At least 14 killed in Pakistan amid surge of violent attacks

February 17, 2026

At least 14 killed in spate of attacks in Pakistan — Two bomb attacks and a gunfight between police and militants in northwest Pakistan killed at least 11 security personnel and three civilians

Smoke Over the Frontier: A Night of Explosions, Loss, and Questions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

The night came in like a thief—quiet at first, the sky a cold blue over the ridged silhouette of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa—and then it exploded with a violence the region has learned, over decades, to fear.

In the tribal district of Bajaur and the town of Bannu, two bombs and a pitched gunfight left a stunned community counting bodies and tending the wounded. At least 11 security personnel and three civilians, including a child, were killed; 25 more were injured. Residents rushed to hospitals and mosques, where plastic sheeting and blood-streaked clothing mixed with the heady smell of rotting tea and incense—everyday life for a place that has had to learn how to grieve in public.

What happened

In Bajaur, a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden vehicle into the boundary wall of a seminary late in the evening, security sources told me. Eight policemen and Frontier Corps personnel inside the religious college were killed on impact; roofs on nearby houses collapsed from the blast, and a child was among those killed.

“We could hear the walls shake,” said Hamid Gul, a neighbor who rushed to the scene. “When I ran in, there were books, shoes, and blood everywhere. A boy—maybe ten—was under the rubble. We tried to lift the stone ourselves.”

In Bannu, a device hidden in a rickshaw detonated near Miryan police station, killing two civilians and wounding 17. The third scene unfolded in Shangla district, where a search operation turned into a firefight; three policemen and three militants were killed. The provincial police said those militants were involved in targeting Chinese nationals.

Faces, names, and the human calculus

Names are still being confirmed; funerals are being arranged amidst curfews and checkpoints. The dead are not just tallies on a security brief—each loss is a thread in a family tapestry suddenly unraveled.

“He was my only son,” said Mariam Khan, a widow whose husband served in the Frontier Corps. “He sent me a photograph this morning. He said, ‘Don’t worry, Amma, the day is long and I will come home.’ I laugh and cry in the same hour.”

Across the hospital wards, doctors and nurses—overworked and under-resourced—worked by flashlight and the glow of mobile phones. The corridor was thick with the sounds of relatives calling out names, the metallic clatter of stretchers, the crackle of two-way radios coordinating to move the wounded to bigger facilities.

Why Chinese nationals are a target

Over the past decade, Chinese investment—most visibly through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)—has reshaped Pakistan’s infrastructure and its geopolitical alliances. Tens of billions of dollars in roads, power plants, and ports have flowed into the country. But wealth and security are rarely distributed evenly, and resentment can fester where jobs are scarce, where land is disputed, or where people feel sidelined.

“Attacks on Chinese workers are both symbolic and strategic,” said Dr. Sara Qureshi, a security analyst in Islamabad. “They send a message to Beijing about the limits of protection and to local governments about contested governance. Militants want to undermine the economic base that bolsters the state.”

In March last year, five Chinese nationals working on a dam project were killed when a suicide attacker targeted their vehicle on the Karakoram Highway. That incident remains seared into the public memory of communities along the northern routes—an illustration of how fragile security can be when strategic projects run through rugged and restive terrain.

Numbers that matter

At least 14 people were killed across three incidents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
At least 25 people were wounded.
Earlier this month, a suicide blast at a Shiite mosque in Islamabad killed 31 people and wounded 169—claimed by the Islamic State group.
Chinese investment in Pakistan through CPEC has amounted to tens of billions of dollars in projects; protection of personnel remains a central security priority.

Beyond the headlines: lives and landscapes

If you drive the winding roads from Peshawar toward the northern districts, the landscape changes like a film strip—the noise of trucks gives way to goats on the road, the tar turns to gravel, and then the jagged teeth of the mountains rise like a challenge. Small bazaars cluster where the roads narrow: tea stalls with chipped teacups, men hunched over chessboards, shopkeepers keeping one eye on their phones, another on the road that feeds their livelihood.

“We have learned to live with fear,” said Latif Ahmed, a tea vendor in Bannu. “But we will not leave. This is our home; we have nowhere else to go. The children have to go to school, the wheat must be sowed, the taxes paid.”

The wider context

Pakistan’s struggle with militant violence is not a single story but many: sectarian conflicts, insurgencies seeking to carve out power in neglected regions, and the overlapping shadow of groups like ISIS seeking to exploit fractures. The fall of Kabul in 2021 and the shifting dynamics in Afghanistan changed cross-border security calculations, even if direct causal links are complex and contested.

Analysts warn that failing to protect civilian life and critical infrastructure could deepen local grievances and provide fertile ground for recruitment—or push investments elsewhere. “Security is not merely about boots on the ground,” Dr. Qureshi adds. “It’s about governance, economic inclusion, and credible, accountable institutions.”

