CNN
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Tuesday marks 100 days since 68-year-old Laila Soueif started a hunger strike in a plea to the UK government to free her son from imprisonment in Egypt, according to her family.

Alaa Abd El-Fattah was a leading activist in the country’s 2011 uprising. He has been imprisoned for much of the past decade, and in 2019 was sentenced to a further five years in prison for allegedly spreading false news after sharing a Facebook post highlighting human rights abuses in Egyptian jails.

Both Soueif and Abd El-Fattah hold dual Egyptian and British citizenship.

Soueif began her hunger strike in September, standing in front of the British Foreign Affairs office in protest at the lack of progress in freeing her son. She has been surviving on black coffee, herbal tea and three packets of rehydration salts a day, according to a statement from her family.

She is currently in Cairo, in hopes of meeting her son for a 20-minute visit on January 8. The visit is expected to take place through a glass barrier at a prison located an hour outside the Egyptian capital, the statement said.

“Unfortunately, the government seems to be waiting for me to be hospitalized before they act decisively to secure my son’s freedom. We have been lucky that my body has been resilient, but we will soon run out of time,” Soueif said in the statement.

The British government has previously said it is working to secure Abd El Fattah’s release. In 2022, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak raised the imprisoned activist’s case during a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on the sidelines of the COP27, a Downing Street spokesperson said at the time.

CNN
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US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is not expected to attend next week’s meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels, marking the first time since the group’s founding three years ago that a senior Pentagon official will not be there to represent the US, officials familiar with the matter told CNN.

The US has for months been steadily pulling back from the group, which was founded by former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in 2022 after Russia’s invasion as a way for dozens of countries to streamline the delivery of military equipment to Ukraine to quell Russian military advances.

Whereas Austin or a senior Pentagon official always chaired the group’s monthly meetings, Hegseth has ceded that role to the UK in recent months—even as a senior US general told lawmakers on Thursday that “continuing to assist Ukraine on the battlefield daily” is “very important” when it comes to maintaining leverage over the Russians.

Hegseth attended a meeting of the UDCG in February at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where he told allies that the US would no longer be a guarantor of European security and that it was highly “unlikely” that Ukraine would ever join NATO—a comment that, at the time, marked a dramatic shift from the longtime US position that Ukraine would one day join the alliance.

Defense News was first to report Hegseth is likely to skip the meeting next week.

The Trump administration has turned on and off its military and intelligence support to Ukraine in recent months as a way to push Kyiv to the negotiating table. The US hasn’t imposed any penalties on Russia, even as Moscow has refused to agree to a White House proposal for a 30-day ceasefire and continues to place conditions on even a partial ceasefire in the Black Sea.

Russia also wasn’t on the list of countries the Trump administration announced it is imposing tariffs on this week.

Trump attacked Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly last weekend and threatened tariffs on countries which buy Russian oil, but days later temporarily suspended sanctions on a Russian financier and Putin ally in order to host him for meetings this week in Washington, DC—the first time a Russian official has traveled to DC for such talks since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

As the Russian negotiator, Kirill Dimitriev, was in DC for meetings on Thursday, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the head of US European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe was testifying to Congress that Russia poses a “chronic” and “growing” threat to the US and the west saying Russia is “actively waging a campaign of destabilization across Europe and beyond.”

“Russia’s war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year, has revealed Russia to be a chronic threat, and we see in the future it will be a growing threat, one that is willing to use military force to achieve its geopolitical goals,” Cavoli told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

“Further exacerbating this threat from Russia are the deepening partnerships among our adversaries — Iran, the Communist Chinese Party, the DPRK, and Russia itself. And these are increasingly posing a global risk,” he said.

Dimitriev and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff met on Wednesday, sources told CNN.

US and western intelligence officials do not believe that Russia is interested in negotiating a ceasefire deal with Ukraine in good faith, CNN has reported. Moscow still believes it can sustain its war effort and outlast Ukraine on the battlefield.

A senior NATO official reiterated that on Thursday, saying that “Russia still believes that time mostly is on its side.”

“We have had questions for a long time about whether Putin intends to negotiate in good faith,” the official said. Russia is “willing to continue those talks [about mending ties with the US] at the same time that it is delaying and stalling and saying that they can’t accept the US proposals right now, on the actual ceasefire. I think all of that supports the idea that Russia’s goals haven’t changed at all—that right now, what it is trying to do is probably stall for time, make less concessions on the war, and try to instead make progress on sanctions, on Russia’s place in the international community.”

Nuuk, Greenland
Reuters
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Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called Thursday for increased Arctic defense collaboration with the United States during a visit to Greenland, and firmly dismissed the US desire to annex the semi-autonomous Danish territory.

Frederiksen’s visit follows months of tension between Washington and Copenhagen over US President Donald Trump’s repeated declarations that the Arctic island should become part of the United States.

At a news conference with the outgoing and incoming Greenlandic prime ministers, Frederiksen switched to English to address the United States directly, inviting them to strengthen security in the Arctic together with Denmark and Greenland.

“I would like to take this opportunity to send a message directly to the United States of America,” Frederiksen said onboard a military vessel with snowy cliffs in the background.

“This is not only about Greenland or Denmark, this is about the world order that we have built together across the Atlantic over generations. You cannot annex another country, not even with an argument about security,” she said.

Her comments came shortly after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen met on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels.

According to Rasmussen, Rubio acknowledged Greenland’s right to self-determination.

Rubio had reaffirmed the “strong relationship” between the US and Denmark, the State Department said in a statement after the meeting.

Meanwhile, Greenlandic incoming Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who won last month’s parliamentary election, told the news conference it was important for Denmark and Greenland to stand united during a situation with such external pressure, according to daily Sermitsiaq.

US Vice President JD Vance visited a US military base in northern Greenland last Friday and accused Denmark of not doing a good job of keeping the Arctic island safe. He suggested the US would better protect the strategically located territory.

Frederiksen said at the time Vance’s description of Denmark was “not fair.”

On Thursday, she outlined Denmark’s security commitments, including new Arctic ships, long-range drones and satellite capacity, and said Denmark would announce more investments.

“If you want to be more present in Greenland, Greenland and Denmark is ready and if you would like to strengthen the security in the Arctic just like us, then let us do it together,” she said.