World, US, Culture, Market, and Sci-Tech News Aggregation from MSM and Independent News
At least 35 people were killed on Monday morning in southern Iran’s Fars province, according to the Mehr news agency. The outlet also reported more than 20 people killed in an attack on Niloofar Square in Tehran.
Oil prices rose and stock markets came under pressure on Monday after intense US-Israeli strikes on Iran prompted fears of significant global economic disruption.
Brent crude jumped by as much as 13% during early trading – to hit $82 per barrel, a 14-month high – as the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz, one of the most important arteries for global trade, intensified concerns over oil supplies.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 fell by nearly 2.4% as traders in Asia responded to the weekend’s developments. It later pulled back, to trade down 1.5%. Pre-market trading also put Wall Street on course to open lower on Monday.
A former FBI official is warning of potential Iranian-linked attacks inside the United States following US and Israeli strikes on Iran.
Chris Swecker, a former assistant FBI director, said Iran-linked groups such as Hezbollah could escalate efforts to carry out attacks against the US after Operation Epic Fury, including attacks on American soil. In comments to the Daily Mail, Swecker said, “We’ve got a cornered animal here, and if ever we’re going to see attacks on the United States, this would be the catalyst for that.”
“It’s a tinder box right now,” he added. “You’ve got the leadership of Iran in a state of desperation.”
Police in York Region have not officially said whether the Thornhill shooting is connected to international developments.
An Iranian-owned boxing gym north of Toronto was struck by gunfire early Sunday morning, a day after US President Donald Trump confirmed reports that Iran’s Supreme Leader had been killed.
York Regional Police said officers responded to reports of shots fired around 3 am near Yonge Street and Steeles Avenue West in Thornhill. When they arrived, they found evidence that multiple rounds had been fired at a commercial building. The property was unoccupied at the time. No injuries were reported.
President Donald Trump said Thursday that the United States will contribute $10 billion toward the Board of Peace.
Trump made his announcement during the board’s second official meeting, the first convening of the group in Washington, D.C.
“The United States is going to make a contribution of $10 billion to the Board of Peace,” said Trump. “We’ve had great support for that number and that number is a very small number when you look at that, compared to the cost of war. That’s two weeks of fighting.”
More than 65,000 Cambodians Still Displaced 60 Days Into Fragile Border Ceasefire Cambodianess
from news.google.com
The EU’s top executive body has urged US President Donald Trump not to impose new tariffs on the bloc’s goods and to clarify his position following the US Supreme Court ruling that struck down most of his earlier measures.
On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump had no authority to impose tariffs under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Trump responded by signing an order imposing a 10% global tariff through a different law and later said he would raise it to 15%. He denounced the justices who ruled against him as “a disgrace to the nation.”
President Donald Trump is hosting the inaugural Board of Peace meeting on Thursday morning at 9 a.m.
The meeting will take place at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., before Trump heads to Rome, Georgia, for a speech on affordability.
The agenda for the meeting will include a discussion of how to move forward with peace in Gaza, as Israel and several Palestinian allies, including Egypt and Turkey, will be in attendance. Several of the U.S.’s typical allies, such as Canada, have not yet signed onto the organization.
Germany’s Merz says he can’t stand applause for Rubio at Munich conference South China Morning Post
from news.google.com
DONALD Trump has slammed the UK Chagos Islands deal as “a big mistake”.
He called the 100-year lease agreed by PM Sir Keir Starmer “tenuous, at best” and claimed that the US could need Diego Garcia to hit back at Iran if a nuclear deal is not agreed.
The Vatican will not join President Donald Trump’s newly formed Board of Peace, its top diplomatic official said Tuesday, signaling reluctance from the Holy See to take part in the post-war initiative.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the Holy See “will not participate in the Board of Peace because of its particular nature, which is evidently not that of other States,” the Vatican’s official news outlet reported.
The Vatican has rejected an invitation to participate in President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which was recently formed to rebuild war-ravaged Gaza.
The Holy See’s top diplomatic official confirmed the rejection on Tuesday.
The refusal to join the international effort signals hesitation from the Catholic Church’s leadership toward the post-war initiative.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the Holy See “will not participate in the Board of Peace because of its particular nature, which is evidently not that of other States,” according to the Vatican’s official news outlet.
Apparently, what happens in Brussels doesn’t stay in Brussels.
The House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on “Europe’s Threat to American Speech” made one thing unmistakable: this is no longer a distant policy debate — it’s a fight.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday that members of his newly created Board of Peace have pledged $5 billion toward rebuilding war-ravaged Gaza and will commit thousands of personnel to international stabilization and police forces for the territory.
The pledges will be formally announced when board members gather in Washington on Thursday for their first meeting, he said.
“The Board of Peace will prove to be the most consequential International Body in History, and it is my honor to serve as its Chairman,” Trump said in a social media posting announcing the pledges.
THE HAGUE, February 9. /TASS/. Commander of the Dutch Armed Forces General Onno Eichelsheim announced NATO’s readiness to strengthen its military presence in the Arctic.
“We, NATO, are demonstrating our readiness to make greater efforts to strengthen our position in the Arctic,” he said in an interview with the Defensiekrant newspaper. According to Eichelsheim, the alliance is discussing expanding the scope of its exercises in the Arctic, as well as launching a mission to ensure the security of Greenland.
The European Union now constantly violates fundamental Western rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion and claims the power to ban speech across the globe, European witnesses testified to the U.S. Congress Wednesday morning.
