World News

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/Epsteinfiles/p/884895/andrew-mountbatten-windsor-arrested-on-suspicion-of-misconduct-in-public-office-live

• > Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office by police investigating the former prince’s dealings with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. >
• Photographs of unmarked police cars and plainclothes officers at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate just after 8am were published on Thursday. >
• A statement from Thames Valley police said: “We have today (19/2) arrested a man in his 60s from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk. The man remains in police custody at this time.” >
• The arrest came as Mountbatten-Windsor celebrated his 66th birthday at home. >
• Police had been assessing allegations that Mountbatten-Windsor – formerly known as Prince Andrew – shared sensitive information with the billionaire child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein when he was a UK trade envoy. >
• Oliver Wright, Thames Valley Police’s assistant chief constable, said: “Following a thorough assessment, we have now opened an investigation into this allegation of misconduct in public office.” >

The report said there was a pervasive climate of impunity for serious violations of international law by the Israeli authorities in the Palestinian territories.

“Impunity is not abstract — it kills. Accountability is indispensable. It is the prerequisite for a just and durable peace in Palestine and Israel,” Turk said in a statement.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43392244

Feb. 18, 2026

Barak Ravid reported for Axios on Wednesday that, with a deal between the US and Iran appearing increasingly out of sight, “the Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize” and “It could begin very soon.”

Sources told the outlet that “A US military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month’s pinpoint operation in Venezuela.”

This is how you start World War 3...

Like many of us who are mindful of our plastic consumption, Beth Gardiner would take her own bags to the supermarket and be annoyed whenever she forgot to do so. Out without her refillable bottle, she would avoid buying bottled water. “Here I am, in my own little life, worrying about that and trying to use less plastic,” she says. Then she read an article in this newspaper, just over eight years ago, and discovered that fossil fuel companies had ploughed more than $180bn (£130bn) into plastic plants in the US since 2010. “It was a kick in the teeth,” says Gardiner. “You’re telling me that while I am beating myself up because I forgot to bring my water bottle, all these huge oil companies are pouring billions …” She looks appalled. “It was just such a shock.”

Two months before that piece was published, a photograph of a seahorse clinging to a plastic cotton bud had gone viral; two years before that England followed Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and introduced a charge for carrier bags. “I was one of so many people who were trying to use less plastic – and it just felt like such a moment of revelation: these companies are, on the contrary, increasing production and wanting to push [plastic use] up and up.” Then, says Gardiner, as she started researching her book Plastic Inc: Big Oil, Big Money and the Plan to Trash our Future, “it only becomes more shocking.”

Her research took her to Reserve, Louisiana, in the Lower Mississippi River, where she met Robert Taylor, an activist in his 80s who has spent much of his life living by an enormous plastics plant. “He is surrounded by illness, by all kinds of cancers. He only found out in 2016, as a result of federal action, that the levels of toxic gases had gone through the roof in his area, an overwhelmingly Black neighbourhood. He told me about all the illness in his family – affecting his wife and his daughter, his neighbours and his cousins. It was haunting. When we talk about plastic, we tend to think about the ways we experience it in our own lives, and we’re not as aware of the production and the impact it has on the people who live beside it.”

Atide of anger is rising in New Zealand’s capital, Wellington, as the city’s toilets continue to flush directly into the ocean more than two weeks after the catastrophic collapse of its wastewater treatment plant.

Millions of litres of raw and partially screened sewage have been pouring into pristine reefs and a marine reserve along the south coast daily since 4 February, prompting a national inquiry, as the authorities struggle to get the decimated plant operational.

Abandoned beaches, public health warning signs and seagulls eating human waste are now features of the popular coastline, with the environmental disaster zone adjacent to the airport where thousands of international visitors alight every day.

Fears for the safety of marine ecosystems – including vulnerable species such as the little blue penguin, or kororā, which nest along the shore – are mixed with concerns over the length and cost of disruption to those who depend on the coast for income, wellness, and recreation.

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The publication of 3.5 million documents linked to the sprawling case involving sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has confronted the French justice system with an unprecedented situation and a Herculean task. How can it process the mountain of freely accessible data now before it, which could potentially contain a multitude of offenses, whether sexual or financial, committed on French soil?

On Wednesday, February 18, Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau announced the opening of two investigations entrusted to five magistrates. One will focus on "human trafficking," covering what is commonly called solicitation or recruitment, and the other on "financial offenses of money laundering, breaches of probity, or tax fraud." The investigations will be conducted in collaboration with the National Directorate of the Judicial Police, the National Financial Prosecutor's Office and several national offices.

The head of the Paris prosecutor's office pledged to make use of "the full body of data" that makes up the Epstein files, taking into account reports received in the form of complaints from victims or advocacy groups, information published by the media, or material already handled by the judiciary in the past. "These framework investigations will allow us to centralize the data so that we can analyze each piece in light of the others," said Beccuau, describing it as a "titanic task of analysis."

