Europe

Parts of the European Commission's much-anticipated AI Act come into force this weekend. It's been hailed as the first piece of comprehensive legislation aimed at regulating AI globally, critics though say it doesn't go far enough.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/33904654

A Ukrainian MP and other officials have been arrested after the country's anti-corruption agencies uncovered what they call a large-scale bribery scheme in the purchase of drones and electronic warfare systems.

In a statement on X, President Volodymyr Zelensky said a Ukrainian MP, heads of district and city administrations and several National Guard service members had been exposed for their involvement, which involved state contracts with suppliers being signed at prices inflated by up to 30%.

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/39764949

Op-ed by Kate Turska, Co-chair of the Ukrainian Association of New Zealand (North) and the head of Mahi for Ukraine, a volunteer group based in New Zealand, supporting Ukraine and its People through advocacy.

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Germany in the 1930s descended into darkness after a failed democracy, humiliation in WWI, and a modernising but fractured society. Hitler built his regime on the wreckage of a democratic experiment. It was brutal, it was rapid, and the world was still learning what modern war and fascism looked like.

But Russia never needed to fall — it never rose. There was no functioning democracy to collapse. No civil society to co-opt. No free press to destroy — only moments of it, never sustained. From Tsarism to Bolshevism to Putinism, repression has been continuous. Genocide as a method of control (Chechens, Ukrainians, deportations of entire peoples) is well-documented. From the Holodomor famine in Ukraine, to mass deportations of Chechens and Crimean Tatars, to Human Rights Watch’s classification of Second Chechen War atrocities as crimes against humanity. Colonial expansionism, and totalitarianism are not deviations — they are the foundation of the Russian state.

Since the fall of the USSR, Russia hasn’t reformed, it has metastasised. It has tested, incrementally, the limits of the rules-based world: Moldova. Chechnya. Georgia. Syria. Ukraine. The poisoning of opponents abroad. The buying of politicians. The undermining of democratic elections. Each time, the world responded with handwringing and half-measures. So, it learned: there are no consequences.

[...]

What makes it more dangerous than Hitler’s Germany isn’t the scale, but the context: The world today is connected, interdependent, distracted. The West has lived in an illusion of stability for 80 years. We struggle to grasp that a country can wage imperial war in the 21st century and get away with it — and that it’s happening right now.

This illusion is our biggest vulnerability.

[...]

Part of the danger is that many in the West still don’t recognise Russia for what it is. Decades of propaganda have built powerful myths about “Russian cultural depth,” “natural spheres of influence,” and “security concerns” that supposedly justify its actions. Western narratives too often frame russia as a reactive power — a victim of geopolitics rather than a consistent imperial aggressor. This myth of russian imperial innocence, rooted in Soviet-era disinformation and reinforced by Western intellectuals who romanticised the USSR, still shapes public perception. That makes it easier for russia to present its colonial wars as defensive, and far harder for democracies to mobilise against it. The result is a warped debate, where the aggressor’s narrative is given equal weight to documented reality — and that distortion makes russia more dangerous than ever.

[...]

We must stop operating under the logic that the world will eventually “go back to normal”, because it won’t. Not unless Russia is stopped completely. Russian war on Ukraine (which did not begin in 2022, but in 2014) is not just about Ukraine. It is about the rules of the world we live in, and Russia is rewriting them.

Whataboutism will try to distract you. “What about this country? What about that war?” But not all conflicts shape the global order. Russia’s war does.

This is why Russia must be defeated, not negotiated with, not accommodated. There’s no “solution” that preserves this regime and protects the future at the same time. The system it represents is incompatible with any stable or free international order.

This is the fight that defines whether democracy, sovereignty, human rights, the entire post-WWII system, survives, or becomes a footnote in history books no one will be allowed to read.

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German prosecutors and customs investigators have raided the premises of a machine tool manufacturer near Munich. The company is suspected of supplying more than 20 high-precision machines worth approximately €5.5 million to Russia in violation of European Union sanctions. Three company employees have been formally charged. Raids were also carried out in Baden-Württemberg and Bulgaria.

According to an investigation by Süddeutsche Zeitung, the company in question is Spinner, based in Sauerlach, a town just outside Munich. Spinner manufactures machine tools at various sites, including near Stuttgart, as well as in Bulgaria and Turkey.

In connection with the investigation, a Spinner machine subject to export restrictions was confiscated in mid-February 2025. Export documents indicated that the machine was supposed to leave Germany in August 2023, traveling through Poland and Belarus on its way to Uzbekistan. Investigators suspect the machine was in fact delivered to a Russian company affiliated with the manufacturer. There is also evidence of additional deliveries through Turkey and China.

The Munich prosecutor’s office cited a detailed report that aired in late April on the TV channel Arte, which traced the export of a Spinner machine to Russia via third countries — allegedly with the use of falsified documents. In the Arte report, one of the company’s three managing directors, Nikolaus Spinner, denied the allegations, claiming the machine had been sold to an Uzbek agricultural equipment manufacturer. However, a manager at the Uzbek company told reporters by phone that no such purchase had taken place.

