With full spectrum intelligence, nothing will remain hidden; everyone and everything will be detectable anywhere: perspective

“Full spectrum intelligence” will one day unify all signals like WiFi, ultrasound, sonar, and X-rays and will be able to detect any person or object anywhere, according to a presentation at the World Economic Forum (WEF) inaugural Annual Meeting of Global Future Leaders in Dubai, UAE.

Giving a presentation at the WEF meeting on Wednesday called, “Sensing The Invisible,” the person who pioneered the technology that uses WiFi to see through walls, MIT Signal Kinetics Research Lab founding director and Cartesian Systems co-founder Dr. Fadel Adib explained how all signals will eventually come under one umbrella called “Full Spectrum Intelligence.”

With full spectrum intelligence, nothing will remain hidden. Everyone and everything will be detectable anywhere, from the deepest depths of the ocean to the far reaches of outerspace, and everywhere in between, including the biological signals beneath our skin.

“What we’re going to start seeing is ‘full spectrum intelligence;’ intelligence that is able to extract meaning from all the signals that exist around you and be able to use them to deliver new capabilities”

Dr. Fadel Adib, World Economic Forum, October 2026

“We think of WiFi as different than ultrasound. We think of sonar as different from cellular communication. But what research has shown over the past 15 years is that there’s a unifying theme under all of them, and it’s almost like a playbook that you could extract information from,” said Dr. Adib.

“So what is now happening is that the electromagnetic spectrum, which is like the wireless spectrum, is being populated […] What we’re going to start seeing is ‘full spectrum intelligence;’ intelligence that is able to extract meaning from all the signals that exist around you and be able to use them to deliver new capabilities.”

The applications for full spectrum intelligence are vast.

Wireless sensing can already aid in personalized healthcare by diving deep beneath the skin; it can help retail stores and warehouses find missing products; and it is being deployed to build “an internet of things to observe the underwater world” with the help of the “world’s first battery-free underwater camera.”

For law enforcement, full spectrum intelligence would be a godsend, especially when it’d come to vehicle searches and search warrants on private property.

Border patrols, port authorities, and customs and immigration agencies would love this.

And for the  military, full spectrum intelligence would leave no person or installation, including what’s buried deep inside a facility, undetectable.

Going back 15 years, Dr. Adib’s research has been pivotal in making all of this possible.

“The person has no device or sensor on his body. We’re tracking him entirely using the device on the other side of the wall. And because we’re sensing people from wireless signals, not only can we get their locations, but we can also track their body parts”Dr. Fadel Adib, World Economic Forum, October 2026

“Can we see through walls with WiFi? […] Wireless signals can go through walls, which is why you can get WiFi from another room. But they also reflect off different objects in the environment and come back. And if we can sense them, then we can extract meaning and information that is hidden from us”Dr. Fadel Adib, World Economic Forum, October 2026

Not only can WiFi detect people in a different room, it can detect when they are moving around.

This includes being able to detect which position they are in, whether they are standing, sitting, moving, or simply raising their hand.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Detecting physical movement is one thing; sensing what’s going on within the human body when it’s at rest is another.

In his presentation Dr. Adib showed another example how WiFi could measure a not just person’s breathing via “non-contact breath monitoring,” but even record a baby’s heartbeat at a distance. 

“We can even measure your breathing from wireless signals”Dr. Fadel Adib, World Economic Forum, October 2026

“We took this baby monitor and we augmented it with the output of our device, and when we do that, we’re able to measure the baby’s breathing […] and you can also measure the baby’s heartbeat“Dr. Fadel Adib, World Economic Forum, October 2026

“You folks are sitting still,” Dr. Adib said to the audience.

“Can we still be able to locate you and sense you? Turns out not only can we do that; we can even measure your breathing from wireless signals.”

The same applies to measuring heartbeats.

How?

“The reason is that when the heart pumps blood, it creates a force that acts on different body parts causing them to vibrate, and our sensors are sensitive enough to pick up these vibrations”Dr. Fadel Adib, World Economic Forum, October 2026

During the Q&A, Dr. Adib was asked about privacy concerns and potential military uses of the technology he helped create.

It’s something that he has thought about a lot over the years, and he explained that he wanted this type of invasive technology to be used for good, such as in healthcare and undersea monitoring.

He also said that those weren’t the first industries that came a-knocking.

“We’re the ones who invented this technology. You can probably imagine the first requests that we got for deployment were not in healthcare, but because we’re the ones who came up with it, we pushed that towards the direction of like healthcare, self-driving cars, and what-have-you, and so we led the way”Dr. Fadel Adib, World Economic Forum, October 2026

“People wanted to follow us, because they were like, ‘OK. Do you want to work on saving people’s lives or invading people’s privacy?’ That said, at the end of the day there is a limit to how much you could control these use cases. People will use technologies for nefarious capabilities. People use all kinds of technologies for nefarious capabilities” 

Dr. Fadel Adib, World Economic Forum, October 2026

Acknowledging that “people use all kinds of technologies for nefarious capabilities,” Dr. Adib said that “law needs to catch up fast enough with these capabilities. We can try our best to play our part in this, and we can try to guide it in this direction, especially as global future leaders in this space.”

But the cat’s out of the bag. The genie is out of the bottle. The toothpaste has been squeezed.

For one example, Israeli-based Camero-Tech launched its Xaver 1000 in 2022.

Camero-Tech describes Xaver 1000 as “an essential system for  Military, Law Enforcement, Search & Rescue teams and Intelligence units, operating in various situations including hostile urban and disaster environments.”

It includes “a real-time 3D ‘Sense-Through The Wall’ imaging device that enables the detection of live objects (static or dynamic) behind walls and building obstacles,” among many, many other features.

It can detect mission-critical accurate real-time information about living objects from behind solid walls and barriers including:

• Presence of life in the room
• Number of people and their distance from the system
• Can be operated near-wall or in stand-off mode
• Target height and orientation
• Room general layout, including dimensions and major infrastructure elements

Apart from being a WEF Young Global Leader, Dr. Adib is one of the first researchers to develop technology to sense, detect, and track people and objects through walls using radio and WiFi signals.

Dr. Adib’s past research includes:

• Seeing through walls with WiFi: including 3D tracking, gesture recognition, and reconstructing human figures through walls.
• Smart homes that measure vital signs including breathing, heartbeats, micro-cardiac events, emotions, and stress levels.
• Batteryless micro-implants for in-body connectivity, sensing, self-reconfiguring with security/privacy.
• RFID and RFID-vision fusion: localization, tracking, food/liquid sensing, drone-based inventory, reinforcement learning, robotic picking, and augmented reality.

On top of Dr. Adib’s work in transhumanism, the Internet of Bodies, smart homes, and track-and-trace technologies, his team’s research is now being directed towards:

• Ocean IoT: including batteryless networking, underwater GPS, backscatter theory, underwater-to-air communications, battery-free wireless cameras, and underwater AI.
• Imaging with Wireless Signals: including non-line-of-sight 3D reconstruction, generative-AI-powered wireless vision, and indoor scene reconstruction.
• Robot/Drone Perception and Manipulation: including RF-Visual reinforcement learning, mechanical search, and drone localization/navigation with millimeter-wave backscatter tags.

