A New Mexico grand jury on Friday indicted actor Timothy Busfield on charges accusing him of criminal sexual contact of a child. Screengrab of Image by the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office
Feb. 6 (UPI) — A New Mexico grand jury on Friday indicted actor Timothy Busfield on four counts that accuse him of criminal sexual contact of a child.
Each charge carries a minimum sentence of three years in prison if Busfield, 68, is found guilty, according to New Mexico law.
“As with all criminal proceedings, Mr. Busfield is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law,” Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman said in a social media post.
“This case will proceed through the judicial process and is expected to move forward to trial,” he said, adding that the Special Victims Unit of the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office will prosecute the case.
Bregman said protecting children is his top priority and the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office “remains committed to doing everything possible to protect children and ensure justice for victims.”
Busfield’s attorney, Larry Stein, said the indictment was expected but called the case a weak one.
“As the saying goes, a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich,” Stein told NBC News.
He called the case against Busfield “fundamentally unsound” and said it “cannot be proven at trial.”
Stein suggested the case is “driven by something other than the facts or the law” and said “Mr. Busfield will fight these charges at every stage and looks forward to testing the state’s case in open court — where evidence matters — not behind closed doors.”
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges filed against him after allegations by two boys who had been cast members of the Fox television series The Cleaning Lady, in which Busfield acted and directed from 2022 to 2024.
Busfield accused the mother of the two boys of falsely accusing him because he did not cast the two boys in the series’ final season.
Bernalillo County Deputy District Attorney Savannah Brandenburg-Koch said the claims against Busfield are genuine during a January detention hearing.
A photography director who worked on the show said he never witnessed any inappropriate behavior while testifying during the same hearing.
The television show’s co-producer, Warner Bros., undertook an independent investigation of the claims and said no evidence was found to support the claims against Busfield, his attorney argued.
Presiding Judge David Murphy ordered Busfield to be released on his own recognizance after ruling he is not a danger to the community or a flight risk.
Repsol holds stakes in multiple oil and gas ventures in Venezuela. (Archive)
Caracas, February 6, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez held meetings with oil executives from Repsol (Spain) and Maurel & Prom (France) on Wednesday as part of ongoing efforts to secure energy investments amid US pressure and unilateral sanctions.
“We discussed the models established in the reformed Hydrocarbon Law to strengthen production and build solid alliances toward economic growth,” Rodríguez wrote on social media.
State oil company PDVSA, represented at the meetings by its president, Héctor Obregón, touted the prospects of establishing “strategic alliances” and “win-win cooperation” with the foreign multinational corporations.
The Rodríguez administration recently pushed a sweeping reform of Venezuela’s Hydrocarbon Law. Corporations are set to have increased control over crude extraction and exports, while the Venezuelan executive can discretionally reduce taxes and royalties and lease out oil projects in exchange for a cut of production.
Venezuelan leaders have defended the pro-business reform as a step forward to attract investment for a key industry that has been hard hit by US coercive measures, including financial sanctions and an export embargo, since 2017, as part of efforts to strangle the Venezuelan economy and bring about regime change.
Former President Hugo Chávez had overhauled oil legislation in 2001 to reestablish the state’s primacy over the sector with mandatory majority stakes in joint ventures, increased fiscal contributions, and a leading PDVSA operational role. Increased revenues financed the Bolivarian government’s aggressive social programs of the 2000s, which dramatically reduced poverty and expanded access to healthcare, housing, and education for the popular classes.
Repsol and Maurel & Prom currently hold stakes in several oil and natural gas joint ventures in the South American country. The two firms, as well as Italy’s Eni, have operated in a stop-start fashion in recent years as a result of US sanctions.
The European companies have consistently lobbied for increased control and benefits in their projects in the molds now established in the reformed energy legislation.
Since launching military attacks and kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, the Trump administration has vowed to take control of the Venezuelan oil sector and impose favorable conditions for US corporations. Senior US officials have praised Caracas’ oil reform.
According to reports, the White House has dictated that proceeds from Venezuelan crude sales be deposited in US-run accounts in Qatar, with an initial agreement comprising 30-50 million barrels of oil that had built up in Venezuelan storage as a result of a US naval blockade since December.
On Tuesday, the US Treasury Department issued a license allowing Venezuelan imports of US diluents required to upgrade extra-heavy crude into exportable blends. On January 27, Washington issued a sanctions waiver allowing US companies to purchase and market Venezuelan crude. The exemption requires payments to be made to US-controlled accounts and bars dealings with firms from Russia, Iran, Cuba, and North Korea.
The US Treasury is additionally preparing a license to allow US companies to extract Venezuelan oil, according to Bloomberg.
The White House has urged US corporations to invest in the Venezuelan oil sector and promised favorable conditions. However, executives have expressed reservations over significant new investments. According to Reuters, US refiners have likewise not been able to absorb the sudden surge of Venezuelan heavy crude supplies, while Canadian WCS crude remains a competitive alternative.
Vitol and Trafigura, two commodities traders picked by the White House to lift Venezuelan oil, have offered cargoes to European and Asian customers as well. India’s Reliance Industries is reportedly set to purchase 2 million barrels. In recent years, the refining giant has looked to Venezuela as a potential crude supplier but seen imports repeatedly curtailed by US threats of secondary sanctions.
US authorities have reportedly delivered US $500 million from an initial sale to Venezuelan private banks, which are offering the foreign currency in auctions that are said to prioritize private sector food and healthcare importers. Nevertheless, Venezuelan and US officials have not disclosed details about the remaining funds in a deal estimated at $1.2-2 billion.
Besides controlling crude sales, the Trump administration has also sought to impose conditions on the Venezuelan government’s spending of oil revenues. On Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told House Representatives that the flow of oil funds will be subject to outside audits.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had told a Senate committee last week that US authorities would scrutinize Caracas’ public expenditure and claimed that Venezuelan leaders needed to submit a “budget request” in order to access the country’s oil proceeds.
Washington’s attempted takeover of the Venezuelan oil industry also has an expressed goal of reducing the presence of Russian and Chinese companies. On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told media that the country’s enterprises are being “openly forced out” of the Caribbean nation at the behest of the US.
In mid-January, the US’ naval blockade drove away Chinese-flagged tankers on their way to Venezuela. With crude shipments partly used to offset longterm oil-for-loan agreements, Beijing has reportedly sought assurances of the repayment of debts estimated at $10-20 billion. For their part, independent Chinese refiners have moved to replace Venezuelan supplies with Iranian heavy crude.
From Broderick Turner: The biggest news for the Lakers on Thursday was that All-Star guard Luka Doncic was unable to play in the second half against the Philadelphia 76ers because of left leg soreness, the team announced in the third quarter.
Doncic left the game in the second quarter of the Lakers’ 119-115 win at Crypto.com Arena.
The Lakers were undaunted by Doncic’s departure, coming back from 14 points down and holding on for the win by following the lead of Austin Reaves, LeBron James, Rui Hachimura and a strong defensive effort led by Marcus Smart and Jarred Vanderbilt.
After the game in which Reaves led the Lakers in scoring with 35 points off the bench, the biggest concern for the Lakers was the health of Doncic.
“He felt some soreness in his hamstring so he didn’t feel like it was good enough to go back in [and] neither did [our medical team,] ” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “So, we held him out and they [are] going to do some imaging. It’s too early to say if there’s an injury, but [he] just had a sore hamstring.”
And he’ll do it as the reigning NFL most valuable player.
On Thursday night, Stafford was announced as the MVP during NFL Honors at the Palace of Fine Arts.
And then he made a big announcement of his own.
Stafford, wearing a black tuxedo with a black shirt and black bow tie, accepted the award on stage with his four young daughters, who attended most games this season. He thanked his wife, Kelly; family; teammates; coaches; and those who helped him reach the milestone.
“I’m so happy to have you at the games on the sideline with me and I can’t wait for you to cheer me on next year when we’re kicking a—,” Stafford said to his daughters, before turning his attention to the audience.
“And so I’ll see you guys next year,” he said as a crowd that included coach Sean McVay and several teammates began to roar. “Hopefully, I’m not at this event and we’re getting ready for another game at SoFi.”
U.S. women’s hockey makes history as it wins Olympic opener
From Kevin Baxter: Laila Edwards finally got out from under the spotlight and onto the ice for the U.S. women’s hockey team Thursday. It was a simple act, but one that made history.
Yet for Edwards, it was just another day at the office.
“It didn’t feel different at all,” she said. “It’s still hockey at the end of the day. Even though it’s the highest level, it’s still hockey.”
With her first shift in Thursday’s 5-1 win over Czechia, on the first day of hockey at the Milan-Cortina Winter Games, Edwards became the first Black woman to play for the U.S. national team in an Olympic tournament. On a team full of record-breakers, it was a significant milestone, one that has become a storyline for the world’s top-ranked team.
“It’s not that I didn’t want to be seen,” Liu said. “It’s just I had nothing to show.”
The 20-year-old now proudly presents Alysa Liu 2.0.
