People of Denmark see US as bigger threat than North Korea amid Trump Greenland row, poll finds

Independent:

People of Denmark see US as bigger threat than North Korea amid Trump Greenland row, poll finds


The US president has floated the prospect of buying the vast Arctic territory for years – making several more remarks after re-entering the White House

Alexander Butler
Friday 31 January 2025 12:38 GMT





The people of Denmark see the US as more of a threat than North Korea amid an ongoing row between the country and Donald Trump about Greenland, a poll has found.

The YouGov survey, which polled just over 1,000 people, revealed 46 per cent thought the US to be either a “very big threat” or a “fairly big threat” to Denmark.


This was higher than the number who said they considered North Korea or Iran a threat – of which 44 per cent and 40 per cent did respectively, according to The Guardian.

It comes after Trump, 78, reportedly blasted Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen in a “dangerous” phone call on 15 January pressuring her to cede Greenland to the US.

The Arctic island, which has a population of 57,000, was formerly ruled as a colony by Denmark, which now oversees the semi-autonomous territory’s security and foreign policy.


open image in gallery

Trump reportedly blasted Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen in a ‘dangerous’ phone call over Denmark’s refusal to cede Greenland (Getty Images)


Trump floated the prospect of buying the vast Arctic territory during his first term in 2019, and has said US control of Greenland is an "absolute necessity" for international security.


The US president was “very firm” during his phone call to Frederiksen which took place five days before his inauguration, a senior European official told The Financial Times.

“It was a cold shower. Before, it was hard to take it seriously. But I do think it is serious, and potentially very dangerous,” they said.

A few days after he was sworn in as 47th US president, he claimed Greenland “wanted to be with us” and said he believed it would eventually become part of the US.

"I think the people want to be with us," Trump said when asked about the island in the press room on board the presidential plane.


"I don't really know what claim Denmark has to it, but it would be a very unfriendly act if they didn't allow that to happen because it's for the protection of the free world," he added.

As well as oil and gas, Greenland’s supply of in-demand raw materials for green technology is attracting interest from around the world, including from China.

Frederiksen toured Berlin, Paris and Brussels this week in a bid to shore up support amid Trump’s ongoing threats, urging Europe to “stand together”.

“I want to ensure that all of Europe stands together. Not only in connection with the kingdom of Denmark but also more broadly,” she said.

“Everyone in Europe can see that it will be a different collaboration with the USA now,” she added.

Musings on the pedantry and pettiness of politics in our country

Musings on the pedantry and pettiness of politics in our country


31 Jan 2025 • 6:30 PM MYT


TheRealNehruism
Writer. Seeker. Teacher

Image credit: Focus Malaysia/Focus Malaysia / The Sun


I can’t believe that Ramasamy’ Urimai has not been registered yet. The way that Ramasamy has been going hither and thither, I thought that his party must have been registered a long time ago , and he was just going about town preparing for an election to come.


Turns out I was wrong. Not only has Ramasamy’s Urimai not been registered, he is even being forced to go to court to get it registered.


According to Ramasamy, the delay in the registration of Urimai forced Urimai to pursue judicial review, which was scheduled for Jan 27 at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur, but even his date with the court has been postponed to next month.


Hearing about the amount of trouble that he has to go through just to complete the humble task of getting a political party registered, I am even beginning to get suspicious that Ramasamy might be a more important political figure than I had presumed.


I am quite sure that it was more than a year ago that Ramasamy had asked me to give him a good name for a party that he wished to start. I remember giving several names, but more than the names itself, i remember giving him the suggestion that it would be good for the long form of the name of his party should be in English or Malay, but its acronym stand for a Tamil word.


Although Ramasamy did not take up any of the names I had given him, I would like to believe that the fact that the acronym for the United for the Rights of Malaysians Party is Urimai, which is a Tamil word that stands for rights, means that I might had some part in the naming of his party anyway.


But I digress.


The point I want to make here is, why does it take more than one year to register a political party?


Afterall, how hard can the process be? If you can register a business in a few days, I think you should be able to register a political party within a half a month at most.


Considering all this, it is really difficult for to believe that the delay in registering Ramasamy’s party is not a petty attempt to stump Ramasamy from making his mark on the country's politics .


