Elon Musk praised the co-leader of the German party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as “very reasonable” on Thursday, urging Germans to vote for the far-right party in what is the latest high-profile sign of the tech billionaire’s involvement in European politics.

“Only AfD can save Germany, end of story, and people really need to get behind AfD, and otherwise things are going to get very, very much worse in Germany,” Musk said during an audio livestream alongside party co-leader Alice Weidel on X.

Musk, a close ally of US President-elect Donald Trump, compared the political climate in Germany to that in the United States, saying that people were unhappy and demanded change when voting for Trump in November. Germany holds its own election February 23.

“If you are unhappy with the situation, you must vote for change, and that is why I’m really strongly recommending that people vote for AfD,” Musk said.

He went on to claim the president-elect will solve Russia’s war in Ukraine “very quickly,” prompting Weidel to say she wishes the incoming Trump administration will “end that terrible war” because “Europeans – they cannot.”

“They completely depend on the US, in the sense of – ‘oh the USA need(s) to do the entire job. We don’t need to do anything. We just escalate the entire conflict against Russia.’ It’s very dangerous, what’s going on here, and only you can basically stop it,” Weidel told Musk.

Weidel also said that it was “unbelievable” how Germany treated Trump while he was campaigning for president, saying that it caused her “physical pain” to see him “disparaged.”

In the same conversation, Weidel said that Germany needs to protect both the existence of Israel but also to “take our responsibility as a German nation state to protect Jewish life,” which she said was threatened by “Muslim crime.”

AfD is the “only protector of the Jewish people” in Germany, she claimed.

How did we get here?

Musk has run into hot water among European leaders – particularly in the UK and Germany – for playing politics abroad as the world braces for Trump’s imminent return to the White House.

The US billionaire has been increasingly vocal in his support for Europe’s far-right and seems keen to strengthen ties between such parties and Trump’s camp.

Another example of this is the burgeoning relationship between Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Trump’s cohort, with Meloni hosted in Mar-a-Lago over the weekend and hailed as a “fantastic woman” by the President-elect.

Musk has publicly endorsed the AfD ahead of Germany’s snap election on February 23, in which it is expected to come in second behind the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“Only the AfD can save Germany,” Musk wrote on X on December 20 after the German government collapsed that week, prompting Weidel to respond at the time, “Yes! You are perfectly right!”

Musk also called German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier “an anti-democratic tyrant” after he spoke out against foreign interference during his speech on the dissolution of the country’s parliament, and called for Chancellor Olaf Scholz to resign following a deadly car-ramming attack in Magdeburg, describing him as an “incompetent fool” in a post on X.

Germany’s mainstream politicians were not happy with Musk’s public support for the AfD, with the Social Democrats (SPD) co-leader Lars Klingbeil drawing comparisons between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Scholz even stated during his New Year’s address that it was up to German citizens to decide the fate of the country, not “the owners of social media platforms.”

What could come next?

As Musk has already stirred angst in Germany over election meddling, Thursday’s livestream could be perceived as another example of that.

The recent heightened tensions come amid an ongoing probe by the European Commission into Musk’s platform X and possible violations of its Digital Services Act (DSA).

Thierry Breton, the EU’s former internal market chief who oversaw the introduction of the DSA, took to X ahead of Thursday’s livestream to write to Weidel “as a European citizen concerned with the proper use of systemic platforms authorized to operate in the EU under the strict respect of our (EU) law (#DSA), especially to protect our democratic rules against illegal or misbehavior during election times.”

“I believe it’s crucial to remind you… that your counterpart (Musk) should, once again, fully respect all its obligations under our EU law,” he added.

At the same time, the administration of Germany’s lower chamber of parliament said it was examining whether Musk’s live chat could amount to illegal interference in the election campaign, according to Reuters.

A Swiss national who was arrested and accused of spying in Iran died by suicide in prison on Thursday, according to Mizan Online, a news agency affiliated with Iran’s judiciary.

“All evidence and documents from the place where this person was being held have been reviewed, and according to the documents, it is clear that he committed suicide,” the chief justice of Iran’s Semnan province said, as cited by Mizan Online.

This Swiss citizen’s case, whose identity has not been disclosed, “was being reviewed and processed” after he was arrested for espionage, according to Mizan Online.

