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The planet logged its third hottest year on record in 2025, extending a run of unprecedented heat, with no relief expected in 2026, global climate monitors said Wednesday.The last 11 years have now been the warmest ever recorded, with 2024 topping the podium and 2023 in second place, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and Berkeley Earth, a California-based non-profit research organisation.For the first time, global temperatures exceeded 1.5C relative to pre-industrial times on average over the last three years, Copernicus said in its annual report.”The warming spike observed from 2023-2025 has been extreme, and suggests an acceleration in the rate of the Earth’s warming,” Berkeley Earth said in a separate report.The landmark 2015 Paris Agreement commits the world to limiting warming to well below 2C and pursuing efforts to hold it at 1.5C — a long-term target scientists say would help avoid the worst consequences of climate change.UN chief Antonio Guterres warned in October that breaching 1.5C was “inevitable” but the world could limit this period of overshoot by cutting greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible.Copernicus said the 1.5C limit “could be reached by the end of this decade -– over a decade earlier than predicted”.But efforts to contain global warming were dealt another setback last week as President Donald Trump said he would pull the United States — the world’s second-biggest polluter after China — out of the bedrock UN climate treaty.Temperatures were 1.47C above pre-industrial times in 2025 — just a fraction cooler than in 2023 — following 1.6C in 2024, according to Copernicus.The World Meteorological Organization, the UN’s weather and climate agency, said two of eight datasets it analysed showed 2025 was the second warmest year, but the other six datasets ranked it third.The WMO put the 2023-2025 average at 1.48C but with a margin of uncertainty of plus-minus 0.13C.Despite the cooling La Nina weather phenomenon, 2025 “was still one of the warmest years on record globally because of the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere”, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement.Some 770 million people experienced record-warm annual conditions where they live, while no record-cold annual average was logged anywhere, according to Berkeley Earth.The Antarctic experienced its warmest year on record while it was the second hottest in the Arctic, Copernicus said.An AFP analysis of Copernicus data last month found that Central Asia, the Sahel region and northern Europe experienced their hottest year on record in 2025.- 2026: Fourth-warmest? -Berkeley and Copernicus both warned that 2026 would not break the trend.If the warming El Nino weather phenomenon appears this year, “this could make 2026 another record-breaking year”, Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, told AFP.”Temperatures are going up. So we are bound to see new records. Whether it will be 2026, 2027, 2028 doesn’t matter too much. The direction of travel is very, very clear,” Buontempo said.Berkeley Earth said it expected this year to be similar to 2025, “with the most likely outcome being approximately the fourth-warmest year since 1850″.- Emissions fight -The reports come as efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions — the main driver of climate change — are stalling in developed countries.Emissions rose in the United States last year, snapping a two-year streak of declines, as bitter winters and the AI boom fuelled demand for energy, the Rhodium Group think tank said Tuesday.The pace of reductions of greenhouse gas emissions slowed in Germany and France.”While greenhouse gas emissions remain the dominant driver of global warming, the magnitude of this recent spike suggests additional factors have amplified recent warming beyond what we would expect from greenhouse gases and natural variability alone,” said Berkeley Earth chief scientist Robert Rohde.The organisation said international rules cutting sulphur in ship fuel since 2020 may have actually added to warming by reducing sulphur dioxide emissions, which form aerosols that reflect sunlight away from Earth.

