NKULAGIRIRE, Uganda (AP) — Past a smoldering pile of trash and two bleating goats, through a doorway beginning to buckle beneath the weight of the bricks above, is a darkened room where a skeletal, 70-year-old man lies on a pillowless bed above a floor littered with trash.
The lone window’s shutters are closed but enough shards of sun make it through holes in the corroded roof to see Joseph Malagho’s ribs poke at the skin of his torso and legs like twigs inside his olive green pants. As he struggles to sit up, leaves crinkle beneath him on a soiled sheet. His mattress sags. The air is thick and stale.
Malagho has no illusions about the difficulty of growing old. But the fact that he is here at all is its own miracle.
Across Africa, millions who once faced the death sentence of an HIV infection have survived only to face something nearly as daunting: old age.
As infections have dropped markedly and antiretroviral drugs have reduced mortality, the turnaround of the AIDS crisis has helped build Africa’s longevity revolution. Lives that were expected to be cut short instead continued decades more, changing the demographics of those facing the disease and fueling the rush of people encountering health systems that were never built for old age.
Malagho isn’t sure when he was infected, but he was diagnosed about five years ago. His health has steadily declined since. He has tuberculosis now, too, and can barely stand.
He hasn’t left this room in months.
There is barely any soap for his wife to wash him with a rag. His lone source of entertainment, a small radio, has gone dead, and there’s no money for batteries. He has lost most of his teeth and can’t afford dentures, but there is little food to eat anyway.
“If there is food or not,” he says, “I don’t even care.”
He urinates into a small white bucket and his wife hurls it outside just as the first drops of rain begin to strafe the roof and start leaking to the space below.
Reach One Touch One sponsors Malagho and has dispatched a field worker, Grace Nabanoba, to check on him this day.
The organization distributes food and medicine to many of its beneficiaries and helps repair homes, install water tanks and provide basic items, like a bed for seniors who are sleeping on dirt floors. But there are limits to what it can do and Nabanoba feels helpless as she stands before Malagho.
She promises him batteries for his radio and exits the home. Sometimes, after visiting him, colleagues will ask her why she’s quiet and she’ll slink off to cry.
“Some situations,” she says, “are too hard to bear.”
Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky
Joseph Malagho, who is about 70 and living with HIV, sits in his bed under a mosquito net at his home in Nkulagirire, Uganda, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Joseph Malagho, who is about 70 and living with HIV, sits in his bed under a mosquito net at his home in Nkulagirire, Uganda, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that he would charge a 10% import tax starting in February on goods from eight European nations because of their opposition to American control of Greenland, setting up a potentially dangerous test of U.S. partnerships in Europe.
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland would face the tariff, Trump said in a social media post while at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The rate would climb to 25% on June 1 if no deal was in place for “the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland” by the United States, he said.
The Republican president appeared to indicate that he was using the tariffs as leverage to force talks with Denmark and other European countries over the status of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark that he regards as critical to U.S. national security.
“The United States of America is immediately open to negotiation with Denmark and/or any of these Countries that have put so much at risk, despite all that we have done for them,” Trump said on Truth Social.
The tariff threat could mark a problematic rupture between Trump and America's longtime NATO partners, further straining an alliance that dates to 1949 and provides a collective degree of security to Europe and North America. Trump has repeatedly tried to use trade penalties to bend allies and rivals alike to his will, generating investment commitments from some nations and pushback from others, notably China.
Trump is scheduled to travel on Tuesday to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he likely will run into the European leaders he just threatened with tariffs that would start in little more than two weeks.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said Trump's move was a “surprise” given the “constructive meeting” with top U.S. officials this week in Washington.
The European Commission's president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the head of the European Council, Antonio Costa, said in a joint statement that tariffs “would undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral.” They said Europe would remain “committed to upholding its sovereignty.”
There are immediate questions about how the White House could try to implement the tariffs because the EU is a single economic zone in terms of trading, according to a European diplomat who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. It was unclear, too, how Trump could act under U.S. law, though he could cite emergency economic powers that are currently subject to a U.S. Supreme Court challenge.
Trump has long said he thinks the U.S. should own the strategically located and mineral-rich island, which has a population of about 57,000 and whose defense is provided by Denmark. He intensified his calls a day after the military operation to oust Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.
The president indicated the tariffs were retaliation for what appeared to be the deployment of s ymbolic levels of troops from the European countries to Greenland, which he has said was essential for the “Golden Dome” missile defense system for the U.S., He also has argued that Russia and China might try to take over the island.
