Case Explained: THE PROCEEDS OF CRIME ACT- For whom the bell tolls? – The Island – Legal Perspective

“I was saved by God to make America great again,” Donald Trump said, a line that circulated widely during his political comeback rallies. “The golden age of America begins right now,” Trump declared as he was inaugurated for a second term on 20 January 2025, marking a major shift in US politics with consequences likely to extend across generations. Trump’s appeal lay not in moderation but in confrontation, rooted in the assertion that democracy works best when it produces winners unencumbered by restraint. He rewarded many who delivered him power, while leaders in other democracies often spent their mandates managing survival and retreating from pledges once deemed non-negotiable. The old Marxian line about history repeating itself as tragedy and farce felt newly apt as elections continued to produce both at once.

While deteriorating democratic systems grappled with their contradictions, quasi-democratic and openly authoritarian administrations pursued power with less ceremony. Beijing tightened its hold over Taiwan, Tibet, and Hong Kong while projecting its global power with mixed success, and Moscow prosecuted its war in Ukraine with brutal persistence, accepting sanctions and isolation as the cost of imperial memory. The EU’s plan to use frozen Russian funds for Kyiv stalled and was replaced by a €90 billion loan package, which will cost taxpayers around €3 billion annually in interest. Pyongyang continued its missile testing, while its state-linked hackers reportedly stole an estimated $2.02 billion in cryptocurrency in 2025 alone. Tehran, for its part, passed another turbulent year, marked by a 12-day military confrontation with Israel in June 2025 that inflicted significant damage on both countries. Power in these systems remained centralized and unapologetic, justified by security and sustained by fear.

Across the globe, 2025 witnessed a wave of Gen Z-led protests that challenged authority and disrupted the social order in ways reminiscent of the Arab Spring, yet carried their own perils. From climate strikes in London and Berlin to anti-corruption demonstrations in São Paulo, Mexico City, Dhaka, and Kathmandu, young activists confronted entrenched elites with unprecedented energy and digital coordination. In Morocco, Madagascar, Tunisia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, student-led and youth-driven uprisings rattled governments, while in the United States, marches over climate action and student debt repeatedly clashed with authorities.

Even in authoritarian countries such as Iran, Vietnam, and, to some extent, Thailand, clandestine movements mobilized online and in the streets, forcing concessions while provoking brutal crackdowns. Yet these eruptions of youthful revolt, as electrifying as they were, revealed a dangerous pattern: like the Arab Spring, the protests often destabilized societies without delivering durable reform, leaving governments weakened, institutions strained, and political vacuums that could be exploited by opportunistic elites. The Gen Z moment in 2025 was a showcase of idealism and impatience, but also a warning that the seductive energy of revolt can become the architect of new disorder and unfulfilled promise. The question remains: who will have the last laugh?

The dissonance between public display and private conclave became starkly visible in Beijing in September 2025 during the 80th-anniversary commemorations of the end of the Second World War. State television followed Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin as they approached the parade ground, and microphones accidentally left live picked up a fragment of conversation that ricocheted around the world. According to reports, Putin’s interpreter was heard saying, “Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become,” to which Xi replied, “Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years old.”

The Kremlin later confirmed the exchange, insisting it was a casual discussion about medical advances, not a policy statement. Yet the symbolism was hard to miss: two leaders whose authority rests on longevity speculating, however lightly, about defeating mortality itself. In a century marked by demographic decline in both Russia and China, the fantasy of extended life carried political weight.

That moment intersected with a broader obsession that cut across systems: the promise and threat of artificial intelligence. Governments unable to agree on climate targets found common urgency in machine learning, particularly its military and medical applications. The United States National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence warned in 2021 that AI would “accelerate the speed of warfare beyond human comprehension”. By 2025, the Pentagon had embedded AI across military operations, deploying commercial models and prioritizing generative tools to maintain America’s technological edge.

Project Stargate, a high-profile initiative with commitments from OpenAI, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, and SoftBank, was said to involve hundreds of billions of dollars in public-private investment to expand AI infrastructure and research across sectors. In parallel, China’s state and corporate ecosystems together channeled tens of billions into AI development, sustaining the world’s second-largest cluster of AI firms and an expanding suite of generative tools. Critical minerals remained a strategic fulcrum, with China controlling more than 90 per cent of global rare-earth processing capacity and wielding that dominance as leverage over technology and defence supply chains.

Space in 2025 saw competition in orbit intensify rather than abate. The number of active satellites in low Earth orbit surpassed 9,350, led by SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, which accounts for the largest share of operational spacecraft. The Space Development Agency awarded US$3.5 billion in contracts for 72 new infrared tracking satellites to strengthen missile-warning and defence architecture. China’s on-orbit presence also expanded markedly in 2025, with Beijing conducting a record number of launches and placing hundreds of satellites into space to advance communications and surveillance networks, including early deployments for its ambitious Guowang low Earth orbit mega constellation. Close encounters between Chinese, Russian, and Western satellites exposed weak space-traffic coordination, with orbit increasingly framed in martial rather than peaceful terms.

