By using music from SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo in ICE videos, the government is playing a game of rage-bait

Last week, as the Trump administration was engulfed in controversy over its illegal military strikes near Venezuela (among numerous other crises), a Department of Homeland Security employee – I picture the worst sniveling, self-satisfied, hateful loser – got to work on the official X account. The state-employed memelord posted a video depicting Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officials arresting people in what appeared to be Chicago, celebrating the humiliation and incarceration of undocumented immigrants as some sort of patriotic achievement. The vile video borrowed, as they often do, from mainstream pop culture; in this case, a viral lyric from Sabrina Carpenter’s song Juno – “Have you ever tried this one?,” referring to sex positions – overlaid clips of agents chasing, tackling and handcuffing people, cheekily nodding to all the methods in ICE’s terror toolbox.

Carpenter, as a pre-eminent pop star, was caught in an impossible position. Say nothing, as her friend and collaborator Taylor Swift did weeks earlier when the White House used her music in a Trump hype video, and risk appearing as if you condone the administration’s use of your art for a domestic terror campaign (the administration hasn’t yet used Swift for an ICE video, but I’m sure it’s coming); engage, even if to honestly express your utter disgust, and risk bringing more attention to objectionable propaganda designed to provoke a response.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for AEG

© Photograph: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for AEG

© Photograph: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for AEG

Exclusive: A trio of candidates have been interviewed by the PM, but he could still decide to directly appoint someone else

Keir Starmer is poised to choose a new ambassador to Washington from a shortlist of three as relations with the US are tested over Ukraine and Donald Trump’s attacks on European leaders.

The prime minister held interviews with three finalists for the role this week, the Guardian has learned, with Downing Street preparing to make an appointment before the end of the year.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Leon Neal/AP

© Photograph: Leon Neal/AP

© Photograph: Leon Neal/AP

As Paramount, with close ties to the Trump administration, entered the bidding, experts predict any merger will ‘raise red flags’ among regulators

Over the first 10 months of his second presidency, Donald Trump has not hidden his desire to control the US media industry – from encouraging TV networks to fire journalists, comedians and critics he dislikes to pushing regulators to revoke broadcast licences. Now he seems determined to set the terms for one of the biggest media deals in history.

It’s a deal that could have repercussions not just in the US, but across the world, with not just the future of Hollywood at stake but also the landscape of news.

Continue reading...

© Composite: Alex Mellon for the Guardian : AP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images/

© Composite: Alex Mellon for the Guardian : AP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images/

© Composite: Alex Mellon for the Guardian : AP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images/

The watershed summit in 2015 was far from perfect, but its impact so far has been significant and measurable

Ten years on from the historic Paris climate summit, which ended with the world’s first and only global agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, it is easy to dwell on its failures. But the successes go less remarked.

Renewable energy smashed records last year, growing by 15% and accounting for more than 90% of all new power generation capacity. Investment in clean energy topped $2tn, outstripping that into fossil fuels by two to one.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

© Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

© Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

National Trust looks to halt construction, claiming Trump tore down historic East Wing without needed permission

Donald Trump is facing a federal lawsuit seeking to halt construction on his $300m White House ballroom, with historic preservationists accusing the president of violating multiple federal laws by tearing down part of the iconic building without required reviews or congressional approval.

The legal challenge, filed on Friday by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the US district court for the District of Columbia, represents the most significant attempt yet to stop Trump’s 90,000-sq-ft addition to the White House complex. The organization is seeking a temporary restraining order to freeze all construction activities until proper federal oversight procedures are completed.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Pablo Martínez Monsiváis/AP

© Photograph: Pablo Martínez Monsiváis/AP

© Photograph: Pablo Martínez Monsiváis/AP

Ex-Fed governor Kevin Warsh is at top of his list to succeed Powell as central bank’s chair, president says in interview

Donald Trump declared he “should be listened to” by the Federal Reserve, as he weighs candidates to lead the central bank amid an extraordinary campaign by the White House to exert greater control over its decisions.

