How is Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill changing US taxes and healthcare in 2026?
Residents in the United States are set to experience significant changes to the country’s tax code, healthcare system and government benefits at the start of 2026. That’s because, on Thursday, certain provisions of President Donald Trump’s signature tax and spending package are scheduled to take effect. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), the package was signed into law in July, amid bipartisan pushback. Fiscal conservatives feared it would add to the country’s deficit, while critics on the left warned that the changes it heralded would leave millions of US citizens without health insurance or food assistance. Notably, the OBBBA passed without extensions to the COVID-era healthcare subsidies that are slated to expire on Thursday. Democrats have warned that, without those subsidies, health insurance premiums purchased under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are set to skyrocket. What changes should Americans expect heading into 2026, and how will they be affected? We break down the new policies for the start of the new year. What is the One Big Beautiful Bill Act? Even before Trump took office for a second term in January 2025, he floated the idea of creating one sweeping bill that would capture many aspects of his platform. “Members of Congress are getting to work on one powerful Bill that will bring our Country back, and make it greater than ever before,” he wrote on January 5. That idea became the foundation for the OBBBA, which Trump signed into law on July 4, the Independence Day holiday. Advertisement It contains hundreds of provisions, ranging from policies that incentivise fossil fuel production to the permanent adoption of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Democrats, including Representative Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, rallied against the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act earlier this year, outside the US Capitol [Rod Lamkey, Jr/AP Photo] What changes are coming to the price of healthcare? Prices are set to increase for US citizens who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace, an online exchange that helps connect households and small businesses with insurance plans. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act did not extend the ACA healthcare subsidies put in place as part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, under then-President Joe Biden. Those subsidies expire on December 31. “The healthcare issue is a big one because people typically have their health insurance premium deducted from their account on the first, second, or third of the month,” said Daniel Hornung, the former deputy director of the National Economic Council during the Biden administration. “So, in the next few days, we’re likely to see people in many cases have their health insurance premiums double.” Why hasn’t Congress extended the healthcare subsidies? Congress has been in gridlock over the issue of whether to extend the ACA subsidies. Democrats refused to pass budget legislation in September until Congress acted to extend the healthcare subsidies. But Republican leaders said they would only vote on the subsidies after the budget legislation was signed. That impasse led to a 43-day government shutdown, the longest in US history. The gridlock ended when a handful of Democrats broke ranks with their party members to pass the budget legislation, on the understanding that there would be a December vote to extend the subsidies. But rival proposals from Democrats and Republicans to address the subsidies both failed earlier this month. The expiration takes effect on New Year’s Day, but Congress does not return from recess until January 5. How many people will be affected by the subsidies’ expiration? Approximately 2.2 million Americans are projected to lose healthcare coverage because of the increased cost, according to analysis from the Congressional Budget Office. Hornung, the former Biden administration official, said that many more stand to be affected by healthcare premium increases. “We’re talking about roughly 20 million or so Americans who are on the ACA exchanges, either the national exchanges or the state exchanges, so that’s a major issue,” Hornung said. Critics fear changes in 2026 will reduce accessibility to programmes like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides food to low-income households [File: Kaylee Greenlee/Reuters] What are the new work requirements for federal food assistance? Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, there are new work requirements to qualify for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme (SNAP) benefits, which help low-income households afford groceries. Advertisement Able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 64 must now work or participate in school or a training programme for at least 80 hours per month to remain eligible. The policy applies to new applicants and renewals, beginning on January 1. For current SNAP recipients, implementation timing varies by state. Some states have already notified existing beneficiaries of the pending changes, while others will begin enforcement later. In New York, for example, the new rules are not expected to take effect until March 2026. Critics have told Al Jazeera that the new rules may place an additional burden on service-industry workers, many of whom have irregular schedules that make it difficult to guarantee 80 hours every month. How will inheritances be affected? Among the changes is an expanded estate tax exemption. Under the new policy, individuals inheriting an estate worth less than $15m are exempt from the federal estate tax. For couples, that threshold is $30m. Prior to the 2017 law, the cap for untaxed estate inheritances was about $5.5m ($7.2m in 2025, adjusted for inflation) for individuals and $11m ($14m when adjusted for inflation) for couples. Critics point out that the higher thresholds allow significant generational wealth transfers without taxation. As a result of the new provision, fewer than 1 percent of taxpayers ever face the estate tax. How will deductions change during the US tax season? January 1 will make several provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — tax cuts enacted during Trump’s first term — permanent. Many of these provisions benefit higher-income households. One of the 2017 provisions that has
A marriage of three: Will Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso bloc reshape the Sahel?
