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Venezuela has freed 15 journalists, including a leading opposition figure, as the slow release of political prisoners begun after Nicolas Maduro’s ouster continues, activists said Wednesday.The administration of acting president Delcy Rodriguez has been releasing prisoners at a trickle over the past six days, in what it calls a goodwill gesture following Maduro’s capture by US special forces in Caracas on January 3.So far it has only released a fraction of the more than 800 political prisoners estimated to be languishing in the country’s penitentiaries. They include some Americans, a US State Department official confirmed on Tuesday, without saying how many.Roland Carreno, a journalist and opposition activist, was among a group of at least 15 reporters whose release was announced on Wednesday by a journalist union and a rights group.- Americans released -“We confirm the release of journalist Roland Carrebo. He had been imprisoned since August 2, 2024: 1 year, 5 months, and 12 days,” the National Union of Press Workers (SNTP) wrote on X.Carreno, who was imprisoned between 2020 and 2023 on terrorism charges, was detained again in August 2024 during protests over elections that Maduro was accused of stealing.Caracas said Tuesday it had freed 116 detainees so far, but the Foro Penal rights NGO said it has only been able to confirm about half that number.The US State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, called the release of Americans “an important step in the right direction by the interim authorities.”US President Donald Trump has hailed the releases, saying that he called off a second wave of strikes on Venezuela in light of the gesture.Many of those released were jailed for taking part in protests over the July 2024 elections, in which Maduro was declared the victor despite widespread allegations of vote-rigging.A number of Spanish and Italian citizens have also walked free from Venezuelan prisons in the past week.The United States had already secured freedom for some of its nationals in a deal with Maduro last year.- X access restored -Former deputy president Rodriguez assumed power after Maduro was captured by US forces along with his wife during air raids that left more than 100 dead, according to official figures. The couple were whisked to New York, where they were jailed while awaiting trial on drug trafficking charges.Domestically, Venezuelans regained one freedom on Tuesday — the ability to post on social media platform X, which had been a popular forum for them. It is once again accessible, more than a year after users were blocked by Maduro’s government.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 altogether.Maduro’s X account was updated Tuesday with a photo of the deposed leader and his wife, Cilia Flores. “We want you back,” the post reads. burs-cb/dw

Denmark and Greenland’s top diplomats held high-stakes talks at the White House on Wednesday, with President Donald Trump warning it was “vital” for the United States to take control of the Arctic island.Shortly before the meeting with US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Denmark announced it was immediately boosting its military presence in strategic Greenland.Footage from CNN showed Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt arriving at the White House campus, while AFP journalists saw Rubio and Vance heading into the talks.Trump’s escalating threats over Greenland — a vast and sparsely populated autonomous territory belonging to NATO ally Denmark — have deeply shaken transatlantic relations.The 79-year-old Republican insisted ahead of the talks that NATO should support the US effort to take control of Greenland, saying it was crucial 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 his Truth Social network.”IF WE DON’T, RUSSIA OR CHINA WILL, AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!” added Trump.Vance, who slammed Denmark as a “bad ally” during a visit to Greenland last year, is known for a hard edge, which was on display when he publicly berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office last February.”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.Trump has derided recent Danish efforts to increase security for Greenland as amounting to “two dogsleds.” Denmark says it has invested almost $14 billion in Arctic security.Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen sought to further ease US concerns on Thursday, telling AFP his country was boosting its military presence in Greenland and was in talks with NATO allies.The Danish defense ministry then announced that it would do so “from today,” hosting a military exercise and sending in “aircraft, vessels and soldiers.”Swedish officers were joining the exercise at Denmark’s request, Stockholm said.- ‘Big problem’ -Denmark’s Rasmussen said ahead of the meeting that he was hoping to “clear up certain misunderstandings.” But it remains to be seen if there is a chance of de-escalating the situation.Greenland’s leader said Tuesday that the island prefers to remain part of Denmark, prompting Trump to say “that’s going to be a big problem for him.”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.Trump has appeared emboldened on Greenland — and on what he views as the US backyard as a whole — since ordering a deadly January 3 attack in Venezuela that removed president Nicolas Maduro.The White House has said that military action against Greenland remains on the table.Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an attack on a NATO ally would end the alliance that has been the bedrock of Western security since World War II.It 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. An agreement with Denmark currently allows the United States to station as many soldiers as it wants on Greenland. It also has a “space base” at Pituffik in northern Greenland.Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen meanwhile said ahead of the Washington talks that “Greenland does not want to be part of the United States.”But Trump has been insistent that he wants to acquire Greenland wholesale, repeatedly insisting on what he calls 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.

African manufacturers on Wednesday welcomed US lawmakers’ approval for renewing their duty-free access but called for urgency in finalising the deal.The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has been a cornerstone of trade relations for 25 years, allowing the United States to buy billions of dollars of duty-free cars, clothes and other items from select African countries each year.But the deal, which operates in 32 African nations, expired last September, putting thousands of jobs at risk and forcing exporters to absorb high tariff duties.On Tuesday, the US Congress passed a bill to revive AGOA for at least three years, but it must still be approved by the Senate.The Congress vote was “a very positive sign”, said Pankaj Bedi, CEO of United Aryan factory in Nairobi, which exports Wrangler and Levi’s jeans under the deal and employs around 10,000 Kenyans.”But we need to keep the pressure up,” he told AFP. “It is our desperate need as the sector continues to slow down and suffer due to cash flows and many other external challenges.”Bedi said his company has been absorbing the increased import duties — which went up by 33 percent for Kenya after AGOA expired — so as not to lose customers, but said this is not “sustainable”.Kenya’s trade minister Lee Kinyanjui welcomed the approval by the US House of Representatives, calling it a “critical milestone” in US-Africa trade relations.”The uncertainty that had previously engulfed the sector will now give way to renewed confidence and expansion,” Kinyanjui said in a statement.The African Union chair also welcomed the approval and appealed to the Senate “to give favourable and timely consideration to the extension, in a spirit that upholds partnership, and shared strategic interests”.- US eyes China, Russia -South Africa, which has been at loggerheads with the US in recent months, also hailed the approval.Its trade minister Parks Tau said the country “values its longstanding trade and investment relationship with the US”.South Africa was the primary beneficiary of the preferential agreement before it expired. The automotive sector accounted for 64 percent of trade under AGOA, totalling $1.6 billion in 2024, and is the sector most affected by US President Donald Trump’s measures.US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in December told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing that if Congress pushes for it, he is open to consider separating South Africa from AGOA.The Republican chairman of the House’s powerful Ways and Means Committee, Jason Smith, also called to urgently finalise the final deal.”An extended lapse in AGOA would create a void that malign actors like China and Russia will seek to fill,” he said.”Africa is home to approximately 30 percent of the world’s critical mineral resources and China has invested $8 to $10 billion in Africa to try to monopolize these essential supply chains.”Trump has criticised free-trade deals, and slapped swingeing tariffs on many countries.Kenya, which has been a close political and military ally, received the lowest rate of 10 percent, but others saw far higher, such as the tiny kingdom of Lesotho, which saw an initial rate of 50 percent before it was lowered to 15 percent in July.As a result, Lesotho’s textile industry witnessed massive job cuts, prompting protests by workers.Fako Hakane, head of the Lesotho Chamber of Commerce and Industry, expressed relief at signs of AGOA being renewed, saying the tariffs were “cruel” for the small, landlocked country of around 2.3 million people.”If it comes back, it is a critical economic lifeline for Lesotho,” Hakane told AFP.

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.