Thieves used a drill to breach a Sparkasse vault over Christmas, looting 95% of customers’ safety deposit boxes
Thieves executed a meticulously planned heist, making off with an estimated $35 million (approximately €30 million) in cash and personal valuables from a bank vault in Gelsenkirchen over the Christmas holidays, according to police.
The break-in at a Sparkasse savings bank occurred sometime between Saturday evening and Monday morning. The thieves bypassed security by drilling through a thick concrete wall to access the vault, then forced open over 3,000 safety deposit boxes, impacting approximately 2,700 customers.
Police discovered the scene in disarray only after a fire alarm sounded from the bank shortly before 4:00am on Monday.
Investigators believe a specialized, industrial-grade drill was used in the operation. A police spokesperson described the heist as “professionally executed.”
Nach einem spektakulären Bankeinbruch in Gelsenkirchen haben am Dienstag wütende Kunden die geschlossene Sparkassen-Filiale belagert. Unbekannte hatten in der Nacht auf Sonntag rund 30 Millionen Euro erbeutet. https://t.co/ee6ywp00d8pic.twitter.com/nXu8YnGQqt
Witnesses reported seeing several individuals carrying large bags through a nearby parking garage over the weekend, while security footage captured a black Audi RS 6 speeding away early Monday morning with masked occupants. The vehicle was confirmed as stolen from Hanover, approximately 200 kilometers away.
Die bestohlenen Kunden der #Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen Buer führen gerade vor wie ein #BankRun aussieht.
Customers arrived at the bank on Tuesday to find it sealed off. Hundreds gathered, demanding answers after Sparkasse confirmed that 95% of the safety deposit boxes had been breached.
Police estimate the damage to be “in the two-digit million range,” according to a statement released Tuesday. The contents of each deposit box are insured up to €10,300, suggesting a total loss of at least €30 million, according to local media. However, many customers fear this will be insufficient to cover their losses and are scrambling to assess their additional insurance coverage.
The bank branch remains closed while police continue their investigation. Authorities have yet to make any arrests and the perpetrators remain at large.
Federal agents kicked off a large-scale investigation after a YouTuber claimed to have uncovered a massive Somali-run scam in Minneapolis
The US has frozen all child care payments to the state of Minnesota following allegations of widespread fraud, according to Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O’Neill.
The move came after reports surfaced alleging that Minnesota had funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to fraudulent daycares over the past decade.
“We have frozen all child care payments to the state of Minnesota,” O’Neill said in a statement on X, outlining three additional actions taken in response to the alleged fraud.
O’Neill stated that he had activated the “Defend the Spend” system for all Administration for Children and Families (ACF) payments, requiring justification and proof of receipt before funds are disbursed.
We have frozen all child care payments to the state of Minnesota.
You have probably read the serious allegations that the state of Minnesota has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to fraudulent daycares across Minnesota over the past decade.
He also demanded a comprehensive audit from Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, including attendance records, licenses, complaints, investigations and inspections of the centers in question. Additionally, a dedicated fraud-reporting hotline has been launched.
ACF Assistant Secretary Alex Adams stated that his office provides Minnesota with $185 million in childcare funds annually, intended to benefit approximately 19,000 American children.
“Any dollar stolen by fraudsters is stolen from those children,” Adams said.
The investigation was prompted by a video posted by YouTuber Nick Shirley, who alleged a large-scale fraud scheme involving Somali-run childcare centers, estimating over $110 million in fraudulent claims.
In response, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced a “massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud,” posting videos of agents questioning business operators.
FBI Director Kash Patel said resources had been “surged” to Minnesota, warning that these cases were just “the tip of a very large iceberg” and that perpetrators could face “denaturalization and deportation.”
Walz has defended his administration, while lauding the state’s diverse makeup and large Somali community. Meanwhile, state officials have disputed Shirley’s findings, claiming the centers featured in his video had been inspected within the last six months with “no findings of fraud.”
