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Guterres warns of ‘powerful forces’ undermining ‘global cooperation’

The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, will warn on Saturday of the peril posed by “powerful forces lining up to undermine global cooperation” in an address to mark the 80th anniversary of the UN’s first major meeting. Speaking in London’s Methodist Central Hall – the site where eight decades earlier delegates from 51 countries came together for the inaugural session of the general assembly – the UN head will make an impassioned plea for the virtues of multilateralism and international law to prevail during a period of deepening global uncertainty. In January 1946, the general assembly’s first resolution focused on disarmament and the elimination of atomic weapons as a global goal. Now, Guterres warns of a planet facing myriad threats that were then unthinkable, citing the climate crisis and threat from “cyberspace” at a time many countries are locked into a new arms race, though he will hold off from naming offending states. The secretary general, who will step down at the end of 2026, will say: “Last year, global military spending reached $2.7tn – over 200 times the UK’s current aid budget, or equivalent to over 70% of Britain’s entire economy.” The deepening investment in weaponry runs alongside his concerns that the drivers of climate breakdown are being wilfully ignored and online content is undermining democracy. “As the planet broke heat records, fossil fuel profits continued to surge. And in cyberspace, algorithms rewarded falsehoods, fuelled hatred, and provided authoritarians with powerful tools of control,” he will tell the London audience. Comments from the 76-year-old come at a time of chronic funding difficulties for the UN, largely driven by the decisions of the US president, Donald Trump. The US has announced it would be allocating just $2bn (£1.5bn) to UN humanitarian assistance, a fraction of its previous contributions as the leading funder. The announcement came with a warning from the US state department that the global body must “adapt, shrink or die”, and that demands would be imposed on countries receiving the money. Just over a week later, Trump announced the US withdrawal from multiple UN agencies as well as its key climate treaty. Experts say the funding cut will lead to a shrunken, less effective international aid system, with the UN already saying a funding shortfall threatens to cripple its global peacekeeping operations. Guterres, however, says reforms will ensure the “United Nations is more agile, more coordinated and more responsive”.

Greenland crisis: Europe needs the US, but it also needs to stand up to Trump

The crisis over Greenland may deliver the moment when Europe must stand up to Donald Trump, as officials have said a US attempt to annex the territory could shatter the Nato transatlantic alliance. European leaders have entertained Trump’s demands for nearly a year as he has pushed Nato countries to increase their defence spending to 5% of GDP, and threatened to pull US support from Ukraine as part of a peace process that appears to favour Russia. They have also given a muted response to US adventurism abroad including the capture and rendition of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. The obsequiousness has often played out in public. Various European leaders have vied for the role of “Trump whisperer” and Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, infamously referred to him as “daddy” at a summit last June. But Trump’s’ repeated and increasingly bellicose demands that Denmark cede or sell him semi-autonomous Greenland has sparked one of the greatest crises for transatlantic partnership in its history – and may force Europe to draw a line in the snow. “The president’s ambition is on the table,” the Danish foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen told Fox News after the talks. “Of course we have our red lines. This is 2026, you trade with people but you don’t trade people.” After an hour-long meeting with the US vice-president, JD Vance, and secretary of state, Marco Rubio, Rasmussen and Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, stood grim-faced smoking cigarettes outside of the Eisenhower executive building in Washington DC. “When it comes to Greenland, the Europeans have found a red line that they really want to stand by,” said Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund for US defence and transatlantic security. “Everything else has been subject to negotiation … but the Greenland situation is different because it comes to the question of sovereignty, and it comes to the question of whether Europe is capable of standing up for itself in terms of its own territory, its own rights.” Europe, however, was at a “diplomatic disadvantage” because of its dependency on the US for security, said Latvia’s former prime minister Krišjanis Kariņš. “Europe is not, unfortunately, in a strong position to strongly object, because, say, if Europe were to open up the dispute into the trade area, I’m certain that the US would respond in kind or more than in kind,” he said. “At the end of the day, Europe still needs the US.” The strain on officials from Denmark and Greenland has been enormous. A day after meeting US officials, a visibly