Europe

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/56379266

The European Commission has stopped short of condemning Donald Trump’s renewed claim to take over Greenland, even as international outrage mounts after the dramatic abduction of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://euobserver.com/eu-and-the-world/arbf240533

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/56379268

Brussels also suggested that Washington’s military intervention "can create an opportunity" for the overthrow of Maduro's regime

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.euractiv.com/news/eu-says-too-early-to-assess-legality-of-us-attack-on-venezuela/

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

Archived version

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“We will get a fair solution only once Russian elites have concluded that the original invasion was a mistake and that the aim of rebuilding the Russian empire is unachievable,” Poland’s foreign minister Radosław Sikorski [said], warning Western partners against seeking quick compromises that could leave Ukraine vulnerable to renewed aggression.

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The foreign minister warned against repeating past diplomatic failures, pointing to the Minsk agreements that followed Russia’s earlier aggression against Ukraine in 2014. Those deals, he said, were negotiated over the heads of Central and Eastern European countries and failed to prevent a full-scale invasion in 2022.

“We don’t need a Minsk three,” Sikorski said. Any settlement, he added, must leave Ukraine with defensible borders and the freedom to integrate with the European Union. “Otherwise, it’s just kicking the can down the road.”

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Archived version

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According to Brussels officials and policymakers, the European Commission is switching focus to enforcing an expansive digital rule book after years of negotiating landmark legislation to take on the world’s biggest technology groups.

That effort will face political challenges over the coming year. The Trump administration has demanded changes to the bloc’s tech rules and threatened to impose tariffs in retaliation for EU actions against Silicon Valley groups.

The EU focus on enforcement comes as Washington’s effort to split up Big Tech groups is faltering after setbacks in several big monopoly cases that cast doubt on the government’s strategy to rein in some of the world’s biggest companies.

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“There have been moments that we have needed to, where I have needed to, stand up and say: sorry, but we’re not going to undo our regulation just because you don’t like [it],” the EU’s competition chief Teresa Ribera [said].

The approach requires sticking with its existing laws, including the Digital Markets Act (DMA), aimed at opening powerful “online gatekeepers” to rivals, and the Digital Services Act (DSA), which forces internet companies to better police illegal content.

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The bloc has begun probing new areas of potential enforcement. In December, Brussels launched an investigation into whether Meta was preventing rival AI providers from accessing WhatsApp, and Google’s use of online content for AI models. Regulators also launched investigations to ensure enough competition in the cloud-computing sector.

“You go ahead in that measured, professional way, and you’re just a little bit more quiet perhaps than you otherwise would be because there’s really no pay-off to making a lot of announcements,” said Fiona Scott Morton, an antitrust scholar at Yale University.

But she added that when it came to enforcing its digital rules, “there is pay-off to moving forward and achieving outcomes that benefit the European people and business users”.

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But Damien Geradin, an antitrust lawyer who has represented companies in probes against Google and others, said: “The enforcement of EU digital regulations has been made more challenging by the aggressive stance taken by the US administration.”

Geopolitical considerations have emboldened Big Tech to fight back with a fierce lobbying effort in Europe and the US. Google said the EU’s investigation into its AI models “risks stifling innovation in a market that is more competitive than ever”.

Apple has demanded that Brussels scrap its DMA altogether, while Meta has said the commission tries “to handicap successful American business while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards”.

Caving to internal or external pressure on enforcement would be a “disaster” for the European economy, said Mario Marinello, a fellow at the Brussels-based think-tank Bruegel. “If you want competitiveness, you need strong competition enforcement.”

Even the current enforcement of digital rules was “too little, too late,” said Alexandra Geese, a European lawmaker who sits with the Greens in the European Parliament.

“There is an attack on our democracy going on, led by the tech oligarchs on social media, and we’re not really defending ourselves.”

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/56386498

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TL;DR:

• In a move to meet carbon reduction goals, the EU started to recycle aluminium.
• Chinese buyers now snapping up aluminium scrap, smelting it an sell it back to Europe as new metal
• Novelis, the industry's largest recycler, calls on the EU to curb exports of metal scrap to China and the US

Archived link

The EU’s recycling system is being weaponised against the bloc by Chinese buyers snapping up aluminium scrap, smelting it and exporting it back to Europe as newly produced metal, according to the industry’s largest recycler.

Emilio Braghi, executive vice-president of Novelis, [said] the sector risked what he described as terminal decline unless Brussels acted on its pledge to curb the export of scrap to Asia and the US.

“We have lost primary production. Now we are at risk of losing aluminium scrap,” he said, noting that Europe would be unable to meet its own environmental goals if this was the case.

EU producers pay energy prices up to four times those of their competitors, so have shifted to remelting scrap which is more energy efficient.

The recycling drive is part of EU efforts to reduce its carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, and to retain more critical materials in the bloc to avoid dependence on Chinese imports.

Unlike other parts of the world, Europe is unique in consumer behaviour and its willingness to pay more for recycled products out of a concern for the environment and climate change, Braghi said.

“We see that pull from consumers, whether they are buying a new car or they are buying an aluminium can, based on high recycled content. We don’t see that elsewhere.”

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President Donald Trump has said the U.S. will revisit its stance on Greenland in the coming weeks.

Asked if he expected to take action on the territory, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday: "Let's talk about Venezuela, Russia, Ukraine. We'll worry about Greenland in about two months. Let's talk about Greenland in 20 days."

He added: "We need Greenland from a national security situation. It's so strategic."

