NUUK, Greeland (AP) — Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said Monday that he had a respectful and positive meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump ’s special envoy to the Arctic territory, but that he made it clear that the Greenlandic people continue to insist on self-determination.
Greenland is a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and Trump in the past has frequently insisted that the U.S. should take control of the island for security reasons, which has raised sovereignty concerns and pushback from Greenlandic and Danish leaders.
“The Greenlandic people are not for sale. Greenlandic self-determination is not something that can be negotiated,” Nielsen was quoted by Danish TV 2 as saying after meeting on the island with the envoy, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.
Nielsen also reiterated that the Greenlandic people “seek good cooperation” with the U.S., and said his “courtesy meeting” with Landry took place with “mutual respect and in a positive atmosphere."
Landry reportedly said upon his arrival in Greenland on Sunday that Trump had told him to “go over there and make as many friends as we can get,” public Danish broadcaster DR reported.
Greenland’s Foreign Minister Múte B. Egede told reporters Monday that a working group involving the U.S., Greenland, and Denmark continues to try to find a solution to the repeated U.S. demands for control over Greenland. Trump has suggested that Russia or China may be on the verge of seizing Greenland, a notion that regional experts have dismissed.
“We haven’t been the ones creating obstacles to cooperation between the United States and Greenland,” said the Greenlandic foreign minister, who also participated in the meeting with Landry and his delegation in the Greenlandic capital of Nuuk.
“So if we are to continue down this positive and constructive path, we must await the working group’s report,” he said, according to TV 2, adding that the work in the group appears “more promising” than before.
U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Ken Howery, who is also part of the American delegation in Greenland, is expected to inaugurate the U.S. Consulate’s new offices in Nuuk, and both he and Landry are to attend a business fair on Tuesday and Wednesday, local media reported.
FILE - Houses covered in snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, Friday, March 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Congo will open three treatment centers for the Ebola virus in the eastern Ituri province following an outbreak of a variant that has no approved therapeutics or vaccines, as the World Health Organization sent a team of experts and supplies to help combat the spread of the disease.
“We know that the hospitals are already under stress because of the patients,” said Samuel Roger Kamba, the Congolese health minister, during a visit to Bunia, Ituri's capital and largest city, on Sunday. “But we are preparing to have treatment centers at all three sites in order to be able to expand our capabilities.”
The WHO on Sunday declared the Ebola disease outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. As of Monday, there were over 390 suspected cases and 105 deaths in Congo, according to Congo's Health Cluster, and two deaths in neighboring Uganda.
Although the outbreak is centered in Congo's Ituri, cases have been reported in the capital, Kinshasa, and in Goma, the largest city in the country’s east.
The international health organization warned Monday that the virus is affecting people in conflict-affected areas in Congo, posing an additional risk to health workers. Aid groups Medecins Sans Frontieres and the International Rescue Committee said on Monday they have dispatched teams responding to the outbreak.
CBS News reported on Sunday that at least six Americans have been exposed to the Ebola virus in Congo, citing anonymous sources in international aid organizations. The Associated Press has not been able to independently verify this information.
U.S. health officials said Sunday the risk to Americans was low, but did not directly answer questions about whether any Americans may have been exposed to the Ebola virus in Africa.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued travel advisories on Friday, urging Americans traveling in Congo and Uganda to avoid people who have symptoms like fever, muscle pain and rash. The CDC also said it is “putting in appropriate measures for identifying individuals with any symptoms” at ports of entry.
Ebola is highly contagious and can be contracted via bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. The disease it causes is rare, but severe and often fatal.
Health authorities say the current outbreak, first confirmed on Friday, is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare variant of the Ebola disease that has no authorized vaccines or treatments. Although more than 20 Ebola outbreaks have taken place in Congo and Uganda since 1976, this is only the third time that the Bundibugyo virus has been detected.
The U.S. CDC says the Bundibugyo virus causes fever, headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain, and unexplained bleeding or bruising.
Dr. Gabriel Nsakala, a professor of public health who has been involved in past Ebola outbreak responses in Congo, said treatments for viral infections like Ebola are often directed at symptoms.
He said Congo has extensive experience managing Ebola outbreaks, but response efforts could be complicated by the unusual strain.
The Bundibugyo virus was first detected in Uganda’s Bundibugyo district during a 2007-2008 outbreak that infected 149 people and killed 37. The second time was in 2012, in an outbreak in Isiro, Congo, where 57 cases and 29 deaths were reported.
The WHO Regional Office for Africa wrote Sunday on X that a team of 35 experts from the WHO arrived in Bunia, along with 7 tons of emergency medical supplies and equipment.
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Saturday that the first suspected case was recorded on April 24, and then a second one on April 26. Both patients died, and samples were sent to Kinshasa for testing.
Officials did not specify where those cases were reported. Then an alert was shared on social media on May 5 reporting about 50 deaths in Mongbwalu and prompting investigations, according to Africa CDC Director General Jean Kaseya. The first case was confirmed on May 14.
Mongbwalu is a high-traffic mining area in Ituri, a province in a remote eastern part of Congo, with poor road networks, and is more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the nation’s capital, Kinshasa.
Eastern Congo has been grappling with a humanitarian crisis even before the new outbreak was confirmed.
The agency said there’s also a risk of further spread due to intense population movement and attacks by armed groups that have killed dozens and displaced thousands in parts of Ituri in the past year.
“The outbreak is currently occurring in provinces marred by crisis, including insecurity, presence of armed actors or de facto authorities with large displacement, weak health systems and insufficient availability of services,” the WHO said on Monday. It added that since January 2025, there have been 44 attacks on health care facilities in Congo and 742 incidents affecting humanitarian workers.
The WHO’s emergency declaration is meant to spur donor agencies and countries into action. By the agency's standards, it shows the event is serious, there is a risk of international spread and it requires a coordinated international response.
Kaseya, director-general of the Africa CDC, told Sky News on Sunday that he is in “panic mode” due to a lack of medicines and vaccines as deaths rise, but that some candidate treatments were anticipated in the coming weeks.
Rwanda closed its land border with Congo on Sunday, the U.S. State Department said on social media. AP reporters tried to cross the border on Sunday and Monday morning, but were informed it was closed except for holders of international flight tickets. Rwandan authorities have not replied to a request for comment.
The East African Community, a regional bloc that includes Congo, said Monday that the new Ebola outbreak underscores the importance of regional solidarity and preparedness. Andrea Aguer Ariik Malueth, the bloc's deputy secretary-general, said that given the high level of movement of people and goods across the region, coordinated preparedness and rapid information sharing are essential to preventing cross-border transmission.
He added in a statement that the bloc is committed to helping its members strengthen surveillance, laboratory diagnosis, infection prevention and control and other efforts, particularly in border areas.
Associated Press writer Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi contributed to this report.
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A woman wearing a protective mask sells fruit from a roadside stall in Bunia, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
People wash their hands at the entrance to a hospital in Bunia, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/ Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
A general view is seen of Bunia where ebola outbreaks have been confirmed in Ituri province, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/ Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
A woman wearing a protective mask stands in the corridor of a hospital in Bunia, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/ Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
