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US consumer inflation unexpectedly accelerated last month, data showed Wednesday, in a moment of potential political peril for President Donald Trump, who quickly blamed the uptick on his predecessor Joe Biden.The consumer price index (CPI) edged up to 3.0 percent in January from a year ago, the Labor Department said in a statement — slightly above economists’ estimates. “Overall, this is not a great read,” EY chief economist Gregory Daco told AFP. “The jump in consumer prices in January supports our view that the Fed will hold rates steady at least through (the third quarter) of this year,” Nationwide chief economist Kathy Bostjancic wrote in a note to clients, referring to the Federal Reserve.- ‘Hand in hand’ -The cost of eggs surged more than 15 percent last month as farmers contended with avian flu, marking the largest increase in the index since June 2015. Gasoline prices also jumped last month, along with several other politically potent price points.  Any sustained uptick in inflation could cause a political headache for Trump who campaigned on a pledge to tackle inflation and the cost of living.”BIDEN INFLATION UP!” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social account shortly after the data was published, seeking to blame his Democratic predecessor for the CPI increase.The January CPI data is an estimate of the price level for the whole month, including the 12 days Trump was in office. In an earlier message, Trump also called for interest rates to be lowered, adding they would “go hand in hand” with his plans to impose tariffs on major US trading partners — despite many economists arguing that both measures would boost inflation. “Any administration is always going to be looking for lower interest rates, as they tend to be growth stimulative,” Daco told AFP. “The paradox is that the policies that are being promoted by the administration tend to have an inflationary lean, and therefore would favor the Fed maintaining a higher-for-longer stance, which goes very much in the opposite direction of this desire for lower rates,” he added.On Wednesday, a White House official confirmed to AFP that Trump’s planned 25-percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports would be imposed on top of 25 percent tariffs the US president has threatened to impose on Canada and Mexico.If those sweeping 25 percent tariffs are imposed in early March, as Trump has threatened, the levies on Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum could hit 50 percent, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.That could sharply raise the cost of materials that are crucial to US construction and manufacturing. – ‘Remain on the sidelines’ -The January inflation data will likely fuel calls for the Federal Reserve — the independent US central bank — to hold its key lending rate at between 4.25 and 4.50 percent as it waits for prices to ease.The Fed has a long-term inflation target of two percent, measured against a different inflation gauge, and aims to hit it primarily by raising and lowering short-term lending rates. These actions influence the cost of borrowing for consumers and businesses alike. “The Fed will remain on the sidelines as it assesses the evolving economic, inflation, and policy landscape,” said Bostjancic from Nationwide.Another worrying data point for the Fed in the data published Wednesday was the acceleration in inflation excluding volatile food and energy costs, which rose by 3.3 percent from a year earlier. On a monthly basis, inflation increased by 0.5 percent in January, and by 0.4 percent excluding food and energy.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth laid out President Donald Trump’s red lines and demands on Ukraine and NATO to Washington’s allies on Wednesday, telling Europe it must step up on supporting Kyiv and its own defence.In a forceful introduction at NATO headquarters, the former television anchor set out the contours for a future deal that Trump has vowed to reach on ending Russia’s war on Ukraine.”Our message is clear, the bloodshed must stop and this war must end,” he told a group of Kyiv’s backers that included his Ukrainian counterpart. Hegseth said trying to return Ukraine to its pre-2014 borders was an “illusionary goal” that would extend the fighting.The US defence chief said security guarantees would be needed for Ukraine but that NATO membership was “not realistic,” and made clear the United States would not deploy troops on the ground. “Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops,” he said.Hegseth said that Trump was “unleashing US energy production” and urging other producers to do so in a bid to drive down prices — and push Moscow to negotiate.But he insisted that Europe must now start providing the “overwhelming share” of aid to Ukraine.The tough US stance had largely been expected but it will still provide a cold shower for Kyiv as its forces struggle to hold back Russia. Hegseth’s visit to NATO headquarters