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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday he has selected David Fink to serve as administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration. 

“David will bring his 45+ years of transportation leadership and success, which will deliver the FRA into a new era of safety and technological innovation,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
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Rhiannon Giddens is a Grammy- and Pulitzer-winning musical artist whose latest project tells the story of the U.S. transcontinental railroad — a story told through the eyes of its builders, including African American, Chinese, Japanese, Irish and Native American workers. It’s called “American Railroad,” and Nina Vishneva has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Vladimir Badikov
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Generative artificial intelligence companies are racing to build on the popularity of programs like ChatGPT, but AI regulation has not kept pace with the technology. Now, an incoming administration could favor U.S. domination over risk mitigation. Tina Trinh reports.
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У Генштабі ЗСУ визнали, що визначену чисельність військових зі ПС ЗСУ справді перепризначено, але це не стосується фахових спеціалістів ППО, які забезпечують захист українського неба
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KARACHI, PAKISTAN — Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday dismissed as unfounded and “devoid of rationality” assertions by a senior U.S. official that its missile program could eventually pose a threat to the United States.

Earlier this week, Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said Pakistan’s development of long-range ballistic missiles made it an “emerging threat.”

Finer’s comments, which came a day after Washington announced a new round of sanctions related to the ballistic missile program, underscored the deterioration in once-close ties between Washington and Islamabad since the 2021 U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Addressing Finer’s remarks, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said the perception of an alleged threat was “unfortunate.”

“These allegations are unfounded, devoid of rationality and sense of history,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said that its strategic capabilities were solely for defending its sovereignty and maintaining regional stability, and that they should not be perceived as a threat to any other country.

It also highlighted Pakistan’s long history of cooperation with the U.S., particularly in counterterrorism efforts, and reiterated its commitment to engaging constructively on all issues, including regional security and stability.

Relations between the United States and Pakistan have seen significant ups and downs. The countries collaborated during the Cold War and in the fight against al-Qaida after 9/11.

Ties have been strained, however, due to coups in the South Asian country by Pakistan’s military, support for the Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule in Afghanistan, and over the nuclear weapons program.
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WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA — President-elect Donald Trump on Friday added the 27 countries that make up the European Union to the list of trade partners he’s threatening with tariffs — unless the group takes steps to import more U.S. goods. 

“I told the European Union that they must make up their tremendous deficit with the United States by the large scale purchase of our oil and gas,” Trump posted shortly after 1 a.m. on social media. “Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way!!!” 

In 2023, the United States’ trade imbalance with the EU on goods was $209 billion, according to the Census Bureau. There were $576 billion in imports from Europe and $367 billion in exports from the United States. 

Trump’s transition team did not respond to questions seeking greater clarity on the message, which for all its bluntness was unclear on next steps. 

When Trump threatened Canada and Mexico with 25% tariffs in November, the leaders of both countries spoke with him to try to resolve any tensions. But the European Union lacks a single figure who can make the purchase commitments of natural gas and oil on behalf of its 27 member states that Trump is seeking. 

EU Commission spokesperson Olof Gill said in reaction to Trump’s post that “we are ready to discuss with President-elect Trump how we can further strengthen an already strong relationship, including by discussing our common interests in the energy sector.” 

Gill noted that the EU is already “committed to phasing out energy imports from Russia and diversifying our sources of supply. We’re not going to go into any details about what that might entail in the future, given that the new administration isn’t even in place yet.” 

Scott Lincicome, a vice president at the libertarian Cato Institute, said it was difficult to parse what Trump was trying to say relative to European trade, given that natural gas exports to the continent are already up after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. 

“What we really need to chalk all of this up to is Trump laying the groundwork for future negotiations,” Lincicome said. “This is for better or worse a lot of what we’re going to see for the next four years.” 

While there is a $209 billion trade imbalance, a more complicated relationship lies beneath those numbers. A company such as German automaker BMW can import parts needed to assemble vehicles at its factory in South Carolina, such that the trade totals also reflect the flow of goods within European companies that employ U.S. workers. 

More than half of the liquified natural gas imported by the EU and the United Kingdom in 2023 came from the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The volume of LNG going to the EU and UK has tripled since 2021. 