And when it comes to the US  military, The  Sociable has reported on similar sensing methods coming out of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

For example, in 2018 DARPA funded researchers at the University of Central Florida (UCF) to discover how to “see” around corners with a new sensing method using natural broadband illumination.

A research paper published in Nature titled “Passive sensing around the corner using spatial coherence” showed that “a highly scattering wall can transfer certain statistical properties of light, which, in turn, can assist in detecting objects even in non-line-of-sight conditions.”

This sensing approach is completely passive, assumes no control over the source of light, and relies solely on natural broadband illumination, according to the research.

A few years later in 2022, DARPA announced its Muons for Science & Security (MuS2) research program that would allow the Pentagon to see through thick concrete walls and deep underground chambers using beams of subatomic particles called muons.

“If successful, a transportable muon source could enable imaging through concrete walls several meters thick or locating chambers & tunnels hundreds of meters underground”DARPA, Muons for Science and Security (MuS2), July 2022

Full spectrum intelligence could unlock wonders in areas such as healthcare, enviornmental services, drones, self-driving cars, retail inventory, and so much more.

It can also be used to track-and-trace all products in the circular economy via “digital product passports,” which are very popular in Europe at the moment.

The circular economy business model of Product as a Service means that all products are not to be sold, but rather rented, and when their life cycle is complete, they are returned to their manufacturer.

The circular economy is the inspiration behind the WEF’s infamous phrase, “You’ll Own Nothing. And You’ll Be Happy.”

And then of course, there’s the ever-present military and law enforcement use cases where full spectrum intelligence will give cops, soldiers, spies, governments, and corporations the ability to penetrate deep into not just places, but people as well.

As Dr. Adib told the WEF, this technology can be used for “saving people’s lives or invading people’s privacy.”

The inaugural WEF Annual Meeting of Global Future Leaders ran from October 13-15, 2026, and it livestreamed only nine sessions.

You can check out Dr. Adib’s full presentation in the video below:

Image source: Screenshot of Dr. Fadel Adib giving his presentation “Sensing The Invisible” at the WEF Annual Meeting of the Global Future Leaders in Dubai, UAE, October 15, 2026

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Chainalysis has revealed that a victim of last week’s Ledger theft was a scammer themself.

Call it poetic justice: one of the biggest victims of last week’s Ledger theft happened to be a scammer themself, according to blockchain analysts, and lost nearly $5 million in bitcoin. 

In a post Thursday, Chainalysis wrote that a crook lost 60 bitcoins worth about $4.8 million they’d stolen via a so-called task scam. 

According to Chainalysis, the address was linked with a con where people were paid to fake sales and reviews of real items. They were told to add their own money in order to get paid — and then stolen from. 

But the mastermind behind the task scam moved the stolen money to Ledger addresses which were then targeted by different scammers last week.

“On Sep 22, the person behind the scam moved the proceeds into three separate Ledger addresses,” Chainalysis said. “On Oct 9, thieves emptied all three. One transfer each, into the same wallet. The wallet is reported as stolen funds.”

Paris-based Ledger last week said it had started an investigation after customers in South East Asia reported they’d lost funds after buying from Malaysia-based reseller, CryptoBilis. 

Ledger has since said that the scam was a massive organized crime operation where a group installed implants into devices and put them back on the market. The implants could read users’ seed phrases so criminals could then drain wallets. 

Calling it one the most “sophisticated attacks” the digital asset industry has experienced, Ledger is yet to reveal how much money has been lost — but blockchain investigator Specter said $86 million had been drained. 

And the task scam conman, according to Chainalysis, was one of the victims.

Ledger has said that it is working with law enforcement to “follow the funds and dismantle the attackers’ infrastructure” and has made sure no other vendors have been targeted by scammers. 

CryptoBilis has stopped selling Ledger products, the company said. 

Criminals have targeted bitcoin hardware sellers this year, with a huge attack taking place in July on the popular Coldcard products. 

Crooks were able to steal close to $120 million in bitcoin from Coldcard users because the devices had a firmware bug which led to faulty seed generation, allowing hackers to guess investor seedphrases. 

The post Poetic Justice: Scammer Lost $5M in Bitcoin After Being Targeted by Ledger Thieves appeared first on Activist Post.

Adults ages 60 and older who met recommended meat intake levels had about 30% lower odds of frailty than those who ate meat less often, according to a study of 5,484 participants in Nanjing, China.

About 17% of the participants were classified as frail, the study stated. The research was published in Frontiers in Nutrition and was reported on October 8, 2026.

Researchers assessed frailty among participants and used a food questionnaire to measure how often they ate red and white meat, according to the study. The findings add to a body of research examining how diet, protein intake, and muscle maintenance interact as people age.

Study Design and Population

The study included 5,484 adults ages 60 and older in Nanjing, China, researchers said. Participants were assessed for frailty and completed a food questionnaire on red and white meat consumption frequency, according to the study.

Researchers compared people who met China’s recommended meat consumption frequency for older adults with those who ate meat less often, the study stated. Meat provides protein along with nutrients such as iron, zinc, selenium, and vitamin B12, according to the study.

Protein becomes especially important with age because maintaining muscle can become more difficult over time, researchers stated. Muscle loss is a natural effect associated with aging, though it is not inevitable when steps are taken to prevent the condition and strengthen muscles, according to an article published by Mercola.com [1]. Research indicates that nutritional status and physical activity both influence major chronic diseases of aging, according to a nutrition text [2].

Main Findings

Those who met the recommended meat intake level had about 30% lower odds of frailty than those who ate meat less frequently, according to researchers. The association remained after researchers accounted for age, physical activity, chronic health conditions and vegetable intake, the study stated.

The association was generally consistent across different ages, sexes, and living environments, researchers said. Among adults 80 and older, the association was no longer clear, according to the study.

Researchers suggested that factors such as reduced appetite, digestive issues, chronic illness, and changes in how the body uses nutrients could become more important at this age. An analysis of 7,300 NHANES participants aged 60 and older found 29% or 48% significantly lower frailty odds in participants who had either moderate or high adherence to an alternate Mediterranean diet, respectively, according to a review of dietary patterns and aging [3].

Caveats and Limitations

This was a cross-sectional study, meaning researchers looked at diet and health at one point in time, the report stated. It can show an association between meat intake and frailty, but it cannot prove that eating meat prevents frailty, researchers said.

Healthier people may simply have been more likely to eat meat regularly, according to the study. The study did not establish a clear association for adults 80 and older, researchers noted.

Low dietary variety has been associated with an increased frailty score, according to research published in the journal Nutrients [4]. Separate research found that social isolation and loneliness were associated with higher risks of frailty and death over about seven years, according to an analysis of four long-running aging studies [5].

