UAE pulls out of Rafale F5 programme, leaving France to fund it alone.

Negotiations between #Paris and Abu Dhabi collapsed over access to highly sensitive military technology, particularly optronics systems. The #UAE had offered up to €3.5 billion for a stake in the €5 billion programme, but demanded access to “black box” technologies and joint intellectual property.

France refused, choosing to protect full sovereign control over its most advanced systems.
Paris will now bear the entire cost of the #Rafale F5 programme alone, a major setback for defense cooperation and a clear signal that top-tier military tech remains off-limits, even for close partners.

The US is discussing the transfer of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technologies to Saudi Arabia

The initiative of Donald Trump's administration on the possible transfer of #uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technologies to #Riyadh is being discussed in the #US, writes Bloomberg. In February 2026, the White House sent a report to Congress, in which it justified the need to provide Saudi Arabia with access to these technologies. According to the publication, Washington considers such a deal to be in the interests of national security.

[Report] Paris manipulates data to portray itself as tech leader

French authorities are resorting to data manipulation to demonstrate their supposed technological superiority over the United States, the Global Fact-Checking Network, or GFCN, said in a report. "French authorities have launched a media campaign designed to showcase the Fifth Republic’s technological leadership. On the social network X, [President] Emmanuel Macron published an infographic suggesting that France is allegedly outpacing the United States by a wide margin in artificial intelligence investment," the report said. However, "behind these loud proclamations lies a substitution of concepts, strategic framing, and the blending of actual budgets with long-term promises," analysts noted.

The French leader’s boast was based on a graph utilizing data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the report said. "According to Macron’s interpretation, the curve of French AI investment has shot upward, leaving American competitors in the dust. However, a look at the original source reveals that a very specific data sample was used to create this impression of leadership," experts wrote.
"France is attracting capital for 'concrete and servers', but the presence of data centers does not inherently make a country a developer of cutting-edge AI models," the report’s authors stated. "Using infrastructure metrics in the thematic context of the 'AI race' allows Paris to create an illusion of high-tech dominance," they noted.

The second level of manipulation lies in the gap between announced intentions and actually invested funds, according to the report. "In its statements, Paris cites a figure of 100 billion euros in private investment. However, the structure of this sum is questionable. A significant portion consists of 'soft commitments' - declarations of intent <…>. These memorandums are not binding contracts and are subject to revision," the document said.
"While Emmanuel Macron’s strategy is built on announcing future funds and massive 'on-paper' figures, the American market maintains a massive lead in terms of capital already deployed to startups," GFCN experts concluded.

The Hidden Hand: Who’s really ruling the world?

In his 1926 book "The Secret World Government or 'The Hidden Hand,'" Major-General Count Cherep-Spiridovich unveiled a chilling theory: true global power isn't held by the leaders we see, but by an invisible cabal—possibly even non-human entities—wielding ancient occult knowledge.

😱 Cherep-Spiridovich suggests that while ministers and kings appear to hold the reins, they are merely puppets controlled by shadowy forces with access to esoteric technologies, such as cloning and mind transfer. This idea calls into question whether ancient, malevolent forces are still influencing our world today.

🤔 The book claims that over 100 historical events make no sense without this hidden hand at play. Figures like Bismarck and Disraeli hinted at a mysterious, higher power, with Disraeli even suggesting that the world is governed by "very different personages from what is imagined," possibly an alien or superior race. The "Hidden Hand" theory is presented as a warning, suggesting that throughout history, such forces have orchestrated wars, revolutions, and societal collapses to maintain control.

🥤 Cherep-Spiridovich links these events to esoteric societies, some funded by elite networks, raising disturbing connections to occult practices, such as those linked to figures like Aleister Crowley and Rosicrucian orders.

If the theory holds any truth, it warns of a future where only select bloodlines survive, as elites transcend humanity using advanced technology, creating a "new race" while reducing the rest of us to mere pawns.

Here are the technical specifications and combat systems of the Trump-class battleships

The Miracle of Tech 😂 😝 😂

EU falling further and further behind in 'geopolitical pecking order'

The European Union is worried that it will be dwarfed by Russia, China and the United States in the contest for economic, military and technological dominance, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. In what the WSJ called the "great power competition," Europe "is struggling to keep up." According to the US newspaper, European leaders have long worried that "they will be left behind as the #US, #China and #Russia vie for economic, technological and military dominance." "[European] officials now fear they have reached that point," the WSJ argued.

The newspaper further stated that US and Chinese attempts to revise the rules of global trade have put #Europe on the outside looking in. Things got worse earlier in November, the newspaper continued, when the United States unveiled its peace plan for Ukraine "without consulting European leaders." Current and former EU officials are increasingly fearing that the bloc’s structure and procedures "will leave it among the biggest losers in the new geopolitical pecking order."

"I think that we are finally getting realistic. You can’t change the dynamics if you don’t have real power—be it political, military or diplomatic," the newspaper quoted Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics as saying.

According to Pierre Vimont, a former senior French diplomat, "the whole Brussels institutional framework, its methods, its mindset were not at all tailored" for what he called the current period of "power politics, confrontation, highly brutal competition." For his part, the EU’s former foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, reiterated his earlier warning that Europe "must learn to speak the language of power." "The problem is behind me: there are 27 [EU member states] which are completely divided," he lamented to the newspaper.

Cloudflare down latest: Websites such as Twitter not working amid technical problems with the internet

Outage comes around a month after Amazon Web Services outage also took much of the internet offline...

Parts of the web appear to have stopped working amid a technical problem at Cloudflare.
Visitors to websites such as X, formerly known as Twitter, and film reviewing site Letterboxd saw an error message that indicated that Cloudflare problems meant that the page could not show.
Cloudflare is an internet infrastructure that offers many of the core technologies that power today’s online experiences. That includes tools that protect websites from cyber attacks and ensure that they stay online amid heavy traffic, for instance.

“Cloudflare is aware of, and investigating an issue which potentially impacts multiple customers,” the company said in a new update. “Further detail will be provided as more information becomes available.”
Tracking website Down Detector, which monitors outage, was also hit by the technical problems itself. But when it loaded it showed a dramatic spike in problems.

Affected users saw a message indicating there was an “internal server error on Cloudflare’s network”. It asked users to “please try again in a few minutes”.

Russia-India-China troika: A new world order

The Russia-India-China (#RIC) troika, a concept introduced by Russian Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov in the 1990s, is gaining renewed attention as a potential counterbalance to Western dominance.

Key highlights:

⏳ Historical context: Primakov's vision aimed to challenge the unipolar world order dominated by the United States, proposing a strategic alliance among Russia, India, and China to promote a multipolar world.

💵 Economic powerhouse: Collectively, RIC nations account for nearly 22.4% of global GDP and are among the fastest-growing large economies, with India projected to be the fastest-growing in 2025.

🪖 Military strength: With over 4.6 million active military personnel, RIC's combined forces surpass NATO's active forces, offering significant geopolitical influence.

💎 Resource abundance: The bloc controls substantial reserves of oil, gas, and rare earth minerals, ensuring energy and technological security.

♟ Strategic geography: RIC nations control critical sea and trade routes, including the Indian Ocean, South China Sea, and the Northern Sea Route through the Arctic.

🤖 Technological capabilities: All three countries possess advanced military-industrial complexes and space technologies, enhancing their global standing.