Obama Denounces Public’s Indifference to Racist Trump Clip

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February 15, 2026

Obama deplores lack of shame over racist Trump clip — Mr Obama responded to the video for the first time in an interview with left-wing political podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen released yesterday

A Moment of National Embarrassment — and the Quiet, Heavy Work of Repair

There are images that stick to the bones of a country. Sometimes they are small — a single second of film — and sometimes they are the slow drip of a thousand lesser humiliations. Last week the United States woke to one of those images: a clip shared on a popular social platform that briefly superimposed the faces of Barack and Michelle Obama onto the bodies of monkeys.

It lasted a blink, but its echo felt enormous. For many, it was more than a crude insult; it was a reminder of a history of mockery and dehumanization that stretches back centuries. For others, it was one episode among many in a media ecosystem where outrage is manufactured and churned for clicks. For citizens trying to make sense of it all, the question was simple and painful: how did we get here?

From Platform to Pod: How the Story Unfolded

The video appeared on Truth Social, a network closely associated with Donald Trump. It promoted claims about the 2020 election and, in the final frame, flashed the image of the Obamas in a way that many observers called racist. The post drew swift, bipartisan condemnation—yet even the rebukes felt tangled. The White House initially dismissed the furor as “fake outrage,” only to later attribute the offensive clip to a staff error and remove it.

Barack Obama himself spoke about the episode for the first time on a popular political podcast, and his tone was weary but clear. Without naming names, he described a “clown show” quality to the current media landscape and warned that “decorum” once associated with public office had frayed.

“People are tired of the cruelty,” said a retired school principal in Chicago’s Hyde Park, the neighborhood where Mr. Obama rose to political prominence. “We expect our leaders to show restraint, to hold themselves to a standard. When that vanishes, it trickles down into everything else.”

A Short Clip, a Long History

To outsiders, equating public figures with animals might read simply as mean-spirited satire. To many Black Americans, though, that gesture taps into a long, ugly archive — from minstrel caricatures to demeaning political cartoons — that was always meant to strip away dignity.

“This isn’t just about politics,” said Dr. Amina Johnson, a historian of race and media at a Midwest university. “There’s a cultural grammar here. The imagery is not neutral; it’s freighted with a history of dehumanization. That is why the reaction was so visceral.”

Politics, Performance, and the Business of Outrage

We live in a time when social feeds reward velocity more than veracity. Platforms are engineered to amplify content that provokes reaction. According to the Pew Research Center, roughly seven in ten Americans regularly use social media — and an increasing share say these platforms are a net negative for public discourse. When a political actor chooses to trade in spectacle, the result is often a feedback loop that benefits attention and punishes nuance.

“The economics of outrage are real,” observed Evan Mercer, a former campaign strategist who now consults on digital advertising. “It’s cheaper to provoke than to persuade. But there’s a cost: the steady erosion of shared norms that make democratic debate possible.”

And that erosion has electoral consequences. Moments like this are not neutral for parties or campaigns. Observers and some voters worry that coarse messaging could alienate moderates and independents at exactly the kind of moments where swing margins matter most.

“I’ve always leaned conservative, but that image crossed a line for me,” said Mariana Lopez, a teacher and mom in Atlanta who voted Republican in local elections. “I want policy fights, not personal cruelty. I think a lot of people feel the same.”

Beyond the Headlines: Small Scenes, Big Meaning

Walk through neighborhoods across the country and you see the ripple effects of what many call a coarsening of public life. In barbershops, teachers’ lounges, and living rooms, people are less inclined to treat political opponents as fellow citizens. The language becomes sharper; the gestures, more performative.

“It’s not just what happens on TV,” said Jamal Rivers, who runs a community center on Chicago’s South Side. “When our kids see leaders normalize mocking and dehumanization, it gives them permission to do it in schoolyards. That has real consequences for community cohesion.”

What the Polls Suggest

Surveys over recent years have painted a picture of deep fatigue. Large majorities say they are concerned about the tone of political discourse; many report that social media makes the problem worse. While Americans remain divided on many policy issues, there is surprising consensus around the notion that incivility harms democracy.