“We’re committed to holding bad actors accountable,” O’Neill said. “Regardless of rank or office, anyone who’s involved in perpetrating this fraud against the American people should expect to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
The move follows a Saudi-led coalition airstrike targeting an alleged weapons shipment bound for Yemeni southern separatist forces
The United Arab Emirates has said it will withdraw its remaining forces from Yemen after a Saudi-led airstrike targeted a shipment at a southern Yemeni port. Riyadh said the shipment included weapons intended for a separatist group, a claim the UAE denied.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Emirati Ministry of Defense said, citing concerns for the safety of personnel, that it was voluntarily terminating its counterterrorism units in Yemen. These are the UAE’s only forces remaining there since it completed a wider military withdrawal in 2019. Abu Dhabi was part of the Saudi-led coalition formed four years earlier to fight Houthi rebels at the request of Yemen’s internationally recognized government.
The announcement followed an airstrike earlier in the day by the coalition on Yemen’s key southern port of Mukalla. The coalition said the strike targeted weapons and combat vehicles unloaded from ships arriving from the UAE, allegedly bound for the Southern Transitional Council (STC). The STC is a separatist group in southern Yemen that initially fought within the coalition but later pivoted toward seeking self-rule in the south. The UAE has rejected claims that the shipment contained weapons.
Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council head Rashad al-Alimi later declared a 90-day state of emergency, canceled a security pact with the UAE, and demanded that Emirati forces leave the country within 24 hours, a demand that Saudi Arabia has backed.
The UAE’s Foreign Affairs Ministry has “categorically” rejected what it described as attempts to “implicate the country in tensions among Yemeni parties,” stating that it strongly denounces allegations that it directed Yemeni forces to carry out operations threatening Saudi security or its borders. It also said that the targeted shipment included only vehicles intended for use by UAE forces on the ground.
This statement is issued with reference to the statement made today, Tuesday, 30th December 2025, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates regarding the ongoing developments in the Republic of Yemen, and the facts it outlined concerning the presence of the… pic.twitter.com/EN3kkMbuDa
Yemen has been ravaged by civil war since 2014, when Houthi forces seized the capital, Sanaa, driving the Saudi-backed government south. The Houthis now hold most of northern Yemen, while the STC has since 2022 controlled much of the south under a power-sharing arrangement and seized large swathes of territory, including in the strategically important Hadramout and Al-Mahra provinces, both of which border Saudi Arabia. Last week, the Saudi air force reportedly bombed separatist positions in Hadramout.
Israel, the US, and a fractured regional order are creating a volatile precedent for the year ahead
Without a doubt, 2025 proved to be one of the most intense years for the Middle East in the past decades, marking a definitive shift from “managed crises” to a phase of multi-layered and poorly controlled escalation.
Unlike previous years, when conflicts – primarily between Iran and Israel – unfolded mainly through proxy forces and indirect pressure, 2025 witnessed a significant transition towards direct strikes, symbolic acts of intimidation, and a clear crossing of “red lines.”
A key feature of this past year was the dismantling of informal barriers that had restrained direct confrontations between regional and external players. This was evident both in the geographical expansion of strikes and in their political targets; attacks carried not only military but also strategic messages.
One of the key events of 2025 was the series of attacks on Iranian territory carried out by Israel with either direct or indirect support from the United States. These actions signified a departure from the covert hostilities characteristic of the previous decade, elevating the conflict to a fundamentally new status. The Twelve-Day War between Iran and Israel in June, which culminated in US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites (the first such strikes in history), represented a “point of no return.” At that moment, a full-scale war between Iran and Israel became a reality rather than a hypothetical scenario.
It’s important to note that, despite the limited military impact, these strikes carried a distinct political message. The goal wasn’t to inflict irreversible damage on Iranian infrastructure but rather to show Iran’s vulnerabilities, test its missile defense systems and capability for an asymmetrical response, and indicate readiness for further escalation.
Israel aimed to dismantle Iran’s political system this year, with the ultimate goal of fragmenting Iran. However, this ambition did not materialize. US President Donald Trump intervened at a crucial moment, signaling to both sides that he would not allow an already unstable region to plunge into a catastrophic abyss. In any war between Iran and Israel, there would be no victors. Consequently, Iran’s response was calculated and measured, reflecting Tehran’s desire to avoid full-scale warfare while maintaining its reputation as a nation capable of strategic retaliation through a network of allies and regional partners.