The US president said on Friday that former Fed governor Kevin Warsh is currently top of his list to chair the central bank.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Tierney L Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images

© Photograph: Tierney L Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images

© Photograph: Tierney L Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Justice Alexandre de Moraes and his wife had been under Global Magnitsky sanctions after conviction of ex-president

The US Department of the Treasury has lifted sanctions imposed on the Brazilian supreme court justice who oversaw the conviction of the former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes had been under Global Magnitsky sanctions, which target individuals accused of human rights abuses, since July. His wife Viviane Barci de Moraes – who was added the sanctions list in September – was also removed from the register on Friday.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Ton Molina/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ton Molina/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ton Molina/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

Trump announced the agreement after calls with Thai prime minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Cambodian prime minister Hun Manet

• Thailand-Cambodia fighting explained

Cambodia said Thai forces including fighter jets continued to strike targets across their disputed border hours after Donald Trump said both countries leaders had agreed to renew a truce brokered in October that has been strained by days of deadly clashes.

“Thai forces have not stopped the bombing yet and are still continuing the bombing,” the Cambodian ministry of information said. Thailand’s military countered with accusations that Cambodia was committing “repeated violations of international rules” by targeting civilian locations and laying landmines.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA

© Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA

© Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA

The US is ramping up the pressure on Nicolás Maduro with a tanker seizure and expanded sanctions following threats and boat strikes

Early in his first term, Donald Trump mooted a “military option” for Venezuela to dislodge its president, Nicolás Maduro. Reports suggest that he eagerly discussed the prospect of an invasion behind closed doors. Advisers eventually talked him down. Instead, the US pursued a “maximum pressure” strategy of sanctions and threats.

But Mr Maduro is still in place. And Mr Trump’s attempts to remove him are ramping up again. The US has amassed its largest military presence in the Caribbean since the 1989 invasion of Panama. It has carried out more than 20 shocking strikes on alleged drug boats. Mr Trump reportedly delivered an ultimatum late last month, telling the Venezuelan leader that he could have safe passage from his country if he left immediately. There was already a $50m bounty on his head. This week came expanded sanctions and the seizure of a tanker.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Nick Moss, Dr Deborah Talbot, Dimitra Blana and Mary Pimm on the prime minister’s plan to ‘protect our borders’ and Donald Trump’s accusations that Europe is ‘weak’ and ‘decaying’

There is something particularly sickening about Keir Starmer’s call for European leaders to “urgently curb joint human rights laws” (Starmer urges Europe’s leaders to curb ECHR to halt rise of far right, 9 December).

It is not just that the human rights lawyer who wrote a key text on the Human Rights Act 1998 has become, as prime minister, an advocate of the act’s undoing, along with all the consequences for migrant families that will flow from that. It is that Starmer shows through this the complete dearth of ideas available to European social democracy.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Sergei Gapon/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sergei Gapon/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sergei Gapon/AFP/Getty Images

Europe must realise its superior economic and military potential has to be mobilised, writes Bill Jones, while Robin Wilson addresses Belgium’s resistance to seizing Russian assets

I wholly support the plea to Europe by Timothy Garton Ash (Only Europe can save Ukraine from Putin and Trump – but will it?, 6 December). One aspect he did not mention was the strategic nuclear balance. Since the late 1940s, responsibility for deterrence has always lain with the Pentagon and has succeeded in keeping the peace, though at times a very fragile version of it.

The recent US statement on defence makes it clear that Europe is no longer seen as a priority by the Trump administration, the danger now being that doubt is crucially being raised as to the credibility of Nato’s deterrent. Without certainty of a reaction in kind, Russia, under its ambitious and risk-taking president, might be tempted to chance its arm in what almost looks like a ceding of Europe by the US into a Russian “sphere of influence”.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Adrian Dennis/EPA

© Photograph: Adrian Dennis/EPA

© Photograph: Adrian Dennis/EPA

Notable figures in batch of images include Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Woody Allen and Bill Gates

• The latest tranche of Epstein evidence – in pictures

House Democrats have published a new tranche of what they called “disturbing” photographs from the estate of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, featuring among others Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and the British former royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

