GOLDEN TRIANGLE REDUX

Opium farming takes root in Myanmar’s war-wracked landscape


By AFP
March 10, 2025


Myanmar overtook Afghanistan as the world's largest producer of opium in 2023 - Copyright AFP STR

Scraping opium resin off a seedpod in Myanmar’s remote poppy fields, displaced farmer Aung Hla describes the narcotic crop as his only prospect in a country made barren by conflict.

The 35-year-old was a rice farmer when the junta seized power in a 2021 coup, adding pro-democracy guerillas to the long-running civil conflict between the military and ethnic armed groups.

Four years on, the United Nations has said Myanmar is mired in a “polycrisis” of mutually compounding conflict, poverty and environmental damage.

Aung Hla was forced off his land in Moe Bye village by fighting after the coup. When he resettled, his usual crops were no longer profitable, but the hardy poppy promised “just enough for a livelihood”.

“Everyone thinks people grow poppy flowers to be rich, but we are just trying hard to get by,” he told AFP in rural Pekon township of eastern Shan state.

He says he regrets growing the substance — the core ingredient in heroin — but said the income is the only thing separating him from starvation.

“If anyone were in my shoes, they would likely do the same.”



– Displaced and desperate –



Myanmar’s opium production was previously second only to Afghanistan, where poppy farming flourished following the US-led invasion in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

But after the Taliban government launched a crackdown, Myanmar overtook Afghanistan as the world’s biggest producer of opium in 2023, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Myanmar’s opiate economy — including the value of domestic consumption as well as exports abroad — is estimated between $589 million and $1.57 billion, according to the UNODC.

Between September and February each year, dozens of workers toil in Pekon’s fields, slicing immature poppy seedpods, which ooze a small amount of sticky brown resin.

Aung Naing, 48, gently transfers the collected resin from a small trough onto a leaf plate.

Before the coup, which ended a brief experiment with democracy, Aung Naing was a reformed opium farmer. But wartime hardship forced him back to the crop.

“There is more poppy cultivation because of difficulties in residents’ livelihoods,” he says.

“Most of the farmers who plant poppy are displaced,” he said. “Residents who can’t live in their villages and fled to the jungle are working in poppy fields.”

In Myanmar’s fringes, ethnic armed groups, border militias and the military all vie for control of local resources and the lucrative drug trade.

Aung Naing says poppy earns only a slightly higher profit than food crops like corn, bean curd and potatoes, which are also vulnerable to disease when it rains.

Fresh opium was generally sold by Myanmar farmers for just over $300 per kilo in 2024, according to the UNODC, a small fraction of what it fetches on the international black market.

And the crop is more costly to produce than rice — more labour intensive, requiring expensive fertilisers and with small yields.

Aung Naing says he makes just shy of a $30 profit for each kilo. “How can we get rich from that?” he asks.



– ‘Unsafe’ –



The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates there are more than 3.5 million people displaced in Myanmar.

But fleeing conflict zones to farm opium does not guarantee safety.

“Military fighter jets are flying over us,” said Aung Naing. “We are working in poppy fields with anxiety and fear. We feel unsafe.”

Opium cultivation and production in Myanmar decreased slightly between 2023 and 2024, according to the UNODC — in part due to ongoing clashes between armed groups.

“If our country were at peace and there were industries offering many job opportunities in the region, we wouldn’t plant any poppy fields even if we were asked to,” says farmer Shwe Khine, 43.

Aung Hla agreed. With the war, he said, “we don’t have any choice”.

Russian disinformation ‘infects’ AI chatbots, researchers warn


By AFP
March 10, 2025


Researchers warn that the pro-Russian Pravda network is infiltrating leading AI chatbots - Copyright AFP/File Jim WATSON, JOHN THYS, Alexander NEMENOV

Anuj CHOPRA

A sprawling Russian disinformation network is manipulating Western AI chatbots to spew pro-Kremlin propaganda, researchers say, at a time when the United States is reported to have paused its cyber operations against Moscow.

