Third Leader Charged In Multi-State Forced Labor Conspiracy Involving Kingdom Of God Global Church



David Taylor, of Kingdom of God Global Church, formerly Joshua Media Ministries. Photo Credit: David E. Taylor / Facebook


February 13, 2026 
By Eurasia Review

A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Michigan returned a superseding indictment Wednesday against a third defendant for her alleged role in a forced labor conspiracy that victimized individuals in Michigan, Florida, Texas, and Missouri.

“This case reflects the gravity of forced labor schemes that strip victims of their basic human rights and subject them to physical and brutal psychological abuse,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Combating human trafficking is a top priority for the Department of Justice. We will relentlessly pursue those who facilitate and profit from forced labor and fight to obtain justice for survivors.”

“We will follow the evidence and meticulously build the case,” said U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. for the Eastern District of Michigan “We thank our federal partners for their dogged pursuit of human traffickers.”

“Forced labor is a direct assault on human freedom,” said Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Runyan of the FBI Detroit Field Office. “It strips victims of their dignity, their autonomy, and their basic right to control their own lives. Anyone who conspires to exploit and enslave others for profit will be held fully accountable under the law. This case demonstrates the strength of our federal, state, and local partnerships in dismantling a multi-state forced labor operation. We will not stop until these criminal networks are shut down and justice is delivered.”

“IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is dedicated to fighting human trafficking to ensure the safety of all communities we serve,” said Special Agent in Charge Karen Wingerd of the IRS-CI Detroit Field Office. “Working together with our federal and local partners and leveraging IRS-CI’s unique investigative talents, we are able to disrupt suspected trafficking operations, keeping the vulnerable safe from becoming another victim.”



According to court documents, Kathleen Klein, also known as Prophetess, 53, was a leader and executive of Kingdom of God Global Church (KOGGC), formerly known as Joshua Media Ministries International (JMMI). According to the indictment, Klein and co-defendants David Taylor and Michelle Brannon, ran a network of call centers across multiple states that used forced labor to solicit donations for KOGGC. Victims were forced to work grueling hours at the call centers without pay and pressured to hit impossible fundraising targets. When victims fell short of leaders’ goals or dared to push back, the punishment was severe: public humiliation, sleep deprivation, physical violence, withholding of food and shelter, forced repentance rituals, and threats of eternal damnation. Klein and her co-defendants allegedly controlled virtually every aspect of their victims’ lives. During the more than decade-long conspiracy, KOGGC collected roughly $50 million in donations, which leaders used to pay for personal real estate, vehicles, travel, and luxury goods.

In addition to adding Kathleen Klein as a defendant, the superseding indictment includes additional allegations including that Taylor frequently requested and received sexually explicit photographs and videos from KOGGC workers.

Klein is charged with conspiracy to commit forced labor, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Taylor and Brannon were first indicted on July 23, 2025, for conspiracy to commit forced labor, forced labor, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. If convicted, Taylor and Brannon face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each count.

The FBI and IRS-CI are investigating the case.

The Problem With America First Global Health – OpEd

February 13, 2026
By Roger Bate



The US government is now committing tens of billions of dollars to global health through a growing web of bilateral agreements branded as the “America First Global Health Strategy.” These deals are pitched as a way to protect Americans from infectious disease threats by strengthening surveillance and outbreak response overseas.

As of early 2026, the State Department reports that 16 bilateral global health memoranda of understanding have already been signed representing more than $11 billion in US commitments, with officials signaling that dozens more agreements are planned—a scale that makes the absence of a clearly articulated strategy increasingly hard to justify.

To understand what is happening, and why it persists even as US health care at home remains deeply dysfunctional, it helps to separate two questions that are usually blurred together: what this strategy actually is, and why the United States continues to pursue it.

Start with the “what.” The America First Global Health Strategy is an operating model that emerged after the United States withdrew from the World Health Organization and needed a way to remain active internationally without WHO governance.

Instead of working primarily through multilateral institutions, the US is now signing five-year bilateral health memoranda with dozens of low- and middle-income countries, overwhelmingly in sub-Saharan Africa. These agreements bundle longstanding programs on HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and surveillance into large government-to-government compacts, often involving hundreds of millions—or billions—of dollars.


In substance, this is continuity more than rupture; what has changed is the structure. NGOs and multilateral intermediaries are being sidelined. Funding is routed more directly to partner governments. Co-investment and “self-reliance” are emphasized rhetorically. And the whole enterprise is framed as national self-protection: stopping outbreaks abroad before they reach American shores.

