The World That Was

Adrian Olivier,

Sunday 2 February – Sunday 9 February:

On Sunday, Greek authorities advised residents and hotels on the island of Santorini to drain their swimming pools over concerns that large volumes of water could destabilize buildings in the case of a strong earthquake. Hundreds of small earthquakes were recorded in the last few days. Fire services were also dispatched after days of small earthquakes in Santorini’s volcano caldera, which is mostly undersea. The eruption of the Santorini (Thera) volcano around 1600 BC is thought to be one of the triggers for the decline of the Minoan civilization on Crete. 

On Monday, French Prime Minister François Bayrou began a week-long run of the gauntlet in trying to get the government budget passed. Bayrou triggered a constitutional measure, Article 49.3 of the French constitution, twice on Monday and twice more during the week to pass all the remaining parts of the budget. The constitutional maneuver allows the government to pass legislation without a vote, but that allows opposition lawmakers to put forward no-confidence motions each time the measure is used (four times). Bayrou survived two no-confidence votes on Wednesday night after the National Rally decided against toppling the government over its budget. Both measures fell far below the 289 threshold needed to pass.

On Monday, the Trump administration asked Congress to approve a new $1 billion transfer of bombs and other military hardware to Israel. The planned weapons sales include 4,700 1,000-pound bombs, worth more than $700 million, as well as armoured bulldozers built by Caterpillar, worth more than $300 million. The bombs the administration is proposing are 4,500 BLU-110s and 200 Mk-83s, which the Pentagon refers to as “general purpose bombs.” The new arms requests would be paid for from the billions of dollars in annual U.S. military aid to Israel. 

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order ordering the creation of a sovereign wealth fund within the next year, saying it could potentially buy the short video app TikTok. If created, the sovereign wealth fund could place the U.S. alongside numerous other countries, particularly in the Middle East and Asia, that have launched similar funds as a way to make direct investments with government dollars.

On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said El Salvador had offered to accept deportees of any nationality from the U.S., including incarcerated American citizens who would be held in the country’s maximum-security prison. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele offered to “house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country,” Rubio said in San Salvador, the second stop on his first foreign trip, after meeting with Bukele. “No country has ever made an offer of friendship such as this,” he said, calling it the “most unprecedented and extraordinary, migratory agreement anywhere in the world.”

On Tuesday, Sweden’s worst mass shooting took place in the city of Örebro, 200km (125 miles) from Stockholm. Seven women and three men aged between 28 and 68 were killed, along with the killer, reported in Swedish media as Rickard Andersson, 35. Anna Bergkvist, the head of the police investigation, told the BBC on Thursday that the suspect had killed himself inside the school. The shooting occurred inside the Risbergska school for adults at a campus where other schools, including for children, are based. Officers were first called at around 12:30 p.m. local time, Roberto Eid Forest, the head of the police district, told reporters at a news conference in Örebro. The suspect was unknown to police and they believe he acted alone. Officers said he had no links to gangs and is thought to have acted “without any ideological motive”. They also do not believe the attack was motivated by terrorism.

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Donald Trump in Washington. During the press conference, Trump said he has proposed that the U.S. take control of the Gaza Strip after the war and said the Gazans would be moved to other countries while a reconstruction of the Strip takes place. Jaws dropped, heads exploded, shock and indignation, etc. 

On Thursday, Reuters reported that North Korean ballistic missiles fired at Ukraine by Russian forces since late December have become far more accurate. The increase in accuracy – to within 50-100m of the intended target – suggests North Korea is successfully using the battlefield to test its missile technology. Earlier in the war, the missiles had an accuracy of 1-3 kilometres. The report did not include the modifications that the North Koreans have made, but possible explanations include better navigation systems or a steering mechanism to help with manoeuvring. Military advancements like this are exactly why North Korea entered the war in Ukraine – to learn. 

On Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the attendees of an economic summit that he believes Donald Trump is sincere in his desire to annex Canada. Trudeau said Trump is interested in gaining access to the country’s critical minerals. Mr. Trudeau made the comments to an audience of more than 150 business leaders, trade experts and union executives in Toronto who have gathered to map out ways to boost economic growth and attract new capital investment despite the looming threat of U.S. protectionism. The prime minister’s comments were made behind closed doors at the economic summit after the media had been asked to leave the room. Earlier at the gathering, Mr. Trudeau had pleaded with provinces and territories to dismantle internal barriers that discourage greater east-west trade inside Canada. Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne said U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to levy steep tariffs on Canada – now delayed after a last-minute deal Monday – is a “wake-up call” for the country. The prospect of much more difficult relations with the United States must drive Canada to find other means of attracting business investment, of generating economic growth and of diversifying trade beyond American customers. Trudeau said a good start would be looking at interprovincial trade barriers put in place by provincial governments that make it easier for Canadians to trade with the United States rather than other provinces and territories.

On Saturday, the three Baltic states disconnected their electricity systems from Russia’s power grid. “We’ve reached the goal we strived for, for so long. We are now in control,” the Lithuanian energy minister, Žygimantas Vaičiūnas, told a press conference. Immediately after disconnecting, Latvian workers used a crane to reach the high-voltage wires in Vilaka, close to the Russian border, and cut them. They handed out chopped wire as keepsakes to cheering onlookers. “We will never use it again. We are moving on,” Latvia’s energy minister, Kaspars Melnis, said. The grid was the only remaining link to Russia for the three countries, which re-emerged as independent nations in the early 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union, and joined the EU and Nato in 2004. The three staunch supporters of Kyiv stopped buying power from Russia after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but have relied on the Russian grid to control frequencies and stabilize networks to avoid outages. The Baltic states synchronized with the EU’s grid on Sunday. For Russia, the decoupling means its Kaliningrad exclave, located between Lithuania, Poland and the Baltic Sea, is cut off from Russia’s main grid, leaving it to maintain its power system alone. The Baltic countries have spent nearly €1.6bn since 2018 to upgrade grids to prepare for the switch, while Russia has spent 100bn roubles ($1bn), including on the building of several gas-fired power plants in Kaliningrad.

On Saturday, Trump reportedly spoke by phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin. On Sunday, Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said top administration officials would meet with European officials this week about how to end the war in Ukraine. He said European allies would also need to take a greater role in supporting Ukraine going forward. “We need to recoup those costs, and that is going to be a partnership with the Ukrainians in terms of their natural resources and their oil and gas and also buying ours,” Waltz said in an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. Vice President JD Vance will be in Paris on Monday for an artificial intelligence summit that’s gathering government officials and will head later in the week to the Munich Security Conference, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will lead his country’s delegation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump’s special envoy on Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, will also be in Munich. On Wednesday, Hegseth will join the main international forum for drumming up weapons and ammunition for Ukraine. He’s set to participate in a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels the following day.

South Africa’s Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen has reaffirmed the party’s support for the GNU (Government of National Unity) amid the turmoil following the Trump administration’s reaction to the passing of the recent Land Expropriation Act and said he was ‘willing to do whatever it takes’ to explain the government’s position to America and the world. President Trump has invited Afrikaner farmers to apply for refugee status while stating they will be welcome in the US. President Ramaphosa reportedly spoke to Elon Musk Saturday but it appears not to have changed the administration’s position.