Golfers take swing at Trump over ‘unlawful assault’ on public golf course

Alexander Willis
February 14, 2026 
RAW STORY




U.S. President Donald Trump holds scissors to cut the ribbon during the opening ceremony for Trump International Golf Links near Aberdeen, Scotland, Britain July 29, 2025. Alastair Grant/Pool via REUTERS

Two Washington-area golfers have launched a legal challenge against the Trump administration over its efforts to transform a public golf course into what one described as “yet another private playground for the privileged and powerful,” The Washington Post reported Saturday.

In December, the Trump administration terminated the lease of a nonprofit organization that managed Washington, D.C.’s public golf courses, including the well-known East Potomac Golf Links. Since then, President Donald Trump has suggested that plans are underway to transform the course into a “beautiful, world-class, U.S. Open-caliber course,” the Post reported.

However, the two aforementioned Washington-area golfers, Dave Roberts and Alex Dickson, have since filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to halt those efforts, and were joined by several organizations in their legal challenge, including the DC Preservation League, Democracy Defenders Fund, and the Democracy Forward Foundation.

“East Potomac Golf Links is a testament to what’s possible with public land and why public spaces matter,” Roberts said, according to the Post. “It deserves better than becoming a dumping ground for waste and yet another private playground for the privileged and powerful.”

The Post reached out to the Trump administration for response, and was told that Trump was, in fact, hoping to “redevelop” Washington, D.C.’s public golf courses – which White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers called “decrepit” – in order to restore “glamour and prestige.”

Skye Perryman, president and chief executive of Democracy Forward, accused the Trump administration of waging an “unlawful assault” on Washington, D.C.’s public spaces, and vowed to fight alongside the two golfers in their legal challenge against Trump.

“We are acting to save this priceless part of our national park system from being another casualty of a reckless administration,” Perryman told the Post. “We are honored for the partnership of our plaintiffs in fighting back against this unlawful assault on our cherished public space.”

Advocates sound alarm over GOP’s environment-destroying ‘monstrosity’

Jessica Corbett,

 Common Dreams
February 14, 2026 





FILE PHOTO: Jake Guse, a crop scout on the Pro Farmer Crop Tour, collects corn samples from a corn field as scouts travel across the midwest trying to gauge the size of the corn and soybean crop that farmers will harvest in the fall, in northwest Indiana, U.S. August 19, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo

Advocates for animal welfare, environmental protection, public health, and small family farms fiercely condemned various “industry-backed poison pills” in the long-awaited Farm Bill draft unveiled Friday by a key Republican in the US House of Representatives.

“A new Farm Bill is long overdue, and the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 is an important step forward in providing certainty to our farmers, ranchers, and rural communities,” said House Committee on Agriculture Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Pa.) in a statement.

While Thompson has scheduled a markup of the 802-page proposal for February 23, critics aren’t waiting to pick apart the bill, which aligns with a 2024 GOP proposal that was also sharply rebuked. The panel’s ranking member, Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), said that from what she has seen so far, the new legislation “fails to meet the moment facing farmers and working people.”

“Farmers need Congress to act swiftly to end inflationary tariffs, stabilize trade relationships, expand domestic market opportunities like year-round E15, and help lower input costs,” Craig stressed. “The Republican majority instead chose to ignore Democratic priorities and focus on pushing a shell of a farm bill with poison pills that complicates if not derails chances of getting anything done. I strongly urge my Republican colleagues to drop the political charade and work with House Democrats on a truly bipartisan bill to address the very real problems farm country is experiencing right now—before it’s too late.”

Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, similarly blasted the GOP legislation on Friday, declaring that “this Republican Farm Bill proposal is a grotesque, record-breaking giveaway to the pesticide industry that will free Big Ag to accelerate the flow of dangerous poisons into our nation’s food supply and waterways.”

“This bill would block people suffering from pesticide-linked cancers from suing pesticide makers, eviscerate the EPA’s ability to protect rivers and streams from direct pesticide pollution, and give the pesticide industry an unprecedented veto over extinction-preventing safeguards for our nation’s most endangered wildlife,” he said, referring to the Environmental Protection Agency.

“If Congress passes this monstrosity, it will speed our march toward the dawn of a very real silent spring, a day without fluttering butterflies, chirping frogs, or the chorus of birds at sunrise,” Hartl warned. “No one voted for Republicans to allow foreign-owned pesticide conglomerates to dominate the policies that impact the safety of the food every American eats. But this bill leaves no doubt that’s exactly who is calling all the shots.”

Food & Water Watch (FWW) managing director of policy and litigation Mitch Jones also sounded the alarm about industry-friendly poison pills, arguing that any draft containing the “Cancer Gag Act” that would shield pesticide companies from liability or the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression Act—which would block state and local policies designed to protect animal welfare, farm workers, and food safety—“must be dead on arrival.”

Sara Amundson, president of Humane World Action Fund—formerly called Humane Society Legislative Fund—also made a case against targeting state restrictions for animals like Proposition 12 in California, which the US Supreme Court let stand in 2023, in response to a challenge by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation.

“Once again, the House Agriculture Committee Republican majority is bending to the will of a backwards-facing segment of the pork industry by trying to force through a measure to override the preferences of voters in more than a dozen states, upend the decisions of courts all the way up to the Supreme Court, and trample states’ rights all at the same time,” Amundson said Friday.

The National Family Farm Coalition highlighted that “instead of addressing the widespread concerns of family-scale farmers—ensuring fair prices for farmers, improving credit access, addressing corporate land consolidation, and creating a trade environment that benefits producers—this draft perpetuates the status quo that enriches and empowers corporate agribusiness. The result is an accelerating farm crisis that continues to hollow out rural communities across the US.”

Thompson also faced outrage over other policies left out of the GOP legislation—particularly from those calling for the restoration of $187 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump forced through last year with their so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (HR 1).

“HR 1 shifts unprecedented costs to already cash-strapped states, expands time limits, and strips food benefits away from caregivers, veterans, older workers, people experiencing homelessness, and humanitarian-based noncitizens,” noted Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center.

“HR 1 is an unforgiving assault on America’s hungry, deliberately dismantling our nation’s first line of defense against hunger,” she continued. “Yet, when given the opportunity to correct this harm in the latest Farm Bill proposal, Chairman Thompson unveiled a package that will only deepen hunger instead of fixing it. Hunger is not something Congress can afford to ignore.”

Jones of FWW said that “families and farmers are hungry for federal policy that supports small- and mid-sized producers and keeps food affordable. Instead, Chairman Thompson appears poised to check off industry’s cruel wish list.”

“America needs a fair Farm Bill,” he emphasized. “It is imperative that this Farm Bill repeal all Trump SNAP cuts and restore full funding to this critical nutrition program; stop the proliferation of factory farms; and support the transition to sustainable, affordable food.”

Zelenskyy knocks Trump admin for hitting Ukraine with demands ‘too often’: report

Alexander Willis
February 14, 2026 

RAW STORY

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump pose for a picture during their meeting while Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner enters a room, at the sidelines of the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF), in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2026. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took aim at the Trump administration on Saturday after accusing it of pressing Kyiv for concessions in its ongoing efforts to end the war, while sparing Russia from comparable demands, NBC News reported

“The Americans often return to the topic of concessions,” Zelenskyy said, speaking Saturday at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, according to NBC News. “Too often those concessions are discussed in the context only of Ukraine, not Russia.”

Having been waged since 2014 and escalated in 2022 with Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Russo-Ukrainian War has led to tens of thousands of deaths and as many as 1.5 million casualties. President Donald Trump has long sought to negotiate an end to the war, having previously pledged to do so in “one day.”

Trump has failed, however, to help bring an end to the war, and as his persistence to end the war grows, so too have his demands of Ukraine, including demands that they make significant territorial concessions.

Zelenskyy has resisted the Trump administration’s calls for sweeping territorial concessions, and on Saturday, expressed fears that future negotiations could revive those same demands.

