UN chief Antonio Guterres condemned Israel’s raid on the East Jerusalem compound of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA as a violation of UN immunity. Israel says tax collectors entered over $3.4M in unpaid taxes. UNRWA warns it sets a “dangerous precedent.”
Twelve former agents with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have filed a lawsuit alleging wrongful termination by the administration of US President Donald Trump for the act of taking a knee during racial justice protests in Washington DC, in 2020.
The lawsuit, filed in a US District Court on Monday, states that the agents were fired as part of a politicised “campaign of retribution” by the Trump administration over perceived sympathy for the protests, prompted by the police killing of George Floyd.
The agents have said that they kneeled during the protests in order to de-escalate a tense situation and that it was not meant as an act of political support. The controversy over their termination has brought further attention to the Trump administration’s efforts to enact retribution against perceived political enemies.
In recent months, federal prosecutors who worked on investigations into Trump have been fired, along with a federal worker who had an LGBTQ flag in his workplace.
The lawsuit states that Trump had attacked the agents, nine of whom are women, on social media before returning to the White House in 2024 and that FBI Director Kash Patel was intent on firing them, despite a previous review by FBI officials who concluded that the agents had kneeled to help ease tensions rather than as an act of support.
“Defendants targeted plaintiffs in particular because of plaintiffs’ use of deescalation with civilians that defendants perceived as opposed to, or otherwise not affiliated with, President Trump,” the lawsuit states.
It states that the agents had encountered a hostile crowd and that by kneeling, they may have avoided a “deadly confrontation” that “could have rivalled the Boston Massacre in 1770”, a reference to the shooting of protesters by British forces in Boston before the American Revolution. In a photo of the incident, however, agents appear relaxed, with little indication of serious risk.
The region has seen a rise in more powerful storms this year.
Southeast Asia is facing one of its worst storm seasons on record, as thousands of people have died or are missing across Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Sri Lanka.
Another storm is currently forming in the Philippine Sea.
But while governments are promising to rebuild, it is not clear how they can afford to do so every year as the storm seasons get worse.
At the same time, the United Nations announced that it has slashed its 2026 budget for response to war and natural disasters by half.
These countries are increasingly on their own – left to try and put cities and lives back together, storm after storm.
So, how is this changing lives and livelihoods?
And what does the future of flood recovery look like across Southeast Asia?
Presenter: Dareen Abughaida
Guests:
Alexandre Borde – Environmental economist and CEO of Cibola Partners
Sehr Raheja – Programme officer for the Climate Change Programme at the Centre for Science and Environment
One of Ecuador’s recent presidents, Lenin Moreno, will stand trial for charges related to an alleged bribery scheme.
On Monday, Judge Olavo Hernandez ruled that the prosecution against Moreno, who served as president from 2017 to 2021, could proceed.
list of 3 itemsend of list
The charges stem from a years-long inquiry into the construction of the country’s largest hydroelectric power facility — and whether Moreno inappropriately favoured a Chinese company for its construction.
“This judge resolves to bring citizen Lenin Moreno to trial as the direct perpetrator of the crime of bribery,” Hernandez said in the decision.
Moreno has denied any allegations of wrongdoing. He currently lives in Paraguay.
But in a video posted to social media, Moreno denounced the prosecution’s case, which began in 2023.
“I have presented all the evidence to the attorney general’s office, and they have not been able to prove that I received a single cent,” Moreno said. “Let’s not allow such a great injustice to be committed.”
According to prosecutors, the illegal actions began while Moreno was vice president, from 2007 to 2013.
They accuse Moreno of using his sway to ensure the Chinese firm Sinohydro received government contracts to construct the Coca Codo Sinclair power plant, which began operations in 2016.
In return, prosecutors allege that Sinohydro doled out bribes worth about $76m between 2009 and 2018.
According to Ecuador’s former Attorney General Diana Salazar, Moreno’s family had business connections to Sinohydro, and they formed a “corruption network” that had “interstate and transnational reach”.
She has accused Moreno and his family of engineering “a false image of consulting and representation services” to channel bribes through “gifts, checks and transfers”.
Since its opening, the Coca Codo Sinclair plant has struggled with technical issues, including cracks in its construction.
The hydroelectric dam has also drawn scrutiny for the circumstances of its construction: Ecuador took out loans from China worth nearly $19bn for Coca Codo Sinclair and other projects.
As of 2024, the country’s total gross domestic product (GDP) was only around $124.7bn, according to the World Bank.
Moreno became vice president under left-wing leader Rafael Correa, who inspired a loyal political movement in Ecuador known as “correismo”.
By 2017, Correa had completed three terms and was limited by law from running again.
Moreno ran instead as the representative for Correa’s PAIS Alliance and won — but he ultimately faced backlash for pursuing centre-right economic reforms that deviated from his predecessor’s platform. The two leaders have since turned into prominent critics of one another.
Footage shows Thai civilians huddling in bunkers and Cambodian children fleeing classrooms after Thailand launched dawn airstrikes on Cambodian border forces on Monday. Both nations accuse the other of breaching a ceasefire brokered by Donald Trump. At least four Cambodian civilians were killed.
The Hollywood award season in the United States is hitting high gear, with nominations unveiled for one of the biggest contests of 2026: the 83rd annual Golden Globes.
Often seen as a bellwether for the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes honour achievements in both television and filmmaking — a distinction that, with the advent of streaming over the last two decades, has become all the murkier.
list of 3 itemsend of list
Limping post-pandemic box office numbers and high-stakes mergers have also complicated the future of the motion picture industry, with streaming giants like Netflix making a play for the century-old studio Warner Bros.
Still, several big-name blockbusters and critical darlings topped this year’s Golden Globe nominations.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s political thriller One Battle After Another was a standout, making good on its star-studded cast to sweep up five acting nods, plus nominations for Best Comedy, Best Director and Best Screenplay. It leads the field with nine nominations overall.
Anderson was not the only cinematic “auteur” to receive laurels from the Golden Globe Foundation.
Chloe Zhao’s historical tear-jerker Hamnet — based on the relationship between playwright William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes — nabbed six nominations in various drama categories.
And Ryan Coogler’s springtime crowd-pleaser Sinners — a vampire film and cultural commentary, wrapped in one — scored seven nods, including Best Drama, Best Director and Best Cinematic Achievement.
While the Golden Globes are often seen as a cozy, champagne-clacking affair for Hollywood titans, this year’s nominations also suggest an ever-more international scope for its honourees.
The meditative Norwegian drama Sentimental Value scooped up eight nominations, and the French nominee It Was Just an Accident, by Iranian director Jafar Panahi, earned four.
South Korea and Brazil also broke free from the Non-English Language Film category, scoring nominations in the acting, songwriting and animation competitions for films like KPop Demon Hunters, No Other Choice and The Secret Agent.
Some pieces of award bait, meanwhile, failed to deliver on their potential. Director Luca Guadagnino’s slippery, post-MeToo drama After the Hunt, for example, only scored a single nomination for star Julia Roberts.
Likewise, the musical film Wicked: For Good — the sequel to last year’s award-season juggernaut — disappointed its expectations. While it scored nods in acting and song categories, it failed to land in contention for some of the biggest prizes, including Best Motion Picture: Comedy or Musical.
The 83rd annual Golden Globes are scheduled to air on January 11, 2026. Here is the full list of nominees: