US President Donald Trump has doubled down on his ambition to bring Greenland under US control. Trump said if the US didn’t control Greenland – China or Russia would. But Trump’s desire for Greenland goes beyond security ambitions. Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands explains.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says his country is ready for war but also for dialogue, after US President Donald Trump said the US is considering ‘very strong options’ in response to Iran’s crackdown on antigovernment protests.
JD Sports has announced big changes. It plans to enable shoppers to purchase items directly through AI platforms without needing to exit these apps. It marks the latest move by a prominent retailer in responding to consumers’ growing adoption of AI platforms like ChatGPT and Copilot.
The sportswear retailer’s technology chief told the Press Association that the company views AI as ‘the future of how people will shop’ and JD aims to lead the way with this technology. JD revealed it is collaborating with Commercetools and payments company Stripe to facilitate ‘one-click purchases’ via AI platforms.
The firm said it will roll out the technology in the United States within the coming months. JD then aims to expand this across other territories, but will adapt to varying regulatory frameworks in different countries as governments respond to AI developments.
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Jetan Chowk, JD’s chief technology and transformation officer, said: “We think AI is the future of how people will shop, and we want to stay at the forefront of how they shop.
“What we are currently seeing is that customers are regularly using AI apps to research and discover the products they want to buy. We can see that already and want to ensure we are moving early to meet customers and their needs in that space.”
Mr Chowk noted that they have witnessed a surge in AI adoption, particularly among the chain’s primary customer base of 18 to 24-year-olds. The rollout will initially integrate with Microsoft Copilot before expanding to other major large language models (LLMs).
US customers will have the ability to locate and purchase JD Sports products using the AI platforms for the entire shopping process, including integrated payments.
Regis Schultz, group chief executive of JD Sports Fashion, said: “This strengthens our digital proposition for customers, and keeps us moving in line with the fast-changing retail landscape.
“We see AI as a real opportunity to improve our customers’ experience with JD, as well as making our own operations more efficient, and so I’m really pleased that with this big step forward we are putting our words into action.”
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The Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) has reached the semifinal stage, and a tournament devoid of shocks now offers two mouthwatering ties with hosts Morocco looking to see off the challenges of their fellow continental heavyweights.
Mohamed Salah’s Egypt, Victor Osimhen’s Nigeria and Sadio Mane’s Senegal remain in contention to win the trophy in Rabat on Sunday, even if home advantage makes Morocco favourites.
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World Cup semifinalists in 2022, Morocco are Africa’s top-ranked team and approach Wednesday’s semifinal against Nigeria in the capital defending an unbeaten record since losing to South Africa at the last AFCON.
Walid Regragui’s side have conceded just one goal in five matches here, and doubts about their ability to handle the enormous pressure of playing at home were blown away with their performance in beating Cameroon 2-0 in the quarterfinals.
Regragui urged his team to carry on with their momentum after their “historic” achievement of reaching the quarterfinals.
“We need to just keep going one game at a time. We have not done anything yet,” Regragui insisted after the quarterfinal win.
Captain and current African Player of the Year Achraf Hakimi is fit again after injury, and in Real Madrid winger Brahim Diaz, scorer of five goals in five games, they have probably the tournament’s outstanding player.
“He can become the best player in the world if he wants to,” remarked Regragui after the Cameroon game.
Regragui has angrily rejected suggestions his team is benefitting from favourable refereeing decisions as the hosts.
“We’re the team to beat. As the team to beat, people will try to find all sorts of reasons to say Morocco has an advantage,” Regragui said after his team’s win over Cameroon.
“The only advantage that Morocco has at this Africa Cup is playing in front of 65,000 spectators. The rest is on the field, we speak on the field.”
Morocco are Africa’s leading power right now and, unlike Nigeria, are gearing up for the FIFA World Cup 2026.
The Atlas Lions recently won the FIFA Arab Cup 2025 in Qatar, but their AFCON record down the years has been underwhelming. This is their first semifinal since 2004, when they lost the final to Tunisia.
