MS DAILY BRIEF – JANUARY 8 th, 2025
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Some information is presented when possible from several sources
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Trump refuses to rule out using the military to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland – Tuesday 7 Jan 2025 23.56 CET
Comments may set off alarm bells around the world as Trump prepares to return to the White House this month
Joseph Gedeon in Washington
Donald Trump refuses to rule out the use of US military force to take control of the Panama Canal and conquer Greenland, citing economic security as the determining factor.
Speaking at a news conference Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago, the incoming US president explicitly declined to give assurances against the use of military or economic coercion when pressed about his plans for Panama and Greenland.
“I can’t assure you on either,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question. “But I can say this, we need them for economic security.”
The remarks were made during a session with journalists at his Florida residence and will likely set off diplomatic alarm bells around the world as Trump prepares to return to the White House later this month with a strong American nationalist agenda.
Trump has claimed that the Panama Canal, which was transferred to Panamanian control in 1999 under a 1977 treaty, is “operated by China”, a claim that comes amid his repeated calls for the strategic waterway to be returned to US control.
“The Panama Canal was built for our military,” Trump said. “Look, the Panama Canal is vital to our country. It’s operated by China. China. And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama, we didn’t give it to China.”
When it came to Greenland, Trump threatened economic retaliation against Denmark, noting that if that country opposes his territorial ambitions, he “will tariff Denmark at a very high level.”
His tough rhetoric also extended northward, as he reiterated his interest in using “economic muscle” to turn Canada into a US state and criticized US military support for one of its closest allies.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dismissed Trump’s comments, saying: “There is no chance of Canada becoming part of the United States.
Trump spoke as his son, Donald Trump Jr, landed in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, where he reportedly handed out ‘Make Greenland Great Again’ hats, despite claiming to be on a purely tourist visit.
A video shows the former US president addressing a group at lunchtime during a call on his son’s phone, saying: “We will treat you well.”
The dual focus on Panama and Greenland represents a cryptic attempt to expand US territorial control in the name of national and economic security. While the Panama Canal was previously under US control, Greenland remains a self-governing territory of Denmark which has repeatedly rejected US overtures.
Trump’s comments follow a series of increasingly confrontational statements over the canal, including a recent threat that the US would “demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States – in its entirety, swiftly and without question”.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino rejected Trump’s demands, declaring that “every square meter” of the canal would remain under Panamanian sovereignty.
The exchange marks a dramatic escalation in rhetoric over this crucial sea passage, which the US originally built in 1914 and operated for most of the 20th century. The confrontational attitude echoes the tensions that led to the US invasion of Panama in 1989.
His comments raise particular concern given the history of US military intervention in Panama.
In December 1989, the US launched Operation Just Cause, deploying 9,000 troops to join the 12,000 US troops already in the country to overthrow Panamanian military dictator Manuel Noriega. The invasion, which resulted in the deaths of 23 US troops and some 500 Panamanian civilians, was condemned by the Organization of American States and the European Parliament as a violation of international law.
It also led to the ouster of Noriega, who was subsequently sentenced for drug trafficking to 40 years in US prison.
At the same time, Trump stepped up pressure on other territories, suggesting that Canada could become the “51st state” and mockingly referring to the country’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, as “governor”.
In an X post on Tuesday afternoon, Trudeau strongly hit back at Trump’s suggestion, saying: “There is no chance Canada will become part of the United States. Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from the fact that we are the largest trading and security partner.”
Trump Jr’s visit to Greenland included appearances at controversial colonial landmarks and meetings with local residents, although officials declined to specify the purpose of the meetings. There was no apparent official meeting with anyone from the Greenland government.
Trump posted on social media about his son’s trip.
“Don Jr and my representatives land in Greenland,” Trump wrote. “The reception has been great. They, and the Free World, need safety, security, strength and PEACE! This is a deal that needs to happen. MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!” Supporters later posted a video of Trump speaking to locals on the phone.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Tuesday that Greenland’s future will be decided by its people. “Greenland is not for sale,” Frederiksen said.
,,,, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/07/trump-panama-canal-greenland
Doing away with Facebook’s fact checkers is a ‘major step backwards’ for public discourse, say critics-Tue 7 Jan 2025 20.26 CET

Mark Zuckerberg’s decision on Meta platforms has been condemned as “a total kowtow” to Donald Trump
Robert Booth UK Technology Editor
Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to scrap Facebook fact-checkers and “prioritize free speech” weeks before Donald Trump returns to power was condemned on Tuesday as a “major backward step” for public discourse.
