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Voting was largely peaceful in an election seen as a test of Bangladesh’s democracy after years of political turmoil The Bangladesh Nationalist party, led by Tarique Rahman, has won a sweeping victory in the country’s first election since a gen Z uprising toppled the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina.Results from the election commission confirmed the BNP alliance had won 212 seats, returning the party to power after 20 years, while the rival alliance, led by the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, won 77 seats. Continue reading...

Donald Trump is doing something to America that no foreign adversary has ever managed, something Vladimir Putin’s been dreaming about for decades: he’s convincing our oldest and closest allies, countries we fought wars to defend and liberate, and with whom we share a democratic system of government, that the United States can’t be trusted.For example, France’s government just announced it’s ripping U.S. videoconferencing platforms — Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and others — out of its government offices nationwide and replacing them with a new French-created system called “Visio.”That’s roughly 2.5 million French public employees who’ll no longer be using American digital products because the French have concluded that U.S. tech — and the Silicon Valley billionaires’ pathetic fealty to Trump, bringing him bribes and gifts and groveling in front of him — is a national security risk.And it’s not just France: the German state of Schleswig‑Holstein just moved 44,000 employees off Microsoft and over to an open-source platform, and is now considering replacing Windows with Linux. They also dumped Microsoft’s SharePoint file-sharing system, going with open source Nextcloud.We’re no longer seen as a reliable partner: many of our former allies now view us as a potential enemy.Denmark’s government, Swiss authorities, Austria, and other European countries are exploring or implementing similar moves. The EU’s senior official for tech sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen, said that Europe’s dependence on American technology “can be weaponized against us.” As ABC News reported:“A decisive moment came last year when the Trump administration sanctioned the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor after the tribunal, based in The Hague, Netherlands, issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an ally of President Donald Trump.“The sanctions led Microsoft to cancel [International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Karim Asad Ahmad] Khan’s ICC email, a move that was first reported by The Associated Press and sparked fears of a ‘kill switch’ that Big Tech companies can use to turn off service at will.”It’s the same reason Canada is reconsidering purchasing F-35s from America, which would be another major economic and strategic blow to us. Under a leader as corrupt, mentally ill, and erratic as Trump, few countries are willing to have their essential tech or defense infrastructure vulnerable to his whims and tantrums.Even more shocking, the National Security Desk reports:“In a stunning shift announced today, NATO stripped the United States of command of all three of its operational‑level Joint Force Commands — the four‑star headquarters responsible for leading the Alliance in crisis and war.“For the first time since NATO’s founding, every major operational command will now be led by European officers. The United Kingdom will assume command of JFC Norfolk, Italy will take over JFC Naples, and Germany and Poland will rotate leadership of JFC Brunssum. SACEUR remains American for now, but only symbolically; today’s tectonic move makes a future European SACEUR a matter of timing, not theory.”This isn’t about Europeans “hating America” any more than than No Kings protestors calling out Trump’s fascist actions means they despise our country.Quite simply, European leaders — like millions of Americans — are looking at Trump’s naked embrace of Putin, his open contempt for democracy, and his casual threats against NATO allies and concluding that no critical tech or defense system should ever again depend on the whims of this narcissistic wannabe American strongman.Speaking of wannabe strongmen, ABC added:“Billionaire Elon Musk is also a factor. Officials worry about relying on his Starlink satellite internet system...”Analysts now explicitly warn that Trump’s and his toadies’ hostility to the EU and his willingness to weaponize sanctions and economic tools have made Silicon Valley firms look more like extensions of an unpredictable strongman who ignores the law, rather than the neutral digital providers they’ve historically positioned themselves as.After all, if you’re a European defense or interior minister, you have to ask yourself: what happens to our communications and data if Trump wakes up pissed off at us one morning because we didn’t leap high enough when he yelled “Jump!”Even more distressing, the damage isn’t just confined to tech. It’s hitting the very heart of the Western alliance system — which we largely created — that has kept relative peace since World War II. It’s been Putin’s goal for decades, and now he’s getting exactly what he wants from Trump.When