is part of the first flurry of high-ranking American visits to Europe since Trump took power.Those are set to culminate with Vice President JD Vance meeting Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky in Munich on Friday. – ‘Imbalanced relationship’ -On European security, Hegseth echoed Trump’s demands for NATO to more than double its defence spending target to five percent of GDP. While he said Washington remained committed to NATO, the United States will “no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship” that sees Europe underpaying. He warned that US prime interests were focused on the threat from China and that there may be “trade offs” on American involvement in Europe. “As the United States prioritises its attention to these threats, European allies must lead from the front,” he said.US allies have already stepped up their spending in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and are pledging to do more to back Kyiv. “Secretary Hegseth, we hear you,” said Britain’s defence minister John Healey in a brief response. “We hear your concerns on stepping up for Ukraine, we are and we will. On stepping up for European security. We are and we will.”Britain announced a fresh package of aid for Ukraine worth $185 million.- ‘Do a lot more’ -NATO’s European members are terrified about Ukraine being forced into a bad deal that lets Moscow claim victory and leave them facing the threat of an emboldened Russia. The United States has underpinned European security through NATO over the past seven decades.  Hegseth’s broadside is set to fire a starting pistol on negotiations for setting a new spending target for alliance members at a June summit in the Netherlands. NATO chief Mark Rutte said he expects the goal to be raised to “north of three percent”.”We need to do a lot more so we have what we need to deter and defend. And so that there is more equitable burden sharing,” he said. 

Meta on Wednesday warned internet users to be wary of online acquaintances promising romance but seeking cash as scammers use deep fakes to prey on those looking for love.”This is a new tool in the toolkit of scammers,” Meta global threat disruption policy director David Agranovich told journalists during a briefing.”These scammers evolve consistently; we have to evolve to keep things right.”Detection systems in Meta’s family of apps including Instagram and WhatsApp rely heavily on behavior patterns and technical signals rather than on imagery, meaning it spies scammer activity despite the AI trickery, according to Agranovich.”It makes our detection and enforcement somewhat more resilient to generative AI,” Agranovich said.He gave the example of a recently disrupted scheme that apparently originated in Cambodia and targeted people in Chinese and Japanese languages.Researchers at OpenAI determined that the “scam compound” seemed to be using the San Francisco artificial intelligence company’s tools to generate and translate content, according to Meta.Generative AI technology has been around for more than a year, but in recent months its use by scammers has grown strong, “ethical hacker” and SocialProof Security chief executive Rachel Tobac said during the briefing.GenAI tools available for free from major companies allow scammers to change their faces and voices on video calls as they pretend to be someone they are not.”They can also use these deep fake bots that allow you to build a persona or place phone calls using a voice clone and a human actually doesn’t even need to be involved,” Tobac said.”They call them agents, but they’re not being used for customer support work. They’re being used for scams in an automated fashion.”Tobac urged people to be “politely paranoid” when an online acquaintance encourages a romantic connection, particularly when it leads to a request for money to deal with a supposed emergency or business opportunity.- Winter blues -The isolation and glum spirits that can come with winter weather along with the Valentine’s Day holiday is seen as a time of opportunity for scammers.”We definitely see an influx of scammers preying on that loneliness in the heart of winter,” Tobac said.The scammer’s main goal is money, with the tactic of building trust quickly and then contriving a reason for needing cash or personal data that could be used to access financial accounts, according to Tobac.”Being politely paranoid goes a long way, and verifying people are who they say they are,” Tobac said.Scammers operate across the gamut of social apps, with Meta seeing only a portion of the activity, according to Agranovich.Last year, Meta took down more than 408,000 accounts from West African countries being used by scammers to pose as military personnel or businessmen to romance people in Australia, Britain, Europe, the United States and elsewhere, according to the tech titan.Along with taking down nefarious networks, Meta is testing facial recognition technology to check potential online imposters detected by its systems or reported by users.

