Amazon Cuts 16,000 Jobs As Tech Layoffs Accelerate In 2026
Amazon is laying off about 16,000 more employees as it works to cut bureaucracy and respond to growing competition from AI.
The move follows October’s 14,000 job cuts and the closure of its gaming unit. The company also announced it will shut down its Amazon-branded grocery and cashierless stores.
A note on the company’s website on Wednesday said: “I want to let you know that we’re making additional organizational changes across Amazon that will impact some of our teammates. I recognize this is difficult news, which is why I’m sharing what’s happening and why.”
“As I shared in October, we’ve been working to strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy. While many teams finalized their organizational changes in October, other teams did not complete that work until now.”
It continued: “The reductions we are making today will impact approximately 16,000 roles across Amazon, and we’re again working hard to support everyone whose role is impacted. That starts with offering most US-based employees 90 days to look for a new role internally (timing will vary internationally based on local and country level requirements).”
“While we’re making these changes, we’ll also continue hiring and investing in strategic areas and functions that are critical to our future. We’re still in the early stages of building every one of our businesses and there’s significant opportunity ahead,” it concludes.
Amazon’s layoffs follow other major tech cuts early in 2026, including Autodesk’s plan to eliminate about 1,000 roles (~7% of its workforce) amid a restructuring that includes shifting investment toward AI and cloud, and Pinterest’s decision to cut nearly 15% of employees as it reallocates resources toward AI initiatives; layoffs trackers also show thousands of tech workers have already been affected by job reductions across dozens of firms so far this year.
When asked if he was worried about losses in the dollar, Trump told reporters in Iowa on Tuesday: “No, I think it’s great.”
Bessent then dropped two more tapebombs…
While stating that “WE DON’T COMMENT ON INTERVENTION SPECULATION”…
Bessent then confirmed that “US IS ‘ABSOLUTELY NOT’ INTERVENING IN DOLLAR-YEN NOW”
This prompted yen weakness, retracing some of the post ‘rate check’ rally…
…and dollar strength…
This move comes minutes after Goldman Sachs Delta-One desk head warned: Near-term, feels dangerous to press dollar downside given how extreme the moves have been.
War Drums In Gulf: US Armada Arrives As Saudi Arabia, UAE Deny Airspace Access
Things between Tehran and Washington are moving fast according to an eerily familiar pattern hearkening back to the lead-up to the 12-day June war, when there was some wrangling over negotiations – and talk of good faith efforts at dialogue – just before the US greenlighted a surprise Israeli attack which also saw US entry into the conflict by the close of it (whereupon nuclear facilities were hit by American bombers).
“Our stance is clear,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Wednesday as the US has expressed the desire to strike a deal. “Negotiations don’t go along with threats, and talks can only take place when there are no longer menaces and excessive demands.”
IRAN SAYS WILL RESPOND TO US ‘LIKE NEVER BEFORE’ IF PUSHED
IRAN SAYS READY FOR TALKS WITH US BASED ON MUTUAL RESPECT
OIL PARES GAINS AS IRAN SAYS ITS READY FOR TALKS WITH US
Araqchi confirmed his country has had no recent communication with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and has not sought talks with Washington. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that another US “armada” was moving “beautifully” toward Iran, but he hoped Tehran would ultimately strike a deal and avoid conflict.
The Iranian FM noted, however, that unnamed intermediaries were “holding consultations” and remained in touch with Iranian officials.
Separately, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday that Tehran supports any process “within the framework of international law” that helps avert war. The Saudis have joined the UAE in declaring that the US cannot use its airspace for aggression against Iran.
This shouldn’t pose too big a challenge for the Pentagon, however, which has a build-up of assets at its Qatar base and with a carrier group near Iran in regional waters.
But The Wall Street Journal disagrees, saying this could be a significant setback if the White House wishes to pursue war plans:
The declarations from the two Gulf states represent a foreign policy setback for the Trump administration as it seeks to ratchet up pressure on Tehran, which has defied Washington’s demand that it halt uranium enrichment and end the suppression of protesters.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader, outlined his country’s position while talking by phone with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
A Saudi readout of the Tuesday call said the crown prince had stressed that the kingdom “will not allow its airspace or territory to be used for any military actions against Iran.”
Previously, during Monday remarks, President Trump said “They want to make a deal. I know so. They called on numerous occasions. They want to talk.” He added ominously, “We have a big armada next to Iran. Bigger than Venezuela.”
US forces stationed across the Middle East are also meanwhile taking part in large-scale war games aimed at showcasing combat readiness, as Washington ramps up its military footprint, and as Trump is presented with an array of ‘options’. All of this supposedly steps from Washington ‘concern’ for large-scale protests from earlier this month, where thousands died – but which also included the deaths of police and security services.
