NUUK: Greenland is having a moment in the international spotlight as US President Donald Trump maneuvers to gain control of the mineral-rich Arctic territory that most people know only as a huge icy island at the top of the world.
But Greenland, named by Viking adventurer Erik the Red to attract settlers, has a history of human habitation that stretches back more than 4,000 years.
The self-governing region of Denmark has been home to native peoples who crossed the Arctic from what is now Canada, Norse settlers, Lutheran missionaries and US military personnel who used it as a base from which to protect the United States from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Now a warming climate and renewed competition for Arctic resources promise an economic boom for the world’s largest island, which is home to some 56,000 people, most from Inuit backgrounds.
Here are some of the milestones of Greenland’s history.
Circa 2,500 B.C.
The first humans arrive in northern Greenland from what is now Canada after the narrow strait separating the island from North America froze over. This was to be the first of six waves of immigration that brought Inuit peoples to Greenland.
Circa A.D. 985
The Norse explorer Erik the Red arrives in Greenland with a fleet of Viking ships, according to the medieval Icelandic sagas. The Norsemen established two settlements that had a peak population of 2,500-5,000 but disappeared around 1450 for unknown reasons.
1200
The Thule people, the final wave of Inuit migration to Greenland, arrive from what is now Alaska. These people spread throughout Greenland and are the ancestors of the Indigenous people who make up about 90 percent of the country’s population.
1721
Lutheran missionary Hans Egede arrives in Greenland to search for the lost Norse settlements. Finding no survivors, he builds a new settlement at Kangeq, near modern day Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, and begins efforts to convert the Indigenous people to Christianity. This marks the start of Denmark’s modern colonization of Greenland.
1814
With the dissolution of the Kingdom of Denmark and Norway, Greenland formally becomes a Danish colony. Danish authorities develop a policy of isolating Greenland from the outside world. Trade is controlled by a state-owned monopoly.
1854-1987
Invittuut in southwestern Greenland is the world’s only commercial source of cryolite, a mineral used in the production of aluminum. The mine produced 3.7 million tons of cryolite during its history, with most of it shipped to the US Output peaked during World War II amid increased demand for aluminum to build military aircraft. The mine closed after it was depleted and manufacturers switched to synthetic cryolite.
1917
US government recognizes Denmark’s right to the whole of Greenland. This recognition was part of an agreement between the two countries under which the US acquired the Danish Virgin Islands for $25 million in gold.
1941-1945
US occupies Greenland because of concerns that Nazi Germany could use the island as a base for attacks on North America. The occupation was carried out under an agreement with Denmark’s government in exile, which recognized Danish sovereignty over Greenland.
1946
US President Harry Truman’s government offers to buy Greenland as part of an effort to secure military bases on the island because of “the extreme importance of Greenland to the defense of the United States.” Denmark rejects the sale of Greenland, but signs a long-term base agreement.
1953
Greenland ceases to be a Danish colony and becomes a county of Denmark because of a constitutional amendment. Real decision-making power, however, remains with the Ministry of Greenland in Copenhagen.
1979
Demands for Greenlanders to have more control over their own affairs culminates in the Home Rule Act, which establishes the Greenlandic parliament and gives local authorities control over issues such as education, health and fisheries. The legislation was approved by the Danish parliament and ratified by 70 percent of local voters.
2009
Greenland becomes a self-governing country within the Kingdom of Denmark. The Self-Government Act, which was approved by more than 75 percent of Greenland voters and ratified by the Danish parliament, recognizes Greenland’s right to independence when requested by local voters. Denmark retains control of defense and foreign affairs.
2019
Trump sparks a diplomatic spat with Denmark after making his first offer to buy Greenland. Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredericksen rejects the idea, saying, “Greenland is not for sale. Greenland is not Danish. Greenland belongs to Greenland. I strongly hope that this is not meant seriously.” Trump quickly cancels a planned trip to Copenhagen.
