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US president-elect Donald Trump on Saturday threatened tariffs of 100 per cent against the so-called Brics countries unless their governments agree not to create a new currency as an alternative to the US dollar.

“The idea that the Brics Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER,” Trump wrote in a post to his Truth Social platform on Saturday afternoon. 

The group is made up primarily of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, but has recently expanded to include Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt and Ethiopia. 

Although the US dollar is the most-used currency in global business and trade, Brics nations such as Russia and China have called for the bloc to challenge the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. A proposal for a Brics currency was introduced at last year’s summit in South Africa. 

“We require a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy,” Trump wrote on Saturday.

In October, Russian president Vladimir Putin accused western powers of “weaponising” the dollar, arguing at a Brics summit in Kazan that sanctions against Russia since its invasion of Ukraine “undermine the trust in this currency and diminish its powers”.

The threats of steep tariffs against the countries’ imports follow similar threats made to Mexico, Canada and China earlier this week as Trump signals that he intends to use punitive trade measures to force US trading partners to comply with his demands.

Trump said he would impose tariffs of 25 per cent on all imports from Canada and Mexico, and an extra 10 per cent on Chinese goods, accusing the countries of permitting illegal migration and drug trafficking.

Those threats triggered the possibility of countermeasures from Mexico and prompted a hurried visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau on Friday evening.

Trump won a convincing electoral victory earlier this month after campaigning on a pledge to issue sweeping tariffs on foreign goods imported to the US, including an extra 60 per cent tariff on Chinese goods.

Hamas’ military wing released a propaganda video Saturday showing an Israeli American hostage.

It was the first video of its kind shared in months.

The undated video, posted on the secure messaging service Telegram, shows 20-year-old Edan Alexander. The message says Alexander has been held captive by Hamas for more than 420 days. If true, the video would have been taken this past week.

In the video – speaking in a mixture of Hebrew and English – Alexander speaks to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying “you have neglected us.”

He also addressed President-elect Donald Trump, asking him to use his “influence and the full power of the United States to negotiate for our freedom.”

In a statement via the Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters, Alexander’s mother Yael Alexander said her son “represents all the living hostages who cannot make their voices heard, and this voice needs to reverberate and shake everyone!”

Alexander grew up in New Jersey and was a soldier in the Israeli military when Hamas militants attacked on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023. The then 19-year-old was able to send a quick message to his mother amid the intense fighting around his base near the Gaza border.

He told her that despite having shrapnel embedded in his helmet from the explosions, he had managed to get to a protected area. After 7 a.m., his family lost contact, the Associated Press reported.

“He told me even though things were already getting dangerous around him. That was the last time I heard my son’s voice. I cannot describe the pain of not knowing where your child is or how is he,” Yael Alexander told CBS New York in October.

When a week-long ceasefire last November brought the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, some of the freed hostages said they had seen Alexander in captivity. Varda Ben Baruch, his grandmother, told the AP that the hostages told her Alexander kept his cool, encouraging them that everyone would be released soon.

Alexander’s father Adi Alexander told “CBS Mornings” in September that they are pushing Israeli and American leaders for a ceasefire deal.

“We hope he’s holding up and we’re coming for him,” Adi Alexander said. “He needs to survive.”

Adi and Yael Alexander met with President Biden and Trump in Washington earlier this month and pleaded with them to work together to bring all the hostages home in a single deal, according to the AP.

More than 250 people were kidnapped and 1,200 killed when Hamas militants burst across the border and carried out a bloody attack on southern Israeli communities. Israel’s subsequent war against Hamas has since killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials.

Netanyahu’s office said in a statement Saturday that he has spoken with Alexander’s family after the release of the “brutal psychological warfare video.”

“The Prime Minister said in the conversation that he felt very well the agony going through Edan and the hostages and their families, and promised that Israel is working with determination and in every way to return them home, along with all the hostages who are in the hands of the enemy,” the statement said.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters said in a statement that the video is “definite proof that despite all the rumors – there are living hostages and they are suffering greatly.”

“One year after the first and only deal, it’s clear to everyone: returning the hostages is only possible through a deal,” the group said. “After more than 420 days of continuous abuse, starvation and darkness, the urgency of bringing home all 101 hostages cannot be overstated.”

Rebel forces have swept into Syria’s second city Aleppo after mounting a lightning offensive that poses the biggest threat in years to Bashar al-Assad’s regime. 