“Bienvenue a Bamako!” The fixer, the minder and the men linked to the Malian government were waiting for us at the airport in Bamako. Polite, smiling – and watchful. It was late December, and we had just taken an Air Burkina flight from Dakar, Senegal across the Sahel, where a storm of political upheaval and armed violence has unsettled the region in recent years. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Mali sits at the centre of a reckoning. After two military coups in 2020 and 2021, the country severed ties with its former colonial ruler, France, expelled French forces, pushed out the United Nations peacekeeping mission, and redrew its alliances Alongside Burkina Faso and Niger, now also ruled by military governments backed by Russian mercenaries, it formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in September 2023. Together, the regional grouping withdrew from the wider Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) bloc, accusing it of serving foreign interests rather than African ones. This month, leaders from the three countries converged in Bamako for the Confederal Summit of Heads of State of the AES, the second such meeting since the alliance was formed. And we were there to cover it. The summit was a ribbon-cutting moment. Leaders of the three countries inaugurated a new Sahel Investment and Development Bank meant to finance infrastructure projects without reliance on Western lenders; a new television channel built around a shared narrative and presented as giving voice to the people of the Sahel; and a joint military force intended to operate across borders against armed groups. It was a moment to celebrate achievements more than to sign new agreements. Advertisement But the reason behind the urgency of those announcements lay beyond the summit hall. In this layered terrain of fracture and identity, armed groups have found room not only to manoeuvre, but to grow. Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate, has expanded from rural Mali, launching attacks across the region and reaching the coast of Benin, exploiting weak state presence and long-unresolved grievances. As our plane descended toward Bamako, I looked out at an endless stretch of earth, wondering how much of it was now under the control of al-Qaeda affiliates. From the airport, our minders drove us fast through the city. Motorbikes swerved around us, street hawkers peddled their wares, and Malian pop blared from speakers. At first, this did not feel like a capital under siege. Yet since September, armed groups have been operating a blockade around Bamako, choking off fuel and goods, the military government said. We drove past petrol stations where long queues stretched into the night. Life continued even as fuel grew scarce. People sat patiently, waiting their turn. Anger seemed to have given way to indifference, while rumours swirled that the authorities had struck quiet deals with the very fighters they claimed to be fighting, simply to keep the city moving. Motorcycles line up near a closed petrol station, amid ongoing fuel shortages caused by a blockade imposed by al Qaeda-linked fighters in early September, in Bamako, Mali [Stringer/Reuters] ‘To become one country, to hold each other’s hand’ Our minders drove us on to the Sahel Alliance Square, a newly created public space built to celebrate the union of the three countries and its people. On the way, Malian forces sped past, perhaps toward a front line that feels ever closer, as gunmen linked to JNIM have set up checkpoints disrupting trade routes to the capital in recent months. In September 2024, they also carried out coordinated attacks inside Bamako, hitting a military police school housing elite units, nearby neighbourhoods, and the military airport on the city’s outskirts. And yet, Bamako carries on, as if the war were taking place in a faraway land. At Sahel Alliance Square, a few hundred young people gathered and cheered as the Malian forces went by, drawn by loud music, trivia questions on stage and the MC’s promise of small prizes. The questions were simple: Name the AES countries? Name the leaders? A microphone was handed to the children. The alliance leaders’ names were drilled in: Abdourahamane Tchiani of Niger. Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. Assimi Goita of Mali. Repeated again and again until they stuck. Advertisement Correct answers won a prize: a T-shirt stamped with the faces of the alliance leaders. Moussa Niare, 12 years old and a resident of Bamako, clutched a shirt bearing the faces of the three military leaders. “They’ve gathered together to become one country, to hold each other’s hand, and to fight a common enemy,” he told us with buoyant confidence, as the government’s attempt to sell the new alliance to the public appeared to be cultivating loyalty among the young. France out, Russia in While Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger went through separate political transitions, the paths that brought them into a