Trump said he would “encourage” Russia to attack NATO allies that, he claimed, weren’t “paying up,” European leaders didn’t shrug it off as a joke. European Council President Charles Michel called the comments “reckless,” correctly saying that such statements “serve only Putin’s interest” and undermine the core promise of mutual defense. Of course, serving Putin’s — rather than America’s — interests is exactly what Trump has been doing for a decade now.Even NATO’s Secretary General felt compelled, once again, to publicly restate that Article 5 — the pledge that an attack on one is an attack on all — remains “ironclad,” slapping down the President of the United States.As Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said in response to Trump threatening to unleash Putin on Europe:“He’s more interested in aggrandizing himself and pleasing Putin than protecting our allies. It would be enough to make Reagan ill.”Schiff’s sentiments were echoed by Charles Michel, the president of the European Council:“Reckless statements on #NATO’s security and Art 5 solidarity serve only Putin’s interest. They do not bring more security or peace to the world. On the contrary, they reemphasize the need for the #EU to urgently further develop its strategic autonomy and invest in its defense.”So, here we are: the head of NATO and the head of the European Council reduced to reassuring the world that America’s president doesn’t speak for the alliance when he invites Russia to attack its members. Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, couldn’t have come up with something more bizarre.European security analysts now talk openly about “low trust” and “ruptures and new realities” in their relations with the United States. One EU security study notes that Trump has shown “elements of active hostility against the European project,” highlighting his bizarre, paranoid claim that the EU was set up to “screw” the US, as well as his refusal to rule out the use of force to annex Greenland.And now Trump has his emissary visiting rightwing and neo-Nazi parties and think tanks in Europe, offering them American cash and support. He and Putin appear totally committed to making the world safe for dictators and oligarchs by damaging the democracies of the world.America’s and democracy’s enemies, of course, are thrilled. As one European think‑tank piece put it bluntly, Trump’s rhetoric is “a gift to Putin.” When the president of the United States trashes NATO, praises autocrats, and undermines the EU while half of Ukraine is being tormented by brutal cold, the man in the Kremlin doesn’t have to spend a ruble to fracture the West. Trump, like a dutiful dog, is doing it for him.And this isn’t just elite hand‑wringing at the level of governments and ministers; ordinary Europeans are recalibrating their relationship with America, too. Surveys over the past year show European opinions of the United States dropping sharply, a reality we also see in the collapse of European vacationers to the United States.One EU institute reports that nearly three‑quarters of Europeans now see the United States as a “somewhat or very unreliable” partner now, with average Germans among the most skeptical.A broader survey across Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and Italy found U.S. favorability down, sometimes by double digits, with only about one-in-ten respondents expressing real trust in Trump’s America to defend them.Another poll summarized by Politico found that even a majority of Canadians now see the US as a “negative global force,” driven largely by Trump’s erratic behavior and his obsession with self-enrichment, having already collected an estimated $4 billion for himself and his family since he was sworn to office.Put simply, our allies are doing what any rational nation would do when a key partner goes rogue: they’re hedging.They’re hedging by building their own tech infrastructure, so that Trump can’t flip a switch and cut off vital services or demand back-doors into their communications systems or share information with Putin. So Trump can’t hand them over to Putin the way he is Ukraine. They’re hedging by embracing “strategic autonomy,” aka European defense capabilities that don’t rely on Washington or anybody in America.Meanwhile, here at home, Trump and his lickspittle Republicans are busily transforming America into exactly the kind of oligarchic, strongman system our grandparents fought World War II to stop.He’s pardoned insurrectionists, is purging institutions and installing loyalists, and covering up the child-rape crimes of his billionaire friends, all while aligning himself — and, thus, America — with oligarchs and dictators abroad.When you combine that internal authoritarian drift with external contempt for allies and admiration for Putin, you get the worst of all worlds: a United States that can no longer credibly lead democratic nations and may increasingly act as a spoiler on behalf of strongmen, grifters, and oligarchs worldwide. And, of course, on behalf of Putin.Trump promised to “make America great again.” Instead, he’s teaching the rest of the free world that they need to live without us. All to our and our children’s detriment.Thom Hartmann is a New York Times best-selling author and SiriusXM talk show host. His Substack can be found here.

