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Teaching international law has always required disciplined idealism. For those of us in the academy who reject the conceit of a benign American imperial order, it is an exercise in professional candour. One must teach rules while explaining, without euphemism, that the most powerful states do not feel bound by them and no longer bother to conceal it.

Consider the present moment. The President of the United States can announce designs on foreign territory such as Greenland not through treaty, referendum, or any lawful process, but by blunt invocation of “US interests,” accompanied by the warning that force remains available if persuasion fails. He can order the seizure of a sitting foreign head of state, Nicolás Maduro, from Venezuelan territory and then publicly boast that Venezuela’s oil will be redirected for American benefit. This has long been the practice of the United States in substance, but no previous president has been so candid about the premise. Donald Trump has stated openly that he does not consider himself bound by international law, that the only constraint on American power is his own sense of morality, a position he articulated on January 8 in an interview with the New York Times. What earlier administrations cloaked in the language of norms, necessity, or exceptionalism, he dispenses with altogether.

Intellectual honesty in the academy requires that this be taught for what it is: an explicit threat and a completed act of aggression, the very offence defined at Nuremberg as the supreme international crime. On that standard, Donald Trump is no less answerable in The Hague than Vladimir Putin, and no less than Western leaders such as George W Bush and Tony Blair should have been for the invasion of Iraq. This is not subtle. It is not a matter of contested interpretation. It is classical aggression and coercion, unembellished and undisguised, stripped of even the pretence of diplomatic restraint.

Yet much of the American mainstream media and pundit class does not describe such conduct for what it plainly is: a clear and unambiguous violation of international law. Instead, the debate is displaced. The question posed is not legality but prudence. Will this alienate allies? Is it strategically wise? Law disappears, replaced by a technocratic discussion of optics. When legality becomes a footnote to strategy, the legal order is debased.

READ: ICC rejects Israel’s appeal as arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant remain in force

The indulgence is selectively dispensed. The two most militarily assertive powers, the United States and Russia, employ force with a settled expectation that nothing consequential will follow. When American aggression is at issue, condemnation is typically muted or purely ceremonial. Accountability exists largely as abstraction. The lesson conveyed to students is unmistakable. Power confers immunity.

Nowhere is this starker than in the treatment of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Genocide is not assessed on the basis of legal definition or evidentiary threshold, but on political permission. If the United States does not wish the word to be used, it becomes unsayable. Language itself is subject to veto. This is not law. It is deference, fear, and self-interest masquerading as restraint.

European governments, meanwhile, are preoccupied with their own security anxieties and therefore reluctant to challenge Washington’s vision of the world. Their caution is understandable. Their silence is not. In moral terms, they have yet to escape the gravitational pull of their colonial pasts. The suffering of Palestinians is viewed through a different lens from that applied to Ukrainians, not because of scale or intensity, but because of race, proximity, and historical comfort. The disparity is glaring.

To sustain this imbalance, Western governments have inverted reality itself. A Zionist settler colonial project is presented as a liberal democracy, while every rule governing occupation, self-determination, and proportionality is bent or ignored. Words are redefined. Violence is reclassified. Victims are rendered abstract.

READ: UN chief warns of referring Israel to International Court of Justice over UNRWA

The same indifference is evident in the United States’ violations of the UN Headquarters Agreement through the denial of visas to officials it disfavors. These are not technical breaches. They strike at the basic functioning of the international system. Yet there is no meaningful pushback. The international community absorbs the insult and moves on.

Nor is this confined to the use of force. The United States has unilaterally torn through trade agreements, destabilising the global trading regime it once championed. But trade disputes, serious as they are, pale beside the ultimate crimes. Aggression, genocide, apartheid and crimes against humanity are not marginal infractions. They are the apex offences of the international legal order. Yet the lesson delivered by practice is stark. When committed by the powerful or their allies, nothing follows.

This is the intellectual terrain on which international law must now be taught. Students are not naïve. They see the contradiction. They understand that rules proclaimed as universal are enforced selectively, if at all. The challenge for the teacher is not to sell illusions, but to explain why law still matters when its breach carries so little consequence.

International law today stands exposed as moribund. It survives less as a constraint on power than as a record of its abuse. Teaching it honestly requires acknowledging that the system was never designed to discipline empires, only to civilise their language. That is a bleak conclusion. It is also preferable to a dishonest syllabus.

If international law is to command authority, it will not come through pious reaffirmations by those who violate it most frequently. It will come through the insistence that legality is not contingent on alliance, race, or convenience. Until then, teaching international law remains a demanding exercise in explaining not only what the law says, but why it is so often ignored by those who wrote it.

OPINION: Never again, except for Palestinians: The moral realignment

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

In just 17 days, protests in Iran which began over the economy have snowballed into its worst unrest in years. Tehran says violence has been fomented by foreign powers, while Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened US military action. Here’s how we reached this point.

Caracas, January 14, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Two Venezuela-bound China-flagged oil supertankers have made U-turns in the Atlantic amidst a US-imposed naval blockade against the Caribbean country.

According to Reuters, the very large crude carriers (VLCC) Xingye and Thousand Sunny were headed Venezuela to load crude cargoes. The ships, which had made several trips to Venezuela in recent years, were anchored for weeks before turning back. China was the main destination of Venezuelan crude in recent years, with part of the cargoes used to offset debt.

The aborted shipments came in the wake of the Trump administration’s claims to take control of Venezuelan oil sales. US forces bombed Caracas and surrounding areas on January 3 and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

Since December, the US has also seized five oil tankers for allegedly carrying Venezuelan crude as its navy set up a blockade aimed at strangling Venezuela’s most important revenue source and strong-arming the government.

US officials have reportedly filed “dozens” of court warrants to seize tankers allegedly involved in transporting Venezuelan oil.

