President Donald Trump on Friday declared a national emergency in a bid to fund his promised wall at the US-Mexico border without congressional approval. Democrats vowed to challenge the move as a violation of the US Constitution, news wires reported.

The former Yugoslav state Macedona has officially gained its new name as the Republic of North Macedonia, putting a start to country's official process of joining NATO. According to alliance's officials it will be accepted as a full member late this year or early in 2020 once parliaments have endorsed the so-called `Protocol of the North Atlantic Treaty for the Accession of North Macedonia`. Until then, however, it can take part in NATO meetings as a guest.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been elected chairman of the African Union (AU) on Sunday following a meeting by heads of state from the continent in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. Sisi takes the helm from Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who focused on creating an Africa wide free-trade zone during his tenure.

The US President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order creating the “American AI Initiative” - a high-level strategy, designed to guide AI development within the country, The Verge reports. The initiative will redirect federal funding and resources towards AI research, as well as call for the creation of US-led international standards in AI, and new research into the retraining of American workers.

The United States and South Korea struck a one-year deal on the shared costs of their military alliance on Sunday, removing a potential vulnerability in an upcoming US-North Korean presidential summit later this month. Under the new agreement, South Korea will contribute about $890m a year for the US military presence, which represents an 8.2% increase from the previous five-year deal which expired at the end of 2018.

Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA is telling customers of its joint ventures to deposit oil sales proceeds in an account recently opened at Russia’s Gazprombank AO, according to sources and an internal document seen by Reuters on Saturday. PDVSA’s move comes after the United States imposed tough, new financial sanctions on 28 January aimed at blocking Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro’s access to the country’s oil revenue.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that there will not be a meeting, aimed at averting higher US tariffs on Chinese goods, between him and Chinese President Xi Jinping before a 1 March deadline. The move intensifies fears the two won’t strike a deal before the end of a 90-day truce and that tariffs will jump to 25% from the current 10%.

Confident in its next generation e-voting system, Switzerland's federal government has thrown down the virtual gauntlet, challenging computer geeks and hackers to “try to manipulate the vote count, to read the votes cast, to violate voting secrecy or to bypass security systems”. If anyone succeeds, a total of 150,000 Swiss franc ($149,790) reward is granted.

The US military is reportedly preparing to withdraw all of its forces from Syria by the end of April, the WSJ has announced, citing former and current US officials. Unless the Trump administration changed course, the military plans to pull a significant portion of its 2,000 troops out by mid-March, with a full withdrawal coming by the end of April. However, a key concern for the US's Kurdish partners has yet to be addressed: Striking a deal to safeguard Kurdish allies from Turkish forces after the US leaves Syria. 

A brand new Donald Trump spoke to the country on Tuesday night on the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington. During his annual State of the Union speech, the world saw a man who didn't use his usually aggressive rhetoric and did not bring the Republican conference to its feet chanting “Build that wall”. On the contrary, the US president delivered an insecure, low-energy address, with a punchline that any American politician could have used: “Let's work together and compromise, so we could make America truly safe.”