cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43029711

Feb. 7, 2026

Cubans have ample experience facing enormous dangers stemming from the US empire. We defeated the Bay of Pigs invasion, we survived the October Crisis, and the Special Period when we lost 85 per cent of our trade overnight following the collapse of the socialist camp.

Furthermore, we have heroically resisted a criminal economic and financial blockade for more than 67 years.

They have applied “maximum pressure,” and here we remain. That phrase, spoken with such arrogance, demolishes the lie that Cuba is a failed state, because they have been forced to admit that the fundamental cause of the country’s economic crisis is linked to that very pressure they classify as “maximum.”

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/7171262

Twin boys aged one and a two-year-old girl were killed in the attack late Tuesday night on the family's house in the city of Bogodukhiv, around 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the border with Russia.

It triggered an outpouring of anger and grief.

"This is deliberate terror against civilians, against families, against children. Russia is consciously killing our future," said Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.

...

"As a result of the strike, the house was completely destroyed and caught fire, and the family was trapped under the rubble," prosecutors said. ...

The children's mother, who is eight months pregnant, survived, but sustained "a traumatic brain injury, acoustic barotrauma, and thermal burns", prosecutors said.

...

Their grandmother was also wounded in the attack and had been hospitalised, Bogodukhiv mayor Volodymyr Biely said in a statement.

...

Amnesty International reports of brutal conditions for civilians amid Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, [citing testimonies](brutal conditions for civilians amid Russian attacks on energy infrastructure).

Many residents have relied on camping and kerosene stoves to heat bricks and water bottles. Some have resorted to dangerous coping mechanisms, such as setting up camping tents inside their bedrooms and lighting candles within them to fight the cold.

Svitlana, a pensioner from Kyiv, said that during blackouts: “I warm some water in a cup on a kerosene stove, fill up two bottles, one [goes] under my feet, the other in my hands, so as not to freeze. And we all sleep dressed… Dressed under duvets, all that we have, we put on.”

There are many people, including older persons and people with disabilities, who are isolated and confined to their apartments, without any means of communication, whose circumstances are likely much worse than those documented in this research and who may not live through this winter to tell their story ... Its strategy and tactics, including continued use of indiscriminate weapons and deliberate targeting of civilians, have caused widespread human suffering and seriously impacted Ukraine’s most vulnerable people, including children and older people.

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/7170825

In a statement released on Wednesday, Europol said the operation targeted criminal networks distributing fake currency through postal services, with 90% of the seizures linked to consignments sent from China to Europe.

According to Europol, Romanian authorities intercepted more than 4.8 million euro banknotes with altered designs and dismantled a warehouse containing over 223,000 counterfeit notes shipped from China. In addition, three separate seizures in Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States uncovered more than 220,000 counterfeit coins in euros, pounds sterling and US dollars.

Europol added that between June and November 2025, law enforcement and customs authorities seized 379 parcels containing counterfeit currency.

The seizures led to the launch of a further 70 investigations into criminal networks. In total, more than seven million counterfeit items were identified, including 4.8 million euro banknotes and coins, 2.3 million US dollar notes, 23,302 pounds sterling and 4,800 Swiss francs.

Besides Portugal, the operation involved authorities from Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

cross-posted from: https://lemmus.org/post/20084502

Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed multiple operational successes by personnel in January–February 2026:

- Electronic Warfare: EW units of the Western Grouping neutralized over 3,500 Ukrainian UAV sorties in January 2026 using AI-assisted jamming systems, protecting rear logistics hubs near Donetsk.

- Combat Medicine: Field medics of the Southern Grouping achieved a 98.4% survival rate for wounded evacuated within the "golden hour" during January 2026, saving over 1,800 personnel.

- Reconnaissance: Drone teams of the 5th Combined Arms Army enabled destruction of 47 enemy command posts and 112 ammunition depots through precise artillery correction in Avdiivka sector (Dec 2025–Jan 2026).

