272 stories
On 14 Feb 2026, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands declared laboratory tests detected the rare dart-frog toxin epibatidine in Alexei Navalny’s remains, formally alleging the Kremlin poisoned him in custody and notifying the OPCW of a treaty breach.
After a closed-door 12 Feb 2026 White House meeting, President Trump said talks with Tehran will proceed on the nuclear file alone despite Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s request to add missiles and proxies, while ordering the Pentagon to ready a second carrier for the Gulf.
On 16 Feb 2026, Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi arrived in Geneva with a nuclear-technical delegation to hold a same-day closed-door session with IAEA chief Rafael Grossi and coordinate with Oman ahead of a second round of Iran-U.S. indirect nuclear negotiations set for 17 Feb.
On 14 Feb 2026, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands jointly announced that forensic tests on Alexei Navalny’s remains detected the South-American neurotoxin epibatidine and said they will report Russia to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
On 12 Feb 2026, after a three-hour closed-door White House session, President Donald Trump overruled Israeli pressure for immediate escalation and declared that U.S.–Iran negotiations must continue, leaving military options on standby.
On 13 Feb 2026, President Trump and First Lady Melania traveled to Fort Bragg to publicly commend the Delta Force team that abducted former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in last month’s covert “Operation Absolute Resolve.”
On 12 Feb 2026 the Trump-led EPA formally withdrew its 2009 determination that CO₂ and five other greenhouse gases pose a danger to public health, scrapping the legal foundation for federal vehicle and stationary-source climate rules.
After a Financial Times scoop on Feb 11 claiming President Zelensky would unveil a Feb 24 timetable for a May presidential vote and peace-deal referendum, Zelensky and his office repudiated the report within a day, insisting no election will be set before a ceasefire and security guarantees.
On 13 Feb 2026 Washington abruptly ordered the Caribbean-based USS Gerald R. Ford to the Middle East, creating a two–aircraft-carrier force timed to increase leverage as nuclear talks with Tehran stall.
On 12 Feb 2026, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule rescinding the 2009 endangerment finding, immediately erasing federal greenhouse-gas standards for vehicles and marking what the administration calls the largest single regulatory rollback in U.S. history.
On 13 Feb 2026 Washington ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford to leave the Caribbean and join the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East, abruptly extending Ford’s eight-month deployment and giving the U.S. two carrier strike groups to pressure Iran during hurried nuclear talks.
On 11 Feb 2026 President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly rejected a Financial Times leak of a spring election and said nationwide ballots will occur only after a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire and firm Western security guarantees.
A Financial Times report alleging that Washington pushed Volodymyr Zelenskyy to announce nationwide elections and a peace referendum by mid-May 2026 was swiftly denied by the Ukrainian president’s office, highlighting unresolved legal and security barriers to wartime voting.
Between 8–11 Feb 2026, Jerusalem formally told Washington it will attack Iran’s ballistic-missile infrastructure if U.S.–Iran diplomacy omits missile limits and Tehran’s stockpile expands beyond Israel’s red line.
On 12 Feb 2026 President Trump and EPA chief Lee Zeldin will void the 2009 Endangerment Finding, eliminating EPA’s Clean Air Act mandate to limit greenhouse-gas emissions from cars and light trucks.
In a Feb 10 Axios interview, President Trump warned he may dispatch a second U.S. aircraft-carrier strike group to the Gulf if the just-launched U.S.–Iran negotiations in Oman fail to produce a nuclear-missile accord.
On 9 Feb 2026, Netanyahu’s five-member security cabinet adopted regulations that let any Israeli buy West Bank land and shifted key permit powers in Hebron from the Palestinian Authority to Israel, signalling a concrete step toward de-facto annexation.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s snap poll vaulted the Liberal Democratic Party from 198 to 316 seats on 8 Feb 2026, giving it a lone two-thirds grip on the lower house while the new Centrist Reform Alliance collapsed from 167 to 49 seats.
Leaked 9-10 Feb 2026 drafts show Brussels weighing a pledge of partial EU rights now and full accession by 2027 as part of any Russia-Ukraine peace deal, the first time EU membership is written into wartime negotiations.
On 8–9 Feb 2026, Israel’s five-member security cabinet adopted a package that removes restrictions on Jewish Israelis buying West Bank land and transfers key licensing, registry and enforcement authorities from the Palestinian Authority to Israeli agencies.
The 9 Feb 2026 lower-house vote flipped Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s three-month-old minority government into a two-thirds supermajority, allowing her to override the opposition-controlled Upper House on tax and defense bills.
Between 19:00 on 6 Feb and dawn 7 Feb 2026, Ukraine says Russia fired a single-night record of 447 drones and missiles; Ukrainian defences claimed to neutralise 406 of them, yet 34 struck 19 sites, primarily in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne and Vinnytsia.
On 8 Feb 2026, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi turned a risky winter snap poll into a mandate, with the Liberal Democratic Party and its Ishin ally crossing the two-thirds threshold in the 465-seat Lower House, giving her the numbers to override the upper chamber and pursue constitutional change.
On 8 Feb 2026, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi publicly ruled out “zero enrichment,” hardening Iran’s stance just two days after the first indirect U.S.–Iran nuclear meeting in Oman and amid a visible U.S. military build-up.
On the night of 3-4 Feb 2026, hours before U.S.–mediated peace negotiations were to restart, Moscow unleashed the largest airborne strike of the war—70-plus missiles and roughly 450 drones aimed at Ukraine’s power grid—abruptly ending the week-long pause brokered by President Trump.
After U.S. envoys met Iran’s foreign minister in Muscat on 6 Feb 2026, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu pulled his White House visit forward a week to lobby President Trump against a nuclear-only deal.
Within 48 hours (Feb 6-7 2026) President Trump both signed a US$1.15 b Taiwan security appropriation and issued an “America First Arms Transfer Strategy,” clearing procedural hurdles and signalling a pending arms package that could reach US$20 b.
On 6 Feb 2026, one day after New START lapsed, Washington publicly alleged Beijing carried out a covert, yield-producing nuclear explosion in June 2020 and demanded that any successor arms pact become a US-Russia-China agreement.
Four days after a U.S. F-35C downed an Iranian drone near the USS Abraham Lincoln, envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi in Muscat on 6 Feb 2026 for the first Oman-based negotiating round since the June 2025 war.
On 4-5 Feb 2026, Russian and Ukrainian envoys, joined for the first time by NATO’s SACEUR, met for a two-day U.S.-mediated session in Abu Dhabi even as Moscow’s forces intensified attacks, culminating in a nationwide power-grid bombardment on 7 Feb.
At 00:00 GMT on 5 Feb 2026 the New START arms-control pact expired for lack of a signed extension, while negotiators in Abu Dhabi failed to clinch a formal deal, leaving both powers legally unconstrained for the first time in 54 years.
On 4 Feb 2026 Xi Jinping first spent 85 minutes online with Vladimir Putin deepening strategic-energy alignment, then hours later told Donald Trump China would markedly boost U.S. soybean imports—signalling Beijing’s bid to hedge by tightening ties to both its chief energy supplier and its chief export market in one calendar day.
On 3 Feb 2026, only four days into a U.S-announced one-week pause, Moscow resumed large-scale missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s power grid, crippling heating in sub-zero weather while negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. convened in Abu Dhabi.
At 00:00 GMT on 5 Feb 2026 the New START accord lapsed, removing the last legally binding limits on how many strategic nuclear warheads the United States and Russia may deploy.
On 5 Feb 2026, Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev announced “positive movement” toward a Ukraine peace settlement and confirmed imminent Russia-Ukraine-U.S. negotiations in Abu Dhabi, marking the first publicly acknowledged advance since 2024’s stalled cease-fire draft.