Most Americans use social media daily, increasing exposure to instant, amplified commentary.
Large segments of the electorate—especially independents and suburban voters—report discomfort with personal attacks and inflammatory rhetoric.
Public trust in institutions has seen a long-term decline, which makes civility one of the few remaining, fragile norms that could anchor public life.

Where Do We Go From Here?

There are no easy fixes. Platforms can change moderation policies, political leaders can adopt higher standards, and voters can punish or reward behavior at the ballot box. But cultural repair is slow. It happens in small, persistent ways: teachers modeling respectful disagreement, faith leaders convening cross-partisan dialogues, newsroom editors refusing to traffic in dehumanizing imagery.

“If we want different outcomes, we have to expect different behavior,” Dr. Johnson said. “Institutions set norms by example. When leaders show restraint, others follow.”

Barack Obama’s message—muted, measured—was a plea to reclaim a sense of public decency. “The majority of Americans find this behavior deeply troubling,” he said on the podcast. “Ultimately, the answer is going to come from the American people.”

An Invitation to Reflect

So here’s a question for you, the reader: what kind of public square do you want to live in? One that rewards spectacle and cruelty, or one where vigorous disagreement coexists with basic respect? Your choices—what you click, what you share, how you vote—help decide.

For those tired of the spectacle, the remedy is not nostalgia. It’s active civic labor. It is calling out dehumanizing rhetoric when you hear it, supporting leaders who model restraint, and demanding that platforms prioritize community standards over engagement metrics. It is also remembering that, despite the noise, many institutions and people still work quietly to keep democracy functioning.

“We can be better,” Jamal Rivers said as we closed our conversation. “Not because of one speech or one piece of content, but because of the daily choices ordinary people make. That’s where hope lives.”

Closing Thought

That single second of video was meant to degrade. Instead, for a moment, it forced a national conversation about dignity, history, and the rules that bind citizens together. The larger question is whether that conversation will lead to change—or whether the next outrage will merely distract us from the slow, necessary work of rebuilding trust.

Madaxweynaha Soomaaliya oo khudbad ka jeediyay Shir Madaxeedka Afrika

By

Mahad

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February 14, 2026

Feb 14(Jowhar)-Madaxweynaha Jamhuuriyadda Federaalka Soomaaliya Mudane Xasan Sheekh Maxamuud ayaa khudbad uu ka jeediyay Shir Madaxeedka Midowga Afrika waxa uu kaga hadlay amniga, dimuqraadiyeynta, midnimada Afrika iyo difaaca madaxbannaanida Soomaaliya.

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Activist Says Trump’s Rollback of Climate Protections Would Be Catastrophic

By

hanad

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February 14, 2026

Trump repeal of climate rules 'catastrophic' - activist — The greenhouse gas standards for vehicles was eliminated under the move

A Day the Rules Changed: America Unwinds a Climate Bedrock

On a bright, polished stage somewhere between the White House and a television studio, a phrase that had anchored U.S. climate policy for a decade was quietly, radically unmade.

“We are officially terminating the so‑called endangerment finding,” President Donald Trump announced, flanked by the new EPA administrator and allies of the administration. It was billed as the biggest deregulatory move in American history — a tidy, triumphant sentence that carried consequences far beyond the soundbite.

For those who remember the legal scaffolding that led to modern climate rules, the significance is seismic. For ordinary people whose lives intersect with air, water, fuel and heat, it is bewildering and, for many, terrifying. For global diplomats and climate scientists, it is a reminder that policy is as fragile as a signature.

What Was Rolled Back — And Why It Matters

To understand what was done, imagine undoing the plumbing in a house one piece at a time. In 2009 the Environmental Protection Agency declared that greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and others — “endanger” human health and welfare. That finding tied greenhouse gases to the Clean Air Act, giving regulators the legal authority to set emissions standards for cars, trucks, power plants and industrial facilities.

Now, with that legal finding repealed alongside the immediate elimination of tailpipe standards, the plumbing is being opened. The EPA argues that the Clean Air Act was never meant to address a global phenomenon like warming; the pushback is that the law was precisely the instrument the courts and the agency used when the stakes were clear and the political will from Congress was absent.

“This will not just change rules — it will change what’s possible,” said an environmental law professor I spoke with. “Without the endangerment finding, there is no current, statutory foothold for federal greenhouse gas standards. That’s a lot of policy on the line.”

At a glance, the numbers underline why: transportation and electricity generation each account for about a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to EPA figures. Dismantle the rules that regulate those sectors and you change the emissions trajectory of the nation — and with it, the global effort to curb warming.

Immediate winners and losers

The administration framed the move as relief for American consumers and businesses. The EPA estimated that rescinding the standards would save U.S. taxpayers roughly $1.3 trillion — a figure that echoes across Republican messaging about regulatory cost burdens.

But environmental groups were quick to challenge the arithmetic. “You can call it savings on paper, but the long-term costs — from more asthma, more storm damage, more extreme heat — will be paid by ordinary families,” said a spokesperson from the Environmental Defense Fund.

Coal executives hailed the move as a reprieve, hopeful it will slow the retirement of aging coal‑fired plants. Renewable energy developers and electric vehicle manufacturers watched in stunned silence; Congress had already gutted some tax credits that incentivize clean energy and electric vehicles, and now the regulatory backstops that pushed markets toward low‑carbon options are being removed.

Voices from the Ground: People React

Outside of the policy bubble, reactions were raw and revealing. In a small Ohio town where a coal plant still hums, a maintenance worker named Maria Lopez wiped oil from her hands and said, “We’ve depended on this plant for generations. If this keeps jobs, people will be happy. But we also worry — my daughter has asthma.” Her voice held both relief and unease.

In a leafy suburb of San Diego, a young mother, Aisha Malik, sat with a stroller and a handful of research studies. “We bought an electric car because we thought the future would make that easier,” she said. “Now it feels like someone turned the clock backward.”

And on a damp evening outside the EPA offices, climate activists chanted and held handmade signs. “This is not just a political choice,” a marcher named Daniel Kim told me. “It’s a moral one. Who gets to decide whether our children inherit storms, smoke, food scarcity?”

Legal Fireworks and a Long Road Ahead

Unwinding the endangerment finding is not merely an administrative note — it invites litigation. Environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Earthjustice have vowed to head back to court. “There’ll be a lawsuit brought almost immediately, and we will win,” David Doniger, a senior attorney at NRDC, told reporters.

Courts will face hard questions. The 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA established that the agency had authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act — that was the legal seed for the 2009 finding. Repealing the finding doesn’t erase that precedent; it resets the terrain and forces judges to consider whether the agency’s new interpretation passes legal muster.

“Even if the political winds shift, the law and the science don’t simply vanish,” said an appellate lawyer familiar with environmental litigation. “It may be a long, messy battle, but the courts have been an important check on agency rollbacks in the past.”

Why the World Watches

The U.S. is a giant on the emissions ledger. Historically, America has been one of the largest cumulative contributors to global CO2 — a fact that gives U.S. policy outsized influence at international climate negotiations. When Washington withdraws measures designed to limit emissions, diplomats in Beijing, Brussels, and Nairobi take notice.

“Climate policy is not just domestic; it’s signal-setting,” said a former U.S. climate negotiator. “Other countries watch because our rules affect markets, technology development, and political momentum. Retreat here can embolden fossil fuel lobbies elsewhere.”

That ripple can be measured in trade flows, investment decisions and, increasingly, human consequences. Heatwaves, shifting rainfall patterns and more powerful storms don’t respect national borders. When one of the world’s largest economies loosens its grip on emissions, it becomes harder to sustain a global trajectory aligned with targets set in Paris a decade ago.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

There are blunt choices ahead. Courts may restore the agency’s authority. Future administrations could reissue the endangerment finding, but political cycles make that an uneasy promise. States and cities could step in; already, a patchwork of subnational rules has been the bulwark against federal inaction.

“Policy is only part of the story,” an energy analyst told me. “Markets, innovation, consumer demand — these can still push change. But policy is the accelerant. Remove it, and progress slows.”

As readers, as citizens of a warming planet, as parents and neighbors, we need to ask: what kind of future are we willing to legislate? Are we content to cede regulatory space to markets and to litigators? Or will communities, states, businesses, and voters insist on a different course?