“We truly hope that the trilateral meetings next week will be serious, substantive, [and] helpful for all of us,” Zelenskyy said. “But honestly, sometimes it feels like the sides are talking about completing different things.”

Zelenskyy and Trump have long butted heads over the war in Ukraine, starting with the explosive Oval Office meeting last year in which Trump scolded Zelensky for not respecting the United States. Trump has also reportedly had other heated exchanges with Zelenskyy, including a vulgar “shouting match

” in which Trump demanded Zelenskyy cede territory to Russia or face destruction.

Swiss bar owners face wrath of bereaved families


By AFP
February 12, 2026


Gulcin Kaya, who lost her son Taylan Kaya in the fire confronted Jacques Moretti on the street in Sion - Copyright AFP Maxime SCHMID

Charlene PERSONNAZ

Bereaved relatives on Thursday angrily confronted the owners of a Swiss bar that caught fire during New Year celebrations, heckling them as they arrived to face questions over the fatal tragedy.

Ten or so relatives were outside the hearing venue in Sion, waiting for French couple Jacques and Jessica Moretti, who own Le Constellation in the ski resort of Crans-Montana.

The bar caught fire in the early hours of January 1, with 41 people, mostly teenagers, losing their lives, and another 115 injured in the blaze, most of whom remain in hospitals and rehabilitation clinics.

Prosecutors believe the fire started when champagne bottles with sparklers attached were raised too close to the ceiling in the bar’s basement level, igniting the sound insulation foam.

Gulcin Kaya, the mother of an 18-year-old who died in the fire, approached the Morettis in the scrum as they arrived, shouting at them: “Where is my son? Where is he?”

Jacques Moretti replied: “We will take responsibility, we will face up to it, we promise you, we are here for justice,” while his wife, in tears, struggled to make her way inside.



– Families ‘destroyed’ –



“You killed my big brother, you bitch, do you understand! Look me in the eyes: you killed my brother,” shouted 14-year-old Tobyas, the brother of Trystan Pidoux, 17, who died in the fire.

He told reporters: “I’d like her to see how she destroyed families. Not only did she kill people, but she destroyed the families behind them.”

He said of his brother: “I can’t believe I’ll never see him again.”

The boys’ father Christian Pidoux wore a t-shirt bearing a picture of his deceased son.

“We’re doing this so that it never happens again. That’s our goal: never again,” he told reporters.

“It’s only so that they see the eyes of the fathers, brothers, sisters,” he said.

“Some children melted — they no longer have a face, a nose, a mouth, an ear.”

Samhare Saleh, a friend of the Pidoux family, said: “We demand justice, we demand the truth for all those children who have died and those who are still in the hospital, who are between life and death.”

Switzerland’s Federal Office for Civil Protection told AFP that as of Monday, 39 patients were being treated in burns centres abroad, while Swiss news agency ATS said 25 remained in Swiss hospitals, with further patients in rehabilitation clinics.



– Call for calm –



The Morettis are under criminal investigation, facing charges of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence.

Two others are also under criminal investigation — Crans-Montana’s current head of public safety and a former fire safety officer in the town.

Lawyer Romain Jordan, who represents several families, called for “dignity, serenity and respect” all round.

He said the deputy public prosecutor had “appealed for calm”, adding: “I believe that call was heard.”



– ‘No forgiveness’ –



Trystan Pidoux’s mother Vinciane Stucky went inside and witnessed Thursday’s interview.

During the hearing, “Jacques Moretti tried to ask me for forgiveness, but I told him to look away and stare at the floor, because you don’t ask for forgiveness for things like that,” she said.

During a break on Wednesday, the Morettis met with Leila Micheloud, the mother of two daughters injured in the blaze. They spoke for around 20 minutes.

“There was no forgiveness… I do not forgive them, I listened to them and that’s where it stops,” Micheloud said Thursday on Facebook, adding that the meeting was “impromptu”.

Alain Viscolo, a lawyer representing two victims, said it was time for the investigation to start considering the role of the authorities, “namely those who had the power to oversee fire safety”.

He told AFP that a complaint had been filed against the president of Crans-Montana commune.

Canada PM to mourn with grieving BC town, new details emerge on shooter

By AFP
February 13, 2026


A memorial for the victims the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, Canada - Copyright AFP Paige Taylor White

Ben Simon

A grief-stricken community in northern Canada will mourn with Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday, who is headed to the remote town of Tumbler Ridge to honor victims of a mass shooting.

Carney is travelling to the Rocky Mountain mining town with the heads of all opposition parties, a show of national solidarity after one of the deadliest outbursts of violence in Canadian history.

In the days since Tuesday’s killings at the Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, more information has emerged about both the victims and the shooter, an 18-year-old transgender woman named Jesse Van Rootselaar.

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer remained stationed outside Van Rootselaar’s home on Friday.

The modest brown house on a quiet, unassuming street was cordoned-off with police tape. Two overturned bicycles rested against the snow in the front yard.

Van Rootselaar killed her 39-year-old mother and 11-year-old stepbrother in the house before heading to the school, where she shot dead six more people — five students and a teacher — then killed herself.

The shooter’s estranged father, Justin Van Rootselaar, has sent a statement to the public broadcaster CBC, offering condolences for a “senseless and unforgivable act of violence.”

“As the biological father of the individual responsible, I carry a sorrow that is difficult to put into words,” the statement said, according to the CBC.

The RCMP on Friday released a photo of the shooter — who was known to have mental health issues. She is shown wearing a hoodie with an expressionless face.



– Vigil at town hall –



Carney is expected to lead a vigil for the victims outside the town hall in Tumbler Ridge, which was built 45 years ago, 1,180 kilometers (733 miles) north of Vancouver.

The town was quiet early Friday and residents have voiced weariness over the influx of media attention following the tragedy.

A sign ordering media to stay out was taped at the entrance of the community center on Friday.

But inside the center on Thursday, there were hints of life inching back towards normal, including an ice rink packed with children playing hockey or working on their skating.

In the evening, the mother of a victim, Sarah Lampert, addressed the media at the center, saying she wanted to speak for 12-year-old daughter Tacaria who had “a beautiful, strong voice that was silenced.”

“She is forever my baby, because that’s what she was. She was a baby,” Lampert said, fighting to contain her tears as she addressed a room full of cameras.

Also killed at school was 12-year-old Zoey Benoit.

“She was so resilient, vibrant, smart, caring and the strongest little girl you could meet,” a statement from her family said.

Peter Schofield’s 13-year-old grandson Ezekial was one of the six murdered students.

“Everything feels so surreal. The tears just keep flowing,” he posted on Facebook.

Carney made an emotional address to parliament after the shootings, saying “these children and their teachers bore witness to unheard-of cruelty.”

He described Tumbler Ridge as a town of miners, teachers and construction workers who represent “the very best of Canada: resilient, compassionate and strong.”

The prime minister had been scheduled to attend the Munich Security Conference to discuss transatlantic defense with allies, but cancelled his plans following the shooting.

Canada stunned by deadliest school shooting in decades


By AFP
February 11, 2026


Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke to media in the aftermath of a rare mass shooting - Copyright AFP Dave Chan

Ben Simon

Canada was in mourning Wednesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney said, after a lone shooter killed at least nine people, including seven at a school, and injured dozens more in a remote western town.

An emotional Carney said in brief remarks to reporters that “the nation mourns” with British Columbia’s Tumbler Ridge after Tuesday’s shooting. “Canada stands by you.”

He said he had requested flags to be lowered to half-mast for seven days over the tragedy, among the deadliest shootings in Canada’s history, and that numerous world leaders had reached out to offer their condolences.

Tumbler Ridge, a small town of about 2,400 residents, lies in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies near the provincial border with Alberta, hundreds of kilometers from any major city.

Emergency responders found six people shot dead at the town’s secondary school on Tuesday, while a seventh person died in transit to hospital, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.

