Observing online reactions and comments, I believe it will not be difficult for the Iranians to harness public narratives to their advantage and provoke a reaction in Western societies. The mood is certainly not in Trump's favor, and this will help the regime in Tehran.

Trump-aligned forces have ramped up their campaign to undermine the EU’s Digital Services Act. U.S. diplomats have been instructed to lobby against the tech law in European capitals.

Major carmakers discussed designing vehicles that emitted more toxic emissions than necessary, years earlier than EU regulators believed.

Mediapart report claims that the French start-up Mistral AI has used copyrighted material to train its model. And the company has also scraped online data despite explicit bans on doing so, including data belonging to media outlets.

A woman who runs two U.K.-registered crypto exchanges appears to be a corporate fiction used as a front for a convicted embezzler whom the United States has accused of moving billions of dollars’ worth of digital assets on behalf of Iran’s regime.

The latest Global Witness analysis shows that BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies have pocketed record profits, even as the energy crisis continues to strain Europeans’ budgets.

Interesting details on Epstein’s Russian visa and links to the FSB by Novaya Gazeta Europe: novayagazeta.eu/articles/202...

The only passenger in the car when an ICE officer shot and killed an American citizen in Texas last year had planned to speak up and contradict the government’s account of the shooting. But the passenger, Joshua Orta, died in an car crash on Sunday.

“Is this the age of dictators?” asked veteran journalist Sir Sidney Low. He was writing in September 1923, the month in which a military coup brought Miguel Primo de Rivera to power in Spain & at the same time, Benito Mussolini was reinforcing his new dictatorship in Italy.

A Cuba/Venezuela-style blockade combined with or followed by a military campaign against Iran is one actively being debated.

"The workhorse of Russia’s drone fleet — responsible for crippling Ukraine's energy grid and triggering a humanitarian crisis — is built with EU technology. Despite tightening sanctions, parts for the Geran-2 are still flowing into Russia with ease."

In a recent episode of BBC Radio 4's Start the Week, investigative journalist Oliver Bullough joins Tom Sutcliffe to discuss the mechanics of international money laundering, based on his work regarding how illicit wealth is hidden within global financial systems. Good episode!

Greece is preparing to join the new so-called International Gaza Stabilization Force with a specialized battalion that will include armored vehicles, medical teams, and engineering units.

"Companies are offering law enforcement agencies the ability to track smartphone users through advertising data gathered on their devices. Le Monde attended confidential presentations of these new surveillance tools to learn more."

Anthropic’s artificial-intelligence tool Claude was used in the U.S. military’s operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Microloans were meant to lift people out of poverty. But in Cambodia, they've pushed families into crushing debt. The @ftm.eu's reporters travelled across the country to investigate how European development institutions helped fuel a system that profits from desperation.

A Greek air force colonel currently held on espionage charges faces a life sentence if found guilty of leaking top-secret NATO military plans to China in exchange for cash.

Last year, Europe bought over half a billion dollars’ worth of diesel from America’s leading refiner of Venezuelan crude. According to customs and shipping records, in 2025, European countries imported at least $565 million worth of diesel, with the 🇳🇱 and the 🇬🇧 among the top destinations.

Private Telegram groups for the sharing of secretly taken footage of women and girls take payments via Alipay and WeChat Pay, as well as the cryptocurrency Tether. One group offers access to more than 40,000 videos of footage from hotels, homes, and public toilets for a $20 ‘V.I.P.’ membership.

The Russian sect known as the Anastasians promotes an anti-democratic, patriarchal ideology. For several years, its colonies have been quietly emerging across Poland. @vsquare.bsky.social established that the movement in Poland was organized by a Putin sympathizer who bought land for his compounds.

"Emails released by the U.S. Justice Department trace a years-long friendship between Jeffrey Epstein and Karim Wade — the son of Senegal’s former president — who was jailed for corruption."

Der Spiegel reported that German AI researcher Joscha Bach might have received nearly $1 million in financial support from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and gained access to influential networks through him.

