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Europe
Austria
20.01.2026 As a move followed the closure of the city’s last remaining arrival center, Catholic charity Caritas director Schwertner said yesterday that Vienna’s parishes, working with his organization will immediately offer temporary emergency accommodation to newly arriving refugees from Ukraine. The project is funded entirely through donations and is intended as a temporary emergency solution. Austria has seen a prolonged dispute between the federal government and the states over responsibility for financing and organizing the initial reception of war refugees. The issue is also being discussed as part of negotiations on reorganizing refugee care responsibilities under reforms to the EU’s Common Asylum System, which is due to enter into force in June. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)
France
20/01/2026 - 21:10 "Trump might succeed in breaking up NATO where ten Soviet and Russian leaders tried and failed': Former US Ambassador, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy at Boston University. "He offers analysis of US immigration, and both foreign & economic policies and warns the US that is not only isolating itself on the global stage, but also undercutting its own economy and moral authority. 'Authoritarian opportunism, disguised as pragmatism, risks weakening America’s alliances, its values and its democratic norms'. (Source: France 24)
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Germany
20 January 2026 US Republicans have attacked Germany’s right-wing AfD following party co-leader Weidel’s criticism of US President Trump over Venezuela and Greenland. During a press conference held by Weidel on January 13, she criticised Trump’s foreign policy: Trump has broken a fundamental campaign promise - namely, not to interfere in other countries, she said. “He must explain this to his own voters; that must be said very clearly.” According to Weidel, the US Government’s primary objective in Venezuela and Greenland is to secure resources. “We can only hope that this does not disrupt the peace negotiations in Ukraine,” she concluded. Wolfmeier, spokesperson for Republicans Overseas Germany, the group’s organisation in Germany, was raising the question of whether Weidel could still be called a close associates of US Vice President Vance, who last year attended the Munich Security Conference, where he met Weidel. He openly criticised the German establishment and the functioning of German democracy, particularly regarding its treatment of the AfD. Vance explicitly condemned the political cordon sanitaire - or firewall - surrounding the party. In recent months, several AfD politicians have travelled to the US to meet members of the MAGA camp, warning Republicans that German democracy is under threat from government-influenced domestic intelligence services targeting the AfD. In early January, the Trump administration said it was considering sanctions against senior officials in Germany’s intelligence services. Weidel’s statements have exposed the German party’s split over its foreign policy direction, caught between MPs favouring a Eurasian axis including Russia and transatlantic-oriented lawmakers. Weidel has attempted to navigate between these factions and is not fully aligned with either. The AfD’s defence policy spokesperson, Lucassen, aligned with the transatlantic wing, offered a different view from Weidel. On Venezuela, he said the party supports an interest-driven and realistic foreign policy. „By arresting the Venezuelan dictator, the United States is implementing exactly that’. He directly challenged Weidel’s concerns on Ukraine: ’From this perspective, I do not see any threat to the peace efforts in Ukraine, but rather a strengthening of the American negotiating position.’ (Source: Brussels Signal - Belgium)
'Updated': 20/01/2026 - 11:21 GMT+1 Rare display: Northern lights shine in the night sky /Video/ (Source: Euronews – based in Lyon, France)
European Parliament
Jan 20, 2026 - 19:32 Lawmakers from the ’centre-right’ European People’s Party (EPP) endorsed new internal rules today after leader Weber seeks to regain control of EPP rebels, to sanction lawmakers who vote to bring down the European Commission run by their political ally der Leyen. Several of the EPP group's members voted last October in favour of a ’far-right’ motion to bring down the European Commission, which is largely dominated by commissioners from its own ’centre-right’ political family. The main rebels were French centre-right Republicans led by Bellamy, a vice chair of the group, and members of a party from Romania, representing the Hungarian minority. The rules are designed to deter rebellions in the group, and ’for the privileges that they enjoy as Members of the group,’ the document reads. On Thursday, the Parliament will vote on a fresh bid to bring down the European Commission, pushed by the ’far-right’ Patriots group, over the EU-Mercosur trade deal. Castillo, one of the four French MEPs who voted to bring down the Commission last year, defected to the Patriots today. (Source: Euractiv - headquarters in Brussels, Belgium)
Russia
