Lauri Markkanen had 33 points and seven rebounds and the Utah Jazz snapped a five-game losing streak with a 116-114 victory over the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA.
Keyonte George had 19 points and seven assists for the home side on Thursday.
Cooper Flagg led the Mavericks with 26 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists, while Klay Thompson scored 23 points.
Dallas moved ahead 107-100 with 4:39 remaining, but Utah answered with a 16-4 run to move ahead 116-111 with 29 seconds left.
Markkanen finished 14 of 26 from the field with seven rebounds and four assists for Utah, who have won their first two meetings against Dallas this season.
The Mavericks committed 20 turnovers and lost for the fifth time in their last seven games.
Meanwhile, Pascal Siakam scored 18 of his 30 points in the first half and hit the winning shot as the Indiana Pacers snapped a 13-game losing streak in a 114-112 triumph against the host Charlotte Hornets.
Collin Sexton’s potential tying shot was off the mark in the final second as the Hornets lost in the final seconds for the second night in a row. Siakam scored on a go-ahead drive with 11.5 seconds left. He made 12 of 23 shots with three 3-pointers and also grabbed 14 rebounds. TJ McConnell racked up 23 points off the Pacers’ bench, Aaron Nesmith supplied 16 points and Jay Huff added 10 points.
LaMelo Ball had a game-high 33 points, aided by seven 3-point baskets, in his first game coming off the bench since his rookie season (2020-21). Miles Bridges posted 19 points, Kon Knueppel had 18 points and Sexton finished with 11 points.
In Minnesota, Julius Randle scored 28 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and dished eight assists to help the home side hold on to beat Cleveland.
Jaden McDaniels finished with 26 points on 11-for-14 shooting for Minnesota, which won its fourth game in a row. Anthony Edwards scored 25 points on 10-for-20 shooting, and Rudy Gobert recorded a double-double with 11 points and 13 rebounds.
Donovan Mitchell scored 30 points on 10-for-20 shooting to lead Cleveland, which lost for the second time in its past three games. He added eight assists. Sam Merrill scored 22 points off the bench, and Jarrett Allen notched a double-double with 11 points and 10 boards.
Edwards became the third-youngest player in NBA history to reach 10,000 career points at 24 years and 156 days. He was beaten to the mark by just LeBron James (23 years, 59 days) and Kevin Durant (24 years, 33 days). Edwards is one of seven players who have hit 10,000 points before age 25, with Kobe Bryant, Luka Doncic, Tracy McGrady and Carmelo Anthony also in that group.
Protests across Iran are growing as thousands of people voice anger at the dire state of the country’s economy. Ahead of more planned protests, monitors say there is a near total internet blackout. Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi filed this update from Tehran.
Millions of people in Sudan are in urgent need of humanitarian help, aid organisations have warned, as the war in the east African state marked its 1,000th day.
Fierce fighting and global funding cuts have pushed more than 33 million people towards starvation in what has become one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises, nongovernmental organisations said on Friday as the grim anniversary passed.
Warning that Sudan’s hunger crisis is reaching unprecedented levels, the groups called on global governments to raise efforts to end the war between the country’s military rulers and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which began in April 2023.
Both sides have been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, while the RSF has been implicated in atrocities in Darfur that the United Nations says may amount to genocide.
The paramilitary group’s recent resurgence in the vast states of Darfur and Kordofan has forced the displacement of millions more people.
A new UN assessment in North Darfur shows more than half of young children are malnourished – one of the highest rates ever recorded worldwide, said Islamic Relief in a statement.
“More than 45% of people across Sudan – over 21 million people – are suffering acute food shortages and a recent Islamic Relief assessment in Gedaref and Darfur found 83% of families don’t have enough food,” the statement reads.
Separately, a coalition of 13 aid agencies called on the British government, as the UN Security Council penholder, to push for increased funding for the humanitarian response and to drive action to end the fighting.
