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Bangladesh have reiterated their stance on not travelling to India for the T20 World Cup and will, once again, request the International Cricket Council (ICC) to relocate their games to Sri Lanka despite the global cricket body’s refusal to change the tournament’s schedule.
“We will go back to the ICC with our plan to play in Sri Lanka,” BCB President Aminul Islam said after a meeting between BCB officials, Bangladeshi cricketers and representatives of the government in Dhaka on Thursday.
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The announcement came a day after the global cricket body warned the BCB that expulsion from the Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 could take place should it not agree to play its matches in India, with Scotland replacing it in Group C.
The ICC asked the BCB to review its decision with the Bangladeshi government and give a response within a day, following which a final decision would be made.
“They did give us a 24-hour ultimatum, but a global body can’t really do that,” Islam told reporters.
“We want to play the World Cup, but we won’t play in India. We will keep fighting,” he added.
The BCB chief said the ICC would stand to lose if Bangladesh were expelled from the tournament.
“The ICC will miss out on 200 million people watching the World Cup,” he said.
Bangladesh are scheduled to play on the opening day of the tournament, on February 7, when they face the West Indies at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. They are set to play two other group-stage games at the same venue before their final Group C fixture against Nepal at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
However, the BCB has refused to send its team to India, citing concerns over players’ safety and security.
The move followed the abrupt removal of star fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman from the Indian Premier League (IPL) upon instructions from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), due to the ongoing political tensions between the two nations.
The ICC said, on Wednesday, that it had shared detailed independent security assessments, comprehensive venue-level security plans and formal assurances from the host authorities with the BCB and that all reports concluded “there is no credible or verifiable threat to the safety or security of the Bangladesh team in India.
“Despite these efforts, the BCB maintained its position, repeatedly linking its participation in the tournament to a single, isolated and unrelated development concerning one of its players’ involvement in a domestic league,” an ICC spokesperson said after the global body’s board met via video conference to discuss the issue.
“This linkage has no bearing on the tournament’s security framework or the conditions governing participation in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup,” the ICC spokesperson added.
Asif Nazrul, a youth and sports adviser in the interim Bangladeshi government, dismissed the ICC’s claims, saying it had failed to quash Bangladesh’s concerns.
“The ICC has failed to convince us on the security question and has taken no stand on our grievances,” he said.
“Even the Indian government did not communicate with us or try to assuage our fears.
“We are hopeful that ICC will give us the opportunity to play in Sri Lanka. It is our government who has decided not to go to India.”
Before the latest round of talks, Bangladesh captain Litton Das had expressed concerns over the uncertainty surrounding his team’s participation.
“From where I stand, I’m uncertain; everyone is uncertain,” Das told reporters after a domestic cricket match on Tuesday.
Diplomatic relations between the once-close allies have been sharply tested since August last year, when former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to New Delhi from Dhaka after an uprising against her rule.
Bangladesh blames India for a number of its troubles, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s support for Hasina when she was in power.
During the World Cup, Bangladesh will hold its first elections since Hasina’s ousting.
Trump’s increasing insistence in controlling Greenland threatens to fracture the NATO alliance, where most of the nations oppose the American leader’s stance. You can catch up with our latest coverage of this growing controversy here.
“We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be, frankly, unstoppable, but I won’t do that. OK?” Trump said during his speech on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Now everyone’s saying, ‘Oh, good.’ That’s probably the biggest statement I made, because people thought I would use force. I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
“All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland,” Trump added, before making a veiled threat.
“We want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it,” the U.S. leader scoffed. “We’ve never asked for anything else, and we could have kept that piece of land, and we didn’t. So they have a choice. You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will remember.”
ON THIN ICE: President Trump issues a firm warning to Denmark over Greenland, making it clear that the U.S. will remember if its request for “world protection” is rejected:
“So we want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it.”
Before ruling out the use of force to take Greenland, Trump repeated his assertion that the U.S. is the only nation that can protect it against threats from China and Russia and called for “immediate negotiations to once again discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States. Just as we have acquired many other territories throughout our history, as many of the European nations have, they’ve acquired, there’s nothing wrong with it.”
Greenland’s location, between Europe, China and the continental United States, is a major reason for Trump’s interest in the island.
Greenland’s location makes it strategically important. (Google Earth)
However, the U.S. operates one of its most strategic military outposts in Greenland. This is spearheaded by Pituffik Space Force Base, the U.S. military’s northernmost installation, a critical node in the U.S. ballistic missile early warning system, and also the world’s northernmost deep-water seaport. The installation also features a sprawling airbase. You can read in more detail about the U.S. military presence on the island here.
A satellite view of Pituffik Space Force Base in Greenland. (Google Earth)
While Trump stating he won’t use force to seize Greenland is surely welcome news for America’s NATO allies, trust is at an all time low between many in the alliance and the White House. He has also made similar comments during other crises, from Iran to tariffs, that ended up going in another direction. As such, it’s doubtful they will all take him at his word, at least at this point in time.
Case in point, Trump’s speech was met with distrust from Denmark, where his words aren’t taken as a given.
“It’s clear from this speech that the president’s ambition is intact,” Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters in Copenhagen. “In isolation it’s positive that the president says what he does regarding the military, but that does not make the problem go away.”
Even before the speech in which he also derided NATO, European leaders were angered by Trump’s stance toward the alliance. Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni suggested that Europe would close military installations to the U.S., which relies heavily on European bases to project power there and in the Middle East.
Donald Trump: “NATO is nothing without America.”
Meloni: “Perfect. Then Europe will close the U.S. bases, tear up the sweetheart trade deals, and, just to make the message land, boycott McDonald’s too.”
Regardless of why Trump wants Greenland, hours before he spoke at Davos, Danish media said the country is considering sending more troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to protect the island.
“Plans are currently being worked on in Denmark to bring up to 1,000 soldiers from the Army to Greenland during 2026,” Denmark’s TV-2 news outlet reported on Wednesday. “In addition, there are possible additional contributions from the Navy and Air Force. In total, approximately 150 soldiers have so far arrived in Kangerlussuaq and approximately the same number to Nuuk – including approximately 30 mountain infantrymen from France, who are also on an exercise.”
“The many combat soldiers say something about how seriously the Armed Forces and thus the top of the government take this task,” the outlet added.
The Royal Danish Army is preparing a rotating force of 1,000 Soldiers that will be forward deployed to Denmark, in addition to aircraft and ships from the Air Force and Navy, with 300 Soldiers from the 1st Brigade having already arrived in Kangerlussuaq and Nuuk, alongside… pic.twitter.com/EogVR5Ugbd
One Danish government leader acknowledged just how difficult it would be to defend Greenland should Trump order an attack.
“Denmark would, of course, defend Greenland with the means at our disposal,” Rasmus Jarlov, head of the Danish Defense Committee, told the German Bild news outlet on Wednesday. “However, we also understand the difference in size between Denmark and the United States. And we know that it will be a very difficult fight.”
“I don’t want to speculate on what it would look like, but it will get ugly,” Jarlov added.
The Danish parliamentarian also lashed out at Trump’s claims that China and Russia are threatening Greenland.
“That’s a completely fabricated story and simply wrong,” Jarlov told Bild. “No Chinese warship has been sighted in the region for 10 years. Furthermore, there are neither Chinese nor Russian direct investments in the country.“
Jarlov added that the tensions over Greenland are another sign that the U.S. cannot be counted on as a strategic partner.
“Europe must now have its own nuclear weapons, since we see that we can no longer rely on the protection of the Americans,” he urged.
#Breaking Chairman of Denmark’s Defence Committee @RasmusJarlov tells @BILD: “Denmark would, of course, defend Greenland with the means available to us. But we also understand the difference in size between Denmark and the United States. And we know that it would be a very… pic.twitter.com/LllXnOdW31
Trump’s interest in Greenland has France calling for NATO to hold a military exercise in Greenland, presumably as a show of force and alliance solidarity.
France is “ready to contribute” to that effort, according to a statement from French President Emmanuel Macron’s office on Wednesday.
“The request comes as the transatlantic alliance is deeply upset over U.S. threats to take over the island and after U.S. President Donald Trump snubbed an invitation from the French president to join G7 leaders in Paris to iron out differences,”Politico reported.
However, there is nothing in the works for such an exercise, a senior NATO military official told The War Zone.
“There is no military planning currently underway at the moment within NATO for a NATO exercise in Greenland,” the official said.
In response to the French suggestion, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent shot back at Macron, chiding him for the nation’s struggling economy.
Reporter: France wants to conduct NATO exercises in Greenland. What would you have to say about that?
Bessent: And if this is all President Macron has to do, when France’s budget is in shambles, I would suggest that he focus on other priorities for the French people. pic.twitter.com/a6T25imQW7
“European countries hold trillions of dollars of US bonds and stocks, some of which sit with public sector funds,” Bloomberg Business noted. “That’s spurring speculation they could sell such assets in response to Trump’s renewed tariff war, potentially driving borrowing costs up and equities down given US reliance on foreign capital.”
“The EU assembly has been debating various components of the agreement struck in Turnberry, Scotland, and its trade committee had been scheduled to vote on them next week,” the German DW news outlet reported on Wednesday.
BREAKING: The EU Parliament has SUSPENDED approval of the U.S.–EU trade deal after Trump threatened 10–25% tariffs on Europe and revived his push to take Greenland. EU lawmakers say Trump’s Davos remarks violated the pact’s terms.
It remains to be seen how European leaders, as well as financial markets, react to Trump’s speech today. Given that this is one of the biggest issues on the world stage at the moment, we will continue to watch for developments.
Update: 2:43 PM Eastern –
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump claimed he and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte “formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland, and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region.” He also rescinded his decision to impose tariffs on Europe as a result.
Update: 5:35 PM Eastern –
Trump’s social media announcement followed a NATO meeting on Wednesday “where top military officers from the alliance’s member states discussed a compromise in which Denmark would give the United States sovereignty over small pockets of Greenlandic land where the United States could build military bases,” The New York Times reported, citing “three senior officials familiar with the discussion.”
The concept was being pursued by Rutte, the publication stated.
“Two of the officials, who attended the meeting, compared it to the United Kingdom’s bases in Cyprus, which are regarded as British territory,” the Times noted.
“The officials did not know if the idea was part of the framework announced by” Trump, who did not immediately provide details “and notably did not say that the United States would own Greenland, even when asked directly about ownership by a reporter in Davos soon after he posted his announcement,” the newspaper stated. Neither Rutte nor the leaders of Denmark released details either. The Danish prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a NYT request for comment.
In response to our questions about the compromise, NATO sent us the following statement:
“The Secretary General had a very productive meeting with President Trump during which they discussed the critical significance of security in the Arctic region to all Allies, including the United States.
Discussions among NATO Allies on the framework the President referenced will focus on ensuring Arctic security through the collective efforts of Allies, especially the seven Arctic Allies. Negotiations between Denmark, Greenland, and the United States will go forward aimed at ensuring that Russia and China never gain a foothold – economically or militarily – in Greenland.”
US President Donald Trump has announced that there is a “framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland”.
The statement came as a surprise after days of mounting tensions, culminating with a threat to impose economic sanctions on eight close US allies which have opposed his plans to seize the semi-autonomous territory of Denmark.
