Foreign

It is no longer about massing hundreds of thousands of boots on ground. Contemporary warfare and military operations have transformed into hi-tech matters where nations with the tiptop best artificial intelligence (AI) tech tools can easily subdue those still exercising the old order. For instance, a fresh disclosure now shows that Claude, the AI model developed by Anthropic, was used by the US military during its operation, 3 January this year, to kidnap then-president Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela, the Wall Street Journal(WSJ) revealed yesterday -a high-profile example of how the US Defence Department is using AI in its operations. The…

*Fear Only Language They Understand, Trump Adds *Operation May Last Weeks It appears that US President Donald Trump may be eyeing his own type of solutions, previously deemed impossible, to challenges in targeted parts of the world. For example, on 3 January this year, US Special Forces captured then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flora and renditioned them to the US, where they are in jail and currently facing criminal charges which could fetch them life imprisonment. Next up, possibly, may be the Islamic regime in Iran led by Ayatollah Khamenei. As Trump seemed to endorse regime change…

*Affected Persons Kick *They Can Pay N1.09m For Entitlement Certificate Attached To Second Nationality Passport, Home Office Says Dual British nationals have been warned they may be denied boarding a flight, ferry or train to the UK after 25 February this year unless they carry a valid British passport. The warning by the Home Office comes amid scores of complaints from British people living or travelling abroad who have suddenly found themselves at risk of not being allowed into the UK. The problem has arisen because of a change in border controls on 25 February, when everyone travelling to the…

South Korea’s spy agency has told lawmakers it believes the teenage daughter of Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, is close to being designated as the country’s future leader, as Kim moves to extend the family dynasty to a fourth generation. The assessment by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) comes as North Korea is preparing to hold its biggest political conference later this month, where Kim is expected to outline his main policy goals for the next five years and take steps to tighten his authoritarian grip. In a closed-door briefing, NIS officials said they were closely monitoring whether Kim’s…

*15-Year-Old Too *Police Also Nab Man Who Rents Brothel To Them A complaint lodged by a Nigerian commercial sex worker to the local police authorities in Dabiasem, Koforidua, Ghana, has led to the arrest of 15 young prostitutes, one of them said to be a 15-year-old minor, a woman alleged to be their mistress, her colleagues, and a man who rented out the building from where the odious profession was being transacted. The New Juaben South Municipal Police Command raided the suspected brothel and rounded up the women over alleged involvement in commercial sex activities and human trafficking. The suspects,…

*US Moves To Reshape Venezuelan Thinking To Her Taste In the days after President Nicolás Maduro was abducted by US Special Forces, hundreds of journalists from as far away as Japan flocked to Colombia’s border with Venezuela hoping to witness the fallout from one of the most dramatic moments in South America’s recent history. None were granted visas to enter. Those who tried to do so anyway were detained and thrown out. But last weekend a team of reporters was finally allowed to visit Caracas,the Venezuelan capital. Not the award-winning correspondents from outlets like CNN, Sky News and the BBC,…

*One Lost Husband, Other Lost Two Babies Providence smiled on two Nigerian women who were among 55 persons traveling on a boat illegally from North Africa to Europe when the vessel capsized on the Mediterranean, killing most with several still missing, except the duo. Both women were later rescued. United Nations (UN) agency, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said the boat overturned north of Zuwara, off the Libyan coast, last Friday. “Only two Nigerian women were rescued during a search and rescue operation by Libyan authorities,” the IOM said in a statement. One of the survivors said she lost…

The head of Iran’s Reformists Front, the organisation that was instrumental in securing the election of the country’s President, Masoud Pezeshkian, has been arrested by the dreaded Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in a move that will probably deepen tensions over the handling of the recent street protests in which tens of thousands were reportedly killed by security forces. Pezeshkian has set up an inquiry into the protests, but it is unlikely to be critical of the IRGC, and the arrests of his former supporters show how little influence he wields over the key decision-makers in the government --a point…

*'I Thought They Were Scam Calls' *'I'll Use Part Of Money To Spoil My Husband' A woman from South Africa's Western Cape narrowly avoided losing more than R834,000 (over N72m) in Lotto winnings after ignoring dozens of phone calls, arriving at lottery operator Ithuba office on the last day her ticket could legally be claimed. “I couldn’t believe it. I had gone from attending a funeral to claiming over R800,000 on the very same day. It was emotional, overwhelming and completely unexpected,” she said. According to Sowetan newspaper, the ticket was bought on 5 February, 2025 through the Absa banking…

Exiled Iranian journalists working for the BBC have been warned their movements are being closely monitored by the state, as they said their families in Iran were being interrogated and persecuted for their reporting. Journalists said family members had been threatened with arrest and the seizure of their assets unless their loved ones stopped reporting on Iranian unrest. The Guardian UK was told of instances in which the parents of journalists had been warned that Iran’s security forces knew where and when they worked, as well as the position of their desk in the newsroom. Staff working for BBC Persian,…