2025
During a speech to a joint session of US Congress, Trump says the United States needs Greenland for national security reasons. “I think we’re going to get it,” he says. “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”
A look at the history of Greenland, from Viking raiders to Donald Trump
https://arab.news/22wyw
A look at the history of Greenland, from Viking raiders to Donald Trump
- Now a warming climate and renewed competition for Arctic resources promise an economic boom for the world’s largest island, which is home to some 56,000 people, most from Inuit backgrounds
Tears, trauma and a million-dollar necklace as defiant Kim Kardashian faces Paris robbery suspects
- The defendants face charges including armed robbery, kidnapping and gang association
PARIS: Defiant in diamonds, Kim Kardashian appeared in a Paris courtroom Tuesday to testify in the trial over the 2016 armed robbery that upended her life. The reality star and business mogul gave emotional, at times harrowing, testimony about the night masked men tied her up at gunpoint and stole more than $6 million in jewelry.
Here’s what she revealed — and what’s still to come.
A night that changed everything
Kardashian said she was starting to doze off in bed in the early hours when she heard stomping on the stairs. She assumed it was her sister Kourtney returning from a night out. “Hello? Hello? Who is it?” she called.
Moments later, two masked men burst in. They dragged the concierge in handcuffs. They were dressed as police.
“I thought it was some sort of terrorist attack,” she said.
She grabbed her phone but froze — “I didn’t know what 911 was (in France).” She tried to call her sister and her bodyguard, but one man grabbed her hand to stop her. They threw her on the bed, bound her hands and held a gun to her back.
“I have babies,” she recalled telling the robbers. “I have to make it home. They can take everything. I just have to make it home.”
Her robe fell open — she said she was naked underneath — as one man pulled her toward him. “I was certain that was the moment that he was going to rape me,” Kardashian said.
One attacker leaned in and told her, in English, she’d be OK if she stayed quiet. He taped her mouth shut, and took her to the bathroom.
Kardashian later managed to free her hands by rubbing the tape against the bathroom sink. She hopped downstairs, ankles still bound, and found her friend and stylist, Simone Harouche. Fearing the men might return, the women climbed onto the balcony and hid in bushes. While lying there, Kardashian called her mother.
The men took a diamond ring she’d worn that night to a Givenchy show and rifled through her jewelry box. They took items including a watch her late father had given her when she graduated high school. “It wasn’t just jewelry. It was so many memories,” she said.
A changed life and constant fear
Investigators believe the attackers followed Kardashian’s digital breadcrumbs — images, timestamps, geotags — and exploited them with old-school criminal methods.
The robbery reshaped Kardashian’s sense of safety and freedom. “This experience really changed everything for us,” she said. “I started to get this phobia of going out.”
She often rents adjoining hotel rooms for protection and no longer stores jewelry at home, and now has up to six security guards at home.
“I can’t even sleep at night” otherwise, she said.
She also said she no longer makes social media posts in real time unless at a public event. Her Los Angeles home was robbed shortly after the Paris heist in what she believes was a copycat attack.
A letter and an unexpected moment of grace
In a powerful courtroom moment, the chief judge read aloud a letter from one of the accused, who is too ill to testify. The letter said he had seen Kardashian’s tears on television and expressed regret. Kardashian was visibly moved.
“I’m obviously emotional,” she said in response.
“I do appreciate the letter, for sure,” she added. “I forgive you for what had taken place. But it doesn’t change the emotion, the trauma, and the way my life is forever changed.”
Kardashian, who is studying to become a lawyer, added that she regularly visits prisons. “I’ve always believed in second chances,” she said.
Diamonds, defiance and public image
Kardashian made a fashion statement in court, wearing a $1.5 million necklace by Samer Halimeh New York. The jeweler’s press release for the necklace came out even as she was on the witness stand, a reminder that visibility remains currency, even if the rules have grown more complicated.
The choice reflected defiance and the reclaiming of the image and luxury once used against her.
Kardashian said Paris had once been a sanctuary, a place where she would walk at 3 or 4 a.m., window shopping, sometimes stopping for hot chocolate. It “always felt really safe,” she said. “It was always a magical place.”