So what could this deal entail and will it be acceptable to Denmark and Greenland – both of which have made it clear they will not relinquish sovereignty of the world’s largest island.
What has been said about the framework deal?
President Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social media platform on Wednesday, after talks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“Based upon a very productive meeting that I have had with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, we have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland,” he said.
“This solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America, and all Nato Nations.”
He did not give details, but said talks would continue to reach the deal.
Rutte, for his part, said he had not discussed the key issue of Danish sovereignty over Greenland in his meeting with Trump – later adding that it would be for the US, Denmark and Greenland to have specific negotiations.
Danish Prime Minister Metter Frederiksen said she been having regular conversations with Rutte and the Danes could negotiate “on everything political; security, investments, economy”.
“But we cannot negotiate on our sovereignty. I have been informed that this has not been the case either,” she said in a statement on Thursday, adding that “only Denmark and Greenland themselves can make decisions on issues concerning Denmark and Greenland”.
Nato spokeswoman Allison Hart said in a statement after the meeting between Trump and Rutte: “Negotiations between Denmark, Greenland, and the United States will go forward aimed at ensuring that Russia and China never gain a foothold – economically or militarily – in Greenland.”
However, one of two Greenlandic lawmakers in the Danish parliament Aaja Chenmitz said “Nato in no case has the right to negotiate on anything without us, Greenland. Nothing about us without us”.
The UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said she hoped this meant that “the direct discussions that Denmark had asked for, for Denmark, Greenland and the United States on the way forward around Greenland, protecting Greenland’s sovereignty.
Is there any detail about the possible deal?
Among the ideas being mooted – though not officially – is an arrangement similar to two military bases in Cyprus which are controlled by the UK – although these need to be read in the context of Denmark and Greenland’s comments about sovereignty being non-negotiable.
The New York Times quotes anonymous officials as saying one idea under discussion is for Denmark to cede sovereignty over small areas of Greenland where the US would build military bases, like the UK model.
That treaty has been modified since, but essentially it is considered British territory.
Asked whether whether she knew what was in the framework agreement, Yvette Cooper said only that there were two things that she now expected to happen.
“The first is a return to some of the discussions that Denmark and Greenland had asked for with the United States, where they had begun those discussions in Washington last week and that’s what they want to focus on,” the UK foreign secretary said.
“It’s some very practical discussions about Greenland’s security, whilst being very, very clear that Greenland sovereignty is not up for negotiation.”
Meanwhile, Mark Rutte told Reuters on Thursday that the framework deal would also require Nato members to step up on Arctic security.
“We will come together in Nato with our senior commanders to work out what is necessary,” he told the agency, adding: “I have no doubt we can do this quite fast. Certainly I would hope for 2026, I hope even early in 2026.”
Will any deal short of ‘ownership’ please Trump?
The US has had a military presence in Greenland since after World War Two.
Under a 1951 agreement with Denmark, the US can bring as many troops as it wants to Greenland. It already has more than 100 military personnel permanently stationed at its Pituffik base in the north-western tip of the territory.
The US does have military bases in many countries – including Germany – but they do not constitute sovereign territory.
Trump has insisted a lease agreement over Greenland is not good enough.
“Countries have to have ownership and you defend ownership, you don’t defend leases. And we’ll have to defend Greenland,” he said two weeks ago.
In order to acquire the island, he has threatened to use force – until a U-turn in Davos where he dropped that threat to the relief of his Nato allies.
Nato was founded in 1949 on the principle that an attack on one ally is an attack on all. These attacks were meant to come from outside, and Denmark had made it clear a military attack would spell the end of the trans-Atlantic alliance, where the US is the major partner.
Why does Trump want Greenland?
Trump has sought to buy Greenland off Denmark since his first time in office – and he is not the only US president to try to do so.
Trump says the US needs Greenland to protect against possible attacks from Russia and China.
He has mentioned their movements in shipping lanes around the island, even though defence officials insist there has been no increased threat from Russia and China recently.
Trump has also said Greenland is essential for his plan to build a Golden Dome defence system, designed to protect the US against missile attacks, and that European allies could co-operate in this endeavour.
Nato allies have tried to reassure the US that they will boost up security in the Arctic.
One of the ideas the UK has been calling for is to set up an Arctic Sentry, said Yvette Cooper on Thursday – which was a “very similar to the approach that Nato has taken to the Baltic sentry” – a mission to increase the surveillance of ships in the Baltic Sea after critical undersea cables were severed.
Along with Greenland’s strategic location, the US has spoken about the island’s vast – and largely untapped – reserves of rare earth minerals, many of which are crucial for technologies including mobile phones and electric vehicles.
Trump has not said the US is after Greenland’s riches, but that a US control over the island “puts everybody in a really good position, especially as it pertains to security and to minerals”.
Egisto Ott is accused of collecting large amounts of data and handing information to Russian intelligence
Former intelligence official Egisto Ott goes on trial in Vienna on Thursday, accused of spying for Russia in what is being dubbed Austria’s biggest spy trial in years.
Egisto Ott, 63, is charged with having handed over information to Russian intelligence officers and to Jan Marsalek, the fugitive executive of collapsed German payments firm Wirecard.
Ott denies the charges.
Jan Marsalek, who is also an Austrian citizen, is wanted by German police for alleged fraud and is currently believed to be in Moscow, having fled via Austria in 2020.
The subject of an Interpol Red Notice, he is alleged to be an intelligence asset for the FSB, Russia’s secretive security service.
The spy scandal has revived fears that Austria remains a hotbed of Russian espionage activity and observers will also be watching closely for details that could emerge about Marsalek.
Prosecutors in Vienna say Egisto Ott “abused his authority” as an Austrian intelligence official by collecting large amounts of personal data, such as locations, vehicle registration numbers, or travel movements.
They say he did this between 2015 and 2020 without authorisation, often using national and international police databases.
Prosecutors also charge him with supporting “a secret intelligence service of the Russian Federation to the detriment of the Republic of Austria” by collecting secret facts and a large amount of personal data from police databases between 2017 and 2021.
They say Egisto Ott gave this information to Jan Marsalek and unknown representatives of the Russian intelligence service, and received payment in return.
In 2022, prosecutors say, Jan Marsalek commissioned him to obtain a laptop containing secret electronic security hardware used by EU states for secure electronic communication. The laptop, they say, was handed over to the Russian intelligence service.
He is also suspected, reports say, of having passed phone data from senior Austrian interior ministry officials to Russia.
Austria’s Standard newspaper says Egisto Ott apparently obtained the work phones after they accidentally fell into the River Danube on an interior ministry boating trip.
He is alleged to have copied their contents and passed them on to Jan Marsalek, and Moscow.
Egisto Ott is charged with abuse of authority and corruption and espionage against Austria and faces up to five years in prison, if he is found guilty.
When he was arrested in 2024, Austria’s then Chancellor, Karl Nehammer, described the case as “a threat to democracy and our country’s national security”.
Munich Police
Jan Marsalek, former executive at Wirecard, is believed to have escaped to Moscow
In a separate development, prosecutors in the Austrian town of Wiener Neustadt have told the BBC that a former MP, Thomas Schellenbacher, has been charged with helping Marsalek to escape following the collapse of the Wirecard company in 2020, when it emerged that €1.9bn was missing from its accounts.
Schellenbacher is alleged to have helped Jan Marsalek fly to Belarus, from Bad Vöslau in Austria, in June 2020.
Schellenbacher was an MP for the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), which has been accused by Austria’s Green Party, now in opposition, of enabling Russian espionage, of acting as “an extension of Russia’s arm” in Austria.
The FPÖ and its leader Herbert Kickl have denied the allegations – and have not faced any legal action in connection with any of them.
Marsalek, who was the Wirecard’s Chief Operating Officer, has since been charged with fraud and embezzlement, suspected of having inflated company’s balance sheet total and sales volume.
He is also believed to have been the controller of a group of Bulgarians who were convicted in London in 2025, of spying for Russia.
Messages from that trial reveal Marsalek has had plastic surgery to alter his appearance as well as details of his life as a fugitive.
“I’m off to bed. Had another cosmetic surgery, trying to look differently, and I am dead tired and my head hurts,” he wrote to one of the Bulgarians, Roussev, on Telegram in February 2022.
In another, dated 11 May 2021, Roussev congratulated Marsalek for learning Russian.
“Well I am trying to improve my skills on a few fronts. Languages is one of them,” the Austrian responded.
“In my new role as an international fugitive I must outperform James Bond.”
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has said the UK will not yet be signing up to US President Donald Trump’s proposed Board of Peace over concerns about Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s possible participation.
Cooper told the BBC the UK had been invited to join the board but “won’t be one of the signatories today” at a planned ceremony at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The foreign secretary described the board as a “legal treaty that raises much broader issues” than the initiative’s initial focus on ending the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
The charter proposed by the White House does not mention the Palestinian territory and appears to be designed to replace some functions of the United Nations.
Countries including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Israel have said they will become members of the board, and at Davos, President Trump said Putin had accepted an invitation to join the initiative.
But President Putin has not confirmed this and earlier he said his country was still studying the invitation.
Speaking to the BBC’s Breakfast programme from Davos, Cooper said the UK had received an invitation to join the board and strongly supported Trump’s 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza.
“That’s why we are also clear we want to play our part in phase two of the Gaza peace process,” Cooper said.
But she added: “We won’t be one of the signatories today because this is a legal treaty that raises much broader issues.
“And we do also have concerns about President Putin being part of something that’s talking about peace when we’ve still not seen any signs from Putin that there will be commitment to peace in Ukraine.”
She said Putin had shown no willingness “to come and make that agreement and that’s where the pressure needs to be now”.
“But we will have continuing international discussions including with our allies,” the foreign secretary said.
Diplomatic relations between the US and the UK are on shakier ground after Trump threatened to impose tariffs on European nations if his demand to hand control of Greenland to his country was not met.
But US president appears to have backed down after saying the US was exploring a potential deal on Greenland after talks with Nato, as he dropped planned tariffs on eight European countries and ruled out using force to take the island.
Cooper welcomed the apparent climbdown on Greenland and said the UK and its European allies had put forward “positive, constructive proposals” on security in the Arctic.
But when asked about the Board of Peace, Cooper echoed other UK cabinet ministers who in recent days have been expressing concerns over Putin’s potential role in the scheme, given Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
The UK has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies and together with France, signed a declaration of intent on deploying troops to the country if a peace deal is made with Russia.
As talks to end the war in Ukraine continue, President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are due to meet in Davos on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Trump repeated his often-stated belief that Putin and Zelensky were close to a deal.
Trump’s Board of Peace was originally unveiled by the White House as part of a plan to rebuild Gaza and design its future governance.
But the leaked text of the board’s founding charter goes far beyond that purpose.
The text says the board would be “an international organisation that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict”.
The leaked document says the Board of Peace’s charter will enter into force once three states formally agree to be bound by it, with member states given renewable three-year terms and permanent seats available to those contributing $1bn (£740m), it said.
The charter declared the body as an international organisation mandated to carry out peace-building functions under international law, with Trump serving as chairman – and separately as the US representative – and holding authority to appoint executive board members and create or dissolve subsidiary bodies.