US President Donald Trump insisted Wednesday the US needs to take control of Greenland, with NATO’s support, just hours before crunch talks about the Arctic island with top Danish, Greenlandic and US officials.Just hours before the meeting with US Vice President JD Vance was due to start, Trump said that US control of Greenland — an autonomous territory belonging to NATO ally Denmark — was “vital” for his planned Golden Dome air and missile defense system.”NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES. Anything less than that is unacceptable,” he wrote on social media.He said NATO “should be leading the way” in building the multi-layer missile defense system.”IF WE DON’T, RUSSIA OR CHINA WILL, AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!” Trump wrote.Just prior, Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen had sought to ease US concerns about security in Greenland, telling AFP Denmark was boosting its military presence there and was in talks with allies on “an increased NATO presence in the Arctic.”Trump has repeatedly threatened to take over the vast, strategic and sparsely populated Arctic island, and he has sounded emboldened since ordering a deadly January 3 attack in Venezuela that removed its president.Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart were to hold talks later Wednesday in Washington with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance.Lokke said he was hoping to “clear up certain misunderstandings.” But it remains to be seen if the Trump administration also sees a misunderstanding and if it wants to climb down.Trump, when asked Tuesday about Greenland’s leader saying that the island prefers to remain part of Denmark, said: “Well that’s their problem.””Don’t know anything about him, but that’s going to be a big problem for him,” Trump said.Trump said on Friday that he wanted Greenland “whether they like it or not” and “if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.”Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an attack on a NATO ally would end the alliance.While an agreement with Denmark allows the United States to station as many soldiers as it wants on Greenland, Trump has doubled down on US ownership, telling reporters on Sunday that “we’re talking about acquiring not leasing.”The former real estate developer told The New York Times that ownership “is psychologically needed for success” and “gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”Trump maintains the United States needs Greenland due to the threat of a takeover by Russia or China. The two rival powers have both stepped up activity in the Arctic, where ice is melting due to climate change, but neither claims Greenland, which is home to 57,000 people.- ‘Bad ally’? -Vance, who slammed Denmark as a “bad ally” during a visit to Greenland last year, is known for his hard edge, which was on display when he publicly berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a White House meeting in February.It has not been announced if the Greenland meeting will be open to the press.”If the US continues with, ‘We have to have Greenland at all cost,’ it could be a very short meeting,” said Penny Naas, a senior vice president at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a Washington think tank.”If there is a slight nuance to it, it could lead to a different conversation,” she said.Greenland’s government and Denmark have been firmly against Trump’s designs.”One thing must be clear to everyone: Greenland does not want to be owned by the United States. Greenland does not want to be governed by the United States. Greenland does not want to be part of the United States,” Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said ahead of the Washington talks.The Danish prime minister said it had not been easy to stand up to “completely unacceptable pressure from our closest ally.”Copenhagen has rejected US claims that it is not protecting Greenland from Russia and China, pointing out that it has invested almost 90 billion kroner ($14 billion) to beef up its military presence in the Arctic.Denmark is a founding member of NATO and its military joined the United States in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter to much criticism. Shortly after the White House talks, a senior delegation from the US Congress — mostly Democrats, but with one Republican — will visit Copenhagen to offer solidarity.

US President Donald Trump has stepped up his designs on Denmark’s autonomous territory Greenland, but questions abound about why he seeks to take it over when the US already has extensive access to the Arctic island. What does Denmark’s defence agreement with the US on Greenland say? What is Copenhagen doing to beef up its security? Do China and Russia pose a real threat? And what does Greenland’s independence movement say? Here are answers to those four key questions.