What’s next
Twelve suspects were originally charged. One has died. One was excused due to illness. The French press dubbed the group les papys braqueurs — “the grandpa robbers” — but prosecutors say they were no harmless retirees.
The defendants face charges including armed robbery, kidnapping and gang association. If convicted, they could face life in prison.
Kardashian said she was grateful for the opportunity to “tell my truth” in the packed Paris courtroom.
“This is my closure,” she said. “This is me putting this, hopefully, to rest.”
The trial is expected to conclude May 23.
Food grown with fewer chemicals? A Brazilian scientist wins $500,000 for showing the way
- Microbiologist Mariangela Hungria’s research helped her country become an agricultural powerhouse
DES MOINES, Iowa: A Brazilian scientist who pushed back against chemical fertilizers and researched biologically based approaches to more robust food production has been honored with this year’s World Food Prize, the organization announced Tuesday.
Microbiologist Mariangela Hungria’s research helped her country become an agricultural powerhouse, an accomplishment that has now won her $500,000 from the Iowa-based World Food Prize Foundation. Hungria has been researching biological seed and soil treatments for 40 years, and has worked with Brazilian farmers to implement her findings.
“I still cannot believe it. Everybody said, my whole life, it’s improbable, you are going the wrong way, just go to things like chemicals and so on. And then, I received the most important prize in the world of agriculture,” Hungria said in an interview. “Sometimes I still think I’ll wake up and see that it’s not true.”
Norman Borlaug, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work to dramatically increase crop yields and reduce the threat of starvation in many countries, founded the World Food Prize. Since the first prize was handed out in 1987, 55 people have been honored.
Hungria said she grew up wanting to alleviate hunger. Early in her career, she decided to focus on a process called biological nitrogen fixation, in which soil bacteria could be used to promote plant growth. At that time, farmers in Brazil and around the world were reluctant to reduce their use of nitrogen fertilizers, which dramatically increase crop production but lead to greenhouse gas emissions and pollutes waterways.
Hungria studied how bacteria can interact with plant roots to naturally produce nitrogen. She then demonstrated her work on test plots and began working directly with farmers to convince them that they wouldn’t have to sacrifice high crop yields if they switched to a biological process.
The work is credited for increasing yields of several crops, including wheat, corn and beans, but it has been especially affective on soybeans. Brazil has since become the world’s largest soybean producer, surpassing the United States and Argentina.
Although Hungria’s research could be applied on farms in other countries, soybean production in the US is different than it is in Brazil; American farmers typically rotate crops on their land between growing corn and soybeans. Enough nitrate fertilizer applied to corn still remains in the soil when soybeans are planted that little or no fertilizer needs to be applied, Hungria said.
Brazilian agricultural companies have faced fierce criticism for clearing forested land to create farmland, largely to grow soybeans.
Much of that criticism is justified, Hungria said, but she added that her biological approach builds up the soil and makes further encroachment into forested areas less necessary.
“If you manage the crop well, the crop will enrich the soil with nitrogen. Soil health improves if you do the right things,” she said.
Hungria will be awarded her prize at an annual October gathering in Des Moines of agricultural researchers and officials from around the world.
Gebisa Ejeta, chair of the World Food Prize Laureate Selection Committee, credited Hungria for her “extraordinary scientific achievements” that have transformed agriculture in South America.
“Her brilliant scientific work and her committed vision for advancing sustainable crop production to feed humanity with judicious use of chemical fertilizer inputs and biological amendments has gained her global recognition both at home and abroad,” Ejeta said in a statement.
French actor Gérard Depardieu found guilty of sexual assault and given 18-month suspended sentence
PARIS: French movie star Gérard Depardieu ’s fall from grace is now complete.
Depardieu further moved down from the pinnacle of French cinema Tuesday as he was found guilty of sexually assaulting two women on the set of a movie in which he starred in 2021 and given an 18-month suspended prison sentence. He was also fined a total of 29,040 euros (around $32,350), and the court requested that he be registered in the national sex offender database.
