Day: February 17, 2026

If the stock closes negative today, it would mark a 10th consecutive day of losses, matching the company’s longest losing streak on record set in 1997. The current nine-day slide represents the worst streak since 2006, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
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Amazon shares have dropped roughly 18% since February 2, as investors question the company’s artificial intelligence spending plans.
The sell-off began following Amazon’s fourth-quarter earnings report released earlier this month. The company announced it expects to spend $200 billion in capital expenditures this year, representing a nearly 60% increase from last year and exceeding Wall Street’s forecast by more than $50 billion.
Most of this spending will be directed toward AI-related initiatives, which require substantial infrastructure investments including data centers, chips, and networking equipment. Investors have expressed growing concern about large technology companies making substantial AI investments that could potentially reduce or eliminate free cash flows.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy defended the massive expenditure during an analyst conference call, stating he is confident it will “yield strong returns on invested capital.”

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The proposal, titled “Law for the Protection of Women’s Dignity and Public Safety in Public Spaces”, seeks to ban full-face Islamic coverings nationwide and impose fines of up to 600 euros on women who wear them. Repeat offences could carry penalties of up to 30,000 euros, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
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The draft bill would also introduce prison sentences of up to three years for anyone found guilty of coercing a woman into wearing the garments.
Critics argue that the legislation targets a tiny minority of Muslim women while fuelling anti-Muslim sentiment ahead of Spain’s 2027 general election.
Vox has framed the niqab and burqa as symbols of “subjugation” and claimed they pose a security threat, a rhetoric that civil rights advocates say echoes long-standing Islamophobic narratives in Europe.
The party is seeking backing from the centre-right People’s Party (PP), which has indicated willingness to cooperate. PP spokesperson Ester Muñoz said the two parties were working on issues that “unite them”.
However, the bill faces significant opposition and is unlikely to pass in its current form. The pro-independence Together for Catalonia party (Junts) has already said it will vote against the proposal.
Vox, founded in 2013, rose rapidly in Spanish politics on a platform centred on hardline nationalism and anti-immigration policies. The party has repeatedly been accused of promoting racist and Islamophobic discourse, though it lost ground in the 2023 general election.
Spain currently has no nationwide ban on religious face coverings. Attempts by municipalities in Catalonia to restrict the niqab and burqa in public buildings were challenged in court, and in 2013, Spain’s Supreme Court overturned a ban in the town of Lleida, ruling that it infringed religious freedom.
Across Europe, several governments have enacted similar restrictions on face coverings, measures widely criticised by human rights organisations as disproportionately targeting Muslim women.
Opponents of Vox’s proposal say the bill does little to advance women’s rights and instead instrumentalises feminist language to justify policies that marginalise Muslim communities.

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“There are many strengths to this partnership that we have with the United States, but it is a dependency,” Carney said Tuesday as he announced his government’s Defense Industrial Strategy — which was leaked over the weekend — that aims to add 125,000 new jobs in the sector in the next decade, News.Az reports, citing Politico.
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The long-awaited strategy commits to deepen partnerships with Europe and key Indo-Pacific allies in response to President Donald Trump’s aggressive security and trade posture. Carney was careful not to diminish Canada’s longstanding military partnership with the U.S., including the bilateral continental defense pact, NORAD, which he called a “fundamental” partnership.
But Carney said Canada must expand its domestic defense industrial base, “so we are never hostage to the decisions of others when it comes to our security.” The strategy notes that half of Canada’s defense-related products and services are exported, with a majority (69 percent) going to the United States and Canada’s other Five Eyes partners, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
“We have committed to double — double — our defense expenditures by the end of this decade, and that amounts to an additional C$80 billion over the next five years,” Carney said. “As part of our NATO commitments, we will invest an additional C$45 billion per year on domestic resilience, yielding both security and economic benefits.”
Carney has pledged that Canada will meet its NATO defense spending commitment for the first time, hitting 2 percent of GDP this year, and 5 percent by 2035. Carney acknowledged that — as American leaders on both sides of the political aisle have charged — Canada has been a defense-spending laggard.
“The truth is, over the last few decades, Canada has neither spent enough on our defense nor invested enough in our defense industries. We’ve relied too heavily on our geography and others to protect us. This has created vulnerabilities that we can no longer afford,” Carney said, flanked by leading Cabinet ministers at a Montreal-based aerospace company.
The strategy document is credited to Defense Minister David McGuinty, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly and Stephen Fuhr, the secretary of state for defense procurement.
“Buy Canadian” will be the new “guiding North Star” for defense acquisitions, says the plan.
The government plans by summer to pick “defense champions” — a list of key strategic partners.
The document lists 10 “sovereign capabilities” for the Canadian Forces — from aerospace platforms, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, to land-, sea- and space-based sensors and intelligence, production of missiles, bombs and arms, specialized manufacturing of land vehicles and ships, and drones, including aircraft and uncrewed vessels that can operate above and below water.
The strategy outlines ambitious targets over the next decade: raising the share of defense acquisitions awarded to Canadian firms to 70 percent and boosting Canada’s defense exports by 50 percent; increasing government investment in defense-related research and development by 85 percent; and lifting Canadian defense-industry revenues by more than 240 percent, including growing small and medium-sized business revenue by more than C$5.1 billion annually.
The government says hitting the targets by 2035 will result in “more than half a trillion dollars of overall investment in Canada.”
Carney was supposed to release the strategy last week but postponed the announcement after a mass shooting in British Columbia. In response to the domestic tragedy, he also canceled a trip to the Munich Security Forum, where he was to deliver a speech that followed up on last month’s watershed address in Davos at the World Economic Forum.
On Tuesday in Montreal, Carney appeared to have dusted off the speech he didn’t deliver in Munich, saying in French that “the various assumptions which have defined Canadian policies in terms of defense and foreign affairs — these assumptions have been completely upended.”
The strategy billed itself as an essential tool in safeguarding Canadian sovereignty, noting it is “especially important” in the Canadian Arctic, a point Carney emphasized again Tuesday.
“The nature of warfare is changing because of the proliferation of drones and autonomous weapon systems,” the prime minister said. “This strategy is about protecting Canada’s sovereignty in its fullest sense.”