Going further back, Morocco beat Nigeria en route to lifting the trophy in 1976 – half a century on, that remains their only continental title.
Nigeria returned to Morocco with much to prove after a penalty shootout defeat by the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a November playoff in Rabat ended their hopes of World Cup qualification.
There might be 10 African countries participating in the World Cup, and it is remarkable that Nigeria, despite their footballing pedigree and the largest population on the continent, will not be among them.
However, their performances over the last three weeks have shown that to be an anomaly.
Nigeria were runners-up at the last AFCON in 2024. Led by two former African Players of the Year in Osimhen and Ademola Lookman, they are this tournament’s top scorers with 14 goals.
So what has changed from the failed World Cup qualifying campaign?
“Nothing,” said coach Eric Chelle, appointed exactly a year ago. “This is the same team. The difference is just that they have improved because they know what I want.”
Nigeria’s masked Galatasaray striker Osimhen had gone seven AFCON matches without finding the net before scoring against Tunisia in the group stage. He now has four in his last four matches.
Nigeria are also the tournament’s top scorers overall with 14 goals in total.
Shocks have been effectively non-existent at this AFCON, but Nigeria’s presence means four of the five top-ranked African teams are in the semis – the exception is Algeria, beaten by the Super Eagles on Saturday.
Even if the hosts power past the Super Eagles, their final challenge will not get any easier.
The tournament’s other semifinal, also scheduled for Wednesday, in Tangier between Egypt and Senegal, is a repeat of the 2022 final, which the Lions of Teranga won on penalties.
Senegal, ranked second in Africa and 19th in the world, were seen as the biggest threat to Morocco before the tournament and stand one game away from a third final appearance in four editions.
They have an experienced side, which includes Mane, who will come up against his old Liverpool teammate, Salah.
Their presence means the last five players to win the African Player of the Year prize are all in the semifinals.
Salah, who, like Osimhen, has four goals at the tournament, has never won AFCON, having twice been a losing finalist.
He came to Morocco having fallen from favour at his club, but seems to have found happiness again with his national team as he looks to fire Egypt to a record-extending eighth title.
“I have won almost every honour, but this is the one I am waiting for,” said Salah after the quarterfinal win over the Ivory Coast, before insisting the Pharaohs are now the outsiders.
“We are coming up against really good teams, most of whose players are based in Europe, which makes it easier for them.
Hollywood legend, Marlon Brando, may be the father of Michael Jackson’s youngest son, according to explosive new claims.
Mystery has surrounded the paternity of the superstar singer’s three kids, Prince, 28, Paris, 27, and Blanket, 23, for decades, with many claiming Michael was not their biological father.
After the Billie Jean star’s devastating split from Lisa Marie Presley, former nurse, Debbie Rowe offered to have his children. They married in 1996, she became pregnant and then they divorced in 1999 before Michael took full custody of the kids. The Thriller legend’s youngest son, Blanket, now known as Bigi, was later born via an unknown surrogate in 2002. And it’s now been claimed that he was secretly fathered by Godfather star, Brando, through sperm donation.
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Claiming it’s “all kicked off” at the Jackson estate, after it was claimed that Michael was “unable” to father children himself, a source told The Sun: “People have said for years that Michael used sperm donors. And that’s pretty much accepted as a fact these days, despite what the Jackson family might have said publicly in the past.
“But what hasn’t been said until recently is that Marlon Brando was among the people who helped him become a dad because he was unable do it himself. They were both megastars and very close, so they had a lot of trust between them. That’s why it has stayed quiet for so long, but a handful of people close have always known.
“It has all kicked off within the wider Jackson estate quite recently. Everyone is trying to get their heads around it.”
Brando, who is known to have fathered at least 11 children of his own, had complex personal life — and, like Michael, chose to keep his kids away from the spotlight, instead bringing them up on his secluded private island in Tahiti.
The new paternity bombshell surrounded the screen legend is said to stem from sources close to the Jackson family, who claim that Brando, who died in 2004, may have stepped in to help his close pal, Michael.
