The Guardian 2025-01-25 12:14:13


Trump’s controversial Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth confirmed by Senate

Vice-president casts tie-breaking vote for Fox News host despite allegations of sexual assault and alcohol abuse

Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News personality and rightwing commentator who has said women should not serve in combat roles, recommended the military purge generals and faced allegations of sexual assault and alcoholism, has been confirmed as secretary of defense in the Senate by a tie-breaking vote from Vice-president JD Vance.

Almost the entire Republican conference supported Hegseth’s nomination while every Senate Democrat voted against his confirmation, resulting in a 50-50 vote. Three Republican senators – Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – opposed Hegseth’s nomination. Collins and Murkowski had earlier cited concerns about his personal history and inexperience as disqualifying.

Hegseth was among the most heavily scrutinized nominees for Donald Trump’s cabinet, owing to allegations of sexual assault and workplace misconduct that have surfaced in the last two months.

Shortly after Trump announced Hegseth as his defense secretary pick, extremism experts raised alarms about Hegseth’s apparent affinity for far-right symbols – noting that his tattoo sleeve featured at least two images associated with far-right and neo-Nazi groups. Hegseth himself has complained publicly that the US Army declined his service during Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration after a fellow servicemember flagged him as a potential insider threat.

In Hegseth’s hyperpartisan 2020 book, American Crusade, he writes that he believes the US is on course for factional violence and claims the country faces an existential threat from the left. “You must be thinking, ‘Pete, you laid this out in pretty simple terms. Us versus them. America versus the left. Good versus evil. You’re overplaying your hand. It’s not that bad,’” writes Hegseth. “Read on, and think again.”

Before the confirmation hearings, Hegseth declined to meet with Democratic members of the Senate armed services committee, spurring concerns about his willingness to run the agency in a nonpartisan manner.

During Hegseth’s 14 January confirmation hearing, the New Hampshire senator Jeanne Shaheen, said that since she joined the committee in 2011, every other nominee has met with her and her Democratic colleagues before their hearing and questioned Hegseth’s unwillingness to do the same.

After a report in the New Yorker uncovered reports of day drinking and Hegseth’s alleged belligerent, drunken behavior at the workplace, some Republican senators seemed skeptical about the former Fox News host’s viability as a nominee.

Hegseth refused to answer questions about his conduct during the hearing, repeatedly answering questions from the Arizona Democratic senator Mark Kelly about accusations of sexual misconduct and public, belligerent drunkenness with a two-word answer: “anonymous smears”.

“All anonymous, all false, all refuted by my colleagues who I’ve worked with for 10 years,” said Hegseth when Kelly pressed him to answer questions about his alleged alcoholism.

When the Democratic senator Elissa Slotkin asked whether he would refuse unconstitutional orders, and whether he would decline to deploy the military against US civilians, Hegseth evaded a direct answer, saying “I reject the premise” of the questions.

When questioned about his past support for three military officials accused of war crimes, Hegseth acknowledged that the Geneva convention was the “law of the land”, but complained of “burdensome rules of engagement” imposed by human rights law.

Hegseth also insisted that he would bring a “warrior culture” to the defense department and stressed his commitment to unravelling diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the military.

Trump’s allies unified behind Hegseth and pushed for his confirmation, and the little resistance within the Republican party to his nomination disappeared.

Even the Iowa senator Joni Ernst – a combat veteran and sexual assault survivor who initially cast doubt on Hegseth’s nomination – announced she would support him following his confirmation hearing, saying in a statement that she would “work with Pete to create the most lethal fighting force and hold him to his commitments of auditing the Pentagon, ensuring opportunity for women in combat while maintaining high standards, and selecting a senior official to address and prevent sexual assault in the ranks”.

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Pete Hegseth: five things to know about the new US secretary of defense

Hegseth has been accused of sexual assault and excessive drinking, and has endorsed extremist Christian doctrine

The Senate has confirmed Fox News host and army veteran Pete Hegseth to be the US secretary of defense, placing him in charge of the federal government’s largest agency after a tie-breaking vote had to be cast by JD Vance.

Three Republican senators – Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins – and every Democratic senator voted against his confirmation, leaving him with 51 votes, enough to become Donald Trump’s third cabinet member to secure Senate confirmation.

Here are five things to know about the next defense secretary.

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US orders halt to virtually all foreign aid except for Israel and Egypt

Internal memo to US state department staff explicitly makes exceptions for military assistance to Israel and Egypt

The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has ordered a halt to virtually all US foreign aid, but made an exception for funding to Israel and Egypt, according to an internal memo to staff at the US state department.

“No new funds shall be obligated for new awards or extensions of existing awards until each proposed new award or extension has been reviewed and approved … as consistent with President Trump’s agenda,” said the memo.

The sweeping order appears to affect everything from development assistance to military aid – including potentially to Ukraine, which received billions of dollars in weapons under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden as it tries to repel a Russian invasion.

But the memo explicitly made exceptions for military assistance to Israel – whose longstanding major arms packages from the US have expanded further since the Gaza war – and Egypt, which has received generous US defense funding since it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

Just hours after taking office on Monday, Trump ordered a 90-day pause in foreign development assistance pending a review of efficiencies and consistency with his foreign policy.

But the scope of the order was not immediately known and it was unclear what funding could be cut given that the US Congress sets the federal government budget. Trump’s order is unlawful, argued a source familiar discussions in Congress on the move.

“Freezing these international investments will lead our international partners to seek other funding partners – likely US competitors and adversaries – to fill this hole and displace the United States’ influence the longer this unlawful impoundment continues,” the source said on condition of anonymity.

The state department memo said effective immediately, senior officials “shall ensure that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, no new obligations shall be made for foreign assistance” until Rubio has made a decision after a review.

It says that for existing foreign assistance awards stop-work orders shall be issued immediately until reviewed by Rubio.

“It’s manufactured chaos,” said a former senior official with the US Agency for International Development (USAid), speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Organizations will have to stop all activities, so all lifesaving health services, HIV/Aids, nutrition, maternal and child health, all agriculture work, all support of civil society organizations, education,” said the official.

A USAid official, who requested anonymity, said officers responsible for projects in Ukraine have been told to stop all work. Among the projects that have been frozen are support to schools and health assistance like emergency maternal care and childhood vaccinations, the official said.

Across the board, “decisions whether to continue, modify, or terminate programs will be made” by Rubio following a review over the next 85 days. Until then Rubio can approve waivers. Rubio has issued a waiver for emergency food assistance, according to the memo.

This comes amid a surge of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip after a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas began on Sunday and several other hunger crises around the world, including Sudan.