On Tuesday, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm issued a statement based on a new study saying that unfettered exports of LNG could increase prices domestically and increase carbon emissions. Trump ran for president on the idea that increased oil and natural gas production would reduce costs for U.S. voters who were left frustrated by a 2022 inflationary spike that still lingers. 

Trump’s demands on Europe to buy more oil and natural gas were not especially new. He also made them during his initial term as president and in 2018 reached a deal with Jean-Claude Juncker, then-president of the European Commission, to sell more LNG to Europe. 

The problem with that agreement, as noted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, is that the U.S. “cannot force companies to send products to a specific region or country” and the EU cannot force its members to buy American fossil fuels. 
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BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA — On Christmas Eve in 1741, Moravian settlers named this Pennsylvania city after the biblical birthplace of Jesus. Nearly 300 years later, Moravians continue celebrating their Christmas season traditions in Bethlehem.

They include the “putz,” a Nativity scene that tells the story of Christ’s birth with miniature wooden figurines, the making of thousands of beeswax candles by hand as a symbol of the light that Jesus brought to the world and a “lovefeast,” a song service where worshippers share a simple meal of sweet buns and coffee in their pews.

“Like all Moravian traditions, the importance of it is that it brings people together,” said the Rev. Janel Rice, senior pastor of Central Moravian Church — Bethlehem’s first congregation and the oldest Moravian church in North America.

“Building community, emphasizing that, over doctrine or dogma, is really the Moravian practice and tradition at our core,” she said.

Moravians relate to the story of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Rice said, because their ancestors began as a refugee church fleeing religious persecution. The Nativity is also a poignant reminder today, when the number of people fleeing their homes because of war, violence and persecution continues to rise worldwide.

“It’s so crucial because this story is not just Jesus’s story of 2,000 years ago. It’s today’s story. And we need to make sure that we’re living the word that we were told when it comes to these refugees,” said church member Sarah Wascura. “That word is to give them refuge and to take care of them and to love them as ourselves.”

A town founded on Christmas Eve

The Moravian Church is one of the world’s oldest Protestant denominations. Its name comes from the historical provinces of Bohemia and Moravia in what is now the Czech Republic.

Their beliefs of practice over dogma began with a religious reformer, John Hus, who led a protest movement against some of the practices of Roman Catholic hierarchy. Hus believed congregants in his church should listen to Mass and read the Bible in their native Czech instead of Latin. He was accused of heresy and burned at the stake in 1415.

His ideas were carried on by his supporters, who broke with Rome and founded the Moravian Church, or Unitas Fratrum (Unity of Brethren) in 1457 — decades before Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation.

Moravians facing persecution eventually fled to Herrnhut, Germany, and established the original Renewed Moravian Church settlement, according to accounts of church history.

Moravian missionaries later settled in Pennsylvania.

On Christmas Eve in 1741, their leader, Count Nicolas Ludwig von Zinzendorf, who was visiting them, led them to a stable, where they sang the hymn Jesus Call Thou Me. Its lyrics say: “Not Jerusalem — lowly Bethlehem ’twas that gave us Christ to save us.” Thus inspired, Zinzendorf named the settlement Bethlehem.

Beloved tradition retells the story of the birth of Jesus

Bethlehem’s first settlers brought with them hand-carved figures to retell the story of Christ’s birth. The tradition is known as the putz, from the German word “putzen,” meaning to clean or decorate.

“It relates back to the creches of the Middle Ages,” Rice said. “But it’s not just a creche, which would be just the one Nativity scene.”

Instead, it uses figures to tell different parts of the Gospel in miniature, including Mary’s annunciation and the visit of the three wise men to the infant Jesus.

In Victorian days, Rice said, Bethlehem’s residents would “go putzing” — visiting each other’s homes between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day to look at Nativity scenes.

In 1937, the local chamber of commerce launched a campaign promoting Bethlehem as “Christmas City USA.” As part of that promotion, they took the tradition of the putz to the historic Hotel Bethlehem on Main Street. Thousands turned up.

“The story goes that the hotel got so crowded that they couldn’t really accommodate the number of people that were coming to see it, and they asked Central Moravian Church to host it.”

For every Christmas since then, the community putz has been put together by the church’s congregants and displayed at the nearby Christian education building.

“It’s more than Christmas for four weeks a year,” said Wascura, who went to the putz on her first date with Bob Wascura, her husband of 33 years.

“The nature of the faith heritage of the city is something that is never forgotten.”

