Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the “Board of Peace” charter signing ceremony in Davos, deadly Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, and plans for an election in Guinea-Bissau.
Board of Peace
U.S. President Donald Trump hosted a signing ceremony for the founding charter of his “Board of Peace” on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. More than 20 global leaders joined Trump onstage, and according to a list that the White House released on Thursday, some 25 countries have accepted the invitation so far, including Argentina, Belarus, Egypt, Hungary, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.
The board, which was initially conceived as a postwar transitional body for Gaza following the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, was formally backed by the U.N. Security Council in November 2025. The charter signed Thursday, however, does not explicitly mention Gaza, reflecting Trump’s ambition to expand the body’s mandate. The document also grants Trump the authority to name his successor, veto most decisions, and issue directives to implement the board’s mission.
“I think we can spread out to other things as we succeed with Gaza,” Trump said. “Once the board is formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do.”
Of the 50-plus countries invited, some are still deliberating or have rejected the invitation outright. Although no Israeli representative attended the ceremony, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that he plans to join despite earlier reservations over Turkey’s inclusion. The United Kingdom is withholding its support amid concerns that Russian President Vladimir Putin will participate; Putin has said that he is still considering the proposal (although Trump claimed Wednesday that he had already accepted).
France, Germany, Sweden, and Norway have declined to participate, while Spain, Italy, and Belgium are still reviewing the proposal. (The White House listed Belgium as having accepted, but the country’s minister of foreign affairs said that was “incorrect.” “We wish for a common and coordinated European response. As many European countries, we have reservations to the proposal,” Maxime Prévot said.)
Notably, as of Jan. 21, the U.S. State Department had paused all immigrant visa issuances for applicants from 13 of the countries that have signed on to the board.
Critics warn that the initiative could further erode the authority of the United Nations. Trump said earlier this week that the board “might” replace the U.N., but he said on Thursday that the board would function “in conjunction with the United Nations.” The Trump administration announced earlier this month that it would withdraw the United States from 31 U.N. organizations, and as of today, it has effectively ended its membership in the World Health Organization.
“The board’s very existence confirms that the United States, the primary founder of the U.N. system eight decades ago, is no longer committed to it,” Richard Gowan and Daniel Forti wrote in Foreign Policy. “The Board of Peace may have many of the formal features and protocols of a standard multilateral institution, but it may ultimately be a symptom—and an accelerant—of the decline of the multilateral security system.”
Today’s Most Read
- In Davos, a Tale of Two Speeches by Ravi Agrawal
- ‘A Rupture in the World Order’ by Jennifer Williams
- What Spheres of Influence Are—and Aren’t by Stephen M. Walt
What We’re Following
A “better position.” Negotiations over a potential agreement on Greenland are ongoing on Thursday, according to Trump. While few details have been released, Trump said in an interview with Fox Business that the deal involves granting the United States “total access” to the island, with “no time limit.”
Trump announced on Wednesday that he and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte had “formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region,” and he walked back tariff threats against Denmark and seven additional NATO countries. The announcement came soon after Trump’s speech in Davos, in which he demanded immediate negotiations over the Danish territory. Trump also said in his speech that he views a U.S. acquisition of Greenland—and the creation of a “Golden Dome” defense system there—as essential to national security, but that he would not attempt to seize the territory by force.
Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said in a social media post on Thursday that while Rutte cannot negotiate an agreement on behalf of Denmark or Greenland, he trusts the secretary-general to work toward NATO unity and security, adding that the situation was clearly in a “better position” today. Poulsen also drew his red line: “We will not cede sovereignty over parts of the Kingdom,” he wrote.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen reinforced that position on Thursday, saying that Denmark and Greenland are open to discussing Arctic security as long as the negotiations respect Denmark’s territorial integrity. Rutte said that the question of whether Greenland would remain a part of the Kingdom of Denmark had not come up during his conversation with Trump, but that he has “no doubt” that a deal will come together quickly. “Certainly I would hope for 2026, I hope even early in 2026,” he said.
Deadly Gaza strikes. Israeli forces conducted strikes on Wednesday that killed at least 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including three journalists, two children, and one woman, according to Gaza health officials. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, a labor union, said in a statement that the three journalists were on “a humanitarian journalistic mission to document and portray the suffering of civilians in displacement camps” when they were killed. The Israeli military has claimed that the journalists were operating a Hamas-affiliated drone that it believed presented a threat, according to the New York Times.
“Targeting journalists while performing their professional duties is part of a policy adopted by the Israeli occupation to silence the Palestinian voice, prevent the transmission of truth, and conceal crimes committed against civilians in the Gaza Strip,” the union said in its statement.
The killings come as satellite imagery suggests that Israeli forces have pushed some of the concrete yellow blocks demarcating its cease-fire line with Hamas even deeper into Gaza, according to reporting from Reuters and the BBC. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has previously said that anyone crossing the yellow line would be “met with fire.” The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said that it rejects “all claims that the Yellow Line has been moved or its crossing by IDF troops.”—Christina Lu
Election plans. Guinea-Bissau will hold presidential and legislative elections on Dec. 6, according to a presidential decree signed on Wednesday by military junta leader Gen. Horta Inta-a. The announcement follows last November’s coup, in which military officers claiming that they had uncovered a plot to manipulate presidential election results suspended the vote and seized power from then-President Umaro Sissoco Embaló.
The coup appeared to fit a broader regional pattern in West Africa, where Mali, Niger, Guinea, and Burkina Faso have all experienced military takeovers since 2020, alongside a failed coup in Benin last December. However, African leaders and opposition figures within the country have argued that the coup was a sham staged by Embaló himself to avoid electoral defeat.
Inta-a, who was installed as the head of the military government for a one-year transition period, said the necessary conditions were now in place to hold free and fair elections later this year. But it remains unclear whether the planned vote will meet the demands of the Economic Community of West African States, which has called for “a rapid return to constitutional normalcy” in the country.
Odds and Ends
In a new study, scientists have identified handprints on a cave wall on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi as the oldest known cave art. By dating calcium carbonate crusts that formed on top of the prints, researchers determined that the images are at least 67,800 years old—suggesting that the island was home to early modern humans with “sophisticated cognition,” according to archaeologist Adhi Agus Oktaviana, who discovered the handprints in 2015.
The handprints appear to have been altered slightly to resemble pointed claws, which researchers believe may reference an Indigenous practice of warding off misfortune. “This is the strongest piece of evidence that our species … playfully and imaginatively transformed a human hand mark into something else,” said archaeologist Adam Brumm, a co-author of the study.