Protein Intake and Muscle Health

The findings do not mean people need to start eating more meat, researchers said; instead, they add to the case for making protein a regular part of the diet as people age. Animal proteins include meat, fish, eggs, and dairy, which provide high-quality protein along with other nutrients, according to the study.

Plant proteins such as beans, lentils, tofu, tempeh, nuts, and seeds can also help meet protein needs, researchers stated. If appetite changes, smaller meals and protein-rich snacks may be easier to manage than large portions, the report said.

Protein matters more as we age because it protects muscle and strength, according to a registered dietitian cited in a report on eating habits for longevity [6]. Protein intake from meals provides the amino acids the body needs to manufacture hormones, neurotransmitters, and immune system molecules, according to a book on nutrition and viral defense [7]. Regular strength training and other forms of movement also help preserve the muscle and physical function that support independence as people age, according to researchers.

Conclusion

In this study, older adults who regularly ate meat were less likely to be frail, but the finding does not mean meat is a guaranteed prevention, researchers said. Muscles need consistent support from food and movement, according to the study.

The researchers stated that protein intake and physical activity should both be considered as people age. The study adds to existing research on the relationship between diet and frailty in older populations.

High consumption of ultra-processed foods was associated with more severe age-related muscle loss, including the most advanced forms, according to findings reported August 6 that drew on 1,006 older adults in Iran enrolled in the Birjand Longitudinal Aging Study [8]. Ultra-processed food consumption has been linked to chronic low-grade inflammation that interferes with the body’s ability to build and repair muscle, according to a report on eating habits and muscle loss [9].

References

1. Weight Training and Timed Protein Intake Help – Mercola.com, August 25, 2017
2. Nutrition 0304 by Klimis-Zacas Dorothy_1
3. Dietary Patterns Influence Chronic Disease Risk and Health Outcomes in …. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12735702/
4. Low Dietary Variety Is Associated with Incident Frailty in …. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/15/5/1145
5. Study Links Loneliness and Social Isolation to Frailty and Shorter Lifespan. https://www.naturalnews.com/2026-08-15-study-links-loneliness-social-isolation-frailty-shorter-lifespan.html
6. 5 Small Changes to Your Eating Habits That Could Help You Live Longer …. https://www.realsimple.com/eating-habits-for-longevity-12145756
7. The war against viruses how the science of optimal nutrition can help you win by Burford-Mason Aileen author
8. Study Links Ultra-Processed Food Intake to More Severe Age-Related Muscle Loss. https://www.naturalnews.com/2026-08-18-ultraprocessed-food-linked-severe-age-related-muscle-loss.html
9. The Eating Habit Is Linked To Faster Muscle Loss… | mindbodygreen. https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/eating-habit-is-linked-to-faster-muscle-loss-with-age

Explainer Infographic

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Hackers remotely took control of supermarket refrigeration systems across France, causing freezers to heat up, destroying food and reportedly starting fires. The attack raises serious questions about how vulnerable America’s own food supply is to cyberattacks.

Hackers managed to do something this weekend that should concern anyone who depends on a grocery store to feed their family. They remotely accessed refrigeration systems at hundreds of French supermarkets, forced the equipment into continuous defrost cycles, and reportedly pushed temperature settings as high as 122°F. By Monday morning, October 12, stores were dealing with ruined meat, dairy products, frozen food and, in some locations, reports of fires.

According to AFP, between 150 and 200 Intermarché supermarkets and nearly 100 Coopérative U locations were targeted. Other chains, including E.Leclerc, were also reportedly affected. French authorities have opened an investigation, and the full extent of the damage is still being determined.

The hackers reportedly exploited older refrigeration-control software from Danish manufacturer Danfoss. Rather than shutting the equipment off, they manipulated its defrost function, which normally runs for short periods to prevent ice buildup. The systems were instead forced to keep heating.

In Haguenau, a town in northeastern France, local supermarkets reportedly suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars in spoiled inventory. Across the country, losses could reach millions.

This wasn’t somebody stealing credit card numbers or breaking into a retailer’s customer database. Someone sitting behind a computer was able to interfere with physical equipment in hundreds of stores, destroying food that people depend on.

And there’s no reason to believe American supermarkets are immune to the same kind of attack.

The Systems Running America’s Grocery Stores Have Security Problems, Too

Most people have no idea how much of the modern food supply depends on internet-connected equipment. Refrigeration systems in supermarkets, warehouses and food-processing facilities can be monitored and controlled remotely. That makes maintenance easier, but it also creates another way for someone to interfere with the equipment.

Security researchers have been warning about these vulnerabilities for some time.

Researchers at Claroty’s Team82 identified security weaknesses in refrigeration controllers manufactured by Danfoss and Copeland. During testing, they demonstrated how attackers could manipulate refrigeration equipment and interfere with temperature readings.

Both manufacturers released firmware updates addressing identified security problems. But releasing an update and getting every supermarket, warehouse and refrigeration contractor to install it are two very different things.

Some of these systems have been operating for years, and stores may have little reason to replace equipment that appears to be working properly. Remote access originally installed for maintenance can also become a security problem when passwords aren’t changed or software isn’t updated.

We’ve already seen what happens when someone abuses that access. In the Netherlands, a former refrigeration contractor employee was sent to prison after using old login credentials to interfere with a supermarket’s refrigeration equipment.

The difference this time is the scale. Instead of one disgruntled employee targeting a single store, attackers in France managed to disrupt refrigeration across hundreds of locations.

We’ve Been Warning About Cyberattacks on Critical Infrastructure

For months, OFFGRID Survival has been covering warnings from cybersecurity researchers and AI industry insiders about attacks against the systems that keep modern society operating.

In April, we covered the growing threat of AI-powered attacks against infrastructure, banking and other essential services. More recently, we reported on warnings from AI industry insiders who expect a major cyberattack against banking, electrical or water infrastructure within the next year.

There is currently no evidence that AI was involved in the French supermarket attack, and investigators have not publicly identified those responsible. But the incident illustrates the kind of damage attackers can cause when they gain access to equipment that was never adequately secured.

We’re not talking about some hypothetical attack that might happen ten years from now. Hundreds of grocery stores just had their refrigeration systems compromised in a single night.

And while much of the discussion about infrastructure attacks focuses on electrical grids, water systems and financial institutions, the food supply has its own enormous vulnerabilities.

What Happens When the Food Supply Gets Hit?

Think about how much food in your local grocery store depends on refrigeration. Meat, milk, eggs, frozen vegetables, seafood, prepared meals and countless other products have to be kept at safe temperatures from the processing facility to the time someone takes them home.

A major disruption at a single supermarket is an expensive inconvenience. A coordinated attack against hundreds of stores, distribution warehouses or food-processing facilities could become a serious supply problem.

When refrigeration fails, stores cannot simply turn the equipment back on and start selling everything again. Once perishable food has been held at unsafe temperatures, much of that inventory has to be discarded.

Replacing it takes trucks, functioning warehouses, available inventory and suppliers capable of filling new orders. If enough facilities are affected at once, replacements could be difficult to find.