On a recent day, she led families visiting the community putz to their seats. After recounting a brief history of the Moravian Church and the Pennsylvania city, she drew a curtain to display the dozens of wooden figures — angels, shepherds, kings carrying gifts — in a tiny landscape decorated with pebbles, wood and moss.

Children and parents listened to the recorded voice of Janel Rice, who narrated the biblical story about the other Bethlehem.

“We might wonder why setting up a putz and telling the story of Jesus’ birth is so important to the Moravians, and now to the city of Bethlehem,” Rice says in the recording. “One reason has to do with the naming of the city itself.”

The church choir, after some singing, gave way to the powerful sound of the renowned Moravian Trombone Choir, known for playing its brassy tunes from the belfry of Central Moravian Church. When the lights turned on, children approached the stage to look up close at the figurines and point at surprises near the manger, including miniature zebras, lions and giraffes.

“We feel really lucky to live so close to Bethlehem with all of the history here and specifically the history pertaining to Christmas,” said visitor Kelly Ann Ryan. “It’s just something that we can’t miss every holiday season as it rolls around.”

She came to Bethlehem from a nearby town with her husband, Daniel, and their 5- and 8-year-old sons to see the community putz, in what she said has become a family tradition.

“Telling the Christmas story this way is a great way for kids to connect with it.”

Lighting candles on Christmas Eve, joining Santa for a sleigh ride

Christmas — from the Christian celebration to the secular commercial holiday — is omnipresent in Bethlehem.

On a recent day, Santa Claus checked on a red sleigh (drawn by horses instead of reindeer) outside Central Moravian before he led families who hopped on for a tour of Bethlehem and its Moravian church settlements, which were recently designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Others strolled to nearby holiday-themed wooden huts or along Main Street with its stores decorated with Christmas globes and Moravian stars. Some stopped outside an Italian restaurant to greet Santa and Mrs. Claus, who welcomed diners and posed for photos.

Across town, vendors sold ornaments at Christkindlmarkt, in the shadow of rusting blast furnaces of Bethlehem Steel illuminated in red and green. That company once supplied steel for construction of the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge and other landmarks.

At Central Moravian, the choir sang hymns while sacristans handed out buns and mugs of coffee to families who enjoyed the sustenance in their pews at the “lovefeast.”

After Rice delivered a final blessing, Linda Thudium walked up the stairs and opened a large closet, where the congregation keeps thousands of handmade candles wrapped in red ribbons that they light during Christmas services.

“To me, this is Christmas — looking at these candles,” said Thudium. She recalled attending Christmas Eve services with lit candles since she was 5, a tradition she continued with her children and grandchildren.

“To me, this is just magical. I remember my parents doing this, my grandparents,” she said. “It’s just a wonderful warm feeling of being connected with this church.”
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HAVANA — Thousands of Cubans joined a protest Friday in front of the U.S. Embassy in Havana that was led by President Miguel Diaz-Canel and ex-leader Raul Castro against Washington’s long-standing trade blockade.

“We are marching now to tell the U.S. government to let the Cuban people live in peace. Down with interference!” Diaz-Canel told a crowd that had gathered a month before Republican Donald Trump returns to the White House.

Communist Cuba is enduring a worsening economic crisis that the government blames on U.S. sanctions that have been in place since 1962 and were tightened during Trump’s first term.

“If we didn’t have the blockade, we would not be facing difficulty like this,” said 85-year-old retiree Faustino Miranda.

The Caribbean nation faces a lack of food and medicine, frequent blackouts and a wave of emigration.

Rogelio Savigne, 55, head of transport at a state-owned company, told AFP: “We need them to open the doors for us to be able to trade with all countries.”

Authorities said that 700,000 people marched in the capital on Friday. AFP was not able to independently verify that number.

Former president Castro, 93, stood at the head of the march along with Diaz-Canel, who earlier Friday had blamed the U.S. embargo for making this year “one of the most difficult” for Cuba.

On Tuesday, the country’s deputy foreign minister reiterated its willingness to enter into a dialogue with Trump, who will take office on Jan. 20.

During his first term, Trump halted an easing of relations between Washington and Havana that began in 2014.

He implemented 243 measures that reinforced the embargo, including the reincorporation of the island into the U.S. blacklist of “countries that sponsor terrorism,” alongside Iran and North Korea.