In a statement, they warned that the world’s largest food crisis has left more than 21 million people facing acute food shortages, noting that millions of displaced people have been forced into unsafe, overcrowded settlements, rife with hunger and disease outbreaks, and gender-based violence.
“The conflict has driven the collapse of livelihoods and services, with an estimated 70 to 80 percent of hospitals and health facilities affected and non-operational, leaving roughly 65 percent of the population without access to healthcare,” the statement said.
“This war cannot be allowed to go on any longer. For 1,000 days we’ve seen our country ripped apart and civilians attacked, starved and forced from their land,” said Elsadig Elnour, Islamic Relief’s senior programme manager in Sudan.
Brutal choices
Yet with the Trump administration in the United States having led huge cuts in humanitarian funding, aid for Sudan is forced to compete with other conflict-plagued locations such as Gaza, Ukraine and Myanmar for an ever smaller pot.
The UN said last month, as it launched its 2026 appeal for aid funding, that it faced “brutal choices”. Due to a plunge in donor funding, it said it was being forced to ask for just $23bn, about half the amount it needs, despite humanitarian needs globally being at an all-time high.
“Sharp cuts in foreign assistance have further weakened humanitarian operations, stripping funding from essential programmes, meaning people won’t have enough to eat and feed their families, have access to basic healthcare, clean water and sanitation, or a safe place to live, with a heightened risk of gender-based violence,” the statement issued by the 13 aid agencies warns.
An avalanche of rubbish buried workers at a waste segregation facility in a central Philippine city, killing one person, injuring seven and leaving at least 27 others missing, police have said.
Rescuers retrieved eight people alive and were searching for the missing still trapped after a huge mound of rubbish and debris collapsed on them in Binaliw, Cebu city, police said on Friday.
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Those affected included workers at the landfill, but it was unclear if non-workers were among the victims.
One of those rescued, a female landfill worker, died while being brought to a hospital, regional police director Roderick Maranan told The Associated Press news agency, adding the rest survived with injuries.
Search and rescue efforts were continuing for the 27 missing, Maranan said, citing an initial police report.
Cebu city Mayor Nestor Archival said Friday that at least 12 people have been rescued and 38 others remain missing. The reason for the different numbers of missing and rescued given by the police and Archival was not immediately clear.
“All response teams remain fully engaged in search and retrieval efforts to locate the remaining missing persons with strict adherence to safety protocols,” Archival said in a statement posted on Facebook.
At the landfill site, dozens of rescuers scrambled overnight in search of people trapped.
“The city government assures the public and the families of those affected that all necessary measures are being taken to ensure safety, transparency, accountability and compassionate assistance as operations continue,” Archival said.
Authorities and officials at the waste management facility, which has 110 employees, were to hold an emergency meeting on Friday, Archival said.
An aerial view of the landfill collapse [Jacqueline Hernandez/AP Photo]
Aerial photos released by police showed what appeared to be multiple structures crushed under the weight of the rubbish.
Jason Morata, a city assistant public information officer, said the buildings had housed “company offices, HR, admin, maintenance staff” for a private firm that ran the site.
“It must be four storeys high,” Morata said of the rubbish mountain.
He added that information was emerging at a trickle, as there was “no signal” at the dump site.
The landfill “processes 1,000 tons of municipal solid waste daily”, according to the website of operator Prime Integrated Waste Solutions.
“We don’t know what caused the collapse. It wasn’t raining at all,” said Marge Parcotello, a civilian staff member of the police department in Consolacion, a town that shares a common boundary with the dump site.
“Many of the victims are from Consolacion,” the AFP news agency quoted her as saying.
More than 200 people were killed in July 2000 when an avalanche of rubbish consumed a Manila shanty town populated by several thousand scavengers.
Overnight into Friday, Russia launched a large attack on Ukraine with missiles and drones, killing at least three and injuring 16 people in the capital Kyiv, according to The Associated Press news agency.
Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko reported multiple districts in Kyiv were struck, including Desnyanskyi, where a drone crashed into a building and the first two floors of a residential building were damaged.
In Kyiv’s Dnipro district, a drone also damaged a multi-story building, and there were reports of a collapsed entrance in one structure.
Parts of Kyiv also experienced disruption to running water and electricity services, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Klitschko identified one of the dead as an emergency medical person who arrived at an apartment building that was hit by two drones in succession. Four more members of the emergency crew were injured in the same incident.
An air alert was in effect in the capital for five hours.
A ballistic missile hit infrastructure in the western city of Lviv, according to the city’s mayor, Andriy Sadoviy.
An investigation has been opened into the type of missile employed in the Lviv attack, after the Western Command of Ukraine’s Air Force recorded its speed at 13,000 kilometres per hour (more than 8,000 miles per hour).
The bombardment happened after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had warned late on Thursday that “another massive Russian attack may happen” as Russian forces try to “exploit the harsh winter weather” for strategic advantage.
In Russia’s Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that a Ukrainian attack on local utilities left half a million people without power or heat and cut off water for nearly 200,000 people.
A residential building is damaged after a Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 9 [Efrem Lukatsky/AP Photo]
Politics and diplomacy:
President Zelenskyy posted a message late on Thursday, encouraging the US to take action against Russia. “Right now, Russia is betting more on winter than on diplomacy – on ballistic missiles against our energy system rather than on working with the United States and agreements with President Trump,” Zelenskyy wrote. “This must change – through pressure on Russia and continued support for Ukraine.”
In a separate message, Zelenskyy announced progress with the US on a security deal. “The bilateral document on security guarantees for Ukraine is now essentially ready for finalization at the highest level with the President of the United States,” Zelenskyy wrote on the social media platform X. “It is important that Ukraine is successfully uniting the efforts of the European and American teams.”
Zelenskyy acknowledged that the US would continue to negotiate with Russia on peace talks, writing, “We understand that the American side will engage with Russia, and we expect feedback on whether the aggressor is genuinely willing to end the war.”
A spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said on Thursday that any European troops in Ukraine would be “considered legitimate military targets”. She called Ukraine and its allies an “axis of war”.
In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, US President Donald Trump positioned his country’s military might as the primary bulwark standing in the way of Russia’s expansionist goals. He also described himself as a good ally to Europe. “I’ve been very loyal to Europe. I’ve done a good job. If it weren’t for me, Russia would have all of Ukraine right now,” he told the Times. “If you look at NATO, Russia I can tell you is not at all concerned with any other country but us.”
Trump addressed the impending expiration of the New START treaty in February, which would mark the end of one of the last remaining nuclear non-proliferation agreements. “If it expires, it expires,” Trump told the Times. “We’ll just do a better agreement.” He added that any future agreement should include China and other nuclear powers.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs marked the anniversary of the attack on Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752, which was shot down by an Iranian missile on January 8, 2020. It said the Ukrainian government would continue to seek accountability for the 176 lives lost. “We are convinced that impunity for grave violations of international law, including international air law, undermines confidence in the international security system and creates preconditions for the repetition of similar crimes,” the Foreign Ministry wrote.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte met on Thursday and reaffirmed their commitment to security guarantees for Ukraine. The two leaders also expressed optimism about the meeting between US and Russian envoys in Paris this week. “Both leaders welcomed the strong commitments by all participants in Paris,” the spokesperson said. “It was vital that the security guarantees for Ukraine ensured Russia was never able to invade again, the leaders reiterated.”
The Downing Street spokesperson also said Starmer and Rutte called for more efforts to defend against Russian encroachments in the High North region, a term used to refer to the Arctic and surrounding areas.
A residential building is seen damaged after a Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 9 [Efrem Lukatsky/AP Photo]
Sanctions:
In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump addressed the seizure of the Russian oil tanker, the Marinera, earlier this week. “They had some Russian ships guarding it, and they decided not to mess around with us,” Trump said. “We took that one, and it’s unloading the oil. We’re taking billions and billions of dollars worth of oil.”