In a statement which kicked off the week, US Central Command said: “Ninth Air Force will be conducting a multi-day readiness exercise to demonstrate the ability to deploy, disperse, and sustain combat airpower across the Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility.”
President Trump issued the following “time is running” out message Wednesday morning:
Trump tells the Iranian regime that “time is running out”, saying that if there is no deal, the “next attack will be far worse” than Operation Midnight Hammer pic.twitter.com/FnziIVAxRt
The command added that “this exercise is designed to enhance asset and personnel dispersal capability, strengthen regional partnerships and prepare for flexible response execution throughout CENTCOM.”
The sweeping drills are unfolding against the backdrop of sharply rising tensions with Tehran in which an oil blockade and potential strikes on senior officials in the Islamic Republic are being considered. But in terms of blockades, two can play at that game, as the Strait of Hormuz remains among the most vital waterways for the global market, and the IRGC has threatened that its forces can shut it to international transit.
TikTok Users Report Trouble Posting About Epstein, ICE, Days After Company Finalizes Sale To US Investors
Censorship concerns are back in the spotlight after TikTok users claim to be having trouble posting about Jeffrey Epstein and ICE raids.
Days after the company finalized a sale to a consortium of American investors who now control TikTok’s business in the US – which averted a national ban of the app over national security concerns – users report being unable to use the word “Epstein” in direct messages.
The company responded, telling NPR “We don’t have rules against sharing the name ‘Epstein’ in direct messages and are investigating why some users are experiencing issues.”
TikTok said none of its content moderation rules have changed.
Still, when some users tried to send direct messages containing the word “Epstein,” an automatic prompt appeared declaring that the message may be in violation of TikTok’s community guidelines. The messages were not sent, according to the prompt, “to protect our community.”
Tests by NPR, and other accounts on social media, show that it was happening inconsistently; Some users were able to send messages with “Epstein,” and some were not. The TikTok spokesman said that is consistent with the company’s own analysis so far, yet the exact cause is still under review.
TikTok users are also claiming that the platform is censoring information related to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement actions, as many users on the platform report being unable to upload videos on the topic.
The TikTok censorship this week is genuinely insane. It’s a very bad look to have more censorship under American management than under Chinese management. It almost goes without saying that if it doesn’t reverse course immediately, it deserves the scandal & exodus it’s getting.
Some are pointing a finger at TikTok’s new ownership – which includes lead investor Oracle, run by billionaire Larry Ellison, a close friend of President Trump. Users are now circulating the hashtag #TikTokCensorship on X.
It’s nice to see Democrats suddenly discovering free speech.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) says this is at the ‘top of the list’ when it comes to threats to democracy. We don’t remember him piping up when conservatives were being censored for a decade…
I know it’s hard to track all the threats to democracy out there right now, but this is at the top of the list. https://t.co/WjB05qeQPN
TikTok said in a statement that ‘glitches’ on the app were due to a power outage at a US data center, causing videos to take longer to be uploaded and recommended to other users, and are “unrelated to last week’s news” of the finalized sale.
Oracle, meanwhile, blamed the winter storm that has affected large swaths of central and eastern US, saying in a statement that an Oracle data center “experienced a temporary weather-related power outage,” triggering wide-spread “technical issues” for users of TikTok, said spox Michael Egbert, who added that the companies are working “quickly” to restore service and stabilize the app.
On Tuesday, TikTok US Joint Venture said it had made “significant progress” in restoring service to US users, but noted that many might still have trouble uploading new videos.
We’ve made significant progress in recovering our U.S. infrastructure with our U.S. data center partner. However, the U.S. user experience may still have some technical issues, including when posting new content. We’re committed to bringing TikTok back to its full capacity as…
Nurse Jen Hamilton, who has over 4.5 million TikTok followers, says that after she posted a still picture about Alex Pretti, a protester who was shot by one or more federal immigration agents on Saturday, her next four videos couldn’t be uploaded.
“Something has shifted in the way that content is getting put on the platform, or allowed to be on the platform,” she told CNN. “And I just find it very ironic that it’s the same day that it takes over that people are not being able to post their stuff.”
While it would be difficult to prove TikTok is censoring content about ICE due to its opaque algorithm, it would also be within their legal right to do so, says Jeffrey Blevins, a professor at the University of Cincinnati who studies media law and ethics.
“They’re a private platform. They have a First Amendment right to do that,” he said. “A lot of times it’s easy for us to think of social media as a public square, but it’s not public in a way that matters under the law.”
Langley Plants The Flag: CIA Takes Point In Post-Maduro Venezuela
The CIA is “quietly working” to establish a permanent footprint inside Venezuela to shape the country’s post-Maduro trajectory, according to a CNN report Tuesday – or rather it’s not-so-quietly, with sources saying Washington intends to run Caracas much the way it penetrated Ukraine after 2014.
