Welcome again to World Temporary, the place we’re wanting on the “Board of Peace” constitution signing ceremony in Davos, lethal Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, and plans for an election in Guinea-Bissau.
Board of Peace
U.S. President Donald Trump hosted a signing ceremony for the founding constitution of his “Board of Peace” on the sidelines of the World Financial Discussion board in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. Greater than 20 world leaders joined Trump onstage, and in accordance with a listing that the White Home launched on Thursday, some 25 international locations have accepted the invitation thus far, together with Argentina, Belarus, Egypt, Hungary, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.
Welcome again to World Temporary, the place we’re wanting on the “Board of Peace” constitution signing ceremony in Davos, lethal Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, and plans for an election in Guinea-Bissau.
Board of Peace
U.S. President Donald Trump hosted a signing ceremony for the founding constitution of his “Board of Peace” on the sidelines of the World Financial Discussion board in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. Greater than 20 world leaders joined Trump onstage, and in accordance with a listing that the White Home launched on Thursday, some 25 international locations have accepted the invitation thus far, together with Argentina, Belarus, Egypt, Hungary, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.
The board, which was initially conceived as a postwar transitional physique for Gaza following the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, was formally backed by the U.N. Safety Council in November 2025. The constitution signed Thursday, nonetheless, doesn’t explicitly point out Gaza, reflecting Trump’s ambition to develop the physique’s mandate. The doc additionally grants Trump the authority to call his successor, veto most choices, and situation directives to implement the board’s mission.
“I believe we will unfold out to different issues as we succeed with Gaza,” Trump mentioned. “As soon as the board is fashioned, we will do just about no matter we need to do.”
Of the 50-plus international locations invited, some are nonetheless deliberating or have rejected the invitation outright. Though no Israeli consultant attended the ceremony, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned on Wednesday that he plans to hitch regardless of earlier reservations over Turkey’s inclusion. The UK is withholding its help amid considerations that Russian President Vladimir Putin will take part; Putin has mentioned that he’s nonetheless contemplating the proposal (though Trump claimed Wednesday that he had already accepted).
France, Germany, Sweden, and Norway have declined to take part, whereas Spain, Italy, and Belgium are nonetheless reviewing the proposal. (The White Home listed Belgium as having accepted, however the nation’s minister of overseas affairs mentioned that was “incorrect.” “We want for a standard and coordinated European response. As many European international locations, we’ve got reservations to the proposal,” Maxime Prévot mentioned.)
Notably, as of Jan. 21, the U.S. State Division had paused all immigrant visa issuances for candidates from 13 of the international locations which have signed on to the board.
Critics warn that the initiative might additional erode the authority of the United Nations. Trump mentioned earlier this week that the board “may” change the U.N., however he mentioned on Thursday that the board would operate “along with the United Nations.” The Trump administration introduced earlier this month that it might withdraw the US from 31 U.N. organizations, and as of as we speak, it has successfully ended its membership within the World Well being Group.
“The board’s very existence confirms that the US, the first founding father of the U.N. system eight many years in the past, is not dedicated to it,” Richard Gowan and Daniel Forti wrote in International Coverage. “The Board of Peace could have lots of the formal options and protocols of a regular multilateral establishment, however it might finally be a symptom—and an accelerant—of the decline of the multilateral safety system.”
At the moment’s Most Learn
What We’re Following
A “higher place.” Negotiations over a possible settlement on Greenland are ongoing on Thursday, in accordance with Trump. Whereas few particulars have been launched, Trump mentioned in an interview with Fox Enterprise that the deal entails granting the US “complete entry” to the island, with “no time restrict.”
Trump introduced on Wednesday that he and NATO Secretary-Basic Mark Rutte had “fashioned the framework of a future cope with respect to Greenland and, in truth, the whole Arctic Area,” and he walked again tariff threats towards Denmark and 7 further NATO international locations. The announcement got here quickly after Trump’s speech in Davos, by which he demanded fast negotiations over the Danish territory. Trump additionally mentioned in his speech that he views a U.S. acquisition of Greenland—and the creation of a “Golden Dome” protection system there—as important to nationwide safety, however that he wouldn’t try to seize the territory by drive.