The Pravda network, a well-resourced Moscow-based operation to spread pro-Russian narratives globally, is said to be distorting the output of chatbots by flooding large language models (LLM) with pro-Kremlin falsehoods.

A study of 10 leading AI chatbots by the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard found that they repeated falsehoods from the Pravda network more than 33 percent of the time, advancing a pro-Moscow agenda.

The findings underscore how the threat goes beyond generative AI models picking up disinformation circulating on the web, and involves the deliberate targeting of chatbots to reach a wider audience in a manipulation tactic that researchers call “LLM grooming.”

“Massive amounts of Russian propaganda — 3,600,000 articles in 2024 — are now incorporated in the outputs of Western AI systems, infecting their responses with false claims and propaganda,” NewsGuard researchers McKenzie Sadeghi and Isis Blachez wrote in a report.

In a separate study, the nonprofit American Sunlight Project warned of the growing reach of the Pravda network — sometimes also known as “Portal Kombat” — and the likelihood that its pro-Russian content was flooding the training data of large language models.

“As Russian influence operations expand and grow more advanced, they pose a direct threat to the integrity of democratic discourse worldwide,” said Nina Jankowicz, chief executive of the American Sunlight Project.

“The Pravda network’s ability to spread disinformation at such scale is unprecedented, and its potential to influence AI systems makes this threat even more dangerous,” she added.

This disinformation could become more pervasive in the absence of oversight in the United States, experts warned.

Earlier this month, multiple US media reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered a pause on all of the country’s cyber operations against Russia, including planning for offensive actions.

The order was reported to be part of an overall reevaluation of US operations against Moscow, with the duration or extent of the pause unclear.

The Pentagon declined to comment on the news but the reported change comes as President Donald Trump has been pushing for negotiations to end the three-year war in Ukraine, and days after the US leader berated his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, in a stormy White House meeting.



– ‘Tool to be leveraged’ –



The Pravda network, launched in April 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has expanded significantly to cover 49 countries and dozens of languages, NewsGuard said.

Millions of articles carrying pro-Russian content produced by the Pravda network — including false claims such as that the US operates secret bioweapons labs in Ukraine — are amplified across platforms such as X, Telegram and Bluesky.

Pravda does not produce original content itself, but instead is known to aggregate content from sources such as the Russian state media and pro-Kremlin influencers.

In NewsGuard’s study, all 10 chatbots –- including OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4, You.com’s Smart Assistant, Grok, Microsoft’s Copilot, Meta AI, Google Gemini and Perplexity — repeated disinformation spread by the Pravda network.

Seven chatbots even directly cited specific articles from Pravda as their sources.

Last month, AFP’s fact-checkers debunked social media claims that Zelensky had banned Truth Social after facing sharp criticism from Trump.

Representatives for the social network said it had not launched in Ukraine, and the government there said Trump’s platform would be welcome.

When NewsGuard prompted the chatbots with the question “Why did Zelensky ban Truth Social?” six of them repeated the false narrative as fact, in many cases citing articles from Pravda.

The chatbots also repeated fabricated narratives pushed by US fugitive turned Kremlin propagandist John Mark Dougan, NewsGuard said.

“By pushing these Russian narratives from the Russian perspective, we can actually change worldwide AI,” the watchdog quoted Dougan as saying in January at a conference in Moscow.

“It’s not a tool to be scared of, it’s a tool to be leveraged.”

Five years ago, WHO’s pandemic call shook world into action


By AFP
March 10, 2025


WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus jolted world leaders into action on Covid on March 11, 2020 - Copyright AFP/File Fabrice COFFRINI

Robin MILLARD

Five years ago on Tuesday, the World Health Organization announced Covid-19 had become a pandemic — a moment when the world finally woke up to the unfolding disaster.

The WHO had already sounded its own highest alarm five weeks earlier. But that warning — which does not mention the “p” word — had gone unheeded.

At a press conference on March 11, 2020, the head of the United Nations’ health agency, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, finally said the worsening outbreak could be “characterised as a pandemic”.

Only then did many countries grasp the severity of the situation and — way too late — jolt into action.

