TOP NEWS

North Korea-South Korea Relations
Raiding South Korean Intelligence Services

South Korean police have carried out raids on the country's intelligence services, AFP writes. The raids are linked to the scandal that is developing after a drone was shot down in North Korea in January.

Seoul has denied any involvement, but three military personnel and an employee of the intelligence service are now being investigated. Three civilians have previously been arrested and charged.

The incident risks damaging President Lee Jae-Myung's attempts to improve relations with North Korea, according to the news agency.

Putin's Russia
Russia tightens control over messaging apps

The Telegram and Whatsapp apps will be increasingly restricted in Russia. The state communications agency Roskomnadzor announced this on Tuesday, Bloomberg reports.

The apps are allegedly used for planning crimes and terrorist acts, state-run Russian media writes according to AFP. Roskomnadzor believes that the companies are doing too little about it and wants to force them to store user data inside Russia.

Video calls via Whatsapp and Telegram have been blocked in Russia since August last year. This is what the independent news site Meduza writes, and advises readers to use several different messaging apps and to use encryption services to bypass the blocks.

Climate threat  Global challenges
Europe's coldest January since 2010 – warm globally

The past month was Europe's coldest January since 2010, according to the EU's climate service Copernicus. The average temperature was 2.34 degrees. It was also cold in the United States.

But overall, this year's January was the fifth warmest ever recorded on Earth, a total of 1.47 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The average was driven by the southern hemisphere, according to Copernicus.

– January 2026 provided a clear reminder that the climate system can sometimes simultaneously produce very cold weather in one region and extreme heat in another, says Samantha Burgess, strategic climate manager at the European Meteorological Institute ECMWF.