The 19 photographs in the initial drop – some of which have been seen before – plus another 70 released later Friday afternoon represent a small number of the almost 100,000 images released to the House oversight committee, which is looking into the conduct and connections of Epstein, the disgraced financier who died by apparent suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019 after he was charged with sex-trafficking offenses.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: House Oversight Democrats

© Photograph: House Oversight Democrats

© Photograph: House Oversight Democrats

The US made it clear this week that it plans to help the parties of the European far right gain power. Keir Starmer and his fellow leaders have to face this new reality

When are we going to get the message? I joked a few months back that, when it comes to Donald Trump, Europe needs to learn from Sex and the City’s Miranda Hobbes and realise that “He’s just not that into you”. After this past week, it’s clear that understates the problem. Trump’s America is not merely indifferent to Europe – it’s positively hostile to it. That has enormous implications for the continent and for Britain, which too many of our leaders still refuse to face.

The depth of US hostility was revealed most explicitly in the new US national security strategy, or NSS, a 29-page document that serves as a formal statement of the foreign policy of the second Trump administration. There is much there to lament, starting with the sceptical quote marks that appear around the sole reference to “climate change”, but the most striking passages are those that take aim at Europe.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

In World Cup parlance, Qatar was Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s qualifier. Now it’s the big time for Trump’s dictator-curious protege

I used to think Fifa’s recent practice of holding the World Cup in autocracies was because it made it easier for world football’s governing body to do the things it loved: spend untold billions of other people’s money and siphon the profits without having to worry about boring little things like human rights or public opinion. Which, let’s face it, really piss around with your bottom line.

But for a while now, that view has seemed ridiculously naive, a bit like assuming Recep Erdoğan followed Vladimir Putin’s election-hollowing gameplan just because hey, he’s an interested guy who likes to read around a lot of subjects. So no: Fifa president Gianni Infantino hasn’t spent recent tournaments cosying up to authoritarians because it made his life easier. He’s done it to learn from the best. And his latest decree this week simply confirms Fifa is now a fully operational autocracy in the classic populace-rinsing style. Do just absorb yesterday’s news that the cheapest ticket for next year’s World Cup final in the US will cost £3,120 – seven times more than the cheapest ticket for the last World Cup final in Qatar. (Admittedly, still marginally cheaper than an off-peak single from London to Manchester.)

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Héctor Vivas/FIFA/Getty Images

© Photograph: Héctor Vivas/FIFA/Getty Images

© Photograph: Héctor Vivas/FIFA/Getty Images

Foreign ministry says there has been ‘significant increase in Russian hybrid activities’ and government will decide on further diplomatic measures later

Russia’s central bank said it was suing the Belgium-based Euroclear financial group, which holds Moscow’s frozen international reserves, as the EU moves closer to using the funds to support Ukraine, AFP reported.

The bank said it was filing “a lawsuit against Euroclear in the Moscow Arbitration Court” due to what it called “the illegal actions” of the institution.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: dts News Agency Germany/Shutterstock

© Photograph: dts News Agency Germany/Shutterstock

© Photograph: dts News Agency Germany/Shutterstock

President spoke at Congressional ball after Senate rejected two competing proposals to address imminent expiration of Obamacare subsidies

US envoy John Coale held talks with Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko during a visit to Minsk, a Telegram channel linked to the Belarusian presidential administration said.

Coale has been tasked by president Donald Trump with negotiating the release of political prisoners in Belarus. Trump has urged Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, to free up to 1,400 people that Trump has called “hostages”.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Shawn Thew/Pool/Shawn Thew - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Shawn Thew/Pool/Shawn Thew - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Shawn Thew/Pool/Shawn Thew - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock

Mark Rowley says capital is a safe city, and claims of no-go areas are ‘completely false’

Members of the House of Lords have proposed “totally unnecessary” and “very cruel” amendments to the assisted dying bill in a bid to scupper it, Kim Leadbeater, the MP leading the campaign for the legislation, has said. Kiran Stacey has the story.