Two American astronauts who have been trapped on the International Space Station since June could return to Earth earlier in March than expected, NASA said Tuesday.Veteran astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were due to spend eight days on the International Space Station (ISS), but have been there for more than eight months after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft suffered propulsion problems. The US space agency decided the Starliner would return home without its crew after carrying out weeks of intensive testing and announced in August that it was tasking Elon Musk’s SpaceX with bringing the crew home.Musk, one of President Donald Trump’s closest advisors, committed to bringing them back to Earth “as soon as possible” at the end of January, with Republicans blaming Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden for the delay.A SpaceX mission called Crew-9 saw two astronauts arrive at the ISS in September aboard a Dragon spacecraft, with two empty seats for Wilmore and Williams.But their return was postponed when NASA announced that Crew-10 who was due to relieve them would not be blasting off until the end of March at the earliest.The mission is now scheduled to launch on March 12 “pending mission readiness”, NASA announced Tuesday, explaining that the change was agreed with SpaceX after adjustments were made to the original plan.   Instead of using a brand new Dragon spacecraft that requires extra processing time, the Crew-10 mission will now use a previously flown one called Endurance.The astronauts will return to Earth following a handover period of several days, the agency added.In January, Wilmore and Williams said their spirits were still high, adding that they had plenty of food and were enjoying their time on the space station.While their protracted stay is notable, it has not yet surpassed Frank Rubio’s record-breaking 371 days aboard the ISS, which he completed in 2023 after the Russian spacecraft designated for his return developed a coolant leak. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was ready to swap land in negotiations with Russia, which freed at least one American prisoner in what US President Donald Trump described Tuesday as a goodwill gesture on ending the war.Zelensky has in the past refused to cede any territory after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.But in an interview with The Guardian published Tuesday, he said Kyiv was ready for serious talks ahead of a Friday meeting at the Munich Security Conference with US Vice President JD Vance — a vocal critic of US military support to Ukraine.  “We will swap one territory for another,” Zelensky said, adding that he was ready to trade land in Russia’s Kursk region — which Ukraine seized in a surprise offensive last year.He acknowledged that Ukraine would not be able to enjoy security guarantees just with European partners.”Security guarantees without America are not real security guarantees,” he said.Trump took office vowing to end the war in Ukraine, possibly by leveraging billions of dollars in US assistance sent under former president Joe Biden, to force Kyiv into territorial concessions.In the first known visit by a member of the Trump administration to Russia since he returned to the White House last month, envoy Steve Witkoff secured the release of Marc Fogel, an American jailed since 2021 on drug charges.”We were treated very nicely by Russia,” Trump told reporters of Fogel’s release.”Actually, I hope that’s the beginning of a relationship where we can end that war.” Trump greeted Fogel at the White House Tuesday night after he landed back in the United States, recounting a meeting with Fogel’s 95-year-old mother at a campaign rally where he promised her to “get him out.”The White House described his release as part of an “exchange,” with Trump saying Tuesday night that a second detainee would be released Wednesday without offering further details.There was no immediate comment from Russia, where state-run news agencies quoted the White House announcement.Russia’s Supreme Court in December refused to consider an appeal Fogel made against his 14-year sentence.Witkoff, a property developer and friend of Trump, is officially the Middle East envoy and earlier played a key role in pushing forward a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire.Trump also announced a visit to Ukraine by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — another official in his cabinet on a mission unrelated to his primary job.- ‘Russian someday’ -Earlier in the week, Trump had floated the possibility that Ukraine “may be Russian someday,” words quickly welcomed by Moscow.”The fact that a significant part of Ukraine wants to become Russia, and has already, is a fact,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, referring to Moscow’s 2022 annexation of four Ukrainian regions after referendums widely criticized internationally as fraudulent.Ukrainians reacted with scorn to Trump’s remarks.”It is some kind of senile insanity,” Kyiv resident Daniil told AFP.A Ukrainian soldier on a street in central Kyiv, who only gave the name Mykola, said of Trump: “He can think anything and say anything, but Ukraine will never be Russia.”Trump in the past has voiced admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and notoriously backed his denial of the US intelligence community’s finding of Russian interference in the Republican’s 2016 election victory.But he has also called on Russia to compromise in recent weeks, saying that Putin needs to cut heavy losses.Both armies are trying to secure an advantage on the battlefield ahead of possible talks.Russia’s defense ministry said Tuesday its troops had captured the small village of Yasenove in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.And a Russian missile strike on Kyiv killed at least one person Wednesday, the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.In Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, regional prosecutors said Russian bombing killed a 40-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman.- Latest prisoner release -Biden shut off most contact with Moscow after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. But intelligence chiefs and others still met quietly in third countries and negotiated swaps that freed the most prominent Americans jailed by Russia — basketball player Britney Griner, journalist Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan.Fogel, 63, was teaching at the Anglo-American School in Moscow when he was arrested in August 2021 over 21 grams of cannabis and cannabis oil allegedly found with him at the Moscow airport.Fogel had been living in Russia since 2012. He was reported to have been teaching English to Russians at his penal colony.burs-sct-jgc/dhc

With its flattering rhetoric, leniency in responding to US trade threats and alignment with Washington this week at a summit on artificial intelligence, the United Kingdom has signalled a willingness to take President Donald Trump’s side over Europe.”The UK has no closer ally than America,” Britain’s newly appointed ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, said on Tuesday, in a video overflowing with superlatives posted on Elon Musk’s X platform.The Labour party grandee, formerly a European commissioner, had told the BBC on Monday that Britain has “to respect and understand what drives (Trump), what his mandate is to do, and how his allies need to adjust sometimes”.David Lammy, Britain’s top diplomat, also lavished praise on Trump last month, saying he displayed “incredible grace and generosity” and was “very funny, very friendly, very warm” during their meeting last September.The comments were somewhat more complimentary than previous remarks by Lammy in which he called Trump a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath”.The conciliatory tone is “likely to be calculated at keeping the UK out of Trump’s crosshairs when it comes to tariffs and any other forms of aggressive US foreign policy,” said Michael Plouffe, an associate professor at UCL university in London.Jonathan Portes, an economist at King’s College London, said “the UK, as usual, is trying to have its cake and eat it”. “This is perfectly rational and sensible,” he added. “It is hoping to avoid the worst excesses of Trump at the same time as it pursues its rapprochement with the EU.”- ‘Makes sense’ -The European Union remains by far Britain’s largest trading partner, but London has dreamt of a trade agreement with Washington, which Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently called for, since leaving the bloc.Faced with the frenetic start to Trump’s presidency and his unpredictable diplomatic manoeuvrings, Starmer has in recent days made strategic choices to distance himself from the Europeans.There is no question of Britain joining the EU’s countermeasures promised on Tuesday in response to Trump’s newly announced 25-percent customs duties on steel and aluminium, which the United States will impose from March 12.Britain instead says that it is “engaging” with the United States on the details of the tariffs.”What British industry needs and deserves is not a knee-jerk reaction but a cool and clear-headed sense of the UK’s national interest based on a full assessment of all the implications of the US’s actions,” said British trade minister Douglas Alexander.London also sided against the EU on the crucial issue of artificial intelligence, teaming up with the United States in refusing to sign the final declaration of the AI summit in Paris on Tuesday.”We felt the declaration didn’t provide enough practical clarity on global governance, nor sufficiently address harder questions around national security and the challenge AI poses to it,” said a British government spokesperson.This “cautious approach to the US” over AI is aligned with Starmer’s promise to make the Britain a world leader in the sector, said Plouffe.It also “makes sense” that Starmer would avoid “antagonism with the state that is home to three of the leading AI providers”, he added.”This may win some favour with Trump” at a time when the digital giants, who have become the Republican’s close allies, are locked in regulatory disputes with the EU.”I think he’s done a very good job thus far,” Trump said of Starmer in late January. “I like him a lot.”But can the British strategy work in the long term?”That depends on just how confrontational Trump is with the EU and whether he wants to try to lever the UK away from the EU,” Portes said.”Since nobody — including him — knows what he’s going to do, I certainly don’t,” he added.