Summary
Police say King Charles's brother is in custody and officers are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk - read the police statement in full

Froma prince to a prisoner. How the mighty have fallen.

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On February 10, as sirens warned of Russian strikes against Odesa, staff at the main railway depot in this southern Ukrainian region calmly made their way to one of the nearby fortified underground shelters. Aside from energy infrastructure, this vast site has become a top target for Moscow's missiles and drones.

Inside the converted bunker, mechanics, laundry workers – responsible for the sheets used on overnight trains – and company managers, including the depot director Leonid Loboïko, gathered. "Since autumn 2025, every night here has been a nightmare," he said. "The Russians target our repair workshops, trains, tracks, and electric facilities. If they manage to halt rail traffic, Ukraine will become one large cemetery."

There was no panic in the shelter, which also welcomed local residents. The voices were drowned out by the depot chief, a 75-year-old man who looks a decade younger, with an open and cheerful demeanor, leading a team of 1,300 people. "In January, the city's military administration asked us to coordinate with the police to raise our security level," he confided. "I also put in place new internal procedures, for work and discipline, to reduce risks. We've become a frontline, and sometimes I feel like a railway general."

THIS AUGUST WILL mark five years since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan. If they hold onto their totalitarian rule for that long, they could go on to surpass their initial reign, which lasted from 1996 until the United States–led invasion in 2001. This time around, in the absence of armed intervention, it’s become increasingly clear that the international community’s measures to push them out are failing.

Over the past half-decade, the Taliban have brought one form of shock and pain after another to the Afghan people: girls being denied most types of higher education, the teaching of extremist ideology in schools, heavy restrictions on social media activity, the silencing of women’s voices, arrests and torture of dissidents, and strict rules targeting freedom of speech and the press. In January, the Taliban announced a new criminal code that, among other provisions, allows domestic violence and the corporal punishment of children and appears to legitimize slavery through the use of the word “slave.”

Pakistan and Iran began mass deportations of Afghans in 2023 and 2025 respectively, further compounding the humanitarian pressures. For a country beset by natural disasters, such as earthquakes, one that’s among the most vulnerable to climate change, the future looks grim.

To some human rights activists, there’s increasingly another cause for concern: that the Taliban may eventually become accepted on the world stage. Most states have, so far, condemned the Taliban’s human rights violations and do not formally recognize the group as Afghanistan’s legitimate rulers. But over the past year, some governments have quietly begun engaging with Taliban authorities—what US-based human rights activist Metra Mehran describes as a “soft normalization” of Taliban rule.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/47682130

Restaurants and cafes are closing down in Russia at the fastest pace since the start of the war in Ukraine four years ago as consumption stalls even in affluent Moscow.

The closures, visible on streets from the capital to Vladivostok 6,500 km (4,000 miles) east on the Pacific Ocean, point to a significant slowdown in Russia's $2.8 trillion economy, which has so far proved surprisingly resilient in the face of stringent Western sanctions.

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High interest rates, higher taxes, rising prices and a $20-per-barrel discount for Russian oil are taking their toll - even in Moscow, a vast urban area of 22 million people that has been largely insulated from the worst impact of Europe's deadliest war since World War Two.

"To let" signs are prominent in retail spaces across the capital. Sales of new light commercial vehicles and trucks, a good indicator for the health of the retail and construction industry, fell by 38% to 147,000 units in 2025 and have continued to fall in the first weeks of 2026, Autostat said.

Data from Sberbank, which as Russia's biggest bank sees the ripples of expenditure across the economy, showed that the fall in the number of catering outlets in January was the biggest since 2021 and that restaurant spending hit the lowest in three years in November-early December 2025. The change is especially striking as major Russian cities saw a restaurant boom before the pandemic, and some politicians bridled at what they saw as Moscow's "decadent frivolity" while soldiers were being killed or injured at the front.

Overall, real consumer spending growth fell to zero in February for the first time in two years, Sberbank data showed. Russia forecasts economic growth of 1.3% this year after 1% in 2025, 4.9% in 2024 and 4.1% in 2023. The International Monetary Fund forecasts 0.8% growth for 2026.

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Russian sources say that while there are certainly problems in the economy, it is still performing remarkably well and they dismiss suggestions of its demise as premature. Besides, Putin is unlikely to change course on Ukraine due to restaurants shutting their doors, they said.

Nevertheless, Putin earlier this month told top economic officials to restore the growth rate and urged them not to simply monitor prices. Just 10 days later, the central bank cut rates by 50 basis points to 15.5%.

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Borrowing costs - advertised by major banks at about 18-19% for unsecured loans to business - have hit small businesses and consumers hard, especially after some lenders imposed stricter limits on consumer credit.

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cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/59382082

Research suggests more than 75,000 killed in the first 16 months of conflict, 25,000 more than announced at the time

More than 75,000 people were killed in the first 16 months of the two-year war in Gaza, at least 25,000 more than the death toll announced by local authorities at the time, according to a study published on Wednesday in the Lancet medical journal.

