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World Leaders Condemn Shooting at Trump Rally

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is helped off the stage by US Secret Service agents at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is helped off the stage by US Secret Service agents at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
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World Leaders Condemn Shooting at Trump Rally

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is helped off the stage by US Secret Service agents at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is helped off the stage by US Secret Service agents at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

World leaders on Saturday condemned the shooting at Donald Trump's rally in Pennsylvania in which the former president was shot in the right ear.

Leaders from multiple nations expressed shock at the incident, denounced political violence and wished Trump a quick recovery.

A spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the shooting and called it an "act of political violence."

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said: "We must stand firm against any form of violence that challenges democracy."

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was "appalled by the shocking scenes" at the rally. "Political violence in any form has no place in our societies and my thoughts are with all the victims of this attack."

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the shooting was "concerning and confronting," while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it left him "sickened." Trudeau added: "Political violence is never acceptable."

Similar comments were also made by the leaders of Thailand, Taiwan, New Zealand and the Philippines.

Americans fear rising political violence, recent Reuters/Ipsos polling shows, with two out of three respondents to a May survey saying they feared violence could follow the elections in November in which Republican Trump will face President Joe Biden, a Democrat who also denounced the shooting.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the shooting left him shocked. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who met Trump this week while visiting the US for a NATO summit, said his prayers were with the former president "in these dark hours."
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called the shooting unacceptable while also urging others to condemn it.

"The attack against former President Donald Trump must be vehemently repudiated by all defenders of democracy and dialogue in politics. What we saw today is unacceptable," the Brazilian leader said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Trump a friend and wished him a speedy recovery while saying: "Strongly condemn the incident. Violence has no place in politics and democracies."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also joined a chorus of world leaders condemning the shooting.

"I am appalled to learn about the shooting of former US President Donald Trump at his rally in Pennsylvania," he wrote on X. "Such violence has no justification and no place anywhere in the world. Never should violence prevail."

Zelenskiy added he was "relieved" that Trump, who has frequently criticized US military aid to Ukraine amid Russia's invasion, was safe and wished him "a speedy recovery.”

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France Asks for a NATO Exercise in Greenland, Is Ready to Participate

Snow-covered houses line a hillside in Nuuk, Greenland, as warm evening light hits the neighborhood on January 20, 2026. (AFP)
Snow-covered houses line a hillside in Nuuk, Greenland, as warm evening light hits the neighborhood on January 20, 2026. (AFP)
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France Asks for a NATO Exercise in Greenland, Is Ready to Participate

Snow-covered houses line a hillside in Nuuk, Greenland, as warm evening light hits the neighborhood on January 20, 2026. (AFP)
Snow-covered houses line a hillside in Nuuk, Greenland, as warm evening light hits the neighborhood on January 20, 2026. (AFP)

France has asked for a ​NATO exercise in Greenland and is ready to contribute to it, French President Emmanuel Macron's office said on Wednesday.

News of the request comes ‌as US ‌President Donald ‌Trump barrels ⁠into ​Davos, ‌Switzerland, on Wednesday, where he is likely to use the World Economic Forum to escalate his push for acquiring Greenland despite European ⁠protests in the biggest fraying of ‌transatlantic ties in ‍decades.

Speaking in ‍Davos on Tuesday, Macron ‍said Europe would not give in to bullies or be intimidated, in a scathing ​criticism of Trump's threat to impose steep tariffs if ⁠Europe does not let him take over Greenland.

NATO leaders have warned that Trump's Greenland strategy could upend the alliance. Trump has linked Greenland to his anger at not receiving a Nobel Peace Prize.

World

EU Stands Ready to Defend Itself Against Coercion, Costa Says

European Council President Antonio Costa addresses the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, France, January 21, 2026. (Reuters)
European Council President Antonio Costa addresses the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, France, January 21, 2026. (Reuters)
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EU Stands Ready to Defend Itself Against Coercion, Costa Says

European Council President Antonio Costa addresses the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, France, January 21, 2026. (Reuters)
European Council President Antonio Costa addresses the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, France, January 21, 2026. (Reuters)

The European Union will defend itself ​against any form of coercion and will protect the international rules-based order and international law, EU Council President ‌Antonio Costa ‌said ‌on ⁠Wednesday.

"We ​stand ‌ready to defend ourselves, our member states, our citizens, our companies, against any form of coercion. ⁠And the European Union has ‌the power and ‍the ‍tools to do ‍so," Costa said in a speech in European Parliament.

