South African President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke to Elon Musk “on issues of misinformation and distortions about South Africa,” the presidency announced on Tuesday.

“In the process, the President reiterated South Africa’s constitutionally embedded values of the respect for the rule of law, justice, fairness and equality,” it said.

The presidency said the pair spoke on Monday, a day after US President Donald Trump threatened to cut off aid to South Africa over the alleged mistreatment of White farmers in the country.

In a blistering post on Truth Social, Trump said he would halt funding until there was a full investigation into allegations that “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY.”

Trump said “massive” human rights violations were happening in South Africa “for all to see,” without giving details or providing evidence.

Ramaphosa on Monday denied that South African authorities were “confiscating land” and said his country was looking forward to working with the Trump administration “over our land reform policy.”

Trump’s complaint, which he also made in 2018 during his first term in the White House, refers to South Africa’s complex land reform.

During South Africa’s apartheid era, racist policies forcefully removed Black and non-White South Africans from the land for White use. Since South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, there has been a land redistribution and restitution provision in the country’s constitution.

However, unemployment and poverty remain acute among Black South Africans, who make up around 80% of the population, yet own a fraction of the land.

Last month, Ramaphosa signed a bill into law providing new guidelines for land expropriation, including enabling the government to expropriate land without compensation in certain cases.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

In the US, just 19% of all venture capital (VC) investment partners — the people who write the cheques investing in entrepreneurs — are women; in Europe, a 2023 report found that number to be 16%. That has a knock-on effect: women are more likely than men to invest in women-led enterprises, and US companies with only female founders saw just 2% of all VC investment in 2022.

According to the European Investment Bank, female-founded companies deliver twice as much revenue per dollar invested, despite receiving less than half the investment capital of their male peers. Research has also consistently found that female investors are more interested in social impact businesses, which can benefit society more widely.

In a bid to address the gender gap, Amanda Pullinger founded Global Female Investors Management in 2024 with fellow finance industry veteran Vanessa Yuan. One of its core services is the Global Female Investors Network, a 2,000-strong community of women who manage money, whether it’s hedge funds, traditional funds or VC funds.

After spending 25 years in finance, including over a decade as the CEO of 100 Women ​in Finance, a global non-profit professional association with over 30,000 registered ​members, Pullinger was ready for something different. Her mission has always been to address the under-representation of women in finance, but in the investment sector it was lacking more than any other.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Amanda Pullinger (AP): I’d say the biggest challenge remains the fact that there are so few women in leadership roles. I’m a big believer in visibility. I grew up in the UK, and I was the first in my family to go to university. I went to Oxford because of a woman who was visible to me in a leadership role: Margaret Thatcher (the first British female prime minister). Like me, she was the first in her family to go to university, she went to Oxford. So I said to myself, “Well, she’s like me. If she can do it, I can do it.”

While that sounds trite, most women want to be able to see a pathway into leadership. What’s the perception that you have of an investor? It’s very often a White man, because that’s who we see on television or on panels at conferences. The reality is there are women in those roles, but we need them to be more visible.

AP: By introducing women to their peers. That’s why networks are so important. That network is important in sharing experiences because we can’t possibly know everything.

The second step is to really get men on side. In my career, men have been massive advocates for me. Women don’t rush to do those panel discussions and be visible, but men can be helpful in saying, “I think it would be great for you to represent the organization,” and really push women into those roles and say, “Look, if you’re not comfortable, I’ll get you a communications coach. We’ll get you through some of the challenges that you may feel.” Men are such a critical part of getting to the solution. That’s why for me, sometimes when there’s discussion about DEI (Diversity, equity, and inclusion), I worry that men are excluded from that conversation.

AP: I’m a believer in meritocracy. I didn’t come from privilege: I made my own way, very much with the help of men in my career, but I made my own way. But here’s my big question to those who say, “Well, the world’s equal, and there are equal opportunities, so surely it should just be giving a job to the best person” — my challenge would be, how sure are you that you are giving access to the best person?