Israel’s strikes against Qatar this year also marked a new and alarming shift in Middle Eastern politics and the security architecture of the Persian Gulf. They signaled an expansion of the conflict beyond the traditional lines of confrontation involving Israel, Iran, and proxy actors. The attacks on Qatar highlighted Israel’s willingness to act preemptively and outside familiar geographic boundaries when its strategic interests – such as funding, logistics, and political support – were perceived to be at stake. For the Gulf states, this served as a stark reminder that even formal neutrality or the role of an intermediary no longer guarantees immunity when it comes to high-intensity conflicts.
Overall, the year 2025 solidified the trend toward regional fragmentation. The Middle East increasingly resists governance through conventional mechanisms of power balancing, diplomatic mediation, and external arbitration. The use of military force as a tool for political pressure has intensified, while diplomacy has taken on a secondary role, primarily serving to legitimize actions afterwards. At the same time, the risk of misinterpretation has grown: amid high-intensity military operations, drone strikes, missile attacks, and cyber warfare, any local skirmish could trigger a chain reaction that exceeds initial expectations.
Looking ahead, 2026 is likely to be marked by escalating confrontations rather than stabilization. Several factors contribute to this:
The lack of new, sustainable agreements on regional security
Ongoing crises in Iran, Gaza, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf
The involvement of external powers, for whom the region remains a battleground for strategic rivalry
Increasing internal political pressure in the region’s key states
The main intrigue of 2026 is not whether we can expect a new escalation, but rather where it might spiral out of control and alter the entire framework of Middle Eastern security. 2025 will be remembered as the year when the old rules of the game ceased to function, but new ones hadn’t yet emerged. The region enters 2026 in a state of chronic instability, where each display of force serves both as a deterrent and an invitation to the next round of conflict.
In 2025, we witnessed not merely an isolated episode of escalation but a direct continuation of the strategic pivot that happened in 2024. At that time, a conviction grew within Israel’s political-military establishment that a unique historical opportunity had arisen to “finish what was started.” Israel’s goal was not merely tactical success or local deterrence; it wanted to radically reshape the regional balance of power for decades to come.
From the perspective of the Israeli leadership, 2024 revealed the vulnerabilities of the old regional containment model based on proxy conflicts and mutual constraints. Since then, a prevailing approach has emerged in West Jerusalem, suggesting that postponing decisive action only increases overall risks, while decisive escalation could be seen as a means to eliminate a key threat once and for all.
In this context, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to view Iran not merely as a regional competitor but as a systemic source of destabilization and the foundation of the entire anti-Israel infrastructure – from military programs to a network of allies and proxy groups. This perspective shifts the confrontation from a realm of deterrence to one of an existential conflict, where compromise is seen as a strategic misstep.
Netanyahu’s diplomatic activity at the end of 2025 is also part of this logic. The Israeli Prime Minister traveled to the US at the end of the year to meet with Donald Trump, seeking to persuade Washington to approve strikes against Iranian missile facilities.
According to reports, Netanyahu’s strategy envisions two possible scenarios, both of which diverge significantly from the cautious approach adopted by the US: Netanyahu wants to either secure political and military authorization for Israeli strikes on Iran, or directly involve American forces in operations against Iran’s missile infrastructure. In either case, this signifies a qualitative escalation and effectively erases the remaining informal “red lines.” However, 2026 may hold surprises for Trump himself. US midterm elections will take place in November, and it’s unlikely that Trump would want to provide his Democratic opponents with any opportunities for victory. But that’s a story for another time.
As we’ve seen, 2025 solidified the paradigm that had emerged the year before: Israel increasingly believes that the historical window of opportunity won’t stay open long, and that hesitation is tantamount to the loss of initiative. It is this perception, not isolated incidents or strikes, that has been the key driver of escalation in 2025; and it sets the stage for an even more intense and potentially game-changing 2026.
Tehran has warned of immediate retaliation to any attack following US President Donald Trump’s threat of new strikes
Iran has vowed a swift and harsh response to any act of aggression following renewed military threats from the US and Israel.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump, standing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, threatened to “knock the hell” out of Iran if it tries to rebuild its nuclear or ballistic missile projects.
In response, Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared on X that Iran’s defense doctrine dictates that “some responses are determined long before threats reach the stage of execution.” He warned that any aggression would be met with an “immediate” and “harsh” response “beyond the imagination of its planners.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian echoed the warning on Tuesday, stating that “Iran’s response to any tyrannical aggression will be harsh and regrettable.” Earlier, he also framed the tensions as part of a broader conflict, stating that Iran is in a “full-scale war with the US, Israel and Europe.”