The state department memo also said waivers have so far been approved by Rubio for “foreign military financing for Israel and Egypt and administrative expenses, including salaries, necessary to administer foreign military financing”.

Israel receives about $3.3bn in foreign military financing annually, while Egypt receives about $1.3bn.

Other states identified for such financing in 2025 include Ukraine, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Djibouti, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Israel, Egypt and Jordan, according to a request to Congress from Biden’s administration.

That request also said foreign military financing would “also seek to bolster the Lebanese Armed Forces’ ability to mitigate instability and counter malign Iranian influence”.

The Lebanese military is currently trying to deploy into the south of the country as Israeli troops withdraw under a ceasefire deal that requires Iran-backed Hezbollah weapons and fighters to also be removed from the area.

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Trump signs order to reinstate ‘global gag rule’ on abortion aid

Federal rule also known as ‘Mexico City policy’ halts US funds to overseas groups that provide abortion services

Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order reinstating a federal rule known as the “Mexico City policy” which halts US aid from flowing to groups that provide abortion services, counsel people about the procedure or advocate for abortion rights overseas.

The policy, which was first instituted by Ronald Reagan in 1984, is typically implemented whenever a Republican president wins the White House and rescinded whenever a Democrat wins. But this whiplash has major implications for abortion and reproductive healthcare around the world.

Historically, the revival of the Mexico City policy affects up to about $600m of international aid. During his first term, however, Trump dramatically expanded the scope of the Mexico city policy, which abortion rights supporters call a “global gag rule”. Rather than applying the policy only to family planning assistance, as was typical, the Trump administration applied to it to assistance for organizations that offer a range of health services around the globe – leading the policy to affect billions of dollars’ worth of aid.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion restrictions and their impact, the policy can cut off access to contraception, lead women to seek out unsafe abortions and cause tumult within the non-governmental groups that depend on US aid to keep their programs going.

“Reinstating the Mexico City policy will have deadly consequences for people across the globe,” Rebecca Hart Holder, president of Reproductive Equity Now, said in a statement.

“The United States is a vital partner to healthcare providers and organizations around the world, and robbing those frontline providers of their ability to provide the full spectrum of reproductive healthcare, and even information about people’s options, will result in people losing their lives to pregnancy complications.”

Trump also signed a second executive order affirming a longstanding US policy that prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortions. That order also rolled back two executive orders penned by Joe Biden, which sought to protect abortion access in the wake of the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade. The fall of Roe led a wave of states to ban the procedure.

Trump’s executive orders arrived hours after he sent a pre-recorded message to the protesters who attended the March for Life, the nation’s largest anti-abortion gathering, in Washington on Friday afternoon. His vice president, JD Vance, addressed the March in person.

“With the inauguration on Monday, our country faces the return of the most pro-family, most pro-life American president of our lifetimes,” Vance told the crowd, to massive cheers.

Abortion rights supporters had anticipated the return of the Mexico City policy, but are still awaiting news on whether Trump will allow widespread enforcement of the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-vice law that could be used to effectively ban abortion nationwide.

Although abortion rights remain extremely popular in the US, Vance and Trump’s appearances at the March are a sign of the anti-abortion movement’s political firepower and diehard grip on the GOP.

The Senate majority leader, John Thune, and speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, also spoke at the March – marking the first time in the March’s 50-year-plus history that the leaders of both chambers of Congress had ever done so.

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Putin ‘ready for negotiations’ with Trump on Ukraine war

Russian president strikes noticeably favourable tone, downplaying Trump’s economic threats

Vladimir Putin has said he is ready to discuss the war in Ukraine with Donald Trump and suggested it would be a good idea for them to meet.

In his first comments since Trump issued threats to inflict economic damage on Russia if it failed to end the war in Ukraine, Putin struck a favourable tone towards the US president.

Putin told a Russian state TV journalist: “We believe the current president’s statements about his readiness to work together. We are always open to this and ready for negotiations.

“It would be better for us to meet, based on the realities of today, to talk calmly.”

Putin went on to describe his relationship with Trump as “businesslike, pragmatic and trustworthy”.

He added that negotiating with Ukraine was complicated by the fact that its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, had signed a decree preventing him from conducting talks with Putin.

In what seems to be an effort to court Trump’s favour, Putin echoed the US president’s claim that he would have prevented the war starting in Ukraine in 2022, and parroted Trump’s debunked assertion that the 2020 US elections were “stolen” from him.

In the days since his inauguration, Trump has repeatedly called for a swift resolution to the war in Ukraine, now nearing its third year, and has expressed his readiness to meet Putin “immediately”.

In his nightly video address late on Friday, Zelenskyy said that Putin was seeking to “manipulate” Trump.

“He is trying to manipulate the US president’s desire to achieve peace. I am confident that no Russian manipulations will succeed any longer,” he said.

Trump’s attempts to persuade Putin to negotiate have been reinforced by threats to escalate pressure on Russia’s already strained economy, including introducing sanctions and tariffs, if Moscow fails to “make a deal” to end the war.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday evening, Trump called on Opec to push down global oil prices as a way to hit a vital stream of revenue for the Kremlin.

“Right now the price is high enough that that war will continue,” he said.

Oil and gas revenues have been Russia’s most important source of cash, accounting for a third to a half of federal budget proceeds over the past decade.

On Friday, Putin downplayed Trump’s economic threats, saying “excessively” low oil prices were bad for both the US and Russia.

In response to Trump’s initial approach, Moscow officials are choosing their words carefully while maintaining a firm position on their demands to end the war.

“We don’t see anything new here,” Peskov said on Thursday when asked about Trump’s economic ultimatums.

Still, Trump’s threats seem to have stirred frustration among Moscow’s elite, with some politicians and nationalists reacting negatively, sentiments amplified on state TV.

A source in the Russian foreign policy establishment said: “Putin does not like public threats. He wants to be spoken to as an equal. It is clear that any deal will take some time.”

Some observers believe Putin may view Trump’s economic warning with scepticism.

Throughout the war, Putin has expressed confidence that Russia’s economy has withstood western sanctions better than anticipated by most economists, both inside and outside Russia.

Still, cracks in the economy are beginning to show as Russia struggles with runaway inflation while pouring billions into defence.

Despite this, many in the elite believe Russia’s ability to withstand at least another year of conflict means Putin is unlikely to let the economy influence his decisions.

Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian Central Bank official and Russian economy expert, wrote in a piece for Foreign Affairs that “simmering economic problems are unlikely to overpower the forces keeping Putin determined to continue the war in Ukraine”.