- US military presence -In 1941, at the height of World War II, occupied Denmark authorised the United States to build and operate military bases on Greenland, Denmark’s then-colony in the Arctic, for as long as the conflict would last in a bid to protect the American continent.By the end of the war, the US had 15 military bases in Greenland. Today there remains just one, the Pituffik air base on the northwestern coast, which US Vice President JD Vance visited in March.Greenland’s location is highly strategic, lying on the shortest route for missiles between Russia and the United States. It is therefore a crucial part of the US anti-missile shield.Home to 57,000 people, Greenland “is an important part of the US national security protection,” Marc Jacobsen, Arctic expert at the Royal Danish Defence College, told AFP.Since 1951, a Danish agreement with the United States — revised in 2004 — gives the US military practically carte blanche to do what it wants on Greenlandic territory, as long as it informs Denmark and Greenland in advance.”The Government of the United States will consult with and inform the Government of the Kingdom of Denmark, including the Home Rule Government of Greenland, prior to the implementation of any significant changes to United States military operations or facilities in Greenland,” Article 3 of the accord states.- Danish investments in security -Trump has argued that Denmark has failed to ensure the security of Greenland, which measures 2.2 million square kilometres (849,424 square miles), or about a fifth of the size of the entire European continent.But Denmark rejects the claims and stresses that it allocated nearly 90 billion kroner ($14 billion) to beefing up security in 2025.The Sirius patrol, tasked with defending a huge, largely uninhabited swathe of the island in the northeast measuring 972,000 square km, travels across the ice by dogsled. The patrol consists of 12 soldiers and some 70 dogs.But to defend the entire territory, 81 percent of which is covered in ice, the Danish military has invested in five new Arctic vessels, an air radar alert system, as well as drones and sea patrol planes.A subsea telecoms cable between Greenland and Denmark will also be built. Two cables already link the island to Iceland and Canada.- Chinese and Russian presence -A recent report by Denmark’s military intelligence service said Russia, China and the United States were all vying to play “a greater role” in the Arctic.Greenland has untapped rare earth deposits and could be a vital player as melting polar ice opens up new shipping routes.In August 2025, two Chinese research vessels were observed operating in the Arctic, north of the US and Canada, about 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) north of Greenland.”It’s important that Donald Trump understands that there are not Russian and Chinese ships along the coast of Greenland,” Jacobsen said.China is also virtually absent from Greenland’s economy.The semi-public company Shenghe Resources has a 6.5 percent stake in Australian mining group Energy Transition Minerals, which wants to develop a rare earths deposit in southern Greenland. That project is currently halted, however.In addition, China was blocked from investing in new airports in Greenland.”The Greenlandic government had shortlisted a big Chinese state-owned company for providing technical support for building new airports eight years ago, but Denmark and the US offered to finance the airports on the condition that the Chinese contractor was not selected,” Jesper Willaing Zeuthen of the University of Aalborg told AFP.China’s presence in the Arctic currently focuses mainly on the Northern Sea Route and, and it has occasionally joined exercises with the Russian coast guard in the Bering Strait, according to an assessment from the Danish Institute for International Studies.- Road to independence -Greenland’s government in Nuuk and Copenhagen have repeatedly said that the territory is not for sale and that only Greenland can decide its future. It is currently governed by a coalition that has no plans to seek independence from Denmark in the immediate future.The Naleraq party, which wants swift independence and which came second in Greenland’s legislative elections in March, is not in government. While some of its members want to bypass Denmark and negotiate directly with the United States, the party’s official stance is that “Naleraq does not want Greenlanders to become American. Just as we do not want to be Danish.”A year ago, 85 percent of Greenlanders said they opposed joining the United States, according to a poll published in the Danish and Greenlandic press.

The top Danish and Greenlandic diplomats were to visit the White House on Wednesday for high-stakes talks on Greenland, which US President Donald Trump has vowed to seize from the longtime ally.Hours before the meeting was due to start, Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen sought to ease US concerns about security in Greenland, telling AFP Denmark was boosting its military presence there and was in talks with allies on “an increased NATO presence in the Arctic.”Trump has repeatedly threatened to take over the vast, strategic and sparsely populated Arctic island, and he has sounded emboldened since ordering a deadly January 3 attack in Venezuela that removed its president.Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart sought the talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The meeting will take place at the White House, after Vice President JD Vance requested to join.Lokke said he was hoping to “clear up certain misunderstandings.” But it remains to be seen if the Trump administration also sees a misunderstanding and if it wants to climb down.Trump, when asked Tuesday about Greenland’s leader saying that the island prefers to remain an autonomous territory of Denmark, said: “Well that’s their problem.””Don’t know anything about him, but that’s going to be a big problem for him,” Trump said.Trump said on Friday that he wanted Greenland “whether they like it or not” and “if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.”While an agreement with Denmark allows the United States to station as many soldiers as it wants on Greenland, Trump has doubled down on US ownership, telling reporters on Sunday that “we’re talking about acquiring not leasing.”The former real estate developer told The New York Times that ownership “is psychologically needed for success” and “gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”According to Trump, the United States needs Greenland due to the threat of a takeover by Russia or China. The two rival powers have both stepped up activity in the Arctic, where ice is melting due to climate change, but neither claims Greenland.Trump has spoken of the need for the United States to grow.Incorporating Greenland, which has 57,000 people, would catapult the United States past China and Canada to be the world’s second largest country in land mass after Russia.- Is cooperation possible? -Vance in March paid an uninvited visit to Greenland. He stayed only at Pituffik, the longstanding US base on the island, and did not mingle with local residents.Vance is known for his hard edge, which was on display when he berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly during a White House meeting in February.It has not been announced if the Greenland meeting will be open to the press.”If the US continues with, ‘We have to have Greenland at all cost,’ it could be a very short meeting,” said Penny Naas, a senior vice president at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a Washington think tank.”If there is a slight nuance to it, it could lead to a different conversation,” she said.Greenland’s government and Denmark have been firm against Trump’s designs.”One thing must be clear to everyone: Greenland does not want to be owned by the United States. Greenland does not want to be governed by the United States. Greenland does not want to be part of the United States,” Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said at a press conference ahead of the White House talks.He was speaking alongside Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who said it had not been easy to stand up to “completely unacceptable pressure from our closest ally.”Denmark has rejected US claims it is not protecting Greenland from Russia and China, recalling that it has invested almost 90 billion kroner ($14 billion) to beef up its military presence in the Arctic.Denmark is a founding member of NATO and its military joined the United States in the wars in Afghanistan and, controversially, Iraq.Shortly after the White House talks, a senior delegation from the US Congress — mostly Democrats, but with one Republican — will visit Copenhagen to offer solidarity.”President Trump’s continued threats toward Greenland are unnecessary and would only weaken our NATO alliance,” said Dick Durbin, the number-two Senate Democrat.France meanwhile announced that it would open a consulate on Greenland on February 6.

US luxury retail group Saks Global, the heavily indebted parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, said Wednesday it had filed for bankruptcy.The group has struggled with a substantial debt load and said in a statement it initiated bankruptcy proceedings in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.Saks Global said it was evaluating its operational footprint to invest where there is “the greatest long-term potential.”The organization said it had appointed former Neiman Marcus Group head Geoffroy van Raemdonck as its new CEO with immediate effect, replacing Richard Baker.”This is a defining moment for Saks Global, and the path ahead presents a meaningful opportunity to strengthen the foundation of our business and position it for the future,” said van Raemdonck.The retailer noted its stores, which include Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks OFF 5TH, Last Call and Horchow, will remain open after it received a fundraising commitment.Saks Global announced Wednesday it had secured $1.75 billion in financing, which it said would position the company “for a strong and stable future while it continues to provide customers with unparalleled multi-brand luxury shopping experiences.”Some of that package, it said, would provide liquidity to fund Saks Global’s operations and turnaround initiatives. Another tranche of financing will be available when the company emerges from bankruptcy.Saks Global had defaulted on a $100 million interest payment related to its nearly $2.7 billion acquisition of Neiman Marcus in 2024.The New York-based group, which traces its history back more than 150 years and has about 70 stores, has struggled in a difficult economic climate.While American consumers are spending, they remain price-conscious and have not been flocking to its flagship Saks Fifth Avenue store, which opened in 1924.According to court documents, Saks Global estimated it had assets and liabilities of between $1 billion and $10 billion.The group said it planned to “honor all customer programs, make go-forward payments to vendors, and continue employee payroll and benefits.””Throughout this process, Saks Global will remain focused on what has always defined the company: exceptional brands, trusted relationships and an unwavering commitment to its loyal customers,” the group said in its statement.