shared alliance followed a similar pattern. Between 2020 and 2023, each country saw its democratically elected leadership removed by the military, the takeovers framed as necessary corrections. In Mali, Colonel Goita seized power after months of protest and amid claims that President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita had failed to curb corruption or halt the advance of armed groups. In Burkina Faso, the army ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kabore in early 2022 as insecurity worsened; later that year, Captain Traore emerged from a counter-coup, promising a more decisive response to the rebellion. In Niger, soldiers led by General Tchiani detained President Mohamed Bazoum in July 2023, accusing his government of failing to safeguard national security and of leaning too heavily on foreign partners. What began as separate seizures of power have since become a shared political project, now expressed through a formal alliance. The gathering in Bamako was to give shape to their union. One of the key conclusions of the AES summit was the announced launch of a joint military battalion aimed at fighting armed groups across the Sahel. This follows months of escalating violence, as regional armies assisted
Four reasons why Benjamin Netanyahu may not want a Gaza ceasefire to hold
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reached the end of his latest trip to the United States and appears to have gained what he wants from President Donald Trump. Trump hailed Netanyahu after their meeting on Monday, calling him a “hero” and saying Israel – and by extension its prime minister – had “lived up to the plan 100 percent” in reference to the US president’s signature Gaza ceasefire. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list That is despite reports emerging last week that US officials were growing frustrated over Netanyahu’s apparent “slow walking” of the 20-point ceasefire plan – imposed by the US administration in October – suspecting that the Israeli prime minister might be hoping to keep the door open to resuming hostilities against the Palestinian group Hamas at a time of his choosing. Under the terms of that agreement – after the exchange of all captives held in Gaza, living and dead, aid deliveries into the enclave and the freezing of all front lines – Gaza would move towards phase two, which includes negotiations on establishing a technocratic “board of peace” to administer the enclave and the deployment of an international security force to safeguard it. US President Donald Trump, right, called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘hero’ during his visit to Trump’s Florida estate on December 29, 2025, saying he had lived up to Trump’s ceasefire plan ‘100 percent’ [Jonathan Ernst/Reuters] So far, Netanyahu has not allowed in all of the required aid that Gaza desperately needs and is also maintaining that phase two cannot be entered into until Hamas returns the body of the last remaining captive. He has also demanded that Hamas disarms before Israel withdraws its forces, a suggestion fully endorsed by Trump after Monday’s meeting. Advertisement Hamas has repeatedly rejected disarmament being forced upon it by Israel, and officials have said that the question of arms was an internal Palestinian matter to be discussed between Palestinian factions. So is Netanyahu deliberately trying to avoid entering the second phase of the agreement, and why would that be the case? Here are four reasons why Netanyahu might be happy with things just as they are: He’s under pressure from his right Netanyahu’s ruling coalition is, by any metric, the most right wing in the country’s history. Throughout the war on Gaza, the support of Israel’s hardliners has proven vital in shepherding the prime minister’s coalition through periods of intense domestic protest and international criticism. Now, many on the right, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, oppose the ceasefire, protesting against the release of Palestinian prisoners and insisting that Gaza be occupied. Netanyahu’s defence minister, Israel Katz, has also shown little enthusiasm for honouring the deal his country committed to in October. Speaking at a ceremony to mark the expansion of the latest of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, Katz claimed that Israel’s forces would remain in Gaza, eventually clearing the way for further settlements. Katz later walked his comments back, reportedly after coming under pressure from the US. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz [Menahem Kahana/AFP] He doesn’t want an international force in Gaza Allowing an international force to deploy to Gaza would limit Israel’s operational freedom, constraining its military’s ability to re-enter Gaza, conduct targeted strikes or pursue Hamas remnants within the enclave. So far, despite the ceasefire, Israeli forces have killed more than 400 people in the enclave since agreeing to halt fighting on October 10. Politically, agreeing to an international stabilisation force, particularly one drawn from neighbouring states, would broaden what Israel has often seen as a domestic war into an international conflict with many of the strategic, diplomatic and political decisions over that conflict being made by actors outside of its control. It could also be framed domestically as a concession forced by the US and international community, undermining Netanyahu’s repeated claims of maintaining Israeli sovereignty and strategic independence. “If Netanyahu allows a foreign military force into Gaza, he immediately denies himself a large degree of his freedom to operate,” Israeli political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg said from Berlin. “Ideally, he needs things to remain exactly where they are but without alienating Trump.” Smoke rises from an Israeli strike on Gaza’s Bureij refugee camp on October 19, 2025, in one of the near-daily attacks Israel has carried out since the ceasefire went into effect [Eyad Baba/AFP] He wants to resist any progress towards a two-state solution While not explicitly mentioning a two-state solution, the ceasefire agreement does include provisions under which Israel and the Palestinians commit to a dialogue towards what it frames as a “political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence”. Advertisement Netanyahu, however, has been arguing against a two-state solution since at least 2015 when he campaigned on the issue. More recently, at the United Nations in September, he branded the decision to recognise a Palestinian state “insane” and claimed that Israel would not accept the establishment of a Palestinian homeland. Israeli ministers have also been at work ensuring that the two-state solution remains a practical impossibility. Israel’s plan to establish a series of new settlements severing occupied East Jerusalem – long considered the future capital of any Palestinian state – from the West Bank would make the establishment of a feasible state impossible. This isn’t just an unfortunate consequence of geography. Announcing the plans for the new settlements in August, Smotrich said the project would “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich holds a map near the settlement of Maale Adumim showing a land corridor known as E1, in which Israel plans to build thousands of settler homes and which Smotrich says would ‘bury the idea of a Palestinian state’ [Menahem Kahana/AFP] A resumption of war would benefit him Netanyahu faces numerous domestic threats, from his own corruption trial to the potentially explosive issue of forcing conscription on Israel’s ultra-religious students. There is also the public reckoning he faces for his own failures before and during the Hamas-led attacks on southern
Disney to pay $10m over alleged breaches of US child privacy laws
Settlement comes after US Federal Trade Commission accused the entertainment giant of unlawfully collecting children’s data. Published On 31 Dec 202531 Dec 2025 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Disney has agreed to pay $10m to settle allegations that it breached child privacy laws in the United States, authorities have said. A federal court approved the settlement to resolve allegations brought by the US Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice said on Tuesday. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The order also requires Disney to operate its YouTube channel in accordance with data-protection rules and establish a programme to ensure future compliance. Disney had agreed to settle the claims brought by the US antitrust watchdog in September. The civil case stems from allegations that Disney collected children’s personal data without parental consent via its videos on YouTube. Antitrust officials alleged that Disney had wrongly designated more than 300 YouTube videos, including content from The Incredibles, Toy Story, Frozen, and Mickey Mouse, as not being aimed at children. YouTube requires content creators to designate videos as “Made for Kids” or “Not Made for Kids” to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule. Under the rule, companies in the US are prohibited from collecting data from children below 13 without parental notification. Other major companies that have paid settlements under the rule, which has been amended several times since its enactment in 2000, include Google and Microsoft. Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “The Justice Department is firmly devoted to ensuring parents have a say in how their children’s information is collected and used,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A Shumate said in a statement. Advertisement “The Department will take swift action to root out any unlawful infringement on parents’ rights to protect their children’s privacy.” Disney, which has its headquarters in Burbank, California, is one of the world’s largest entertainment companies, with revenue for the fiscal year 2025 reaching $94.4bn. Adblock test (Why?)