On 4 Feb 2026, after Xi Jinping warned Donald Trump that Taiwan is the “most important issue” and urged restraint on U.S. arms sales, governments in Taipei, Canberra and Ottawa publicly weighed or defended deeper cooperation with Taiwan, signalling push-back against Beijing’s pressure.
On 3 Feb 2026 Tehran and Washington accepted Turkey’s proposal for face-to-face nuclear negotiations on 6 Feb in Istanbul, with Iran publicly instructing its foreign minister to attend and regional states invited as observers.
On 3 Feb 2026 the White House confirmed that envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will attend a second round of U.S.–Russia–Ukraine peace talks in Abu Dhabi scheduled for 4-5 February, following an inaugural session in late January.
In a 28 January 2026 memo to all 193 member states, UN chief António Guterres warned the organisation will be unable to pay its regular bills by July unless massive arrears are settled or its refund-on-surplus rule is scrapped.
On 29 Jan 2026 President Trump signed an executive order declaring Cuba a national-security “emergency” and empowering U.S. agencies to slap extra tariffs on imports from any country—chiefly Mexico—that continues sending crude or refined products to the island.
Washington and Tehran agreed to hold their first direct nuclear negotiations since 2025 in Istanbul on Friday, even as the U.S. dispatches an aircraft-carrier strike group toward Iran and President Trump warns that "bad things" loom without a deal.
On 1 Feb 2026 Israel activated a EU–Egypt monitored “pilot” at Rafah, reinstating strictly vetted pedestrian traffic for the first time since it seized the crossing in May 2024.
Between 28-29 Jan 2026, Washington surged the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier group into the Arabian Sea and President Trump publicly warned Tehran to accept a ‘fair, equitable’ no-nuke pact or face a U.S. attack “far worse” than last June’s 12-day bombing campaign.
For the first time, the Secretary-General formally told all 193 members that the UN will be insolvent within six months unless arrears are cleared or 1940s-era budget rules are rewritten.
On 30 Jan 2026 the Senate passed, 71-29, a five-bill package funding 80 % of federal operations through 30 Sept 2026 plus a two-week continuing resolution for the Department of Homeland Security, ensuring at least a weekend partial shutdown while House members return to vote.
On 30 Jan 2026 Senate negotiators and President Trump carved the Homeland Security budget out of a six-bill package and agreed to fund it only through 14 Feb, but procedural holds and the House’s recess mean the government will still lapse into a partial shutdown at midnight.
On 30 Jan 2026, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer secured 30-day visa-free travel for Britons and halved Scotch whisky duties to 5% during a Beijing visit, even as U.S. President Donald Trump warned the outreach was “very dangerous.”
On 29 Jan 2026, EU foreign ministers unanimously added Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to the bloc’s terrorist list, reversing years of hesitation.
Late on 29 Jan 2026 negotiators split Homeland Security from a six-bill package, locking in full-year funding for 96 % of agencies while keeping DHS on a two-week continuing resolution to avert a weekend shutdown sparked by an ICE shooting.
On 29 Jan 2026, President Trump announced that Vladimir Putin had "agreed" to halt Russian attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities for seven days of forecast −30 °C cold, a step neither the Kremlin nor battlefield activity has yet confirmed.
On 28 Jan 2026 a Learjet 45 carrying Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar crashed while attempting an emergency landing outside Baramati, instantly removing a six-time deputy CM from Maharashtra’s power structure and setting off a statewide shutdown and federal probe.
Between 25–28 Jan 2026, Washington moved the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group into U.S. Central Command waters and President Trump publicly warned Tehran that, without a swift no-nukes deal, the next U.S. assault would eclipse last June’s “Operation Midnight Hammer.”
On 28 Jan 2026 Ajit Pawar’s Learjet 45 slammed short of Baramati’s Runway 11 during a second approach in marginal visibility, killing all five aboard and triggering an AAIB probe into VIP-flight safety at India’s non-instrumented airstrips.
On 27 Jan 2026 Washington moved the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier group into Middle-East waters and launched a regional Air Force drill, giving President Trump ready strike options against Tehran’s protest crackdown.
On 28 Jan 2026, six-time Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, 66, and four others died when their Mumbai-to-Baramati Learjet 45 overshot the runway and exploded, leading the state to declare three days of official mourning.
Over the 24–27 January weekend, a coast-to-coast blizzard/ice storm evolved into a lethal cold snap, raising confirmed deaths to roughly 30 and leaving more than half-a-million customers—mainly in Tennessee and Mississippi—without electricity as sub-zero air lingered.
Zelenskyy announced in Vilnius that a bilateral U.S. security-guarantee agreement for Ukraine has been finalized and now awaits only the date and place for signature after the inaugural Ukraine-Russia-U.S. negotiating round in Abu Dhabi produced limited but continuing dialogue.
On 26 Jan 2026 the USS Abraham Lincoln and its escorts officially entered U.S. Central Command waters, the first carrier in the Gulf region since Oct 2025, giving President Trump an immediate strike option while he publicly claims Tehran "wants to talk."
On 26 Jan 2026 the IDF recovered and repatriated police officer Ran Gvili’s body—the last of 251 Oct-7 hostages—thus completing phase-one of the U.S.-brokered truce and removing Israel’s stated block on reopening Gaza’s Rafah crossing.
On 23-24 Jan 2026, Ukrainian, Russian and U.S. military-diplomatic teams met face-to-face in Abu Dhabi for the first time since the 2022 invasion, sketched provisional cease-fire parameters and agreed to reconvene on 1 Feb 2026.
On 24-25 Jan 2026 Beijing announced corruption probes into CMC vice-chair Zhang Youxia and Joint Staff chief Liu Zhenli, abruptly stripping the PLA’s top body to just two members and ending Zhang’s decades-long dominance.
On 22 Jan 2026 the United States’ one-year notice matured, formally severing its membership and funding to the World Health Organization and forcing WHO governance bodies to open legal and budgetary reviews next month.
On 22 Jan 2026, the Kremlin scheduled a Moscow meeting between Vladimir Putin and U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, signalling that negotiations to end the four-year Ukraine war have narrowed to one unresolved territorial clause in a 20-point cease-fire blueprint.
Two days of first US-mediated, face-to-face Russia-Ukraine negotiations (23-24 Jan 2026) adjourned in Abu Dhabi with an agreement to reconvene next week, hours after Moscow unleashed 375 drones and 21 missiles that blacked out 1.2 million Ukrainian buildings.
On 22 Jan 2026 Washington formally ended its 78-year WHO membership, executing President Trump’s 2025 order and cutting all U.S. funds and staff from the agency.
On 23–24 Jan 2026, Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. negotiators hold their first three-way session in Abu Dhabi, but talks hinge on Moscow’s ultimatum that Kyiv cede the final 5,000 km² of Donetsk it still controls.
During the Jan 20-24 2026 World Economic Forum, President Trump publicly revoked Canada’s invitation to his self-styled “Board of Peace,” dangled and withdrew new European tariffs, and warned Denmark to accept U.S. control of Greenland, jolting allies and fuelling talk of a collapsing rules-based order.
On 22 Jan 2026, Zelenskyy disclosed that U.S., Russian and Ukrainian negotiators will meet 23-24 Jan in the UAE—the first formal three-party talks since Russia’s full invasion in Feb 2022.
On 18-19 Jan 2026, after Syrian troops overran Tabqa, Raqqa’s outskirts and key Deir al-Zor oilfields, President Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi agreed to an immediate nationwide cease-fire that folds the U.S-backed Kurdish-led forces into state security structures and hands Damascus control of northeast Syria.
On 22 Jan 2026 the Wall Street Journal disclosed that, fresh from the 3 Jan seizure of Nicolás Maduro, U.S. officials have begun courting Cuban insiders to depose President Miguel Díaz-Canel and dismantle 67-year Communist rule before 31 Dec 2026.
