- General under investigation over discipline, legal violations
- Zhang is Xi’s closest ally in People’s Liberation Army
- Zhang a key modernising figure in Chinese military
- Diplomats, analysts watching for impact of probe on China’s military posture
World
Greenland, NATO and war: Fact-checking Trump’s Davos speech
From repeating his long-running claim regarding ending eight wars, to evoking World War II history to stake his claim on Greenland, US President Donald Trump made a series of bold statements during his Wednesday speech in Davos.
The Cube, Euronews’ fact-checking team, has looked at some of his assertions to determine their accuracy.
NATO has ‘never done anything’ for the US
Trump repeatedly criticised NATO and its members for not pulling their weight in his speech, complaining that the US gets very little compared to what it gets back, casting doubt on whether the alliance would support his country in an attack.
“We’ve never got anything out of NATO,” the president said, adding later: “We’ve never asked for anything, it’s always a one-way street.”
“We’ll be there 100% for NATO, but I’m not sure they’ll be there for us,” Trump added.
However, the US is the only country to have ever invoked NATO’s Article 5 common defence measure, triggering an obligation for each country to come to its assistance. It did so in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks in 2001.
According to NATO, the alliance assisted the USin various ways, including enhancing intelligence sharing, providing increased security to US facilities, and launching its first-ever anti-terror operation — Operation Eagle Assist — between October 2001 and May 2002.
Trump also asserted that the US was paying “virtually 100%” of NATO’s budget before he entered office, but that’s not true either.
If he was referring to NATO’s common budget, then according to thealliance’s figures, the US was contributing some 15.9% to its funds between 2024 and 2025, alongside Germany. This included its civil budget, military budget and security investment programme.
The number has dropped to just under 15% for 2026-2027, again alongside Germany. The next biggest contributors are the UK (10.3%), France (10.1%) and Italy (8%).
It’s possible that Trump was referring to NATO members’ defence spending, which he criticised at several points during his speech, too, but it’s still wrong to say the US was ever contributing 100% to the alliance’s defence.
Back in 2016, the last year before Trump took office the first time around, US defence spending was in the clear majority (71%) of the total by all NATO members, but that’s not close to 100%.
Since then, it’s fallen to a figure estimated to be around 66%.
These numbers are not to be confused with members’ defence spending as a percentage of their GDP, which was originally set at a 2% target. It has since been increased to 5% by 2035 (excluding Spain), after Trump criticised that not enough countries were meeting the original number.
Recent figures put Polandat the topwith 4.48%, followed by Lithuania (4%) and Latvia (3.73%). The US is in sixth place at 3.22%.
Are Germany’s electricity prices 64% higher than 2017?
During his speech, Trump attacked European countries’ energy policies and claimed that Germany’s electricity prices are 64% higher now than they were in 2017.
“Germany generates 22% less electricity than it did in 2017. And it’s not the current Chancellor’s fault, he is solving the problem, he is going to do a great job. But what they did before him, I guess that’s why he got there. The electricity prices are 64% higher,” he said.
It’s not clear where Trump is getting his data from, and whether he is counting electricity prices for households or for non-households. It is true that Germany has generated less electricity in recent years since 2017, and that renewables account for a much larger share of the country’s total energy generation, a shift that has grown steadily over decades.
An initial look at data from the German Association of Energy and Water Industries, which represents around 2,000 energy and water companies in Germany, shows that household electricity cost 30,36 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2017 on average. In 2025, the average price was around 39.28 cents per kWh.
That represents an increase of around 29%, not 64%.
Data from Germany’s Federal Statistics Office and Eurostat depict a similar picture. According to it, households in Germany paid an average of 30.4 cents per kWh in 2017 and 39.92 cents in the first half of 2025 — an increase of around 31%.
Elsewhere, Trump blamed the renewable energy policies of left-leaning governments for “extremely high prices” and what he called the “New Green Scam”.
“There are windmills over the place, and they are losers,” he told the crowd.
Overall, Germany’s electricity prices have increased. They spiked particularly in 2022 and 2023 in what experts say was an increase directly linked to the collapse of gas supplies over Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.
Renewable energy has added long-term system and grid costs to electricity bills, but it was not the main driver of Germany’s electricity price spike during this period.
Trump also said of the UK that it “produces just 1/3 of the total energy from all sources that it did in 1999. Think of that 1/3. And they’re sitting on top of the North Sea — one of the greatest reserves anywhere in the world, but they don’t use it.”
UK government data shows that energy production in 2023 is down 66% from 1999, when “UK production peaked”, so roughly by one-third.
