World
State of the Union: How distant elections can affect Europe
In this edition of State of the Union, we focus on how elections in faraway places like Taiwan and the United States can affect Europe. We also take a look at the latest regarding support for Ukraine.
While the war in Ukraine approaches the two-year mark, there has been some sort of shadow-boxing this week over potential peace talks.
While in Davos, Ukrainian president Zelenskyy got the Swiss government to host a peace conference at some point in the future – without inviting Russia.
Then Moscow’s foreign minister Lavrov shot back saying that Ukraine would not decide when to begin any serious talks and that “the West” was not interested in negotiations anyway.
“The West” meanwhile seemed to get its act together as far as further military support is concerned.
Some EU countries committed to additional measures.
And the EU in general is now ready to approve its 50-billion-euro package soon with or without Hungary that has been blocking it for months.
“It’s very important to engage with all 27 member states of the European Union to get the 50 billion euro for four years up and running”, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told Euronews in Davos.
“My personal priority is to have an agreement by 27. If this is not possible, we are prepared for an agreement by 26.”
There is a renewed sense of urgency, as aid for Ukraine from its biggest donor by far, the United States, is mired in political infighting in Washington.
And then there is the prospect of Donald Trump returning to the White House next year, however speculative at this point, which could mean an end to US support for Ukraine altogether.
A nightmare for many in Europe – but a nightmare against which there is a great remedy, according to the Belgian EU presidency: just wake up!
“If 2024 brings us ‘America first’ again, it will be more than ever ‘Europe on its own’.”, Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo said in a speech before the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
“We should as Europeans not fear that prospect. We should embrace it. We should embrace it by putting Europe on a more solid footing. Stronger, more sovereign, more self-reliant.”
True, Trump won the Iowa caucuses overwhelmingly this week, but it is still a long way to go to election day in November.
The U.S. presidential election is not the only one with major ramifications for Europe this year.
A week ago, the people of Taiwan elected a new president who basically refuses to cave before Beijing who considers the island a runaway province.
The European reaction to this democratic expression was rather muted – is Europe too fearful of negative reactions from Beijing?
Questions to Mareike Ohlberg, senior fellow at the Indo-Pacific Program of the German Marshall Fund and head of the Stockholm China Forum who joined Euronews from Berlin.
Euronews: So, the election in Taiwan was one of the most closely watched geopolitical events of the year. Yet, in the run-up of the vote, the European Union barely noticed it at all – is Taiwan a too hot a potato?
Ohlberg: There is, of course, still some reluctance and commenting on it to some degree. Presumably there is still some nervousness about offending China to some degree. So there is a little bit of a dance around some of that. But overall, people here are paying much more closely attention now than just a few years ago.
Euronews: The official EU position is: yes, to bilateral ties with Taiwan, but no political recognition or diplomatic recognition. That being said, do you see an opportunity for closer cooperation now that the election is over?
Ohlberg: I think what we can do is continue some of the corporation that’s already been taking place or some more close coordination we’ve had in the last couple of years. I mean, we’ve had some visits, primarily from Parliament’s delegations visiting Taiwan. That is one thing that has happened. And then we’ve also seen some careful, more careful ties at the ministerial level, where, for instance, ministers, went to Taiwan to talk to their Taiwanese counterparts. And I think it’s particularly these smaller cooperations establishing ties and making sure that Europe is invested in Taiwan, where I see the most benefit.
Euronews: EU parliamentary and government delegations made 28 visits to Taiwan last year, a new record – how do you interpret that interest?
Ohlberg: Europe can’t really offer Taiwan that much in terms of security and concrete defense. I think Europe doesn’t have the capacity to do that. But one thing that Europe can do, is signal an interest in Taiwan and try to signal to the Chinese government that Europe has a vested interest in stability in the Taiwan Strait, and that Europe would be firmly opposed to any attempt to change the status quo through military means or through coercion.
Euronews: Hanging over all this is, of course, fear of retaliation from Beijing. Does the EU have the stomach to pick a fight with the Chinese Communists over even symbolic agreements with Taiwan?
Ohlberg: I if you’re alluding to bilateral trade agreements, I don’t really think that’s going to happen soon. There’s been a push for that, for instance, in the European Parliament. There is some reluctance on the Commission side, on various other sides. I don’t expect that to happen. But I do think there are other ways and other channels how ties with Taiwan, including trade ties, can be intensified. That may not have the same effect, but that are also helpful in this regard.
World
Minnesota braces for what’s next amid immigration arrests and in the wake of Renee Good shooting
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration officer, Minnesota’s Twin Cities on Sunday braced for what many expect will be a new normal over the next few weeks as the Department of Homeland Security carries out what it called its largest enforcement operation ever.
Protesters screamed at heavily-armed federal agents and honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt their operations in one Minneapolis neighborhood filled with single-family homes.
