(AP) — Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that President Donald Trump’s push for control over Greenland wasn’t surprising given longtime U.S. interest in the mineral-rich territory.

Speaking at a policy forum in the Artic port of Murmansk, Putin noted that the United States first considered plans to win control over Greenland in the 19th century, and then offered to buy it from Denmark after World War II.

“It can look surprising only at first glance and it would be wrong to believe that this is some sort of extravagant talk by the current U.S. administration,” Putin said. “It’s obvious that the United States will continue to systematically advance its geostrategic, military-political and economic interests in the Arctic.”

Trump irked much of Europe by suggesting that the United States should in some form control the self-governing, mineral-rich territory of Denmark, a U.S. ally and NATO member. As the nautical gateway to the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America, Greenland has broader strategic value as both China and Russia seek access to its waterways and natural resources.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance and his wife are due to visit an American military base in Greenland on Friday on a trip that was scaled back after an uproar by Greenlanders and Danes.

Speaking on Thursday, Putin noted that Russia is worried about NATO’s activities in the Arctic and will respond by strengthening its military capability in the polar region.

“We are certainly concerned about NATO members describing the Far North as the region of possible conflicts,” he said, noting that Russia’s neighbors Finland and Sweden have joined the alliance. “Russia has never threatened anyone in the Arctic, but we will closely follow the developments and mount an appropriate response by increasing our military capability and modernizing military infrastructure.”

Russia has sought to assert its influence over wide areas of the Arctic in competition with the United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway as shrinking polar ice from the warming planet offers new opportunities for resources and shipping routes. China also has shown an increasing interest in the region, believed to hold up to one-fourth of the Earth’s undiscovered oil and gas.

“We won’t allow any infringement on our country’s sovereignty, reliably safeguard our national interests while supporting peace and stability in the polar region,” Putin said.

While pledging to strengthen Russia’s military foothold in the Arctic, Putin said that Moscow was holding the door open to broader international cooperation in the region.

“The stronger our positions will be, the more significant the results will be and the broader opportunities we will have to launch international projects in the Arctic involving the countries that are friendly to us, and, possibly, Western countries if they show interest in joint work. I’m sure the time will come to launch such projects.”

Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and Putin’s envoy for international investment who took part in talks with U.S. officials, told reporters last month that Russia and the U.S. should develop joint energy ventures.

“We need joint projects, including in the Arctic and other regions,” he said.

 (AP) — A 7.7 magnitude earthquake rocked Thailand and neighboring Myanmar midday on Friday, causing the collapse of a high-rise building under construction in Bangkok and forcing hundreds of thousands to evacuate from their homes and workplaces.

The midday temblor was followed by a strong 6.4 magnitude aftershock.

Thai emergency responders say two people have been found dead and an unknown number of others are still under the rubble of a building that collapsed near Bangkok’s popular Chatuchak market.

Rescue worker Songwut Wangpon told reporters another seven people had been found alive, as he spoke outside the tall pile of rubble that was once a high-rise building under construction.

A dramatic video circulated on social media showed the multi-story building with a crane on top collapsing into a cloud of dust, while onlookers screamed and ran.

People in Bangkok evacuated from their buildings were cautioned to stay outside in case there were more aftershocks.

The U.S. Geological Survey and Germany’s GFZ center for geosciences said the earthquake was a shallow 6.2 miles, with an epicenter in Myanmar, according to preliminary reports.

“All of a sudden the whole building began to move. Immediately there was screaming and a lot of panic,” said Fraser Morton, a tourist from Scotland, who was in one of Bangkok’s many malls shopping for camera equipment.

“I just started walking calmly at first but then the building started really moving, yeah, a lot of screaming, a lot of panic, people running the wrong way down the escalators, lots of banging and crashing inside the mall.”

Like Morton, thousands of people poured into Benjasiri Park from nearby shopping malls, high rises and apartment buildings along Bangkok’s busy Sukhumvit Road.

Many were on phones trying to reach loved ones as others sought shade from the hot early afternoon sun. Others stared up fearfully at the tall buildings in the densely packed part of the city.

“I got outside and then looked up at the building and the whole building was moving, dust and debris, it was pretty intense,” Morton said. “Lots of chaos.”