And the potential problems don’t end with spoiled groceries. Refrigerated medications and other temperature-sensitive supplies depend on many of the same kinds of cooling and monitoring systems.

The French attack also comes at a time when we’ve been reporting on rising diesel prices and problems affecting fuel supplies. Transportation problems and higher fuel costs would only complicate recovery from a widespread food distribution disruption.

Nobody is suggesting the French attack means American grocery stores are about to run out of food. But it should serve as another warning about how dependent we’ve become on technology that most people never see and have absolutely no control over.

What You Can Do to Protect Your Family

You can’t secure the computer systems running your local supermarket, and you probably have no idea which refrigeration equipment your grocery store uses. What you can control is how much your family depends on those stores being open and fully stocked every day.

Keep enough food at home to avoid depending on weekly grocery trips. At an absolute minimum, maintain two weeks of food your family regularly eats. A month or more gives you additional breathing room if a local disruption turns into a larger supply problem. Rice, pasta, canned meat, vegetables, soups and other shelf-stable foods are a good starting point. For longer-term storage, see our guide to foods that can last 25 years.

Don’t make your freezer your entire emergency food plan. Having a chest freezer packed with meat is great until the electricity goes out or the equipment fails. Keep canned proteins and other shelf-stable alternatives available. If you store large amounts of meat, consider learning proper pressure-canning techniques so you’re not relying exclusively on electricity to preserve it.

Have a way to monitor and power your own refrigeration equipment. An independent refrigerator/freezer thermometer with an alarm can warn you when temperatures rise. A properly sized backup battery, solar generator or conventional generator can help protect food during outages. The important thing is knowing how much electricity your equipment actually uses and having enough backup capacity to keep it operating.

Make provisions for refrigerated medications. If someone in your family depends on insulin or other temperature-sensitive medication, speak with your pharmacist about safe storage, backup cooling options and what to do during an extended outage.

Know where to get food outside the major supermarket chains. Local farmers, ranchers, independent producers and direct-to-consumer suppliers can provide additional purchasing options. They aren’t immune to refrigeration failures, but having more than one source for food is better than depending entirely on a single retail system.

For anyone operating a restaurant, butcher shop, grocery store or other business that depends on commercial refrigeration, this is also a good reason to contact your equipment contractor. Find out whether your refrigeration controllers have current security updates, whether they can be reached remotely, and who still has access to those systems.

America’s Food Supply Is More Vulnerable Than Most People Realize

For years, people have been told that cyberattacks are primarily about hackers stealing personal information, accessing bank accounts or holding computer files for ransom.

What happened in France is a reminder that these attacks can have much more immediate consequences. Hackers didn’t have to shut down the electrical grid or interrupt the country’s transportation system. They simply interfered with the computers controlling supermarket refrigeration systems, and hundreds of businesses were left dealing with spoiled food.

The attackers haven’t been identified, and investigators are still determining the damage. But the underlying problem isn’t going away. More of the equipment responsible for producing, storing and distributing our food is connected to networks that can potentially be compromised.

We’ve spent years warning readers that the modern food supply is nowhere near as reliable as most Americans assume. Whether the disruption comes from fuel shortages, natural disasters, electrical failures or hackers gaining access to critical equipment, the result can be the same: food that was available yesterday is suddenly unavailable today.

You don’t need to live in fear of every cyberattack overseas. But you should have enough food and supplies at home that a problem at your local grocery store doesn’t immediately become a problem for your family.

The post Hackers Hit Hundreds of French Supermarkets, Destroying Food by Taking Control of Refrigeration Systems appeared first on Activist Post.

Europe will NEVER avoid war until it starts impeaching Kaja Kallas who was not directly elected by the public to the EU position she uses to oppose any peace deal. However, this is standard procedure for this role for the EU was established to actually prevent the people from having any say in the future of Europe. She claims only more sanctions will end the war when there is no evidence that sanctions have ever worked on anyone even once. She wants world war for her personal vendetta like Victoria Nuland et el.

Kaja Kallas was nominated by the European Council to become the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. This nomination was made in June 2024 by the leaders of the EU member states. Following this nomination, her appointment was formalized through a European Council Decision on July 24, 2024. She was NOT elected to this position yet call Putin a Dictator and not Zelensky or herself!!!!! The High Representative is not a directly elected position; instead, the role is appointed by the European Council (with the agreement of the Commission President), which is the standard constitutional process for this office.

Here we have the PM of Britain putting out absolute lies. These politicians REFUSE to admit that people are rising up because of their policies that let in all the migrants who have been tearing Europe apart. Now this fraud Burnham is ensuring the complete destruction of the the United Kingdom outright lying that BRXIT would not have happened except for Russian interference and now they are claiming AfD in Germany is funded by Russia. These Socialist Marxist lovers REFUSE to admit that they have been wrong and they are spinning this as Russian interference as if the people would agree with their failed policies.

There can NEVER be peace as long as these types of people weasel their way into power and NEVER stand for election. They impose their agenda, usurp the foreign policy, all to carry out their personal hatreds and agenda with no regard for society or the people they pretend to represent. Kallas, I have warned in meetings, will do everything in her power to prevent peace. This is a personal vendetta against Russia and her hatred of the Russian people for the actions of Stalin. She has no problem with forgiving Germans for Hitler some argue because there are documented connections to controversial historical figures in her family tree regarding Nazis. The allegation has long been that she is OK with Germany for she would have to denounce her paternal great-grandfather, Eduard Alver.

Kaja Kallas has repeatedly and publicly stated that her family was persecuted by Russia (specifically the Soviet regime). She frequently cites her family’s deportation to Siberia as a direct and personal example of Russian repression. Destroying the Russian people is always her constant agenda, which is why she gets along with Zelensky, a Neo-Nazi. Perhaps she wants to beat Stalin’s record of killing 20 million Russians.

Here is their group of heros and they will NEVER admit for one second that their hatred of the rich and Russians is undermining Europe and as they start World War III all to prevent the EU from collapsing in this effort to retain power, all I can say is God help Europe. We will be looking at the timing at the next World Economic Conference.

For Europe to avoid war, they need political reform just as America has to clean house of its Neocons.

The post European Leaders Determined to Create WWIII appeared first on Activist Post.

Travelling to the US never fails to put me in touch with a part of American culture that I find particularly fascinating, but disturbing. Drugs. Drugs and more Drugs. I’m talking about the in-your-face, 24/7, marketing of the newest, most expensive pharmaceuticals on the planet.

All in the name of health, of course. 

You might argue, but so what? Every other consumer product gets advertised in the US—almost everywhere, to everyone, perhaps except tobacco. And lots of those things are bad for you too, such as junk food, alcohol, and gambling. 

However, drugs are different, and I often find myself experiencing a kind of vertigo as I stare, enthralled, at all the incessant drug advertising from screens everywhere I look—in airports, hotel lounges, restaurants, or bars. 

The plotlines are predictable. A slick 60 seconds and we see the fate of worried people suffering some sort of condition “ask their doctor” about Drug X, and soon the new prescription is magically transforming their lives. They turn into bliss and smiles as they romp their way through meadows of wildflowers while, sotto voce, we catch strange murmurs of liver failure and premature death. 