Last Friday, the White House named seven members of the founding Executive Board, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and former UK prime minister Tony Blair.
More have now said they will join it, including Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The Vatican has said that the Pope has also received an invitation.
On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland – the annual Alpine gathering of the global elite – to declare that now is “not a time for new imperialism or new colonialism”.
This, of course, was a reference to the current ambitions of Macron’s counterpart in the United States, Donald Trump, who, in addition to recently kidnapping the president of Venezuela and repeatedly threatening to seize the Panama Canal, has made a great deal of noise about taking over the self-governing Danish territory of Greenland.
Trump himself took to the podium in Davos on Wednesday for a typically rambling speech, during which he alternately babbled about windmills, snidely complimented Macron on his “beautiful” reflective sunglasses, and declared that he would not “use force” in the acquisition of Greenland – which he also accidentally referred to as Iceland.
Indeed, Trump’s designs on the island have got Europe’s panties in a bunch, and the European Parliament has announced its unequivocal condemnation of “the statements made by the Trump administration regarding Greenland, which constitute a blatant challenge to international law, to the principles of the United Nations Charter and to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a NATO ally”.
Following Macron’s intervention at Davos, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that European leaders had “lined up” in opposition to the “new colonialism” denounced by the French leader.
Now, it goes without saying that the categorically demented Trump should by no means be encouraged in his predatory international endeavours. But it bears pointing out that, when it comes to colonialism and imperialism, Europe is hardly one to talk.
Let’s start with France, which continues to rule a dozen territories scattered across the globe – many of them marketed as exotic holiday destinations – including the Guadeloupe islands in the Caribbean Sea and the archipelago of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean.
While these territories have officially moved beyond lowly colonial status to bona fide departments of the French Republic and thereby part of the European Union, France can’t seem to shake the old patronising imperial mindset and attendant superiority complex.
When in December 2024, residents of cyclone-ravaged Mayotte – France’s poorest overseas territory – criticised the ineffective government response to the disaster, Macron charmingly snapped: “If it wasn’t for France, you would be in way deeper s***, 10,000 times more.”
How’s that for some “new colonialism”?
As for the tried-and-true “old” colonialism, France has a particularly appalling track record on that front, as well. Recall the case of Algeria, where some 1.5 million Algerians were killed during the 1954-62 war for independence from French rule.
Although Macron previously acknowledged that French colonisation of the North African country was a “crime against humanity” that was characterised by rampant torture and other brutality, he has consistently refused to offer a formal French apology.
But it’s not just France. Plenty of other European powers who are suddenly against colonialism also possess impressively savage legacies worldwide.
Indeed, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East and beyond, it’s difficult to find so much as a speck of land that has not been affected in some way or other by past centuries of European plunder, enslavement, mass killing, and similar atrocities.
The Spaniards decimated Indigenous populations across the Americas, Britain wreaked imperial havoc wherever it possibly could, and King Leopold II of Belgium presided over the deaths of 10 million or so Congolese starting in 1885, when he established the “Congo Free State” as his own personal property.
In 2022, Belgian King Philippe offered his “deepest regrets” for the abuses that transpired during the colonial era but withheld an official apology. As one article on the occasion of the non-apology noted, life in the Congo Free State was such that “villages that missed rubber collection quotas were notoriously made to provide severed hands instead”.
Over in Ethiopia, meanwhile, British historian Ian Campbell estimates that 19-20 percent of the Ethiopian population of Addis Ababa was wiped out over a mere three days during the Italian military occupation of East Africa in 1937.
The list of European atrocities goes on.
This is not, of course, meant as a suggestion that Trump should therefore have free rein to commit whatever crimes or plunder he pleases. It is simply a friendly reminder that you can’t be selectively opposed to colonialism. (Greenland, by the way, was a full-out colony of Denmark until not so long ago.)
As the killing continues under the guise of a US-brokered ceasefire, Gaza is now, per the Trumpian vision, set to be administered by a so-called “Board of Peace” chaired by – who else? – Trump himself.
Also participating on the board will be Israeli prime minister and genocidaire extraordinaire Benjamin Netanyahu, which no doubt heralds a “new colonialism” of the most sinister variety.
Unfortunately for the world, however, blood-soaked hypocrisy is nothing new.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
From Zaria to Lagos, Yakubu spent three days. Along the way, he hoped, ate, and even stepped aside to relieve himself.
Home had become a stronghold of terrorists who rustled cattle, kidnapped residents, and cut farmers off from their harvests. Even children, Yakubu recalled, openly carried weapons in Funtua, the area where he grew up in Katsina State, northwestern Nigeria.
He fled first to Zaria in neighbouring Kaduna State, where he negotiated with a truck driver transporting cattle to Lagos, in the country’s South West. With ₦3,000, he secured a small space and spent what remained of the ₦5,000 his father gave him on food along the journey. Whenever the need arose, the driver pulled over so he and others could relieve themselves in the bushes.
Yakubu’s journey shows the vulnerability of travellers in Nigeria, including migrants, where sanitation infrastructure fails to meet evolving needs.
In 2020, REACHfound that many people in some parts of northeastern Nigeria were not using latrines because facilities had been destroyed by conflict. In some internally displaced persons’ (IDPs) camps in Borno State, up to 30 per cent of residents practised open defecation. And of the 254 sites assessed across the state between 2021 and 2022, 57 per cent showed evidence of the practice.
By the end of 2024, Nigeria had over three million displaced persons, driven largely by insecurity in the northern region, as well as climate-related displacement linked to flooding and environmental degradation.
Many displaced people move south, travelling along highways without public toilets and settling in urban centres where informal settlements lack basic sanitation. Studies have linked cholera outbreaks in such settings to open defecation.
In Lagos, Nigeria’s most populous city and a major destination for migrants, including IDPs, recent cholera outbreaks killed more than 20 people and left many others hospitalised.
The impact of the absence of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) facilities continues to play out daily.
Sixteen-year-old Shamsu arrived in the city from Kurfi Local Government Area of Katsina State. For five years, he has lived in a small shanty along Yaba, a residential community in Lagos Mainland, with other young people who earn a living collecting used plastic bottles.
The shanty offers little protection from either rain or heat. When it rains, water seeps through the torn tarpaulins that serve as walls and roof. And with no toilet, occupants defecate in a small patch of bush a few steps away.
“When I need to defecate, I buy sachets of water for ₦50,” Shamsu said, explaining that he uses the water to clean up afterwards. He came to Lagos in search of economic opportunity.
At the spot where Shamsu and others defecate, HumAngle encountered a man crouched on a highway barrier. His back curved inward, the rest of his body leaning forward as vehicles raced past. The man, known to sell suya in the area, appeared shy in the face of the urgency of the moment and the exposure it demanded. No water for cleaning was visible.
His back curved inward, the rest of his body leaning forward as vehicles raced past. Photo: Damilola Ayeni/HumAngle
Yusuf said he pays ₦200 to use a public toilet in Akogun, some distance away from Makoko, where he lives in an informal settlement with other migrants. He had come to Lagos on the back of a truck after fleeing terrorism in the Makoda area of Kano State.
The cost and distance, however, raise questions about how accessible such facilities are in practice, particularly at night, and what options remain when toilets are out of reach.
In 2019, the federal government launched Clean Nigeria, a national hygiene campaign aimed at ending open defecation across all 774 local government areas by 2025. By the end of the target year, however, nearly 48 million Nigerians were still engaged in the act.
The Federal Ministry of Water Resources’ 2021 Water, Sanitation and Hygiene National Outcome Routine Mapping projected multiple target misses due to slow progress. And in November 2024, the federal government launched a revised Clean Nigeria Campaign (CNC) Strategic Plan, extending the goal to 2030 and proposing measures such as media outreach, fines, and increased access to toilets in schools, homes, and public spaces.
According to the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), Nigeria would need “a fourfold increase in the current rate of progress,” including the construction of millions of toilets, to achieve the ambitious goal of eradicating open defecation.
Who’s to blame?
The problem, said environmental specialist Adesehinwa Adegbulugbe, cannot be blamed on a single actor.
“Local governments struggle to provide services at the pace of population growth, while national policy and planning frameworks have not fully anticipated such urban influxes,” he said.
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“Poor urban planning, insufficient investment in decentralised sanitation, weak enforcement of building codes, and fragmented municipal coordination all hinder effective sanitation provision. In other words, even where infrastructure exists, mismanagement or inequitable access often perpetuates open defecation practices.”
HumAngle found that many migrants, like other residents, are willing to use sanitation facilities when available. At Railway, the shanty where Yakubu resides, among other scrap collectors, showed no evidence of open defecation.
Public toilets, Yakubu said, stood a short distance from where he sat, dismantling discarded electric switches and separating metal from plastic.
Built by the local development council, one of the toilet facilities in the area was in use at the time of HumAngle’s visit. Water flowed, users moved in and out, and the surroundings appeared orderly and maintained.
“I’m enjoying my peace in Lagos,” said Yakubu, who was a carpenter back home. “If not because of my parents, I won’t travel home at all.”
Yakubu points to a public toilet a short distance away. Photo: Damilola Ayeni/HumAngle
In Gengere, another informal settlement largely occupied by northern migrants and traders working in Lagos’s Mile 12 Market, residents said they use available public toilets, including at night. HumAngle observed one of the facilities. We also did not find evidence of open defecation in the community.
Even Shamsu said he dislikes the routine of crouching and defecating in the open, even though Makoko, a large slum near his shanty, boasts of a few public toilets.
“If there’s a decent toilet, I’ll use it,” he said.
When it rains, water seeps through the torn tarpaulins that serve as walls and roof. Photo: Damilola Ayeni/HumAngle
The Lagos State Government has acknowledged deficits in toilet access, particularly in public spaces and informal settlements. In March 2025, it announced plans to build 350 additional public toilets across the state in partnership with WaterAid and private operators. Earlier in November 2024, the state government had approved the construction of 100 public toilets as part of efforts to curb open defecation in the state.
Even as Lagos moves to expand public toilet access, sanitation pressures linked to rapid urban growth extend beyond the state.
The populations are growing at a rate that housing, employment, sanitation services, and enforcement are yet to catch up with. In Ado, the Ekiti State capital in South West Nigeria, the road leading to Mary Immaculate Grammar School smells like an overflowing latrine. Residents blame open defecation.
“Different people come to dump waste or defecate here,” said Taye Adelaju, a resident.
Meanwhile, public toilets in the area charge only a token fee for use.
Taye said only strict sanitation enforcement can prevent the area from becoming a public health hazard.
Adesehinwa said that it’s critical to view open defecation as a systems failure, and not just a behavioural or cultural issue. “This framing,” he said, “enables multi-sectoral interventions, mobilises public and private investment, and promotes accountability across institutions rather than targeting individuals.”
As insecurity pushes more Nigerians onto the road and into unplanned settlements, urban centres like Lagos either expand sanitation systems or allow open defecation and the diseases it fuels to become a permanent feature of their growing population.
*Only first names have been used to protect the identities of some of the sources.
This is the second of a ‘Down South’ series exploring migration from areas of Northern Nigeria to Lagos. Read the first here.