Senior Trump administration officials, including Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, have claimed that revenues from Venezuelan oil sales will be deposited in accounts run by the US government. 

The agreement is set to begin with 30-50 million barrels that Venezuela had in storage as a result of the naval blockade, though White House officials have claimed it will extend for an indefinite period. Washington issued an executive order last week shielding Venezuelan oil proceeds in US accounts from creditors.

US President Donald Trump held a meeting with Western oil executives on Friday, urging investment in Venezuela’s oil sector and vowing that corporations will “deal” with the US directly, rather than Venezuelan authorities. Energy companies have been reluctant to pledge any major commitments to Venezuela.

Commodities traders Vitol and Trafigura have received licenses to transport Venezuelan crude and have reportedly begun moving it to Caribbean storage hubs ahead of exports to final destinations. According to reports, the two firms have transported a combined 4.8 million barrels of Venezuela’s Merey 16 blend and have offered them to customers in the US, India and China with an $8.50 discount per barrel compared to ICE Brent.

US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have claimed that US-controlled Venezuelan oil revenues will only be used for imports from US manufacturers, including inputs for the energy sector and the electric grid. Vitol is set to deliver 460,000 barrels of US-sourced naphtha to Venezuela in the coming days, as reported by Argus Media. Caracas requires diluents such as naphtha to turn its extra-heavy crude into exportable blends, and the first Trump administration imposed sanctions on their purchase from US suppliers in 2019.

The Venezuelan government has not commented on the specifics of the new arrangement for oil sales. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez said the country remains committed to “diversified economic and geopolitical relations.” Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA has confirmed “negotiations” to ship crude cargoes to the US.

For its part, Russia’s Roszarubezhneft stated that it will not relinquish its assets in Venezuela. The state-owned company is a minority partner in multiple joint ventures with PDVSA, including crude upgrader Petromonagas. Roszarubezhneft took over from Rosneft after the latter was hit with US secondary sanctions in 2020.

Venezuela’s oil industry has been under US unilateral coercive measures since 2017. The US Treasury Department has targeted the oil sector with financial sanctions, an export embargo, secondary sanctions, and a bevy of other measures that aimed to choke off Venezuela’s most important income source.

Washington’s recent naval blockade likewise had an immediate impact on production as PDVSA began to run out of storage space, including offshore. The latest OPEC monthly report recorded Venezuela’s December output at 896,000 barrels per day (bpd), as measured by secondary sources. The figure is 60,000 bpd lower than the previous month’s.

For its part, PDVSA reported a smaller decline, from 1.14 to 1.12 million bpd. Direct and secondary data have slightly differed over the years due to disagreements over the inclusion of natural gas liquids and condensates.

The Venezuelan state oil company has begun reactivating wells that were shut down as a consequence of the US blockade, according to Reuters.

A protester who was shot in the face with a non-lethal round has been blinded in one eye and suffered skull fractures. Demonstrators had gathered outside an immigration service building in California when federal police opened fire at close range with paintball style weapons.

United States President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East has announced the launch of the second phase of a US-brokered plan to end Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Steve Witkoff said in a social media post on Wednesday that Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan is “moving from ceasefire to demilitarization, technocratic governance, and reconstruction”.

The second phase will establish a transitional administration to govern over the bombarded Palestinian territory and the “full demilitarization and reconstruction of Gaza”, Witkoff said.

“The US expects Hamas to comply fully with its obligations, including the immediate return of the final deceased hostage. Failure to do so will bring serious consequences,” he said.

Israel has violated the US-brokered ceasefire nearly 1,200 times since it came into effect in October, killing more than 400 Palestinians and blocking critical humanitarian aid from entering the enclave.

More to come…

Shaun Wane has stepped down from his position as England coach, nine months before the Rugby League World Cup.

Former Wigan coach Wane, who succeeded Wayne Bennett in February 2020, was in charge for a home World Cup in 2022. England were knocked out in the semi-finals, losing to Samoa in golden-point extra time.

England won home series against Tonga and Samoa in the following two years but then lost all three Ashes Tests to Australia on home soil last autumn.

After that series defeat, Wane said there was “no question” that he was the right person to lead his nation into the 2026 World Cup.

England’s opening pool match at the tournament is against Tonga in Perth on 17 October, with games against France and Papua New Guinea to follow.

More to follow.

“Somaliland, Puntland, Jubaland, all of them had some level of support from UAE.” Somalia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs told Al Jazeera that “external elements” are responsible for separatist divisions his country faces.

A U.S. plane with a civilian-style outward appearance and the ability to launch munitions from within its fuselage carried out the first controversial strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat, according to multiple reports. Questions have been raised about this line of reporting. However, there are very real discreet munition launch options available for aircraft that can retain a distinctly civilian outward appearance, enabled heavily by one specific system called the Common Launch Tube (CLT).

The New York Times was first to report yesterday on the use of the civilian-looking aircraft, which it also described as a “secret” capability, in the strike on the boat in the Caribbean Sea on September 2, 2025, citing anonymous sources. The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal published additional reports today, again citing unnamed sources, on the involvement of this as-yet unidentified plane.

“It is not clear what the aircraft was. While multiple officials confirmed that it was not painted in a classic military style, they declined to specify exactly what it looked like,” according to the story from the Times. “The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage, rather than visibly under its wings, they said.”

“Its transponder was transmitting a military tail number, meaning broadcasting or ‘squawking’ its military identity via radio signals,” that report added.

It was “a secretive military aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane,” according to the Post‘s report. “The munitions were fired from a launch tube that allows them to be carried inside the plane, not mounted outside on the wing.”

“The Pentagon has told lawmakers that it chose an aircraft painted in civilian colors to carry out a lethal Sept. 2 strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean because the unit could be the quickest ready for the operation,” per the Journal. That report also included statements from the Pentagon and the White House that did not expressly confirm or deny the use of a civilian-looking plane.

