Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi slammed the double standard allowing Israel to expand its military while other countries in the region are demanded to reduce their defensive capabilities. Araghchi spoke at the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha, a three-day event focusing on geopolitical shifts in the Middle East.
Published On 7 Feb 20267 Feb 2026
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Finneas O’Connell took to social media to defend Billie Eilish and her Grammys acceptance speech from a specific demographic that was angered by her remarks.
“Seeing a lot of very powerful old white men outraged about what my 24 year old sister said during her acceptance speech,” O’Connell wrote Wednesday on Threads. “We can literally see your names in the Epstein files.”
The sibling duo won the Grammy for song of the year Sunday, becoming the first ever three-time winners of the category. The “Wildflower” songwriters were among those wearing “ICE Out” pins at the 2026 Grammy Awards as a statement against the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration-enforcement agency and its tactics after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota sparked a national outcry.
“No one is illegal on stolen land,” Eilish said while accepting the award. “It’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now. I feel really hopeful in this room and like we just need to keep fighting, speaking up and protesting. Our voices really matter.”
While some of her speech was censored during the live broadcast, Eilish was also heard saying “F— ICE,” drawing cheers from those in attendance.
Eilish was one of many artists who used their moment on the Grammys stage to speak out against the Trump administration and the federal immigration raids that have been happening in multiple states, including California. Some, including R&B song and performance winner Kehlani, were just as direct in their language condemning ICE. Other winners, including Bad Bunny and Shaboozey, used their speeches to celebrate immigrant communities.
Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel has denounced what he called an attempt by his United States counterpart, Donald Trump, to “suffocate” the sanctions-hit country’s economy.
Trump signed an executive order on Thursday threatening additional tariffs on countries that sell oil to Cuba, the latest move in Washington’s campaign of pressure on Havana. The order alleged that the government of communist-run Cuba was an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security.
In a social media post on Friday, Diaz-Canel said that under “a false and baseless pretext”, Trump plans “to suffocate” Cuba’s economy by slapping tariffs “on countries that sovereignly trade oil” with it.
“This new measure reveals the fascist, criminal and genocidal nature of a clique that has hijacked the interests of the American people for purely personal ends,” he said, in an apparent allusion to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban American and a known anti-Cuban government hawk.
Cuba, which is suffering rolling electricity blackouts blamed on fuel shortages, was cut off from critical supplies of Venezuelan oil after the US abducted Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his wife in a bloody military night raid on the capital, Caracas, earlier this month. At least 32 members of Cuba’s armed forces and intelligence agencies were killed in the January 3 attack.
The US has since taken effective control of Venezuela’s oil sector, and Trump, a Republican, has issued threats against other left-wing governments in the region, promising to stop oil shipments previously sent to Cuba.
Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez on Friday declared an “international emergency” in response to Trump’s move, which he said constitutes “an unusual and extraordinary threat”.
Venezuela’s government also condemned the measure in a statement on Friday, saying it violates international law and the principles of global commerce.
Reporting from Cuba’s capital, Al Jazeera’s Ed Augustin said Trump’s announcement “is a massive psychological blow”, noting that analysts describe it as the “most powerful economic blow the United States has ever dealt the island”.
Days after Maduro’s abduction and transfer to the US, Trump urged Cuba to make a deal “before it is too late,” without specifying what kind of agreement he was referring to.
In a post on social media, Trump suggested Rubio could become the president of Cuba. “Sounds good to me!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
In Havana, residents expressed anger at Trump’s tariff threat, which will only make life harder for Cubans already struggling with an increase in US sanctions.
“My food is going bad. We haven’t had electricity since 6am,” Yenia Leon told Al Jazeera. “You can’t sleep. You have to buy food every day. There’s no solution to the power situation,” she said.
“This is a war,” Lazaro Alfonso, an 89-year-old retired graphic designer, told The Associated Press news agency, describing Trump as the “sheriff of the world” and saying he feels like he is living in the Wild West, where anything goes.
Alfonso, who lived through the severe economic depression in the 1990s known as the “Special Period” following cuts in Soviet aid, said the current situation in Cuba is worse, given the severe blackouts, a lack of basic goods and a scarcity of fuel.
