Category World News

US officers detain 5-year-old boy as Minnesota immigration raids continue

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A five-year-old boy who was arriving home from preschool in Minnesota was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers after allegedly using him as “bait” to apprehend his father, who is seeking asylum.

According to Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik during a news conference on Wednesday, federal agents removed the child, Liam Conejo Ramos, from the running car while it was in the family’s driveway on Tuesday afternoon.

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The officers then instructed the child to knock on his home’s door to check if anyone else was inside, “essentially using a five-year-old as bait,” Stenvik said.

Stenvik claimed that the family, who immigrated to the United States in 2024, is still receiving asylum and has not received an exit order.

Why is a five-year-old held in custody? she inquired. You can’t tell me that this kid will be a violent criminal, he said.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, stated in a statement that “ICE did NOT target a child.”

She claimed that ICE was detaining Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, the child’s father, who McLaughlin claimed is an émigré from Ecuador.

One of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias, according to McLaughlin, adding that parents have the option of having their children placed with a person of their choosing for their safety.

According to Stenvik, Liam is the fourth student from Columbia Heights Public Schools to have been detained by ICE recently. A 10-year-old and a 17-year-old were both taken on Tuesday while a 17-year-old was heading to school, according to the woman.

The family’s attorney, Marc Prokosch, claimed on Thursday that Liam and his father were being held in a family holding cell and that they had been placed in a family holding cell.

At a press conference, he said, “We’re looking at our legal options to see if we can free them either through some legal mechanisms or moral pressure.”

In accordance with an attorney who went to the Dilley detention facility last week to see how things were going, according to a lawyer who is currently fighting to ensure the safekeeping of immigrant children held in federal custody.

The legal counsel for Children’s Rights, Leecia Welch, said, “The conditions were worse than ever.”

Welch claimed that “significant numbers of children had been detained for more than 100 days” and that the number of children had skyrocketed.

“Almost every child we spoke to was sick, and it appeared to be a disease epidemic.” Families reported that their children had been languished, severely ill, and in severe need of prolonged detention, according to Welch.

US Vice President JD Vance claimed he had heard the “terrible story” about Liam during a trip to Minneapolis on Thursday, but that he had no idea what the federal agents could have done differently.

What are they supposed to do, then? A five-year-old child should not be allowed to freeze until they die. Are illegal aliens not supposed to be detained in the United States of America? Vance noted that he was the father of a five-year-old while also mentioning his own.

According to US Customs and Border Protection official Greg Bovino, there have been about 3, 000 arrests in recent weeks in immigration raids across Minnesota.

Advocates have no way of knowing whether the government’s arrest statistics or person descriptions are accurate, according to Julia Decker, policy director at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota.

Three people were detained in Minneapolis on Thursday after they staged a protest at Cities Church in St Paul, where they claimed one of the pastors, David Easterwood, was the St Paul ICE field office’s acting field director, according to US Attorney General Pam Bondi. According to the Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper, Chauntyll Louisa Allen and Minneapolis activist Nekima Levy Armstrong were among those detained.

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,429

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On Friday, January 23, 2018, this is how things are going.

Fighting

  • Vyacheslav Zadorenko, the head of the regional military administration, reported on the Telegram messaging app that two bread-delivering volunteers were killed in a Russian drone attack on their car in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine.
  • At least seven people were hurt when Russian forces launched a drone attack on a high-rise residential building in Dnipro, according to the city’s mayor Borys Filatov.
  • In the disputed Komyshuvakha area of Ukraine, four people were killed and four were hurt as a result of Russian glide bombings, according to Governor Ivan Fedorov.
  • Oleksandr Hanzha, the head of the regional military administration, reported that 12 people were hurt in a Russian attack on Kryvyi Rih city in the Ukrainian Dnipropetrovsk region, including four children.
  • According to a report from Russia’s TASS state news agency, Russian forces shot down 31 Ukrainian drones overnight and into the early hours of Thursday.

Sanctions

    An oil tanker in the Mediterranean Sea, according to officials, belongs to Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet,” which was meant to evade international sanctions, was intercepted by the French navy.

  • The oil tanker, according to French President Emmanuel Macron, was “coming from Russia, subject to international sanctions, and suspected of flying a false flag.” He added that allies and allies participated in the operation “in strict accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.”

