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US Gaza ‘ethnic cleansing’ warning

UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned Washington against the “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza after Donald Trump said all two million Palestinians living in the strip would be displaced. The US president’s claim that his country would take control of the territory and rebuild it into the “Riviera of the Middle East” was quickly walked back by White House officials, most of whom had not been told of the plan before its announcement. The proposal has been met with harsh opposition across the Middle East, including by top US allies. Meanwhile Jordan and Egypt — whose economies have become increasingly reliant on US aid — both rejected Washington’s calls for them to take in Palestinian refugees.

No US-China trade talks planned

Chinese leader Xi Jinping kicked off the post-Lunar New Year period with a flurry of bilateral meetings, but talks with the US don’t appear imminent. Beijing is variously hosting the leaders of Brunei, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Thailand this week, as the country remains locked in a trade standoff with the US, with each side imposing restrictions on the other. US-China tensions are lower than feared when US President Donald Trump took office, and investors bet that a deal will be reached, but analysts remained concerned: Markets may have “moved a bit too aggressively on the optimistic side,” ING economists said. Trump himself said he was in “no rush” to talk to Xi in a bid to resolve the dispute.

Rubio to snub G20 in South Africa

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he would not attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg this month, days after the White House cut funding to South Africa over a controversial land policy. The new bill allows South African authorities to confiscate and redistribute farmland, most of which is owned by white farmers, a legacy of the country’s apartheid system. Analysts had previously warned that South Africa’s recent foreign policy decisions — including strengthening ties to Russia and accusing Washington ally Israel of genocide in Gaza — had made it especially vulnerable to the whims of the new US administration. Rubio’s decision also comes as the US vies with Beijing and Moscow for influence in Africa.

Panama disputes US canal deal claim

The US said government ships would be allowed to cross the Panama Canal for free, a claim the Central American nation denied. President Donald Trump has vowed to retake control of the canal — through which 40% of US container traffic passes — without providing details. Trump’s most outlandish proclamations are being met with increasing skepticism by geopolitical analysts: Despite declaring his intention to take over Greenland and turn Canada into the 51st US state, there is so far little evidence these threats will come to pass. “The real threat is if [Trump] persuades the rest of us to believe he has power he does not have,” Ezra Klein wrote in The New York Times.

Hottest January on record

Last month was the hottest January on record, surprising scientists who expected the La Niña weather phenomenon to bring cooler temperatures after two years of heat. Temperature records have tumbled since mid-2023, driven by natural cycles as well as a long-term warming trend caused by greenhouse gases, but models predicted a downturn at the end of last year. One possible reason for continued warming is reduced particulate pollution: As coal use drops, there are fewer particles in the air to reflect sunlight. The energy transition has slowed growth of fossil fuels, but progress is patchy: Ørsted, the world’s biggest offshore wind company, announced it would cut investment 25% by 2030, and Norwegian energy giant Equinor is halving its spending on renewables.

UK to ease nuclear power rules

The UK government wants to make it easier to build nuclear power plants. Britain has not had a new plant since 1987. Hinkley Point C, under construction since 2017, is years behind schedule and will be the world’s costliest nuclear power station. The problem, one analyst said, is overregulation: Hinkley uses the same design as existing French reactors, but regulators required 7,000 design changes. The proposed plans will remove restrictions on where plants can be built and include small modular reactors in planning rules. Energy costs for British industry are four times higher than in the US, rendering many projects unaffordable: Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the high prices have “strangled our chances of cheaper energy, growth, and jobs.”

Cancer drugs boost AstraZeneca profits

AstraZeneca announced a 38% jump in annual pretax profits, driven by strong sales of its cancer and immunology treatments. Britain’s largest pharmaceutical firm reported last-quarter sales of $14.9 billion, beating expectations despite falling sales in China, which the company attributed to a mild winter reducing demand for respiratory drugs. Cancer is a disease of aging, and as developed-world populations get older, diagnoses are going up — in the UK, about half the population can expect to develop cancer in their lifetime — but improved treatments mean that survival is going up as well: More than half of patients survive for 10 years or more beyond diagnosis, double the number of 50 years ago.

Ghana wants to profit from its cashews

Ghana wants to step up the profitability of its cashew industry. The country is one of the world’s largest cashew exporters, but raw nuts sell for just $500 a ton, while processed ones can fetch $40,000. Just 20% of Ghana’s nuts are processed in-country, because the cost of borrowing is so high that locals are priced out of owning the equipment required. Ghana’s situation mirrors a common problem: The raw material sells cheaply and producing countries often lack the infrastructure to process it, so profits go elsewhere. In an attempt to solve the problem, Guinea, which is planning the world’s largest mining project, wants to earmark 5% of the revenue to improve the country’s education system, Semafor Africa reported.

Mosul landmarks restored

Landmarks in Iraq damaged during the rule of the Islamic State group have been restored. Mosul was a key part of the Ottoman Empire and lay on the Silk Road, becoming home to a wide variety of Islamic, Christian, and Jewish architecture. IS seized control of Mosul in 2014 and occupied it for three years: The Great Mosque of Al‑Nouri’s famous leaning 12th-century minaret was destroyed by the extremist group, while the A-Tahera Church and Al-Saa’a Convent were also left in ruins. A $115 million UNESCO program to restore them, as well as hundreds of Ottoman houses in the old town, reached completion this week.

Farewell to my TED talk

The founder of TED wants to give the nonprofit away. British entrepreneur Chris Anderson founded the technology, entertainment and design conference in 2000. Since then it has become a “renowned, if sometimes mocked,” global behemoth, WIRED reported, with more than 250,000 talks in its archive, many with tens of millions of views: TED has inspired podcasts, an NPR show, and other spinoffs. Anderson said he wanted to hand the nonprofit over to whoever has the most interesting vision for TED’s future: It has to be nonpartisan, and the talks should remain free to watch online, but otherwise the new owner can take it where they will. Anderson’s ideal buyer would be a university or a philanthropic organization.

• The leaders of Japan and Zambia meet in Tokyo.
• London’s Grenfell Tower, the site of a disastrous fire seven years ago, is demolished.
• George Clooney makes his Broadway debut.

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The number of breeding pairs of bald eagles in the US state of New Jersey. That’s up from just one in the 1980s: The quintessentially American bird has made a significant comeback after years of decline, largely due to the banning of the pesticide DDT, which caused eagles’ eggs to develop thin shells. Since the chemical was taken off the shelves in 1972, numbers have steadily increased, aided by importing birds from other countries. “They’re one of the few conservation success stories” of near-extinct animals in the US, one conservationist told The Associated Press, and are now off the endangered list in many states. In other good news for the raptors, they were made the US’ national bird — officially — in December.

Home to Harlem by Claude McKay. Published in 1928, this “landmark in American literary history,” the first bestselling US novel by a Black author, “meditates on the meaning of home for Black people, migrant or native, educated or not, in the first decades of the twentieth century,” said LitHub, adding that it “appears to be the first sustained fictional portrait of Black urban life in the US.” However, McKay, a Jamaican-born poet, “was not quite at home” himself in Harlem, constantly leaving for Paris and London, and the characters in his book are likewise restless. Buy Home to Harlem from your local bookstore.

Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs on Mexico and Canada underscore just how difficult it would be for the US to function as an energy island, Semafor’s Tim McDonnell wrote.

Trump’s 10% tariff threat on Canadian energy would have been especially painful for energy companies and consumers, driving up the prices of gasoline and electricity. While Trump has vowed to offset losses from tariffs with domestic production, that’s harder to do with energy, McDonnell argued, because it is bound by physical constraints that can’t be reengineered.