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Donald Trump’s announcement of a “framework of a future deal” regarding Greenland after weeks of intensifying threats of military intervention has been met with deep scepticism from people in the territory, though it was welcomed by European leaders and boosted markets.
Just hours after the president told the World Economic Forum he wanted Greenland, “including right, title and ownership,” he posted on social media to announce “the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland” and withdrew the threat of tariffs against eight European countries.
“The day ended better than it started,” said the Danish foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen. “Now, let’s sit down and find out how we can address the American security concerns in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the kingdom of Denmark.” The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, who negotiated the as yet very vague framework with Trump, said there remained “a lot of work to be done” and said the issue of whether Greenland would remain a Danish territory had not come up.
What could a deal involve? According to media reports, it could result in the US being granted sovereignty over small pockets of Greenland where its military bases are.
Has Denmark agreed? That remains unclear – but on Wednesday night Aaja Chemnitz Larsen, a Greenlandic member of the Danish parliament, said the idea that Nato should have any control over Greenland’s sovereignty or minerals was “completely out of the question”.
What about Trump’s “board of peace”? At a signing ceremony for the new body in Davos, the US president claimed the organisation would be “one of the most consequential bodies ever created in the history of the world”.
ICE detains five-year-old Minnesota boy arriving home, say school officials
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained a five-year-old Minnesota preschooler coming home from school on Tuesday and took him and his father to a Texas detention center, according to school officials.
Liam Ramos and his father were apprehended in their driveway having just returned home from school, said Zena Stenvik, the superintendent of the school district in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb.
Stenvik, who went to the home when she learned of the detentions, said an agent had taken Liam out of the car, led the boy to his front door and directed him to knock on the door asking to be let in, “in order to see if anyone else was home – essentially using a five-year-old as bait”. She said another adult living at the home pleaded to take care of Liam so the child could avoid detention, but was denied.
What is the family’s situation? Marc Prokosch, the family’s attorney, said the family had an active asylum case and shared paperwork showing that the father and son arrived to the US at an official crossing point.
Have other children been detained locally? Yes. Liam is one of four children in the school district who have been detained by federal immigration agents in the last two weeks, the district said. One is age 10 and two are 17.
Half the world’s 100 largest cities are in high water stress areas, analysis finds
Half the world’s 100 largest cities are experiencing high levels of water stress, with Beijing, New York, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro and Delhi among those facing extreme stress, new analysis and mapping has shown.
Defined as water withdrawals for public water supply and industry being close to exceeding available supplies, water stress is often caused by poor management of resources. The problem is being exacerbated by climate breakdown.
How many cities are in regions facing extreme stress? Thirty-nine are in the highest category.
What trends does this investigation show? About 1.1 billion people live in major metropolitan areas located in regions experiencing strong long-term drying – and a further 96 million are in cities experiencing strong wetting trends.
What’s the geographical split? Cities experiencing drying are mostly across Asia, particularly northern India and Pakistan, while most of the city regions in wetting zones are in sub-Saharan Africa.
In other news …
Israeli forces killed at least 11 Palestinians on Wednesday, hospitals in Gaza say, including two 13-year-old boys and three journalists, in the latest violence to mar the three-month-old ceasefire. Health authorities said Israeli forces had killed at least 466 Palestinians in Gaza during the ceasefire.
Emergency services in New Zealand are searching for several people, including a child, after a landslide struck a campsite during storms that battered the North Island.
A former Uvalde schools police officer was acquitted on Wednesday of charges that he failed in his duties to confront the gunman at Robb Elementary during the deadly shooting’s critical first minutes.
Stat of the day: Four in 10 American parents of under-twos say their child uses a smartphone
Four in 10 (38%) of US parents of under-twos say their child uses a smartphone, according to the American research organisation Pew. This is part of a broader trend, with preschool teachers in the UK reporting that young children are showing a lack of creativity and problem-solving skills, as well as poorer social skills. Emine Saner explores how screens might be affecting young children.
The Filter recommends: The 12 best nonalcoholic beers in the US
More Americans are trying out sobriety and even semi-sobriety – and luckily for them, we live in the golden age of nonalcoholic beer. Many of those who grab a nonalcoholic beverage aren’t teetotal but switch between booze and alcohol-free drinks depending on the situation. Here are the 12 best beers that won’t give you a hangover.
Don’t miss this: Forty years in the Siberian wilderness: the Old Believers who time forgot
In 1978, a team of Soviet geologists came across a family living in a remote part of Siberia. The family, who belonged to a Christian sect called the Old Believers, hadn’t spoken with others for decades: the youngest daughter had never seen a wheel. Almost 50 years later, one of them is still there.
Last Thing: What happened to bathroom doors?
Until fairly recently, you could depend on a hotel bathroom coming with a standard door. No longer. More and more, this trusty barrier is being replaced by all manner of “sliding barn doors, curtains, strategically placed walls and other replacements”, according to the Wall Street Journal. But fans of doors are fighting back, with a crowdsourced database called Bring Back Doors that ranks hotels by the degree of privacy offered by their bathrooms.
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