The U.S. already has access to Greenland under a 1951 defense agreement. Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations to 200 at the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest of the island, the Danish foreign minister has said. That base supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.
Resistance has steadily built in Europe to Trump's ambitions even as several countries on the continent agreed to his 15% tariffs last year in order to preserve an economic and security relationship with Washington.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in a social media post, seemed to equate the tariff threat to Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
“No intimidation or threats will influence us, whether in Ukraine, Greenland or anywhere else in the world when we are faced with such situations,” Macron said in a translated post on X.
Earlier Saturday, hundreds of people in Greenland's capital, Nuuk, braved near-freezing temperatures, rain and icy streets to march in a rally in support of their own self-governance.
Thousands of people also marched through Copenhagen, many of them carrying Greenland’s flag. Some held signs with slogans such as “Make America Smart Again” and “Hands Off.”
“This is important for the whole world,” Danish protester Elise Riechie told The Associated Press as she held Danish and Greenlandic flags. “There are many small countries. None of them are for sale.”
The rallies occurred hours after a bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers, while visiting Copenhagen, sought to reassure Denmark and Greenland of their support.
Danish Maj. Gen. Søren Andersen, leader of the Joint Arctic Command, told the AP that Denmark does not expect the U.S. military to attack Greenland, or any other NATO ally, and that European troops were recently deployed to Nuuk for Arctic defense training.
He said the goal is not to send a message to the Trump administration, even though the White House has not ruled out taking the territory by force.
“I will not go into the political part, but I will say that I would never expect a NATO country to attack another NATO country,” he said from aboard a Danish military vessel docked in Nuuk. “For us, for me, it’s not about signaling. It is actually about training military units, working together with allies.”
The Danish military organized a planning meeting Friday in Greenland with NATO allies, including the U.S., to discuss Arctic security on the alliance’s northern flank in the face of a potential Russian threat. The Americans were also invited to participate in Operation Arctic Endurance in Greenland in the coming days, Andersen said.
In his 2½ years as a commander in Greenland, Andersen said that he hasn't seen any Chinese or Russian combat vessels or warships, despite Trump saying that they were off the island's coast.
But in the unlikely event of American troops using force on Danish soil, Andersen confirmed that Danish soldiers have an obligation to fight back.
Trump has contended that China and Russia have their own designs on Greenland and its vast untapped reserves of critical minerals. He said recently that anything less than the Arctic island being in U.S. hands would be “unacceptable.”
The president has seen tariffs as a tool to get what he wants without having to resort to military actions. At the White House on Friday, he recounted how he had threatened European allies with tariffs on pharmaceuticals and he teased the possibility of doing so again.
“I may do that for Greenland, too,” Trump said.
After Trump followed through, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said "Congress must reclaim tariff authorities” so that they are not used solely at a president's discretion.
Denmark said this week that it was increasing its military presence in Greenland in cooperation with allies.
“There is almost no better ally to the United States than Denmark,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., while visiting Copenhagen with other members of Congress. “If we do things that cause Danes to question whether we can be counted on as a NATO ally, why would any other country seek to be our ally or believe in our representations?”
Burrows reported from Nuuk, Greenland, and Niemann from Copenhagen, Denmark. Associated Press writers Stefanie Dazio in Berlin, Aamer Madhani in Washington, Jill Lawless in London and Kwiyeon Ha and Evgeniy Maloletka in Nuuk contributed to this report.
Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen speaks during a protest against Trump's policy towards Greenland in front of the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A crowd walks to the US consulate to protest against Trump's policy towards Greenland in Nuuk, Greenland, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A man holds a map of Greenland covered in the American flag crossed out with an X during a protest against Trump's policy towards Greenland in front of the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A crowd walks to the US consulate to protest against Trump's policy towards Greenland in Nuuk, Greenland, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
President Donald Trump points after arriving at Palm Beach International Airport on Air Force One, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
People march during a pro- Greenlanders demonstration, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
A patch of the Joint Arctic Command is seen on o jacket of Major General Søren Andersen standing onboard a military vessel HDMS Knud Rasmussen of the Royal Danish Navy docked in Nuuk, Greenland, on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
People gather for a pro- Greenlanders demonstration, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
People gather for a pro- Greenlanders demonstration, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
People march during a pro- Greenlanders demonstration, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
Icicles hang from the roof of the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A Danish serviceman walks in front of Joint Arctic Command center in Nuuk, Greenland, on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Senator Chris Coons from the Democratic Party speaks during a press conference with the American delegation, consisting of senators and members of the House of Representatives, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