There’s no denying that the actor bears a striking resemblance to Bigi, who was born via surrogate in February 2002.
Marlon and Michael, who who died of acute propofol intoxication in 2009, were famously close. The actor’s son, Miko, had worked alongside the singer as a bodyguard for many years and also appeared in his 2001 music video for You Rock My World.
He has revealed how much of his father’s later years were spent at Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in California with his Smooth Criminal pal.
Thanking Michael for helping his father before he died, he said: “The last time my father left his house to go anywhere, to spend any kind of time, it was with Michael Jackson. Michael was instrumental helping my father through the last few years of his life. For that, I will always be indebted to him.”
Basit Banday*, employed with an IT firm based in the southwestern Indian city of Pune, handles sensitive healthcare data of his company’s clients, ensuring they are safe from leaks and cyberattacks.
Until late last year, the 27-year-old Kashmiri Indian was able to do that using a virtual private network (VPN), which allows a user to mask their internet protocol (IP) address by routing web traffic through a remote server in a manner that makes it undetectable to telephone data or internet service providers (ISPs).
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But that changed on December 29 when the Indian government ordered a sweeping ban on the use of VPNs for two months in Indian-administered Kashmir, citing “threats to national security” and alleged “misuse” of the services to “incite unrest”.
The government claimed the use of VPN in Kashmir has the potential to be exploited for “unlawful and anti-national activities”, including dissemination of inflammatory material, misinformation, and other activities that threaten public order.
“It was further observed that VPNs enable encrypted data transmission, mask IP addresses, bypass firewalls and website restrictions, and may expose sensitive information to potential cyber threats,” said one of the almost identical orders, issued by the chief administrator in every Kashmir district.
Banday now fears he may lose his job or will be forced to relocate to Pune, more than 2,000km (1,242 miles) away from his home in Pulwama district.
“Unfortunately, the recent government order appears to have been issued without adequate consideration for professionals whose livelihoods and responsibilities are directly dependent on secure VPN connectivity,” he told Al Jazeera.
“VPN is extremely important and mandatory for any IT organisation. Even applications such as corporate email cannot be accessed without connecting to the VPN. It also restricts access to external platforms, allowing only authorised organisation systems and thereby limiting exposure to the outside world.”
Banday’s fears are compounded by a security crackdown that followed the government order.
Multiple videos shared on social media by Indian media outlets and individual users showed policemen in riot gear gesturing to pedestrians or those driving vehicles to stop, and asking for their mobile devices. If the devices were locked, people were instructed to unlock them as officers shuffled through them.
Police said they have taken action against more than 100 people across the region since December 29 for violating the ban orders, adding that “security proceedings” were initiated against the “violators”. Those who were initially “identified” for violations were let go only after their “antecedents” were verified to confirm they had no connections with a “terrorist”, the term the government uses for Kashmiri rebels.
“Genuine users were released after detailed device analysis with a strict warning to refrain from VPN usage in the future,” a statement issued by the police said on January 2.
An estimated 20 percent of India’s 800 million internet users use VPNs. Surfshark, a cybersecurity company based in Amsterdam, estimates that India has the world’s largest number of VPN users, with a market size worth $17bn.
Internet restrictions in Indian-administered Kashmir are not new.
Of the 901 internet shutdowns the Indian government has periodically imposed across the country, Kashmir accounts for nearly 50 percent of them, according to a monitor which started recording the blackouts in 2012, though the intensity of such blackouts in the region has come down in the last few years.
When the Indian subcontinent won its independence from British rule in 1947, the Himalayan region of Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan, though the nuclear-armed neighbours claim it in full and fought three wars over it. Regional superpower China also controls a sliver of Kashmir’s land.
In the late 1980s, an armed rebellion against New Delhi’s rule erupted to seek independence for Kashmir or merge it with Pakistan. In response, India deployed nearly a million Indian soldiers there and gave them extraordinary powers to control the region. The conflict has so far claimed tens of thousands of lives, most of them civilians.