Danish Protection Minister Troels Lund Poulsen mentioned in a social media put up on Thursday that whereas Rutte can’t negotiate an settlement on behalf of Denmark or Greenland, he trusts the secretary-general to work towards NATO unity and safety, including that the scenario was clearly in a “higher place” as we speak. Poulsen additionally drew his pink line: “We is not going to cede sovereignty over components of the Kingdom,” he wrote.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen bolstered that place on Thursday, saying that Denmark and Greenland are open to discussing Arctic safety so long as the negotiations respect Denmark’s territorial integrity. Rutte mentioned that the query of whether or not Greenland would stay part of the Kingdom of Denmark had not come up throughout his dialog with Trump, however that he has “little doubt” {that a} deal will come collectively shortly. “Actually I might hope for 2026, I hope even early in 2026,” he mentioned.
Lethal Gaza strikes. Israeli forces performed strikes on Wednesday that killed not less than 11 Palestinians in Gaza, together with three journalists, two youngsters, and one girl, in accordance with Gaza well being officers. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, a labor union, mentioned in a assertion that the three journalists had been on “a humanitarian journalistic mission to doc and painting the struggling of civilians in displacement camps” once they had been killed. The Israeli army has claimed that the journalists had been working a Hamas-affiliated drone that it believed introduced a risk, in accordance with the New York Instances.
“Concentrating on journalists whereas performing their skilled duties is a part of a coverage adopted by the Israeli occupation to silence the Palestinian voice, forestall the transmission of reality, and conceal crimes dedicated towards civilians within the Gaza Strip,” the union mentioned in its assertion.
The killings come as satellite tv for pc imagery means that Israeli forces have pushed a number of the concrete yellow blocks demarcating its cease-fire line with Hamas even deeper into Gaza, in accordance with reporting from Reuters and the BBC. Israeli Protection Minister Israel Katz has beforehand mentioned that anybody crossing the yellow line could be “met with fireplace.” The Israel Protection Forces (IDF) has mentioned that it rejects “all claims that the Yellow Line has been moved or its crossing by IDF troops.”—Christina Lu
Election plans. Guinea-Bissau will maintain presidential and legislative elections on Dec. 6, in accordance with a presidential decree signed on Wednesday by army junta chief Gen. Horta Inta-a. The announcement follows final November’s coup, by which army officers claiming that they’d uncovered a plot to govern presidential election outcomes suspended the vote and seized energy from then-President Umaro Sissoco Embaló.
The coup appeared to suit a broader regional sample in West Africa, the place Mali, Niger, Guinea, and Burkina Faso have all skilled army takeovers since 2020, alongside a failed coup in Benin final December. Nevertheless, African leaders and opposition figures inside the nation have argued that the coup was a sham staged by Embaló himself to keep away from electoral defeat.
Inta-a, who was put in as the pinnacle of the army authorities for a one-year transition interval, mentioned the required circumstances had been now in place to carry free and honest elections later this yr. But it surely stays unclear whether or not the deliberate vote will meet the calls for of the Financial Group of West African States, which has known as for “a speedy return to constitutional normalcy” within the nation.
Odds and Ends
In a brand new examine, scientists have recognized handprints on a cave wall on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi because the oldest identified cave artwork. By courting calcium carbonate crusts that fashioned on prime of the prints, researchers decided that the photographs are not less than 67,800 years previous—suggesting that the island was residence to early trendy people with “refined cognition,” in accordance with archaeologist Adhi Agus Oktaviana, who found the handprints in 2015.
The handprints seem to have been altered barely to resemble pointed claws, which researchers imagine could reference an Indigenous apply of keeping off misfortune. “That is the strongest piece of proof that our species … playfully and imaginatively remodeled a human hand mark into one thing else,” mentioned archaeologist Adam Brumm, a co-author of the examine.
