Spain’s housing crisis takes centre stage ahead of snap election

Longstanding anger over unaffordable housing in Spain has become a central issue in next month’s general election, as rising rents, a shortage of public housing and a boom in tourist rentals put growing pressure on households.


Issued on: 09/10/2026 -  RFI

People hold up keys as a sign of protest during a demonstration demanding stronger laws to protect renters in Madrid, Spain, 3 October 2026. © AP Photo/Andrea Comas

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Monday called a snap election for 29 November, after parliament rejected housing relief measures proposed by his minority government.

It came after tens of thousands of protesters marched in Madrid and other cities to demand affordable housing, galvanised by the forcible eviction of an elderly woman, who died in hospital this week.

Maricarmen Abascal, 87, was evicted on a stretcher on 23 September after the real estate firm that owned her Madrid apartment drastically hiked the rent.

By the time she died on Wednesday, she had become the symbol of a crisis that cuts across Spanish society – young and old, renters and buyers, workers and pensioners.

The uproar at her eviction triggered national demonstrations, with hundreds of people camping in central Madrid's Puerta del Sol square.

Protesters set up tents in Puerta del Sol square, on 28 September 2026. © REUTERS - Juan Medina

On Thursday, the square turned into an improvised memorial to Abascal.

Protesters in the square wept and embraced each other after learning the news. Hundreds marched towards parliament on Wednesday night, some calling the death a "murder".

A deal had been reached with the real estate firm allowing Abascal to return home at a lower rent, but she ultimately spent her final days in hospital.

"She didn't have to die this way. Maricarmen wanted to die in her house," said Valeria Racu, a spokeswoman for the Madrid Tenants' Union, which supported Abascal in her years-long legal battle against the company.

Unions have called for a national minute's silence at noon on Friday.

Chronic shortage

As in other European countries, housing has long been a major public concern in Spain, particularly for young adults. Priced out of the market, many live with their parents into their 30s and beyond.

Growth in housing prices has outstripped wages in recent years.

According to the latest figures from the National Statistics Institute (INE), the average gross monthly salary in Spain is around €2,460. Meanwhile, renting a 50-square-metre apartment in Madrid cost an average of €1,170 per month in September, according to real estate portal Idealista – around half of a normal income.

Meanwhile Spanish inflation hit 4.9 percent in September – its highest level since February 2023.

Many residents in popular destinations like Barcelona complain that short-term tourist accommodation is limiting supply and driving up prices.

Investment funds with large housing portfolios are also accused of acquiring properties and hiking rents to maximise profits.

Protesters hold a picture of Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old pensioner whose eviction triggered nationwide protests over Spain's chronic housing crisis, after her death on 7 October 2026. © AFP - THOMAS COEX

A limited supply of public housing is another major factor.

Madrid has only around 10,000 social housing units for its 3.5 million inhabitants. Such is the demand for them that some public apartments are allocated by lottery.

A history of private home ownership partly explains the small public housing stock. Under the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco from 1939 to 1975, authorities encouraged people to buy.

But the model is breaking down, especially for the young. While almost three in four households own their main residence, more than half of under-30s rented in 2025, according to the INE.

Jorge Galindo, director of the Centre for Economic Policy at Esade business school, said the 2008 global financial crash was a turning point for the Spanish housing market. The bursting of a real estate bubble sparked the "collapse" of construction and "the destruction of a million jobs" in the sector, Galindo told French news agency AFP.

Since then, supply has fallen from around 260,000 new builds per year in the 1990s to 92,000 in 2025, he said.

The expert warned that the country of around 50 million people risked becoming "a society of inheritors" in which home ownership depends on parents passing property to their children.

Election pressure

Successive governments have struggled to resolve the problem, which will be a central debate of next month's snap election.

Last week, Sanchez's leftist coalition proposed a series of measures including more restrictions on evictions, a ban on the speculative purchase of homes and the automatic renewal of tenant contracts.