According to it, oil and gas production from the North Sea, a major source of energy for the UK for decades, has declined naturally as “most accessible oil and gas has already been extracted”, making Trump’s claim that the UK “doesn’t use” its North Sea reserves misleading.
Recently, there has been an uptick in rhetoric, particularly from the Conservative Party, that the UK should push for more oil and oil production in the North Sea.
Fixing eight wars
During his address, Trump reiterated his claim that he has ended eight wars since commencing his second Presidential term in January 2025.
He has previously listed these conflicts as: Israel and Hamas, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, India and Pakistan, Serbia and Kosovo, Rwanda and Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Cambodia and Thailand.
Although Trump has played a part in mediation efforts in a number of these conflicts, his impact is not as clear-cut as he alleges. Although he is credited with ending the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, this can be seen as a temporary respite from an ongoing cold war.
Fresh fighting broke out between Cambodia and Thailand in December. Although a peace agreement between Congolese forces and Rwanda-backed rebels was brokered by the Trump administration, fighting has continued, and M23 — the Rwandan-backed rebel group in the eastern DRC — was not party to the agreement.
Although the US announced the launch of the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire plan in mid-January, the next steps in this process remain shrouded in uncertainty. Many of the points in the first phase of Trump’s 20-point plan have not materialised.
Friction between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is best described as heightened tension, not war. There has been no threat of war between Serbia and Kosovo during Trump’s second term, nor has he made any significant contribution to improving relations in his first year back in the White House.
And while the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a deal aimed at ending a decades-long conflict at the White House in August, they have yet to sign a peace treaty, and their parliaments would still need to ratify it.
The US ‘returned’ Denmark to Greenland
Donald Trump repeatedly claimed during his speech that the United States had returned Greenland to Denmark after World War Two.
“We already had it as a trustee, but respectfully returned it back to Denmark not long ago,” the former president said.
In reality, while the US assumed responsibility for Greenland’s defence during the war, this did not affect Denmark’s sovereignty over the island.
After the conflict, Denmark was required to list Greenland with the United Nations as a “non-self-governing territory”, effectively acknowledging its colonial status.
The US has sought to purchase Greenland on several occasions over the past century. Most notably, in 1946, President Harry Truman offered Denmark $100 million in gold, an offer Copenhagen rejected.
Under a 1951 defence agreement, Washington formally recognised the “sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark over Greenland”.
In 2004, the US also acknowledged Greenland’s status as an equal part of the Danish kingdom, following changes to the territory’s constitutional position.
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World
China investigating top general over serious violations, says defence ministry
Jan 24 (Reuters) – China’s most senior general is under investigation, China’s defence ministry said on Saturday, in the highest-profile purge to date of senior military leadership just as Beijing modernises its forces and tries to further project its might.
Zhang Youxia serves as second-in-command under President Xi Jinping as vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission – the supreme command body – and has long been seen as Xi’s closest military ally.
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The ministry said Zhang and Liu Zhenli, chief of staff of the CMC’s Joint Staff Department, were under investigation for suspected serious violations of discipline and law.
Zhang is also a member of the elite Politburo of the ruling Communist Party and is one of just a few leading officers with combat experience.
SWEEPING CRACKDOWN TARGETS MILITARY
The military was one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Xi in 2012. That drive reached the upper echelons of the People’s Liberation Army in 2023 when the elite Rocket Force was targeted.
Zhang’s removal is the second of a sitting general on the Central Military Commission since the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. He has not been seen in public since November 20, when he held talks with Russia’s defence minister in Moscow.
Foreign diplomats and security analysts are watching developments closely, given Zhang’s closeness to Xi and the importance of the commission’s work in terms of command as well as the PLA’s ongoing military modernisation and posture.
CHINA IS FLEXING MIGHT
While China has not fought a war in decades, it is taking an increasingly muscular line in the disputed East China Sea and South China Sea, as well as over the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which is claimed by China. Beijing staged the largest military exercises to date around Taiwan late last year.
Singapore-based China security scholar James Char said the military’s daily operations could carry on as normal despite the purges but the targeting of Zhang showed Xi was reacting to criticism that the crackdown had been too selective.
“Xi has been tapping on second-line PLA officers to fill those roles vacated by their predecessors – on an interim basis in most cases,” said Char, a scholar at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
Item 1 of 2 China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia salutes at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, China October 30, 2023. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Pool/File Photo
[1/2]China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia salutes at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, China October 30, 2023. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Pool/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
“China’s military modernizers will continue to push for the two goals Xi has set for the PLA – namely, 2035 to basically complete its modernisation and 2049 to become a world-class armed forces.”
