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Donald Trump is scheduled to fly out to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum where he'll hold high-stakes talks with European leaders over his Greenland plot.

RAQQA, Syria (AP) — The Syrian military claimed Tuesday that guards from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces had abandoned a camp in northeast Syria housing thousands of people linked to the Islamic State group, allowing the detainees to escape. The al-Hol camp houses mainly women and children who are family members of IS members or accused of being otherwise affiliated with the group. Thousands of accused IS militants are separately housed in prisons in northeast Syria. The SDF subsequently confirmed that its guards had withdrawn from the camp, blaming “international indifference toward the issue of the ISIS terrorist organization and the failure of the international community to assume its responsibilities in addressing this serious matter,” using another abbreviation for IS. It said its forces had redeployed “in the vicinity of cities in northern Syria that are facing increasing risks and threats” from government forces. Representatives of the U.S. military did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Earlier Tuesday, Syria’s ministry of interior said Tuesday that 120 Islamic State members escaped from a prison in northeast Syria a day earlier, amid clashes between government forces and the SDF, which guards the prison. Security forces recaptured 81 of the escapees, “while intensive security efforts continue to pursue the remaining fugitives and take the necessary legal measures against them,” the statement said. The SDF and the government have traded blame over the escape from a prison in the town of Shaddadeh, amid the breakdown of a ceasefire deal between the two sides. Also Tuesday, the SDF accused “Damascus-affiliated factions” of cutting off water supplies to the al-Aqtan prison near the city of Raqqa, which it called a “blatant violation of humanitarian standards.” The SDF, the main U.S.-backed force that fought IS in Syria, controls more than a dozen prisons in the northeast where some 9,000 IS members have been held for years without trial. Many of the detained extremists are believed to have carried out atrocities in Syria and Iraq after IS declared a caliphate in June 2014 over large parts of Syria and Iraq. IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, but the group’s sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries. Under a deal announced Sunday, government forces were to take over control of the prisons from the SDF, but the transfer did not go smoothly. On Monday, Syrian government forces and SDF fighters clashed around two prisons housing members of the Islamic State group in Syria’s northeast. The clashes came as SDF chief commander Mazloum Abdi was said to be in Damascus to attempt to solidify a ceasefire deal reached Sunday that ended days of deadly fighting during which government forces captured wide areas of northeast Syria from the SDF. Abdi issued no statement after the meeting and the SDF later issued a statement calling for “all of our youth” to “join the ranks of the resistance,” appearing to signal that the deal had fallen apart. Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa postponed a planned trip to Germany Tuesday amid the ongoing tensions in northeast Syria. Since toppling Bashar Assad in December 2024, Syria’s new leaders have struggled to assert their full authority over the war-torn country. An agreement was reached in March that would merge the SDF with Damascus, but it didn’t gain traction. Earlier this month, clashes broke out in the city of Aleppo, followed by the government offensive that seized control of Deir el-Zour and Raqqa provinces, critical areas under the SDF that include oil and gas fields, river dams along the Euphrates and border crossings. ——— Sewell reported from Beirut. Source

PARIS (AP) — While Europe is pushing back publicly against U.S. President Donald Trump over Greenland, the language appears softer behind the scenes. Trump published a text message on Tuesday that he received from French President Emmanuel Macron, confirmed as genuine by Macron’s office. Starting with “My friend,” Macron’s tone was more deferential than the criticism that France and some of its European partner nations are openly voicing against Trump’s push to wrest Greenland from NATO ally Denmark. Before broaching the Greenland dispute, Macron opted in his message to first talk about other issues where he and Trump seem to be roughly on the same page. “We are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran,” the French leader wrote in English. Then, he added: “I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland,” immediately followed by: “Let us try to build great things.” That was the only mention that Macron made of the semi-autonomous Danish territory that Trump covets in the two sections of message that Trump published. It wasn’t immediately clear from Trump’s post when he received the message. Trump breaks with tradition World leaders’ private messages to each other rarely make it verbatim into the public domain — enabling them to project one face publicly and another to each other. But Trump — as is his wont across