What now? Questions for policy and for readers

Who bears responsibility when a school, a seminary, or a mosque turns into a target? How do governments balance the urgent need to protect foreign investment and diplomats with the equally urgent need to protect their own citizens? And for ordinary people—shopkeepers, mothers, young students—how do they stitch together a life in the shadow of periodic explosions?

“We will demand justice,” said a local councilor, Rashid Khan. “But justice must not be more blood. We need jobs, schools, and a sense that the state is present—not just in the form of walls and checkpoints, but in hospitals that work, teachers who come, and courts that function.”

That plea is more than local politics. It speaks to a global theme: as money moves across borders and strategic interests override local concerns, there is often a human cost that can be easy to ignore from afar. The trauma of a night like this—of names read out at dawn and children asking where their fathers are—reverberates through families and communities for generations.

A call to witness

As you read this from wherever you are—a city apartment, a rural garden, a crowded newsroom—consider how we measure security and progress. Is the true index the length of a motorway or the number of funerals avoided?

“We need more than words,” Mariam said, folding her hands over a photograph. “We need people to come and understand, to care enough to change things.”

For now, Bajaur and Bannu will bury their dead, bandage their wounds, and light candles. The morning after the blast, a young man swept the steps of a mosque, his face still smudged with soot, and began the slow work of repair. It is an act of defiance; of ordinary courage.

Will policy change fast enough to stop the next act of violence? Only time—and the choices of many—will tell. For the families who lost loved ones last night, time has already become an unhealing wound. For the rest of us, there is a choice: to watch and forget, or to look closer and demand better.

Godfather legend Robert Duvall passes away at 95

hanad

February 17, 2026

Godfather star Robert Duvall dies aged 95 — Robert Duvall has died at the age of 95, his wife has said

Robert Duvall: A Quiet Giant of the Screen, Gone at 95

When Robert Duvall walked into a scene, he rarely announced himself. He arrived. A slouch, a half-smile, a voice that sounded like it had been sanded by a thousand weathered lines of dialogue—he had the uncanny ability to make the smallest gesture feel like revelation. On the morning the news broke that he had died at 95, tributes flowed like the slow, steady applause reserved for those whose work outlives them.

“He left the room exactly as he occupied life—calm, full of curiosity, and with a deep and abiding kindness,” his wife Luciana said in a statement shared with the world. “Bob passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by love.” It was an ending that felt true to the man many had come to know not only on screen but across farms, dance floors, and foreign stages.

From Annapolis to the World Stage

Born and raised amid the clipped flags and brass of Annapolis, Maryland, the son of a navy admiral and an amateur actress learned early how performance and discipline could coexist. After a stint in the Army and acting school in New York—where he roomed with a then-unknown Dustin Hoffman and struck up lifelong friendships with other struggling actors—Duvall moved from small television parts to a screen presence that critics and audiences could not ignore.

His first notable film appearance was an uncredited, haunting turn as Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird, a small but memorable presence that hinted at a lifetime of complex, layered performances to come. Over the next six decades he would appear in nearly 100 films, amassing seven Academy Award nominations and winning the Oscar for Best Actor for his soul-baring portrayal of a washed-up country singer in Tender Mercies.

Roles That Carved an American Myth

If Hollywood loves archetypes, Duvall loved remolding them. He could be the smooth consigliere—Tom Hagen—who negotiates between gods and gangsters in The Godfather, and then, in the next breath, a surf-obsessed lieutenant who watches the sunrise after napalm and declares, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” That line, immortalized in Apocalypse Now, only scratches the surface. It’s the cadence, the way he holds a cigarette, a look at a subordinate or lover, that made his figures feel lived-in and dangerous or tender in equal measure.

“He didn’t act his roles so much as he inhabited them,” says Dr. Maria Alvarez, a film historian who has taught courses on American cinema for more than 20 years. “Duvall understood the American imagination—the soldier, the rodeo cowboy, the fallen preacher—and he refracted those myths back to us with a humane and often wry lens. He made men’s contradictions visible without sermonizing.”

From Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore in Apocalypse Now to the domineering Bull Meechum in The Great Santini, from the ecstatic preacher in The Apostle (which he wrote and directed) to the stoic Gus McRae in Lonesome Dove, Duvall’s career mapped the breadth of American storytelling—heroic, small, cruel, tender, and always complicated.

A Career of Quiet Risks

He turned down the pay-off and the part of a lifetime at times, too—reportedly rejecting The Godfather Part III over a salary dispute—preferring instead creative control to comfort. That streak of independence carried him into filmmaking of his own: The Apostle and Assassination Tango are personal, idiosyncratic works that show an artist unafraid to steer his own course.