I find myself absorbed in the ads as if they are cultural artifacts of a strange race. Most of the Americans I know seem to be pretty healthy people, but any newcomer confronting all the US screens for the first time might conclude one thing: “Man, these people must be really sick.” 

They are sick, but not in the way of being physically sick. Sick as in showing all the adverse effects of living in a polluted information ecosystem where toxic levels of drug propaganda drift through the airwaves as freely as exhaust engulfs a freeway. 

Americans are so immersed in the smog of commercially-sponsored drug information that they might forget they used to live in a world where serious criticisms of drug industry products or behaviour were routinely reported on mainstream TV. Those halcyon days are over. 

The Land of the Free means drugmakers can, with near impunity, push their expensive products for Crohn’s disease, Colitis, or psoriasis—serious obesity, schizophrenia, and major depression with the most outlandish of claims wrapped up in crafty but misleading narratives. Drugs get advertised, and the stuff between the ads (ie: the programming, the sitcoms, and the news) won’t touch the subject with a ten-foot pole lest they upset the money chain. Meanwhile, everyone thinks this is normal? Wow. 

Not everyone. Earlier this summer, the consumer group US Public Citizen put out a petition urging the FDA to ban Direct-to-Consumer Advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs. They listed the usual reasons why DTCA is so toxic to consumers: Emotional manipulation, misleading benefit and risk information, inappropriate prescribing and overdiagnosis, the erosion of the patient-physician relationship, the promotion of low-value medications, and overall economic harm. Amen to all that.

What it all adds up to is a polluted environment in which careful and appropriate pharmaceutical use doesn’t happen. Americans are paying the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world, yet also have the most profligate use of those drugs. 

The pollution of the airwaves by Pharma propaganda is precisely the reason every other country in the world (except tiny New Zealand) bans Direct-to-Consumer Advertising (DTCA). The rest of the civilized world looked at DTCA, recognized it as a predatory assault on public health, and banned it decades ago.

DTCA and the Doctor-Patient Relationship

Probably the biggest harm of DTCA is how it completely undermines the clinical firewall between doctors and patients. By bombarding television viewers with slick, emotion-heavy commercials, drug manufacturers bypass the doctor’s intellect and go straight for the patient’s anxiety. When a terrified or hopeful consumer marches into a clinic demanding a specific brand-name drug featured during halftime at a football game, the doctor-patient relationship is fundamentally hijacked. Your physician stops being a healer weighing evidence and becomes a drive-thru cashier being pressured to hand over the order.

Drug ads are veritable master classes in how to exaggerate the severity of a condition, extoll the benefits of a product, downplay the harms, and plant the “Ask Your Doctor” message. And thus, the drug ad drives a wedge into a relationship that should be about healing, and not about dealing. 

The plain fact is this: prescription drugs are not breakfast cereals. You cannot walk into a pharmacy, grab a box of third-generation immunosuppressants off the shelf, and toss them into your shopping cart alongside the peanut butter. By law, prescription medications require a “learned intermediary”— a physician who has spent a decade in medical training to weigh complex evidence, harms, benefits, and alternatives. 

Many patients might believe that their own doctor can ignore the marketing pressures of the drug industry, yet they’d be mostly wrong. Drug information or “continuing medical education” swallowed by our physicians is even more toxic because it’s usually wrapped in gifts along with the imprimatur of peer-reviewed publications. Fact is, when it comes to pharmaceuticals, most doctors are not as “learned” as we’d like. This has to do with a well-studied cognitive bias where doctors generally believe they are too smart to be influenced by marketing.

This phenomenon has been well-studied and there’s even a term for it: the “illusion of invulnerability.” This is when doctors acknowledge that pharmaceutical marketing and gifts influence the prescribing habits of other doctors, yet believe that they themselves are immune to that same psychological manipulation. 

We know that drug marketing is bad for consumers, but just this week we found some serious proof around how bad it is for our doctors. A Cochrane review published this week looked at 93 studies—most from the US but also from France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom and found that the more exposure physicians have to the drug marketers, the worse their prescribing is. We’ve known this for decades, yet the grift continues and the poor doctor-patient relationship is bombarded with DTCA on one side, and by the inducements and gifts provided by pharmaceutical companies. 

There is a very good reason that Robert F Kennedy, Jr., the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, has wanted to ban drug advertising. He knows that the medications are being flogged by the most highly paid marketers on earth whose job it is to create these brazen vignettes of triumph to get you to “Ask your doctor.” 

The way I see it, if a drug company is telling you to “Ask your Doctor!” you can be sure the company’s people have already seen your doctor and he or she is fully aware of the drug in question. Any drug that is advertised to patients directly is also going to have a substantial marketing campaign targeting the doctors because they’re the ones who are writing the prescriptions. 

If you consider the body of the most highly advertised drugs these days you might be led to think there certainly must be an epidemic of psoriasis, Crohn’s disease, or ulcerative colitis in the United States. Maybe that is explained by high-grade hawking of Skyrizi, Tremfya, and Rinvoq, three drugs which have the biggest direct-to-consumer television ad spending across the entire US pharmaceutical industry, (according to Forbes) each spending more than $350 million a year. 

The reality is that these companies are vying hard for a slice of the pie, and their incredibly high profit margins (due to patents) and the malleability of consumers make these new drugs worthy of advertising, even if the diseases in question affect very few people. For example, psoriasis only affects about 3% of the US adult population, and Crohn’s disease or Colitis about 1%. Together nearly $1 billion a year is spent flogging products that might only affect 10 million out of a national population of 340 million people.

Getting rid of DTCA in the US is a big ask, and doing so probably requires some reworking of the US Constitution. Secretary Kennedy has already felt the pushback, not just from the drug companies, but from the media outlets that depend on drug advertising. 

If ever there was a reason why Americans should rethink the wisdom of the First Amendment, it is in how it is applied to drug companies. Sure, we all want to have freedom of speech, freedom of the press, of religion, and of peaceable assembly, but can anyone say the drug companies are using their freedoms of expression responsibly? 

A Case Study in DTCA

Let’s end with what I think is the poster child of modern pharmaceutical hubris and marketing wizardry, and a teachable lesson why we should seriously restrict DTCA in the US: Veozah (fezolinetant). 

During Super Bowl LVIII in February 2024, the maker of this new drug, Astellas Pharma dropped a small fortune to air a glossy, 60-second commercial titled “Fewer Hot Flashes, More Not Flashes.” The target? Menopause—a completely normal, universal biological transition that the pharmaceutical complex has been trying to rebrand as a deficiency disease for over half a century. The commercial promised women a revolutionary, non-hormonal fix for vasomotor symptoms. It was upbeat, empowering, and utterly seductive.

Fast forward seven months, to September 2024.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an urgent safety warning: Veozah can cause severe, potentially life-threatening liver injury and liver failure. The FDA mandated new blood testing protocols before and during treatment because patients were ending up with signs of serious liver damage.