Anyway, I hope that Ramasamy’s party will get registered soon, not only because I have a sentimental attachment to it, on account of having played some part in the construction of its name ( or at least that is what I believe. I have no way of knowing whether this is true, but this is what I believe. These days, you have to qualify everything you say, less some politician takes offense to it and make a police report or sue you for it), but also because his situation seems to be the another incident in a long series of incidents that suggests that political situation in the country is becoming palpably more edgy, pedantic and petty.


Other than Ramasamy's unusual delay, I find that whenever I read the news these days, I can't help but find one incident and after another of a molehill being transformed into a mountain for petty, pedantic and superfluous reason.


Just a moment ago, for example, when I was scrolling through the news, I found out that Hannah Yeoh is serving a Pas politician a letter of demand for saying that she is related to YTL founder Yeoh Tiong Lay. I also read that an editor at Malaysia Kini had his laptop confiscated simply for printing an alleged defamatory statement made by Khairy Jamalluddin, which Khairy had earlier uttered on his podcast.


I really don't understand why a politician has to say who another politician is related to on stage, or why the other politician has to make arrangements to sue the politician for saying it ? Who cares who your relatives are? Are we so petty to think that if your relative is Bentong Kali, you must also have the qualities of a hardened criminal? And how would you know you are not related to Bentong Kali? Do you really know everybody you are related to? Is there really no chance that your mother's brother's wife's uncle's cousin's sister's nephew might be Bentong Kali ?


As for the Malaysia Kini editor who had his laptop seized, that editor did not even come up with the alleged statement, mind you. That editor had merely reprinted it, and what was reprinted was based on something that anyone can view on youtube. Despite that, the editor’s laptop was seized anyway.


Looking at all this, I feel that everybody has to walk on eggshells in the third year of the Madani government's reign, because you can get yourself in an awful amount of trouble for the most trivial of things, like having the wrong labels on a garbage bag that you bought online.


As a content creator, I have to say that pettiness is blessing, but the edginess is a curse.


The edginess is a curse because it is causing me to censor my own thoughts too often for comfort, which interrupts my flow of thoughts, and reduces the quality of my work.


When I write, I enjoy it best when I write as if I am talking to a friend - it is fun when I can say things in a flow, without needing to be so punctilious and dot every i or cross every t, because I would like to believe that you dear readers, are an intelligent person who can think for yourself and put things together on your own without needing everything qualified and explained to you. This is how your friend should speak to you, isn't it ? They should speak to you while respecting you as an intelligent person, and without suspecting that everything you are saying to them is attempt by you to harm, mislead or befuddle them.


But this year, I have to say, I reckon that it is only angels and demigods that will be able to enjoy communicating in Malaysia, because the pressure to get everything right is getting so overwhelming, that when I write, I sometimes feel that I can't even say that “ I think that it is going to rain tomorrow”, without somebody asking me to justify the source of my information or feeling like I am liable to being sued because of what I had said, even if it is what I said is something inoccous as what I think the weather tomorrow might be, because someone somewhere is looking at every sentence and word that I utter to find a falut, so that they can take offfense and make it sound as if I spend all my time plotting on how to say something that is “false, misleading and cause panic in society.”


But on the bright side, I must say that the pettiness in the political landscape in the country is also a sort of a blessing in disguise, because it gives you plenty of material to write about with little to no need for research . Honestly, what research is there to do about issues like a couple of politician arguing about what “ham” means or why the ex-prime minister's wife intends to sue someone for saying she indulges in black magic.


Nothing, absolutely nothing.


My fellow Malaysians and readers however, seem to be complaining about it the insignificance of it all relentlessly.


“Can’t you find anything more worthwhile to write about, Nehru?” They keep pestering me in the comment sections of my articles.


Well, all I can say to their criticism is that “Friends, it is not me that doesn't want to write about something meaningful in the political situation in the country, but it is easier to find a shadow at midnight than do what you ask of me, considering the material that I have to work with. As much as you don't appreciate it, it is these pieces, about ham sandwiches and black magic, garbage bags and who a politician thinks another politician's relative is, that I will likely have to regale you with, because this is likely going to be as good as it gets in this beloved country of ours in the year of the snake.