Energy crisis

  • The situation is still “extremely difficult,” according to Ukraine’s Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal, which came on Thursday during its most troubled day since a widespread blackout hit the network in November 2022.
  • As nighttime temperatures dropped to -10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit), conditions were the most challenging in the capital Kyiv and the surrounding area, according to Shmyhal, as well as in the southeast of Dnipropetrovsk.
  • Two days after the most recent overnight Russian attacks, Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko reported that 600 apartment buildings had their heating restored, while 2,600 were still without heat.

diplomacy and politics

  • Two Russian soldiers who were taken into custody in May 2025 were alive and unharmed, according to Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova, who later disclosed their bodies to Ukraine as part of a prisoner exchange agreement late last year. Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify the report.

military assistance

    Tore O Sandvik, the country’s defense minister, stated in “cooperation with the United States and others” that “his country has quickly delivered air defense missiles to Ukraine at a crucial stage so that the NASAMS system can continue to protect Ukrainian citizens from deadly air strikes.

‘Will act accordingly’: US threatens action against Haitian council

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The Transitional Presidential Council in Haiti is being advised by the United States that it would take action if the temporary governing body’s security were to be compromised.

The US embassy in Haiti stated in a stern-worded social media post on Thursday that its goal was “the establishment of baseline security and stability.”

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The non-elected Transitional Presidential Council’s tentative change of the government composition would appear to be an attempt to undermine that goal, according to Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, who wrote in a letter to the US.

If the council were to undergo such changes, the US would respond, he added. However, his statement failed to specify the specifics of the warning’s occurrence.

Anyone supporting a disruptive move that favors the gangs would be acting in a way that would conflict with the interests of the United States, the region, and the Haitian people, according to Landau.

Haiti’s government is still struggling to cope with the effects of widespread gang violence, instability, and corruption.

However, the region’s response to the US threat is likely to be agonizing, particularly in the wake of Venezuela’s January 3 attack.

In a move known as the “Donroe Doctrine,” a riff on the Monroe Doctrine from the 19th century, President Donald Trump has repeatedly defended the idea that the entire Western Hemisphere falls under its purview.

Trump has made use of that premise to support his claims that the US needs to control Greenland and that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro should be kidnapped.

A crisis in politics

Haiti, which is located 800 kilometers (11, 000 kilometers) southeast of the United States, has long experienced instability. Because of the legacy of foreign intervention, dictatorship, and natural disasters, it is still regarded as the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.

However, the nation experienced a new crisis in 2021 when Jovenel Moise was killed inside his Port-au-Prince residence.

Since then, there hasn’t been a single federal election, which has caused a government-confidence crisis. Mandats for the last federally elected officials came to an end in 2023.

According to experts, Haiti’s gangs have taken control of large areas of the territory, including up to 90% of the capital, as a result of the country’s lack of leadership.

More than 1.4 million Haitians have been forced out of their homes as a result of the violence. Millions more people are affected by food insecurity because gang-led roadblocks frequently obstruct thoroughfares.

An estimated 8, 100 people were killed in the violence between January and November of last year, according to a UN report released this week. Since 2024, when the annual total was 5,600, has increased, that is.

However, efforts have been made to restore stability in the nation. To establish the framework for new federal elections, the Transitional Presidential Council was created as a temporary governing body. It was established in 2024 and has nine members who serve as chairs on a rotating basis.

However, the council quickly received criticism for its largely selected members from the country’s business and political elite, and corruption allegations began to surface. Additionally, the members have engaged in internal fighting.

The tensions on the council are also heightened by the US. It placed visa restrictions on an unnamed government official who was later identified in the media as Fritz Alphonse Jean, a member of the council.

The council had planned to hold tiered elections starting in November, but they failed to do so, forcing the first vote to be postponed until August.

The council’s mandate is set to expire on February 7, and the panel’s future is still undetermined.

UN action is demanded.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attributed the government’s dysfunctional leadership to Haiti’s ongoing humanitarian crisis in this week’s Haiti report.

As transitional governance arrangements near expiration and overdue elections remain urgent, violence has increased and spread geographically, aggravating food insecurity and instability, according to Guterres.

Another UN representative, Carlos Ruiz-Massieu, who is in charge of the UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), was equally vocal about the urgent need for unified governance and transparent democratic processes.

Let’s be clear: “The country no longer wastes time on protracted internal struggles,” he said.

Ruiz-Massieu added that there have been “encouraging” signs ahead of the upcoming elections this year in a speech to the UN Security Council on Wednesday. He applauded efforts to increase voter registration, particularly among those in Haiti’s diaspora, and promote female political participation.

However, Ruiz-Massieu emphasized that security concerns, including gang violence, could impede the democratic process and that more needed work needed to be done before elections could be held.

According to him, “achieving this goal will require continued coordination among the relevant institutions, predictable funding of the electoral process, and security conditions that allow all voters and candidates to participate without fear.”