Ras Ein al-Auja, occupied West Bank – When the music stops, Naif Ghawanmeh, 45, takes a seat in front of the fire. The night is chilly, and for the first time in weeks, everything is still for a moment – the Israeli settlers’ celebrations have finished for the day.
But the village of Ras Ein al-Auja, situated in the eastern West Bank’s Jericho governorate, has been all but wiped out.
The village was one of the last Palestinian herding communities in this part of the Jordan Valley, but now, the herders’ sheep have gone – most of them stolen or poisoned by settlers or sold off by villagers under pressure. Their water has been cut off – the Ras Ein spring declared off-limits by the neighbouring settlers for the past year.
And for the past two weeks, most of the community’s homes have been dismantled. Many of the families forced out have burned their furniture before they have left, not wanting to leave it for the invading settlers to use.
“By God, it’s a difficult feeling,” Ghawanmeh says. He is at a loss for words, fidgeting by the fire and at times rubbing his face in misery and exhaustion. ”Everyone left. Not one of them [remains]. They all left.”
Since the start of this year, about 450 of the 650 Palestinian inhabitants of Ras Ein al-Auja have fled their homes – for many the only place they have ever lived – because of violence by Israeli settlers.
Other than the 14 Ghawanmeh families, including a large number of children, who say they have nowhere else to go, the rest are packing up and leaving in the coming days.
This rapid displacement of hundreds of people marks the largest expulsion from a single Bedouin community as a result of Israeli settler violence in modern times – a feat that has elicited taunting celebrations by the encroaching settlers and left lives in ruins for Bedouin families now deprived of shelter, livelihoods and community.
Palestinians dismantle their homes as settler violence forces them out of Ras Ein al-Auja [Courtesy of Looking the Occupation in the Eye]
No land, no sheep, no water, no safety
Until the New Year, the people of Ras Ein al-Auja had held out on their lands despite an onslaught of physical attacks, thefts, threats, movement restrictions and destruction of property by settlers – a state of being that is now all too common for rural Palestinian communities across the West Bank.
Settlers have been enabled by rapid growth in the number of settlement outposts springing up across the West Bank. Settlements and these outposts are illegal under international law. They are also built without the legal permission of Israeli authorities but in practice are largely tolerated and offered protection by Israeli forces, especially in recent years under the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
International law stipulates that occupying powers like Israel must not move their own civilian populations into occupied territories, such as the West Bank, where about 700,000 settlers now reside.
In December, another 19 settler outposts built without government approval were retroactively approved by Israel’s government as official settlements. In all, the number of settlements and outposts in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem has risen by nearly 50 percent since 2022 – from 141 to 210 now.
This recent explosion of settler outposts has given way to a more recent yet even more dangerous phenomenon: shepherding outposts.
Each of these outposts mimics the Bedouins’ way of life but with settlers’ own grazing flocks. They are typically run by a single armed Israeli settler supported by several armed teenagers often funnelled in by government-funded programmes intended to support “at-risk” troubled youth.
Using animal grazing as a means to overrun Palestinian shepherds and seize their lands, such settlers had managed by April 2024 to take over about 14 percent of the West Bank, according to the Israeli NGO Kerem Navot. That figure has increased since then by at least tens of thousands of dunums (1 dunum equals 0.1 hectares and a quarter of an acre), according to Kerem Navot’s founder, Dror Etkes.
The outposts serve as a launching pad for attacks, controls on Palestinian movement and army-coordinated arrests, which have unfolded in places like Ras Ein al-Auja.
Routinely, settlers steal and poison the livestock that Palestinian shepherds, who largely inhabit these remote areas, rely on for their livelihoods. On top of this, settlers are preventing Palestinian shepherds who still have flocks from accessing the grazing lands they’ve always used. Settlers have built fences and engage in intimidation and violence, forcing Palestinians to buy expensive animal fodder to sustain their flocks instead.
Settlers also target the basic resources that Bedouin Palestinians rely on for themselves. Like most other Palestinian communities in the West Bank’s Area C, which Israel fully controls, the people of Ras Ein al-Auja are denied access to electricity by Israeli authorities. The Israeli Civil Administration, which controls zoning and planning in Area C, rarely grants permits for Palestinians to build infrastructure, including connecting to the grid or installing solar energy systems. The solar panels the villagers have put up have frequently been destroyed by settlers.
In addition, these Palestinian shepherding communities, often located in dry regions, are now denied sufficient access to water, including from the lush springs found in Ras Ein al-Auja which once made this village one of the most prosperous of the shepherding communities.
“They prevented us from getting water,” Ghawanmeh says. “They prevented us from bringing the sheep to the water and getting water from the spring.”
A Palestinian home is dismantled except for the floor in Ras Ein al-Auja, nearly all of whose inhabitants have been forced out by violent Israeli settlers [Courtesy of Looking the Occupation in the Eye]
Near-total impunity
Israeli settlers have also been emboldened by a wide-scale armament programme spearheaded at the start of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and the near-total impunity they enjoy when they carry out attacks. While court rulings in favour of Palestinians and against settlers have occurred, they are rare.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 1,800 settler attacks – about five per day – were documented in 2025, resulting in casualties or property damage in about 280 communities across the West Bank, and besting the previous year’s record of settler attacks by more than 350. A total of 240 Palestinians in the West Bank, including 55 children, were killed by Israeli forces or settlers in 2025.
These unprecedented levels of settler and soldier violence alongside the wholesale deprivation of basic resources that rural Palestinians need to survive have led to the erasure of dozens of rural Palestinian communities.
In January and February 2025, the Israeli military forcibly displaced about 40,000 people from refugee camps in Tulkarem and Jenin, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, settler violence has forced out 44 Palestinian communities in the West Bank consisting of 2,701 people, nearly half of whom are minors. Thirteen more communities comprising 452 people have been partially transferred. These people end up wherever they can find a place to stay, resulting in fractured communities and families.
Such figures of displacement have not been seen in the West Bank in decades.
Palestinians take their houses apart before fleeing the village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the eastern West Bank [Courtesy of Looking the Occupation in the Eye]
‘Two years of psychological pressure’
For 27 months, Ras Ein al-Auja has been subjected to all of these types of attacks and restrictions. In the past year, multiple Israeli shepherding outposts have sprung up at different corners of the village, which extends for 20,000 dunums (20sq km or 7.7sq miles), and have come increasingly closer to Palestinian homes.
“Two years of psychological pressure at night,” remarks an exhausted Ghawanmeh, who explains the haphazard shifts the men of his village have been taking to keep watch. “If you sleep, the settlers will burn your house.”
Under the pressure of settler attacks, poisonings and thefts, the number of sheep belonging to the community has dwindled from 24,000 to fewer than 3,000. Settler attacks and invasions have become so constant that nine solidarity activists – some progressives from Israel and others from other countries – were required to keep an around-the-clock protective presence.
Without anywhere else to go – and knowing from both settler threats and accounts from displaced relatives elsewhere that settlers would likely follow them anyway – the people of Ras Ein al-Auja had hung on by a thread.
That is, until the latest settler outpost.
Following a pattern seen in other now-displaced Bedouin communities like nearby Mu’arrajat, some of whose inhabitants fled to Ras Ein al-Auja, settlers began erecting outposts directly next to people’s homes at the beginning of the year – right in the middle of the community.
“Life has completely stopped ever since,” Ghawanmeh says. Families have barricaded themselves inside their houses, terrified of the settlers who now routinely graze their flocks just outside Palestinian homes.
Then, the spate of attacks this month compelled far more families to flee and take their remaining sheep with them. Almost three-quarters of the community has now gone. These families are now scattered across the West Bank although most are now in the cramped towns and cities of Area A, which makes up 18 percent of the West Bank and is administered by the Palestinian Authority.
As a result, these communities’ centuries-old traditions as Bedouins are coming to an end.
“There’s a saying among the Bedouins: ‘Upbringing outweighs origins,’” Ghawanmeh says. “It means you were raised here, you eat from the land, you drink from the land, you sleep on the land. You are from it, and it is from you.”
“To leave your house and leave your village”, he adds, “it is very, very, very difficult. But we are forced to.”
The children who remain have been left rudderless and afraid at night as they look at empty, scarred patches of land where once their friends and family lived. “Children are scared, scared that the settlers, the [settler security guards], will come,” Ghawanmeh says.
Al Jazeera requested comment from the Israeli military about the accusations made in this article and to ask for details about what action is being taken to prevent settler attacks on Palestinian communities, including Ras Ein al-Auja. We received no response.
Residents of Ras Ein al-Auja prepare to leave as Israeli settler attacks have intensified on their community, property and livestock this year [Courtesy of Looking the Occupation in the Eye]
‘Even if you sing for me until tomorrow, I won’t be happy’
As the swell of violence and land thefts gives way to a steady exodus of the last remaining villagers, a couple of musicians come to provide some relief from another day of traumatic separation and displacement.
“I hope they’ll feel seen, and I hope they’ll feel happy for at least a few moments and that they can feel like children, even if it’s just for a few minutes,” says Kai Jack, a Norwegian solidarity activist and professional contrabass player.
About a dozen children huddle in plastic chairs in a tin shack that once served as the meeting place for the community’s many families to hear this rare performance. As they listen to a handful of Palestinian folk songs, the children, at first timid, relax and begin to clap and sing to staples like Wein a Ramallah (Where? To Ramallah).
For the first time in weeks, the children even manage to crack a few smiles.
And then, Jack and the accompanying violinist, Amalia Kelter Zeitlin, settle into playing the Palestinian lullaby Yamma Mawil al-Hawa (Mother, What’s with the Wind?). The children’s mothers, looking on from the sidelines, begin to softly sing along:
“My life will continue through sacrifice – for freedom.”
As the song ends, the mothers join the children in rounds of applause. “Beautiful?” Jack asks.
“Very,” replies one of the mothers who explains how she helps her child fall to sleep with this very song. “And it has been so long since they were able to [sleep well].”
As the performance ends and the children crowd around Jack’s enormous bass, a few of the remaining Ghawanmeh brothers retreat outside, their minds unable to rest as they contemplate their inevitable expulsion.
“These songs are for the children,” Naif Ghawanmeh says. “We are tired inside. Very tired.”
One of his small nephews, Ahmed, just 2 years old, begins to sing the chorus of Wein a Ramallah. For one brief moment, the atmosphere is almost festive. But while he is happy the children are relaxing, Ghawanmeh shrugs it off himself.
“By God, look at me,” he says over the fire, which is burning whatever supplies they didn’t want to leave for the settlers to take. “Even if you sing for me until tomorrow, I won’t be happy. You see, I’m tired inside. For two years, I’ve been suffering from oppression, hardship and problems day and night from the settlers.
The funds were injected in Venezuelan banks to be offered to private sector importers. (Archive)
Caracas, January 21, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Four Venezuelan private banks received a reported US $300 million from an initial US-administered sale of Venezuelan crude.
According to Ecoanalítica, Banesco, BBVA Provincial, Banco Mercantil, and Banco Nacional de Crédito offered a combined $150 million to customers on Tuesday via foreign exchange auctions, with the rest of the funds expected to be made available by the end of the week.
Unofficial reports suggested that private sector importers in the food and healthcare sectors would be given priority. Analyst Alejandro Grisanti stated that the dollars were purchased slightly below 400 bolívars (BsD) per USD. Unlike in prior exchange tables, the banks were not obliged to use the official exchange rate set by the Central Bank, which stands currently at 347 BsD per USD.