India further tightened its grip over Kashmir in 2019 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing government scrapped Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, legislation that granted a special status to the region by not allowing outsiders to get government jobs or buy properties there. The government also divided the semiautonomous region into two territories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh – and brought them under New Delhi’s direct rule.
Kashmir residents say the VPN ban is another addition to an ever-expanding list of restrictions on civic freedoms in the restive region.
A 32-year-old Kashmiri journalist told Al Jazeera he often relied on VPNs for work, but fears he will no longer be able to do so under the new restrictions.
“It is common for journalists in conflict zones to use VPNs for safety, especially when working on investigative stories,” said the journalist who requested anonymity over fears of reprisal from the authorities. “Now, that layer of protection is gone.”
Mir Umair, a 24-year-old businessman in Srinagar, said the VPN ban has cut his access to Bayyinah TV, an online platform of Quranic studies run by an Islamic preacher based in the United States.
“There’s nothing political in his speeches. Just religion. He has never talked about Kashmir except once when he narrated an episode of meeting a Kashmiri pilgrim during Hajj,” Umair said, adding that Khan’s channel was banned last year in May following the four-day India-Pakistan military clashes.
“I used to access his channel via VPNs,” he said.
Ahmad, a local lawyer who gave only his last name, fearing retribution from the authorities, told Al Jazeera the VPN ban could be unlawful.
“The legality of the order is doubtful as it is supposed to comply with India’s IT Rules that do not stipulate a blanket ban on VPNs,” he said. “One single executive order should not be able to sanction a ban as sweeping as this.”
Al Jazeera reached out to police and government authorities in Kashmir for their statements on the VPN ban, but they did not respond.
Last week, David Peterson, who heads the Geneva-based ProtonVPN company, invited a torrent of abuse from Indian users on X after he posted guidelines on tapping into his application’s “discreet icon” feature to evade the government ban.
“For additional context, Jammu and Kashmir [has] historically been subject to internet restrictions, bans and outages around this time of year to disrupt protests around the Republic Day [January 26] and the anniversaries of the Gawkadal and Handwara massacres,” he wrote, referring to the killings of civilians by Indian forces during the height of Kashmir’s armed rebellion in the early 1990s.
When an Indian X user accused him of facilitating “terrorism” in Kashmir, Peterson referred to the use of disguised apps by journalists working in dangerous environments. “[Like] in countries such as Iran, China, Russia, Myanmar, etc”, he replied.
In September last year, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) described Indian-administered Kashmir as an “information black hole” out of which reliable news rarely emerges.
Srinivas Kodali, a digital rights activist and researcher, told Al Jazeera merely having a VPN installed on phones does not amount to a criminal offence.
“People from diverse professions use VPNs for legitimate reasons. This blanket ban is uncalled for,” Kodali told Al Jazeera, adding that the act of stopping people and forcing them to unlock their phones was a “gross violation” of their fundamental rights.
“But in Kashmir’s case, we have continuously seen the state pushing all sorts of unconstitutional policing mechanisms. It is just one more step in that direction.”
Furqan*, another Kashmiri journalist, works remotely for an international media house based in the southern city of Bengaluru. He edits videos on major global events for his organisation and requires access to a bigger repository of online material than he can “legally” scour on the internet.
“India is one of the foremost countries to ban stuff on the internet. Just look at the rate at which the X handles are withheld in India, especially of critics and dissenters. To know who is writing what, a journalist will have to access VPNs,” he told Al Jazeera.
Furqan insists that, as a journalist, he has the right to be discreet about his work, especially when he is dealing with sensitive information.
“Now this ban will hang like a sword on our thoughts,” he says. “Sometimes I am supposed to access the dashboard of the company. And because I am working remotely, it has to happen through a secure medium. So I use VPN. But in the damned region such as ours, even this mundane thing will now be deemed as a criminal activity.”
Furqan says the VPN ban adds to the “psychological pressure” on the Kashmiris. “It feels like we are on trial for our thoughts,” he told Al Jazeera. “A Kashmiri is risking so much even when he does something as basic as accessing a VPN.”