Switzerland’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) has confirmed the death of a Swiss citizen in Iran.

“The Swiss Embassy in Tehran is in contact with the local authorities to clarify the circumstances of the death in an Iranian prison,” the FDFA said in a Thursday statement.

Semnan prison is about 190 kilometers (118 miles) east of Tehran, Iran’s capital.

The Swiss citizen, who was being held in Semnan prison, asked his cellmate on Thursday morning local time to provide him with food from the prison buffet, the chief justice said, as cited by Mizan Online.

“This prisoner took advantage of the time he was left alone in the cell,” and took his own life, the chief justice added.

“Prison officials immediately took action to save this person, but efforts to save him were unsuccessful,” according to the chief justice of Iran’s Semnan province.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has been detained in Caracas after joining a protest against President Nicolas Maduro’s planned inauguration for a third term, according to her team.

Machado’s political group Comando con Venezuela wrote on X that she was “violently intercepted” while exiting the rally on Thursday.

“Regime troops shot at the motorcycles that were transporting her,” the group said.

Machado’s appearance at the rally was her first public appearance in months, since a government crackdown on Venezeulan opposition figures and their supporters last year.

“I am here,” she posted on X earlier on Thursday, along with a video of herself at the protest, wearing jeans and the colors of the Venezuelan flag.

Asked what would happen if she were arrested earlier this week, Machado acknowledged the risk.

Rival protests throughout Caracas

Rival groups of demonstrators had gathered throughout Venezuela’s capital Caracas on Thursday, the eve of the inauguration.

In several parts of Caracas on Thursday, crowds of opposition supporters slowly swelled with people waving flags and calling for libertad (freedom). Supporters were also seen holding “Gonzalez Presidente” signs and blowing vuvuzelas.

Meanwhile in Venezuela’s largest barrio Petare, Maduro supporters also assembled in what they call a “march for peace and joy.”

Maduro was proclaimed winner of the presidential election in July by electoral authorities under the tight control of the ruling Socialist Party.

But Venezuela’s opposition, led by Machado, published thousands of voting tallies claiming that their own candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, had actually won the vote with 67% against Maduro’s 30%.

Maduro is scheduled to attend a swearing-in ceremony on January 10.

Gonzalez, who has vowed to return to Caracas this week despite the threat of arrest, started the day in the Dominican Republic where he met the Dominican President Luis Abinader and other regional former leaders.

“We Venezuelans will soon regain our freedom,” Gonzalez said in a speech in Santo Domingo.

The number of people killed in Gaza is significantly higher than the figure reported by authorities in the enclave, a peer-reviewed study by researchers from a leading health research university in the UK has found.

According to findings announced by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and published in The Lancet journal, there were an estimated 64,260 “traumatic injury deaths” in Gaza between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza put the figure at 37,877 at the time.

This means the ministry has underreported the death toll due to violence by approximately 41%, the researchers found. As of October, the number of Gazans killed by violence was thought to exceed 70,000, the study said, based on the estimated underreporting rate.

The total death toll attributable to Israel’s military campaign is likely to be higher still, it said, as its analysis doesn’t account for deaths caused by disruption to health care, insufficient food, clean water and sanitation, and disease outbreaks.

The health ministry’s figure stood at 45,885 on January 7. A further 109,196 have been injured. In general, the ministry reaches its figures by counting the corpses of those killed.

LSHTM said the findings suggest that around 3% of the enclave’s population has died due to violence, 59% of whom were women, children, and the elderly.

The discrepancy with the ministry’s figures reflects the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure and therefore its inability to accurately count the dead amid Israel’s ongoing bombardment of the enclave, the LSHTM said.

Researchers analyzed data from multiple sources, including the health ministry’s hospital morgue records, a respondent-driven online survey and obituaries on social media.

They arrived at estimated figures using a statistical method known as ‘capture-recapture analysis,’ which is used when not all of the relevant data is recorded.

Zeina Jamaluddine, lead author at LSHTM, said the results “underscore the urgent need for interventions to safeguard civilians and prevent further loss of life.”

Israel’s 14-month war in Gaza, launched in response to Hamas’ October 7 attack, has decimated large swathes of the enclave and destroyed key healthcare infrastructure while placing an enormous strain on hospitals that remain functional.