The $300 million comprises a portion of the recently announced $500 million sale of Venezuelan crude that had been in storage due to a US naval blockade since early December, with proceeds reportedly deposited in US government-run accounts in Qatar.
Since the January 3 bombings and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, US President Donald Trump and senior officials have vowed to take control of the Venezuelan oil industry and defend the interests of Western energy conglomerates.
The initial agreement involved around 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude with an estimated return of over $2 billion. Tankers from commodity traders Vitol and Trafigura began moving oil cargoes to Caribbean storage hubs last week.
The allocation of the remaining $200 million from the already executed sales is presently unknown. US officials previously claimed that Venezuela would only be allowed to import from US manufacturers while also floating the possibility of swap deals involving diluents and spare parts for the oil sector and electric grid.
Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez confirmed the $300 million received by private banks and identified protecting workers’ incomes as the government’s priority at this moment.
“$300 million has entered the country, to cover the incomes of our workers, protecting their purchasing power from inflation and from foreign exchange instability,” she said during a televised broadcast on Tuesday.
Rodríguez likewise stressed the importance of stabilizing the forex market, with constant devaluations eroding the Venezuelans’ purchasing power. The highly speculative parallel market exchange rate skyrocketed to 900 BsD/USD in early January before expectations of foreign currency injections brought it down under 500.
Amid the initial US-enforced oil deals, the interim Rodríguez administration and National Assembly are moving forward with a reform of the country’s Hydrocarbon Law to expand conditions for foreign investment.
Former President Hugo Chávez overhauled energy legislation in 2001 to establish state control over the oil industry. The Hydrocarbon Law, which was later amended in 2006, mandated that state oil company PDVSA hold majority stakes in all joint ventures and raised royalties and income tax to 33 and 50 percent, respectively.
On Thursday, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez argued that the oil reform is aimed at adapting to the country’s “economic reality” and should not be “a cause for fear or concern.” A first debate on the bill is scheduled for Thursday.
“It is essential to find optimal conditions for investments in so-called green oilfields that are yet to be explored,” he said during a meeting with deputies. “As such, we have to ensure that this foreign investment is protected and profitable.”
The parliamentary leader, who also discussed other upcoming legislative projects, highlighted the so-called Productive Participation Contracts (CPP) as key instruments for oil sector growth that will be included in the reformed legislation.
The CPP models were introduced under the 2020 Anti-Blockade Law. According to industry sources, they are concession-type deals that grant private partners increased control over operations and sales and faster returns on investment through lower taxes and royalty exemptions.
Since 2017, Venezuela’s oil industry has been hard hitby US unilateral coercive measures, including financial sanctions, an export embargo, and secondary sanctions, which aimed at strangling the Caribbean nation’s most important revenue source. US officials have announced a selective flexibilization of sanctions in the immediate future to facilitate oil deals.
The recent naval blockade had an immediate impact on crude output, forcing PDVSA to shut down wells as it ran out of storage. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio referred to the blockade as “leverage” to impose conditions on the Venezuelan government.
US forces reportedly seized a seventh oil tanker on Tuesday. According to the US Southern Command, the Liberia-flagged Sagitta had loaded crude in Venezuela and is on the US Treasury’s blacklist. US authorities did not disclose whether they took control of the vessel or if it will turn over its cargo.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
President Donald Trump climbed into a heavily armored Cadillac Escalade presidential limo after arriving in Davos in Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum this morning. This may be the first time Trump has ridden in one of these SUVs, at least at such a high-profile event. The Escalade configuration limos also look to be a new addition to the U.S. Secret Service’s fleet of highly specialized cars and other vehicles.
Trump had initially left Washington, D.C., for Davos last night on board a VC-25A Air Force One jet, which had to turn around “out of an abundance of caution” due to a “minor electrical issue,” according to the White House. The President, as well as other officials and members of the press, ultimately flew to Zurich aboard a smaller C-32A aircraft. A U.S. Marine Corps VH-60N Marine One helicopter then took Trump from Zurich to Davos, where a motorcade, which included at least two Escalades, as well as several Chevy Suburban SUVs, was waiting.
A pair of Secret Service Escalades are seen here amid Trump’s arrival in Davos today. Heavy armoring is visible around the front windshields and side windows. INA FASSBENDER / AFP via Getty Images INA FASSBENDER
From what can be seen in pictures from Davos, the Escalades have very heavy armoring, especially around the front windshield and doors. They also have an array of antennas at the rear of the roof, as well as one at the front right above the driver’s seat. This is not surprising given that Secret Service vehicles used in the presidential motorcade typically have extensive secure communications suites that can connect with the White House communications vehicle, better known as the Roadrunner.
Various antennas can be seen on the roof of the Escalade in this picture. INA FASSBENDER / AFP via Getty Images
Details about the Secret Service Escalade are otherwise limited, though it is safe to assume it has a host of additional defensive and other features we cannot readily see. It is also unclear whether Trump has made use of a Secret Service Escalade before elsewhere. Based on the limited motorcade imagery we have reviewed taken over the last few months, we have not seen it. TWZ has reached out to the Secret Service and the White House for more information.
The Secret Service has certainly shuttled Trump (and other Presidents and Vice Presidents) around in the past in up-armored Chevy Suburbans, including during previous trips to Davos. Since the early 2000s, Suburbans have been used increasingly interchangeably with more eye-catching custom-built presidential limousines for presidential movements. The latter vehicles, nicknamed “Beasts,” externally resemble stretched Cadillac sedans, but are actually now built on a modified truck chassis. The Secret Service has disclosed in the past that the newest version incorporates internal design elements taken directly from the Escalade line. You can read more about the Beasts here.
The video below shows President Trump’s motorcade, full of Chevy Suburbans, in Davos in 2018.
25.01.2018 – Donald Trump arriva al WEF di Davos
There is a question of how new the Escalades may actually be. Though elements of their bodies are outwardly different, underneath, Suburbans and Escalades have shared the same core platform for decades. The Secret Service has already been using armored Suburbans of the same generation as the Escalades seen in Davos to move Trump for some time.
So are the Escalades really just the Secret Service’s existing armored Suburban base configuration that we have seen in the past, but given an Escalade facelift, including a new front fascia and chrome accents, among other features? They could also be Escalades of this generation customized identically to their Suburban counterparts for the role. It’s unclear at this time, but adapting the already custom-armored Suburban configuration that currently carries the President with a more grand look certainly would make sense, especially for Trump. Also, the latest Escalade model based on the newest generation of Suburban is now itself over half a decade old, making use of an even older generation of Escalade like this to develop an entirely new limo configuration questionable.
However, last March, the Secret Service shared that Director Sean Curran had “met with GM executives to discuss advancements that could benefit the next generation of armored SUVs” in a post on X.
An accompanying picture from Curran’s visit with GM, seen below, showed an image on display at the GM site featuring a newer generation Escalade flanked by seals of the office of the President of the United States. The presence of the seals pointed to a configuration intended for use as a presidential limo role.
USSS
Reuters also reported last March that GM had received a new contract from the Homeland Security Department and the Secret Service for the development of a next-generation presidential limousine. Though that story mentioned Director Curran’s trip to GM, it did not explicitly say what vehicle the new limo might be based on or when it might enter service.
“We are too far out to speak to any specific costs or dates,” a Secret Service spokesperson had told Reuters last year. “Our engineering, protective operations and technical security teams work for years to develop the state-of-the-art framework that is used to produce these highly advanced vehicles.”
It is also worth noting that the most recent version of the Beast made its public debut in 2018 during President Trump’s first term when he visited New York City for that year’s U.N. General Assembly meeting, as seen below. The Secret Service has said in the past that the custom vehicles have a typical life span of around eight years. With this timeline in mind, a new version could be on the cusp of entering service, if it hasn’t already.
(READ FULL DESCRIPTION) – PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP & MOTORCADE, USING BRAND NEW BEAST LIMOUSINES.
Regardless, the Secret Service has a clear imperative to keep its fleets as capable and otherwise up-to-date as possible to help in protecting the president, as well as other senior U.S. officials and foreign dignitaries. In the past, TWZ has highlighted the ever-growing threats posed by drones, including weaponized commercial types, as something the Secret Service also now has to factor into its vehicle requirements.
“Countering evolving threats require [sic] us to constantly explore new innovations and improvements to our armored fleet of protective vehicles,” the Secret Service wrote in the post on X last year regarding Director Curran’s meeting with GM.
If President Trump begins making more use of Secret Service Escalades, more details about those vehicles may begin to emerge.
Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, says it will launch more than 5,400 satellites to create a new communications network.
Named TeraWave, it will offer continuous internet access around the world, with the ability to move large amounts of data much more quickly than rival services.
But even after launching thousands of satellites, Blue Origin would still have far fewer in orbit than Elon Musk’s Starlink, which currently dominates the satellite internet market.
Starlink – part of Musk’s rocket firm SpaceX – also offers internet and phone services to individual customers, while Blue Origin says TeraWave will be focused on data centres, businesses and governments.
Blue Origin said its network, at its fastest, would allow upload and download speeds of as much as 6 terabits per second, much faster than rival commercial satellite services currently offer.
Another competitor to TeraWave is Amazon, the technology giant that made Bezos a multi-billionaire. He is still Amazon’s executive chairman after stepping down in 2021 as its chief executive.
Amazon’s satellite venture is called Leo. While it currently has only 80 satellites in orbit, having launched dozens more just last week, it plans to have more than 3,000 in orbit.
Like Starlink, Amazon is also more focused on the general public than businesses and governments, pitching Leo as a way to offer high-speed internet access globally. It has not said when all of the Leo satellites will be in orbit.
Blue Origin said it will start launching its TeraWave satellites by the end of 2027.
Only SpaceX had previously accomplished this feat.
In April, Blue Origin launched an 11-minute space flight with an all-female crew, including Bezos’ now-wife Lauren Sánchez, singer Katie Perry and CBS presenter Gayle King.
But some commentators said it was “tone deaf” for celebrities to be taking part in such a fleeting and expensive trip at a time of economic struggle.
The administration of United States President Donald Trump has announced its latest immigration enforcement operation, this time in the northeastern state of Maine.
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that immigration raids had begun a day earlier, under the name “Operation Catch of the Day”.
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In a statement, a Trump administration spokesperson appeared to signal that targeting Maine was a political response to the ongoing feud between the president and the state’s governor, Democrat Janet Mills.
“Governor Mills and her fellow sanctuary politicians in Maine have made it abundantly clear that they would rather stand with criminal illegal aliens than protect law-abiding American citizens,” said spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.
But rumours have swirled that Maine was singled out for its significant Somali American population in the cities of Portland and Lewiston. Estimates put the total number of Somali Americans in the state at about 3,000.
Trump has repeatedly denounced the Somali community over the past several months, comparing its members to “garbage” at a December cabinet meeting. As recently as Tuesday, he used his White House podium to call Somalis and Somali Americans “ a lot of very low IQ people”.
Racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric has been a trademark of Trump’s campaigns for public office, and he has repeatedly singled out specific groups – including Haitians and Mexicans – to falsely tie their immigrant identity to pervasive criminal activity.
