LINGEN (ANP/AFP/RTR) - De Duitse autoriteiten hebben toestemming gegeven voor een Frans-Russisch kernenergieproject. Het project tussen het Franse Framatome en het Russische Rosatom zou worden gevestigd in de assemblagefabriek van Framatome in het Duitse Lingen.

De geplande samenwerking tussen een dochteronderneming van Framatome en het Russische staatsbedrijf is gericht op de productie van splijtstofstaven voor door Rusland ontworpen reactoren. Critici vrezen spionage en sabotage vanuit Moskou, maar het ministerie van Milieu van de Duitse deelstaat Nedersaksen, waar Lingen deel van uitmaakt, keurt het project goed.

Rosatom is vrijgesteld van EU-sancties die tegen Rusland zijn ingesteld na de invasie in Oekraïne in februari 2022.

De Duitse politicus Roderich Kiesewetter van CDU wil dat de federale regering ingrijpt. Tegenover Politico noemt hij het project "gevaarlijk voor de veiligheid".

What does a grownup mermaid look like? It starts with the silhouette …

Before wild swimming was even a twinkle in the eye of the culture, and before ice plunging went viral on TikTok, there were mermaids. Mermaids are the original summer It girls. Who doesn’t want hair that looks great when it’s wet and salty, shell jewellery, killer sex appeal and a life of sun, sea and winding up sailors for kicks? These chicks know how to live.

Mermaidcore is this summer’s hottest style vibe. It is beach chic with a hot-sauce dash of brat energy. Every summer has its own off-duty avatar – tomato girl summer, anyone? – and 2026 is all about mermaids. For legal reasons, please note this column is not endorsing the luring of innocents to certain death. The vibe is Daryl Hannah in Splash, not selkies and sirens.

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Researchers listening off the Caribbean island of Dominica found variations in the mammals’ audible clicks when marine traffic was close

Sperm whales produce a specific pattern of clicking noises when they hear the noise of boats, researchers have found. The pattern is so distinct that the scientists who identified it said they can now use it to predict when ships are nearby.

Researchers from Project Ceti (the Cetacean Translation Initiative), a non-profit research organisation working to decode sperm whale communication, spent four years tuning in on the calls of 15 sperm whales off the coast of Dominica.

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Fifty years ago, another Healey ran the Treasury. Today’s chancellor may find some things haven’t changed

Some things never change. Fifty years ago, Britain was sweltering in the long hot summer of 1976. The Labour government was acutely aware that the financial markets were scrutinising its every move. And a man called Healey was running the Treasury.

On the surface, the challenges facing John Healey are less severe than those Denis Healey had to grapple with half a century ago. Inflation is a lot lower and the City has reacted calmly to Andy Burnham as prime minister. And, while things could turn nasty pretty quickly, they would have to get a lot worse before Healey Mk II felt the need to ask the International Monetary Fund for an emergency loan.

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Deemed Africa’s first Netflix success, the show’s appeal is rooted in a universal story: what people tolerate for love and money

Over the past few weeks, I have been gripped by The Polygamist, a new, record-breaking South African Netflix drama, which racked up more than 23 million views in its first month. I’ve been zealously talking about how special it is to anyone who will listen. And now it’s your turn, dear reader.

The Polygamist is by all accounts the first African smash hit of the streaming age. Released in mid June, the show has topped streaming charts in Africa, and broken into the global top five non-English series globally. It has also broken through all sorts of cultural and language barriers. African and western stars have raved about it. Its protagonists have become overnight celebrities. And its twists, turns and surrounding discourse so saturate social media that I have had to forgo Instagram and TikTok to avoid spoilers.

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From neighbourhood scavenger to baseball mascot and Daily Show guest, the Seattle animal has become social media’s newest cult hero

Pygmy hippo Moo Deng is washed up and humiliated, having flunked all three of her football World Cup predictions. Punch the Japanese macaque orphaned in Ikea is so February . And if you can even remember Grumpy Cat, may she rest in peace.

As of today the internet belongs to Jimothy: a raccoon with a striking silhouette who has gone from a minor celebrity in Seattle to social media main character overnight. Jimothy is suddenly all over Instagram, and if you hover over the critter for so much as a nanosecond, he will be all you will ever see on your feed.

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An illustration project crafted for JMF (Les Jeunesses Musicales Françaises), a major French cultural association dedicated to bringing live music to young audiences. This series encompasses the official visuals for both the 2024 and 2025 cultural seasons.

