Read the daily news to learn English

Kremlin says Putin has been invited to join Trump’s Gaza ‘board of peace’

The Kremlin has announced that Vladimir Putin has been invited to join Donald Trump’s “board of peace”, set up last week with the intention that it would oversee a ceasefire in Gaza. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists on Monday that Russia was seeking to “clarify all the nuances” of the offer with Washington, before giving its response. The claim of an invitation comes with Putin showing no signs of ending his invasion of Ukraine, in which hundreds of thousands have been killed and Russian troops have carried out atrocities against civilians. The Russian president has repeatedly rejected proposals of ceasefire along the current frontlines. The Kremlin also said on Monday that Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev would be attending the World Economic Forum in Davos this week and would meet members of the US delegation there. It is unclear whether those meetings will involve discussions of the Gaza board. The invitation to Putin, which has yet to be confirmed by Washington, raises more questions about the intended agenda for the board. It was originally part of Trump’s ceasefire proposals for the Gaza war, and was supposed to oversee the transition to a lasting peace in the territory and supervise the work of a committee of Palestinian experts, also announced last week, who would take care of the day-to-day running of Gaza. The vaguely described scheme was endorsed in a UN security council resolution in November. The first appointments to the board, announced on Friday, included Trump himself as chair, the former British prime minister Tony Blair and the current US secretary of state, Marco Rubio. Also appointed were Trump’s troubleshooting envoy, the property developer Steve Witkoff, the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and the president of the World Bank, Ajay Banga. It has emerged over the weekend that Trump had also sent invitations to the leaders of states including Argentina, Paraguay, Turkey, Egypt, Canada and Thailand. Belarus announced that its leader, Alexander Lukashenko, had been invited and that he welcomed the invitation. The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, was reportedly approached with an offer of membership last week although was awaiting a formal invitation, and France has said it is also mulling the proposal. The invitation letters included a “charter” saying the board would seek to “solidify peace in the Middle East”, and at the same time “embark on a bold new approach to resolving global conflict”. Each national leader would serve a maximum of three years on the board, unless their governments paid a $1bn (£745m) fee to become permanent member, in an echo of Trump’s elite membership structure for his Mar-a-Lago estate and his golf clubs. It is unclear who would be the recipient of such membership payments and how they would be used. The charter states: “The board of peace is an international organisation that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict.” It adds that the board should have “the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed”, a likely swipe at the UN. In its comment on the board invitation, the French foreign ministry said it was reviewing the proposal of the new body “whose project extends beyond the situation in Gaza”. The French statement “reiterates its attachment to the United Nations charter, [which] remains the cornerstone of effective multilateralism”. The inclusion of Putin in a global body supposed to oversee peace around the world would add considerable weight to longstanding suspicions that Trump leans heavily in the Russian president’s favour in his approach to the Ukraine conflict. At the same time as he was apparently inviting friendly leaders to join the board of peace, Trump also sent a letter to Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, over the weekend, telling him that “considering your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace”. Trump has been escalating pressure on Denmark and the rest of Europe to accept his plans to take over Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, and has imposed punitive measures on European countries who have objected most strenuously to his plan. The UK is one of the targeted countries, and Starmer denounced the tariffs as “completely wrong” on Monday, restating that “any decision on Greenland belongs to people of Greenland and Denmark alone”. However, Starmer did not commit to the imposition of retaliatory tariffs on the US, and downplayed the prospect of Trump using force in Greenland. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, meanwhile suggested that a US takeover of Greenland would cement Trump’s place in the history books. “Here, perhaps, it is possible to abstract from whether this is good or bad, whether it will comply with the parameters of international law or not,” Peskov said, but he added it would “certainly go down in history”.

Tariff row deepens as US treasury secretary warns EU against ‘very unwise’ retaliation – Europe live

Since Bessent mentioned it just now: Trump is expected to speak at Davos at 2.30pm local time on Wednesday (1.30pm UK), so make sure you save the date. Judging by the last few days, it’s likely to be pretty explosive. But be assured: I will obviously bring you all the key lines here on Europe Live on Wednesday.