As an administrative response to WHO withdrawal, this makes sense. The United States still wants access to disease intelligence, laboratory capacity, and early warning signals. It still wants influence over procurement markets and health ministries in strategically important countries. Bilateral agreements are the simplest way to preserve those channels without returning to Geneva.

What is missing is strategy in the proper sense of the word. There is no public prioritization of threats. No explanation of which pathogens matter most to Americans. No ranking of countries by risk rather than need. No serious comparison between overseas spending and alternative investments in domestic surveillance, ports-of-entry screening, or health system resilience. Instead, almost any global health expenditure can be justified after the fact as “protecting Americans.”

That brings us to the “why.” Why does Washington keep expanding global health spending when US health care at home is such a mess?

The first answer is political economy. Fixing US health care means confronting powerful domestic interests: hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical pricing, state licensing regimes, professional guilds, and entitlement politics. Every lever is contested. Every reform produces visible losers. Global health spending, by contrast, sits largely outside domestic distributional fights. It is appropriated quietly, administered bureaucratically, and justified as either humanitarian or security spending. Politically, it is easier money.

Second, US global health programs function as foreign policy tools as much as health interventions. For decades, HIV/AIDS and malaria funding has anchored diplomatic relationships, sustained US presence in fragile states, and shaped procurement and regulatory norms. That logic did not disappear when the US left the WHO. It simply moved into bilateral form. Health MOUs now serve as instruments of influence in regions where Washington does not want to cede ground to China, the EU, or Gulf donors.

Third, overseas health spending allows US officials to externalize risk rather than reform institutions. It is easier to claim that outbreaks should be stopped “over there” than to fix domestic surveillance failures, regulatory paralysis, or hospital capacity constraints. Investing abroad feels preventative and technocratic. Domestic reform feels political, slow, and blame-laden. One is framed as foresight; the other as failure.

Fourth, the America First rebranding reflects bureaucratic adaptation, not ideological clarity. Once the US exited WHO governance, agencies still needed access to data, pathogens, norms, and partners. Rather than openly negotiate selective technical engagement, they rebuilt parallel arrangements bilaterally. The result is today’s sprawling network of agreements—less a coherent strategy than a workaround designed to keep existing programs running under new constraints.

Finally, failure abroad is politically invisible in a way domestic failure is not. If a US-funded malaria program underperforms in Malawi, the costs are diffuse and accountability is weak. If domestic health policy fails, voters notice immediately. The incentives are asymmetric.

None of this means that global health spending is irrational or immoral. Some of it saves lives at relatively low marginal cost. Some of it reduces real risks. But it does mean that the persistence of large overseas health commitments alongside domestic dysfunction is not a paradox. It is the predictable outcome of two entirely different political economies.

The real problem with the America First Global Health Strategy is not that the US is engaged abroad. It is that Washington has wrapped a sprawling, path-dependent set of programs in a nationalist label without doing the hard work that strategy requires: defining priorities, making tradeoffs, publishing metrics, and explaining why these investments beat plausible alternatives.

Until that happens, “America First Global Health” will remain what it currently is: a slogan attached to large checks, sustained by institutional inertia, and insulated from the scrutiny that domestic health policy can never escape.

This article was published by Brownstone Institute



Roger Bate

Roger Bate is a Brownstone Fellow, Senior Fellow at the International Center for Law and Economics (Jan 2023-present), Board member of Africa Fighting Malaria (September 2000-present), and Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs (January 2000-present).

Understanding The BRAVE Burma Act: Beyond Names And Games – OpEd

February 13, 2026
By James Shwe


The recent op‑ed, ”Myanmar Will Always Be Burma To The US Congress” by Mr. Adam Dick appears to have been written without a clear understanding of the history and politics behind the names “Burma” and “Myanmar,” or of how people inside the country view current U.S. legislation. Its timing is also hard to ignore to many in the resistance, it looks like an attempt to mislead and influence the U.S. Senate just as the BRAVE Burma Act is coming up for consideration. From a realist perspective, this matters because it frames a strategically significant bill in ways that obscure both U.S. interests and the preferences of those who have been fighting the junta for five years and the system of military hegemony for over seventy years..