Destined to a perilous life with no right to an education or to vote, state recognition ‘gives them hope’, campaigners sayThrough the decades that the Daulatdia brothel in Bangladesh has existed, children born there have been invisible, unable to be registered because their mothers were sex workers and their fathers unknown. Now, for the first time, all 400 of them in the brothel village have their own birth certificates.That milestone was reached after a push by campaigners who have spent decades working with Bangladesh’s undocumented children born in brothels or on the street. It means they can finally access the rights afforded to other citizens: the ability to go to school, to be issued a passport or to vote. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump denounced one of his purported golfing buddies who's being credited with steering U.S. efforts to revive Venezuela's oil industry.The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday night that energy magnate Harry Sargeant III, who the paper described as a 68-year-old former Top Gun pilot and sometimes Trump golfing partner, was perhaps the only American businessman with ties to the U.S. president and recently deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro."Sargeant is now in position to be the latest of the president’s allies to reap a windfall based on his second-term policies and actions," the Journal reported."Trump is pressing U.S. firms to move in fast as his aides work to loosen the sanctions restrictions that were imposed on Venezuela during his first administration," the report added. "Many U.S. companies are nonetheless proceeding cautiously, wary of investing huge sums until the country’s politics are stabilized and a legal framework is in place for foreign companies ... Sargeant, though, isn’t waiting. He met in person last week in Caracas with Maduro’s longtime deputy and economic manager Delcy Rodriguez, to discuss plans to get his businesses up and running."The 79-year-old Trump denied the Journal's claims about Sargeant's efforts in Venezuela since U.S. forces removed Maduro and handed him over to U.S. law enforcement to stand trial on narcoterrorism and firearms charges."Relations between Venezuela and the United States have been, to put it mildly, extraordinary!" Trump posted Thursday morning on Truth Social. "We are dealing very well with President Delcy Rodriguez, and her Representatives. Oil is starting to flow, and large amounts of money, unseen for many years, will soon be greatly helping the people of Venezuela. Marco Rubio, and all of our Representatives, are doing a fantastic job, but we speak only for ourselves, and don’t want there to be any confusion or misrepresentation.""There is a story about a man named Harry Sargeant III in The Wall Street Journal," the president added. "He has no authority, in any way, shape, or form, to act on behalf of the United States of America, nor does anyone else that is not approved by the State Department. Without this approval, no one is authorized to represent our Country. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP."

Whenever Donald Trump mucks around in any serious international situation, as the world’s self-anointed savior, odds are things will only get worse. Iran is a good example.In 2015, the US was part of an international coalition that reached agreement with Iran that imposed restrictions on its civilian nuclear enrichment program in exchange for sanctions’ relief. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was agreed to by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — as well as Germany and the EU, and supported by over 100 nations.According to the Obama White House, the agreement “blocks every possible pathway Iran could use to build a nuclear bomb while ensuring -- through a comprehensive, intrusive, and unprecedented verification and transparency regime -- that Iran’s nuclear program remains exclusively peaceful moving forward.”For three years the agreement worked as intended, with regular monitoring and verification of Iranian compliance by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Every indication suggested that the agreement would remain in force, given the power of the broad international coalition that negotiated it and the consequences if Iran failed to comply. Then in 2018, President Donald Trump blew up the agreement, pulling the US out. Renewing US sanctions, Trump claimed JCPOA was a “terrible agreement” — i.e. because Barack Obama helped negotiate it — and Trump said he would negotiate a much better deal. Of course, Trump never negotiated a better deal, like the better deal he never negotiated after pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Accord. With US sanctions renewed despite Iran's compliance with the agreement, Tehran unsurprisingly balked at continuing to cooperate, and the JCPOA fell apart. Had Trump not pulled the US out, the JCPOA could very well have remained in existence today, as President Joe Biden would have maintained US involvement from 2021-2025. Instead, there has been no regular IAEA monitoring of Iran’s uranium enrichment program. Iran has contended that it has no intention of building nuclear weapons, and US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard concurred last year. However, the situation has remained precarious. What would not have occurred had the JCPOA remained in place with US membership? First, Trump would have had no rationale for bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2025, in violation of international law. The US would still be part of the international coalition that was ensuring Iran’s nuclear compliance.Second, Trump would not be threatening more military action if it Iran doesn't come to the negotiating table, using as pretext the lie that Iran is building a nuclear weapon. By pulling the US out of the JCPOA in 2018, Trump has created the very real possibility of yet another illegal US invasion. With Iran staring down the barrel of a gun, Trump will try and accomplish what was successfully negotiated in 2015, then destroyed by him in 2018. For that, Trump deserves nothing but scorn — no matter where his reckless, irresponsible saber rattling leads. In addition, since Trump reimposed heavy US sanctions in 2018, the Iranian economy has contracted severely. The sanctions have contributed to soaring inflation and unemployment, a collapsing currency, less accessible and affordable health care, and millions driven to poverty. The sanctions have played a central role in the economic crisis that helped trigger the current violent protests and the Iranian government’s brutal response. Trump is threatening military action against the government stemming from protests by citizens whose economic woes he helped create. In dealing with Iran, Trump has leaned heavily into the narcissism, megalomania, duplicity, and power-addiction that define him. By peevishly pulling the US out of the JCPOA, he turned a situation that had been dealt with successfully by the powerful international coalition into an international crisis. Results also include the possibility of a broader Middle Eastern conflict. Trump’s high-stakes involvements in the Russian-Ukrainian and Israeli-Palestinian wars have produced similarly disastrous results. By siding with Vladimir Putin and limiting US support to Ukraine, Trump strengthened Putin’s hand tremendously. Russia has continued the killing and devastation in Ukraine with impunity and is now practically assured to be rewarded handsomely for invading a sovereign democratic nation. By siding with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump supported Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people with military aid and refusing to condemn atrocities. Trump ensured that there will never be a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so long as Netanyahu is in power and that the horrific suffering of the Palestinian people will only worsen. At the end of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, narrator Nick Carraway comments on how chaos created by Daisy and Tom led to the deaths of Gatsby, Myrtle, and George Wilson. Nick says, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness … and let other people clean up the mess that they made.” It will take the American people and freedom-loving nations of the world years to clean up the mess Trump is making. It will be left to history to reflect on the incalculable human damage that Trump has inflicted, and he is only getting started. Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor.