Current U.S. President Joe Biden has kept Cuba on that list but resumed discussions with Havana on counterterrorism and combating illegal migration. 
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WASHINGTON — Foreign workers seeking U.S. jobs enjoyed near-guaranteed visa success in fiscal year 2024, with immigration authorities approving more than 97% of H1-B visa applications, as reported by the National Foundation for American Policy.

The was the second-highest approval rate in more than a decade. But the exceptionally high success rate could soon end if President-elect Donald Trump’s team revives his first administration’s restrictive immigration policies, according to immigration lawyers. That in turn could significantly affect U.S. businesses and other institutions that rely on highly skilled foreign workers, especially those from India, they warn.

“I think it’s going to get harder, and it’s going to be more complicated to approve things,” said Sharvari Dalal-Dheini, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and a former lawyer for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Companies exploit program, say critics

Created in 1990, the H-1B program lets U.S. employers hire foreign talent in specialized fields such as technology, engineering and health care, with 85,000 visas issued by lottery. Indian workers received more than 70% of the slots in recent years, followed by Chinese nationals.

The program has long been the subject of controversy. Proponents point to its role allowing the U.S. to attract top foreign talent and fill critical jobs. A 2016 study by the National Foundation for American Policy found that nearly one-quarter of America’s billion-dollar startups had a founder who first came to the U.S. as an international student.

But critics view the program as a weapon against American workers. Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) pointed to Disney’s controversial move a decade ago to lay off hundreds of U.S. staff members, forcing them to train foreign replacements as a condition of their severance.

Though Disney denied any wrongdoing and beat subsequent lawsuits, the case became a rallying cry among anti-immigrant groups.

FAIR says U.S. companies exploit the system to hire cheaper foreign labor, driving down U.S. wages.

“There are plenty of tech workers available here in the United States, and that should be the first resort for these companies to go out there and hire people who are American citizens,” Mehlman, FAIR’s media director, said in an interview with VOA.

Mehlman said the program has strayed from its roots as a temporary foreign worker program, with foreign nationals using it as a backdoor to American citizenship.

“This should be a program that says you’re going to come here for a specified amount of time, the duration of your visa, and then you’re going to return home,” Mehlman said.

The criticism is shared by many congressional Republicans as well as Trump, who in 2016 campaigned to end what he called “a cheap labor program.”

That did not happen, but the first Trump administration moved swiftly against the program after Trump issued his Buy American, Hire American executive order within months of taking office. Immigration officials followed up with stricter degree and wage requirements for foreign workers.

Most of those rules were eventually blocked by courts. But immigration officers found other ways to squeeze the program. They approved some visa requests for one year instead of three, rejected automatic extensions and ramped up worksite inspections. Visa applicants were hit with mounting demands for evidence to process their petitions, according to immigration lawyers.

The crackdown hit hard. New visa denials soared to 24% in 2018 and dropped to 21% in 2019 before easing to 13% in 2020. That marked a sharp departure from the Obama era, when fewer than 1 in 10 petitions were denied.

“What we did see that kind of worked effectively under the Trump administration was a gutting of the system,” said Dalal-Dheini, who worked as a special counsel at the USCIS during the first Trump administration.

Trump’s plan for visas uncertain

While changing rules and regulations are cumbersome and time-consuming, immigration lawyers warn about a likely return to the tactics the first Trump administration used to limit the number of visas issued to foreign workers.

Kathleen Campbell Walker, head of immigration practice at the Dickinson Wright law firm, said she is particularly concerned that increased scrutiny by federal anti-fraud agents could slow things down and potentially create “more difficulty in getting your H-1B visa status approved.”

“That worries me,” Walker, a former national president of AILA, said in an interview with VOA.

The incoming administration’s plans for the visa program remain uncertain. The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a VOA request for comment, but a campaign spokesperson said in a statement to The Washington Post earlier this year that Trump “will restore all of his prior [immigration] policies” immediately upon returning to the White House.

While Trump’s new administration is expected to focus on cracking down on undocumented immigrants, immigration lawyers say the new administration could target legal as well as illegal immigration, pointing to the appointment of immigration hardliners such as Stephen Miller, Trump’s incoming White House deputy chief of staff.

