Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has conveyed to a governing party executive her intention to dissolve parliament's lower house next week, according to the Kyodo news agency, less than three months into her tenure. Citing a source, Kyodo reported on Tuesday that Takaichi plans to declare the dissolution of parliament at the beginning of the regular session of the Diet on January 23.
The SDF denies the Syrian Ministry of Defence's accusations that it had deployed military forces to the Deir Hafer front in the eastern Aleppo countryside. The Syrian army has sent reinforcements to rural eastern Aleppo, after observing the arrival of more Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) forces in the area, following days of deadly battles inside the city itself and the departure of the SDF. The official news agency SANA broadcast footage on Monday of Syrian army troops heading towards the deployment line east of Aleppo.
Prominent Australian author Craig Silvey has been charged with possessing and distributing child exploitation material. Silvey, 43, had a search warrant issued at his Fremantle home on Monday, 12 January, where detectives allegedly found him actively engaging with other child exploitation offenders online. He was immediately arrested, and his electronic devices were seized. He appeared before the Fremantle magistrates court on Tuesday, 13 January, charged with distribution of child exploitation material.
Every evening around 8pm, Faisal Khan locks himself inside his small hostel room at East West Medical College in Nishat Nagar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh. If there is a knock on the door, he pauses before opening it, listening carefully first for familiar voices. Outside the campus, he avoids crowded tea stalls and markets. He does not speak Bangla fluently, and he knows that his accent could give him away as an Indian an identity he desperately wants to mask these days,
For most of Iran, the internet was shut off on Thursday afternoon the most severe blackout the country has seen in years of internet shutdowns, coming after days of escalating anti-government protests. For a very small sliver of the country, it is still possible to get photos and videos to the outside world, and even to make calls. The Telegram channel Vahid Online on Monday posted photos of dead bodies lying next to a street in Kahrizak,
The revised guidance requires registered crypto outfits (REs) to implement strict client due diligence measures, at least for new customers, that require them to collect details of customers' identity documents, bank account details, occupation, and even income range. The regulation also requires REs to collect "Latitude and longitude coordinates of the onboarding location with date and timestamp along with IP address" and to secure a selfie of new customers to prove they are alive and a real person.
Officers seized a number of electronic devices and a prohibited firearm in the juvenile's possession as part of Taskforce Pompilid established in October 2025. Graeme Marshall, the acting assistant commissioner of the AFP, speaking generally, warned people believing they can commit crimes with an internet connection and encrypted identities were on notice. Often young males aged from 11 to 25, are engaging in crime types such as swatting, doxing and hacking to achieve status, notoriety and recognition in their online groups.
Crude oil futures pointed to continued gains on Sunday as markets weighed potentially transformative events in Iran, which has been wracked by protests across the country. U.S. oil prices rose 0.56% to $59.45 a barrel, and Brent crude climbed 0.52% to $63.67 a barrel, as reports said President Donald Trump is weighing military options in Iran to follow through on his threats to attack if the government kills protestors.
Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera Arabic on Monday, Araghchi said channels of communication with the US were open amid the ongoing unrest but stressed that his country was prepared for all options, claiming that Iran now has large and extensive military preparedness compared to last year's 12-day war. list of 3 itemsend of list His comments follow Trump's remarks on Sunday, amid nationwide protests in Iran sparked by economic woes that have intensified into broader calls for systemic change.
Grok, a tool on Musk's X platform, allows users to generate images. In recent weeks however, it has been used to edit images of real people to show them in revealing outfits. The South East Asian countries said Grok could be used to produce pornographic and non-consensual images involving women and children. They are the first in the world to ban the AI tool.
About 8 million Venezuelans, or a quarter of the population, have fled their country in recent years. Al Jazeera takes a look at where they live now. After the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by the United States on January 3, nearby countries that host large Venezuelan communities, including Colombia and Peru, have warned of a potential new influx of refugees if the country is distabilised. The Venezuelan diaspora remains one of the largest in the world with at least 7.9 million people
For a world economy driven by consumerism, it's become markedly unkind to consumers. This goes double - literally - for digital tech, where memory prices have increased by between 100 and 250 percent in six months. If you think GPUs are pricey now, you'll only have to wait six weeks, during which both AMD and Nvidia are expected to demonstrate supply-side economics much as the Road Runner demonstrated gravity to Wile E Coyote.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
C ore national leaders of the "Coalition of the Willing," an assemblage of mostly NATO states (minus the US and Russian hangers-on like Hungary and Slovakia), met in Paris last week to discuss the future of the Ukraine peace process. Prime Minister Mark Carney made the trip to underscore Canada's role. French president Emmanuel Macron gave us a nice shout-out.
Malaysia and Indonesia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk's company xAI, as concerns grew among global authorities that it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing scrutiny of generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, along with concerns that existing safeguards are failing to prevent their abuse.
ROME -- Pope Leo XIV met with Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado in a private audience at the Vatican on Monday. The meeting, which hadn't been previously included in the list of Leo's planned appointments, was later listed by the Vatican in its daily bulletin, without adding details. Machado is touring Europe and the United States after she reemerged in December after 11 months in hiding to accept her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway.
Iraqis in the audience broke out in cheers, leapt up from their seats and pumped their fists in the air many had waited decades for that moment. This is a great day in Iraq's history, Bremer said, adding: The tyrant is a prisoner. I was in the audience that day in Baghdad, covering the Iraq invasion's aftermath as a correspondent for a US newspaper.
If your travel plans in the near future involve making your way to Russia, the U.S. State Department has some information they would like to share with you. More specifically, they have some information that they would like to share with you in order to convince you not to go. In late December, the agency issued its highest possible warning against visiting the country in question. Or, as the agency's website bluntly declares: "Do not travel to Russia for any reason."