While the State Department is planning an eventual reopening of a formal US embassy, setting up a CIA annex has been elevated to “priority number one,” an unnamed US official told CNN – though there are serious questions as to why the agency would want to advertise this all over CNN.
From that base, agency operatives would engage with the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez, cultivate opposition factions, and “target third parties who may be threats,” according to the source.
“Before diplomatic channels the annex can help set up liaison channels… that will allow conversations that diplomats cannot have.”
In other words, the intelligence apparatus moves first, with formal diplomacy to follow. According to the unnamed official:
“State plants the flag but CIA is really the influence,” one source familiar with the planning process told CNN, noting the agency’s near-term objectives include setting the stage for diplomatic efforts – including relationship building with locals – and providing security.
Of course, no thinking person was entertaining any illusions that it would be anything less than a Langley outpost in Latin America. This is par for the South American course.
CNN notes, “The US has routinely sent CIA directors or top intelligence officials to have sensitive meetings with world leaders to discuss sensitive matters that are based on US intelligence collection.”
However, President Rodríguez (former VP, now US-backed) has publicly pushed back against Washington this week in a rare first since the US military invasion and overthrow of Nicolás Maduro, asserting she has had “enough” of US directives.
While President Trump has declared that Washington would effectively “run” Venezuela, he later endorsed Rodríguez as a temporary caretaker during the transition, despite her being as hardcore a Leftist pro-Maduro figure as anyone.
“Enough already of Washington’s orders regarding politicians in Venezuela,” she had said days ago.
Among the first US actions has been to cut off Venezuela’s oil supply to nearby ally Cuba, which threatens to sink the island-nation’s economy further, after it has endured many decades of Washington sanctions.
Despite this big talk of distancing herself from American interests, Rodríguez warmly greeted CIA Director John Ratcliffe this month, and there was even a photo op. Ratcliffe, as the first top US official to meet with her in the wake of the Jan.3rd military operation, reportedly delivering Trump’s conditions for resetting relations.
Reporter: The President of Venezuela says she has stopped taking orders from you. What do you say?
Trump: I don’t know exactly what’s going on there, but I haven’t heard that at all.
The fact that she has even remained in power this long suggests that she is playing ball behind the scenes, and that any anti-American public declarations are primarily for Venezuelan domestic consumption.
Spain’s struggling socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has agreed with the far left to push through a mass amnesty for around 500,000 illegal immigrants by royal decree, bypassing parliament and avoiding any binding vote in Congress.
The extraordinary regularization, negotiated between Sánchez’s Socialist Party (PSOE) and the far-left Podemos, is due to be approved by the Council of Ministers on Tuesday. By using a royal decree, the government can impose the measure directly, despite the fact that an almost identical proposal has been stalled in parliament for more than a year due to a lack of majority support.
Under the agreement, illegal migrants who can prove they were in Spain before Dec. 31, 2025, and have remained in the country for at least five months will be eligible for provisional residence and work permits, provided they have no serious criminal record. The moment an application is filed, any deportation or return proceedings will be suspended. If approved, applicants will receive a one-year residence permit, eligible for renewal. Podemos estimates that more than half a million people will benefit.
Podemos figures have openly celebrated the move. As cited by El País, Irene Montero, former equality minister and now an MEP, described the amnesty as an “urgent measure of social justice” and said her party would ensure the process is “swift.”
She claimed the regularization was necessary to protect migrants from what she described as “racist violence” and framed the policy as the granting of rights to people allegedly denied them through “institutional racism.”
The government argues that the decree merely provides legal certainty for an “existing social reality.” Critics, however, have labeled the move undemocratic and catastrophic for the message it sends to illegal immigrants who are still arriving in large numbers.
The amnesty mirrors a Popular Legislative Initiative backed by more than 700,000 signatures, but that proposal has been blocked in Congress for over a year because it lacks sufficient support. Rather than negotiate or abandon it, the executive has opted to force it through without parliamentary oversight.
The decision comes as illegal immigration in Spain has exploded. According to estimates from the Funcas think tank, cited by La Gaceta, the number of undocumented immigrants has risen from about 107,000 in 2017 to nearly 840,000 in 2025, an increase of almost 685 percent. Funcas estimates that illegal migrants now account for 17.2 percent of the non-EU foreign population in Spain. The think tank warns that mass regularizations do not reduce illegal immigration if current entry and legalization practices continue.
¡500.000 ilegales!
El tirano Sánchez odia al pueblo español. Quiere sustituirlo. Por eso pretende promover el efecto llamada por decreto, para acelerar la invasión.
Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s right-wing Vox party, wrote on X, “500,000 illegals! The tyrant Sánchez hates the Spanish people. He wants to replace them. That’s why he intends to create a pull factor by decree, to accelerate the invasion. It must be stopped. Repatriations, deportations, and immigration.”