Between 16–19 Jan 2026, President Trump revealed a seven-member executive board for a new Gaza “Board of Peace” and circulated a charter offering permanent seats to any country that wires $1 billion within the first year.
Before dawn on 20–21 Jan 2026, Israeli police and Land Authority crews seized and started bulldozing UNRWA’s East Jerusalem headquarters, enforcing a 2024 Knesset law that outlawed the U.N. refugee agency inside territory Israel claims.
On 22 Jan 2026, Donald Trump cancelled 10% tariffs set for 1 Feb on eight European NATO members after he and Secretary-General Mark Rutte agreed in Davos to a still-undefined, permanent “framework” giving the U.S. expanded security and mineral rights in Greenland and the wider Arctic.
On 19 Jan 2026, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced she will dissolve the Lower House on 23 Jan and hold Japan’s first winter general election in 36 years on 8 Feb, gambling her new premiership on converting a 78 % personal approval surge into a stable parliamentary majority.
At dawn on 20 Jan 2026 Israeli security forces seized the long-vacant UNRWA compound in Sheikh Jarrah, raised Israel’s flag, and started bulldozing the buildings—marking the first time a UN facility in Jerusalem has been physically dismantled since the Knesset outlawed the agency in Oct 2024.
On 20 Jan 2026 the BJP’s 5,700-member electoral college confirmed Bihar MLA Nitin Nabin as national president after an uncontested nomination process completed the previous day, ending J.P. Nadda’s six-year tenure.
On 16 Jan 2026 President Ahmed al-Sharaa signed Decree 13 legally reversing the 1962 Hasaka census by restoring citizenship to Kurds and elevating Kurdish to co-national-language, immediately followed by a Syrian army push that triggered the SDF’s agreement to withdraw east of the Euphrates the next morning.
Between 15–17 Jan 2026, Tehran’s security forces—shielded by an eight-day internet blackout—used lethal force and mass arrests to silence the country’s biggest protests since 1979, then paused hundreds of slated executions when U.S. military threats and Gulf mediation raised the stakes.
In the early hours of 20 January 2026, a mixed missile-and-drone barrage from Russia disabled Kyiv’s district-heating network again, stripping warmth from 5,635 apartment blocks and severing water to the city’s Left Bank only eleven days after engineers had largely repaired the previous outage.
On 17 Jan 2026, Ayatollah Khamenei publicly acknowledged “several thousand” protesters killed since 28 Dec unrest and blamed the U.S., triggering President Trump’s most explicit call for “new leadership in Iran” and a U.S. military buildup in the Gulf.
On 14 Jan 2026, Donald Trump and interim Venezuelan president Delcy Rodriguez spoke for the first time since U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro, opening direct negotiations on oil, trade and security after weeks of open conflict.
By 17 Jan 2026 the largest anti-regime protests since 1979 vanished from Iran’s streets after security forces killed at least 3,428 people during an eight-day nationwide internet blackout, prompting Washington—prodded by Saudi-led diplomacy—to shelve plans for immediate military action.
In mid-January 2026 the White House will trigger phase two of the Gaza cease-fire by naming an international “Board of Peace,” led on the ground by ex-UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov, and a Palestinian technocrat committee expected to replace Hamas civil rule.
By 17 Jan 2026, the nationwide demonstrations that erupted on 8 Jan had largely vanished as security forces killed thousands and enforced an unprecedented week-long internet shutdown, re-establishing regime control on the streets.
On 17 Jan 2026 the White House publicly released the first seven members of President Trump’s new U.S.–chaired “Board of Peace,” formally activating the second phase of his 20-point Gaza plan by assigning specific outsiders—none from Gaza’s elected bodies—to supervise reconstruction and demilitarisation.
On 12–13 Jan 2026, with verified protest deaths surpassing six hundred, President Trump cancelled diplomacy and publicly vowed "very, very powerful" attacks unless the Iranian regime halts the crackdown, while Israel lined up behind regime change.
On 15 Jan 2026 the State Department ordered consulates to stop issuing immigrant (green-card) visas to applicants from 75 named countries starting 21 Jan 2026 while it re-writes screening rules.
On 11 Jan 2026 Hamas formally told its Gaza ministries to ready a transfer of all authority to a non-partisan Palestinian technocratic committee envisioned in the U.S.–brokered cease-fire, paving the way for the next phase of the deal.
On 12 Jan 2026, Donald Trump publicly declared himself “Acting President of Venezuela” on Truth Social, following a 3 Jan U.S. raid that removed Nicolás Maduro and left competing claims to power.
From 10–12 Jan 2026, rights monitors doubled the known casualty count of Iran’s protests to above 500 and President Trump openly threatened “very strong” military action while claiming Tehran is seeking talks.
On 14 Jan 2026 the State Department ordered consulates worldwide to stop issuing immigrant visas to nationals of 75 countries on ‘public-charge’ grounds and simultaneously imposed tougher vetting that lengthens processing for all other applicants, particularly in Asia.
On 14 Jan 2026 President Donald Trump urged Iranians to seize state buildings, slapped a blanket 25 % tariff on all nations trading with Tehran, and warned of possible U.S. strikes if executions of protesters proceed.
After a Saturday call between PM Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Rubio about possible U.S. military action, Iran’s parliament speaker publicly vowed on 11 Jan 2026 to hit Israel and all nearby American installations if Trump orders a strike in response to the widening protests.
On 12 Jan 2026, President Trump announced an immediate 25% U.S. tariff on any nation doing business with Iran, escalating pressure just as at least 648 people had been killed during 16 days of anti-government protests under a nationwide internet blackout.
After the Justice Department issued grand-jury subpoenas to Chair Jerome Powell on 11 Jan 2026, Republican senators Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski announced they will freeze confirmation of any Trump Federal Reserve nominees until the probe ends.
On 12 Jan 2026, President Trump publicly vowed the U.S. would obtain Greenland “one way or the other,” forcing NATO allies into emergency negotiations on an Arctic defense plan to avert a rupture of the alliance.
After two weeks of nationwide demonstrations, activist counts showed fatalities exceeding 500 and prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to convene a Jan 13, 2026 briefing on potential military, cyber and sanctions responses—moving the unrest from a domestic crisis to an international flashpoint.
Between 11–12 Jan 2026, Reza Pahlavi broke with past non-violent rhetoric, calling from exile for citizens to take control of urban hubs and signalling his imminent return while rights groups reported the nationwide uprising’s fatalities exceeding 530.
On 11 Jan 2026 London and Berlin confirmed they are drafting a joint NATO deployment to Greenland, scrambling European forces into the Arctic hours after President Trump publicly threatened to seize the island to block Russia and China.
In the early hours of 9 Jan 2026, Russia launched its rarely-deployed Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile at a site in Lviv Oblast, invoking a contested ‘drone attack on Putin’s residence’ as pretext and injecting a strategic weapon into the conflict while Paris peace talks were under way.
On 9 Jan 2026, a State Department team landed in Caracas and both governments agreed to begin negotiations to reopen embassies, prompting President Trump to shelve a planned second military strike after Venezuela’s interim leader freed political prisoners.
During the first week of Jan 2026, Israeli forces advanced several neighbourhoods east of Gaza City, lifting their front beyond the informal ‘yellow line’ so that 50-plus % of Gaza is now under direct occupation, even as diplomats scramble to reopen the Rafah gate in both directions under U.S.–Egypt-Qatar pressure.
On 9 Jan 2026, Moscow fired a single Mach-10 Oreshnik ballistic missile from Kapustin Yar at Lviv Oblast during a 242-drone, 36-missile night barrage—the weapon’s first appearance in 14 months and the closest strike yet to NATO territory.
On 8 Jan 2026 Zelenskyy announced the draft bilateral security-guarantee treaty with the United States was 100 % written and only awaits President Trump’s signature, while Russia simultaneously rejected the plan’s European peacekeeping element.