The sound of sirens echoed throughout central Bangkok and vehicles filled the street, leaving some of the city’s already congested streets gridlocked. The elevated rapid transit system and subway were shut down.

City hall declared the city a disaster area to facilitate interagency aid and emergency help.

Paul Vincent, a tourist visiting from England, was at a streetside bar when the quake struck.

“The next thing, everybody came on the street, so there was a lot of screaming and panicking, which obviously made it a lot worse,” he said.

As he came onto the street himself, he said he saw a high-rise building swaying and water was falling from a rooftop pool.

“When I saw the building, oh my God, that’s when … it hit me,” he said. “There was people crying in the streets and, you know, the panic was horrendous really.”

In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city and close to the epicenter, the earthquake damaged part of the former royal palace and buildings, according to videos and photos released on Facebook social media.

While the area is prone to earthquakes, it is generally sparsely populated, and most houses are low-rise structures.

In the Sagaing region just southwest of Mandalay, a 90-year-old bridge collapsed, and some sections of the highway connecting Mandalay and Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, were also damaged.

Residents in Yangon rushed out of their homes when the quake struck. There were no immediate reports of injuries or deaths.

In the capital Naypyitaw, the quake damaged religious shrines, sending parts toppling to the ground, and some homes.

To the northeast, the earthquake was felt in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces in China and caused damage to houses and injuries in the city of Ruili on the border with Myanmar, according to Chinese media reports.

Videos that one outlet said it had received from a person in Ruili showed building debris littering a street and a person being wheeled in a stretcher toward an ambulance.

The shaking in Mangshi, a Chinese city about 60 miles northeast of Ruili, was so strong that people couldn’t stand, one resident told The Paper, an online media outlet.

A resident of Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan, told The Paper that her ceiling lamp was swinging wildly and the shaking lasted more than 10 seconds.

In Bangkok, alarms went off in buildings as the earthquake hit around 1:30 p.m., and startled residents were evacuated down staircases of high-rise condominiums and hotels.

The greater Bangkok area is home to more than 17 million people, many of whom live in high-rise apartments.

Water from high-rise rooftop pools sloshed over the side as they shook, and debris fell from many buildings as the long-lasting earthquake rattled the city.

“I have experienced earthquakes twice before in Myanmar, but that was only one second, one big bang, but here it went on for at least, I’d say, a minute,” said Zsuzsanna Vari-Kovacs, a Hungarian resident of Bangkok, who had just finished eating at a restaurant when the quake hit.

“My husband was in a high-rise, I think that’s even worse.”

Thailand’s Department of Disaster Prevention said the quake was felt in almost all regions of the country.

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra called an emergency meeting to assess the impact of the quake.

Twenty-eight million people face acute hunger in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a record for the country, driven by an escalating conflict between the government and Rwandan-backed rebels in the east, the United Nations said on Thursday.

A longstanding humanitarian crisis in Congo has been aggravated by the conflict, with 2.5 million more people becoming acutely hungry since the most recent surge of violence in December, the U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a joint statement.

Those facing acute hunger are classified as Phase 3 or higher in the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). Of the 28 million in Congo, 3.9 million are Phase 4, meaning they are experiencing emergency levels of hunger.

Phase 5 indicates famine. The country has a population of more than 100 million.

Fighting between the government and Rwandan-backed M23 rebels has escalated since the start of the year into eastern Congo’s biggest conflict in decades and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes.

“The current situation is dire for the population, as harvests are lost, food prices soar, millions of people face acute food insecurity and are increasingly vulnerable,” said Athman Mravili, the interim FAO representative in Congo.

More than 10 million of those facing acute hunger are in eastern Congo, which has experienced near-constant insecurity since wars in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide left millions dead and spawned dozens of militia groups.

Elsewhere in the country, inflation and the depreciation of the Congolese franc have made it difficult for many to get enough to eat, the statement said.

Cuts by the U.S. and other leading donors to their foreign aid have left humanitarian agencies struggling to respond to the impacts of conflict, natural disasters and climate change.

Palestinian militant groups threatened punishment on Thursday for “collaborators” furthering Israeli goals after the first substantial protests against the war in Gaza and Hamas’ rule.

Hundreds of Palestinians have rallied in recent days in north and central Gaza, some chanting “Hamas out”, in a rare show of opposition to the group whose October 2023 raid on Israel triggered a devastating offensive in the enclave.

