Feb. 25, 2026 - Daily News Digest
On this day in 1986, Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, under pressure from the United States, fled his country for Hawaii after a fraudulent electoral victory over Corazon Aquino, who replaced him as president.
QotD: "They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words, 'We will never have a nuclear weapon,'” President Trump said in his State of the Union address last night.
US/IRAN/MIL/STATE OF THE UNION – Trump briefly lays out case for possible attack on Iran in State of the Union.
U.S. President Donald Trump briefly laid out his case for a possible attack on Iran in his State of the Union speech to Congress on Tuesday, saying he would not allow the world's biggest sponsor of terrorism to have a nuclear weapon.
Even while assembling a massive military force in the Middle East, Trump has done little to explain to the American public why he might be leading the U.S. into its most aggressive action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
In his speech, Trump pointed to Tehran's support for militant groups, its killing of protesters and the country's missile and nuclear programs as threats to the region and the United States.
"The (Iranian) regime and its murderous proxies have spread nothing but terrorism and death and hate," the Republican president said about 90 minutes into his annual address to a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives.
He accused Iran of restarting its nuclear program, working to build missiles that "soon" would be capable of reaching the United States and of being responsible for roadside bombings that have killed U.S. service members and civilians.
Iranian state media have claimed that Tehran is developing a missile capable of reaching North America.
The run-up to Trump's address was overshadowed by the buildup of U.S. military forces in the Middle East and preparations for a possible conflict with Iran that could last for weeks if Tehran does not reach a deal to solve a longstanding dispute over its nuclear program.
Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration with negotiators' failure to reach an agreement. "They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words, 'We will never have a nuclear weapon,'" Trump said in his speech.
IRAN/MIL – Surviving strike, Shamkhani resumes central role in Iran’s war room.
Ali Shamkhani, who taunted Israel after being pulled alive from the rubble of his Tehran home following a strike in June 2025, has survived at the centre of Iranian policy-making during its most testing military confrontations and diplomatic endeavours.
The 70-year-old former Revolutionary Guard commander is a trusted adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a high-stakes standoff with the U.S. that could determine whether the Islamic Republic, born from revolution in 1979, survives to half a century.
“Bastards, I am alive,” Shamkhani told Iranian filmmaker Javad Mogouei in an interview published in October, referring to his narrow escape from the Israeli strike that destroyed his home and evoking the 1973 Hollywood prison escape film Papillon.
This year, Khamenei confirmed Shamkhani as secretary of Iran’s newly established Defence Council, created after last year's 12-day war in which Israel and the U.S. launched military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and military sites.
His appointment returns him to the core of Iran’s decision-making apparatus. The Council is tasked with coordinating Iran's wartime actions at a time when the U.S. is threatening new air strikes from nearby warships if negotiations do not produce a new deal curtailing Tehran's nuclear programme.
SYRIA/JIHADISTS/SEC – Syria confirms mass escape of suspected Islamic State jihadists’ relatives from detention camp.
Syria's interior ministry confirmed on Wednesday the mass escape of relatives of suspected Islamic State (IS) group jihadists from al-Hol camp last month following the withdrawal of Kurdish forces who had overseen the facility.
"When our forces arrived, they found cases of collective escapes due to the camp having been opened up in a haphazard manner," interior ministry spokesman Noureddine al-Baba told a press conference.
Al-Hol, the largest camp for relatives of suspected IS jihadists in northeastern Syria, had been under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
But last month, Syrian troops drove Kurdish forces from swathes of the north, sparking questions over the fate of the IS prisoners and their families.
Under pressure, the SDF withdrew from the camp on January 20, with Syrian security forces taking control a few hours later.
"The SDF withdrew suddenly, without coordination and without informing" the Syrian authorities or the international anti-jihadist coalition beforehand, al-Baba said.
There was a "chaotic situation" after the Kurdish forces pulled out, he added, and "more than 138 breaches" have been discovered in the camp's 17-kilometre perimeter wall that allowed mass escapes.
FOURTH ESTATE/ISRAEL – Record 129 journalists and media workers killed in 2025, mostly by Israel, says CPJ.