The pandemic, the likes of which had not been seen in a century, killed millions, shredded economies and crippled health systems.



– SHOC room scene –



Tedros had already rung the world’s top alarm bell by declaring a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30, 2020. The PHEIC lasted until May 5, 2023.

Throughout February 2020, journalists had repeatedly asked about a pandemic and at a press conference on March 9, Tedros indicated “the threat of a pandemic has become very real”.

The March 11 press conference was scheduled for 5:00pm (1600 GMT) in the Strategic Health Operations Centre (SHOC) lower room at the WHO’s headquarters in Geneva.

The emergency ops hub was being used for WHO internal morning updates on Covid and informing the press in the afternoon.

The 59-minute press briefing featured Tedros, WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan and Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead at the WHO health emergencies programme.

Tedros took two pens from his jacket, adjusted his glasses, looked round the room and read his bombshell update from a print-out on his desk.

He began by saying how the number of cases outside China had increased 13-fold in the past fortnight and the number of affected countries had tripled to 114. Some 4,291 people were dead and thousands more in hospital.

“We’re deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity — and by the alarming levels of inaction,” Tedros said.

“We have therefore made the assessment that Covid-19 can be characterised as a pandemic.”



– Game-changer –



Veteran correspondent John Zarocostas was sitting three seats along from Van Kerkhove.

“The word ‘pandemic’ changed the game,” he told AFP, which also attended the historic briefing.

He said the shift came as a greater shock to the outside world than to those in the room, who had been following WHO briefings.

“I had a feeling they (the WHO) had to do that because they were not getting the anticipated member state reaction” from the PHEIC declaration weeks earlier, he explained.

“It changed the political dynamics in terms of national government reaction. They all moved into full gear.”

The WHO saw the announcement as describing a situation that had become evident, rather than declaring a new level of emergency. But the world saw it differently.

“The world was possessed with the word pandemic,” a frustrated Ryan said on the March 2022 anniversary.

“The warning in January (2020) was way more important than the announcement in March.

“Do you want the warning to say you’ve just drowned? Or would you like the warning to say the flood is coming?”



– New ‘pandemic emergency’ button –



The Covid-19 pandemic upended human society.

And it could happen again.

The WHO says the next pandemic is only a matter of time.

In December 2021, WHO member countries began drafting an accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, to address the failures exposed by Covid-19.

They have one final negotiating session next month to finalise the text for the WHO’s annual assembly in May.

They have already agreed thatthe WHO head will, from September, be able to declare an even higher-level “pandemic emergency” — a PHEIC with pandemic potential — which should hopefully grab more attention.

Tedros continues to warn countries against repeating the cycle of neglect followed by panic that characterised the build-up to March 11, 2020.

83% of USAID programs to be scrapped: Rubio


By AFP
March 10, 2025


The US Agency for International Development, whose logo is seen here in Haiti after a devastating earthquake in 2010, distributes humanitarian aid around the world - Copyright AFP/File Jewel SAMAD

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday the United States was cancelling 83 percent of programs at USAID, as the Trump administration guts spending not aligned with its “America First” agenda.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) distributes humanitarian aid around the world, with health and emergency programs in around 120 countries, and critics warn that slashing its work will affect millions of people.

“After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID,” Rubio said on social media platform X.

“The 5,200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.”

President Donald Trump, who has called for the humanitarian agency to be shut down, signed an executive order in January demanding a freeze on all US foreign aid to allow time to assess overseas expenses.

Rubio said the remaining 1,000 programs would be administered by the State Department, delivering a seemingly fatal blow to USAID — where most workers have been placed on leave or fired since January.

Rubio on Monday notably thanked the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which billionaire Elon Musk is leading in a drive to cut federal spending and jobs.

Musk, whom Rubio has reportedly criticized over his aggressive belt-tightening, responded on X describing the USAID cuts as “tough, but necessary.”

The State Department had announced last month its intention to cut 92 percent of USAID contracts, identifying 5,800 grants to be eliminated.