Donald Trump's latest economic threat will backfire, according to an economist who said that, if the president follows through, a major crisis will be heightened.Peter Schiff, a financial commentator and radio personality who has been raising alarms about America’s affordability crisis, weighed in over the weekend. Previously, Trump himself went nuclear when Schiff did an appearance on Fox News.“Why would Fox and Friends Weekend (of all things?) put on a ‘Stockbroker’ named Peter Schiff, a Trump hating loser who has already proven to be wrong. Either the show made a mistake, or it is heading in a different direction,” he wrote in December.But as it relates to foreign tariffs, Schiff says Trump is about to make a big mistake."Trump threatened to hit Americans with 25% tariffs on imports from countries that directly or indirectly do business with Iran," Schiff said, noting the follow-up effects of that move."Since China does business with Iran and nearly every country does business with China, if Trump follows through the affordability crisis will get worse," the chief economist and global strategist for Europac then added Sunday.A user on X responded to Schiff by Asking Elon Musk's AI chatbot if the take was a correct one. Grok replied, "Trump did post on Truth Social in January 2026 that countries 'doing business' with Iran would face 25% tariffs on their US trade. He signed an executive order on Feb 6 formalizing this... China trades with Iran, so it could be targeted, which might increase US import costs if implemented."

The FBI and Pima County Sheriff's Department were investigating a "new message" Friday in connection with the abduction of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, according to reports. The message was sent to KOLD via email and is under review by investigators. KOLD had originally received the original alleged ransom note, anchor Mary Coleman wrote in a post on X. The station had apparently received the message at 11:45 a.m. Friday and immediately sent it to the FBI and sheriff's department, who were trying to determine its authenticity, Briana Whitney reported via X. It was sent through a service that cannot be traced back. Guthrie, the mother of "Today" show co-host Savannah Guthrie, vanished sometime overnight between Saturday and Sunday from her home in Tucson, Arizona. The family previously released two video messages asking for the abductors to give them a sign that Nancy was OK and telling her captors that they were ready to talk. Pima County sheriff's officials released the following statement: "The FBI and Pima County Sheriff’s Department are aware of a new message regarding Nancy Guthrie. Investigators are actively inspecting the information provided in the message for its authenticity. While this is one new piece of information, the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department are still asking anyone with tips to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI. The FBI continues to offer a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the recovery of Nancy Guthrie and/or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance."BREAKING: A second note has been sent to our sister station from Nancy Guthrie’s alleged abductor. Here’s what we know.#nancyguthrie #abduction #truecrime #investigation #ransom pic.twitter.com/SkLHBRpQmY— Briana Whitney (@BrianaWhitney) February 6, 2026

Vice President JD Vance was reportedly booed at the Milan Cortina Winter Games as U.S. Olympians denounced President Donald Trump's administration.A video shared on social media showed the audience booing Vance as the camera panned by him during the Opening Ceremony on Friday."Those are a lot of boos for him," one announcer noted.At a press conference, members of the U.S. figure skating team were asked about the Trump administration's use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to crack down on migrants."I feel heartbroken about what's happened in the United States when, you know, I'm pretty sure you're referencing ICE and some of the protests and things like that," freestyle skater Chris Lillis told reporters. "I think that as a country, we need to focus on respecting everybody's rights and making sure that we're treating our citizens as well as anybody with love and respect.""It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now, I think. It's a little hard," skater Hunter Hess agreed. "There's obviously a lot going on that I'm not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren't.""Just because I'm wearing the flag doesn't mean I represent everything that's going on in the U.S.," he added. "So yeah, I just kind of want to do it for my friends and my family and the people that support me getting here."