Denmark’s foreign secretary has denied the assertion and since reiterated that discussion over territory is a red line.

Meanwhile, Denmark has received somewhat unexpected backing from Russia, as the Kremlin said that it considers Greenland to be Danish territory and added that the security situation surrounding the island was “extraordinary” from the perspective of international law, Reuters reported.

The agency noted that Moscow said earlier this week that it was unacceptable for the west to keep claiming that Russia and China threatened Greenland, and said that the crisis over the territory showed the double standards of western powers which claimed moral superiority.

Flood warning raised to highest level with roads washed away and rain forcing evacuation of Kruger national park

Large areas of north-eastern South Africa and neighbouring Mozambique have been inundated for several days with exceptionally heavy rainfall. Some locations in South Africa recorded hundreds of millimetres of rain over the weekend, such as Graskop in Mpumalanga, where 113mm fell in a 24-hour period, and Phalaborwa, which recorded about 85mm of rainfall. Rain has continued to fall across the region since the weekend.

The deluge has been driven by a slow-moving cut-off low pressure system that has remained anchored over the region, repeatedly drawing in moisture and triggering intense downpours. Further heavy rainfall is expected on Friday and over the weekend. Maputo, Mozambique’s capital, could expect daily rainfall totals to exceed 200mm by the end of Friday, while western parts of South Africa and north-western Eswatini may record more than 100mm, though exact totals remain uncertain at this stage.

Veteran president holding off main challenger Bobi Wine after campaign marred by violence at opposition rallies

The veteran Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, held a commanding lead in early presidential election results announced on Friday as conflicting accounts emerged of violence reported after the vote.

Museveni, who is 81 and has ruled Uganda since seizing power in 1986, wants a decisive victory following a campaign marred by violence at opposition rallies.

Up to 30,000 customers of South East Water had no supply or low pressure at height of incident

Water has been restored to most homes across Kent and Sussex after almost a week of disruption.

South East Water (SEW) said the outage, which began on Saturday, was the result of Storm Goretti causing burst pipes and power cuts.

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Liverpool’s right-back question, Wolves’ unbeaten run and more in our latest TPs.

Here’s today’s tittle-tattle:

(A$AP Rocky Recordings)
Now a father of three and burgeoning actor, Rocky finally comes back to music with his strongest album since his 2013 debut – though there’s plenty of flab

It has been eight years since A$AP Rocky, once and future king of New York rap, released an album. In the world of hip-hop, where even A-list stars such as Rocky’s friend and collaborator Tyler, the Creator are prone to releasing multiple albums a year, this is a lifetime. In the time since Rocky released his third album, 2018’s Testing, Kanye West has rebranded as a born-again Christian, swerved to the right and released five albums. Rocky hasn’t been sitting around: he’s been a press mainstay, thanks to his relationship with pop superstar Rihanna, with whom he now has three children, and last year was acquitted of firing a gun at a former friend, dodging up to 24 years in prison. He has also found acclaim as an actor, starring opposite Rose Byrne in the lauded dark comedy If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and Denzel Washington in Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest.

Aside from a few one-off singles, such as the Tame Impala collaboration Sundress, Rocky has released music in fits and starts in recent years. (In terms of mainstream stars, perhaps only Rocky’s romantic partner outpaces him when it comes to leaving fans waiting: it has been a decade since Rihanna’s last record.) Testing yielded the Skepta-featuring hit Praise the Lord (Da Shine), but otherwise fell flat with mainstream audiences and critics alike, lacking the dynamism and potent charisma of his breakout albums. That album seemed to leave Rocky at a crossroads. Would it serve him best to continue exploring its slipshod experimentalism, or to make an attempt at retrenchment, and return to the more straightforward music that made him famous?

As the UK government faces pressure to follow suit, evidence on whether the ban is working is still a while away.

More than 4.7m accounts for teens under 16 have been been taken offline by Australia’s social media ban, but that doesn’t mean it’s been successful.

As the UK government faces pressure to follow suit, let’s take a closer look at the facts and figures.

The team behind Baby Steps discuss why they made a whiny, unprepared manbaby the protagonist – and how players have grown to love Nate as he struggles up a mountain

“I don’t know why he is in a onesie and has a big ass,” shrugs game developer Gabe Cuzzillo. “Bennett just came in with that at some point.”

“I thought it would be cute,” replies Bennett Foddy, who was formerly Cuzzillo’s professor at New York University’s Game Center and is now his collaborator. “Working on character design and animation brings you over to liking big butts. I could give you an enormous amount of evidence for this.”

As head of an immigration charity, I’ve seen firsthand how hostility and toxicity have reached unprecedented levels

• Enver Solomon is the outgoing chief executive of the Refugee Council

It is difficult to think of another area of government policy that has weathered as much legislative hyperactivity as asylum and migration. I have been chief executive of the Refugee Council since 2020, and I am struck by the fact that there have been four bills that have become law since I started. A fifth one in as many years is expected soon as Home Office officials beaver away under the orders of the home secretary to quickly turn the proposed asylum reforms, published in November, into legislation.

As I prepare to leave the organisation this month, I have been reflecting on how the asylum and migration landscape has changed. It’s clear the rhetoric and intent behind all these new laws has been the same: to deter so-called asylum shopping, to disrupt the people-smuggling gangs, to ramp up removals of migrants, to fix the broken asylum system and, ultimately, deliver control of our borders.

Enver Solomon is the outgoing chief executive of the Refugee Council

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The postseason continues with the Broncos and Seahawks entering the fray, but there could be trouble for one of the frontrunners

What the Bills need to do to win: Keep winning short-yardage situations. The tush push on fourth down that propelled Josh Allen 10 yards and helped secure Buffalo’s win over Jacksonville last weekend epitomised how the Bills dominated the game’s crucial moments. The Bills converted four of their five third downs with four yards or to go last Sunday, and they finished fifth in third-down rate in the regular season in the same situations. Denver were eighth this season in third-and-short defensive efficiency (50.6%). Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady will have to find ways to create leverage for Allen and the Bills in those vital moments to keep the scoreboard moving.

Yoon Suk Yeol’s conviction for obstructing own arrest separate from main trial that could lead to death penalty

A South Korean court has sentenced former president Yoon Suk Yeol to five years in prison for mobilising presidential security forces to block his own arrest and abusing his powers. It is the first judicial ruling linked to the events surrounding his failed martial law declaration in December 2024.

The ruling is separate from Yoon’s main insurrection trial, where prosecutors earlier this week sought the death penalty and a verdict is due next month.

From his exile in the US, Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah of Iran, has galvanised protesters in his home country, calling for them to continue demonstrating against the Islamic Republic. But Pahlavi is a divisive figure. As the heir of a violent authoritarian regime, his potential return is viewed suspiciously by some. Chants in his favour heard in the streets of Tehran and beyond may be less about support for the crown and more about him being seen as the only option to take people out of the country's political 'dead end'

• Growing protests in Iran do not necessarily herald a return to monarchy

• ‘The world needs to know what’s happening’: families of protesters killed in Iran tell of heartbreak

(InFiné)
The composers’ first collaborative album ebbs from epic, cinematic heights to delicate and dreamy lullabies

After years of touring together, Los Angeles-based composers Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore have developed what the former refers to as a “musical telepathy”. Tragic Magic, the pair’s first collaborative album, evidences this bond: born out of a short series of improv sessions in Paris, it’s a wonderfully immersive set of new age and ambient tracks, where Barwick’s airy, reverbed vocals and atmospheric synth washes interweave with, and accentuate, Lattimore’s twinkling harp.

The album sessions took place shortly after last year’s California wildfires, which the two musicians experienced as residents. Accordingly, tragedy and hope cut through the dreamlike haze of these unfurling compositions. With its delicate harp loop and hushed whispers, opener Perpetual Adoration is as sweet and dreamy as a lullaby, while the gorgeous, moving Haze With No Haze carries a quiet desperation in the brittle, staccato melody and Barwick’s yearning high register. As always, her lyrics are indiscernible, words blurring into texture and shapeless whispers, but teem with feeling.

Jafar Panahi, director of Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident, says Iranian leaders want to destroy country

The Khamenei regime will not be able to maintain control over Iranian society after the violent suppression of the latest wave of protests, one of the country’s leading film-makers has predicted.

“It is impossible for this government to sustain itself in this situation,” the director Jafar Panahi told the Guardian. “They know it too. They know that it will be impossible to rule over people. Perhaps their only goal right now is to bring the country to the verge of complete collapse and try to destroy it.”

Move comes as calls for Australia-style social media ban for under-16s grow around world

TikTok will begin to roll out new age-verification technology across the EU in the coming weeks, as calls for an Australia-style social media ban for under-16s grow in countries including the UK.

ByteDance-owned TikTok, and other major platforms popular with young people such as YouTube, are coming under increasing pressure to better identify and remove accounts belonging to children.

Today’s rumours might even get home one day

This year, as with last year, Aston Villa are eyeing the January market to bolster their forward line. For Marcus Rashford in 2025, read Tammy Abraham in 2026. Roma own his registration, though he is now on loan at Besiktas. He was a fan favourite when on loan from Chelsea in Villa’s Championship days, so such a move would be something of a homecoming. Another Villa target is Dani Ceballos, the midfielder once of Arsenal, and a useful Real Madrid squad player for years now.

To compound Crystal Palace’s FA Cup misery, and the unsettling tidings on Oliver Glasner’s future, there’s the rumour that Jean-Philippe Mateta is a target for Juventus.

Hamnet and H Is for Hawk fuse themes of loss, birds and elemental female emotion. But whose fault is it if you remain dry-eyed?

‘Is it porn or is it art?” A familiar, even dated question where nudity is involved, and (forgive thumbnail) pretty well-resolved– which is to say: we let the tastemakers decide, and it tips the scale towards “art” if one or both protagonists are not that good-looking.

“Is it grief-porn or is it grief-art?” is a more vexed question. Grief-porn, in relation to cinema, would suggest that the film in question is emotionally manipulative, formulaic; grief-art would suggest the film unleashes feelings both universal and true.

(Rough Trade)
The duo’s 13th album finds Jason Williamson as baffled and infuriated as ever at the state of the world, with help from some unexpected collaborators

Over the course of a dozen albums, Jason Williamson (words) and Andrew Fearn (music) have journeyed from DIY to the album chart Top 5 by providing a gut-punchingly bleak and amusingly absurdist commentary on the financial crash, austerity, Brexit and the rise of the far right. On their 13th LP, Williamson again convinces in the role of a potty-mouthed bystander, baffled and infuriated by what goes on around him, whether empty lives in the digital age (“Weights and wanking / Hard bodies and phone lights / That’s all we got”), Trump’s US (“Maga’s off their tits”) or minor daily irritants: “Lazy dog walkers on short walks, mate, wanker!”

However, developments here should gently broaden their appeal. Williamson displays a welcome new vulnerability on the harrowing Gina Was, about a childhood incident. Meanwhile, Fearn is subtly developing his production, venturing beyond electro-punk to use classical strings on Double Diamond and a broader range of collaborators. The combination of Willliamson, Game of Thrones actor Gwendoline Christie’s furious rap and Big Special’s David Bowie-ish crooning on The Good Life makes for one of the most hauntingly catchy things they’ve done.

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

• Tournament to be played every four years from 2028

• Federation denies statutes breached in making decision

The Confederation of African Football (Caf) has been accused of pushing through its controversial decision to stage the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) every four years without properly consulting member federations.

Several presidents of African football federations have told the Guardian they were not informed of the decision until it was surprisingly announced by the Caf president, Patrice Motsepe, on 20 December, prompting claims that the confederation breached its statutes by failing to seek approval at a general assembly.

Women allege Spanish singer subjected them ‘to inappropriate touching, insults and humiliation … in atmosphere of control’

The Spanish singer Julio Iglesias has broken his silence over allegations that he sexually abused two women who worked in his Caribbean mansions, saying he has never “abused, coerced or disrespected any woman”.

The 82-year-old entertainer, whose career spans six decades, had been accused by two female former employees who allege they had been sexually assaulted and subjected “to inappropriate touching, insults and humiliation … in an atmosphere of control and constant harassment”.

Despite restrictions announced this week, Guardian reporters find standalone app continues to allow posting of nonconsensual content

X has continued to allow users to post highly sexualised videos of women in bikinis generated by its AI tool Grok, despite the company’s claim to have cracked down on misuse.

The Guardian was able to create short videos of people stripping to bikinis from photographs of fully clothed, real women. It was also possible to post this adult content on to X’s public platform without any sign of it being moderated, meaning the clip could be viewed within seconds by anyone with an account.

Have you been following the big stories in football, rugby, snooker, tennis, cricket, motor racing, cycling and futsal?

The Gardanas, a pair of mucus-coloured hemp shoes, are a somewhat paradoxical current must-have. But their appeal goes deeper than the topsoil

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There is every chance that 2026 will be the year you see your first pair of Gardana gardening clogs in the wild. In fact, if you spend much time on TikTok, or live in Brooklyn, you’ve probably already been seeing them for months, if not years. I saw my first pair a few weeks ago. I watched a dad dropping his kids off at school in head-to-toe Carhartt, a pair of Gardanas peeping out from below his trousers like a shy frog.

Pliable, but with a sturdy sole, they go for as little as £25. The work of French “environmental poet” André Ravachol, who founded the Plasticana brand behind the clogs in 1998, they’re made from 100% recycled PVC and hemp, which gives them their earthy-caramel or, as Vogue put it, “bird-pooey” hue. They have since been called “maybe the coolest shoes in London” by one TikToker, as he Lime-biked his way through the capital to try to nab a pair.