World’s oldest monastic brewery to be sold as German beer sales slide

The world’s oldest monastic brewery, Germany’s Weltenburger, is being sold to the Munich brewers Schneider Weisse as part of a consolidation in the sector in response to plunging sales. Beer has been brewed at Weltenburg Abbey, a stunning, still active monastery on the banks of the Danube in Bavaria, for nearly 1,000 years. Although the facility is still owned by the Catholic church, the Benedictine monks handed over production of the brand’s award-winning lager and signature dark brews a half century ago to hired staff from the Bischofshof brewery, which will also be sold to Schneider. The diocese of Regensburg and Schneider Weisse agreed on the sale after several years in which Weltenburger’s business was in the red, meaning the church had to inject its own funds to prop it up, local media reported. Till Hedrich, the managing director of both Weltenburger and Bischofhof, said the planned “Bavarian solution” could head off the threat of complete closure or break-up of the breweries by an investor with “no connection to the region”, while preserving an “important piece of Bavarian brewing tradition” in the long run. The financial details of the sale of Weltenburger to Schneider, a comparatively young outfit launched in 1872, have not been released. But the purchase is scheduled to be completed by January 2027 and keep the 21 Weltenburger employees onboard. “In addition to the aspect of tradition, it is very important to us that we can keep at least some of the jobs directly in the region,” Regensburg bishop Rudolf Voderholzer said. Bischofshof, which was founded in 1649 and employs 56 people, is to halt production at the end of the year, when the beer’s brand will move to Schneider. Weltenburger will continue to be made at the historic abbey, while the Regensburg diocese said it was seeking placement for the Bischofshof workers made redundant. Weltenburger brewery said on its website it had withstood “several fires, floods, destruction and secularisation as well as a world war” in which an order to blow up the entire complex was narrowly thwarted. It now welcomes half a million visitors a year. “Those who cannot enjoy themselves will eventually become unbearable to others,” the monastery’s abbot, Thomas M Freihart, said, quoting Friedrich Schiller, as Weltenburger beer celebrated its 975th anniversary last May. He added: “The enjoyment of barley juice should be seen as a gift from God.” German beer sales, however, are on a downward slide, as alcohol consumption falls in many western countries, including Britain. Turnover has shrunk by a quarter in the last 15 years, according to Germany’s main industry body. In 2025, consumption fell by 5m hectolitres, the biggest decline in 75 years. The German beer market has maintained a standout tradition of fealty to regional brands, with a few dozen nationally or globally known names jostling for drinkers against the output of about 1,500 small and medium-sized breweries. In most countries where major brands dominate, they have swallowed smaller historic breweries, with only bespoke craft breweries putting up a modest fight. As a result Germany, perhaps surprisingly given its long and proud tradition, does not have a single brew among the world’s top 10 selling beers. It does, however, still boast the largest number of monastic breweries, nine managed by monks or their employees and a 10th, the Franciscan convent Mallersdorf Abbey, run by nuns who only sell the small surplus of what they do not drink themselves. Beer brewing and consumption are believed to date back to at least the Neolithic period but it was monasteries in the middle ages that turned them into a business. Of late, beer has suffered from an image problem in Germany as consumers turn their backs on alcohol. Often seen as a fusty drink of older generations, classic beers are bound by Germany’s “purity law”, known as the Reinheitsgebot, a medieval food safety rule which deemed that beer could contain nothing other than water, barley, hops and, later, also yeast. It has made innovation a challenge, even as non-alcoholic brews gain in popularity.

Spain train crash: drivers had raised concerns over track before collision that killed 39 – latest updates

The Madrid-Andalucía high-speed line, which was involved in Sunday’s deadly collision, will be closed until at least Friday, according to reports.

Heated rivalry: US to face Denmark in Olympic ice hockey showdown

Their rendezvous may be on Valentine’s Day, but its nature looks likely to be anything but romantic: Denmark and the US, their relations frostier than they have been for decades, are due to face each other in ice hockey next month. A week into the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy, the Danish Lions are scheduled to play Team USA in a preliminary round game at Milan’s Santagiulia ice hockey arena on 14 February, according to the official programme. Bilateral diplomatic ties have been strained to breaking point by Donald Trump’s aggressive drive to seize Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of the kingdom of Denmark, which the US president has said he will take “one way or the other”. The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has criticised what she called “completely unacceptable pressure” from the US, saying: “Borders cannot be changed by force, and small countries should not fear large countries.” Trump doubled down over the weekend, threatening to bring in new tariffs for eight European countries including Denmark until they dropped their objections to his plans, and telling Norway’s prime minister the US needed “complete and total control of Greenland”. Tens of thousand of Danes joined Greenlanders in demonstrating across the kingdom on Saturday in protest at the US president’s territorial ambitions for the Arctic island, holding aloft signs saying “Hands off Greenland” and “Greenland is not for sale”. Ice hockey, a fast-paced, highly physical game in which tempers often flare, is no stranger to politically charged contests. The 1980 Winter Olympics played host to the “Miracle on Ice” in which a young, mainly amateur US team beat the Soviet Union, the four-time defending gold medallists. Sport has often collided with diplomacy, in encounters such as the Hungary-USSR water polo match at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, when the Hungarian team arrived in Australia to be told Soviet tanks had just rolled into Budapest. The two teams met in the semi-final, with Hungary winning 4-0 after an ill-tempered and violent match marked by kicking, gouging and punching from both sides. Five players were ejected and the game became known as the “Blood in the Water” match. Team USA top the 2025 ice hockey world rankings and are considered among the tournament favourites, with Denmark, competing in men’s hockey at the Winter Olympics for only the second time, ranked eighth and widely seen as underdogs. The stakes have also been raised by the inclusion of players from North America’s National Hockey League (NHL) at the Games for the first time since 2014, meaning many of the world’s best players – including several from Denmark – will be competing. The Danish player Nikolaj Ehlers, who plays for the Carolina Hurricanes in the NHL, said it was “a proud moment. It’s going to be a lot of fun.” His compatriot Mads Søgaard from the Ottawa Senators told the NHL website he was “proud to represent my home country”. Ehlers added that Denmark aimed to “do everything we can, and battle as hard as we can – and I think if we do that, then good things will happen”. Neither player commented on any political feelings about the US match.