“The only thing that’s missing here in Cuba … is for bombs to start falling,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would seek alternatives to continue helping Cuba after Trump’s announcement following a decision this week to temporarily halt oil shipments to the island amid heightened rhetoric from Trump.
Mexico became a key supplier of fuel to Cuba, along with Russia, after the US sanctions on Venezuela paralysed the delivery of crude oil to the island.
Sheinbaum said cutting off oil shipments to Cuba could trigger a “far-reaching humanitarian crisis” on the island, affecting transportation, hospitals and access to food. She did not say whether Mexico would cut shipments of oil or refined products to Cuba, which she said accounted for 1 percent of Mexico’s production.
“Our interest is that the Cuban people don’t suffer,” Sheinbaum said, adding that she had instructed her foreign minister to contact the US State Department to better understand the scope of the executive order.
Mexico supplied 44 percent of Cuban oil imports and Venezuela exported 33 percent until last month, while some 10 percent of Cuban oil is sourced from Russia. Some oil is also sourced from Algeria, according to The Financial Times figures.
In November last year, a senior United Nations expert said the long-running US sanctions on Cuba must be lifted as they are “causing significant effects across all aspects of life”.
The US imposed a near-total trade embargo on Cuba in 1962, with the goal of toppling the government put in place by Fidel Castro after he took power in a 1959 revolution. Castro himself was the target of numerous assassination attempts by the US’s Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA.
Alena Douhan, special rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on human rights, said the “extensive regime of economic, trade and financial restrictions” against Cuba marks the longest-running unilateral sanctions policy in US history.
She noted that there are shortages of food, medicine, electricity, water, essential machinery and spare parts in Cuba, while a growing emigration of skilled workers, including medical staff, engineers and teachers, is further straining the country.
The accumulative effect has “severe consequences for the enjoyment of human rights, including the rights to life, food, health and development”, Douhan said.
Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz beat Germany’s Alexander Zverev over five hours but the latter is upset by officiating of injury.
Published On 30 Jan 202630 Jan 2026
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Alexander Zverev condemned officials for allowing Carlos Alcaraz a medical timeout for a leg problem after falling in an epic five-setter to the Spaniard in the Australian Open’s longest semifinal.
World number one Alcaraz was struggling to move at 4-4 in the third set on Friday and was allowed treatment on his right thigh at the change of ends, leaving the German incensed.
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While Alcaraz said post-match that he worried he may have strained an adductor muscle, Zverev was adamant the Spaniard’s problem was cramp, which is out of bounds for medical timeouts.
Alcaraz dropped the next two sets but was back running at full pelt in the fifth to close out an epic 6-4 7-6(5) 6-7(3) 6-7(4) 7-5 win in five hours and 27 minutes.
“Yeah, I mean, he was cramping, so normally you can’t take a medical timeout for cramping,” third seed Zverev said at his post-match news conference.
“What can I do? It’s not my decision. I didn’t like it, but it’s not my decision.”
On court, Zverev lashed out at a match supervisor in profanity-laden German as Alcaraz underwent treatment.
“I just said it was b******t, basically,” he said later of the exchange, noting that Alcaraz finished full of running.
“He took like an hour and a half off where he wasn’t moving almost at all.
“So again, maybe I should have used that better in a way. Maybe I should have won the games and won the sets a bit quicker. Then moving into the fifth, maybe he wouldn’t have had so much time to recover. But the fifth set, the way he was moving, was incredible again.”
When asked whether he was injured, Alcaraz equivocated.
“Well, obviously I feel tired. You know, obviously my body could be better, to be honest, but I think that’s normal after five hours and a half.”
Runner-up to Jannik Sinner last year, Zverev was serving for the match at 5-4 in the fifth set of Friday’s semifinal but Alcaraz won the next three games to leave the German with another near-miss at the Grand Slams.
Still chasing an elusive first major title, Zverev said he had more regrets about dropping the second set than his surrender in the fifth.
“I was hanging on for dear life, to be honest. I was exhausted,” he said, rating the match as probably the toughest physically of his career.
“I think we both went to our absolute limits, so somewhat I’m also proud of myself, the way I was hanging on and came back from two sets to love.
“Of course it’s disappointing but this is the start of the year, so if I continue playing that way, if I continue training the way I train, if I continue working on the things that I’ve been working in the offseason, I do believe it’s going to be a good year for me.”