Vox MEP Hermann Tertsch, who is also vice-president of the Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament, accused the government of attempting to import voters, saying, “These criminals want to bring all of Africa to see if they can at least buy the votes of those who don’t know Spanish.”
🔴 Esta maniobra de Sánchez es un atentado directo contra nuestra seguridad y detona un nuevo efecto llamada masivo. Regularizar a medio millón de inmigrantes ilegales es premiar la ilegalidad, un indulto a quienes violan nuestras normas de extranjería y un insulto a los que las… https://t.co/c8Ge7d92W6pic.twitter.com/VZ1EyVzcK7
Migration analyst Rubén Pulido also condemned the move, calling it “a direct attack on our security” that would trigger a new pull factor. “Regularizing half a million illegal immigrants is rewarding illegality, a pardon for those who violate our immigration laws, and an insult to those who respect them,” he said.
Facilitating illegal immigration into the European Union via Spain has become big business, with record numbers arriving on the Canary Islands in recent years, and critics of Sánchez’s move argue this will only entice more to embark on the journey.
Several fraud networks have been uncovered in recent months, linked to fake residence permits and sham marriages to help regularize illegal migrants, including one in October last year, where 12 people were arrested for manufacturing fake family links to legitimize the stay of illegals.
Spain’s immigration crisis is also one of security and public safety, with foreigners disproportionately suspected of criminal offenses. In November last year, the Ertzaintza, the autonomous police force of Spain’s Basque Country, revealed that 64 percent of those arrested for crimes in the region were foreigners, including 68 percent of sexual assault and robbery suspects. This is despite migrants making up 14 percent of the Basque population.
In December, a CEU-CEFAS Demographic Observatory report, titled “Demography of Crime in Spain,” found that foreigners, who make up 31 percent of Spain’s prison population, commit per capita 500 percent more rapes and 414 percent more murders than Spanish citizens. The highest rates are seen among Arabs and Latinos, with many of them hailing from countries in South America known for their extremely high crime rates.
Chinese Hackers Reportedly Breached Phones At “Heart of Downing Street”
Chinese state-linked hackers reportedly accessed mobile phones “at the heart of Downing Street” as part of a long-running cyber-espionage campaign targeting telecom networks worldwide, according to Fox News.
U.S. intelligence agencies believe the breaches began as early as 2021, though they were publicly revealed in 2024 after American officials warned allies about widespread intrusions into global telecommunications systems.
The campaign targeted several countries, including the U.S. and members of the Five Eyes alliance. Investigators say the attackers may have gained access to the data of millions, with the ability to monitor calls, read messages, and track locations.
Former U.S. national security adviser Anne Neuberger said the “Chinese gained access to networks and essentially had broad and full access,” allowing them to “geolocate millions of individuals” and “record phone calls at will.”
Fox News reports that a source told The Telegraph that the breach reached “right into the heart of Downing Street,” raising concerns that senior U.K. officials may have been affected.
In response, U.S. agencies urged telecom companies in 2024 to strengthen security. A joint advisory in August 2025 warned that Chinese state-sponsored groups, including one known as “Salt Typhoon,” were continuing to target networks globally.
The Telegraph also reported “many” hacking incidents affecting British government phones, particularly during former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s term from 2022 to 2024.
Former Israeli intelligence chief Yuval Wollman said Salt Typhoon is “one of the most prominent names” in cyber-espionage, with operations extending across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
China has previously denied the allegations, calling them “baseless” and “lacking evidence.” U.K. officials have not yet commented on the latest reports.
The UK government has pledged to introduce a digital ID system for all UK citizens and legal residents by the end of the current Parliament (so no later than 2029). The integration of digital ID into government services, though already under way, has hitherto been largely voluntary. However, is is becoming steadily less optional, as the government has said it will now be required as a precondition for work in the U.K, and a version of it (GOV.UK One Login) is already being imposed unilaterally upon company directors throughout the U.K.
Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones has suggested in a recent interview (19/11) that digital ID is completely optional and will simply make government services more accessible and convenient. But this is a rather disingenuous sales pitch. On the one hand, Starmer himself insists that digital ID will be required as a precondition to work legally in the U.K; on the other hand, like any new technology, there will be a transition period, but voluntariness is unlikely to last forever.
Evidently, the government will not immediately require everyone to use a digital ID in their interactions with government agencies. But as digital ID becomes more normalised, it will likely become as compulsory as holding a passport for international travel. Can you really imagine a modern government allowing “hold-outs” to stay in the physical world while digital ID systems become the norm?
Providing citizens with an easy way to seamlessly verify their identity when they access government services may seem like the “efficient” thing to do. However, this apparent efficiency comes at a high price, exposing citizens to significant risks of government over-reach, surveillance, and system failures.