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The fire that broke out on a bridge across the Teltow canal in the south-west of the capital early on Saturday could deprive up to 35,000 homes and 1,900 businesses of electricity – and in many cases heat – until 8 January, the grid company Stromnetz Berlin said.

As state security authorities opened an investigation into the cause of the blaze near the Lichterfelde heat and power station that damaged several high-voltage cables, the Vulkangruppe (Volcano Group) said.

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The area affected by the power cut includes many elderly care homes and hospitals as well as high-rise buildings with residents who are reliant on elevators that are now out of order. Berlin received moderate snowfall at the weekend and night-time temperatures plunged well below freezing.

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A previous arson attack attributed to the far left in September knocked out electricity for 60 hours in the south-east of the city in what was reportedly Berlin’s longest power cut since the second world war.

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Archive link

Ireland rightly places human rights and the rule of law at the heart of our foreign policy. It is evident in how we have stood resolutely with Ukraine since Russia’s illegal invasion and where we have called out the horrors of the ongoing attacks of the Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza and the West Bank.

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Taoiseach Micheál Martin is in Beijing to engage with leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on how we can deepen co-operation between Ireland and the world’s second most populous country.

Much of the discussion will be on furthering already strong trade links. Ireland and China do about €37bn in trade each year; China is our largest trading partner in Asia.

Ireland is committed to multilateralism and global co-operation and rightly sees free and fair trade as essential to improving living standards.

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However, in this era where autocracy is on the rise and respect for human dignity is under threat, we cannot shy away from ensuring that the Chinese authorities are very aware of our concerns around the deteriorating human rights situation in that country.

In August 2022, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights published a detailed report outlining “serious human rights violations” by the Chinese authorities against the Uyghur people and other Muslim communities, including arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence and coercive reproductive policies.

The evidence of forced labour camps in the Xinjiang region was again highlighted in the recent excellent work of Joe Galvin and the RTÉ Investigates team.

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The Tibet region of China is ranked by the global think-tank Freedom House as the least free in the world.

The Tibetan people and their culture have been singled out by the CCP and education in the Tibetan language continues to be repressed.

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In Hong Kong, it is now five years since the so-called National Security Law came into force. This in effect removes any remaining autonomy for Hong Kong. Almost 90pc of those charged with offences are refused bail and there are long periods of pre-trial detention.

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Perhaps the most prominent case is that of Jimmy Lai, a businessman and founder of the Apple Daily newspaper. He has been held in prison for five years for supporting the pro-democracy movement. His international legal team is led by Irish human rights lawyer Caoilfhoinn Gallagher, who has experienced numerous threats as a result of representing him.

Detention without charge is common in China. It should be recalled that Richard O’Halloran, an Irish citizen, was held in this manner for three years, from 2019 to 2022, away from his family, because Chinese authorities wanted to use him as a pawn in an aircraft leasing dispute.

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Archive link

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/56349486

Spain, along with Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay, issued a joint statement on Sunday condemning unilateral military actions in Venezuela and calling for a political solution led by Venezuelans.

Netanyahu is also Merz's daddy.

Denmark on Sunday made its displeasure known after the wife of President Donald Trump’s most influential aide posted a social media picture of Greenland painted in the colours of the US flag.

Katie Miller -- wife of Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller -- put the contentiously altered image of the Danish autonomous territory on her X feed late Saturday, after the US military operation against Venezuela.

Her post had a single word above it: “SOON”.

Paywall? https://archive.is/8tCU5

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/44882952

Here is the original report published by Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service

After statements about an alleged Ukrainian attack on Russian leader Vladimir Putin's residence, Ukrainian intelligence is detecting the Kremlin's spread of "new fabricated information pretexts to prepare Russian and foreign audiences for further escalation."

"We predict with high probability a shift from manipulative influence to an armed provocation by Russian special services with significant human casualties. Expected timing — ahead of or during Orthodox Christmas celebrations. The provocation site could be a religious building or other object with high symbolic value in Russia or temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories," the FIS said.

According to intelligence, to fabricate evidence of Ukrainian involvement, debris from Western-made strike UAVs will be delivered to the provocation site from the line of contact.

"Exploiting fear and committing terrorist acts with human casualties under a 'false flag' fully matches the style of Russian special services. Putin's regime has repeatedly used this tactic inside Russia, and now the same model is being exported abroad, indirectly confirmed by public statements from senior Russian officials," the FIS said.

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A related report, citing Ukrainian Military Intel, says that, "To falsify evidence of Ukraine's involvement, fragments of Western-made attack UAVs will be used, which will be delivered to the site of the provocation from the line of combat contact."

Web archive link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/44883299

From February 24, 2022, to January 4, 2026, Ukrainian law enforcement officers recorded 191,822 crimes committed by Russian occupiers.

Of these, 174,883 are war crimes, 9,380 are crimes against the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and 4,639 are crimes related to collaborationism. Another 426 cases of high treason were recorded.

Also, 144 criminal proceedings were initiated for sexual crimes committed by Russian occupiers.

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At the same time, during the full-scale invasion, 678 children died in Ukraine, 2,315 of them were injured, 2,232 went missing, and 20,000 were deported to Russia.

Another 49,420 children were found and 1,943 children were returned.

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During 2025, Russia launched more than 60,000 guided aerial bombs, about 2,400 missiles, and over 100,000 drones at Ukraine. Air raid sirens sounded at least 19,033 times across Ukraine.

Web archive link