Four years after shocking the sport by retiring as a teenage phenom, the Oakland native could win two gold medals at the Milan-Cortina Olympics. She is a title contender in her individual event that begins Feb. 17 as the United States tries to end a 20-year Olympic medal drought in women’s singles figure skating, and she will skate Friday in the women’s short program of a team competition the United States is favored to win.
Starting Saturday, you will receive a separate newsletter containing all the Olympics news from our reporters in Italy, including a medal count and TV listings. Sports Report subscribers will automatically get this newsletter, and it should arrive around 3 a.m. in your inbox.
Friday’s Olympic TV/streaming schedule
Friday’s live TV and streaming broadcasts unless noted (subject to change). All events stream live on Peacock or NBCOlympics.com with a streaming or cable login. All times Pacific.
OPENING CEREMONY: 11 a.m.| NBC, Peacock (replay at 8 p.m. on NBC)
MULTIPLE SPORTS 7 p.m. — “Primetime in Milan” (delay): Figure skating, curling, hockey, skiing and more.| NBC
ALPINE SKIING 2:30 a.m. — Men’s downhill, training | Peacock 2:30 a.m. — Women’s downhill, training | Peacock
CURLING Mixed doubles (round robin) 1:05 a.m. — U.S. vs. Canada | Peacock 1:05 a.m. — Italy vs. Switzerland | Peacock 1:05 a.m. — Sweden vs. Britain | Peacock 5:35 a.m. — Czechia vs. U.S. | Peacock 5:35 a.m. — Estonia vs. Italy | Peacock 5:35 a.m. — South Korea vs. Britain | Peacock 5:35 a.m. — Sweden vs. Norway | Peacock 5:55 a.m. — Czechia vs. U.S. (in progress) | USA
FIGURE SKATING Team competition 1 a.m. — Rhythm dance | USA 2:35 a.m. — Pairs, short program | USA 4:35 a.m. — Women, short program | USA
HOCKEY Women (group play) 3:10 a.m. — France vs. Japan | Peacock 5:40 a.m. — Czechia vs. Switzerland | Peacock
USC extends its winning strea
From The Times staff: The USC women’s basketball team rolled to an 83-65 victory over Northwestern at Welsh-Ryan Arena on Thursday night, extending their win streak to three games.
USC freshman Jazzy Davidson and redshirt freshman Laura Williams helped the Trojans open the game on an 11-0 run, claiming a lead they would never relinquish.
“I feel like as a team with these last couple of games, we’ve improved a lot,” sophomore guard Kennedy Smith said. “We’ve stayed consistent and are playing together and growing as a team, and that starts in practice. Just a lot of conversations about being better, obviously through that stretch of losses, but that doesn’t define us. I think the games matter the most in February and March, so we’re here to be better from here on out.”
From the Associated Press: Mark Stone had a goal and two assists and the Vegas Golden Knights took control early Thursday night by scoring four times on their first six shots for a 4-1 victory over the Kings.
Vegas heads into the Olympic break with back-to-back victories after losing seven of eight games. The Kings have lost four of five.
Jack Eichel and Pavel Dorofeyev each had a goal and an assist for the Golden Knights. Mitch Marner scored a goal for his 799th career point and Ivan Barbashev extended his points streak to five games with two assists.
Barbashev’s four-game goal streak, however, ended. Eichel extended his points streak to four games and now has 200 assists in a Golden Knights uniform.
1943 — Montreal’s Ray Getliffe scores five goals to lead the Canadiens to an 8-3 triumph over the Boston Bruins.
1958 — Ted Williams signs a contract with the Boston Red Sox for $135,000, making him the highest paid player in major league history.
1967 — Muhammad Ali successfully defends his world heavyweight title with a 15-round decision over Ernest Terrell in the Houston Astrodome.
1970 — The NBA expands to 18 teams with the addition of franchises in Buffalo, Cleveland, Houston and Portland.
1981 — Wayne Gretzky scores three goals and three assists in a 10-4 Edmonton victory over the Winnipeg Jets, giving him 100 points in the season.
1985 — Seventeen-year-old Dianne Roffe becomes the first U.S. woman to win a gold medal in a World Alpine Ski Championship race, capturing the giant slalom in 2:18.53.
1988 — Chicago’s Michael Jordan wins the NBA Slam Dunk contest with a perfect score of 50 on his final dunk, in front of a hometown crowd at Chicago Stadium.
1990 — Brett Hull of the St. Louis Blues scores his 50th goal, making him and his Hall of Famer father, Bobby Hull, the only father-son combination in NHL history to reach that milestone.
1993 — Riddick Bowe easily wins his first defense of his WBA and IBF heavyweight boxing titles by beating Michael Dokes in the first round of their championship bout held at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
2000 — Randy Moss sets records with nine catches for 212 yards, and Mike Alstott scores three touchdowns in the NFC’s 51-31 victory over the AFC, the highest-scoring Pro Bowl.
2000 — Pavel Bure records the 11th hat trick in All-Star history and goalie Olaf Kolzig plays a shutout third period as the World team routs North America 9-4 in the NHL’s 50th All-Star game.
2005 — The New England Patriots win their third Super Bowl in four years, 24-21 over the Philadelphia Eagles. It’s their ninth straight postseason victory, equaling Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers.
2011 — New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady becomes the first unanimous choice for The Associated Press NFL Most Valuable Player Award. Brady gets all 50 votes since the AP began using a nationwide panel of media members who cover the league.
2011 — Aaron Rodgers throws three touchdown passes and Nick Collins returns an interception for another score, leading the Green Bay Packers to a 31-25 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl.
2022 – NFL Pro Bowl, Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas, Nevada: AFC beats NFC, 41-35; MVPs: Justin Herbert, QB LA Chargers; Maxx Crosby, DE LV Raiders.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email newsletter editor Houston Mitchell at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
For two decades, global energy demand was static and efficiency gains, economic shifts, and renewable growth created an illusion of control.
The narrative was one of managed transition — a straight line from fossil fuels to a cleaner, perhaps simpler, energy system.
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Energy companies believe that narrative is over.
Addition, not substitution
It’s unusual to see that many security personnel lining the road to Qatar’s convention centre. Enter LNG 2026, and the vast conference centre in Doha is hosting the people who shape the global energy system. Seated on the same stage were Saad Sherida al-Kaabi of QatarEnergy, Wael Sawan of Shell, Darren Woods of ExxonMobil, Patrick Pouyanne of TotalEnergies, and Ryan Lance of ConocoPhillips — leaders of companies that collectively sit at the centre of global energy supply.
Their estimation: The era of demand is here, and the age of gas is accelerating, not fading.
Everything from artificial intelligence, data centres, electrification and population growth are all pulling the energy system to a new scale. The executives say that demand is rising faster than grids, infrastructure, and policy frameworks can adapt.
From oil to energy
Perhaps that is why the industry is changing how it describes itself. These companies no longer frame their future narrowly like “international oil companies” or oil producers. They now talk about being “international energy companies” – a deliberate shift reflecting a broader ambition: to manage molecules, systems, and supply chains in a world with increasing energy demands.
This undated file photo shows a Qatari liquid natural gas (LNG) tanker ship being loaded up with LNG at Raslaffans Sea Port, northern Qatar [File: AP]
Executives outlined projections that underline how deeply the market is changing. Global LNG demand, currently about 400 million tonnes a year, is expected to reach 600 million tonnes by 2030 and approach 800 million tonnes by 2050, according to the energy executives, and LNG is growing at more than 3 percent annually, making it the fastest-growing fuel among non-renewables, according to their data.
Building for a bigger world
The confidence in Doha was backed by construction on a vast scale. QatarEnergy, under Saad al-Kaabi, is expanding LNG production and assembling a fleet expected to reach about 200 LNG carriers, one of the largest shipping expansions in energy history.
In the United States, ExxonMobil and QatarEnergy are partnering on a new 18 million MMBtu LNG facility, part of a wider North American build-out. Canadian LNG is entering the market, while new supply is emerging from Africa and South America.
These are substantial investments.
As al-Kaabi put it during the discussion: “The world cannot live without energy. People need to be prosperous, and nearly a billion people still do not have basic electricity. We cannot deprive them of growth.”
It is a framing shared across the panel. This is no longer a conversation about replacement, as one executive summed it up, “we are in a world of energy addition, not energy substitution.”
Europe and energy security
The Russia–Ukraine war remains a defining reference point. Europe’s sudden loss of Russian pipeline gas forced a dramatic pivot to LNG. Imports jumped from roughly 50 million tonnes a year to approximately 120 million tonnes, transforming Europe into a major LNG market almost overnight.
What began as crisis management has reshaped global gas flows. LNG delivered flexibility, security, and scale, and for investors, that restored confidence that LNG infrastructure could be strategic.
As new supply comes online, executives expect prices to ease. When that happens, Asian demand, currently constrained by cost, is expected to rebound sharply. Several Asian economies are also shifting from exporters to net importers as domestic reserves decline.
Oil’s quiet re-entry
Two years ago, oil was widely predicted to disappear from the energy mix by 2030. That narrative, too, has faded.