I have beefed up the post at 9.08am to include the direct quote from Wes Streeting about not being able to guarantee patient safety in the NHS if the strike by resident doctors in England goes ahead. You may need to refresh the page to get the update to appear.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

With the US threatening to support ‘patriotic’ parties here, we need better defences, starting with tough new rules about political donations

The new threat is so dizzyingly bizarre that Europe, and especially Britain, is slow to believe it. The US declares itself our enemy. Europe emerges as its main adversary in the US national security strategy. Russia is its friend, not us. Everything that looked solid since the second world war is turned upside down; the land of the free becomes the destroyer of democratic values. Appeasement fails.

He may ramble, but Donald Trump speaks plainly. He means what he says, and he hates everything European. Except its emerging “patriotic” parties, which he wants to support. His strategy warns of “civilizational erasure”, claiming Europe will soon “become majority non-European” and parroting the racist conspiracy known as the great replacement theory. Describing Europeans as “weak”, “decaying” and “destroying their countries”, with “real stupid” leaders, Trump responded to the question of whether they would still be allies, in a Politico interview, with a hint of threat: “It depends.”

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Twitter

© Photograph: Twitter

© Photograph: Twitter

Displaced people in Thailand voice doubts that Donald Trump can stop the fighting as violence flares on the border

• Half a million flee as deadly Cambodia-Thailand border clashes escalate

Rangsan Angda and many of his neighbours in border areas of Thailand had already packed their bags, fearing that a ceasefire with neighbouring Cambodia would soon collapse.

The ceasefire deal – brokered by Donald Trump, who proclaimed himself “President of PEACE” after he helped end five days of deadly clashes in July – had seemed precarious from the start. “Both sides are confronting one another all the time,” said Angda, 50.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA

© Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA

© Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA

US forces have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in a major escalation of Donald Trump’s campaign against the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, whose government called the seizure an act of international piracy.

The Trump administration is facing increasing scrutiny over a series of attacks on boats off the Venezuelan coast. At least 87 people have been killed in 22 known strikes since early September. Lucy Hough talks to the Guardian’s deputy head of international news, Devika Bhat

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Guardian Design

© Photograph: Guardian Design

© Photograph: Guardian Design

Ukrainian president says plan would not be fair without guarantees that Russia would not simply take over zone

The US wants Ukraine to withdraw its troops from the Donbas region, and Washington would then create a “free economic zone” in the parts Kyiv currently controls, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.

Previously, the US had suggested Kyiv should hand over the parts of Donbas it still controlled to Russia, but the Ukrainian president said on Thursday that Washington had now suggested a compromise version in which Ukrainian troops would withdraw, but Russian troops would not advance into the territory.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty Images

© Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty Images

© Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty Images

US visa edict | 1 No Trump | Flu advice | Costly candles | Christmas spirit

Oh dear! Now I will never get a visa to go to the US as I am sure that I have emailed quite a few letters to the Guardian critical of Donald Trump in the last few years (Tourists to US would have to reveal five years of social media activity under new Trump plan, 10 December).
Michael McLoughlin
Wallington, Surrey

• The latest US visa requirements would be a nightmare. Imagine trying to hold an international bridge tournament in the US. Where would you find players who haven’t bid “1 No Trump” in the last five years?
Steen I Petersen
Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Chris Delmas/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Chris Delmas/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Chris Delmas/AFP/Getty Images

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Ben Jennings/The Guardian

© Illustration: Ben Jennings/The Guardian

© Illustration: Ben Jennings/The Guardian

You’d think MPs would be lining up to decry the US president’s support for far-right nationalists. Instead, only backbenchers and a few junior ministers bothered to turn up

’Twas the fortnight before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Apart from a few exceptions. The Labour backbencher Matt Western had managed to secure an urgent question on President Trump’s new national security strategy and the Commons itself was remarkable for its absences. A roll-call of dishonour.

Take Nigel Farage. You would have thought he would have had a lot to say on the subject. After all, when Barack Obama had intervened in the Brexit referendum campaign to say the UK would be at the back of the queue for any trade deal with the US, Nige had been outraged. How dare the president try to interfere with the democratic processes of another sovereign country? So now that Donald Trump was threatening to do much the same thing in countries all across Europe, surely this was the time for Nige to make a stand. This was surely a point of principle for him. Were he to have any.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Emma Walmsley’s praise for US pharmaceutical market piles pressure on UK government

• Business live – live updates

The chief executive of GSK has declared that the US is the best place for pharmaceutical companies to invest.