But the minority government failed to pass them in parliament, leading Sanchez to bring forward a vote originally scheduled for 2027.

Spain's main unions have called a general strike for 11 November to increase pressure on the government over housing, wages and the cost of living.

In 2023, Sanchez's government passed a law that provided for more social housing, the regulation of rents in areas under the greatest stress and punishments for owners who left their properties empty. But the law has not stopped prices spiralling.

Right-wingers say the leftist central government has been unable to tackle the crisis after eight years in power. The main opposition, the conservative Popular Party, advocates a building boom to make up the deficit between supply and demand.

Sanchez, who is trailing in most polls, has accused the Popular Party and far-right Vox of siding with speculators and large investment funds by voting down his housing measures.

For Galindo, the debate contains a "paradox".

"Those who suffer most from the housing crisis are those with the least weight at the ballot box: young people, who vote less, and immigrants."

EU denies US pressure behind withdrawal from disinformation conference

The European Union has denied that pressure from the United States prompted it to withdraw its logo from a major conference on disinformation in Lithuania, insisting that the decision was instead linked to the way organisers had drawn up the programme.


Issued on: 09/10/2026 -  RFI

Media reports this week suggested that Washington had objected to a panel discussion at an EU-sponsored conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, that framed the United States as a potential disinformation threat. 

© AFP - SEBASTIEN BOZON

The EU’s diplomatic service, the European External Action Service (EEAS), had been a sponsor of Disinfo2026, organised by an independent Brussels non-profit. The conference opened in Vilnius on Wednesday and brings together researchers, journalists and experts working on foreign interference and online manipulation.

But the EEAS logo was removed from conference material shortly before the event, alongside those of Canada and Lithuania – fuelling reports that US President Donald Trump’s administration had pressed allies to distance themselves from the gathering.

“The decision was taken in view of the programme,” EEAS spokesperson Christian Wigand told reporters in Brussels on Thursday.

Asked repeatedly whether pressure from Washington had played a role, Wigand said the logo was removed “because of the way the organisers had designed the programme”.

“That is the reason,” he said, without going into details.

US as disinformation risk

The controversy centres on a conference session examining whether the United States itself could constitute a threat to Europe in terms of disinformation and foreign information manipulation and interference, or FIMI.

The Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday that US officials had approached several governments over their support for the event, with Washington objecting in particular to a panel titled “USA as an FIMI threat: adapt, acknowledge, push back”.

Wigand declined to say whether contacts had taken place with US officials, telling reporters that he did not comment on diplomatic exchanges.

He said only that organisers had chosen to present some discussions “in a way that does not correspond to the EU’s official positions”.

The Trump administration has increasingly argued that initiatives presented as combating disinformation can amount to censorship or restrictions on freedom of expression.

Canada also reviewed its involvement in several panels, including one it had been due to chair on disinformation in the Arctic, citing “changes made to the content”.

Ottawa nevertheless sent three representatives to Vilnius and stressed that decisions over its participation were taken according to Canadian interests and priorities.

France, meanwhile, kept its name and logo on the event.

French officials told AFP news agency that support for the conference had been decided several months ago and that there was “no reason to change” that commitment. Paris denied facing any “pressure or threats” and stressed that the organisers retained full control over the programme.

France on disinformation front line

Paris faces an increasingly intense challenge from foreign information manipulation, particularly linked to Russia.

The EEAS’s latest annual threat assessment, published in March, identified France as the second most targeted country worldwide for documented FIMI incidents in 2025 – behind only Ukraine.

The EU diplomatic service recorded 112 incidents targeting Ukraine and 107 involving France, ahead of Moldova with 94 and Germany with 71.

Russia was by far the principal state actor identified in the wider European information threat landscape.

French authorities have repeatedly warned that Russian-linked networks seek to exploit political and social divisions, undermine confidence in public institutions and weaken support for Ukraine.

