
— "Forced labour in China is enabled through the State-mandated 'poverty alleviation through labour transfer' programme, which coerces Uyghurs and members of other minority groups into jobs in Xinjiang and other regions. [...] Tibetans are also subject to forced labour through similar schemes such as the Training and Labour Transfer Action Plan, with calls for systematic training and transfer of 'rural surplus labourers'. The number of Tibetans affected by labour transfers in 2024 are estimated to be close to 650'000. Tibetans are also reportedly displaced through the 'whole-village relocation' programme which applies coercion to manufacture consent, such as repeated home visits, implicit threats of punishment, banning of criticism, or threats of cutting essential home services. "Between 2000 and 2025 some 3.36 million Tibetans have been affected by government programmes requiring them to rebuild their house for nomads to become sedentary, whilst official statistics say that around 930,000 rural Tibetans have been relocated through either whole village relocation or individual household relocations."
— They also expressed serious concern over goods produced through forced labour which enter global supply chains indirectly via third countries, raising broader questions about the overall effectiveness of targeted trade restrictions and human rights due diligence in the regulation of supply chains.
— Some 35 countries had agreed to sign on to the project, a senior administration official told reporters. Norway and Sweden have indicated that they won't participate, after France also said no. Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said "the time has not yet come to accept the invitation," according to the STA news agency, with the main concern being the board's mandate may be too broad and could undermine international order based on the U.N. Charter.
— "For the United States to stay safe, you need a safe Arctic, a safe Atlantic, and a safe Europe. My predecessors always took the view that they should not comment on [tensions] in public. So, sorry, no comments from me on Greenland. Statements from me will not add anything here."
— When it comes to the Arctic, I think President Trump is right, other leaders in NATO are right: we need to defend the Arctic. We know that the sea lanes are opening up. We know that China and Russia are increasingly active in the Arctic. There's only one country bordering on the Arctic outside NATO, that's Russia. There is a ninth country, which is China, which is increasingly active in the Arctic region.
— "Do you really think that without Donald Trump, eight big economies in Europe, including Spain and Italy and Belgium, Canada, by the way, also outside Europe, would have come to 2% [of GDP on defence] in 2025 when they were only on 1.5% at the beginning of the year? No way. Without Donald Trump, this would never have happened. He has forced us in Europe to step up, to face the consequences that we have to take care more of our own defence."
— Trump "said last night in his presser that he was doubtful whether the Europeans would come to the rescue if Article 5 would be triggered. I tell him: yes, they will. And they did on the 11th of September — 9/11 — in 2001 when, for the first and only time, Article 5 was triggered."
— "In the 1980s in Afghanistan, the Soviets lost 20,000 in 10 years. Now they lose 30,000 in one month [in Ukraine]. Ukraine should be our number one priority, and then we can discuss on all the issues, including Greenland. But it should be Ukraine first because it is crucial for our European and US security. [...] Russia is on a war economy footing. They spend 40% of the state budget on defence."
— Ukraine's Ukrinform news agency said Russian forces dropped 768 guided missiles and high-explosive aerial bombs over the past 10 days in areas of Ukraine's Donetsk region still controlled by Ukrainian authorities, destroying almost all remaining infrastructure, according to the head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, Vadym Filashkin.
— Ukrainian forces attacked a port in the village of Volna in Russia's southern Krasnodar region, killing three people and injuring eight, the regional emergency services task force reported, according to Russia's TASS state news agency. Veniamin Kondratyev, Krasnodar regional governor, said earlier on Telegram that the attack caused four oil storage tanks to become "engulfed in flames".
— A military court in Moscow sentenced an Uzbek man to life in prison after finding him guilty of killing top Russian general Igor Kirillov and his assistant in a Ukraine-backed bomb attack in 2024.
— Sarco's first and only use in Switzerland in September 2024 triggered an international outcry. Police arrested several people, including Florian Willet, CEO of the assisted dying organisation The Last Resort, and opened criminal proceedings for aiding and abetting suicide. Swiss authorities later said the pod was incompatible with Swiss law. Willet was released from custody in December. Soon after, in May 2025, he died by assisted suicide in Germany. Swiss prosecutors have yet to determine whether charges will be laid over the Sarco case. The original device remains seized, though Nitschke says a new version — including a so-called "Double Dutch" pod designed for two people to die together — is already being built.
— "The president of the United States [gave] a virulently racist, insulting, rambling speech in which he complained that people call him a dictator but that 'sometimes you need a dictator'."
— He said that after World War Two "we gave Greenland back to Denmark," adding: "How stupid were we to do that?" But it was not America's to give back.