Zhang is the second vice chair of the CMC to fall from grace in recent months. Former CMC vice chair He Weidong was expelled from the party and PLA in October last year for corruption. He was replaced by Zhang Shengmin.
Eight top generals were expelled from the Communist Party on graft charges in October 2025, including He Weidong.
Two former defence ministers were also purged from the ruling party in recent years for corruption. The crackdown is slowing procurement of advanced weaponry and hitting the revenues of some of China’s biggest defence firms.
CHILDREN OF CIVIL WAR VETERANS
Both Xi and Zhang are from the northwestern province of Shaanxi and are the children of former senior officials who fought together in the 1940s civil war.
Born in Beijing, Zhang joined the army in 1968, rising through the ranks and joining the military commission in late 2012 as the PLA’s modernisation drive gathered pace.
A Pentagon profile of Zhang in late 2023 noted that Zhang had been expected to retire in 2022, aged 72, given usual military practice.
“However, Zhang’s retention on the CMC for a third term probably reflects Xi’s desire to keep a close and experienced ally as his top military adviser,” the profile said, contained within the Pentagon’s annual report on China’s military that year.
He fought Vietnam in a brief but bloody border war in 1979 that China launched in punishment for Vietnam invading Cambodia the previous year and ousting the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge.
Zhang was 26 when he was sent to the front lines to fight the Vietnamese and was quickly promoted, according to state media. He also fought in another border clash with Vietnam in 1984 as the conflict rumbled on.
“During the battle, whether attacking or defending, Zhang Youxia performed excellently,” the official China Youth Daily wrote in a 2017 piece entitled, “These Chinese generals have killed the enemy on the battlefield”.
Some China scholars have noted that Zhang emerged from the conflict an avowed moderniser in terms of military tactics, weapons and the need for a better trained force.
Reporting by Reuters staff; editing by Tom Hogue, Mark Heinrich and Sharon Singleton
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
World
Boy, 12, dies after shark attack while swimming at popular cliff-jumping spot: ‘We are heartbroken’
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A 12-year-old Australian boy died after a brutal shark attack in Sydney Harbor, his family confirmed Saturday.
Nico Antic had been fighting for his life since Jan. 18, when he was attacked while swimming at a popular cliff-jumping spot known as Jump Rock near Shark Beach in the eastern Sydney suburb of Vaucluse.
His family announced Saturday that he had died.
“We are heartbroken to share that our son, Nico, has passed away,” Nico’s parents, Lorena and Juan, said in a statement. “Nico was a happy, friendly, and sporty young boy with the most kind and generous spirit. He was always full of life and that’s how we’ll remember him.”
SURFER SAYS SHARK ATTACK FELT ‘LIKE BEING HIT BY A CAR’ AS BOARD BITTEN IN HALF: REPORTS
A 12-year-old Australian boy has died after a brutal shark attack in Sydney Harbour, his family confirmed Saturday. (GoFundMe)
They also thanked first responders and medical staff at Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick for their efforts and members of the community for their support.
A GoFundMe campaign launched by a family friend had raised more than $266,000 as of Saturday evening.
FOURTH SHARK ATTACK IN THREE DAYS ROCKS AUSTRALIA AS AUTHORITIES CLOSE BEACHES AND DEPLOY DRUMLINES
A swimmer takes a dip at Whale Beach, ignoring warning signs as beaches in Sydney’s north have been closed since Tuesday due to shark attacks and dangerous currents in Sydney, Australia. (Steve Christo/Corbis via Getty Images)
According to police, the attack happened around 4:20 p.m. Jan. 18, after Antic jumped from a 20-foot ledge into the water. He sustained severe injuries to both legs, believed to have been caused by a large shark.
His three friends immediately jumped into the water, pulled him to shore and called for help. Antic was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.
Local media reported at the time that he had lost both legs.
SURFER SAYS SHARK ATTACK FELT “LIKE BEING HIT BY A CAR” AS BOARD BITTEN IN HALF: REPORTS
A net runs into Sydney Harbor at a closed beach at Vaucluse in Sydney Jan. 19, a day after a boy was attacked by a shark. (Sitthixay Ditthavong/AAP Image via AP)
The tragedy is among a surge of shark incidents across Australia. Dozens of beaches were closed this week after four shark attacks in mere days.
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Australia averages roughly 20 shark attacks a year, with fewer than three proving fatal, according to Reuters.
Fox News Digital’s Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.
World
Week in Pictures: From Minneapolis turmoil to Israeli attacks on Gaza
Published On 25 Jan 2026
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