The Private Dancer: Tango, Farm Life and a Second Home

Off camera, Duvall cultivated a life that read like a parallel script. He split his time between Los Angeles, a sprawling 360-acre farm in Virginia, and Argentina, the country that would become central to his later life and marriage to Luciana Pedraza. There, he discovered the tango, a dance he embraced with seriousness and a boyish joy. He converted a barn into a dance hall where the music could chase off the dust and where, he liked to say, you learned more about a partner than any script could teach.

“He was a man of great appetites—food, music, conversation,” a longtime friend and neighbor on his Virginia farm recalled. “But he was also disciplined. If you were there to learn something, he’d listen and then teach, quietly.”

More Than Awards: A Legacy of Craft and Compassion

In an industry obsessed with flash, Duvall’s legacy is endurance. Seven Oscar nominations across a career that spanned more than sixty years and one Academy Award may quantify some measure of his success, but the truer measure lies in the anchors he provided to scenes, to films, and to younger actors who learned by watching him.

“You’d be surprised how many young actors would come by just to watch him breathe in a scene,” says Jasmine Carter, an actor who credits Duvall’s Lonesome Dove with shaping her early approach to performance. “He taught you that truth is not a big gesture. It’s the way you look when no one’s watching.”

He also showed a modern world that aging actors could still be central storytellers—directing, writing, and producing films well into their later years. In that sense, Duvall’s life offers a gentle rebuke to youth-obsessed cultures. In a moment when many industries reject older workers, his career suggests the opposite: experience, like vinyl that deepens with each spin, can yield new hues.

What Do We Lose When We Lose a Storyteller?

When an actor like Robert Duvall departs, what exactly vanishes? A face on celluloid, certainly. But also a particular way of looking at the human heart—its stubbornness, its generosity, its capacity for regret. In a global culture that often flattens characters into categories—the hero, the villain, the comic relief—Duvall relished the gray.

“He left us with a catalogue of performances that can be teachers for generations,” Dr. Alvarez reflects. “Not just in craft, but in empathy.”

Final Curtain

On last count, Robert Duvall’s filmography runs near a century of credits. His life was braided with music and mud, with Buenos Aires nights and Virginia mornings. He was a man who loved holding court at a dinner table, whose passions included a great meal and the slow intimacy of the tango. He was a husband, a friend, an artist who preferred to let work speak for him.

So ask yourself, when you sit down to a great film next week, to a scene that surprises you, to a line that lingers—who taught the actor on-screen how to be that honest? Chances are you’ll find a trace of Robert Duvall’s influence somewhere there, in the soft way a character exhales or the small, exact moments that turn performance into truth.

He leaves behind not only roles and awards, but a lesson: that acting can be a form of listening—and that a life lived with curiosity, craft, and tenderness becomes the richest kind of story.

Guthrie Urges Release of Mother While FBI Examines Glove Evidence

hanad

February 17, 2026

Guthrie pleads for mother's release as FBI analyses glove — Officials have said they are certain the person in the video is the primary suspect in the case

In the Desert Light: The Search for Nancy Guthrie and a Community Holding Its Breath

Early mornings in the Tucson suburbs are usually a study in stillness: low-slung stucco houses, the silhouettes of saguaros on the horizon, the tang of mesquite and orange blossom in the air. Lately, that quiet has been pierced by helicopters, by the rumble of law-enforcement vehicles, and by the low, insistent tremor of a family’s plea on repeat across television screens.

Nancy Guthrie — 84 years old, fragile, dependent on daily medication and a pacemaker — vanished from her home near Tucson on January 31. Her daughter, Savannah Guthrie, known to millions as the co-anchor of NBC’s Today show, has been the most visible voice in a campaign both private and public: “We still have hope,” Savannah told viewers in one of several raw, direct video appeals. “To whoever has her or knows where she is: it’s never too late to do the right thing.”

A timeline of worry

According to authorities, family members dropped Nancy off at her residence after a meal on the 31st. When she didn’t answer the next morning, relatives reported her missing. Investigators quickly concluded she could not have left on her own — her mobility was severely limited — and have treated the case as an abduction.

What followed reads like a modern investigative thriller: doorbell-camera footage showing a masked man in a ski mask, wearing a holster and carrying an overstuffed backpack; traces of blood on the front porch later confirmed to be Nancy’s; at least two purported ransom notes delivered to media outlets; and a flurry of searches that included a federal court-ordered search of a house in an affluent neighborhood less than three kilometres from Nancy’s home.

The small piece of evidence that could change everything

Of all the items collected by search teams in a roadside field about three kilometres from Nancy’s house — roughly 16 gloves among them — one glove has drawn the most attention. FBI investigators say the glove appears to match the pair worn by the masked man caught on camera. A private laboratory in Florida provided preliminary DNA testing on that glove, and the sample is now in federal hands, en route to the Combined DNA Index System — CODIS — for a national search.

“That single sample could produce a match as soon as it’s run through CODIS,” said a forensic analyst who has worked on similar cases. “It’s not guaranteed, but the potential for a break in the case is real. CODIS comparisons often take around 24 hours once the FBI officially receives the sample.”