multiple domains — is casting traditions and diplomatic niceties to the wind and, in the process, lifting back the curtain on goings-on that usually aren’t seen. Trump also published a flattering message from Mark Rutte, secretary general of NATO, which the alliance also confirmed as authentic. “I am committed to finding a way forward on Greenland,” Rutte wrote. “Can’t wait to see you. Yours, Mark.” Rutte has declined to speak publicly about Greenland despite growing concern about Trump’s threats to “acquire” the island and what that would mean for the territorial integrity of NATO ally Denmark. Pressed last week about Trump’s designs on Greenland and warnings from Denmark that any U.S. military action might mean the end of NATO, Rutte said: “I can never comment on that. That’s impossible in public.” Macron’s relationship with Trump Macron likes to say that he can get Trump on the phone any time he wants. He proved it last September by making a show of calling up the president from a street in New York, to tell Trump that police officers were blocking him to let a VIP motorcade pass. “Guess what? I’m waiting in the street because everything is frozen for you!” Macron said as cameras filmed the scene. It’s a safe bet that Macron must know by now — a year into Trump’s second term in office — that there’s always a risk that a private message to Trump could be made public. An official close to Macron said that his message to Trump “shows that the French President, both in public and in private, takes the same views.” The official added that on Greenland, France considers respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states is “non-negotiable.” They spoke anonymously in line with the French presidency customary practices. Still, the difference between Macron’s public and private personas in the message that Trump published was striking. Hosting Russia and Ukraine together Most remarkably, the French leader told Trump in his message that he would be willing to invite representatives from both Ukraine and Russia to a meeting later this week in Paris — an idea that Macron has not voiced publicly. The Russians could be hosted “in the margins,” Macron suggested, hinting at the potential awkwardness of inviting Moscow representatives while France is also backing Ukraine with military and other support against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Macron wrote that the meeting could also include “the danish, the syrians” and the G7 nations — which include the United States. The French president added: “let us have a dinner together in Paris together on thursday before you go back to the us.”…

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranians have been struggling for nearly two weeks with the longest, most comprehensive internet shutdown in the history of the Islamic Republic — one that has not only restricted their access to information and the outside world, but is also throttling many businesses that rely on online advertising. Authorities shut down internet access on Jan. 8 as nationwide protests led to a brutal crackdown that activists say has killed over 4,000 people, with more feared dead. Since then, there has been minimal access to the outside world, with connectivity in recent days restored only for some domestic websites. Google also began partially functioning as a search engine, with most search results inaccessible. Officials have offered no firm timeline for the internet to return, leading to fears by businesses across the country about their future. One pet shop owner in Tehran, who spoke on the condition of anonymity like others for fear of reprisals, said his business had fallen by 90% since the protests. “Before that, I mainly worked on Instagram and Telegram which I don’t have access to anymore. The government has proposed two domestic alternatives. The point is our customers are not there — they don’t use it.” Internet outages are the latest squeeze on businesses The internet outage compounds economic pain already suffered by Iranians. The protests, which appear to have halted under a bloody suppression by authorities, began Dec. 28 over Iran’s rial currency falling to over 1.4 million to $1. Ten years ago, the rial traded at 32,000 to $1. Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, it traded at 70 to $1. The currency’s downward spiral pushed up inflation, increasing the cost of food and other daily necessities. The pressure on Iranians’ pockets was compounded by changes to gasoline prices that were also introduced in December, further fueling anger. Iran’s state-run news agency IRNA quoted a deputy minister of communications and information technology, Ehsan Chitsaz, as saying the cut to the internet cost Iran between $2.8 to $4.3 million each day. But the true cost for the Iranian economy could be far higher. The internet monitoring organization NetBlocks estimates each day of an internet shutdown in Iran costs the country over $37 million. The site says it estimates the economic impact of internet outages based on indicators from multiple sources including the World Bank and the International Telecommunication Union, which is the United Nations’ specialized agency for digital technology. In 2021 alone, a government estimate suggested Iranian businesses made as much as $833 million a year in sales