There was some pushing and several people were hit with chemical spray just before agents banged down the door of one home on Sunday. They later took one man away in handcuffs.
“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”
Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.
People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners in the neighborhood where 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed Wednesday, watching for any signs of federal agents.
More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .
“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.
The protests have been largely peaceful, but the Twin Cities remained anxious. Minneapolis public schools on Monday will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.
Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.
While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said on Sunday that the investigation into Good’s shooting death shouldn’t be overseen solely by the federal government.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.
“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened,” Smith said on ABC’s “This Week.”
The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.
Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”
“That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.
Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn’t be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”
The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests across the country over the weekend.
Thousands of people marched Saturday in Minneapolis, where Homeland Security called its deployment of immigration officers in the Twin Cities its biggest ever immigration enforcement operation.
___
Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis, Thomas Strong in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
World
Netanyahu and Rubio discuss US military intervention in Iran amid ongoing nationwide protests: report
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of U.S. intervention in Iran, according to a report.
The two leaders spoke by phone Saturday as Israel is on “high alert,” preparing for the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Iran, according to Reuters, citing multiple Israeli sources. A U.S. official confirmed the call to Fox News Digital but did not provide additional details.
The report comes as nationwide anti-regime demonstrations across Iran hit the two-week mark.
On Saturday, the Iranian regime triggered an internet “kill switch” in an apparent effort to conceal alleged abuses by security forces and as protests against it surged nationwide, according to a cybersecurity expert. The blackout reduced internet access to a fraction of normal levels.
KEANE WARNS IRANIAN REGIME TO TAKE TRUMP ‘DEAD SERIOUS’ ON PROTEST KILLING THREAT AMID ONGOING DEMONSTRATIONS
Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds his end-of-year press conference at the State Department in Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2025. (Kevin Mohatt/Reuters)
On Sunday, Iran’s parliament speaker warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America strikes the Islamic Republic.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf issued the threat as lawmakers rushed the dais in the Iranian parliament, shouting, “Death to America!” according to The Associated Press.
President Donald Trump offered support for the protesters on Saturday, writing on Truth Social that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
IRANIAN MILITARY LEADER THREATENS PREEMPTIVE ATTACK AFTER TRUMP COMMENTS
In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
At a news conference Friday, Trump said Iran was facing mounting pressure as unrest spreads across the country.
“Iran’s in big trouble,” he said. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago. We’re watching the situation very carefully.”
The president said the U.S. would respond forcefully if the regime resorts to mass violence.
“We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts,” he said.
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Protests in Iran intensify for the 12th day. (The National Council of Resistance of Iran)
Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department and White House for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Bussey, Brie Stimson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
World
Four killed, 20 injured in overnight Russian strikes across Ukraine
Published on
Russia fired more than 150 drones overnight into Sunday targeting close to two dozen locations across Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring 20 more.
Ukraine’s Air Forces say they intercepted 125 drones aerially but confirmed that at least 25 strike drones struck their targets.
They added that Moscow’s latest barrage mainly targeted Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, all of which were targeted in Saturday’s overnight strikes as well.
Local officials in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia say the strikes targeted residential areas and energy infrastructure. More than 385,000 homes were affected by electric, gas or water outages, at a critical time as temperatures plunged to 10 degrees below Celsius.
Regional lawmakers say service was restored to most of the affected households and areas by Sunday morning, but added that emergency work was still being carried out to restore power to the remaining homes.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of timing their attacks with the cold peaks of winter as to maximise civilian suffering.
“They struck targets that have no military purpose whatsoever – energy infrastructure, residential buildings. They deliberately waited for freezing weather to make things worse for our people. This is deliberate, cynical Russian terror specifically against civilians,” wrote Zelenskyy in a post on X.
He also noted that this week had seen heightened Russian assault on Ukrainian cities, announcing that his country’s defence forces recorded thousands of attacks using a variety of different weapons.
“Over the course of this week, Russia launched almost 1,100 attack drones against Ukraine, more than 890 guided aerial bombs, and over 50 missiles of various types – ballistic, cruise, and even the Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile.”
The Ukrainian leader thanked all units responsible for protecting the country and responding to attacks, and praised their tireless efforts and resilience.
He also called on allies to ensure his embattled country maintains “stable support”, in defence and diplomatic fields as coordinated dialogue efforts continue in search of peace.
Meanwhile, Russia says that one person was killed in Ukrainian strikes on the western city of Voronezh. Officials say a young woman succumbed to her wounds at an intensive care unit of a local hospital after debris from a drone fell on her house during Saturday’s attacks.
They added that at least three others were injured in the attacks which targeted more than 10 residential apartment buildings, private homes and a high school.
The city of Voronezh lies just 250 kilometres from the Ukrainian border and is home to approximately one million people. The attacks, which Kyiv have yet to confirm, came after the Kremlin’s major offensive on Ukraine in the early hours of Saturday.
Additional sources • AP
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