US President Donald Trump has been discussing "a range of options" to acquire Greenland, including use of the military, the White House said. The White House told the BBC that acquiring Greenland - a semi-autonomous region of fellow Nato member Denmark - was a "national security priority". The statement came hours after European leaders issued a joint statement rallying behind Denmark, which has been pushing back against Trump's ambitions for the Arctic island.

Trump repeated that the US "needed" Greenland for security reasons over the weekend, prompting Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to warn that any attack by the US would spell the end of Nato. The White House said on Tuesday: "The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilising the US military is always an option at the commander-in-chief's disposal." US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also told lawmakers that the Trump administration did not plan to invade Greenland, but buying the island from Denmark.

The deadliest clashes so far broke out between Syrian government forces and Kurdish fighters in a contested area of the northern city of Aleppo, as efforts to merge the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces with the national army have shown little progress. Syria 's state-run SANA news agency said a soldier was killed and three others were wounded in an attack by the SDF. State TV later reported that three civilians, including two women, were killed and others were wounded, including two children, in shelling of a residential area that it blamed on the SDF.

The SDF in a statement denied being behind the shelling that killed the civilians and said a shell launched by "factions affiliated with the Damascus government" landed in the al-Midan neighborhood. The SDF claimed the target was the adjacent Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood. "This indiscriminate shelling constitutes a direct attack on residential areas and exposes the lives of civilians to grave danger," it said.

Israel cleared the final hurdle before starting construction on a contentious settlement project near Jerusalem that would effectively cut the West Bank in two, according to a government tender. The tender, which seeks bids from developers, would clear the way to begin construction of the E1 project. The anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now first reported the tender. Yoni Mizrahi, who runs the group's settlement watch division, said initial work could begin within the month.

Settlement development in E1, an open tract of land east of Jerusalem, has been under consideration for more than two decades, but was frozen due to US pressure during previous administrations. The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank to be illegal and an obstacle to peace. The E1 project is especially contentious because it runs from the outskirts of Jerusalem deep into the occupied West Bank. Critics say it would prevent the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state in the territory.

Iran's government cut off the country from the internet and international telephone calls Thursday night (Jan. 8) as a nighttime demonstration called by the country's exiled crown prince drew a mass of protesters to shout from their windows and storm the streets. It was the 12th consecutive day of unrest that has been sparked by anger over the collapse of the Iranian currency and has spread to more than 100 cities and towns across all 31 of Iran's provinces, according to human rights groups.

The US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) has said at least 34 protesters - five of them children - and eight security personnel have been killed, and that 2,270 other protesters have been arrested. Thursday's protest represented the first test of whether the Iranian public could be swayed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose fatally ill father fled Iran just before the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution. US President Donald Trump meanwhile, reiterated a threat to intervene militarily if Iranian authorities killed protesters.