The tactics have ranged from networks of fake news websites and fabricated social media accounts to manipulated videos and deepfakes. French political figures and the country’s electoral system have increasingly been targeted ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

(with newswires)

France promises more teachers and student representation but protests continue

France's government has promised 3,000 replacement teachers for struggling secondary schools and pledged to give pupils a greater say in education policy in a bid to quell nearly three weeks of student protests. But blockades in some schools resumed on Friday morning and student bodies have called for a further day of action next week.


Issued on: 09/10/2026 - RFI

A student in Paris brandishes the French flag as protests continue over poorly resourced schools and staff shortages, 8 October 2026. © AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard


Education Minister Édouard Geffray announced on Friday that he was launching a reform of student representation, including adding more pupil representatives to the panel that advises his ministry and dedicating funding to projects backed by student bodies.

Additionally, one-third of the seats reserved for elected pupil representatives on the advisory body, the National Education Council or CSE, will go to students in vocational education. Regional authorities will also hear from academic councils representing secondary school pupils.

Geffray said in a televised interview on Thursday evening that 3,000 replacement teachers would be deployed to the schools "facing the most serious problems in the coming hours".

No teaching posts were due to be cut in secondary schools in 2027, he said.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has also promised changes to the government's budget proposals to address some of the students' demands.

The announcements follow nearly three weeks of sometimes violent protests over teaching conditions, staffing and access to higher education.

More than 6,800 people have been detained since the start of the demonstrations, of whom 86 percent are minors, the justice ministry said Friday.

The United Nations human rights agency said Friday that it was watching the events "with concern" and urging people on all sides to remain peaceful.

Why are French high school pupils protesting?

'Bare minimum'

The government's promises have done little to calm nearly three weeks of student unrest.

Blockades resumed early on Friday at sites including Paris's École du Louvre and Paris-Panthéon-Assas University.

The Education Ministry said 141 high schools remained closed on Friday morning, out of a total of 3,700.

Marius Mesnil, co-secretary general of one of the main secondary school students' unions, USL, described the announcement of additional teachers as the "bare minimum", telling FranceInfo public radio that the government had offered only small concessions.

USL is calling for Parcoursup, the platform used to manage applications to higher education, to be scrapped. Unions are not satisfied by Geffray's promise to make the platform more transparent.

“The minister made announcements that were satisfactory on just one issue – student representation in school governance," Louis Letoublon of the Lycéens! student group told reporters after almost two hours of talks with Geffray on Thursday. "On everything else, they were absolutely not.”

Letoublon called for the movement to be stepped up to maintain pressure on the government.

Unions have called for another national day of strikes and demonstrations on 13 October.

Another leading student union, UE, has said protests will continue until the government puts €10 billion on the table.

Students clash with riot police during a protest against under-resourced schools in Paris, 8 October 2026. @ AP Photo/Teresa Suarez

Protests and arrests

Students held another round of protests on Thursday, drawing 71,500 people across France, including 24,500 in Paris, according to the Interior Ministry. The left-wing CGT trade union put the national figure at more than 130,000.

The ministry said about 96 percent of schools remained open, with 157 of France's 3,700 secondary schools closed by midday.

Police arrested 504 people during Thursday's protests, while nearly 50 police officers and gendarmes were injured, the ministry said. It also reported an increase in urban violence.

To date, 6,877 people have been arrested since the start of the protests last month, according to the latest figures from the Justice Ministry, 86 percent of them aged under 18.

Student representatives are due to meet ministers again on Monday to discuss transparency in university admissions and pressure on higher education places.

Protests began on 17 September when high-school students at the Saint-Exupéry lycée in Créteil, south-east of Paris, joined striking teachers to demand more staff and resources.

They then spread rapidly across the Île-de-France region and, by late September, nationwide.

 

US military will livestream the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter, 'torture' for UN

By Gael Camba

Published on 09/10/2026 -  EURONEWS

Convicted military base shooter Nidal Hasan's execution will take place on 3 December at Fort Hood military base, where he committed the shooting. It will be the first US military execution carried out by a firing squad since World War II.

The firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed, the Pentagon said Thursday, a controversial revelation about plans for the first military execution by firing squad since World War II after Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had described it as being "public."

The UN promptly condemned the US decision as "torture".

"The livestreaming of an execution is tantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute prohibition of torture," said the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The UN body said it had made similar statements about public executions in Afghanistan and Iran, saying they "constitute a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".

Nidal Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist, shot and killed 13 people and injured 32 others at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.

"We are going to make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public", this is how US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the "public" execution of convicted military base shooter Nidal Hasan.

"People need to understand that... there's serious consequences for these types of things", said Hegseth.

His execution by firing squad will be livestreamed on 3 December; it will be the first execution by the US military in more than 65 years, and the first carried out by firing squad since World War II.

"I kind of like the mentality we had in World War II, which was win, which was understand when the enemy attacks you, you need to stand your ground", Hegseth said.

Officials in the Pentagon clarified Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed and that more details would follow.

The revelation from Hegseth about the public nature of the execution has raised further questions about how the death penalty is carried out in the US, especially after the botched lethal injection of Christa Pike in Tennessee.

'We'll see him on December 3'

"He is going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be", said Hegseth.

In an interview with right-wing influencer Jack Posobiec, the Pentagon chief was asked if Hasan had made any final request. "Don't care. We'll see him on December 3", Hegseth said — the day Hasan is slated to die.

Hasan could choose to resist execution and file a habeas petition — a legal request to review the legality of a detention — in civilian court, which could significantly delay the execution, experts said.

"It frankly might outlast the current administration, and who knows if the next one will have the same penchant for executions", said Eugene R. Fidell, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School specialising in military law.

File picture taken on 5 November 2009, soldiers from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment storm the grounds to apprehend a mass shooter in Fort Hood. David Morris/Killeen Daily Herald via AP, File

Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert and law professor at Fordham University, said livestreaming an execution could make the process "much more transparent" and inform the public about all that capital punishment entails.

Those are benefits that she said would be useful at a time when Pike’s botched execution has raised fresh questions about the manner by which criminal defendants are put to death for their crimes. "I think it could possibly be a good idea because it would be transparent and the public would be fully aware that it’s happening", she said.

Firing squad 'less inhumane'

When many states have had difficulty carrying out lethal injections due to difficulty accessing drugs or finding medical professionals willing to participate in executions, firing squads are coming to be seen as a less inhumane alternative, said Brenner Fissell, a professor at Villanova Law and vice president of the National Institute of Military Justice.

"Firing squads can be a quicker, cleaner, more precise way to execute a prisoner", he said. "I don’t think that’s what’s motivating this. There’s a perceived masculinity and military-ness to firing squads that is part of the aura Hegseth is trying to emphasise — the 'lethality culture".

Display of the state's death chamber in Columbia, South Carolina, including the electric chair, right, and a firing squad chair, left. South Carolina Dept. of Corrections via AP

Elisabeth Semel, co-director of the Death Penalty Clinic at UC Berkeley Law, said Hegseth’s announcement raises a host of legal and public policy questions, including concerns for the dignity of the defendant, who will be eligible to view the execution and what the Trump administration has in mind in opting for an unusual spectacle.

This is a president who’s about spectacle and that’s, I think, precisely the message that he intends to deliver

Elisabeth Semel

Co-director of the Death Penalty Clinic at UC Berkeley Law

Though there has been a long-running discussion about the idea of televising an execution, "I don’t recall a situation in which it was instigated by the government. I think that also raises serious questions about what the motivation of the government is", she said.

"This is a president who’s about spectacle and that’s, I think, precisely the message that he intends to deliver", Semel said, adding that she was sceptical that the administration had given a second thought to the legal and social questions being presented by the decision.