When President Donald Trump froze nearly all US foreign aid, Cambodia was forced to suspend workers removing dangerous mines from the country  — until China stepped in with the necessary funding.In the Cook Islands, traditionally bound to New Zealand and friendly with the United States, the prime minister has announced plans to head to Beijing to sign a cooperation deal.Successive US administrations have vowed to wage a global competition with China, described as the only potential rival for global leadership.But as seen in Cambodia and the Cook Islands, two small but strategic countries, the United States has effectively ceded one of its main levers of influence.The dramatic shift by Trump — following the advice of billionaire advisor Elon Musk — has put nearly the entire workforce on leave at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), marking the end of a key decades-old effort by the United States to exercise “soft power” — the ability of a country to persuade others through its attractiveness.Trump has unapologetically turned instead to hard power, wielding tariffs against friends and foes and threatening military force to get his way, even against NATO ally Denmark over Greenland.When John F. Kennedy created USAID, he pointed to the success of the Marshall Plan in rebuilding Europe and hoped that alleviating poverty would reduce the allure of the Soviet Union, the main adversary of the United States at the time.Michael Schiffer, who served as USAID’s assistant administrator for Asia under former president Joe Biden, warned that China could become the dominant player in the developing world in areas from public health to policing.”We’ll be sitting on the sidelines and then in a couple of years we’ll have a conversation about how we’re shocked that the PRC has positioned itself as the partner of choice in Latin America, Africa and Asia,” he said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.”At that point, the game will be over.”- Will China step up? -The United States has long been the top donor in the world, giving $64 billion in 2023.A number of other Western countries, especially in Scandinavia, have been more generous compared with the sizes of their economies. But Schiffer doubted they could replace the United States either in dollar terms or in the longstanding US role of mobilizing international aid to priorities around the world.China’s aid is more opaque. According to AidData, a research group at the College of William and Mary, China has provided $1.34 trillion over two decades — but unlike Western nations, it has mostly provided loans rather than grants.Samantha Custer, director of policy analysis at AidData, doubted there would be any “huge, dramatic increase in aid dollars from China,” noting Beijing’s focus on lending and the economic headwinds facing the Asian power.Still, she said, the United States will struggle to counter perceptions it is no longer reliable.”China can win the day by not even doing anything,” she said.”You can’t partner with somebody who’s not there.”Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said China is more interested in construction and benefiting its domestic industries, like building a hospital rather than training its doctors.And with the freeze in USAID, China may have even less reason to step up aid.”If they become the only game in town, it doesn’t generate strong incentives for China to compete and significantly increase development assistance,” he said.One major gap will be conflict-related funding, said Rebecca Wolfe, an expert in development and political violence at the University of Chicago.She pointed to Syria, where the Islamic State extremist group gained grounds in areas that lacked governance.”Yes, the Chinese can come in and do the infrastructure. But what about the governance part?”She said Western countries may not step up until they feel real effects, such as a new migrant crisis.- Different soft power? -Trump’s aid freeze is officially only a 90-day review, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that he issued waivers for emergency assistance. But aid groups say effects are already being felt by the sweeping pause, from schools shutting down in Uganda to flood relief shelters under threat in South Sudan.Hendrik W. Ohnesorge, a scholar of soft power, said Trump has a highly transactional worldview and is more attuned to hard power.But Ohnesorge, managing director of the Center for Global Studies at the University of Bonn, said Trump also represented a new, post-liberal sort of soft power in a polarized world.He noted that other leaders have styled themselves after Trump and gladly followed his lead. For instance, Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei, swiftly joined Trump in leaving the World Health Organization.”Perhaps it may henceforth be better to even speak of US soft powers — in the plural — as there are starkly different visions of America and the world prevalent in the US today,” Ohnesorge said.