Kurdish-led forces report clashes with Syrian army at prison holding IS inmates

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has said it is fighting Syrian government forces near a prison holding Islamic State detainees on the outskirts of Raqqa, in what it described as an “extremely dangerous development”. The announcement came less than 24 hours after Syria’s president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, said it had agreed a ceasefire with the SDF and would move to dismantle the group’s decade-long control of the country’s north-east. The SDF said the clashes were in the vicinity of al-Aqtan prison in Raqqa, one of several locations where IS prisoners are held. “The level of threat is escalating significantly, amid attempts by these factions to reach the prison and seize control of it,” the group said. “Such actions could lead to serious security repercussions that threaten stability and open the door to a return of chaos and terrorism.” The Syrian army said in a subsequent statement to the Sana state news agency that three Syrian servicemen had been killed and others wounded in two attacks, without saying where, adding that “some terrorist groups … are attempting to disrupt the implementation” of the ceasefire deal. The sudden defeat of the SDF in Syria’s north raises questions about its ability to retain control of prisons and camps housing tens of thousands of male and female supporters of IS. Two prisons in Raqqa city, Taameer and a juvenile detention centre, where members of IS and others were held, are said by Kurdish sources to have been emptied by locals after the Syrian government’s takeover of Raqqa. Many other IS detainees, originally from 70 countries including the UK, are held further to the north-east in Kurdish majority areas, where many have been detained since the territorial defeat of the terror group in 2019. The bulk of female detainees and their families are being held in al-Hawl, which holds an estimated 26,000, and the smaller Roj camp, where Shamima Begum is housed, while about 4,500 men are held at the Panorama or Gweiran prison. According to the text of the deal, the administration responsible for the IS prisoners and camps, as well as the forces securing them, is to be integrated with the Syrian government, which will assume “full legal and security responsibility” for these facilities. Kurdish-led forces backed by the US rounded up tens of thousands linked to IS after the group’s defeat. Washington later left responsibility for the camps to its Kurdish allies, but as US troops scale back, pressure is growing for Syria’s new authorities to take over. The plan, also part of efforts to fold the Kurdish-led SDF into a reunified national military, is fraught with mistrust as many Kurds fear the government, led by Islamist former rebels once linked to al-Qaida, could loosen controls on IS networks. Among the prisoners and detainees are an estimated 55 men, women and children from the UK, including Begum, many of whom have had their citizenship removed because of their IS links. Reprieve, a UK based human rights campaign group, said the current situation was “a reality check” for Britain’s refusal to repatriate people held in Syria. Other countries, including the US, which has repatriated 28, have gradually brought back many of their citizens who were otherwise held in indefinite detention. Maya Foa, the chief executive of Reprieve, said “volatility of the current situation demands an urgent rethink” and that “the only safe thing to do is bring British nationals home and prosecute the adults where there is a case to answer”. Al-Sharaa’s jihadist career was forged in post-invasion Iraq, where he was drawn into al-Qaida’s orbit through its Iraqi affiliate and precursor of IS. Detained by the US in 2005, he deepened his militant ties and encountered Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who would later dispatch him to Syria to set up Jabhat al-Nusra. The group rose quickly but split from Baghdadi in 2013, prompting Sharaa to first align openly with al-Qaida before severing that link in 2016 to present a more locally rooted insurgency that would ultimately become Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Since toppling Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Syria’s new leaders have struggled to assert full authority over the country. An agreement was reached in March that was to have merged the SDF with Damascus, but it did not gain traction as both sides accused each other of violating the deal.