Change often arrives in small, stubborn increments — neighborhood solar co-ops, city bus electrification, corporate procurement policies. Those will matter more than ever now. But policy matters, too. The endangerment finding was never merely legalese; it was a recognition that the air we share can carry risk at planetary scale. Its repeal will be fought in courtrooms, at kitchen tables, and at ballot boxes.

What happens next will be shaped by law and by the quieter, persuasive work of communities refusing to normalize a hotter, more volatile world. Which side of that choice do you want to be on?

Shirkii Golaha Mustaqbalka oo soo dhamaaday, lagana soo saaray…..

By

aden

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February 14, 2026

Feb 14(Jowhar)-Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaaliya oo shir galabta ku yeeshay magaalada Muqdisho ayaa ka wada hadlay geedi socodka shirarkooda iyo rajada laga qabi karro in uu qabsoomo kulanka Villa Somalia ay casumaadiisa horey u dirtay.

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Culleton case heightens anxiety among undocumented Irish in the US

By

hanad

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February 14, 2026

Culleton case hikes fear among undocumented Irish in US — The number of ICE agents in the US has reportedly grown from 10,000 to 22,000 this year

A Hardware Return That Changed a Life: The Arrest of an Irish Immigrant and What It Reveals About a New Era of Border Enforcement

On a brisk September afternoon, a routine errand — a man handing back a hammer at a Home Depot in suburban Boston — turned into a rupture that would send shockwaves back to a small village in County Kilkenny.

Seamus Culleton, who left Glenmore in 2009 chasing work after the Celtic Tiger crash, thought he was doing what so many migrants do: patching a life together, one modest job at a time. He’d built a plastering business, married an American citizen, and was days away from a green-card interview. Then the car behind him flashed lights; an anonymous license-plate check led to his arrest. Within five days he was flown across the breadth of the United States and dumped in a detention center in El Paso, Texas — some 4,000 km from the place he had come to call home.

From the Irish countryside to an ICE cell

“He has always been the quiet kind,” says Caroline, Seamus’s sister, over the phone. “One minute he was on a call about a plaster job, the next he’s cuffed and walked away.” Her voice cracks when she adds, “We never expected a return trip to Ireland to be made of bars and court papers.”

The Culleton story has become emblematic for thousands of Irish people who took the Visa Waiver route — known in the US as ESTA — for quicker travel, then stayed beyond the permitted 90 days. For years these overstays were an open secret: men and women embedded in local economies, often married to Americans, paying taxes, contributing to communities from Boston to New York and beyond. But enforcement priorities have shifted, and the consequences are rippling through families and neighborhoods on both sides of the Atlantic.

What’s different now: enforcement, not new law

At the heart of the anxiety is a subtle but consequential distinction: the law hasn’t been rewritten, but how it’s enforced has. Officials point out that overstaying a visa has always been a basis for deportation; what has changed is the appetite and the capacity to pursue those cases aggressively.

A number that keeps being cited by lawyers and advocates is the rapid growth of ICE’s workforce. “They were a lean force of roughly 10,000 a year ago,” says an immigration attorney in Boston. “Now you’re hearing figures around the low 20,000s. That changes the math of enforcement.” With more personnel and an explicit mandate to arrest people the agency considers removable, cases that once might have remained low priority are now being actioned.

“There’s a sea change in how ‘equities’ are weighed,” adds Jim O’Malley, an immigration lawyer in Manhattan familiar with visa cases. “Ten years ago, showing community ties — a spouse, a job, children — could delay or deprioritize a removal. Now those factors are still visible, but they don’t carry the same weight.”

The human cost: lives put on pause

Detention centers are an antiseptic, unforgiving world. Seamus described overcrowding, scarce hygiene, and the particular indignity of being far from the people he loves. “You start measuring time in bars and meal trays,” he told a radio programme from custody. “I’m tired of waiting to be told I can go home.”

His wife, Tiffany, who married Seamus this spring, speaks plainly: “I just want him home. He’s not a headline. He’s my husband.” She has started a small online petition, gathered letters from neighbours and clients, and has paced the stairs of their rented condo in Boston, clutching a photo of their wedding day.