Yet signals are mixed. Trump has floated the idea of giving green cards to foreign graduates of American colleges and universities. And key Trump ally Elon Musk is a staunch supporter of the H-1B program, with Tesla hiring 742 new foreign workers in fiscal year 2024, ranking 16th among U.S. companies with the most H-1B visa approvals.

While it’s unclear what influence, if any, Musk will have on Trump’s immigration policies, Walker said she’s “hoping he may be in there to try to help tweak things that are from a positive perspective for the H-1B category.”
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NEW YORK — The U.S. flu season is under way, with cases surging across much of the country, health officials said Friday. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted sharp increases in several measures, including lab tests and emergency room visits. 

“It’s been increasing at a pretty steady pace now for the past several weeks. So yeah, we are certainly in flu season now,” said the CDC’s Alicia Budd. 

Thirteen states reported high or very high levels of flu-like illness last week, about double from the week before. One is Tennessee, where a sickness spike is hitting the Nashville area, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University. 

“Flu has been increasing, but just this last week has exploded,” Schaffner said. He noted that in a local clinic that serves as an indicator of illness trends, as many as a quarter of the patients have flu symptoms. 

Louisiana is another early hot spot. 

“Just this week is really that turning point where people are out because of the flu,” said Dr. Catherine O’Neal, an infectious diseases doctor at the largest private hospital in the state, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge. “You hear parents saying, ‘I can’t come to work because of the flu’ and ‘Where can I get a flu test?’” 

There are a number of bugs that cause fever, cough, sore throat and other flu-like symptoms. One is COVID-19. Another is RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, which is a common cause of cold-like symptoms but can be dangerous for infants and the elderly. 

The most recent CDC data show COVID-19 hospitalizations have been declining since summer. COVID-19 activity is moderate nationally, but high in the Midwest, according to CDC wastewater data. 

RSV hospitalizations started rising before flu did and now show signs of possibly leveling off, but they remain a little more common than admissions for flu. Overall, RSV activity is low nationally, but high in the South, the wastewater data show. 

The CDC called the start of flu season based on several indicators, including lab results for patients in hospitals and doctor’s offices, and the percentage of emergency department visits that had a discharge diagnosis of flu. 

No flu strain seems to be dominant, and it’s too early in the season to know how good a match the flu vaccine will be, Budd said. 

Last winter’s flu season was considered “moderate” overall, but it was long — 21 weeks — and the CDC estimated there were 28,000 flu-related deaths. It was unusually dangerous for children, with 205 pediatric deaths reported. That was the highest number ever reported for a conventional flu season. 

The long season was likely a factor, Budd said. Another factor was a lack of flu vaccinations. Among the children who died who were old enough for flu vaccinations — and for whom their vaccination status was known — 80% were not fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. 

Vaccination rates for children are even lower this year. As of Dec. 7, about 41% of adults had received a flu vaccination, similar to the rate at the same point last year. The percentage is the same for kids, but for them that’s a drop from a year ago, when 44% were vaccinated against the flu, according to CDC data. 

Vaccination rates are lower still against COVID-19, with about 21% of adults and 11% of children up to date. 

Flu experts suggest everyone get vaccinated, especially as people prepare to attend holiday gatherings where respiratory viruses can spread widely. 

“All those gatherings that are so heartwarming and fun and joyous are also an opportunity for this virus to spread person to person,” Schaffner said. “It’s not too late to get vaccinated.”
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Лубінець зазначив, що зустрівся з російською уповноваженою з прав людини Тетяною Москальковою.
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The United States last month formally opened a permanent military base in Poland, part of NATO’s missile defense system amid rising tensions with Russia. The Polish defense minister says the base is a testament to Polish-American cooperation. VOA Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze reports from Redzikowo, Poland.
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LONDON — It’s a photo that sent a tremor through British politics: Elon Musk flanked by British politician Nigel Farage and a wealthy backer, in front of a gilt-framed painting of a young Donald Trump.

Taken this week at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the image suggested that Musk, a key player in the incoming U.S. administration, could soon turn his disruptive attention to the U.K.

Farage, Trump’s highest-profile British champion, confirmed talks are under way about Musk making a hefty donation to Farage’s party, Reform U.K. The Times of London reported it could be as much as $100 million, which would be far and away the largest political donation in U.K. history. The reports have sparked calls for Britain’s rules on political donations to be tightened — quickly.