emotional Motzfeldt said she had been overwhelmed by the last few days of negotiations. “Denmark has really only been a good ally to the US,” said Marisol Maddox, a senior fellow at Dartmouth University’s Arctic studies institute. “So that’s also a part of what makes this so extraordinary, is this was like going up to your best friend and just randomly slapping them in the face ... There’s nothing to provoke this.” Trump’s interest in acquiring the island has only grown since his longtime friend Ronald Lauder, the heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics company, first suggested it to him in 2019. The White House has said its main concern is national security, but Trump has admitted that ego plays a key role as well. He told the New York Times last week that owning Greenland was “what I feel is psychologically needed for success”. On Friday, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on countries that do not “go along” with his ambition to annex Greenland. Others in his administration – particularly Vance – have seen the obsession over Greenland as an opportunity to pick another fight with European allies, and European diplomats saw his decision to join the negotiations as a negative sign. Vance “is especially enjoying this”, one said. “It’s clear why he’s gotten involved and it will make the talks more emotional.” Politico reported that 10 ministers and officials polled on his involvement did not regard him as an ally on Greenland or other transatlantic matters. Europe has responded by seeking to cut the legs out from under the Trump administration’s argument that Greenland is underprotected from a potential Russian or Chinese attack. A small French military contingent arrived on the island on Thursday as part of a limited deployment including troops from Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK. “The defence and protection of Greenland is a common concern for the entire Nato alliance,” said Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen. Rasmussen and Motzfeldt are scheduled to meet Rutte for talks on Monday. By deploying troops and assets, Kariņš said European leaders could take away a pretext of the Trump administration for annexing the territory, referring to arguments that it was not protected from Russian and Chinese aggression. “President Trump has a pretty established track record now of sort of doing things his own way,” he said. But if Europe strengthens Greenland’s military security, “it takes away a public argument by the Trump administration” for annexation. Aside from military deployments, observers have plenty of ideas about how the EU can protect Danish sovereignty of Greenland and assert European interest. At the milder end, suggestions include convening an international summit on Arctic security in Nuuk, co-organised by Denmark and Greenland, together with the EU and non-EU countries including the UK, Canada, Norway and the US. More radical ideas are also circulating, such as freezing the European parliament’s vote on ratification of the EU-US trade deal agreed with Trump at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland last year. A group of socialist and green MEPs argue that voting on the deal, currently scheduled for February, would be “easily seen as rewarding … his actions”. Such a move, however, is unlikely to gain majority support in the right-leaning parliament, where many MEPs are wary of antagonising the White House. The day after Rasmussen said Trump remained intent on conquering Greenland, EU officials continued to be diplomatic. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, described the US on Thursday as an ally and partner while discussing the Greenland situation. She also set out how the EU was seeking to deepen support for the island, citing the opening of an office in Nuuk and a proposal to double EU financial aid. “Greenland can count on us, politically, economically and financially,” she told reporters. Constantinos Kombos, the foreign minister of Cyprus, which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said the bloc needed to intensify dialogue with the US over Greenland. “Maybe [the current administration] is different than what we are used to and it is, but that doesn’t mean we have the luxury of responding with our self-isolation,” he said.

Iran plans permanent break from global internet, say activists

Iran is planning to permanently break from the global internet, only allowing individuals vetted by the regime to connect online, according to Iranian digital rights activists. “A confidential plan is under way to turn international internet access into a ‘governmental privilege’,” according to a report from Filterwatch, an organisation monitoring Iran’s internet censorship, citing a number of sources in Iran. “State media and government spokespersons have already signaled that this is a permanent shift, warning that unrestricted access will not return after 2026.” Under the plan, Iranians who had security clearance or passed government checks would have access to a filtered version of the global internet, said Amir Rashidi, the leader of Filterwatch. All other Iranians would be allowed to access only the national internet: a domestic, parallel internet cut off from the broader world. Iran’s ongoing internet shutdown began on 8 January after 12 