Family friends remember Seamus as someone who took pride in his work — a tradesman who could fix a wall and keep a kettle on for a visiting mate. “He’d drink his tea from any mug and share his last pack of biscuits,” one neighbour says. Those details humanize what national debates tend to reduce to numbers.

Broader currents: labor, migration, and trust

This is not only an Irish story. Across democracies, debates about migration increasingly revolve around enforcement capacity, political messaging, and the precarious lives of people who sit in between legal categories. From labor shortages in construction and hospitality to aging demographics in Europe, there is a huge demand for workers; at the same time, many governments are turning to stricter border controls and interior enforcement.

Consider some of the practical facts:

Under the Visa Waiver or ESTA programme, visitors may stay 90 days and have limited routes to appeal if accused of overstaying.
The US immigration system offers possible legalisation paths — family-based visas, employment sponsorship, asylum — but these are complex, slow, and sometimes unavailable to those who initially entered without a formal visa or who overstayed.
Advocates estimate the number of Irish nationals living in the US without current lawful status in the low thousands; official figures are patchy because people move, marry, or return and re-enter over years.

These facts prompt hard questions: When does a person who has contributed for years become a person to be removed? How do societies reconcile the need for orderly migration systems with compassion for lives woven into communities?

Voices across the divide

“Our message is simple: due process is essential,” a spokesperson for a human-rights group in Boston told me. “People deserve a chance to make their case, and families deserve certainty.”

From Washington, a departmental public affairs official pushed back, saying that officers follow the law and that detainees are informed of their rights. “Federal officers are tasked with enforcing immigration statutes,” the official said. “That mandate must be carried out.”

Meanwhile, in Glenmore, locals watch the news with a mixture of disbelief and weary resignation. At the village pub where the GAA photos hang on the walls and the turf fire murmurs, the conversation is not about policy briefs; it’s about neighbors. “We all know a Seamus,” says Nora, who runs the shop. “He’s the sort that’d fix your fence for the price of a stew and a story.”

What now — for families and for policy?

Seamus’s case is still unresolved. His legal team argues procedural irregularities; consular officials in Washington have been engaged, and the Taoiseach has acknowledged other detained Irish nationals exist. But the anxiety is immediate and shared.

For readers around the world, this story raises familiar questions: how do we treat people who live in legal gray zones? What responsibilities do sending and receiving states owe? And how do we reconcile the human impulse to keep families together with the political imperative felt by many governments to enforce borders?

These are not theoretical debates. They are played out in kitchen conversations, in magistrates’ court dockets, in the cramped hours of detention centers. They determine whether someone’s life continues where it began or is redirected across an ocean — by policy, by a plate check, by a single absent court date from 2009.

So I ask you: if someone has built a life, paid their taxes, loved their neighbours, and raised a family — should the paper trail alone determine their fate? What values should govern the way we balance national sovereignty with human mercy?

The answer will shape not just the fate of Seamus and others like him, but the character of the communities they have become part of. For now, a wife waits in Boston. A sister waits in Kilkenny. And a country wrestling with migration looks on.

Starts and stops: The uphill task of revitalizing Europe’s economy

By

hanad

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February 14, 2026

Hurry up and wait: The struggle to boost Europe's economy — Economist Mario Draghi said 'we must genuinely fear for our self-preservation'

Storming the Castle: Europe’s Race to Rescue Its Economy

There is a peculiar hush at Alden Biesen, a 13th‑century castle in the gentle hills of Limburg, Belgium — an old stone hush that somehow amplifies urgency. Flags snap in a cold wind over the courtyard, leaders hurry past oak doors, and the shadow of history presses against the table where today’s decisions will be carved. This is not a ceremonial retreat. It feels — to diplomats, business chiefs and café‑side listeners alike — like a last call.

“For the first time since the Cold War, we must genuinely fear for our self‑preservation,” one retired prime minister wrote in a blunt report last year, and the sentence stuck in many minds. The message, repeated in more technocratic language by another former premier, was that Europe is being outpaced in technology, capital markets and strategic resilience. That sense of peril has hardened into political momentum, albeit a grudging, imperfect one.