Think about the sheer, unadulterated madness of this sequence. 

A pharmaceutical company uses the biggest, most expensive advertising platform on planet Earth to sell an expensive, brand-new pill for a normal life transition to millions of healthy women. Seven months later, the regulatory body is forced to admit that this heavily hyped, premium-priced drug can literally wreck your liver.

This is the toxic life cycle of DTCA in a nutshell: hype the symptom, brand the condition, air the Super Bowl ad, collect the billions, and wait for the safety warnings to roll in after the real-world guinea pigs start getting hurt.

If there were an international award for the most psychologically manipulative, disease-mongering phrase ever foisted upon the public, “Ask your doctor if [Drug X] is right for you” would win by a landslide.

It sounds so innocent, doesn’t it? A gentle nudge encouraging patients to take charge of their health. Not quite. It is a multi-billion-dollar marketing trick designed to erode your agency, medicalize the ordinary discomforts of being human, and turn you into an unpaid sales representative for Big Pharma.

Nobody spends $7 million airing a Super Bowl commercial for a generic, off-patent $5 diuretic that actually saves lives. DTCA exists exclusively to pump up the sales of ultra-expensive, newly patented drugs that need to recoup their marketing budgets before their patents expire.

It is time to end this absurd experiment once and for all. Prescription drugs should be evaluated on hard clinical evidence by independent professionals, not sold like soft drinks to a captive, frightened audience. “Ask your doctor” shouldn’t be a tagline on television—it should be a private conversation free from the polluting influence of Super Bowl commercials.

The post “Ask Your Doctor:” The Media’s Most Dangerous Tagline appeared first on Activist Post.

The flying experience has been dreadful since the passage of the right-stripping PATRIOT Act, and the surveillance state has become embedded throughout airports in a variety of ways. The TSA is committed to making the flying experience memorable for all the wrong reasons, all while never catching an actual terrorist.

Once a traveler clears the gauntlet of privacy-shredding airport requirements, they still have to hope that the air traffic controllers do their jobs with Soviet-era hardware and copper phone lines, all while being dangerously overworked with no end in sight. How much longer can the duct tape and chewing gum keep the American airline industry in the air?

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Vice President JD Vance announced on Oct. 8 that the Trump administration is suspending Microsoft and Adobe from a federal program that allows employers to sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency green cards, citing alleged fraud in the immigration system.

The suspension applies to the Permanent Labor Certification Program, known as PERM, which is the step most employers must clear before sponsoring a foreign worker for an employment-based green card. The action effectively blocks Microsoft and Adobe from sponsoring H-1B visa holders for permanent residency, ABC News reported [1].

Vance also announced that the administration is opening an investigation into nine universities over alleged J-1 visa fraud and said additional technology and outsourcing firms would face similar suspensions.

Vance Cites Microsoft Layoffs and Visa Use

Vance singled out Microsoft during the press conference, stating that the company had abused the visa system more than any other U.S. company. “There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft,” Vance said, according to the Epoch Times [2]. He stated that Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while simultaneously benefiting from 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards [3].

The vice president argued that foreign worker visa programs were intended to supply high-level talent where domestic supply was short, but that companies are abusing the system to undercut American workers with lower-paid foreign employees. “There’s this pernicious idea that Americans are not good enough for the jobs in their own country,” Vance said.

According to Tom’s Hardware, Vance stated that Microsoft filed 3,682 PERM applications, nearly 1,000 of which were for positions that overlapped with those of laid-off workers [4].

Additional IT Firms Suspended; Labor Department Cites Fraud

Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said that Department of Labor (DOL) investigations uncovered $22 billion in fraud and secured more than 200 convictions over the past five months, according to the Epoch Times. The scale of the visa usage described by officials has drawn scrutiny from labor advocates who have long argued that the H-1B program functions less as a tool for filling genuine talent shortages and more as a mechanism for replacing American workers with lower-cost foreign labor.

The authors also pointed to Government Accountability Office findings that undermined industry claims of unfilled technology jobs, noting that “ITAA’s estimate of the number of unfilled IT jobs is based on reported vacancies, and adequate information about those vacancies is not provided, such as how long positions have been vacant, whether wages offered are sufficient to attract qualified applicants, and whether companies consider jobs filled by contractors as vacancies” [5].

Nine Universities Investigated Over J-1 Visa Fraud

The universities identified as part of the J-1 visa investigation are Pitt, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Brown, UC Davis, Caltech, Arizona State and MIT, according to the announcement [2]. The institutions were identified as allegedly abusing J-1 visas used by foreign students for work- and study-based programs.

DOL Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito said subpoenas were already served and that investigators are seeking more details of fraudulent activities, according to the Epoch Times. D’Esposito also warned of Chinese Communist Party attempts to influence U.S. education systems and the national security implications of those actions. “Nobody will be getting a free pass because their name is carved into an expensive building,” he said.

The investigation into university J-1 visa usage follows prior enforcement actions targeting visa fraud across multiple programs. The DOL and its Inspector General’s office previously launched what it described as a “major investigation” into alleged fraud in the H-1B visa system, along with an investigation into human trafficking, as part of a broader effort targeting immigration and federal entitlement fraud [6].

Administration Cites Broad Anti-Fraud Effort; Microsoft CEO Meeting

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella met with President Donald Trump on Oct. 8 to receive a National Medal of Technology and Innovation, according to the Epoch Times.

The suspension marks a significant escalation in the administration’s scrutiny of employment-based immigration programs. Under the PERM process, employers must demonstrate that no qualified American worker is available before sponsoring a foreign national for permanent residency, a requirement that critics argue has been routinely circumvented by large technology and outsourcing firms. The companies named in the suspension have not publicly responded to the allegations.

Conclusion

The companies and universities named have not publicly responded to the allegations. The suspensions block new applications and freeze pending cases for the affected companies, representing a concrete restriction on their access to the immigration system.

References

1. Vance suspends Microsoft from a green card program to crack down on …. https://abcnews.com/Politics/vance-suspends-microsoft-green-card-program-crack-alleged/story?id=137100899
2. Vance: Microsoft Suspended From Foreign Worker Green Card Program. https://theepochtimes.com/us/vance-microsoft-suspended-from-foreign-worker-green-card-program-6101189
3. Microsoft, Adobe blocked from green-card program amid visa fraud…. https://kcby.com/news/nation-world/vice-president-jd-vance-to-unveil-h-1b-foreign-work-visa-j-1-abuse-findings-department-of-labor-justice-protect-american-workers-human-trafficking-fraud
4. U.S. suspends green card path for H-1B workers at Microsoft and…. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/policy/u-s-suspends-green-card-path-for-h-1b-workers-at-microsoft-and-adobe-labor-certification-program-blocked-due-to-alleged-fraud
5. Sold Out by Michelle Malkin and John Miano
6. Labor Department Launches ‘Major Investigation’ Into H-1B Visa Fraud. https://theepochtimes.com/us/labor-department-launches-major-investigation-into-h-1b-visa-fraud-6059584

Explainer Infographic

The post VP Vance: Trump Administration Suspends Tech Giants From Green Card Program Amid Visa Fraud Allegations appeared first on Activist Post.