Two others were killed at a nearby residence, while at least 25 people sustained injuries in the attack.

The suspect, described by police in an initial emergency alert as a “female in a dress with brown hair,” was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at the school.

Police have not yet released any identifying information about the shooter or the victims.

“We will get through this. We will learn from this. But right now, it’s a time to come together, as Canadians always do in these situations, these terrible situations, to support each other, to mourn together and to grow together,” Carney said.

King Charles, the monarch of Canada, said in a statement that he and Queen Camilla were “profoundly shocked and saddened” to learn of the attack.

“In a such a closely connected town, every child’s name will be known and every family will be a neighbour,” he said.

While several mass killings have occurred in recent years in Canada, deadly attacks on schools are very rare, especially compared to the neighboring United States.

In 1989, a self-described anti-feminist man killed 13 female students and a secretary at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique.

After the country’s deadliest shooting attack, which left 22 people dead in Nova Scotia in 2020, Canada banned some 1,500 models of assault weapons.



– ‘Off the rails’ –



Tumbler Ridge student Darian Quist told public broadcaster CBC that he was in his mechanics class when there was an announcement that the school was in lockdown.

He said that initially he “didn’t think anything was going on,” but started receiving “disturbing” photos about the carnage.

“It set in what was happening,” Quist said.

He said he stayed in lockdown for more than two hours until police stormed in, ordering everyone to put their hands up before escorting them out of the school.

Trent Ernst, a local journalist and a former substitute teacher at Tumbler Ridge, expressed shock over the shooting at the school, where one of his children has just graduated.

He noted that school shootings have been a rarity occurring every few years in Canada compared with the United States, where they are far more frequent.

“I used to kind of go: ‘Look at Canada, look at who we are.’ But then that one school shooting every 2.5 years happens in your town and things… just go off the rails,” he told AFP.

Ken Floyd, commander of the police’s northern district, said Tuesday: “This has been an incredibly difficult and emotional day for our community, and we are grateful for the cooperation shown as officers continue their work to advance the investigation.”

Floyd told reporters the shooter was the same suspect police described as “female” in a prior emergency alert to community members, but declined to provide any details on the suspect’s identity.

The police said officers were searching other homes and properties in the community to see if there were additional sites connected to the incident.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for EMOTIONAL PLAGUE

Dutch court orders investigation into China-owned Nexperia


By AFP
February 11, 2026


Nexperia plays a critical role in the global economy - Copyright ANP/AFP ROB ENGELAAR

A Dutch court on Wednesday ordered a formal investigation into alleged mismanagement at Nexperia, a Chinese-owned chip firm at the centre of a global tug-of-war over critical semiconductor technology.

The firm, based in the Netherlands but whose parent company is China’s Wingtech, has been the subject of a standoff between Beijing and the West, which threatened to hobble car manufacturers that rely on its chips.

“(The court) finds that there are valid reasons to doubt the sound policy and conduct of business at Nexperia and orders an investigation,” said the Amsterdam-based Enterprise Chamber in a statement.

The investigation is expected to take several months.

The court had previously played a key part in the row over Nexperia in October when it suspended the Chinese CEO Zhang Xuezheng, also known as Wing, citing concerns over his management.

These measures remain in force with the opening of the probe, the court said.

“The director remains suspended. The appointment of a temporary director at Nexperia and the transfer of the shares in Nexperia remain in effect,” said the court in a statement.

PETITE BOURGEOIS LANDOWNERS

Tractors hit Madrid to protest EU’s trade deal with South America


By AFP
February 11, 2026


Hundreds of tractors take part in a protest by Spanish farmers in Madrid against the European Union’s trade deal with four South American countries - Copyright AFP Oscar DEL POZO

Hundreds of honking tractors rolled into Madrid on Wednesday as Spanish farmers staged a protest against the European Union’s trade deal with four South American countries.

The tractors arrived in five convoys from across Spain, converging on the city centre and moving from Plaza Colon to the Ministry of Agriculture, bringing traffic to a standstill.

Protesters carried banners reading “No to our ruin” and “The Spanish countryside is not for sale”.

Miguel Angel Aguilera, president of agricultural organisation Unaspi, warned the deal with the Mercosur bloc would affect all citizens.

“People will consume lower-quality products, we will lose food sovereignty, and there will be no competition,” he said.

Madrid authorities reported 367 tractors and around 2,500 protesters took part in the demonstration.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez defended the agreement in parliament, calling it “extraordinary news” for Europe.

He promised compensation for affected farmers and safeguards to limit imports if domestic producers were harmed.

The long-delayed deal, signed last month, would create one of the world’s largest free-trade areas, boosting commerce between the 27-nation EU and the Mercosur bloc, which includes Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay.

The pact still requires approval from lawmakers in the European Parliament, which has referred it to the EU’s top court.

Farmers in Spain and other countries fear being undercut by a flood of cheaper goods from Brazil and its neighbours.

Major Mercosur exports to the EU include agricultural products and minerals, while the EU would export machinery, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals with lower tariffs.

Johannesburg residents ‘desperate’ as taps run dry


By AFP
February 11, 2026


Several parts of South Africa's economic capital -- from wealthy areas to the poorer ones -- have been gripped by weeks-long water shortages - Copyright AFP Ilaria Finizio

Julie BOURDIN

Sitting in the middle of a Johannesburg road as traffic snaked around her, Susan Jobson banged empty bottles to protest the water cuts that have upended her life for nearly three weeks.

The 63-year-old, who struggles to walk and lives alone in a small cottage, said she joined a demonstration Wednesday by residents of the city’s upmarket Melville suburb because the lack of water had left her “completely desperate”.

“I’m not walking that well, which means it’s difficult to get water,” she told AFP, while more than 100 protesters chanted next to her and passing motorists honked in support.

“It’s difficult to fill up the toilet, washing doesn’t get done, and I’ve got to make plans around food,” she said.

Several parts of South Africa’s economic capital — from wealthy areas to the poorer ones — have been gripped by weeks-long water shortages as decades of infrastructural decay and lack of maintenance push the system to the brink.

In other areas of the country, including the southern city of Cape Town, shortages due to prolonged droughts were last week declared a national disaster.

This meant restrictions could be imposed to avoid a dreaded “Day Zero”, when the taps run dry.

But in Johannesburg, residents are “living a Day Zero every single day”, despite full dams and heavy rains in the past months, said Ferrial Adam, executive director of advocacy group WaterCAN.



– ‘National disaster’ –



Around 30 percent of the city’s water supply is lost to leaks, Adam said, and municipal plans to repair infrastructure and install new reservoirs have been slow to come to fruition.

In some other regions, such as the touristy coastal town of Knysna, this rose to 50 percent, she said.

“Our municipalities across the country are failing, both in supply of water and sanitation,” said Adam, who wanted the government to step in and declare the crisis a national disaster.

“If declaring it a national disaster is the one way we can get all politicians, national government, provincial government, local government, to actually focus on water and sanitation, then that is what needs to happen,” she told AFP.

Under mounting pressure after months of water protests across the city, mayor Dada Morero rejected claims that Johannesburg as a whole faced a “Day Zero” and defended municipal efforts to “push and balance the water distribution”.

Morero is from the African National Congress (ANC), which has come under fire for mismanagement since it took power in 1994. Anger over failures in the supply of basic services was in part responsible for support plunging to 40 percent in the 2024 national elections.

The party is expected to take another bashing over the same complaints at local government elections due later this year.

Hoping to portray a hands-on approach to the crisis that would win over voters, the second-largest party in South Africa’s ruling coalition, the Democratic Alliance, said Wednesday it would take legal action to compel the city to deliver water.

Down the road from Wednesday’s protest, a pre-primary school had already taken matters into its own hands by investing about 15,000 rand ($944) in a water tank.

But even that reserve had run dry after 23 days without municipal supply, principal Arifa Banday told AFP, and the school now had to rely on deliveries from private water trucks.