I hear in the finance industry all the time from companies saying, “We don’t get any women applying for investment roles.” And I’m sitting here thinking, ‘I’ve got 2,000 members in our database who are female risk-takers.’ You are saying they’re not applying; there’s something missing here. I’m all about getting the best: but without some kind of action where you gain access to a broader range of people, you are potentially missing out on the best talent.

It’s the same with female fund owners. I’m not saying they’re always the best, but if they’re excluded for all sorts of systemic reasons from the process, again, I’d ask allocators: how do you know you’re picking the best fund? It’s very much around creating access and opportunity, and then things can fall where they fall. But without that access and opportunity, I don’t think the world is getting the best talent.

AP: What’s really fascinating is we are now in a place in the world where I believe, globally, there are more women going through universities, proportional to men. But actually, the big issue I find with most professional women who are well-educated is that we’ve all been told that if we work hard and we perform, we’ll be noticed, we’ll be promoted, we’ll be acknowledged. That works while you are in full-time education because full-time education is about working hard, doing a test and getting a result. The reality is when you come into the business world, it’s about relationships.

So the advice I give to women is to spend a little bit less time focused on hunkering down doing the work, and do what the guys do: build relationships, take the time for yourself, get yourself on conference panels, put your hand up, be vocal. All those things, to some extent, take away from this notion that it’s all about hard work — of course it’s about hard work, but women have got to learn that it’s also about relationships. We’ve never been taught that, and it’s something that I say all the time to women.

AP: I wish when I was younger, someone had said to me, “Do not give up maths at 16.” I should have done maths at A-level (a pre-university school qualification in England, Wales and Northern Ireland), I was perfectly capable of doing it. So I think first of all, it’s about giving women the fundamental skill set and confidence in numbers. The second is, I wish that more young women knew the impact you can have in the world by becoming a capital allocator or an investment professional.

If you want to create change in the world, managing money is one of the best ways to do it, because you can guide where that money goes, and that money can have an impact. This is not just a greedy industry, it’s a place where you truly can make a difference in the world. That’s something I wish more young women knew.

At least five people have been shot at a school in the city of Örebro, central Sweden, according to police who said the danger was not over.

Swedish police said Tuesday an operation is “ongoing” at the center, warning of a “suspected serious crime of violence.” The shooting occurred at the Risbergska school for adults at a campus where other schools, including for children, are based.

The public were urged to avoid the area and stay indoors, a statement said. It is unclear how many people have been injured, and police said no officers were shot.

Sweden’s Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer described the police operation as being “in full swing” on Tuesday. “The government is in close contact with the police, and is closely following developments,” he told Swedish news agency TT, according to the Associated Press.

Students are being transferred from schools next to the site of the shooting in Örebro, which lies 160 kilometers (100 miles) west of the Swedish capital, Stockholm.

“The danger is not over,” the police statement said. “The public MUST continue to stay away.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

US President Donald Trump has said he wants access to Ukraine’s mineral deposits in exchange for future military aid that Kyiv needs as it continues to defend itself against Russia’s aggression.

While the comment highlighted Trump’s transactional approach to the war in Ukraine, it was not entirely unexpected. The US and other Western countries have eyed Ukraine’s mineral riches for a long time.

“We’re putting in hundreds of billions of dollars. They have great rare earths. And I want security of the rare earth, and they’re willing to do (that),” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, without specifying what, if anything, Ukraine had agreed to do.

He has previously suggested that any future assistance should be provided as a loan and would be conditioned on Ukraine negotiating with Russia.

Under former US President Joe Biden, the US had provided Ukraine with $65.9 billion in military assistance since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.

Biden argued the aid was necessary because Ukraine’s victory was key to America’s own security. Trump, however, has made it clear he doesn’t believe the US should continue providing assistance without getting something in return.

While Trump did not give any details on what he wants from Kyiv, a deal outlining a deeper cooperation between the US and Ukraine on minerals had been in the works for months before he took office in January.