The US Commerce Department on Tuesday opened the door for Nvidia to sell advanced artificial intelligence chips in China with restrictions, following through on a policy shift announced last month by President Donald Trump.The change would permit Nvidia to sell its powerful H200 chip to Chinese buyers if certain conditions are met — including proof of “sufficient” US supply — while sales of its most advanced processors would still be blocked.However, uncertainty has grown over how much demand there will be from Chinese companies, as Beijing has reportedly been encouraging tech companies to use homegrown chips.Chinese officials have informed some firms they would only approve buying H200 chips under special circumstances, such as development labs or university research, news website The Information reported Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the situation.The Information had previously reported that Chinese officials were calling on companies there to pause H200 purchases while they deliberated requiring them to buy a certain ratio of AI chips made by Nvidia rivals in China.In its official update on Tuesday, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security said it had changed the licensing review policy for H200 and similar chips from a presumption of denial to handling applications case-by-case.Trump announced in December an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping to allow Nvidia to export its H200 chips to China, with the US government getting a 25-percent cut of sales.The move marked a significant shift in US export policy for advanced AI chips, which Joe Biden’s administration had heavily restricted over national security concerns about Chinese military applications.Democrats in Congress have criticized the move as a huge mistake that will help China’s military and economy.- Chinese chips -Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has advocated for the company to be allowed to sell some of its more advanced chips in China, arguing the importance of AI systems around the world being built on US technology.The chips — graphic processing units or GPUs — are used to train the AI models that are the bedrock of the generative AI revolution launched with the release of ChatGPT in 2022.The GPU sector is dominated by Nvidia, now the world’s most valuable company thanks to frenzied global demand and optimism for AI.H200s are roughly 18 months behind the US company’s most state-of-the-art offerings, which will still be off-limits to China.Nvidia’s Huang has repeatedly warned that China is just “nanoseconds behind” the United States as it accelerates the development of domestically produced advanced chips.On Wednesday, leading Chinese AI startup Zhipu said it had used homegrown Huawei chips to train its new image generator.Zhipu AI described its tool as “the first state-of-the-art multimodal model to complete the entire training process on a domestically produced chip”.The startup went public in Hong Kong last week and its shares have since soared 75 percent — one of several dazzling recent initial public offerings by Chinese chip and generative AI companies, as high hopes for the sector outweigh concerns of a potential market crash.

Beneath the surface of forests, grasslands and farms across the world, vast fungal webs form underground trading systems to exchange nutrients with plant roots, acting as critical climate regulators as they draw down 13 billion tons of carbon annually.Yet until recently, these “mycorrhizal networks” were greatly underestimated: seen as merely helpful companions to plants rather than one of Earth’s vital circulatory systems.American evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers has now been awarded the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement — sometimes called the “Nobel for the environment” — for her work bringing this underground world into focus.By charting the global distribution of mycorrhizal fungi in a worldwide Underground Atlas launched last year, Kiers and her colleagues have helped illuminate below-ground biodiversity — insights that can guide conservation efforts to protect these vast carbon stores.Plants send their excess carbon below ground where mycorrhizal fungi draw down 13.12 billion tons of carbon dioxide — around a third of total emissions from fossil fuels.”I just think about all the ways that soil is used in a negative way — you know, terms like ‘dirtbag,'” the 49-year-old University Research Chair at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam told AFP in an interview. “Whereas a bag of dirt contains a galaxy!”- Biological marketplace – Kiers began studying fungi at 19, after writing a grant proposal that won her a place on a scientific expedition to Panama’s rainforests, “and I started asking questions about what was happening under these massive trees in this very diverse jungle.”She still vividly recalls the first time she peered through a microscope and saw an arbuscule — the mycorrhizal fungi’s tiny tree-like structure that penetrates plant cells and serves as the site of nutrient exchange — which she described as “so beautiful.”In 2011, Kiers published a landmark paper in Science showing that mycorrhizal fungi behave like shrewd traders in a “biological marketplace,” making decisions based on supply and demand. With filaments thinner than hair, fungi deliver phosphorus and nitrogen to plants in exchange for sugars and fats derived from carbon.Using lab experiments her team demonstrated that fungi actively move phosphorus from areas of abundance to areas of scarcity — and secure more carbon in return by exploiting those imbalances. Plants, in other words, are willing to pay a higher “price” for what they lack.The fungi can even hoard resources to drive up demand, displaying behavior that echoes the tactics of Wall Street traders. The fact that all this happens without a brain or central nervous system raises a deeper question: how fungi process information at all — and whether electrical signals moving through their networks hold the answer.