“We try as best as possible to keep going, especially because we’re in charge of caring for so many little ones,” she said, as parents dropped their toddlers off in the leafy playground.

Protester Simon Banda said the lack of support for affected residents was a “tragedy”.

“We don’t expect them to produce miracles. There’s supposed to be a water truck almost at every corner, but there is nothing like that,” he told AFP. “That, to me, is unforgivable.”

Instagram CEO to testify at social media addiction trial


By AFP
February 11, 2026


Starting December 10, some of the world's largest social media platforms will be forced to remove all users under the age of 16 in Australia. © AFP/File David GRAY

Benjamin LEGENDRE

Instagram’s CEO Adam Mosseri takes the stand Wednesday in a landmark trial that could determine whether social media giants knowingly hooked children on their platforms for profit.

YouTube-owner Google and Meta — the parent company of Instagram and Facebook — are defendants in a blockbuster trial that could set a legal precedent regarding whether social media giants deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive to children.

Mosseri will be the first major Silicon Valley figure to appear before the jury to defend himself against accusations that Instagram functions as little more than a dopamine “slot machine” for vulnerable young people.

His testimony precedes the highly anticipated appearance of his boss, Mark Zuckerberg, currently scheduled for February 18, with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan expected the following day.

The civil trial in California state court centers on allegations that a 20-year-old woman, identified as Kaley G.M., suffered severe mental harm after becoming addicted to social media as a young child.

She started using YouTube at six and joined Instagram at 11, before moving on to Snapchat and TikTok two or three years later.

Opposing lawyers made opening remarks to jurors this week, with an attorney for YouTube on Tuesday insisting that the video platform was neither intentionally addictive nor technically social media.

“It’s not social media addiction when it’s not social media and it’s not addiction,” YouTube lawyer Luis Li told the 12 jurors during his opening remarks.

YouTube is selling “the ability to watch something essentially for free on your computer, on your phone, on your iPad,” Li insisted, comparing the service to Netflix or traditional TV.

On Monday, the plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Lanier told the jury YouTube and Meta both engineer addiction in young people’s brains to gain users and profits.

Meta and Google “don’t only build apps; they build traps,” Lanier said.

– ‘Gateway drug’ –

Stanford University School of Medicine professor Anna Lembke, the first witness called by the plaintiffs, testified Tuesday that she views social media, broadly speaking, as a drug.

She also said young people’s brains were undeveloped, which is why they “often take risks that they shouldn’t,” Lembke testified, comparing YouTube to a gateway drug for kids.

The trial is currently scheduled to run until March 20.

Social media firms face more than a thousand lawsuits accusing them of leading young users to become addicted to content and suffer from depression, eating disorders, psychiatric hospitalization, and even suicide.

Kaley G.M.’s case is being treated as a bellwether proceeding whose outcome could set the tone for a wave of similar litigation across the United States.

Two further test trials are planned in Los Angeles between now and the summer, while a nationwide lawsuit will be heard by a federal judge in Oakland, California.

In New Mexico, a separate lawsuit accusing Meta of prioritizing profit over protecting minors from sexual predators began on Monday.

New drones provide first-person thrill to Olympic coverage


By AFP
February 11, 2026


A drone hovers as UK's Makayla Gerken Schofield competes in the freestyle skiing women's moguls during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games at Livigno Aerials & Moguls Park - Copyright AFP Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV

Whether chasing skiers as they fly down the mountain or tracking the luge as it tears around bends, new drone-mounted cameras are offering Winter Olympics viewers a wild ride.

So-called “first person view” (FPV) drones have made their Winter Games debut this year, with 15 deployed across the Milan-Cortina events, offering an exhilarating experience.

Traditional drones, which have been used in live broadcasting for more than a decade, are piloted by an operator looking up at the machine.

But FPVs are piloted by a driver wearing goggles and holding a controller, allowing incredibly precise guidance.

The downside for TV viewers is the constant buzzing, which disrupts the stillness of the mountains.

But many athletes say they are not bothered — even when it looks from afar like the drones are getting too close.

“I saw on the replay that I nearly got hit by it but I wasn’t aware of it while I was doing it,” Australian snowboarder Ally Hickman told 7News.

– Pretty cool –

The drones are particularly useful on the sliding track — for luge, bobsleigh and skeleton — where they help avoid having cameras positioned at every turn.

German luger Felix Loch, a triple gold medallist competing in his fifth Olympics, said he had no problem with the drones.

“No, you don’t notice something like that,” he told AFP’s German sports subsidiary SID, praising the use of the technology.

“They’re definitely different images. It really looks pretty cool. You have to say, it’s really, really a nice thing what the guys are doing there,” he said.

German alpine skier Emma Aicher, the 22-year-old who has won two silver medals at the Milan-Cortina Games, also said the drones didn’t affect her concentration as she shot down the piste.

“For us, it’s really cool footage. I don’t notice the drone, it’s so far away,” she said.

Yiannis Exarchos, the head of Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), who supply the images to the broadcasters for Olympics, said they had worked with athletes in designing the system.

“We didn’t want this to become a factor affecting them. We wanted this to become a factor enhancing them,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

Drone cameras made their debut in the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, in 2014, while FPV were first introduced in Paris in 2024, providing live images of mountain biking.

Exarchos said that technology had moved on hugely.

Now, it is possible to “achieve safely speeds like some of the athletes do. A few years ago this was not possible”, he told reporters.

– Fast and noisy –

The noise depends on the size of the propeller, which in turn depends on how fast they are going, according to one expert involved in the Olympics who asked not to be named due to commercial confidentiality.

Each drone is custom built, with the smallest measuring just ten centimetres (four inches) and weighing less than 250 grams (half a pound).

“If you are going to chase something super fast, you go for a small system that is super powerful — and that’s going to be really noisy,” he told AFP.

One issue for operators during the Olympics is the cold, which drains the batteries quickly, according to another drone operator.

“There’s a constant change of battery, every race,” he told AFP.

TotalEnergies can do without Russian gas: CEO


By AFP
February 11, 2026


The Yamal LNG plant is located in the Arctic circle, some 2500 km from Moscow - Copyright AFP/File Maxim ZMEYEV

French fossil fuels giant TotalEnergies said Wednesday it will abide by a European ban on imports of Russian liquefied natutral gas (LNG) due to come into force next year and said it can easily replace the supplies.

The company still holds a 20-percent stake in the massive Yamal natural gas field in Siberia and ships LNG from there to Europe.

“We’ve always clearly stated that we’ll follow regulations which are adopted,” chief executive Patrick Pouyanne told journalists.

“We’ll no longer have the right to import LNG from Russia” into Europe, he added, “but we’ll remain a shareholder in Yamal”.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, most Western companies have sold off their Russian operations and holdings, or at least isolated them, as Western sanctions have made trading in most goods difficult.

Pouyanne confirmed that TotalEnergies continues to receive “dividends” from its stake in Yamal, but cannot incorporate them into its earnings. The funds remain in Russia, he added.

While EU nations cut their imports of Russian natural gas by pipeline, some of that was replaced by LNG imports.

Last December, EU states and lawmakers reached an agreement to ban all Russian natural gas imports from the autumn of 2027 in order to deny Moscow a key source of funding for its war effort in Ukraine.

Russian gas has fallen from 45 percent of total EU natural gas imports in 2021 to 19 percent in 2024.

“We were criticised for continuing to import (Russian) LNG, but we did it to ensure supply security and avoid prices rising sky high” during the energy crisis provoked after the start of the war in 2022, said Pouyanne.

Numerous new LNG projects are set to go online in 2027 and 2028, which should ensure better supplies and lower prices, something Pouyanne said was “good news for European consumers”.

This means TotalEnergies “can do without this LNG” from Russia, he added.

Earlier Wednesday the company reported a 17 percent drop in net profit last year to $13.1 billion due to declining oil and gas prices.

