Donald Trump, the president-elect of the United States, is actively pursuing his policy objectives and engaging in international diplomacy even before his inauguration. With over a month left until he officially takes office, Trump has issued strong warnings, such as threatening a 25% tariff on Canadian and Mexican goods, prompting high-level discussions with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. His bold stance extends to global crises, warning Hamas of severe consequences if hostages in Gaza are not released before his inauguration. This weekend, Trump attended the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, where he was treated as a key dignitary alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, overshadowing outgoing President Joe Biden, who was represented by First Lady Jill Biden. Read: Donald Trump wins US presidency for the second time Trump’s approach is seen as highly unconventional, blurring the lines of transition by engaging directly with foreign leaders and influencing policy. Meetings with leaders from Canada, Argentina, and Ukraine, as well as discussions about the Middle East, highlight his active involvement. While Trump’s team asserts these efforts are aligned with legal protocols, critics argue that such dual messaging can complicate U.S. foreign relations during the transitional period. Trump’s proactive measures, including credit for recent policy moves, demonstrate his readiness to reassert his leadership style, though the long-term success of these initiatives remains uncertain. Source: With inputs from agencies

Donald Trump may be the first former US president to face criminal charges, but many current and past leaders around the world have been tried or even jailed. Several of those leaders described the charges leveled against them as “politically motivated”. Yet, the charges have not always been a barrier to holding political office, reports CNN.Here are some notable recent examples: Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu No one has served as Prime Minister of Israel longer than Benjamin Netanyahu, who was sworn in for his sixth term late last year. He is also being tried for corruption on counts of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust. The Israeli PM, however, called the trial a “witch hunt.” While the case continues, Netanyahu has pushed a contentious plan to weaken Israel's judiciary, the report also said. One of the measures limits the methods by which a sitting prime minister may be judged unfit for office, prompting many Israeli opposition lawmakers to accuse Netanyahu of manipulating the judicial makeover to protect himself. He denies the charges. Read More: Trump's day in court as criminal defendant: What to know Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was imprisoned in April 2018, and was released in November 2019.He was jailed for corruption and money laundering after a construction business reportedly paid him and his wife $1.1 million in renovations and costs for a beachfront condominium. Prosecutors claimed that in exchange, the business received lucrative contracts from Petrobras, the state-controlled oil giant. Lula has referred to the allegations as a "farce," stating that they are politically driven. Upon his release from jail in 2019, a Brazilian court overturned his corruption convictions, allowing Lula to run for president in 2022, when he beat Jair Bolsonaro. In January, he was sworn in for the third time as president. Bolsonaro is now facing potential legal problems, including allegations that he incited violent attacks in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia in January. Read More: Trump charged with 34 felony counts in hush money scheme Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina's current vice president, was sentenced to six years in jail last December after being found guilty of corruption during her two stints as president, from 2007 to 2011 and 2011 to 2015, the report also said. She was accused of conspiring with other government officials to grant contracts worth millions of dollars for road construction that were unfinished, expensive, and useless, according to the complaint.The charges against her were politically-motivated, Kirchner stated. The Argentine court convicted the 70-year-old former president of the country guilty of "fraudulent administration" and barred her from holding public office again. She does, however, have temporary immunity because of her present employment, which means she will not be going to jail anytime soon and can appeal. Read More: Trump indictment ends decades of perceived invincibility Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim After two stints in jail prior to his premiership, Anwar Ibrahim became Malaysia's prime minister in November 2022, in an unprecedented turn of events. Anwar was sentenced to prison in April 1999 after being convicted of sodomy. Sodomy, even if consensual, is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in jail in Muslim-majority Malaysia. He has always vigorously denied the allegations, claiming they were politically motivated. In 2004, a court reversed that conviction. Further claims of sodomy were leveled against him after his comeback as an opposition figure, and he was remanded to prison in 2014 after a lengthy legal