In English, the country was officially known as “Burma” from independence in 1948 until 1989, when the military regime that had just crushed the 1988 uprising unilaterally changed the English name to “Union of Myanmar.” Both “Burma” and “Myanmar” derive from the same Burmese root word; the difference is political, not geographic. The coup regime—without public consent—imposed “Myanmar” in English as part of a broader project of asserting its authority and recasting national identity and also to make the country less conspicuous to the international community which was severely criticizing and taking action against the atrocious ways that the military rulers squashed the 1988 uprising and subsequent election irregularities. Many in the democratic opposition, including long‑standing exile communities, continued to use “Burma” in English to signal that they did not recognize the junta’s right to rename the country. At the same time, many ethnic minorities have pointed out that both “Burma” and “Myanmar” are based on the name of the Bamar majority and do not by themselves solve deeper questions of equality and federalism among nationalities.

International practice has reflected this complexity. Some governments, including the United States, retained “Burma” as an official term for many years precisely to avoid legitimizing a military decree. Others shifted toward “Myanmar,” sometimes using both names together to acknowledge the dispute. Over time, people inside the country have adapted pragmatically: younger generations and many urban communities routinely say “Myanmar” in English, while still understanding why older opposition circles prefer “Burma.” In all cases, the real issues are power, legitimacy, and the structure of the state, not the spelling on a map.

Mr. Dick’s op‑ed largely ignores this background. By presenting Congress’s use of “Burma” in the BRAVE Burma Act as a simple “linguistic game” to delegitimize “the government of the country” and justify “adversarial action,” it collapses a long history of contested naming into a flat story of American manipulation. That narrative fails to recognize that “Burma” in U.S. law is not an invention of this bill, but a legacy term tied to prior legislation, sanctions regimes, and a long‑standing refusal to rubber‑stamp military decrees. A realist assessment should start from those facts: the name choice signals continuity of policy and a position on the junta’s legitimacy, not a new propaganda trick.

Equally important is what the op‑ed omits about timing and context. The BRAVE Burma Act comes forward at a moment when the junta is under real pressure from a nationwide resistance—ethnic armed organizations and new people’s defense forces—that have been fighting for five years to roll back the coup. In that period, the military which has become more dependent on support from China and Russia, has explored relationships with other isolated regimes, and has presided over the expansion of scam‑center complexes and other criminal economies that traffic people and run large‑scale online fraud operations targeting victims in the United States and globally. For Washington, this is a strategic problem: a regime that offers rival powers access and leverage in a critical corridor and tolerates transnational crime that reaches into American homes and financial systems.

From the resistance’s perspective, the BRAVE Burma Act is a modest but welcome attempt to change those incentives. Most people who oppose the junta do not expect the United States to send troops or impose a political blueprint. What they have asked for, repeatedly, are measures that hit the military’s money, aviation fuel, and criminal networks, and that make it harder for foreign governments and businesses to treat the junta as a normal partner. The Act’s focus on targeted sanctions, enhanced reporting on military‑linked entities, and a dedicated diplomatic channel fits that request: it raises the cost of supporting the junta without committing the United States to an open‑ended war or occupation. In that sense, it serves both local aspirations and concrete U.S. interests.

It is also worth recognizing, from within the country, that introducing and backing such legislation carries political risk for the US representatives involved. In a polarized environment where many voters are weary of foreign entanglements, taking a visible stand on Burma can invite criticism from both those who want no involvement and those who demand far more. Yet members of Congress moved ahead anyway, accepting that risk to maintain pressure on a coup regime and to respond to appeals from Burmese communities and their diaspora. Whatever one’s view of the best policy mix, that willingness to act—within the constraints of a democracy and under domestic scrutiny—reflects a degree of commitment that deserves acknowledgment, not caricature.

Seen from this angle, the timing and framing of Mr. Dick’s op‑ed are troubling. As the BRAVE Burma Act moves from the House toward the Senate, a piece that portrays the bill as little more than word games and “bossing people around” sends a signal to skeptical senators and staff that any pressure on the junta is illegitimate. To many in the resistance, it looks like an attempt—however small—to influence U.S. debate in ways that lower the political cost of doing nothing. By focusing on terminology and analogies to other countries, while saying almost nothing about how the junta benefits China and Russia, how scam centers harm Americans, or how five years of resistance have changed the strategic map, the article ends up shielding the generals more than it scrutinizes Washington.