Het verdwijnen van Zomergasten is meer dan het verdwijnen van een tv-programma. Wetenschap en cultuur hadden er een vanzelfsprekende plek, waarmee getoond werd dat ze onlosmakelijk zijn verbonden met de samenleving.

EXCLUSIVE A Windows information-stealer targeting more than 300 applications comes equipped with a novel surveillance tool: an AI profiler that ranks infected victims so crooks know who to target first. Varonis Threat Labs spotted the new stealer and remote access trojan (RAT), called Dolphin X, for sale on a cybercrime forum, and shared their research exclusively with The Register. The ad for the malware claims it can target upwards of 300 applications and has the ability to bypass browser passwords and steal enterprise credentials, cryptocurrency wallets, .env files, SSH keys, cloud tokens, and DevOps secrets. Dolphin X also promises users a super-sneaky surveillance feature called the AI Profiler. It scores infected users by app usage, browsing history, and installed software, and sends the cybercriminals a daily summary that ranks victims’ based on the likely payoff from an attack. “There's two things that stand out,” Daniel Kelley, a senior threat researcher with Varonis, told The Register. “The first thing is the AI profiler. That's something I've never seen before. And then it’s also the breadth of applications that it steals - and it’s not even just applications. It’s everything, you name it: it will steal files, or credentials, cryptocurrencies. It’s probably one of the biggest stealers I’ve ever seen, and covers the biggest attack surface.” A malware vendor using the alias “Kontraktnik” posted Dolphin X for sale, promising: “You can use it as a stealer, as an HVNC [Hidden Virtual Network Computing], as a DDoS botnet, as a loader.” The crimeware currently only runs under Windows, but “we are working on Debian,” Kontraktnik claimed, adding that the malware also only supports English and Russian. Kelley suspects the developer is Russian-speaking, and told us that the stealer includes an option not to infect any users in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, a common choice among Russian-based ransomware and cybercrime gangs. Kelley and his team obtained and analyzed the malware builder, operator panel and its network traffic, but didn't examine a malware sample. Varonis therefore can’t guarantee that all of the developer’s claims are true. However, “when we looked at the builder, it had everything to suggest the features were legitimate,” he said. “We couldn’t test out the malware itself, but I would say it probably lives up to most of its expectations.” Feedback left on the forum where the malware is sold supports that analysis. As of Tuesday, the sales thread has passed 3,000 views, we’re told, with Kontraktnik closing at least two confirmed deals. Both of these included positive feedback from the buyers. Three-tier subscription model Beyond the 300 + apps it targets, Dolphin X's operator panel lists 329 features across 10 categories. Buyers can subscribe to one of three tiers, each unlocking new features, or buy a lifetime subscription. The minimalist suscription costs about $80 per month, which buys rewriting and altering capabilities across Windows Portable Executable (PE) timestamp, Rich headers, and section padding, along with capabilities allowing the malware to exploit the brittle YARA rules to bypass detection and hash-based blocklists. The middle tier advertises shuffling the import table, which would change the binary's import hash between builds. The top level sub (about $230 per month) claims to rewrite the code’s control flow, substitute instructions, and re-encrypt embedded strings with a new random key each time, thus making stable byte sequences harder to identify. Lifetime subscription cost about $1,140 for basic access, $2,280 for mid-tier malware, or $3,420 for perpetual pro-level Pwnage. “It really lowers the barrier to entry,” Kelley said, adding that in the not-so-distant past, cybercriminals needed a certain level of technical expertise to develop and use different types of malware. “Now it's set up in a way where it's almost like SaaS. Anyone can purchase it. Anyone can take it out of the package and use it.” All of this suggests two takeaways for defenders, according to the security sleuths. First, keep long-lived credentials off disk if possible. “Infostealers are designed to grab everything in one pass, so anything stored locally should be treated as potentially exposed,” the report warns. Second: focus threat detection on behavior - not file signatures - because this and other malwares include capabilities to bypass signature-based detection. “For example, explorer.exe running under a non-default desktop is a strong indicator of an HVNC session, regardless of how the malware binary is packed or what hash it uses,” the authors wrote. Varonis’ threat hunters previously uncovered other AI-powered malware, including an all-in-one phishing kit called Bluekit, and an email attack tool called SpamGPT. “It’s a huge trend,” Kelley said. “Cybercriminals are finding a lot of unique ways to integrate AI, and then they're using it to make their lives a lot easier, which is problematic.” ®