Freddie Ponton
21st Century Wire

For four years, Europe presented its energy break with Russia as a strategic and moral necessity, with Brussels expanding sanctions, promising to cut Moscow’s revenues and preparing a complete ban on Russian liquefied natural gas. Yet European companies bought more LNG from Russia’s Yamal project in the first nine months of 2026 than in the same period of 2025.

EU ports received a record 12.18 million tonnes of Yamal LNG between January and September 2026, an increase of 9.5% over the same period in 2025. The gas arrived in 167 cargoes, roughly one every 1.6 days. The EU received 85% of Yamal’s recorded deliveries by volume even as the project’s worldwide shipments fell by 1.3%.

Urgewald, a German environmental and human rights organisation, placed the estimated benchmark value of those deliveries at €7.88 billion, using cargo volumes and monthly European TTF gas prices rather than disclosed contract payments. European leaders spoke of economic separation while EU ports remained the destination for a multibillion-euro Russian LNG trade.

Sanctions that preserved trade

The EU’s ban on Russian LNG under existing short-term contracts took effect on 25 April 2026. Eligible long-term agreements signed before 17 June 2025 could continue supplying Europe through the end of 2026, with the prohibition taking effect on 1 January 2027. Brussels could announce the coming break while established contracts kept Russian cargoes moving.

Five months after the ban on imports under eligible short-term LNG contracts took effect, EU ports received 792,440 tonnes of Yamal LNG in September, slightly more than a year earlier.

Yamal sold most of its output under long-term contracts signed before the war. TotalEnergies agreed to buy 4 million tonnes a year directly from the project, CNPC contracted 3 million, Germany’s SEFE inherited a 2.9 million tonne agreement, and Spain’s Naturgy held another for 2.5 million tonnes. Novatek sold part of its own allocation through separate agreements with TotalEnergies, Shell and Gunvor, now known as Centalion Group Ltd, These contracts kept major European energy companies commercially tied to Yamal after the political rupture with Moscow, securing supplies that could be sold or traded through their international portfolios, with destination flexibility varying by agreement.

TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanné confirmed that its Yamal agreements were linked to Brent crude. During periods of extreme volatility, those long-term contracts secured supplies that could cost less than replacement gas on the European spot market. When spot prices outpaced oil-linked purchase prices, the gap created an opportunity to earn more from selling the contracted cargoes.

Buyers could exploit that opportunity through global portfolios spanning ships, terminals, storage facilities and supplies from several producing countries. They could exchange cargoes, redirect available gas and meet customer obligations from alternative sources, freeing supplies for sale in markets offering stronger returns.

Russian officials acknowledged that portfolio buyers could swap Yamal supplies against gas from other sources and direct available cargoes towards the most lucrative markets. A Yamal cargo could fulfil one obligation while freeing another supply for sale elsewhere, allowing traders to earn from price differences across markets.

The contracts that bound companies to Russian suppliers also secured access to gas that could cost less than replacement cargoes bought at crisis prices. Keeping those agreements meant preserving both the supply and the trading opportunities it created.

The profits behind the policy

TotalEnergies owns 20% of Yamal LNG and holds 19.4% of Novatek, the project’s controlling shareholder. It also buys and markets Yamal cargoes, giving it commercial interests as both a shareholder and a cargo trader.

In July 2026, chief executive Patrick Pouyanné told analysts that lifting and selling Yamal cargoes generated an average of about $400 million annually. TotalEnergies had direct access to the cash booked through its UK trading entity. The income fluctuated with Brent crude prices because the contracts were linked to oil.

TotalEnergies also retained rights to dividends through its ownership positions, although sanctions limited its ability to transfer those funds from Russia to Europe. Pouyanné confirmed that some cash flows had been distributed without disclosing how much had been repatriated, while the company’s Novatek dividends, which he had valued at around $600 million annually in 2024, had previously remained stuck abroad.

The commercial incentive extended beyond the immediate Yamal income, as continued deliveries preserved access to contracted gas while removing Russian LNG before replacement supplies became available could drive prices higher across the wider market. Pouyanné warned at a French Senate hearing that replacing those supplies would force Europe to pay more, and told analysts in April 2024 that sanctions on Yamal would benefit TotalEnergies’ global portfolio by pushing LNG prices higher.

TotalEnergies had commercial interests under either outcome, as continued Yamal trade generated sales income while a sudden prohibition could tighten supply and raise the value of gas sold elsewhere in its portfolio. Continued access and greater scarcity offered different routes to income, leaving the company with a potential financial benefit even if Russian deliveries stopped.

A French Senate inquiry called in 2024 for France to lead efforts to sanction Russian LNG and end its own imports as soon as possible, yet two years later TotalEnergies was still earning about $400 million annually from Yamal sales.

Germany’s retained Russian contract

Germany’s state-owned energy group SEFE inherited a contract for about 2.9 million tonnes of Yamal LNG annually through the former Gazprom Marketing & Trading business, after Berlin nationalised its parent company, Gazprom Germania, in 2022. The group became Securing Energy for Europe, retaining the Russian supply agreement under German state ownership.

SEFE’s trading operation later attributed substantial profits across its LNG portfolio to contractual flexibility, freight optimisation and arbitrage, while its 2024 financial report recorded £411.2 million in EBITDA and £199.4 million in profit after tax. Those figures covered SEFE Marketing & Trading and its subsidiaries, without isolating the contribution from Yamal.

That flexibility extended to its Indian supply obligations, for which Reuters reported that the business had arranged cargoes from other sources to reduce freight costs. SEFE’s chief executive also explained that it could retain Yamal supplies in Europe and serve India from elsewhere in its portfolio when doing so was cheaper, although that account described an available trading option rather than documenting individual cargo swaps.

Under German state ownership, SEFE retained a long-term agreement for about 2.9 million tonnes of Yamal LNG annually, even as Europe sought to reduce its dependence on Russian energy. Berlin’s nationalisation changed the ownership of Gazprom’s former German business, but the Russian supply agreement remained in place, preserving its commercial ties to Yamal inside a state-owned international trader.

Shell’s phased withdrawal

On 8 March 2022, Shell announced a phased withdrawal from Russian hydrocarbons, including oil, gas and LNG, but later acknowledged that long-term contractual commitments remained despite the end of its spot purchases of Russian LNG.

Among those commitments was a 2015 agreement with Novatek for approximately 900,000 tonnes of Yamal LNG annually, with a term exceeding 20 years. In February 2023, a Shell spokesperson confirmed that the company was still receiving Russian LNG cargoes under that contract, almost a year after announcing its withdrawal.

Shell’s Yamal agreement sat within a global LNG portfolio, with its cargoes passing through a contractual transhipment point at Montoir-de-Bretagne in France. Across the wider business, Shell used its international operations to capture differences in regional demand and prices, and chief executive Wael Sawan attributed strong late-2023 trading results to arbitrage between eastern and western markets. Those results demonstrate the commercial value of portfolio flexibility, without identifying how much came from Yamal.

