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Donald Trump is not forgetting America’s old alliances – his goal is to destroy them | Rafael Behr

European leaders who know their continent’s history must now see that the US president is siding with the forces of tyranny

In January 2018, when Donald Trump was in the second year of his first term as US president, Angela Merkel, in her 13th year as German chancellor, gave a gloomy speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. She opened her remarks with a warning from Europe’s past. Politicians had “sleep-walked” into the first world war. As the number of surviving eyewitnesses to the second world war dwindled, she added, subsequent generations would have to prove they understood the fragility of peace. “We need to ask ourselves if we have really learned from history or not.”

Fast forward eight years. Vladimir Putin’s territorial aggression harries Europe’s eastern flank. To the west, Trump, now in his second term and guest of honour at Davos, threatens to annex Greenland. This is not a world that has internalised the lessons of the 20th century.

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© Illustration: Nate Kitch/The Guardian

© Illustration: Nate Kitch/The Guardian

© Illustration: Nate Kitch/The Guardian

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Iran’s central bank using vast quantities of cryptocurrency championed by Farage, says report

Regime appears to have turned to digital currency issued by Tether in the face of sanctions

Iran’s central bank appears to have been using vast quantities of a cryptocurrency championed by Nigel Farage, according to a new report.

Elliptic, a crypto analytics company, said it had traced at least $507m (£377m) of cryptocurrency issued by Tether – a company touted by the Reform UK leader – passing through accounts that appear to be controlled by Iran’s central bank.

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© Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

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Half of world’s CO2 emissions come from just 32 fossil fuel firms, study shows

Critics accuse leading firms of sabotaging climate action but say data increasingly being used to hold them to account

Just 32 fossil fuel companies were responsible for half the global carbon dioxide emissions driving the climate crisis in 2024, down from 36 a year earlier, a report has revealed.

Saudi Aramco was the biggest state-controlled polluter and ExxonMobil was the largest investor-owned polluter. Critics accused the leading fossil fuel companies of “sabotaging climate action” and “being on the wrong side of history” but said the emissions data was increasingly being used to hold the companies accountable.

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© Photograph: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg/Getty Images

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Homemade Bounty bars, savoury granola and flapjacks: Melissa Hemsley’s recipes for healthy sweet treats

Coconut bars with matcha, a nutty rubble for soups, sandwiches or toast, and super-simple almond butter flapjacks

I love a Bounty, although I call them paradise bars. I also love matcha (and not only for its health-supporting benefits). Though my partner doesn’t enjoy drinking matcha tea, when I mix it into the sweetness of the coconut filling, even he’s on board. Then, a very munchable and grabbable savoury granola, and flapjacks that you can throw together in minutes for a week’s worth of on-the-go snacks.

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© Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Jennifer Kay. Food styling assistant: Eden Owen-Jones.

© Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Jennifer Kay. Food styling assistant: Eden Owen-Jones.

© Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Jennifer Kay. Food styling assistant: Eden Owen-Jones.

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‘Nostalgia is not a strategy’: Mark Carney is emerging as the unflinching realist ready to tackle Trump

In a speech at Davos, written by Carney himself, the Canadian prime minister laid out his doctrine for a world of fractured international norms

For much of Mark Carney’s career as an economist and central banker, he existed at the nexus of global thinkers and multilateral institutions. The “rockstar banker” was a fixture at summits, where he spoke beside business leaders and the political elite, espousing the values of international cooperation and the need for open economies and shared rules.

But after less than a year as prime minister of Canada, Carney offered a blunter assessment of the world on Tuesday: “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”

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© Photograph: Canadian Press/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Canadian Press/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Canadian Press/Shutterstock

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Erratic Emma Raducanu bounced out of Australian Open by Anastasia Potapova

  • Briton falls to disappointing 7-6 (3), 6-2 loss to Austrian world No 55

  • 28th seed’s struggles with same issues as opening matches of season

Emma Raducanu crashed out of the Australian Open in the second round with a poor 7-6 (3), 6-2 loss to Anastasia Potapova after a tepid, error-strewn performance in Melbourne.

Having only lost to grand slam champions inside the top 10 at the grand slams last year – Elena Rybakina, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek twice – defeat to world No 55 Potapova is Raducanu’s worst first-week result by ranking since the 2024 Australian Open, which was her comeback major from an eight-month layoff.

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© Photograph: James D Morgan/Getty Images

© Photograph: James D Morgan/Getty Images

© Photograph: James D Morgan/Getty Images

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Shinzo Abe’s killer sentenced to life in prison over shooting of Japanese former PM

Abe was killed in 2022 while campaigning in the western city of Nara

A Japanese court has sentenced a man who admitted assassinating the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe to life imprisonment on Wednesday, according to NHK public television.

Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, earlier pleaded guilty to killing Abe in July 2022 during his election campaign speech in the western city of Nara.

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© Photograph: KYODO/Reuters

© Photograph: KYODO/Reuters

© Photograph: KYODO/Reuters

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‘I could not stay silent’: Palestinian prisoner tells of sexual abuse in Israeli jail

Sami al-Saei has defied social stigma to speak out about what a report calls a ‘grave pattern’ of sexual violence

  • Warning: contains graphic descriptions of torture

Sami al-Saei said he heard the Israeli prison guards who raped him laughing through the assault, before they left him lying blindfolded, handcuffed and in agony on the floor to take a cigarette break.

At least one of the group knew a crime was being committed and intervened, not to stop the torture but to prevent its documentation. Al-Saei said he heard the man warning others “don’t take a photo, don’t take a photo” as they attacked.

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© Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

© Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

© Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

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Steal review – you long for Sophie Turner to triumph in this wild thriller

This breathless and hugely entertaining financial heist show isn’t just packed with twists. It’s a clever meditation on the evil of money – in which you’re rooting for the Game of Thrones star

The trick, Zara Dunne tells her new underling as she shows her round the trades processing floor of the pension management company for which they both now work, is not to dwell on the fact that every day that passes is another day wasted. And to know where the nice biscuits are. This is very good advice for any twentysomething starting their first job, but especially one called Myrtle, as this one is, whom I imagine has already had much of the stuffing knocked out of her by her peers’ reactions to this odd parental choice of moniker.

Soon, however, they are all in need of substantially more comfort than even a chocolate Hobnob can provide, as a team of armed villains swarms the floor. From there, the glossy new six-part thriller Steal kicks into high gear and doesn’t let up for a moment. The baddies – sporting not masks but sophisticated, subtle prosthetics that can fool all the facial recognition software the police will soon be applying to the CCTV footage – herd Zara (Sophie Turner, continuing to deliver sterling work post-Game of Thrones), Myrtle (Eloise Thomas), Zara’s friend and colleague Luke (Archie Madekwe) and the rest of the rank into one conference room while the management committee is locked in another. A couple of gruesome beatings later, so that nobody is in any doubt about the dedication of the villainous gang, Luke and Zara are yanked out and forced to help them execute a set of trades worth £4bn, and the committee is forced to sign off on them all. At one point, Luke crumbles and Zara must step in to save the day. She is hailed as a hero once the thieves have completed their hi-tech heist and left the building.

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© Photograph: Ludovic Robert/Prime

© Photograph: Ludovic Robert/Prime

© Photograph: Ludovic Robert/Prime

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My friends in Italy are using AI therapists. But is that so bad, when a stigma surrounds mental health? | Viola Di Grado

State provision for psychological health services is lamentable. Until things improve, let’s not judge those who turn to an app for help

It’s a sunny afternoon in a Roman park and a peculiar, new-to-this-era kind of coming out is happening between me and my friend Clarissa. She has just asked me if I, like her and all of her other friends, use an AI therapist and I say yes.

Our mutual confession feels, at first, quite confusing. As a society, we still don’t know how confidential, or shareable, our AI therapist usage should be. It falls in a limbo between the intimacy of real psychotherapy and the material triviality of sharing skincare advice. That’s because, as much as our talk with a chatbot can be as private as one with a human, we’re still aware that its response is a digital product.

Viola di Grado is an Italian author

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© Photograph: AsiaDreamPhoto/Alamy

© Photograph: AsiaDreamPhoto/Alamy

© Photograph: AsiaDreamPhoto/Alamy

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My analogue month: would ditching my smartphone make me healthier, happier – or more stressed?

When I swapped my iPhone for a Nokia, Walkman, film camera and physical map, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But my life soon started to change

When two balaclava-clad men on a motorbike mounted the pavement to rob me, recently, I remained oblivious. My eyes were pinned to a text message on my phone, and my hands were so clawed around it that they didn’t even bother to grab it. It wasn’t until an elderly woman shrieked and I felt the whoosh of air as the bike launched back on to the road that I looked up at all. They might have been unsuccessful but it did make me think: what else am I missing from the real world around me?

Before I’ve poured my first morning coffee I’ve already watched the lives of strangers unfold on Instagram, checked the headlines, responded to texts, swiped through some matches on a dating app, and refreshed my emails, twice. I check Apple Maps for my quickest route to work. I’ve usually left it too late to get the bus, so I rent a Lime bike using the app. During the day, my brother sends me some memes, I take a picture of a canal boat, and pay for my lunch on Apple Pay. I walk home listening to music on Spotify and a long voice note from a friend, then I watch a nondescript TV drama, while scrolling through Depop and Vinted for clothes.

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© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

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