Emma Walmsley said the US led the world in launches of drugs and vaccines and, alongside China, was the best market for business development.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: GSK/PA

© Photograph: GSK/PA

© Photograph: GSK/PA

House of Commons calls on Keir Starmer to condemn Donald Trump’s ‘interference’ in European politics

• Europe live – latest updates

The US is engaging in “extreme rightwing tropes” with echoes of the 1930s and threatening “chilling” interference in European democracies, British MPs warned ministers on Thursday.

The House of Commons rounded on Donald Trump’s national security strategy, which stated that Europe was facing “civilisational erasure” and vowed to help the continent “correct its current trajectory and promote patriotic European parties”.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/UPI/Shutterstock

The Trump administration’s recently published national security document is not so much a strategy guiding American foreign policy as it is an imperialist, ham-fisted attack on the rules-based international order and traditional allies of the United States. Read More

The president called immigrants such as Ilhan Omar ‘garbage’ – but this latest racist outburst may be another sign of weakness

Last week, as ICE agents descended on Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota’s Twin Cities, and members of migrant communities there retreated into hiding, Donald Trump unleashed a wave of bigotry against the area’s Somali population in a moment of vitriol that was shockingly racist even by his own very low standards. Rousing himself to animation at the tail end of a televised 2 December cabinet meeting during which he sometimes appeared to be struggling to stay awake, the president disparaged Somali immigrants, many of whom are refugees from the country’s long-running civil conflict, as ungrateful and unfit for residence in the United States.

“I don’t want ’em in our country,” Trump said of ethnic Somalis, about 80,000 of whom live in the Minneapolis area. “Their country’s no good for a reason.” The comments echoed recent posts from the president’s powerful adviser Stephen Miller, who has largely taken over immigration policy. Referring to what he called “the lie of mass migration” in a November 27 post on X, Miller cast doubt on the possibility of assimilation, and suggested that immigrants from troubled countries would contaminate America with a kind of genetic or ontological incapacity for democratic governance. “At scale, migrants and their descendants represent the conditions, and terrors, of their broken homelands,” Miller wrote.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Christian Zander/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Christian Zander/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Christian Zander/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

The president’s son-in-law is once again at the center of an international business deal that will require administration approval

On Monday, Paramount Skydance launched a $108bn takeover bid for Warner Bros Discovery, the entertainment giant that owns Hollywood movie studios, along with CNN, HBO and other media businesses. The bid is led by David Ellison, son of the tech billionaire Larry Ellison – a prominent Donald Trump supporter and Republican donor. Netflix had already prevailed over Paramount in a previous bidding competition for the purchase, but Trump announced on Sunday that he would “be involved” in his administration’s review of the Netflix deal. The president suggested the sale “could be a problem” because Netflix is already dominant in the US streaming market.

Paramount left out a significant fact in the press release announcing its offer: the bid includes funding from the private equity firm owned by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, as well as three Arab monarchies, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which collectively have billions of dollars in ongoing ventures involving the Trump family business. Those details were buried in required paperwork filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

• UK tourists would be among those affected by US policy

• ‘Unacceptable’ and ‘chilling’, says European fan group

A plan to require supporters travelling to the United States for the World Cup to disclose information about their social media accounts has been described as “profoundly unacceptable”.

Tourists from 42 countries, including the UK, which use the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (Esta) as part of the visa waiver programme would be obliged to provide information about accounts they have held in the last five years in their applications. Previously it had been optional to provide the information.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Sam Corum/PA

© Photograph: Sam Corum/PA

© Photograph: Sam Corum/PA

US president says Europeans pushing for meeting as ‘Coalition of Willing’ due to hold call about war

In other news, we will also hear from Nobel peace prize winner María Corina Machado later today, as she arrived in Oslo overnight after a truly incredible trip from Venezuela.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the details of the operation to get her out of the country and over to Norway, describing how she “slipped through 10 military checkpoints to reach a fishing boat bound for Curaçao and a private jet headed to Norway,” where she met members of her family for the first time in almost two years.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

At least 15 people killed, while more than 500,000 people have fled border areas near where jets, tanks and drones were waging battle

Half a million evacuees in Cambodia and Thailand were sheltering in pagodas, schools and other safe havens on Wednesday after fleeing fresh border clashes while US president Donald Trump vowed to intercede to stop the fighting.