days of escalating anti-regime protests. Thousands of people have been killed, although the demonstrations appear to have slowed under the weight of a brutal crackdown. Only limited information is filtering out of the country because of the blackout, which is one of the most severe internet shutdowns in history, lasting longer than Egypt’s 2011 internet shutdown during the Tahrir square protests. A government spokesperson reportedly told Iranian media that the international internet would be shut off until at least Nowruz, the Persian new year, on 20 March. A former US state department official who worked on internet censorship said the idea that Iran might attempt a permanent break from the global internet was “plausible and terrifying”, but also costly. “It’s not out of the question that they’re going to do it, but seeing these situations unfold, the economic impact and the cultural impact will be really massive. And they may overplay their hand.” Rashidi said: “It looks like [authorities] are happy with the current level of internet connectivity, and they believe this kind of shutdown helped them to control the situation.” Iran’s current shutdown is the culmination of a 16-year effort to cement the regime’s control over the country’s internet. One side of this effort involves a sophisticated system to filter internet traffic, allowing a select few to access the global internet and blocking everyone else – a practice known as whitelisting. This whitelisting was probably enabled by technology exported by China, said researchers focused on Iran’s internet at Project Ainita and Outline Foundation, who asked not to be named owing to Iranian reprisals against digital rights researchers. This is made possible by high-capacity middleboxes, devices that attach to network cables to monitor and manipulate internet traffic. Systems commercially available now could be scaled up to allow authorities to inspect the internet traffic of entire countries – spying on individual users, as well as blocking websites, protocols, and certain VPN tools. “Basically, there’s this censorship equipment that is sitting on every network, and the government can prevent connections going in both directions,” they said. The other side of this is Iran’s national internet, which can only be accessed inside the country. It allows all Iranians to use a handful of websites and applications purpose-built by the regime, including Iranian messaging services, search engines, navigation apps and a video streaming service similar to Netflix. It is monitored and has virtually no links to the broader internet. Iran has been working towards national internet since 2009, after authorities briefly shut down the internet during mass protests after the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and realised that a wholesale shutdown had extreme costs. “They literally just pulled the plug without thinking. They had never done it before,” said the researchers at Outline Foundation and Project Ainita. “And it basically threw the entire internet, and it really damaged a lot of things on their end as well.” By 2012, the government had established the Supreme Council of Cyberspace and started to plan for a splintered, domestic internet. Over time, authorities started to refine their internet shutdowns – blocking services such as Facebook, Twitter and Google during the 2012 protests, but leaving other economically valuable services running. In the 10 years that followed, Iranian authorities used a “carrot and stick” approach to force online businesses, banks and internet service providers to move their key infrastructure – datacentres and offices – inside the country, said the researchers at Project Ainita and Outline. Authorities provided tax breaks to those who did, and prevented those who refused from working in Iran. In 2015, a group of researchers used Bitcoin to buy server space in Iran and began to scan the country’s IP address space; the range of addresses allocated to devices on a network. They made a startling discovery: Iran was building a domestically connected internet entirely partitioned from the outside world, using the same protocols to connect the internal network for a corporate office or home. “It’s like when you’re in your office space, you’ve got file servers or you’ve got HR systems, which, if you go to a coffee shop, you’re not going to be able to reach them because it’s in an internal network. It’s impossible to route outwards,” said one of the researchers. Iran succeeded. The national internet has been working throughout the protests, and is now the only option most Iranians have to go online. It is likely to evolve, but it remains inaccessible to outside users, and unconnected to the broader internet. The former US state department official said the powers Iran had revealed in recent days, in terms of its ability to control the internet, were considerable; beyond those of some other authoritarian regimes who might wish to do the same. But it remains to be seen if Iran can create a new, permanent online reality. “The digital rights community is right to raise the alarm. But the impacts of this will be really severe for Iranian authorities, who will bear responsibility for that harm to their economy.”

The Iranian state silenced protests with brutality. What now for Iran’s opposition?