— I was sitting among the 1,000 or so people in the Davos hall, some of whom were standing in packed aisles. If Trump wanted a raucous applause for his laundry list of accomplishments that he sees as crowning achievements over his first year, he didn't get it [...] — without the applause he is more used to on home soil. The only noise from the audience here was muted, nervous laughter. The biggest laughter came when Trump brought up French President Emmanuel Macron wearing aviator sunglasses at Davos a day earlier: "Those beautiful sunglasses. What the hell happened?" After Greenland, Trump abruptly pivoted to his greatest hits: "rigged elections" and the "crooked media." That left the crowd more confused. Some started looking at their phones. When Trump criticized the fiery Tuesday address of Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney, he delivered perhaps his boldest line: That Canada only exists because of US defense. "Oh wow," someone behind me blurted out. A minute later, a few people started heading for the exits. Later, when Trump started attacking the country [they were in] in, Switzerland, more people streamed out. After Trump said [the Swiss President] "rubbed me the wrong way," there were audible gasps. More audience members left or looked at their phones. At the end, [after he returned to his script] there was applause, with about a third of the audience giving a standing ovation.
— "Under pressure from the White House and State Department, USA House (a church acting as the official US pavilion) is now denying entry to Governor Newsom after Fortune — the official media partner — invited him to speak," the governor's office said.
— Artificial intelligence (AI) has infiltrated nearly every conversation at Davos 2026, rivalling the prominence of traditional hot-button issues such as trade tariffs, international competition, and geopolitical tensions. 'Once in a lifetime opportunity for Europe' — Jensen Huang, Nvidia. "We as a global community have to get to a point where we are using [AI] to do something useful that changes the outcomes of people and communities and countries and industries" — Satya Nadella, Microsoft. The most intelligent entities on the planet can also be the most deluded' — Yuval Harari. 'Not selling chips to China is one of the biggest things we can do' — Dario Amodei, Anthropic. ' More meaningful jobs created' — Demis Hassibis, Google DeepMind. "Many people interact with them with the false belief that they [AI] are like us." — Yoshua Bengio.
— Lutnick was speaking at an invite-only VIP dinner event hosted by billionaire BlackRock boss Larry Fink when a heckler, now identified as climate change advocate and former Vice President Al Gore, started booing the former Cantor Fitzgerald CEO. Gore's reaction came after Lutnick attacked Europe in his remarks, prompting European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde to reportedly walk out of the event.
— "We cannot talk about either climate change or biodiversity loss without talking about microbes, because we need them to keep the ecosystems healthy and working, and we need them to keep the organisms working." These tiny organisms produce as much as 20% of the oxygen in global seas.
— Previously unknown microbial communities growing on Australian tree bark uptake significant sums of methane (a greenhouse gas at least 20 times as powerful as carbon dioxide), along with carbon monoxide and volatile organic chemicals (VOCs), pollutants harmful to human health.
— Interim leader Delcy Rodriguez said the sum would be used to 'stabilize' the foreign exchange market. Before the US incursion on January 3, Venezuela had been forced to offer huge discounts on its crude oil to circumvent a US embargo.
— "These findings offer fresh insights into the lives of Neanderthals. While much of our knowledge comes from permanent settlements in valleys, this study suggests they were also skilled at planning trips. They knew how to prepare for long journeys, what gear they would need and when to move."
— Ideas on the Move - with Gita Gopinath
— New growth prospects
— Closing the AI diffusion divide
— Yuval Noah Harari: 'More intelligence doesn’t mean less delusion'
— Building a business case for nature
— "For many people, this meeting feels out of step with the moment: elites in an age of populism, an established institution in an era of deep institutional distrust," he said. "If WEF is going to be useful going forward, it has to regain that trust." He hinted that the forum, which holds occasional offshoots in China and the Middle East, will add new events "in the places where the modern world is actually built," naming Detroit, Dublin, Jakarta, and Buenos Aires.
— a new series of on-the-move video interviews today, catching up with Davos participants as they travel between panel sessions. First up: social media creators Marina Mogilko, better known as Silicon Valley Girl, and Max Klymenko from the Career Ladder.
— Data and insights on Day 1 of Davos 2026: AI paradoxes, Investing in Blue Foods: Innovation and Partnerships for Impact
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt on finding happiness in an AI age.
— Opening Concert sets the tone for Davos 2026
— Davos 2026 Monday morning media scan
— "This year's World Economic Forum, which starts Monday, underscores a sharp shift for an event long caricatured as a 'woke' talking shop: Climate and diversity have slipped down the agenda, AI and growth are ascendant, and the United States — led by Trump and his inner circle — is set to dominate the stage. That shift coincided with a months-long campaign to land the U.S. president and reassert Davos' relevance after years of drift."
— Those of us who covered Trump's first administration thought we knew what to expect. Boy, were we wrong.
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