struggle that lasted years. Anwar was freed from jail in May 2018 after receiving a royal pardon. He immediately returned to parliament before leading the Pakatan Harapan coalition to a majority of seats in Malaysia's general election in 2022. Read More: Capitol insurrection: Jan. 6 panel unveils report, describes Trump 'conspiracy' Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi Before 2011, the flamboyant Italian billionaire was a serial prime minister. Berlusconi was the dominating figure in Italian politics for over two decades, during which time he was prosecuted on at least 17 counts of embezzlement, tax fraud, and bribery, said the CNN report.He has consistently denied any wrongdoing, and several of his convictions have been overturned on appeal. His resignation in 2011 was not due to legal concerns, but rather to Italy's debt crisis.The 81-year-old gained a seat in Italy's Senate in September 2022, and his party is a member of the country's ruling coalition. Read More: Trump probe: Court halts Mar-a-Lago special master review

Human civilization has evolved at different paces in multiple and conflicting directions over the course of known history.  Slavery is a thing of the past, yet we intermittently get news of modern-day slavery in sweatshops in different parts of the world. Racism is frowned upon, still, we see examples of rampant racial prejudice even in the most civilized nations of the world. But there is still hope. Thinkers and wise men are continuously pushing the boundaries of conventional thoughts to hasten the process of evolution in the right direction. Hence, we hear concepts like speciesism at a time when we are still fighting a global plague of xenophobia and racism.   The progress from eliminating racism today to a future where speciesism gets mainstream traction is a distant road to be taken for our human race. But this piece is not about the thoughts of the non-conformist philosophers who despise the thought of the human race plundering mother earth and its millions of species sharing the world we live in. This piece is about the major milestones that are far more pressing and long overdue.  One such milestone is creating a world where each human being has the right to belong, right to a state, and right to basic rights irrespective of creed, color, or anything that differentiates one from another.  A civilized world cannot bear to see stateless human beings living with the constant fear of persecution. No matter how evolved we are with our technological advancements and refined way of living, if the fruits of our collective achievements are devoid of empathy towards millions who are not given the basic privileges of human existence, we cannot celebrate nor take rest. This crucial aspect of human evolution needs more attention. As an artist, I lived in my own microcosm like most of us in our little selfish lives. But it all changed when I started working closely with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency and started visiting the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar. The continuous interaction with refugees made me realize that the things we take for granted are so coveted by many. Even a selfish human being with a minimum sense of empathy would agree that this global crisis with a very local presence needs more attention.  Read:Myanmar: Hanging activists in a ruined economy We cannot turn a blind eye to the refugee crisis at home and across the world and accept it as normal. Five years on from the mass exodus of the Rohingya, their displacement in Bangladesh has become protracted. Some 930,000 are living in Bangladesh today. Prolonged exile is unacceptable. We must support them until they can safely return home because all human beings deserve to live full and dignified lives. UNHCR has confirmed its commitment and called on other humanitarians to deepen the support to the generous Bangladesh government and people hosting the Rohingya. We have moved past the initial emergency phase of this crisis and are working to ensure that refugees are protected and have access to basic services and rights. This includes providing access to education, skills development training and livelihoods, which are also key to prepare them for return so they may rebuild their lives and communities. Though the host community has been very gracious in accepting refugees, some have not been very congenial, which is normal considering we still live in a world where xenophobia and racism are not something we have been able to eradicate.  We must raise our voices to make sure that exile and marginalization of the Rohingya people do not become normalized. And as time progresses, I’m increasingly convinced that this refugee crisis at home and also globally can only be solved with a concerted effort by world leaders. The solutions are political, and the Rohingya will only be able to return once Myanmar ensures their safety and access to rights. But on a philosophical level, more concerted efforts on educating the next generation about racism and xenophobia are more important. Only then may we have leaders who understand that every single human being has the right to belong, a right to a state, and access to basic rights irrespective of creed, color, or anything that differentiates one from another. Tahsan Khan is the Goodwill Ambassador of UNHCR in Bangladesh