Investigators stressed that most of the gloves collected were likely dropped by searchers, but the one submitted for analysis “is different,” according to the FBI. The agency says the evidence requires rigorous quality control before a match is announced — the kind of careful deliberation that can feel agonising when a family is waiting for answers.

Voices from the neighborhood

Neighbors describe a community shaken and organizing in equal measure. “You don’t expect this here, not around these parts,” said María Ortega, who has lived two doors down from the Guthrie residence for 20 years. “We walk our dogs at dawn. We wave to one another. Now, every rustle in the brush makes me turn my head.”

At a small cluster of coffee shops and taquerías a few blocks away, residents — retirees and young families alike — swapped updates and wild theories. “We’re all glued to the news,” said Tom Reynolds, a retired teacher. “You try to keep hope, but it’s like watching your hands fumble in the dark.”

Volunteers have scoured washes and brushlands, leaving water and notes pinned to mesquite trees. That community energy has been palpable. “People want to do something,” a local search coordinator said. “They’re combing the hills, handing out flyers, calling tips. The compassion is real.”

What the science can — and can’t — tell us

Forensic advances have transformed investigations in recent decades. A single DNA trace can point to a suspect, confirm a lineage, or clear an innocent person in hours. But the process is meticulous: samples must pass quality control and be officially logged before a CODIS run. Even when there’s a match, authorities then have to build a case that stands up in court.

“DNA can give you a name, but not always a motive,” cautioned Dr. Elena Moreno, a criminal justice professor who studies forensic evidence. “It tells you who may have been there. It doesn’t always tell you how events unfolded. That’s why you pair lab work with witness accounts, digital forensics, and good old investigative legwork.”

And there are other practical challenges here: elderly victims with health conditions are particularly vulnerable. In the U.S., hundreds of thousands of missing-person reports are filed each year; most are resolved quickly, but cases involving seniors or people with medical dependencies are particularly time-sensitive because of health concerns.

The family’s public grief

Savannah Guthrie has returned to the public spotlight not as a news presenter but as a daughter — her voice threaded with gratitude, fear and an unyielding belief in human decency. She and her siblings have posted videos pleading for their mother’s return, saying they are even willing to discuss ransom demands if it would bring Nancy home.

“There’s not been any proof of life,” Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told reporters, “but there’s not been any proof of death either.” Those words hang in the space between despair and hope, a liminal place where families and investigators must live until facts arrive.

Broader echoes: safety, media, and the modern missing-persons crisis

This case sits at the intersection of several broader conversations: the vulnerability of older adults, the power and pitfalls of viral media, and the relentless march of forensic technology. It asks uncomfortable questions of communities everywhere: how do we safeguard the elderly? How does intense media scrutiny affect investigations and families? And how should we balance the urgent need for public tips with the caution required by law enforcement?

“There’s a global lesson here,” said Dr. Moreno. “As populations age, societies must think more deliberately about elder safety and community support networks. This isn’t just a local tragedy — it’s a reminder.”

How you can help — and what to watch for

If you think you have information, local authorities ask that you contact the Pima County Sheriff’s Office or the FBI. Tips, no matter how small they may seem, can change the shape of an investigation.

Keep an eye on official law-enforcement releases to avoid amplifying rumours.
Share verified appeals from the Guthrie family or investigators rather than speculative posts.
If you’re in Tucson, watch for community search efforts organized by authorities to ensure volunteers are coordinated and safe.

What to carry forward

Stories like this feel unbearably close — a beloved elder gone, a public figure’s private heartbreak played out on national television. They also force us to reckon with how we treat vulnerability in our neighborhoods and, more broadly, what tools we ask of science and community to keep people safe.

As you read this, think of the porch where Nancy’s blood was found, the grainy footage of a masked figure, the glove in a roadside field, and the voice of a daughter saying, simply, “We still have hope.” What would you do if your neighbor was gone? How would you want your community to respond?

The investigation continues. So does the waiting. So does the search for a woman who, in the desert dawn, disappeared from a life built on small routines and the love of her family. For now, the story is unfinished, and every new tip, every careful step in the lab, could be the one that brings an answer — and maybe, finally, a return.

Kremlin Refutes European Allegation That Navalny Died From Poisoning

hanad

February 16, 2026

Kremlin rejects European claim Navalny died of poisoning — Alexei Navalny died in an Arctic prison colony in February 2024 while serving a 19-year sentence

Two years later: a graveside, a chemical mystery, and the uneasy silence of a state

It was barely dawn when people began to gather at the cemetery in Moscow where Alexei Navalny is buried—dozens, then more, threading themselves along frost-crusted paths. A grey sky hung low, and the air smelled of wet earth and last winter’s snow; breaths floated like tiny ghosts. Some faces were familiar from years of rallies and courtrooms. Others were strangers—foreign diplomats in dark coats, a woman with a child’s woolen hat clutched to her chest, a man whose scarf hid the lower half of his face.