The verbal exchange comes months after a 12-day air war in June, when the US and Israel conducted a joint airstrike campaign against Iranian nuclear sites, claiming, without evidence, that Tehran was developing a nuclear weapon. Iran denied the accusations and responded with its own strikes on Israel.
Russia, meanwhile, has called for de-escalation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Tuesday that Moscow believes it is necessary to “refrain from any steps that could lead to an escalation of tension in the region” and that “dialogue with Iran” should be the priority.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also held a phone call with Pezeshkian on Tuesday during which the two leaders discussed bilateral ties, strategic cooperation, as well as the situation around Iran’s nuclear program, according to the Kremlin.
The Russian central bank is making constant liquidity injections, but this isn’t quite the harbinger of doom some Western analysts would like to think
Western pundits have developed a pastime for predicting the collapse of the Russian economy, particularly since 2022. Alas, prognosticating success has so far eluded them.
But as the old disclaimer states, past performance does not guarantee future results. Being wrong ten times in a row does not ensure they’ll be wrong the 11th. The arguments have to be evaluated on their own merits.
Generating a bit of attention on social media is a thread by analyst Oliver Alexander that paints a dire picture of the Russian economy. It starts with the assertion that “Russia’s economy hasn’t collapsed, but it is suffering immensely. It still runs, but only because the central bank keeps it alive with constant repo liquidity. What was once emergency support is now the daily operating system.”
The author goes on to assert that “repo usage shows the stress clearly. Trillions of rubles are borrowed week after week by the banks with no unwind. Banks aren’t smoothing short-term shocks anymore. They are refinancing theirs and the economy’s survival on a rolling basis.”
Let’s stop and understand the claim being made. Repo, short for repurchase agreement, is part of the plumbing of any modern financial system and is usually a tool to manage liquidity. It entails selling securities (such as government bonds) with a promise to buy them back later at a slightly higher price.
There is nothing unusual about banks using repo, which they do for various reasons: to smooth short-term liquidity mismatches, deal with temporary payment flows, or even to arbitrage small rate differentials. However, what Russian banks are doing is using repo not to smooth funding but as a core source of liquidity. The banks just don’t have much free cash lying around.
Facilitating this is a tool called monthly repo auctions, which were reintroduced after a hiatus in November 2024 and moved to a weekly basis the following April, clearly a sign that liquidity pressures were growing. These auctions are not about smoothing funding gaps but are a policy of direct and structural liquidity management (rather than ad-hoc crisis lending to banks). Use of this facility has been very high of late. For example, the Russian central bank (CBR) allotted a record 3.6 trillion rubles (about $46 billion) in repo on December 23.
What this means in practice is that there is a closed loop. The Finance Ministry issues government bonds (called OFZs), which are bought (primarily) by large Russian banks, which are essentially compelled to buy these bonds whether they want to or not. But the banks do not hold all of these OFZs as investments but rather ship many of them off to the CBR in exchange for ruble liquidity.
The rubles they get in return are what keeps the lights on at the banks and provides liquidity to the economy. Normally, repo deals mature and are unwound, thus draining liquidity out of the system. But in Russia, this repo is constantly being rolled over and volumes are rising.
Separately, and not to be confused with liquidity management, OFZ-to-repo schemes have also been used on a couple of occasions to ensure absorption of fiscal deficits (in 2022 and 2024). Because Russia has no access to foreign borrowing and selling government bonds at scale into the market is not viable given current interest rates, this is a key channel where the gap can be covered.
This may all sound ominous – and that is clearly the impression Alexander is trying to convey – as if Russia is resorting to desperate and unprecedented financial engineering. But is it really so exotic? It’s actually just a harsher, more concentrated version of the same playbook that has been widely used across the G7 – but without the reckless speculation that has made these regimes so hard to exit elsewhere. Russia’s policy mix of high rates but regular liquidity provision through repo is unusual, but in its essentials it is not fundamentally different from the frameworks we have seen in developed economies.