What changed was not only geopolitics — the rattling of tariffs, the talk of territorial ambitions, and new rivalries with Beijing and Moscow — but an uncomfortable mirror held up to the single market itself. The same market that was supposed to be Europe’s engine is riddled with friction: rules that differ from one capital to the next, fragmented packaging standards, confusing professional recognition and, in the striking language of Brussels, intra‑EU barriers that act like internal tariffs.

The “Terrible Ten” — a list that reads like a short novel of frustration

When the European Commission mapped the obstacles, it produced what officials now call the “Terrible Ten.” In plain terms, these are:

Complex procedures to set up cross‑border businesses
Overlapping and opaque EU rules
Member states’ inconsistent implementation
Limited recognition of professional qualifications
No common standards on several product categories
Fragmented packaging and labelling rules
Uneven product compliance systems
Restrictive national rules on services
Complicated rules on posting workers in low‑risk sectors
Territorial constraints in supply chains pushing up prices

Ask a small business owner from Kraków or a software start‑up founder from Lisbon, and they will tell you that these are not academic annoyances; they are the daily roadblocks to hiring, scaling and competing globally.

Shock Therapy from Across the Atlantic

Then came the geopolitical shakeup — a new round of trade measures introduced abroad that felt like cold water on a fevered forehead. A 15% tariff on EU goods, announced by the United States, turned abstract concerns into boardroom nightmares. Suddenly, the math of “we must reform” had an exclamation mark attached.

“We used to think of trade as insulation,” a senior EU trade official told me. “Now we see it’s a lever someone can pull. That changes the calculus: either we be vulnerable, or we make ourselves less so.”

It is not just external tariffs that are the problem. Researchers in Brussels have tried to quantify the drag: internal barriers effectively add the economic burden equivalent to intra‑EU “tariffs” of up to 110% on some services and as much as 65% on goods. Those numbers are not theoretical — they translate to fewer factories, fewer high‑skilled jobs and more offshoring of innovation.

Blueprints, Compasses and the Politics of Speed

In response, Brussels has rolled out a tidy set of instruments — a Competitiveness Compass, proposals for a Savings and Investment Union (SIU), fresh rules for digital and quantum technologies, and an ambitious “28th Regime” that would allow a company to register once and operate everywhere in the EU. The Commission’s rhetoric is feverish: simplify, harmonise, unleash capital. The estimates are stark. One of the reports that sounded the alarm recommended investment of up to €800 billion per year to catch up in competitiveness and innovation.

“We have to mobilise savings, not let them slumber,” said Ireland’s finance minister in a corridor interview, pointing out that hundreds of billions sit in bank accounts across the EU, undirected. “If we channel even a fraction into start‑ups and scale‑ups, we change our trajectory.”

But proposals collide with national sensitivities. France worries about sovereignty in supervision; Ireland worries about tax and insolvency regimes; smaller EU capitals fear being steamrolled by a single authority in Paris or Berlin. The friction is not just legalistic. It’s cultural — different routes to entrepreneurship, varied pension norms, and contrasting relationships between state and market.

Enhanced cooperation: a pragmatic split?

One workaround is enhanced cooperation: a mechanism that allows a core group of at least nine member states to press ahead on policies while keeping the door open to others. It’s being floated as the only practical route to launch the SIU, since unanimity among 27 is politically improbable. Some see it as a sensible way to unblock decades of inertia; others fear it creates a two‑speed Europe.

“If nine can act, the rest can join when ready,” a senior trade adviser said. “But we must ensure it doesn’t become an exclusive club.”

On the Ground: Voices from the Market

At the summit, the human texture of these debates became evident. In a café across from the castle, a Belgian logistics manager sighed over an espresso. “We already face fragmented rules when we cross one regional border,” she said. “Imagine doing that with 27 different VAT regimes and packaging requirements.”

A Dublin fintech founder, who asked that her name not be used, spoke with a mixture of impatience and weary optimism. “We don’t need more reports. We need clear, digital registration, tax parity for retail investors and a single company form. Let a startup be born in Dublin and scale to Sofia without lawyers rewriting the playbook every time.”

