🇩🇪🤝🇫🇷⚙️🇪🇺 — 📰 The Washington Post | Germany and France push for ‘two-speed’ E.U. to overcome policy inertia | Germany and France want to speed up action on strengthening the euro currency, cooperating on military spending and building supply chains for critical raw materials | January 28, 2026:

BERLIN — Frustrated by the inertia of European Union nations in working to address the continent’s challenges, Germany and France are pushing for a “two-speed” system that will allow Europe’s largest economies to make changes, unencumbered by the need for broader consensus.

In a letter to the finance ministers of the E.U.’s five other biggest economies, German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil wrote that “continuing as before is not an option” if Europe is to become more resilient in the face of new geopolitical challenges.

In the letter, obtained by The Washington Post, Klingbeil wrote that he and French Finance Minister Roland Lescure were convening the six-member group for a Wednesday afternoon videoconference to “set an ambitious and concrete agenda to strengthen the sovereignty, resilience and competitiveness of Europe.”

In addition to France and Germany, the ministers of Italy, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands were invited to participate in the meeting, which Klingbeil wrote would serve as a “kickoff meeting” ahead of an in-person gathering on the sidelines of next month’s full meeting of the Eurogroup, where countries that use the euro currency set policy."

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👤🗯🇪🇺 — 📰 ZeroHedge | Munich, 2007: The Day The West Was Told 'No' | February 16, 2026:

"They like to pretend it came out of nowhere.

They like the bedtime story: Europe was peacefully humming along in its post-history spa — open borders, cheap energy, NATO as a charity, Russia as a gas station with a flag… and then, one day, the barbarian kicked the door in for no reason at all.

That story is not just dishonest. It’s operational. It’s the propaganda you tell yourself so you can keep the addiction going without ever admitting how self-destructive it is.

Because the truth is uglier and far more incriminating: In Munich, on February 10, 2007, Vladimir Putin stood on the most flattering stage the Atlantic system owns — the Security Conference where Western officials applaud themselves for maintaining “order” and he laid out, to their faces, the skeleton of the coming disaster. He didn’t whisper it in a back channel. He used the microphone to deliver some much needed medicine, however hard it would be for the Empire to swallow.

He even signaled he wasn’t going to play the usual polite theatre — the kind where everyone agrees in public and stabs each other in classified annexes. He said the format allowed him to avoid “pleasant, yet empty diplomatic platitudes.”

And then he did the unforgivable thing, (gasp!) he described the empire as an empire. He named the unipolar intoxication — that post–Cold War hallucination that history had ended, that power had found its final owner, that NATO could expand forever without consequences, that international law was optional for the enforcer class and compulsory for everyone else.

Putin’s core argument was brutally simple: a unipolar model is not only unacceptable, it’s impossible. Not “unfair.” Not rude. Impossible.

(Because in a world with) “one center of authority, one center of force, one center of decision-making” is a world where security becomes privatized — where the strong reserve the right to interpret rules (with exemptions for themselves), and the weak are told to accept it as morality. (And yes, he put it in exactly those terms — one center, one force, one decision — the architecture of domination.)"

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📡📊📈🇧🇷 — 📰 Poder360: Starlink grows 85% and becomes the 13th largest internet provider in Brazil
Elon Musk's company is advancing in the country at a much faster pace than traditional providers; the North region leads satellite connections
February 16, 2026

Starlink, owned by entrepreneur Elon Musk, increased its number of customers in Brazil by 85% in 2025. The company became the 13th largest internet provider in Brazil. This increase was much higher than the sector's overall growth average of 3% for the year. The survey is from Poder360 with data from Anatel (National Telecommunications Agency).

The company is on an accelerated pace of growth. In December 2023, there were 133,000 access points in the country. In the same month of the following year, that number rose to 326,800. In 2025, it closed with 606,200 active accesses.

(...)

The states in the Northern region, which have infrastructure difficulties in receiving such services, are the ones with the most access to Musk's company's internet.

In the infographic below, the density of active points per 100,000 inhabitants, considering the closed data from December 2025

Source 🖇 | 🗄 Archive

#BREAKING | 🇺🇸 🇮🇷 — "Progress was made in the talks with Iran, but there are still a lot of details to discuss."

"The Iranians said they would come back in the next two weeks with detailed proposals to address some of the open gaps in our positions," — U.S. officials tells Barak Ravid

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🇺🇸🪖🗺 — The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford has departed the Caribbean Sea, moving to the Atlantic Ocean after news last week that it would be sent to the Middle East amid heightened tensions with Iran, defense officials say.

📝 A slew of destroyers are accompanying it: USS Mahan, USS Thomas Hudner, USS Winston S. Churchill, USS Bainbridge, USS Stockdale.

