From Trump’s Project 2025 to a huge aid cut by the Dutch, donors are turning their backs on the developing world

Foreign aid spending reached a record high of $223bn (£180bn) in 2023, new figures released this week from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) confirmed.

Yet, in 2024, eight wealthy countries announced $17.2bn in cuts to official development assistance (ODA), and three others hinted at reductions, all to take effect over the next five years.

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© Photograph: UNICEF/Reuters

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© Photograph: UNICEF/Reuters

Donald Trump fait planer le spectre d'une guerre commerciale avec Bruxelles. À peine investi, le nouveau président américain a annoncé, mardi 21 janvier, sa volonté d'imposer des droits de douane à l'UE, mais sans préciser davantage sa pensée pour l'instant. Une situation que les eurodéputés réunis à Strasbourg appréhendent.

Donald Trump fait planer le spectre d'une guerre commerciale avec Bruxelles. À peine investi, le nouveau président américain a annoncé, mardi 21 janvier, sa volonté d'imposer des droits de douane à l'UE, mais sans préciser davantage sa pensée pour l'instant. Une situation que les eurodéputés réunis à Strasbourg appréhendent.

A record 47% of the European Union’s electricity now comes from solar and other renewables, a report Thursday said, in yet another sign of the growing gap between the bloc’s push for clean energy and the new U.S. administration’s pursuit of more fossil fuels

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Report reveals solar power generated 11% of Europe’s electricity, surpassing coal at 10%

Europe made more electricity from sunshine than coal last year, a report has found, in what analysts called a “milestone” for the clean energy transition.

Solar panels generated 11% of the EU’s electricity in 2024, while coal-burning power plants generated 10%, according to data from climate thinktank Ember. The role of fossil gas fell for the fifth year in a row to cover 16% of the electricity mix.

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© Photograph: Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

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© Photograph: Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

World leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. Jeanna Smialek, a New York Times reporter, describes how there was a veneer of anxiety over the event, with attendees wondering: How will the new Trump administration affect Europe?

Incarcérée depuis le mois de juin en Italie puis en Belgique à la suite de son transfèrement judiciaire, la chanteuse malienne Rokia Traoré a été remise en liberté dans la soirée du mercredi 22 janvier, à l'issue d'une nouvelle audience au palais de justice de Bruxelles. En conflit avec le père de sa fille de 9 ans - qui vit actuellement au Mali -, elle avait été condamnée à deux ans de prison pour « non-représentation d'enfant ». 

President Trump ruffled feathers with his plan to buy Greenland, and a Danish MEP is pushing back in a coarsely worded response put in 'words [he] might understand.'

The British defense secretary told Parliament that the Yantar, which he described as a Russian spy ship, had come near Britain’s coast for the second time in a few months.

© MOD, via Agence France-Presse

Incarcérée depuis le mois de juin en Italie puis en Belgique à la suite de son transfèrement judiciaire, la chanteuse malienne Rokia Traoré a été remise en liberté dans la soirée du mercredi 22 janvier, à l'issue d'une nouvelle audience au palais de justice de Bruxelles. En conflit avec le père de sa fille de 9 ans - qui vit actuellement au Mali -, elle avait été condamnée à deux ans de prison pour « non-représentation d'enfant ». 

President Tayyip Erdogan declared Wednesday a day of national mourning following the tragedy at Grand Kartal Hotel in Kartalya

© AFP/Getty

Félix ‘the Cat’ Bingui due to appear in Marseille court on multiple charges including money laundering

One of France’s most wanted suspected drug traffickers was due in court in Marseille after his extradition from Morocco.

Félix Bingui, known as “the Cat” and reportedly head of the notorious Yoda clan, was arrested in Casablanca last March.

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© Photograph: Nicolas Tucat/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Nicolas Tucat/AFP/Getty Images

Martin’s formal appointment as taoiseach blocked after day of ‘utter disgrace’ in Irish parliament

Ireland’s incoming prime minister, Micheál Martin, has accused opponents of a “subversion of the Irish constitution” after formal election to the role was cancelled amid chaotic scenes in the Irish parliament.

The outgoing taoiseach, Martin’s coalition partner, Simon Harris, called Wednesday’s events in Dáil an “utter disgrace [with] so many pressing issues” facing the country, as a spiralling row over the speaking rights of independent TDs torpedoed the first day of Martin’s new term in office.

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© Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images

Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemns ‘act of terror’ in Aschaffenburg that killed two people including toddler

A 28-year-old Afghan man has been arrested after a knife attack in a park in the German city of Aschaffenburg that killed two people, including a toddler, in what the country’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, condemned as an “act of terror”.