World leaders sought Wednesday to back up their tough words over Russia's aggression against Ukraine, announcing financial sanctions, trade and travel bans and other measures meant to pressure Moscow to pull back from the brink of war. Even as they ramped up penalties, however, nations in Asia and the Pacific also prepared for the possibility of both economic pain, in the form of cuts to traditional energy and grain supply lines, and retaliation from Russian cyberattacks. “We can’t have some suggestion that Russia has some just case here that they’re prosecuting. They’re behaving like thugs and bullies, and they should be called out as thugs and bullies,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said while announcing targeted financial sanctions and travel bans as a first step in response to Russian aggression toward Ukraine. The possibility of imminent war in Ukraine has raised fears not only of massive casualties but of widespread energy shortages and global economic chaos. The punitive actions in Asia followed sanctions levied by U.S. President Joe Biden and European leaders against Russian oligarchs and banks in response to Russia massing 150,000 troops on three sides of Ukraine. While the larger army has yet to move, Russian forces have rolled into rebel-held portions of eastern Ukraine after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized those areas’ independence. In Japan, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced sanctions targeting Russia and the two separatist Ukrainian regions. Read:Russia evacuating embassy in Ukraine as crisis escalates Kishida told reporters that Tokyo will ban any new issuance and distribution of Russian government bonds in Japan because of “a series of actions Russia has been taking in Ukraine.” Kishida said Japan will also stop issuing visas to people linked to the two Ukrainian rebel regions and will freeze their assets in Japan. Tokyo will also ban trade with the two areas. He said Japanese officials are finalizing further details and added that Japan could increase sanctions if the situation worsens. Japan opened a temporary office in Lviv, in western Ukraine, to help evacuate about 120 Japanese citizens, and has arranged chartered flights in nearby countries, Kishida said. Officials in South Korea, which relies on imports to meet nearly all fossil fuel demand, held emergency meetings Wednesday to weigh how seriously events in Ukraine would hurt their country’s economy. The fallout has so far been limited, but First Vice Finance Minister Lee Eog-weon said things could worsen if the situation in Ukraine escalates and there's a "disruption of energy supply chains and an increase in market volatility.” While South Korea relies heavily on imports from Russia and Ukraine for wheat and corn, Lee said the country has enough reserves to last until June or July. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy also discussed ways to secure alternative energy supplies in case the Ukraine crisis disrupts the current methods. U.S. officials have said an invasion is all but inevitable. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled plans for a Thursday meeting in Geneva with his Russian counterpart, saying it would not be productive and that Russia’s actions indicated Moscow was not serious about a peaceful path to resolving the crisis. More than two dozen European Union members unanimously agreed to levy their own initial set of sanctions against Russian officials. Germany also said it was halting the process of certifying the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia — a lucrative deal long sought by Moscow but criticized by the United States for increasing Europe’s reliance on Russian energy. The United States moved to cut off Russia’s government from Western finance, sanctioning two of its banks and blocking it from trading its debt on American and European markets. The Biden administration’s actions hit civilian leaders in Russia’s leadership hierarchy and two Russian banks considered especially close to the Kremlin and Russia’s military, with more than $80 billion in assets. That includes freezing all of those banks’ assets under U.S. jurisdictions. Australia's cabinet Wednesday approved sanctions and travel bans that target eight members of the Russian Security Council, and agreed to align with the United States and Britain by targeting two Russian banks. "It’s important that we play our part in the broader international community to ensure that those who are financing, profiting from an autocratic and authoritarian regime that is invading its neighbor should have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide when it comes to trying to move their money around,” said Morrison, the prime minister. Read: Ukraine's economy is another victim of Russia's 'hybrid war' Australia also warned businesses to prepare for retaliation through Russian cyberattacks. There was a dissenting voice amid Asia’s general tendency to back U.S.