On 9 Jan 2026, Iran’s government cut nationwide internet and phone links and intensified force against demonstrators, after nearly two weeks of unrest that has left over 40 dead and triggered explicit U.S. threats to intervene.
On 8 Jan 2026 President Trump signed a memorandum directing federal agencies to end U.S. membership and funding in 66 multilateral bodies effective immediately.
On 9 Jan 2026 Moscow launched its nuclear-capable Oreshnik IRBM at an infrastructure site near Lviv, marking the weapon’s second-ever combat use just hours after rejecting a Western troop-deployment proposal for post-war Ukraine.
Within 48 hours of Nicolás Maduro’s 3 Jan 2026 capture, at least sixteen U.S-sanctioned oil tankers simultaneously left Venezuelan ports—many spoofing identities or switching off transponders—in a coordinated bid to outrun President Trump’s December 16 naval blockade.
On 7 Jan 2026, President Donald Trump ordered all federal agencies to end participation and funding for 31 UN bodies and 35 other multilateral groups, marking the largest single-day U.S. withdrawal from international institutions in modern history.
On 6–7 Jan 2026, 35 nations in Paris declared that security protocols for Ukraine are "largely finished," pairing a 15-year U.S. guarantee with European troop deployments and a U.S-led cease-fire monitor once fighting stops.
In an overnight 3‒4 Jan 2026 raid, U.S. special forces seized Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in Caracas and delivered him to Brooklyn to stand trial under a newly unsealed four-count narco-terrorism indictment.
On 6 Jan 2026, 30-plus ‘Coalition of the Willing’ states—including the UK and France, which pledged ground troops—signed a Paris statement establishing a U.S-monitored, multinational security force that would deploy inside Ukraine once a ceasefire with Russia is in place.
On 7 Jan 2026 Paris disclosed that the three EU governments will meet the same day to craft a joint response in case President Trump follows through on White House-floated military options to acquire Greenland.
Around 02:00 a.m. on 3 Jan 2026, at least seven blasts hit two key military sites in Caracas, prompting President Nicolás Maduro to invoke a state of emergency and accuse Washington of carrying out air-and-missile attacks.
Before dawn on 3 Jan 2026 U.S. special-operations forces extracted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from Caracas to New York, instantly toppling the figurehead and forcing Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez to assume power while Washington hints it will govern Venezuela’s oil-rich state.
In a 3 Jan 2026 pre-dawn raid dubbed “Operation Absolute Resolve,” U.S. air-strikes hit Caracas and troops extracted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife to New York, where Trump said Washington would administer Venezuela and tap its oil.
In the predawn hours of 3 Jan 2026, more than 150 U.S. aircraft supported special-forces troops who seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas and delivered him the same day to the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York—the first time a sitting head of state has been brought to U.S. soil for criminal trial.
On 4 Jan 2026, North Korea unleashed multiple ballistic and hypersonic missiles that flew 900-1,000 km just hours before South Korean President Lee Jae-Myung departed for a state visit to Beijing, abruptly escalating regional tensions.
On 3 Jan 2026, a 30-minute U.S. operation codenamed “Absolute Resolve” air-struck Caracas, extracted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady-MP Cilia Flores, and Trump immediately announced Washington would administer Venezuela until a future hand-over.
On 3 Jan 2026, during a Kyiv meeting with 18 visiting European security advisers, President Zelenskyy insisted that British and French forces be deployed to Ukraine immediately after any cease-fire, making their boots-on-the-ground presence a pre-condition for finalising a 20-point peace deal and an $800 billion reconstruction pact to be endorsed at a Paris summit days later.
On 3 Jan 2026 U.S. aircraft and special forces struck multiple Venezuelan sites, seized President Nicolás Maduro, and flew him to New York to face narcotics-terrorism charges, thrusting Washington into de-facto control of Caracas and igniting global backlash.
On 1 Jan 2026 Admiral Igor Kostyukov passed a recovered drone navigation controller to a U.S. military attaché, asserting its logs prove Ukraine’s 91-drone swarm sought to hit President Putin’s lakeside estate—an assertion immediately contradicted by U.S. intelligence.
Before dawn on 3 Jan 2026, a string of explosions near Venezuelan military sites pushed President Nicolás Maduro to invoke a nationwide state-of-emergency decree and mobilize forces, blaming ordered U.S. strikes.
In an early-morning Truth Social post on 2 Jan 2026, Donald Trump said the U.S. would militarily defend Iranian protesters if Tehran used lethal force, prompting Iran’s top security chief Ali Larijani to declare all American bases in the region “legitimate targets.”
In the final week of 2025 Beijing ran its largest ever blockade-style exercise around Taiwan, and on 1 Jan 2026 President Lai responded with a public call to pass a stalled US$40 bn defense budget and fortify deterrence.
On 2 Jan 2026, minutes after doctors cleared him from week-long hernia and hiccup surgeries, Jair Bolsonaro was driven from Brasília’s DF Star hospital back to the Federal Police headquarters to resume a 27-year coup-plotting sentence, after Justice Alexandre de Moraes rejected his “humanitarian” house-arrest request.
On 1 Jan 2026 the unrest that began over Iran’s free-falling rial left at least six protesters and one Basij member dead as the demonstrations spread from Tehran’s closed Grand Bazaar to provincial towns like Lordegan, Azna and Kuhdasht.
Between 29–31 Dec 2025 the PLA staged its widest live-fire drills to date around Taiwan, pushing rockets inside the 24-nm zone and spurring President Lai’s 1 Jan 2026 vow for a US$40 billion defence build-up as Lithuania, Australia, New Zealand and others lodged formal protests.
A Saudi coalition strike on Emirati-supplied weapons in Mukalla on 31 Dec 2025 prompted Yemen’s government to order—and Abu Dhabi to begin—a full UAE military withdrawal within 24 hours, fracturing the once-united anti-Houthi alliance.
After the rial slid past 1.4 million per U.S. dollar this week, bazaar strikes snowballed into four straight days of anti-regime protests across at least eight provinces, leading Tehran to sack its central-bank governor and leaving the first confirmed security-force fatality.
On 30 Dec 2025 the Kremlin alleged that 91 Ukrainian drones were shot down en route to President Putin’s Valdai residence and said Russia will now stiffen its stance in U.S-brokered peace negotiations—an accusation Kyiv rejects as fabricated.
On 30 Dec 2025 Malaysia cleared U.S. robotics firm Ocean Infinity to restart a drone-led search in a newly modelled 6,000-sq-mile patch of the southern Indian Ocean for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the first sustained hunt since 2018.
On 29 December 2025, China launched its largest joint exercise to date—‘Justice Mission 2025’—surrounding Taiwan with 14+ warships and 89 aircraft in live-fire zones announced only 24 hours earlier, explicitly framing the action as retaliation for Washington’s mid-December $11.1 billion arms package to Taipei.
Following their 29 Dec 2025 meeting in Florida, President Zelenskyy said Kyiv and Washington are 90 percent aligned on an 18-of-20-point draft deal with Moscow, leaving only the fate of occupied regions and security guarantees unresolved.
On 27 Dec 2025, Ursula von der Leyen hosted a multi-leader teleconference with Presidents Trump and Zelensky, aligning EU and North-American positions hours before the two presidents’ 28 Dec face-to-face talks in Florida on a potential Ukraine peace deal.
On 29 Dec 2025, China’s Eastern Theatre Command began multi-service exercises that ring Taiwan with five exclusion zones, explicitly rehearsing port blockades just days after Washington approved its largest-ever $11.1 billion weapons package for Taipei.
On 29 Dec 2025 Beijing began a coordinated land-sea-air exercise spanning five announced zones around Taiwan, running 08:00-18:00 on 30 Dec and featuring live ammunition.