The old “clunky” system, in which there was bureaucratic redundancy and replication and in which physical ID cards had to be shown to access discrete government services made it more difficult for the government to comprehensively monitor and control a citizen’s choices in real time, and meant a single point of failure in the system did not necessarily compromise all of a citizen’s important data, or disable citizens’ ability to access public services.
The problem with universal digital ID overseen by the State is not that a dystopian State will be born overnight, or that all our data will be stolen the day after the scheme is initiated, but that the architecture of authoritarian control will be set in motion, and the potential repercussions of serious data breaches and system failures will be significantly enlarged.
According to a House of Commons Research Briefing, government statements suggest that “there will be no centralised digital ID database.” But as the same briefing points out, civil rights group Big Brother Watch stresses that “even decentralised systems can behave like centralised ones if identifiers link data across platforms.”
The creation of a digital ID system for accessing a wide range of public services clearly poses grave risks of abuse, given the evident conflict of interest of governments who both oversee the architecture of a digital ID system, and have incentives to extend their control over citizens’ lives.
Unlike a traditional physical ID system, in which there is a local gatekeeper who opens the gate to a service based on limited information – typically, a service-specific database – a digital ID system could, in some future iteration, permit a remote gatekeeper to use an AI algorithm to analyze a citizen’s data and history (unlocked by their ID) and ration their access to a service to induce compliance with the government’s preferred policies. This scenario becomes even more plausible given the momentum behind centralised digital currencies, which could offer governments direct leverage over citizens’ income and spending choices.
Do such scenarios seem far-fetched? If the digital ID system is controlled, overseen and effectively programmed by centralised governments and their agencies, and is already intended as an obligatory verification procedure for employment rights, there is certainly no technological impediment to governments extending the logic of digital surveillance and control, through “mission creep,” to other sectors of social life.
For example, just as a government uses digital ID to track someone’s employment history and residency status as a way of corroborating their right to work, surely it could also use digital ID to track someone’s health history or vaccination status as a criterion for the right to, say, attend public venues, use public transport or enter the country?
And if the same digital ID is associated with a “digital wallet” tied to CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency), then what is preventing a government from capping a citizen’s spending on international travel once they reach their “carbon allowance”? What if a government-regulated digital ID is required for citizens to post content on social media? This scenario, which is far from fanciful, would give governments leverage to restrict “non-compliant” citizens’ social media activities.
So much for the technological feasibility of leveraging a digital ID system to exert ever greater control over citizens’ lives. Now, do we think government officials are so profoundly committed to civil liberties that they would balk at the thoughts of leveraging digital ID programmes to engage in far-reaching forms of surveillance and control over citizens’ lives? We hardly have grounds for optimism, given Western governments’ abysmal track record during the Covid era, when they were prepared to lock down citizens in their homes based on scientifically flimsy theories of disease control, and “make life hell” (to use a loose translation of President Macron’s notorious expression) for citizens who opted out of an experimental vaccine.
Besides the substantial risks of government surveillance and over-reach, there is a very real risk that citizens’ data may be more exposed to cyber-attacks in a more ambitious, integrated and data-rich digital ID system, and that the very ability to access public services may be as fragile as the weakest point in the system.
On the one hand, government-overseen databases, no less than privately managed databases, have notoriously been compromised, time and again, by serious data breaches and leaks over the years. An increasingly complex and wide-ranging system, linking an ever wider pool of citizens’ data, will be sure to attract the interest of international hackers. On the other hand, if and when these systems experience major glitches, such as the recent outage of internet security company Cloudfare that took ChatGPT and X offline, public services may experience major disruptions, if not paralysis. We want resilience, not just efficiency.
There are more and less safe and efficient ways to harness the technology of digital ID. But the development of digital ID systems should be managed by a complex web of service providers who can develop competitive solutions to the technical problems they pose, under a broad legal framework, and reliance on such systems should be maximally voluntary.
We are living through a major crisis of trust in public institutions. Governments have shown themselves to be unworthy stewards of the ship of State, and citizens are right to distrust their intentions and competence. There could hardly be a worse time – and I’m not saying there ever was a good time – to entrust politicians with an ambitious digital ID programme plagued with risks of government surveillance, technocratic over-reach, system failures, and data breaches.
EU ‘Celebrates’ Replacing One Massive Energy Dependency With Another One
EU member states on Monday finally signed off on a legally binding ban on Russian gas imports, locking in a hard deadline to sever the bloc’s remaining dependence on Russian energy flows by late 2027.
The move turns Brussels’ long-running pledge to cut Moscow energy loose into enforceable law, nearly four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, or what Putin calls the Special Military Operation, which has still not been legally declared by Russia to be an official state of war.