Russia has made gradual but steady advances in eastern Ukraine despite record casualties. Kyiv is facing a personnel crisis, prompting the Biden administration to urge Ukraine to lower its mobilisation age from 25 to 18.

Putin last outlined his position for peace talks during his annual end-of-year conference, demanding that the west lift all sanctions and Ukraine withdraw from the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

He also insisted that Ukraine abandon its Nato aspirations, become a permanently neutral state, and drastically reduce its military forces – moves that would in effect strip Ukraine of its sovereignty.

It remains unclear how flexible Putin is on these demands.

One source briefed on top-level Kremlin discussions about possible negotiation tactics suggested Moscow was curious about potential overtures from the US, but might have little interest in signing a deal. The source suggested Moscow could keep the talks going to prolong the fighting while shifting its terms for peace.

Several hardline figures close to Putin have recently said Ukraine’s capitulation is the only acceptable outcome.

On Friday, the businessperson Konstantin Malofeev, one of Russia’s most prominent conservative voices, reiterated Putin’s maximalist demands for peace. “We must achieve victory, which will eliminate the Ukrainian state as such. We are, of course, ready to stop military action, but only on terms that ensure our security for many years to come,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.

While Trump has not given a detailed blueprint for ending the war, his running mate, JD Vance, has suggested Trump could push a “heavily fortified” demilitarised zone at the countries’ borders, freezing the war along the current frontlines.

Trump’s return to the White House has reignited discussions about the possibility of western peacekeeping forces being stationed in Ukraine to help maintain a ceasefire.

But the Russian foreign ministry has called the idea “unacceptable”, while also dismissing calls to freeze the war along the frontlines.

Still, the situation remains in flux, and this week Trump made statements that appeared aimed at soothing Moscow.

In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, he described President Zelenskyy as “no angel” and suggested the Ukrainian leader shared some of the blame for the war’s outbreak. “He shouldn’t have allowed this war to happen.”

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Explainer

Ukraine war briefing: Putin aiming to ‘manipulate’ Trump, Zelenskyy warns

Ukrainian president issues warning after Russia’s leader said he was ‘ready for negotiations’ with US counterpart on the war. What we know on day 1,067

  • See all our Ukraine coverage
  • Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has warned that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, is aiming to “manipulate” Donald Trump, after Putin praised the US leader and said he was ready for talks with him. “He wants to manipulate the desire of the president of the United States of America to achieve peace,” Zelenskyy said during his daily evening address on Friday. He said Putin was ready to continue the war and “manipulate the leaders of the world”.

  • Putin has said he is ‘ready for negotiations” on the war in Ukraine with Donald Trump and suggested it would be a good idea for them to meet. The Russian president struck a favourable tone towards his US counterpart, describing his relationship with Trump as “businesslike, pragmatic and trustworthy”. Putin echoed the US president’s claim that he would have prevented the war starting in Ukraine in 2022, and parroted Trump’s debunked assertion that the 2020 US elections were “stolen” from him.

  • The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has ordered a halt to virtually all US foreign aid, but made an exception for funding to Israel and Egypt, according to an internal memo to staff at the US state department. The sweeping order appears to affect everything from development assistance to military aid – including potentially to Ukraine, which received billions of dollars in weapons under Donald Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, as it tries to repel a Russian invasion. The scope of the order was not immediately known and it was unclear what funding could be cut given that the US Congress sets the federal government budget.

  • North Korea is preparing to send more soldiers to fight in Ukraine, military officials in South Korea have said, despite reports of heavy casualties among troops from the communist state. South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said in a statement on Friday that four months after the North sent an estimated 11,000 troops to the Ukraine conflict – a significant number of whom have been killed or wounded – the regime “is suspected of accelerating follow-up measures and preparation for an additional dispatch of troops”.

  • Russian aerial attacks near Kyiv killed three people and wounded several others, Ukrainian officials said on Friday. “Three people were killed in an enemy attack in the Kyiv region,” the emergency services said in a statement on social media. Fragments of a drone had struck a 10-storey residential building after the head of the region said a private home had also been hit, it added.

  • An overnight Ukrainian attack involving more than 121 drones had targeted 13 Russian regions, Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday, but they were repelled. Ukraine’s military said the attack hit a Russian oil refinery and a microchip factory in the Bryansk region with a video posted online showing a giant plume of smoke and flames engulfing an oil refinery in the Ryazan region.

  • Tens of thousands of protesters flocked to a central square in the Slovakian capital Bratislava on Friday, waving banners opposing prime minister Robert Fico’s policy shift closer to Russia. Opposition parties last week said they were initiating a no-confidence vote against Fico’s government, but the prime minister has looked set to survive the vote. The latest round of protests come after Fico privately travelled to Moscow in December to meet Vladimir Putin, a rare encounter for an EU leader since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

  • Sales of US military equipment to foreign governments in 2024 rose by 29% to a record $318.7bn as countries sought to replenish stocks sent to Ukraine and prepare for major conflicts, the US state department said on Friday. Sales approved in the year included $23bn worth of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, $18.8bn worth of F-15 fighter jets to Israel and $2.5bn worth of M1A2 Abrams tanks to Romania.

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Hamas names four female Israeli soldiers it will release from Gaza this weekend

Final female Israeli civilian held in Gaza not on list of names supplied by Hamas for next exchange

Hamas has published the names of four female Israeli soldiers being held captive in Gaza who it says it plans to release this weekend as part of the continuing ceasefire agreement between the armed group and Israel.

In the hours following the release of the names, however, the office of Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to indicate it believed Hamas had breached the fragile ceasefire deal because the four names did not include that of the remaining female civilian hostage in Gaza.

Israeli media later reported the Israeli prime minister had consulted his security chiefs and decided to move forward, believing Hamas’s decision to release female soldiers before female civilians to be a violation of the ceasefire agreement but not one serious enough to end the process entirely.

The agreement requires Hamas in the first phase of the deal to release all the female civilian hostages before moving on to the category of female soldiers, followed by older hostages and then people who are seriously ill, in return for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

All those named by Hamas for the next exchange are female Israel Defense Forces (IDF) observation troops who were abducted in Nahal Oz during the group’s surprise attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, when their base was overrun.

“As part of the prisoners’ exchange deal, the [Ezzedine] al-Qassam Brigades decided to release tomorrow four women soldiers,” Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing, said on Telegram.

The four women, who have been held by Hamas in Gaza for 15 months, were named as Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag.

Not on the list, however, was Arbel Yehoud, the last female civilian hostage being held in Gaza, who Israeli officials earlier this week said they expected to be released this weekend.

There has been speculation that Yehoud, who holds joint German and Israeli citizenship, is not being held by Hamas but by another militant faction, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy said any violation of the terms of the ceasefire deal by Hamas was minor, particularly when the group had indicated that freeing hostages held by other factions was more difficult. “Both sides are building a case, should the other upend the agreement. But Israel’s case is weaker,” he said.

“Israel’s insistence that it will continue to prosecute the war despite signing a three-stage agreement deal is the most dangerous violation, along with its troubling escalation and provocations in the West Bank.”

According to the deal, Israel is now supposed to publish a list of which Palestinians being held in Israeli jails will be released this weekend.

The first exchange took place on Sunday with the release of three Israeli civilian hostages and 90 Palestinians.

Dozens of Israelis and hundreds of Palestinians are to be freed, while more humanitarian aid flows into Gaza.

Israel believes about a third, or possibly as many as half, of the more than 90 hostages still in Gaza have died. Hamas has not, however, released definitive information on how many captives are still alive or the names of those who have died.

In the first phase of the ceasefire deal, 33 hostages are expected to be released gradually in return for hundreds of Palestinians held by Israel.

The 33 to be released in the first phase will include women, children, sick people and those over 50 – almost all civilians, though the deal also commits Hamas to freeing all living female soldiers in phase one.

The four soldiers worked in an IDF surveillance unit near Nahal Oz on the border with Gaza, where the all-female “spotters” unit was tasked with watching activity in the strip.

Family members of other spotters taken hostage by Hamas militants during the 7 October attack said the soldiers had reported seeing suspicious activity in Gaza before the attack, including militants practising using parachutes, but that their concerns were repeatedly overruled.

Footage later circulated of the moment Palestinian militants took six female spotters captive at the Nahal Oz base, stirring outrage in Israel. It showed a woman, who appeared to be Naama Levy, facing a wall as a fighter bent down to tie her hands and ankles, her face bloodied.

Levy, aged 19 at the time of her capture, was pictured lined up next to several other female soldiers taken captive by a large group of fighters who shouted around them.

Hamas released a video of 19-year-old Liri Albag three weeks ago, stills of which indicated she was pale and appeared exhausted, as she called on the Israeli government to reach a ceasefire deal. Albag’s parents appealed to Netanyahu in response, telling him to “make decisions as if your own children were there”.

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After the hostage swap, Israel is expected to begin pulling back from the Netzarim corridor — an east-west road dividing Gaza in two — and allowing displaced Palestinians in the south to return to their former homes in the north for the first time since the beginning of the war.

The war has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not say how many were militants. They say women and children make up more than half the fatalities.

Palestinians will only be allowed to move north on foot, with vehicular traffic restricted until later in the ceasefire.

Israel will not withdraw troops from Lebanon by deadline, Netanyahu says

PM says Lebanon has not fully met conditions for Israeli withdrawal under ceasefire deal

Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that Israeli troops will not comply with a Sunday deadline for them to withdraw from southern Lebanon, throwing the ceasefire with Hezbollah into crisis.

Confirming that Israel would not meet the 26 January deadline, the prime minister’s office said in a statement: “The IDF’s withdrawal process is conditional on the Lebanese army deploying in southern Lebanon and fully and effectively enforcing the agreement, while Hezbollah withdraws beyond the Litani [River].”

It said Israel regarded the ceasefire as “not yet fully enforced” and that “the phased withdrawal process will continue, in full coordination with the United States”.

While Israel has accused Lebanon of failing to meet its side of the deal, not least the deployment of the Lebanese armed forces south of the Litani River – about 18 miles north of the border – Lebanon has also accused Israel of violating the ceasefire.

The decision to delay the withdrawal, made at an Israeli cabinet meeting on Thursday evening, follows several weeks of briefings suggesting Israel intended to remain in at least five outposts in Lebanon.

Under the agreed ceasefire, which brought an end to the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israeli forces are supposed to have completed their withdrawal within 60 days, or by 26 January.

Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Herzog, explained the reasoning in an interview with Israel’s Army Radio earlier this week, saying more time was required from the Lebanese army to deploy south of the Litani River, suggesting the deal was not unchangeable.

“The agreement included a 60-day target for completing the IDF’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon and for the Lebanese army to take its place, but it isn’t set in stone and was phrased with some flexibility,” Herzog said.

“We are in discussions with the Trump administration to extend the time needed to enable the Lebanese army to truly deploy and fulfil its role under the agreement. These discussions are ongoing.”

Despite a request for a delay it was unclear whether the Trump administration had agreed to the request.

Israel’s reluctance to leave Lebanon comes at a fraught juncture in the first phase of the week-old fragile ceasefire in Gaza, with a large-scale Israeli operation under way in the occupied West Bank, and a profound lack of clarity over what Trump’s policies in the Middle East will look like.

Herzog’s comments follow an earlier briefing by unnamed Israeli government sources to the national broadcaster Channel 13, suggesting the country is pushing to keep a military presence in Lebanon.

This week a Hezbollah MP said any failure to comply with the deadline would cause the ceasefire to collapse.

“We in Hezbollah are waiting for the date of January 26, the day on which the ceasefire requires a full Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory,” Ali Fayyad said. “If the Israeli enemy does not comply with this, it will mean the collapse of the [ceasefire deal].”

Hezbollah’s leader, Naim Qassem, accused Israel of hundreds of ceasefire violations. “We have been patient with the violations to give a chance to the Lebanese state responsible for this agreement, along with the international sponsors, but I call on you not to test our patience,” he said last weekend.

Despite its recent rhetoric, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah suffered heavy losses of personnel and materiel during the conflict, which Israel said killed its longtime general secretary, Hassan Nasrallah.

The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in December also closed a key Iranian weapons supply route for Hezbollah.

Full-scale conflict broke out in September, after almost a year of cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah, displacing tens of thousands of civilians on both sides.

Israeli forces are still operating in the buffer zone in neighbouring Syria, which Israeli forces entered after the fall of Assad despite international calls to pull back.

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UN concerned by Israeli use of ‘unlawful lethal force’ in West Bank

UN human rights office criticises use of ‘methods and means used for war fighting’ in assault on city of Jenin

The UN has expressed concern that the ceasefire in Gaza could be endangered by Israel’s assault on the West Bank city of Jenin, which has involved what the UN human rights spokesperson labelled “unnecessary or disproportionate use of force”.

Thameen al-Kheetan, of the UN human rights office, called Israeli tactics in Jenin “deadly operations”, after Israel targeted a refugee camp in the centre of the city and besieged a nearby hospital.

“We are deeply concerned by the use of unlawful lethal force in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank,” he said on Friday, criticising “methods and means developed for war fighting, in violation of human rights law … this includes multiple airstrikes and apparently random shooting at unarmed residents attempting to flee or find safety.”

Israeli forces continued a sweeping crackdown across the West Bank as the assault on the refugee camp continued, in an operation Israel has called “Iron Wall”.

Security forces raided towns around Nablus and Jenin, and the Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli military bulldozers had moved deeper into the refugee camp and destroyed several homes. Hundreds have fled the camp and surrounding areas since Israeli forces began an operation there four days ago.

Late on Friday, an Israeli drone strike on a vehicle near the West Bank town of Qabatiya killed two people. The Israeli military said the attack had targeted a “terrorist cell” inside but gave no further details.

Kheetan said the UN human rights office had verified that more than 12 Palestinians had been killed and at least 40 injured since the assault began, adding that the majority were reportedly unarmed. Medics in the governmental hospital near the camp said staff had been wounded after being shot with live ammunition.

Benjamin Netanyahu has said the aim of the operation was to target Palestinian militants in the Jenin refugee camp, to prevent them from launching attacks on Israeli territory. Critics accused the prime minister of expanding the fighting to the West Bank to placate his far-right ally Bezalel Smotrich and maintain his ruling coalition.

Smotrich has threatened to quit the government if Israel does not resume fighting in Gaza after the first phase of the ceasefire ends in early March – a move that would remove Netanyahu’s parliamentary majority and probably trigger new elections.

“If, God forbid, the war is not resumed, I will bring the government down,” he told reporters earlier this week. Smotrich reportedly described the second Trump administration as “an opportunity” for Israel to annex the West Bank.

Aseel Baidoun, of Medical Aid for Palestinians in the West Bank town of Ramallah, said she despaired at Israel’s expanding attacks on the territory.

“Even as one door to peace is pushed slightly open another starts to swing closed,” she said. “Not only are we confined by checkpoints and road closures, but people also face relentless attacks from Israeli settler mobs who act with impunity, backed by the full support of the Israeli army.”

She added: “Now that there is a suspension in Israel’s war on Palestinians in Gaza, it feels like the Israeli military is starting a war on us in the West Bank.”

At a small protest in central Jerusalem, dozens of activists held up signs decrying the ongoing fighting during the Gaza ceasefire, and chanted for an end to Israel’s growing assault on towns across the West Bank.

“I think they want us to have this endless war … it’s shocking,” said Michal Brody-Bareket, who founded the Mother’s Cry group to demand the end to Israeli combat in Gaza, where her son has served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

“Of course this is political,” she said of Israel’s decision to launch the operation in Jenin. “This is all about Smotrich and the backing of the settler movement that support him. They want us fighting in the West Bank, in Gaza, and in Lebanon and Syria, too, so they can settle these places … this will cost a lot of lives.”

The protesters were met with immediate force by the Israeli police, who shoved several demonstrators and arrested three.

The protester Tamar Cohen said: “What we’re doing in the West Bank in general seems like a plan to go back to the war in Gaza. They want to turn the West Bank into Gaza.

“This at least seems to be the plan by Smotrich and his cohort. He got his prize for not leaving the government over the hostage deal,” she said, holding a sign that read: “Refuse to fight in the war”.

Four Israeli female soldiers held hostage by Palestinian militants in Gaza are due to be released in the coming days in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, as part of a fragile six-week ceasefire deal.

Israel launched its longest war on Gaza following the Hamas attack on towns and kibbutzim around the territory on 7 October 2023, when about 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage, mostly civilians. Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 47,000 people in 15 months of fighting.

The Qatari prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, said earlier this week that Doha was encouraging an early start to the second stage of talks, which include discussion on ending the war, scheduled to begin in the coming weeks.

Israeli officials believe that between a third and half of the 90 hostages that remain in Gaza have died. Anxious families of captives gathered in Tel Aviv to demand that Netanyahu and the US president, Donald Trump, ensure the release of all the remaining hostages.

“The worry that the deal won’t be fully implemented gnaws at us all,” said Vicky Cohen, the mother of Nimrod Cohen, who was taken captive from the Nahal Oz military base while serving in the IDF.

“All senior officials openly say that stopping the deal means a death sentence for those left behind.”

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120 days: German man sets world record for living under water

To celebrate, Rudiger Koch toasted with champagne and smoked a cigar before leaping into the Caribbean Sea

A German aerospace engineer has celebrated setting a world record for the longest time living under water without depressurisation – 120 days in a submerged capsule off the coast of Panama.

Rudiger Koch, 59, emerged from his 30 sq metre home under the sea on Friday in the presence of Guinness World Records adjudicator Susana Reyes.

She confirmed that Koch had beaten the record previously held by American Joseph Dituri, who spent 100 days living in an underwater lodge in a Florida lagoon.

“It was a great adventure and now it’s over there’s almost a sense of regret actually. I enjoyed my time here very much,” Koch said after leaving the capsule 11 metres under the sea.

“It is beautiful when things calm down and it gets dark and the sea is glowing,” he said of the view through the portholes.

“It is impossible to describe, you have to experience that yourself.”

To celebrate, Koch toasted with champagne and smoked a cigar before leaping into the Caribbean Sea, where a boat picked him up and took him to dry land for a celebratory party.

Koch’s capsule had most of the trappings of modern life: bed, toilet, TV, computer and internet – even an exercise bike.

Located 15 minutes by boat from the coast of northern Panama, it was attached to another chamber perched above the waves by a tube containing a narrow spiral staircase, providing a way down for food and visitors, including a doctor.

Solar panels on the surface provided electricity. There was a backup generator, but no shower.

Koch had told an AFP journalist who visited him halfway through his endeavour that he hoped it would change the way we think about human life – and where we can settle, even permanently.

“What we are trying to do here is prove that the seas are actually a viable environment for human expansion,” he said.

Four cameras filmed his moves in the capsule – capturing his daily life, monitoring his mental health and providing proof that he never came up to the surface.

“We needed witnesses who were monitoring and verifying 24/7 for more than 120 days,” Reyes said.

The record “is undoubtedly one of the most extravagant” and required “a lot of work”, she added.

An admirer of Captain Nemo in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Koch kept a copy of the 19th-century sci-fi classic on his bedside table beneath the waves.

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120 days: German man sets world record for living under water

To celebrate, Rudiger Koch toasted with champagne and smoked a cigar before leaping into the Caribbean Sea

A German aerospace engineer has celebrated setting a world record for the longest time living under water without depressurisation – 120 days in a submerged capsule off the coast of Panama.