“We come to remember, yes, but also to remind,” said Irina Popova, a teacher who had traveled into the city from a suburb outside Moscow. “If you forget a person, you let what happened to them disappear, too. We cannot let that be easier for them.”

Two years have passed since Navalny—arguably Vladimir Putin’s most prominent domestic critic—died inside an Arctic prison colony in February 2024 while serving a 19‑year sentence. The grief that morning was raw, but there was also a different kind of intensity: a collective hunger for answers after a new development announced by five European governments.

The claim that reopened the wound

Last weekend Britain, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands released a joint statement saying they believed Navalny’s death was the result of poisoning with epibatidine, a powerful alkaloid originally identified in the skin of certain poison dart frogs. The governments said their assessment relied on samples taken from his body; they did not disclose those samples publicly but noted the findings underpinning their conclusion.

“We have grave concerns based on forensic evidence,” a British official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters. “This is not a matter of conjecture. We asked external laboratories to review biological material, and their assessment points to a toxic exposure that could not plausibly be accidental.”

For readers who did not grow up around the jargon of toxicology: epibatidine is not a household name, but it is notorious in scientific literature. Researchers have described it as an extraordinarily potent compound—dozens, even hundreds, of times stronger than morphine in its effect on nervous tissue—originally isolated from frogs of the Epipedobates genus. It is not something one inhales on a bus or grabs at a market; its presence implies deliberate transfer or exposure, toxicologists say.

What scientists say

“Epibatidine is a message in itself,” said Dr. Ingrid Meyer, a forensic toxicologist at a European university who has studied rare alkaloids. “It’s not pervasive in daily life. If it’s found in human tissue, you have to ask: how did it get there? Accidental contamination is unlikely. The notion that such a compound would appear fortuitously in a remote penitentiary is, frankly, implausible.”

These words, delivered in clinical tones by an expert accustomed to careful caveat, landed like a thunderclap amid a political storm. For Navalny’s supporters and family, they felt like vindication. For many in the West, they crystallized long-simmering suspicions about the risks faced by dissidents behind high, isolated fences. For the Kremlin, they were an accusation to be dismissed.

The Kremlin answer: “baseless, biased”

At the daily press briefing in Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was succinct and scornful.

“We naturally do not accept such accusations. We disagree with them. We consider them biased and baseless,” he told reporters, his words measured, the tone unmistakably final. “Russia has its own investigative processes; external judgments of this sort are political posturing.”

Peskov’s response is consistent with a pattern: Moscow has repeatedly rejected Western assessments it sees as hostile or intrusive, and it has characterized much international criticism as part of a broader geopolitical campaign. Yet the public disagreement now centers on questions that seem, in other contexts, purely forensic.

Family, friends, and a plea for justice

Outside the cemetery, Lyudmila Navalnaya, Alexei’s mother, stood with a small circle of mourners. Her voice, when it came, was steady and filled with a weary determination.

“This confirms what we have said from the start,” she told reporters. “He did not simply die in prison. He was murdered. We will find out who did it. I want this to happen in our country. We want justice to prevail.”

Her insistence—that an internal, Russian inquiry should establish accountability—was not just a personal plea. It was also a political challenge. The state has labeled Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Foundation as “extremist” before his death, a designation that has criminalized public mention of his work and placed limits on how mourners and activists can organize today.

“You can’t even talk about him online without risking prosecution,” said Sergei Antonov, a human rights lawyer who now lives abroad. “That climate makes the search for truth extremely difficult inside Russia. Families are left to push against both grief and an apparatus that treats their questions as subversion.”

Why the place of death matters

The Arctic penalty colonies are a particular breed of isolation—far from major population centers, often reachable only by long roads or winter flights that are themselves weather-dependent. Conditions, former prisoners say, can be cruel: naked, prioritised logistics over oversight; contact with the outside world limited; medical care uneven. All this inserts friction into any subsequent inquiry.

“Remote prisons create remote accountability,” noted Elena Markova, who works with an NGO documenting prison conditions. “If something happens in the polar months, it can take days before anyone even knows. Records can go missing. Witnesses can be intimidated. International pressure can help, but it cannot replace transparent domestic institutions.”

Beyond Moscow: global reverberations

What happens now reverberates far beyond the cemetery gate. The European statement has already widened diplomatic fissures: it is a direct rebuke that will be used by capitals in Brussels, London and elsewhere to press for international investigations, visa restrictions, and perhaps new sanctions targeted at individuals associated with prison oversight. It further complicates a certain weariness in international relations, where Western governments must balance demands for human-rights accountability against geopolitical calculations about energy, security and regional stability.

