In the fog of modern warfare, data often becomes ammunition. When reports emerged of Ukrainian drone strikes deep inside Russian territory, the immediate focus was on physical damage—fuel depots, radar stations, and other infrastructure. But within hours, a different kind of battlefield began to take shape online. A chart circulated widely across social media, based on information from Cloudflare, a major internet infrastructure company. The chart appeared to show a sharp drop in bot traffic associated with Yandex, Russia’s largest technology company, around the time of the reported strikes. To many observers, this looked like a smoking gun: the strikes…

On a bright morning in Mogadishu, a group of Somali government media workers gathered not for another routine briefing, but for the beginning of a journey that could reshape how their country communicates. Somalia’s Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, Abdifatah Qasim Mohamud, met with them personally to say farewell, offering words that mixed encouragement with expectation. The group included staff from his own ministry, media offices from the federal and state levels, and representatives from the Banadir Regional Administration. They were leaving for a 21-day training programme in China, a trip designed to sharpen their skills in an era…