Media reports state that Trump, who approved Hasan’s execution, has previously been critical of public executions in Iran, at times using the possibility of protesters being killed by the Iranian government as a possible rationale for military action that preceded his ultimate choice to attack Iran on 28 February.

US executions scrutinised after failed injection

Texas has carried out the first execution in the US since Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike survived a failed lethal injection last week. Jamaal Howard, 46, has received a lethal injection on Wednesday evening and was shortly after declared dead.

Lawyers for Howard asked to pause the execution in spite of Pike's botched lethal injection last week, but the courts denied the request.

A further two executions are scheduled to take place in November — death row inmates John Rubio and Reinaldo Dennes.

Since the beginning of the year, the US has executed 30 people. In 2025, US executions reached the highest figure since 2009, with 47 people being put to death.

 

Frozen testicular tissue transplanted in bid to restore fertility after chemotherapy

Copyright Cleared/Canva

By Marta Iraola Iribarren

Published on 09/10/2026 - EURONEWS

Protecting fertility is a major challenge for young men undergoing aggressive treatments such as chemotherapy. Freezing their own testicular tissue before such treatments could help.

A young patient in Edinburgh has undergone a pioneering procedure, receiving a transplant of his own testicular tissue, frozen before he began chemotherapy, in a development that could pave the way for male fertility preservation, a first such procedure in the UK and second worldwide.

“This is a big step towards helping boys facing treatments that damage their fertility to have children of their own,” said Rod Mitchell, professor of developmental endocrinology at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Regeneration and Repair.

The 19-year-old received a bone marrow transplant in 2023 to treat a serious blood disorder. Before starting treatment, he had testicular tissue removed and frozen because the high-dose chemotherapy could permanently damage the cells needed to produce sperm.

Three years later, tests showed that the patient had no sperm in his semen. In August 2026, doctors implanted some of his previously frozen testicular tissue back into his body in the hope that it would begin to produce sperm, the University of Edinburgh said in a press release.

“Fertility is something I’ve struggled with personally for a long time. I’ve always wanted to have children of my own but at some point, I found myself starting to slowly accept that that might never be possible for me,” the patient said after the transplant. “Having this procedure has given me genuine hope for the future.”

In the next eight months, doctors will remove and examine some of the transplanted tissue to determine whether sperm have been produced.

Related

• Infertility to affect 80 million women by 2036 with sharpest rise in over-35s, study finds

Why freezing tissue

Protecting fertility is a major challenge for young men undergoing aggressive treatments such as chemotherapy.

Semen freezing is an established option for adolescents and young men. It is not available to prepubertal boys, however, because they do not yet produce semen, leaving them with no means of preserving their fertility.

Storing testicular tissue could offer an alternative. It contains spermatogonial stem cells, which produce sperm from puberty onwards. Doctors hope that tissue frozen before treatment can later be returned to the patient and allow sperm production.

The Edinburgh testicular project was established in 2015 with the support of Children with Cancer UK. Since then, more than 1,200 patients in the United Kingdom and more than 3,100 worldwide have now had testicular tissue stored for potential future clinical use.

“We are beginning to see some of these young men return to explore their fertility options. This study offers real hope for future fertility in boys facing cancer treatment,” Mitchell added.

Related

• Europe’s fertility rates keep falling: Which countries have the highest rates and biggest drops?

Experimental phases

The trial procedure in Edinburgh is the first of its kind in the UK and only the second reported worldwide.

The first reported transplant of frozen testicular tissue took place in Belgium in January 2025. In that case, the cryopreserved tissue was reintroduced into an infertile man who had undergone chemotherapy in childhood, after 16 years in storage.

The researchers wrote in the preliminary results of the study that dormant stem cells within the transplanted tissue revived and began producing sperm cells, a process known as spermatogenesis.

When researchers evaluated the tissue a year after surgery, they confirmed that the sperm cells had developed fully.