Rudiger Koch, 59, emerged from his 30 sq metre home under the sea on Friday in the presence of Guinness World Records adjudicator Susana Reyes.

She confirmed that Koch had beaten the record previously held by American Joseph Dituri, who spent 100 days living in an underwater lodge in a Florida lagoon.

“It was a great adventure and now it’s over there’s almost a sense of regret actually. I enjoyed my time here very much,” Koch said after leaving the capsule 11 metres under the sea.

“It is beautiful when things calm down and it gets dark and the sea is glowing,” he said of the view through the portholes.

“It is impossible to describe, you have to experience that yourself.”

To celebrate, Koch toasted with champagne and smoked a cigar before leaping into the Caribbean Sea, where a boat picked him up and took him to dry land for a celebratory party.

Koch’s capsule had most of the trappings of modern life: bed, toilet, TV, computer and internet – even an exercise bike.

Located 15 minutes by boat from the coast of northern Panama, it was attached to another chamber perched above the waves by a tube containing a narrow spiral staircase, providing a way down for food and visitors, including a doctor.

Solar panels on the surface provided electricity. There was a backup generator, but no shower.

Koch had told an AFP journalist who visited him halfway through his endeavour that he hoped it would change the way we think about human life – and where we can settle, even permanently.

“What we are trying to do here is prove that the seas are actually a viable environment for human expansion,” he said.

Four cameras filmed his moves in the capsule – capturing his daily life, monitoring his mental health and providing proof that he never came up to the surface.

“We needed witnesses who were monitoring and verifying 24/7 for more than 120 days,” Reyes said.

The record “is undoubtedly one of the most extravagant” and required “a lot of work”, she added.

An admirer of Captain Nemo in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Koch kept a copy of the 19th-century sci-fi classic on his bedside table beneath the waves.

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Woman charged after death of US patrol agent in gunfight near Canadian border

Teresa Youngblut, 21, charged with weapons crimes over highway shootout in which German man also died

A Washington state woman has been charged in the fatal shooting of a US border patrol agent during a Vermont traffic stop that happened days after authorities began watching her and a German companion, who also died in the highway shootout, the FBI said on Friday.

Teresa Youngblut, 21, faces two weapons charges in connection with the death of the border patrol agent David Maland, 44, who died on Monday during the shootout in Coventry, a small town about 20 miles from the Canadian border.

According to an FBI affidavit, a border agent pulled over Youngblut and Felix Bauckholt on Interstate 91 to conduct an immigration inspection. At the time, Bauckholt appeared to have an expired visa according to a US Department of Homeland Security database – but investigators later confirmed that his visa was current, the FBI said on Friday.

Youngblut, who had been driving Bauckholt’s car, got out and opened fire on Maland and other officers without warning, the FBI alleges. Bauckholt tried to draw a gun but was shot dead, the affidavit states.

At least one border agent fired on Youngblut and Bauckholt, but authorities have not specified whose bullets hit whom.

“The events leading to this prosecution tragically demonstrate how the men and women of law enforcement regularly put their lives on the line as they try to keep our communities and our country safe,” the acting US attorney Michael Drescher said in a statement.

“We intend to honor them, and the memory of border patrol agent Maland, by performing our prosecutorial duties so that justice may be done.”

Investigators had been performing “periodic surveillance” of Youngblut and Bauckholt since 14 January after an employee at a hotel where they were staying reported concerns after seeing Youngblut carrying a gun and she and Bauckholt wearing black tactical gear, according to the affidavit.

Investigators tried to question the duo, who said they were in the area looking to buy property but declined to have an extended conversation, the FBI said.

About two hours before the shooting, investigators watched Bauckholt exit a Walmart in Newport, which is just north of Coventry, with two packages of aluminum foil.

According to the affidavit, he was seen wrapping unidentifiable objects while sitting in the passenger seat.

During a search of the car after the shootout, authorities found cellphones wrapped in foil, a ballistic helmet, night-vision goggles, respirators and ammunition, the FBI said. The also found a package of shooting range targets, including some that had been used, two-way radios, about a dozen “electronic devices”, travel and lodging information for multiple states, and an apparent journal.

The public defender’s office that will be representing Youngblut did not immediately respond to a voicemail seeking further information. A man reached at a phone listing for Youngblut’s family in Washington state identified himself as Youngblut’s grandfather and declined to comment. No one answered the door at a home in Seattle associated with Youngblut’s name, and neighbors declined to comment.

Maland’s aunt, Joan Maland, declined on behalf of his family to comment on the arrest. The family issued a statement expressing gratitude for the support they had received.

“To think people who never knew David Christopher Maland personally would reach out with condolences and beautiful words of support has been beyond our imagination,” they said. “From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. Our grief continues, please continue to pray for us.”

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Marilyn Manson won’t face charges after investigation into sexual assault claims

Los Angeles county district attorney says allegations are too old and evidence insufficient to charge musician

Prosecutors said on Friday that they will not file charges against Marilyn Manson after a years-long investigation of allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence.

The Los Angeles county district attorney, Nathan Hochman, said the allegations were too old under the law and the evidence was not sufficient to charge the 56-year-old shock rocker whose legal name is Brian Warner.

“We have determined that allegations of domestic violence fall outside of the statute of limitations, and we cannot prove charges of sexual assault beyond a reasonable doubt,” Hochman said. “We recognize and applaud the courage and resilience of the women who came forward to make reports and share their experiences, and we thank them for their cooperation and patience with the investigation.”

Nearly four years after the investigation began, the then district attorney, George Gascón, said on 9 October that his office was pursuing new leads that added to the “already extensive” file that authorities had amassed.

LA county sheriff’s detectives said early in 2021 that they were investigating Manson for incidents between 2009 and 2011 in West Hollywood, where Manson lived at the time. The investigation included a search warrant that was served on his West Hollywood home. The case was initially turned over to prosecutors in September 2021, but the Los Angeles county district attorney’s office requested more evidence-gathering and the investigation resumed.

The identities of the women police and prosecutors spoke to were not revealed, but the Game of Thrones actor Esmé Bianco – who sued Manson in a case that has been settled – said she was part of the criminal investigation. Before the decision not to prosecute, she criticized how long the process was taking at a rally for Hochman, who was elected soon after.

“Almost four years ago, I did what victims of rape are supposed to do: I went to the police,” she said on 10 October. “I described to them in agonizing detail how the rock musician Brian Warner – better known by his stage name Marilyn Manson – had raped and abused me over the course of our relationship.”

