Türkiye Sends Drillship to Somalia for its First Overseas Energy Drill

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Keir Starmer:

We need to deal with AI bots. This is something relatively new, and we saw with Grok—did you see the thing with Grok just the other week?

An AI bot that allowed you to instruct it to undress people—and it did. It was disgusting, absolutely disgusting.

We went into battle on that because I thought this is not good enough. We went into battle, we made the necessary steps, we threatened action, and we won that battle in relation to Grok.

But we've got to do it with all AI bots, and we will do it. We can do that by amending some of the legislation that we've already got in place.

Keir Starmer:

We need to protect our children, and this government is making protecting our children a number one priority.

Whatever is necessary in relation to social media, we will take those steps.

Keir Starmer on Grok:

Having the ability to instruct an AI bot to undress, particularly women, online is just so grotesque and disgusting that you'd think it wouldn't be allowed.

You'd think that the platform provider, once they saw it, would say, “Take that down.” But that wasn't the case.

We went into battle on Grok, and the platform provider—the first response was not “get rid of this disgusting feature,” it was “oh, we'll make it a premium service.” So you've got to pay for it.

I tell you, and I'm not kidding you, that is the battle we're in, because the response was not “get rid of it,” the response was, “well, if we restrict access to it to people who can pay for it, is that good enough?” We said, “no, it's not good enough.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will visit Addis Ababa on Tuesday for talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, with agreements set to be signed, as Türkiye deepens engagement in the Horn of Africa amid regional tensions linked to Sudan.

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Palantir CEO Alex Karp:

I love the idea of getting a drone and having light fentanyl-laced urine spraying on analysts that tried to screw us.

NEW: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has launched naval drills called “Smart Control of the Strait of Hormuz.”

The exercises aim to test IRGC Navy readiness, review security and military response plans for potential threats in the strait.

The European Commission is softening its public criticism of Viktor Orbán ahead of Hungary’s April 12 election to avoid appearing to interfere — especially as polls show the opposition Tisza Party leading.

Brussels may release up to €2.4bn in EU funds before the vote, even though €17bn remains frozen over rule-of-law concerns.

Orbán continues to accuse the EU of meddling, while some EU officials argue that both action and inaction will be politicized during the campaign.

Source: FT

African Union Declares Slavery & Colonialism "Crime Against Humanity"

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A French MP, Éric Bothorel, was reportedly sanctioned by the US after helping refer X (formerly Twitter) to French prosecutors over alleged algorithm changes and foreign interference.

He was denied White House accreditation and advised not to travel to Washington.

Bothorel said he was the only MP whose “Secret Service refused to grant accreditation,” calling it “the beginning of trouble.”

Araghchi Meets IAEA Chief Ahead of US Talks

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met the head of the UN nuclear watchdog in Geneva ahead of a high-stakes second round of nuclear negotiations with the United States.

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China will allow UK and Canadian passport holders to visit mainland China visa-free for up to 30 days from 17 February until 31 December.

The policy covers tourism, business and family visits.

Source: BBC

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

There's a very big difference between whiteness and national—like your actual culture, right?

Whiteness is an imaginary thing. Being German is real. Being Italian is real...

Former CIA Officer John Kiriakou:

The FBI has identified 187 Mossad agents in the United States not declared to the US government spread all around the country to steal our defense secrets.

And I raised my hand. I said, “Why? We give them 99% of our defense secrets.” And he said, “Exactly. They're here to steal the last 1%.”

And that's what they do. The Israelis are not friends of the United States.

Former CIA Officer John Kiriakou:

The Israeli lobby spends millions, tens of millions of dollars every single year on political races across the country at every level. It's not just Congress, it's the state races and even the local races.

If you are not 100% pro-Israel, they will run a candidate against you and they'll spend millions of dollars to beat you and they're successful.

Rubio to Hungary’s Orbán:

I can say to you with confidence that Trump is deeply committed to your success.

Rubio to Hungary’s Orbán:

We want this country to do well. It’s in our national interest, especially as long as you’re the Prime Minister and the leader of this country.

Rubio on Ukraine:

Usually, in my time observing geopolitics, when a President tries to engage himself in peacemaking and in ending wars, that's usually applauded.

So this is one of the few times for a lot of different reasons I don't know what they may be, maybe I can speculate what they are, where people actually criticize a President trying to end a war.

Usually, when you're trying to end wars, the international community applauds you. This is one of the few wars I've ever seen where some people in the international community condemn you for trying to help end a war.

Rubio:

China's a big country. It's got a billion-something people, the second largest economy in the world. They have nuclear weapons.

It would be crazy, it is insane for the United States and China not to have relations and interact with one another.

Rubio:

It's not good for anybody to rely on one country or one economy for 90% of anything, especially things like critical supply chains. This is a reality.

We want to diversify supply chains around the world. We've spoken clearly about it.

That's not an anti-China thing. That's just the reality that over-dependence on one source is not good, especially when there's been a willingness in the past to use it as leverage against each other.

The British Museum has decided to remove references to “Palestine” from its old Middle East exhibitions.

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