Mayor Mark Dion of Portland, Maine, speaks at a news conference on January 21 [Patrick Whittle/AP Photo]
Parallels with Minnesota
Trump’s focus on the Somali community comes after a handful of members were implicated in a fraud scandal in Minnesota, a midwestern state where immigration enforcement operations were launched in December.
Those efforts have been marked by violent clashes between federal agents and protesters, and one woman, 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, was shot dead in her car after an interaction with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Fears that those tensions could spill into Maine dominated a Wednesday news conference with city officials in Portland.
Mayor Mark Dion told reporters that immigrant communities in the region felt “anxious and fearful” as ICE agents began their crackdown.
“They see this action as unpredictable and a threat to their families,” he explained.
He also questioned whether a heavy-handed operation was necessary to address immigration infractions in the area, and he called on ICE to adopt different tactics than it had in Minnesota.
“I want to underscore one important point: While we respect the law, we challenge the need for a paramilitary approach to the enforcement of federal statutes,” Dion said.
“Federal immigration law is lawful. Its administration and enforcement is lawful,” he added. “What we’ve been concerned with, as a council, is the enforcement tactics that ICE has undertaken in other communities, which to our mind appear to threaten and intimidate populations.”
Nevertheless, Dion expressed optimism that ICE would adopt a more tailored approach to apprehending local suspects.
While the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, has seen nearly 2,000 immigration officers flood its streets, the mayor predicted that Maine would not see the same “massing of federal agents”.
“We’re seeing very individualised activity by ICE. A person here, a neighbourhood there,” he said. “Their conduct, at least as it is current in Maine, seems to be focused, which would indicate to me – and this is the speculation – that they’re functioning on the basis of an actual court warrant.”
That, he said, marked a departure from the “random, show-me-your-papers kind of experience” that residents had experienced in Minnesota.
Well-wishers on January 20 visit a makeshift memorial for Renee Nicole Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis [Angelina Katsanis/AP Photo]
Outrage at ICE operations
Still, while Dion advocated for a wait-and-see approach to the ICE operation, other city officials took a harder stance.
One Portland city councillor, Wesley Pelletier, described the unfolding raids as part of “an agenda of white nationalism and might makes right”.
“This is a war of terror that’s being waged on our city by the federal government,” Pelletier said. “We’ve seen people of all ages getting thrown on the ground and getting thrown into trucks.”
So far, Fox News quoted ICE Deputy Assistant Director Patricia Hyde as saying the agency had made 50 arrests so far as part of operation “Catch of the Day”. Hyde added that ICE had identified nearly 1,400 individuals to detain in Maine.
Wednesday’s statement from the Department of Homeland Security highlighted four arrests as examples, showing people from Sudan, Guatemala, Ethiopia and Angola.
It described the four individuals as “the worst of the worst” and accused them of crimes ranging from aggravated assault to endangering the welfare of a child, though it was unclear in one case if the accusation had resulted in a conviction.
“We are no longer allowing criminal illegal aliens to terrorize American citizens,” McLaughlin said in the statement.
But Democratic officials in the state suggested that the Trump administration had refused to coordinate in the lead-up to “Catch of the Day”, heightening anxiety on the local level.
On January 14, nearly a week before the operation was launched, Governor Mills posted on social media that she had “attempted, unsuccessfully thus far, to confirm” the upcoming surge in federal immigration enforcement.
In a video statement, she said the state had reached out to local governments in Portland and Lewiston to prepare. She added that she too felt “angry” about the expected surge.
“Our goal, as always, will be to protect the safety and the rights of the people of Maine,” Mills said.
“To the federal government, I say this: If your plan is to come here to be provocative and to undermine the civil rights of Maine residents, do not be confused. Those tactics are not welcome here to the people of Maine.”
She also took a jab at the trend of federal agents using masks and other facial coverings to conceal their identities.
“Look, Maine knows what good law enforcement looks like because our law enforcement are held to high professional standards,” Mills said. “They are accountable to the law. And I’ll tell you this: They don’t wear a mask to shield their identities, and they don’t arrest people in order to fill a quota.”
Democratic Governor Janet Mills has openly opposed Trump administration policies [File: Robert F Bukaty/AP Photo]
A political rivalry
Mills and Trump have long been political adversaries, with their feud erupting in a public forum. In February last year, shortly after Trump returned to office for a second term, he hosted a White House gathering for governors, where he called out Mills personally.
“Is Maine here? The governor of Maine?” Trump said while outlining policies barring transgender athletes from sporting events. “Are you not going to comply with it?”
“I’m complying with state and federal law,” Mills responded. The tension escalated from there.
“You’d better comply because otherwise you’re not getting any, any federal funding,” Trump shot back.
“See you in court,” Mills replied.
“Good. I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a really easy one. And enjoy your life after, governor, because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics,” he said.
The interaction made national news and cemented the frosty relationship between the two leaders, with Trump demanding an apology and slamming the Democratic governor for months afterwards.
His administration also took a series of escalating actions designed to target Mills, including launching an education probe in her state, suspending a marine research grant and freezing other federal funds to Maine.
In response to this week’s ICE deployment, Mills issued a short statement acknowledging the Trump administration’s latest efforts.
“Together, we will continue to place the safety and civil rights of Maine people above all else, and remain vigilant in our defense of due process and the rule of law,” she wrote.
Maine is set to hold its next gubernatorial race in 2026, as part of the year’s midterm election cycle.
Having served two terms as governor, Mills is not eligible for re-election and will instead be making a run for the US Senate, challenging Republican incumbent Susan Collins.
Watch: The BBC’s Faisal Islam on how Trump’s Davos speech was received
President Donald Trump says the US is exploring a potential deal on Greenland after talks with Nato as he backed off plans to impose tariffs on European allies that had opposed his plans for America to acquire the island.
On social media, Trump said a “very productive meeting” with Nato’s leader had led to the “framework” of a potential agreement over Greenland and the Arctic. He offered few details.
Nato also described the meeting as “very productive” – and said discussions on the framework mentioned by Trump would focus on ensuring Arctic security.
Earlier, Trump told the World Economic Forum in Davos that he would not use military force but wanted talks to secure ownership of the territory.
On Truth Social on Wednesday, the US president said: “We have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region.
“This solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America, and all Nato Nations.”
He did not say if the proposal included American ownership of the autonomous Danish dependent territory, but told a US cable network the plan might involve mineral rights.
Further information would be made available “as discussions progress”, Trump said on Truth Social.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff would “report directly” to him, he added, as negotiations continued.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in a statement: “The day is ending on a better note than it began.”
He added: “Now, let’s sit down and find out how we can address the American security concerns in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the Kingdom of Denmark.”
In the hours that followed, some details trickled out.
Trump told CNBC that the possible deal could last “forever” and might involve mineral rights and the planned Golden Dome missile defence system, which Trump has envisioned as a shield of interceptors and detectors spanning land, sea and space to protect the US from long-range missile strikes.
Along with Greenland’s strategic location, the Trump administration has spoken about its vast – and largely untapped – reserves of rare earth minerals, many of which are crucial for technologies including mobile phones and electric vehicles.
Ros Atkins on… Trump’s Davos speech claims
Trump also told CNN in Davos, Switzerland, that the deal framework for Greenland was “pretty far along” and “gets us everything we needed to get”, especially “real national security and international security”.
Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said he had not discussed the key issue of Danish sovereignty over Greenland in his meeting with Trump.
He told Fox News the “issue did not come up anymore in my conversations tonight with the president”.
Trump had previously dismissed the idea of leasing Greenland, saying that “you defend ownership. You don’t defend leases.”
Swedish Deputy PM: EU and US relationship “has been damaged” by Greenland pursuit
Nato spokeswoman Allison Hart said in a statement that during the meeting, Trump and Rutte had “discussed the critical significance of security in the Arctic region to all Allies, including the United States”.
“Discussions among Nato Allies on the framework the President referenced will focus on ensuring Arctic security through the collective efforts of Allies, especially the seven Arctic Allies,” she added.
“Negotiations between Denmark, Greenland, and the United States will go forward aimed at ensuring that Russia and China never gain a foothold – economically or militarily – in Greenland.”
According to the New York Times, the potential plan could grant the US ownership of small pockets of the territory’s land, where American military bases could be built.
Officials who attended a Nato meeting on Wednesday told the newspaper the suggested arrangement would be similar to UK bases on Cyprus, which are part of British Overseas Territories.
Under existing agreements with Denmark, the US can bring as many troops as it wants to Greenland. It already has more than 100 military personnel permanently stationed at its Pituffik base in the north-western tip of the territory.
Watch: Trump takes aim at world leaders in Davos speech
Trump had been threatening to place a 10% tariff “on any and all goods” sent from the UK to the US from 1 February, increasing to 25% from 1 June, until a deal was reached for Washington to purchase Greenland from Denmark.
The same would apply to goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland – all of which are members of Nato, the defence alliance founded in 1949.
The US president dropped that threat on Wednesday after the talks with Rutte, saying in his post on Truth Social that he would cancel imposing the new levies.
“Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st.”
In his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, Trump said he was “seeking immediate negotiations” to acquire Greenland, but insisted the US would not take the territory with force.
“We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive force. We’d be unstoppable, but we won’t do that,” Trump said. “I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
He also urged world leaders to allow the US to take control of Greenland from Denmark, saying: “You can say yes and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no and we will remember.”
In his own speech at Davos a day earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron criticised Trump’s previous threat of import taxes.
He said an “endless accumulation of new tariffs” from the US was “fundamentally unacceptable”.
Macron was among those urging the EU to consider retaliatory options against new US levies.
In his speech, Trump took aim at Macron, saying France had been “screwing” the US for decades.
The US president also took a swipe at Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who urged “middle powers” such as Australia, Argentina and his own country to band together when he spoke at Davos a day earlier.
In response, the US president accused Carney of being ungrateful to the US.
“Canada lives because of the United States,” Trump said. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”
Sreenivasan Jain speaks with Sajeeb Wazed Joy about whether it sees any political future for itself in Bangladesh.
The Awami League is barred from upcoming elections in Bangladesh. Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is in exile. Sreenivasan Jain asks Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy what future the party has.
Bangladesh is heading into a historic election, with the Awami League barred from contesting and its leader, Sheikh Hasina, living in exile after her overthrow in August 2024.
In this interview, Sreenivasan Jain speaks with Sajeeb Wazed Joy — Hasina’s son and a senior Awami League figure — about whether the party has confronted public anger over years of repressive rule, and whether it sees any political future for itself in Bangladesh.
Guest:
Sajeeb Wazed Joy – Bangladeshi politician and businessman
U.S. President Donald Trump has doubled down on his long-standing ambition to bring Greenland under U.S. control, declaring there was “no going back” on the issue and refusing to rule out the use of force. His remarks, accompanied by leaked private messages and AI-generated images shared on social media, have triggered alarm across Europe and raised fears of a renewed transatlantic crisis.
Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark and a strategic Arctic location rich in minerals and critical for missile defence and shipping routes. Trump has repeatedly argued that U.S. control of the island is essential for global security, a claim Denmark and European allies strongly reject.
