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Trump says there’s ‘good spirit to get something done’ on Greenland and claims Putin and Zelenskyy both want to end Ukraine war – latest updates

Closing his remarks on Air Force Trump, Trump also claims that some unnamed European leaders “told me openly that they wish they had our border,” as he repeated his criticism of Europe’s open borders. “They have to do something about immigration,” he said. He later briefly addresses the latest controversy about new bruising on his hands (he clipped it on a table and repeats an old line about taking an ‘big’ aspirin tablet which he says contributes to bruising), and that wraps up the briefing.

Mark Carney says Canada must ‘be a beacon to a world that’s at sea’

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, said his country must be a “beacon to a world that’s at sea” and that national unity was critical as his government faces a dramatic reshaping of the world political order – and mounting domestic challenges The national address, given at a historic military fortress in Quebec City, was far narrower in scope than the prime minister’s remarks earlier in the week at the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland. Dubbed the ‘Carney Doctrine’, the Davos speech lamented the disintegration of rules-based order amid a rise of “great powers” that used economic “coercion” as a weapon. But his Thursday speech on the grounds of a famed citadel, built to fend off a potential American invasion, nonetheless laid out a defence of Canadian values and his vision for where the country fit into a rapidly changing world. “Canada cannot solve all the world’s problems, but we can show that another way is possible: that the arc of history isn’t destined to be warped towards authoritarianism and exclusion, it can still bend towards progress and justice,” he said. Carney’s remarks, largely written by the prime minister himself, included a jab at US president Donald Trump, who suggested earlier in the week Canada was insufficiently “grateful” for the state of its economy, which he said was the result of American generosity. “Canada lives because of the United States,” Trump told attenders in Davos. “Remember that, Mark, next time you make your statements.” Carney said the two countries “have built a remarkable partnership” through their integrated economies, security agreements and shared values. But he also added: “Canada doesn’t live because of the United States. Canada thrives because we are Canadian. We are masters of our home. This is our country.” Despite international approval for his blunt assessment of the “rupture” in the geopolitical order, Carney has faced pushback from opposition Conservatives, who say the prime minister’s recent trade missions to China and Qatar have produced little concrete investment and distracted him from domestic challenges. Carney pledged to move “fairly and fast” to speed up major infrastructure projects and to tackle the sustained cost-of-living crisis plaguing the country. But he also faces the prospect of two sovereignty referendums in Alberta and Quebec. “When we are united, unity grows. When we are Canadian – inclusive, fair, ambitious – Canada grows,” he said. The prime minister did acknowledge the country’s history was defined by a move “slowly, imperfectly, not without struggle” towards cooperation and partnership of the disparate groups that called it home. Canada has not always lived up to its stated ideals, he said, including the sustained “dispossession” of Indigenous peoples and the “violation” of treaties – a reality that persists into the present. After giving his speech, Carney met- and hugged – the giant novelty snowman Bonhomme, who serves as the ambassador of the city’s winter carnival. Carney is in Quebec to meet with cabinet and attend briefings before parliament returns on Monday. His governing Liberals are one seat short of a majority.