In the United Kingdom, John Swinney, the first minister of Scotland, offered measured support for the US seizure of the Russian tanker. “If this is a measure to enforce agreed sanctions that were being circumvented by the use of this tanker, then I support that action,” Swinney said, according to local media. “Because where sanctions are put in place to tackle the unacceptable illegal behaviour of a state like Russia in Ukraine, I think those sanctions should be enforced.”
For decades, the idea of a political alliance between Venezuela and the United States has seemed impossible with Caracas defining itself by Chavismo, a left-wing populist ideology rooted in anti-imperialism and confronting Washington’s policies.
But after US President Donald Trump ordered the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday, followed by US insistence that Caracas’s interim government must take orders from Washington, questions about the future of Chavismo in Venezuela have begun to emerge.
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So what is Chavismo? Is it still a living movement – or has it morphed so far from its origins that it is in effect dead?
Here’s what to know:
What is Chavismo?
Chavismo is named after its founder, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s late, outspoken socialist politician and leader. It is based on his policies and reforms when he served as president from 1999 until his death in 2013.
Inspired by the ideologies of Venezuelan military officer Simon Bolivar, who fought for the independence of Latin American states from Spanish colonialism in the mid-1800s, Chavez introduced many social reforms that he believed would reduce poverty and bring about equality in the country.
These reforms included the government supporting social welfare programmes, nationalising industries and confronting what Chavez called imperialist policies from countries like the US, which, according to Chavez, prioritised capitalism over human rights.
During a trip to the US in 2006, Chavez said: “Capitalism is the way of the devil and exploitation.”
“If you really want to look at things through the eyes of Jesus Christ, who I think was the first socialist, only socialism can really create a genuine society.”
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez speaks at the UN General Assembly in New York in 2006 [File: Ray Stubblebine/Reuters]
Besides Chavez’s political party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, other parties like the far-left Revolutionary Movement Tupamaro and Fatherland for All also support the political ideology.
After Chavez’s death, Maduro, a former bus driver from Caracas who was a longtime supporter of Chavez and is often seen as his protege, became president.
Speaking at Chavez’s funeral in March 2013, Maduro promised to continue the Chavismo of his predecessor and said Venezuela would be ruled by democracy and socialism.
“We’ll continue protecting the poor. We’ll continue giving food to those who need it. We’ll continue building the education of our children. We’ll continue building the Grand Homeland. We’ll continue building peace, … peace for our continent, the peace of our people,” he said at the time.
However, it is hard to define Chavismo as a socialist ideology because it is heterogeneous, said Yoletty Bracho, an associate professor of political science at France’s Avignon University who focuses on Venezuela.
“[Chavismo] is a political movement that was built upon the reunion of diverse actors across the political and social spectrum: social movements, historical left-wing parties, military actors. Maintaining a kind of coherence between these various sectors was one of the challenges during the Chavista democratic era,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Later on, due to authoritarian consolidation, Chavismo reduced its heterogeneity to serve the interests of the political and military elites and their capacity of staying in power,” she added.
Has Chavismo worked in Venezuela?
According to a March 2013 report by the European nonprofit Center for Economic and Policy Research, after Chavez came to power, poverty in the country “decreased significantly”, dropping by nearly 50 percent, while extreme poverty dropped by more than 70 percent. At the same time, nationalisation of the oil industry led to the economy growing.
But some critics said, despite this, Venezuela’s private sector still dominated the economy.
A 2010 report by The Associated Press news agency citing Venezuela’s Central Bank said despite Chavez seeking to make the country a socialist economy, the private sector still controlled two-thirds of its economy, which was the same level as when he was elected in 1998.
In an interview with American TV presenter John Stossel in 2017, scholar and political activist Noam Chomsky said Chavez’s ideology “was quite remote from socialism”.