All three pieces discuss whether the use of an armed aircraft with a civilian-style appearance may have violated international law in this instance, something that remains very much open for debate. The September 2 strike, which killed 11 people, has already been a subject of particular controversy over the decision to hit the boat twice, and whether doing so constituted a crime. Since then, the U.S. military has attacked dozens of boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific Ocean, all alleged to be involved in drug smuggling, and this campaign has faced intense legal scrutiny and criticism. MQ-9 Reaper drones and AC-130J Ghostrider gunships are known to have participated in those subsequent attacks.

Much debate had already erupted about the details in The New York Times‘ piece after it was initially published. Many questioned whether the unnamed sources may have been confused about the aircraft in question and/or its appearance. Around the time of the September 2 strike, online flight tracking data had shown a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol plane in the area, which is primarily painted white rather than a more typical military gray and is based on a version of the Boeing 737 airliner. P-8As can carry munitions in an internal bay in the rear of the fuselage, as well as under their wings. It may potentially have the ability to dispense small munitions from inside the fuselage. We will come back to all of this later on. The Navy, as well as the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Marine Corps, fly a number of other variations of the 737, primarily as transports, under the C-40 designation.

A truly secretive 737 with a civilian-type paint scheme is said to have been in the general area at the time of the strike, but is not known to be armed in any way, although that means little in this case. This particular aircraft, which is covered in unusual antennas, currently has the U.S. civil registration number N235JF. The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) public database shows the jet has been registered to “GWP LLC TRUSTEE”, which looks to be a shell company, since 2023, but it has been linked to the U.S. military since then. It notably appeared last year directly alongside one of the U.S. Air Force’s AC-130Js and a Navy P-8A at a known U.S. forward operating location in El Salvador.

One of the U.S. Air Force’s P-9A surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, also referred to by the nickname Pale Ale, is said to have been in the vicinity, as well. The P-9As wear overall white paint schemes and carry civilian registration numbers. They are based on the de Havilland Canada DHC-8 (or Dash-8), versions of which are also in service as airliners. They are also not known to be capable of employing munitions.

It’s HIGHLY likely that a P-8 was mistaken as a civilian paint job, as one was out on the day in question and likely was involved in the strike. P-8s historically also go very close to the water, and its not uncommon for them to be mistaken as 737s: https://t.co/b9spRbqKHC pic.twitter.com/KNb4NEDOYN

— TieDye Intel (@TieDyeIntel) January 13, 2026

What other aircraft may have been present during the strike on September 2 last year is unknown. Not all aircraft that are flying at any one time, civilian and especially military, are visible via online flight tracking sites.

What we do know is that companies in the United States openly offer ways to discreetly arm a host of crewed fixed-wing aircraft, especially smaller turboprop-powered types, with precision-guided munitions. All of this has been made easier by the advent of the aforementioned CLT. Each one of these tubes can accommodate payloads up to 42 inches in length and 5.95 inches in diameter, and that weigh up to 100 pounds. Payloads can be fired forward or ejected backward, depending on their design. GBU-44/B Viper Strike and GBU-69/B Small Glide Munition (SGM) glide bombs, AGM-176 Griffin missiles, and ALTIUS 600 drones are just a few of the payloads known to be launchable via CLT. The tube’s flexibility makes it extremely probable that even more options exist in the classified realm.

It is worth noting here that The Washington Post previously reported that the September 2 boat strike involved the use of GBU-69s and AGM-176s. The P-8A is not known to be capable of employing either of these munitions, lending further credence to the new reporting that another aircraft was used, though not necessarily to it having had a civilian-like appearance. In the past, TWZ has laid out a case for turning the Poseidon into a multi-role arsenal ship with CLT launchers and other capabilities.

Originally developed by Systima Technologies, which was acquired by Karman Missile & Space Systems in 2021, CLTs have been in U.S. service for years now. Munitions launched via CLTs are part of the armament package for the AC-130J Ghostrider gunships, and this had also been a feature on the now-retired AC-130W Stinger IIs. The U.S. Marine Corps’ Harvest Hawk armament kit for its KC-130J tanker-transports also includes a CLT launch system. U.S. MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones are also capable of employing payloads via CLT using launchers loaded on pylons under their wings. As mentioned earlier, AC-130s and MQ-9s are among the aircraft known to have been involved in strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats since September 2 of last year.

The CLT’s diminutive size opens up a host of options for launching whatever payload is inside from somewhere within the internal structure of a wide swath of aircraft. Launchers can be readily set up to fire through parts of the fuselage. AC-130Js have an array of CLT launchers built into the upper portion of the aircraft’s rear cargo ramp. The latest iteration of the Marine’s Harvest Hawk kit has a so-called “Derringer Door” with two launchers that replaces one of he rear paratrooper doors on the KC-130J. This took the place of a launch system strapped to the aircraft’s rear cargo ramp, which had to be open for it to be employed, found on earlier iterations of Haverst Hawk.

Internal CLT launcher arrays are known to be available for Dash-8s and Cessna Model 208 Caravan fixed-wing aircraft, as well as MD Helicopters’ Explorer series helicopters, among many other types. The Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) losing entry in the Air Force’s Armed Overwatch competition was a heavily modified version of the Polish PZL M28 Skytruck, dubbed the MC-145B Wily Coyote, which would have come with eight CLT launchers in its main cargo bay, among other features, as you can read more about here.

Generally speaking, they could be adapted to fit onto pretty much any aircraft large enough to accommodate them, and do so in a very discreet way, only needing a small aperture for their weapons to exist the aircraft from.

CLT launchers mounted internally are typically reloadable in flight, offering magazine depth benefits and giving the crew more flexibility to select the most appropriate payload for the task at hand, as well as to just launch multiple payloads in relatively rapid succession. With launchers built into doors, it is also easier to add or remove this capability, as desired. This, in turn, can enhance its discreet nature, as the launchers might only be installed right before a mission and removed immediately afterward. In this way, there could be little to no obvious outward signs that an aircraft has this capability during routine movements or other day-to-day activities.

Launch systems built into certain parts of an aircraft might not even be readily apparent, to begin with. One company, Fulcrum Concepts, openly offers a launch system compatible with the CLT that fits into the rear of the engine nacelles on variants of the Beechcraft King Air, which is something the U.S. military has at least tested in the past.

Within the U.S. military, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) publicly operates various fixed-wing aircraft, such as its U-28A Dracos and C-146A Wolfhounds. The U-28As are intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft, while the C-146s are light transports. AFSOC has also flown ISR-configured variants of the Beechcraft King Air over the years. Any of these types would be well-suited to these kinds of discreet CLT launcher installations on account of the space available in their main cabins. It’s highly probable that this is an option for some of them already. These planes also often have minimal U.S. military markings. Sometimes they wear civilian-type paint schemes, as is notably the case with the Wolfhounds today and has been observed on U-28s, or related types in U.S. service, in the past.

There are even more secretive aircraft in service in the classified ends of the U.S. special operations world, and with the U.S. Intelligence Community that could align with the descriptions found in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal stories, which might have a discreet ability to employ munitions, especially via internally-mounted CLTs. Covert and clandestine strike capabilities would also be well in line with the missions that those aviation elements are often tasked to carry out. On the military side, many of those aircraft are tied to the secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which was involved in the September 2 strike.

All this being said, we still do not have anywhere near enough information to identify the aircraft referenced in the recent reports. At the same time, the versatility of the CLT means that essentially any aircraft can be converted to a strike platform that can be armed with small and highly accurate precision munitions capable, including ones capable of hitting targets on the move. Unassuming aircraft equipped in this way, and with liveries atypical of what is usually seen on military types, would be able to get even closer to their objectives with much less chance of raising suspicions. Equipping transport and/or corporate aircraft, and especially one like a 737 with its jet speeds and long-range, in such a way could allow it to strike, even by executing the preverbal ‘hammer toss’ as it flies over a target, while hiding in plain sight, potentially anywhere commercial aircraft can fly.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

For years, the Navy has essentially ignored the issues associated with rusting ships, said the man officially tasked with fixing the problem. However, it became a priority in February 2025 after President Donald Trump saw a picture of the Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer USS Dewey covered in “running rust” as it pulled into Singapore last year. You can read more about that in our original story here. The Navy’s chronic rust issue and the negative optics surrounding it is a topic we have been covering for nearly a decade.

“We know what to do, but we choose not to do it,” Mark Lattner, director of the Navy’s Ship Integrity and Performance Engineering, Naval Systems Engineering Directorate, said during a panel at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium on Tuesday that TWZ attended. “And we choose not to do it because there’s always some other problem I’ve got to fix. I don’t have time. Our corrosion can wait. And so we don’t implement the fixes.”

Finding a solution to the Navy’s rust problem became one of Lattner’s main missions in the wake of the fallout from Trump’s late-night texts to Navy officials demanding answers.

While it can make ships look like “rusting garbage scows,” Lattner noted, this issue isn’t just a matter of aesthetics. Unaddressed rust and corrosion on Navy ships has downstream effects on maintenance and readiness.

Some of the solutions are “simple,” Lattner suggested, like wider use of polysiloxane paint, “originally developed as an anti-graffiti paint, very robust, very good paint, easy to clean.”

“It might be as simple as putting a good scupper on the ship, diverting the water away from the ship,” Lattner said of the drain openings on a vessel’s bulwark. “If we can use materials that are inherently less prone to rust, that’s great. That includes composites, includes stainless steel, other things like that.”

Reducing the work load of sailors and the margin for error is another solution.

“How do we make it more sailor friendly, things like single pack paints, right?” Lattner noted. “Sailors mix multiple components together. There’s always inherent things that could go wrong. If you use a single pack thing, they break the pack open, they mix it together. They’re good to go. Try and take away work from the sailors.”

Having sailors do more rust-preventative maintenance themselves will also help.

“Don’t just cover up the rest by painting it over again,” Lattner stated. “Just tell the sailor to go and clean it off. And we’ve got special cleaners that make it easier to clean it.”

After being asked by the Chief of Naval Operations how be knows he is getting a handle on the problem, Lattner answered that there is a new evaluation process.

“We’ve identified ways to input the data and go around and survey the ship so we actually know what’s going on with the ships,” he said. “In this particular thing, we developed an app that you use on your phone, and so when the TYCOMS walk around and inspect the ships, they can actually kind of check off, ‘yeah, this looks good. This doesn’t look good. This needs improvement.’”

“The ships come up with a grade,” Lattner added. “One of the things we did, rather than make it just qualitative, we actually give them a quantitative number. So I can actually say this is how good ships are.”

There are also improvements in training underway, with teams teaching sailors the best and easiest ways to paint ships.

“These guys are experts,” said Lattner. “They bring the technology, the tools, all the things that are holding sailors back from being able to do the job properly.”

Teams of contractors are helping to do some of the work that sailors can’t, something that is key given how the Navy avoids keeping ships offline for extended periods of time.

These teams “go in there and actually execute the corrosion control work  They’ll install the things like the scuppers. They’ll put on the films. They’ll do some preservation. They’ll do cleaning, getting the ships better. And what we’re doing is not trying to eat the elephant all at once, but one bite at a time, right?”

Some of the solutions go beyond what the Navy can do on its own, Lattner pointed out. Industry has a big role to play too.