There is a technical difference between repo-based liquidity provision and the G7-style central-bank bond purchases (known by the fancy name of quantitative easing, or QE). Repo is formally a loan against collateral and is typically a liquidity-management tool. QE involves the central bank buying government bonds outright, removing them from the market, and injecting reserves directly into the banking system.
QE is framed as stimulus, while Russia’s repo is framed as plumbing support under tight policy. QE in the G7 was designed to lower long-term yields and encourage risk-taking, whereas Russia is explicitly not trying to lower rates through its repo operations. But in Russia’s case, the repo scheme is now semi-permanent and structural, and is often being rolled over rather than unwound, so the line is a bit blurred. Russia is not doing QE, but at scale the economic effect is functionally similar.
In both cases, the state comes to rely on the domestic banking system, banks become structurally dependent on central-bank liquidity, and public debt is absorbed within a more or less closed financial circuit under the long shadow of the central bank. The plumbing shifts from decentralized private intermediation toward central-bank balance sheets. Both regimes are inflationary.
This arrangement can’t be called healthy and has its own risks, but it is not necessarily unstable – as long as inflation remains under control. Furthermore, for all of the imbalances being created, Russia may actually have an easier time later unwinding it because it hasn’t resorted to inflating asset prices as a transmission mechanism (a classic QE pathology). It is thus avoiding the large speculative asset bubbles that later have to be protected or managed during normalization.
This is one reason why G7-style QE has proven so hard to exit. The US has failed at quantitative tightening and is now quietly restarting QE (though not calling it that). By maintaining high interest rates and discouraging speculative risk-taking, Russia trades the asset-price excesses typical of QE regimes for a system that is more insulated from external shocks.
Skeptics will argue that Russia’s isolation concentrates the risk in particularly dangerous ways. Alexander says as much: “Russia is funding its budget almost entirely from inside its own financial system, with no external shock absorber left.” This is true to an extent: in the unlikely event the CBR mismanages policy or if some unforeseen shock occurs, things could go south real quick. But the exact opposite is also true: Russia’s enclosed system takes a whole host of risks off the table.
And this leads us to an aspect of the situation that often goes overlooked. Because Russia has almost no foreign debt, the Russian state and banking system owe almost everything in rubles, to themselves. All liabilities can be serviced in a currency controlled by the Russian state. There is no forced interaction with global capital markets and no immediate rollover risk tied to exchange rates (think debt crises in Türkiye or Argentina). The main “textbook” crisis channels are neutralized: Russia owes almost everything in rubles, and can compel banks to absorb debt rather than rely on finicky foreign investors not to fire-sale the stuff; it can roll over repo indefinitely; and it controls capital flows. Russia’s commodity exports, even sold at discounts, also serve as a backstop. Those hoping for a big 1998-style meltdown are bound to be sorely disappointed.
In general, financial systems heavy on central-bank involvement can be stable for far longer than critics expect. Just look at Japan, the inventor of QE, which has been keeping the jig going for decades. The Bank of Japan has long been the dominant buyer of government bonds, while in the 1990s, following the asset bubble collapse, many banks were structurally reliant on the BoJ to maintain liquidity. A similar circular loop emerged, complete with chronic deficits and enormous debt. This regime has done little to revive growth, but it has proven remarkably stable and durable.
Europe followed a similar path after the sovereign debt crisis. For years, the European Central Bank was the largest buyer of euro-area government bonds, at times holding roughly a third of outstanding sovereign debt. Interbank markets fragmented, particularly in the southern periphery, and banks relied heavily on ECB liquidity. The system functioned – awkwardly and imperfectly – but it did not collapse.
Russia’s situation is obviously not an exact parallel. Capital controls stabilize liquidity but mute price signals, while sanctions shut off access to foreign capital. Wartime spending compresses time horizons. As a result, the central bank’s role is more explicit and more direct. Yet the underlying logic is not alien. The financial system pivots around the central bank and liquidity is continuously backstopped.
There’s another important point to be made. Russia is basically running a war economy. Western analysts love to needle the Russian government about calling its actions a “special military operation” and not a “war” but then proceed to analyze the Russian economy by peacetime standards. To be fair, Russia has tried to have it both ways and has actually been quite successful in that regard. It is running a war economy that maintains much market flexibility.