"We cannot accept ​that the law of the strongest prevails over ⁠the rights of the weakest," Costa said.

"Because international rules are not optional. And alliances cannot just boil down to a sequence of transactions."

World

Gunman Jailed for Life in Killing of Japan Ex-PM Abe

In this picture taken on July 24, 2019 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks on the podium during a ceremony marking one year before the start of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. (AFP)
In this picture taken on July 24, 2019 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks on the podium during a ceremony marking one year before the start of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. (AFP)
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Gunman Jailed for Life in Killing of Japan Ex-PM Abe

In this picture taken on July 24, 2019 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks on the podium during a ceremony marking one year before the start of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. (AFP)
In this picture taken on July 24, 2019 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks on the podium during a ceremony marking one year before the start of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. (AFP)

The gunman charged with killing Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was found guilty Wednesday and jailed for life, as the judge declared the broad-daylight assassination "despicable and extremely malicious".

The shooting more than three years ago forced a reckoning in a country with little experience of gun violence, and ignited scrutiny of alleged ties between prominent conservative lawmakers and a secretive sect, the Unification Church.

As he handed down the sentence at a court in the city of Nara, judge Shinichi Tanaka said Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, had been "determined" to shoot Abe.

The fact he "shot him from behind and did so when (Abe) was least expecting it" points to the "despicable and extremely malicious" nature of his act, he said.

A queue of people waited Wednesday morning for tickets to enter the courtroom, highlighting intense public interest in the trial.

Yamagami looked down and expressed little emotion during the sentencing for charges including murder and firearms control law violations, after he used a handmade gun to kill Japan's longest-serving leader during his campaign speech in July 2022.

The defense team of Yamagami -- who had admitted to murder at the trial opening in October -- told a press conference they had not yet decided whether to appeal, which under Japan's legal system must be done within two weeks.

- 'Significant grief' -

Prosecutors had argued that the defendant's motive to kill Abe was rooted in his desire to besmirch the Unification Church.

The months-long trial highlighted how his mother's blind donations to the church plunged his family into bankruptcy and how he came to believe "influential politicians" were helping the sect thrive.

Abe had spoken at events organized by some of the church's groups.

Judge Tanaka said "it is undeniable that the defendant's upbringing influenced the formation of his personality and his mindset... and that it even played a distant role" in his actions.

But "each criminal action he took was based on nothing but his own decision-making, the process of which deserves strong condemnation", he added.

Katsuya Nakatani, a 60-year-old member of the public who was in the courtroom, said the judge had convinced him that "even if there was room for extenuating circumstances... opening fire with so many people around is, after all, something that cannot be forgiven".

"I even began to think it might have been a stroke of luck that only one person died," he said.

Another man outside court held a banner urging the judge to take Yamagami's difficult life circumstances "into the fullest consideration".

- Draw attention -

Yamagami "thought if he killed someone as influential as former prime minister Abe, he could draw public attention to the Church and fuel public criticism of it", a prosecutor told a district court in western Japan's Nara region in October.

The Unification Church was established in South Korea in 1954, with its members nicknamed "Moonies" after founder Sun Myung Moon.

In a plea for leniency, his defense team stressed his upbringing had been mired in "religious abuse" stemming from his mother's extreme faith in the Unification Church.

In despair after the suicide of her husband -- and with her other son gravely ill -- Yamagami's mother poured all her assets into the Church to "salvage" her family, Yamagami's lawyer said, adding that her donations eventually snowballed to around 100 million yen ($1 million at the time).

Yamagami was forced to give up pursuing higher education. In 2005, he attempted to take his own life before his brother died by suicide.

Investigations after Abe's murder led to cascading revelations about close ties between the Church and many conservative lawmakers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, prompting four ministers to resign.

In 2020, Yamagami began hand-crafting a firearm, a process that involved meticulous test-firing sessions in a remote mountainous area.

This points to the highly "premeditated" nature of his attack on Abe, prosecutors said.
The assassination was also a wake-up call for a nation which has some of the world's strictest gun controls.

Gun violence is so rare in Japan that security officials at the scene failed to immediately identify the sound made by the first shot, and came to Abe's rescue too late, a police report after the attack said.

Prosecutors sought a life sentence for Yamagami, calling the murder "unprecedented in our post-war history" and citing the "extremely serious consequences" it had on society, according to local media.

The Japanese version of life imprisonment leaves open the possibility of parole, although in reality, experts say many die while incarcerated.