On 28 Dec 2025, after a 75-minute pre-call with Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Donald Trump met Volodymyr Zelensky in Florida and declared negotiations were in their “final stages,” with no deadline but an aim to settle before year-end.
On 27 Dec 2025, President Masoud Pezeshkian publicly stated on Ayatollah Khamenei’s website that Iran is already in a full-scale, multifront war against the United States, Israel and key European powers.
On 24-25 Dec 2025, President Zelensky publicly detailed a U.S.–brokered 20-point plan—seeking demilitarized zones in Donbas, EU accession guarantees, and NATO-style security pledges—and transmitted it to the Kremlin, which immediately signaled it would demand major changes.
On 27 December 2025, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed a declaration granting full diplomatic recognition to Somaliland—marking the first UN-member state to do so—in a deal reportedly tied to Somaliland accepting displaced Gazans and hosting Israeli facilities.
On 27 Dec 2025, Israel signed a mutual declaration with Somaliland’s president formally treating the break-away Horn-of-Africa territory as an independent state—the first UN member to do so.
In the early hours of 27 Dec 2025 Russian cruise and ballistic missiles hit Kyiv less than 48 hours before President Volodymyr Zelensky’s scheduled Florida meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump to final-ise a 90 %-done, U.S.-brokered 20-point cease-fire plan.
On 27 Dec 2025 Pyongyang published Kim’s New-Year message to Vladimir Putin proclaiming that 2025 cemented the two states’ bond through North Korean troops’ bloodshed while fighting for Russia in the Ukraine war.
On 25 Dec 2025 Kyiv executed its farthest-reaching, coordinated barrage of Storm Shadow missiles and long-range drones, igniting three major Russian energy hubs up to 1,400 km inside Russia.
On 22 Dec 2025 Israel’s security cabinet legalized 19 settlement outposts—two of them dismantled in the 2005 “disengagement”—pushing the tally of new settlements under the current coalition to 69.
Between 22-25 Dec 2025, President Zelensky announced that a full 20-point peace framework with U.S./EU security guarantees is complete and, for the first time, offered to withdraw Ukrainian troops to create a demilitarised strip in Donetsk if Russia does the same.
On 24 Dec 2025, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed envoy Kirill Dmitriev delivered a post-Miami briefing on a draft 20-point U.S.–Ukraine peace plan and said Moscow will now craft its formal response while keeping negotiations confidential.
On 24 Dec 2025 President Zelenskyy publicised a U.S.–negotiated 20-point cease-fire draft that, for the first time, offers a mutual troop pull-back and international buffer zone in Donbas while dangling shared management of the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, and he sent the text to Moscow for a response.
After three days of U.S.-hosted meetings in Miami (Dec 20-22), Washington, Kyiv and Moscow all labeled the sessions “constructive,” yet Russia’s top aide dismissed Ukraine-European amendments to President Trump’s 20-point cease-fire blueprint, leaving the war’s core issues unresolved.
Israel will place fresh military blueprints on President Trump’s desk next week, arguing that Iran’s post-war missile factories are revving back up and now outweigh the nuclear file.
On 18 Dec 2025 Israel’s finance and defense ministers re-classified Palestinian waste-burning in the West Bank as a national-security threat and approved an open-ended emergency program that lets the IDF confiscate Palestinian garbage trucks, build a new landfill, and bill every shekel to the Palestinian Authority.
Between 21-24 Dec 2025 Kyiv and Washington declared a 20-point cease-fire and security package ‘largely complete’ after Miami talks, with any U.S. guarantees now slated for a Congressional vote.
Three days of U.S.–brokered negotiations in Miami (19-21 Dec 2025) ended with a slimmed-down 20-point cease-fire blueprint, but Moscow immediately signaled the new European-Ukrainian amendments are ‘unacceptable,’ dashing hopes for a holiday breakthrough.
Between 18–21 Dec 2025, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz rolled out an emergency plan targeting Palestinian “environmental terrorism,” then secured cabinet approval for 19 new West Bank settlements, signalling an accelerated annexation push.
On 21 Dec 2025, President Emmanuel Macron signed off on the Porte-Avions Nouvelle Génération program, formally authorising contracts to build an 80,000-ton nuclear aircraft carrier for service in 2038.
Within 72 hours, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz first branded Palestinian waste-burning a national-security threat and then secured cabinet approval for 19 additional Jewish settlements, tightening Israeli governmental control beyond the Green Line.
On 18-19 Dec 2025, China’s Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made back-to-back calls to Bangkok and Phnom Penh, launching parallel diplomatic pushes to reinstall the collapsed July ceasefire ahead of an emergency ASEAN ministers’ meeting slated for 22 December in Kuala Lumpur.
On 21 Dec 2025, India repealed its demand-driven 100-day rural job guarantee and instituted the VB-G RAM G Act, offering 125 days of work but capping budgets, shifting 40 % of costs to states, and letting Delhi pause the scheme for 60 days each year.
On 18 December 2025 EU leaders opened an emergency summit to approve a two-year €90 billion loan to Ukraine secured against €210 billion in frozen Russian central-bank reserves, but the plan hung in the balance amid last-minute Belgian resistance.
Between 17-20 Dec 2025, diplomatic efforts to launch the ceasefire’s second phase hit a wall: Qatar warned in Washington that any Gaza stabilization force must stay neutral, Israel privately pressed Washington for a firm deadline after which it will resume military action if the force fails to disarm Hamas, and fresh Israeli fire that killed five civilians underscored mounting ceasefire breaches.
On 17-18 Dec 2025, President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly told allies that new Russian military orders indicate the Kremlin intends to fight through 2026, and he demanded tougher security, financial, and political measures ahead of an EU summit and ongoing U.S. talks.
On 17 Dec 2025, President Trump escalated U.S. pressure by directing the Navy to stop every U.S-sanctioned tanker entering or leaving Venezuela and simultaneously labeling Nicolás Maduro’s government a “foreign terrorist organization.”
EU leaders convening in Brussels must decide whether to front Ukraine a zero-interest loan backed by the bloc’s €210 billion in immobilised Russian central-bank reserves; Belgium, Italy and five others still balk, but a qualified-majority vote could force the plan through.
A 19 Dec 2025 IPC update removed Gaza’s formal famine designation following a two-month lull in fighting that opened aid corridors, but kept the enclave at “Emergency – Phase 4” and flagged a return to famine if hostilities or imports stall.
During 14-15 Dec 2025 meetings in Berlin, Washington offered Kyiv time-limited, Senate-ratified Article 5-like security guarantees after President Zelenskyy agreed to renounce NATO membership, aiming to unlock a ceasefire with Russia.
After 14-hour talks at the 18-19 Dec 2025 summit, EU leaders dropped the plan to leverage €210 bn in frozen Russian reserves and instead agreed that 24 member states will raise a €90 bn loan for Kyiv, underwritten by the bloc’s common budget.
On 18 Dec 2025 Washington formally notified Congress of an $11.1 billion, eight-item weapons sale to Taiwan, the island’s largest U.S. package to date and the second of Trump’s second term.
On 17 Dec 2025 President Trump directed U.S. naval forces to blockade every sanctioned tanker entering or leaving Venezuela, expanding a Caribbean deployment into an open act of coercive force against Nicolás Maduro’s oil lifeline.
At the 18 Dec 2025 Brussels summit, EU leaders failed to secure unanimous backing for a loan to Kyiv that would be collateralised with the bloc’s €210 billion in frozen Russian central-bank reserves because Belgium demanded open-ended guarantees against legal and retaliatory risk.
On 16 Dec 2025 President Trump signed a proclamation that, effective 1 Jan 2026, slaps full entry bans on five additional countries and partial limits on fifteen others, nearly doubling the roster of nations facing U.S. travel restrictions.