But hybrid or not, it’s still fundamentally on a war footing. And war is inflationary. War explodes government spending and changes time priorities – resources are needed now. Yes, war-relevant sectors of the economy become politically protected and overfunded, while civilian sectors get the short end of the stick (temporarily). There is nothing shocking about this, nor are the excess demand and labor shortages that Russia is facing somehow abnormal.
Debt issuance becomes less about price and more about absorption capacity. Banks stop looking to maximize profits and become allocation channels instead. When Alexander pointed out that the Finance Ministry “quietly changed OFZ targets” to emphasize not “how many bonds are placed,” but “how much cash is raised,” he was merely stating the obvious for any country at war.
If anything, Russia has engaged in less financial repression than might have been expected and certainly far less than has been seen in the past. In 1942, the US Treasury needed to finance deficits exceeding 25% of GDP. The Federal Reserve agreed to cap Treasury yields and buy unlimited amounts of government debt. This was pure money printing. Like Russia, the US imposed capital controls and forced banks to hold government debt. But it also set ceilings on deposit rates, preventing banks from competing for funds and effectively forcing savers into government bonds – all to keep borrowing costs down.
Those bondholders then watched as the real value of their holdings went up in smoke due to inflation (remember: war means inflation) and they got little more than a pat on the back and a “thank you for taking one on the chin for your country.”
None of this means that the Russian economy isn’t in a state of stress. The OFZ-repo loop isn’t the precipice it is being portrayed as, but it isn’t free and, ultimately, isn’t sustainable. The main outlet is inflation, which is what absorbs the shocks and what remains the biggest risk. I live in Russia and I can confirm that inflation is real. But it’s not out of control and even subsided later in 2025. Moreover, rising wages are offsetting some of the pain.
The high interest rates necessary to keep inflation subdued are clearly hurting businesses. This is no secret and it is widely admitted that rates need to come down for investment to recover. Germany, meanwhile, which isn’t fighting a war, is facing 24,000 company bankruptcies in 2025.
The Russian economy has been remarkably resilient, but it is clearly operating under strain and with heavy government intervention. However, the conditions that typically trigger a sudden, acute crisis are nowhere to be found, and people who think otherwise misunderstand what actually causes financial crises.
Those still hoping to impose a strategic defeat on Russia look with expectant eyes upon the tantalizing signs of strain in the Russian economy. But this mirage always ends up being just a bit too far over the horizon.
Masonic leaders say the Metropolitan Police’s new requirement is discriminatory
Freemasons have asked the UK High Court for an emergency injunction to block the Metropolitan Police’s new requirement that officers and staff must declare if they are members of Freemasonry or similar groups, according to media reports.
The policy is part of ongoing investigations into alleged masonic influence within the department.
The move seeks to halt enforcement of the rule while a full judicial review is prepared, the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE) reportedly said on Monday.
UGLE, which represents Freemasonry in England, Wales, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, has opposed the policy, arguing that classifying Freemasonry as a “declarable” association amounts to religious discrimination.
Under the policy introduced in December, officers and staff must disclose current or past membership in any organization that is “hierarchical, has confidential membership and requires members to support and protect each other.”
In its court filing, UGLE said Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley “is making up the law on the hoof” and accused the force of “whipping up conspiracy theories” about Freemasons’ influence.
UGLE grand secretary Adrian Marsh said the police decision to add Freemasonry to the force’s declarable association list was made without adequate consultation and risks impugning members’ integrity.
“There is a contradiction between the Met acceptance of our request for fuller consultation… but then refusing to suspend the decision pending the outcome of that consultation,” The Guardian quoted Marsh as saying.
He previously stated that there are 440 Freemasons among the Met’s 32,135 officers, asserting that it is “inconceivable” for this small number to exert any influence on the force.
The Metropolitan Police has said it will “robustly defend” the policy, which it views as part of efforts to restore public trust and confidence. A spokesperson said the changes were made to ensure there is “no opportunity for secret loyalties” to affect policing.
The requirement follows a recommendation from the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel, which examined police handling of the unsolved 1987 murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan. The panel’s 2021 report said officers’ links to Freemasonry had been “a source of recurring suspicion and mistrust” during investigations and followed decades of inquiries that raised allegations of corruption.