A memorandum of understanding prepared under the Biden administration last year said the US would to promote investment opportunities in Ukraine’s mining projects to American companies in exchange for Kyiv creating economic incentives an implementing good business and environmental practices.

Ukraine already has a similar agreement with the European Union, signed in 2021.

Adam Mycyk, a partner in the Kyiv office of the global law firm Dentons, said that while the objective of the deal – securing critical mineral supplies from Ukraine – remains unchanged, Trump’s approach seems to be more transactional.

Kyiv has not yet responded to Trump’s comments, but the Ukrainian government has in the past made the argument that its mineral deposits are one of the reasons the West should support Ukraine – to prevent these strategically important resources from falling into Russian hands.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has specifically mentioned the possibility of future investments in the country’s natural resources by its Western allies as a key part of his “Victory plan.”

“The deposits of critical resources in Ukraine, along with Ukraine’s globally important energy and food production potential, are among the key predatory objectives of the Russian Federation in this war. And this is our opportunity for growth,” Zelensky said in a statement outlining the plan in October.

Nataliya Katser-Buchkovska, the co-founder of the Ukrainian Sustainable Investment Fund, said a deal that would bring US investment into Ukraine’s mining sector would be beneficial for both sides.

The US largely depends on imports for the minerals it needs, many of which come from China. Of the 50 minerals classed as critical, the US was entirely dependent on imports of 12 and more than 50% dependent on imports of a further 16, according to the United States Geological Survey, a government agency.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has deposits of 22 of these 50 critical materials, according to the Ukrainian government.

“It is not only a crucial step for Ukraine’s post-war economic recovery, but it’s also a chance for the US to address global supply chain issues,” said Katser-Buchkovska, who served as a member of the Ukrainian Parliament from 2014 to 2019 and was the head of a parliamentary committee on energy security and transition.

China’s global dominance

Although Trump used the term “rare earths,” it is unclear whether he intended to refer specifically to rare earth minerals – a group of 17 elements that exist in the earth’s core and have magnetic and conductive properties that make them crucial to the production of electronics, clean energy technologies and some weapon systems.

Ukraine doesn’t have globally significant reserves of rare earth minerals, but it does have some of the world’s largest deposits of graphite, lithium, titanium, beryllium and uranium, all of which are classed by the US as critical minerals. Some of these reserves are in areas that are currently under Russian occupation.

China has long dominated the global production of rare earths minerals and other strategically important materials. It is responsible for nearly 90% of global processing of rare earth minerals, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). On top of that, China is also the world’s largest producer of graphite and titanium, and a major processor of lithium.

The latest trade spat between Washington and Beijing makes it even more important for the US to look for alternative suppliers.

The economic measures China announced on Tuesday in retaliation for Trump’s new tariffs include new export controls on more than two dozen metal products and related technologies. While they do not cover the most critical materials the US needs, the move indicates that China is prepared to use its mineral riches as leverage in trade disputes.

Mycyk said that the demand for these critical materials is expected to surge because of the global transition to electric vehicles and renewable energy technologies.

“Ukraine’s deposits are thus globally significant, offering diversification away from dominant producers like China. Keeping these resources under Ukrainian control is crucial for maintaining its economic sovereignty,” he added.

Food distribution is being stopped. Health services are being shut down. Lifesaving aid is being tied up, with no way to disburse it.

These aren’t warnings of what’s to come, but examples of what aid workers say is the fallout of the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid and the gutting of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

“It’s heartbreaking for our beneficiaries, for whom this is life and death,” a USAID worker said.

“We have programs in Ukraine, we have programs in Burma, in Sudan, in some of the most complicated, dangerous places in the world, where there are just massive humanitarian needs,” the USAID employee said. “All of that is stopped. All of that is paused.”