FORMER Little Mix star Jesy Nelson has spoken candidly about the ‘heartbreaking’ health challenges her twin daughters have faced.
The singer and campaigner has opened up about how her babies, Ocean Jade and Story Monroe, were failed to be diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA Type 1) despite numerous consultations with healthcare professionals.
In an interview on Sky News’ The UK Tonight programme, the former girl band star admitted that the condition was only picked up on when they were six months old – by her mum.
Although health visitors and GPs performed regular checks, the early symptoms of the rare genetic disease – specifically a lack of leg movement – went unnoticed.
The 34-year-old teared up as she explained her campaign for the UK to include SMA screening in the routine newborn heel prick test.
Speaking to host Sarah-Jane Mee, she said: “People are starting to take notice and take it seriously, but it never should have took for me to come along for it to be taken seriously and that’s the part that makes me feel so angry.
“This isn’t just anything. This is a matter of life or death for someone’s child and who gets to decide that?
“Who has the right to decide whether my child is going to be in a wheelchair or not when we’ve literally had three life-changing treatments since 2018?
“The fact that it’s still a thing and we’re still having to scream and shout about it is just mad to me.”
She promised: “I will not stop on my socials talking about it. Trying to do as much TV… yes, it’s big but there’ll still be lots of other people that don’t know about this, so I’ve got to stay noisy.
Following a conversation with UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting, she admitted: “It is so difficult… it’s like, yes, I had that open and honest conversation with you and you said all the right things, but what are you going to do now?
“Now that I’m not in front of you, are you going to continue?”
She reflected on the missed opportunities during early check-ups and urged: “The fact that there were healthcare visitors around my house a lot and we took them to the GP and not one of them saw any of the signs.
“Thank God for my mum, because I dread to think what position I’d be in now if my mum hadn’t have said anything to me.
“It’s one of them things that I constantly go over and I have to sometimes stop myself from doing it because I will drive myself insane.”
Jesy added that the painful diagnosis has changed her outlook for her daughters’ future.
She said: “I don’t want people to think that if you’ve got disability that that defines you because it definitely doesn’t.
“But I’ll openly say if I could have it the other way, I definitely would. Why wouldn’t I want my children to walk and live a fulfilled life?
“I just pray that it does get changed and it does become part of the heel prick test, because the amount of heartbreak and hurt that I’ve had to endure, I’ll never be able to explain it.”
The Boyz hitmaker was previously diagnosed with twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS).
The high-risk pregnancy included a 10-week hospital stay and life-saving emergency surgery.
The Brit Award-winner has launched a petition to force the Government to enforce a non- invasive £4 blood test at birth.
Symptoms of SMA depend on which type of condition, but the most common include floppy or weak arms and legs, as well as swallowing and breathing problems.
If untreated, the life expectancy of a baby with SMA Type 1 is two years and intervention is considered critical in limiting long-term impacts.
It could help avoid 33 babies a year left needing a wheelchair for life.
The former Little Mix star has had a tough time after she split from her fiance Zion Foster.
Jesy and Zion first began dating in 2022 after years of friendship.
In January 2025 they announced they were expecting identical twins.
The couple parted ways following the birth of their twin daughters, but remain close as co-parents.
Spinal muscular atrophy is a disease which takes away a person’s strength and it causes problems by disrupting the motor nerve cells in the spinal cord.
This causes an individual to lose the ability to walk, eat and breathe.
There are four types of SMA – which are based on age.
What are the symptoms?
The symptoms of SMA will depend on which type of condition you have.
But the following are the most common symptoms:
• Floppy or weak arms and legs
• Movement problems – such as difficulty sitting up, crawling or walking
• Twitching or shaking muscles
• Bone and joint problems – such as an unusually curved spine
• Swallowing problems
• Breathing difficulties
However, SMA does not affect a person’s intelligence and it does not cause learning disabilities.
How common is it?
The majority of the time a child can only be born with the condition if both of their parents have a faulty gene which causes SMA.
Usually, the parent would not have the condition themselves – they would only act as a carrier.
Statistics show around 1 in every 40 to 60 people is a carrier of the gene which can cause SMA.
If two parents carry the faulty gene there is a 1 in 4 (25 per cent) chance their child will get spinal muscular atrophy.
It affects around 1 in 11,000 babies.