A realist critique of U.S. policy in Burma is not only legitimate; it is necessary. It should ask whether the specific measures in the BRAVE Burma Act are likely to work, how they can be calibrated to minimize harm to ordinary people, what clear outcomes are being sought, and under what conditions sanctions should be tightened, adjusted, or lifted. It should weigh the risks of overreach against the risks of allowing a coup regime—backed by rival powers and criminal markets—to consolidate its position. What it should not do is ignore the country’s history, misstate the meaning of its names, or reduce a limited, interest‑driven bill to a punchline about American language games.

From both a realist and a Burmese resistance perspective, the central question is not whether outsiders should care what the country is called, but whether they are willing to use narrowly tailored, reversible tools to constrain a military that has already stolen one future and is trying to secure another with help from China, Russia, Iran, and organized crime. On that question, the BRAVE Burma Act is a cautious step, not a crusade—and it deserves to be debated on those grounds, rather than dismissed in ways that, intentionally or not, make it easier for the junta to endure.
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James Shwe

James Shwe is a Burmese American Engineer residing in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was born in Yangon, Myanmar in 1954 and has been residing in the US since 1984. He is a Registered Professional Mechanical Engineer in California. He owns and operates a consulting engineering firm in Los Angeles.

Russia Targets Africa’s Fish As Funding Source

February 13, 
By Africa Defense Forum



Several ships left a port in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Lithuania and Poland, in August 2024 and sailed off on a mission called “The Great African Expedition.” Launched by Russia’s Federal Agency for Fisheries (Rosrybolovstvo), it was touted as a scientific expedition ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin to map depleted fish stocks alongside African researchers.

Analysts, however, say the expedition is part of Russia’s broader strategy of influence and resource capture. The Kremlin does not want simply to count fish; it wants to catch them in African exclusive economic zones (EEZs). This is important to Moscow, as it has been heavily sanctioned since it invaded Ukraine in early 2022 and needs money to sustain the war.

According to the IUU Fishing Risk Index, Russia consistently has been ranked one of the world’s worst illegal fishing offenders, typically trailing only China.

“As we’ve seen with gold and other minerals, diamonds, and to some extent oil and gas, Russia sees an opportunity to expand its fishing in African Exclusive Economic Zones,” Joseph Siegle, senior researcher at the University of Maryland at College Park and a specialist on Russian influence in Africa, told Bloomberg magazine. “It is clearly ramping up its interest in Africa.”

Two of the vessels that left Kaliningrad in 2024 sailed to Morocco and Sierra Leone, where officials signed agreements or held discreet negotiations.

In Morocco, Russian scientists observed healthy mackerel and sardine populations, paving the way for exploitation along the entire Atlantic coast, Bloomberg reported. In December 2025, Russia renewed its fishing agreement with Morocco for four years. Morocco loses about $500 million annually to IUU fishing.

Under the previous four-year agreement, Russia was allowed to have 10 of its trawlers access Morocco’s waters to fish 140,000 metric tons of small pelagic species, such as sardines, mackerel and anchovies, Seafood Source magazine reported. In exchange, Russia paid Morocco $7 million annually, and the owners of each trawler paid 17.5% of the total value of their catch to Moroccan authorities. Annual quotas of the new deal have not been publicized.

In Sierra Leone, which loses about $50 million annually to illegal fishing, Russia obtained access to 40,000 metric tons of fish per year and plans to deploy up to 20 vessels, while investing in ports and local infrastructure — a tactic similar to China’s. According to russiaspivottoasia.com, Sierra Leone also is interested in cooperating with Russia to modernize its fishing fleet, attract Russian investments to create onshore refrigeration facilities, produce fishing gear and develop aquaculture activities, among other things.

Analysts say Russia’s interest in African fish likely will further threaten the continent’s marine resources. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, more than half the stocks from the Strait of Gibraltar to the mouth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Congo River are biologically unsustainable, and Russian trawlers will operate in areas lacking adequate surveillance.

“The Russian fleet has never been particularly disciplined anywhere it operates,” Steve Trent, chief executive officer of the Environmental Justice Foundation, told Bloomberg. “It tends to work in the shadows, with very little reporting on its activities.”

Besides Morocco and Sierra Leone, Russian trawlers operate in Angola, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Namibia, Nigeria and Senegal. Beyond Africa, the Kremlin’s fleet is known to operate illegally in Alaska, Antarctica, the Arctic Ocean, Japan and South Korea.

Like Chinese vessels, Russian trawlers are known to launder their illegal catch, commit illegal transshipments of fish at sea, turn off their automated identification systems while fishing, overfish threatened species and fly “flags of convenience,” which places foreign-owned and -operated fishing vessels onto local registries.

