Panama’s president reiterated on Sunday that Panama’s sovereignty over the Panama Canal is not up for debate, saying that during talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that he had addressed the United States’ concerns over China’s presence around the vital waterway.

President Raúl Mulino added however that Panama would not renew a 2017 memorandum of understanding to join China’s overseas development initiative, known as the Belt and Road, and suggested that the deal with China could end early.

Panama will seek to work with the US on new investments, including infrastructure projects, he said. “I think this visit opens the door to build new relations … and try to increase as much as possible US investments in Panama,” Mulino told reporters on Sunday after Rubio’s first foreign trip as the United States’ top diplomat.

Mulino’s comments were followed by a US State Department readout of the meeting, which said Rubio told Panama’s president and Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha that concerns over China’s “control” of the Panama Canal may mean the US has to “take measures necessary to protect its rights” per a longstanding treaty on the neutrality and operation of the canal.

Under the 1977 treaty, the US returned the canal to Panama’s control with the understanding that the waterway remain neutral. According to the agreement, the US could intervene militarily if the canal’s operations were disrupted by internal conflict or a foreign power. Today, more cargo than ever runs through the canal than it did during the years of US control.

US President Donald Trump’s repeated and publicly stated desire for the US to retake control of the key waterway has already caused a diplomatic stir, with Mulino repeatedly stating that that Panama’s sovereignty over the canal is not up for debate.

Mulino said Sunday he doesn’t think there is a real risk that the US would use military force to retake the canal.

‘Panama won’t invest a single dollar in it’

Mulino also said Panamanian authorities are carrying out an audit on a company linked to China that operates two terminals around the canal.

“We have to wait until that audit ends before we can reach our legal conclusions and act accordingly,” Mulino said.

The company in question is the Panama Ports Company, part of a subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings. Hutchinson Ports is one of the world’s largest port operators, overseeing 53 ports in 24 countries, including for other US allies such as the UK, Australia and Canada.

Mulino also said Panamanian authorities spoke with Rubio about the possibility of expanding a migrant repatriation flight program to remove foreign nationals who don’t have the legal basis to be in Panama, insisting that the US would have to shoulder the costs.

Asked to clarify if migrants would come to Panama and subsequently be transferred to their respective countries, Mulio said, “Yes. Exactly … We can do that, without a problem, under the total cost of the US. Panama won’t invest a single dollar in it.”

The program, signed in July, is aimed at reducing irregular migration through the Darien Gap, a mountainous rainforest region connecting South and Central America. The 66-mile (106-kilometer) hike through the Darien brings migrants from Colombia to Panama and is a crucial passage for those hoping to reach the United States and Canada.

Mulino said Sunday that those repatriated could include migrants from Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and other countries.

A Russian strike on a residential building in central Ukraine killed at least 14 people, including two children, emergency services said, one of many attacks across the country this weekend.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia targeted the building in Poltava early Saturday morning, calling the attack “another terrorist crime.”

There has been no let up in the fighting in Ukraine, even with Donald Trump now in the White House having promised to reach a ceasefire quickly.

Ukraine’s army continues to be pushed back on the eastern frontlines in the face of superior Russian manpower and resources.

Among the victims of the strike in Poltava was Olena Yavorska, her husband Dmytro and their 9-year-old daughter Sofia, according to Olena’s colleague, who posted a statement on Facebook.

“Russia killed our colleague and her family,” Volodymyr Popereshniuk, co-owner of Nova Poshta, a Ukranian logistics company where Olena worked, said Sunday. “Olena was a biology teacher by education, but in 2015 she joined Nova Poshta. The Yavorsky family resided on the second floor of the destroyed building.”

Emergency services and psychologists from the country’s national police department are providing help to nearly 200 people, the state emergency service said Sunday. Rescue operations are ongoing, it added.

Meanwhile, Ukraine and Russia traded blame over a deadly strike on a former boarding school on Saturday in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have been holding territory after launching a shock incursion last summer.

The Ukrainian military said the Russian air force struck the school in the town of Sudzha with a guided aerial bomb, killing at least four people as locals were sheltering in the building and preparing to evacuate. At least 84 more people were rescued and four are in “serious condition,” the Ukrainian military said, calling the attack a “war crime.”

At the same time, the Russian military blamed Ukraine for the attack on the boarding school, also calling it a “war crime.”