🔗 Dan Lamothe (@DanLamothe)

🇲🇽 🏭 🇺🇸 Mexico now imports 75% of its natural gas from the US about 6.4 Bcf/d, generating $9B per year in direct dollar demand.

Now the twist.

Mexico is building LNG export terminals using… US pipeline gas.

1 molecule.
2 dollar transactions.

US → Mexico (pipeline, dollars)
Mexico → Asia/Europe (LNG, dollars)

That is a structural dollar multiplier.

📊 US energy infrastructure enforces dollar dominance

I just published a deep dive connecting:

• Geopolitical energy control
• The Mexico double-dollar effect
• Why key midstream assets are mispriced

It’s about who controls the pipes
and the currency flows.

👇 Full thesis here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/themerchantsnews/p/china-cant-escape-the-usd

📎 Jack Prandelli

🇺🇸 ⛽️ 🇧🇸 California is now importing gasoline on a 4,000+ mile detour through the Bahamas before it reaches Los Angeles.

Because of Sacramento’s self-inflicted refinery closures, refusal to expand in-state capacity, hostility to interstate pipelines, and rigid regulatory regime, fuel that could move efficiently within California is instead being routed to a foreign port, transferred to a foreign-flagged vessel, and then shipped all the way around Mexico to California.

More than 40% of imported gasoline in November came via the Bahamas.

We are:
🚢 Adding thousands of unnecessary shipping miles (and emissions)
💸 Layering transportation costs onto already record-high pump prices
🏭 Driving domestic refining capacity out of the state
📉 Weakening energy reliability in the world’s 5th largest economy

📝 Gregory Smith: Accurate but worth a mention that refineries don't just produce gasoline but also diesel (industrial and transport), kerosene (jet fuel), asphalt (roads), and other compounds lighter (e.g. propane) and heavier (e.g. bunker fuel for ships). Losing local refineries means that ALL of these refined products have to be shipped into CA. Which can certainly be done but at higher prices. CA is choosing to not just pay more for gasoline but also losing the foundations of an industrial economy. Which might be the goal.

📝 TheIntelFrog: Our entire defense apparatus is petroleum based, and that's not changing anytime soon. In case of war in the Pacific, we will need much more fuel on the west coast than we presently have the capacity for.

📎 Mike Netter

🇺🇸 🏭 🇧🇸 Fuel Starved California is Getting Gas from the Bahamas | Refineries, Pipelines & the Jones Act

California is sourcing 40 percent of its gasoline from the Bahamas due to a combination of disappearing oil refineries, lack of storage facilities and interstate pipelines, and a loophole in a 106-year-old maritime law, known as the Jones Act.

https://gcaptain.com/gasoline-starved-california-is-turning-to-fuel-from-the-bahamas/

📎 What's Going on With Shipping?

#BREAKING | 🇺🇸 🇯🇵 — U.S. President Donald Trump announces launch of 'massive' trade deal with Japan, involving $550 billion in Japanese investments in the U.S.

Our MASSIVE Trade Deal with Japan has just launched!

Japan is now officially, and financially, moving forward with the FIRST set of Investments under its $550 BILLION Dollar Commitment to invest in the United States of America — part of our Historic Trade Deal to REVITALIZE the American Industrial Base, create HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of GREAT American Jobs, and strengthen our National and Economic Security like never before.

Today, I am pleased to announce three TREMENDOUS Projects in the Strategic Areas of Oil & Gas in the Great State of Texas, Power Generation in the Great State of Ohio, and Critical Minerals in the Great State of Georgia.

The scale of these projects are so large, and could not be done without one very special word, TARIFFS. The Gas Power Plant in Ohio (A State I won THREE TIMES!) will be the largest in History, the LNG Facility in the Gulf of America will drive Exports, and further our Country's Energy DOMINANCE, and our Critical Minerals Facility will end our FOOLISH dependance on Foreign Sources.

America is building again. America is producing again. And America is WINNING again.

This is a very exciting and HISTORIC time for the United States of America and Japan. Congratulations to all!

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📢 🇺🇸 🤖 James Fishback on X:

As Governor, I would ban Palantir from doing business with state and local government. My full statement.

📎 James Fishback

🇺🇸⚓️ USNI Fleet and Marine Tracker, Feb. 17 2026

Contrary to some reports, the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier has not reached the Straits of Gibraltar.

🔗 USNI

🇷🇺🤝🇪🇹Russian KamAZ-53949 Typhoon-K armored vehicles have been spotted in Ethiopia.

Most likely, the vehicles were supplied from Russia for service with the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, who certainly have a need for them.

#info
#MRAP
#Africa

📺📉❗️ — Youtube, Earth's biggest video hosting platform, is down worldwide

🇨🇳🚗❌🇵🇱 — Poland has banned Chinese-manufactured vehicles from entering military facilities, citing concerns that they are linked to espionage activities on behalf of Beijing