At least 15 people, including Thai soldiers and Cambodian civilians, have been killed in the latest hostilities, officials said, while more than 500,000 people have fled border areas near where jets, tanks and drones were waging battle.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

© Photograph: Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

© Photograph: Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

The White House has formalised its contempt for ‘decaying’ Europe with an ominous plan to undermine the EU and boost the far right

• Don’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

Almost half of EU citizens regard Donald Trump as an enemy of Europe, a new survey across nine countries revealed last week. The poll, conducted for the French debate platform Le Grand Continent, found that across Europe, Trumpism is considered “a hostile force”.

The new US foreign policy doctrine published by the White House on Friday will have heightened these respondents’ worst fears. The 30-page National Security Strategy landed like a bombshell in Europe. And citizens may have been out in front of their political leaders in figuring out what Trump’s worldview could mean for Europeans.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Donald Trump’s decision to allow Nvidia to export an advanced artificial intelligence chip, the H200, to China may give China exactly what it needs to win the AI race, experts and lawmakers have warned.

The H200 is about 10 times less powerful than Nvidia’s Blackwell chip, which is the tech giant’s currently most advanced chip that cannot be exported to China. But the H200 is six times more powerful than the H20, the most advanced chip available in China today. Meanwhile China’s leading AI chip maker, Huawei, is estimated to be about two years behind Nvidia’s technology. By approving the sales, Trump may unwittingly be helping Chinese chip makers “catch up” to Nvidia, Jake Sullivan told The New York Times.

Sullivan, a former Biden-era national security advisor who helped design AI chip export curbs on China, told the NYT that Trump’s move was “nuts” because “China’s main problem” in the AI race “is they don’t have enough advanced computing capability.”

Read full article

Comments

© Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images News

Footage uploaded to X by US attorney general shows its forces landing on the tanker in major escalation of Trump’s pressure campaign

• US politics live: latest news updates

US forces have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in a major escalation of Donald Trump’s four-month pressure campaign against the South American country’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro, whose government called the seizure “an act of international piracy”.

Trump confirmed the operation on Wednesday, saying: “We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela – a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized actually.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: X

© Photograph: X

© Photograph: X

Divisive vote to lower rates highlights uncertainty in the Fed as economy absorbs major shakeups, including tariffs

The US Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it was cutting interest rates by a quarter point for the third time this year, as the embattled central bank appeared split over how best to manage the US economy.

The Fed chair, Jerome Powell, has emphasized unity within the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the board of Fed leaders that sets interest rates. But the nine-to-three vote to lower rates to a range of 3.5% to 3.75% was divisive among the committee that tends to vote in unanimity.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

© Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

© Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Meanwhile, the Lib Dems’ Gentleman Ed rips into Starmer for staying silent on The Donald’s US security strategy

With little more than a week to go until the Christmas recess, the Commons is in festive overdrive. Demob happy. A few minutes in to the year’s penultimate prime minister’s questions with MPs from both sides shouting and cheering, the speaker interrupted proceedings to say: “We don’t need the panto auditions any more.” To which the natural response was: “Ooh yes we do.” Because that’s pretty much the whole purpose of PMQs at the best of times. A feelgood experience for some. A feelbad experience for others. Noise with no substance.

No one embraces the panto spirit more than Kemi Badenoch. Kemi has come to realise that the bar is actually quite low for her to remain as Tory leader. All she has to do is be a little bit better than Keir Starmer at PMQs. Which is turning out to be a lot less difficult than she imagined. Sometimes just standing up is enough.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: House of Commons/PA

© Photograph: House of Commons/PA

© Photograph: House of Commons/PA

President says there were ‘strong words’ in latest call, as Volodymyr Zelenskyy to join other European leaders to discuss peace plan on Thursday

Leaders of the “coalition of the willing” group of nations will hold a video call about the Ukraine war on Thursday as Donald Trump voiced impatience with European allies and put US involvement in further talks in doubt, saying they risked “wasting time”.