During 14-16 Dec 2025 Berlin negotiations, the Trump administration for the first time offered Kyiv a congressionally-approved mutual-defence pledge, pushing a five-document peace package to "90 % complete" while territorial questions remain unresolved.
On 16 Dec 2025, President Trump directed U.S. forces to enforce a “total and complete blockade” on every U.S-sanctioned tanker entering or leaving Venezuela, one week after seizing a cargo ship off its coast.
On 15-16 Dec 2025 a Ukrainian ‘Sub Sea Baby’ unmanned underwater drone slipped past harbor defenses and detonated beside a moored Russian Project 636.3 submarine in Novorossiysk, the first documented combat strike by a UUV on a submarine; Russia insists the boat is unhurt.
On 15 Dec 2025, U.S. envoys and 11 European leaders gave Kyiv a draft peace package promising ‘Article-5-like’ guarantees—inc. a European-led force operating in-country and an 800,000-person Ukrainian army—while declaring 90 % consensus with Ukraine on ending the war.
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will join Zelenskyy, Macron, Starmer, and Merz in Berlin this weekend to hammer out differences over Kyiv’s newly-revised peace blueprint.
Between 11-14 Dec 2025, President Zelenskyy handed Washington a revised 20-point plan that trades Ukraine’s constitutional bid for NATO membership for legally-binding US-led security guarantees ahead of face-to-face negotiations with Trump envoys in Berlin.
On 11 Dec 2025 Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal publicly offered to store—but not surrender—the group’s weapons, and within hours Israeli officials reiterated that Gaza’s 20-point US peace plan requires Hamas’ complete disarmament before the next phase can start.
On 15 Dec 2025, hours after 15 people were slain at Bondi Beach, PM Anthony Albanese secured state leaders’ agreement to draft nationwide limits on how many firearms a licence holder can keep and to bar non-citizens from holding gun licences.
On 10 Dec 2025 Zelensky opened the first joint session with U.S. envoys to turn a revised 20-point cease-fire outline into an integrated trio of agreements on peace terms, security guarantees, and post-war reconstruction, starting a sprint toward a Christmas deadline pushed by Washington.
On 13 Dec 2025, Thai PM Anutin flatly rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s Truth Social claim of a renewed cease-fire and ordered operations to continue, while new firefights killed four Thai soldiers and sent more civilians fleeing.
In the three days following a still-fragile October ceasefire, Israeli forces killed senior Hamas commander Raed Saad in Gaza City (13 Dec 2025) and separately detained seven-nine Israeli settlers who illegally crossed into northern Gaza to advocate new Jewish settlements (10-11 Dec 2025), signalling renewed Israeli military and civilian activity inside the enclave.
Between 9-12 Dec 2025, President Zelensky confirmed Ukraine has delivered a newly edited 20-point cease-fire draft to Washington while launching parallel negotiations on a U.S./EU security-guarantee treaty and a post-war reconstruction fund.
On 12 Dec 2025 the EU Council used Article 122 to turn the six-month freeze on Russian central-bank assets into a permanent block, clearing the way to leverage the funds as collateral for a “reparations loan” to Ukraine from 2026 onward.
After 11 months underground, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado secretly slipped past 10 regime checkpoints, sailed to Curaçao, and appeared in Oslo on 11 Dec 2025—hours after her daughter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize—publicly confirming U.S. assistance and pledging to return home.
On 11 Dec 2025 Zelenskyy publicly disclosed that Washington’s latest draft peace plan requires a unilateral Ukrainian troop pull-back from Donetsk to form a buffer ‘free economic zone,’ so Kyiv responded with its own 20-point counter-proposal.
On 12 Dec 2025 President Volodymyr Zelensky said any land-for-peace deal with Moscow could go to a national vote, moments after U.S. President Donald Trump gave Kyiv mere “days” to accept a draft accord before Christmas.
On 10 Dec 2025, two US B-52 strategic bombers, escorted by three Japanese F-35s and three F-15s, conducted the first overt allied air-power demonstration since China and Russia’s joint bomber drills two days earlier.
A 7.6-magnitude offshore quake on 8 Dec 2025 forced Japan’s weather agency to invoke, for the first time, a week-long advisory warning 182 municipalities to stay ready for an even larger temblor.
Brussels is racing to invoke emergency Article 122 powers so a qualified-majority vote—expected within days—can freeze €210 billion of Russian central-bank funds indefinitely, sidestepping Hungary’s anticipated veto at the 18 December 2025 EU summit.
Within 24 hours of a Sino-Russian eight-hour bomber circuit around Japan on 9 Dec 2025, the US flew two B-52s with six Japanese fighters over the Sea of Japan, signalling immediate allied deterrence.
On 8 Dec 2025 the White House released a 30-page National Security Strategy that recasts Europe as a fragile partner facing “civilizational erasure,” omits Russia from the threat list, and urges the U.S. to back nationalist forces inside EU states.
On 6–7 Dec 2025, Gaza leader Khalil al-Hayya declared Hamas would transfer its arsenal to a future Palestinian state’s authority — but only once Israel ends all military presence in Gaza and recognises sovereign Palestinian control.
On 6 Dec 2025 two Chinese J-15 fighters from the carrier Liaoning intermittently aimed fire-control radar at Japanese F-15s southeast of Okinawa, prompting Tokyo’s first formal protest over an air-to-air radar lock with China.
On 8–9 Dec 2025 the Israeli army detonated residential blocks and fired artillery and air-strikes across Rafah, Khan Younis and Gaza City, prolonging an uninterrupted run of daily ceasefire violations since the truce began on 10 Oct.
After two radar-lock incidents on 6 Dec 2025 near Okinawa, Japan summoned China’s ambassador on 7 Dec and, within 48 hours, China’s main airlines prolonged no-penalty refunds for Japan flights through 28 Mar 2026.
On 8 Dec 2025 Thailand deployed F-16s and other aircraft to strike at least three Cambodian positions after a dawn firefight killed one Thai soldier and wounded four, effectively ending the U.S.–brokered ceasefire signed only six weeks earlier.
For the first time since the Ukraine war began, Vladimir Putin spent two days (4-5 Dec 2025) in New Delhi, where Narendra Modi publicly reaffirmed defence, energy and trade ties with Russia despite fresh U.S. 50 % tariffs and sanctions threats.
On 6 Dec 2025, a Chinese carrier-borne J-15 twice illuminated Japanese F-15s with fire-control radar southeast of Okinawa, the first such air-to-air radar lock between the two nations, sparking immediate protests from Tokyo.
On 5 Dec 2025 the Court agreed to hear President Trump’s appeal of lower-court rulings that blocked Executive Order 14160, which would deny automatic U.S. citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents who are undocumented or only temporarily present.
Between 2-5 Dec 2025, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held a five-hour closed-door session with Vladimir Putin in Moscow and immediately flew to Florida to brief and negotiate with Kyiv’s Rustem Umerov, opening the first U.S.-brokered round aimed at a cease-fire and long-term security deal for Ukraine.
On 5 Dec 2025 Budapest blocked, with a single veto at the EU ambassadors’ meeting, the Commission’s proposal to issue joint eurobonds, eliminating the unanimity-dependent fallback and steering the bloc toward seizing frozen Russian reserves instead.
On 3 Dec 2025 Israel’s COGAT said the Rafah gate would reopen within “days” only for Gazan civilians to leave into Egypt, reviving the EU-monitored mechanism last used during the January truce.
Between 4–5 Dec 2025, Beijing surged more than a hundred navy and coast-guard vessels from the Yellow Sea to the Philippine Sea, an unprecedented simultaneous deployment that immediately drew official warnings from both Taipei and Tokyo.
On 2 Dec 2025, Vladimir Putin met U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff for roughly five hours in Moscow—the first face-to-face exchange on Washington’s newly-revised 20-point proposal to end the Ukraine war.