The Japanese writer Haruki Murakami in his novel 1Q84 may have foreshadowed the great and indelible rift Iranian society is about to experience. “The ones who did it can always rationalize their actions and even forget what they did. They can turn away from things they don’t want to see. But the surviving victims can never forget. They can’t turn away. Their memories are passed on from parent to child. That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.” Inside Iran, contrasting memories are already being brought into even sharper relief and made more traumatic by the blanket propaganda from Iran state TV portraying protesters as drug-crazed or pawns of a foreign power attracted to a violent terrorist culture reminiscent of Islamic State. But underlying this battle for narrative lies a wider political challenge for the opponents of the Iranian government inside and outside the country. Yet again the Iranian state, faced by a revolt, has resorted to overwhelming repression and state violence to silence. The initial promise by the reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, that he would listen to the voices of protest as the grievances were legitimate emerged to be hollow, or quickly superseded. The notion that reformist governments can or want to control the security apparatus, or suppress the prejudices of the supreme leader, have been dispelled. Arash Azizi, the author of What Iranians Want and a supporter of an Iranian Republic, says the scale of this repression is unprecedented. “The impact has been disastrous and numbing. We are still digesting it. We are talking about the most brutal actions by the Islamic Republic since the 1980s. The vast majority of Iranians do not remember anything like this. It’s now emerging that we almost all knew someone who was killed.” The necessity to reflect collectively on such a tragedy inside Iran is made more difficult by a weeklong blackout of communications. It leaves the opposition grieving, in disarray, and still bitterly divided over the wisdom of foreign-backed revolt and how change can be achieved. Some cling to the hope that Donald Trump and Sen Lindsey Graham will still make good on their promise to help the revolution and whatever help comes has only been postponed. Others accuse Trump of betrayal and of offering false hope, urging the protesters on to the streets only for them to be mown down. Trump clings to the threadbare excuse that the regime has promised not to execute the protesters. The inquest will be most intense around the role of Reza Pahlavi, the 65-year-old exiled son of the former shah of Iran. Even anti-monarchists admit chants for the return of the shah have featured strongly, even if they differ on the depth of that support and its meaning. In the words of Mehrdad Khamenei, writing on the news website Akhbar Rooz, “it is a paradox of the opposition that, unable to produce liberation, [it] has taken refuge in the reproduction of the past”. Rouzbeh Parsi, an adjunct lecturer at Sweden’s Lund University, says Pahlavi is for many Iranians born after the shah’s repressive rule little more than a convenient blank page. “The calls for the return of a monarch is a sign of desperation on the part of some protesters, who under the repression of the Islamic Republic have not been able to coalesce around any single political figure inside the country.” One of the striking aspects of Pahlavi is that in interview he is unfailingly polite, cautious to the point of robotic, and seemingly unexceptional in his stated centrist ambitions to help bring about a modern Iran, ideally through a referendum. He has three daughters raised in the west, of which the oldest, Noor, cultivates her Instagram accounts with 1.3 million followers, balancing images of her luxurious modern lifestyle with articulate calls for her father to be given the chance to restore Iran’s freedom. In interview, Pahlavi avoids criticising his father’s rule, which was brought to an end by the revolution of 1979. Pressed, he says his father took on too much responsibility, but that Iran was on course to become South Korea, instead of resembling North Korea. In contrast, some of Pahlavi’s closest supporters appear to be, online at least, intolerant, rightwing and vengeful. After half a century of bloodshed and sacrifice, perhaps that is not surprising. Iranian exiles are inevitably deeply invested one way or another and Pahlavi has come to personify all that remains unresolved about Iran if the current regime was to collapse. Azizi, a long-term opponent of a return to monarchy, argues that Pahlavi and his advisers have a lot to explain. He said: “He now faces a huge credibility challenge. He asked people to come out and they did, but he did not seem to have a plan to follow through. He called for strikes that did not take place. He repeatedly promised intervention by Trump but not only did it not come, Trump refused to meet him and openly cast doubt on his chances even if he said some nice things about him personally.” Pahlavi had also courted the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting Israel in 2023, but now Israeli officials are briefing on Netanyahu’s scepticism about Pahlavi’s credentials and leadership skills. The tensions over Israel’s refusal to intervene is apparent among some of his closest advisers such as Saeed Ghasseminejad. On 15 January, he wrote on X: “If Israel remains on the sidelines while the massacre and execution of Iranians continues, it will shape Iranians’ perception of the Jewish state for generations. However, if Israel acts on the explicit promise Prime Minister Netanyahu made weeks ago and helps Iranians bring down the regime, a new era of Israeli-Iranian alliance under the ‘Cyrus Accords’ framework [a proposed peace agreement] will emerge, one where the sky’s the limit for economic, security, and military partnership. The regime’s back is to the wall, the decision is Israel’s to make and it will define Bibi’s legacy.” Pahlavi’s allies seek vengeance, not just against the Iranian state but against those that called for negotiations with that state. Amir Etemadi, another adviser, wrote: “The architects of the slaughter of the Iranian people are Khamenei, his underlings and his mercenaries; and their accomplices in crime are the apologists who, under the guise of analysts and journalists, whitewashed the reformist branch of the Islamic Republic time and again, enabling its greatest atrocities to unfold during the eras of Rouhani and Pezeshkian. You’re done for. Every last one of you – wherever you may be in the world.” Others promised that the “Reza boys” were coming to get the defenders of the regime. During the 1979 revolution, the many rivulets of opposition met to form one mighty river to overcome the shah. This time the tributaries inside and outside Iran remain separated. It has been a perennial problem since the late 90s. As the Iranian elite started to fracture, and protests grew, Pahlavi made several attempts to build opposition coalitions, including the National Council of Iran for Free Elections, launched in 2013. Most have struggled with internal disagreements. The diverse coalition formed at Georgetown University during the “women, life, freedom” movement in February 2023 rapidly fell apart. The Canada-based activist Hamed Esmaeilion, one of the six-strong council, without naming Pahlavi, wrote: “Imposing opinions is not democratic and the consensus of a group’s members, not just one member, is a precondition of a democratic movement.” Pahlavi’s critics also challenge his personal capacity to lead, saying he has been erratic about his envisaged role and the need for foreign intervention. Mostly Pahlavi describes himself as an honest broker, above the fray, promising to act with absolute neutrality to secure a transition. But at other times his aides appear to insist they alone can commandeer the protests and act as if Pahlavi aspires to be something of a ruling monarch on the model of his father. Pahlavi also faces criticism for urging Iranians on to the streets without a realistic plan. Insisting he was prepared to die for freedom, he declared: “All institutions and apparatuses that are responsible for the regime’s false propaganda and the severing of communications are considered legitimate targets.” The option of layered, non-violent resistance was spurned. Asked by CBS on 12 January whether he had to bear some responsibility for the deaths, he responded: “This is a war and war has casualties” – words that in isolation sound callous. Pahlavi’s claim that 50,000 members of the security services were primed to defect also proved optimistic. He revised the claim, saying: “Thousands of military and police forces did not go to work so as not to participate in the suppression.” Azizi hopes that with Pahlavi’s failures being more evident, “the moral authority of those inside Iran in prison such as Nobel prizewinner Narges Mohammadi and Mostafa Tajzadeh will grow”. Azizi claimed: “The so-called Republicans will now have the ball thrown at us in a way. It’s our turn to organise a serious, credible alternative to the regime, something we have consistently so far failed to do.”

How Madrid’s Prado Museum is trying to avoid becoming like ‘the Metro at rush-hour’

Friday morning found Diego Velázquez striking the familiar pose he has held for the past 370 years, staring out, brush in one hand, palette in the other, from the huge canvas of Las Meninas. The 14 people who stood before the painting to meet the Spanish artist’s haughty gaze – not to mention the heavy eyes of the dozy mastiff in the picture’s foreground – were among the first visitors of the day to Madrid’s Prado Museum. Given recent comments by the Prado’s director, they may have felt it was worth braving the January cold and drizzle to get through the door as early as possible. On Wednesday, Miguel Falomir told a press conference that the museum, which welcomed a record 3.5 million visitors last year, felt a threshold had been reached. “The Prado doesn’t need a single visitor more,” he said. “We feel comfortable with 3.5 million. A museum’s success can collapse it, like the Louvre, with some rooms becoming oversaturated. The important thing is not to collapse.” With that in mind, Falomir added, the Prado was exploring how best to preserve – and preferably enhance – the visitor experience. Among the ideas for guaranteeing quality over quantity are optimising entrances to the museum, rethinking the size of visiting groups, and making sure people know they are not allowed to take photos in the galleries. The queues of mid-January can hardly be compared with those of the summer months, when they stretch on and on beneath the merciless Madrid sun, but getting into the museum this week proved painless. After buying a ticket online on Thursday, the Guardian pitched up at the museum at 10.30am on Friday, queued at the entrance for 90 seconds and was through security in less than a minute. But the real test lay inside – especially as Falomir had insisted that visiting the Prado “can’t be like catching the Metro at rush-hour”. He may well have been haunted by the words of his counterpart at the Louvre, who admitted last year that visiting the Paris museum was “a physical ordeal”. Although the initial pace through the galleries was slow, it soon picked up and the crowds were more fidgety shoals than heaving masses. Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights proved predictably popular, with 50 people standing in front of it and obscuring the lower half of its enchantments. But then a tour group moved on and a space opened up at the rope in front of the triptych. The Goya rooms were a better bet. A suspiciously well-behaved school group hovered beneath Fight to the Death with Cudgels and the unbearably poignant The Drowning Dog. In a nearby room, Alexander Jute from Stockholm was sitting on a bench with his four children and drinking in the horrors of Goya’s The 3rd of May 1808 in Madrid and The Fight Against the Mamelukes. How was their visit going? How were the crowds? “I think it’s perfect,” said Jute. “Perhaps it could even be a little more crowded. I’ve been here a couple of times before – including in the summer, and that was much busier.” Down a corridor that led off a granite staircase echoing with the shouts and laughter of another school party, Laura Moya and her partner, Enrique Ayala, were also pleasantly surprised by the lack of crowds. “We’re not seeing too many people here today,” said Moya. “The only problem is knowing where to start but the audioguide is very good.” The couple, who were visiting Madrid from the south-eastern region of Murcia, said they had been relieved to be able to stash their coats and bags as they had heard the cloakrooms sometimes filled up quickly. “We came early to beat the queues,” added Moya. “It’s a great experience; wherever you look you find something.” Visitors hoping for a more solitary trot around the Prado can find respite in some of the museum’s less trodden areas. The Alonso Cano gallery was deserted, leaving no one to appreciate the 17th-century Spanish master’s Dead Christ Supported by an Angel, his Penitent Magdalene, or his Saint Bernard and the Virgin. Even the room holding such treasures as Velázquez’s portraits of court entertainers, including The Buffoon Calabacillas, was almost empty save for Enrique, a Madrid local who is also a member of the museum. He said his frequent visits to the Prado had never been marred by impossible crowds. “Visitor numbers keep going up and up and I’m glad that they do,” said Enrique. “It’s really good that people want to come and see culture.” Some cultural draws, however, are more potent than others. By 11.10 on Friday morning, room 12, which houses Las Meninas, was filling up and growing noisy. Visitors attempting to take photos of the picture were politely pounced on by sharp-eyed attendants: “No photos, por favor. No photos.” Velázquez appeared to glower briefly from the canvas. And the dog dozed on.

Mark Carney in China positions Canada for ‘the world as it is, not as we wish it’

Mark Carney’s trip to Beijing this week secured what he described as a “preliminary but landmark” trade deal and a recognition – welcomed by Beijing – that countries are operating in a “new world order”. Carney’s visit is the first time in nearly a decade that a Canadian prime minister has been welcomed in Beijing. It comes after years of a deep freeze in the relationship between Ottawa and Beijing that Carney wants to thaw, in order to reduce his country’s precarious reliance on the United States. Guy Saint-Jacques, a former Canadian ambassador to China, said: “The main goal of trying to reset or recalibrate the relationship with China has been achieved during this trip.” That recalibration comes at a delicate moment for geopolitical alliances between North American countries and China. “Mr Carney is driven by a sense of urgency. And this urgency comes from the difficulties that we have with our neighbour to the south,” Saint-Jacques said. Just as Carney was heading to Beijing, the US president, Donald Trump, was telling reporters the US doesn’t need Canadian products. The comment highlights the pressure that Carney is under to diversify his country’s exports away from the US. Canada sends about 70% of its exports to the US. But as trade negotiators around the world have learned to anticipate, Trump seemingly reversed course in the hours after the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and Carney announced a deal. “Well, it’s OK. That’s what he should be doing,” Trump told reporters on Friday at the White House. “If you can get a deal with China, you should do that.” On Thursday in Beijing, Carney told reporters he believed the progress and partnerships between the two sides set both countries up for the “new world order” – a view that chimes, at least rhetorically, with Beijing’s position that the days of a US-led world order are nearing their end. And while Carney and Canada are “desperate” for a closer relationship with China, Beijing is also under growing pressure to forge new and deeper relationships, said Lynette Ong, a professor of political science and China scholar at the University of Toronto. “Despite the headlines and excitement surrounding the electric vehicle and technology markets, China still relies on exports to drive economic growth,” she said. “And leadership in Beijing is well aware of the fact that the economy is in a lacklustre state. They cannot allow for exports to fall behind.” She also pointed out that the Chinese foreign ministry made no mention of any intent to weaken Canada’s position with the US, suggesting negotiators want to enter agreements “in good faith”. Comments from both leaders may have been nearly as consequential as the trade agreements secured this week. On Friday, China and Canada announced “a preliminary, provisional agreement” allowing up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into the Canadian market and a lowering of Chinese tariffs on Canadian canola, lobsters, seafood and peas from March until the end of the year. A pledge on both sides to reduce – but not fully remove – tariffs on key industries brings the hope of ending a bitter trade war. But with all eyes on how the leaders might frame the deal, Vina Nadjibulla, vice-president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, said the joint statement was the biggest surprise of the summit. “It is perhaps the most significant achievement, outlining this new strategic partnership between China and