Environmental NGOs and unions, meanwhile, warn against careless simplification. “The conversation can’t just be speed and profit,” said an advocacy director from a European environmental group. “If deregulation becomes an excuse to relax climate safeguards, we will trade short‑term competitiveness for long‑term catastrophe.”

Where Does This Leave Citizens — and the World?

There is a moral as well as an economic dimension to this scramble. As governments talk about “European Preference” — buy‑European rules for strategic public procurement — they are wrestling with a perennial tension: protect local jobs and industries, or keep borders open to the free exchange that has long underpinned prosperity.

“We must reduce strategic dependencies,” Denmark’s prime minister told reporters at the gates of Alden Biesen. “But we should not close ourselves off. Resilience is not the opposite of openness.”

So what should a citizen take from this drama? First, understand that supply chains and corporate law matter: they determine which innovations are built here and which are shipped abroad. Second, ask your leaders how they will mobilise savings for public good without sacrificing environmental or labour standards. Third, consider that Europe’s future will be decided not only in castles and council chambers, but in the small decisions of ordinary savers and entrepreneurs.

As the summit wound down, there was cautious optimism: commitments to an evidence‑based list of critical sectors for preferential treatment; a pledge to pursue SIU through enhanced cooperation if necessary; a promise to accelerate enforcement where national capitals ignore EU law. Momentum, not miracles, seems to be the order of the day.

Walking away from Alden Biesen, you can still hear the whisper of stone and flag. Europe’s path will not be easy. It will require honest trade‑offs, imaginative policy design and citizens willing to ask hard questions about the kind of continent they want to build: open and competitive, or closed and secure. Which future would you choose?

Amiirka Qatar oo ka dagay Imaaraatka Carabta, kulamana la leh madaxda dalkaasi

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aden

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February 14, 2026

Feb 14(Jowhar)-Amiirka dalka Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, ayaa maanta gaaray magaalada Abu Dhabi ee dalka Imaaraadka Carabta, halkaas oo ay uga bilaabatay booqasho rasmi ah.

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Rubio: US and Europe Are Meant to Stand Together

By

hanad

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February 14, 2026

Rubio says United States and Europe 'belong together' — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US and Europe 'belong together'

At Munich’s Edge: A Plea for Renewal and the Quiet Work of Rebuilding Trust

The conference center in Munich sits like an oversized living room for the anxious and the ambitious—rows of folding chairs, impossible coffee, badges that double as passports to an anxious conversation about the future. Outside, the Bavarian air has a winter bite. Inside, a different chill has settled: the transatlantic alliance, frayed by four years of public burps and private alarms, is trying to stitch itself back together.

When the United States’ top diplomat took the stage, you could feel the room lean in. Not because an old script was being dusted off, but because the lines being read were deliberately softer, a measure of balm. The message was clear: not a retreat, but a revival. Yet words—however well chosen—have to find purchase in deeds. That is the work people came here to press for.

“We do not seek to separate”—and what that sounds like in a changing world

“We do not seek to separate,” one official paraphrased, describing the tone coming from Washington this week. “We want to revitalize.” It is a sentence meant to be at once reassurance and summons: Europe should be strong—and it will be stronger, the argument goes, if both sides can anchor themselves to a shared sense of purpose.

For some attendees the speech read as a hand extended. For others it was a reminder that the ground beneath the alliance has shifted. “Words are welcome,” said Anna Kovač, who runs a small think-tank in Zagreb, sipping an espresso between sessions. “But we’ve heard promises. This time, we need predictable policy and shared burden—especially on defense and economic resilience.”

Local eyes on a global stage

At a cafe near the conference halls, a security analyst named Elias, who has watched NATO summits from the press pit for more than a decade, offered a wry observation: “You can smell politics here—the cologne of long meetings and short patience. The question now is whether allyship is performative or structural.” He traced his finger along a paper map of Europe and added, “Europe needs room to grow up—not to grow away.”

The mood in Munich was not only about great-power strategy. It was peppered with the small, human realities of geopolitics: an Estonian veteran who worries her country’s voice is getting lost; a Polish NGO coordinator who spoke of refugees of conflict zones; an architect from Lisbon who argued Europe must invest in cyber-defenses as fiercely as in tanks.