Oil demand has proven resilient, and even gas-focused producers are expanding oil portfolios. Qatar is actively seeking new oil opportunities and remains one of the world’s largest holders of exploration blocks.
A petroleum refinery of Qatar Petroleum stands near Umm Sa’id, Qatar. Qatar is ranked 16th in countries with the biggest oil reserves and 3rd in natural gas reserves [File: Sean Gallup/Getty Images]
The shift is pragmatic. The industry is no longer debating whether oil and gas will be needed, but how they can be supplied at the lowest possible cost and emissions intensity. Several executives noted that many former oil sceptics have quietly reversed course.
AI and the end of low demand
The most urgent driver of change is not geopolitics — it is artificial intelligence.
For nearly 20 years, global energy demand was relatively stable. That period has ended. AI-driven data centres are consuming electricity at a scale planners failed to anticipate. Individual facilities can require thousands of megawatts of constant power, running 24 hours a day, with no tolerance for interruption.
Executives described this moment as a decisive break with the past. After decades of flat demand, the system has entered what they call hyper-scaling mode.
This demand, they say, is inflexible. Data centres cannot wait for weather conditions. They require power that is reliable, dispatchable, and immediate.
When renewables need backup
No one on stage dismissed renewables. Shell’s Wael Sawan and TotalEnergies’ Patrick Pouyanne both stressed their central role in the future mix. But they were clear about limitations.
The executives viewed wind and solar as intermittent and argued that grids built for predictable generation are under growing stress. Recent blackouts and near-misses in highly renewable systems have exposed the consequences of imbalance.
“When the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining,” one executive noted, “gas fills the gap.”
Gas turbines remain essential for grid stability. Nuclear takes decades to scale. Batteries are improving but remain limited. Hydrogen is promising, but not yet deployable at the pace required.
Gas, the industry argues, is the only option that can be built fast enough to meet the contemporary surge in demand.
AI: The friction points
But behind the power-hungry AI-driven confidence are real snag lines. Building energy infrastructure has become slower and more complex.
The executives pointed to permitting delays that stretch projects more than a decade. Water and grid connections are major bottlenecks. Skilled labour is in short supply. Community resistance is growing, driven by cost concerns and environmental pressure.
Executives were openly critical of policy frameworks they see as detached from operational reality. Overlapping and conflicting regulations, they argued, raise costs and delay supply.
“The market dictates what can be delivered,” one leader said, warning that governments risk choking the arteries of energy flow.
Sustainability, emissions and the social contract
The industry acknowledges that its future depends on emissions performance. Methane leakage, efficiency, manufacturing footprints, and transport emissions remain under scrutiny. Gas offers immediate reductions where it replaces coal – about 40 percent in power generation and 20 percent in marine fuels. Carbon capture and sequestration is increasingly integrated into new projects.
ExxonMobil’s Darren Woods emphasised the company’s push to be seen as a technology player — working on hydrogen, carbon capture, and new uses for hydrocarbons beyond combustion. They describe this approach as responsible energy addition.
Yet the tension remains. The current demand surge has pushed environmental scrutiny to the background, but executives know that window is temporary. The sustainability of gas in this new role is under intense scrutiny.
While it burns cleaner than coal, its emissions of CO2 and methane, along with the transport footprint of LNG, remain central to the climate debate. Industry leaders acknowledge that gas must evolve to maintain its social licence. The CEO of QatarEnergy emphasised delivering energy “in the most environmentally responsible manner”.
There is awareness that the current surge in demand has sidelined environmental concerns, but these questions will resurface forcefully once the immediate capacity crisis abates. The gas industry risks a fate similar to coal if it fails to accelerate its decarbonisation efforts through carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS), and the integration of low-carbon gases, such as hydrogen.
Inclusive not mutually exclusive
The dynamic with renewables and emerging technologies adds another layer of complexity. Executives recognise that, for many regions, building new infrastructure, renewables are the cheapest and easiest option.
The role of gas, therefore, is evolving from a baseload provider to a “complementary load-following role,” essential for balancing grids increasingly saturated with variable wind and solar power.
The advancement of battery storage technology also looms as a potential competitor for this grid-balancing role. The future energy mix is envisioned as abundant, accessible, reliable, and clean, but the path is uncertain.
Investments in hydrogen and ammonia are continuing, though with fluctuating levels of hype, indicating a sector in search of the next breakthrough.
The human connection
Strip away politics and technology, and the core driver is human. Roughly five billion people still consume far less energy than developed economies. To paraphrase QatarEnergy’s al-Kaabi: Prosperity requires power.
Removing energy poverty means adding supply – reliable, affordable supply – at unprecedented scale. That is the context in which the energy company executives are positioning gas: not as a bridge, but as a stabiliser. Energy producers are betting that global demand – supercharged by AI and economic ambition – will outpace the ability of renewables alone to carry the load.
They are building for a world that they say cannot afford shortages, blackouts, or theoretical purity. Gas, they believe, is not a bridge, but the foundation to weather the storm of demand.
And its future will be defined by a simple metric: Can the system deliver abundant, accessible, reliable, and progressively cleaner energy?
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
The U.S. government has accused China of secretly conducting at least one “yield-producing nuclear test” in recent years despite the country having a stated moratorium on such activities. Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to engage in new nuclear testing “on an equal basis” with China and Russia, but it remains unclear what that might mean and what action has been taken. The new test allegation also comes as American officials continue to call for a new nuclear arms control treaty that includes China to succeed the New START agreement with Russia, which sunset yesterday.
“Today, I can reveal that the U.S. government is aware that China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tons,” Thomas DiNanno, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, said during a speech at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland this morning. “The PLA [China’s People’s Liberation Army] sought to conceal testing by obfuscating the nuclear explosions because it recognized these tests violate test ban commitments.”
Then Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas DiNanno seen descending into a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch facility at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota during an inspection in 2019. US State Department
China is a signatory to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), but has never ratified it. The same is true of the United States. Both countries have stated self-imposed moratoriums on yield-producing nuclear testing. The CTBT does not prohibit sub-critical testing, which does not involve a full-fledged nuclear reaction. China’s last acknowledged critical-level nuclear test was in 1996. The last U.S. test of that kind was in 1992.
“China has used decoupling – a method to decrease the effectiveness of seismic monitoring – to hide its activities from the world,” DiNanno added. “China conducted one such yield-producing nuclear test on June 22nd of 2020.”
China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tons… China has used decoupling – a method to decrease the effectiveness of seismic monitoring – to hide its activities from the world. China conducted one such…
— Under Secretary of State Thomas G. DiNanno (@UnderSecT) February 6, 2026
As an aside, the last official nuclear test in Russia came in 1990, just before the fall of the Soviet Union. The United Kingdom, France, India, and Pakistan also conducted yield-producing nuclear tests at various points in the 1990s. North Korea is the only country known to have conducted such tests since 2000, with the detonation of five devices in separate instances between 2006 and 2017.
The video below offers an excellent graphical representation of the extent of known nuclear testing, covering detonations between 1945 and 1998.
A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945 – by Isao Hashimoto
At the time of writing, the U.S. government does not appear to have provided further details about the newly alleged Chinese nuclear testing. When American officials arrived at their current assessments about these activities is also unclear.
The U.S. State Department made no mention of any such testing in China in its most recent routine international arms control compliance report, published in April 2025. That report did reiterate previous U.S. accusations that Russia has engaged in supercritical nuclear testing in violation of its commitments to multiple test ban treaties, something DiNanno also highlighted in his speech today. Russia is a signatory to the CTBT and had previously ratified it. Russian President Vladimir Putin revoked that ratification in 2023 after the country’s parliament, or Duma, passed a law approving that action.
The Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on Chinese military developments, published in December 2025, also makes no mention of Chinese nuclear testing.
“They [China and Russia] don’t go and tell you about it,” Trump said. “You know, as powerful as they are, this is a big world. You don’t necessarily know where they’re testing. They — they test way under — underground where people don’t know exactly what’s happening with the test.”
“You feel a little bit of a vibration. They test and we don’t test,” Trump continued. “But Russia tests, China — and China does test, and we’re gonna test also.”
In an earlier compliance report, the State Department had raised concerns about work China was observed doing at its Lop Nur nuclear test site in 2019. That report was notably published in June 2020, the same month Under Secretary DiNanno says the PLA conducted the yield-producing test.
“China’s possible preparation to operate its Lop Nur test site year-round, its use of explosive containment chambers, extensive excavation activities at Lop Nur, and lack of transparency on its nuclear testing activities – which has included frequently blocking the flow of data from its International Monitoring System (IMS) stations to the International Data Center operated by the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization – raise concerns regarding its adherence to the ‘zero yield’ standard adhered to by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France in their respective nuclear weapons testing moratoria,” the report explained.
Following Trump’s interview in November 2025, Chinese authorities had pushed back and reiterated the country’s stated commitment to its moratorium on nuclear testing.