Last month, a report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) found that Israel had deliberately been depriving Palestinians in Gaza of access to clean water, which has fueled the spread of disease and caused deaths likely in the thousands.

The scale of the devastation caused by a lack of water may likely never be fully understood, HRW warned, due to the decimation of Gaza’s health care system including disease tracking.

HRW and Amnesty International have both accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, which Israel strongly denies. Israel has also been taken to the UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice, on allegations of genocide.

Earlier this week, a Palestinian newborn died from hypothermia in Gaza, bringing the total number of babies killed by low temperatures and a lack of access to warm shelters in recent weeks to at least six.

Eight people in total have died of hypothermia, according to health officials in the enclave, including a 2-year-old toddler and a nurse.

Aid group Médecins Sans Frontières said on Wednesday that three hospitals in Gaza, Nasser hospital, Al-Aqsa hospital and European Gaza hospital, are on the verge of closure due to a lack of fuel. “This situation is threatening the lives of hundreds of patients, including newborns, who depend on electricity to stay alive,” it said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that President-elect Donald Trump’s comments about turning Canada into the United States’ 51st state are just a distraction from the consequences of Trump’s tariff threats.

Trudeau, who announced earlier this week he would resign as prime minister once his party had chosen his successor, told Tapper that Canada becoming another US state was “not going to happen.”

Trump in November promised massive hikes in tariffs on goods coming from Mexico, Canada and China starting on the first day of his administration.

“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”

That policy that could sharply increase costs for American businesses and consumers, a fact Trudeau was quick to point out Thursday. Canada, Mexico and China are the US’s biggest trade partners.

“Everything the American consumers buy from Canada is suddenly going to get a lot more expensive if he moves forward on these tariffs,” Trudeau said.

Trudeau stressed that Canadians “are incredibly proud of being Canadian. One of the ways we define ourselves most easily is, well, we’re not American.”

An airstrike by Myanmar’s army on a village under the control of an armed ethnic minority group killed about 40 people and injured at least 20 others, officials of the group and a local charity said Thursday. They said hundreds of houses burned in a fire triggered by the bombing.

The attack occurred Wednesday in Kyauk Ni Maw village on Ramree island, an area controlled by the ethnic Arakan Army in western Rakhine state, they said. The military has not announced any attack in the area.

The situation in the village could not be independently confirmed, with access to the internet and cellphone service in the area mostly cut off.

Myanmar is wracked by violence that began when the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. After the army used lethal force to suppress peaceful demonstrations, many opponents of military rule took up arms and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.

Khaing Thukha, a spokesperson for the Arakan Army, told The Associated Press that a jet fighter bombed the village on Wednesday afternoon, killing 40 civilians and injuring more than 20 others.

“All the dead were civilians. Among the dead and injured are women and children,” Khaing Thukha said. A fire started by the airstrike spread through the village, destroying more than 500 houses, Khaing Thukha added.

It was unclear why the village was targeted. The leader of a local charity group and independent media also reported the airstrike and casualties.

The military government has stepped up airstrikes over the past three years on armed pro-democracy groups collectively known as the People’s Defense Force and on armed ethnic minority groups that have been fighting for decades for greater autonomy. The two groups sometimes carry out joint operations against the army.

Ramree – 340 kilometers (210 miles) northwest of Yangon, the country’s largest city – was captured by the Arakan Army in March last year.

The Arakan Army is the well-trained and well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement which seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. It is also a member of an alliance of armed ethnic groups that recently gained strategic territory in the country’s northeast on the border with China.

It began its offensive in Rakhine in November 2023 and has now gained control of a strategically important regional army headquarters and 14 of Rakhine’s 17 townships, leaving only the state’s capital, Sittwe, and two important townships near Ramree still in military government hands.

A leader of the charity group, which has been assisting residents of the village, told AP on Thursday that at least 41 people were killed and 50 others were injured in the airstrike, which targeted the village’s market.

The leader, who was away from the town at the time of the airstrike, spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. He said he received the information from members of his group who were in the village and were facing a shortage of medicine to treat the injured people.

Rakhine-based news outlets including Arakan Princess Media also reported the attack and posted photos online showing people putting out fires at their homes.

Rakhine, formerly known as Arakan, was the site of a brutal army counterinsurgency operation in 2017 that drove about 740,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to seek safety across the border in Bangladesh.