Trump to send deported migrants to Guantanamo

Murray Hunter


Trump to send deported migrants to Guantanamo

The notorious US military detention camp in Cuba will house up to 30,000 people, according to the president

Jan 30, 2025





Comment: I believe there is going to be a massive war on the South American drug cartels and their distributors inside the United States. The real reason Guantanamo is being expanded to house those cartel members caught during the upcoming war.


President Donald Trump has announced plans to expand detention facilities at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to accommodate thousands of deported immigrants as part of his intensified efforts to remove illegal aliens from US soil.

The initiative was revealed on Wednesday during the signing of the bipartisan Laken Riley Act, which mandates the detention and potential deportation of undocumented individuals accused of theft and violent crimes, even before conviction. Justifying the use of Guantanamo Bay, Trump argued that some individuals are “so bad, we don’t even trust the countries to hold them, because we don’t want them coming back.”

“So we’re going to send them out to Guantanamo,” Trump added, calling the facility “a tough place to get out of.”

Guantanamo Bay, best known for holding terrorism suspects, also hosts a separate migrant processing center. Trump said he would sign an executive order directing the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to expand and prepare the facilities for new arrivals.

Most people don’t even know that we have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people,” Trump stated. He added that the move would “bring us one step closer to eradicating the scourge of migrant crime in our communities once and for all.”

Since his first day back in office, President Trump has enacted a series of executive orders aimed at overhauling the US immigration system. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have been carrying out raids across the country, detaining hundreds of people daily. Targeted cities include Boston, New York, Newark, and San Francisco, with agents focusing on arresting immigrants who had committed crimes after entering the US illegally, according to the agency.

The Trump administration has also escalated deportation efforts, using military planes for removal flights and threatening tariffs and other repercussions for countries that refuse to accept deportees.

Guantanamo Bay has been a US naval base since 1903 and was transformed into a detention center in 2002 under President George W. Bush to house suspected terrorists following the September 11 attacks. The facility has long been criticized for torture and indefinite detentions without charge or trial. As of January 2025, 15 detainees remain at the site, many of whom have been imprisoned for over two decades without formal charges.

The Cuban government has consistently denounced the presence of the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, calling it a violation of Cuban sovereignty and raising concerns over human rights abuses at the detention facility. On his first day in office, Trump reinstated Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, reversing an executive order issued by former President Joe Biden just a week prior.

al Jazeera:

Canada and Mexico say ready to respond as Trump tariff threat looms

By Ali Harb

Published On 31 Jan 202531 Jan 2025

• The leaders of Canada and Mexico say they are ready to respond to possible steep tariffs from the United States.
• US President Donald Trump has said he plans to follow through on his threat to impose 25-percent tariffs on both countries, spurring fears of a trade war.
• Trump faces widespread condemnation for blaming a plane crash near Washington, DC, on diversity hiring practices.
• The Republican president’s executive actions continue to sow alarm, including an order to freeze US foreign assistance that experts say will hamper global humanitarian aid efforts.

Venezuelan ministry says Maduro to meet with US envoy

Venezuela’s communications ministry has said President Nicolas Maduro will meet US envoy for Special Missions Richard Grenell.

The US and Venezuela have fraught ties marked by broken diplomatic relations, sanctions and accusations of criminal activity and coup-plotting.

CNN, which first broke the news of the meeting between Grenell and Maduro, said the US envoy is expected to discuss deportation flights to Venezuela.

The South American country has refused to take back any nationals from the US, where Trump is pushing to carry out his “mass deportation” plan.

We’ll bring you more on the talks when we can.

Richard Grenell

@RichardGrenell

·

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Just left an Oval meeting with @realDonaldTrump. He’s focused on what’s best for America and the American people.

10:38 AM · Jan 31, 2025

42m ago

 (16:15 GMT)

Trudeau convenes Canada-US council in advance of possible tariffs

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the country faces a “critical moment”.

Speaking before a meeting of the newly formed Canada-US Relations Council in Toronto, Trudeau said that if Trump imposes any tariffs against Canada, the country is “ready with a response”.

That response will be “forceful but reasonable”, the prime minister said. “It’s not what we want, but if he moves forward, we will also act.”

Trudeau added that members of the council have made clear that US tariffs would have “disastrous consequences for the United States, putting American jobs at risk, raising prices on Americans and undermining our collective security”.

Trudeau speaks in advance of a meeting in Toronto on January 31 [Cole Burston/Reuters]