- Debt of gratitude – More recently, Kiers and her colleagues have pushed the field further with two Nature papers that make this hidden world newly visible.One unveiled a robotic imaging system that lets scientists watch fungal networks grow, branch and redirect resources in real time; the other mapped where different species are found across the globe.That global analysis delivered a sobering result: most hotspots of underground fungal diversity lie outside ecologically protected areas.With fungi largely overlooked by conservation frameworks, Kiers co-founded the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) to map fungal biodiversity — and argue for its protection.To coincide with the prize, which comes with a $250,000 award, SPUN is this week launching an “Underground Advocates” program to train scientists in the legal tools they need to protect fungal biodiversity.Her aim, she says, is to get people to flip how people think about life on Earth — from the surface down. “Life as we know it exists because of fungi,” she said, explaining that the algal ancestors of modern land plants lacked complex roots, and that a partnership with fungi enabled them to colonize terrestrial environments.

US President Donald Trump warned of unspecified “very strong action” if Iranian authorities go ahead with threatened hangings of some protesters, with Tehran calling American warnings a “pretext for military intervention”.International outrage has built over the crackdown that a rights group said has likely killed thousands during protests posing one of the biggest challenges yet to Iran’s clerical leadership.Iran’s UN mission posted a statement on X, vowing that Washington’s “playbook” would “fail again”.”US fantasies and policy toward Iran are rooted in regime change, with sanctions, threats, engineered unrest, and chaos serving as the modus operandi to manufacture a pretext for military intervention,” the post said.  Iranian authorities have insisted they had regained control of the country after successive nights of mass protests nationwide since.Rights groups accuse the government of fatally shooting protesters and masking the scale of the crackdown with an internet blackout that has now surpassed the five-day mark.New videos on social media, with locations verified by AFP, showed bodies lined up in the Kahrizak morgue just south of the Iranian capital, with the corpses wrapped in black bags and distraught relatives searching for loved ones.Trump — who earlier told the protesters in Iran that “help is on its way” — said Tuesday in a CBS News interview that the United States would act if Iran began hanging protesters.Tehran prosecutors have said Iranian authorities would press capital charges of “moharebeh”, or “waging war against God”, against some suspects arrested over recent demonstrations.”We will take very strong action if they do such a thing,” said the American leader, who has repeatedly threatened Iran with military intervention.”When they start killing thousands of people — and now you’re telling me about hanging. We’ll see how that’s going to work out for them,” Trump said.The US State Department on its Farsi language X account said 26-year-old protestor Erfan Soltani had been sentenced to be executed on Wednesday. “Erfan is the first protester to be sentenced to death, but he won’t be the last,” the State Department said, adding more than 10,600 Iranians had been arrested. Rights group Amnesty International called on Iran to immediately halt all executions, including Soltani’s.Trump urged on his Truth Social platform for Iranians to “KEEP PROTESTING”, adding: “I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”It was not immediately clear what meetings he was referring to or what the nature of the help would be. – ‘Rising casualties’ -European nations also signalled their anger over the crackdown, with France, Germany and the United Kingdom among the countries that summoned their Iranian ambassadors, as did the European Union. “The rising number of casualties in Iran is horrifying,” said EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, vowing further sanctions against those responsible.Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said it had confirmed 734 people killed during the protests, including nine minors, but warned the death toll was likely far higher.”The real number of those killed is likely in the thousands,” IHR’s director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.Iranian state media has said dozens of members of the security forces have been killed, with their funerals turning into large pro-government rallies. Authorities in Tehran have announced a mass funeral ceremony in the capital on Wednesday for the “martyrs” of recent days.Amir, an Iraqi computer scientist, returned to Baghdad on Monday and described dramatic scenes in Tehran.”On Thursday night, my friends and I saw protesters in Tehran’s Sarsabz neighbourhood amid a heavy military presence. The police were firing rubber bullets,” he told AFP in Iraq.Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah, called on the military to stop suppressing protests. “You are the national military of Iran, not the military of the Islamic Republic,” he said in a statement. – ‘Serious challenge -The government on Monday sought to regain control of the streets with mass nationwide rallies that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed as proof that the protest movement was defeated, calling them a “warning” to the United States. In power since 1989 and now aged 86, Khamenei has faced significant challenges, most recently the 12-day war in June against Israel, which forced him to go into hiding.Analysts have cautioned that it is premature to predict the immediate demise of the theocratic system, pointing to the repressive levers the leadership controls, including the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is charged with safeguarding the Islamic revolution.Nicole Grajewski, professor at the Sciences Po Centre for International Studies, told AFP the protests represented a “serious challenge” to the Islamic republic, but it was unclear if they would unseat the leadership, pointing to “the sheer depth and resilience of Iran’s repressive apparatus”.