“China notes that the U.S. continues in its statement to hype up the so-called China nuclear threat. China firmly opposes such false narratives,” Chinese Ambassador Shen Jian, Deputy Permanent Representative of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and other International Organizations in Switzerland, said today following Under Secretary DiNanno’s remarks, according to Reuters. “It (the United States) is the culprit for the aggravation of the arms race.”
It should also be pointed out that the United States and Russia are both generally assessed to have roughly 4,000 warheads each. The U.S. figure has been declining in recent years, while the Russian one has been growing, according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) think tank in Washington, D.C.
As noted, successive U.S. administrations have been pushing for a new nuclear arms control regime that includes China. Negotiations in the past have focused more heavily on bilateral agreements with Russia, and the Soviet Union before it. The most recent of these deals, New START, expired as scheduled yesterday, following the conclusion of a one-time five-year extension. There are still unconfirmed reports that the U.S. and Russia may be working on an interim and non-legally-binding arrangement to keep the New START limits at least for some amount of time, as you can read more about here.
“New START was signed in 2010 and its limits on warheads and launchers are no longer relevant in 2026, when one nuclear power is expanding its arsenal at a scale and pace not seen in over half a century and another continues to maintain and develop a vast range of nuclear systems unconstrained by New START’s terms,” Under Secretary DiNanno also said in remarks today. “[China’s] buildup is opaque and unconstrained by any arms control limitations.”
“Rather than extend ‘NEW START’ (A badly negotiated deal by the United States that, aside from everything else, is being grossly violated), we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved, and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future,” President Trump had written yesterday on his Truth Social platform.
Trump:
Rather than extend “NEW START” (A badly negotiated deal by the United States that, aside from everything else, is being grossly violated), we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved, and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future. pic.twitter.com/MPlDNeTWLZ
“The President’s been clear in the past that in order to have true arms control in the 21st century, it’s impossible to do something that doesn’t include China because of their vast and rapidly growing stockpile,” U.S. Secretary of State and acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio also said during a press conference on Wednesday in response to a question about New START.
SECRETARY RUBIO: The President has been clear that in order to have true arms control in the 21st century, it’s impossible to do something that doesn’t include China — because of their vast & rapidly growing stockpile. pic.twitter.com/FiYVUsBAVb
Chinese officials have repeatedly rebuffed calls to join negotiations on a new nuclear arms control agreement.
The allegations Under Secretary DiNanno raised today prompt new questions about the future of U.S. nuclear testing, as well. As mentioned, there has been little elaboration on exactly what President Trump meant by his announcement last year about future testing “on an equal basis” with Russia and China. At that time, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright had downplayed the possibility of a resumption of American yield-producing nuclear tests.
“Since the President’s statement, we have received many questions about what he meant,” DiNanno said during his speech in Geneva today, before diving into the accusations about Chinese and Russian tests. However, the Under Secretary did not explicitly say whether or not this meant the United States intends to conduct its own testing at this level going forward. He did say later on in his remarks that the U.S. government is committed to efforts to “restore responsible behavior when it comes to nuclear testing.”
You can read more about what it would actually take for the U.S. government to resume full-scale nuclear testing in this previous TWZ feature.
The end of New START has already been fueling renewed concerns about a new nuclear arms race, and one that would not necessarily be limited to the United States, Russia, and China.
Following today’s revelations in Geneva, more details at least about the new U.S. allegations about Chinese nuclear testing activities may begin to emerge.
Update: 1:50 PM EST –
In light of today’s remarks from Under Secretary DiNanno, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization’s (CTBTO) Executive Secretary Robert Floyd has issued a statement.
”The CTBTO’s International Monitoring System (IMS) is capable of detecting nuclear test explosions with a yield equivalent to or greater than approximately 500 tonnes of TNT, including detecting all six tests conducted and declared by the DPRK [North Korea]. Below 500 tonnes is roughly 3 percent of the yield of the explosion that devastated Hiroshima,” Floyd says. “Mechanisms which could address smaller explosions are provided by the Treaty but can only be used once the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty enters into force. That is why it is important that the nuclear arms control framework includes the entry into force of the CTBT. The need is more urgent now than ever.”
“Regarding reports of possible nuclear tests with yields in the hundreds of tonnes, on 22 June 2020, the CTBTO’s IMS did not detect any event consistent with the characteristics of a nuclear weapon test explosion at that time. Subsequent, more detailed analyses have not altered that determination,” he adds. “Any nuclear test explosion, by any state, is of deepest concern.”
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Feb. 6 (UPI) — French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Friday that a military escalation in the Middle East must be avoided, urging Iran-backed groups to show restraint and Lebanon to stay out of any war between Iran and the United States.
Speaking during a news conference after meeting Lebanon’s top officials in Beirut, Barrot said that a military escalation in the region “is a risk we must avoid by all means,” calling on Iran to prepare “to make major concessions and to radically change its posture.”
He added that Iran, which held a first round of talks with the United States in Oman on Friday, must renounce its role as “a destabilizing power,” citing its nuclear program, its missile and ballistic programs, and its support for “terrorist groups” in the region, which he said “pose threats to countries in the Near and Middle East as well as to European countries.”
The Oman talks came as the United States reinforced its military presence in the Middle East following Iran’s violent suppression of anti-government protests last month, which rights groups say killed thousands. President Donald Trump has warned of military action if no agreement is reached, while Iran has threatened retaliation against U.S. forces in the region and Israel.
“If we were to witness a regional escalation, Iran-backed groups throughout the region would need to exercise the utmost restraint, so as not to worsen a situation that would profoundly destabilize the Near and Middle East,” Barrot said.
He also said that Lebanon must “at all costs” avoid being drawn into the escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran, similar to the war that erupted with Israel after Hezbollah opened a support front for Gaza on October 8, 2023.
“Dissociation is a condition for Lebanon’s security,” he said.
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said last week that his group would not remain “neutral” if Iran were attacked and its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were threatened by Trump-comments that were strongly rejected by Lebanese officials, who refused to let Lebanon be drawn into the conflict.
The militant group was severely weakened during the war with Israel but has quietly been attempting to reorganize its ranks and secure new channels for rearming and funding. It has refused to fully disarm under the November 27 cease-fire agreement, as long as Israel continues strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon and refuses to abide by the truce.
The French Foreign Minister said that the regional equation has changed due to recent conflicts and that “everyone must draw the appropriate conclusions.”
Barrot said his talks with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and House Speaker Nabih Berri also addressed preparations for an international conference in Paris on March 5, aimed at supporting the Lebanese Army and assisting it in completing Hezbollah’s disarmament.
HumAngle Foundation, a sister organisation of HumAngle Media, has convened 17 peacebuilding actors, including civil society organisations, government institutions, and security agencies, for a two-day multi-stakeholder roundtable on local peacebuilding efforts in Plateau State, North Central Nigeria.
The roundtable, supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), was held from February 5 to 6 in Jos, the Plateau State capital. It forms part of the Advancing Peace and Security through Journalism (APSJ) Project, launched by the Foundation in 2024 to strengthen the technological capacity of journalists and community-based organisations to promote peacebuilding, accountability, and good governance in conflict-affected areas.
Plateau State has, for decades, experienced recurrent communal violence driven by a complex mix of farmer–herder tensions, identity-based disputes, land ownership conflicts, and political grievances. The state has also suffered terror attacks by armed groups, further compounding insecurity, displacement, and trauma among affected communities. These overlapping forms of violence have resulted in significant loss of lives, widespread displacement, and deep-seated mistrust, underscoring the need for inclusive, locally driven peacebuilding approaches.
Speaking at the event, Angela Umoru-David, the Foundation’s Programme Director, said the roundtable was designed to bridge gaps between stakeholders who often work in isolation.
“Our objective is to deepen collective understanding of local peacebuilding efforts in Plateau state and promote knowledge exchange on innovative approaches to curbing violent conflict,” she said. “As the project progresses, we intend to also create linkages to journalists so that civil society organisations (CSOs) and community-based organisations (CBOs) can engage with media practitioners in a meaningful way and contribute to journalism for peace.”
Participants discussed emerging trends, persistent gaps, and new opportunities within Plateau State’s peacebuilding ecosystem. Describing the engagement as timely, Nanmak Bali, President of the Plateau Peace Practitioners Network, an umbrella body for peacebuilding organisations in the state, noted that the discussions would improve coordination among actors. “The roundtable is apt, and it is coming at the right time,” he said. “These conversations will strengthen our approach to information sharing and guide how we design and implement our interventions.”
Bwemana Hailey Adanchin, an officer at the Mediation and Dialogue Unit of the Plateau Peace Building Agency, also highlighted the value of collaboration fostered by the meeting. “Participating in this roundtable has been very impactful, especially the lessons on collaboration,” she told HumAngle. “It reinforces the fact that no single institution can build peace alone.”
The roundtable featured plenary sessions and breakout discussions, during which participants examined the progress and limitations of existing peacebuilding interventions in the state.