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Bozell is expected to present his credentials to President Cyril Ramaphosa before formally assuming his diplomatic duties, News.az reports, citing CNN.
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Trump announced Bozell’s nomination in March 2025, shortly after expelling South Africa’s ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, accusing him of being critical of Washington.
Since Trump began his second term in 2025, relations between the United States and South Africa have deteriorated sharply. Analysts point to growing divergences on major international issues, including Pretoria’s 2023 case at the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. The U.S. administration has also accused South Africa of persecuting its white minority, a claim rejected by Pretoria, while Washington has imposed steep tariffs on South African exports and suspended aid.
Diplomatic tensions escalated in November last year when U.S. officials skipped the Group of 20 meetings hosted by South Africa.
At present, neither country has a resident ambassador. According to the SABC, South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation has not yet commented on Bozell’s arrival or announced a date for the presentation of credentials. 

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Despite Ankara’s formal stance and its miscalculated approach towards Jerusalem, third-party states continue to supply the country with Israeli-made goods. After imposing a so-called embargo on exports to and imports from Israel, it is reported that the Jewish state imported $924 million worth of goods from Turkey in 2025, defying the official rhetoric of the AKP-led Turkish government, which has now made Israel public enemy number one. Conversely, Israeli exports to Turkey amounted to nearly $11 million, after experiencing a freefall from $598.6 million in 2024. In addition to these relatively positive trade and economic ties, political relations have plummeted to an all-time low due to disagreements over the future of Gaza and Syria, where the state interests of the two regional powers intersect in opposite directions. To satisfy Turkey’s domestic audience, President Erdoğan has reportedly used third-party states such as Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, and Azerbaijan to import essential Israeli products, thereby adding logistical costs, while simultaneously pressuring Azerbaijan to cut off all trading ties in the energy and defence sectors. Such hawkish policies imposed by Turkey have not gone down well in Baku, given Azerbaijan’s staunchly held principle of neutrality in international affairs. Nevertheless, the Azerbaijan–Israel alliance has continued to develop in good faith and with reliability, marked by ministerial visits, including Azerbaijani Minister of Defence Zakir Hasanov’s visit to Tel Aviv and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s visit to Baku.

From the red line over Syria to “secretive” trade relations, Ankara’s prudence on the Palestinian issue has become way too costly to maintain for several reasons.

1. The entirety of the Arab World no longer sees “the Palestinian issue” as an Arab cause.
2. The Muslim World enjoys having economic relations with Jerusalem, particularly Azerbaijan, the UAE, Kazakhstan and Morocco.
3. Turkey’s refusal to communicate directly with its Israeli counterparts only leads to miscommunication and erosion of influence in the aftermath of the Gaza War.

Generally, the neo-Ottoman foreign policy of the Republic of Turkey, aimed at asserting influence across the MENA region, has backfired in numerous cases. It is not unreasonable for Ankara to insist on a future role in Gaza or elsewhere, particularly in light of statements by the Israeli government, which has articulated a clear objective of disarming Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups.

The trajectory of Israel–Turkey relations suggests that another reconciliation may emerge in the interest of both countries’ security, recalling the warmer ties enjoyed during the informal alignment between the governments of David Ben-Gurion and Adnan Menderes. However, developments in Iran and the upcoming Turkish elections may prove detrimental to such a rapprochement.

The region may either witness competitive alignment between two blocs, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar on one side, and Israel, the UAE, and Ethiopia on the other, competing for regional dominance, or move towards an American-managed regional order in which major powers coordinate security arrangements concerning Syria, Iraq, and Iran with like-minded partners.

Author: Farid Shukurlu

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The event, held along Avenida Dr. Antonio Agostinho Neto in the city’s central business district, was themed “Carnival, Our Identity in Cultural Valorization” and presided over by Vice President Esperanca da Costa, who was joined by senior government officials and cultural figures, News.az reports, citing BBC.
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Groups celebrated Angola’s rich cultural heritage through traditional rhythms such as semba, kazukuta, and rebita. Performances blended music, choreography, and elaborate costumes, highlighting themes ranging from historical memory and national unity to natural resources and social values.
Several groups paid tribute to iconic figures of Angolan music and history, while others showcased symbols of national identity. Social commentary and community traditions, long central to Luanda’s carnival culture, also featured prominently in the performances.
In addition to local spectators, foreign tourists attended the festivities, including about 300 visitors arriving on a cruise ship, underscoring the carnival’s growing appeal as both a cultural and tourism attraction.

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