The research also found that reporting by the Gaza health ministry about the proportion of women, children and elderly people among those killed was accurate.

A total of 42,200 women, children and elderly people died between 7 October 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise attack into Israel that prompted a devastating Israeli offensive into Gaza, and 5 January 2025, the study found. These deaths comprised 56% of violent deaths in Gaza.

“The combined evidence suggests that, as of 5 January 2025, 3-4% of the population of the Gaza Strip had been killed violently and there have been a substantial number of non-violent deaths caused indirectly by the conflict,” the authors of the study, a team including an economist, demographer, epidemiologist and survey specialists, wrote in the Lancet Global Health.

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cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/47681631

A relative of Vladimir Putin owns a stake in the Russian tech giant VK, which in turn owns the new state-backed “everything app” MAX, independent investigative journalist Andrey Zakharov claimed on Wednesday.

Zakharov said that although VK had a complex ownership structure, its accounts for the first half of 2025 showed that its shareholders included the insurance company Sogaz. Prior to the war in Ukraine, Mikhail Shelomov, the son of one of Putin’s first cousins, was known to own a 12.47% stake in Sogaz through a St. Petersburg-based insurance company called Accept.

Although Sogaz made its list of shareholders private after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Zakharov was able to access Accept’s accounts and learnt that Shelomov has retained his stake in the company, with its 2024 accounts showing that his shares were worth approximately the same then as they did in 2019.

Zakharov thus concluded that Shelomov still owned a stake in VK, and therefore in MAX. When Zakharov managed to reach Shelomov by phone to ask him what his connection to the messenger was, Shelomov reportedly said “none” before hanging up.

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In addition to his stake in Sogaz, Shelomov also owns shares in Rossiya Bank, a controlling stake in which belongs to Putin’s friend Yury Kovalchuk, who also part owns VK.

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As investigative outlet Proekt revealed in 2019, Shelomov became a dollar billionaire in the late 2010s, but continued to spend his weekends at his dacha with an outdoor toilet, suggesting that he was simply a proxy holder of Putin’s wealth.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/51083200

Riders embroiled in a dispute over pay and conditions with food delivery company HungryPanda in Sydney say Chinese police have summoned family members back home and even threatened to have them arrested upon return as part of a pressure campaign to stop them protesting.

The development has raised concerns about foreign interference in the protracted tussle between HungryPanda and some of its riders who say pay cuts and a lack of transparency in the app's algorithm have pushed them to the brink.

Earlier this month, multiple Sydney-based HungryPanda riders in a group chat on the Chinese social media app WeChat began discussing plans to hold a protest or refuse to work.

On Lunar New Year eve, dozens of them signed up for switching off from work during the Lunar New Year period, which often brings a surge in activity and orders on HungryPanda.

[...]

President Trump has given no indication that he has made a decision about how to proceed, as diplomatic talks continue.

The rapid buildup of U.S. forces in the Middle East has progressed to the point that President Trump has the option to take military action against Iran as soon as this weekend, administration and Pentagon officials said, leaving the White House with high-stakes choices about pursuing diplomacy or war.

Mr. Trump has given no indication that he has made a decision about how to proceed. But the drive to assemble a military force capable of striking Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missiles and accompanying launch sites has continued this week despite indirect talks between the two nations on Tuesday, with Iran seeking two weeks to come back with fleshed out proposals for a diplomatic resolution.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly demanded that Iran give up its nuclear program, including agreeing not to enrich any more uranium. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, whose country would potentially take part in an attack, has been pushing for action to weaken Iran’s ability to launch missiles at Israel.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43378986

17 Feb 2026

The alarm in the Hashemite Kingdom reached a fever pitch on Sunday, following the Israeli cabinet’s approval of measures to register vast swaths of the occupied West Bank as “state land” under the Israeli Ministry of Justice. The move, described by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich as a “settlement revolution”, effectively bypasses the military administration that has governed the occupied territory since 1967, treating it instead as sovereign Israeli soil.

For Jordan, this bureaucratic annexation is the final signal that the status quo is dead. With the Israeli military’s “Iron Wall” operation crushing refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarem, Jordan’s political and military establishment is no longer asking if a forced transfer is coming, but how to stop it.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/51084120

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Poland has banned Chinese-made cars from entering military facilities in an effort to bolster infrastructure security, according to the country’s General Staff.

The decision follows a risk analysis regarding the growing integration of digital systems in vehicles and the possibility of “uncontrolled data acquisition,” the army said in a statement published on its website on Tuesday.

NATO-member Poland has maintained trading ties with China even as Beijing sided with Russia over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. SAIC Motor Corp.’s MG brand, Chery Automobile Co.’s models and BYD Co. led sales in Poland among Chinese auto manufacturers.

[...]