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Damage to underwater cables was 'sabotage', German minister says

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Damage to underwater cables was 'sabotage', German minister says

Two underwater fibre-optic communications cables running between Finland and Germany were discovered cut on Monday, an incident both countries said was under investigation.

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German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has said that damage done to two underwater data transmission cables running between Germany and Finland was deliberate.

“No one believes that these cables were accidentally cut,” Pistorius said in remarks made on the sidelines of a meeting of EU defence ministers in Brussels.

“We also have to assume, without knowing it yet, that it is sabotage,” he declared, adding that neither Germany nor Finland yet knows who was responsible for damage.

Germany and Finland announced on Monday that they had discovered a severed fibre-optic undersea data cable between the two countries, and that an investigation into the incident is underway.

In a joint statement, they said they did not know who was responsible for the damage, but that the incident came at a time when “our European security is not only under threat from Russia‘s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors”.

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Pistorius also pointed to so-called “hybrid actors” as being potentially responsible for the damage.

“We have to state, without knowing specifically who it came from, that it is a ‘hybrid’ action” Pistorius said — implying that Russia, often considered responsible for acts of “hybrid warfare”, could be at least in part to blame for the incident.

Both Germany and Finland said that it was important that “critical infrastructure” such as data cables can be safeguarded.

“The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times,” the two countries said in their joint statement.

Finnish state-controlled data services provider Cinia said the damage to the data cable, which runs almost 1,2000 kilometres from the Finnish capital Helsinki to the German port of Rostock, was detected on Monday.

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The incident is not the first to involve damage to underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. On Sunday morning, a 218-kilometre internet link running between Lithuania and Swedish island of Gotland also lost service, according to a Swedish telecommunications company.

In 2022, Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea exploded, leading to several conspiracy theories around who could be responsible for the attack. Unconfirmed rumours have variously said that the US, Ukraine and Russia could have all played a role.

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Video: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

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Video: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

new video loaded: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

Prosecutors in Switzerland ordered Jacques Moretti to be detained after investigators questioned him and his wife, Jessica Moretti. Officials are looking into whether negligence played a role in last week’s deadly fire at their bar, Le Constellation.

By Meg Felling

January 9, 2026

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Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’

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Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’

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Greenland’s leadership is pushing back on President Donald Trump as he and his administration call for the U.S. to take control of the island. Several Trump administration officials have backed the president’s calls for a takeover of Greenland, with many citing national security reasons.

“We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four party leaders said in a statement Friday night, according to The Associated Press. Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory and a longtime U.S. ally, has repeatedly rejected Trump’s statements about U.S. acquiring the island.

Greenland’s party leaders reiterated that the island’s “future must be decided by the Greenlandic people.”

“As Greenlandic party leaders, we would like to emphasize once again our wish that the United States’ contempt for our country ends,” the statement said.

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TRUMP SAYS US IS MAKING MOVES TO ACQUIRE GREENLAND ‘WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT’

Greenland has rejected the Trump administration’s push to take over the Danish territory. (Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix / AFP via Getty Images; Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump was asked about the push to acquire Greenland on Friday during a roundtable with oil executives. The president, who has maintained that Greenland is vital to U.S. security, said it was important for the country to make the move so it could beat its adversaries to the punch.

“We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not,” Trump said Friday. “Because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor.”

Trump hosted nearly two dozen oil executives at the White House on Friday to discuss investments in Venezuela after the historic capture of President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3.

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“We don’t want to have Russia there,” Trump said of Venezuela on Friday when asked if the nation appears to be an ally to the U.S. “We don’t want to have China there. And, by the way, we don’t want Russia or China going to Greenland, which, if we don’t take Greenland, you can have Russia or China as your next-door neighbor. That’s not going to happen.” 

Trump said the U.S. is in control of Venezuela after the capture and extradition of Maduro. 

Nielsen has previously rejected comparisons between Greenland and Venezuela, saying that his island was looking to improve its relations with the U.S., according to Reuters.

A “Make America Go Away” baseball cap, distributed for free by Danish artist Jens Martin Skibsted, is arranged in Sisimiut, Greenland, on March 30, 2025. (Juliette Pavy/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

FROM CARACAS TO NUUK: MADURO RAID SPARKS FRESH TRUMP PUSH ON GREENLAND

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Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday that Trump’s threats to annex Greenland could mean the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

“I also want to make it clear that if the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops. Including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2.

That same day, Nielsen said in a statement posted on Facebook that Greenland was “not an object of superpower rhetoric.”

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen stands next to Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen during a visit to the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen on April 28, 2025. (Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

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White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller doubled down on Trump’s remarks, telling CNN in an interview on Monday that Greenland “should be part of the United States.”

CNN anchor Jake Tapper pressed Miller about whether the Trump administration could rule out military action against the Arctic island.

“The United States is the power of NATO. For the United States to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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What Canada, accustomed to extreme winters, can teach Europe

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Euronews spoke to Patrick de Bellefeuille, a prominent Canadian weather presenter and climate specialist, on how Europe could benefit from Canada’s long experience with snowstorms. He has been forecasting for MétéoMédia, Canada’s top French-language weather network, since 1988.

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