Canada,” she said. “And it’s a bold move by Carney to position Canada in this new and evolving geopolitical order, with the hopes of charting a path that leads to more strategic autonomy and agency. He also seems to recognise there are limits with what can be done with China.” Carney himself said the deal between the two reflected the need for cooperation and partnership in a more “divided and fragmented” world. But the deal, while welcomed by some senior Canadian politicians at home, has frustrated and angered others. “Prime minister Carney must explain how he has gone from saying China was Canada’s biggest security threat before the election to announcing a strategic partnership with Beijing after the election,” said the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre. The Ontario premier, Doug Ford, criticised the move to reduce tariffs on electric vehicles. “Make no mistake: China now has a foothold in the Canadian market and will use it to their full advantage at the expense of Canadian workers.” But Nadjibulla said it was a “creative agreement” and reflected the mounting precarity of a multibillion dollar auto sector with an “uncertain” future. “Carney made it through this visit and did impressive moves on the diplomatic tightrope – but a lot still needs to be worked out. This new strategic partnership is very aspirational and ambitious, and we’ll see how it evolves and what the implications will be,” she said. But lingering concerns about Canada’s decision to further entrench its canola exports to China are “worrisome” and show an overreliance on a strategy that has sometimes backfired. “We’ve already learned this lesson and if we look at the track record of China, they use coercion, and they use it on the sector where we’re heavily dependent on trade with them. This deal doesn’t make that any less likely.” Xi hailed a “turnaround” in China-Canada ties since he met Carney at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in South Korea in 2025. Commentators in China framed the trip as a watershed moment in countries breaking away from US-led hegemony. In an article for People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist party’s mouthpiece, Wang Wen and Jin Zhen, professors at Renmin University in Beijing, wrote: “Instead of blindly adhering to Washington’s hardline approach, several western nations are recalibrating their China policies based on their own national interests. Canada, as a key ally and neighbour of the US, has chosen to break the deadlock by re-establishing high-level ties with Beijing.” On a personal level, Carney is admired in Beijing for his technocrat credentials, and during his visit he eschewed any of the typical tourist stops, instead committing to hours of meetings with top officials. But some experts stressed that Carney’s smooth trip should not be taken as a sign of a clean break with the difficult relations of years past. “Every new government – not just in Canada – thinks it can do China better than the last one,” said Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat and senior Asia adviser for the thinktank International Crisis Group. “History says otherwise. China policy too often follows a cycle: optimism, friction, damage control. The goal this time should be stabilisation, not transformation.” Kovrig also cautioned that China could not be the solution to an “over-reliance” on any one partner. “China is not just another market: it is a one-party state that routinely uses trade and investment as political leverage.” Carney also spoke of “red lines” for Ottawa, including concerns about human rights and interference in Canadian elections. But he added: “We take the world as it is – not as we wish it to be.” Additional research by Lillian Yang

Uganda’s opposition leader ‘taken by army’ as Museveni nears re-election

The Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine was taken from his house and brought to an unknown location on Friday, his party said as President Yoweri Museveni closed in on a landslide re-election. Wine’s National Unity Platform party said on Friday evening in a post on X that an army helicopter had landed in his compound in the capital, Kampala, and “forcibly taken him away to an unknown destination”. The claim could not be immediately verified, and some senior party officials said they did not have confirmation. Spokespeople for Uganda’s government and military did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters. Wine has alleged mass fraud during Thursday’s election, which was held under an internet blackout, and called on supporters to protest. His party said on Thursday he had been placed under effective house arrest. A senior member of the Ugandan opposition earlier said security forces stormed his house early on Friday morning and shot dead 10 members of his campaign team. The NUP’s Muwanga Kivumbi told Reuters the incident happened at about 3am local time when security forces “broke the front door and began shooting” inside a garage where the people were waiting for the results of the election for his parliamentary seat to be announced. “It was a massacre,” he said. Lydia Tumushabe, a local police spokesperson, said she was unaware of an incident at Kivumbi’s house, which she said was close to the police station. She said machete-wielding opposition “goons” organised by Kivumbi had attacked a police station and vote-tallying centre, forcing security personnel to shoot in self-defence. Tumushabe told Agence France-Presse that “an unspecified number” of people had been “put out of action” and that 25 others had been arrested. Kivumbi said security forces had earlier dispersed crowds outside but disputed the police’s assertion that the deaths occurred during clashes between the two sides. He said he was “emotionally broken” by the attack, which occurred after hundreds of his supporters