“This isn’t just about one man,” said Daniel Weiss, a scholar of authoritarian systems at a global think tank. “It’s about whether democratic states are prepared to sustain pressure when the evidence arrives, and whether they can make institutions—international courts, forensic bodies—part of a credible route to truth and justice.”

Ask yourself: what would justice look like in this case? A transparent Russian investigation? A multinational inquiry? A detailed, public forensic report? Each option collides with politics, sovereignty, and the practical limits of enforcement. What would satisfy the bereaved? What would satisfy the broader international community? There are no easy answers.

What readers should watch for next

Whether Russia opens its own public inquiry or allows foreign experts access to the prison and to the samples cited by the Europeans.
If any new sanctions or diplomatic measures follow, particularly from the five nations that made the statement.
Reactions within Russia, especially among courts, prosecutors, and civil-society actors who might risk more by speaking out.

Closing: memory, uncertainty, and the cost of silence

As the morning dissolved into a muted winter day, people left the graveside slowly, some with flowers, others with fists half-raised in the old, weary gesture of defiance. The question of how a man died has taken on larger meanings. It is about the value of dissent, the obligations of states to investigate potential crimes, and the ways a global community can insist on answers when a country refuses them.

“We must keep asking,” Irina Popova said, as she tucked a small red ribbon into the snow at the edge of the plot. “Because if we don’t, no one will.”

Two years after his death, the story of Alexei Navalny feels less like a closed file and more like a book with pages being slowly prised open—by families, by scientists, by diplomats, and by strangers who will not stop visiting his grave. The next chapters will tell us something not only about one case, but about our capacity to demand truth in a world that often prefers silence.

Starmer pledges swift overhaul of UK social media regulation

hanad

February 16, 2026

UK minister says talk of plan to replace Starmer not true — Keir Starmer's Labour Party is languishing in the polls

When a prime minister walks into a community centre: Britain’s rushed promise to curb addictive apps

In a small, sunlit room in east London, a circle of folding chairs held parents with tired eyes and teens who scrolled with the elegant, desperate boredom of their generation. It was the kind of place where the political and the personal meet — warm tea, a community noticeboard peppered with flyers, the smell of Sunday dinners and school uniform still in the air.

Keir Starmer stepped in and did something that felt less like politics and more like a conversation. He spoke plainly about his children, about nights spent watching phones glow in bedrooms, and about the “glueing” quality of auto-scrolling feeds that can trap a child for hours. “The status quo, things as they are now, is not good enough,” he told the room. “We’ve taken the powers to make sure we can act within months, not years.”

That pledge — to act fast to protect children from the addictive architecture of modern social platforms — is the latest turn in a global reckoning with social media’s design. The UK government has announced a three-month consultation, due to open in March, to consider banning children from some platforms entirely and to curb features such as infinite scroll. It will also examine restrictions on virtual private networks (VPNs) and AI chatbots, and extend protections against AI-made sexualised images without consent.

What the government is proposing — and why it matters

The plans read like a toolbox of blunt and subtle instruments: age limits similar to an “Australian-style” ban already floated elsewhere in Europe; restrictions on features that hook users into never-ending engagement; age checks on services that previously did not verify youth. There’s even talk of blocking access to VPNs when they act as easy workarounds to geographic enforcement.

“We need to act very quickly, not just on the age concern, but on the devices and applications that make the sort of auto-scrolling, the constant glueing to the machine that you can never stop scrolling,” the prime minister told reporters.

Advocates for tougher rules say parents are in a bind. “I feel like I’m trying to hold back the tide with my hands,” said a mother of two at the community centre. “If you try to block everything, your child loses out on friendships, school groups, the news. But you also don’t want them trapped by something that rewires their attention.”

How other countries are reacting

The UK’s move has not been made in isolation. Spain, Greece and Slovenia have announced intentions to limit underage access to social platforms — a sign that Europe is testing a common appetite for regulation. Proponents point to Australia’s tough stance on online harms as a model worth emulating; opponents warn that hard lines can introduce privacy problems and push users into the gray market.

On the technological front, enforcement is messy. Last year image-hosting site Imgur chose to block images for British users rather than comply with tougher age verification rules. Major adult sites, faced with intrusive verification demands, also blocked access for UK users — a practical evasion that left millions blocked from content rather than verified.

Beyond platforms: privacy, VPNs and unintended consequences

Many of the government’s proposals collide with another fundamental right: adult privacy. Tightening age checks and policing VPN usage can protect children — but they can also limit adults’ ability to access legitimate services, particularly for those in marginalized groups or people living under coercive circumstances who rely on anonymity online.

“Regulation can be protective or paternalistic,” said a digital rights researcher. “The trick is designing rules that shield children without surveilling parents and adults into invisibility.”

There is also a diplomatic dimension. Heavy-handed regulation can create friction with U.S.-based tech companies and free-speech advocates who argue that geographic controls and product curbs overreach. The UK government itself has acknowledged that some future measures could reduce parliamentary scrutiny of curbs in order to act faster — a prospect that has raised eyebrows among civil liberties groups.

