Top World News

Jan 26, 2026 - World

More than 100 people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in South Africa, Mozambique and ZimbabweDevastating floods have killed more than 100 people in southern Africa since the beginning of the year and displaced hundreds of thousands, as authorities and aid workers warn of hunger, cholera and attacks by crocodiles that have spread with the waters.More than 70 people have died in Zimbabwe and 30 in South Africa, where hundreds of people were evacuated from Kruger national park earlier this month after a deluge of rain. Continue reading...

Jan 25, 2026 - World

As I wrote this column, Donald Trump was speaking at the Davos Economic Summit. This event rightly has often been derided for pandering to elites and corporations while shallowly nodding to concerns about the environment, civil rights and economic inequality as the billionaires and world leaders fly in on their private jets.But this year it was at the center of the fear and chaos over Trump’s war on NATO and Europe, his demand for a Nobel Peace Prize, and his desire to seize Greenland.In his rambling speech, lying about his so-called accomplishments, Trump appeared to rule out using military force to take Greenland (after implying for days that he would seize it, as he put it, “the hard way” if he needed to do so). But, Trump said, he wants “immediate negotiations” to acquire Greenland because it is “undefended.” He’s made repeated false claims that it is being circled by Russian and Chinese ships.Was this another Trump TACO? Possibly. But don’t think he won’t threaten World War III again, nor demand the Nobel Peace Prize again in return for not waging war as he continues to grab for Greenland. We’ve come to know the tired performance in which Trump demands the world’s attention, the media complies, and international relations are damaged.Greenland, of course, is, always has been, and — barring any change in circumstances — always will be “defended” because it is part of NATO. That means the U.S. is defending it, along with the rest of the alliance. So everything that’s happened in the past few days around this issue is pure idiocy, and all about Trump’s ego and his desire to own land which I’m sure he’d like to rename “Trumpland.”But that’s what we have come to expect from the debilitating dictator who is waging war on his own country, sending thousands of violent goons to terrorize Minneapolis while continuing to dodge the Epstein files.The world, for its part, is moving on. The speech at Davos by Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney was a powerful synthesis of this. There is a new world order, he said, as the U.S. not only cannot be relied upon for stability; it can’t be trusted in any agreements and will at any time lash out with punishing tariffs or threats of domination.This new order will be a painful adjustment for the world and, in particular, those considered long-time allies of the U.S. But the people most hurt will be Americans, seeing Trump rip up trade agreements as the rest of the world makes new alliances. The very people who voted for Trump, hoping he was going to make life more affordable, will be more miserable than ever.As Ryan Cooper reported at the American Prospect, Trump, in repealing the government investments in green energy in the Inflation Reduction Act, has already doomed the American car industry with his war on electric vehicles:Now, thanks to that betrayal, plus Trump’s lunatic trade and foreign policy in general, the American auto industry is bleeding out.Consider Canada, which has historically been one of the biggest markets for American cars, being quite similar culturally, already heavily integrated into the U.S. auto industry (along with Mexico), and also one of the few places that will buy our big stupid trucks.America’s share of the Canadian auto market has been tumbling, down from about half in the previous decade to just 36 percent, because of Trump’s deranged trade war and threats of annexation, which has sparked a massive nationalist backlash and a mounting customer boycott of anything American.And that brings me back to Carney’s speech. He urged world leaders not to continue to yearn for a past order whose presentation was pretty fictional anyway:Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.The multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied — the WTO, the UN, the COP, the very architecture of collective problem-solving — are under threat. As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions that they must develop greater strategic autonomy in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains. And this impulse is understandable.A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.Carney urged the “middle powers” of the world to unite — economically, militarily, and geopolitically — to become a force that can stand up to the great powers. It’s ambitious, but it’s the only thing that they can do, he said. As the European Union leaders described new trade deals with India, Brazil, China, and other countries, Carney also touted new trade agreements:We’ve agreed to a comprehensive strategic partnership with the EU, including joining SAFE, the European defence procurement arrangements. We have signed 12 other trade and security deals on four continents in six months.In the past few days, we’ve concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We’re negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines and Mercosur.The U.S. is pulling itself away while many of its spurned friends are making new alliances. As Carney noted, this is about survival and the inability to count on the U.S.:The question for middle powers like Canada is not whether to adapt to the new reality — we must.The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls or whether we can do something more ambitious.Now, Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture. Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumptions that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security, that assumption is no longer valid. And our new approach rests on what Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, has termed value-based realism.Or, to put it another way, we aim to be both principled and pragmatic. Principled in our commitment to fundamental values, sovereignty, territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter and respect for human rights.And then this line:Our view is the middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.In the first Trump administration there was an idea that Trump was an aberration. The hope was that he or someone like him would never return. The U.S. would go back to the order of the last century, and, even with all its flaws — including the U.S. and other great powers continually exempting themselves from the rules — it would all work out. But now there’s the realization that it’s done. And Carney sees it as a moment of opportunity and even liberation.We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers, the countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from genuine co-operation.The powerful have their power. But we have something too: the capacity to stop pretending, to name realities, to build our strength at home and to act together.That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently, and it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.With that, Carney laid it out for the business and political leaders of the world, receiving a standing ovation.Trump today ranted and lied at Davos, and he will continue to do so whenever he speaks. But he is making himself and the U.S. more and more irrelevant, as much of the world has no choice but to move on and find safety by joining together and making new friends.In forcing that, Trump is making America weaker by the day. Can we bring the country back? That will depend on the 2026 elections — and all of us working hard to stop the GOP from enabling him — as well as on the 2028 elections. And, though it perhaps can be done, whoever becomes president will have an enormous task in gaining the trust of the world once again.

