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Trump Appoints Former PayPal Exec David Sacks as AI and Crypto Czar

US businessman David Sacks speaks during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 15, 2024 (AFP).
US businessman David Sacks speaks during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 15, 2024 (AFP).
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Trump Appoints Former PayPal Exec David Sacks as AI and Crypto Czar

US businessman David Sacks speaks during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 15, 2024 (AFP).
US businessman David Sacks speaks during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 15, 2024 (AFP).

US President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday said he was appointing former PayPal Chief Operating Officer David Sacks as his "White House A.I. & Crypto Czar," another step towards overhauling US policy.
"He will work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the US," Trump said in a post on his social-media site Truth Social, without saying whether "czar" was an official title.
The crypto czar and other officials in Trump's incoming administration such as the chairs of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are expected to reshape US policy on digital currency along with a newly created crypto advisory council.
Trump's tech backers generally want to see minimal regulation around artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, saying Washington would throttle growing innovative sectors with excessive rules.
Elad Gil, an entrepreneur who has invested in companies such as Airbnb and the cryptocurrency platform Coinbase, called the choice of Sacks a "strong move" in a post on X. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on X, "congrats to czar @DavidSacks!"
"Sacks will likely have a light touch on regulation, but not without some guardrails," Steve Jang, founder of Kindred Ventures, told Reuters. Jang has co-invested with Sacks in both cryptocurrency and AI startups.
He predicted that Sacks will prioritize regulating how AI is used in certain critical applications instead of focusing on regulating the development of the AI models themselves. This distinction was a key point of contention for Silicon Valley investors who vehemently opposed California's unsuccessful SB 1047 bill, which sought to regulate AI model development.
Trump announced on Wednesday that he was nominating prominent Washington lawyer and crypto advocate Paul Atkins to lead the SEC, in a move celebrated by the industry.
Trump - who once labeled crypto a scam - embraced digital assets during his campaign, promising to make the United States the "crypto capital of the planet" and to accumulate a national stockpile of bitcoin.
Bitcoin broke $100,000 for the first time on Wednesday night, a milestone hailed even by skeptics as a coming-of-age for digital assets as investors bet on a friendly US administration to cement the place of cryptocurrencies in financial markets.
Matthew Dibb, chief investment officer at cryptocurrency asset manager Astronaut Capital, described the news as extremely bullish. "David has had somewhat of a hands-on approach to crypto over the years, at times holding coins such as solana. He appears to be a lot more technically and commercially competent regarding crypto than most would think," Dibb said.
Born in South Africa, Sacks, 52, is a co-founder of venture capital firm Craft Ventures and an early leader of PayPal, a payment processing firm that was acquired by eBay in 2002.
Sacks is considered a member of the "PayPal Mafia" of former workers and executives at the digital finance firm that includes prominent Trump supporters Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
Musk, the Tesla CEO who leads artificial intelligence startup xAI, is a crypto fan and was appointed by Trump as co-lead of the new Department of Government Efficiency. The advisory board to streamline government is nicknamed DOGE, the name of a cryptocurrency.
Sacks is also a former chief executive of software company Zenefits and founded Yammer, a social network for enterprise users.
He was an early evangelist of cryptocurrencies, telling CNBC in a 2017 interview that he believed the rise of bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, was revolutionizing the internet.
"It feels like we are witnessing the birth of a new kind of web. Some people have called it the decentralized web or the internet of money," he said.
Trump said Sacks will also lead a White House advisory council on science and technology.

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World

Nigeria's President to Make a Sate Visit to the UK in March

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
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Nigeria's President to Make a Sate Visit to the UK in March

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

Nigeria’s president is set to make a state visit to the UK in March, the first such trip by a Nigerian leader in almost four decades, Britain’s Buckingham Palace said Sunday.

Officials said President Bola Tinubu and first lady Oluremi Tinubu will travel to the UK on March 18 and 19, The AP news reported.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla will host them at Windsor Castle. Full details of the visit are expected at a later date.

Charles visited Nigeria, a Commonwealth country, four times from 1990 to 2018 before he became king. He previously received Tinubu at Buckingham Palace in September 2024.m

Previous state visits by a Nigerian leader took place in 1973, 1981 and 1989.

A state visit usually starts with an official reception hosted by the king and includes a carriage procession and a state banquet.