As the US-led military bloc divides, a pro-war cabal has been shouting loudest but changing little
A year of anniversaries – and alarms
While 2025 marked 80 years since the end of the Second World War, in which up to 40 million people died, it seems that NATO members and executives are dangerously keen for a repeat. Senior bloc officials, generals, and EU political leaders repeatedly warned their publics to prepare for war with Russia – including the possibility of sacrificing their children, rationing civilian life, and accepting permanent militarization.
This surge in rhetoric came as the West polarized. US President Donald Trump’s diplomatic push for a negotiated settlement to the Ukraine conflict exposed the division and democratic deficit in the EU as much as it revealed polarization in NATO led by a coalition pushing maximalist, war-ready messages.
Western Europe has produced no coherent strategy, only a noisy, megaphone diplomacy that spiked in inverse relationship to the group’s ability to actually influence the course of events.
The ‘coalition of the willing’
At the center of this shift was the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’ – an informal grouping of NATO members, mostly from Western and Northern Europe, that positioned itself as the moral and military vanguard of confrontation with Russia.
It operates through political signaling and rhetoric. Its members talk more than they deploy, warn more than they plan, and issue ever-graver statements about existential threats while insisting they are independent of Washington for any actual military escalation.
As NATO, the EU, and individual member states found themselves increasingly misaligned in 2025, this group filled the vacuum with rhetoric – megaphone diplomacy and posturing substituting for strategy.
In December, Britain’s most senior military officer, Richard Knighton, publicly warned that citizens must be prepared to sacrifice their sons and daughters in a future war with Russia. The statement was not tied to any imminent threat or declared operational plan. Seriously.
Weeks earlier, France’s army chief, Fabien Mandon, delivered a similar message to local officials, declaring French people should be prepared to lose their sons in a war with Russia.
Warmonger-in-chief, the Netherlands’ Mark Rutte, has had an extraordinary year, demonstrating a sycophantism above and beyond duty. Rutte’s opportunism to call for sacrificing social benefits in order to hit that NATO 5% target is both unsurprising and sad. In December he announced that the people of Europe should be ready for a war akin to that fought by their grandparents (Rutte’s father lived in Indonesia, a Dutch colony, didn’t fight, and was interned by Japan).
This from the man whose obsequious posturing inured him to “Daddy” Trump, following the US president’s F-bomb-laden remarks over Middle East ceasefire failures.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned of a threat to European liberty greater than at any time since the 1940s, while Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen declared that Europe faced its most dangerous moment since the war’s end.
What united these statements was not intelligence disclosures or new strategic realities, but timing.
Despite the intensity of its language, Western Europe’s war posture in 2025 was marked by limited material capacity and increasingly shrill statements. EU states struggled to meet existing weapons production goals, failed to force through a move to steal Russia’s assets frozen in the bloc, and remained dependent on US to put its money where their mouths were.
The shrill, ahistorical, war-hungry rhetoric was ratcheted up across the ‘coalition of the willing’ in the aftermath of a devastating corruption scandal involving Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle and the US move to suddenly launch a peace initiative that sidelined Western Europe in an extraordinary weekend of diplomacy.
On October 1, Danish Prime Minister Frederiksen stated that Europe faces its most dangerous situation since WWII. You’d think she’d be more worried about the US taking Greenland and training her security forces on what an actual drone threat is and why warning of one when there is none is counterproductive.
The largely impotent European Commission, the very group that failed to steal Russia’s assets despite months of wrangling, got in on the act by issuing guidance for citizens to stockpile 72 hours’ worth of supplies in the event of war with Russia. Imagine we are back to “climb under the table” rhetoric.
Corruption scandals inside Ukraine further undermined confidence in the sustainability of prolonged escalation. Yet rather than prompting reassessment, the graft scandals and failures coincided with louder calls for sacrifice and confrontation.
War talk as political insurance
By mid-2025, escalation rhetoric had begun to serve a secondary function. As the Trump administration pushed diplomacy and signaled reluctance to bankroll an open-ended proxy war, parts of the European establishment appeared to hedge against peace itself.
Military Keynesianism – sustaining economic activity through defence spending – became an unspoken assumption. So did the political utility of external threat narratives, which helped deflect attention from economic stagnation, institutional weakness and leadership failures within the EU.