Jan 25, 2026 - World

Voting ends in month-long poll derided internationally as sham designed to cement army’s grip on powerVoting in Myanmar has ended with the military-backed party expected to win a landslide victory after a month-long election that has been widely derided as a sham designed to cement the army’s grip on power.The junta leader, Min Aung Hlaing, has rejected criticism of the vote, saying it has the support of the public and presenting it as a return to democracy and stability. Continue reading...

Jan 24, 2026 - World

Before he TACO’d at Davos, Donald Trump’s vow to take Greenland by hook or crook because he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize was next level insanity prancing on the world stage. (No Donnie dear, they’re not laughing at you, they’re laughing because of you).Prompting a collective eye roll from EU leaders at Davos on Wednesday, Trump’s bellicose nonsense — “demanding” that European sovereigns bow to him on Greenland or face economic blackmail via more tariffs — revealed a shocking combination of hubris and cognitive failure. Trump is at once illustrating his ignorance of the post-WWII NATO alliance that has kept America safe for 80 years, while showcasing an inability to learn from his own mistakes by doubling down on already ruinous tariffs.Regardless of whether EU leaders ultimately placate the madman or punch him back, only harder, Trump’s threats against Greenland were a world class blunder.Putin licks his lips The only country poised to benefit from Trump’s Greenland insanity is Russia. After Vladimir Putin personally approved an operation to promote “mentally unstable” Trump (the Kremlin’s words, not mine) in the 2016 US election, weakening the U.S. and NATO looks like Putin’s payout. It may take years to unravel whether it was pre-planned between Trump and Putin, ie: treason, or simply reflects a global realignment driven by Trump and Putin’s self-interests and shared delusions of grandeur.Putin and Trump have each expressed a preference for rule by force rather than law, with Trump recently claiming he has “no need” for international law. Putin concurs. After helping a “mentally unstable” man with no comprehension of world history achieve the US presidency, Putin knows that Trump’s threats against Greenland have permanently debunked the west’s criticism of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Greenlanders may pay the price for Trump’s insanity in the near future, but Ukrainians are paying for it today.Russia is hyperventilating with excitement. Breathlessly describing a scenario in which “one NATO member is going to attack another NATO member,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted earlier this week that, “It was hard to imagine before that such a thing could happen.” Lavrov said Trump’s threats against Greenland “have upended” the western concept of the “rule-based global order,” a concept Putin has long loathed.By creating a vacuum where the rule of international law and respect for sovereignty once reigned, Trump has invited all rogue actors — not just Putin — to do their worst. Even Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the man who did more than anyone to put Trump back in office, gets it. Proving that broken clocks are right twice a day, McConnell said that Trump alienating allies on Greenland and “going it alone would be strategic malpractice. Courting Russia and its GDP of $2.5 trillion … At the expense of longstanding bonds with Europe and its GDP of $27 trillion? That doesn’t even align with U.S. economic interests, let alone our values.” Glad to see the GOP still understands basic math when it wants to make a point.Trump trashes instruments of peaceDuring the first half of the 20th century, more than 100 million people died agonizing deaths over the course of two world wars. The UN charter sprang from the wreckage, with the stated determination to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.”In Article I, the charter seeks to ‘maintain international