“We do work that we think is really important for America’s power and stability abroad. We don’t do this work because it’s nice. We do it because it buys us much more, and it gives us much more than we are giving,” the USAID employee added. “It’s devastating to see this on a personal level, and I just think it’s so foolhardy on a global level.”

Meanwhile, thousands of Americans and people abroad are losing their jobs, as the entire aid industry reels from unpaid contracts.

These are a small selection of countries and programs severely affected by the aid freeze.

Without safe water, ‘people die, people are displaced’

USAID supports hundreds of projects focused on water security, in Jordan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, and dozens of other nations. An estimated 4 billion people globally don’t have access to safe drinking water.

Without those programs, “animals die, people die, people are displaced,” said Evan Thomas, a professor of environmental engineering at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

He works on a project in Kenya that helps more than 1 million people access clean water, via 200 deep groundwater pumps installed and partially funded by USAID. Now, the program is unable to pay contracts with people hired to help maintain and repair the pumps.

“That entire program is now at risk of falling apart,” he said.

“When people don’t have water, when their livestock die, they become very stressed, and there are militias that are willing to take advantage of that stress and recruit for their own aims,” said Thomas, citing concerns about the rising influence of terror group Al-Shabaab in Kenya. “Undermining the access of people around the world to food and water and medicine is not going to make America more secure.”

“People don’t just sit around and die of thirst. They move. They migrate. And so this will create increased migration pressure everywhere in the world,” Thomas added.

Elsewhere in Kenya, other USAID-funded projects help improve care for HIV/AIDS patients are also being disrupted.

‘Feeding programs in Sudan are being shut down’

In Sudan, food kitchens funded by US aid are already shutting down, according to Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and a former USAID official.

It comes as the UN reports millions of families, many displaced, are experiencing crisis levels of hunger amid the country’s ongoing conflict.

“A lot of displaced people and a lot of people who are caught in famine and other crises could be harmed, if not gravely harmed, if not killed by this pullback of aid,” said Konyndyk, warning of the wide-reaching impact on refugees in Sudan, Syria and Gaza.

The US system for monitoring global famine, FEWSNET, which is used throughout the world, has also been shut down amid the Trump administration’s aid freeze.

“USAID has been a cornerstone of lifesaving initiatives in famine-stricken regions such as Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan, but the funding freeze leaves millions without access to essential services like health care, clean water, and shelter,” according to the executive director of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies, Jamie Munn.

Malaria cases will be ‘increasingly common occurrence’ in US without overseas projects

USAID spearheads a program to control and eliminate malaria in 24 of the hardest-hit African nations, including Mali, where malaria is the leading cause of mortality.

The aid agency funds and delivers antimalarial medications, test-kits and insecticide-treated bug nets, which save lives and help reduce the number of mosquitos.

Malaria still kills about 600,000 people each year worldwide – most of them children under the age of five. But in the countries where the USAID-run President’s Malaria Initiative operates, the mortality rate has been cut in half since George W. Bush launched it in 2006.

“One of the reasons that we don’t have malaria in the US is because we fund and track malaria worldwide, for global health security,” the contractor said. “So, the cases that everyone saw in Florida this past year would become an increasingly common occurrence if we’re not funding driving down the parasite elsewhere.”

Afghanistan ‘faces severe repercussions’ for vulnerable women

Afghanistan “faces severe repercussions as the funding pause disrupts education programmes, healthcare delivery, and women’s empowerment initiatives, undermining long-term recovery and stability,” the International Council of Voluntary Agencies said in a statement.

Meanwhile, more than 6 million people in the country are surviving on “just bread and tea,” World Food Program (WFP) Country Director for Afghanistan Hsiao-Wei Lee told Reuters.

She is concerned about the aid freeze given that the WFP is already running on half the funding it needs in Afghanistan.

The WFP received 54% of its funding last year from the US, according to the UN.

Funding disrupted for Ukrainian schools and heating systems

USAID funds backup heating systems to schools and hospitals in 14 regions of Ukraine, which are invaluable amid Russia’s continued attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure, according to the USAID Ukraine account on ‘X.’ That account has since been taken offline.

