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Published on: 05/02/2026 - 10:54
On the front page of the press on Thursday: spy pigeons developed in Russia; a virtual “friend” who could watch over you; hundreds of journalists fired at the Washington Post; and a “Ministry of Sex” that is making people cringe in Armenia.
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Spy stories
The Telegraph reported Thursday morning that Russian scientists are developing drone pigeons that could be used for secret surveillance or military purposes. The concept: a neural chip would be implanted in the brains of pigeons… with a camera attached to their chest. We could thus remotely control their flight path. And thanks to the endurance of pigeons and their ability to access difficult places, they would be more effective than drones, according to scientists.
Read alsoIn Russia the crazy dream of pigeon-drones and “humans to be reprogrammed”
Le Parisien also tells a spy story. Two Chinese men, presented as engineers, were indicted on Wednesday, suspected of having been sent to France to capture sensitive military data. The story: two men rented an Airbnb in Gironde. They were reported to the DGSI by their neighbors, who saw a mysterious satellite dish measuring 2 meters in diameter and an antenna in their garden.
“Friend”, a virtual “friend”?
You may have seen the advertising campaign for a necklace in the Paris metro or on social networks, called "Friend" and powered by AI. Presented as a “virtual friend” capable of conversing with the wearer, it captures movements but also discussions and noises around the owner of the necklace. A researcher explains in the newspaper l'Humanité that it is a new tool for mass surveillance of the population.
For La Croix, this necklace invented by a former Harvard student could create “emotional dependence”. As a reminder, its goal is to converse with the wearer and to be their friend. This is what the general delegate of the Génération digital association confides to the newspaper: "The relationship is one-sided, the necklace says nothing because it has no external life. He is also not a therapist who challenges his patient, because he says [...] what we want him to say."
Jeff Bezos fires hundreds of Washington Post journalists
The New Yorker newspaper offers an analysis of how Amazon founder Jeff Bezos “brought down the newspaper”. The billionaire bought the Washington Post to save it in 2013. “Instead, with massive layoffs, he plunged it into deep decline,” the newspaper writes.
The Atlantic headlines “the assassination of the Washington Post”. The magazine explains that Jeff Bezos wants to “annihilate” the newspaper. Since its resumption: budget cuts, staff reductions a few years ago, the cessation of a podcast... and then these new massive layoffs. Three hundred journalists were fired. That’s a third of the workforce. According to the economic newspaper, International Business Times, this is a way for Jeff Bezos to get closer to American President Donald Trump.
The “Ministry of Sex” in Armenia
In Armenia, the son of a political opponent wants to set up a “Ministry of Sex” and make women sexually “satisfied”, spotted The Telegraph. It is a solution to combat the demographic decline in the country, according to Sargis Karapetyan. In a podcast, he explains that “we cannot solve demographic problems without talking about sexuality”. But he did not give more details about this “ministry of sex” and how he intended to make women “satisfied”.
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