BBC - US Navy chief leaving post 'effective immediately', Pentagon says 6 hours ago - Sareen Habeshian

 

BBC - US Navy chief leaving post 'effective immediately', Pentagon says

6 hours ago

Sareen Habeshian

Reuters

dia post.

Navy Undersecretary Hung Cao will serve as acting secretary, Parnell added.

Phelan is the latest high-ranking military leader to leave the administration in recent months. His departure comes amid the US-Israel war with Iran and the continued US blockade US Navy Secretary John Phelan is leaving the Trump administration, the Pentagon announced on Wednesday.

His departure will be "effective immediately", Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a social meof the Strait of Hormuz.

"On behalf of the Secretary of War and Deputy Secretary of War, we are grateful to Secretary Phelan for his service to the Department and the United States Navy," Parnell wrote. "We wish him well in his future endeavors."

The Navy did not provide a reason for Phelan's departure.

It comes just weeks after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked Army Chief of Staff Randy George to step down from his post.

Two other Army officials, Gen David Hodne and Maj Gen William Green, have also been removed from their roles recently.

Since entering the Pentagon, Hegseth has fired more than a dozen senior military officers, including the chief of naval operations and the Air Force's vice chief of staff.

The secretary's role is largely administrative and includes formulating policies, recruiting, training and equipping the Navy, as well as overseeing budgeting and logistics like construction, and repair of naval ships and facilities.

Phelan, a civilian who had not previously served in the military, was sworn in as Secretary of the Navy in March 2025 after being nominated by President Donald Trump in 2024. The businessman was a major donor to Trump's campaign.

The two appeared alongside one another at Mar-a-Lago last December when Trump announced that the US would commission a new series of heavily armed Navy "battleships" named after himself - part of a revamped "Golden Fleet" which Phelan supported.

Andrew Peek, a former State Department deputy assistant secretary, told the BBC that the president was clear that he wanted to expand the country's merchant and civilian fleet.

"Eventually, somebody was going to take the fall for the lack of movement on that. I would bet that's about 30% of this," Peek said.

"The other 70% - Phelan's replacement is very well known to the MAGA base, I would bet it's a simple replacement with someone he likes and trusts better," he added.

Phelan's replacement, Cao, became undersecretary in October 2025 and is a 25-year Navy veteran.

He ran an unsuccessful campaign for the US Senate in Virginia in 2024, endorsed by Trump, against incumbent Democratic Senator Tim Kaine. During a campaign debate, he criticized the military's diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Speaking about Navy recruiting during the debate, Cao said: "What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them and ask for seconds. Those are the young men and women that are going to win wars," the AP reported.

The Navy's change in leadership comes as Trump said the US blockade of Iranian ports would continue amid a ceasefire in the war. Clashes have continued in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global shipping route that supplies much of the globe's oil, with Iran announcing that it had "seized" two ships in the strait.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president is "satisfied" with the ongoing US naval blockade on Iranian ports, and "understands Iran is in a very weak position".

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's chief negotiator in talks with the US, said on Wednesday that it is "not possible" for the Strait of Hormuz to be re-opened due to "the blatant violations of the ceasefire" by the US and Israel.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump's second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher's weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Cumhuriyet - Alev Coşkun - Asırlık TBMM ve çağdaş demokrasi - 23 Nisan 2026

 Alev Coşkun

Son Köşe Yazıları

Asırlık TBMM ve çağdaş demokrasi

23.04.2026 04:00

Güncellenme: 23.04.2026 08:05

Asırlık bir Meclis olan TBMM, 23 Nisan 1920’de merasimle açıldı. Gazi Meclis’in bugün 106. yılını kutluyoruz.

19 Mayıs 1919’da Anadolu’ya ayak basan Mustafa Kemal, o günkü koşullarda en önemli görevin toplumu örgütlemek olduğuna karar vermişti.

Başkent İstanbul işgal altındaydı. Batı’da İzmir ve Ege bölgesi, ayrıca Güneydoğu’da Urfa, Maraş, Antep işgal edilmişti. İngiltere gibi büyük devletlerle savaşılamayacağı öne sürülüyor, Amerikan mandası isteniyordu. Halk yılların geleneksel inanışıyla padişah ve halifeye bağlı, onsuz hiçbir kurtuluş çaresi düşünemiyordu. Oysa halife ve padişah, İngilizlerin emrine girmişti.