USAID also assists with equipment delivery to energy workers, for example in the southern city of Odesa, which was recently hit in one of Russia’s assaults on Ukraine’s energy supplies.

Funding for these programs, as well as others focused on food security and veterans’ rehabilitation has been frozen, according to nonprofits in the country.

Lawmakers in the Ukrainian parliament have made a plea for continued USAID assistance, which also funds programs that enable thousands of children to continue their education and support children impacted psychologically by the war.

USAID funding further supports Ukrainian media outlets, in an effort to keep them going amid economic hardship and counter Russian media and propaganda.

“The grants have become a pillar of support for many domestic media outlets, as the advertising market, which helped the media survive, has not yet revived after the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation,” the Ukrainian Parliament’s Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy said last week.

It’s ‘going to destabilize the Venezuelan and Colombian border’

In Colombia, USAID funds and operates programs related to counter-narcotics, emergency food assistance, combatting deforestation and more.

Donors and organizations working on the ground have expressed huge concerns about the sudden drop off in aid, especially as the country faces an escalation in violence and a humanitarian crisis in the Catatumbo region, a strategic territory for drug production.

“We’ve tried to explain that (the aid freeze) is both going to destabilize the Venezuelan and Colombian border, but also destabilize the internal conflict, and that is one of the largest coca-growing areas in the country,” said one aid worker, highlighting concerns about an uptick in drug trafficking as well as local people suffering.

Non-governmental aid workers in the Latin America region have compiled a list of current USAID projects they say are designed to counter immigration and combat the influence of cartels, with that work now halted in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

US funds 47% of global humanitarian aid

The impacts are far wider than a handful of countries, of course, with international nonprofits warning about consequences on every continent.

“I think the entire humanitarian system could collapse because we fund about 40% of it,” the USAID official added. According to UN officials, the US funds around 47% of global humanitarian aid.

The country is the largest provider of humanitarian assistance globally, although it accounts for less than 1% of the federal budget.

Speaking to the press in El Salvador on Monday, Rubio said the “functions of USAID” must align with US foreign policy and that it is “a completely unresponsive agency.”

When asked about the arguments that USAID’s work is vital to national security and promoting US interests, Rubio said, “There are things that USAID, that we do through USAID, that we should continue to do, and we will continue to do.”

Since it was established by Congress in 1961, USAID “has brought lifesaving medicines, food, clean water, assistance for farmers, kept women and girls safe, promoted peace, and so much more over decades, all for less than one percent of our federal budget,” Oxfam America President Abby Maxman said in a statement. “Ending USAID as we know it would undo hard-earned gains in the fight against poverty and humanitarian crisis, and cause long-term, irreparable harm.”

The Taliban suspended the operation of Afghanistan’s only women’s radio station after raiding its premises on Tuesday, deepening the exclusion of women from public life and society since the group took power in 2021.

Kabul-based Radio Begum – a station run by women with content aimed at women’s education – said officers from the Taliban’s information and culture ministry restrained the station’s staff as it searched its premises in the nation’s capital.

Officers “seized computers, hard drives, files and phones from Begum staff, including Begum female journalists, and took into custody two male employees of the organization who do not hold any senior management position,” the station said in a statement on Tuesday.

The ministry later confirmed the station’s suspension, citing several alleged violations of “broadcasting policy and improper use of the station’s license,” including “the unauthorized provision of content and programming to a foreign-based television channel.”

It did not identify the foreign TV channel in question, but said it will determine the station’s future “in due course.”

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), an independent rights group, condemned the suspension and demanded its immediate reversal.

Before Tuesday’s ban, Radio Begum broadcast six hours of lessons a day, along with health, psychology and spiritual programs to women across most of Afghanistan. The station said it provides education to Afghan girls and support to Afghan women, without being “involved in any political activity whatsoever.”