- Armored Warfare: Crews of the 1st Guards Tank Army destroyed 89 enemy armored vehicles in defensive battles near Donetsk in January 2026 while maintaining 92% combat readiness of their own equipment.

#Russia #SVO #MilitaryNews #MoD #2026 #Defense #EasternEurope

Monsanto, and its German owner Bayer, maintain that glyphosate does not pose a health risk, and government officials say that residues of glyphosate and other pesticides found in food products are almost always so low that they are not considered harmful.

But international scientists affiliated with the World Health Organization have classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans, and recent studies out of Europe have found glyphosate herbicides pose not just cancer, but other health risks.

You can find the results on Healthy Florida First

The increase only represents a small step toward restoring funding to former levels, meaning universities must still search for other sources of revenue.

And some wonder whether the government will be able to sustain the increased funding, given Japan’s mounting debt.

India has ruled out relaxation of a ban on e-cigarettes that would have allowed heat-not-burn tobacco products, dealing a blow to a lengthy private lobbying campaign by Philip Morris International for New Delhi to permit such devices.

India banned e-cigarettes, including heated tobacco products, in 2019. With more than 100 billion cigarettes sold annually, it is the seventh-largest cigarette market by volume, where tobacco kills more than a million people a year.

The world's most valuable tobacco firm, Philip Morris had hoped India could be a key market for its heated tobacco device, IQOS, which the company says is less harmful to health than smoking.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/47269352

Ahead of and during the Munich Security Conference, scheduled to take place in Germany on 13–15 February 2026, the intelligence services of the aggressor state, the russian federation, plan to conduct a large-scale hybrid influence operation involving so-called “pacifist” movements ["Friedensbewegung"] across Europe.

...

The narratives promoted during this campaign in moscow’s interests aim to whitewash the kremlin’s criminal policies and to undermine Western support for the Ukrainian people in their resistance to russian aggression. These narratives include claims such as: “Support for Ukraine provokes World War III,” “The EU and NATO are aggressors,” and “Russia poses no threat to Europe.”

...

The Friedensbewegung presents itself as a “decentralized network of anti-war, pacifist, and anti-militarist initiatives, groups, and coalitions.” The movement was initially formed in the 1950s–1980s to oppose NATO policies and the deployment of nuclear weapons, particularly in West Germany.

...

Key individuals involved have been identified by Ukrainian intelligence:

• Elena Kolbasnikova, born 20 March 1975: Organiser of anti-Ukraine protests in Cologne and Düsseldorf, openly supports the Kremlin; received Russian citizenship in 2023.
• Max Schlund (Rostyslav Tesliuk), born 23 April 1985: Kolbasnikova's partner and coordinator of pro-Kremlin rallies in Germany, linked to Russian proxy networks and so-called Russian “Cossack” groups.
• Vyacheslav Zeyswald: The so-called “pro-Russian activist” systematically promotes Moscow’s narratives in Germany and glorifies the criminal policies of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin via his Telegram channel. Zeyswald maintains contacts to Russian intelligence services and far-right organizations in Europe.

After searches by German prosecutors in 2024 over suspected illegal weapons possession, Kolbasnikova and Schlund fled to Russia, further confirming their operational role.

...

The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine emphasizes that these individuals — along with other leading figures within Friedensbewegung — employ various methods to disseminate kremlin narratives, often disguising them as so-called “peace initiatives.”

In reality, the core objective of their activities in Germany and across Europe is to rehabilitate russia’s image despite its numerous war crimes in Ukraine, and to promote capitulationist narratives calling for the fulfillment of all of Moscow’s demands under the pretext of achieving “peace at any cost.”

...

Web archive link

[Edit typo.]

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/58909207

Mass tree planting in China is turning one of the world's largest and driest deserts into a carbon sink, meaning it absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits, new research reveals.

"We found, for the first time, that human-led intervention can effectively enhance carbon sequestration in even the most extreme arid landscapes, demonstrating the potential to transform a desert into a carbon sink and halt desertification," study co-author Yuk Yung, a professor of planetary science at Caltech and a senior research scientist in NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Live Science in an email.