“We did discuss money,” Farage told broadcaster GB News after the meeting with Musk. “That’s a negotiation we will go back and have again. He is not against giving us money. He hasn’t fully decided whether he will.”

Britain has strict limits on how much political parties can spend on elections, but they can accept unlimited donations, as long as the donors are U.K. voters or companies registered in Britain. Musk’s social network X has a British arm, Twitter U.K. Ltd., with a registered address in London.

Critics say that’s a loophole that allows foreign influence in U.K. politics. The voting watchdog, the Electoral Commission, is calling for changes, including limiting the amount a company can donate to how much it earns in Britain.

“It’s crucial that U.K. voters have trust in the financing of our political system,” the commission’s chief executive, Vijay Rangarajan, told The Guardian. “The system needs strengthening, and we have been calling for changes to the law since 2013, to protect the electoral system from foreign interference.”

Britain’s center-left Labour Party pledged during the summer election campaign to tighten the rules on political donations, although legislation is not scheduled in the coming year. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson Dave Pares said Wednesday that work is already under way to “reinforce existing safeguards” against “impermissible proxy donations.”

The Labour government and the right-of-center opposition Conservatives are trying to figure out how to deal with Musk, who has taken a keen interest in the U.K. — and seemingly formed a strong dislike for Starmer.

Musk often posts on X about the U.K., retweeting criticism of Starmer and the hashtag TwoTierKeir — shorthand for an unsubstantiated claim that Britain has “two-tier policing,” with far-right protesters treated more harshly than pro-Palestinian or Black Lives Matter demonstrators. Musk has compared British attempts to weed out online misinformation to the Soviet Union, and during summer anti-immigrant violence across the U.K. tweeted that “civil war is inevitable.”

Farage has echoed some of those themes in his own social media output and his party’s anti-“woke” agenda, which includes pledges to slash immigration, scrap green-energy targets and leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

Founded in 2021, Reform U.K. is the latest in a string of small hard-right parties led by Farage that have had limited electoral success but an outsized influence on British politics. Farage’s opposition to the European Union helped push the country toward voting in 2016 to leave the bloc, a seismic political and economic break with the U.K.’s nearest neighbors.

Reform U.K. won just five of the 650 seats in the House of Commons in July’s election, but it came second in dozens more and secured 14% of the vote. Now it is pushing for fast growth, trying to professionalize its previously ramshackle organization and holding gatherings around the U.K. to recruit new members.

Farage, a strong communicator who has embraced TikTok and other platforms, aims to emulate Trump’s success in using the power of personality and social media to reach the “bro vote” — young men who are traditionally less likely to turn out at election time.

Farage told GB News that Musk has “already given me considerable help – understanding the process from start to finish, reaching disaffected communities who frankly feel there’s no point voting for anybody.”

The electoral power of social media was on show recently in Romania, where far-right candidate Calin Georgescu came from nowhere to win the first round of the presidential election in November, aided in part by a flood of TikTok videos promoting his campaign. Amid allegations that Russia had organized the social media campaign to back Georgescu, Romania’s Constitutional Court canceled the presidential election runoff two days before it was due to take place.

With Britain’s Conservative Party trying to recover from its worst election result since 1832, Farage dreams of making Reform the main opposition — or even the government — after the next election, due by 2029.

That’s a long shot, but Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said a big donation from Musk could have “disruptive potential in all sorts of ways.”

He said Musk’s money would give Reform “the opportunity to try and build up a serious campaign organization, which is something that they have generally lacked.”

“It’s certainly adding a new joker to the pack of cards in British politics,” Ford said. “We’ve had no shortage of surprising developments here in the past few years. And maybe this is the next one.”
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Президент України Володимир Зеленський провів розмову з президентом Чехії Петром Павелом
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Загалом має бути 10 фіналістів, останнього учасника фіналу оберуть глядачі голосуванням у «Дії» в січні
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WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has signaled eagerness to wrap up the war in Gaza as quickly as possible, even as the outgoing Biden administration continues its last-ditch diplomatic push for a ceasefire deal.

Earlier this week, Trump said if the hostages held by Hamas are not home by Jan. 20, 2025, the date of his inauguration, then “all hell is going to break out.”

The warning is similar to the threat he issued on social media earlier this month, where he said, “There will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America.”

It’s not clear what Trump plans to do in Gaza. When asked to clarify the threat, he said, “It means it won’t be pleasant.”