Son-in-law of opposition figure Edmundo Gonzalez released in Venezuela

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by news organizations

Former presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez’s son-in-law was released from jail in Venezuela.

The government of interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez is gradually reducing the number of political prisoners detained in Venezuela’s prisons as a result of Rafael Tudares Bracho’s release on Thursday.

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The president of the United States, which has kept military installations off the coast of Venezuela and threatened Venezuelan officials if they don’t comply with US demands, has been widely viewed as a concession to the president’s administration.

Rodriguez took the oath of office shortly after Trump authorized the January 3 abduction of her predecessor, former president Nicolas Maduro. The release of Tudares Bracho was greeted with joy by members of the opposition coalition.

My husband Rafael Tudares Bracho returned home this morning after 380 days of unlawful detention, according to Mariana Gonzalez’s daughter, Mariana Gonzalez, on the social media platform X.

It has been a “profoundly challenging and stoic struggle.”

After Maria Corina Machado, the opposition’s electorate nominee, was prohibited from running, the elder Gonzalez vowed to oppose Maduro in the 2024 presidential election. Despite Maduro’s claims of victory, the opposition’s election records revealed Gonzalez winning the race, which independent observers later verified.

Following what his wife called a “sham” 12-hour trial on charges of “conspiracy, terrorism, and criminal association,” Tudares Bracho was detained in January 2025, just days before Maduro’s third term as president.

His release coincides with Venezuelan prisoners’ families holding vigils in prisons across the nation to demand their loved ones’ release.

Foro Penal, a leading prisoner rights organization in Venezuela, has verified the release of 145 political prisoners, despite the fact that at least 775 more are still detained.

Edmundo Gonzalez, who has been imprisoned since the 2024 election, posted a video on social media praising his son-in-law’s release and urging the release of other Venezuelans who he claimed are still imprisoned.

He claimed that limiting this event to a personal story would be a mistake. “Many people still feel denied their liberty for political reasons, without guarantees, without due process, and in many cases without truth,” the statement continues.

Since Maduro’s disappearance, the Trump administration has reportedly resisted backing opposition figures in Venezuela.

Instead of pursuing extraction from Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, the US has focused on working with Rodriguez and other Maduro government officials to ensure stability.

Since her boss’s abduction, Rodriguez, Maduro’s former vice president, has treaded a careful line with her domestic audience, which has gradually evolved into more diplomatic messaging.

Two popular Tunisian journalists handed three-year jail terms

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Published On 22 Jan 2026

In what critics claim is the government’s most recent attempt to punish dissent, two well-known media figures have been given new prison terms by a Tunisian court.

According to a judicial source, Tunisia’s state TAP news agency received a sentence for radio journalists Bohran Bssaies and Mourad Zghidi on Thursday for “money laundering” and three and a half years in prison.

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The conviction is just one more of the growing number of cases involving opposition figures, journalists, and other perceived critics of President Kais Saied, who rights groups claim has overseen a significant rollback of freedoms since he took office in 2019.

Under Tunisia’s contentious Decree Law 54 against cybercrime, Bssaies and Zghidi were first imprisoned in May of that year. Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a press organization, claimed that Sayed’s “only” crime was making political predictions and voicing their opinions.

The journalists’ defense claims that the judiciary of Tunisia brought additional tax-related charges based on routine tax issues before serving their eight-month sentence.

RSF urged Tunisian authorities to release Bssaies and Zghidi, calling the incident “legal persecution.”

The Tunisian public’s right to information will remain seriously endangered as long as journalists are imprisoned for their work, according to RSF’s director for North Africa, Oussama Bouagila.

Ahmed Nejib Chebi, the country’s top opposition figure, was arrested in December, according to the investigation.

In a trial that rights groups described as a “sham,” Chebii, 81, was given a 12-year sentence for plotting against the state.

In a rumored “conspiracy case,” dozens more opposition figures received sentences as high as 45 years in prison the month before.

In recent months, Tunisian courts have also ordered the release of a number of well-known detainees, including journalist Chatha Belhaj Mubarak and lawyer Sonia Dahmani.

The release of Chadha Hadj Mbarek shouldn’t be a one-time event. It should, in fact, help to respect the press freedom, according to RSF’s Bouagila.

Is the world’s rules-based order ruptured?

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World powers using force, according to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and the system is broken.

In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which avoided mentioning US President Donald Trump, the country’s rules-based order has been broken.

The Canadian leader’s words have been widely praised and analyzed despite Trump’s harsh criticism of Carney.

Is he correct, then?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Lionel Barber, former Financial Times editor

Bessma Momani, University of Waterloo Professor of Political Science

Published On 22 Jan 2026