gadsden transferred the agreement to Mexican President Santa Anna, who signed it on June 8, 1854. As a result, the United States of America obtained, for a small sum of money, new lands nearly the size of Denmark.

Not the biggest

It is worth noting that this agreement is not the largest in the history of the United States. In 1803, during the reign of the third president in the history of America, Thomas Jefferson, the Americans obtained the French Louisiana region, whose area was estimated at 828,000 square miles, through an agreement with the French side. for $15 million.

The United States also concluded agreements to seize lands with the Spaniards, the British and the Russians, with amounts ranging from five to ten million dollars.