had gathered at his house after voting ended. Many fled as security forces stormed the compound, but officers fired through the door of the garage, where 10 campaign agents were hiding, his wife, Zahara Nampewo, a law professor, said. “I was very shaken personally,” she said. “Seeing fresh bodies. I mean, that is something that cannot easily go away.” The army later came to take away the bodies, the couple said. Wine condemned the incident and called on Ugandans to respond. “The criminal regime in its evening, has gone insane. This insanity will have to be met with RESISTANCE,” he posted on X. Wine has alleged mass fraud during the election, which was held under an internet blackout that authorities said was needed to prevent “misinformation”, and he called on supporters to protest. Late on Thursday, his party wrote on X that the military and police had surrounded his house in Kampala, “effectively placing him under house arrest”. Kituuma Rusoke, a national police spokesperson, said he was not aware of Wine being placed under house arrest. Wine, 43, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, has emerged as the main challenger to Museveni in recent years. The former singer styles himself the “ghetto president” after the informal settlements of Kampala where he grew up. After a campaign marred by clashes at opposition rallies and what the UN said was widespread repression and intimidation, voting passed peacefully on Thursday. Analysts have long viewed the election’s outcome as a formality. Museveni, a former guerrilla fighter who seized power in 1986, has total control over the state and security apparatus and has ruthlessly crushed any challenger during his rule. He told reporters after casting his ballot on Thursday that he expected to win with 80% of the vote if there was “no cheating”. As of Friday evening, Museveni held a commanding lead with nearly 74% of the vote, the electoral commission said. Wine trailed with 23% and the remaining votes were split among six other candidates. Final results are due by 0200 GMT on Saturday. Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Son of former shah says he is ‘uniquely positioned’ to lead Iran as he predicts end of regime

Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s former pro-western monarch, has predicted the country’s Islamic regime will fall and claimed he is “uniquely” placed to head a successor government. His bid to assume the leadership of a possible new Iran follows weeks of mass protests that have left thousands dead after being brutally suppressed by security forces. His credentials are certain to be challenged by other opponents of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime, given Pahlavi has not been in Iran since his family fled the country at the beginning of the 1979 Islamic revolution. Many question his level of popular support, even though his name has been chanted at some protests. Calling on the west to help unseat Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, Pahlavi said on Friday that the regime was nevertheless doomed to collapse with or without such assistance. “The Iranian people are taking decisive actions on the ground, it is now time for the international community to join them fully,” he told reporters at a news conference in Washington. He said foreign involvement did not require “boots on the ground” but instead “targeted intervention” that could weaken the regime’s repressive apparatus, such as targeting the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards. “What they need from the world is resolute, targeted support to protect lives, amplify their voices and hasten the collapse that is already on the way,” he said. “But let me be clear, with or without the world’s help, the regime will fall. It will fall sooner, and more lives will be saved if the world turns its words into action.” Pahlavi said 12,000 protesters had been killed over 48 hours as security forces conducted a bloody crackdown against demonstrations that have swept the country since 28 December. Human rights groups have confirmed lower figures but still put the death toll in thousands. Donald Trump had vowed that “help is on the way” if the regime continued to kill protesters, or carried out executions of those detained. But he retreated after warnings from the US’s Middle East allies that military intervention could trigger regional instability. Posting on his Truth Social network on Friday, Trump thanked the regime for allegedly cancelling a wave of scheduled executions. “I greatly respect the fact that all scheduled hangings, which were to take place yesterday (Over 800 of them), have been cancelled by the leadership of Iran. Thank you!” he wrote. Pahlavi spoke out after protesters chanted his name and “long live the shah” at recent protests – an ironic development given that the monarchical regime of his father, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was overthrown after months of similar mass demonstrations and complaints of torture and human rights abuses. He avoided giving a clear answer when asked by the Guardian if he intended to re-establish a monarchy, but said he had a “comprehensive plan for an orderly transition, which is ready to be implemented immediately”. It would include referendums to establish the form of a successor government, but he refused to rule out a monarchical restoration. “I am uniquely positioned to ensure a stable transition,” he said “That’s the verdict delivered loudly and clearly by the people in the face of bullets.” He claimed “large segments” of the security forces had already refused to fire on the population and “whispered their loyalty to me”. He referred to “the bond between me and the Iranian people” – a phrase redolent of his father’s rhetoric – and said: “It’s been with me since birth, and it cannot be broken, even in exile.”