Relations with US have taken ‘big blow’, says EU foreign policy chief

Transatlantic relations have “taken a big blow over the last week” the EU’s foreign policy chief said, as leaders from the bloc gathered for an emergency summit after weeks of escalating threats from Donald Trump over Greenland that were suddenly rescinded with a vague deal on Arctic security. Summing up the mood, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the EU was living through a lot of unpredictability: “One day, one way; the other day, again, everything could change.” Relations between Europe and the US “have definitely taken a big blow over the last week”, but Europeans were “not willing to junk 80 years of good relations”, she told reporters. An emergency EU summit was hastily convened earlier this week after the US president announced he would impose 10% tariffs on eight European nations that resisted a US takeover of Greenland, an autonomous territory that is part of Denmark. Although Trump abandoned his tariff threat on Wednesday, EU officials deemed the summit necessary to discuss the wider transatlantic relationship with a volatile and unpredictable US president. Arriving at the summit, Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, hailed EU unity and “our willingness to stand up for ourselves”. Nato states, she said, backed having a permanent presence in the Arctic region including around Greenland. Stressing repeatedly that Danish sovereignty was not up for discussion, she said the US and Denmark “have to work together respectfully without threatening each other”. French president Emmanuel Macron, still wearing the aviator shades that drew global attention in Davos, said Europe need to “remain extremely vigilant and ready to use the instruments at our disposal should we find ourselves the target of threats again”. German chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed Trump’s change of heart: “I am very grateful that President Trump has distanced himself from his original plans to take over Greenland, and I am also grateful that he has refrained from imposing additional tariffs on 1 February.” Several EU leaders stressed determination to maintain the US as an ally. “I still treat the United States as our closest friend,” Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda said, referencing the two US battalions deployed in his country. Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, another staunch transatlanticist, said: “Europe should be here absolutely united to protect our relations with our partners on the other side of the Atlantic, even if it is much more difficult than ever before.” But he went on to say that politics needed “trust and respect … not domination and for sure not coercion”. Greenland, which left the EU in 1985, also insisted that its sovereignty be respected. Speaking in Nuuk, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s prime minister, said he did not know what was in the deal but emphasised that the largely self-governing territory wanted a “peaceful dialogue” with the US, and its sovereignty was non-negotiable. If Greenlanders had to choose, he said: “We choose the Kingdom of Denmark, we choose the EU, we choose Nato.” Meanwhile the European parliament signalled on Thursday it was ready to reconsider its decision to freeze ratification of the EU-US trade deal, one of the bloc’s strongest responses to Trump’s tariff threats so far. MEPs had been expected to vote in February to approve 0% tariffs on many US goods, a key part of the trade agreement signed at Trump’s Turnberry golf resort last summer, but pressed pause on the process on Wednesday in response to tariff threats. The European parliament can now go ahead with discussions on the EU-US trade deal, following Trump’s tariff threat reversal, its president, Roberta Metsola, said. Earlier in the day the head of the European parliament’s trade committee, the German Social Democrat lawmaker Bernd Lange, said his committee would revisit the issue next week, while stressing that the EU needed to remain vigilant. “There is no room for false security,” he wrote on X. “The next threat is sure to come. That’s why it is even more important that we set clear boundaries, use all available legal instruments [and] apply them as appropriate to the situation.” In response to Trump’s tariff threats, the EU had been discussing levying duties on €93bn of US goods, as well as deploying its most powerful economic sanctions weapon, the anti-coercion instrument, which would allow the bloc to impose a broad range of economic penalties on US companies. Even the EU’s most transatlantic-minded governments said such a response could be necessary if the tariffs went ahead. European leaders had watched with growing alarm as Trump insisted on a US takeover of Greenland, a move that threatened to split Nato and the wider western alliance. European governments feared failure to resist a US takeover of Greenland would cast legitimacy over a Chinese seizure of Taiwan or a Russian invasion of the Baltic states, smashing the post-1945 rules-based order. While that threat has subsided, for now, European leaders are also expected to share their concerns about Trump’s proposed “board of peace”, amid fears he is seeking to create a rival to the UN. Launched in Davos on Thursday, the “board of peace” was initially part of Trump’s peace and reconstruction plan for Gaza, but is morphing into an organisation with a sprawling geopolitical role operating under his direct control. So far, Hungary and Bulgaria are the only EU member states to accept an invitation to join the “board of peace”, while France, Sweden and non-EU Norway and the UK have all declined. “A very large majority [of EU member states] have said they are not in a position to join the board as it stands,” the EU official said, when asked whether European governments could join a “board of peace” that included Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader wanted for war crimes against Ukraine. The Russian leader is yet to confirm whether he intends to accept the US invitation to join, but has suggested he could pay the $1bn fee required for permanent membership using Russian assets that are largely frozen in Europe and earmarked for reparations for Ukraine. Summing up the transatlantic relationship, the official said it was a “very strong, but certainly more complex relationship with the US”, replete with disagreements, tensions and points of cooperation. He added: “We have to live with the new complexity.”