Trump may deploy resources to place military pressure on Hamas, said Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. However, it’s unlikely to be “significantly harsher than what the Israelis have brought to bear over the last 14 months.”

“There could be another element — which I hope that’s not the approach — to maybe squeeze some of that humanitarian aid going in,” Alkhatib told VOA.

It’s also possible that Trump’s threats are directed to Hamas members outside of Gaza and the countries that support them, and Trump might move to pressure those nations to cut off financing, Alkhatib added. Hamas is a U.S.-designated terror organization.

Hamas’ external wing may be more receptive to Washington’s pressure, particularly since its patron, Tehran, has been weakened through the loss of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Like Hamas, Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy, while the Assad regime was Tehran’s stalwart ally.

Trump’s warnings send “an unmistakable message to the people in the Middle East that the U.S. wants to get this done,” said David Makovsky, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Project on the Middle East Peace Process.

This leaves Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu navigating between placating the ultraright-wing faction of his coalition — which is pushing for building settlements in and even annexing Gaza — and pleasing Trump, who wants credit for ending the war and potentially expanding the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia, Makovsky told VOA.

The 2020 agreement brokered under the first Trump administration normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, then later with Morocco.

“Trump is not into building more settlements and staying in Gaza. Trump wants, I think, a Nobel Prize for a breakthrough with Saudi Arabia,” Makovsky said. “And I don’t think those things go together.”

Analysts say that even before taking office, Trump is already shaping the calculations of combatants in the Middle East. His pick for national security adviser, Representative Mike Waltz, gave the president-elect credit for last month’s ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, brokered by the U.S. and France.

“Everyone is coming to the table because of President Trump,” Waltz posted on social media. “His resounding victory sent a clear message to the rest of the world that chaos won’t be tolerated.”

US ‘hopeful’ for deal

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has pledged to spend all the time left in its waning days to try to make a deal happen. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday he is “hopeful” an agreement can be reached.

“Gaza has to be translated into something different that ensures that Hamas is not in any way in charge, that Israel doesn’t have to be, and that there’s something coherent that follows that enables the governance, the security, the reconstruction of Gaza,” he said.

That goal is still out of reach, despite Washington’s renewed diplomatic push with Turkey, Egypt and Qatar.

“I don’t see a scenario in which President Biden is going to be able to really fundamentally shift the needle here,” Alkhatib said.

He added that while Hamas may be motivated to secure a deal while Biden is still in office rather than after Jan. 20 when the U.S. is likely to drive a much harder bargain, they know that any assurances provided by the Biden administration may not be fulfilled by the Trump administration.

This despite officials from both the Biden and Trump administrations saying they are working together in handling global conflicts, partly to secure the transition period that may be seen by adversaries as moments of opportunity, said national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

“And so, the imperative on us, both the outgoing Biden administration, the incoming Trump administration, has to be to lash up more tightly than is typical, to spend more time together than is typical, and to try to ensure we are sending a common, clear message to both friends and adversaries in the Middle East.”

The common message from the two leaders is that the U.S. wants the conflict to end. So far, the warring parties are not listening. 
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U.S. billionaire Elon Musk, set to join President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, waded into Germany’s election campaign on Friday, calling the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) the country’s savior.

The AfD is running second in opinion polls and might be able to thwart either a center-right or center-left majority, but Germany’s mainstream, more centrist parties have vowed to shun support from the AfD at national level.

Europe’s leading power is expected to vote on February 23 after a center-left coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz collapsed.

“Only the AfD can save Germany,” Musk wrote in a post on his social media platform, X.

Musk, the world’s richest person, has already expressed support for other anti-immigration parties across Europe.

The German government said it had taken note of Musk’s post but declined to give any further comment at its regular press conference.

Musk reposted a message by German right-wing influencer Naomi Seibt that criticized Friedrich Merz, chancellor candidate for the conservatives, who are comfortably ahead in surveys.

Musk had already voiced support for the AfD last year, when he attacked the German government’s handling of illegal migration.

Last month, Musk called for the sacking of Italian judges who had questioned the legality of government measures to prevent irregular immigration.

And this week Nigel Farage, leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party and friend of Trump, posted a photo of himself and Reform’s treasurer meeting Musk at Trump’s Florida residence, and said he was in talks with Musk about financial support.

 
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