Atatürk, Nutuk’ta şöyle diyor;

“... Bu durum karşısında bir tek karar vardı... Bağımsız bir Türk devleti kurmak... O halde tek yol: Ya istiklal, ya ölüm...”

Atatürk, örgütlenme çalışmalarına hız verdi. Havza’da askeri depoyu açarak silahları halka dağıttı. Anadolu’da toplanan ve imha edilmek için Samsun yoluyla İstanbul’a gönderilmekte olan tüfeklerin sürgü kollarına, makineli tüfeklere ve top kamalarına el koydu.

İngiliz istihbaratı bu girişimleri haber alınca İngiliz İşgal Kuvvetleri Komutanı General Milne, İstanbul hükümetinden Mustafa Kemal’in İstanbul’a geri çağrılmasını istedi. Padişahın hükümeti ısrarla Mustafa Kemal’in derhal İstanbul’a dönmesini istiyordu. Mustafa Kemal’in cephe arkadaşı Osmanlı Genelkurmay Başkanı Cevat Çobanlı Paşa, Mustafa Kemal’e gönderdiği şifreli telgrafta geri çağrılmanın İngilizler tarafından istendiğini bildirdi.

(NOT: Geri çağırmayla ilgili İngiliz gizli belgelerinin fotokopileri son kitabım Atatürk: Karar ve Tavır’da verilmiştir. Bkz: s.194-199)

Mustafa Kemal bu duruma müdahale etmesi için padişaha telgraf gönderdi. İngiltere’nin emrine girmiş olan padişah, İngilizlere yaranmak için susmayı tercih ediyordu.

HAREKETİ KİŞİSEL OLMAKTAN ÇIKARMAK

Mustafa Kemal, bu durumla ilgili olarak Nutuk’ta şöyle diyor:

“Yapılan geri çağırma emrine uymamıştım. Milli teşkilat çalışmalarını da sürdürüyordum. Hukuken asi durumuna girmiştim. Bu durumda girişimlerin kişisel olmaktan çıkarılması gerekiyordu. Artık çalışmaların milletin birliğini temsil edecek bir kurul tarafından yapılması gerekiyordu.” (Bkz: Atatürk Karar ve Tavır, s. 200- 202)

Bu stratejik karar Atatürk’ün Anadolu’ya geçişinden 19 gün sonra, 8 Haziran 1919 tarihinde Havza’da alınmıştır. 14 gün sonra 22 Haziran 1919’da Amasya İhtilal Bildirisi’nde; “Vatanın bütünlüğü, milletin bağımsızlığı tehlikededir. Milletin bağımsızlığını yine milletin azim ve kararı kurtaracaktır” denerek bu strateji açıkça belirtilmiştir.

Erzurum ve Sivas kongreleri bu kararın uygulanmasının temel taşlarıdır.

OLAĞANÜSTÜ YETKİLERE SAHİP MECLİS

Bu gelişmeler sürerken son Osmanlı Meclisi İstanbul’da toplandı. İngilizler her türlü milli harekete karşıydı. Sonunda bu Meclis de, 16 Mart 1920’de İngiliz askerleri tarafından baskına uğrayıp kapatıldı. Bunun üzerine Atatürk, 19 Mart 1920’de bütün Anadolu’ya bir bildiri yayımladı. Bu bildiride; “Ankara’da olağanüstü yetkiye sahip bir Meclis, millet işlerini yönetmek ve denetlemek üzere toplanacaktır” deniliyor ve derhal seçim yapılması isteniyordu.

İşte Atatürk’ün bildirisinde “olağanüstü yetkiye sahip Meclis” olarak nitelenen ve 23 Nisan 1920’de Ankara’da toplanan bu TBMM’dir.

Bu Gazi Meclis, Milli Mücadele’yi yönetti. 9 Eylül 1922 zaferinden sonra, birer birer büyük devrim kararlarını yasalaştırdı. 1 Kasım 1922’de padişahlığı kaldırdı. Padişahın başındaki taç alınıp millete verildi.

29 Ekim 1923’te Cumhuriyet ilan edildi. 3 Mart 1924’te halifelik kaldırıldı. Din devleti tarihin derinliklerine gönderildi.