-style sanctions, as Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said Beijing is opposed to new unilateral sanctions imposed on Russia. “On the Ukraine issue, unlike the U.S., which keeps sending weapons to Ukraine, creating fear and panic and even playing up the threat of war, China has been calling on all parties to respect and pay attention to each other’s legitimate security concerns, work together to solve problems through negotiations and consultations, and maintain regional peace and stability,” Hua said at a daily briefing. Hua did not mention Russia’s huge deployment of troops on the Ukrainian border or efforts by the United States, France and others to engage Russia diplomatically. In New Zealand, Russian Ambassador Georgii Zuev was summoned to meet with top diplomatic officials and “to hear New Zealand’s strong opposition to the actions taken by Russia in recent days,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta in a statement. Mahuta is currently traveling abroad. At the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world is facing “the biggest global peace and security crisis in recent years.” He called Russia’s declaration of the “so-called `independence’” of separatist areas in eastern Ukraine a violation of its territorial integrity and accused Moscow of “the perversion of the concept of peacekeeping.” He urged the international community to rally “to save the people of Ukraine and beyond from the scourge of war” without further bloodshed. In Washington, lawmakers from both parties in Congress displayed a largely unified front backing an independent Ukraine and vowing continued U.S. support, even as some pushed for swifter and even more severe sanctions on Russia. On Tuesday, members of Russia’s upper house, the Federation Council, voted unanimously to allow Putin to use military force outside the country — effectively formalizing a Russian military deployment to the rebel regions, where an eight-year conflict has killed nearly 14,000 people.

The U.S., Britain and a handful of others aren’t sending dignitaries to the Beijing Winter Games as part of a diplomatic boycott, but the Chinese capital is still attracting an array of world leaders for Friday’s opening ceremony. A look at who is attending, who is staying away and why: ATTENDING — RUSSIA: President Vladimir Putin is meeting Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping ahead of the opening ceremony, underscoring closer ties between Beijing and Moscow as they both face Western criticism and pressure. — EGYPT AND SERBIA: Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic have growing frictions with the West over their authoritarian policies and human rights records. Both leaders have gravitated toward China. Vucic called Xi his “brother” for supplying Serbia with respirators and vaccines. — SAUDI ARABIA, QATAR, UAE: Beijing’s Gulf relations are above all about energy. China is Saudi Arabia’s largest buyer of oil and a major customer for Qatar’s natural gas. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader, is appearing at the Winter Games as investors and some governments signal warming relations after the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. — CENTRAL ASIA: The leaders of all five former Soviet republics in Central Asia are heading to Beijing, highlighting the region’s increasingly close ties with China. Kyrgyzstan’s President Sadyr Zhaparov pushed last month for the revival of a long-delayed project to build a railroad from China through his country to Uzbekistan. China is Turkmenistan’s only reliable major buyer of natural gas. Also read: Clap, don't chant: China aims for 'Zero COVID' Olympics — ARGENTINA AND ECUADOR: Argentina is set to become the first major Latin American country to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative. President Alberto Fernández is also expected to discuss China’s help building Argentina’s first nuclear power plant since 1981. President Guillermo Lasso is seeking to renegotiate Ecuador’s $4.6 billion debt with China. — UNITED NATIONS: Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will attend. The IOC is a close partner of the U.N., Guterres said, and the Olympics bring together people with a message of solidarity and peace. “This is ... a message that, in my opinion, is more relevant than the political circumstances that exists in the countries where the Olympics take place,” he told The Associated Press. NOT ATTENDING — BOYCOTTS: The United States announced a diplomatic boycott while allowing its athletes to compete. Major U.S. allies followed including Britain, Australia and Canada, whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said: “We are extremely concerned by the repeated human rights violations by the Chinese government.” Kosovo and Lithuania, whose relations with China have nosedived over their ties with Taiwan, are also taking part in the boycott. India said it won’t send any officials following reports that a Chinese military commander who was involved in deadly clashes with Indian border forces in 2020 had been chosen as one of the Olympic torchbearers in Beijing. Also read: China says US diplomatic boycott violates Olympic spirit — NON-BOYCOTTERS: The Norwegian and Swedish royals, who normally attend the Winter Olympics, aren’t going. Neither are any leaders from Germany, Austria or Switzerland, all big winter sports nations. Officially they’re citing the pandemic, rather than any diplomatic protest. Others such as Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand have cited COVID-19 restrictions while also expressing concern over China’s human rights situation.

