Pellegrini’s victory cemented Fico’s grip on power by giving him and his allies control of major strategic posts. The new government immediately halted any arms deliveries to Ukraine.

In their conclusions, the authors recommend Northern Ireland – which remains relatively poor and heavily reliant on public sector spending and employment – embark on major reforms to improve its residents' standard of living.

"Even though Ireland has a much higher national income, funding the needs of the people of Northern Ireland in a united Ireland would put huge financial pressure on the people of Ireland, resulting in an immediate major reduction in their living standards," the report says.

Europol has identified 821 particularly threatening criminal networks with more than 25,000 members across the bloc.

According to the agency, 86% of those networks can infiltrate the legal economy to hide their activities and launder their criminal profits. Another characteristic of these networks is the borderless nature of their structure, with 112 nationalities represented among their members, the report added.

But the disclosures were just part of a wider, concerted probe into Russian interference in the European Parliament (EP) by European intelligence services, involving also Belgium's VSSE domestic spy agency.

Disciplinary action must be swiftly taken against any MEPs or [EP election] candidates involved," said the office of Liberal French MEP Valérie Hayer, who first called for the EP discussion.

"A full and transparent internal investigation by the president of the European Parliament is now needed," her office added.

The rumor I heard was that if you buy a product that fails before the warranty ends, you do not need to contact the manufacturer (in #Belgium). You can simply return the product to the merchant and the merchant must deal with the warranty service.

A store manager refused to accept my return of a device that died after 2yrs+2 months, which was covered under a 3 year warranty. He said I must deal directly with the manufacturer. I threatened to complain officially and the manager gave in. But then as he was angrily returning money to me, he said he is only required to handle warranty service for the 1st two years and that he is making an exception for me. I figured he was confused because 2 years happens to be the length of the EU implied warranty. I had not heard that it was also a limit of the store’s obligation as an intermediary.

To complicate matters, the product was marked down on liquidation because the store apparently severed ties with that manufacturer. Though I doubt that’s relevant to my situation because it would not void the warranty. But the article also says merchants must accept returns for any reason in the first 14 days, yet the store makes that zero days for liquidated goods. Does that break EU law?

Anyway, I need answers. Maybe I owe the manager a bottle of wine. The EU article indeed confirms sellers must handle warranty returns for up to 2 years. But that’s EU-wide #law. What about #Belgian national law?

Next question, out of curiousity: normally manufacturers have a choice whether to replace, repair or refund. Is that choice passed through to merchants? Or are merchants required to handle this with one instant transaction (thus no repair as the consumer would have to return to the store later)?

Many analysts now forecast further success for Imamoglu. “(If) this election is not cancelled by objections in some way, he will become the president in 2028,” Ozer Sencar, head of pollster Metropoll, told Reuters before the election.

At present there appears to be little chance of Russia expanding its land bridge to Crimea all along the Black Sea coast to the Ukrainian border with Moldova. "But that’s not to say that the Kremlin has completely given up on this ambition," writes Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security at University of Birmingham.

"The more Russia can peddle a narrative that connects [Moldovan president Maia Sandu's pro-EU stance and] European integration with economic decline and constraints on language and cultural rights, the more division it can sow – and not just in Moldova, but potentially also in other EU candidate countries from the western Balkans to the south Caucasus."

China's foreign minister Wang Yi, at a joint press event with his French counterpart, Stephane Sejourne, said China hoped that Europe's de-risking policy was not targeted at specific countries.

"We are constantly relaxing market access, including promoting the flow of cross-border data," Wang said, adding that China will do more to address French companies' market access concerns.

Europe has been pursuing a de-risking strategy and reducing dependency on China to retain its industrial edge and competitiveness.

Over the past year, the U.S. has strongly reiterated that it would fulfill its obligation to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if China was to attack the Philippine military. However, the European position is more opaque.

Since 2022, the Philippines has signed new defense agreements with the EU and the UK, while France is hoping to ink a visiting forces agreement to allow its troops access to Philippine military bases.

The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands have deployed naval warships to the South China Sea for freedom of navigation exercises (FONOPs) in recent years, while Italy is reportedly planning to send its flagship aircraft carrier "Cavour" to the region later this year.

In mid-March, EU special envoy to the Indo-Pacific region Richard Tibbels said that European states want to conduct port calls and joint naval exercises with the Philippines as part of a plan to have a more coordinated maritime presence "further east in the Indo-Pacific region."

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/10632476

Russia has demanded that Ukraine extradite a number of people, including the head of the country’s SBU security service, over claims they are connected with “terrorist” acts.

The SBU immediately dismissed the Russian demand as “pointless” and said the Russian foreign ministry had “forgotten” that Vladimir Putin was the subject of an international arrest warrant.

The Russian statement referred to the mass shooting this month at a concert hall outside Moscow in which 144 people died, but only in an oblique sense.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, and US officials said they had intelligence showing it was carried out by the network’s Afghan branch, Islamic State Khorasan Province, or Isis-K.

Russian investigators said last week they had found proof that the concert hall gunmen were linked to “Ukrainian nationalists”. Kyiv denies any connection with the attack.