Foreign

A major Mexican resort town was under siege yesterday as drug cartels lashed out after the leader of the brutal Jalisco New Generation Cartel was killed in a military raid, authorities said. President Donald Trump last year declared the cartel an international terrorist organization and pressured Mexico to crack down, while the US had a $15 million bounty on Oseguera Cervantes, the now slain cartel boss. Tourists in Puerto Vallarta were warned to stay indoors as narco gangs went on a rampage following the death of drug kingpin Nemesio “El Mencho” Cervantes, the powerful head of the violent crime outfit.…

*Africans Among Hundreds Of Thousands Coming To View His Skeleton *4 Oct Public Holiday To Be Reinstated To Make 800th Anniversary Of Death Saint Francis of Assisi’s skeleton went on full public display from yesterday for the first time, in a move that is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors. Inside a nitrogen-filled case with the Latin inscription 'Corpus Sancti Francisci' (the body of Saint Francis), the remains are being shown in the Italian hillside town’s Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi. St Francis, who died on 3 October 1226, founded the Franciscan order after renouncing his wealth…

Despite the reported killing of about 30,000 peaceful protesters by state security agents barely a month ago, another round of protests has occurred in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This time, university students have resumed protesting against the Ayatollah Khameini-led regime on the first day of a new semester, as US President Donald Trump considered limited military strikes to pressure the government into signing a new nuclear deal. The Pentagon has orchestrated a massive naval deployment to the region that includes two aircraft carriers, fighter jets and refuelling planes, giving Trump the option to launch limited, or extended, operations against…

*Israeli Parliament Speaker Backs Ambassador Arab and Islamic countries jointly condemned remarks by the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who suggested Israel had a Biblical right to a vast swath of the Middle East. Huckabee, a former Baptist minister and a fervent Israel supporter, was speaking on the podcast of Tucker Carlson. In an episode released on Friday, Carlson pushed Huckabee on the meaning of a Biblical verse sometimes interpreted as saying that Israel is entitled to the land between the Nile River in Egypt and the Euphrates in Syria and Iraq. In response, Huckabee said: “It would be…

*Hands Tehran 10-Day Deadline President Donald Trump on Thursday warned Iran that “bad things” will happen if no deal is reached on both countries' nuclear talks and appeared to set a 10-day deadline before the US might take action. During the first Board of Peace meeting, Trump said negotiations with Iran were going well but insisted that Tehran has to reach a “meaningful” agreement. “Otherwise, bad things happen,” he vowed. The President first announced the Board of Peace initiative at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos last month, presenting it as part of Phase Two of his U.N.-endorsed 20-point…

*Trump Meets Advisers *Agree To President's Nuclear Program Or…, White House Warns Iran As Noose Tightens Poland’s Prime Minister (PM) Donald Tusk has urged Polish citizens to immediately leave Iran, adding that “under no circumstances anyone should be travelling to that country” as he warned that the prospect of active conflict with the United States (US) is “very, very real." Tusk said that the conflict could erupt within “a few, a dozen or several dozen hours,” and “evacuation may no longer be an option.” “Please, take this seriously. We’ve had bad experiences in the past with people ignoring these warnings.…

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…