Amid chaotic American efforts to push through a peace deal, the US president said on Wednesday night: “We discussed Ukraine in pretty strong words”, when asked about an earlier phone call with British prime minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz

Continue reading...

© Photograph: ABACA/Shutterstock

© Photograph: ABACA/Shutterstock

© Photograph: ABACA/Shutterstock

Guardian reporting ban | Gavel rash | Human rights | Proposed citizenship questions | Sans Serriffe

News that the Guardian has been barred from the Amex stadium (Brighton ban Guardian from stadium over reporting on Tony Bloom, 7 December) follows a previous exclusion order imposed by the club on the local paper, the Evening Argus, for publishing stories unfavourable to the then directors in the 1980s. The paper got around this by covering matches from a back garden overlooking the old Goldstone ground, with the photographer perched up a stepladder. Sadly, this isn’t an option at the totally enclosed Amex arena.
Jim Hatley
Brighton

• I see that in the Wordsearch about courts (8 December), one answer is “gavel”. I thought it was pretty well established now that judges in the UK do not use gavels, such tools only being employed by auctioneers. Are you trying to assert that justice in Britain is available only to the highest bidder?
John Starbuck
Lepton, West Yorkshire

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Ian Stephen/ProSports/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ian Stephen/ProSports/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ian Stephen/ProSports/REX/Shutterstock

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Nicola Jennings/The Guardian

© Illustration: Nicola Jennings/The Guardian

© Illustration: Nicola Jennings/The Guardian

There is no rule of law if the president can deem anyone an enemy combatant and order them summarily shot

The largely supine Republicans in Congress had no apparent trouble as Donald Trump and defense secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the killing of suspected drug runners off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia. But suddenly they are up in arms because the Washington Post reported on 28 November about one incident, a double-tap strike, in which the US military finished off two survivors of an attack.

Tempted as I am to accept whatever it takes to spark some minimal scrutiny of these summary executions, I hope this unexpected opening prompts broader investigation of this entire series of murders, which have now claimed 87 victims in 22 attacks. As Democrats join in, there are some indications that this expanded scrutiny may be finally beginning.

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His book, Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments, is published by Knopf and Allen Lane

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

© Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

© Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Continent’s other nationalist parties wary of echoing sentiments of US president due to his unpopularity

Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has responded to US claims that Europe faces “civilisational erasure” by saying it backs efforts for a nationalist revival on the continent – but other nationalist parties in the EU are far more cautious.

“The AfD is fighting alongside its international friends for a conservative renaissance,” the party’s foreign policy spokesperson, Markus Frohnmaier, said on Wednesday, adding that he would meet Maga Republicans in Washington and New York this week.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Hannibal Hanschke/EPA

© Photograph: Hannibal Hanschke/EPA

© Photograph: Hannibal Hanschke/EPA

Daughter delivers speech, with Nobel Institute saying María Corina Machado still expected in Oslo after journey of ‘extreme danger’

• Europe live – latest updates

Venezuela’s most prominent opposition leader, María Corina Machado, has vowed to continue her struggle to free the country from years of “obscene corruption”, “brutal dictatorship” and “despair” as she was awarded the Nobel peace prize at a ceremony in Norway’s capital, Oslo.

The 58-year-old conservative has lived in hiding in Venezuela since its authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, was accused of stealing the 2024 presidential election from her political movement. Despite fevered speculation that she would make a dramatic appearance at Wednesday’s event, having somehow slipped out of Venezuela, Machado was not present, although she was expected to arrive in Oslo in the coming hours.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Leonhard Föger/Reuters

© Photograph: Leonhard Föger/Reuters

© Photograph: Leonhard Föger/Reuters

Don’t say you weren’t warned: Trump’s new national security strategy seeks to destroy liberal democracy as we know it

On the same day that Donald Trump received his made-to-order “peace prize” from his newest pal, Fifa president “Johnny” Infantino, his administration published an equally gaudy national security strategy. The relatively short document oozes Trump and Trumpism. It starts out with the typically modest claim that the president has brought “our nation – and the world – back from the brink of catastrophe and disaster”.