Its sister channels also offer lessons online filmed in studios thousands of miles away in Paris. The televised classes cover a wider array of subjects, providing education in a country where girls are banned from school after sixth grade.

Tightening the grip

The Taliban, a radical Islamist group not recognized by most countries around the world, has been tightening its grip on the media landscape since its takeover more than three years ago.

Initially presenting itself as more moderate than during its previous rule of Afghanistan in the 1990s, it even promised that women would be allowed to continue their education up to university.

But it has since cracked down instead, closing secondary schools for girls; banning women from attending university, working in most sectors and at NGOs, including the United Nations; restricting their travel without a male chaperone; and banning them from public spaces such as parks and gyms.

Last year, the Taliban closed at least 12 media outlets, both public and private, according to RSF, which ranked Afghanistan 178 out of 180 countries in its latest press freedom index.

The Islamist regime also banned the sound of women’s voices in public – including singing, reciting, or reading aloud – under a strict set of “vice and virtue” laws that made it even harder for Radio Begum to reach its female audience.

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed reporters at the White House Tuesday, during which the president laid out his plan for the US to “take over” Gaza, relocate Palestinians to neighboring countries, and redevelop the war-torn enclave into what he described as the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Trump’s shocking comments break with decades of US foreign policy, which has long emphasized a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, as well as the president’s past wariness over US intervention in the Middle East.

Here is what we know about Trump’s vision for Gaza – which is home to some two million Palestinians – including just how feasible such a proposal even is.

Trump said the US will ‘take over’ and ‘own’ Gaza long-term

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said, unveiling what he called his “long-term ownership” and redevelopment plan for the enclave, much of which has been reduced to rubble after 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli airstrikes have damaged or destroyed around 60% of buildings, including schools and hospitals, and around 92% of homes, according to the United Nations.

“We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings,” Trump said Tuesday.

Trump did not rule out sending in US troops, saying “as far as Gaza is concerned, we’ll do what is necessary.”

It’s not clear how exactly Trump’s proposed land grab would work, and analysts have cast doubt on the feasibility of his plan.

Most of the two million people living in Gaza won’t want to leave, Sanner said, raising the question of whether they could be forcefully removed – which is prohibited under international law.

“That means that somebody, maybe the United States,” would have to step in – because “no Arab army is going to be carting people against their will out of their homeland,” Sanner said.

Trump’s vision for Gaza has no buy in from Palestinians

Trump’s plan flies in the face of the aspirations of Palestinians, who have long advocated for statehood and roundly dismissed Trump’s relocation proposal when he first floated it two weeks ago.

There are already about 5.9 million Palestinian refugees worldwide, most of them descendants of people who fled with the creation of Israel in 1948. Half of Gaza’s population were already refugees from outside the coastal strip. Approximately 90% of Gaza residents were displaced in the latest war, and many have been forced to move repeatedly, some more than 10 times, according to the UN.

Trump rejected the idea that displaced Palestinians would want to return to Gaza, describing it as a “symbol of death and destruction.”

“Why would they want to return? The place has been hell,” Trump said, ignoring a reporter who cried out: “Because it’s their home.”

Instead of Gaza, Trump suggested the Palestinians be provided a “good, fresh, beautiful piece of land” to live.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians walked for hours to return to their bombed-out homes in Gaza after a ceasefire came into force in late January.

A Hamas official called Trump’s plan a “recipe for creating chaos.”

“Our people in the Gaza Strip will not allow these plans to pass, and what is required is to end the occupation and aggression against our people, not expel them from their land,” spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said late Tuesday local time.

When asked whether he supports Israel’s claim to the occupied West Bank, which is home to more than three million Palestinians and coveted by far-right hardliners in Israel, Trump said “we haven’t taken a position on it yet” but said an announcement would be coming soon.

A shift would not be unprecedented. During his first term, Trump broke with decades of US foreign policy by recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights. He also recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving the US Embassy there.

Trump views Gaza as a real estate opportunity

The Israeli Palestinian conflict has been one of the Middle East’s most intractable problems. But Trump has portrayed it as a business opportunity.

The “potential in the Gaza Strip is unbelievable” and that it could become the “Riviera of the Middle East,” the real-estate investor turned president said.

“We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal. And I don’t want to be cute, I don’t want to be a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so — this could be so magnificent,” Trump told reporters.

Asked who he envisions living in Gaza, Trump said, “I envision the world people living there. The world’s people. I think you’ll make that into an international, unbelievable place,” positing that some Palestinians might live there one day.

The president also said he plans to visit Gaza soon.

Last month, Trump praised Gaza as having a “phenomenal location, on the sea” and “the best weather,” echoing remarks made in 2024 by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who called the waterfront property in Gaza “very valuable.”

Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is also a real estate developer. Witkoff traveled to Gaza last week, becoming the first high-ranking US official known to visit the strip in years.

Trump’s proposal is welcome news for Israel’s far right

Israel’s far-right has long endorsed the idea of expelling Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, and lawmakers welcomed Trump’s comments about taking over the strip.

Jewish Power party leader Itamar Ben Gvir, who resigned as national security minister last month in protest over the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, urged Netanyahu to adopt Trump’s plan in a statement to X Wednesday.

“Now it is clear: this is the only solution to the Gaza problem — this is the strategy for the ‘day after,’” he said.

While Israel’s government has previously rejected claims that it plans to force Palestinians out of Gaza, Netanyahu expressed support for Trump’s vision.

Pointing to Israel’s war objective of making sure Gaza does not pose a threat to it, Netanyahu said, “President Trump is taking it to a much higher level. He sees a different future for that piece of land that has been the focus of so much terrorism.”

The Israeli leader said Trump’s idea could “change history” and that it is “worthwhile really pursuing this avenue.”

Trump claimed his plan has broad support – but Arab nations say it’s a non-starter

Trump told reporters that “everybody (he’s) spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land” and that he hoped Jordan and Egypt would take in forced out Palestinians.

But Arab nations have long rejected any forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, which critics have argued would amount to ethnic cleansing.

In a statement Wednesday following Trump and Netanyahu’s news conference, Saudi Arabia affirmed its “unwavering” support for a Palestinian state and demanded an end to Israeli occupation.

“Achieving lasting and just peace is impossible without the Palestinian people obtaining their legitimate rights in accordance with international resolutions, as has been previously clarified to both the former and current US administrations,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement to social media.

Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and other Arab allies issued a statement last week reaffirming their long-held desire for a two-state solution and pledging their “continued full support for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people on their land.”

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle aren’t thrilled with the idea – at least for now

Trump’s remarks drew criticism and skepticism from lawmakers, including some Republicans.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called it an “interesting proposal” but also “problematic.”

“We’ll see what our Arab friends say about that. I think most South Carolinians would probably not be excited about sending Americans to take over Gaza. I think that might be problematic. But I’ll keep an open mind,” he said.

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said that “there are probably a couple of kinks in that Slinky, but I’ll have to take a look at the statement.”

New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democratic on the Foreign Relations Committee, said the idea “fails to recognize the need to have a Palestinian state, and the fact that until we address the concerns of the Palestinians, there will continue to be conflict in the region.”

Sen. Chris Coons, another key Democratic member of the committee, said Trump’s plan is “between offensive and insane and dangerous and foolish.”

Thailand cut electricity supplies on Wednesday to several areas in neighboring Myanmar that are home to sites at the center of a global, billion-dollar online scam industry.

As of Wednesday afternoon, at least one of the scam compounds was still operating, according to a local NGO in contact with workers inside one location. However, it’s unclear whether the cuts impacted other scam site operations in the area.

Online scam factories – many run by Chinese crime syndicates – have proliferated in Myanmar, which has been riven by a bloody civil war since the military seized power in 2021.