 

Left-wing candidate Hitler Mussolini wins local vote in Peru

Copyright Courtesy of Peruvian electoral authority

By Aleksandar Brezar

Published on 09/10/2026 - EURONEWS

Hitler Mussolini Simeón Flores won by 25 votes in Queropalca, a district of just over 730 people in the Huánuco department, running for the centre-left Ahora Nación party. He is not Peru’s first elected Hitler.

Peruvian man named Hitler Mussolini has been elected mayor of a small Andean district after winning a local election by a narrow margin on a left-wing party ticket.

Hitler Mussolini Simeón Flores, 45, won the mayoral race in Queropalca, a district in the province of Lauricocha in the Huánuco department north of Lima, running for the centre-left Ahora Nación party.

He received 229 votes — 34.5% of the 663 valid ballots in Queropalca — ahead of his closest rival, Gaspar Benilde Osorio Zambrano of the Popular Renewal Peru party, who took 204 votes, or 30.8%.

The district has an estimated population of just over 730, according to 2024 official data.

Simeón Flores also manages the Simeon Sac investment group in Pillco Marca, in the same department.

The vote was part of regional and municipal elections held across Peru following right-wing firebrand Keiko Sofía Fujimori's victory in the country's presidential election.

This is not the first time a Hitler has won over the voters in the South American country.

Centre-right We Are Peru party's Hitler Alba served as mayor of another small Andean town of Yungar between 2011 and 2014.

In 2018, he went up against Lennin Vladimir Rodriguez Valverde, who tried to challenge the validity of his candidacy. Alba won against other candidates, garnering 47.7% of the vote.

Alba, who dubbed himself "the good Hitler," campaigned under the slogans "Hitler returns" and "Hitler with the people".

He said at the time that his father did not know about the Nazi German dictator's legacy when he named him.

Related

• Adolf Hitler's namesake triumphs in Namibia local elections fifth time in a row

Lawmaker and surgeon Hitler Saavedra served in Peru's Congress as a member of We Are Peru from 2021 until his death in 2024 at the age of 46.

It is not uncommon for Peruvians to choose historic or otherwise unusual names for their children regardless of negative or controversial connotations.

CHEEKY

Putin offers help to end Iran war while Russia continues its own in Ukraine

Copyright AP Photo

By Euronews Persian, Euronews Russian

Published on 09/10/2026 

The Russian president met Pezeshkian in Turkmenistan and pledged to do “everything in our power” to end the ongoing war between the US and Iran, despite Russia not being among the official mediators.

Vladimir Putin pledged to do "everything in our power" to help end the war between Iran and the US on Thursday, positioning Russia as a would-be Middle East mediator while continuing his own full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth year.

The Russian president made the remarks at a bilateral meeting with his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian in Avazeh, on Turkmenistan's Caspian coast, praising Tehran for making what he called "genuine efforts" to resolve the war.

Pezeshkian said Iran and the US had exchanged proposals to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and that Tehran was reviewing and amending them before consolidating them through mediators. Despite ongoing US attacks, he said Iran would not leave the negotiating table.

"We are talking, but every time we negotiate with the United States, they attack again," Pezeshkian said. "Nevertheless, we will not abandon the negotiating table and dialogue."

He said the revisions, once finalised, would be put to mediators. "We are supposed to sit down through the existing mediators and consolidate them," he said.

It was the seventh meeting between the two presidents since Pezeshkian took office, following a phone call on 7 October — Putin's birthday — in which the pair discussed regional developments and the Iran-US negotiations.

The two previously met in person on 1 September on the sidelines of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation summit in Bishkek.

Russia is not a mediator in the US-Iran negotiations. So far, Qatar and Pakistan have led the talks.

Ties further deepen

Military, diplomatic and economic relations between Iran and Russia have strengthened since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.

The Iran war, which began with joint US-Israeli strikes on 28 February, has sparked more frequent consultations between Moscow and Tehran on political and material support and financial co-operation.