The company, which has faced criticism from environmental campaigners over its continued focus on climate-warming fossil fuels, has designated natural gas as one of its strategic priorities.

Berlin Film Festival to open with a rallying cry ‘to defend artistic freedom’


By AFP
February 12, 2026


Image: — © AFP Odd ANDERSEN

Jastinder KHERA with Antoine GUY in Paris

The Berlin Film Festival will kick off on Thursday evening with an eclectic selection of films reflecting current upheavals, and with Wim Wenders, one of Germany’s most illustrious directors, heading the jury.

Against the backdrop of polarisation and repression, “it’s more critical than ever that we defend our artistic freedom”, festival director Tricia Tuttle told AFP.

German Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer said the 76th edition of the festival would be a testament to the fact that “screenplays, cameras and screens are not mere artistic tools, but weapons in the fight for freedom and human dignity”.

“We must not allow the despots in Tehran or Caracas to win,” he said in a statement.

Berlin is the first major international festival in the world’s film calendar and has a reputation for topical and progressive programming.

This year’s edition takes place against the backdrop of international tensions, the bloody crackdown on protests in Iran and global threats to human rights.

The opening film, “No Good Men” by Iran-born Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat, tells the story of Naru, a reporter at a Kabul TV station separated from her husband on account of his infidelities who questions her beliefs about men during a fateful assignment.

The film is set in the run up to the Taliban’s seizure of power in 2021, which led Sadat herself to leave the country. She now lives in Hamburg.

“It’s about Afghan women’s experience, which you wouldn’t see if it wasn’t for Shahrbanoo’s work,” Tuttle said.

– ‘Biting satire’ –

The festival’s opening ceremony, starting at 7:00 pm (1800 GMT), will honour Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh, who won the Best Actress Oscar in 2023 for “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once”.

More than 200 films will be shown over the 10 days of the festival, of which 22 will be in competition for the Golden Bear, which last year was scooped by Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud’s film “Dreams”.

Stars will be hitting the red carpet at the 76th Berlinale – Copyright AFP RALF HIRSCHBERGER

As was the case last year, a majority of the films being shown this year were made by women directors, as were nine of the 22 films in official competition.

In comparison with Cannes or Venice, Berlin attracts fewer big productions with A-list-heavy casts.

But that is not to say there are no big names on the programme.

“The Weight” features Russell Crowe and Ethan Hawke in a tale of a man forced to smuggle gold through the lethal wilderness of Depression-era rural Oregon.

Southern Germany stands in for the US Northwest in the film, one of an increasing number of American productions choosing to shoot abroad to save on costs.

In the official competition section, one of the most eagerly awaited films is “Rosebush Pruning” from Berlinale favourite Karim Ainouz, billed as “a biting satire about the absurdity of the traditional patriarchal family”.

The cast boasts Elle Fanning, Callum Turner, Jamie Bell and Pamela Anderson, who are sure to be some of Saturday’s red-carpet highlights.

German actress Sandra Hueller, who attracted international acclaim for her roles in “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest”, stars in “Rose”, in which she plays a woman passing herself off as a male soldier returning to a German village in the early 17th century.

Also in the competition section, Amy Adams stars as a woman leaving rehab and confronting buried trauma in Kornel Mundruczo’s “At The Sea”, while in Beth de Araujo’s “Josephine”, Channing Tatum plays the father of a child traumatised by witnessing a violent crime.

WHO urges US to share Covid origins intel


By AFP
February 11, 2026


The Covid-19 pandemic killed millions, shredded economies and turned people's lives upside-down - Copyright AFP Sergei SUPINSKY

Robin MILLARD

The World Health Organization on Wednesday urged Washington to share any intelligence it may be withholding on the Covid-19 pandemic’s origins, despite the United States quitting the WHO.

The global catastrophe killed an estimated 20 million people, according to the UN health agency, while shredding economies, crippling health systems and turning people’s lives upside-down.

The first cases were detected in Wuhan in China in late 2019, and understanding where the SARS-CoV-2 virus came from is seen as key to preventing future pandemics.

On his first day back in office in January 2025, US President Donald Trump handed the WHO his country’s one-year withdrawal notice, which cited “the organisation’s mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic”.

Trump’s administration has officially embraced the theory that the virus leaked from a virology laboratory in Wuhan.

But the WHO said Washington did not hand over any Covid origins intelligence before marching out the organisation’s door.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recalled that some countries have publicly said “they have intelligence about the origins — especially the US”.

Therefore, several months ago, the UN health agency wrote to senior officials in the United States, urging them to “share any intelligence information that they have”, he told a press conference on Wednesday.

“We haven’t received any information,” Tedros lamented.

“We hope they will share, because we haven’t still concluded the Covid origins,” and “knowing what happened could help us to prevent the next” pandemic.

The WHO’s investigations have proved inconclusive, pending further evidence, with all hypotheses still on the table.

Tedros asked any government which had intelligence on the Covid-19 pandemic’s origins to share the information so that the WHO will be able to reach a conclusion.



– Critical information ‘obstructed’ –



Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s epidemic and pandemic threat management chief, said: “We continue to follow up with all governments that have said that they have intelligence reports, the US included.

“We don’t have those reports to date,” she said, other than those in the public domain.

As the US notice countdown expired on January 22, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the WHO had “obstructed the timely and accurate sharing of critical information that could have saved American lives”.

They also claimed the WHO had “tarnished and trashed everything that America has done for it”.

“The reverse is true,” the WHO said in reply.

The WHO constitution does not include a withdrawal clause.

But the United States reserved the right to withdraw when it joined the WHO in 1948 — on condition of giving one year’s notice and meeting its financial obligations in full for that fiscal year.

The notice period has now expired but Washington has still not paid its 2024 or 2025 dues, owing around $260 million, according to data published by the WHO.

Sanofi says board has removed CEO Paul Hudson


By AFP
February 12, 2026


Paul Hudson was ousted after six years on the job - Copyright AFP/File MIGUEL MEDINA

French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi has removed Paul Hudson as chief executive, thanking him Thursday for “valuable contributions” but without giving any reason for his surprise exit.

Belen Garijo, currently chief executive of Germany’s Merck KGaA and previously a Sanofi vice president, will take over at the group’s AGM in April, the company said.

“Belen Garijo’s brilliant international career attests to her strategic vision and her ability to drive profound and value-creating transformations,” board chairman Frederic Oudea said in a statement.

“She has the experience and profile to accelerate the pace, strengthen the quality of execution of strategy and lead the next growth cycle of the company, which is essential to build the group’s future.”

Hudson took over at Sanofi in 2019 after previous stints at Novartis and AstraZeneca.

His removal came less than a month after Sanofi reported that sales rose 6.2 percent last year to 43.6 billion euros ($51.8 billion).

In a statement at the time, Hudson said: “In 2026, we expect sales to grow by a high single-digit percentage and business EPS to grow slightly faster than sales.

“We anticipate profitable growth to continue over at least five years.”

But analysts said Sanofi had recently suffered setbacks in drug development, and its share price has lost a fourth of its value over the past year. The stock slumped 4.5 percent on Thursday after Hudson’s ousting.

The company is looking in particular for new drugs success as its blockbuster anti-inflammation treatment Dupixent, which had sales of more than 15 billion euros last year, will lose its patent protection in five years.

“Potential management change at Sanofi had been debated for a while now following Sanofi’s R&D strategy hitting potholes,” analysts at the investment group Jefferies said in a statement.

In December however the US Food and Drug Administration doused hopes for its tolebrutinib drug by refusing to approve it for a form of multiple sclerosis.

Sanofi’s stock also took a beating last September when amlitelimab, to treat atopic dermatitis, after discouraging study results, after previously disappointing investors in May with a study failure for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Paul Hudson was “excellent at selling dreams”, Jean-Louis Peyren of the Fnic-CGT pharmaceutical industry union told AFP.