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland ‘strange, unexpected’: Somali president
EXCLUSIVE Hassan Sheikh Mohamud says his country believes the move is linked to Israel’s plans to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza. Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has told Al Jazeera that Israel’s “unexpected and strange” recognition of Somaliland may have implications for Palestinians in Gaza. “Somaliland has been claiming the secession issue for a long time, over the past three decades, and no one country in the world has recognised it,” Mohamud told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview from Istanbul, Turkiye, on Tuesday. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list “For us, we’ve been trying to reunite the country in a peaceful manner,” the Somali leader added. “So, after 34 years, it was very unexpected and strange that Israel, out of nowhere, just jumped in and said, ‘We recognise Somaliland’.” Israel last week became the first and only country to formally recognise Somaliland, a breakaway region in northwest Somalia, bordering the Gulf of Aden. Somalia’s president also told Al Jazeera that, according to Somali intelligence, Somaliland has accepted three Israeli conditions in exchange for Israeli recognition: the resettlement of Palestinians, the establishment of an Israeli military base on the coast of the Gulf of Aden, and Somaliland joining the Abraham Accords. The accords are a set of pacts establishing the normalisation of ties between Israel and several Arab states. The UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan have signed onto the accords. Mohamud also said that Somalia has intelligence indicating there is already a certain level of Israeli presence in Somaliland, and Israeli recognition of the region is merely a normalisation of what was already happening covertly. Advertisement Israel will resort to forcibly displacing Palestinians to Somalia, and its presence in the region is not for peace, the Somali leader added. A 20-point plan released by the administration of US President Donald Trump ahead of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza said that “no one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return”. However, Israel has reportedly continued to explore ways to displace Palestinians from the besieged and occupied territory, including in mysterious flights to South Africa, which has formally accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Israel is also seeking to control strategically important waterways connecting vital seas of commercial and economic significance, namely the Red Sea, the Gulf and the Gulf of Aden, Mohamud said. The Somali leader was in Turkiye on Tuesday, where he gave a joint news conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with the two leaders warning that Israel’s recognition of the breakaway region could destabilise the Horn of Africa. Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991, but had failed to gain recognition from any United Nations member state, before Israel changed its position last Friday. Israel’s move was swiftly condemned, including by most members of the UN Security Council at an emergency meeting convened in New York on Monday. The United States was the only member of the 15-seat body that defended Israel’s move, although it stressed that the US’s position on Somaliland remained unchanged. Adblock test (Why?)
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,406
These are the key developments from day 1,406 of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Published On 31 Dec 202531 Dec 2025 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Here is where things stand on Wednesday, December 31: Fighting Russian forces shelled the town of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, killing one person, an official said. The deadly attack came a day after an attack in Druzhkivka killed another person and wounded four, according to the Ukrinform news agency. Russian forces also launched waves of attacks on the Black Sea ports of Pivdennyi and Chornomorsk in Ukraine’s Odesa region, hitting two Panama-flagged civilian vessels – Emmakris III and Captain Karam – as they approached to load wheat, the Ukrainian navy said. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said that oil storage tanks were also hit in the port attacks. Authorities in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region introduced a mandatory evacuation order for the residents of 14 border villages in four districts. The order will affect some 300 people who still live in the Novhorod-Siverskyi, Semenivka, Snovsk, and Horodnya communities, which have been experiencing daily shelling, an official said. Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Energy Olha Yukhymchuk said that 75,000 households in Chernihiv remain without electricity following Russian attacks on energy infrastructure in the region. There were also settlements in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions that were fully or partially without electricity, she said. Yukhymchuk also said that repair work had been completed on transmission lines near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to ensure “stable and reliable power supply to the station in the event of damage or shutdown of the Dniprovska overhead line due to” Russian shelling. Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had taken control of two more settlements in eastern Ukraine. It identified them as the village of Lukianivske in the Zaporizhia region and the settlement of Bohuslavka in the Kharkiv region. Russian authorities said that a Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian Black Sea port of Tuapse damaged port infrastructure and a gas pipeline in a residential area there. The regional administration said no injuries were reported. Other Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s Belgorod region killed a woman and wounded four other people, local authorities said. Advertisement Alleged attack on Putin’s residence Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia will “toughen” its negotiating position in talks on a deal to end the war in Ukraine as a “diplomatic consequence” of an alleged attempted drone attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence in northwestern Russia’s Novgorod on Sunday. Peskov said the attack, which Ukraine denies, was aimed at collapsing the peace talks and accused Western media of playing along with Kyiv’s denial. Ukraine has dismissed the Russian claim as lies aimed at justifying additional attacks against Kyiv and prolonging the war. Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Russia had not provided any plausible evidence of its accusations. “And they won’t. Because there’s none. No such attack happened,” Sybiha said on X. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy slammed countries, including India and the United Arab Emirates, that have condemned the alleged attack, which he said “didn’t even happen”. He called the moves “confusing and unpleasant”. China said “dialogue and negotiation” remain the only “viable way out of the Ukraine crisis”, when asked for a comment on the alleged attack on Putin’s residence. Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also called on “relevant parties to follow the principles of no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting and no provocation by any party”, to work towards the de-escalation of the situation, and to “accumulate conditions for the political settlement of the crisis”. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, DC-based think tank, said that its analysts found that the “circumstances” of the alleged attack did not fit the “pattern of observed evidence” usually seen “when Ukrainian forces conduct strikes into Russia”. The US ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, cast doubt on Russia’s accusation, saying he wants to see US intelligence on the incident. “It is unclear whether it actually happened,” Whitaker told Fox Business’s Varney & Co. The German government also said it shares Ukraine’s concern that Russian allegations of the attack could be used as a pretext for further escalation of Moscow’s war. Diplomacy Zelenskyy said that Ukraine and the Coalition of the Willing group of nations backing Kyiv plan to hold their next meetings at the start of January. Zelenskyy said that the countries’ national security advisers would meet in Ukraine on January 3, and with the leaders in France on January 6. He also told reporters that Kyiv was discussing with US President Donald Trump the possible presence of US troops in Ukraine as part of security guarantees. “Of course, we are discussing this with President Trump and with representatives of the [Western] coalition [supporting Kyiv]. We want this. We would like this. This would be a strong position of the security guarantees,” the Ukrainian president said. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told officials that there is reason to hope for peace in Ukraine quite soon. “Peace is on the horizon; there is no doubt that things have happened that give grounds for hope that this war can end, and quite quickly, but it is still a hope, far from 100 percent certain,” he said. Tusk said security guarantees offered to Kyiv by the US were a reason to hope the conflict could end soon, but that Kyiv would need to compromise on territorial issues. The US removed sanctions on Alexandra Buriko, the former chief financial officer of Russia’s state-owned Sberbank, according to the US Treasury Department. Buriko was among a group of senior executives and board members who resigned from Western-sanctioned Sberbank shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. She sued the Treasury Department in a Washington federal court in December 2024, arguing she had severed ties with Sberbank days after it was sanctioned and that her continued inclusion on the sanctioned list was unlawful. Advertisement Weapons
UN Security Council members condemn Israel’s recognition of Somaliland
Most United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members have slammed Israel’s recognition of Somaliland at a meeting convened in response to the move, which several countries said may also have serious implications for Palestinians in Gaza. The United States was the only member of the 15-member body not to condemn Israel’s formal recognition of the breakaway region of Somalia at the emergency meeting in New York City on Monday, although it said its own position on Somaliland had not changed. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list Addressing the UNSC, Somalia’s UN ambassador, Abu Bakr Dahir Osman, implored members to firmly reject Israel’s “act of aggression”, which he said not only threatened to fragment Somalia but also to destabilise the wider Horn of Africa and the Red Sea regions. In particular, Osman said that Somalia was concerned the move could be aimed at advancing Israel’s plans to forcibly “relocate the Palestinian population from Gaza to the northwestern region of Somalia”. “This utter disdain for law and morality must be stopped now,” he said. The emergency meeting was called after Israel last week became the first and only country to recognise the self-declared Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state. Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo, reporting from UN headquarters in New York, said that “14 of the 15 council members condemned Israel’s recognition of Somaliland”, while the US “defended Israel’s action but stopped short of following Israel’s lead”. Tammy Bruce, the US deputy representative to the UN, told the council that “Israel has the same right to establish diplomatic relations as any other sovereign state”. Advertisement However, Bruce added, the US had “no announcement to make regarding US recognition of Somaliland, and there has been no change in American policy”. Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Jonathan Miller, told the council that Israel’s decision was “not a hostile step toward Somalia, nor does it preclude future dialogue between the parties”. “Recognition is not an act of defiance. It is an opportunity,” Miller claimed. Many other countries expressed concerns about Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, including the implications for Palestinians, in statements presented to the UNSC. Speaking on behalf of the 22-member Arab League, its UN envoy, Maged Abdelfattah Abdelaziz, said the group rejected “any measures arising from this illegitimate recognition aimed at facilitating forced displacement of the Palestinian people, or exploiting northern Somali ports to establish military bases”. Pakistan’s deputy UN ambassador, Muhammad Usman Iqbal Jadoon, said at the meeting that Israel’s “unlawful recognition of [the] Somaliland region of Somalia is deeply troubling”, considering it was made “against the backdrop of Israel’s previous references to Somaliland of the Federal Republic of Somalia as a destination for the deportation of Palestinian people, especially from Gaza”. China and the United Kingdom were among the permanent UNSC members to reject the move, with China’s UN envoy, Sun Lei, saying his country “opposes any act to split” Somalia’s territory. “No country should aid and abet separatist forces in other countries to further their own geopolitical interests,” Sun Lei said. Some non-members of the UNSC also requested to speak, including South Africa, whose UN envoy, Mathu Joyini, said that her country “reaffirmed” Somalia’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity” in line with international law, the UN Charter and the constitutive act of the African Union. Comparison with Palestinian recognition In addition to defending Israel’s decision, US envoy Bruce compared the move to recognise Somaliland with Palestine, which has been recognised by more than 150 of the UN’s member states. “Several countries, including members of this council, have unilaterally recognised a non-existent Palestinian state, yet no emergency meeting has been convened,” Bruce said, criticising what she described as the UNSC’s “double standards”. However, Slovenia’s UN ambassador, Samuel Zbogar, rejected the comparison, saying, “Palestine is not part of any state. It is illegally occupied territory… Palestine is also an observer state in this organisation [the UN].” Advertisement “Somaliland, on the other hand, is a part of a UN member state, and recognising it goes against… the UN Charter,” Zbogar added. The self-declared Republic of Somaliland broke away from Somalia in 1991, after a civil war under military leader Siad Barre. Adblock test (Why?)
China kicks off second day of military drills around Taiwan
Day two of the ‘Justice Mission 2025’ drills will include 10 hours of live-fire exercises and a simulated blockade of Taiwan’s major ports. China has begun a second day of military drills around Taiwan in the latest escalation of tensions over the self-governing island. China’s military said on Tuesday that it had deployed navy destroyers, bombers and other forces as part of the war games, which Beijing claims are aimed at “separatist” and “external” forces. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The drills were due to include live-fire exercises between 8am and 6pm local time (00:00 to 10:00 GMT) in five maritime and airspace zones around Taiwan, as well as air and sea patrols, simulated precision strikes and anti-submarine manoeuvres, according to Chinese state media. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence said some of the live-fire drills would take place in what Taiwan considers its territorial waters, or within 12 nautical miles (22km) from the coastline, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency. More than 80 domestic flights were cancelled on Tuesday, many to Taiwan’s outlying islands, and more than 300 international flights could face delays due to rerouted air traffic during the drills, according to Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration. The exercises, code-named “Justice Mission 2025”, began early Monday and came days after the United States announced its largest-ever weapons package for Taiwan, worth $11.1bn. State news outlet The China Daily said the drills were “part of a series of Beijing’s responses to the US arms sales to Taiwan as well as a warning to the [Taiwanese president] Lai Ching-te authorities in Taiwan”, in an editorial on Monday. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Lin Jian, also told reporters on Monday that the exercises were “a punitive and deterrent action against separatist forces who seek Taiwan independence through military buildup, and a necessary move to safeguard China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity”. Advertisement Justice Mission 2025 marks the sixth time China has staged large-scale military drills around Taiwan since then-US Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022. A key focus of the “Justice Mission 2025” exercises will be “anti-access and area denial capability” to ensure that Taiwan cannot receive supplies from allies like Japan and the US during a conflict, according to William Yang, senior analyst for Northeast Asia at the Crisis Group. They will also include simulating a blockade of Taiwan’s major ports in the north and south, and taking control of strategically important waterways, like the Bashi Channel and Miyako Strait, through which Taiwan imports much of its energy supplies, Yang said. China’s Eastern Theatre Command released a poster on Tuesday, titled “Hammer of Justice: Seal the Ports, Cut the Lines”, showing large metal hammers hitting the port of Keelung in the north and the port of Kaohsiung in the south. Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said it had tracked 130 air sorties by Chinese aircraft, 14 naval ships and eight “official ships” between 6am on Monday (22:00 GMT, Sunday) and 6am on Tuesday (22:00 GMT, Monday). The exercises were also monitored by Taiwanese coastguard ships and an undisclosed number of naval vessels, according to Taiwan’s Defence Ministry. Adblock test (Why?)