More demonstrations, which have been applauded by Israel’s government, were planned for later on Thursday.

A statement by the “Factions of the Resistance”, an umbrella group including Hamas, threatened punishment for leaders of the “suspicious movement”, which Palestinians took to mean the street marches.

“They persist in blaming the resistance and absolving the occupation, ignoring that the Zionist extermination machine operates nonstop,” it said.

“Therefore, these suspicious individuals are as responsible as the occupation for the bloodshed of our people and will be treated accordingly.”

Hamas officials have said people have the right to protest but rallies should not be exploited for political ends or to exempt Israel from blame for decades of occupation, conflict and displacement in Palestinian territories.

Some protesters reached by Reuters said they took to the streets to voice rejection of continued war, adding that they were exhausted and lacked basics like food and water.

“We are not against the resistance. We are against war. Enough wars, we are tired,” a resident of Gaza City’s Shejaia neighbourhood, which saw protests on Wednesday, told Reuters.

“You can’t call people collaborators for speaking up against wars, for wanting to live without bombardment and hunger,” he added via a chat app.

PROTESTS SPREAD

Videos on Wednesday, whose authenticity Reuters could not verify, showed protests in Shejaia in the north where the rallies began, but also in the central Gaza areas of Deir Al-Balah, indicating the protests were spreading.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has promised Hamas’ total elimination, said the rallies showed its decision to renew the military offensive in Gaza after a ceasefire was working.

Hamas police, the group’s enforcers, are again off the streets.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz urged Gaza residents to keep expressing their discontent.

“Learn from the residents of Beit Lahia,” he wrote on X, referring to the first protest. “Just as they did, demand the removal of Hamas from Gaza and the immediate release of all Israeli hostages — this is the only way to stop the war.”

A Palestinian official with a Hamas-allied militant group said protests were allowed – but not cooperation with Israel.

“Those suspicious figures try to exploit legitimate protests to demand an end to the resistance, which is the same goal as Israel’s,” he told Reuters via a chat app.

“We don’t threaten our people, we adore their sacrifices, but there are some suspicious figures who cooperate with the goals of the occupation, they want to exempt the occupation of responsibility and disgrace the resistance.”

More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli campaign in Gaza, Palestinian officials say.

It was launched after thousands of Hamas-led gunmen attacked communities in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Much of the narrow coastal enclave has been reduced to rubble, leaving hundreds of thousands of people sheltering in tents or bombed-out buildings.

The army on Thursday accused the M23 armed group of reneging on its commitment to withdraw from the area around the eastern DR Congo town of Walikale, reinforcing its positions and resuming attacks.

The Congolese armed forces (FARDC) said in a statement that they were continuing to refrain from carrying out “offensive actions” against Rwanda-backed M23 fighters in the area.

A senior M23 member, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the army had struck the group’s positions in Walikale on Thursday.

Neither sides’ statements could be immediately verified.

On Saturday, the M23, an anti-government group which resurfaced in 2021, said that it was “repositioning its forces” outside the outskirts of Walikale to help create the right conditions for “peace and political dialogue”.

It took control of the mining hub of Walikale last Wednesday, marking the furthest west the group has advanced into the interior of the Democratic Republic of Congo since it emerged in 2012.

Its fighters were still on the ground, residents have told AFP in recent days, saying the situation was again calm.

The army said in its statement that the M23 fighters were continuing “to reinforce their positions with men and equipment” contrary to the group’s declaration that it would redeploy outside of Walikale.

The M23 has attacked army positions near the town and also in the neighbouring province of South Kivu, the army said.

The DRC government has accused Rwanda of backing the M23 in order to seize valuable mineral resources and rich farmland.

Rwanda denies providing the M23 with military support, but a UN experts’ report has said that Rwanda maintains around 4,000 troops in the DRC’s east to assist the armed group.

The M23 has taken control of large swathes of North and South Kivu provinces since 2021 and launched a lightning push earlier this year, capturing the cities of Goma and Bukavu, the provincial capitals.

Half a dozen ceasefires and truces have been brokered, and then broken.

A meeting between the Congolese government and the M23 in the Angolan capital Luanda last week was cancelled at the last minute.

On the same day, DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame “reaffirmed their commitment to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire” after a surprise meeting in Doha organised by Qatar.