The actor, 76, has been convicted of having groped a 54-year-old set dresser and a 34-year-old assistant during the filming of “Les Volets Verts” (“The Green Shutters”). The case was widely seen as a key post-#MeToo test of how French society and its film industry address allegations of sexual misconduct involving prominent figures.
Depardieu, who has denied the accusations, didn't attend the hearing in Paris. Depardieu’s lawyer, Jérémie Assous, said that his client would appeal the decision.
“It is the victory of two women, but it is the victory of all the women beyond this trial,” said Carine Durrieu Diebolt, the set dresser's lawyer. “Today we hope to see the end of impunity for an artist in the world of cinema. I think that with this decision we can no longer say that he is not a sexual abuser. And today, as the Cannes Film Festival opens, I’d like the film world to spare a thought for Gérard Depardieu’s victims."
Accused by more than 20 women
Depardieu’s long and storied career — he told the court that he’s made more than 250 films — has turned him into a French movie giant. He was Oscar-nominated in 1991 for his performance as the swordsman and poet Cyrano de Bergerac.
In recent years, the actor has been accused publicly or in formal complaints of misconduct by more than 20 women, but so far only the sexual assault case has proceeded to court. Some other cases were dropped because of a lack of evidence or the statute of limitations.
During the four-day trial in March, Depardieu rejected the accusations, saying he’s “not like that.” He acknowledged that he had used vulgar and sexualized language on the film set and that he grabbed the set dresser's hips during an argument, but denied that his behavior was sexual.
The court, composed of a panel of three judges, concluded that Depardieu’s explanations in court were “unpersuasive” and “not credible" and stressed both accusers' “constant, reiterated and substantiated declarations.”
The court also said that both plaintiffs have been faced with an “aggressive” defense strategy “based on comments meant to offend them.” The judges therefore considered that Depardieu’s lawyer comments in court aggravated the harm to the accusers and justified higher fines.
The two accusers testified in court
The set dresser described the alleged assault, saying the actor pincered her between his legs as she squeezed past him in a narrow corridor.
She said he grabbed her hips then started “palpating” her behind and “in front, around.” She ran her hands near her buttocks, hips and pubic area to show what she allegedly experienced. She said he then grabbed her chest.
The woman also testified that Depardieu used an obscene expression to ask her to touch his penis and suggested he wanted to rape her. She told the court that the actor’s calm and cooperative attitude during the trial bore no resemblance to his behavior at work.
The other plaintiff, an assistant, said that Depardieu groped her buttocks and her breasts during three separate incidents on the film set.
The Associated Press doesn’t identify by name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they consent to be named. Neither women has done so in this case.
“I’m very moved," one of the plaintiffs, the set dresser, told reporters after the verdict. “I’m very very much satisfied with the decision, that’s a victory for me, really, and a big progress, a step forward. I feel justice was made.”
Some expressed support for Depardieu
Some figures in the French cinema world have expressed their support for Depardieu. Actors Vincent Perez and Fanny Ardant were among those who took seats on his side of the courtroom.
French media reported last week that Depardieu was shooting a film directed by Ardant in the Azores archipelago, in Portugal.
The actor may have to face other legal proceedings soon.
In 2018, actor Charlotte Arnould accused him of raping her at his home. That case is still active, and in August 2024 prosecutors requested that it go to trial.
For more than a half-century, Depardieu stood as a towering figure in French cinema, a titan known for his commanding physical presence, instinct, sensibility and remarkable versatility.
A bon vivant who overcame a speech impediment and a turbulent youth, Depardieu rose to prominence in the 1970s and became one of France’s most prolific and acclaimed actors, portraying a vast array of characters, from volatile outsiders to deeply introspective figures.
In recent years, his behavior toward women has come under renewed scrutiny, including after a documentary showed him repeatedly making obscene remarks and gestures during a 2018 trip to North Korea.
Kim Kardashian will testify in the Paris trial about the jewelry heist that upended her life
PARIS: The last time Kim Kardashian faced the men that police say robbed her, she was bound with zip ties and held at gunpoint, and feared she might die. On Tuesday, nearly a decade later, she returns to Paris to testify against them.