“European laws [are] now being exported by the European Union. … American speech is already being affected,” testified Lorcán Price, an Irish lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom International.
Under “hate speech” policies that Europe is applying across the world, “Speech that is lawful today can become criminalized tomorrow. This should concern every person that values freedom,” testified Finnish Member of Parliament Päivi Räsänen. Irish comedian Graham Linehan also testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. In September 2025, Linehan was arrested at Heathrow Airport by British
Estonia’s President Alar Karis told Euronews he remains confident that the United States will honour Article 5 of NATO’s common defence despite a turbulent phase for the transatlantic relationship under President Donald Trump.
Since his return to the White House last year, the US President has rattled the fundamentals of the bilateral relationship between the two blocs, imposing tariffs on the European Union and referring to its leadership as “weak” and “decaying.”
Still, President Karis said Washington would come to the assistance of Europe if there was an attack on an allied country. Article 5 is the bedrock of NATO and obliges allies to assist each other on the basis that “an attack on one is an attack on all.”
China eyes reshaping global order as US influence wanes dw.com
from news.google.com
We also know have a video of Macron’s remarks at his press conference with the Danish and Greenlandic prime ministers earlier today.
Macron said that a recent standoff with the US over Greenland was “a strategic wake-up call for all of Europe”, repeating his call for Europe to assert its “sovereignty” in relation to other global powers.
He even said a few things in Greenlandic, stressing: “Greenland is not for sale,” before switching to Danish to express his solidarity with Denmark.
OTTAWA: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday (Jan 27) said he spoke to US President Donald Trump on Monday but denied he had retracted comments last week that irritated the US President.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that during the call, Carney “was very aggressively walking back” some of the remarks he made during a speech in Davos in which he urged nations to accept the end of a rules-based global order.
Carney – citing US tariffs on key Canadian imports – is pushing to diversify trade away from the United States, which takes around 70 per cent of all Canadian exports.
Xi Jinping reaffirms China’s commitment to UN-centred world order The Sun Malaysia
from news.google.com
Europeans cannot replace the US nuclear umbrella, at least for the time being, but when it comes to conventional defence the situation is different, European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius told Euronews on Wednesday.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Monday that the European Union should “keep on dreaming” of becoming independent from the US, its largest ally, in matters of security and defence.
Kubilius told Euronews that if Rutte’s comments refer to nuclear defence only and if Rutte meant that “the Europeans should stop dreaming about the possibility to defend themselves without American nuclear umbrella – I agree with him”.
Abbas amends Palestinian election law to bar Hamas from polls The New Arab
from news.google.com
Ever since President Trump announced his interest in a U.S. acquisition of Greenland, leftist media at home and abroad have reacted with a mixture of vicious mockery and hysterical indignation. The media frenzy reached new heights shortly before the Davos WEF meeting this January due to Trump’s strong rhetoric.
This rhetoric is part of Trump’s “art-of-the-deal” tactics as a powerful negotiator. Despite the leftist hysteria, however, the Greenland deal framework that is already underway is a testament to the recognition of the strategic importance of the island both for U.S. and European defense. This is also supported by the bare facts, which anti-American media outlets routinely ignore. It would be helpful to summarize these facts.
The official interest of the United States in acquiring Greenland is nothing new — it goes back over 150 years, when, after the purchase of Alaska in 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward emphasized Greenland’s desirable natural resources and strategic ports. A precedent was provided in 1917, when the United States purchased from Denmark the West Indies and renamed them “U.S. Virgin Islands.”
Turkish FM meets Hamas delegation in Ankara amid mediators’ efforts to disarm terror group timesofisrael.com
from news.google.com
UN chief warns ‘law of the jungle’ is replacing rule of law UN News
from news.google.com
Donald Trump’s Arctic strategy has been 500 years in the making.
When Christopher Columbus set sail across the Atlantic in 1492, he intended to find a direct path from Europe to Asia.
For the past twenty years, For more than twenty years, my colleagues and I have argued for what the world actually needs, not a malevolent,failed United Nations, but a union of headed by the US wth shared values and moral clarity.
From its inception, the United Nations was structurally destined to fail. It has failed the tortured, the oppressed, and the poor on a scale that is impossible to quantify. Graft and corruption are not anomalies at the UN; they are endemic to the institution itself. As Norm Coleman once put it, the UN functions as a “jobs program for many countries,” where nations that contribute little or nothing wield outsized influence over global affairs.
The bureaucracy alone is damning: thousands of mandates and precious little to show for them.
The United States will be able to buy sovereign base areas in Greenland that will become legal U.S. territory “forever” under the terms of a NATO-brokered deal at Davos, reports claim.
A “framework” for a future deal negotiated in meetings at the Davos summit in Switzerland this week will see the United States get a sovereign base area modelled on Britain’s military bases on the Island of Cyprus, it is stated. While those bases are not on the British mainland, the UK owns approximately three per cent of the island in two exclaves, which are legally and internationally recognised as an overseas British territory.
President Donald Trump has revealed that the United States is poised to gain “total access” to Greenland under a developing arrangement with NATO allies, a move he framed as a major national security win that would dramatically expand America’s military reach in the Arctic.
Speaking Thursday from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo that the deal would give Washington sweeping and open-ended access to the strategically vital territory.
“Essentially, it’s total access,” Trump said.
“There’s no end, there’s no time limit.”