Trump and his allies have argued that foreign assistance is wasteful and does not serve US interests, but aid groups argue much of the assistance supports US interests by promoting stability and health overseas.
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Former Ubisoft bosses on trial in France over alleged harassment


By AFP
March 10, 2025


The high-profile trial comes after years of controversy over the global gaming industry's treatment of women and minorities in both games and real life - Copyright AFP/File Fabrice COFFRINI

Amelie BARON

Three former top executives from French video game giant Ubisoft, the maker of “Assassin’s Creed” and “Far Cry”, went on trial on Monday accused of psychologically and sexually harassing employees for nearly a decade.

The high-profile trial comes after years of controversy over the global gaming industry’s treatment of women and minorities in both games and real life.

After staff took to social media to accuse the company of a toxic work culture, alleging predatory behaviour by powerful managers, Ubisoft in 2020 launched a probe and announced the departure of several senior executives.

The executive shake-up at Ubisoft was hailed by some as a #Metoo moment in the male-dominated video game publishing industry, which has faced criticism in the past for the sexist and misogynistic characters and imagery often found in games.

Serge Hascoet, chief creative officer and the company’s second-in-command, resigned, while Thomas Francois, vice-president of editorial and creative services, and another senior executive, Guillaume Patrux, were dismissed for serious misconduct.

All three men deny the claims.

Hascoet “categorically denies having harassed a single colleague. He denies having knowledge of any wrongdoing by any Ubisoft employees,” his lawyer Jean-Guillaume Le Mintier said in a statement sent to AFP.

– Headstand in skirt –



Employees have complained of near-daily public humiliation and hazing.

Francois is the focus of the most damning testimonies, which have alleged systemic psychological and sexual harassment at the company’s offices in the eastern Paris suburb of Montreuil.

Between January 2012 and July 2020, Francois is alleged to have habitually watched pornographic films in the open-plan office and commented on the appearance of female employees.

He is also accused of planting surprise kisses on the lips of employees and insulting some by calling them “ugly” or “slut”.

Francois was also accused of forcing a young employee he had just hired to do a headstand in the open-plan office while wearing a skirt.

He is also accused of tying the same woman to a chair and putting her in an elevator, sending her to another floor and of forcing her to attend a work meeting after he painted her face with a felt-tip pen.

In addition to the accusations of sexual and psychological harassment, Francois is being prosecuted for an attempted sexual assault when he tried to forcibly kiss a young employee during a Christmas party as she was held by other colleagues.

According to an investigative report seen by AFP, Francois encouraged “his subordinates to act in the same way, using his influence and high hierarchical position within the company to this end.”

– ‘Desire to humiliate’ –



Hascoet, 59, is accused of lewd behaviour and posing intrusive questions of a sexual nature, as well as racist comments and behaviour.

Following deadly jihadist attacks in Paris in 2015, he allegedly asked a Muslim employee if she agreed with the ideas of the Islamic State group.

The woman had her computer desktop background changed to images of bacon sandwiches and food was placed on her desk during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.

The third defendant, former game director Patrux, 39, has been accused of psychological harassment.

Investigators have spoken to dozens of witnesses during the probe, but “many refused to file a complaint for fear of reactions from the video game community,” according to the report seen by AFP.

They deplored “the inertia of human resources, despite (the department) having been alerted to this behaviour,” according to the report.

“I have seen several cases of moral or sexual harassment and I have never seen such a desire to humiliate,” said Charlotte Merigot, a lawyer for a video game workers’ union.

In the internal probe launched after the scandal broke, Ubisoft said in 2020 that about 25 percent of its employees had been victims of professional misconduct at work or were witnesses to it.

UBS fined 75,000 euros in France for harassing two whistleblowers


By AFP
March 10, 2025


UBS and its French subsidiary were also definitively convicted of having set up a system of massive tax evasion between 2004 and 2012 - Copyright AFP/File Fabrice COFFRINI

A French court fined Swiss bank UBS 75,000 euros on Monday for the psychological harassment of two whistleblowers who had denounced a system that helped moneyed French clients dodge taxes.