President Abdul Hamid on Saturday urged the world leaders to work for ending discriminations based on race, faith, colour, religion and ethnicity and ensuring equal opportunities for all. "We must end discriminations based on race, faith, colour, religion and ethnicity, and ensure equal opportunities for all," he said. President Hamid made the call while inaugurating the “World Peace Conference-2021” that has brought together global thinkers, writers, poets, singers and political personalities, aiming to promote a culture of peace and tolerance. “The maintenance of peace and harmony is an essential element of everybody’s life. We all know peace is a public concept of harmony, friendship and the absence of conflict. Peace guarantees freedom from violence or fear between individuals or groups,” said the President.  “A fair international system is also essential for all peoples of the world. We shouldn’t forget that we live in a shared planet and we’ve shared responsibilities, too,” he said. Hamid said Bangladesh believes that peace around the world is the best guarantee for our national security following the constitutional obligations. Also read: Let’s dream of a better world, FM Momen tells peace conference "We’ll continue our efforts to resolve conflicts through peaceful means and promote peace across the globe,” he added. He urged all to leave aside the path of divisions, join hands and walk together on the path of peace. Immediately after Bangladesh’s independence, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was a fervent advocate of peace, introduced a constitution that guarantees the basic human rights of all its citizens, and ensures the promotion of international peace, security, and solidarity, said President Hamid. Bangabandhu’s guiding principle of “friendship to all, malice towards none” defined and set the bedrock of Bangladesh’s foreign policy, he added.

More than 60 former world leaders and over 100 Nobel Prize winners Thursday called on US President Joe Biden to support a waiver of intellectual property rules for Covid-19 vaccines. A waiver would boost vaccine manufacturing and speed up the response to the pandemic in the US and around the world, they said in a joint letter to Biden. The letter specifically asks Biden to support a proposal from South African and India at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to temporarily waive intellectual property rules related to Covid-19 vaccines and treatments. It calculates that at the current pace of vaccine production, the poorest nations will be left waiting until at least 2024 to achieve mass Covid-19 immunisation. The signatories to the letter include former British prime minister Gordon Brown, former president of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos, former president of France François Hollande and Nobel laureates Professor Joseph Stiglitz, Professor Muhammad Yunus and Professor Francoise Barre-Sinoussi. Also read: Funding for vaccine procurement earmarked in deals with WB, ADB: Dr Meerjady Gordon Brown said, "President Biden has said no one is safe until everyone is safe, and now with the G7 ahead there is an unparalleled opportunity to provide the leadership that only the US can provide and that hastens an end to the pandemic for the world." The former British prime minister also said an urgent temporary waiver of intellectual property rules at the WTO would help them ramp up the global supply of vaccines together with a global multi-year burden-sharing plan to finance vaccines for the poorest countries. Professor Yunus said, "Big pharmaceutical companies are setting the terms of the end of today's pandemic, and the cost of allowing senseless monopolies is only more death and more people being pushed into poverty." "We together urge President Biden to stand on the right side of history and ensure a vaccine is a global common good, free of intellectual property protection." François Hollande said the extreme inequality in access to vaccines around the world has created an unbearable political and moral situation. "If the US supports the lifting of patents, Europe will have to take on its responsibilities. In the face of this devastating pandemic, world leaders must prioritise the public interest and international solidarity." Also read: South Asian Govts must ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines: AI The leaders also called for the intellectual property waiver to be accompanied by the open sharing of vaccine know-how and technology, and by coordinated and strategic global investment in research, development, and manufacturing capacity, especially in developing countries. The resulting vaccine inequality, the leaders warned, means that the US economy already risks losing $1.3 trillion in GDP this year, and if the virus is left to roam the world, the increased risk of new viral variants means even vaccinated people in the US could be unprotected once more. The letter, which was coordinated by the People's Vaccine Alliance, a coalition of more than 50 organisations, warned that at the current global immunisation rate, it was likely that only 10% of people in the majority of poor countries will be vaccinated in the next year. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi said, "We will not end today's global pandemic until rich countries – most especially the US – stop blocking the ability of countries around the world to mass-produce safe and effective vaccines." Joseph Stiglitz said, "New mutations of the virus will continue to cost lives and upend our interconnected global economy until everyone, everywhere has access to a safe and effective vaccine. Intellectual property is the utmost artificial barrier to global vaccine supply."