Under the deal, the EU will shut the door on all Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports by the end of 2026, followed by a complete ban on pipeline gas by September 30, 2027.
A limited escape hatch was built in for those countries struggling to replace Russian supply and fill storage ahead of winter. These can push the pipeline cutoff to November 1, 2027.
Before 2022, Russia accounted for more than 40% of the EU’s gas supply – a figure which has fallen to roughly 13% by 2025. But there’s still a sizeable gap between Brussels’ political messaging and the bloc’s actual energy behavior. As Reutersreports:
Last month, the five biggest EU importers spent 1.4 billion euros ($1.66 billion) on Russian energy, mostly on gas and LNG, data from the non-profit Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air showed. Hungary was the biggest buyer, before France and Belgium.
Here’s how the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, announced the ban Tuesday: “We have just signed the ban on Russian gas into law. Europe is securing control of our energy supply and strengthening our autonomy.”
There’s only one obvious problem in all this from a supposed European ‘energy independence’ perspective, summarized well in the following:
They’ve just locked themselves into total dependency on the US, the country they claim to want to become “independent” from. Utter clowns. https://t.co/yO5UdBMTAY
Another commenter, a European libertarian, reacted as follows:
What an idiot stooge, willing to do anything for power. This is the tragedy of Europe: with such a “leadership” we assure our continued submissiveness to the US.
And journalist Mark Ames roundly mocks these new ‘boasts’ EU energy freedom in the following remarks, and invoking the Greenland crisis, on the below clip:
Danish PM bragging how they swapped out their dependence on cheap Russian gas, which posed a theoretical threat, for dependence on expensive US gas, a direct existential threat to Denmark. Must be that high European IQ that race science weirdos rave about.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen:
I think, or I hope, that all Europeans can now see that it was a huge mistake to be dependent on Russian fossil fuels. We should never have been.
And now we have to make sure that we will have no dependencies on other countries outside… pic.twitter.com/J9o6c0HXYe
“We’ve replaced one massive dependency with another one,” Henning Gloystein, a managing director for energy at Eurasia Group, told The NY Times. “That looked fine three years ago, but now it doesn’t.”
That same Tuesday NYT report points out that soon after the Feb.2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, “The United States came to the rescue. Tankers loaded at U.S. terminals shipped large volumes of liquefied natural gas to European ports in the Netherlands, France and Belgium, among other destinations, helping to replace the Russian fuel and calming markets.”
And the report follows with this epic and ironic line, highlighting the elephant in the room: “Not long ago, those gas flows looked heroic. Now, they are raising eyebrows. Since beginning his second term, President Trump has sought to use trade as leverage in disputes with other countries, including his recent push to take over Greenland.”
In an extraordinary case that could decide the future of press rights in Europe, Berlin-based German-Turkish journalist Hüseyin Doğru is currently under European Union sanctions for his reporting, which left him completely unable to access his bank account for months.
Under orders from the EU, his assets were frozen, and these sanctions were dispensed with no trial or appeal. Currently, Doğru says he is not even allowed to leave Germany.
As Berliner Zeitung reports, Doğru completely exhausted all financial means, telling the paper that his bank has completely blocked access to his previously approved minimum subsistence allowance of €506. He stated that he can no longer support his family or even buy food for his two newborn children.
“Not only I, but also my wife and my three children are effectively being sanctioned,” Doğru, a left-wing journalist, said in the interview.
“The sanctions themselves stipulate that I am entitled to access to essential funds. The fact that my bank is nevertheless blocking these funds violates applicable law in my view,” he told the Berlin newspaper.
Since then, he has won some reprieve and regained access to his account on Jan. 22 through the actions of his lawyer, but a legal battle over the sanctions is continuing.
UPDATE: Comdirect finally (and unwillingly) restored my account access—only after public and media pressure. Thank you ALL for supporting me. Next goal: lift the sanctions, not just against me, but against all punished for expressing their opinions. https://t.co/P6rdkNhCC8
There are now fears that the extraordinary case may be a sign of where the future is headed, where an authoritarian EU can censor and financially ruin dissidents and journalists with no oversight or judicial review. Notably, similar sanctions could also be deployed against others, such as Roger Köppel, the Swiss editor-in-chief of the weeklyDie Weltwoche.
Doğru has been on an EU sanctions list since May 2025, with Brussels arguing that his pro-Palestinian journalistic work incites “ethnic, political, and religious discord” and therefore, he allegedly supports “destabilizing activities by Russia.” Notably, he filmed a number of the occupations of Berlin universities by pro-Palestinian activists.
The basis for the sanctions was his alleged connections to Russia, but the Berliner Zeitung indicates that so far, no proof has been presented to confirm this accusation, and more importantly, there was no trial or evidence provided to support this accusation.