The Syrian army said on Saturday that the rebels had been able “to enter wide areas of Aleppo city but were unable to secure strongholds because of continued powerful and targeted strikes by our armed force”.

It added that it was preparing for a counterattack and that its forces had engaged in “fierce battles” in an area spanning 100km in recent days.

The rebels, led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, said on Saturday that its fighters had advanced in multiple directions from their stronghold in Idlib province in northwestern Syria and had taken control of several dozen towns and a regime air base.

Images circulated on opposition-linked social media showed rebel forces, who launched their offensive on Wednesday, posing in front of Aleppo’s citadel, which lies in the heart of the city.

The assault comes as Assad faces growing domestic and external pressures in a country shattered by civil war that erupted after a 2011 popular uprising. He was able to quash the original rebellion with military backing from Russia, Iran and Iranian-backed groups, including Hizbollah, the Lebanese militant movement.

The fighting in Syria’s civil war had largely diminished in recent years, with the remnants of the armed opposition pushed to northern and northwestern areas of the country close to the Turkish border.

But over the past year, Israel has stepped up its air strikes on Iranian-affiliated targets in Syria as it has launched an offensive against Hizbollah in Lebanon, weakening the groups that had played a crucial role in supporting the Assad regime. The Israeli military said it struck “military infrastructure” linked to Hizbollah in Syria near the Lebanese border on Saturday.

HTS’s ability to fight inside Aleppo is a devastating blow to Assad and underscores the regime’s weakness.

“This is very serious for Assad,” said Malik al-Abdeh, a Syrian analyst. “Israel’s attacks against Iran and Hizbollah created the window of opportunity for this to happen. The long attritional war between Israel and Iran has clearly taken its toll on Iran’s capacity to deploy and fight in Syria.” 

He added that HTS had been planning the assault for months and was co-ordinating with Turkish-backed factions, known as the Syrian National Army, although the latter had yet to deploy in full force.

“People in the regime areas have become so demoralised, they have no hope and will welcome any challenge to the Syrian regime,” Abdeh said. “And the Syrian army is no longer prepared to die for the regime any more.” 

The Syrian military said that dozens of regime forces had been killed in the fighting. It added that the scale of the rebel offensive had forced the military to carry out a temporary “redeployment operation” whose goal was to shore up defences and allow it to prepare a counter attack.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said that HTS had taken control of more than half of the city of Aleppo in just a few hours “without any resistance from regime forces”. 

The fighting has displaced large numbers of civilians in Aleppo and the surrounding countryside, the UN and Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Aleppo was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the civil war. After laying siege to the city with the support relentless Russian bombing, it drove out rebels based in Aleppo’s eastern neighbourhoods. That turned the war in Assad’s favour.

Emile Hokayem, at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the Assad regime “still has manpower, air power and external support”.

“But the loss of Aleppo is a monumental loss that will shake the confidence of regime loyalists,” Hokayem said.

“Assad thought he was back in the geopolitical game because of the desire of other states to normalise relations with him. Syrians managed to remind everyone of how shaky his position is and eroded his legitimacy is.”

HTS, which is led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, is an offshoot of al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, which emerged during Syria’s civil war, but has sought to rebrand itself as a more moderate Sunni Islamist force.

It is listed as a terrorist organisation by the US state department and has controlled one of the armed opposition’s last strongholds in the north-western Syrian region of Idlib. HTS is the most powerful fighting force of the remaining rebel factions.

Neighbouring Turkey, which has backed Syrian rebels since the outset of the Arab state’s civil war, also has troops in northern Syria where it controls large pockets of territory and backs other rebel forces.

Ankara has a relationship with HTS, and although it has less control over the militants and Idlib, it has ultimately acted the protector of the region.

Dareen Khalifa, an adviser at Crisis Group, said Ankara did not encourage the initial HTS offensive.

But she added that the group’s battlefield gains had created an opportunity for Turkey to move its aligned forces into areas of Aleppo province where the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist group that has been fighting the Turkish state for decades, and Iran have a presence.

“It absolutely serves Turkey’s interests. The area has been a massive security headache for them,” she said.

“It’s where the PKK have been having a safe-haven under a kind of Iranian and Russia protection. It’s so close to Turkish-controlled areas, it is completely within their reach.”

Additional reporting by Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv