President Donald Trump has said he will announce a 25% import tax on all steel and aluminium entering the US, a move that will have the biggest impact in Canada. Trump also said that there would be an announcement later in the week about reciprocal tariffs on all countries that tax imports from the US, but he did not specify which nations would be targeted, or if there would be any exemptions. “If they charge us, we charge them,” Trump said. The move marks another escalation in Trump’s trade policy, which has already sparked retaliation from China. - BBC

Donald Trump said he is serious about wanting Canada to become the 51st state in an interview that aired Sunday during the Super Bowl preshow. “Yeah it is,” Trump told Fox News Channel when asked whether his talk of annexing Canada is “a real thing” — as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently warned. “I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen,” he said. “Why are we paying $200 billion a year, essentially a subsidy to Canada?” The U.S. is not subsidizing Canada. The U.S. buys products from the natural resource-rich nation, including commodities like oil. While the trade gap in goods has ballooned in recent years to $72 billion in 2023, the deficit largely reflects America’s imports of Canadian energy - AP

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz again ruled out sending long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, opposing actions that would “deliver destructive weapons” deep inside of Russia, and hitting out at his conservative political rival, who has expressed more openness to delivering such weapons to Kyiv. “I do not think it is right to deliver destructive weapons deep into the Russian hinterland,” Scholz said on February 9 during a 90-minute televised debate ahead of national elections in two weeks. “That is, I believe, exactly the kind of step not to make if you carry responsibility for Germany,” he added. Friedrich Merz, whose conservative CDU/CSU alliance is leading in the polls against Scholz’s center-left SPD, said he has “always been very clear” regarding his position on sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine. “I have always said the delivery of cruise missiles must be decided in the European Union. The United States delivers, France delivers, Britain delivers; we should also have delivered,” Merz said. Merz told German media in October that he would approve delivery to Kyiv of the missiles -- which have a range of some 500 kilometers -- under certain conditions - RFE/RL

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Colombian President Gustavo Petro asked members of his Cabinet to resign on Sunday. The demand came after he criticized the Cabinet for its underwhelming performance for five straight hours on national television on Tuesday. According to Petro, several of his ministers were falling behind in the delivery of major projects. “I have requested the resignation of ministers and directors of administrative departments,” Petro posted on social media platform X. “There will be some changes in the cabinet to achieve greater compliance with the program ordered by the people.” - DW

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The flow of electricity between the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and Russia has officially been severed after officials switched off the Soviet-era grid’s transmission lines and prepared to join the rest of Europe on Sunday. This came more than three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, ending the Baltics’ final ties to oil- and gas-rich Russia. For the three countries, as well as the rest of Europe, the move was steeped in geopolitical and symbolic significance. “The Baltic energy system is finally in our hands, we are in full control,” Lithuania Energy minister Žygimantas Vaičiūnas told reporters. On Saturday, all remaining transmission lines between them and Russia, Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, wedged between EU members Poland and Lithuania and the sea, were switched off one by one. Lithuania first — where a specially-made 9-meter (about 29-foot) tall clock in downtown Vilnius counted down the final seconds — then Latvia a few minutes later, followed by Estonia - AP

Billionaire Elon Musk - recast as a “special government employee” at the U.S. DOGE Service — is bringing his unorthodox methods to Washington, where they are clashing with the traditionally staid and steady federal workforce.  Now, as Musk thunders into the White House — drawing a barrage of lawsuits to block his efforts — former employees predict the Silicon Valley billionaire will cause friction as the shadow boss of a federal bureaucracy where many workers trade the higher pay and longer work hours of corporate America for the job security, steadier schedule and employee benefits gained in government work. In Washington, Musk has mirrored his companies’ behavior in other ways, championing the frantic pace of the DOGE team and boasting that staffers “work long hours” to identify and eliminate “waste, fraud, and abuse,” according to a post from the agency’s X account. His small team of advisers have even installed “sleep pods” in government agencies, according to photos on X posted by the sleep pod company co-founder - Washington Post

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It is not just Vladimir Putin eyeing vast reserves of “rare earths.” In Washington, Donald Trump has asked for them in exchange for military aid. Caught in the middle is Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, who said on Saturday: “We have mineral resources. This does not mean that we give them away to anyone, even to strategic partners.” Ukraine’s critical minerals and rare earths could be the key to securing the country’s future. The country is sitting on more than 20 rare earth elements, including cerium and lanthanum, both vital for a host of modern technologies from flat-screen televisions to low-energy light bulbs. The country also possesses vast reserves of critical minerals and metals. Titanium, crucial for aerospace and defence industries, and lithium, the backbone of electric vehicle and smartphone batteries, are among Ukraine’s untapped riches. Mr Trump appears to be eyeing up both. “They’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earths and other things,” he said. “I want to have the security of rare earths. We’re putting in hundreds of billions of dollars. They have great rare earths. And I want security of the rare earths, and they’re willing to do it,” the US president declared. While the US does not disclose its stockpile levels of rare earth minerals, experts believe they are far below what would be needed during war. Mr Trump’s desire for rare earths – also shown by his desire to “get” mineral-rich Greenland – does not at first seem to square with his scepticism for green energy. On Saturday, Mr Zelensky made his position clear. “We have mineral resources. This does not mean that we give them away to anyone, even to strategic partners,” Zelensky posted on social media, quoting answers he had given in an interview with the Reuters news agency. The country’s estimated $12 trillion (£9.7 trillion) worth of rare earths are largely concentrated in the east – territory heavily occupied by Russian forces. Roughly 33 per cent of these resources are under Moscow’s control. Keith Kellogg, his former national security adviser, has floated the idea of locking the conflict along its current lines, which would leave much of Ukraine’s mineral-rich land in Russian hands. But Ksenia Orynchak, the chief executive of Ukraine’s Association of Extractive Industries, argues it would be wrong to discount the country’s resources in the west and centre - The Telegraph

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China last year saw a one-fifth decline in marriages, the latest sign of persistent demographic challenges as Beijing works to encourage births despite an uncertain economic outlook for young families. The country saw 6.1 million couples register for marriage in 2024, down from 7.7 million the previous year, according to data published by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The 20.5 percent drop coincided with the third consecutive year of overall population decline in China, which in 2023 was surpassed by India as the world’s most populous nation. China’s population of 1.4 billion is now rapidly ageing, with nearly a quarter of people aged 60 or above as of the end of last year. The demographic trends present fresh challenges for authorities in the country, which has long relied on its vast workforce as a driver of economic growth - HKFP

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