PARIS (AP) — The United Nations agency that promotes education, science and culture and also works for the preservation of outstanding cultural and natural heritage around the world is abruptly losing one of its 194 member states. It marks a blow to the Paris-based body that is also in U.S. President Donald Trump 's crosshairs.
Nicaragua angrily announced its withdrawal from the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in a letter that UNESCO's director general, Audrey Azoulay, said she received Sunday morning.
In the letter seen by The Associated Press, Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Valdrack Jaentschke denounced the awarding of a UNESCO press freedom prize to a Nicaraguan newspaper, La Prensa.
The prize jury hailed the newspaper's work in the face of “severe repression” and reporting from exile that “courageously keeps the flame of press freedom alive" in the Central American country.
Nicaragua’s government, led by President Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-president, Rosario Murillo, has been cracking down on dissent since it violently repressed protests in 2018, claiming they were backed by foreign powers that sought his overthrow.
In his letter to UNESCO, Jaentschke claimed La Prensa is a pro-U.S. media and “represents the vile betrayal against our Motherland.”
Here's a look at the dispute:
UNESCO member states created the World Press Freedom Prize in 1997. The only U.N. prize awarded to journalists, it is named after Colombian newspaper journalist Guillermo Cano Isaza, who was assassinated in Colombia's capital, Bogota, in 1986.
An international jury of media professionals that recommended La Prensa for the 2025 award on Saturday said through its chairman that the newspaper, founded almost a century ago in 1926, “has made courageous efforts to report the truth to the people of Nicaragua."
UNESCO said that “since 2021, following the imprisonment and expulsion of its leaders from the country as well as the confiscation of its assets, La Prensa has continued to inform the Nicaraguan population online, with most of its team in exile and operating from Costa Rica, Spain, Mexico, Germany and the United States.”
Some other recent laureates included Belarus’ top independent journalists’ organization, recognized in 2022, and, in 2019, journalists Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone who were jailed in Myanmar for their reporting on the military’s brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims.
Jaentschke's letter said UNESCO recognition for La Prensa was “undeserved” and that the agency's actions were “unacceptable and inadmissible.”
The minister alleged, without offering evidence, that La Prensa has promoted U.S. military and political intervention in Nicaragua.
“It is deeply shameful that UNESCO appears as the promoter, and obviously as an accomplice, of an action that offends and attacks the deepest Values of Nicaragua’s National Identity and Culture," his signed and stamped letter said.
Nicaragua’s government later issued a statement that echoed Jaentschke’s claims.
“When UNESCO gives prominence to the traitors, slaves and lackeys of colonialism and imperialism, it totally abandons any sense of objectivity,” it said.
In a statement announcing Nicaragua's decision to leave, Azoulay said “UNESCO is fully within its mandate when it defends freedom of expression and press freedom around the world.”
“I regret this decision, which will deprive the people of Nicaragua of the benefits of cooperation, particularly in the fields of education and culture," she said.
In his first presidency, Trump looked dimly on Ortega's rule. In 2018, Trump signed into law a bill to cut off resources to the government of Nicaragua.
But he's also not been much of a fan of UNESCO.
In an executive order in February, Trump called for a review of American involvement in the agency. In his first presidency, Trump's administration in 2017 announced that the U.S. would withdraw from UNESCO, citing anti-Israel bias. That decision took effect a year later.
The United States formally rejoined UNESCO in 2023 after a five-year absence, under the presidency of Joe Biden.
FILE - The main building of the UNESCO headquarters is seen through the Globe in Paris, France, Friday, Oct. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, file)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.
Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.
Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”
Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.
“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”
He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”
Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.
More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.
Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.
In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.
Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”
Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.
“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.
The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.
The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.
Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.
In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)