“Brussels justifies the measures by saying that he is using his pro-Palestinian journalistic work to stir up ‘ethnic, political and religious discord’ and thus allegedly ‘destabilizing activities that support Russia.’ The EU has not yet publicly provided any concrete evidence of a connection to Moscow,” wrote the paper.
Germany couldn’t do it, but the EU could
In a recent interview on Youtube, which included the Greek progressive Yanis Varoufakis, Doğru provided further details about his case, including why these sanctions came from the EU and not Germany.
“And this now all applied to me the first time in the form of a sanction, but the German government did not do it directly with me. They, as Yanis said, pass it over to the European Union because in Germany, they could not do that in a legal way, because the backlash is still there in this bourgeois democracy. The little backlash, if it comes to their own citizens, which I am, even though they don’t maybe accept me as such. But if a journalist is in court here, he has a lot of rights.
But if you go through the European Union, the European Commission, there is no judge, there is no hearing, there is no evidence. It’s an extrajudicial act of… and the EU says sanctions are not punishment, they are punitive to change your behavior for the benefit of the European Union, which is not a punishment. So, it’s an extrajudicial execution of a journalist.
But now coming back to the beginning, why is that happening? They’re all laid that out and they’re testing it with me for the first time. And what makes the whole situation unique is that the first time, if they can get away with it, this is going to soon happen to you guys as well, or even those who attacked us.”
The sanctions had a devastating effect on Doğru and illustrate how they could be used to silence nearly any journalist, whether on the left or the right.
“I’m not allowed to pay my lawyer. I’m not allowed to buy water. I’m not allowed to provide my child with food. I’m not allowed to work. I’m not allowed to buy medicine. Every single monetary transaction with me is forbidden. Technically, you’re not even allowed to give me a basket of food because I could turn that technically into money. And this is forbidden.
And if I violate or you do, I don’t know about you, but if I were to violate one of these things, I could face like five years of prison time by avoiding sanctions technically, but they went further. I’m sanctioned, I’m on that list, but they also technically sanctioned my wife and our unborn twins because they froze older accounts. She is not allowed to receive her salary right now.
So in this moment, we technically have no money that we can access to go and buy something. There is also the problem because a lot of activists, journalists, colleagues, politicians and family members even said, ‘Should we send you money?’ We said, ‘Don’t do that. Don’t do that because you would be maybe categorized as avoiding sanctions.’ And this is the problem here. Sanction, as the European Union describes on their website, is a tool that is aligned with humanitarian law, which is not deemed to punish, but rather to change your behavior.”
Notably, this is tool is being used on a journalist in Europe during a time when EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is claiming that Europe is a place where freedom of speech is valued, a point that Doğru is more than willing to point out.
The German-Turkish journalist stated during the interview that he does not understand what “behavior” is supposed to be changed by the sanctions, saying:
“To change behavior, what kind of behavior do they want to change? My behavior to use my rights as a citizen of Europe or of the world to express my opinion on certain events. Also, the right to survive because all my existential grounds are taken away from me. To be a bit more specific, maybe that sounds a bit crude, but just to make the point that I don’t want anyone to misunderstand me, someone in a prison currently technically has more rights than I have, because they can, in custody, buy something which I can’t even.”
The Russian accusations
For those on the right who dismiss this case because of Doğru’s pro-Palestinian coverage or maybe even dislike him because he’s a Muslim, it is clear that this is only a test case. Many of his views or the views of Varoufakis, such as their claims about European colonialism, can be contested, but that is besides the point. Conservatives, libertarians, and the right will all be targeted in the future, not only with this type of method, but other similar methods that are already being deployed.
Doğru indicates that the argument, as far as he can see, is not that he has any direct connection to Russia, but that the EU can interpret his reporting as beneficial to Russia, and therefore, it can legally use these extrajudicial sanctions. Notably, Doğru said he was openly criticizing Russia and its war in Ukraine long before these sanctions hit him.
“And I think this is unique as Yanis said at the beginning with my case, because for the first time ever, Europe sanctioned a journalist in the context of the Russian sanction packages and laws and regulations, who was criticizing Russian policies publicly, which I did, who was criticizing the war in Ukraine,” he said.
He added that he was targeted for “covering protests across Europe, which meant for the European Union that covering that, covering protests, covering violent protests, means for the European Union that only Russia can benefit from that because I’m creating social discord. I’m focusing on that, apparently, and Russia can benefit from that. Therefore, that makes me a Russian news outlet or pro-Russian journalist, which is, I can’t see you’re rolling your eyes. It’s exactly what happened to me as well.”
It is important to note that a report from German newspaper Tagesspiegel indicated that Doğru previously worked for Russian-linked news source Redfish Media. After the war in Ukraine broke out, Redfish closed down, and Doğru began a new outlet called Red, which included a number of former Redfish employees. Doğru indicated that the Red outlet, founded in Istanbul, was independent and received support from private individuals and organizations, without providing further details.
Even if this outlet, however, is connected to Russia in some manner, and so far no evidence has been presented in that direction, the EU’s ability to implement such powerful sanctions against an individual without due process should raise concerns for journalists everywhere.
Concerns expressed from many corners
It is not just the far left complaining about these sanctions against Doğru, but a broad political spectrum is taking issue with how they have been implemented. Here is what Berliner Zeitung wrote:
The Doğru case has been causing a stir for months. Critics see the sanctioning of a German journalist as a dangerous precedent for press freedom in the European Union. The criticism is particularly harsh in a legal opinion prepared by former European Court of Justice judge Ninon Colneric and international law professor Alina Miron. The opinion was presented to the European Parliament in the fall and addresses the new EU sanctions regime against so-called disinformation.
The authors conclude that the sanctions constitute a profound infringement of fundamental rights. The measures act like a “civil death” (“mort civile”): assets are frozen, access to banking services is effectively blocked, and the economic capacity of those affected is almost completely eliminated. This not only affects the sanctioned individuals themselves but also has a direct impact on their professional and private lives.
The report states that it is particularly problematic that sanctions are imposed without prior judicial review. Denying the right to a hearing before being placed on a sanctions list is disproportionate and violates European fundamental rights. The damage to freedom of expression and of the press is completely out of proportion to the stated goal of combating disinformation.
In short, the EU took a sledgehammer to this case, and with the other issues such as Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and efforts to fight so-called “disinformation,” it is clear that these tools and terms can be weaponied within the EU establishment against any reporting they do not agree with or find to be a threat.
The history of these sanctions
While the main points of this text has been addressed, some readers may be interested in how these sanctions were implemented and their background.
Doğru addresses the history of these sanctions in his interview with Varoufakis.
“How did we come to this point? It’s going to be a little bit technical, like using technical words, but I think for the audience it is very, very important because that did not just happen from nowhere. It technically started with the annexation of Crimea by Russia. So that’s when the European Union created the European External Action Service (EEAS), which was tasked to combat disinformation and Russian influence in Europe.
After around 2018, that body was extended with more rights, which created a kind of like an action plan against this information. And then we first heard like these words, and I think everyone knows that now. It’s like undermining European democracy, the European values, the European project and about strategic threats, and at some point about disinformation.”
He goes on to address terms like “disinformation” and “hybrid threat,” saying these terms were first coined around 2020. He said that disinformation, in particular, does not have to be a lie, but simply information that is categorized as a threat by the EU.
“That means technically information is now categorized by the EU as a threat, as long as it does not serve their benefit. In that case, as long as a journalist does not report on behalf of or for the benefit of the European Union. This might be a protest, that might be, if I criticize in the context of the Ukraine war, Russia and Europe, for example. So it’s kind of militarizing and criminalizing information, and by fighting disinformation and shutting down information, the EU started to use this (term),” he said.
He then delves further into the history of these sanctions and how the Digital Service Act (DSA) raised the stakes because it allows the EU to punish and sanction individuals, including journalists.
So what happened after that is also like the EAS created or introduced the FIMA, I think it is called, the foreign information manipulation and interference. This was very, very unique and very, very important because that gives the EEAS the right to punish, sanction everyone who is also, how should I work that now, involved in, this is very important: non-illegal suspicious behavior. So they say you have maybe a suspicious behavior and it is no illegal but we judge that as a threat to us, and we can’t punish you. That’s what the FIMA says. So this is very important. The only evidence is look at EEAS, look at FIMA. That’s the template for that…And that brings us to the last point, the Digital Service Act.
The Digital Service act says that in a state of emergency, whatever that is, they don’t announce that or explain that, that they technically can sanction, punish or whatever punishment they have in their mind, journalists and information.
Varoufakis closes by addressing how dangerous this threat now is for European citizens and journalists.
“And we need to emphasize this. I’m glad we have Hüseyin (Doğru) here because this innovation by the German government on the one hand and of course the European Commission on the other is a vile and dangerous precedent, as Hüseyin said. Today, they choose to use anti-Russian or Russian related decrees in order to stop a journalist, a German citizen, from writing about Palestine.
Tomorrow, they can do exactly the same thing regarding any issue, any topic that they do not want people to talk about. It could be anything from the investigation of an accident, a railway accident, an airplane crash. Once we have allowed them to use extrajudicial cancellation methods of European citizens, then that is the thin edge of the wedge. And we go back to really before Magna Carta, before Magna Carta. We’re not talking about democracy now in big domains. We’re going, no, we are digging ourselves into a hole, a wormhole that brings us out like a time machine before the time of Magna Carta.”
