The January 3rd Operation Absolute Resolve ousted Venezuelan Dictator Nicholas Maduro, marking a significant shift in US policy towards countering adversarial influence in the western hemisphere.
"Today, our Board took decisive action to protect what generations before us fought to build. These so-called prediction markets are an attempt to bypass tribal authority and recast gambling as a financial product. We will not allow that. We will stand united to defend tribal sovereignty and the integrity of Indian gaming."
Starting next month, the cost of renouncing your U.S. citizenship will go down dramatically - a boon for people already shouldering the burden of paying for a major overseas move. Anyone wishing to formally shed their American citizenship is required to obtain a form called a Certificate of Loss of Nationality, and right now it comes with a whopping $2,350 fee. In April, that fee will drop by 80% to $450.
The United States is reportedly in discussions with Russia on a range of high-stakes infrastructure and trade projects, including a nuclear-powered datacenter and a tunnel under the Bering Strait, according to The Economist. Sources close to the talks indicate that associates within the orbit of former President Donald Trump are exploring potential stakes in Russian energy assets. In addition, negotiations are reportedly ongoing over rare-earth metals, oil, and gas projects in the Arctic region.
US President Donald Trump announced a 32 percent reciprocal tariff on Taiwanese exports in April, before lowering the rate to 20 percent in August pending further negotiations. Countries have made pledges to boost investments in the US in exchange for tariff relief since Trump launched his trade war last year. Japan and South Korea last year agreed to invest $550bn and $350bn, respectively, to see their tariff rates cut from 25 to 15 percent.
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, has decried Europeans for their complicity in failing to stand up to Donald Trump's demands that he be allowed to buy or annex Greenland. Newsom, a frontrunner among Democratic candidates for president in 2028, told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday that Europeans were being played by Trump and that their efforts to negotiate with him were not diplomacy, it's stupidity.
Of all countries, China should appreciate the need to stop Mr. Maduro from smuggling these illicit drugs into the U.S., killing tens of thousands of Americans. China experienced this in the Opium War of 1839-1842, when Great Britain forced opium on China, despite government protestations, resulting in the humiliating Treaty of Nanjing, ceding Hong Kong to Great Britain. Mr. Maduro was violating U.S. laws, in a conspiracy to aid enemies and kill innocent Americans.
There are more signs that the United States is disengaging from the global order established after World War II. President Donald Trump has ordered his administration to pull out of more than 60 agencies, half of them part of the United Nations. Trump argues that being a member of these organisations is contrary to his country's interests. The secretary of state went as far as saying they're useless or wasteful.
British Columbia's Forests Ministry has entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese government to boost research, development and promotion of modern wood construction in creating green buildings in China. The five-year agreement, which is not legally binding, also involves the federal Department of Natural Resources and is among the first reached with Beijing after the arrival of Prime Minister Mark Carney in China this week.
Most of the targets are U.N.-related agencies, commissions and advisory panels that focus on climate, labor and other issues that the Trump administration has categorized as catering to diversity and woke initiatives. The Trump Administration has found these institutions to be redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation's sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity, the State Department said in a statement.