Tuesday 20 January 2026 12:43 GMT On Russian state television, "Perfidious Albion’, a term used frequently by news anchors, is cast as a scheming global intelligence power that is meddling behind the scenes from Washington to Iran in a duplicitous bid to undermine Russian interests across the world. Britain says Russia is a threat to Europe. As the U.S. under Trump seeks to reset ties with Moscow and broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, Britain has been granted the status of Russia's public enemy number one. Britain should drop the "Great" from its official name, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has said speaking at a press conference in Moscow today. Mr Lavrov asserted: "I think that Britain should be called simply Britain because 'Great Britain' is the only example of a country which calls itself 'Great'.’ His remarks, made during a discussion on colonialism following earlier comments regarding Greenland, were delivered to reporters. He cited the ’Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya,"’led by Gaddafi, as another historical instance of a country adopting the great moniker. "But it no longer exists.' (The Independent - United Kingdom)
January 20, 2026 at 01:09 pm Russia had no interest in interfering in Greenland’s affairs and Washington knew that Moscow itself had no plans to take control of the island, Russian foreign minister Lavrov said, speaking at a news conference in Moscow today. “It was not a natural part of Norway or a natural part of Denmark. It is a colonial conquest. The fact that the inhabitants are customed to it and feel comfortable is another matter.” (Source: TimesLIVE - South Africa)
Ukraine
Tuesday 20 January 2026 17:25 GMT ' Ukraine is poised to establish a system enabling its allies ’to train their artificial intelligence models’ using Kyiv's combat data, announced the newly appointed Defence Minister, Fedorov, recently transitioned from his role as digitalisation minister. He described Kyiv's wartime data trove as a crucial ’card’ in its ongoing negotiations with other nations. Ukraine has amassed extensive battlefield intelligence, including systematically logged combat statistics and millions of hours of drone footage captured from above. ’Such real-world information is critically important for the development and refinement of AI models’, which require substantial volumes of authentic data ’to effectively identify complex patterns and accurately predict how individuals or objects might behave in diverse operational scenarios’. Fedorov told reporters that there was demand for this data from allies. Ukraine was using AI technology from US data analytics firm Palantir for both military and civilian applications, and his team was receiving advice from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and RAND in the US, as well as Britain's Royal United Services Institute, he said. ’ (Source: The Independent - United Kingdom)
January 20, 2026 at 10:44am GMT Russia has escalated its aerial attacks on the electricity supply. Ukraine’s air force command said that 27 missiles and 315 drones were shot down or jammed, while five missiles and 24 drones hit 11 locations in the latest night-time attack. (Source: Irish News - Ireland)
Global
World Economic Forum
January 20, 2026 Protesters in Switzerland raged against President Trump ahead of his visit to the country for the annual World Economic Forum. Zurich, the Swiss economic nerve center served as the backdrop to demonstrations yesterday evening where protesters carried “Trump not welcome” and ’Put Trumpster in the dumpster’ placards. In the center of Zurich, at the front of the crowd, several people clutched a massive sign reading, “No WEF! No oligarchy! No imperialist wars!” A U.S. flag was also burned by masked men as police looked on. Protesters set fire to several objects and targeted American businesses, including the luxury car brand Cadillac. ’F - Trump’ graffiti was also scrawled on walls, and one protester carried a sign saying, ’Trump for prison.’ Three officers were injured by fireworks and stones. Police lost patience soon after 9 p.m. local time, blasting protesters with water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets. The demonstration, ostensibly to oppose the World Economic Forum, took on an anti-U.S. tone in the wake of the president’s musing about seizing Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally. Trump, 79, is set to touch down in Switzerland tomorrow. The forum is expected to be dominated by Trump’s turbulent international policy, including the surprise operation in Venezuela that sent its president, Maduro, to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges. Trump has also reignited his desire to incorporate Canada into the U.S., posting mocking images on the subject on social media late yesterday. Trump ’ll encounter the world leaders whose private texts he leaked in a bizarre posting frenzy overnight. ’E.U. chief der Leyen has remained a strong voice against Trump’. In Davos today, she vowed that Europe’s response to his repeated threats on Greenland would be unflinching. One victim of Trump’s trigger-happy posting was French President Macron. I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland, read Macron’s message to Trump, who later threatened France with soaring tariffs. Macron infuriated Trump by rejecting his invitation to join his so-called “Board of Peace,” and speaking out against Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on eight European allies until the U.S. secures its ’complete and total purchase’ of Greenland. Macron then took the podium at the World Economic Forum today, warning that the world is moving away from the rule of law in the international arena. Trump also revealed a boot-licking message from NATO leader Rutte. ’Mr. President, dear Donald – what you accomplished in Syria today is incredible,’ the message reads. ’I will use my media engagements in Davos to highlight your work there, in Gaza, and in Ukraine,’ Rutte wrote. ’I am committed to finding a way forward on Greenland. Cant wait to see you. Yours, Mark.’ (Source: NNYUZ - Armenia? / The Daily Beast - U.S.)