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,405
These are the key developments from day 1,405 of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Published On 30 Dec 202530 Dec 2025 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Here is where things stand on Tuesday, December 30: Alleged attack on Putin’s residence Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said that an attack took place on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence in northwestern Russia’s Novgorod on Sunday, “practically immediately after” talks in Florida between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The strike “will not go unanswered”, Ushakov said in remarks reported by Russian media, following a call between Trump and Putin. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russian air defence systems shot down 91 long-range strike drones used in the attack and that no one was injured. Zelenskyy denied the claim, accusing Russia of trying to derail peace talks. However, Trump expressed anger over the alleged attack, telling reporters: “I was very angry about it.” When asked if the United States had evidence of the attack, Trump said, “We’ll find out.” Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that “the response to Kyiv’s attacks will not be diplomatic” and that Russia would be revising its negotiating position in the attack’s wake. The United Arab Emirates’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it “strongly condemned” the “deplorable attack” and “the threat it poses to security and stability”. Diplomacy White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that a phone call between Putin and Trump on the issue of Ukraine on Monday was “positive”, without elaborating. Zelenskyy said he spoke by phone with the leaders of Germany, Latvia and Finland to update them on the outcomes of his meeting with Trump and where peace negotiations stood. Lavrov said in an interview with Russian news agency RIA Novosti that “Kyiv and its Western backers must recognise the new territorial realities that have emerged following the incorporation of Crimea, Sevastopol, the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Luhansk People’s Republic, and the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions into the Russian Federation.” He was referring to the Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to have annexed, which include Donetsk and Luhansk, renamed by Russian-backed separatists as the DPR and LPR. A survey published by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation (DIF), a Ukrainian think tank, on Monday showed that recognising occupied Ukrainian territories “as part of the Russian Federation” remained deeply unpopular in Ukraine, with 76 percent of Ukrainians saying they considered it “unacceptable”. Advertisement Fighting Russian forces attacked the front-line town of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, killing a 46-year-old man and wounding a 49-year-old woman, Governor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram. Russian forces killed one person and injured five in attacks on Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Sunday, Governor Vadym Filashkin said on Facebook. Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, said on Telegram that Russian forces killed seven civilians who had been hiding in a basement in the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said it had launched an investigation into reports that Russian soldiers shot dead two captured Ukrainian soldiers in the village of Shakhove, Pokrovsky, on Saturday. “The deliberate killing of prisoners of war is a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions and qualifies as a grave international crime,” the prosecutor general’s office said. Ukrainian attacks injured five civilians in Russia’s Belgorod region, according to Russia’s TASS state news agency, citing local officials. Ukrainian attacks also injured four civilians in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Zaporizhia, and three civilians in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Donetsk, TASS reported, citing local officials. In a televised address from the Kremlin, Putin made a wide range of claims about Moscow’s ongoing war on Ukraine, including that Russian troops were advancing towards the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia. General Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s army chief, said during the same address that Russian forces had captured 6,460 square kilometres (2,494sq miles) of territory in Ukraine in 2025, including 334 villages. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) quoted its director general, Rafael Grossi, as saying that power line repairs near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant had been successfully completed. Adblock test (Why?)
Ukrainian soldiers target Russian drones with rifles
NewsFeed Video released by the Ukrainian military showed soldiers shooting down small Russian drones with their rifles near the small Donetsk village of Kostiantynivka. Russian forces have made steady yet costly gains in the region, claiming on Monday to have captured nearby Dibrova. Published On 29 Dec 202529 Dec 2025 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Adblock test (Why?)