Financial software

The Kremlin’s interest in African fish coincides with the suspension of Russian fishing efforts in the Black Sea and Azov Sea due to restrictions on Moscow’s aging distant-water fishing (DWF) fleet, which it seeks to modernize. According to the Intelligence Service of Ukraine, Russia has 820 to 830 DWF vessels, 65% of which are more than 30 years old and 13% of which are older than 40. By 2030, 533 vessels in the fleet will be more than 40 years old.

“The vast majority of the current fishing fleet, even with major modernization, will not be able to operate fully,” the service said in a September 2025 news release.


Africa Defense Forum

The Africa Defense Forum (ADF) magazine is a security affairs journal that focuses on all issues affecting peace, stability, and good governance in Africa. ADF is published by the U.S. Africa Command.

Measles cases are dropping, but is Europe out of danger?

By Alessio Dell'Anna & video by Léa Becquet

Published on 13/02/2026 - EURONEWS

At least eight European countries have reported a steep increase in cases, despite a general downward trend.

Measles cases dropped significantly in Europe and Eurasia in 2025, according to a new report by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The agency announced a 75% decline, with cases reducing to 34,000 from nearly 130,000 in 2024.

It put the decrease down to stronger outbreak response measures and a gradual reduction in the number of people susceptible to the infection.

Kyrgyzstan had the highest incidence rate in the WHO Europe region (1,167 cases per million people, which caused a total of 11 deaths), followed by Romania with 222.

Despite Romania having the second-highest number of measles cases in the region, it still recorded a significant decrease from 2024, when it stood at more than 1,600.

Belgium was the only other EU country among the 10 hardest hit, with an incidence rate of 33 cases per million people.

Where did measles cases increase and where did they drop?

Despite the reduced numbers across Europe, the WHO warned that the risk is far from over.

The 2025 numbers remain higher than in most years since 2000, and many countries reported more cases in 2025 than in 2024, including Ukraine (+988), the Netherlands (+449), France (+393), Spain (+185), Georgia (+175) and Israel (+120).

The Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia reported marginal increases in cases, all under 10 each.

Romania reported the largest overall drop in cases across the WHO Europe region, around 26,500, followed by Kazakhstan, with almost 24,000, and Russia, with more than 15,500.

Stronger vaccination campaigns needed in Europe

"The risk of outbreaks remains", said the WHO. "Over 200,000 people in our region fell ill with measles in the past three years."

"Unless every community reaches 95% vaccination coverage, closes immunity gaps across all ages, and strengthens disease surveillance and ensures timely outbreak response, this highly contagious virus will keep spreading".

Measles vaccination averted nearly 59 million deaths between 2000 and 2024, the agency said.

Following a steep increase in cases in 2024, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Spain, the UK, and Uzbekistan lost their measles-free status.

When should children get vaccinated for measles?

Measles is an airborne virus that spreads easily through coughing and sneezing.

It's one of the most contagious infectious diseases, roughly 12 times more contagious than influenza. For every one person who has measles, up to 18 other unvaccinated people could be infected.

Children typically receive the first vaccine dose between 12 and 15 months, followed by a second dose between four and six years of age.

Early symptoms, usually lasting up to seven days, include a running nose, cough, red and watery eyes, and small white spots inside the cheeks.

Complications, however, can cause severe breathing problems, including pneumonia, as well as blindness, ear infections and encephalitis, which can potentially lead to brain damage.

 

Munich Security Conference warns of era of 'wrecking-ball politics'

Copyright AP Photo/Matthias Schrader

By Johanna Urbancik

 13/02/2026 - EURONEWS

As heads of state and government gather in Munich, a new report warns that the international order is under growing pressure, alliances are becoming more fragile, and geopolitical tensions are intensifying.

A large number of European and international heads of state and government will this week descend on Bavaria for the Munich Security Conference (MSC), which takes place from 13 to 15 February.

Around 65 heads of state and government are expected to attend, alongside some 450 representatives from global politics, academia and the defence industry.

In the foreword to the newly released 2026 MSC report, conference chair Wolfgang Ischinger writes that "rarely in the conference's recent history have there been so many fundamental questions on the table at the same time".

He points to core issues such as Europe's security, the future of the transatlantic partnership, and whether the international community is still capable of managing an increasingly "complex and contested" world

The report portrays a world in the midst of far-reaching political, economic and security upheaval. At its centre is a diagnosis that sets the tone for the entire document and the conference itself: "The world has entered a period of wrecking-ball politics."