“They can help actually do the preservation work. They can help do the development of technology. Even though we have a lot of good technology, and we know what we can do, we’re always looking for better ideas. Are there better ways to do preservation? Are there better ways to remove the old paint? Are there more robust solutions that we can implement?”

Lattner also seeks changes in future ship designs that will reduce rust and corrosion and improve the ease of maintenance.

Even if all these solutions are implemented, the Navy will never have the same kind of shiny ships that cruise lines do.

For instance, Carnival Cruise Line is “constantly touching things up,” Lattner proffered. “They swarm the ship when it gets back in, touching things up, keeping things up to speed. When they do [maintenance in port] availabilities, their availabilities are very tight, right? They’re short. They’ll, they’ll never use a company again if they don’t meet those, those timelines.”

The Navy does not have that luxury.

“We in the Navy are unfortunately kinder and gentler, right?” Lattner postulated. “So right, wrong or indifferent. I’m more tolerant. The longer I wait between different evolutions, the more likely things are going to go south, right? And we’ll have to work with that, right? There’s no great solution.”

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

Washington’s threats to seize the strategic island have sparked a crisis among NATO states.

France is preparing to open a consulate in Greenland next month in a move that it says reflects the semiautonomous island’s desire to remain part of Denmark and the European Union.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told the broadcaster RTL on Wednesday that the opening of the consulate in the self-governed Danish territory, scheduled for February 6, is a “political signal” amid the ongoing threats from United States President Donald Trump to take control of the island.

“It’s a political signal that’s associated with a desire to be more present in Greenland, including in the scientific field,” Barrot said.

“Greenland does not want to be owned, governed … or integrated into the United States. Greenland has made the choice of Denmark, NATO, [European] Union.”

The French foreign minister’s comments came as his Danish and Greenlandic counterparts, Lars Lokke Rasmussen and Vivian Motzfeldt, were due to meet US Vice President JD Vance in Washington, DC, to discuss the island.

Trump’s repeated statements that the Arctic territory will be brought under US control “one way or another” have created a crisis inside NATO.

European allies have warned that any takeover of the island would have serious repercussions for the relationship between the US and Europe.

Trump has said the US needs Greenland, where Washington has long maintained military bases, due to the threat of a takeover posed by Russia and China. He claims that Denmark has neglected the territory’s security.

It’s also noted that Greenland has significant mineral riches, including oil and gas as well as rare earths needed for technological products.

Denmark’s defence minister said on Wednesday that it plans to “strengthen” its military presence in Greenland and was in dialogue with its allies in NATO.

“We will continue to strengthen our military presence in Greenland, but we will also have an even greater focus within NATO on more exercises and an increased NATO presence in the Arctic,” Troels Lund Poulsen wrote in a statement to the AFP news agency.

‘Big problem’

Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said on Tuesday that the territory wanted to remain part of Denmark rather than join the US.

“We are now facing a geopolitical crisis, and if we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark,” he said at a news conference in Copenhagen.

Asked about Nielsen’s comments, Trump responded: “I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know anything about him. But that’s going to be a big problem for him.”

The US president’s aggressive rhetoric continues to provoke pledges of support for Denmark and Greenland from other NATO nations.

Barrot said the decision to open the consulate was taken in the summer when President Emmanuel Macron visited Greenland in a show of support. Barrot said he had visited the island in August to make plans for the consulate.

Special rapporteur says Israel’s nonresponse to the growing crisis reflects its attitude towards Palestinians.

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine, has accused Israel of treating Palestinian lives as “expendable”, linking the “hellish” impact of a deadly winter storm in Gaza directly to the deliberate destruction of the enclave’s infrastructure.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Arabic on Tuesday as a deep weather depression pummelled the Gaza Strip, killing at least seven children, Albanese said the weather disaster had exposed the depth of Israel’s disregard for civilian survival.

“It is shocking even for me sitting far away. … Their lives seem like hell,” Albanese said, reacting to testimonies of families sitting in mud and darkness as their makeshift shelters collapsed.

“We hear of family members … searching for relatives buried under rubble because damaged buildings collapsed on top of them due to the intensity of the rain.”

A ‘man-made’ vulnerability

While the storm is a natural event, humanitarian officials argued its lethality is political.

James Elder, a spokesperson for UNICEF currently in Gaza City, confirmed that seven children had died as a result of cold temperatures. He stressed that these children did not die merely from the cold but also because a “man-made shortage” of food and medicine has left them with zero resilience.

“Children aged two or three have severely weakened immune systems,” Elder told Al Jazeera, describing the situation as “extreme misery”.

“We are talking about layers upon layers of rejection [of aid],” he added, noting that Israel continues to block the entry of cooking gas and fuel needed for heating, leaving families defenceless against winds that weather experts said exceeded 100 kilometres per hour (60 miles per hour).

‘Expendable lives’

When asked about the lack of humanitarian response and Israel’s move to cut ties with UN agencies during such a crisis, Albanese was blunt.

“Israel generally does not care about Palestinian lives. On the contrary, it finds them expendable and [believes they] can be destroyed,” she said.

She argued that the international community is complicit by focusing on other global conflicts while ignoring the “genocide” that has left Gaza’s population exposed to the elements without homes, electricity or drainage systems.

“What more do we need to see? What have we not seen yet?” she asked.

Call for arms embargo

Albanese insisted that sending aid, which is often blocked, is no longer a sufficient response to such catastrophes. She called for immediate punitive measures against Israel to force a change in its policy.

“States must cut trade ties, impose an embargo on arms exports and stop normal dealings with Israel,” she told Al Jazeera.

She emphasised that the “starting point” for any solution must be the International Court of Justice advisory opinion ordering the dismantling of the occupation rather than political plans that ignore the reality on the ground.

‘Winds like a tropical storm’

The vulnerability of the population was highlighted by Khaled Saleh, a senior weather presenter at Al Jazeera.

