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Fifty killed in one incident as Italian authorities estimate 380 people may have drowned last weekUp to 380 people may have drowned attempting to cross the Mediterranean last week as Cyclone Harry battered southern Italy and Malta, the Italian coastguard has said, as a shipwreck with the loss of 50 lives was confirmed by Maltese authorities.Just one person, who was hospitalised in Malta, survived the shipwreck, which happened on Friday. Continue reading...

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.

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...

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.

President Donald Trump on Thursday made a big announcement about an upcoming global event and who he picked to help lead it.He posted the following on his Truth Social platform: "Today, I am announcing the United States’ intention to bid for the World Expo 2035. The Great State of Florida has expressed strong interest in hosting the Expo in Miami, which I fully support. Miami Expo 2035 can be the next big milestone in our new Golden Age of America."Trump shared the news just a day after meeting with world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and having major pushback to his demands to seize Greenland and invoke tariffs on European allies in retaliation to their objections — then announcing he had sought a new deal over the Arctic nation. He also revealed who in his circle will help lead the effort."I am appointing Miami native Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Chair the efforts of coordinating and advancing this exciting opportunity to convene the World. We will create thousands of jobs, and add Billions of Dollars in GROWTH, to our Economy. In my First Term as President, I fought hard to bring the 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2028 LA Summer Olympics to the U.S.A. I now have the Honor of hosting as the 47th President, plus America250, G20 Doral, and the G7. I look forward to winning and participating in the Miami Expo 2035!"

Donald Trump made some improvisations in his Davos speech as a way of setting himself apart from other world leaders, a therapist has suggested. Shelly Dar, a registered mental health therapist speaking to The Mirror US, claimed the president's intonation and erratic comments are all part of the act. The contrast he brought to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, could be seen in the latter parts of his appearance. Dar said that, while Trump is initially tense for the presentation, it is a ploy to create dissonance with what the meeting is all about. She said, "What stands out from Trump is how rigidly controlled his presentation is. "For the first 95 minutes we only see him from the elbows up. Both hands are anchored to the podium, his posture is rigid, and when you can’t see two-thirds of the body that limits our information." Dar suggested Trump behind the podium manages to "conceal" the signals of anxiety which can be found in the lower body. But the contrast the president wished to show was more than obvious to the mental health therapist. "He visibly exhales, his pace loosens and his pitch varies," Dar explained. "He defaults to his usual behaviors — boastfulness, anecdotes, scaling things up. That tells us something important. His confidence isn’t dependent on structure."He appears more confident when improvising than when delivering prepared remarks. I think it's well known that he doesn't like reading off an autocue."Overall his communication strategy prioritizes dominance over dialogue. He provides certainty over nuance, and his narrative control is built on assertion rather than persuasion."This improvised commentary from Trump stands firmly against what Davos is all about. Dar added, "Davos is built on multilateralism, shared norms and collaborative language. So this contrast is deliberate."What stands out about Trump is the type of confidence that he shows. Behaviorally, he assumes authority that is already his. He doesn’t adapt to the room, but he expects the room to adapt to him. "This is a dominant personality style, it's not a collaborative one. He's there to set the tone of the room."