from social media sites, wrote Dara Conduit, a lecturer at the University of Melbourne in Australia, in an article published by the journal Democratization in June. She cited a separate estimate suggesting internet disruptions around the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests cost the Iranian economy $1.6 billion. The 2022 internet disruptions’ “far-reaching and blanket economic consequences risked further heightening tensions in Iran and spurring the mobilization of new anti-regime cohorts onto the streets at a time when the regime was already facing one of the most serious existential threats of its lifetime,” Conduit wrote. More than 500 people were reportedly killed during that crackdown and over 22,000 detained. Prosecutors target some businesses over protest support Meanwhile, prosecutors have also begun targeting some businesses in the crackdown. The judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported Tuesday that prosecutors in Tehran filed paperwork to seize the assets of 60 cafes it alleged had a role in the protests. It also announced plans to seek the assets of athletes, cinema figures and others as well. Some cafes in Tehran and Shiraz have been shut down by authorities, other reports say. Internet cuts drive more outrage The financial damage also has some people openly discussing the internet blackout. In the comments…

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia bombarded Ukraine with more than 300 drones and ballistic and cruise missiles in its latest nighttime attack on the Ukrainian power grid, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday, as Moscow gives no public sign that it’s willing to end the invasion of its neighbor anytime soon. The attack knocked out heating to more than 5,600 apartment buildings in the capital, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Nearly 80% of the affected buildings had recently had their heating supply restored after a major Russian barrage on Jan. 9 that plunged thousands of people into a dayslong blackout, he said. Ukraine is enduring one of its coldest winters for years, with temperatures in Kyiv falling to minus 20 C (minus 4 F). At the same time, Russia has escalated its aerial attacks on the electricity supply, aiming to deny Ukrainians heat and running water and wear down their resistance almost four years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials are trying to keep up the momentum of U.S.-led peace talks. A Ukrainian negotiating team arrived in the United States on Saturday. Their main task was to convey how the relentless Russian strikes are undermining diplomacy, according to Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian leader said last week that the delegation would also try to finalize with U.S. officials documents for a proposed peace settlement that relate to postwar security guarantees and economic recovery. If American officials approve the proposals, the U.S. and Ukraine could sign the documents at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, he said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev plans to meet with some American representatives at Davos. He refused to name the officials Dmitriev would meet with, but media reports said they would include U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Attacks described as ‘cruel’ Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said his country needs urgent assistance and additional sanctions on Russia to make Moscow change course. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “barbaric strike this morning is a wake-up call to world leaders gathering in Davos,” Sybiha said on X. U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said that he was outraged by the repeated large-scale attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which especially affect children, older people and those with disabilities. The strikes “can only be described as cruel,” he said in Geneva. “They must stop. Targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure is a clear breach of the rules of warfare.” Several electrical substations providing power vital for nuclear safety in Ukraine were affected, said Rafael Mariano Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Air defense systems are expensive 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. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its forces targeted Ukrainian military and industrial installations as well as energy and transport infrastructure used by the Ukrainian armed forces. The constant attacks have stretched Ukraine’s air defenses and, according to Zelenskyy, some systems recently ran out of ammunition before a new shipment arrived. The fight is also expensive: the air defense ammunition that Ukraine used against the Russian missiles overnight cost about 80 million euros ($93 million), Zelenskyy said. Ukrainian air defenses are adopting a new approach, with the appointment of a new deputy air force commander, Pavlo Yelizarov, according to Zelenskyy. “This system will be transformed,” he said late Monday, without providing details. Ukraine relies on sophisticated air defense systems produced by Western countries, especially the U.S., to thwart Russia’s missile and drone attacks. ___ Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, and Geir…