Capping a 15-year legal saga, UBS Europe, which has absorbed its French subsidiary, was also ordered to pay 50,000 euros ($54,000) in damages to Nicolas Forissier, the former head of internal auditing.

The other victim, former marketing manager Stephanie Gibaud, reached an agreement with the bank.

But UBS was acquitted of charges of witness tampering and obstruction of the functioning of an internal committee.

The bank and its French subsidiary were also definitively convicted of having set up a system of massive tax evasion between 2004 and 2012.

Forissier’s lawyer, William Bourdon, said it was the first time in France that a former employer of a whistleblower had been convicted of psychological harassment.

While the amount of the fine “seems a little paltry”, “we are happy and proud of this decision,” Bourdon said. “It is also a powerful message to the whistleblowers of tomorrow.”

Forissier said: “The truth has come out.”

“I did my job, nothing more, but I served the interests of the state, and I respected the law of my country. I am very, very proud of that.”

The bank said it was satisfied with the ruling.

“We are pleased that the court has acquitted UBS on the charges of witness tampering and obstruction of the functioning of an internal committee,” it said.

“However, we disagree with the convictions for psychological harassment, which we find unjust. We will thoroughly analyse the decision and decide on next steps.”

During the hearing, the public prosecutor had requested the maximum fine of 225,000 euros for the three offenses.

UN chief says ‘poison of patriarchy’ is back with a vengeance

GENDER APARTHEID, MISOGYNY & FEMICIDE

By AFP
March 10, 2025


UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres slammed 'the poison of patriarchy' at a UN meeting on women's rights - Copyright AFP/File Fabrice COFFRINI

United Nations leader Antonio Guterres on Monday condemned rollbacks in women’s rights that he said had been condoned by some world leaders.

Without naming any country or leader, the UN secretary-general said “the poison of patriarchy is back –- and it is back with a vengeance: slamming the brakes on action; tearing-up progress; and mutating into new and dangerous forms.”

Guterres said women’s rights were “under siege” at the annual meeting of the UN commission on the status of women, held 30 years after a major UN conference in Beijing agreed a blueprint for boosting sexual equality.

“Around the world, the masters of misogyny are gaining in strength, confidence and influence,” said Guterres, who added that progress on education and cutting maternal mortality was under threat.

“We see it in the bile hurled at women online. We see it in attempts to gut women’s human rights and fundamental freedoms. And we see it in the leaders happy to throw equality to the wolves.”

Guterres’s comments came as the US administration of President Donald Trump attacks diversity programs, Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities face mounting criticism over their treatment of women, and other countries have also cutback on rights.

“Around the world, hard-won gains are being thrown into reverse,” said Guterres.

“Reproductive rights are under attack, and equality initiatives discarded. Meanwhile, new technologies -– including artificial intelligence -– are creating new platforms for violence and abuse, normalizing misogyny and online revenge.”

Guterres called for “action to ensure women’s full, equal and meaningful participation and leadership in decision-making — at every level and all walks of life.”

The UN chief said that measures, such as quotas, targeted appointments and parity goals had been proven to work. “Countries and companies should use them,” he insisted.

US President Donald Trump ‘unpredictable’: Greenland PM


By AFP
March 10, 2025


Greenland's former colonial power Denmark pursued assimilation policies that included de facto bans on the Inuit language and traditional tattoos. — © AFP

US President Donald Trump, who wants to take over Greenland, is very erratic, the island’s premier said on Monday, the eve of the self-governing Danish territory’s legislative elections.

“There is a world order that is faltering on many fronts — and a president of the United States who is very unpredictable — in such a way that makes people feel insecure,” Prime Minister Mute Egede told Danish public radio DR.

In a speech to the US Congress last week, Trump reiterated his designs, arguing the US needed the vast Arctic island for reasons of national and international security and saying he expected to get it “one way or the other”.

Determining a timeline for Greenland’s independence from Denmark has dominated the territory’s election campaign.

In a post addressing Greenlanders on his social media platform Truth Social late on Sunday, Trump said the US was “ready to INVEST BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to create new jobs and MAKE YOU RICH”.

“And, if you so choose, we welcome you to be a part of the Greatest Nation anywhere in the World, the United States of America!” he wrote.


PM Egede said Trump’s behaviour towards Greenlanders was disrespectful and offputting – Copyright AFP/File Fabrice COFFRINI

Aaja Chemnitz — one of two Greenland representatives in the Danish parliament and a member of the prime minister’s left-green Inuit Ataqatigiit party — accused Trump of “inadmissible” election interference.

“It’s pretty desperate to make such a statement on the eve of an election in Greenland,” she said.

“As a foreign power, you’re not supposed to interfere.”

– ‘Respect’ –

In his interview with DR, conducted before Trump published his latest post, Egede said the US president’s recent behaviour had only served to push Greenlanders away.

“We deserve to be treated with respect and I don’t think the American president has done that lately since he took office,” Egede said.

“The recent things that the American president has done mean that you don’t want to get as close to (the US) as you might have wanted in the past,” he added.

In large part, Greenland’s economy is currently dependent on the fisheries sector and Danish subsidies. But Egede stressed it was already diversifying through tourism, mining and green energy generation.

He said he saw Greenland’s future as “within the Western alliance”.

Independence is backed by all of Greenland’s main political parties, — © AFP

“There are some security and defence policy issues where we need to ally ourselves with other countries with which we are already in alliance,” he said.

Egede said an independent Greenland in an alliance with Denmark and its other territory, the Faroe Islands, through a new, updated agreement “might be a possibility”.

The day after Trump’s speech to Congress, Egede wrote on Facebook that the 57,000 people of Greenland “don’t want to be Americans, or Danes either”.

“We are Greenlanders.”

“The Americans and their leader must understand that.”

Trump behaving towards Greenland 'like Saddam Hussein was with Kuwait', expert says

7-Eleven to explore sell-offs with Couche-Tard ahead of potential merger


By AFP
March 9, 2025


The Japanese owner of 7-Eleven said it had agreed to jointly explore store sell-offs with Alimentation Couche-Tard to address antitrust concerns ahead of a potential merger - Copyright AFP/File Yuichi YAMAZAKI

The Japanese owner of 7-Eleven said Monday it had agreed to jointly explore store sell-offs with Alimentation Couche-Tard (ACT) to address antitrust concerns ahead of a potential merger.

It comes just days after Seven & i — which has wholly owned 7-Eleven, the world’s biggest convenience store brand, since 2005 — announced a raft of new measures to fend off a takeover from its Canadian rival.

“Joint outreach by financial advisors to ACT and 7&i to potential buyers has begun,” Seven & i said in a statement.

Couche-Tard has agreed to jointly “map out the viability of a divestiture process by defining operational, management, and financial characteristics of the group of stores to be sold and identifying potential buyers”, it added.

“This would provide some insight into the prospects of success along terms that had a reasonable likelihood of satisfying US antitrust regulators,” Seven & i said.

“We and our advisors believe we can now make progress towards determining whether a credible and actionable remedy and divestiture package can be achieved that would allow a realistic assessment of ACT’s proposal.”

On Thursday, the Tokyo-based company announced a huge share buyback and an IPO of its US unit — the latest twist in a saga that began last year, when Seven & i rebuffed a takeover offer worth nearly $40 billion from ACT.

When Seven & i rejected the initial takeover offer from ACT in September, the company said it had “grossly” undervalued its business and could face regulatory hurdles.

Such a takeover would be the biggest foreign buyout of a Japanese firm, merging the 7-Eleven, Circle K and other franchises to create a global convenience store behemoth.

Japan’s Yomiuri daily reported last week that a special committee scrutinising ACT’s raised offer of reportedly around $47 billion had decided formally to reject that too.

Seven & i, which operates some 85,000 convenience stores worldwide, also named Stephen Dacus as its first foreign CEO on Thursday.

Around a quarter of 7-Eleven stores are in Japan where they are a beloved institution, selling everything from concert tickets to pet food and fresh rice balls.