1923-1938 yılları arasında Türk toplumunu çağdaşlaşmaya götüren, Aydınlanma Devrimlerini gerçekleştiren kanunlar Meclis tarafından kabul edildi.

- Emperyalizme karşı bağımsızlık

- Padişahlığa karşı devrimcilik

- Ümmetçiliğe karşı bağımsız vatandaşlık gerçekleşti.

Devletin, hukukun, kültürün, eğitimin ve toplumsal yaşamın laikleşmesi sağlandı.

ÇAĞDAŞ TOPLUM

Atatürk şöyle diyor:

“Yaptığımız ve yapmakta olduğumuz devrimlerin amacı, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti halkını tamamen çağdaş ve bütün anlam ve biçimiyle uygar bir toplum haline getirmektir. Devrimlerimizin ilkesi budur.”

Tüm bu çağdaşlaşma hareketlerinde Gazi Meclis etkin rol oynamış, tarihe geçmiştir.

106 yıllık TBMM bir gerçektir ve bu Meclis var olmaya devam edecektir.

Türk toplumu yeniden tam demokrasinin temel kurumlarını inşa yeniden yaşama geçirecektir.

Kuvvetler ayrılığı esasına dayalı çağdaş demokratik parlamenter sistem yeniden kurulacaktır.

Egemenlik kayıtsız şartsız milletindir.

T.C. Dışişleri Bakanlığı : 22 Nisan 2026, Sayın Bakanımızın ( Hakan Fidan) Birleşik Krallık’ı Ziyareti Hk

 

T.C. Dışişleri Bakanlığı :

22 Nisan 2026, Sayın Bakanımızın Birleşik Krallık’ı Ziyareti Hk.

Sayın Bakanımız, 23-24 Nisan 2026 tarihlerinde Birleşik Krallık’a resmi bir ziyaret gerçekleştirecektir.

THE NEW YORK TIMES -- Jamelle Bouie -- Trump Holds the American People in Total Contempt -- April 22, 2026

 

Opinion

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Jamelle Bouie

Trump Holds the American People in Total Contempt

April 22, 2026

Credit...Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Associated Press

Listen · 8:31 min

By Jamelle Bouie

Opinion Columnist

To say that President Trump is corrupt is to somehow understate the size, scope and magnitude of his corruption.

It is as if you were to describe a modern thermonuclear device as a “bomb.” That is true enough, but it is not quite the truth. It does not capture the nature of the thing in full.

So it goes for Trump’s corruption, which is so vast as to be a new phenomenon in American politics. The president and his family have leveraged his office to the tune of nearly $4 billion. They have received hundreds of millions of dollars from a network of branded cryptocurrency assets. Investors include large corporations, foreign nationals and state actors hoping to curry favor with the administration.

One such actor, according to The Wall Street Journal, was Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, brother and national security adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates. Tahnoon’s investment fund purchased a half-billion-dollar stake in the Trump family’s crypto fund, World Liberty Financial, just days before Trump’s second inauguration. Tahnoon has since successfully lobbied the White House for Emirates access to America’s most advanced A.I. chips, with a large portion going to Tahnoon’s A.I. company.

Or consider the president’s pardons. Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, a crypto firm, was convicted in 2023 for violating the Bank Secrecy Act. After Trump returned to office, Zhao — whose company donated software to World Liberty Financial so that it could start its own cryptocurrency — lobbied for a pardon. In October of last year, Trump granted the pardon, raising the possibility that Zhao could recover his court-ordered fines — $4.3 billion to the U.S. government as punishment for allowing criminal actors to use Binance for a broad array of illicit transactions, including child sex abuse, illegal narcotics and terrorism.

To tie the two stories together, in May 2025 a different investment company also linked to Sheikh Tahnoon, MGX, announced that it would buy a $2 billion stake in Binance using the cryptocurrency provided by World Liberty Financial. This deal could net the Trump family up to $80 million a year in interest.

Trump’s various projects — his monuments to himself — also appear to be little more than state-sanctioned opportunities for graft. The president has collected hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy donors and large corporations for his proposed ballroom, presidential library and triumphal arch. Tens of millions of dollars marked for the library are unaccounted for, according to a report in The New Republic.

Last but far from least is the president’s $10 billion lawsuit against the I.R.S., for damages for leaking his tax returns to the public in 2019 and 2020. According to a recent news report, lawyers for the president are in talks with the I.R.S. to settle. This is tantamount to presidential looting of the Treasury, little different than if Trump had stolen the money outright.