He explained that the depression brought polar winds reaching speeds typically associated with tropical storms.

“These winds can uproot trees, … so imagine what they do to worn-out tents,” Saleh said, noting that the lack of infrastructure meant water had nowhere to go but into the shelters of displaced Palestinians.

Al Jazeera gained access to an extensive network of tunnels in the Sheikh Maqsoud area of Aleppo, built by fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces. Government security forces have been searching the passages following the SDF’s withdrawal, and Bernard Smith has been inside.

The International Court of Justice is deciding if Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya in 2017 military crackdown.

An international court case accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against its mostly Muslim Rohingya minority is “flawed and unfounded”, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says.

In a statement published by state media on Wednesday, Myanmar’s military government hit out at the genocide case, which has been brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands, by The Gambia.

“The allegations made by The Gambia are flawed and unfounded in fact and law,” the Foreign Ministry said.

“Biased reports, based on unreliable evidence, cannot make up for truth,” it said.

Myanmar’s military rulers, who seized power in 2021, are cooperating with the ICJ case “in good faith” in a sign of respect for international law, the statement added.

The Gambia filed the case against Myanmar at the ICJ, also known as the World Court, in 2019, two years after the country’s military launched an offensive that forced about 750,000 Rohingya from their homes, mostly into neighbouring Bangladesh.

Survivors of the military operation recounted mass killings, rapes and arson attacks. Today, about 1.17 million Rohingya live crammed into dilapidated refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.

On the opening day of the trial on Monday, Gambian Justice Minister Dawda Jallow told the court the Rohingya “have been targeted for destruction” in Myanmar.

Lawyers for military-ruled Myanmar will begin their court response on Friday.

Included ‘genocidal acts’

The trial is the first genocide case the ICJ has taken up in full in more than a decade, and its outcome will have repercussions beyond Myanmar, likely affecting South Africa’s petition against Israel over its genocidal war in Gaza. The hearings will span three weeks.

The human rights chief of the United Nations at the time of the crackdown in Myanmar called it a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”, and a UN fact-finding mission concluded that the military’s 2017 offensive had included “genocidal acts”. But authorities in Myanmar rejected the report, claiming its military offensive was a legitimate counterterrorism campaign in response to attacks by Rohingya armed groups.

Wednesday’s statement by Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry did not use the word Rohingya, instead referring to “persons from Rakhine state”.

The Rohingya are not recognised as an official minority in Myanmar, which denies them citizenship despite many having roots in the country stretching back centuries.

A final decision in the Rohingya genocide case could take months or even years, and while the ICJ has no means of enforcing its decisions, a ruling in favour of The Gambia would likely place more political pressure on Myanmar.

The Southeast Asian nation is currently holding phased elections that have been criticised by the UN, some Western countries and human rights groups as neither free nor fair.

On January 3, 2026, the United States did not merely bomb a sovereign country and capture its president. It displayed, in the most unambiguous terms, a total defiance of the post-War international order that it helped create. When US special forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and National Assembly deputy Cilia Flores from Caracas and transported them to a Brooklyn jail, they did not simply violate Venezuelan sovereignty. They declared that sovereignty itself, for any nation that refuses subordination to US imperialism, holds no weight.

As Nicolás Maduro Guerra, the president’s son, stated before Venezuela’s National Assembly: “If we normalize the kidnapping of a head of state, no country is safe. Today it’s Venezuela. Tomorrow, it could be any nation that refuses to submit.”

The response to this act, regardless of one’s political orientation or views on the Maduro government, will determine whether the concepts of international law, multilateralism, and the self-determination of peoples retain any meaning in the twenty-first century. This is not a question for the left alone. It is a question for every nation, every government, and every citizen who believes that the world should not be governed by the principle that might makes right.

The logic of hyper-imperialism unveiled

What distinguishes the current phase of US foreign policy from earlier periods of intervention is its brazenness. When the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1954, Washington maintained the pretense of responding to communist subversion. When American forces invaded Panama in 1989 to capture Manuel Noriega, the justification was framed within a discourse of law enforcement. The history of US intervention in Latin America spans over forty successful regime changes in slightly less than a century, according to Harvard scholar John Coatsworth.

But Trump’s announcement that the United States would “run” Venezuela represents something qualitatively different. Here there is no pretense. When asked about the operation, Trump invoked the Monroe Doctrine and said that these are called “Donroe Doctrine”, signaling that the Western Hemisphere remains a zone of US dominion – an assertion clearly made in the National Security Strategy launched in November 2025. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s subsequent clarification that the US would merely extract policy changes and oil access did nothing to soften the nakedness of the imperial project.

This represents what we at the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research have identified as “hyper-imperialism”, a dangerous and decadent stage of imperialism. Facing the erosion of its economic and political dominance and the rise of alternative centers of power (mainly in Asia) US imperialism increasingly relies on its uncontested military strength. The Chatham House analysis is unequivocal: this constitutes a significant violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and the UN Charter. There was no Security Council mandate, nor any claims to self-defense.

The post-1945 international order established the formal principle that states possess sovereign equality and that force against another state’s territorial integrity is prohibited. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter was designed precisely to prevent the powerful from treating the world as their domain, which the US has now blatantly ignored.

The test for Global South solidarity

The kidnapping of President Maduro poses an existential question to the discourse of “multipolarity”. While the seeds of a multipolar world order may exist (China’s economic rise, the increasing political assertiveness of Global South countries, BRICS and its expansion, the increasing trade in local currencies) they have proven to be extremely limited in the face of the US unilateral use of force. This is an uncomfortable truth.