More than 20 heads of government and global agencies called in a commentary published Tuesday for an international treaty for pandemic preparedness that they say will protect future generations in the wake of COVID-19. But there were few details to explain how such an agreement might actually compel countries to act more cooperatively. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and leaders including Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, Premier Mario Draghi of Italy and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda proposed "a renewed collective commitment" to reinforce preparedness and response systems by leveraging the U.N. health agency's constitution. "The world cannot afford to wait until the pandemic is over to start planning for the next one," Tedros said during a news conference. He said the treaty would provide "a framework for international cooperation and solidarity" and address issues like surveillance systems and responding to outbreaks. International regulations governing health and implemented by WHO already exist — and can be disregarded by countries with few consequences. Despite an obligation for nations to share critical epidemic data and materials quickly with WHO, for example, China declined to do so when the coronavirus first broke out. And with no enforcement powers, WHO officials had little means of compelling them to share details, an AP investigation last year found. Steven Solomon, WHO's principal legal officer, said the proposed pandemic treaty would need to be ratified by lawmakers in the participating countries. "Specifics about enforcement will be up to member states to decide on," Solomon said. European Council President Charles Michel first laid out the idea of a pandemic treaty at the U.N. General Assembly in December. Joining Tedros at Tuesday's briefing, Michel said the global community needs to "build a pandemic defense for future generations that extends far beyond today's crisis. For this, we must translate the political will into concrete actions." Gian Luca Burci, a former WHO legal counsel who is now a professor at the Graduate Institute of international affairs in Geneva, described the proposal as an attempted "big fix" involving information sharing, preparedness and response, saying the concept is "like a Christmas tree, frankly." "But to me, the risk is that it diverts attention from the tool that we have" — WHO's existing International Health Regulations, Burci said recently. He said his fear was those regulations would get short shrift and receive "cosmetic improvements, but fundamentally remain a weak instrument." Although the 25 signatories of the commentary called for "solidarity," and greater "societal commitment," there was no indication any country would soon change its own approach to responding to the pandemic. China, Russia and the United States didn't join in signing the statement. WHO legal officer Solomon said the pandemic treaty might also address issues such as the sharing of vaccine technology and vaccine supplies, but gave no indication how that might happen. Despite WHO's calls for patents to be waived during the pandemic, rich countries have continued to oppose efforts by poor countries to compel them to share vaccine manufacturing technology. Tedros pleaded with rich countries last week to immediately donate 10 million COVID-19 vaccines so that immunization campaigns could start in all countries within the first 100 days of the year. Not a single country has yet publicly offered to share its vaccines immediately. Of the more than 459 million vaccines administered globally, the majority have been in just 10 countries — and 28% in just one. WHO didn't identify the countries.

Amid the global outrage at the storming of the U.S. Capitol building by angry supporters of President Donald Trump was a persistent strain of glee from those who have long resented the perceived American tendency to chastise other countries for less-than-perfect adherence to democratic ideals.

Teargas and bullets in the U.S. Capitol building. Outrage and condemnation from leaders across the world.