Naturgy and former Gunvor also retained access to Yamal supplies through long-term agreements, with Naturgy contracted for 2.5 million tonnes annually and Centalion Group Ltd,  for about 500,000 tonnes through Novatek. Reporting on Yamal’s portfolio buyers describes how companies could exchange those supplies with gas sourced elsewhere and direct cargoes towards more lucrative markets.

The contracts therefore carried commercial opportunities alongside their obligations, preserving access to gas that could be sold or exchanged within wider portfolios. Remaining in the trade could generate value even where companies presented their continuing purchases as a contractual constraint, although that potential should not be confused with a verified profit from each agreement.

Russian gas beyond Nord Stream

On 7 February 2022, then US President Joe Biden stood beside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and said that a Russian invasion would bring Nord Stream 2 to an end. Asked how Washington could achieve that when Germany controlled the project, he maintained that the United States could ensure the outcome without explaining the mechanism.

Germany halted Nord Stream 2’s certification on 22 February 2022, preventing a pipeline that had never entered commercial service from beginning operations. Nord Stream 1 had already stopped delivering gas when explosions ruptured three of the system’s four pipeline strings on 26 September 2022, leaving only one Nord Stream 2 string intact. With the Nord Stream route out of operation, Russian LNG continued reaching European terminals through the contracts held by companies such as TotalEnergies, SEFE and Shell.

Yamal had begun exporting LNG in December 2017, almost five years before the Nord Stream explosions, and its seaborne supply network survived the loss of the pipelines. European companies continued buying Russian gas under long-term contracts, receiving by-sea supplies that remained commercially valuable even as the direct pipeline connection between Russia and Germany stood idle.

America captured the market

The decline of Russian pipeline supplies opened a larger European market for American LNG, and Washington worked with Brussels to expand the trade. In their 25 March 2022 agreement, the United States pledged to work towards at least 15 billion cubic metres of additional LNG for the EU that year, including supplies from international partners, while maintaining a regulatory environment that would support additional export capacity. The European Commission committed to working with member states to secure demand for approximately 50 billion cubic metres of additional American LNG annually until at least 2030, giving the effort to reduce Russian dependence a long-term market for US supplies.

American deliveries to the EU rose from 22 billion cubic metres in 2021 to 56 billion in 2022, exceeding the initial expansion target. By the second quarter of 2026, the United States supplied 63.2% of EU LNG imports, with Russia second at 17.3%. Europe’s retreat from Russian pipeline gas had been accompanied by a US-European policy effort to expand American supply, while Russian LNG retained a substantial place in the same market.

Dependence became leverage

Europe’s reliance on American supplies extended beyond LNG, giving Washington leverage over another essential fuel when the Trump administration asked the EU to release 120 million barrels of emergency diesel over six months. Washington presented reserve releases as an alternative to restricting American diesel exports, a threat with considerable force because the United States supplied around half of the EU’s diesel imports in August 2026.

Washington was pressing Europe to release finished diesel that could reach consumers without further refining, while its own emergency contribution consisted of crude offered to companies under loan arrangements requiring repayment in oil with additional barrels. The US Department of Energy’s September solicitation explicitly built replenishment into those contracts, leaving Europe under pressure to draw on immediately usable fuel while American releases carried a contractual obligation to restore its crude reserves.

The pressure was followed by a G7 agreement on 2 October 2026 to coordinate the release of 100 million barrels over four months, with a substantial diesel release brought forward into the first 20 days. G7 leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to refrain from energy export restrictions against one another, placing continued access to supplies alongside the agreement to draw down emergency stocks.

Washington had helped build a larger European market for American energy as part of the effort to reduce dependence on Russia, then used the prospect of restricting diesel exports to press European governments to release their reserves. Europe’s reliance on an allied supplier had left it exposed to pressure over access to fuel, with emergency stocks becoming part of the negotiation over keeping those supplies flowing.

A credibility crisis

European leaders need to explain how their effort to cut Russia’s energy revenues can be reconciled with rising Yamal deliveries to EU ports and European traders earning income from the cargoes. TotalEnergies’ disclosure of about $400 million in annual income makes continued trade harder to present solely as an unwanted contractual obligation, when the same agreement also sustained a valuable business. Compliance with the sanctions timetable does not resolve the political contradiction; it shows how much commerce that timetable allowed to continue.

Brussels also committed to building long-term demand for American LNG, while Washington later demonstrated its willingness to use fuel exports as leverage over European governments.

Whose interests are being served when Europe distances itself from Russian pipeline supplies, remains a paying customer for Russian LNG and becomes more exposed to American pressure?

European leaders owe their citizens an explanation of why Russia remained an acceptable supplier for profitable LNG contracts while economic separation was presented as a strategic necessity. They must also explain whose interests were served by replacing that dependence with greater exposure to Washington.

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Ledger has reassured users after people who bought signing devices from a Malaysia-based reseller reported losing funds.

Ledger has said it is working with authorities after users last week reported losing funds and one received a tampered device. But the company reassured customers that the number of impacted products was “limited.” 

The hardware wallet manufacturer added in an announcement on Sunday that it had reached out to affected customers. 

Paris-based Ledger on Friday said it had started an investigation after customers in South East Asia reported they’d lost funds after buying from a reseller. 

Then, on Saturday, Ledger said it confirmed that one of the impacted users’ devices contained an unauthorized hardware implant. 

Ledger would not confirm the amount of money lost but blockchain investigator Specter said $86 million had been drained from devices. 

“As the investigation continues, we are working with relevant authorities,” Ledger wrote on Sunday. 

It added: “Also, we strongly advise users not to purchase from unauthorized resellers, where the risk of buying suspicious, counterfeit or modified devices is important as nothing operates under ledger security guidelines.

“Security isn’t static and this incident underscores why we continuously review and strengthen our distribution and anti-tamper processes.”

Customers in South East Asia last week reported losing funds after buying from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based vendor CryptoBilis. 

Ledger then advised customers who’d bought from CryptoBilis to not set up their devices. 

CryptoBilis has since stopped selling its hardware wallets, Ledger said on Sunday. 

People on social media posted picture evidence of devices implanted into Ledger products, claiming it could get users’ private keys. It isn’t clear how many of Ledger’s signing devices contained the implant. 

Neither Ledger nor CryptoBilis immediately responded to questions from Bitcoin Magazine. 

Hardware wallet security has been a hot topic ever since hackers in July were able to steal close to $120 million in bitcoin from Coldcard users. 

The products, made by Canadian company Coinkite, contained a firmware bug which led to faulty seed generation, allowing hackers to essentially guess investor seedphrases. 

In a separate incident, hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor last month reported that close to 81,000 customers had their details leaked after its third-party fulfillment partner had data stolen. 

Criminals have been targeting data this year, with scammers getting hold of customer information via crypto wallet Ledger’s payment processor Global-e to send phishing emails. 

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