The initial responses from governments suggest the difficulty of moving from rhetorical condemnation to material constraint. Brazilian President Lula correctly identified the stakes when he condemned the capture as crossing “an unacceptable line” and warned that “attacking countries, in flagrant violation of international law, is the first step toward a world of violence, chaos, and instability”. Colombian President Petro rejected “the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and of Latin America.” Mexico’s President Sheinbaum declared that “the Americas do not belong to any doctrine or any power.” China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi condemned US military intervention and called for the release of President Maduro, saying that, “We don’t believe that any country can act as the world’s police.”

The groundswell of opposition confronts a structural problem: the institutions designed to prevent such actions are incapable of constraining the permanent members of the Security Council. The United States can veto any resolution condemning its behavior. The emergency Security Council meeting convened at the request of Venezuela and Colombia produced denunciations but no enforcement mechanism.

Every government that has sought to develop independently, that has attempted to control its own natural resources, that has resisted subordination to Washington, must recognize that what has happened in Venezuela could happen to them. Trump’s threats against Cuba and Colombia underscore this point.

Sovereignty, resources, and the right to self-determination

The pattern is well established with the successive overthrowing of heads of states when they tried to implement land reform like Árbenz in Guatemala, nationalize national resources under Allende in Chile and Mosaddegh in Iran. The thread continues to the present situation in Venezuela.

Venezuela possesses the world’s largest proven oil reserves, estimated at 303 billion barrels. Trump made no effort to disguise the centrality of oil, announcing that American companies would rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry and the US would be “selling oil, probably in much larger doses”. The maritime blockade preceding the military operation served the explicit purpose of strangling the country economically.

Yet the entire trajectory of the US Venezuela policy since 2001, from funding opposition groups to the 2002 coup attempt, to Operation Gideon in 2020, to the “maximum pressure” sanctions, has been designed to prevent Venezuela from making free choices. The assault accelerated after Venezuela enacted its 2001 Hydrocarbons Law asserting sovereign control over oil resources.

Conclusion

The kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and National Assembly deputy Cilia Flores should compel a fundamental reassessment of the state of the international order. The formal institutions and legal frameworks that were supposed to prevent great power aggression have failed to constrain Washington’s imperialist aggressions. This places an enormous responsibility on the governments and peoples of the Global South. The debates around multipolarity, BRICS, South-South cooperation, and de-dollarization are rendered academic if they do not translate into the practical capacity to impose costs on actions like the invasion of Venezuela. Ultimately, the imperialist aggression against Venezuela has repercussions for governments and peoples around the world, regardless of their ideological orientation or views on the Maduro government. While the real limits of “multipolarity” in this stage of US hyper-imperialism have been laid bare, we must continue building our collective capacity to resist. The defense of Venezuelan people’s sovereignty, after all, is a defense of the sovereignty of all our nations.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

Atul Chandra & Tings Chak are the Coordinators of the Asia Desk at the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Source: Globetrotter

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

The train was travelling from Bangkok to Thailand’s northeast when it derailed after a construction crane fell on to it.

At least 22 people have been killed and around 80 others injured after a construction crane fell on a passenger train in northeast Thailand.

The accident took place on Wednesday morning in the Sikhio district of Nakhon Ratchasima province, 230km (143 miles) northeast of Bangkok. The train was headed from the Thai capital to Ubon Ratchathani province.

Thailand’s Transport Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn in a statement said there were 195 passengers on board and that he had ordered a thorough investigation to be carried out.

Those killed were in two of the three carriages hit by the crane, he said.

Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng, reporting from Bangkok, said the train was reportedly travelling beneath the construction site for a high-speed rail when a crane working overhead collapsed.

“The train then was derailed when it hit that crane and there was a brief fire that ensued,” Cheng said.

“Initial reports said there were only four fatalities. That very quickly jumped to 12 and we now understand from the Thai police who told Al Jazeera that it’s 22 and at this stage they are expecting it to climb,” he said.

The fire has been extinguished and rescue work is now under way, according to local police.

Local resident Mitr Intrpanya, 54, was at the scene when the incident happened.

“At around 9:00 am, I heard a loud noise, like something sliding down from above, followed by two explosions,” Mitr told the AFP news agency.

“When I went to see what had happened, I found the crane sitting on a passenger train with three carriages. The metal from the crane appeared to strike the middle of the second carriage, slicing it in half,” Mitr said.

Al Jazeera’s Cheng says the route that the train was taking is “very commonly used”, serving heavily populated regions of northeastern Thailand.

“This route has been the site of a high speed Chinese rail project, which has been under construction for quite some time now – about a decade,” he said.

“It is supposed to be bringing a high-speed rail which is on a concrete platform above the existing rail line. Pictures that we have seen of the scene seem to show the crane which was working up there, has fallen from these big concrete columns,” he added..

Iran says US seeking to ‘manufacture a pretext for military intervention’, as US President Trump warns of ‘strong action’ over protest crackdown.

The announcement contradicts claims from local rights groups that no more than 70 prisoners have been freed in recent days.

Venezuela’s top lawmaker says more than 400 people have been freed from prison, contradicting claims from rights groups that only between 60 to 70 prisoners have been released in recent days, amid calls for freeing those imprisoned for political reasons.

Jorge Rodriguez, the president of the National Assembly, made the announcement during a parliamentary session on Tuesday.

“The decision to release some prisoners, not political prisoners, but some politicians who had broken the law and violated the Constitution, people who called for invasion, was granted,” Rodriguez told parliament.

He said more than 400 prisoners had been released, but did not provide a specific timeline.

Both Rodriguez and United States President Donald Trump have said that large numbers of prisoners would be freed as a peace gesture following the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3 by US forces.

The release of political prisoners in Venezuela has been a long-running call of rights groups, international bodies and opposition figures.

The Venezuelan government has always denied that it holds people for political reasons and has said it has already released most of the 2,000 people detained after protests over the contested 2024 presidential election.