Bianco said she gave investigators “hundreds of pieces of evidence, including photos of my body covered in bites, bruises and knife wounds, emails and text messages, threats to my immigration status”.

In her lawsuit, Bianco alleged sexual, physical and emotional abuse, and said that Manson violated human trafficking law by bringing her to California from England for non-existent roles in music videos and movies.

Manson’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He has previously called the allegations “provably false”. A representative for Bianco did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

In 2021 his former fiancee, the Westworld actor Evan Rachel Wood, named him as her abuser for the first time in an Instagram post.

Wood and Manson’s relationship became public in 2007 when he was 38 and she was 19, and they were briefly engaged in 2010 before breaking up.

“He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years,” Wood said.

Manson replied on Instagram that these were “horrible distortions of reality”. He sued Wood, saying she and another woman fabricated accusations against him and convinced others to do the same. A judge threw out significant sections of the suit, then in November, Manson agreed to drop it and pay Wood’s attorney fees.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused, unless they come forward publicly as Bianco and Wood have done.

Other women sued Manson in the months after Wood came forward. Wood’s representative did not immediately return a message on Friday.

Manson emerged as a musical star in the mid-1990s, known as much for courting public controversy as for hit songs like The Beautiful People and hit albums like 1996’s Antichrist Superstar and 1998’s Mechanical Animals.

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Indigenous Alaskans and Republicans dismayed by Trump’s Denali renaming

Obama had restored peak’s Koyukon Athabascan name, undoing designation in honor of 25th US president

Donald Trump’s pledge to rename the highest mountain in North America has sparked backlash among some Indigenous Alaskans and Alaskan lawmakers, including Republicans.

Trump reiterated his intentions to rename Denali back to Mount McKinley during his inaugural address. Barack Obama had dubbed the mountain Denali during his presidency, undoing the 1917 designation made in honor of the 25th president, William McKinley.

The declaration of renaming has proved to be highly controversial. The Koyukon, an Alaska Indigenous Athabascan group, referred to the mountain as Denali for centuries before McKinley took office or Alaska became a US state.

The name was officially changed to Denali in 2015 to “recognize the sacred status of Denali to many Alaska Natives” though it is known by other names in other Indigenous Alaskan languages.

Alaska News Source reported research that suggested that Alaskans are against changing the name back to McKinley by about a two-to-one margin, despite Alaska being a state that is overwhelmingly supportive of Republicans.

Emily Edenshaw, president and CEO of the Alaska Native Heritage Center, told EarthBeat: “Keeping this name honors that connection and recognizes the enduring contributions of Alaska Native peoples.”

Alaskan lawmakers across the political spectrum have reacted negatively to Trump’s announcement.

In a video post on X, Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican senator, said: “I prefer the name Denali that was given to that great mountain by the great patriotic Koyukon Athabascan people thousands of years ago.”

Lisa Murkowski, another Republican senator from Alaska, said that she “strongly disagreed” with Trump’s decision to rename the mountain.

“Our nation’s tallest mountain, which has been called Denali for thousands of years, must continue to be known by the rightful name bestowed by Alaska’s Koyukon Athabascans, who have stewarded the land since time immemorial,” she wrote in a post on X.

But not every reaction to Trump’s announcement has been negative. Massee McKinley, great-great nephew of McKinley and a member of the Society of Presidential Descendants, told NBC News that his ancestor “deserves to have the mountain named after him”.

The choice to honor McKinley through the renaming of Denali is especially divisive due to the former president having racist views on native populations.

“We could not leave them [the Native people] to themselves – they were unfit for self-government,” McKinley once said in an interview about the Philippines and its people. “There was nothing left for us to do but to take them … uplift and civilize and Christianize them and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them.”

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Indigenous Alaskans and Republicans dismayed by Trump’s Denali renaming

Obama had restored peak’s Koyukon Athabascan name, undoing designation in honor of 25th US president

Donald Trump’s pledge to rename the highest mountain in North America has sparked backlash among some Indigenous Alaskans and Alaskan lawmakers, including Republicans.

Trump reiterated his intentions to rename Denali back to Mount McKinley during his inaugural address. Barack Obama had dubbed the mountain Denali during his presidency, undoing the 1917 designation made in honor of the 25th president, William McKinley.

The declaration of renaming has proved to be highly controversial. The Koyukon, an Alaska Indigenous Athabascan group, referred to the mountain as Denali for centuries before McKinley took office or Alaska became a US state.

The name was officially changed to Denali in 2015 to “recognize the sacred status of Denali to many Alaska Natives” though it is known by other names in other Indigenous Alaskan languages.

Alaska News Source reported research that suggested that Alaskans are against changing the name back to McKinley by about a two-to-one margin, despite Alaska being a state that is overwhelmingly supportive of Republicans.

Emily Edenshaw, president and CEO of the Alaska Native Heritage Center, told EarthBeat: “Keeping this name honors that connection and recognizes the enduring contributions of Alaska Native peoples.”

Alaskan lawmakers across the political spectrum have reacted negatively to Trump’s announcement.

In a video post on X, Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican senator, said: “I prefer the name Denali that was given to that great mountain by the great patriotic Koyukon Athabascan people thousands of years ago.”

Lisa Murkowski, another Republican senator from Alaska, said that she “strongly disagreed” with Trump’s decision to rename the mountain.

“Our nation’s tallest mountain, which has been called Denali for thousands of years, must continue to be known by the rightful name bestowed by Alaska’s Koyukon Athabascans, who have stewarded the land since time immemorial,” she wrote in a post on X.

But not every reaction to Trump’s announcement has been negative. Massee McKinley, great-great nephew of McKinley and a member of the Society of Presidential Descendants, told NBC News that his ancestor “deserves to have the mountain named after him”.

The choice to honor McKinley through the renaming of Denali is especially divisive due to the former president having racist views on native populations.

“We could not leave them [the Native people] to themselves – they were unfit for self-government,” McKinley once said in an interview about the Philippines and its people. “There was nothing left for us to do but to take them … uplift and civilize and Christianize them and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them.”

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Grace Tame wears anti-Murdoch shirt to prime minister’s Australian of the Year morning tea

2021 winner and advocate previously went viral for interaction with former PM Scott Morrison at 2022 event

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Former Australian of the Year Grace Tame has used a morning tea with the prime minister for recipients of the 2025 awards to share strong criticism of billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

The 2021 winner wore a T-shirt that read “Fuck Murdoch” when she was greeted by Anthony Albanese and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, at The Lodge in Canberra on Saturday.

The PM and Haydon smiled and greeted Tame, but there was no visible reaction to the statement on her shirt.