“Instead of having a financier who does more marketing than anything else, we hope that if it’s a doctor, she will be more focussed on treatment needs than financials,” he said in reference to Garijo.

“Whether there will be more management changes (R&D?) remains to be seen, but Merck did manage to hire credible R&D operators from places like AstraZeneca,” the Jefferies analysts said.

Belgian police raid EU commission in real estate probe


By AFP
February 12, 2026


The European Commission sold 23 properties to the Belgian state in 2024 

- Copyright AFP/File Nicolas TUCAT

Police raided the premises of the European Commission in Brussels Thursday in a probe into a 2024 real estate deal done with the Belgian state, a source close to the investigation told AFP.

A spokesman for the EU executive said it was “aware of an ongoing investigation” into the sale of 23 commission buildings, and was “confident that the process was conducted in a compliant manner”.

Valued at 900 million euros ($965 million at the time, equivalent now to $1.1 billion), the sale came as the commission moved to shrink its office space by a quarter with more staff working from home since the Covid pandemic.

Searches were carried out at commission premises early on Thursday, a source close to the investigation told AFP, confirming a report by the Financial Times.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) confirmed only that it was “conducting evidence-collecting activities in an ongoing investigation” involving the commission.

The commission said it was “committed to transparency and accountability and will cooperate fully with EPPO and the competent Belgian authorities on this issue”.

The properties in question were acquired by a Belgian sovereign wealth fund, which planned to renovate them so they are more sustainable and put them back on the market as businesses and housing.

Brussels wants to transform the European Quarter where most EU institutions are located so that it becomes more people-friendly.

For the commission, the sale went towards the aim of occupying fewer buildings, which are more energy-efficient, as its need for office space declined post-pandemic.

The EPPO is the independent public prosecution office of the EU, responsible for investigating crimes against the bloc’s financial interests.

Trump ends immigration crackdown in Minnesota


By AFP
February 12, 2026


Copyright AFP Charly TRIBALLEAU

President Donald Trump’s pointman on Thursday announced the end of aggressive immigration operations in Minnesota that triggered large protests and nationwide outrage following the killing of two US citizens.

Thousands of federal agents including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have in recent weeks conducted sweeping raids and arrests in what the administration claims are targeted missions against criminals.

“I have proposed and President Trump has concurred that this surge operation conclude,” Trump official Tom Homan told a briefing outside Minneapolis. “A significant drawdown has already been underway this week and will continue through the next week.”

The operations have sparked tense demonstrations in the Minneapolis area, and the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti less than three weeks apart last month led to a wave of criticism.

Homan raised the prospect that the officers would deploy to another location but gave no details, as speculation is rife about which city might be targeted next.

“In the next week, we’re going to deploy the officers here on detail, back to their home stations or other areas of the country where they are needed. But we’re going to continue to enforce immigration law,” he said.

Campaigning against illegal immigration helped Trump get elected in 2024, but daily videos from Minnesota of violent masked agents, and multiple reports of people being targeted on flimsy evidence, helped send Trump’s approval ratings plummeting.

The case of Liam Conejo Ramos, five, who was detained on January 20, also stoked anger.



– ‘Trump’s leadership’ –



After killings of Good and Pretti, the Republican president withdrew combative Customs and Border Protection commander Gregory Bovino and replaced him with Homan who sought to engage local Democratic leaders.

Minneapolis is a Democratic-run “sanctuary” city where local police do not cooperate with federal immigration officials.

Opposition Democrats have called for major reforms to ICE, including ending mobile patrols, prohibiting agents from concealing their faces and requiring warrants.

If political negotiations over ICE fail in Washington, the Department of Homeland Security could face a funding shortfall starting Saturday.

Customs and Border Protection and ICE operations could continue using funds approved by Congress last year, but other sub-agencies such as federal disaster organization FEMA could be affected.

Homan said that some officers would stay behind in Minnesota but did not give a figure.

“The Twin Cities, Minnesota in general, are and will continue to be, much safer for the communities here because of what we have accomplished under President Trump’s leadership,” Homan said at the briefing on the outskirts of Minneapolis and neighboring St. Paul.

He said more than 200 people had been arrested in the course of the operation for interfering with federal officers, but gave no estimate for the number of immigration-linked arrests and deportations.

Thousands of Venezuelans stage march for end to repression

By AFP
February 12, 2026


University students who oppose the Venezuelan government march on Youth Day in Caracas on February 12, 2026 - Copyright AFP FRANCK FIFE

Thousands of Venezuelans demonstrated on Thursday to demand the release of all remaining political prisoners and full freedoms a month after the overthrow of autocratic leader Nicolas Maduro.

“We are not afraid,” the demonstrators chanted at the first major opposition rally since Maduro’s capture by US forces, creating scenes that would have been unthinkable during his repressive rule.

Elsewhere in Caracas, thousands of people attended a counter-demonstration in support of the post-Maduro government allowed to remain in place by President Donald Trump, who asserts that he in effect controls Venezuela and its oil wealth.

The opposition demonstration called by student organizations came as lawmakers prepared to debate a bill granting amnesty to all political prisoners for alleged offenses over 27 years of socialist rule.

Referring to the slow release of prisoners over the past five weeks, the demonstrators chanted: “Not one or two, but all.”

“Amnesty now!” read a banner hanging at the entrance to the Central University of Venezuela, where the demonstrators gathered.

“We spend a lot of time underground, silent in the face of all the repression Venezuela experienced…but today we are rising up and uniting to put forward demands for the country,” Dannalice Anza, a 26-year-old geography student, told AFP.

“VENEZUELA WILL BE FREE! Long live our students!,” exiled opposition leader Maria Corina Machado wrote on X, alongside a video of a Caracas street thronged with demonstrators, some of whom waved Venezuelan flags.

The administration of Maduro’s successor, Delcy Rodriguez, organized a counter-demonstration, which attracted thousands of pro-Maduro demonstrators on Venezuela Youth Day.

China carbon emissions ‘flat or falling’ in 2025: analysis


By AFP
February 11, 2026


Smoke rises from chimneys at a power plant during sunset in Taicang, in eastern China's Jiangsu province - Copyright AFP/File STR

Sara Hussein

China’s emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide were “flat or falling” in 2025, analysis showed Thursday, but progress remains fragile and it is not yet clear that emissions have peaked.

China is the world’s biggest emitter of the gases that drive climate change, and has committed to peaking emissions by 2030, though some analysts expect it will do so early.

Last year, emissions fell in almost all major sectors, including power generation as China’s massive renewable expansion meets growing demand, according to the analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) for climate website Carbon Brief.

That mean CO2 emissions likely declined 0.3 percent for 2025.

There is some uncertainty about figure because of margins of error around some of the numbers involved, including coal consumption.

“Because the relative drop is so small, we can’t say with certainty yet that it’s a fall, therefore the ‘flat or falling,'” explained CREA lead analyst Lauri Myllyvirta.

But the analysis suggests it is the first time that emissions have stayed flat or declined for a full calendar year at a time when energy demand was rising.

The most recent decline in emissions came during the pandemic and was linked to lockdowns.

Last year’s decline extends a “flat or falling” trend in emissions dating back to March 2024 and driven partly by China’s massive installation of renewable energy.

That has helped drive down emissions in the power sector despite growing demand.

Emissions across industry have also dropped, most notably in building materials, as construction slows, but also in transport with the growing uptake of electric vehicles.

Still, the progress is fragile.

Emissions from the chemical industry grew sharply in 2025, and are set to continue rising.

While the sector is still a relatively small emitter compared to other industries, it is having an outsize impact because of how fast its emissions are growing, the analysis found.

And while emissions have now been trending downwards or stagnant for almost two years, any decline is not yet substantial.

“This means that a small jump in emissions could see them exceed the previous peak level,” the analysis warned.

That would scupper hopes of China peaking emissions earlier than a 2030 target, something analysts say could easily be achieved.