Voices from the ground

Across the room the voices were varied. A teenager shrugged and said, “Sometimes I don’t even know why I keep scrolling. It’s like I’m filling a hole.”

“We should redesign systems so they don’t exploit developing brains,” said a child welfare campaigner. “This is about product safety, not nanny state moralising.”

A local youth worker, who has run late-night drop-ins in the same neighbourhood for years, warned of any policy that swings too hard: “If you cut off platforms, kids will go somewhere else. The solution can’t just be a ban — it has to be about education, community spaces, alternatives.”

Experts press for new accountability

Some campaigners are urging the government to go further: regulatory frameworks that treat social platforms like other industries with systemic risk, such as banks. “We need a conduct-based regime that holds senior managers accountable for product safety risks,” argued a child-safety expert in a briefing paper. That would mean not just feature bans but legal liability for companies that design addictive mechanics targeted at young people.

Questions worth asking

As readers, what are we willing to trade for safety? Is it acceptable to constrain adult privacy to safeguard children? Can engineers redesign engagement without destroying the business model that funds public discourse? And who decides which features are harmful?

These aren’t academic questions. They’ll determine whether regulation nudges platforms toward better design — or whether it drives them to take measures like partial blocking, geo-restrictions, and privacy-invasive checks that harm more than they heal.

Short-term: an imminent consultation to frame possible laws and technical measures.
Medium-term: potential amendments to crime and child protection legislation that would harden enforcement.
Long-term: a likely global domino effect as countries watch what works and what backfires.

What happens next — and why you should care

The consultation opens in March and will run for three months. That’s a tight window for a debate that cuts across technology, law, psychology and family life. Expect passionate submissions from tech firms, privacy activists, youth organisations, and ordinary parents.

Whatever emerges will not simply be a UK story. Tech platforms operate globally; regulatory experiments in London can echo in Brussels, Canberra, and beyond. This is a moment to craft nuanced, evidence-based solutions that protect young minds without undermining civil liberties.

If you have children, work with youth, design products, or value privacy, this matters. How would you redesign social media for adolescents? Would you limit features, strengthen education, or push companies to redesign products that chase attention? Tell someone. Write your representative. Join the conversation before whatever is decided becomes law.

In the end, the question isn’t only whether the government will act in months rather than years. It’s whether we will act with clarity and care — protecting children without sacrificing the freedoms and trust that allow the internet to be a place of real connection.

Hungary’s opposition leader pledges to defend civil liberties

hanad

February 16, 2026

Hungarian opposition leader vows to defend rights — Opposition leader Peter Magyar's Tisza Party has been leading Viktor Orban's Fidesz in polls

On the Square in Budapest: A Country at a Crossroads

It was a gusty spring evening in Budapest — the kind of night that pulls your collar up and pushes you toward other people. The city’s neo-Gothic parliament loomed like a watchful grandparent; the crowd gathered on the adjacent square was smaller than the television networks had promised, but no less loud. Flags snapped in the wind, coffee steam rose from paper cups, and a handful of teenagers chanted a rhythm that echoed off the stone facades.

At the makeshift stage, Peter Magyar spoke with the urgency of someone who believes he has a last chance to save more than a political career. He didn’t read from a teleprompter; he paced, jabbed, laughed, and then — when the subject turned to corruption and surveillance — his voice narrowed into a razor.

“We have hit a dead end,” he said. “Not because Hungary cannot succeed, but because the people who were supposed to build our future have been stealing it.” Then he named a remedy: transparency, prosecutions, and a promise to return money he says the state has lost over 16 years.

The Contest: Old Order vs. New Promise

This is the scene as another parliamentary election approaches on 12 April — a calendar date that has hung over the country for months like a verdict still to be delivered. Peter Magyar, leader of the Tisza party, has emerged as the most potent challenger to Viktor Orbán since the prime minister’s return to power in 2010. In many public polls, Magyar’s movement has run ahead of Fidesz for weeks; in coffee houses and tram lines, the chatter varies between cautious hope and bruised skepticism.

“If you listen to the numbers, it sounds operatic — but on the ground, people are hungry for change,” said Anna Kovács, a small-business owner who runs a bakery near Kálvin Square. “We pay taxes, we queue at clinics, we see new bridges and shiny projects, but our lives have not changed. My kids are thinking of leaving. That frightens me more than anything.”

Magyar has made corruption the centerpiece of his campaign. He accuses Orbán’s circle of enriching itself through state contracts and opaque procurement. His pledge of “total transparency in contracts involving public funds” is both a policy promise and a moral rallying cry: a promise to pull back the curtain on the deals many Hungarians suspect are rigged in favor of insiders.