Trump’s Message: Security First, Allies Second
Trump said Greenland was “imperative for National and World Security” after speaking with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. To underline his stance, he shared AI-generated images portraying Greenland and Canada as part of the United States, signalling that the issue is not symbolic but strategic.
He also leaked private texts from European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, who questioned Trump’s intentions. Trump responded by renewing threats of massive tariffs on French wines and champagne, intensifying fears of economic retaliation.
NATO and Europe Under Pressure
Trump’s comments have placed NATO under severe strain, with Denmark warning that the crisis threatens core principles of sovereignty and democracy. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told parliament that “the worst may still lie ahead,” rejecting any negotiations over national borders.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used the World Economic Forum in Davos to call for a “new independent Europe,” signalling that European leaders increasingly see Trump’s America as an unreliable security partner.
Trade War Fears Resurface
Trump’s Greenland rhetoric has revived memories of last year’s trade tensions. The European Union has warned it could reactivate tariffs on €93 billion worth of U.S. imports as early as February 6. Brussels is also considering deploying its powerful Anti-Coercion Instrument, which could target U.S. services, technology firms, and investment access.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attempted to calm markets, dismissing fears as “hysteria” and urging patience. However, financial markets reacted sharply, with global stocks sliding, gold hitting record highs, and U.S. stock futures falling to one-month lows.
Russia Enters the Narrative
Russia has seized the moment to question Danish sovereignty over Greenland. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described Greenland as a “colonial conquest,” a comment that further complicates Arctic geopolitics. While Moscow denied seeking control of the island, its remarks underline how Trump’s stance is opening space for rival powers to challenge Western unity.
Public Backlash and Global Anxiety
Protests erupted in Switzerland ahead of the Davos forum, with demonstrators denouncing Trump’s policies as imperialistic. Investors, meanwhile, are reviving the so-called “Sell America” trade, signalling declining confidence in U.S. political stability and predictability.
Implications
Trump’s Greenland push risks reshaping transatlantic relations in three major ways:
Security: It weakens NATO cohesion at a time of rising global instability.
Economics: It threatens another U.S.–EU trade war, with serious consequences for global markets.
Geopolitics: It accelerates European efforts to reduce dependence on U.S. security guarantees while giving rivals like Russia diplomatic leverage.
Analysis
Trump’s insistence on Greenland reflects a transactional and power-centric worldview where sovereignty is negotiable and alliances are conditional. By framing territorial acquisition as a security necessity, he is blurring the line between strategic competition and outright coercion.
While the administration portrays the dispute as manageable, the reaction from Europe suggests a deeper rupture. The crisis is less about Greenland itself and more about whether the U.S. under Trump still respects the norms that underpin the Western alliance. If this approach continues, Europe’s push for strategic autonomy may shift from rhetoric to reality permanently altering the balance of power within the transatlantic relationship.
Israel has faced international condemnation after it bulldozed the headquarters of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in occupied East Jerusalem.
The UN said razing the compound violates international law.
What are the implications of the demolition?
Presenter: Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Shireen Salti – Political analyst who specialises in Palestine-Israel public affairs
Francesca Albanese – UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory and a former lawyer at UNRWA
Gideon Levy – Columnist at Israeli news outlet Haaretz
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited the White House in November
Seven countries including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt say they will join US president Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, according to a joint statement.
They will join Israel, which also publicly confirmed its participation earlier.
On Wednesday evening Trump said Vladimir Putin had also accepted to join – but the Russian President said his country was still studying the invitation.
The board was originally thought to be aimed at helping end the two-year war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and oversee reconstruction. But its proposed charter does not mention the Palestinian territory and appears to be designed to supplant functions of the UN.
However Saudi Arabia said that the group of Muslim-majority countries – Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan and Qatar – endorsed the aim of consolidating a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, supporting reconstruction and advancing what they described as a “just and lasting peace”.
At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Trump told reporters that Putin had accepted his invitation to join. “He was invited, he’s accepted. Many people have accepted,” Trump said.
Putin responded quickly, saying the invitation was under consideration, Reuters reported. He said Russia was prepared to provide $1bn from frozen Russian assets and that he viewed the board as primarily relevant to the Middle East.
It is not clear how many countries have been invited to join Trump’s new body – Canada and the UK are among them, but have not yet publicly responded. The UAE, Bahrain, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Vietnam have already signed up.
On Wednesday the Vatican also confirmed Pope Leo has received an invitation. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said the Pope would need time to consider whether to take part.
However Slovenia’s Prime Minister Robert Golob said he had declined the invitation because the body “dangerously interferes with the broader international order”.
A leaked document says the Board of Peace’s charter will enter into force once three states formally agree to be bound by it, with member states given renewable three-year terms and permanent seats available to those contributing $1bn (£740m), it said.
The charter declared the body as an international organisation mandated to carry out peace-building functions under international law, with Trump serving as chairman – and separately as the US representative – and holding authority to appoint executive board members and create or dissolve subsidiary bodies.
Last Friday, the White House named seven members of the founding Executive Board, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and former UK prime minister Tony Blair.
Former UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov was appointed as the board’s representative in Gaza during a second phase of the plan, which includes reconstruction and demilitarisation, with the board authorised by a UN Security Council resolution running until the end of 2027.
On Saturday, Netanyahu’s office said the Gaza Executive Board’s composition “was not coordinated with Israel and runs contrary to its policy”.
Israeli media said the decision to include representatives of Turkey and Qatar – which both helped broker the ceasefire that took effect in October, along with Egypt and the US – had happened “over Israel’s head”.
Under phase one of the peace plan, Hamas and Israel agreed to the ceasefire, an exchange of living and dead Israeli hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, a partial Israeli withdrawal, and a surge in deliveries of humanitarian aid.
Israel has said it can only move into the second phase after Hamas hands over the body of the last dead hostage.
Phase two faces major challenges, with Hamas having previously refused to give up its weapons without the creation of an independent Palestinian state, and Israel having not committed to fully withdrawing from Gaza.
Reuters
Humanitarian conditions for Palestinians in Gaza remain dire despite the ceasefire and aid surge
The ceasefire is also fragile. More than 460 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes since it came into force, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, while the Israeli military says three of its soldiers have been killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period.
The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
Israel responded to the attack by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 71,550 people have been killed, according to the territory’s health ministry.
The U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) will convene an emergency session in the coming days to address reports of widespread violence against protesters in Iran. The protests, the largest since 2022, have reportedly resulted in at least 5,000 deaths according to Iranian authorities. U.N. rights chief Volker Turk condemned the crackdown, while Human Rights Watch has called for enhanced investigation and funding for the 2022-established U.N. probe into human rights violations.
Why it matters: The emergency session underscores growing international concern over Iran’s treatment of its citizens and the escalating severity of the protests. The meeting provides a global platform for countries to raise accountability issues and push for enforcement of human rights standards, placing pressure on Tehran to justify its response.
Diplomatic responses: A letter from Iceland’s ambassador, representing Germany, Britain, and other nations, highlighted “credible reports of alarming violence, crackdowns on protesters and violations of international human rights law.” Iran, however, has denied wrongdoing, arguing that the clashes followed armed attacks on security forces and sending rebuttal documents to U.N. missions.
What’s next: The emergency session will likely include debates over further investigations, possible resolutions condemning Iran, and calls for international monitoring. Human Rights Watch and other NGOs are expected to press for increased funding and expanded mandates for U.N. inquiries. Outcomes could influence international diplomatic engagement, sanctions, and global pressure on Tehran to uphold human rights commitments.
Donald Trump delivered a wide-ranging speech at the Davos summit in Switzerland
“Without us, right now you’d all be speaking German,” President Donald Trump told his audience at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alps on Wednesday.
He may well have forgotten German is the most widely spoken of the four official languages in Switzerland.
Many people – from Brussels to Berlin to Paris – will have found his speech to be insulting, overbearing and inaccurate.
In it, he presented the idea that Europe is careering down the wrong path. That is a theme Trump has frequently explored, but it has a different impact when delivered on European soil to the faces of supposed friends and allies.
But, even if he keeps his word, the fundamental problem remains that he wants a piece of land the owners say is not for sale.
“What is quite clear after this speech is that the president’s ambition remains intact,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters in Copenhagen.
He said Trump’s comments about the military were “positive in isolation”.
Thousands of miles from Davos in Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital, government officials unveiled a new brochure giving advice to residents about what to do if there were a “crisis” in the territory.
Self-Sufficiency Minister Peter Borg said the document was “an insurance policy”. He said Greenland’s government did not expect to have to use it.
The proposed 10% taxes that are due to kick in from 1 February did not get a mention.
Any hope in Europe that President Trump would take the sting out of this transatlantic crisis was smashed as he began to outline his uncompromising argument for taking the island.
He ignored the European insistence that Greenland is sovereign EU territory and framed its acquisition as a perfectly reasonable transaction given the military support the US had provided the continent for decades.
Trump insisted the US had been wrong to “give back” Greenland after securing it during World War Two.
Greenland has never been part of the United States.
EPA/Shutterstock
Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark
Trump returned to his familiar refrain that the European members of Nato had done nothing for the US.
He disparaged Denmark in particular when recalling how in 1940 it “fell to Germany after just six hours of fighting and was totally unable to defend either itself or Greenland”.
Trump’s military history lesson failed to recall the Danes were a key partner of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and paid a heavy price.
Many other Nato allies supported the US after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
It was French President Emmanuel Macron who was singled out for the most jibes.
He was mocked for his appearance in sunglasses on Tuesday – he had an eye problem – and his “tough” talking at the podium.
Trump insisted he liked Macron, before continuing: “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
But the whole joke is wearing thin for many European leaders.
They have spent a year trying to flatter, impress and appease the US president and in return have been presented with their biggest threat to date.
The European Union meets on Thursday in Brussels for an emergency summit, with top European politicians having chosen to reach for their toughest language yet in response to US policy.
Reuters
French President Emmanuel Macron drew attention for his stern rebuke of Trump’s threats on Tuesday
The ball is now in the European court – do they ramp up the rhetoric around counter-tariffs and on rolling out the EU’s “trade bazooka”?
Or do they keep their powder dry and wait until 1 February to see if Trump actually follows through on his latest threat?
At the start of his one hour and 12 minute meandering address, President Trump boasted that at home “people are very happy with me”.
After this latest extraordinary round of Trump democracy, it is a sentiment much harder to find in the Europe the president claims to love so much.
The moving story of a Tunisian man who refuses to let cancer define his mother’s life and turns her treatment into a celebration of love, joy and resilience.
When Tunisian TV host Hassen becomes a full-time caregiver for his mother Saliha, dying of lung cancer, their home and hospital visits become the backdrop for an intimate family love story. This observational documentary follows them through birthday celebrations, 4am medication, difficult medical consultations and quiet, emotional moments together. Their bond gradually goes beyond conventional parent–child roles, as Hassen works tirelessly to preserve joy, dignity and a sense of normal life for Saliha. As the cancer spreads and her chances fade, they face impossible choices: treatment versus comfort, hope versus honesty, a son’s devotion versus his mother’s exhaustion. After Saliha’s death, we see Hassen back in the studio, hosting live television while still guided by her memory, redefining his mother as “a notion of love” that continues to shape him. Raw but unsentimental, the film captures caregiving as both an act of endurance and a profound declaration of love itself.