Alfred Alabo, spokesperson of the Plateau State Police Command, said security agencies were increasingly recognising the limits of force-based responses to conflict. “There is a growing understanding that peace cannot be achieved through kinetic approaches alone,” he said. “When we engage more deeply, we realise that dialogue and community engagement are essential. In many cases, civil society organisations are already on the ground before we arrive, and we work together to resolve issues.”
Plateau State Police Command’s spokesperson presenting findings from a group discussion during the Roundtable. Photo: HumAngle
Other participants echoed similar sentiments, emphasising the importance of early engagement, coordinated responses, and the responsible use of information in conflict-sensitive environments, and collaboration.
Fatima Suleiman, Executive Director of the Islamic Counselling Initiative of Northern Nigeria, described the roundtable as a moment of self-reflection. “This engagement has made me think more critically about stakeholder mapping and inclusion,” she said. “It highlighted gaps in how we identify and engage relevant actors in peacebuilding.”
Similarly, Kangyang Gana, Executive Director of Claire Aid Foundation, said the sessions helped her reassess her organisation’s interventions. “The discussions helped me identify gaps in our current interventions,” she said. “It has given me clarity on what needs to be adjusted to make our peacebuilding efforts more effective.”
Aliyu Dahiru, HumAngle’s Head of the Extremism and Radicalisation Desk, led a dedicated session on extremists’ use of media for propaganda, radicalisation, and recruitment. He stressed the role of journalists and peace actors in countering harmful narratives.
A cross-section of participants during the Multi-stakeholder Roundtable. Photo: HumAngle
“Violent groups understand the power of information,” he said. “Our responsibility is to ensure that media and community voices are not exploited to inflame tensions but are instead used to promote understanding, resilience, and peace.”
In another session, Abdussamad Ahmad, HumAngle’s Human Security and Policy Analyst, introduced participants to in-house tools, including the HumAngle FOI Hub and Maps.HumAngle, designed to help civil society organisations and local communities strengthen advocacy and accountability efforts.
“Our hope is that over time, stronger multistakeholder networks that understand their local contexts will be built and sustained,” Angela added.
Since its launch, the APSJ Project has hosted similar roundtable discussions in northwestern Nigeria. The initiative has also trained journalists and awarded grants to those reporting on grassroots peacebuilding efforts across the country, particularly in Adamawa, Borno, Cross River, Lagos, and Taraba states.
HumAngle Foundation organized a two-day multi-stakeholder roundtable in Plateau State, Nigeria, gathering civil society organizations, government institutions, and security agencies to address local peacebuilding efforts in the region.
Supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, this event forms part of the Advancing Peace and Security through Journalism (APSJ) Project aimed at enhancing peacebuilding, accountability, and governance in conflict-affected areas by strengthening technological capacities.
The roundtable addressed recurring communal violence in Plateau State, emphasizing the need for inclusive, locally-driven peacebuilding approaches. Discussions focused on emerging trends, persistent gaps, and new opportunities, emphasizing information sharing, and collaboration. The dialogue recognized the limits of force-based responses to conflict and highlighted the value of early engagement and coordinated efforts for effective peacebuilding.
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Participants like Nanmak Bali and Fatima Suleiman, emphasized the importance of collaboration and self-reflection on stakeholder inclusion. Sessions led by Aliyu Dahiru and Abdussamad Ahmad highlighted the media’s role in countering harmful narratives, while introducing advocacy tools for community organizations.
Overall, the roundtable aimed to foster sustainable networks for peace and has previously hosted similar discussions in other Nigerian states to advance grassroots peacebuilding efforts.
Feb. 6 (UPI) — A handful of events began earlier in the week — curling, figure skating and ice hockey — but the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics officially got underway Friday afternoon in Italy.
The opening ceremony started at 2 p.m. EST at Milan’s historic, 100-year-old San Siro Stadium in Milan, a nearly 4-hour celebration of the Games that is expected to include a range of performances, the parade of nations and, finally, the lighting of the Olympic cauldron.
The Milano Cortina Olympics will be the first to include two venues in the opening ceremony and the first to light two caldrons for the Games: one in Milan at the Arco della Pace and another at Piazza Dibona in central Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Organizers have said that lighting two cauldrons is meant to represent harmony between the two cities of Milan and Cortina — which are jointly hosting the Games — as well as other areas that the Games are being held.
In addition to dance, light and special effects shows at San Siro, performances by Maria Carey, Andrea Bocelli, The White Lotus and The Paper star Sabrina Impacciatore, Italian actor Pierfrancisco Favino and Italian singer Laura Pausini have been announced.
Events at this year’s Winter Games have been spread among several towns in northern Italy, in addition to the two towns, which the Olympic ceremony director, Maria Laura Iascone, told NBC News is among the efforts of Italy chart “a new course” and innovate “a new spirit” of the opening ceremonies.
The Big Show
The majority of the intricate, ornate opening ceremony is being held at San Siro Stadium, which opened in 1926, has hosted several World Cup-linked events and is home to two Italian soccer clubs.
The Olympics is set to be its final event before the owners of those two teams demolish the stadium to build a newer, more modern facility for the two clubs.
In addition to San Siro, the cauldron will be lit elsewhere in Milan, and athlete parades are set to be held at other venues in the city as organizers have sought to show off Milan, Cortina and other parts of the country. Overall, there are 13 venues hosting Olympic competition this year.
The two cauldrons — at Milan’s Arco della Pace and Corina’s Piazza Dibona — are in addition to opening ceremony events in Cortina, Livigno and Predazzo.
On top of splitting up the ceremonies, there are multiple Olympic villages that athletes are staying in, a decisions made so that they will not need to travel far between lodging, sporting venues and the opening and closing ceremonies.
Events get underway
The ceremony opened with the Italian Olympic Committee spotlighting the southern European country’s position as a “Winter wonderland,” which included video presentations of mountains and towns that gave way to dance routines focused on community, love and harmony, according to organizers.
The glittery winter look moved toward an ode to Italian operat with actors dressed as Gioachina Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini performing to Rossini’s William Tell Overture.
Maria Carey, who performed for free, sang the Italian classic “Volare” in Italian blended with some of her song “Nothing Is Impossible,” and wowed the crowd ahead of introductions of the President of Italy and of the International Olympic Committee were introduced.
In a significant tribute to legendary fashion designer Giorgio Armani, dozens of models decked out in loose red, white and green suits — the colors of the Italian flag — filed out into the center stadium.
Model Vittoria Ceretti, who is also known for dating Leonardo Dicaprio, carried an Italian flag out to an honor guard before Pausini sang the Italian national anthem, “Fratelli d’Italia” and Favino recited the Giacomo Leopardi poem “L’inifnito.”
As dancers once again filled the center of the arena, two rings — with actors reclining on them — floated out to the stage. Once the actors got off the rings, they joined three others high above the crowd to form the Olympic rings.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates throughout the afternoon and evening.
Myles Garrett arrives on the red carpet at the 2026 NFL Honors in San Francisco on February 5, 2026. Garrett won Defensive Player of the Year. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
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?
United States President Donald Trump has again stoked outrage over his online posts, this time for sharing a video depicting former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as apes.
The reposted clip came as part of a flurry of late-night messages on Trump’s Truth Social account.
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By midday on Friday, the video had been removed — but not after an outpouring of bipartisan condemnation, slamming the post as blatantly racist.
In a post on the social media platform X, Tim Scott, the only Black Republican currently serving in the Senate, said he was “praying” that the video “was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House”.
“The president should remove it,” he added.
Another Republican, Representative Mike Lawler, also called on Trump to delete the post, calling it “incredibly offensive — whether intentional or a mistake”.
Democrats, meanwhile, sought to tie the video to Trump’s history of insensitive remarks, and they called on Republicans to condemn this latest episode.
“President Obama and Michelle Obama are brilliant, compassionate and patriotic Americans. They represent the best of this country,” said Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the US House of Representatives.
“Donald Trump is a vile, unhinged and malignant bottom feeder. Why are GOP leaders like John Thune continuing to stand by this sick individual?”
The White House, for its part, initially defended the post as an “internet meme”. Later, it said the post had been shared “erroneously” by a White House staffer, not by the president.
Stoking outrage
Trump has long had an adversarial relationship with the Obamas, who became the first Black couple in US history to serve as president and first lady.
One of Trump’s first forays into national politics came during Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, when he pushed false claims that the Democratic leader had not been born in the US.
Trump, a Republican, is known to be a prolific social media user, and he co-founded Truth Social in February 2022 after being temporarily banned from other major social media sites.
There, he often reposts memes and videos generated through artificial intelligence that promote his public image and political platform.
The video that includes the Obamas came at 11:44pm Eastern US time (04:44 GMT) as part of a series of shared clips.
The image of the Obamas as apes comes about 59 seconds into a video that only lasts one minute and two seconds.
It appears dropped into a documentary-style segment that pushes baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was marred by malfeasance involving electronic voting machines. Trump has repeatedly spread lies denying his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in that race.
The video, which bears the watermark of a site called Patriot News Outlet, briefly pairs the doctored image of the Obamas with the 1961 song The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
Critics have regularly accused Trump of intentionally stoking outrage to distract from politically damaging domestic issues, including the recent release of millions of files related to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump’s name has featured in those files.