Civil Rights and Surveillance: The Other Front

Accusations of economic wrongdoing sit beside more existential complaints about civil liberties. Magyar suggests Orbán’s government has watched — literally and figuratively — and that opponents’ private lives have been invaded in the name of national security. “If they can search through my private life,” he told the crowd, “then they can rummage through everyone’s.”

That line resonated with journalists, academics, and lawyers who have spent years watching legal reforms, media takeovers, and funding cuts shrink the space for dissent. “It’s not just about lost money,” said Dr. Gábor Török, a legal scholar at a Budapest university. “It’s about institutions that are supposed to act as checks and balances getting hollowed out. When the judiciary is weakened and the press is muzzled, the public loses the language to talk about power.”

What the Rifts Look Like on the Ground

Walk away from the square and Budapest splits into a thousand micro-stories. A woman in her seventies pauses by a memorial bench and tells you she supports Orbán because he has kept her pension stable. A taxi driver in Józsefváros says he votes for whoever wins — “it’s safer that way, and you find work,” he says — while a student in a cafés whispers about emigration as if it were a weather forecast.

In the east — along the Tisza River, where Magyar’s party takes its name — the mood is different. Fields that once produced grains are now dotted with new developments and, some say, suspiciously large estates owned by contractors close to the government. “You see tractors by day and SUVs by night,” an elderly farmer told me, smiling wryly. “The tractor is for show. The SUV is for the money.”

Numbers and the Broader Picture

It is important not to confuse noise with reality. Hungary’s headline economy has shown growth over the past decade, and unemployment figures at times have been relatively low. But many economists and citizens argue that growth has not always translated into broadly shared prosperity; wage stagnation, rising housing costs, and concerns about healthcare access complicate the narrative of success.

Fidesz has dominated Hungarian politics for more than a decade, returning to government in 2010 and holding majorities large enough to reshape institutions.
The European Union has repeatedly flagged rule-of-law concerns; conditionality mechanisms have been used to delay or withhold funds to member states where governance standards are judged lacking.
Opinion polls show a closely contested race, with Magyar’s Tisza party ahead in several surveys — a fragile lead that could evaporate depending on turnout and alliances.

International Echoes and Local Tensions

In recent weeks, foreign visitors and international headlines have added heat to an already boiling pot. Broadly, Hungary has been at the center of a wider debate about the balance between national sovereignty and shared democratic norms in Europe. Viktor Orbán has courted powers and personalities from east to west, cultivating relationships that critics say undermine European solidarity.

“What Europe needs is not a lecture but a conversation,” one EU diplomat told me off the record. “Yet when institutions are consolidated to the point where opposition voices cannot function freely, the conversation becomes impossible.”

At the rally, Magyar did not shy away from naming foreign influence — or perceived influence. He called Orbán a “puppet” of outside powers, a phrase meant to complicate the prime minister’s own frequent rhetoric about foreign meddling. In the international theater, that kind of rhetoric can be both strategic and incendiary, inviting friends and foes to pick sides.

Voices of the Voters

People at these rallies are not monoliths. Lajos, a retired schoolteacher, says he wants clean governance but doubts the opposition’s readiness. “They promise the moon,” he said. “I need someone who knows how to fix the plumbing first.” Elsewhere, younger voters speak in sharper tones: “It’s about dignity,” said 28-year-old Ágnes, who works in a tech startup. “We don’t want our country to become a story of one family getting rich.”

Why This Election Matters Beyond Hungary

You can read this contest as a local fight about jobs and corruption, and you would be right. But it’s also part of a larger global conversation: what happens when democratic institutions are gradually repurposed to secure power, and what responsibility neighbors have when that process affects regional stability and shared values.

Think about it: how do societies balance effective governance with openness? How do they create prosperity that is visible and tangible for ordinary people, not just visible on construction cranes and glossy state media?

These questions are not unique to Hungary. They surface in capitals across Europe, in small towns and big metropolises, in voting booths and kitchen-table talk. The answer Hungarians choose on 12 April will not only decide who sits in parliament but will also send a message about whether the pendulum in Europe is swinging back toward pluralism — or toward a politics of consolidation and controlled dissent.

After the Rally: Uncertain Roads Ahead

As people drifted from the square, the banners folded like tired birds. The speeches would be replayed on screens and dissected on morning radio shows. Polls would jitter; pundits would predict, and the voters would decide.

In the end, the scene that will matter most is not the podium or the prime minister’s office. It is the kitchen where a family argues about rent, the classroom where a teacher wonders about academic freedom, the courthouse where a judge considers a case against a powerful contractor. These are the places where policy becomes lived reality.

So, if you find yourself watching this story from afar, consider how it connects to conversations at home: about fairness, about institutions, about the ways power is used and who benefits. How would you want your country to answer the same questions? What would you demand of those who govern?

One thing is certain: for many in Hungary, this election is not merely a choice between parties. It is a choice about the kind of country they want to inherit — and the kind they are willing to fight for.

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