The Hungarian government has filed charges against one of the country's most prominent investigative journalists, accusing him of spying for Ukraine, as officials grapple with the fallout of allegations that Budapest shared confidential EU information with Moscow.
Iran's media landscape is divided between outlets closely affiliated with the state and those considered reformist. State-aligned outlets include organizations such as Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Tasnim, Fars News, and Mehr News. These conservative outlets often promote narratives that support Iran's ruling clerical establishment.
Figures released by the Interior Ministry showed that a total of 818 crimes targeting "media" were registered with the BKA, Germany's federal investigative police force, between April 1, 2024 and November 30, 2025. That averages out at roughly 41 cases per month over a 20-month period, and compares to 290 crimes, for an average of roughly 24 per month, in the calendar year 2023. The increase equates to roughly 71%.
The group had established industrial parks in Myanmar's Kokang region bordering China, from where they allegedly ran gambling and telecom scam operations involving abductions, extortion, forced prostitution, and drug manufacturing and trafficking. They defrauded victims of more than 29 billion yuan ($4.2bn) and caused the deaths of six Chinese citizens and injuries to others, the court said. The defendants appealed the verdict, but the Guangdong Provincial High People's Court dismissed their applications, it added.
Hannah Beech, a New York Times reporter, gained rare access to one of Myanmar's notorious cyberscam centers to see how Chinese criminals have been targeting Americans in the middle of a war zone. Holy moly. Look at these phones. The floor is just littered with SIM cards. We're in Myanmar. Only weeks after rebel fighters took control of a cyberscam center near the border with Thailand.
The Gambia's landmark case, accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against its mostly Muslim Rohingya minority, began in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) this week. The Gambia's attorney general and justice minister, Dawda A Jallow, told ICJ judges on Monday that the Rohingya were targeted for destruction by Myanmar's government, as the case's final hearing opened nearly a decade after the country's military launched an offensive that forced some 750,000 Rohingya from their homes, mostly into neighbouring Bangladesh.
On 1 February 2021, Myanmar's democratically elected government was overthrown in a military coup. There were mass protests against the military seizing power and many people were arrested for criticizing the new leadership. Frequent military airstrikes killed civilians and destroyed schools, hospitals and places of worship. According to the UK government, nearly 20 million people in Myanmar now need humanitarian aid.
Scam compounds have flourished in Myanmar's lawless borderlands, part of a multibillion-dollar illicit industry. The centres are typically staffed by foreigners including many Chinese with many saying they were trafficked and forced to swindle people online. Beijing has stepped up cooperation with Southeast Asian nations in recent years to crack down on the compounds, and thousands of people have been repatriated to China.