Often lured by the promise of well-paid jobs or other enticing opportunities, workers are routinely held against their will and forced to carry out online fraud schemes in heavily guarded compounds, where former detainees say beatings and torture are common.

On Wednesday, Thailand’s Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul toured a control station at the national electricity grid as staff pulled the plug on supplies to five locations across the border, in an event broadcast live on television.

Thailand “has stopped the electricity supply to Myanmar in five locations based on the decision of the National Security Council,” he told reporters.

“The electricity supply is not being stopped because the companies violated the contract, but because the electricity is being misused for scams, drugs and call centers,” he said.

One of those locations was in the town of Myawaddy, on the banks of a river that divides Thailand from Myanmar, and close to some of the largest scam compounds that NGOs say house thousands of workers. Several of the compounds lie near the border, where they can take advantage of more reliable electricity and telecoms services from Thailand.

Renewed focus on the sites came last month when a Chinese actor, having flown to Bangkok for what he thought was a movie casting call, was picked up at the airport and driven across the border into Myanmar and forced to work in a scam center there.

The scam compounds have operated for years, shielded by corruption and lawlessness that has long saturated Myanmar’s border regions — and only worsened after years of devastating civil war.

But Thailand has come under increased pressure to help curb the criminal activity and has held a series of high-profile meetings recently that suggest officials in Myanmar, Thailand and China may make stronger moves to crack down on the syndicates.

Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is currently visiting Beijing, where she will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

China’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that Beijing was “highly concerned” about recent incidents involving online scammers “at the Thailand-Myanmar border,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in a daily briefing.

Myawaddy alone is home to about 6,500 victims from 23 countries being held under duress in scam compounds, including about 4,500 Chinese nationals, according to an estimate from the Civil Society Network for Victim Assistance in Human Trafficking, a Thai NGO fighting against human trafficking.

Thailand has previously cut electricity supplies to scam sites near its border with Myanmar in recent years. However, it’s unclear if those prior cuts had any impact on operations.

In the event there were electricity cuts, compound bosses could switch to diesel-run generators for power, and Elon Musk’s Starlink – which is used elsewhere in Myanmar by various ethnic rebel groups – for internet connectivity.

‘Tonight you will see the lights’

Thailand’s cuts Wednesday also targeted Myanmar’s Three Pagodas Pass, which links southeastern Myanmar and western Thailand, prompting concerns among locals who worried how they would cope.

A resident of Thailand’s Mae Sot, which sits across the river from Myawaddy in Myanmar, said he doubted the power cuts would stop the scam centers.

“Tonight you will see the lights on in Shwe Kokko,” he said, referring to a notorious compound visible across the border.

The abduction of Chinese actor Wang Xing has brought renewed focus to the scams. Just days after he was reported missing in Mae Sot, Thai police said they located him in Myawaddy and brought him back to Thailand.

His subsequent safe return to China has spurred hundreds of Chinese families to call on their government to help to find and free their loved ones, who they believe are still trapped in the scam centers. Some have been missing for months or even years, their families say.

More than four years on from its coup, Myanmar’s military continues to fight multiple fronts across the country against powerful armed ethnic militias to hold onto power. More than 5,000 civilians have been killed and 3.3 million people displaced by the fighting, according to a United Nations report last September.

Amid the political turmoil, Myanmar has become a cyber scam hotspot, where fraud, cybercrime, human trafficking, money laundering and corruption have flourished, often with the tacit consent of the junta, experts say.

China previously worked with authorities in Myanmar to crack down on scam centers in northern Shan state, near the Chinese border. In 2023, as ethnic rebel groups gained ground against the junta, powerful warlord families – backed by the military to rule the region and oversee these fraud operations – were apprehended and handed to Chinese police.

Chinese authorities say more than 53,000 Chinese “suspects” – including trafficked victims – have been sent back to China from scam compounds in northern Myanmar.

But many scam centers have moved further south in Myanmar, including to Myawaddy, according to NGOs and experts who have long tracked these criminal operations.