We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
🇪🇺 EuGoingDark surveillance plan: timeline, agenda, background
Highly controversial, non-transparent and rarely questioned: the Commission and Council of the European Union are currently preparing a new, EU-wide digital surveillance package. The plan includes the reintroduction and expansion of the retention of citizens’ communications data as well as specific proposals to undermine the secure encryption of data on all connected devices, ranging from cars to smartphones, as well as data processed by service providers and data in transit.
Behind closed doors the Commission has announced it is already preparing impact assessments and an implementation plan.
Former Pirate Party MEP and digital freedom fighter in the European Parliament Patrick Breyer comments:
“The plan is still widely unknown among citizens, journalists and politicians, even though we hold the documents in our hands and the extent of the plans is frightening. A number of questions remain unanswered.”
Open questions:
Who participated in the meetings of the EuGoingDark group and its sub-groups? Participant lists are still undisclosed. Mullvad VPN has reported that at least one former US secret service official has participated.
Why were digital rights NGOs such as EDRi not invited to the meetings of the working group even when the group‘s website says it is an “collaborative and inclusive platform for stakeholders from all relevant sectors“?
Why aren‘t the group and its sub-groups registered in the Register of Commission Expert Groups and other similar entities (i.e. consultative entities) which would provide for significantly more transparency?
How do the new EU Commissioners directly and indirectly involved in the issues concerned, the European Ombudsman, the data protection authorities of the EU and the member states, IT security experts, consumer protection organisations and others assess the working methods and plans of the EuGoingDark-group?
🔗 https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/eugoingdark-surveillance-plan-timeline-agenda-background/
🇺🇸 #Oklahoma high school principal (Kirk Moore) seen charging at and disarming a school shooter.
The suspect, identified as 20-year-old Victor Hawkins, was a former student who said he wanted to shoot up the school “like the Columbine shooters did.” While taking down the shooter, Moore was shot in the leg. He is expected to recover.
When the Principal woke up that day, he never thought he would be tackling a gunman.
Follow us -> LiveLeak
🇨🇳🛢 How much strategic oil does the world actually have in reserve?
Global strategic crude oil inventories stood at ~2.5 BILLION barrels as of December 2025, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
China holds by far the largest stockpile at 1,397 million barrels, more than 3 times the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve of 413 million barrels, which itself sits at only 58% of its full storage capacity of 714 million barrels.
China added an average of 1.1 million barrels per day to its strategic inventories throughout 2025, with preliminary data suggesting it continued building stockpiles in early 2026 ahead of the Iran War.
Japan holds the 3rd-largest reserve at 263 million barrels, followed by OECD European countries at 179 million barrels.
Meanwhile, the US is releasing 172 million barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to suppress oil prices, part of a broader 400 million barrel coordinated release agreed by 32 IEA member nations in March.
🔗 ...
🛢 JP Morgan Warns Oil Market Out of Balance, Prices Must Rise
🔸The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil flows, has removed 13.7 million barrels per day from global supply in April alone. A JP Morgan research note warns the market has no good way to replace it.
🔸Normally, spare production capacity in Saudi Arabia and the UAE acts as the market’s shock absorber. But that buffer has effectively been removed, eliminating the system’s first line of defense.
🔸With spare capacity unavailable, markets turned to inventories
➤ Global stockpiles are now being drained at ~7.1 mbd in April, an extraordinary pace, according to the note.
🔸Meanwhile, demand is collapsing because supply simply isn’t reaching users — “forced demand destruction.”The hardest hit sectors include:
▪️ Petrochemical plants across Asia are shutting down or slashing output as LPG, ethane, and naphtha flows from the Gulf collapse
▪️ Airline jet fuel ...
🛢⛽️ Global oil inventories are heading toward RECORD LOWS:
Global visible oil inventories have fallen -255 million barrels since the start of the conflict on February 27, to 7,864 million barrels.
Total estimated oil draws, including non-OECD refined products storage, have accelerated to 10.9 million barrels per day in April, the largest monthly draws on record since 2017.
Cumulative estimated draws since the start of the war now stand at 474 million barrels, with Hormuz flows holding at ~10% of normal, or 2.0 million barrels per day.
Meanwhile, even in an optimistic scenario where Strait of Hormuz flows begin recovering by late April, it is unlikely to prevent global visible inventories from reaching all-time lows, according to Goldman Sachs.
As inventories keep falling, physical oil markets are likely to require sharply higher prices for immediate delivery, since buyers cannot wait months for cheaper futures delivery when stocks are running critically low.
Goldman also warns...