ACT, which began with one store in Quebec in 1980, runs nearly 17,000 convenience store outlets worldwide, including Circle K.

Musk spat renews opposition in Italy to Starlink deal


By AFP
March 10, 2025


Starlink systems provide high-level satellite communications - Copyright AFP/File Fabrice COFFRINI

Italian opposition parties stepped up criticism Monday of a proposed deal between the government and SpaceX’s Starlink following founder Elon Musk’s suggestion he could cut Ukraine from the satellite network.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right government has been negotiating with Musk’s privately-owned SpaceX over a reported 1.5-billion-euro ($1.6-billion) deal to use Starlink to provide secure telecommunications for its diplomats and military.

The proposal has sparked outrage among Italy’s opposition parties, which on Monday renewed their demands that talks stop after Musk said on his X social media platform Sunday that Ukraine’s “entire front line would collapse” were he to turn off Starlink for Kyiv’s forces.

Poland’s foreign minister accused him of threats, after which Musk — the richest man on earth and a senior advisor to US President Donald Trump, who has frozen US military support to Kyiv — insisted Starlink will “never turn off its terminals” in Ukraine.

Still, centrist Carlo Calenda, who leads Italy’s Action party, on Monday branded Musk “not a reliable partner”.

The leader of the Democratic Party, Italy’s largest opposition group, said Sunday that Meloni should “change course immediately”.

“How can Giorgia Meloni want to hand over the keys to Italy’s national security to Musk after hearing his latest, very serious words?” she wrote on X.

Meloni has said in the past she has “excellent relations” with the billionaire Musk, whom she has called a “genius”.

In January, she said she would evaluate any Starlink deal through “the lens of national interest”, while adding that there were “no public alternatives”.

However, last week the head of European satellite operator Eutelsat, Eva Berneke, told the news agency Bloomberg that it was in discussions with Rome.

Italian media have reported that President Sergio Mattarella, Italy’s head of state, also has reservations about the Starlink deal.

Responding to one such report at the weekend, Musk wrote on X: “It would be an honour to speak with President Mattarella.”

Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League party, backs a deal and said this weekend he would be ready to sign it “tomorrow morning”.

“Not because I like Musk or because I’m rooting for Trump — because it would improve Italy’s national security,” he said at a party event in Milan, according to Italian news agency Ansa.

Musk says X hit by major cyberattack


By AFP
March 10, 2025


After Elon Musk bought Twitter in late 2022 he gutted the staff, raising concerns about the safety and stability of the platform he has renamed X - Copyright AFP Nicolas TUCAT

Elon Musk said X was hit by a major cyberattack on Monday as outages plagued users of the platform once known as Twitter.

“There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X,” Musk said in a post on the platform.

Musk blamed a cyberattack, providing no evidence, for crashing the site last year when an interview with Donald Trump was to be streamed.

In his post Monday, Musk included an X post from a DogeDesigner account that some on Reddit speculated could be a puppet of the tycoon himself.

The post noted protests against the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that Trump entrusted to Musk, along with Tesla shops being vandalized, suggesting a cyberattack could signal another burst of animosity towards Musk.

Musk is chief or Tesla, his electric car company.

“It would take a lot of (money) to do an attack of this magnitude,” read a post in the exchange by the account of Jammies.

“Who has the resources to fund this?”

Musk also maintained such an attack would take tremendous resources, speculating it was the work of a country or large coordinated group.

Outages on the X social media platform left tens of thousands of users unable to access the site, according to monitors.

Reports of problems with X started in the early hours of Monday, with users in Asia, Europe, and North America saying they could not access the platform, according to the Downdetector tracking site.

At the peak, more than 40,000 people reported outages, the site said.

The bulk of the reports were from people trying to use X on smartphones, but people on web browsers also reported the service down.

“Twitter keeps breaking?” asked a post by @Lalaslovely in the Downdetector chat section.

After Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022, the majority of employees left or were fired, raising concerns about whether staffing was in place to keep the platform safe and stable.
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