20 January 2026 US social media companies have long accused European regulators of unfairly targeting them and imposing censorship. The European Union says it aims to protect users and increase the accountability of the platforms. Musk’s X is at the center of a standoff between big tech and Brussels. The platform was fined €120M ($140M) for breaching transparency rules under the European Digital Services Act. Musk called for the bloc’s abolition. X has drawn wide condemnation in recent weeks as the social platform was flooded with images of digitally undressed women and children generated by its chatbot Grok. A group of 54 members of the European Parliament called for European alternatives to the dominant social media platforms yesterday. They argued that ’X is no longer an open and balanced tool for political communication or journalism’ after the company was bought by Musk. ’It now resembles a deepfake pornography website, and a one-way broadcast system for Musk himself,’ they wrote in an open letter to President of the European Commission der Leyen. Amid rising tensions with the United States, European organizations are about to launch their own social media platform, W, which will require identification and photo validation to ensure that its users are both humans and who they claim to be, Danish news media outlet Politiken.dk reports. It is supported by an advisory board and former ministers and business representatives, primarily from Sweden. Zeiter, CEO of W, has told Bilanz.ch that W stands for “We.” The first of the Vs that make up W stands for “Values,” and the second for “Verified.” The fact that W comes before X in the alphabet is certainly also a welcome coincidence, Zeiter said. W’s data will be hosted decentrally in Europe by European companies, and the platform will adhere to strict EU data protection laws. If political Brussels starts posting on W instead of X, we'll have already achieved a great deal, she added. Zeiter is a Swiss privacy expert with a long history of working in tech. According to her LinkedIn profile, she spent over a decade at eBay, an American e-commerce company, where she oversaw data protection and artificial intelligence (AI). She earned her PhD in law at the University of Hamburg and later studied at Stanford University. We believe there is an urgent need for a new social media platform built, governed and hosted in Europe. With human verification, free speech and data privacy at its core, Zeiter wrote in her LinkedIn post. Previous user exodus from X to platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky had limited success. W will be legally the subsidiary of “We Don’t Have Time,” a media platform for climate action, but the team is scattered across Europe, with offices in Berlin and Paris planned, Bilanz reports. The W social platform is not yet widely available to users. Washington Post reporter Tharoor has shared a snapshot of the W’s introductory video, displayed at the debut event at the World Economic Forum in Davos. (Source: CyberNews - Lithuania)
by Krištopaitytė
Tue 20 Jan 2026 at 20:35 Dialogue is constructive and more and more people understand the fairness of Russian position, Putin envoy Dmitriev said after talks which lasted for two hours with Trump's envoy Witkoff and Trump's son in law Kushner in the USA House at Davos, Switzerland, on a possible future peace deal to end the Ukraine war. Witkoff said: "We had a very positive meeting," Russia's RIA news agency reported. Russia controls about 19pc of Ukraine, including the Crimea peninsula. Russia says Crimea, Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are now parts of Russia. Ukraine says it will never accept that. Ukraine and European powers say that ’if Russia wins, then it will one day attack NATO’. Moscow says such claims are ridiculous and that it has no intention of attacking a NATO member. Russia says that European leaders are intent on scuttling the peace talks by introducing conditions that they know will be unacceptable to Russia, which took 12 to 17 square km of Ukrainian territory per day in 2025. Putin casts the war as a watershed moment in relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by enlarging Nato and encroaching on what he considers Moscow's sphere of influence. He has repeatedly said he is open to peace but one based on the realities of the battlefield. The United States says a total of a million Russian and Ukrainian men have been killed or injured in the war. Russia and Ukraine do not publish losses. (Source: Irish Independent - Ireland)
Space
January 19 1047 UT (11:47 CET) Sunspot 4341 erupted on January 18 1809 UTC, producing an X1.9-class solar flare. Coronal mass ejection reached Earth's magnetic field on January 19 1930 UTC (20:30 CET). A G4-clas (severe) storm, caused by the impact, is underway. Solar wind speed: about 1 050 km / sec
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