“Private capitalism remained. … Capitalists were free to undermine the economy in all sorts of ways,” he added.
Many critics also argued that Chavismo is already dead – that it died under Maduro’s rule when the ousted president ruled the country in a hardline manner.
Securing human rights was supposed to be a key aspect of Chavismo. But especially since Maduro came to power, rights groups have documented how the government has cracked down on human rights defenders and protesters critical of the administration, tried to regulate media coverage of protests and political events in the country, and carried out more human rights violations, including arbitrary detentions of opposition leaders.
Bracho told Al Jazeera that while the Chavista government under Chavez and Maduro sought to advance political inclusion and social justice in Venezuela, it also became extremely corrupt and repressive.
“For many years now, many people in the country and even opposition leaders do not feel represented by the Chavista government, which seeks to govern through socialism,” she said.
Moreover, while the ideology of Chavismo sought to advance Venezuela’s economy by shunning neoliberal policies and prioritising democracy, under Maduro’s rule, the economy began shrinking. According to the International Monetary Fund, from 2014 to 2021, Venezuela’s economy shrank by almost 80 percent.
“Chavismo initially had a great impact on wealth redistribution and, importantly, bringing into the political arena wide sectors of the population that had been historically marginalised,” Renata Segura, International Crisis Group’s programme director for Latin America and the Caribbean, told Al Jazeera.
But after Chavez’s death, “Chavismo also lost the leader who captured the imagination of many Venezuelans”, she said. “During Maduro’s reign, the regime lost much of its ideological coherence. Corruption, incapacity to run the state and an ever-growing economic crisis has made Chavismo become empty promises that soon lost almost all support among Venezuelans.”
According to the magazine America’s Quarterly, which focuses on stories from Latin America, groups that called themselves “Chavistas no-Maduristas”, or supporters of Chavez who oppose Maduro’s rule due to his manner of governance, formed an alliance in 2016 called the Platform for the Fight of Chavismo and the Left, seeking to preserve Chavismo under Maduro’s rule.
But despite the pockets of dissent, a large group of Chavistas have remained loyal to Maduro due to his economic incentives to address the country’s financial crisis and his measures to counter US sanctions and foreign influence on the country.
Since 2005, the US has sanctioned individuals and entities in Venezuela for “criminal, antidemocratic or corrupt actions”. In 2017 during Trump’s first term as president, Washington also imposed broad financial sanctions against the government for alleged democratic backsliding.
Maduro has since accused the US of meddling in Venezuela and making the country poorer.
After Maduro’s abduction, can Chavismo survive?
After Maduro was seized and taken to New York by US forces on Saturday, Trump said the US will “run” Venezuela and the interim government led by Delcy Rodriguez must take orders from Washington.
But Rodriguez, who has been a staunch supporter of both Chavez and Maduro and served as Maduro’s oil minister and vice president, has promised to uphold the ideals of Chavismo.
“We will never again be a colony of any empire,” she said during a televised address to Venezuelans on Sunday, referring to Spain’s colonisation.
“The government of Venezuela is in charge in our country and no one else. There is no foreign agent governing Venezuela,” Rodriguez said after becoming interim president.
Crisis Group’s Segura said that while there are still “ideologically hardcore members” of Venezuela’s government post-Maduro, their main goal is to remain in power.
“Delcy Rodriguez and others in government remain loyal to at least the rhetoric of Chavismo, but it is too early to say if the government will be able to continue operating as it has,” she said. “The Trump administration is opposed to any socialist regime, even if just in name.”
According to Bracho, the US has shown that it has the force and means to topple the government if Caracas does not follow Washington’s rules. But at the same time, it has also gone against international law by seizing Maduro and demanding access to Venezuela’s natural resources.
She warned that while the interim government negotiates with Trump and concedes to some of his demands, there might be the possibility that a repressive Chavista government still stays in place in Venezuela while the US’s agenda also prevails.
