Will Chalk

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Will Chalk, and in the early hours of Wednesday, the 7th of January, these are our main stories. The US says it's discussing options to, as it puts it, acquire Greenland, including the use of military force. Ukraine and its allies say they've made progress in talks to ensure the country's security in the event of a ceasefire with Russia. And the Venezuelan military and government continue to crack down on dissent.

Also in this podcast we get the latest on the anti-government protests that have engulfed Iran and... We actually ran a benchmark computation on this chip, which took just a few minutes, but it would have taken 10 septillion years on today's top supercomputer. An inside look at one of the world's first quantum computers. Quantum computers

Over the course of countless TV interviews, press conferences and speeches, Donald Trump has made a lot of claims. And it means sifting out the ones he's immediately planning to follow through on isn't always easy. But one idea, that the US might take over Greenland, seems to be increasingly picking up steam. So much so that it dominated a meeting of a group of Ukraine's allies, the so-called Coalition of the Willing, in France on Tuesday.

The meeting was supposed to be about security guarantees for Ukraine. A number of those guarantees were established, but the Paris meeting also made a joint declaration on the issue of Greenland, after Donald Trump again threatened to try and annex the island using force if necessary. Greenland has been owned by Denmark since 1814, and the European statement promised to defend the vast North Atlantic island's territorial integrity.

I asked our North America correspondent David Willis whether the Americans were really threatening to invade Greenland if Denmark didn't hand it over voluntarily. It could really hardly be plainer. I have to say, well, a statement from the White House press secretary, Caroline Leavitt, says the president and his team are discussing a range of options to acquire Greenland and that utilising the US military is one of those options. And that statement calls...

Greenland's acquisition, an important foreign policy goal and a national security priority of the United States. It was no doubt intended to counter the statement that is European leaders support for Denmark and the claim by Denmark's prime minister that a military attack by the US would

as he put it, spelled the end of NATO. Meanwhile the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the United States wanted to buy Greenland from Denmark, not invade it. And the Reuters news agency, quoting an unnamed senior US official, reported that another option was forming a so-called compact of free association, in other words a close security alliance with Greenland.

We've heard lots from the US, from Donald Trump especially, about why they need Greenland, why they want Greenland. But have we heard anything as a justification for why they should have Greenland?

Well, that's a very good question, given that Greenland is the most sparsely populated territory in the world with one of the harshest climates. Eighty percent of it is covered in ice. According to the White House press secretary, acquiring Greenland is vital to deterring the United States adversaries in the region. And by that, Caroline Levitt, I think is referring to Russia and China, both of which are

Thank you very much.

and such resources have been a focus, of course, of the Trump administration elsewhere in the world, including, of course, in Ukraine. Yet, whilst Donald Trump will covet Greenland, opinion polls show that most Greenlanders, anyway, aren't quite so keen. And whilst they favour their eventual independence from Denmark, there is overwhelming opposition on the part of Greenlanders to becoming part of the United States.

David Willis. Let's return to what the Paris meeting was officially about. Security guarantees from Ukraine's allies. When we recorded the last Global News podcast, the summit was underway. We now know what was achieved. The agreements included a declaration of intent by France and Britain to deploy troops as part of a post-ceasefire multinational force –

But the delegates also acknowledged that peace in Ukraine may still be a long way off, and that Russia must accept that any deal would have to involve compromise. Hosting the talks in the Elysee Palace was the French president Emmanuel Macron. Within this coalition, on the basis of all the work done in recent months, we have consolidated our approaches.

Ensinnäkin säästämällä sääntövaihtoehtoja, jotka olisivat olemassa amerikkalaisen hallituksessa, ja joidenkin valtioiden kontribuutteja, jotka sanoivat, että he olisivat valmiita ja voivat tehdä näin. Sitten pitkäaikaisen tuotantoon. Ensinnäkin ukrainalaisen sääntövaihtoehtojen, jotka ovat ja pysyvät yliopistossa.

We also heard from the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. He was speaking through a translator and he had this to say.

Also at the coalition of the willing summit was our Ukraine correspondent James Waterhouse. He sent this assessment of what the talks achieved.

Kuten heidän nimensä tarkoittaa, tämä suurin piirtein eurooppalainen koalitio on aina sanonut, että on valmis auttamaan Ukrainan jälkeen, mutta ei koskaan. Parissa oli ensimmäinen tieto. Yhdysvallat Yhdysvallat ja Fransin jälkeen.

Tämä on tärkeä osa meidän Ironcastin yrittäminen yhdistää Ukrainaa pitkän ajan. Tämä ryhmä, jolla on melkein 30 maa, on myös toivottu helpommin huomioida kääntyneitä puolueita, jotta hakemukset eivät loppu.

But the most influential people in the room weren't seasoned politicians, but Donald Trump's friend and real estate investor Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, both now senior ambassadors. European confidence to help Ukraine with troops has been hampered with an American reluctance to step in if there was a direct confrontation with Russia, although not now, they claimed.