Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán claims Jewish communities are safer in Budapest than elsewhere in Europe, amid ADL reports of sharp rise in antisemitic incidents.
The US has seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the Atlantic Ocean in a high-stakes operation that could risk confrontation with the Kremlin after Moscow reportedly dispatched a submarine to safeguard the vessel.
US European Command said on Wednesday that it had boarded the Marinera over alleged sanctions violations, bringing to an end a dramatic two-week pursuit that began in the Caribbean and concluded in the Atlantic.
The chaos that Donald Trump is causing in the world makes the case for continental solidarity and explicit repudiation of Brexit divisions
Sir Keir Starmer’s plan for 2026 was to talk more about the domestic issues that concern British voters. Donald Trump knocked that plan off course. US intervention in Venezuela inevitably demanded the prime minister’s attention, as did this week’s summit of Ukraine’s allies, the “coalition of the willing”, in Paris. Progress towards agreeing security guarantees for Kyiv in the event of a peace deal with Russia was overshadowed by Mr Trump restating his ambition to wrest control of Greenland from Denmark. The dust had not settled when American special forces boarded a Russian-flagged oil tanker in European waters, ostensibly to enforce a blockade against Venezuela.
Prime ministers have to multitask, but under these circumstances it is understandable if Sir Keir’s mind has been filled with foreign affairs. He should be used to this by now. Mr Trump’s return to the White House guaranteed that an already uncertain international climate would become increasingly volatile. Any hope that the incoming president’s rhetoric contained more bluster than intent was dashed when he announced his “liberation day” tariffs. He sees no value in America’s historic alliances. He despises institutions of multilateral governance. His actions may not be wholly predictable, but it is safe to assume he means what he says. He wants Greenland for America. Denmark and its Nato partners have to take the ambition seriously.
The seizure of the oil tanker Marinera and Britain’s role in it is an embarrassing farce, writes world affairs editor Sam Kiley on the Venezuelan-Colombian border
The ship is alleged to be part of a shadow fleet dodging western sanctions. It had no oil onboard – but was it carrying Russian weapons?
A massive, rusty crude oil tanker floating north through the Atlantic has become the centre of global interest after it was followed for days and eventually seized by US forces while Russia’s military rushed towards it.
Despite not carrying any oil, the 300-metre-long ship is clearly of value. Theories for why range from speculation that high-value Russian weapons are hidden in the hull, to the ship’s potential to become a symbolic trophy in a transatlantic power struggle between Washington and Moscow.
When Silke Peters bought a crank radio and a camping stove just after the start of Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine, her husband thought she was “a little crazy”. “He put me down, only half-jokingly, as a prepper,” she said, referring to the kind of person who stockpiles in case of catastrophe.
For almost four years, the items gathered dust in the cellar of the Peters’ two-room flat in Zehlendorf, a well-to-do district of Berlin. But in recent days the windup radio – with its inbuilt torch and charge point – has come into its own during Germany’s longest power cut since the second world war.
By the expansionist logic of the president and his advisers, the US is entitled to annex just about anywhere
‘We do need Greenland, absolutely,” Donald Trump told the Atlantic on 5 January, with the hand-wavy follow-up, “We need it for defence.” His adviser Stephen Miller was more aggressive still in an interview with CNN, saying: “The real question is, by what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland? What is the basis of their territorial claim? … The US is the power of Nato … obviously Greenland should be part of the United States.” His wife, Katie Miller, posted an image on X of a map of the country papered over with the US flag, with the caption “soon”. It’s hard to orientate sensibly towards things that happen on X these days: if she had posted a Grok-generated image of Greenland in a bikini, would that be more or less concerning?
Still, we’re right to be concerned. There is no comfort to be had from old-era ideas such as: “Maybe they’re just sabre-rattling about Greenland to distract from the matter of Venezuela”, or “surely the foundational principles of Nato, a defensive alliance, will prevent the US from any act of aggression towards its own allies?”
Depuis plus d’une décennie, l’Union européenne construit un cadre de régulation du numérique pensé comme une réponse progressive à sa dépendance technologique. Bien avant l’irruption de l’IA dans le débat public, les questions de souveraineté, de concentration des plateformes et de maîtrise des infrastructures ont façonné une doctrine européenne singulière. Mais depuis 2025, cette approche […]
MPs will have a debate and vote before any UK troops are deployed on peacekeeping duties in Ukraine, Keir Starmer has announced at prime minister’s questions.