Human rights groups estimated there are 800 to 1,200 political prisoners in Venezuela and have said that the number of prisoners freed since last week ranges between 60 and 70, and have denounced the slow pace and lack of information surrounding the releases.

Bloomberg News has reported that at least one US citizen was released from prison on Tuesday.

Venezuela’s Ministry of Penitentiary Services said that at least 116 prisoners were released on Monday.

US to control Venezuela’s oil resources

Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado has been one of the leading voices demanding the release of prisoners, some of whom are her close allies.

She is expected to meet with Trump on Thursday in Washington, DC. On the same day, acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez plans to send an envoy to the US capital to meet with senior officials, Bloomberg News reported.

Meanwhile, the US is continuing to take control of oil shipments in and out of Venezuela following its abduction of Maduro.

The US government has filed for court warrants to seize dozens more tanker vessels linked to the Venezuelan oil trade, according to a Reuters report.

The US military and coastguard have already seized five vessels in recent weeks in international waters, which were either carrying Venezuelan oil or had done so in the past.

Trump imposed a naval blockade on Venezuela to prevent US-sanctioned tankers from shipping Venezuelan oil in December, a move that brought the country’s oil exports close to a standstill.

Shipments have now resumed under US supervision, and, as the Trump administration says, it plans to control Venezuela’s oil resources indefinitely.

Former United States president and former secretary of state accuse Republicans of seeking to ‘harass and embarrass’ with probe.

Former United States President Bill Clinton and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have refused a congressional subpoena to testify before a House of Representatives committee as part of an investigation into multi-millionaire financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In a letter on Tuesday, the Clintons accused Republican Representative James Comer of playing political favourites in the investigation, seeking to punish political opponents like them, while shielding allies, including US President Donald Trump.

The Clintons called the subpoena “legally invalid”, adding the investigation by a committee chaired by Comer was “literally designed to result in our imprisonment”.

“We will forcefully defend ourselves,” wrote the couple.

In response, Comer said he will begin contempt of US Congress proceedings against the Clintons, who are Democrats, next week.

The lengthy process would eventually require approval from a full vote of the House. If that were to pass, the Clintons could be prosecuted by the Department of Justice.

“No one’s accusing the Clintons of any wrongdoing,” Comer told reporters on Tuesday. “We just have questions.”

In their letter, the Clintons contended they had already provided all the relevant information they had to the committee, leading them to conclude the subpoena to appear in person was only meant to “harrass and embarrass”.

“We have tried to give you the little information we have. We’ve done so because Mr Epstein’s crimes were horrific,” the Clintons wrote.

Epstein committed suicide in 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges, but speculation has continued to grow over the influential people in the multi-millionaire’s social orbit.

Both Bill Clinton and Trump had documented friendships with Epstein, but have denied knowledge that he trafficked underage girls.

Last year, Congress passed a law requiring the Department of Justice to release all the files related to its investigation into Epstein, but the agency has to date only released a small fraction.

Critics have accused the department of prioritising the release of documents related to Clinton to draw attention away from Trump.

In a letter last week, two lawmakers, Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie, requested that a federal judge appoint a neutral expert to oversee the release of the files.

The pair said they had “urgent and grave concerns” that the Justice Department had failed to comply with the law. They added that they believed that “criminal violations have taken place” in the release process.

Ditching his plans to make digital ID mandatory for workers in the UK is an almighty backtracking and dilution of one of the prime minister’s flagship policy ideas of the autumn.

I remember the first time Sir Keir Starmer talked publicly about his plans, because he was talking to me when he did so.

It was September, and we were sheltering from the pouring rain, in an outside metal stairwell next to a giant ship being built by BAE Systems on the banks of the Clyde in Glasgow.

What he had to say that day was rather overshadowed by the swirling storm around his then Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who 24 hours later was out of a job.

What those around him were describing as “phase 2” of his government was already off to a bumpy start, but digital ID was seen as a defining idea of the parliament that the prime minister could own and then lean into the arguments it provokes with his opponents, within his party and beyond it.

The thing is it provoked a lot of arguments, perhaps more than he had anticipated, including among some Labour MPs.

It was the mandatory element that became the magnet for the stickiest criticisms.

The idea cratered in popularity. It revived so many of the arguments that nuked the last Labour government’s plans for ID cards about two decades ago.

The sense from critics of an overbearing state, a ‘show us your papers’ society.

So what have ministers done? They have junked the mandatory element of it.

People will still have to digitally prove they have the right to work – but could use other things to do it.

This new government digital ID will not be essential.

The argument I hear within government is they are ditching the bit that is unpopular, but keeping something people might choose to use themselves because it could make accessing public services easier, for instance.

In short, the whole initial public pitch for why digital ID was a good idea – cracking down on illegal migration and illegal working – has been shelved.

The emphasis now is on digital ID being an aide to consumers.

“Let’s remove the whole culture war thing entirely and focus on the pragmatic element plenty of people will like and will choose to use,” is how one government figure put it to me.

Others say if the prime minister really is going to focus on the cost of living when he is addressing domestic policies, he needed to junk unpopular stuff that was getting in the way of that.

The opposition parties have piled in with their criticisms, while welcoming the government’s change of heart.

Here is the political challenge for Downing Street: the climbdowns, dilutions, U turns, about turns, call them what you will, are mounting up.

In just the last couple of weeks, there has been the issue of business rates on pubs in England and inheritance on farmers.

Before that, among others, income tax, benefits cuts and winter fuel payments.

Sir Keir Starmer’s critics, external and internal, are taking note.

Just hours before this latest backtracking, the Health Secretary Wes Streeting – who’d quite fancy being prime minister himself one day – said it was important the government “gets it right first time”.

That, to put it very politely, is a work in progress for Sir Keir Starmer.