(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Wednesday that he will join President Donald Trump's newly created Gaza Board of Peace. In a statement on Wednesday, the Israeli leader said he would take part in the body, which was formally established by the president as part of a sweeping 20-point plan to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas and oversee Gaza's reconstruction.
In a statement late on Tuesday, Nigeria's national police spokesman, Benjamin Hundeyin, said an abduction had indeed occurred on Sunday, and that the police had launched security operations with a clear focus on locating and safely rescuing the victims and restoring calm to the area. Hundeyin said the earlier denials by officers and other officials were intended to prevent unnecessary panic while facts were being confirmed.
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A South Korean court has sentenced former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo to 23 years in prison after finding him guilty on insurrection charges related to disgraced ex-President Yoon Suk-yeol's short-lived declaration of martial law. Han was found guilty on Wednesday of abetting Yoon's brief imposition of martial law and for failing to hold a lawful cabinet meeting, as required by South Korean law, after the decree to mobilise the military was ordered by the then-president in December 2024.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA's commissioner general, said the operation was a wake-up call for the world. This constitutes an unprecedented attack against a United Nations agency and its premises, Lazzarini wrote on X. What happens today to UNRWA will happen tomorrow to any other international organization or diplomatic mission anywhere around the world. Lazzarini vehemently rejected Israel's justification for seizing the land.
Dozens of Russian military personnel have been trained in Iran to use the Fath-360 close-range ballistic missile system, which has a maximum range of 75 miles. Russia has now received shipments of these ballistic missiles and will likely use them within weeks in Ukraine against Ukrainians. He says that means Russia can use more of its own long-range missiles for targets further from the front line. It adds to their capacity, and it fuels the war.
Today is Wednesday, Jan. 21, the 21st day of 2026. There are 344 days left in the year. Today in history: On Jan. 21, 1976, British Airways and Air France inaugurated scheduled passenger service on the supersonic Concorde jet. Also on this date: In 1793, during the French Revolution, King Louis XVI, condemned for treason, was executed by guillotine. In 1861,
At least one of the group knew a crime was being committed and intervened, not to stop the torture but to prevent its documentation. Al-Saei said he heard the man warning others don't take a photo, don't take a photo as they attacked. He bled from his rectum for more than three weeks after the assault, which happened soon after he was detained in February 2024.
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, has decried Europeans for their complicity in failing to stand up to Donald Trump's demands that he be allowed to buy or annex Greenland. Newsom, a frontrunner among Democratic candidates for president in 2028, told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday that Europeans were being played by Trump and that their efforts to negotiate with him were not diplomacy, it's stupidity.
Syrian government forces entered areas of northeastern Syria over the weekend, in a move to expand its territorial control over the country, driving away Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters who held the territory. IS fighters and their families were being held in prisoner camps overseen by the SDF, but as the Syrian army advance, the SDF said it had to abandon their post at northeastern al-Hol camp, holding mostly women and children, and al-Aqtan prison for IS fighters.
The fact that Russia has yet to accept the 20-point plan is one reason the White House didn't want to sign a "prosperity plan" for Ukraine during the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. Driving the news: Witkoff said in an interview with CNBC that he and Kushner would meet Putin on Thursday. The Kremlin later confirmed it. Witkoff and Kushner met on Tuesday in Davos with Putin's envoy Kirill Dmitriev and discussed the U.S. peace plan.
The 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) will long be remembered for the way it finished. There were chaotic scenes at the end of regulation time in the final, when the award of a penalty to Morocco sparked a walk-off from Senegal and led to a delay of over 16 minutes before Brahim Diaz had his Panenka attempt saved. Atlas Lions boss Walid Regragui decried the incident as "shameful", and the Confederation of African Football (Caf) is yet to announce the sanctions.
Nearly 400 millionaires and billionaires from 24 countries are calling on global leaders to increase taxes on the super-rich, amid growing concern that the wealthiest in society are buying political influence. An open letter, released to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos, calls on global leaders attending this week's conference to close the widening gap between the super-rich and everyone else.
"We should inform you that we have gotten funds, from the sale of oil, and we have gotten, of the first $500 million, $300 million," interim leader Delcy Rodriguez said at an event in Caracas on Tuesday. Rodriguez said she would use the first $300 million (256 million) from the sale to prop up her country's battered currency, the bolivar.
Justifying his decision to lend Great Britain warships and other military supplies in the early days of World War II, Roosevelt likened it to loaning a neighbor a garden hose to put out the fire consuming his house. Sure, Roosevelt charitably wanted to help a neighbor in need. But it was self-interested too; if the neighbor could extinguish the blaze, it wouldn't spread to FDR's home. The United States benefited from the friendship-and the buffer-that allies could provide.
When Kemi Badenoch met Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, on Monday evening, she pressed him on two issues: the Chagos Islands deal and North Sea oil drilling. Neither participant was part of their respective executive branch, and neither issue was at the centre of the crisis that has engulfed transatlantic politics. But before long, the meeting had some very real political consequences.
Syria's army has reportedly entered the country's vast al-Hawl detention camp that houses relatives of suspected Islamic State jihadists, after Kurdish forces withdrew. A large group of soldiers opened the camp's metal gate and entered while others guarded the entrance, according to an Agence France-Presse journalist at the scene. Al-Hawl, located in a desert region of al-Hasakah province, holds about 24,000 people, including 15,000 Syrians and about 6,300 foreign women and children of 42 nationalities.
Thousands of Australians are expected to perform acts of kindness on Thursday to commemorate the victims of last month's Bondi terror attack, as the Jewish tradition of mitzvah spreads across faiths and backgrounds. A mitzvah, which is a core value in Judaism, has come to mean any charitable act and is being requested of Australians to mark the national day of mourning.
Trump said on Wednesday that he will not use force to get Greenland, but is "seeking immediate negotiations to once again discuss the acquisition" by the US. Trump's ongoing threats against Europe over his desire to take over Greenland have been dominating this year's Davos agenda. All eyes were on Trump during his 70-minute-long speech, with billionaire CEOs - including Apple's Tim Cook and Salesforce's Marc Benioff - alongside heads of state filling up Congress Hall to hear what he had to say.