Even if the strategy mostly formalises the ongoing actions and statements of Trump and his administration, it should be heeded as a warning for the world, and Europe in particular.

Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Deccio Serrano/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Deccio Serrano/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Deccio Serrano/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

President sought to rehab image after criticism of being out of touch, but speech aimed at midterms took different turn

• Fact-checking Trump’s speech

Donald Trump has sought to reboot his ailing US presidency at a rally-style event with a blitz of false claims about the economy and xenophobic attacks on immigrants and “shithole countries”.

In the wake of Republican election defeats and criticism that he is out of touch with America’s affordability crisis, Trump’s speech at the Mount Pocono casino in north-eastern Pennsylvania on Tuesday was billed as an opportunity to reclaim the economic narrative.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Zelenskyy says he would hold wartime elections within months given help from allies and Ukraine’s parliament

• Europe live: latest news updates

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is ready to hold a wartime election within the next three months, if Ukraine’s parliament and foreign allies will allow it, after Donald Trump accused him of clinging on to power.

Zelenskyy, clearly irritated by Trump’s intervention, said that “this is a question for the people of Ukraine, not people from other states, with all due respect to our partners”.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

Xiomara Castro alleges US manipulation and blackmail as preliminary count shows two rightwing candidates closely tied

Honduras’s president, Xiomara Castro, has alleged that an “electoral coup” is under way in the country’s presidential election, which she says has been marked by “interference from the president of the United States, Donald Trump”.

The leftist president also said that “the Honduran people must never accept elections marked by interference, manipulation and blackmail … Sovereignty is not negotiable, democracy is not surrendered.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Honduras Presidency/Reuters

© Photograph: Honduras Presidency/Reuters

© Photograph: Honduras Presidency/Reuters

The White House is aggressively seeking to weaken and dominate the United States’ traditional allies. European leaders must learn to fight back.

Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz have become adept at scrambling to deal with the latest bad news from Washington. Their meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Downing Street on Monday was so hastily arranged that Mr Macron needed to be back in Paris by late afternoon to meet Croatia’s prime minister, while Mr Merz was due on television for an end-of-year Q&A with the German public.

But diplomatic improvisation alone cannot fully answer Donald Trump’s structural threat to European security. The US president and his emissaries are trying to bully Mr Zelenskyy into an unjust peace deal that suits American and Russian interests. In response, the summit helped ramp up support for the use of up to £100bn in frozen Russian assets as collateral for a “reparations loan” to Ukraine. European counter-proposals for a ceasefire will need to be given the kind of financial backing that provides Mr Zelenskyy with leverage at a critical moment.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

© Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

© Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

The battle to buy Warner Bros Discovery has captured Donald Trump’s attention. The US President has declared he’ll be involved in the decision on the company’s sale, as both Netflix and Paramount fight to take over the entertainment giant. Lucy Hough speaks to Guardian US deputy business editor Callum Jones

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Guardian Design

© Photograph: Guardian Design

© Photograph: Guardian Design

The inaugural award bestowed upon the US president could pave the way for many more colourful accolades. I have some ideas ...

What a privilege it is to be alive in such a peaceful and prosperous time. If you ignore the genocides in Sudan and Gaza, fighting in eastern Congo, continued attacks on Ukraine, military airstrikes in Myanmar, near-daily strikes on Lebanon, “extrajudicial killings” on Venezualan vessels, increased political violence in the US, along with various other inconvenient issues, then I think we can all agree that Donald Trump has ushered in world peace.

Good luck convincing the nasty Norwegians on the Nobel committee of that, though. They’ve doled out peace prizes to many an alleged war criminal but have a weird grudge against Trump. Still, at least Fifa, an organisation renowned for its impeccable ethics, appreciates the president’s efforts. Last Friday, Trump was awarded the inaugural Fifa peace prize in an over-the-top ceremony that would have made a lesser man, one burdened with a smidgen of self-awareness, feel like a prize idiot.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters