German minister asserts international law applies to all
Berlin — The principles of international law apply to everyone, including the US, German finance minister and vice-chancellor Lars Klingbeil said on Sunday, in reference to President Donald Trump’s threats to seize Greenland.
“It is solely up to Denmark and Greenland to decide about Greenland’s future. Territorial sovereignty and integrity must be respected,” Klingbeil said ahead of his departure to Washington for a meeting of finance ministers from the Group of Seven advanced economies.
A US military seizure of the mineral-rich Arctic island from Denmark, a long-time ally, would send shockwaves through Nato and deepen the divide between Trump and European leaders.
“We increase security in the Arctic together as Nato allies, not in opposition to one another,” Klingbeil said. Reuters
Ethiopian Airlines launches Africa’s biggest airport project
Bishoftu, Ethiopia — Ethiopian Airlines on Saturday officially started a $12.5bn construction project for what officials say will be Africa’s biggest airport when completed in 2030 in the Ethiopian town of Bishoftu.
The state-owned airline got the contract to design the four-runway airport in the town located around 45km southeast of Addis Ababa.
“Bishoftu International Airport will be the largest aviation infrastructure project in Africa’s history,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali said on X. The airport will have space to park 270 planes and capacity for 110-million passengers a year.
That is more than four times the capacity of Ethiopia’s current main airport. Reuters
Protests erupt in Minneapolis over Ice shooting
Minneapolis — Tens of thousands of people marched through Minneapolis on Saturday to decry the fatal shooting of a woman by a US immigration agent, part of more than 1,000 rallies planned nationwide this weekend against the federal government’s deportation drive.
The massive turnout in Minneapolis despite a whipping, cold wind underscores how the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Wednesday has struck a chord, fuelling protests in major cities and some towns.
Minnesota’s Democratic leaders and the administration of President Donald Trump, a Republican, have offered starkly different accounts of the incident.
Led by a team of indigenous Mexican dancers, demonstrators in Minneapolis, which has a metropolitan population of 3.8-million, marched towards the residential street where Good was shot in her car.
The boisterous crowd, which the Minneapolis police department estimated in the tens of thousands, chanted Good’s name and slogans such as “Abolish Ice” and “No justice, no peace — get Ice off our streets.” Reuters
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US military launches fresh strikes against Islamic State
Washington — The US military said on Saturday it carried out multiple strikes in Syria targeting the Islamic State militant group as part of an operation that Washington launched in December after an attack on American personnel.
A US-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes and ground operations in Syria targeting Islamic State suspects in recent months, often with the involvement of Syria’s security forces.
“The strikes today targeted Isis throughout Syria,” the US Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement, adding the strikes were carried out early afternoon US Eastern Time.
The statement did not note whether anyone was killed in the strikes. The Pentagon declined to comment on more details. The state department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Reuters
Australia faces weeks of battling southeast bushfires
Sydney — Australian authorities said on Sunday it would take firefighters weeks to get on top of bushfires in the country’s southeast that have razed houses, cut power to thousands of homes and burnt swathes of bushland.
The blazes have torn through more than 300,000ha of bushland in Victoria state since the middle of the week, destroying more than 130 properties, including homes, and leaving thousands without power. Reuters
Netanyahu aims to end Israel’s reliance on US military aid
Jerusalem — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on American military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from the US.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told the Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero”, he said, “Yes.” Reuters
US job growth slows in December as unemployment falls
Washington — US employment growth slowed more than expected in December amid job losses in the construction, retail and manufacturing sectors, but a decline in the unemployment rate to 4.4% suggested the labour market was not rapidly deteriorating.
The labour department’s closely watched employment report on Friday also showed solid wage growth last month, bolstering economists’ expectations that the Federal Reserve would leave interest rates unchanged at its January 27-28 meeting.
Economists have blamed sluggish job growth on President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade and immigration policies, which they say have reduced both demand for and supply of workers. Businesses are also holding back on hiring, unsure of their staffing needs as they invest heavily in artificial intelligence. Reuters
Trump says US must own Greenland to deter rivals
Washington — The US needs to own Greenland to prevent Russia or China from occupying it in the future, President Donald Trump said on Friday.
“We are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not. 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 neighbour,” Trump told reporters at the White House while meeting with oil company executives.
Trump said the US must acquire Greenland, even though it already has a military presence on the island under a 1951 agreement, because such deals are not enough to guarantee Greenland’s defence. The island of 57,000 people is an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Reuters
Trump calls for one-year cap on credit card rates
Washington — US President Donald Trump said on Friday he was calling for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10% starting on January 20.
He did not provide details on how his plan will come to fruition or how he planned to make companies comply.
Trump also made the pledge during the campaign for the 2024 election that he won, but analysts dismissed it at the time, saying that such a step required congressional approval.
Lawmakers from both the Democratic and Republican parties have raised concerns about high rates and have called for those to be addressed. Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
There have been some legislative efforts in Congress to pursue such a proposal, but they are yet to become law, and in his post Trump did not offer explicit support to any specific bill. Reuters
India’s central bank objects to Bain Manappuram stake
Mumbai — India’s central bank has raised objections to Bain Capital’s plan to acquire a controlling stake in Manappuram Finance, as the US firm has a controlling interest in another Indian lender, three people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Shares in Manappuram slid on the news, extending losses to close down 7.8%.
The Reserve Bank of India frowns on investors having control of multiple lenders — whether they be banks or non-banks. Private equity firms that have held 20% or more in non-bank lenders have previously had to divest holdings in the face of RBI opposition.
Bain, which announced its planned investment in the gold loan firm last March, is exploring a phased divestment in Tyger Capital, a smaller firm, to address the RBI’s concerns, one of the people said. Reuters
Myanmar votes again in military-backed election process
Bengaluru — Voters in war-torn Myanmar cast ballots in the second stage of an election dominated so far by a party backed by the ruling military, as the junta sought to gloss over a low turnout in the initial round of a contest widely derided as a sham.
Myanmar has been ravaged by conflict since the military staged a coup against a civilian government in 2021 and detained its leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, unleashing a civil war that engulfed swathes of the country of 51-million people.
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, winner of the last two elections in landslides, has been dissolved along with dozens of other anti-junta parties for failing to register, while rebel groups refused to take part.
The UN, many Western countries and human rights groups say the election is a ploy to formalise junta rule through civilian proxies, and the contest is neither free, fair nor credible without a meaningful opposition. Reuters
India seeks smartphone source code access, alarming tech giants
New Delhi — India proposes requiring smartphone makers to share source code with the government and make several software changes as part of a raft of security measures, prompting behind-the-scenes opposition from giants like Apple and Samsung.
The tech companies have countered that the package of 83 security standards, which would also include a requirement to alert the government to major software updates, lacks any global precedent and risks revealing proprietary details, according to four people familiar with the discussions and a Reuters review of confidential government and industry documents.
The plan is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to boost security of user data as online fraud and data breaches increase in the world’s second-largest smartphone market, with nearly 750-million phones. Reuters