[...]

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/39763392

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When the Government signed a deal on net-zero co-operation with Canada, the text of the memorandum was published. So too were the texts of deals with Ireland, Norway, South Korea and Chile.

Five months after the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband signed a similar memorandum with the Chinese government, however, we are still in the dark as to precisely what was agreed.

Chinese media have asserted that the Energy Secretary agreed to co-operation on power grids, battery storage, offshore wind power and carbon capture, among other areas; it is understood that Chinese investment in the UK was not discussed by Mr Miliband. The role of the Chinese state in Britain’s net-zero ambitions may well be an uncomfortable issue for the Labour Government to discuss.

While the Defence Secretary is insisting that Britain is “ready to fight” over the future of Taiwan and the Foreign Secretary is explicitly referring to China as a “sophisticated and persistent threat” that requires hundreds of millions of pounds in additional funding for the intelligence services, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been courting Chinese investment, and Mr Miliband’s drive to meet his net-zero targets is heavily dependent on Chinese industry.

Both the switch to electric vehicles and the decarbonisation of the energy grid will make heavy use of Chinese products. One study commissioned by the German defence ministry recently warned that this position at the heart of Western energy systems could result in Beijing enjoying the power to trigger remote shut-downs as “an instrument of economic warfare”.

Such concerns are less hypothetical than we might wish. Earlier this year, undocumented communication devices were located in Chinese-made power inverters exported to the United States, triggering fears that Beijing could use compromised equipment to “physically destroy the grid”. This would be fully in line with the current approach of the People’s Liberation Army to warfare as a clash between systems, and the extensive Volt Typhoon operation carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors.

Even given the understandable desire to avoid a sudden break with China, the delicacy of the balance between trade and reliance is such that the British public deserves to know what Mr Miliband has discussed with Beijing.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/34074324

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/34009143

Last Tuesday, the European Commission proposed to partially suspend Israel from its €80bn Horizon science research programme, citing the “severe” humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But this proposal comes late, after years of funding military-linked research with minimal transparency or accountability. As the death toll mounts and Gazans face man-made famine, the EU’s role in bankrolling violence is under scrutiny.

Slovenia on Thursday imposed an arms embargo on Israel citing the European Union's failure to take action to stop Israel's assault on Gaza.

"At the initiative of Prime Minister Robert Golob, the Slovenian government confirmed a decision prohibiting the export and transit of military weapons and equipment from or through the Republic of Slovenia to Israel, or the import from Israel to Slovenia," a government statement read.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/33840224

From age and ID restrictions on the Internet, to charging rappers with “terrorism,” the U.K. is demolishing the most basic civil liberties. If we let them, U.S. leaders may be close behind.

Police in the south-western German state of Baden-Württemberg are to be allowed to use the analysis software from US firm Palantir, which is controversial among data protection advocates

The software was specifically developed for security agencies and is used by intelligence services, the military and police.

Palantir was founded in 2003 in the United States, notably by tech billionaire Peter Thiel. He is known for his libertarian and conservative positions, his closeness to US President Donald Trump and his criticism of liberal democracies.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/33858938

Over 250,000 people suffered domestic violence in Germany last year, according to a media report citing official figures.

Sounds a bit bizarre, but hey, so are the times we live in....

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/45360460

The New York Times on Saturday quoted two unnamed senior Indian officials as saying there had been no change in Indian government policy, with one official saying the government had "not given any direction to oil companies" to cut back imports from Russia.

Jaiswal added that India has a "steady and time-tested partnership" with Russia, and that New Delhi's relations with various countries stand on their own merit and should not be seen from the prism of a third country.

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Serbia: Arrests of former ministers, officials over alleged corruption and inflating invoices for Chinese consortium about Novi Sad’s deadly November accident

Six people, including a former minister, were arrested on Friday over their involvement in reconstruction of a railway station, whose roof collapsed last November killing 16 and triggering Serbia's biggest anti-government protests in decades.

The office of the prosecutor for organised crime said Tomislav Momirovic, former infrastructure minister, was among those arrested.

The six are suspected of inflating invoices from a consortium of the two Chinese companies - China Railway International Co and China Communications Construction Co - who were given the task of reconstructing both the railway station at Novi Sad and tracks, the statement said.

They are suspected of damaging the state budget by $115.6 million, the statement said, and also said that by inflating invoices the Chinese consortium benefited by $18.8 million, but gave no further details.

In December 11 people, including Momirovic's successor Goran Vesic, were detained on suspicion of committing a criminal act against public safety.

Months of protests across Serbia following the roof collapse, including university shutdowns, have rattled the rule of President Aleksandar Vucic, a former ultranationalist who converted to the cause of European Union membership in 2008.

The protesters, who blame corruption for the disaster, demand early elections that they hope would remove Vucic and his party from power after 13 years.

They accuse Vucic and his allies of ties to organised crime, violence against rivals and curbing media freedoms. Vucic denies the accusations.