A record 129 journalists and media workers were killed in the course of their work last year, two-thirds of them killed by Israel, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Wednesday.
It was the second straight year that press killings set a record and the second straight year that Israel was responsible for two-thirds of them, the CPJ, a New York-based independent organization which documents attacks on the press, said in its annual report.
Israeli fire killed 86 journalists in 2025, mostly Palestinians in Gaza but also including 31 workers in an attack on a Houthi media centre in Yemen, the second deadliest attack the CPJ has ever recorded, it said.
Israel was also responsible for 81 percent of the 47 killings that the CPJ classified as intentionally targeted, or "murder". It said the actual figure was probably higher due to access restrictions that made verification difficult in Gaza.
Israel's military did not respond to a request for comment. It has said in the past that its troops in Gaza target only combatants, but that operating in combat zones carries inherent risks. Israel acknowledged targeting the media centre in Yemen in September, describing it at the time as a propaganda arm of the Houthis.
NIGERIA/US/MIL – Nigeria vows to protects all religions after US report.
https://www.dw.com/en/us-designates-nigeria-as-deadliest-place-for-christians-nicki-minaj/a-76107415
Nigeria said on Tuesday that it is committed to protecting all Nigerians, regardless of religion or region, following a report by US lawmakers calling the West African nation the "deadliest place in the world to be a Christian."
The US report builds on allegations made last year by President Donald Trump that Christianity was facing an "existential threat" in the country.
The US has for months been criticizing Nigeria for facilitating the alleged persecution of Christians there, though the allegations have been rejected both by Abuja and by neutral observers.
Trump last year designated Nigeria as a "Country of Particular Concern" due to alleged violations of religious freedom.
The report by the House Appropriations and Foreign Affairs Committees said that Christians in Nigeria were "subject to ongoing violent attacks" from armed militias and terrorist groups.
It said this had resulted in the "death and murder of tens of thousands of Christians, including pastors and priests, the destruction of thousands of churches and schools, as well as kidnappings."
It also said blasphemy laws in Nigeria's northern states are used to silence speech and dissent, target Christians and minorities, and "justify so-called 'convictions' without due process."
US/TARIFFS – US tariff rate to hit 15% or more for some nations, Greer says.
The U.S. tariff rate for some countries will rise to 15% or higher from the newly imposed 10%, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Wednesday, without naming any specific trading partners or giving further details.
Greer told Fox Business Network's "Mornings with Maria" program that the Trump administration does not intend to raise tariffs on Chinese goods above current levels as President Donald Trump plans to travel to China in coming weeks.
"Right now, we have the 10% tariff. It'll go up to 15(%) for some and then it may go higher for others, and I think it will be in line with the types of tariffs we've been seeing," Greer said.
Speaking later on Bloomberg TV, Greer said the White House was preparing a proclamation to raise the temporary tariffs to 15% "where appropriate." He added that it would "accommodate" countries that have trade deals but did not provide details.
He said that the administration wanted to make sure that it pursues proper legal processes for the increase, adding: "any time we put on a tariff, we're going to have foreign interests who want to bring it down. So people are going to sue us."
UKR/RUS/MIL – Ukrainian officials are set to meet Trump envoys in Geneva over more Russia talks.
https://apnews.com/article/russian-ukraine-war-us-talks-geneva-5caef315a45c7589e78beebfcfec79c5
A Ukrainian delegation will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoys in the run-up to another round of trilateral talks with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday.
Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, is due to hold talks with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on Thursday in Geneva, Zelenskyy told reporters.
A U.S. push for peace has already brought Russia and Ukraine to the table in Abu Dhabi and Geneva this year, but the talks have produced no breakthrough on key differences as Russia’s invasion of its neighbor enters its fifth year.
Thursday’s meeting will address details of a possible postwar recovery plan for Ukraine and discuss preparations for an upcoming trilateral meeting with Moscow officials, Zelenskyy said, adding that he has also tasked Umerov with discussing a possible prisoner exchange.
Ukraine expects the U.S.-brokered talks with Russia to take place next week, Zelenskyy said.