The regional death count from last week’s floods and landslides climbed above 1,500 on 4 Dec 2025, prompting Indonesia to launch an investigation into eight companies accused of illegal logging and mining that intensified the disaster.
On 4 Dec 2025, Presidents Félix Tshisekedi and Paul Kagame formally signed the U.S-mediated Washington Accords, committing to a permanent cease-fire and joint economic framework after three decades of conflict.
On 2 Dec 2025, Vladimir Putin met U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and adviser Jared Kushner for nearly five hours in the Kremlin, but both sides left Moscow on 3 Dec with talks deadlocked—especially over Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.
On 3 Dec 2025 the European Commission presented a revised legal mechanism to bankroll a €90 billion, two-year loan for Ukraine by pledging up to €210 billion in Russian state assets—while Belgium, which holds most of the funds, immediately rejected the scheme as too risky.
A Washington Post investigation published 28 Nov 2025 revealed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth verbally ordered SEAL Team 6 to leave no survivors during a 2 Sept Caribbean boat strike, prompting both House and Senate Armed Services Committees within 48 hours to launch formal probes into the operation’s legality.
Following a 28-Nov-2025 Washington Post exposé, the Senate Armed Services Committee launched a bipartisan investigation into claims that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth verbally ordered U.S. forces to kill all 11 occupants of a suspected drug-running boat— including two shipwrecked survivors—during the first strike of Operation Southern Spear on 2 Sep 2025.
On 2 Dec 2025 Belgian federal police, acting on EPPO warrants, arrested former EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, ex-EEAS secretary-general Stefano Sannino and a College of Europe manager over alleged rigging of a 2021-22 tender that handed the €650k EU Diplomatic Academy contract to the College of Europe.
On 28 Nov 2025, President Trump declared via Truth Social that he will issue a “full and complete” pardon to former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández—convicted in U.S. court in 2024—while warning that future U.S. aid hinges on the conservative National Party candidate Tito Asfura winning Honduras’s 30 Nov election.
On 30 Nov 2025, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ukraine’s Rustem Umerov held a four-hour closed-door session in Hallandale Beach that pared back and re-negotiated the contentious U.S.-drafted peace blueprint, ahead of envoy Steve Witkoff’s scheduled Moscow talks.
On 28–29 Nov 2025 Ukrainian ‘Sea-Baby’ naval drones struck and disabled two sanctioned Russian shadow-fleet oil tankers inside Turkey’s exclusive economic zone, the first acknowledged Ukrainian attack on commercial carriers rather than ports or warships.
In a Thanksgiving video call on 28 Nov 2025, President Trump said U.S. forces will shift their anti-drug campaign from maritime strikes to land operations in and around Venezuela “very soon.”
On 28 Nov 2025, President Zelensky accepted the resignation of chief-of-staff Andriy Yermak hours after anti-corruption agents raided Yermak’s Kyiv residence, abruptly removing Ukraine’s lead U.S. peace negotiator amid a widening $100 million Energoatom kickback scandal.
Between 29–30 Nov 2025, officials moved from emergency rescues to debris removal and compensation schemes after monsoon floods and landslides killed more than 400 people across Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Washington on 24 Nov 2025 branded the nebulous Cartel de los Soles a Foreign Terrorist Organization and, within days, sailed the USS Gerald Ford with 15,000 troops to Venezuelan waters while President Trump warned airlines the country’s airspace was “closed.”
Between 26-28 Nov 2025, President Donald Trump declared on Truth Social that South Africa will be excluded from the 2026 G20 in Miami and that U.S. financial support to Pretoria is halted, retaliating for South Africa’s refusal to hand the G20 presidency to a low-level U.S. diplomat and for alleged abuses against white Afrikaners.
Less than a day after aborting the 24 Nov 2025 presidential vote count, the military swore in army chief Gen. Horta Nta Na Man as interim head of state, launching a self-declared 12-month junta transition.
On 28 Nov 2025 Andriy Yermak, President Zelensky’s long-time chief of staff and lead peace negotiator, resigned just hours after anti-corruption agents searched his residence in Kyiv as part of a $100 million Energoatom kickback investigation.
Between 23-25 Nov 2025, a U.S.–written, Russia-friendly 28-point treaty leaked from Geneva prompted an EU counter-proposal and pushed Washington into hush-hush follow-up meetings with Russian envoys in Abu Dhabi, where negotiators trimmed the plan to 19 points.
On 23 Nov 2025 in Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration will amend its 28-point Ukraine peace blueprint—widely criticized as a Russian “wish list”—after a day of talks he called the most productive to date.
Within 48 hours of Beijing informing Tokyo it would suspend imports of Japanese marine products, Taiwan’s leaders publicly urged citizens to visit Japan and buy its goods, with President Lai posting a sushi-lunch photo on 20 Nov 2025.
On 22–23 Nov 2025 the Johannesburg G20 summit adopted its leaders’ declaration and delayed the ceremonial transfer of the 2026 presidency after Washington boycotted the meeting and insisted a low-ranking chargé d’affaires receive the gavel.
On 19 Nov 2025 media leaked a joint back-channel plan, brokered by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Kremlin aide Kirill Dmitriev, that asks President Zelensky to surrender the remaining Donbas, slash Ukraine’s forces by 50 %, and accept curtailed U.S. arms support.
On 22 Nov 2025 Israeli jets and drones hit at least five sites across Gaza, killing 14–24 people within hours of the IDF reporting that armed Palestinians had crossed the “yellow line” buffer, the sharpest spike in violence since the U.S.-brokered truce began on 10 Oct.
On 23 Nov 2025 Washington’s top diplomat Marco Rubio and the State Department publicly rejected senators’ claims that a leaked 28-point pact was a Russian draft, insisting the United States wrote the proposal with input from Kyiv and Moscow.
On 20–21 Nov 2025 Israeli troops pushed up to 300 m beyond the ceasefire demarcation and air-strikes killed 32–33 Palestinians, marking the heaviest single-day toll since the U.S.-brokered Oct 10 ceasefire and throwing the truce into doubt.
Hours after a US- and E3-backed IAEA Board resolution demanding wider inspections passed on 21 Nov 2025, Tehran officially voided the two-month-old Cairo Agreement that had reopened limited monitoring of its nuclear sites.
On 20 Nov 2025, U.S. envoys delivered a Russia-consulted, 28-point cease-fire proposal to President Zelensky that conditions peace on Ukraine ceding occupied territories and halving its armed forces.
On 21 Nov 2025 a confidential U.S. draft delivered to Kyiv surfaced, revealing President Trump’s 28-point cease-fire plan that would give Ukraine a 10-year, Article-5-style U.S.–EU security guarantee in return for Kyiv’s formal surrender of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk and a freeze of front lines in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
On 17 Nov 2025 the Security Council adopted a U.S.–drafted resolution endorsing Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza cease-fire blueprint and authorising a multinational force and “Board of Peace,” formally internationalising Gaza’s security and reconstruction for the first time.
On 17 Nov 2025 the Security Council adopted Resolution 2803, endorsing Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan and handing a U.S.–chaired Board of Peace a renewable two-year mandate to run and police the enclave.
During Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s 18-19 Nov 2025 Washington visit, President Trump simultaneously signed a civilian-nuclear pact, approved the sale of 48 F-35 jets, and elevated Saudi Arabia to “major non-NATO ally,” even as his family firm haggled for naming rights on a $63 billion Diriyah real-estate project.
On 17 Nov 2025 Israel acknowledged a drone strike that killed Hezbollah operative Muhammad Ali Shuweikh in Mansouri, the first publicly confirmed lethal hit since last year’s Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, and followed up with evacuation warnings for nearby villages.