The Meta founder announced several changes to its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, in a bid to “dramatically reduce the amount of censorship”.
In a statement on Tuesday, it said that independent fact-checkers would be replaced in the US from the US by a system of “community ratings” similar to that used on X, Elon Musk’s social media platform, which relies on users to add warnings and context to controversial posts.
The content moderation teams will also be moved from California to Texas “where there are fewer concerns about bias on our teams,” Zuckerberg said in a five-minute video statement that Nina Jankowicz, a former US government official in charge of countering disinformation, described as “a total kowtow to Trump.”
The changes to the way Meta filters content would also mean that “we’ll catch less bad stuff” while continuing to take seriously “a lot of legitimate bad stuff that’s out there, drugs, terrorism, child exploitation,” Zuckerberg said.
A new age of lies: Mark Zuckerberg has just inaugurated an extinction-level event for truth on social media
He said fact-checkers are “too politically biased” – a charge strongly refuted by fact-checking organizations – and said Meta will “get rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are simply outside the mainstream discourse.”
The 40-year-old billionaire said the change was in response to the US presidential election, which he called “a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing discourse”.
Trump and Zuckerberg have had a rollercoaster relationship, with Trump threatening to shut down the tech chief if he interfered in the election and then a rapprochement in November with a dinner at Mar-a-Lago and a $1 million donation from Zuckerberg.
Trump said Tuesday that the changes were “likely” in response to his warnings and added: “I think they’ve come a long way, Meta, Facebook.”
Last week, it was announced that former British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg had resigned as Meta’s chairman of global affairs, to be replaced by prominent Republican Joel Kaplan. Dana White, chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and a prominent Trump supporter, has also been named to Meta’s board as the tech company prepares for Trump’s second term, which will have a major influence on tech companies through investment, subsidies and regulation, particularly in the area of artificial intelligence.
However, campaigners against the harm caused via social media to women, children and ethnic minorities, as well as academics, have reacted with dismay to the news.
Global Witness, a human rights group, said: ‘Zuckerberg’s announcement is a blatant attempt to cozy up to the incoming Trump administration – with damaging implications. These changes will make it more dangerous for women, LGBT+ people, people of color, scientists and activists to speak out online, where they already face disproportionate harassment and attacks.”
The Center for Information Resilience, an organization whose work includes tracking hate speech and misinformation online based on people’s gender, ethnicity and sexuality, warned that this is “a major step backwards for content moderation at a time when misinformation and harmful content is evolving faster than ever before.”
Ian Russell, the father of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life after viewing thousands of images promoting suicide and self-harm on social media, including Instagram, said the measures “could have serious consequences for many children and young adults”.
He said he was “dismayed by the company’s intention to stop proactively moderating many forms of harmful content and to act only if and when a user complaint is received”.
Meta said that content about suicide, self-mutilation and eating disorders will still be considered “high-severity infringements” and that it “will continue to use our automated systems to search for this high-severity content”.
UK TV presenter Piers Morgan reflected a groundswell of support for the Meta move when he hailed it as “a complete U-turn on all the woke censorship and cancel culture nonsense”.
The co-chairs of Meta’s supervisory board, including former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, said in a statement, “We look forward to working with Meta in the coming weeks to understand the changes in more detail, ensuring that its new approach can be as effective and expression-friendly as possible.”
They added: “It is essential that content decisions are made with maximum input from voices outside Meta, including the people who use its platforms every day.”
In London, a spokesman for the prime minister, Keir Starmer, declined to comment on Zuckerberg’s remarks, but emphasized that the UK has its own safeguards in the new online safety law.
“Our relationship with the US in a number of areas is a very important one,” he said, adding: “Our online safety provisions, which will come into force in March, are among the strongest we offer.”
A spokesman for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said: ‘We are looking closely at the Meta announcement affecting its US platform. The UK Online Safety Act will require them to remove illegal content and content harmful to children here in the UK, and we continue to urge social media companies to counter the spread of misinformation and disinformation hosted on their platforms.”
Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network, which certified the fact-checkers used by Meta, denied that the fact-checkers were biased and said, “This line of attack comes from those who believe they should be able to exaggerate and lie without rebuttal or contradiction.”
Chris Morris, chief executive of the UK-based fact-checking organization Full Fact, which was funded by Meta to verify Facebook content, called the announcement “a backward step that risks having a chilling effect around the world.” He said his organization’s fact-checkers evaluated claims “of all political stripes with equal rigor and we hold those in power to account through our commitment to the truth.”
“Locking fact-checkers out of the conversation will not help society change the course of rapidly growing misinformation,” he said.
Zuckerberg said removing some restrictions on content on topics such as gender and immigration would “ensure that people can share their beliefs and experiences on our platforms” and said filters that scanned posts for policy violations would be reoriented to address only illegal and high-severity violations.
“By reducing them, we will drastically reduce the level of censorship on our platforms,” he said. “We will also adjust our content filters to require much higher trust before removing content. The reality is that this is a compromise. It means we’ll catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the posts and accounts of innocent people that we accidentally remove.”
He said that Meta will “work with President Trump to push back against governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing for more censorship”.
He cited Europe as a place with “a growing number of laws that institutionalize censorship and make it difficult to build anything innovative” and said, “Latin American countries have secret tribunals that can order companies to quietly take things down.”
Normals exude calm – but Trump 2.0 is anything but normal-Tue 7 Jan 2025 22.45 CET

David Smithin Washington
Trump’s repeated threats to US allies mark an alarming new departure, signaling that he will end his first term by becoming more extremist
Hollywood actors attending Sunday’s Golden Globes awards didn’t make the usual jokes or protests. Silicon Valley titans flocked to donate to his inaugural fund. In Washington, some Democrats who boycotted his first inauguration have signaled their intention to attend this time.
There is no doubt that the resistance to Donald Trump is feeling softened the second time around. The word “fascist” has disappeared from political discourse as quickly as it appeared. The softer tone gives the impression that Trump 2.0 will be more conventional, more moderate and more acceptable than the first version.
In fact, the opposite is true. There is an epic disconnect between this normalization and the absurdly abnormal future facing America and the world. The shaky hour-long press conference held by the 78-year-old Trump on Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida suggests we haven’t seen anything yet.
Trump has made clear he covets Greenland and the Panama Canal and has not ruled out taking them by force. He reiterated his interest in making Canada a US state and promised to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, saying: “What a beautiful name”.
Speaking about the Jan. 6 uprising he instigated at the US Capitol, Trump said that “we need to find out” about the involvement of the FBI and Hezbollah (an Islamist movement founded by Iran in the midst of the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war).
This was Trump’s last line of thought on Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought criminal charges against him: ‘They brought this cretin from the Hague. He’s a bad guy. He’s a bad, ugly guy. His picture was perfect, because you look at his picture and you say he’s a bad guy. In his robe, his purple robe, and he’s executing people. He shouldn’t be allowed to execute people because he’ll execute everybody. He is a madman.”
The president-elect talked about dishwashers, gas heaters, washing machines, water faucets and other appliances, “It’s called rain. It comes down from the sky. And they want to keep water out of the shower. It drains, drains, drains, so what happens is you’re in the shower 10 times as long.”
Some of this was grimly familiar to seasoned Trump watchers, who were forced to develop gallows humor for their own sanity. “Windmills drive whales crazy, obviously,” he noted.
But the now repeated threats to US allies mark a new and alarming shift. Trump’s press conference coincided with a visit to Greenland, a territory of Denmark, by a delegation of aides and advisers that included his son, Donald Trump Jr.
Asked if he could assure the world that he would not use military or economic coercion to gain control of the Panama Canal and Greenland, Trump said, “No, I can’t assure you on either one. But I can tell you that we need them for economic security.”
Suddenly, the “America First” president, who promised peace through force, is more like bellicose predecessors like George W. Bush. Such expansionism is music to the ears of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine is based on the logic that borders are no longer fixed and territory belongs to the strongest.
Is Trump bluffing? Is this just an elaborate maneuver to look tough and gain leverage in tariff negotiations? Is it all a characteristic effort to throw shiny objects to distract attention from more substantive issues?
Robert Reich, a former Labor secretary, tweeted on Tuesday: “Get ready for four years of outrageous ramblings and lies. But don’t let the absurdity distract you from the real goal of Trump 2.0: the continued consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of oligarchs. They want you so outraged that you tune out. Don’t.”