A carnival float with a figure depicting Russian president Vladimir Putin presented at a press preview for the Mainz carnival in Mainz, Germany 14 February 2023. (Keystone/AP Photo/Michael Probst)

🔎Playing with fire: Are Russia's hybrid attacks the new European war? The EBU's investigative unit found over 60 disruptive incidents, including physical damage and election intervention in several countries involving “disposable agents” recruited by Moscow on social media.

📦Already strapped for cash, WFP faces post-USAid future. The UN food aid agency is expecting to receive less than half of its $16.9 billion appeal to assist 123 million people in 2025.

🪓Amazon forest felled to build road for climate summit. Ahead of Cop30 in Brazil’s city of Belém, concerns mount that plans to build roads and hotels will drive deforestation.

🪖African Union peacekeepers in Somalia accused of widespread abuse. The AUSSOM, launched at the beginning of the year to help the government fight a jihadist insurgency, faces allegations of extrajudicial killings, sexual violence and excessive use of force.

🔁Médecins Sans Frontières condemns use of Gaza aid as Israeli ‘bargaining chip’. Amid talks in Qatar this week between Israel and Hamas, the medical aid organisation deplored the stopping of food and electricity to the enclave’s residents.