Author: niyidaram

A decision to involve US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in security operations at Italy’s upcoming Winter Olympic Games has sparked backlash from politicians and campaigners, with Milan’s mayor saying the agents are “clearly not welcome” in the co-host city. Sources at the US embassy in Rome confirmed that ICE agents will take part in security arrangements during the Milan-Cortina Games, which begin on February 6. ICE said its Homeland Security Investigations unit would support the US State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service and Italian authorities in assessing risks from transnational criminal organisations, stressing that all security operations would remain under…

Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman has defected from the Conservative Party to Reform UK, becoming the latest sitting Tory MP to cross the floor. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage announced the move at a rally for party activists in central London. Braverman told supporters she had ended her 30-year Conservative Party membership, saying, “I feel like I’ve come home.” Her defection makes her the third Conservative MP to join Reform UK this month, following Robert Jenrick and Andrew Rosindell, and the fourth since the 2024 general election. Reform now has eight sitting MPs. Braverman has been an MP since 2015.…

Former Spain manager, Robert Moreno, was sacked for heavily relying on ChatGPT to make decisions in his team. Moreno, 48, left Russian First League club FC Sochi last September after picking up just one point from seven matches. According to the club’s former sporting director Andrei Orlov, Moreno was a big fan of ChatGPT and used it to make some bizarre decisions. On an away trip to Khabarovsk, Moreno rigidly stuck to the Artificial Intelligence platform’s prompts to plan his team’s schedule. He ordered his team to train at 7am two days before the match and demanded they stay awake…

The corruption trial of Diezani Alison-Madueke, a former Nigerian minister of petroleum resources and the first woman to serve as president of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), is set to begin in London on Monday, January 26. Alison-Madueke, 65, faces five counts of accepting bribes and one count of conspiracy to commit bribery in connection with her tenure as Nigeria’s oil minister between 2010 and 2015, during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan. Prosecutors allege that she accepted “financial or other advantages” from individuals linked to two energy companies between 2011 and 2015. The alleged benefits…

Iran has issued a fresh warning to the United States after President Donald Trump ordered a major naval deployment towards the country and said Washington was “watching” Tehran closely, amid escalating tensions following a deadly crackdown on protests ordered by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The warning came as a senior Iranian cleric, Mohammad Javad Haj Ali Akbari, said Tehran could target US-linked investments across the Middle East if Washington moved to strike Iran. “The one trillion dollars you have invested in the region is under the watch of our missiles,” he said. The standoff has intensified after Trump issued renewed…

TikTok has finalised a $14bn deal to establish a US subsidiary, averting a nationwide ban on the popular video-sharing platform. The new ownership structure includes US private equity firm Silver Lake, Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence company MGX and Oracle, the technology giant co-founded by Larry Ellison, an ally of US President Donald Trump. Each of the three firms will hold a 15 per cent stake in the US joint venture. TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, will retain a stake of just under 20 per cent, while the Dell Family Office, the investment arm of Dell Technologies chairman and CEO Michael…

The Oscars 2026 nominations have finally been announced. Ryan Coogler’s vampire horror Sinners made Oscar history for the 98th annual Academy Awards by being nominated for a record-breaking 16 categories, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Original Screenplay, breaking the record for the most Oscar nominations, which was previously held by All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997) and La La Land (2016). One Battle After Another is next with 13 nominations, while Marty Supreme, Frankenstein, and Sentimental Value are next with nine, and Hamnet has eight. The awards will take place on Sunday, March 15, hosted by US comedian Conan O’Brien.…

President Donald Trump unveiled his Board of Peace on Thursday, with world leaders signing on to pursue a lasting agreement for Gaza. Trump inaugurated the board during a speech and signing ceremony at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Once this board is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do. And we’ll do it in conjunction with the United Nations,” Trump said in a statement. “This isn’t the United States, this is for the world,” he added. “I think we can spread it out to other things as we succeed in Gaza.”

UK’s Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has insisted he will not bow to US President Donald Trump’s demands over Greenland, rejecting what he described as pressure tactics aimed at forcing Britain to soften its stance on the strategic Arctic territory. At Prime Minister’s Questions, Starmer dismissed Trump’s latest outburst, in which the US president accused him of “great stupidity” over the Chagos Islands and threatened tariffs, as an attempt to compel the UK to abandon its “values and principles”. “President Trump deployed words on Chagos yesterday that were different to his previous words of welcome and support when I met…

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that he has accepted an invitation from US President Donald Trump to join the US-led Board of Peace established to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza. In a statement, Netanyahu confirmed that he would participate as a member of the board, which he said would be made up of world leaders. No further details about the board’s structure or timeline were provided. The announcement comes just days after Netanyahu’s office publicly opposed the composition of the board when it was first unveiled by Trump as part of his plan to end the Gaza…