Donald Trump went to Davos on Wednesday morning and gave the speech that Vladimir Putin wanted him to, lying and pissing off Europe and shaking the North Atlantic alliance to its core.Our president has refused to help Ukraine in any meaningful way for a year now, giving Russia the room to destroy much of that country’s electric and heat infrastructure so badly that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had to cancel his trip to Davos to deal with the crisis.Trump’s now invaded Venezuela and is threatening the same with Greenland, legitimizing Putin’s land-grabs in Georgia and Ukraine.Trump’s ICE goons are destroying the rule of law in America, running amok in Minneapolis, punishing — and killing — the residents of that city for having elected politicians who’d dare advocate democracy over autocracy.Russian media is proudly proclaiming that their own internal crackdowns on immigrants, dissidents, and people of color aren’t so bad because Trump’s doing the same thing in America. We’ve legitimized Putin’s racist police state.Trump’s destroyed much of America’s “soft power,” our friendly relations with resource-rich developing nations, by killing off John F. Kennedy’s USAID program, directly causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people with more to come.Many of the countries we’ve abandoned are now re-aligning themselves with Russia and China, to Putin’s delight.Trump’s duplicating Putin’s “enemy within” rhetoric to amplify the Russian-promoted “Great Replacement Theory” meme that claims wealthy Jews are paying to have Black and brown people “replace” white men in their jobs and lives.It’s become the operating system for ICE and is tearing America apart, pitting friends, neighbors, and relatives against each other while Russian media celebrates.The biggest thorn in Putin’s side has been NATO, all the way back to his days as a murderous KGB intelligence officer, and Trump is now shaking that organization all the way down to its foundations by threatening to seize Greenland and trash-talking alliance member states.Early on as Putin was rolling out his dictatorship, having destroyed Russia’s brief experiment with democracy, he put himself above the law by simply refusing to enforce rights the Russian constitution and laws gave to average citizens.Trump’s today doing the same thing, simply defying the Epstein Transparency Act and other laws while approving as his ICE goons routinely violate Americans’ civil rights.From Russia’s point of view, America’s biggest historic strength hasn’t been our formidable military (they have just as many nukes) but was our rock-solid multi-century relationships with allies.Today, Canada is — for the first time in over a century — preparing to fight back against an American invasion, while the European Union is trying to figure out how to disentangle itself from our economy in the event we start a war with them.Meanwhile a bigoted Australian billionaire family continues to pump daily pro-Russian-worldview (racist, nationalist, anti-democratic) poison into the minds of Americans.In the 1940s, Sir Keith Murdoch built his family’s media empire, in part, by running sensationalist articles about Black American GIs stationed in Australia during World War II “raping” and having affairs with white Australian women. Now Fox “News” is one of the most frequently quoted American sources for Putin’s captured domestic media, according to The New York Times.Everything Trump does, when it doesn’t involve soliciting bribes, hustling pardons, or making himself richer inures benefit directly to Putin. Which raises the question diplomats and leaders across Europe are increasingly asking out loud: why are elected Republicans tolerating this?Is it just because five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized bribery and thus billionaire oligarchs who don’t believe in democracy now own them?For example, billionaire Peter Theil, who financed JD Vance’s rise to power as the senator from Ohio, has said:“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” and “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”Could it be that most Republican politicians simply agree with those types of sentiments, that democracy is mob rule and inconvenient, and that strongman autocracy is a more stable and predictable form of government? That they’d love to jettison European and Asian democracies in favor of corrupt police states like Russia and Hungary where they can get away with just about anything just so long as they keep the emperor happy?After all, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was nakedly taking millions in “gifts” from rightwing billionaires with business before the Court and became the deciding vote in the Citizens United case; are Republicans going along with Trump’s corruption because they, themselves, are also taking bribes and using otherwise illegal insider information to make themselves rich?Or is it because six corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court gave Trump immunity from crimes and he thinks of himself as America’s monarch, as if he were mad King Ludwig of yore?Are Republicans afraid — as Mitt Romney told his biographer, McKay Coppins — that Trump will use the force of law or activate his lone-wolf white supremacist terrorists to bring GOP politicians to heel or even have their families intimidated or their homes attacked like the Trump supporter who went after Paul Pelosi?Could it be that Republicans know that most Americans — at least those who haven’t bought fully into the Fox “News” and MAGA cults — have figured out that the GOP’s only loyalty is to billionaires and massive corporations?All they’ve done since the Reagan Revolution is cut taxes on the morbidly rich while gutting the agencies that catch criminal or unethical activity in government and the military; maybe the GOP now realizes we’ve got their number and that’s why they’re working so hard to purge voting rolls in Blue cities?Trump’s shocking behavior — and the even more shameful docility of elected Republicans and the lickspittles he’s surrounded himself with — raises questions that will probably only be answered by future historians.Nonetheless, we must push back. Democrats need to grow a spine, and the upcoming vote on the DHS budget is a great place to start. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) have indicated they may support the legislation, while Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Sen. Rubén Gallego (D-AZ) are signaling a fierce opposition. The battle will almost certainly play out in the Senate over a Democratic filibuster; you can call your two senators and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) at 202-224-3121.Democrats also must signal now and repeatedly that Trump’s pro-Putin, anti-American rhetoric and actions are so unacceptable that impeachment is necessary, both for him and his brownnosers at DHS, ICE, and the FBI.And if there are any Republicans who have left an ounce of decency, now is the time for them to stand up and speak out. And not to back away as soon as Trump growls, the way Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Todd Young (R-IN) just did with the proposed Venezuela war powers legislation.Republican senator Barry Goldwater famously walked from the Capitol to the White House to inform Richard Nixon that his criminality had become so severe and obvious that Republicans in Congress could no longer support him and would, if necessary, vote to impeach and convict him.America needs today’s Republicans to find their spines, reclaim their integrity and patriotism, and politically stop Trump in his tracks. And maybe it’s starting to happen: Republican Rep. Don Bacon (R-NB) just told reporters he’s threatening impeachment:“I’ll be candid with you: There’s so many Republicans mad about this [Greenland issue]. If he went through with the threats, I think it would be the end of his presidency. And he needs to know: The off-ramp is realizing Republicans aren’t going to tolerate this and he’s going to have to back off. He hates being told no, but in this case, I think Republicans need to be firm.”It’s a start, but there’s a long way to go if Trump is to be held to account.When future historians ask what Putin wanted from Trump, the answer may be painfully simple: “Everything America once stood for.”Whether that happens is not yet settled and ultimately depends on what we Americans — across the political spectrum — do next.Thom Hartmann is a New York Times best-selling author and SiriusXM talk show host. His Substack can be found here.

At the same time that Donald Trump was making a big show of signing the initial charter of his so-called “Board of Peace” at Davos, Bulwark editor Sam Stein was quick to observe that the smattering of government leaders who joined him on the dais was lacking in star power.The much-maligned new organization that the president has been hyping has attracted a collection of countries agreeing to sign up — none of them even remotely close to being considered a world power capable of doing much internationally.As the American president signed the charter, Stein told the MS NOW “Morning Joe” panel that he’s not sure the White House is too pleased that the world’s major powers are snubbing him.The Trump administration has raised hopes that at least 35 countries would sign on, but the turnout has been a slim 21 so far, which led Stein to point out, “There is no one from Europe on that stage, or was known from Europe on that stage. It is a list of semi-autocratic countries and Trump allies.”“How disappointed is the White House that there is no one on the stage? Or are they totally comfortable with the idea that you do not have to have European countries, the likes of which [Treasury Secretary]Scott Bessent called — what did he call Denmark? — irrelevant.”“Yeah, maybe you don't need relevant countries in there,” the analyst joked. - YouTube youtu.be