Elon Musk rips apart Keir Starmer’s Government in rant branding UK ‘fascist’ Daily Express
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Denmark’s prime minister warned Monday that any US move to take Greenland by force would destroy 80 years of transatlantic security links, after President Donald Trump repeated his desire to annex the mineral-rich Arctic territory.
Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears about Trump’s designs on the autonomous Danish territory, which has untapped rare earth deposits and could be a vital player as polar ice melts, opening up new shipping routes.
“We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” the US leader said Sunday.
In response, Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told Trump to back off, while several European countries and the European Union rushed to back Denmark, which has urged Washington to stop threatening a NATO ally.
Indonesia suspends Musk’s Grok AI over porn New Age
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Somaliland Condemns Somalia’s Calls for What It Describes as “Foreign Military Intervention” Dawan Africa
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The UK government says X limiting Grok AI image edits to users who pay a monthly fee is “insulting” to victims of misogyny and sexual violence.
It follows backlash after Elon Musk’s AI engine digitally changed images of people by undressing them – something it says it now can only do for those who pay a monthly instalment.
The BBC’s technology editor Zoe Kleinman explains what’s happened and why.
The UK government “wants any excuse for censorship”, Elon Musk has said, amid a growing backlash over deepfake sexual images produced by his social media site X’s artificial intelligence tool.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said X needed “to get a grip of” its AI chatbot Grok, and he had asked media regulator Ofcom for “all options to be on the table”.
Musk Calls UK ‘Fascist’ as Row Over Grok AI Images Escalates Bloomberg.com
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The problem with the left is that they don’t actually stand for anything. This is why they would rather support a narco-terrorist dictator while protesting a fake dictator, a.k.a. the leader of the free world. They hate Trump so much that they would rather have Venezuelans continue to live in poverty and famine in an effort not give him a win. This is because, to them, this is a third-world problem—something their first-world brains could not even begin to understand if their lives depended on it. This is wrong, which is why one Venezuelan woman broke down in tears while speaking to KATV, calling out liberals for saying, “This is not a reason for celebration.”
The people who have a problem with what happened in Venezuela cannot even begin to understand anything this woman is saying. They don’t know what it’s like to not have a shower. In the U.S., something like Walmart is often frequented by lower-income individuals. But to this woman, she couldn’t even believe such a selection of food existed.
Many of her friends just disappeared. Many of her loved ones were forced to eat trash. The people were living in fear. This is not something the left can even begin to comprehend. They don’t even care, as they would rather these people suffer than give Trump a win.
Normal people are breathing a sigh of relief that narco-terrorist leader Nicolás Maduro is finally getting his just desserts for getting fat off of the torture of his citizens and funneling drugs into the U.S. for years. For MRC Business, it’s a moment worth recalling when the idiotas at The New York Times made their readers dumber by blaming anything but communism and socialism for Venezuela’s destruction.
The July 28, 2024, story that Times Venezuela reporter Anatoly Kurmanaev, international correspondent Frances Robles and Andes Bureau Chief Julie Turkewitz ran was so bad it was enough to make people lose IQ points:
[I]n recent years, the socialist model has given way to brutal capitalism, economists say, with a small state-connected minority controlling much of the nation’s wealth.
Yes, the journos actually attempted to make Maduro and Venezuela’s bread lines synonymous with — *checks notes* — “capitalism.”
Kaine is fresh off the victory of his war powers resolution passing in the Senate last week on Venezuela operations. However, Trump is now teasing an invasion of Greenland, suggesting he would take the Danish territory “the hard way” if necessary.
“We are going to do something in Greenland, whether they like it or not, because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor,” Trump told reporters Friday at the White House.
In a Sunday appearance on CBS News’s Face the Nation, Kaine responded to what he referred to as the “disastrous” announcement with a threat of his own.
President Trump was briefed on new options for military strikes in Iran, a senior U.S. official confirmed Sunday.
Mr. Trump appeared to lay out his red line for action on Friday when he warned that if the Iranian government began “killing people like they have in the past, we would get involved.”
“We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts,” he said at the White House. “And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts.”
On social media, Mr. Trump offered his support for the protesters, saying that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
Mr. Trump’s warnings come as nationwide unrest challenging Iran’s theocracy crossed the two-week mark. At least 538 people have died in violence surrounding the demonstrations, U.S.-based activists said, with fears the death toll is far higher. More than 10,600 people have been arrested, the Human Rights Activists News Agency said.
The situation on the ground in Venezuela is a mixed bag right now, which is to be expected. One doesn’t just pluck the lead narco-terrorist from a “government” that’s basically organized crime and expect sunshine and roses within a week. It’s going to take time for Donald Trump and Marco Rubio and the United States team to pull all the weeds, and I have no doubt that, if anyone can do it, those two men can.
It’s also changing so quickly that it’s hard to keep up with everything.
That said, I’m seeing a lot of misinformation, speculation, confusion, and biased reporting out there — surprise, surprise — and I want to set the record straight on what’s happening in Venezuela right this minute. Everything I’m going to say comes from our State Department, credible human rights groups, sources on the ground, and people with whom I’ve connected who are from that country. None of them are anonymous.
Colombia’s socialist leader Gustavo Petro has claimed he’s prepared to “take up arms” to fight against President Donald Trump.
Petro published a lengthy, early-morning social media post on Monday, in which he also accused Trump of issuing “illegitimate threats” toward Bogotá.