In 1948, as the foundations of the Israeli state were being laid upon the ruins of hundreds of Palestinian villages, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to the American Friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel (AFFFI), condemning the growing Zionist militancy within the settler Jewish community. “When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it the terrorist organisations built up from our own ranks. I am not willing to see anybody associated with those misled and criminal people.”
Einstein — perhaps the most celebrated Jewish intellectual of the 20th century — refused to conflate his Jewish identity with the violence of Zionism. He turned down the offer to become Israel’s president, rejecting the notion that Jewish survival and self-determination should come at the cost of another people’s displacement and suffering. And yet, if Einstein were alive today, his words would likely be condemned under the current definitions of anti-Semitism adopted by many Western governments and institutions, including the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, now endorsed by most Australian universities.
Under the IHRA definition, Einstein’s outspoken criticism of Israel — he called its founding actors “terrorists” and denounced their betrayal of Jewish ethics — would render him suspect. He would be accused not only of delegitimising Israel, but also of anti-Semitism. His moral clarity, once visionary, would today be vilified.
That is why we must untangle the threads of Zionism, colonialism and human rights.
Einstein’s resistance to Zionism was not about denying Jewish belonging or rights; it was about refusing to build those rights on ethno-nationalist violence. He understood what too many people fail to grasp today: that Zionism and Judaism are not synonymous.
Zionism is a political ideology rooted in European colonial logics, one that enforces Jewish supremacy in a land shared historically by Palestinian and other Levantine peoples. To criticise this ideology is not anti-Semitic; it is, rather, a necessary act of justice and a moral act of bearing witness. The religious symbolism that Israel uses is irrelevant in this respect. And yet, in today’s political climate, any critique of Israel — no matter how grounded it might be in international law, historical fact or humanitarian concern — is increasingly branded as anti-Semitism. This conflation shields from accountability a settler-colonial state, and it silences Palestinians and their allies from speaking out on the reality of their oppression. Billions in arms sales, stolen resources and apartheid infrastructure don’t just happen; they’re the reason that legitimate “criticism” gets rebranded as “hate”.
To understand Einstein’s critique, we must confront the truth about Zionism itself. While often framed as a movement for Jewish liberation, Zionism in practice has operated as a colonial project of erasure and domination. The Nakba was not a tragic consequence of war, it was a deliberate blueprint for dispossession and disappearance. Israeli historian Ilan Pappé has detailed how David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, approved “Plan Dalet” on 10 March, 1948. This included the mass expulsion and execution of Palestinians to create a Jewish-majority state. As Ben-Gurion himself declared chillingly: “Every attack has to end with occupation, destruction and expulsion.”
This is the basis of the Zionist state that we are told not to critique.
Einstein saw this unfolding and recoiled. In another 1948 open letter to the New York Times, he and other Jewish intellectuals described Israel’s newly formed political parties — like Herut (the precursor to Likud) — as “closely akin in… organisation, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.”
Einstein’s words were not hyperbole, they were a warning. Having fled Nazi Germany, he had direct experience with the defining traits of Nazi fascism. “From Israel’s past actions,” he wrote, “we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.”
Einstein warned about what many still refuse to see: a state established on principles of ethnic supremacy and expulsion could never transcend its foundation ethos. Israel’s creation in occupied Palestine is Zionism in practice; it cannot endure without employing repression until resistance is erased entirely. Hence, the Nakba wasn’t a one-off event in 1948; it evolved, funded by Washington, armed by Berlin and enabled by every government that trades Palestinian blood for political favours.
Zionism cannot be separated from the broader history of European settler-colonialism. As Patrick Wolfe explains, the ideology hijacked the rhetoric of Jewish liberation to mask its colonial reality of re-nativism, with the settlers recasting themselves as “indigenous” while painting resistance as terrorism.
The father of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, stated in his manifesto-novel Altneuland, “To build anew, I must demolish before I construct.” To him, Palestine was not seen as a shared homeland, but as a house to be razed to the ground and rebuilt by and for Jews alone. His ideology was made possible by British imperial interests to divide and dominate post-Ottoman territories. Through ethnic partition and military alliances embellished under the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the ironic Zionist-Nazi 1933 Haavara Agreement, the Zionist project aligned perfectly with the West’s goal, as per the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement.
Zionism is a global power structure, not a monolithic ethnic identity.
Many Jews around the world — rabbis, scholars, students and Holocaust survivors and their descendants — continue Einstein’s legacy by saying “Not in our name”. They reject the co-option of Holocaust memory to justify genocide in Gaza. They refuse to be complicit in what the Torah forbids: the theft of land and the murder of innocents. They are not “self-hating Jews”. They are the inheritors of a prophetic tradition of justice. And they are being silenced.
Perhaps the most dangerous development today is, therefore, Israel’s insistence on linking its crimes to Jewish identity. It frames civilian massacres, apartheid policies and violations of international law as acts done in the name of all Jews and Judaism. By tying the Jewish people to the crimes of a state, Israel risks exposing Jews around the world to collective blame and retaliation.
Einstein warned against this. And if Einstein’s vision teaches us anything, it is this: Justice cannot be compromised for comfort and profit. Truth must outlast repression. And freedom must belong to all. In the end, no amount of Israel’s militarisation of terminology, propaganda or geopolitical alliances can suppress a people’s resistance forever or outlast global condemnation. The only question left is: how much more blood will be spilled before justice prevails?
The struggle for clarity today is not just academic, it is existential. Without the ability to distinguish anti-Semitism from anti-Zionism, we cannot build a future where Jews and Palestinians all live in dignity, safety and peace. Reclaiming the term “Semite” in its full meaning, encompassing both Jews and Arabs, is critical. Further isolation of Arabs from their Semitic identity has enabled the dehumanisation of Palestinians and the erasure of shared Jewish-Arab histories, especially the centuries of coexistence, the Jewish-Muslim golden ages in places like Baghdad, Granada/Andalusia, Istanbul, Damascus and Cairo.
Einstein stood up for the future for us to reclaim it.
The way forward must be rooted in truth, justice and accountability. That means unequivocally opposing anti-Semitism in all its forms, but refusing to allow the term to be manipulated as a shield for apartheid, ethnic cleansing and colonial domination. It means affirming that Jewish safety must never come at the price of Palestinian freedom, and that Palestinian resistance is not hatred; it is survival.
And if Einstein would be silenced today, who will speak tomorrow?
It’s been more than six years since Ali Hassan Ali Bakhtiyan was released from a secret prison in eastern Yemen’s Hadramout Governorate, but he cannot forget the horrors he underwent during his more than two years in detention.
“It was a very bitter and extremely painful experience,” the 30-year-old man said, adding he was lodged inside the secret prison run by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and local Yemeni troops called the Hadrami Elite Forces (HEF) inside Hadramout’s Presidential Palace.
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“They stripped me naked and used cold water. I was interrogated first by members of the Hadrami Elite Forces, then they handed me to the Emiratis officers,” Ali told Al Jazeera over the phone, saying he was detained twice – first in 2016 and then again in 2017.
The prison, Ali says, was not even suitable for animals. “Closed, dark rooms, hands tied and blindfolded. Twenty days went by without a chance to clean your body. They used physical and body torture, solitary confinement several times, beating many times,” Ali recalls.
The 30-year-old says he was first detained following a bomb blast in Hadramout. “I was falsely accused of being a member of the Islah Party,” he said, denying he was a member of the party, which is the main opposition party in Yemen. The country’s Muslim Brotherhood also falls under its umbrella.
“I do not have any affiliation with any political party. Even the interrogator later told me, ‘I have nothing against you, but the Emiratis wanted you,’” Ali said.
In 2019, he was transferred to the central prison in Hadramout and appeared before a judge, following which, he was released without charge.
UAE secret prisons
Ali’s case and many other prisoners have come under the spotlight again after Hadramout Governor Salem al-Khanbashi on Monday announced the discovery of “secret prisons at sites where UAE forces were stationed”.
The governor “expressed his regret at what was found inside the UAE bases and camps – especially in the vicinity of Rayyan International Airport – of equipment and contents unrelated to regular armies, including explosives, detonators and dangerous components usually used by terrorist groups, in addition to the discovery of secret prisons at those forces’ deployment sites,” according to the state-run Yemeni News Agency (SABA).
The UAE forces withdrew from Yemen on January 3 after Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) chairman Rashad al-Alimi annulled a joint defence agreement with Abu Dhabi and asked UAE forces to leave within 24 hours.
This came after the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces took control of Hadramout and al-Mahrah provinces in early December. The STC control of Hadramout, which borders Saudi Arabia, was seen as a national security threat by Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia-led coalition forces bombed Mukalla, the capital of Hadramout, targeting what Riyadh said was a UAE-linked weapons shipment destined for the STC. Soon, government forces, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, regained the two provinces in early January, triggering the collapse of the STC. The UAE denied supplying weapons to the southern separatists.
Deputy Governor of Hadramout al-Jilani told Al Jazeera that “four illegal detention sites” affiliated with UAE forces in the governorate had been “identified”.
“Such practices are a blatant violation of the Yemeni constitution, applicable laws, and all international and humanitarian charters and agreements that criminalise detention outside the judicial framework,” he said, adding that local authorities in the governorate will carry out comprehensive and transparent investigations and hear the testimonies of victims and witnesses to gather evidence to hold those responsible accountable.
In the meantime, the UAE’s Ministry of Defence issued a statement categorically denying the accusations, describing them as “false and misleading allegations and claims that are not based on any evidence or fact”.
“These allegations are attempts to mislead the public opinion and to defame the armed forces of the United Arab Emirates, the statement read.
Shocking scenes
The government’s National Commission to Investigate Alleged Violations of Human Rights (NCIAVHR) has been tasked with investigating the cases of torture in prisons. Officials from the body have visited prisons and are speaking with victims.
”The secret detention centres were in state institutions and service facilities, such as al-Rayyan Airport [in Mukalla], the Republican Palace, al-Dhabba Port, and the central prison known as ‘Al-Manoura Prison’,” committee member Ishraq Al-Maqtari told Al Jazeera, adding that Emirati forces had converted them into private, secret detention centres after adding some inhumane modifications.
“Most of the modifications included building very small, extremely narrow rooms unfit for human detention, some far from public life in the desert, and some of them were constructed underground,” she said.
Al-Maqtari further described that detention centres were built with “punitive specifications, such that a detainee could not stand in them even for short periods, let alone attempt to sit or sleep”.
“Some rooms were also used as presses for torture, where a person is held for very long periods, even though they are unfit to remain in for a few hours,” she told Al Jazeera.
Justice and accountability
Since the UAE forces withdrew, protests have been regularly held demanding disclosure of the fate of hundreds of abducted and forcibly disappeared people in UAE prisons, particularly in the interim capital, Aden.
The NCIAVHR has said it will head to other governorates where secret detention facilities have been reported, including in the Socotra Archipelago governorate, Aden, Lahj, Taiz and Al Hodeidah.
NCIAVHR member al-Maqtari, who has been meeting victims and their families, says “they demanded the need to hold accountable the bodies and individuals who detained and tortured them, along with restoring their dignity and compensating them for the horrific, inhumane torture and humiliations they were subjected to.”