Witkoff said Tuesday he would meet Umerov in Geneva for talks that could be followed by a trilateral meeting in Florida.
GERMANY/CHINA/DIPLOMACY/TRADE – Merz in China: German chancellor, Xi seek more cooperation.
https://www.dw.com/en/merz-in-china-german-chancellor-xi-seek-more-cooperation/live-76110529
China will buy up to 120 additional aircraft from European aviation giant Airbus, Merz said in Beijing following his meeting with Xi Jinping.
"The Chinese leadership will be ordering a large number of additional aircraft from Airbus. The total order will include up to 120 additional aircraft," Merz said, adding that it "demonstrates how worthwhile such trips can be."
Merz did not identify what types of aircraft China planned to purchase or when, questions that can often be flexible in an industry with such considerable production and delivery lead times.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz told China's President Xi Jinping that he wanted to deepen ties between the two countries, as he becomes the latest in a string of western leaders to visit Beijing in recent months.
"We are two of the world's three largest industrial nations. This is a great responsibility. But it is also a great opportunity," Merz said in the Chinese capital.
Merz brought up the issue of China's rapid balance of trade surplus growth in comments to reporters on Wednesday.
He said he welcomed the chance to expand economic cooperation with China, but also said the German trade deficit with China had quadrupled in the past five years, dubbing the development "not healthy."
"We are, therefore, addressing it and want to open up ways to reduce the trade deficit," he told reporters.
VENEZUELA/SEC/MINERALS – Violent militias stand between the US and Venezuela’s vast mineral riches.
A few miles up the river from this border outpost, vast mineral riches are buried in the Venezuelan jungle.
There are diamonds, huge deposits of gold and—of most interest to the Trump administration—coltan, a compound dubbed “blue gold,” which contains elements needed for cellphones, electric vehicles and more.
Since the U.S. raid that removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, Trump administration officials have repeatedly expressed their desire to access these minerals—part of a larger plan to break China’s stranglehold on the supply of critical minerals used in modern technology.
But getting at the riches of the jungle won’t be easy. Armed criminal groups control vast swaths of territory in southern Venezuela, including the gold and coltan mines.
In the sprawling states of Bolívar and Amazonas—located in Venezuela’s undeveloped south, where much of the territory is inaccessible by road—the armed groups have pushed small gold-mining operations to an industrial scale and effectively stand in as a local government.
Rainforest is clear-cut to make way for open-pit mines. New arrivals at the mine are signed in. The guerrillas collect a tax, of sorts, for each ounce of gold pulled out of the ground. Child labor is rampant. Thieves are often forced to pick up trash as punishment. Murderers have been publicly executed.
The only state institution active in the region—the Venezuelan military—abets the criminal gangs’ dominion of the mines, in exchange for a cut of the profits.
CHINA/MIL – China military purge taking toll on command and readiness, study finds.
China's ongoing military corruption purges are leaving serious deficiencies in its command structure and are likely to have hampered the readiness of its rapidly modernising armed forces, a leading defence research centre said on Tuesday.
The purges are likely to be incomplete, even though they have so far ranged across its supreme Central Military Commission, theatre commands, weapons procurement and development as well as defence academia, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said.
"From an organisational perspective, until the vacancies are filled, the PLA is operating with serious deficiencies in its command structure," the London-based IISS said in its annual Military Balance, a survey of global military forces that is a key research tool for analysts.
The Chinese defence ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
The report comes after China's two highest-ranked generals have become ensnared in disciplinary investigations in the highest-profile military purges in decades. Zhang Youxia - a veteran military ally of President Xi Jinping - was placed under investigation in January and He Weidong was expelled in October last year.
The crackdown has cut China's seven-man supreme military command body to a committee of just two people - CMC chair Xi himself and a newly promoted vice chairman Zhang Shengmin.
If personnel had been promoted due to connections, faulty weapons introduced through contract problems and wider morale hampered, "the purge is almost certain to have a near-term impact", the report said.
However, it described the effects as "temporary", adding "modernisation is likely to continue apace".