In this context, warnings of war did not reflect momentum toward conflict so much as anxiety about losing relevance if peace arrived on American terms.
The louder NATO and European leaders warned of war in 2025, the clearer it became that rhetoric was compensating for a lack of control. As Washington explored diplomatic exits and Moscow waited for concrete proposals, Western Europe’s most vocal hawks found themselves shouting from the sidelines.
In general, we can assume that NATO and the EU have a vested interest in war – they have bet on military Keynesianism to keep their ailing economies turning over, and fill the hole left by Trump’s refusal to pursue a war Biden sold to Brussels.
The closer to peace the Trump-led initiative can bring Ukraine and Russia, the more we should expect toxicity from NATO, the EU, and the ‘coalition of the willing’.
The investigation comes after a YouTuber claimed to have uncovered a massive Somali-run scam to steal taxpayer money
US federal agents kicked off a large-scale investigation in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Monday after a massive fraud scheme involving Somali-run childcare centers appeared to have been uncovered in a viral video, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced.
The probe follows an expose posted by YouTuber Nick Shirley last week, in which he visited facilities like the Quality Learing Center – notable for its misspelled sign – showing tinted windows and empty parking lots, but no children. He alleged that these centers have received millions in taxpayer dollars for non-existent services, saying his crew had uncovered over $110 million in fraud in just one day. The video caught the attention of US Vice President J.D. Vance and billionaire Elon Musk.
In response, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced a “massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud,” posting videos of agents questioning business operators. FBI Director Kash Patel said resources had been “surged” to Minnesota, warning that these cases were just “the tip of a very large iceberg” and that perpetrators could face “denaturalization and deportation.”
DHS is on the ground in Minneapolis, going DOOR TO DOOR at suspected fraud sites.
The American people deserve answers on how their taxpayer money is being used and ARRESTS when abuse is found. Under the leadership of @Sec_Noem, DHS is working to deliver results. pic.twitter.com/7XtRflv36b
A federal prosecutor estimated half or more of the $18 billion in federal funds sent to Minnesota since 2018 may have been stolen. The overwhelming majority of defendants in recent years have been of Somali descent, including in the ‘Feeding Our Future’ case, where $250 million were reportedly stolen through a COVID-19 food aid scam.
Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz has defended his administration, while lauding the state’s diverse makeup and large Somali community. Meanwhile, state officials have disputed Shirley’s findings, claiming the centers featured in his video had been inspected within the last six months with “no findings of fraud.”
However, conflicting reports have since emerged regarding the now infamous Quality Learing Center. State officials have told the media that the center was shut down last week, but the New York Post reported from the scene on Monday that it had suddenly been overrun by children. A local resident told the outlet that they had never seen kids go in there before, while an employee of the daycare center told the Post’s reporter to “get the f**k out of here.”
The US president has demanded that the militant group lay down arms
US President Donald Trump has warned Hamas of severe consequences if the Palestinian militant group doesn’t disarm within “a short period of time.” Trump made the remarks at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.
Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in early October under Trump’s 20-point peace plan, which envisions Hamas disarming and Israel pulling out of Gaza.
”They’re going to be given a very short period of time to disarm and we’ll see how that works out,” Trump said. “If they don’t disarm, as they agreed to… then there’ll be hell to pay for them,” he added.
Asked what the consequences would be for Hamas, Trump said “it would be horrible for them,” and suggested that nations in the Middle East and beyond that supported the ceasefire would “wipe out” the militant group.
Asked about whether Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza, Trump said it was “a separate subject” and claimed Israel “has lived up to the plan 100%.”
Hamas has maintained that it has a right to armed resistance, while saying it was ready to discuss “freezing or storing or laying down” arms during the truce.
On Monday, Hamas’ armed wing said the group remained committed to the ceasefire despite “repeated Israeli violations.” It reiterated, however, that it would not surrender its weapons “as long as the occupation remains.”
Hamas’ disarmament is a prerequisite for Phase Two of the peace plan, which would see a new governance entity installed in Gaza. Phase One, which includes the ceasefire, return of hostages, and humanitarian aid, is largely in effect.
Israel launched its military campaign in the Palestinian enclave in response to a surprise attack by Hamas in October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage. The ensuing Israeli operations have killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, according to the health authorities in Gaza.