One of the most recognizable figures on the planet is expected to take the stand against the 10 men accused of orchestrating the 2016 robbery that left her locked in a marble bathroom while masked assailants made off with more than $6 million in jewels.
Kardashian is set to speak about the trauma that reshaped her life and redefined the risks of celebrity in the age of social media. Her appearance is expected to be the most emotionally charged moment of a trial that began last month.
Court officials are bracing for a crowd, and security will be tight. A second courtroom has been opened for journalists following via video feed.
Kardashian’s testimony is expected to revisit, in painful detail, how intruders zip-tied her hands, demanded her ring, and left her believing she might never see her children again.
Twelve suspects were originally charged. One has died. Another has been excused from proceedings due to serious illness. Most are in their 60s and 70s — dubbed les papys braqueurs, or “the grandpa robbers,” by the French press — but investigators insist they were no harmless retirees. Authorities have described them as a seasoned and coordinated criminal group.
Two of the defendants have admitted being at the scene. The others deny any involvement — some even claim they didn’t know who Kardashian was. But police say the group tracked her movements through her own social media posts, which flaunted her jewelry, pinpointed her location, and exposed her vulnerability.
The heist transformed Kardashian into a cautionary tale of hyper-visibility in the digital age.
In the aftermath, she withdrew from public life. She developed severe anxiety and later described symptoms of agoraphobia. “I hated to go out,” she said in a 2021 interview. “I didn’t want anybody to know where I was … I just had such anxiety.”
Her lawyers confirmed she would appear in court. “She has tremendous appreciation and admiration for the French judicial system,” they wrote, adding that she hopes the trial proceeds “in an orderly fashion … and with respect for all parties.”
Once dismissed in parts of the French press as a reality TV spectacle — and lambasted by Karl Lagerfeld for being too flashy — Kardashian now returns as a key witness in a case that has forced a wider reckoning with how celebrity, crime, and perception collide.
Her lawyers say she is “particularly grateful” to French authorities — and ready to confront those who attacked her with dignity.
Samsung launches slimmest smartphone as races against rival Apple
- The S25 Edge has Samsung’s latest built-in AI functions
- Analysts said the launch was strategically timed to pre-empt Apple, which is expected to launch a thinner iPhone in the second half of this year
SEOUL: Samsung Electronics made public on Tuesday its slimmest flagship model to date, complete with enhanced artificial intelligence features, as it seeks to get ahead of rival Apple on the premium market.
The S25 Edge launch is designed to appeal to increasing demand, especially from consumers in their 20s and 30s, for more portable smartphones.
“The feedback was clear – users wanted something slimmer and easier to carry without sacrificing performance,” said Samsung, which made structural changes to reduce the thickness of internal components, including the printed circuit board and thermal systems.
Analysts said the launch was strategically timed to pre-empt Apple, which is expected to launch a thinner iPhone in the second half of this year.
“By releasing the product a few months ahead, Samsung could inflict some impact on Apple and attract consumers looking for thinner smartphones. It appears to be a calculated decision to capture that segment of demand,” Ryu Young-ho, a senior analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said.
The S25 Edge will go on sale in South Korea on May 23 and in the United States on May 30, Samsung said, adding it will roll it out to about 30 countries, including China and in Europe.
Starting at $1,099, the model has a 6.7-inch screen and a 5.8 millimeter-thick body, making it larger than the basic S25 model but only fractionally heavier.
The S25 Edge has Samsung’s latest built-in AI functions, including multimodal AI that allows users to interact with the device in real time through vision and voice, using the camera to ask questions.
Samsung did not disclose the production site for the new model.
It became the world’s leading smartphone vendor in the first quarter of 2025, capturing 20 percent of the global market and narrowly surpassing Apple, which held an 19 percent share, data from Counterpoint Research showed.
Samsung last month, however, said second-quarter shipments could be affected if tariff risks weaken demand.