'Reassurance, conditionality and coercion'

According to the report, cautious reforms and incremental policy adjustments are increasingly giving way to more radical restructuring that deliberately calls existing systems into question, or even seeks to dismantle them.

The country most prominently associated with this shift, it argues, is the United States. The very state that played a decisive role in building the post-war international order is now seen as one of the main drivers of its transformation. More than 80 years after it first took shape, that order is itself now "under destruction".

The report stresses that this is not just about individual policy decisions, but about a broader change in direction in US politics.

Washington, it argues, is challenging core principles that have shaped international cooperation for decades, from the role of international organisations and the importance of rules-based trade to close partnerships with democratic allies.

The effects of this shift are being felt worldwide, but especially in Europe, which has long relied on the US for security but which now experiences its partnership as "unsteady", shifting between "reassurance, conditionality, and coercion".

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to attend this year's conference. According to media reports, Vice President J.D. Vance's participation was initially confirmed, then cancelled a week later.

His speech at last year's conference was widely described as a "reckoning with Europe" and drew criticism from several politicians, including Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Defence Minister Boris Pistorius.

United States Vice-President JD Vance addresses the audience during the Munich Security Conference at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich, Germany, Friday, Feb. 14, 2025 AP Photo/Matthias Schrader

Chancellor Merz will lead this year's German delegation. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and numerous European heads of state and government are also expected to attend.

Rubio will attend "with a large delegation", and US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has also confirmed her participation.

At the conference kick-off, US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker commented on the report's findings, rejecting its conclusions and stressing that the US has no intention of undermining NATO or other alliances.

"That's the first thing I reject; we're trying to make NATO stronger, not to withdraw or reject NATO, but make it work like it was intended as an alliance of 32 strong and capable allies," he said.

He reiterated that European allies must increase their defence spending and demonstrate that they can "deliver" on their commitments, including the new NATO spending targets.

Erosion of trust

Another key finding of the MSC report is a growing loss of trust in political systems. In many Western countries in particular, confidence is visibly declining.

Politicians are increasingly seen as "guardians of the status quo", "administering paralysed political systems that appear unresponsive to the majority of people". As faith in politics' ability to improve everyday life wanes, the report argues, electorates start to become open to more radical approaches. For many, abrupt breaks begin to seem more appealing than gradual change.

As a result, political actors who deliberately embrace confrontation and promise to tear down existing structures rather than reform them are gaining influence.

Before the conference, there was debate over whether the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) should be invited. Ischinger takes the view that the party should be included as long as it is not banned by the German authorities, and three AfD policy specialists, including Bundestag member Rüdiger Lucassen, are now set to attend.

Related

Alongside the transatlantic relationship, the MSC report also addresses Russia's war on Ukraine and the associated hybrid threats facing Europe. It argues that Europe must prepare for a situation in which American support remains important, but can no longer be taken for granted.

Many European governments are therefore taking a dual-track approach: keeping the US closely engaged while at the same time building up greater capacity to act independently, for example through rearmament.

The report stresses that this sense of uncertainty is not only limited to Europe. In the Indo-Pacific, doubts are growing about the US' long-term commitment to the regional security order, while China's rise and "increasingly coercive behaviour" are contributing to a more "unstable" environment.

At the same time, the report also frames the current upheaval as an opportunity, noting that when old structures are shaken, "long-blocked" developments can begin to move again.

For instance, pressure on European NATO members has led many countries to significantly increase their defence spending. New partnerships are also emerging in trade, security and technology to end Europe's dependence on the US.

Yet whether this will ultimately lead to a more stable world remains uncertain – and many of the heads of government gathering in Munich this weekend worry that a looser global order could primarily benefit the largest and most powerful states.

Italian court convicts 12 CasaPound members for attempting to revive fascist party

Copyright AP Photo

By Ilaria Cicinelli & Euronews

Published on 13/02/2026 - 

CasaPound takes its name from Ezra Pound, the US modernist poet who collaborated with Fascist Italy during World War II. The group was founded in December 2003 when activists occupied a state-owned building in Rome's Esquilino district.

A court in Bari convicted 12 members of Italy's neo-fascist CasaPound group on Thursday for attempting to reorganise the banned Fascist Party in the first judicial ruling to recognise the movement's fascist nature.

Five defendants received 18 months in prison, and seven others were sentenced to two years and six months after also being convicted of assault, according to the court. All 12 were barred from holding political office for five years.