Midterms ahead
Some Republicans, like Lawler in New York, also face punishing re-election campaigns ahead as the country nears its November midterm elections.
Trump has warned that, if Republicans lose control of Congress, he could face new impeachment proceedings.
Initially, in the hours after the video was reposted on Trump’s Truth Social account, the White House dismissed the backlash as overblown.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told several US news outlets that the image of the Obamas was excerpted from an “internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from ‘The Lion King’”, a 1994 animated feature film.
“Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” she said in a statement to ABC News.
But that explanation did not dampen the bipartisan push for Trump to renounce the video.
Republican Senator Pete Ricketts of Nebraska was also among those calling for the post to be taken down.
“Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this,” Ricketts wrote on X.
“The White House should do what anyone does when they make a mistake: remove this and apologize.”
Democrats, meanwhile, questioned Trump’s fitness for the presidency. In a social media post, Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi drew a line between the video and the long history of racist depictions of Black people in the US.
He pointed to similarly dehumanising illustrations that were shared during the Jim Crow era, a period from 1865 to the mid-20th century when Black people faced segregation and unequal rights following the abolishment of slavery.
“This kind of Jim Crow-style dehumanisation is pathetic and a disgrace to the office,” he wrote.
Former AC Milan and Sweden footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic opens the 2026 Winter Olympic Games for the BBC, as he explains what it takes to become “a champion in Milan.”
Follow the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics across the BBC from Friday, 6 February.
Harshit Rana sustained the knee injury in a warm-up match against South Africa with Mohammed Siraj now taking his place.
Published On 6 Feb 20266 Feb 2026
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India seam bowler Harshit Rana has been ruled out of the Twenty20 World Cup with a knee injury, India’s cricket board (BCCI) announced on Friday, with Mohammed Siraj named as a replacement.
Rana, who has also developed into a handy lower-order batter, sustained the injury during a warmup match against South Africa on Wednesday when he bowled just one over before leaving the field.
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Skipper Suryakumar Yadav had said that Rana’s injury did not look good, but that they had enough depth in the squad to deal with it.
Jasprit Bumrah and Arshdeep Singh are likely to share the new-ball duty, while India also have seam-bowling all-rounders in Hardik Pandya and Shivam Dube.
“It’s a big blow obviously because you make a squad of 15 players with a lot of combinations in mind,” Suryakumar said before Saturday’s Group A contest against the United States.
“If he is not available for us going forward, then we will set other combinations. We have enough players.”
The International Cricket Council said they had approved Siraj as a replacement for Rana.
India are bidding to be the first team in the tournament’s history to successfully defend their title and also be the first host to win a T20 World Cup.
Gina Bashir is a 46-year-old farmer from Askira Uba, in Borno, northeastern Nigeria. At the peak of the Boko Haram insurgency, she lived in Benisheik, a small town in Borno, with her husband and six children.
During the height of the Boko Haram insurgency, she lost her brother, nephew, and six other relatives.
In this video, we talk about her survival and her ambition for her children.
Reported and scripted by Sabiqah Bello
Voice acting by Rukayya Saeed
Multimedia editor is Anthony Asemota
Executive producer is Ahmad Salkida
Gina Bashir, a 46-year-old farmer from Askira Uba in Borno, Nigeria, experienced significant loss during the Boko Haram insurgency. Residing in Benisheik with her husband and six children at that time, she mourned the loss of her brother, nephew, and six other relatives due to the violence. Despite these challenges, the focus is on her survival story and ambitions for her children’s future. The report involves contributions from Sabiqah Bello, Rukayya Saeed, Anthony Asemota, and Ahmad Salkida.
The Super Bowl logo is displayed at Levi’s Stadium, site of Super Bowl LX, in Santa Clara, California on Wednesday, February 4, 2026. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
Feb. 6 (UPI) — The Mexican state of Michoacán increased its avocado shipments to the United States by nearly 20%, projecting about 130,000 tons of fruit for consumption during Super Bowl LX this Sunday, the export sector reported.
Exports were concentrated during December 2025 and January 2026 to meet demand linked to the event, considered one of the largest avocado consumption spikes in the United States.
Salvador Bustos, commercial director of packing and exporting company Boka Foods, said Michoacán avocados once again broke records.
“This year there was an increase of up to 130,000 tons, 20% more than last year. In terms of quality and sizes, Michoacán avocados are always a standout at the Super Bowl,” he said.
Bustos noted that despite strict U.S. sanitary regulations for avocado imports, all requirements have been met to ensure the timely arrival of the fruit in the North American country.
“The increase in tonnage compared with last year implies that there are favorable conditions to continue exporting in the same way and increasingly better,” he added.
At a press conference on Feb. 2, Michoacán Secretary of Economic Development Claudio Méndez Fernández described the Super Bowl as one of the most important marketing windows for the state’s fruit.
Michoacán authorities said that nearly 90% of the avocados consumed in the United States are imported from Mexico, and the product’s commercial value grew by 23% between 2023 and 2024.
Governor Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla said the United States is one of the most important markets for Michoacán avocados and that the adoption of environmental certifications such as ProForest Avocado is strengthening the position of the exported product.
Right before the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games, relay participants passed the torch for the final few times in central Milan. The flame began its journey across Italy in December, starting in Rome and travelling through all 110 Italian provinces.
Najaf, Iraq – Leaders of Iraq’s Coordination Framework – the Shia political coalition that came out on top in November’s parliamentary elections – are adamant that Nouri al-Maliki will be their candidate for the Iraqi premiership, even after threats from United States President Donald Trump.
Trump warned in late January that if al-Maliki, who previously served as Iraq’s prime minister between 2006 and 2014, returned to the role, then the US would cut off aid to Iraq.
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“If we are not there to help, Iraq has ZERO chance of success, prosperity or freedom,” the US president wrote in a post on his Truth Social website.
Trump, and the US administration, view al-Maliki as part of Iran’s direct network of influence in Iraq, and fear that his return would undermine American efforts to weaken Iran’s power in its western neighbour, including limiting the reach of Iran-backed armed groups.
But, even with pressure ramping up, it appears that a majority of the Coordination Framework’s most influential actors are not willing to give up on al-Maliki, and are determined to find a way to push his candidacy forward.
Coordination Framework divided
The Coordination Framework (CF) is a coalition of Shia political parties established in 2021. It represents the biggest Shia bloc in the Iraqi parliament.
The loose nature of the coalition that makes up the CF means that opinions on al-Maliki’s candidacy are varied, with some opposing it, others willing to bend to Trump’s will and switch their backing, and still others who are adamant that they will push forward.
And it seems as though the majority are in the latter camp.
The CF issued a statement on Saturday reiterating its support for al-Maliki. “Choosing the prime minister is an exclusively Iraqi constitutional matter … free from foreign interference,” the statement added.
The statement reflects the position of various pro-Maliki forces in the CF, including former deputy parliament speaker Mohsen al-Mandalawi; the Badr Organization, led by Hadi al-Amir; and the Islamic Supreme Council, led by cleric Humam Hamoudi.
Current Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, whose party received the most votes in the elections but who did not receive the CF nomination despite his membership within it, is also officially supportive of al-Maliki’s nomination, even if he has not abandoned the possibility of continuing as prime minister himself.
Several of these factions did well in last year’s parliamentary elections, including al-Maliki’s own State of Law Coalition, as well as Badr and al-Sudani’s Reconstruction and Development Coalition.
But, with support from Kurdish and Sunni parties, the Shia al-Maliki sceptics have enough seats, and enough of a voice, to block the nomination if they desire to do so.
These include important Shia figures such as Qais al-Khazali, the leader of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq group; Ammar al-Hakim, the leader of the National State Forces alliance; and former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
Al-Hakim, whose parliamentary bloc has 18 seats, warned that there would be “incoming economic repercussions” if al-Maliki was chosen, and added that “public interest must be prioritised over private interests”.
Meanwhile, the Victory Alliance, led by al-Abadi, issued a statement calling for “[the prioritisation of] the people’s vital interests given the exceptional circumstances Iraq and the region are experiencing”. Al-Abadi’s group has no seats in parliament, but retains an important voice within the CF.
Both statements contain a tacit acknowledgment of Iraq’s inability to withstand US pressure and the need for an alternative candidate suited to the current reality.
Other roadblocks
The CF, therefore, still has an uphill battle to confirm al-Maliki as prime minister. Outside of the Shia political groups, there is also opposition to al-Maliki, a divisive figure remembered negatively by many Iraqis, particularly Sunnis.
And there are also divisions within the non-Shia groups that are also slowing down the nomination process.
Under the Iraqi Constitution, parliament must first elect a president for Iraq, who then mandates the nominee of the largest parliamentary bloc to form the government. According to Iraq’s post-2003 “muhasasa” system of dividing political offices by sect and ethnicity, the prime minister must be a Shia, the president a Kurd, and the parliamentary speaker a Sunni.
To date, the main Kurdish factions – the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by Masoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Bafel Talabani – have failed to agree on a consensus candidate for the presidency.