With a month left in a campaign for snap elections dominated by debate on immigration and asylum policy, Scholz demanded authorities “explain immediately why the assailant was even still in Germany”.

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© Photograph: Heiko Becker/Reuters

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© Photograph: Heiko Becker/Reuters

Spectacular bathhouses used to entertain Pompeiian’s in private home

© Archaeological Park of Pompeii

Survivors say they did not hear any alarms when fire broke out, as harrowing accounts emerge of attempts to escape

Turkish authorities are facing mounting questions over safety measures at a hotel in a popular ski resort that was ravaged by a fire, leaving 79 people dead and injuring more than 50 others.

Survivors reported that they did not hear alarms when the fire began in the early hours of Tuesday morning in the Bolu mountains resort of Kartalkaya. Harrowing accounts have emerged of people navigating smoke-filled corridors in complete darkness and jumping out of windows.

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© Photograph: Francisco Seco/AP

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© Photograph: Francisco Seco/AP

US president tells his Russian counterpart to ‘settle now and stop this ridiculous war’ or face repercussions

• Trump administration – live updates

Donald Trump has threatened Russia with taxes, tariffs and sanctions if a deal to end the war in Ukraine is not struck soon, as the new US president tries to increase pressure on Moscow to start negotiations with Kyiv.

Writing in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, Trump said Russia’s economy was failing and urged Vladimir Putin to “settle now and stop this ridiculous war”.

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© Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

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© Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Case of Osama Najim puts spotlight on controversial migration pact between Italy and Libya

Giorgia Meloni’s government is under pressure to clarify why a Rome court refused to approve the arrest of a Libyan general accused of war crimes, allowing him to return home to a hero’s welcome on an Italian secret services flight in what critics believe was a tactic to shield alleged abuses committed in the north African country as a result of a migrant pact with Italy.

Osama Najim, also known as Almasri, was detained in Turin on Sunday on a warrant issued by the international criminal court (ICC) before being freed on Tuesday owing to a procedural technicality.

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© Photograph: X formerly twitter

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© Photograph: X formerly twitter

Austria’s souvenir Mozartkugeln will no longer be made in composer’s home city after factory bankruptcy

Visitors to Salzburg can hardly escape merchandise linked to its favourite son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with T-shirts, golf balls and Playmobil figures in the composer’s image cluttering the gift stores and airport duty-free shops.

But the Austrian city has just lost its exclusive claim to the most beloved souvenir of all – bite-size foil-wrapped Mozart chocolates bearing the musical prodigy’s bewigged likeness.

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© Photograph: Leonhard Föger/Reuters

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© Photograph: Leonhard Föger/Reuters

Financier turned activist Bill Browder says Russia will make gains that spark refugee crisis if US military support dries up

• Business live – latest updates

Keir Starmer should show leadership over the Ukraine war by pushing for $300bn (£243bn) of frozen Russian assets to be used to fund Kyiv’s military, the financier turned activist Bill Browder has said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Browder warned that if US military support for Ukraine dried up, Russia would make territorial gains in the near-three-year long conflict, forcing millions of Ukrainians to flee the country.

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© Photograph: Yan Dobronosov/Reuters

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© Photograph: Yan Dobronosov/Reuters

Deux personnes, dont un enfant de 2 ans, ont été tuées et deux autres grièvement blessées, mercredi 22 janvier, lors d'une attaque au couteau dans un parc dans le sud de l'Allemagne, a annoncé la police locale, qui dit avoir appréhendé un suspect afghan. 

Deux personnes, dont un enfant de deux ans, ont été tuées mercredi au cours d'une attaque au couteau dans le sud de l'Allemagne. Le suspect, un ressortissant afghan de 28 ans, a été interpellé. Sur X, le chancelier Olaf Scholz a exigé de savoir pourquoi l'assaillant présumé "était encore en Allemagne".

Recevant mercredi le chancelier allemand Olaf Scholz à l'Élysée, le président français Emmanuel Macron a appelé la France et l'Allemagne à jouer "tout leur rôle" pour une Europe "forte" et "unie", qui sache défendre ses "intérêts" après le retour de Donald Trump à la Maison Blanche.

Le prince Harry accusait depuis des années le groupe News Group Newspapers (NGN) d’avoir utilisé des méthodes illégales pour obtenir des scoops, notamment en piratant son téléphone. Le groupe, détenu par le milliardaire Rupert Murdoch, possède entre autres le tabloïd The Sun. Bien que le procès entre les deux parties ait été prévu pour durer au moins huit semaines, un accord a été trouvé en dernier ressort, mettant fin à l'affaire avant même le début des audiences.