According to the statement by prosecutors, the accused are under “strong suspicion” of “having worked for a foreign secret service in a particularly serious incident. In addition, Dieter S, reportedly a 39-year-old dual Russian-German citizen, is charged with “conspiring to cause an explosive attack and arson, acting as an agent for sabotage purposes and security-endangering collection of intelligence on military installations”.

Dieter S had been in contact with a member of the Russian secret services and had been developing sabotage plans in Germany since October 2023.

Russia appears prepared to create “environmental havoc” by sailing unseaworthy oil tankers through the Baltic Sea in breach of all maritime rules, the Swedish foreign minister has said.

Speaking to the Guardian during his first visit to London since Sweden became a Nato member, Tobias Billström called for new rules and enforcement mechanisms to prevent the ageing and uninsured Russian shadow fleet causing an environmental catastrophe. About half of all Russian oil transported by sea passes through the Baltic Sea and Danish waters, often operating under opaque ownership, and using international waters to try to avoid scrutiny.

The fleet generates a huge amount of revenue for Russia’s war machine, bypassing western sanctions that try to block access to insurance if Russia sells the oil above $60 a barrel. In practice as little as 20% of Russian oil is sold below the price cap.

A seasonal thermal energy storage will be built in Vantaa, which is Finland’s fourth largest city neighboring the capital of Helsinki.

The total thermal capacity of the fully charged seasonal thermal energy storage is 90 gigawatt-hours. This capacity could heat a medium-sized Finnish city for as long as a year. Broken down into smaller energy units, this amount of energy is equivalent to, for example, 1.3 million electric car batteries.

The project cost is estimated to be around 200 million euros, and it has already been awarded a 19-million-euro investment grant from Finland’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. Construction of the storage facility’s entrance is expected to start in summer 2024. The seasonal thermal energy storage facility could be operational in 2028.

Today is a sad day for Georgia, because our government has taken another step towards Russia and away from Europe," said protester Makvala Naskidashvili.

"But I am also happy because I see such unity among the youth," the 88-year-old added. "They are proud Europeans and will not let anyone spoil their European dream."

The TV channel BabyTV has been the victim of a cyber attack in which a Russian propaganda film was suddenly shown on the children's channel.

This afternoon, it seems it was hacked again for 13 minutes, showing bombardments to babies & toddlers ( 0- 4 years old).

Unbelievable this crap

For at least ten years, the Chinese Communist Party has been abducting its overseas citizens on EU territory and forcibly returning them to China - violating the rule of law and public security in Europe - a new report finds.

We've heard some reports about illegal Chinese policestations abroad before. But it seems now that it's been going on for a very long time, and on much broader scale then previously thought.

NB: The original link gives us a 404.

alt link archive or link msn

tnx 2 @you@feddit.de & @föderalumdrehen@feddit.de

The former employee of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and whistleblower Emma Reilly alleges that “dangerous ‘favours’” are “being rendered by OHCHR to the Chinese government” and “these favours fall into a broader effort of the Chinese government to instrumentalise the UN to serve its national interests”. Her evidence alleges a “UN cover-up of special favours for the PRC [Peoples Republic of China]”.

Ms Reilly alleges that “during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals” that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the General Assembly who ultimately oversaw the process and had significant influence over the final texts put to the Assembly”. Her evidence alleges that the PRC “imposes a secret conditionality across UN agencies that the monies so provided may not be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan”.

EU member states on Monday (15 April) were close to a deal, with EU diplomats saying last outstanding technical issues remained to be solved, with the aim for the bloc to use the profits by June.

Separately, G7 ministers this week, pressed by Washington, are expected to discuss the idea of confiscating the reserves in their entirety and transferring them to Ukraine

A summit on law enforcement between China and Hungary took place in Budapest on Friday, February 16. During the summit, Interior Minister Sándor Pintér held talks with Wang Xiaohong and signed agreements allowing Chinese police officers to accompany their Hungarian counterparts on joint patrols in several locations across Hungary, which is a member of the EU.

This agreement immediately drew a reaction from Sophie in ‘t Veld, MEP of the Renew Group, who formally asked whether the European Commission was aware of it and whether there had been any reactions from EU institutions to Hungary’s decision.

On April 10, MEPs discussed the extent of Chinese law enforcement activities in Europe with the Council and Commission.

“While the EU has started to address the threat of authoritarian interference— it remains blind to interference originating from our very own authoritarian member states. The fact that Chinese police officers will soon begin patrolling in Hungary is foreign meddling in EU affairs and a significant risk to EU security. The Commission must have a forceful answer,” Katalin Cseh (Momentum, Hungary), initiator of the debate in the European Parliament, said.

[Edit typo.]

Curators protesting against Gaza conflict say ‘art can wait but women, children and people living though hell cannot’

The artists and curators of the Israeli national pavilion at the Venice Biennale have announced their decision not to open until “a ceasefire and hostage release agreement is reached” in the conflict in Gaza, on the opening preview day of the largest and most prominent global gathering in the art world.

An open letter signed by more than 23,000 artists and other creatives called for the deplatforming of the Israel pavilion, citing the ban preventing South Africa from participating in the Biennale between 1968 and 1993.

They also cited the fact that at the last edition of the Biennale, the Russian artists and curatorial team recused themselves after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

"We are handing over such important capability to the net-zero transition to an entity that comes from an authoritarian and hostile state at a time when the European Union and other countries are going in a different direction," says Scottish lawmaker Stewart McDonald, adding this would not be in the UK's economic or energy interests.

Chinese company Mingyang Smart Energy Group was given "priority status" in offshore projects in tbe North Sea.

"This very company that's going to be setting up here in Scotland was declined by our Norwegian neighbours recently for a similar project," McDonald says.

The Glasgow South MP said it came "hot on the heels" of the UK government linking China to recent cyber-attacks on voter data.

He added: "I think the UK government need to explain why a project of this magnitude in an industry that is clearly sensitively strategic has been allowed to go ahead."

Beijing was accused of attempts to access details of MPs critical of the Chinese government, which Mr McDonald said included himself.

German police shut down pro-Palestinian conference - DW

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/14418527

Many state and public administrations from Helsinki to Lisbon operate with the software of the US corporation. It makes them vulnerable for hackers and spies, violates European public procurement law, blocks technical progress and costs Europe dearly. Harald Schumann and his Investigate Europe research team have spoken to insiders and managers throughout Europe about this. Martin Schallbruch, the former head of IT at the German Government, reports how the states are becoming increasingly dependent on Microsoft. A top Dutch lawyer describes how the EU Commission and governments are violating European procurement law. In France, the Ministry of Defence has bypassed parliament in concluding secret contracts with Microsoft, so Senator Joelie Garriaud-Maylam now wants to set up a committee of inquiry. The Hamburg data protection officer Johannes Caspar warns that the Microsoft systems could expose private data of citizens to investigation by the US secret services. Internal documents prove that the Federal Office for Information Security shares this mistrust. Both the European Parliament and the German Bundestag have therefore repeatedly called for state IT systems to be converted to open source software that can be tested by Europe's own security authorities. Italy's army has also begun this change, tells Italian general Camillo Sileo. The same is true for police authorities in France and Lithuania or the cities of Rome and Barcelona. But why do most governments oppose against the alternatives, or even - as in the case of the city of Munich - return into the arms of the monopolist Microsoft? Andrup Ansip, EU Commissioner for the Digital Single Market and other stakeholders face the questions.

A film by Harald Schumann and Árpád Bondy

Clueless American here. I saw a commercial for Nationwide bank promising the keep their branches open until at least 2028. Is there a push to close banks? Is this more fallout from Brexit?