Trump’s Gaza plan is a rebuff to Israeli extremists, but will soon be put to test

Amid the hullabaloo and self-congratulation of Donald Trump’s “board of peace” launch in Davos, his administration laid out specific plans for the short- and long-term future of Gaza, aimed at a lasting peace. The blueprint set out on Thursday was extremely ambitious. It envisages a unified Palestinian-run Gaza, which represents a rebuff to the aims of Israeli extremists, including some in the governing coalition, who have sought the deportation of Gaza’s population and the building of Israeli settlements in its place. The plan’s success will depend largely on whether Trump and his board of peace has the determination to implement the plan, overcoming Israeli objections and obstruction – and whether a mechanism can be created inside Gaza to oversee the disarming of Hamas. A slideshow presented in Davos by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner imagined a futuristic dreamscape of gleaming apartment blocks and office towers, with neat industrial parks and residential districts – and even an airport. The territory had a slice taken off it to create a buffer zone along the Israeli border, and was treated as blank slate, ignoring the property rights of generations of Palestinians, but it was a move away from a partition between Hamas and Israeli-run halves. The plan also spelled out more achievable promises for the next 100 days, including the restoration of basic infrastructure – including water, sewage and electric systems, hospitals and bakeries – together with a significant increase in the flow of goods entering Gaza. The critical Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt is due to open for traffic next week, for the first time since Israeli troops seized control of it in May 2024. Kushner committed the US administration to achieving those short-term goals. “The next 100 days we’re going to continue to just be heads down and focused on making sure this is implemented,” he said. “We continue to be focused on humanitarian aid, humanitarian shelter, but then creating the conditions to move forward.” The board of peace will be represented in Gaza by a “high representative”, a veteran Bulgarian and UN diplomat, Nickolay Mladenov. But the plan, as spelled out in Davos, puts much of the onus for implementation on the newly formed National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a panel of Palestinian non-partisan technocrats who are supposed to run Gaza for a transition period. Its chair, the “chief commissioner” Ali Shaath, addressed the assembled world leaders in Davos by video link from Cairo, but also spoke directly to the people of Gaza, largely ignored so far in the Trump peace plan. “Step by step, with discipline and determination, we will rebuild a capable Gaza, capable of self-reliance, and we will build it into a centre for freedom, opportunity and peace,” Shaath told his fellow Palestinians. Shaath, an engineer and a former deputy transport minister in the Palestinian Authority, said the NCAG’s mission was “to restore order, to rebuild institutions and to recreate a future for the people of Gaza defined by opportunity and dignity under the principle of one authority, one law and one weapon”. According to documents supplied by the administration, “one weapon” means that all weapon possession in the future Gaza can be “authorised by one authority only (NCAG)”. The clause addressed a major and immediate hurdle to turning a semi-observed ceasefire into a real and lasting truce. US and Israeli officials agree there will not be further withdrawals by the Israeli army (still occupying more than half of Gaza) until Hamas disarms. Hamas has reportedly agreed in principle to hand over its heavy weapons, such as rockets and artillery, to a Palestinian administration, and is said to be prepared to accept the NCAG. To put that to the test, Shaath and the NCAG would have to be allowed to enter Gaza with a Palestinian police force that has been trained in Jordan and Egypt over past months. The plan presented in Davos notably made no mention of the international stabilisation force (ISF), which was a key part of Trump’s peace proposals last year, endorsed in November by a UN security council resolution. Creating the ISF has been fraught with problems. None of the countries in the Arab and Islamic world that provisionally agreed to provide troops wanted their soldiers to confront Hamas over its weaponry. Israel declared it would not accept Turkish or Qatari forces, while other potential troop contributors insisted that Turkey and Qatar were involved. The US blueprint mentions only the new Palestinian police force. Heavy weapons would be “decommissioned immediately”, it said. “Personal arms [will be] registered and decommissioned by sector as NCAG police becomes capable of guaranteeing personal security,” the blueprint said. The end state would be a situation in which “only NCAG-sanctioned personnel may carry weapons”. The immediate test of the blueprint will come next week, when the Rafah crossing is due to open. “Opening Rafah signals Gaza is no longer closed to the future or to the world. This is a real step and it marks a new direction,” Shaath said in his video presentation. However, Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet is due to discuss the opening of Rafah next week. There is considerable opposition inside the coalition to reopening the crossing, at least until the remains of the last unaccounted-for Israeli hostage, Ran Gvili, are returned. There will be considerably more internal opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian interim government in territory, which the far right is bent on emptying and annexing. The plan does not say a future Gaza would be part of a sovereign Palestinian state. But it does not exclude a unified Palestine, and it is unlikely the NCAG would be able to recruit credible Palestinian members if it did. Under the plan, the Israeli army would withdraw progressively from all Gaza territory in phases from the current truce line agreed as part of phase 1 of the plan. That further withdrawal would be “based on agreed-upon standards”, the Kushner blueprint said, but it gave no details, raising questions over whether Israel would comply. For the population of Gaza, most still living in tents and under regular Israeli fire, perhaps the most encouraging aspect of Thursday’s presentation in Davos was that Trump clearly still sees his prestige and that of his “board of peace” as being wrapped up in the ceasefire he brokered last year. In other words, the ceasefire plan is still harnessed to the bulldozer of the president’s self-esteem, which at least has the potential to break through the substantial hurdles to a free and peaceful Gaza.