The CF is attempting to broker an agreement between the Kurds. Recent efforts included a delegation led by al-Sudani meeting with both parties, and a personal visit by al-Maliki to Barzani. But these initiatives have not yet succeeded, and without a political agreement on the presidency, the process of designating a prime minister cannot proceed.
And even if the Kurds reach an agreement and don’t stand in the way of al-Maliki, the CF must persuade a long list of the former prime minister’s opponents.
Among them is Mohammed al-Halbousi, former speaker of parliament and leader of the Takadum Party, who issued a statement prior to the US veto implicitly rejecting al-Maliki’s candidacy.
Collectively, the anti-al-Maliki groups could gather roughly a third of the seats in parliament, enough to prevent a presidential election session due to a lack of quorum.
To avoid that scenario, the CF would have to either reset internal negotiations regarding the next prime minister, or nominate al-Sudani for a second term.
Al-Sudani’s party issued a statement on January 28 calling for “positive relationships with the United States” – a move interpreted as an indirect pitch for his renewal, leveraging his proven track record of managing relations with Washington during his tenure.
US leverage
The US may no longer be the occupying power in Iraq, but it still has enormous economic leverage over the country.
The revenue from Iraq’s main export – oil – is routed through the US Federal Reserve Bank in New York.
Trump may decide not to renew a presidential executive order, issued originally by President George W Bush in the wake of the Iraq War, that grants legal protection for the oil revenue funds and prevents them from being frozen by Iraq’s creditors. The order had been expected to be renewed as a formality upon its expiration in May.
If the US president decides against renewal, creditors will seek to claim their funds, and New York courts may issue rulings to freeze the Iraqi assets. This would disrupt the transfer of funds necessary to pay public salaries and sustain the economy for months or even years. In practical terms, the Iraqi economy would grind to a halt.
That therefore explains why the pro-al-Maliki bloc in the CF is attempting to persuade the US to change its position, rather than simply ignore Trump.
A high-ranking source in the CF’s State of Law coalition, who wished to remain anonymous in order to speak freely on the topic, told Al Jazeera there are “ongoing attempts to convince the US administration to lift the veto on al-Maliki”.
Aqeel al-Fatlawi, the State of Law spokesperson, also said he was hopeful that the US “will change its stance in the coming period”.
While blaming regional states, including Turkiye and Syria, for the US position towards him, al-Maliki himself has sought to soften his positions.
Syria has been one of the main points of difference between al-Maliki and the US, which has backed Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa, even as the former Iraqi prime minister has denounced him for his past membership of al-Qaeda.
In a televised interview on Tuesday, al-Maliki used al-Sharaa’s full name, rather than the Syrian leader’s nom de guerre of “al-Jolani”, an attempt to emphasise that he was willing to move on from the past. Al-Maliki also attempted to soften his stance towards the Syrian government, directing his criticism towards the former regime of ousted President Bashar al-Assad and its role in supporting “terrorism” in Iraq.
Whether these attempts will go far enough to placate the US remains to be seen.
Reports indicate that US Special Envoy to Iraq Mark Savaya may have been removed from his position, although there is no official confirmation. His replacement would likely be Tom Barrack, currently the US ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy to Syria.
The CF favours Savaya, who has proven to be more supportive of using a more gradual approach in reducing the power of Iraq’s Shia militias, versus Barrack, who is viewed by the CF more negatively for his role in weakening Hezbollah in Lebanon and his support for Syria’s al-Sharaa.
An official announcement of a change could indicate where Trump’s thoughts are in the critical next few weeks – and whether the president will choose to not renew the US guarantee to protect Iraq’s oil revenue in May.
Ukraine braced for more attacks on its energy infrastructure this week as winter temperatures continued to fall to -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit), and sought to adapt its defences against Russian drones.
On Thursday, Ukraine’s energy minister, Denys Shmyal, warned Ukrainians to prepare for more power blackouts in the coming days as Russian air attacks continued.
Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said Russia had struck energy infrastructure 217 times this year. Shmyal said 200 emergency crews were working to restore power to 1,100 buildings in Kyiv alone.
Russia has been targeting Ukrainian power stations, gas pipelines and power cables since mid-January, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without heat or electricity at various points.
On January 29, US President Donald Trump told a cabinet meeting that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to halt strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for a week, something the Kremlin confirmed.
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and various towns for a week, and he agreed to do that,” Trump said.
It was unclear when that conversation happened, exactly, but on Tuesday this week, Russia unleashed one of its biggest strikes ever on energy infrastructure in Kyiv and Kharkiv, deploying 71 missiles and 450 drones.
Ukraine’s Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said Ukraine had only managed to shoot down 38 of the missiles because a very high proportion of them were ballistic.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed it was targeting storage sites for unmanned aerial vehicles, defence enterprises and their energy supply.
The strike coincided with a visit to Kyiv by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and came a day before tripartite talks among Russia, Ukraine and the US resumed in Abu Dhabi.
“Last night, in our view, the Russians broke their promise,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his news conference with Rutte. “So, either Russia now thinks that a week is less than four days instead of seven, or they are genuinely betting only on war.”
The strike also came just as Kyiv had managed to reduce the number of apartment buildings without heat from 3,500 three days earlier, to about 500.
At least two people, both aged 18, were killed as they walked on a street in Zaporizhzhia, southeast Ukraine.
Even on relatively quiet days, Russia causes civilian deaths. On Sunday, February 1, Russia killed a dozen miners when a drone struck the bus that was taking them to work in Ukraine’s central Dnipro region.
[Al Jazeera]
Evolving drone tactics
During the few days in which it did observe the moratorium on energy-related strikes, Russia focused on striking Ukrainian logistics instead and made attempts to extend the reach of its drones.
Ukrainian Defence Ministry Adviser on Technology and Drone Warfare Serhiy “Flash” Beskrestnov reported that Russian drones were striking Ukrainian trucks 50km (31 miles) from the front line. He also said Russia had adapted its Geran drone to act “as a carrier” for smaller, first-person view (FPV) drones, doubling up two relatively cheap systems for greater range.
Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne said Russia had begun these new tactics in mid-January.
Ukraine’s Air Force has managed to down about 90 percent of Russia’s long-range drones, and a high proportion of its missiles – almost 22,000 targets in January alone.
Zelenskyy recently demanded better results, however, and one of the Ukrainian responses to Russian tactics has been a new, short-range “small air defence” force that uses drones to counter drones.
“Hundreds of UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] crews have already been transferred to the operational control of the Air Force grouping – they are performing tasks in the first and second echelons of interception,” wrote Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii on Wednesday this week.
Ukraine’s second response has been to disable Russian Starlink terminals, which Russia uses extensively on the battlefield, and has recently begun mounting on UAVs.
Starlink uses low-orbit satellites and is impervious to jamming, allowing Russia to change a drone’s intended target while it is in mid-flight.
Ukraine’s newly installed defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, has been creating a “white list” of Starlink terminals used by the armed forces of Ukraine, and sent them to Starlink owner Elon Musk, asking him to keep these operational while shutting down all others in the Ukraine theatre.
“Soon, only verified and registered terminals will operate in Ukraine. Everything else will be disconnected,” Fedorov wrote on Telegram.
“Looks like the steps we took to stop the unauthorized use of Starlink by Russia have worked. Let us know if more needs to be done,” Musk wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
Fedorov and Beskrestnov have been asking Ukrainian soldiers and civilians to register any Starlink terminals they acquire privately on the white list.
[Al Jazeera]
More sanctions on the way
On the day of Russia’s large strike, Zelenskyy appealed to the US to pass a bill long in the making that would impose more sanctions on buyers of Russian oil. China is the biggest, followed by India.
The previous day, Trump said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had agreed to stop buying Russian oil. “He agreed to stop buying Russian Oil, and to buy much more from the United States and, potentially, Venezuela. This will help END THE WAR in Ukraine,” he wrote on his social media platform.
A Russian government source told Reuters that an assumed 30 percent drop in oil sales to India, and lower sales to other customers, could triple Moscow’s planned budget deficit this year from 1.6 percent of GDP to 3.5 percent or 4.4 percent. Government data released on Wednesday showed the Kremlin’s revenues from energy at $5.13bn in January, half the level of January 2025.
Zelenskyy also discussed a 20th sanctions package under preparation with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “We can already see what is happening to the Russian economy and what could follow if the pressure is applied effectively,” he said.
Russia has made little headway in its ground war in the past three years, a fact repeatedly documented, most recently by a CSIS report. Despite this, its top officials continued to insist last week on terms of peace that would force Ukraine to give up control of four of its southeastern regions, cut down its armed forces and agree not to join NATO – terms Ukraine refuses.
The resumed talks in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday and Thursday yielded only a prisoner-of-war exchange of 157 a side.
Crypto markets came under pressure this week when the price of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, tumbled to its lowest level in more than a year.
On Thursday afternoon, the price of Bitcoin fell below $66,000 and was hovering at about $62,900 on Friday morning.