Since 2022, Iran has supplied Russia with Shahed drone technology — which Moscow has since copied to create its own Geran-type variant, a key tool in its daily attacks on Ukrainian civilian and infrastructure targets — and short-range missiles.

Moscow also faces accusations of providing Tehran with targeting information for attacks on US interests in the Middle East.

Trade between the two countries rose by more than 21% in 2025 and continued on the same trajectory through the first seven months of 2026, Putin said, adding that relations were developing under a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement signed early last year.

Pezeshkian described the current situation as an opportunity to deepen co-operation and said Tehran and Moscow should coordinate "with greater speed and strength."

Billion-dollar loan delayed

Iranian state-run media reported in the days before the meeting that Russia was ready to extend a $1 billion loan to Tehran, described as the first tranche of a $20 billion package agreed at a meeting between Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Larijani and Putin.

The semi-official IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency said arrangements to disburse the sum were complete, but disagreements among Iranian authorities over how to spend the money prevented Tehran from providing the account number needed to complete the transfer.

Related

Iran's Planning and Budget Organisation wants to use the funds to import cars and collect customs duties, the Oil Ministry wants them for oil equipment, and the Agriculture Ministry is seeking to allocate them to basic commodity imports, according to the same report.

The bilateral meeting took place on the eve of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) leaders' summit — a gathering of nine former Soviet republic heads focused on regional co-operation — and a separate Caspian Sea environmental conference, also held in Turkmenistan, bringing together the leaders of Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

 

Iran and Russia used ChatGPT for propaganda by ‘fake journalists’, OpenAI says

Copyright AP Photo

By Jonathan Benton

Published on 09/10/2026 -  EURONEWS

The American tech giant said it banned Russian and Iranian accounts that had been using ChatGPT models to generate content and fake journalist personas to spread false narratives about the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and sow division.

OpenAI revealed on Thursday it had shut down two influence operations — from Russia and Iran — that used ChatGPT to push fake journalist personas and run a "think-tank" to covertly spread anti-Ukraine propaganda and foster division in the US and Israel over the war in Iran.

The report is the latest example of how state actors could exploit widely available AI tools to produce and disseminate sophisticated propaganda against adversaries on a mass scale.

The American AI giant said it banned a cluster of ChatGPT accounts that originated in Russia and Iran and were used to support false front entities for geopolitical and conflict-related messaging.

The Iranian operation involved seven fake journalist profiles, each claiming to be from Western countries, including the United States, that were used to plant long-form articles in media outlets around the world.

"We identified almost 100 articles published or syndicated under the operation's bylines across roughly a dozen online outlets around the world," OpenAI said.

"These were small to medium outlets, generally focused on international affairs, geopolitics, and events in the Middle East."

The earliest article identified by OpenAI was published in July 2025 and the latest in October 2026, with the frequency of reports increasing after the US-Iran war broke out earlier this year.

Related

The operation also generated social media comments on topics related to the US-Iran war, it added.

One of the personas named Ervin B. Hoskins, whose bio claimed to be "an American freelance writer," had social media accounts across several tech platforms, including Elon Musk's X and Meta-owned Instagram.

X's transparency information showed the account was connected via a "West Asia android app" and Instagram's transparency information showed the account was based in Iran, according to screenshots provided by OpenAI.

Both accounts appeared to be suspended.

The Russian operation co-opted "unwitting people" in Latin America to run a think-tank called the Social Research Center (SRC). It was used for covert activities aimed at undermining Ukraine's reputation in the region and to influence local politics, the company said.

"The available evidence indicates that the SRC's employees in Latin America were not aware that they were working for a Russian group," OpenAI said.

"The SRC appears to have produced a majority of original content via its co-opted staff. This stands out as the most complex attempt to run a front identity that we've disrupted over the past two and a half years."

The operators used ChatGPT to write internal reports on their activities, create content for their operations and draft reports on the performance of the think tank, as well as to help design and create texts for publishing on social media as posts and comments.