Toronto man posed as pilot to rack up hundreds of free flights, prosecutors say

A Toronto man posed as a pilot for years in order to fool airlines into giving him hundreds of free flights, prosecutors have alleged, in a case that has prompted comparisons to the Hollywood thriller Catch Me If You Can. Authorities in Hawaii announced this week that Dallas Pokornik, 33, had been charged with wire fraud after he allegedly fooled three major US carriers into giving him free tickets over a span of four years. Airlines typically offer standby tickets to their own staff and those with rival airlines as a way of ensuring the broader industry can effectively move employees across continents. According to court documents, Pokornik was a flight attendant for a Toronto-based airline from 2017 to 2019, but then used an employee identification from that carrier to obtain tickets, “which he in fact knew to be fraudulent at the time it was so presented”. The only Toronto-based airline, Porter, told reporters it was “unable to verify any information related to this story”. On one occasion, Pokornik is alleged to have requested a jumpseat in an aircraft’s cockpit, which are normally reserved for off-duty pilots, even though he was not a pilot and did not have an airman’s certificate. Federal rules prohibit the cockpit jumpseats from being used for leisure travel. It is unclear how Pokornik was able to convince the airlines he was employed as a flight attendant years after he stopped working in the industry. Typically, employees use a card linked to a database that has their photo and confirms they are an airline employee, according to a flight attendant at a major Canadian airline. Staff must show a government-issued identification and an employee badge. Rules are looser, however, if the person identifying as an airline employee is flying for leisure. Pokornik who was indicted on 2 October, was later arrested in Panama and extradited to the United States. The Department of Justice said the Department of Homeland Security is investigating the case along the US Marshals Service. If convicted, Pokornik faces up to 20 years in prison, and a fine of up to US$250,000.

Not all efforts to rebuild Aleppo are local | Letters

Your long read article is a powerful account of the impacts of Syria’s civil war on the city of Aleppo (Out of the ruins: will Aleppo ever be rebuilt?, 20 January). However, in stating that “All the reconstruction efforts so far are local”, it overlooks significant international involvement. Since 2018, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) has restored eight key areas of the medieval souk in Aleppo’s old city, with ongoing rehabilitation planned, reviving shops and covered markets. AKTC’s efforts have motivated traders to privately restore their own shops in peripheral areas of the souk, delivered according to local standards. UN organisations such as Unesco and UN-Habitat are also helping to restore elements of the city’s historic centre. An article published this month on the Aga Khan Development Network website, headlined The Aleppo Souk, Crucible of Memory, describes this work. Alongside the loss brought about by the war, it also portrays a city where international restoration is bringing a genuine sense of cautious optimism to the ancient medina. This narrative is real and deserves attention. Luis Monréal General manager, Aga Khan Trust for Culture • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.