Where rhetoric meets reality

Since 2022, European capitals have shifted budgets, ratcheted up stockpiles and recalibrated strategy. NATO’s 2% of GDP guideline—long a lodestar—has become a baseline conversation rather than a goal. Several member states that once viewed defense outlays as a reluctant necessity now cast them as central to their sovereignty. That change is not merely monetary: it is psychological. The old assumption that the United States would always pick up the tab has been tested and found wanting.

“We saw the cracks,” a European foreign ministry official told me off the record. “Now we’re working to fill them—nationally and collectively.”

And Washington’s messaging is adjusting. The call here was for a “reinvigorated alliance,” for Europe to be a partner that can both stand on its own feet and be a reliable co-laborer in global crises. The new tone avoided the culture-war fireworks that have recently detonated in transatlantic relations, even as it reiterated contentious positions on immigration and global institutions.

On institutions and the rules-based order

One of the more provocative themes at the conference was the critique of the post-Cold War complacency—the belief that liberal democracy had, as some once claimed, reached a final form. “Calling it ‘the end of history’ was a mistake,” said a retired ambassador attending the conference. “It assumed uniform progress. It ignored cycles, and those cycles are back.”

That skepticism extended to international institutions. Delegates of varying stripes argued that organizations such as the United Nations still have immense potential, but they are hamstrung by structural weaknesses and political gridlock. “We can’t rely on institutions to solve everything,” an African delegate said, “but we also can’t abandon the architecture that has kept so much of the post-war world functioning.”

Ukraine, Russia and the long test of solidarity

Shadowing every conversation was the war in Ukraine—an event that continues to test the durability of alliances. Leaders from Kyiv have come to Munich repeatedly to press their case for sustained support, and they were present again: a reminder that conflict does not pause while diplomats recalibrate their rhetoric.

“What we hear here matters,” said a Ukrainian liaison in a corridor conversation. “If Europe steps up, it helps deter further aggression. If it falters, the consequences are regional and global.”

European leaders used the platform to stress a new posture: greater autonomy in defense combined with continued partnership with the United States. “We’re not seeking a divorce from the transatlantic relationship,” one Western European minister told me. “We are asking for a marriage with clearer roles.”

The Greenland episode and public trust

Not all setbacks are strategic. Some are theatrical: the episode about Greenland—one of many recent eyebrow-raising moments—left a residue of confusion that many Europeans still say needs addressing. “It felt like an impulse play,” an academic in Copenhagen said, “and impulses don’t build alliances.”

Rebuilding trust, diplomats said, involves both the mundane and the monumental: routine consultations, clearer lines on defense commitments, and a shared doctrine for navigating economic coercion and technological rivalry.

What comes next—and what you can watch for

If Munich was a reset button, it was a tentative one. Expect several markers in the coming months that will show whether the hour is the start of true repair or merely a pause in tension:

Concrete defense cooperation frameworks from Brussels and selected capitals, not just vague pledges.
Visible coordination on sanctions and energy security linked to the war in Ukraine.
Reforms in international institutions that actually allocate decision-making to those on the front lines of crises.

Ask yourself: do you believe alliances are built by speeches or by structures? By optics or by ordnance? The answer matters because the next decade will test these bonds in ways that outstrip one bad year or one controversial tweet. The cost of miscalculation is not just political embarrassment; it is lives, markets and the fragile sense of security communities have come to expect.

Closing notes from Munich

Walking back through the conference hall toward the tram, I overheard a young diplomat from Latvia say, “We came here to be seen as needed, not as an afterthought.” That line lingered because it captures the essential bargain being renegotiated: mutual respect, predictable support, and shared responsibility.

The task ahead is both practical and moral. If transatlantic leaders can move past rhetoric to durable policies—investment in defense, governance reforms, and a credible commitment to shared values—then Munich will prove to be a beginning, not an elegy. If they cannot, the alliance risks becoming a museum of past glories rather than a living instrument for navigating a turbulent century.

Which path will leaders choose? The answer will unfold not just in summit communiqués, but in the lives of people across Europe, North America, and beyond who depend on a world where agreements are kept and trust is not merely proclaimed—it is lived.

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