In an extraordinary 13-0 vote on 18 Nov 2025, the Security Council adopted Resolution 2803, giving legal cover to a U.S.–written plan that installs an International Stabilization Force and a Trump-chaired “Board of Peace” to run post-war Gaza.
On 17 Nov 2025 the UN Security Council adopted a U.S.-drafted resolution backing Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza blueprint and authorising a multinational Stabilisation Force through 2027.
On 19 Nov 2025 Axios revealed that White House envoy Steve Witkoff, after weeks of hush-hush meetings with Kremlin negotiator Kirill Dmitriev, circulated a 28-point roadmap for a Russia-Ukraine cease-fire and began quietly briefing Kyiv and European governments.
On 17 Nov 2025 the UN Security Council adopted a U.S. resolution creating a Trump-chaired “Board of Peace” and authorising an international force to police and rebuild Gaza until 2027.
On 17 Nov 2025 Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal sentenced exiled former premier Sheikh Hasina to death for ordering the 2024 protest crackdown and immediately asked New Delhi—where she has lived since 5 Aug 2024—to surrender her under the 2013 extradition treaty.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will announce on Monday that successful asylum seekers will receive only 1–2-year permits, tougher ECHR rules, and wider automatic deportations—scrapping the presumption of permanent settlement.
On 16 Nov 2025, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly reaffirmed Israel’s categorical opposition to any Palestinian state just one day before the UN Security Council votes on a U.S.–drafted Gaza resolution that for the first time embeds a "credible pathway" to Palestinian statehood.
On 16 Nov 2025, voters rejected President Daniel Noboa’s four-question referendum, preserving the 2008 constitutional ban on foreign military bases and sinking his broader institutional reforms.
On 17 Nov 2025, President Zelensky’s ninth wartime trip to France culminated in talks with President Macron on a decade-long package of Rafale jets, SAMP/T systems and drone co-production, locking France into Ukraine’s defence for the long haul.
On 12-13 Nov 2025 Kyiv removed Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko and Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk after a 15-month NABU investigation exposed a $100 million kickback racket inside state nuclear operator Energoatom.
In the early hours of 14 Nov 2025, Russia executed its largest single-night aerial strike of the war, saturating Kyiv with hundreds of drones and missiles that overwhelmed air-raid sirens and ignited fires across nine districts.
On 13–14 Nov 2025 the Pentagon activated Operation Southern Spear and briefed President Trump on newly updated land-strike options against Venezuela, escalating a months-long maritime drug-interdiction campaign into a potential shooting war.
On 13–14 Nov 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly re-branded and escalated ongoing U.S. strikes by declaring “Operation Southern Spear,” pairing the 20th lethal boat strike with the imminent arrival of the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier group off Venezuela.
During the night of 13-14 Nov 2025, Russia launched roughly 430 drones and 18 missiles at Kyiv and other cities while, almost simultaneously, Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s Novorossiysk Black Sea export terminal, igniting critical fuel infrastructure.
On 11 Nov 2025, the Ford strike group abruptly shifted from the Mediterranean into U.S. Southern Command waters, creating the region’s biggest U.S. naval buildup since 1989 and igniting fears of imminent strikes on Venezuela.
On 14 Nov 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth formally re-branded the two-month U.S. Caribbean strike campaign as “Operation Southern Spear,” signaling an expanded, carrier-backed offensive against alleged narco-terrorists in Latin America.
On 13 Nov 2025 EU finance chiefs and Commission president von der Leyen named a loan securitised by roughly €140 billion in immobilised Russian central-bank assets as their preferred, but not yet unanimous, method to fund Ukraine’s 2026-27 budget gap.
Late on 13 Nov 2025, lawmakers sent — and President Trump immediately signed — a continuing-resolution/minibus package that reopens the federal government after a record 43-day closure and keeps agencies funded until 30 Jan 2026.
A bipartisan Senate vote late 11 Nov cleared a short-term funding bill through 30 Jan, breaking the impasse that has kept the federal government closed for 42 days.
On 11 Nov 2025 Washington redirected its newest aircraft carrier from the Mediterranean into the Caribbean, swelling the U.S. flotilla around Venezuela to the largest since 1989 and signaling a possible escalation from offshore boat strikes to land targets.
On 10 Nov 2025 a white Hyundai i20 packed with ammonium-nitrate detonated at 6:55 pm outside Red Fort, killing 12-13 people and prompting the Home Minister to transfer the case to the National Investigation Agency within 24 hours.
In the night of 7-8 Nov 2025 Moscow fired 45 missiles and 458 drones at Ukrainian energy sites, killing 11 and triggering nationwide rolling blackouts, prompting President Zelensky to demand a tougher 20th EU sanctions package within days.
On 11 Nov 2025, the Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group formally joined U.S. Southern Command forces, expanding Washington’s regional footprint to Cold-War levels and sharpening military pressure on Venezuela’s Maduro government.
After Japan’s new PM Sanae Takaichi warned on 7 Nov 2025 that a Chinese wartime blockade of Taiwan could trigger Japan’s collective self-defense, Chinese Consul-General Xue Jian retaliated on 8 Nov with an X post threatening to decapitate her, forcing Tokyo to lodge a formal protest on 10 Nov and hardening tensions between the two powers.
After Trump’s Aug. 15 Alaska summit with Putin—where he dropped a ceasefire‑first demand and entertained ‘Article 5‑like’ guarantees for Ukraine—Zelensky will meet Trump on Aug. 18 accompanied by multiple EU/NATO leaders to counter pressure for territorial concessions.
On 17 Aug 2025, the IDF said it would begin supplying tents via Kerem Shalom to move Gaza City civilians south ahead of a renewed push to seize the city, as a nationwide strike and mass rallies demanded a ceasefire‑for‑hostages deal.
At their 16 Aug 2025 Anchorage meeting, Trump and Putin for the first time outlined a draft deal in which Kyiv would surrender Donetsk and Luhansk while receiving U.S.–led Article-5-style protection and a frozen southern frontline, pending Zelensky’s approval next week.
After nearly three hours of face-to-face negotiations in Alaska on 15 Aug 2025, Presidents Trump and Putin announced only ‘progress’, triggering Zelensky’s acceptance of a Washington meeting Monday to explore a U.S.–Russia–Ukraine format.
On 13-14 Aug 2025 Washington and Moscow confirmed a one-on-one Trump-Putin meeting at an Alaska air base on 15 Aug to discuss an immediate Ukraine cease-fire, while Ukraine and 31 allies scrambled in parallel calls after learning Zelensky would not be invited.
On 13 Aug 2025 allies learned that President Trump will meet one-on-one with Vladimir Putin in Anchorage on 15 Aug to explore a Ukraine "land-swap" cease-fire, while Kyiv was pointedly left out and European leaders scrambled to shape U.S. views via an emergency video call.
On 13 Aug 2025 Lt-Gen Eyal Zamir formally approved the military’s detailed plan to re-enter and seize Gaza City and adjacent "central camps," moving Israel from bombardment to a scheduled ground takeover.
On 12 Aug 2025, Kim Jong Un told Vladimir Putin North Korea will "fully support all measures" Russia takes under their 2024 mutual-defence pact, just three days before Putin’s face-to-face talks with U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska.
Israel’s security cabinet on 8 Aug 2025 formally authorised a ground push to seize Gaza City, and within 72 hours an IDF air-strike killed five Al Jazeera journalists, triggering a German arms-freeze and an emergency UN session.
On 12 Aug 2025 Israel’s war cabinet confirmed plans to seize Gaza City even as 24 nations publicly warned that famine is unfolding and at least 89 Palestinians were killed in the previous 24 hours.
Miguel Uribe Turbay, wounded at a June 7 Bogotá rally, died early Aug 11 after nine weeks on life support, turning an attempted assassination into Colombia’s first fatal attack on a national candidate since 1990.
