In the night of 21–22 October 2026, several hundred kilograms of hafnium crystals were taken from the Framatome plant at Jarrie, Isère. The site is classified Seveso high-threshold and is France’s only facility that refines metallic hafnium. The loss is valued at several million euros. It is the sixth theft of this material at the same plant since 2019.
With Washington no longer writing new Ukraine aid cheques on the Biden-era scale, Zelensky has been desperately looking for fresh money. The IMF's $8.1 billion programme comes with banking-sector reform commitments, including preparing two state-owned banks for sale. Meet London's Rothschild & Co and its longtime Ukrainian partner FinPoint.
With personal data potentially already exposed, governments see an opportunity to simplify privacy, eliminate unnecessary consent discussions and introduce ABSOLUTELY SECURE™ Digital ID 2.0.
The internet is burning. Government portals across Europe went dark on October 21. PHP2Shell. Two remote code execution holes in the language that quietly powers half the web. CVSS 9.2. Critical. Patch now or perish.
Inaugurated in 1883, it was designed by architect Charles-Alfred Leclerc, drawing inspiration from the former Paris City Hall. Its interiors included paintings by Henri-Paul Motte, Jean-Joseph Weerts, and Urbain Bourgeois.
Ukraine's military Starlink access has been restricted, disrupting drone operations. Trump says it's time for Ukraine to get a new president, while Elon Musk declares: "And so the slaughter continues … Time for Zelensky to go"
After years of blaming China, Britain has finally identified a new foreign threat. American COVID has crossed the Atlantic, presumably without a visa. The British press is sounding the alarm.
New product liability rules in the EU and proposals under discussion in Britain could have far-reaching consequences for Linux and the wider open-source ecosystem. Add growing government enthusiasm for age verification and operating-system-level controls, and the future of independent computing starts looking rather less independent.
The world is building energy generation in orbit, transmitted across space and delivered wherever it is needed. The United States, Japan and China have spent years developing their own systems, Russia is pursuing nuclear power in space, and Israel sits inside the American aerospace ecosystem. Europe had a roadmap too. It appears to have misplaced it somewhere between another feasibility study and the tax paperwork for your €12 package.
Europe has finally found the proper limits of political satire. Calling your own politician an idiot may bring prosecutors and police. Displaying the naked president of the United States, the EU’s most important trading partner and the dominant military power in NATO, as an “Orange Plague” inside the European Parliament is culture.
vlgr
Balthazar the Unsupervised