The case stems from an attack on 21 September 2018 in Bari's Libertà neighbourhood, when CasaPound members assaulted anti-fascist demonstrators returning from a protest against Matteo Salvini, then interior minister and leader of the far-right Lega or League party.

The court cited violations of Articles 1 and 5 of the 1952 Scelba law, which prohibit the reorganisation of the dissolved Fascist Party and ban fascist demonstrations.

The ruling specifically cited participation in "usual fascist demonstrations" and the use of "squadrista (blackshirts) methods as a tool for political participation".

The opposition has largely welcomed the move, with Democratic Party (PD) leader Elly Schlein calling on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government to dissolve CasaPound.

"Now that there's a ruling that establishes it, the government has no choice but to do what we've been asking of it for a long time: dissolve CasaPound, dissolve neo-fascist organisations as laid out in the constitution," Schlein said.

The opposition parties including the Five Star Movement (M5S) and Greens-Left Alliance have demanded Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi provide an urgent briefing to parliament and order the eviction of CasaPound's occupied headquarters in Rome.

The defendants were also ordered to compensate victims of the attack, including former MEP Eleonora Forenza and her assistant Antonio Perillo, as well as Giacomo Petrelli and Claudio Riccio.

Others, including the National Association of Italian Partisans and the Communist Refoundation Party, will also receive compensation.

Named after a poet

CasaPound takes its name from Ezra Pound, the US modernist poet who collaborated with Fascist Italy during World War II. The group was founded in December 2003 when activists occupied a state-owned building in Rome's Esquilino district.

The organisation took part in the 2013 and 2018 parliamentary elections, receiving less than 1% of the vote in both contests. It subsequently ceased electoral participation and now operates as a social movement.

In January 2024, Interior Minister Piantedosi condemned fascist salutes at a CasaPound rally in Rome as "contrary to our democratic culture". However, he stated at the time that dissolving such groups was complicated, noting the law permits this only in very limited circumstances.

CasaPound spokesman Luca Marsella said the group was awaiting the court's written reasoning, noting: "It's a first-instance ruling".

Defence lawyers have announced they will appeal. The court will file its written reasoning within 90 days.

SOCIAL CREDIT BY EZRA POUND
THE POLITICAL WRITINGS
https://archive.org/details/PoundEzraWestonLoomisTheLetters/mode/2up

SPACE/COSMOS

International astronauts launch to ISS after NASA's first medical evacuation

“It turns out Friday the 13th is a very lucky day,”

Copyright AP Photo/John Raoux

By Pascale Davies & AP

Published on 13/02/2026 - EURONEWS

“It turns out Friday the 13th is a very lucky day,” SpaceX Launch Control radioed once the astronauts reached orbit.

A fresh team of astronauts launched toward the International Space Station on Friday aboard a SpaceX rocket, set to take over for crew members who had been brought back to Earth in what marked NASA's first medical evacuation from orbit.

NASA requested the expedited launch to quickly fill the positions left vacant by the evacuated astronauts.

The incoming crew—comprising astronauts from the United States, France, and Russia—is scheduled for an eight- to nine-month stay that will extend through until autumn. They arrive on Saturday and will restore the space station to its complete crew complement.

Once the spacecraft reached orbit, SpaceX Launch Control jokingly noted, "It turns out Friday the 13th is a very lucky day." Mission commander Jessica Meir responded with enthusiasm: "That was quite a ride."

During the month-long crew shortage, NASA suspended spacewalks and postponed various tasks while awaiting the replacements. Americans Meir and Jack Hathaway, alongside France's Sophie Adenot and Russia's Andrei Fedyaev, will now join the skeleton crew of three astronauts—one American and two Russians—who maintained station operations in the interim.

Related

• SpaceX puts Mars mission plans on ice and U-turns for Moon city instead

NASA said it saw no need for additional pre-launch medical screenings or specialised diagnostic equipment, expressing confidence in existing protocols aboard the station. However, an onboard ultrasound machine, typically used for research purposes, was pressed into urgent service on January 7 to examine the unwell crew member.

NASA has declined to identify the astronaut or disclose details about their condition. All four returning crew members were hospitalised immediately upon their Pacific Ocean splashdown near San Diego.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a crew of four aboard the Dragon space craft lifts off from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Feb 13 AP Photo/John Raoux

It marked the first instance in 65 years of human spaceflight that NASA terminated a mission early due to medical concerns.