“Whether emissions increase or decrease by a fraction of a percent year-on-year change only has symbolic significance,” Myllyvirta told AFP.

“The really significant implication is that emissions aren’t rising rapidly like they did until 2023,” he said.

But “they’re also not falling the way that they need to for China to start making progress towards the carbon neutrality target.”

There is still space for China to speed up the fall in emissions, notably further scaling up renewables.

While capacity is being added at record speed, it has not always translated into power generation, partly due to grid congestion.

Grid reforms could alleviate that and help push emissions down quicker.

Storage capacity, primarily from batteries, is also growing rapidly and could help increase the share of power generated from renewables.

Coal still dominates China’s power generation, but it fell by nearly two percent last year, despite rising electricity demand, data reviewed by AFP showed this week.

UN climate chief says ‘new world disorder’ hits cooperation


By AFP
February 12, 2026


One of the most climate-threatened corners of the planet, scientists fear Tuvalu will be uninhabitable this century - Copyright AFP/File TORSTEN BLACKWOOD

Hazel Ward with Laurent Thomet in Paris

The UN’s climate chief on Thursday urged countries to unite against an “unprecedented threat” to international cooperation from pro-fossil fuel forces — issuing the appeal as US President Donald Trump rattles the global order.

Simon Stiell, the head of the United Nations climate body, spoke in Istanbul as Turkey prepares to host the COP31 climate summit on its Mediterranean coast later this year, with Australia leading the negotiations.

“COP31 in Antalya will take place in extraordinary times. We find ourselves in a new world disorder,” Stiell said in an address alongside the president-designate of COP31, Turkish environment minister Murat Kurum.

“This is a period of instability and insecurity. Of strong arms and trade wars. The very concept of international cooperation is under attack,” he said.

Stiell made his plea as climate action is competing with concerns over security and economic growth around the world.

Trump has championed oil, gas and coal while moving to withdraw the United States from the UN’s bedrock climate treaty after pulling out of the Paris Agreement, the landmark deal reached in 2015 on curbing global warming.

The American leader, who has called global warming a “hoax”, was poised Thursday to revoke a landmark scientific finding that underpins US regulations aimed at curbing planet-warming pollution.

Trump has also rattled European allies with his desire to acquire Greenland, as shrinking Arctic sea ice is turning the region into a strategic battleground.



– ‘Antidote to the chaos’ –



Other nations have resisted moving away from oil, gas and coal.

The COP30 summit in Brazil late last year ended with a modest deal that lacked any explicit mention of fossil fuels amid opposition from oil giants such as Saudi Arabia, coal producer India and others.

The United States, the world’s top economy and second-biggest polluter after China, shunned COP30.

The last three years have been the hottest globally on record, driven by rising greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change.

Stiell warned that international climate cooperation was “under unprecedented threat: from those determined to use their power to defy economic and scientific logic, and increase dependence on polluting coal, oil and gas”.

“Those forces are undeniably strong. But they need not prevail. There is a clear alternative to this chaos and regression,” he said.

“And that is countries standing together, building on all we have achieved to date, to make it (international global cooperation) go further and faster.”

He noted that investment in clean energy was more than double that of fossil fuels last year, while renewables overtook coal as the top electricity source.

Stiell urged nations to deliver on their 2023 agreement at COP28 in Dubai to triple clean energy capacity by 2030 and transition away from fossil fuels, and for the most ambitious to form “coalitions of the willing”.

“Climate cooperation is an antidote to the chaos and coercion of this moment, and clean energy is the obvious solution to spiralling fossil fuel costs, both human and economic,” he said.

ECO CRIMINALS

Here's why Trump is dangerously wrong about how climate change threatens our health

The Conversation
February 14, 2026 

The Trump administration took a major step in its efforts to unravel America’s climate policies on Thursday, when it moved to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding — a formal determination that six greenhouse gases that drive climate change, including carbon dioxide and methane from burning fossil fuels, endanger public health and welfare.

But the administration’s arguments in dismissing the health risks of climate change are not only factually wrong, they’re deeply dangerous to Americans’ health and safety.

As physicians, epidemiologists and environmental health scientists, we’ve seen growing evidence of the connections between climate change and harm to people’s health. Here’s a look at the health risks everyone face from climate change.
Extreme heat

Greenhouse gases from vehicles, power plants and other sources accumulate in the atmosphere, trapping heat and holding it close to Earth’s surface like a blanket. Too much of it causes global temperatures to rise, leaving more people exposed to dangerous heat more often.

Most people who get minor heat illnesses will recover, but more extreme exposure, especially without enough hydration and a way to cool off, can be fatal. People who work outside, are elderly or have underlying illnesses such as heart, lung or kidney diseases are often at the greatest risk.

Heat deaths have been rising globally, up 23 percent from the 1990s to the 2010s, when the average year saw more than half a million heat-related deaths. Here in the U.S., the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome killed hundreds of people.

Climate scientists predict that with advancing climate change, many areas of the world, including U.S. cities such as Miami, Houston, Phoenix and Las Vegas, will confront many more days each year hot enough to threaten human survival.

Extreme weather

Warmer air holds more moisture, so climate change brings increasing rainfall and storm intensity and worsening flooding, as many U.S. communities have experienced in recent years. Warmer ocean water also fuels more powerful hurricanes.

Increased flooding carries health risks, including drownings, injuries and water contamination from human pathogens and toxic chemicals. People cleaning out flooded homes also face risks from mold exposure, injuries and mental distress.

Climate change also worsens droughts, disrupting food supplies and causing respiratory illness from dust. Rising temperatures and aridity dry out forests and grasslands, making them a set-up for wildfires.
Air pollution

Wildfires, along with other climate effects, are worsening air quality around the country.

Wildfire smoke is a toxic soup of microscopic particles (known as fine particulate matter, or PM2.5) that can penetrate deep in the lungs and hazardous compounds such as lead, formaldehyde and dioxins generated when homes, cars and other materials burn at high temperatures. Smoke plumes can travel thousands of miles downwind and trigger heart attacks and elevate lung cancer risks, among other harms.

Meanwhile, warmer conditions favor the formation of ground-level ozone, a heart and lung irritant. Burning of fossil fuels also generates dangerous air pollutants that cause a long list of health problems, including heart attacks, strokes, asthma flare-ups and lung cancer.
Infectious diseases

Because they are cold-blooded organisms, insects are directly influenced by temperature. So with rising temperatures, mosquito biting rates rise as well. Warming also accelerates the development of disease agents that mosquitoes transmit.

Mosquito-borne dengue fever has turned up in Florida, Texas, Hawaii, Arizona and California. New York state just saw its first locally acquired case of chikungunya virus, also transmitted by mosquitoes.

And it’s not just insect-borne infections. Warmer temperatures increase diarrhea and foodborne illness from Vibrio cholerae and other bacteria and heavy rainfall increases sewage-contaminated stormwater overflows into lakes and streams. At the other water extreme, drought in the desert Southwest increases the risk of coccidioidomycosis, a fungal infection known as valley fever.

Other impacts

Climate change threatens health in numerous other ways. Longer pollen seasons increase allergen exposures. Lower crop yields reduce access to nutritious foods.

Mental health also suffers, with anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress following disasters, and increased rates of violent crime and suicide tied to high-temperature days.

Young children, older adults, pregnant women and people with preexisting medical conditions are among the highest-risk groups. Lower-income people also face greater risk because of higher rates of chronic disease, higher exposures to climate hazards and fewer resources for protection, medical care and recovery from disasters.

Policy-based evidence-making

The evidence linking climate change with health has grown considerably since 2009. Today, it is incontrovertible.

Studies show that heat, air pollution, disease spread and food insecurity linked to climate change are worsening and costing millions of lives around the world each year. This evidence also aligns with Americans’ lived experiences. Anybody who has fallen ill during a heat wave, struggled while breathing wildfire smoke or been injured cleaning up from a hurricane knows that climate change can threaten human health.