Among the social media activity, say OpenAI, were reactions to Polish far-right MEP Grzegorz Braun proposing that people who showed “anti-Polishness” be declared persona non grata in Poland, in an attempt to sow divisions in Poland over the country’s support for Ukraine.

 

What happened to OpenAI’s $20bn? Revenue scare rattles AI trade

Copyright AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

By Quirino Mealha

Published on 09/10/2026 - EURONEWS

US tech futures rebounded on Friday, a day after a report that OpenAI’s annualised revenue was $20 billion (€17.8bn) below earlier estimates helped send the Nasdaq down 1.25% and hit chipmakers and cloud giants.

Wall Street looks set to recover some ground on Friday morning after confusion over how much money OpenAI, the ChatGPT maker, is actually bringing in shook investor faith in the artificial intelligence boom.

Nasdaq 100 futures were around 0.8% higher, and S&P 500 futures were up 0.4% in early trading on Friday.

On Thursday, the Financial Times reported that OpenAI’s annualised revenue, which projects recent sales over a full year, was "approaching $50 billion (€44.6bn)" at the end of September, according to figures shared with investors.

That is about $20 billion (€17.8bn) less than the company projected last month.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 1.25% to around 27,193, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which tracks major US chip stocks, sank 3.4%. A jump in oil prices added to the pressure.

Where did the $20 billion go?

In short, nowhere.

The gap does not mean OpenAI missed a target or lost sales: the roughly $70 billion (€62.5bn) figure was an estimate, not a company forecast, built on a different way of counting revenue.

According to the FT, the higher number came from OpenAI’s backers recalculating its sales to match the method of rival Anthropic, which counts what customers spend on its AI models through cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud as revenue, while OpenAI excludes such sales.

Taken at face value, OpenAI’s figure trails the $65 billion (€58bn) Anthropic reportedly hit at the end of July, although the different accounting methods make a direct comparison difficult. At the time of writing, OpenAI has not publicly reacted to the reports.

The figures matter as OpenAI, valued at $852 billion (€760bn) in March, is reportedly seeking at least $30 billion (€26.7bn) in fresh funding at a $1.4 trillion (€1.25tn) valuation.

Open AI CEO Sam Altman speaks at the OpenAI DevDay 2026 conference in San Francisco, 29 Sept. 2026 AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

Shares in firms that have bet big on OpenAI’s growth were among the hardest hit after the news broke on Thursday.

Oracle, which has agreed to supply OpenAI with vast computing power, slid 5.5%, while CoreWeave, an AI cloud specialist with multibillion-dollar contracts with the firm, lost nearly 8%.

Microsoft, a major OpenAI shareholder, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta all fell by more than 1%. Like Oracle, all four are hyperscalers that are pouring money into AI data centres.

Chipmakers slid too, with Nvidia down almost 3%, AMD down around 4% and Broadcom, which is building a custom chip with OpenAI, down 4.35%.

In Tokyo on Friday, shares in SoftBank Group, which owns about 13% of OpenAI, fell as much as 7.3% before paring losses.

Chip demand still strong

Despite the negative news, other signals this week suggest demand for AI hardware remains robust.

South Korea’s Samsung estimated on Thursday that its third-quarter operating profit hit a record 107.4 trillion won, or $80.2 billion (€71.5bn).

The figure, if confirmed, would be the biggest quarterly operating profit ever reported by a technology company, beating the $63.7 billion (€56.8bn) in operating income that US chip designer Nvidia booked in its latest quarter.

Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, said the same day that September sales rose 54.6% year-on-year, taking third-quarter revenue to a record NT$1.49 trillion, or $46.8 billion (€41.8bn).

Investors will get a clearer read next week, when Dutch chip equipment maker ASML reports on 14 October and TSMC on 15 October.

Potential listings by Anthropic, as soon as November, and OpenAI next year could bring their audited accounts into the open.