German public prosecutors have launched two preliminary investigations into the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD)'s top European parliamentary candidate after media reports suggested that he had received payments from foreign powers.

The public prosecutor said the probe has been launched "as a result of current public reporting," referring to reports by Spiegel magazine and public broadcaster ZDF last week that Krah had been questioned by the FBI in December 2023 over possible payments from sources close to the Kremlin.

During the interrogation, the US investigators had reportedly confronted Krah with chat messages in which the sanctioned pro-Russian former Ukrainian politician and activist Oleg Voloshyn assured him that the problem with "compensation" for Krah's "technical expenses" had been solved and that, from May, "it would be as it was before February."

The words used suggested that such payment arrangements had been long established, suggestions thqat Krah rejected.

Portugal needs to “pay the costs” of slavery and other colonial-era crimes, the country’s president has said, in a rare instance of a European leader seemingly backing the need for reparations.

Portugal has long grappled with calls by campaigners to address its legacy as the European country with the longest historical involvement in the slave trade. During the span of four centuries, nearly 6 million Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported across the Atlantic by Portuguese vessels.

Those who managed to survive the voyage were enslaved and forced to toil on plantations in the Americas, mostly in Brazil, while Portugal and its institutions profited from their labour.

The country’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, said at an event with foreign journalists on Tuesday that Portugal “takes full responsibility” for the wrongs of the past and that those crimes, including colonial massacres, had “costs”.

“We have to pay the costs,” he said. “Are there actions that were not punished and those responsible were not arrested? Are there goods that were looted and not returned? Let’s see how we can repair this.”

European Union officials have raided the offices of a Chinese company as part of a probe into subsidies, exposing rising tensions between the bloc and one of its biggest trading partners.

The European Commission said Tuesday that it carried out “unannounced inspections” at the premises of a company making and selling security equipment in Europe, which it suspects may have benefited unduly from state subsidies. It did not name the company.

“The commission has indications that the inspected company may have received foreign subsidies that could distort the (EU’s) internal market,” the EU’s executive body said in a statement on its website.

The European Union launched an investigation on Wednesday into Chinese public procurement of medical devices to determine if European suppliers have been granted fair access, the EU's official journal said on Wednesday.

The investigation, conducted by the European Commission under the EU International Procurement Instrument, could ultimately lead to the bloc placing restrictions on Chinese medical device companies bidding in EU public tenders.

The damage site was located at a depth of 60 metres on the seabed. The repair work was done with remote-controlled equipment rather than by divers.

“Normally, a repair job of this scale would take one to two years. The Balticconnector was repaired in seven months,” marine pipeline maintenance manager Tiit Toomits said in a press release issued by the Estonian grid company Elering.

The likely culprit was a Chinese ship bound for St. Petersburg, which dragged its anchor along the seabed in October lad year, which is why investigators suspect that the Chinese ship broke the gas pipeline.

At a press conference in late October, investigation director Risto Lohi said that the Chinese ship was contacted several times, but that its crew was unwilling to cooperate.

Authorities detained 10 suspects, including two lawyers and one government employee.

The group is suspected of exploiting special provisions for foreign skilled workers to issue residence permits to hundreds of wealthy foreigners, primarily Chinese nationals but also individuals from the Arab region.

Clients paid between 30,000 and 350,000 euros to the lawyers, who then created fictitious companies to employ the clients and issued them salaries on paper. This facilitated their acquisition of residence permits in Germany.

The new rules stipulate that a state's debt must not go beyond 60% of GDP and its public deficit must stay below 3%

Countries with debt at over 90% of GDP will be required to reduce it by 1% per year on average and by 0.5% when it is between 60 and 90%.

German police have arrested an employee of an Alternative for Germany (AfD) politician in the eastern German city of Dresden on suspicion of espionage for China, broadcasters ARD, RBB and SWR reported on Tuesday.

The employee, Jian G, worked as an assistant for the AfD's top candidate in the European Parliament elections, Maximilian Krah, and lived in Brussels as well as Dresden, according to the broadcasters.

Investigators suspect that he passed on information on parliamentary operations to China's Ministry of State Security (MSS), with a particular focus on Chinese opposition members, said the report.

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11367607

The value of an effective air defence system and of unwavering international support was crystal clear the night of Iran’s massive attack on Israel: most Iranian missiles and drones were destroyed before they reached Israeli soil. The US, the UK and France, as well as Jordan, participated in Israel’s defence.

Unlike Israel, Ukraine lacks sufficient air defences, and the west provides far less than it could or should to defend Ukraine against Russia. Ukraine is not dealing with one-off retaliation for striking a Russian consulate – as Israel is with Iran. Russia has been waging a war of aggression against Ukraine since 2014, aimed at eradicating its nationhood.

European Union lawmakers are set to vote to ban products made using forced labour under a new law that has China in its sights, risking tensions with Beijing.

The law to be voted on on Tuesday does not directly mention China, but many lawmakers hope it will be used to block imports from China involving the region where the Uighur Muslim minority lives.

Human rights groups say at least 1 million people, mostly members of Muslim minorities, have been detained in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region and face a series of abuses, including forced sterilisation of women and coerced labour.

With the European Parliament’s green light after a vote in Strasbourg, France, the draft text will officially become law following final approval by the EU’s 27 member states.

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11352731

Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) expects to be told by European Central Bank (ECB) to slash lending and payments involving Russia, the Austrian bank says on its website.

Under the current draft of the requirements, loans to customers would decrease up to 65% by 2026 compared to the third quarter of 2023, as would international payments originating from Russia.

Austria's Raiffeisen, the biggest Western bank in Russia, did not say what it expects the new ECB’s draft requirements to be, but says they "go far beyond RBI’s own plans [to reduce the Russian business]" and may "adversely impact RBI’s options to sell [the Russian subsidiary] AO Raiffeisenbank".