The Colombian president is a self-described socialist and former member of the now-defunct M19 guerrilla organization.
He invoked his past involvement with the group while warning that detaining him would “unleash the jaguar of the people.”
A team of researchers in China has just pulled the curtain back on a new sodium-sulfur battery design that could fundamentally change the math on energy storage. By leaning into the very chemistry that has historically made sulfur a headache for engineers, they have managed to build a cell that is incredibly cheap to make but still packs a massive energy punch.
The design, which is currently being tested in the lab, uses dirt-cheap ingredients: sulfur, sodium, aluminum, and a chlorine-based electrolyte. In early trials, the battery hit energy densities over 2,000 watt-hours per kilogram – a figure that blows today’s sodium-ion batteries out of the water and even gives top-tier lithium cells a run for their money.
Donald Trump repeated his interest in acquring Greenland, issuing a new thinly-veiled threat at the territory, the kingdom it is part of and the wider NATO alliance. As he chaired a meeting involving oil and gas industry leaders discussing their possible future work in Venezuela, Mr Trump also discussed other key issues, including the war in Ukraine and his desire to acquire Greenland.
He said: “Right now, we are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not because if we don’t do it Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbour. Okay? I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way. But if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.”
The response came after the US President was asked about the territory and how much money he would offer Denmark for it. Mr Trump said he isn’t talking about money “yet”, but he “might talk about that”.
At a march held by dozens of supporters of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, which included pardoned rioters, a brawl erupted after a counter-protester used a bullhorn to interrupt speeches. One attendee tried to wrestle the bullhorn out of the protester’s hands while she called those present “traitors”. Eventually, she was handcuffed by the police.
Many of those at today’s march, including Enrique Tarrio – the former Proud Boys leader who was convicted and later pardoned for his role in the January 6 insurrection – said that they were there to protest against the death of Ashli Babbitt, a rioter who was killed by Capitol police on the day of the attack.
Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has urged US President Donald Trump to stop threatening to take over Greenland, after the latter reiterated his wish to do so following Washington’s abduction of the leader of Venezuela.
“It makes absolutely no sense to talk about the US needing to take over Greenland. The US has no right to annex any of the three countries in the Danish Kingdom,” Frederiksen said in a statement on Sunday.
The comments followed an interview published by The Atlantic magazine, in which Trump said: “We do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defence.”
On Saturday, the United States bombed Venezuela and toppled President Nicolas Maduro, raising concerns in Denmark that the same could happen with Greenland, a Danish territory.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday he had appointed former Liberal cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland as an economic development adviser, citing her experience in attracting investment.
“Right now, Ukraine needs to strengthen its internal resilience — both for the sake of Ukraine’s recovery if diplomacy delivers results as swiftly as possible, and to reinforce our defense if, because of delays by our partners, it takes longer to bring this war to an end,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
A reporter asked President Donald Trump about the protests in Iran:
REPORTER: There’s been protesters killed in Iran. You said we were locked and loaded, ready to go. What is the line there for when the US is going to get involved in those protests?
TRUMP: We’ll take a look. We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States.
President Donald Trump has stated that he does not believe Ukraine carried out a drone strike targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence last week, pushing back on claims made by Moscow.
“I don’t believe that strike happened,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One while traveling from Florida to Washington.
“There is something that happened fairly nearby, but had nothing to do with this.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed on Dec. 29 that Kyiv launched 91 drones toward Putin’s residence in Novgorod, and that all drones were destroyed. Ukraine denied the allegation.
China warns satellites from Elon Musk’s Starlink are ‘safety and security’ risk South China Morning Post
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The US military struck five alleged drug-smuggling boats over two days, killing a total of eight people while others jumped overboard and may have survived, US Southern Command said in a social media post on Thursday.
Southern Command, which oversees South America, did not reveal where the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday occurred.
Previous similar attacks have taken place in the Caribbean Sea and in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
China’s Xi renews promise to take back Taiwan 1News
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LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted in an interview on Sunday (Jan 4) that he will complete his five-year term amid speculation his centre-left Labour Party could oust him after the upcoming local elections.
Starmer, who won power in July 2024, also argued Britain should pursue further alignment with the EU single market, saying it was in the country’s “national interest” to get “closer” to the bloc.
A decade after Britons voted narrowly to leave the EU, the stance is likely to draw criticism from Brexit advocates like Nigel Farage, whose hard-right Reform UK party has led in the polls for the past year.
Around 45,000 households were left without electricity in southwest Berlin after high-voltage power lines were damaged by a fire, which authorities have described as a politically motivated attack by far-left extremists.
Though power has been restored in some areas, thousands could be left without power until Thursday after what authorities say was a politically motivated attack by “left-wing extremists”.
The blaze erupted on a cable bridge over the Teltow Canal near the Lichterfelde power plant on Saturday morning, local authorities said, affecting 2,200 businesses and 45,000 households across four districts, cutting their access to electricity, including internet and heating.
Uganda bans live broadcasts of riots and ‘unlawful processions’ ahead of vote CNBC Africa
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China says it ‘stands firmly against external interference’ in Iran amid protests Anadolu Ajansı
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EU says ‘seriously looking’ into Musk’s Grok AI over sexual deepfakes of minors France 24
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Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro arrives at Manhattan federal court for arraignment ABC13 Houston
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