On the ground, the uglier side of power refused to remain hidden. In the United States, the Epstein Files Transparency Act compelled the Department of Justice to disclose federal records by mid-December, but heavy redactions and omissions drew bipartisan criticism from lawmakers who argued the release undermined the law’s intent and shielded powerful individuals. Thousands of pages referenced disturbing allegations and reinforced a widely held sense that wealth and influence can insulate the well-connected from scrutiny or accountability. Elsewhere, established democracies continued to confront systemic failures: France grappled with unresolved clerical abuse scandals; Britain faced renewed criticism over policing gaps in handling grooming gangs; and India’s chronic under-reporting of sexual violence remained a persistent human rights concern.

Meanwhile, the language of peace was deployed with similar cynicism. Trump repeatedly suggested he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, citing what he described as a series of peace initiatives in which he claimed to have played a decisive role. These included the Abraham Accords of 2020, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states, and the 2025 United States-brokered ceasefire in Gaza, under which all remaining living Israeli hostages held by Hamas were released and hostilities were paused through a phased arrangement.

Trump further asserted that his administration had “settled” or eased a widening range of conflicts, pointing to diplomatic efforts aimed at initiating talks towards a negotiated end to the Russia–Ukraine war, although substantive peace terms remain elusive and negotiations continue amid resistance from Kyiv, Moscow, and key European Union states. He also publicly referenced conflicts or diplomatic tracks involving India and Pakistan; Thailand and Cambodia; Kosovo and Serbia; the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda; Israel and Iran; Egypt and Ethiopia; and Armenia and Azerbaijan as evidence of his claimed peacemaking credentials, despite the absence of durable or comprehensive peace settlements in any of these cases.

Trump did not receive the Nobel Prize, whose awards have often favoured aspiration over results. Instead, it went to María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader who told me in 2020 that “a mafia group has destroyed my beloved nation, Venezuela”, and whom Washington now treats as a key ally. Meanwhile, the United States has reportedly sought to seize another oil tanker linked to Caracas while pursuing an alleged drug cartel, amid claims that the Secretary of War ordered forces to “kill them all”. At the same time, Latin America has seen a significant rise in right-wing politics, with Argentina’s Javier Milei consolidating power, Chile electing far-right leader José Antonio Kast, and conservative presidents such as Daniel Noboa in Ecuador and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador gaining influence amid broader regional shifts to the right.

Africa was not immune to global disorder. In Sudan, a brutal civil war between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and rival factions continued throughout 2025, marked by repeated mass atrocities, including ongoing killings around El Fasher in North Darfur that left tens of thousands dead and displaced millions, making it one of the world’s most devastating humanitarian crises. The United Nations and humanitarian agencies reported widespread executions, sexual violence, and attacks on civilians and health facilities. Meanwhile, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, fighting between the Congolese army and the Rwanda-linked M23 rebel group forced thousands to flee, with more than 84,000 refugees crossing into neighbouring Burundi in 2025.

Nigeria’s security situation also deteriorated, with jihadist factions, including Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, expanding operations and causing civilian casualties and displacement. Across West Africa, political realignment followed coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, which jointly withdrew from ECOWAS and formed the Alliance of Sahel States, commonly dubbed the “African NATO”. The bloc has announced plans to establish a shared central bank and investment fund aimed at economic autonomy and reducing reliance on traditional financial systems, but it remains too early to assess its capacity to curb the continent’s growing Islamic extremism and militant gangs.

Through all this, inequality hardened. The latest World Inequality Report 2026 showed that the richest 0.001 per cent of adults — fewer than 60,000 individuals — now control three times more wealth than the poorest half of the global population combined, while the richest 10 per cent own around three-quarters of global wealth. While leaders speculated about extended lifespans and investors poured money into longevity start-ups, life expectancy stagnated or fell in several countries: in the United States it remained lower than a decade earlier, and in parts of sub-Saharan Africa gains were erased by conflict and weak health systems.

Orwell’s line continues to resonate, even at the risk of banality: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” The events of this year have not disproved it; they have updated it with satellites, algorithms, and offshore accounts. Power now moves faster and hides better, but it still feeds on the same asymmetries. As another year closes, the temptation is to wish for renewal without reckoning. That wish has become a luxury. The facts are stubborn: inequality widens, wars persist, technology accelerates without consensus, and leaders speak of salvation while tolerating cruelty. New Year greetings sound hollow against that record, but perhaps honesty is a start. The age we are entering will not be golden by proclamation; it will be judged, as ever, by who is allowed to live with dignity — and who is told, politely or otherwise, to wait. To the New Year — hopefully wiser.

by Nilantha Ilangamuwa