Yet the Trump administration is willfully ignoring this evidence in proclaiming that climate change does not endanger health.

Its move to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding, which underpins many climate regulations, fits with a broader set of policy measures, including cutting support for renewable energy and subsidizing fossil fuel industries that endanger public health. In addition to rescinding the endangerment finding, the Trump administration also moved to roll back emissions limits on vehicles – the leading source of U.S. carbon emissions and a major contributor to air pollutants such as PM2.5 and ozone.
It’s not just about endangerment

The evidence is clear: Climate change endangers human health. But there’s a flip side to the story.

When governments work to reduce the causes of climate change, they help tackle some of the world’s biggest health challenges. Cleaner vehicles and cleaner electricity mean cleaner air — and less heart and lung disease. More walking and cycling on safe sidewalks and bike paths mean more physical activity and lower chronic disease risks. The list goes on. By confronting climate change, we promote good health.

To really make America healthy, in our view, the nation should acknowledge the facts behind the endangerment finding and double down on our transition from fossil fuels to a healthy, clean energy future.

By Jonathan Levy, Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Health, Boston University; Howard Frumkin, Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington;

Jonathan PatzProfessor of Environmental Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Vijay LimayeAdjunct Associate Professor of Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This article includes material from a story originally published Nov. 12, 2025.

US lawmaker moves to shield oil companies from climate cases


By AFP
February 12, 2026


Dozens of cases against oil copmanies modeled on successful actions against the tobacco industry in the 1990s are playing out in state and local courts -- including claims of injuries, failure-to-warn, and even racketeering

 - Copyright AFP/File Patrick T. Fallon

Issam AHMED

A US lawmaker is drafting legislation to block a wave of state and local climate-damage lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, advancing a top priority of the oil and gas industry.

Republican Representative Harriet Hageman announced the effort during a hearing on Wednesday, following a letter last year from a group of attorneys general from conservative-led states urging the creation of a federal “liability shield” similar to the one Congress granted gunmakers in 2005.

Hageman also targeted so-called climate “superfund” laws, enacted in New York and Vermont and under consideration in other states, which require fossil fuel companies to help cover the costs of climate-related damages tied to the destabilization of the global climate system.

“Clearly, this is an area in which Congress has a role to play,” Hageman, of the oil-rich western state of Wyoming, told Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“To that end, I’m working with my colleagues in both the House and Senate to craft legislation tackling both these state laws and the lawsuits that could destroy energy affordability for consumers.”

Dozens of cases modeled on successful actions against the tobacco industry in the 1990s are playing out in state and local courts — including claims of injuries, failure-to-warn, and even racketeering, meaning acting like a criminal enterprise.

Michigan last month sued oil majors in federal court, alleging they had acted as a cartel in an unlawful conspiracy by preventing meaningful competition from renewable energy.

Environmental advocates see such lawsuits as crucial means for climate accountability as President Donald Trump’s second term has seen the United States go all-in to boost fossil fuels and block renewables.

Some cases have been dismissed, and none have yet gone to trial — though crucially, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to intervene and block them.

Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s largest trade group, spoke out against the cases in a keynote address last month.

Material on API’s website confirms the group wishes to “Protect US energy producers and consumers from abusive state climate lawsuits and the expansion of climate ‘superfund’ policies that bypass Congress and threaten affordability.”

Richard Wiles, president of the nonprofit Center for Climate Integrity, said in a statement the announcement was proof “the fossil fuel industry is panicking and pleading with Congress for a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

Any legislation however could face an uphill battle since Republicans only enjoy a slim majority in the House of Representatives and bills normally require 60 votes in the Senate, where they hold 53 seats of the 100 seats.

Greece’s Cycladic islands swept up in concrete fever


By  AFP
February 12, 2026


Milos Mayor Manolis Mikelis has called the construction project on the island an 'environmental crime' - Copyright AFP Aris MESSINIS

Yannick PASQUET

On the sloping shoreline of the Greek Aegean island of Milos, a vast construction site has left a gaping wound into the island’s trademark volcanic rock.

The foundations are for a hotel extension that attracted so much controversy last year that the country’s top administrative court ended up temporarily blocking its building permit.

Construction machinery still dots the site for a planned 59-room extension to the luxury resort, some of whose suites have their own swimming pools.

Milos Mayor Manolis Mikelis calls the project an “environmental crime”.

“The geological uniqueness of Milos is known worldwide. We don’t want its identity to change,” he told AFP in his office, adorned with a copy of the island’s most famous export, the Hellenistic-era statue of the love goddess Venus.

Fuelled by a tourism boom, real estate fever has broken out across the Cyclades archipelago, threatening to destroy iconic landscapes of whitewashed houses and blue church domes.

In December, several mayors from the Cyclades as well as the Dodecanese — which includes the highly touristic islands of Rhodes and Kos — sounded the alarm.

“The very existence of our islands is threatened,” they warned in a resolution initiated by the mayor of Santorini, Nikos Zorzos.

Tourism has become “a field for planting luxury residences to sell or rent,” said Zorzos, whose island — a top global destination — welcomes roughly 3.5 million visitors for a population of 15,500.



– Rejecting ‘plunder’ –



The “Cycladic islands are not grounds for pharaonic projects”, the mayors continued.

V Tourism, the company operating the hotel, argues that the expansion was approved in 2024 with “favourable opinions from all competent authorities”.

But Mikelis, the mayor, noted that there are legislation “loopholes” when it comes to construction.

Like Santorini, Milos is a volcanic isle that is home to one of Greece’s most unique beaches, Sarakiniko.

With its spectacular white formations rounded by erosion, the so-called ‘moon beach’ has bathers packed tighter than an astronaut’s suit during summertime.

Yet Sarakiniko is not protected under Greek law.

Another hotel project there was blocked last year, and the environment ministry has given the owners a month’s time to fill in its construction dig.



– ‘Voracious’ –



Ioannis Spilanis, emeritus professor at the University of the Aegean, says what is happening in the Cyclades “is voracious, predatory real estate”.

Once marginal land intended for grazing “have become lucrative assets. (Locals) are offered very attractive prices that are still low for investors.”

“Then you build or resell for ten times more,” he said.

In Ios, a small island with a vibrant nightlife, a single investor — a Greek who made a fortune on Wall Street — now owns 30 percent of the island, the mayors said in their December statement.

Tourism contributes between 28 and 33.7 percent of GDP, according to the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE), making it a key sector that has propped up the country’s economy for decades.

Arrivals have been breaking record after record with more than 40 million visitors in 2024, a performance that was likely surpassed in 2025.

In Milos, which has more than 5,000 inhabitants, 48 new hotel projects are currently underway, according to the mayor, and 157 new building permits were awarded from January to the end of October 2025, according to the state statistical body.

On Paros, which has also experienced a real estate frenzy for several years, 459 building permits were granted over the same period, and on Santorini, 461.

The most ambitious projects in Greece are classified as “strategic investments”, a fast-track procedure created in 2019 to facilitate investments deemed priorities.

But “there’s often no oversight,” said Spilanis, the academic.



– Golden goose –



And many of the new constructions are far removed from traditional Cycladic architecture.

But the tourism industry is a vital source of income on islands which are usually deserted in winter, and offering few other job prospects.

“This island is a diamond, but unfortunately in recent years it’s become nothing but money, money, money,” fumes a resident who spends half the year in Germany.

“But if I say that in public, everyone will jump down my throat!” she said.

In a 2024 report, the state ombudsman of the Hellenic Republic stressed the deterioration in quality of life on islands where residents can no longer find housing, as many owners prioritise lucrative short-term rentals, while waste management and water resources are also under major strain.

But there are signs of a slowdown in the Cyclades.

Santorini last year saw a 12.8-percent drop in air arrivals between June and September, while Mykonos had to settle for a meagre 2.4-percent increase.