Regardless of whether Trump suffered actual harm from the release of his tax returns, the fact of the matter is that it is a profound violation of the spirit of public service — to say nothing of the oath of office — to sue his own government for cash. And for his officials to then arrange a settlement would be unconscionable. As with nearly all of this president’s most transgressive moves, it shows total contempt for the American people.

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Here, it is worth looking at the worst of presidential corruption before the advent of Trump, if only to dismiss apologists who claim that his bad conduct is not out of the ordinary. These examples come from “Presidential Misconduct: From George Washington to Today,” an edited volume based on a report commissioned by the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 as it investigated the Nixon administration.

Despite the general reputation for graft that pervades the 19th century, it is hard to find anything like the personal corruption of Trump, even among Gilded Age presidents like Grover Cleveland and Rutherford B. Hayes. Most corruption was limited to the lower ranks of each administration. It was Columbus Delano, in Ulysses S. Grant’s Interior Department, who was accused of issuing fraudulent land grants. And Green B. Raum, commissioner of the Pensions Bureau under Benjamin Harrison, who accepted loans from pension lawyers in exchange for favorable treatment.

Looking through the 20th century, there is, of course, the administration of Warren G. Harding, infamous for its rampant corruption. Charles Forbes, head of the Veterans Bureau, was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the government and sentenced to two years in prison. Albert Fall, secretary of the interior, eventually went to jail for secretly leasing private oil drilling rights in the scandal known as Teapot Dome. Harding himself did not appear to be personally corrupt, although the sordidness of his associates tarnished his reputation.

Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his sons jobs in his administration, and Dwight D. Eisenhower accepted gifts for use on his Pennsylvania farm. Lyndon B. Johnson, who spent his life in politics, was heavily scrutinized over his personal fortune, amassed as an elected official. But as The New York Times noted in 1964, “The records of the Johnson family enterprises and of the F.C.C. have been thoroughly combed, not only by Republican researchers but also by reporters for such competent periodicals as The Wall Street Journal and U.S. News & World Report, without turning up any credible evidence that Mr. Johnson has ever misused his political influence to enhance his personal fortune.”

To walk through subsequent presidents is to get a similar picture. Is there gross misconduct? Yes. After all, Richard Nixon was forced to resign. Was there graft and petty corruption among other higher and lower officers in each administration? Also yes.

But do we see anything like the self-dealing and naked personal enrichment of Trump and his family? No, we do not.

Another way to put this is that corruption was a largely incidental occurrence in previous presidential administrations. As the historian C. Vann Woodward wrote in the preface to the original House Judiciary report, “Though all the presidents had allegations — many of them, the realities — of misconduct to cope with in their administrations, for the great majority of them the problem was a minor concern among many larger concerns.”

With Trump, however, the misconduct is the concern. You might even say that his corruption, like his cruelty, is the point.

Corruption of this sort may, in fact, be inherent to the authoritarian enterprise. Look abroad to those leaders, or former leaders, who rode to power on promises of national greatness and ethno-religious domination of minorities. What drives them? Not ideology or rhetoric as much as their drive to steal anything that cannot be tied down. Viktor Orban’s bromides on “Western civilization” were little more than a cover for a glorified looting spree whose beneficiaries, it should be said, included influential American conservatives. Vladimir Putin has spent decades siphoning Russia’s wealth into his pockets. And populists in Latin America and elsewhere in Europe have been caught, again and again, with their hands in the national cookie jar.

Trump is a type, one of many figures around the world whose nationalist, patrimonial political movement is little more than a cover. As his presidency begins to crumble around him, we should expect him to focus all the more intently on enriching the Trump family at the expense of the American people.

We should heed the wisdom of the founding generation. To them, corruption was poison, a cancer that ate at the foundations of self-government. A state so stricken was bound to succumb to political death.

With Congress in the hands of a prostrate Republican majority, there is little the opposition can do at this moment to strike back at the president’s corruption. But this may not be true for much longer, and when the time comes, Democrats should work to take back his ill-gotten gains and hold his enablers and co-conspirators responsible for their actions.

The other option, to look forward, let bygones be bygones and ignore the transgressions of the recent past, is a one-way road to ruin.