Speaking after Britain and France said they would be willing to send troops if there was a peace deal, following discussions at a wider summit in Paris, Starmer was pressed by Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, as to why he was not making a full Commons statement.
L'Europe et la crise démographique. Presque tous les pays sont touchés et tout en bas de la liste, on trouve la Pologne. Avec 1,03 enfant par femme, le pays est très loin d’assurer le renouvellement de génération. À tel point qu’on a inventé un mot pour parler de cette catastrophe. La démocalypse.
Depuis plus d’une décennie, l’Union européenne construit un cadre de régulation du numérique pensé comme une réponse progressive à sa dépendance technologique. Bien avant l’irruption de l’IA dans le débat public, les questions de souveraineté, de concentration des plateformes et de maîtrise des infrastructures ont façonné une doctrine européenne singulière. Mais depuis 2025, cette approche […]
Service attended by singers, animal rights activists and public figures including far-right leader Marine Le Pen
Brigitte Bardot, the film star turned animal rights activist, has been laid to rest after a funeral service in Saint-Tropez attended by her favourite politician, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
Bardot died aged 91 at her La Madrague villa on 28 December. Her funeral was held at the Notre-Dame de l’Assomption church and broadcast on large screens across the town.
US takes over two tankers, one Russian-flagged in the North Atlantic and the other Venezuela-linked in the Caribbean; Trump says Caracas will be ‘purchasing only American Made Products’
Meanwhile, in the UK, Nigel Farage has offered his take on Trump’s plans to control Greenland, saying it would be “outrageous” for the US to seize it from Denmark.
Farage says he agrees with Starmer that the fate of Greenland must be decided by Greenland and Denmark, not the US – but sided with Trump on “some genuine security concerns” that require further presence there.
“What I will say is this. There are some genuine security concerns around Greenland and that becomes ever more relevant with a retraction of the ice caps as we head towards the North Pole. There is a strong feeling in British intelligence circles, and many in Nato, that there needs to be a significant Nato base located directly on the north of Greenland.
At the moment, it would appear that is something Greenland is not particularly keen to do.
The Venezuela incursion is in line with this logic, made even plainer as the US eyes Greenland
When a bleary-eyed Trump explained the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro this past Saturday, he invoked the Monroe doctrine: while the US president sounded as if he were reading about it for the first time, historians of course recognized the idea of Washington as a kind of guardian of the western hemisphere. Together with the national security strategy published in December, the move on Venezuela can be understood as advancing a vision for carving up the world into what the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt called “great spaces”, with each in effect supervised by a great power (meaning, in today’s world, Washington, Moscow and Beijing). But more is happening than a return to such de facto imperialism: Trump’s promise to “run the country” for the sake of US oil companies signals the internationalization of one aspect of his regime – what has rightly been called the logic of the mafia state. That logic is even more obvious in his stated desire to grab Greenland.
The theory of the mafia state was first elaborated by the Hungarian sociologist Bálint Magyar in 2016. Such a state is less about corruption where envelopes change hands under the table. Instead, public procurement is rigged; large companies are brought under the control of regime-friendly oligarchs, who in turn acquire media to provide favorable coverage to the ruler. The beneficiaries are what Magyar calls the “extended political family” (which can include the ruler’s natural family). As with the mafia, unconditional loyalty is the price for being part of the system.
Jan-Werner Müller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University
Detainees under scheme to return people entering UK on small boats told their plane tickets have been cancelled
The first flight of 2026 to return asylum seekers who came to the UK on small boats to France has been cancelled, the Guardian understands.
Detainees earmarked for the UK government’s “one in, one out” scheme who had tickets for a flight on Wednesday morning to Paris were told their tickets had been cancelled.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, says he plans to meet Danish officials next week to discuss Greenland as a crisis escalates within Nato over Donald Trump’s threats to take over the Arctic territory.
An urgent meeting had been requested by the foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark, which has said that any invasion or seizure of the territory by its Nato ally would mark the end of the western military alliance and “post-second world war security”.
A stunning 1,000-year-old French castle in Provence has gone on the market for $17.7 million, featuring 100 rooms and medieval architecture. The property has been meticulously restored.
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