In 2022, the advocate for survivors of sexual assault also stirred controversy when she attended the same event as the outgoing Australian of the Year.

When Tame and her fiance, Max Heerey, arrived, they were greeted by the then prime minister, Scott Morrison, and his wife, Jenny, who congratulated them on their recent engagement.

But Tame remained sombre as they posed for photographs, which famously captured her giving Morrison a stony “side-eye” expression.

She later addressed that moment on Twitter, now X, commenting that the survival of abuse culture “is dependent on submissive smiles, self-defeating surrenders and hypocrisy”.

“What I did wasn’t an act of martyrdom in the gender culture war,” she wrote.

“It’s true that many women are sick of being told to smile, often by men, for the benefit of men. But it’s not just women who are conditioned to smile and conform to the visibly rotting status-quo. It’s all of us.”

Tame had been highly critical of Morrison and his government’s response to allegations of sexual assault and toxic workplace culture in federal parliament.

The winners of the 2025 Australian of the Year awards will be announced at a ceremony in Canberra on Saturday.

More than 30 finalists are in the running to be named Australian of the Year, Senior Australian of the Year, Young Australian of the Year and Australia’s Local Hero.

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UN says seven staff detained in Houthi-controlled Yemen

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres demands ‘unconditional’ release of all staff held by Iran-backed rebels

The UN has suspended all staff movement in Houthi-held areas of Yemen after the Iran-backed rebels detained another seven UN employees.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, called for the “immediate and unconditional” release of all aid staff held in Yemen, which is suffering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

“Their continued arbitrary detention is unacceptable,” Guterres said in a statement on Friday, adding that the UN was working to secure the release of those being held.

The Houthis have detained dozens of staff from the UN and other humanitarian organisations, most since the middle of last year.

Following the latest swoop, the UN has suspended “all official movements into and within” areas held by the Houthis, the office of the resident UN coordinator for Yemen said.

The detentions come after the US president, Donald Trump, ordered the Houthis placed back on the US list of foreign terrorist organisations.

Relisting the group will trigger a review of UN agencies and other NGOs working in Yemen that receive US funding, according to the executive order signed on Wednesday.

No immediate comment was available from the Houthis, who seized the capital Sana’a in 2014 and rule large parts of the impoverished country.

In June, the rebels detained 13 UN personnel, including six employees of the Human Rights Office, and more than 50 NGO staff, plus an embassy staff member.

Two other UN human rights staff had already been detained since November 2021 and August 2023 respectively.

In early August, the Houthis stormed the UNHCR office, forced staff to hand over the keys, and seized documents and property, before returning it later that month.

Guterres said the “continued targeting of UN personnel and its partners negatively impacts our ability to assist millions of people in need in Yemen”.

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Tens of thousands in Slovakia protest against PM’s shift towards Russia

Around 60,000 people gather in Bratislava to oppose Robert Fico’s policy moves, with rallies also held in 20 other cities

Tens of thousands of protesters thronged a central square in the Slovak capital, waving banners opposing prime minister Robert Fico’s policy shift closer to Russia, amid rising tensions between the government and the opposition.

Organisers estimated 60,000 people attended Friday’s demonstration in Bratislava’s Freedom Square, about four times more than in the last demonstration two weeks ago.

The protests were nearing levels seen in 2018 when the murder of an investigative journalist caused mass demonstrations and forced Fico’s resignation. Fico won re-election as prime minister in 2023.

Protesters shouted “Enough of Fico” and “We are Europe” and at one point lit up the square with their mobile phones after a brief power outage.

Rallies were also held in 20 other cities, with news website Denník N estimating that at least 100,000 people joined protests across the central European country.

Tensions increased this week after Fico’s leftist-nationalist government attacked his progressive opponents, accusing them of attempting a “coup d’état”.

The government plans new preventive measures amid what Fico said was a bid to escalate protests into attempts at illegally overthrowing the administration, including by occupying state buildings.

Citing information from intelligence services, Fico alleged, without providing evidence, that a group of unidentified experts in Slovakia had helped in protests against a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine in 2014 and Georgia last year.

Opposition political parties and civic groups organising the protests rejected the accusations, saying they are meant to deflect attention from policy problems that the fragile government coalition is failing to tackle.

Opposition parties have sought a no-confidence vote against Fico’s government, but the prime minister so far looks set to survive as he maintains a thin majority.

Fico, since his return as prime minister for a fourth time in 2023, has caused concern among critics that his government is weakening democratic values and shifting foreign policy away from the EU and Nato allies and closer to Russia.

“We do not want to be with Russia … We want to be in the European Union, we want to be Nato and we want to stay that way,” protester Frantisek Valach said in Bratislava.

The latest protests come after Fico privately travelled to Moscow in December to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin, a rare encounter for an EU leader since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Marian Kulich from civic group Mier Ukrajine (Peace to Ukraine), which organised the protests, said the aim was to “create pressure so that this government actually changes its direction towards Moscow and focuses” on EU and Nato partners.

Fico became increasingly anti-liberal after 2018. In May last year, a lone gunman shot and wounded him, in protest against his policies, and the prime minister has since stepped up attacks against the opposition.

He has also been in open dispute with Ukraine after Kyiv halted the transit of Russian gas supplies heading to Slovakia on 1 January. Fico threatened to end humanitarian aid in retaliation.

His government ended state military aid to Kyiv after taking office and, domestically, it has revamped the public broadcaster, despite media freedom concerns, and softened prosecution of economic crimes, causing protests last year.

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  • Slovakia
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  • Robert Fico
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  • European Union
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Italian cyclist Sara Piffer, 19, dies after being hit by car during training ride

  • Mendelspeck rider was training in Trentino region
  • Piffer’s brother also injured during incident

Sara Piffer, a promising 19-year-old Italian rider, died during a training outing on Friday, the Italian Professional Cyclists’ Association (ACCPI) said, after she was reportedly hit by a car.

The Team Mendelspeck rider Piffer was struck by the vehicle on a minor road during a training session in Italy’s northern Trentino region, according to Italian media.

“Our thoughts are with the family of our associate, with Mendelspeck, with the group companions, and with all those who today are devastated by the pain of yet another life lost to road violence,” the ACCPI said in a statement.

Reports in Italy say she was training between Mezzocorona and Mezzolombardo alongside her brother Christian when a car struck her while the driver was attempting to overtake another vehicle. La Gazzetta dello Sport said Christian sustained minor injuries.

Piffer joined the Continental-level team last year and enjoyed a host of strong results, including victory at the Under-23 Giornata Nazionale Rosa one-day race and fourth place in the team time trial at October’s Italian national championships.

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