Actor Kiefer Sutherland, who starred in the television series “24” and vampire flick “The Lost Boys,” was arrested Monday on suspicion of assaulting a ride-share driver, according to Los Angeles police. The Canadian-British actor was taken into custody after officers responded a call in Hollywood shortly after midnight. “The investigation determined that the suspect, later identified as Kiefer Sutherland, entered a ride-share vehicle, physically assaulted the driver (the victim), and made criminal threats toward the victim,” police said in a statement.The 59-year-old actor was released a few hours later after posting $50,000 bail, law enforcement said.Sutherland’s representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment from AFP.Police said the driver did not sustain injuries requiring medical attention.Sutherland is known for playing counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer in the television series “24,” a hit between 2001 and 2010. On the silver screen, he had memorable turns in “The Lost Boys” (1987), “Stand By Me” (1986), and “The Three Musketeers” (1993).Kiefer is the son of actor Donald Sutherland, who passed away in 2024.

Venezuela on Tuesday started freeing jailed Americans, said a US official, who hailed the move by the country’s interim leadership following Washington’s ouster of ex-president Nicolas Maduro.The official did not immediately provide details on the release of prisoners or say how many were being freed, other than that there was more than one.”We welcome the release of detained Americans in Venezuela. This is an important step in the right direction by the interim authorities,” a State Department official said on condition of anonymity.Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s vice president who has become acting president, ordered the release of prisoners in the wake of the US attack.US President Donald Trump hailed the gesture, saying that his response was to call off a second wave of strikes on Venezuela.Many were jailed for taking part in protests over 2024 elections, in which Maduro was declared the victor despite widespread allegations of vote-rigging.Venezuela earlier freed Spanish and Italian citizens from its jails.The United States has long made freeing its nationals overseas a major priority, and secured freedom for some in a deal with Maduro last year.- X access restored -Domestically, Venezuelans regained one freedom on Tuesday — the ability to post on social media platform X.The social network was once again accessible, more than a year after users were blocked by deposed president Maduro.Rodriguez updated her profile’s bio — she served as vice president under Maduro — and wrote: “Let us stay united, moving toward economic stability, social justice, and the welfare state we deserve to aspire to.”Access remained spotty to the social media network owned by billionaire Elon Musk, who engaged in heated online exchanges with the ousted Venezuelan leader, until Maduro lashed out in retaliation for criticism of his contested 2024 election and shut X down.After the July 2024 election, Maduro was declared the winner amid allegations of fraud and suspended the platform in August.Prior to that, X had been a prominent social media network for Venezuelans, but the blockade meant ministers, lawmakers and government institutions stopped updating their pages.Rodriguez assumed power after Maduro was captured by US military forces on January 3 along with his wife, during attacks that left more than 100 dead, according to official figures. The couple faces US charges of alleged drug trafficking.Maduro’s X account was also updated with a photo of the deposed leader and his wife, Cilia Flores. “We want you back,” the post reads.