peace and security,’ by taking “collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace” in conformity with international law.NATO complements the UN Charter by putting teeth into UN peace mandates. It backs the UN framework for collective security with military strength. NATO’s Article 5 states that if one NATO ally is attacked, every other member will consider it an “armed attack against all members.” If Trump invades Denmark’s territory, in other words, he will trigger 2.8 million active troops’ obligation to return fire- against the U.S. aggressor.Evil started WWII. Cowardice may start WWIIITrump has always shared Russia’s resentment of NATO. In 1987, after his first trip to Moscow, Trump took out full-page, anti-NATO ads, and has been at it ever since. The maddening through line today is that Congress has the power to stop Trump, but Republicans who know better are refusing to act. Short of removing Trump from office, Congress could slam shut the purse, block Trump from “running” any country outside the U.S., restrict the use of appropriated defense funds, or pass a War Powers Resolution to stop Trump from starting WWIII. But they haven’t. All we hear from the GOP, despite the obvious danger of the moment, are speeches.McConnell delivered a nice one. After he voted against the War Powers Act, he postured with a speech about Trump’s threats in Greenland: “Unless and until the President can demonstrate otherwise, then the proposition at hand today is very straightforward: (Trump is) incinerating the hard-won trust of loyal (EU) allies in exchange for no meaningful change in U.S. access to the Arctic.” He added, “(T)his is about more than Greenland. It’s about more than America’s relationship with its highly capable Nordic allies. It’s about whether the United States intends to face a constellation of strategic adversaries with capable friends … or commit an unprecedented act of strategic self-harm and go it alone.”By threatening a semi-autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, Trump issued a direct threat against Europe and NATO, deliberately weakening the alliance that fought to defeat Hitler and fascism in WWII. On Monday, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe spoke directly to the 38 percent of US adults who consume Fox/ Sinclair media Trump propaganda exclusively: “We need to ask ourselves, on both sides of the Atlantic, if we want to live in a world where democracy is recast as weakness, truth as opinion and justice as an option.”He closed with a warning: “When Europe insists on sovereignty and accountability, it is not posturing. International law is either universal or meaningless. Greenland will show which one we choose.”Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Jan 24, 2026 - World

The fall-out from Donald Trump’s abrasive Davos speech which led Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney to call out the bullying American president, escalated on Saturday morning with a new tariff threat — a favorite Trump weapon when he feels personally aggrieved.Prior to the Davos World Economic Conference, Carney traveled to Beijing where he reached a deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping to open Canada to Chinese electric vehicle importation.On Saturday morning, Trump latched on to that deal to retaliate for the humiliation he felt in Davos and, once again, he threatened another tariff.On Truth Social, he reiterated once again that China will overwhelm Canada, writing, “If Governor Carney thinks he is going to make Canada a “Drop Off Port” for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken. China will eat Canada alive, completely devour it, including the destruction of their businesses, social fabric, and general way of life.”He then added, “If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% Tariff against all Canadian goods and products coming into the U.S.A.” before closing with his customary, “Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT”You can see his post here.