Last year Charles hosted state visits for world leaders including US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

World

Iran Strikes Hard Line on US Talks, Saying Tehran's Power Comes From Saying 'No'

Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
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Iran Strikes Hard Line on US Talks, Saying Tehran's Power Comes From Saying 'No'

Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)

Iran's top diplomat insisted Sunday that Tehran's strength came from its ability to “say no to the great powers," striking a maximalist position just after negotiations with the United States over its nuclear program and in the wake of nationwide protests.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to diplomats at a summit in Tehran, signaled that Iran would stick to its position that it must be able to enrich uranium — a major point of contention with President Donald Trump, who bombed Iranian atomic sites in June during the 12-day Iran-Israel war.

Iran will never surrender the right to enrich uranium, even if war "is imposed on us,” he noted.

"Iran has paid a very heavy price for its peaceful nuclear program and for uranium enrichment." 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to travel to Washington this week, with Iran expected to be the major subject of discussion, his office said.

While Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian praised the talks Friday in Oman with the Americans as “a step forward,” Araghchi's remarks show the challenge ahead. Already, the US moved the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, ships and warplanes to the Middle East to pressure Iran into an agreement and have the firepower necessary to strike the Islamic Republic should Trump choose to do so, according to The AP news.

“I believe the secret of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s power lies in its ability to stand against bullying, domination and pressures from others," Araghchi said.

"They fear our atomic bomb, while we are not pursuing an atomic bomb. Our atomic bomb is the power to say no to the great powers. The secret of the Islamic Republic’s power is in the power to say no to the powers.”

‘Atomic bomb’ as rhetorical device Araghchi's choice to explicitly use an “atomic bomb” as a rhetorical device likely wasn't accidental. While Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is peaceful, the West and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Tehran had an organized military program to seek the bomb up until 2003.

Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step to weapons-grade levels of 90%, the only non-weapons state to do so. Iranian officials in recent years had also been increasingly threatening that Tehran could seek the bomb, even while its diplomats have pointed to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s preachings as a binding fatwa, or religious edict, that Iran wouldn’t build one.

Pezeshkian, who ordered Araghchi to pursue talks with the Americans after likely getting Khamenei's blessing, also wrote on X on Sunday about the talks.

“The Iran-US talks, held through the follow-up efforts of friendly governments in the region, were a step forward,” the president wrote. “Dialogue has always been our strategy for peaceful resolution. ... The Iranian nation has always responded to respect with respect, but it does not tolerate the language of force.”

It remains unclear when and where, or if, there will be a second round of talks. Trump, after the talks Friday, offered few details but said: “Iran looks like they want to make a deal very badly — as they should.”

Aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea During Friday's talks, US Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the American military's Central Command, was in Oman. Cooper's presence was apparently an intentional reminder to Iran about US military power in the region. Cooper later accompanied US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, to the Lincoln out in the Arabian Sea after the indirect negotiations.

Araghchi appeared to be taking the threat of an American military strike seriously, as many worried Iranians have in recent weeks. He noted that after multiple rounds of talks last year, the US “attacked us in the midst of negotiations."

“If you take a step back (in negotiations), it is not clear up to where it will go,” Araghchi said.

 

 

World

Russia: Man Suspected of Shooting Top General Detained in Dubai

An investigator works outside a residential building where the assassination attempt on Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev took place in Moscow, Russia February 6, 2026. REUTERS/Anastasia Barashkova
An investigator works outside a residential building where the assassination attempt on Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev took place in Moscow, Russia February 6, 2026. REUTERS/Anastasia Barashkova
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Russia: Man Suspected of Shooting Top General Detained in Dubai

An investigator works outside a residential building where the assassination attempt on Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev took place in Moscow, Russia February 6, 2026. REUTERS/Anastasia Barashkova
An investigator works outside a residential building where the assassination attempt on Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev took place in Moscow, Russia February 6, 2026. REUTERS/Anastasia Barashkova

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Sunday that the man suspected of shooting top Russian military intelligence officer Vladimir Alexeyev in Moscow has been detained in Dubai and handed over to Russia.

Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, deputy head of the GRU, ⁠Russia's military intelligence arm, was shot several times in an apartment block in Moscow on Friday, investigators said. He underwent surgery after the shooting, Russian media ⁠said.

The FSB said a Russian citizen named Lyubomir Korba was detained in Dubai on suspicion of carrying out the shooting.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Ukraine of being behind the assassination attempt, which he said was designed to sabotage peace talks. ⁠Ukraine said it had nothing to do with the shooting.

Alexeyev's boss, Admiral Igor Kostyukov, the head of the GRU, has been leading Russia's delegation in negotiations with Ukraine in Abu Dhabi on security-related aspects of a potential peace deal.