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The fall in the price of the digital asset kicked off in the last weekend of January, when it fell below $80,000.
In October last year, Bitcoin hit an all-time peak of more than $127,000 before falling back to about $90,000 in December.
Following its latest tumble, Bitcoin is currently down by about 30 percent more since the start of the year.
Here’s what we know about what’s going on in the world of cryptocurrency:
Why is the price of Bitcoin falling?
Volatility in other markets is one of the main drivers.
“Institutional demand has reversed materially,” CryptoQuant, an organisation which provides analysis of global markets to cryptocurrency investors, wrote in a report on Wednesday.
The report noted that US exchange-traded funds (ETFs) – a form of pooled investment – which had been buying up Bitcoin last year, are selling it this year.
Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in a note to clients this week that these ETFs “have seen billions of dollars flow out each month since the October 2025 downturn”, referring to investors in the funds cashing out of them.
Furthermore, they added that specialised US spot Bitcoin ETFs suffered outflows of more than $3bn in January this year, following outflows of about $7bn and $2bn in November and December 2025, respectively.
“This steady selling in our view signals that traditional investors are losing interest, and overall pessimism about crypto is growing,” the analysts said.
Adam Morgan McCarthy, product specialist at Kaiko, an organisation that provides crypto market data and analyses, told Al Jazeera: “The fall in Bitcoin prices has been largely tied to less interest in the markets and lower trading volumes. This leads to less liquidity, so any move higher or lower is exacerbated.”
He explained that the crypto market relies heavily on “hype-driven” cycles where people buy due to a fear of “missing out” on an opportunity.
“This hype forms the foundation of trading volumes, and that is what we mean by liquidity. Essentially, more trading volumes mean more liquidity, as it makes it easier to quickly buy and sell Bitcoin,” he said.
“Right now, that foundation is disappearing and this tends to happen during bear markets or ‘crypto winters’, making it much harder to effectively trade assets, and they become even less appealing then. So it’s quite a vicious circle that leads to these downward spirals,” he added.
A “crypto winter” is an extended period of declining or stagnant prices, something that can be driven by worsening macroeconomic conditions or tightening market regulations, among other reasons.
Volatility in gold and silver prices in the past two weeks has also dampened market sentiment, affecting the price of cryptocurrencies. Analysts say geopolitical instability and the prospects of a rising US dollar have led investors to sell precious metals, resulting in the sudden downturn.
Then, last week, prices came back sharply, with the price of gold hitting a record peak of almost $5,595 an ounce, while silver hit an all-time high of nearly $122.
But this peak did not last long, and this week, the prices of these precious commodities plunged – again – with gold falling to $4,872.83 per ounce on Thursday and silver falling to $77.36 an ounce.
Other cryptocurrencies like Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, have also fallen. The price of Ether has fallen by 19 percent this week, closing at $1,854 late on Thursday.
Does this mean ‘crypto-friendly’ policies in the US aren’t working?
The price of Bitcoin soared after United States President Donald Trump’s return to the White House last year, with analysts expecting he would adopt a “crypto-friendly” regulatory regime.
At a Bitcoin conference in July 2024, as part of his pre-election rally, Trump had said the US is the “crypto capital of the planet” and pledged to also create a Bitcoin “strategic reserve” if he became president.
In March 2025, on taking office, Trump announced his government would create a national strategic crypto reserve which would include five cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin and Ether as well as smaller currencies XRP, Cardano and Solana.
In July last year, Trump also announced the GENIUS Act, a new cryptocurrency legislation that would establish regulations and consumer protections for “stablecoin”, a type of cryptocurrency whose value is linked to a fixed currency or commodity.
Then, last month, the US also unveiled draft legislation that would create a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency, which, if signed into law, would clarify financial regulators’ jurisdiction over the cryptocurrency sector.
The US president has a personal interest as his family owns the cryptofirm World Liberty Financial (WLFI).
Last March, WLFI launched its own “stablecoin” – a dollar-pegged cryptocoin backed by US treasuries – called USD1.
But the president’s personal interest in cryptocurrencies and supportive policies have not shielded the digital asset from external market factors.
Have we seen ‘crypto winters’ before?
Yes.
A crypto winter was triggered after Bitcoin peaked in December 2017 and then tumbled in December 2018 due to intense regulatory crackdowns in the US, Canada and other countries, among other reasons.
Another such winter occurred in November 2022 after a peak in October 2021, due to the FTX currency exchange scandal. In November that year, crypto exchange FTX initiated US bankruptcy proceedings after a liquidity crisis prompted intervention from regulators around the world.
In a Thursday briefing note, analysts at Kaiko said the downward trend in prices “truly accelerated” after Trump appointed Kevin Warsh as the new Federal Reserve Chair.
Warsh will replace Jeremy Powell, who Trump has lambasted for not lowering interest rates.
The Kaiko briefing note stated: “Powell’s recent announcement on January 28th that interest rates would remain unchanged, combined with the appointment of the new Chairman, constituted a true turning point, acting as a catalyst for a sharp acceleration of the decline. The reaction was all the more pronounced given that the crypto market, particularly sensitive to changes in the macroeconomic regime, was already weakened,” the report said.
What will happen next?
Hougan noted that crypto winters typically last for about 13 months and assured investors that the current “winter” will not last for long.
“As a veteran of multiple crypto winters, I can tell you that the end of those crypto winters feels a lot like now: Despair, desperation, and malaise. But there is nothing about the current market pullback that’s changed anything fundamental about crypto,” he said in his report.
“I think we’re going to come roaring back sooner rather than later. Heck, it’s been winter since January 2025. Spring is surely coming soon,” he added.
Feb. 6 (UPI) — A group of prominent Nigerian religious and traditional leaders visited Washington, D.C. this week seeking understanding and support for addressing their country’s critical security situation as a result of ethnic and religious based violence.
The group comprised three Christian leaders, both Catholic and Protestant, and three Muslim imams, one of whom is also a traditional ruler in Zamfara state in northwestern Nigeria.
Last Wednesday they briefed international stakeholders on the current state of the security crisis in Nigeria and discussed interfaith action priorities with potential international partners.
Ambassador Sam Brownback, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, and chairman of the 2026 International Religious Freedom Summit underscored the urgency of the situation. He told the working group, “If this moment is not wisely used, you could lose the country. I fear this is the road this is starting down without sustainable solutions. You don’t have a lot of time.”
The virtual disappearance of state sovereignty in certain rule areas where armed groups extort taxes, requisition harvests, and hijack local government was a central issue of concern. In addition, estimates of internally displaced people, or IDPs, as a result of armed conflict range from 3.5 to 8 million. Most IDPs are forced to live in hastily assembled refugee camps.
“This should not be possible in 2026,” said Cardinal John Onyaikan, one of the visiting faith leaders.
Nigeria’s fragile security situation had directly affected members of the visiting group. Alhaji Hassan Attihuru, the Emir of Bungudu, in Zamfara state, challenged the idea that kidnappings and killings were targeted on religious grounds. He himself had been kidnapped by members of his own Fulani people who were fellow Muslims.
Rev. John Hayab is a Baptist minister in Kaduna State, and the country Director of Global Peace Foundation Nigeria. Students at a school his church ran were kidnapped and held for ransom. His son was one of a small group that managed to escape into the nearby forest.
The group’s visit to America was a follow-up to the Abuja High-Level Interfaith Dialogue, convened by the Global Peace Foundation Nigeria last December. The meeting produced a blunt statement challenging the federal government to do more to combat the violence.
It also established a Joint Interfaith Advocacy Committee on Freedom of Religion and Belief that agreed to increase peace messaging to affected communities and track progress on reducing incidents of violence.
Attending the dialogue in D.C. from the American side were representatives of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Global Impact, Religious Freedom Institute, Alliance Defending Freedom, the U.S. State Department, and American University.
Cardinal Onyaikan told those present, “Our problems are self-inflicted so we need our own solutions. But no nation is an island, so we also need support.”
The dialogue was co-sponsored by the Global Peace Foundation, Religious Freedom Institute, and Pepperdine University.
Summing up the meeting, Fr. Canice Enyiaka, Global Peace Foundation Director of African Peace Initiatives said, “Bringing the experience and insights of faith leaders here to Washington is very important because of the seriousness of the current crisis. Religious faith is a powerful force in Nigeria and I am grateful for all the organizations supporting religious freedom and human rights represented here.”
Yesterday, the Nigerian group met with Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV)who has been vocal about the violence suffered by Christians in Nigeria. He is said to be preparing a report on the security threats to Nigerian Christians for President Trump with options for how the U.S. government should respond.
The visiting group briefed him on the complexities of the situation and the role that interfaith cooperation at the leadership level can play in addressing it. Moore agreed to continue to receive their input after their return to Nigeria.
A Congolese miner told Al Jazeera he saw his friends around him die as the mine they were working in collapsed in heavy rains, trapping dozens underground for hours. Rescuers pulled Grace Barata alive from the mud the following day.
European Union regulators say TikTok may be in violation of the Digital Services Act due to the risk it poses for addictive and compulsive behavior.