Satisfied with medical procedures already in place, NASA ordered no extra checkups for the crew ahead of liftoff, and no new diagnostic equipment was packed.

An ultrasound machine already up there for research went into overdrive on Jan. 7 when used on the ailing crew member. NASA has not revealed the ill astronaut’s identity or health issue. All four returning astronauts went straight to the hospital after splashing down in the Pacific near San Diego.

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With missions becoming longer, NASA is constantly looking at upgrades to the space station’s medical gear, said deputy programme manager Dina Contella.

“But there are a lot of things that are just not practical, and so that’s when you need to bring astronauts home from space,” she said earlier this week.

In preparation for moon and Mars trips, where health care will be even more challenging, the new arrivals will test a filter designed to turn drinking water into emergency IV fluid, try out an ultrasound system that relies on artificial intelligence and augmented reality instead of experts on the ground, and perform ultrasound scans on their jugular veins in a blood clot study.

They will also demonstrate their Moon-landing skills in a simulated test.

Adenot is only the second French woman to launch to space. She was 14 when Claudie Haignere flew to Russia’s space station Mir in 1996, inspiring her to become an astronaut. Haignere travelled to Cape Canaveral to cheer her on.

“I thought it would have been a quiet joy with pride for Sophie, but it was so hugely emotional to see her with a successful launch," Haignere said.

Hathaway, like Adenot, is new to space, while Meir and Fedyaev are making their second station trip. Just before liftoff, Fedyaev led the crew in a cry of “Poyekhali" — Russian for “Let's Go” — the word uttered at liftoff by the world's first person in space, the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin, in 1961.

On her first mission in 2019, Meir took part in the first all-female spacewalk. The other half of that spacewalk, Christina Koch, is among the four Artemis II astronauts waiting to fly around the moon as early as March. A ship-to-ship radio linkup is planned between the two crews.

ESA satellite finds 'inside-out' planetary system that challenges formation theories

Copyright European Space Agency

By Roselyne Min with AFP

Published on 13/02/2026 - EURONEWS

A newly discovered planet orbiting a distant star may change scientists’ understanding of how planetary systems form.

Astronomers say they have discovered a distant planetary system with planets arranged in a surprising order, challenging long-standing ideas about how planets form.

In our Solar System, the four planets closest to the Sun are small and rocky, while the four farther away are large gas giants. Scientists have long believed this pattern — rocky planets near the star and gaseous planets farther out — was common across the universe.

However, a star called LHS 1903 discovered in the Milky Way's thick disc suggests otherwise.

In a collaborative effort involving researchers across Europe, astronomers analysing data from several telescopes had already identified three planets orbiting the red dwarf star, which is cooler and dimmer than our Sun.

The closest planet to the star was rocky, followed by two gas giants. That is the order scientists expect.

But digging into observations made by the European Space Agency (ESA)'s exoplanet-probing Cheops space telescope revealed a fourth planet farther from the star. Surprisingly, this outermost planet also appears to be rocky.

"That makes this an inside-out system, with a planet order of rocky-gaseous-gaseous-and then rocky again," Thomas Wilson, the lead author of the study and a planetary astrophysicist from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, said in a statement with ESA.

"Rocky planets don't usually form so far away from their home star," Wilson added.

One planet after another

Inner planets are expected to be small and rocky because intense radiation from the nearby star blasts most of the gas away from their rocky core.

But farther out in the cold reaches of the system, a thick atmosphere can form around cores, creating gas giants.

Trying to explain the unusual LHS 1903 system, researchers tested several possibilities before proposing a new idea: the planets may have formed one after another rather than all at once.

According to the currently most widely accepted theory, planets form simultaneously in a massive ring of gas and dust called a protoplanetary disc.

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This involves tiny dust grains clumping together, then snowballing into cores that eventually evolve into mighty planets.

But in this system, scientists believe LHS 1903 may have formed after most of the gas had already disappeared.

"Yet here is a small, rocky world, defying expectations," Wilson said.

"It seems that we have found the first evidence for a planet which formed in what we call a gas-depleted environment," he added.

Since the 1990s, astronomers have discovered more than 6,000 planets outside our Solar System, called exoplanets, mostly by spotting slight changes in brightness as they cross in front of their star.

"Historically, our planet formation theories are based on what we see and know about our Solar System," said Isabel Rebollido, a planetary disc researcher at ESA.

"As we are seeing more and more different exoplanet systems, we are starting to revisit these theories."