“The launch of enemy missiles from the [Ukrainian] Sumy region was detected by Russian air defense systems,” the Russian military said in a statement Sunday.

The statement went on to accuse Ukraine of using the “provocation” to distract global “public opinion from [Ukraine’s] atrocities” in a separate area of the Kursk region.

The spat occurred as Ukraine’s air defenses shot down dozens of drones overnight as Russia carried out fresh attacks, the country’s air force said Sunday.

In total, the air force said it downed 40 out of the 55 drones launched in areas across the country, including the capital Kyiv, but added that Kharkiv and Sumy regions were impacted by the “enemy attack.”

Ukrainian energy infrastructure was also targeted in multiple regions on the night of February 1, Ukraine’s air force added.

The main room in the El Buen Samaritano shelter in Ciudad Juarez, a city along the US-Mexico border, is quiet for most of the day.

Rows of bunk beds stretch from wall to wall, each separated by thin curtains or hanging sheets. The mismatched mattresses are occupied by men, women, and children – all migrants who intended to reach the United States but haven’t completed their journey.

It’s the mid-morning of a cold Tuesday, most are resting or scrolling through their phones, the only noises in the room come from sporadic coughs, two children playing, and the subtle sounds from a video playing on a phone. The scene feels like a loop.

At around 1 o’clock, Lucymar Polanco, a 32-year-old Venezuelan woman, checks her watch.

“Kids, guys, it’s almost lunchtime,” she yells as she gets up and puts on a coat. They’re indoors but the walls are penetrated by the winter cold.

“Everyone up, let’s get ready,” she says.

Her husband, her three kids, and five other relatives, all start getting ready enthusiastically. Soon after, a shelter worker announces the food is ready to be served.

“I’m hungry, finally!” her 9-year-old son Abel Jesus, says.

Polanco and the other nine members of her family are among thousands of asylum-seekers who were stopped in their tracks by US President Donald Trump’s January 20 decision to cancel all CBP One appointments for people seeking asylum from violence or persecution.

Their appointment had been set for January 21. Now, they are stranded in the shelter in Juarez with no money and full of uncertainty. From here, they can see across the border into the US – but they have no idea where to go now.

For the moment, the only thing they know is that it’s time to eat.

‘We laugh to keep from crying’

After lining up, the family – whose members range in age from 5 to 40 – head to the shelter’s dining hall. They sit together and occupy most of a communal table.

As soon as they sit, they seem to put all their problems aside and focus on one another, on talking and enjoying the warm meal. The day’s menu: chicken soup and a small dish of rice and beans with canned tuna.

“The most delicious soup does exist,” 9-year-old Abel Jesus says with his mouth half-full and soup dripping from the edge of his mouth.

The adults chat and mostly talk about rumors they’ve heard about the CBP One app.

“I heard appointments until January 30 will be reinstated,” Luis Alfonso Polanco, 30, says of a rumor that later proved to be untrue. “That’s what a friend in the US told me.”

On the other side of the table, his partner Yelitza Olivero talks to two other migrants from Ecuador and shares the rumor about the app with them.

At times, the family’s border chatter turns into laughter and jokes about one another.

“We try to make jokes about each other, it’s a way of distracting from the news we received on January 20, it was very sad,” Lucymar’s cousin, 18-year-old Estiven Castillo, says.

Surviving the Darien gap and the cartels

Lucymar and her family say they fled the Venezuelan state of Lara due to political persecution from authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro’s government.

“We were part of an opposing political party,” she says. “My family, my parents, everyone there, and the government knew that, and we’d constantly be threatened.”

“I was set to receive a house from a program run by the government but after they found out who I voted for in prior elections, they took that benefit away from me,” she says holding back tears.

Prior to leaving Venezuela, both Lucymar and her brother, Luis Alfonso, worked in the beauty industry. “I was a barber in Venezuela, but things were so bad that at times I cut hair in exchange for food,” Luis Alfonso says.

Lucymar’s husband, Jesus Caruci, 40, worked as a mechanic, and Yelitza, who’s married to Luis Alfonso, worked in sales. The rest of the traveling family, all young adults or children, were in school before leaving the country.

Their journey began a little over two years ago. They spent a few months in neighboring Colombia to later trek through several countries. They crossed the treacherous Darien Gap safely – but were kidnapped by a cartel after arriving in southern Mexico.

“When we entered Tapachula, they were waiting for us,” Luis Alfonso recalls.

“They tricked us, they forced us into a vehicle and said they were taking us to a safe place (…) but they took us to a farm and held us there for six days.”

Luis Alfonso says the criminal group only released after they paid $900 – all that they were carrying.

“Ever since we’ve survived with some money our family has sent us or that we’ve had to borrow,” he says.

‘Trump, take our country and call it Venezuela of America’

After sobremesa, the family goes to the shelter’s patio to get some sun and continue to chat. They gather several plastic chairs that are spread out through the uneven and cracked shelter pavement and form a circle. The little kids decide to run around and play in an outdoor playset.

“I understand Trump,” says 19-year-old Beyker Sosa as the family stays quiet.

“There have been crimes done by illegal migrants, I understand the measures, they are meant to keep the country safe,” he adds. “But we aren’t criminals, I wish he (Trump) would have compassion, we are humans just like him.”

“We never considered entering illegally, we never want to hide from authorities, we wanted to be able to walk free,” Beyker says. “It’s very sad to have done things right, the legal way, only to have Trump shut the app down, but I guess God doesn’t want us there.”

The family says their smartphones and conversation are their only form of entertainment in the shelter. “We can’t even go out, we were warned that migrants are targeted in this area, so we just stay in, especially after already being kidnapped,” Lucymar says.

Still, with kids to entertain, snacks are a must. Luis Alfonso and Estiven go to a store around the corner to buy cookies and soda.

As they return, they rejoin the conversation and start passing around Oreos and a plastic cup with orange soda.

“Trump should clean up Venezuela, we are good people, but he should up take out the bad ones, especially those in the government, take them out, Trump, and then take our country and call it Venezuela of America,” Beyker jokes as he refers to Trump’s bid to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Nearly two hours later, the family is back in the main room of the shelter with each settling into their beds again.

“This is all we do, we are either in our beds, on our phones, we wonder what could’ve been,” Lucymar says.

Britain will make it illegal to use artificial intelligence tools that create child sexual abuse images, it said on Saturday, becoming the first country in the world to introduce the new AI sexual abuse offenses.

Possessing, taking, making, showing or distributing explicit images of children is a crime in England and Wales. The new offenses target the use of AI tools to “nudeify” real-life images of children.

The move comes as online criminals increasingly use AI to create child abuse material, with reports of such explicit images rising nearly five-fold in 2024, according to the Internet Watch Foundation.

“We know that sick predators’ activities online often lead to them carrying out the most horrific abuse in person,” said Yvette Cooper, the United Kingdom’s interior minister. “It is vital that we tackle child sexual abuse online as well as offline so we can better protect the public from new and emerging crimes.”

Predators also use AI tools to disguise their identity and blackmail children with fake images to force them into further abuse, such as by streaming live images, the government said.

The new criminal offenses include the possession, creation or distribution of AI tools designed to create child sexual abuse material and the possession of so-called AI “pedophile manuals,” which provide instructions on the usage of the technology.

Another specific offense will target those who run websites on which child sexual abuse content is distributed. The government will also enable authorities to unlock digital devices for inspection.

The measures will be included in the Crime and Policing Bill when it comes to parliament.

Britain said earlier this month it would also make the creation and sharing of sexually explicit “deepfakes” – videos, pictures or audio clips made with AI to look real – a criminal offense.

President Donald Trump has finally made good on a campaign promise to raise tariffs on Chinese imports – announcing on Saturday duties of 10% on all Chinese goods coming in the country as part of sweeping trade measures that also targeted Mexico and Canada.

Now the question for Chinese leaders is how strongly to retaliate.

In the wake of the announcement, Chinese officials – who were hit by Trump’s move while in the middle of a week-long public holiday – vowed to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization and “take corresponding countermeasures” without specifying in what form.

The imposition of a 10% tariff on Chinese goods imported into the United States “seriously violates the WTO rules,” China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Sunday, adding that China will “resolutely defend its rights.”

That response, at least so far, has been noticeably less concrete than the ones from Mexico and Canada, which were both quick to pledge swift retaliatory tariffs. The latest announcement raises a 10% tariff on Chinese products, rather than the 25% on all goods from Mexico and most from Canada – all are expected to go into effect Tuesday. Unlike for China, where the latest tariffs top existing ones on a swath of goods, Canada and Mexico previously enjoyed nearly a duty-free relationship with the US.

But there are other reasons besides the number next to the percentage sign and China’s public holiday that could account for the comparatively mild response from the world’s second largest economy.

Beijing has enjoyed an unexpectedly warm start to Trump’s second term – a welcome development for Chinese leaders as they seek to avoid escalating trade and tech frictions at the same time as the export-reliant country’s economy slows.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Trump had what the US leader called a “very good” phone call days before Trump took office, and his inaugural ceremony was attended by the highest-level Chinese official to ever be dispatched to such an event.

The US president has also sent other signals he’s in dealmaking mode with Beijing – saying repeatedly he hopes to work with Xi on resolving Russia’s war in Ukraine and suggesting in a recent interview with Fox News that he thought Washington and Beijiing could reach a trade deal.

While the president campaigned on winning economic competition with China and stacked his administration with a bevy of China hawks, the recent tone may suggest to Beijing that it’s better not to escalate too extensively, at least not yet.

Still time for a deal?

The 10% tariffs are a far cry from the upwards of 60% tariffs that Trump suggested he could levy on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail. Trump has – at least in his rhetoric – largely linked these duties to the role of Chinese suppliers in the fentanyl trade, not the gaping trade imbalance between the US and China.

Instead, the expectation within China has been that Trump may be biding his time until he receives the results of a larger probe into US-China economic and trade relations that he commissioned in an executive order signed on his first day in office.

“Trump may rely on the upcoming results of trade investigations to impose or expand tariffs on specific countries, testing their tolerance and willingness to negotiate,” an analysis published Sunday on the website of Shanghai-based think tank Fudan Development Institute said.

“The risk of escalating into a ‘full-blown trade war’ cannot be ruled out. Before any actual actions are taken, Trump can still use ambiguous strategies to pressure opponents and wait for substantive concessions from them,” it continued.

The Trump-ordered review, due April 1, is expected to guide whether the White House imposes further duties on China. In the meantime, Beijing has time to build a relationship with Trump, entertain him in the Chinese capital or push for a preemptive deal to avert more severe economic penalties.

The message from China’s top political echelon has been conciliatory. Chinese Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang last month told elites gathered in Davos that Beijing wants to “promote balanced trade” with the world, while Xi called for a “new starting point” in US-China ties.

Beijing’s decision to complain to the WTO about the new tariffs underscores a key message from Chinese Communist Party propagandists: that China plays by global rules, while the US is the one who does not. Beijing has also defended its efforts to control exports of precursor chemicals for fentanyl and said the drug crisis is “America’s problem.”

It remains to be seen whether China will announce more trade countermeasures in the days ahead. But its initial response to the 10% duty and messaging in recent weeks suggests that it may still be in a wait-and-see mode before digging too deeply into its toolbox of retaliatory measures.

An opinion piece published by state broadcaster CCTV Sunday decried the “erroneous” tariffs while also calling for more cooperation between the two countries.

Weighing up retaliation

Pundits within the country have downplayed the impact of the 10% tariffs – amid a larger debate about whether it would serve China to escalate a trade war like during the first administration.

In 2018, Trump heightened or imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of Chinese imports to the US, with Beijing hitting back with what analysts say were some $185 billion of its own tariffs on US goods.

The Biden administration largely kept those duties in place, while focusing on its own so-called “small yard, high fence” approach to trade with China – placing targeted export controls on Chinese access to high tech that could have military applications.

That saw Beijing unleash its own controls – limiting the export of certain critical minerals and related technologies that countries rely on to fabricate products from military goods to semiconductors. Late last year, the country revamped its export control regulations, sharpening its ability to restrict so-called dual-use goods.

A ramping up of the use of these controls, as well as retaliatory tariffs, could be moves for Beijing in the weeks ahead or if Trump does levy higher tariffs in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Beijing has already taken steps to insulate itself from some of the impacts of the tariffs, which Trump himself has admitted could bring “pain” for Americans – an admission that follows concerns from economists and members of Congress that Americans will bear the cost of the measures.

The US imported $401 billion worth of goods from China, with a trade deficit of over $270 billion in the first 11 months of last year, according to US government data. That placed China behind only Mexico as a top source for goods imported to the US.

Chinese state media on Sunday said the country’s exports to the US account for only 3% of their GDP and less than 15% of China’s total exports.

“The tariffs will hurt both countries. But you’ve seen already a gradual kind of redirection of trade to other countries (from Chinese companies),” Jin said.

China sees “Trump as somebody who they can negotiate with, that there’s room for negotiation,” she added.