"At the end of December, Boulos told the Lebanese daily An-Nahar that resolving the Western Sahara issue was an "absolute priority for the United States".

“China has unveiled plans for a space carrier that can deploy unmanned fighter jets capable of firing missiles from the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere.” Aha, okay. Well, good graphics. I hope Nvidia will make it easier to play. www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2...

Will Lewis, a veteran from the Murdoch media empire who took over as publisher and chief executive of the Washington Post in early 2024, announced abruptly that he is leaving the company.

Originally launched in 1962, the CIA’s World Factbook is no longer available. The World Factbook was one of the CIA’s oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications, serving as a longstanding, one-stop reference on countries and communities worldwide.

"Democracy Dies in Darkness" - remember those words, @washingtonpost.com? I canceled my subscription—I've been reading the paper since I became a journalist 17 years ago. I have no intention of supporting, either as a professional or as a reader, the current behavior and policy.

The @washingtonpost.com fired 300 people, including its best correspondents, closing offices in key locations around the world. Some of the best have been dismissed because of business interests and political maneuvering. Unacceptable a few years ago—normal today.

Important report on financing terrorism activities and the new realities. “The intersection of AI and cryptocurrency reflects the operational reality of contemporary jihadism [...] Current counter-terrorism finance systems are structurally misaligned with how terrorists use crypto today.”

Two shipyard workers have been arrested for attempting to sabotage multiple German navy warships in Hamburg. The German authorities have detained a 37-year-old Romanian and a 54-year-old Greek.

A Russian army strike hit a maternity hospital in Zaporizhzhia, leaving at least six people injured, including two women who were undergoing examinations at the time of the attack.

Israel announces that Doctors Without Borders (MSF) will have to leave Gaza by February 28th. rfi.my/COxw

A report finds that a reduction of just under 10% in meat consumption in the EU and the U.K. could put billions of euros tied up in farm buildings, machinery, and livestock at risk if the transition happens "too quickly".

And this is the background to the recent arrests of the Norwegian businessmen, linked to payments that benefitted ruling family member Julienne Sassou Nguesso… www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/congo-...

"The IDF has accepted the estimate of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry that approximately 71,000 Palestinians were killed during the Israel-Gaza war, noting that the number does not include missing residents who are potentially buried under rubble."

Two Norwegian nationals and a subsidiary of oil firm Petronor were charged with “gross corruption” over an oil deal in Congo-Brazzaville. www.okokrim.no/two-individu...

Sources have told the Washington Examiner that the UAE has provided Russia with the identities of U.S. intelligence officers.

According to reports, the Trump administration has held covert meetings with leaders of the Alberta Prosperity Project, a group of far-right separatists who want the oil-rich Canadian province of Alberta to secede and become independent.

Using a combination of archaeological and historical sources, academics found an extra 100,000km of Roman roads and plotted them all on a publicly available map: itiner-e.org

Spain will offer legal residency to undocumented immigrants who have lived in the country for at least five months, an estimated 500,000 people. The country’s growth has outpaced the euro-area average in recent years, thanks in part to its relative openness to immigrants.

The Russian forces have begun to move out of the areas controlled by the PKK/SDF—these are the areas to which the Russians withdrew part of their command after the fall of the Assad regime. Christian communities in Qamishli announced days ago that they would side with the Syrian government.

The French government announced a major "digital sovereignty initiative" to reduce dependency on American technology platforms by rolling out a domestic videoconferencing solution called "Visio" across its entire administration by 2027.

The gun taken by the agent appears to match the general appearance of the firearm shared online by DHS, and which they said was Pretti’s. This agent’s back is turned from the scene with the gun in his hand when the first shot occurs.

All of us who have reported on and studied authoritarian models know very well that what is happening in Minneapolis is part of a model that is being tested. It has never had anything to do with migration or anything like that—it is about exercising influence and control through violence.

Video Appears to Show New ICE Shooting in Minneapolis

Over 1 million Ukrainians are without electricity, water, and heating in freezing temperatures following Russian strikes on energy infrastructure.

“We ran high-level US civil war simulations. Minnesota is exactly how they start”