Europe

Despite criticising the GHF, the international community has not come up with alternatives for UNRWA. The EU, for example, is largely leaving the matter of aid distribution in Israel’s hands. “We count on Israel to implement every measure agreed,” EU Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas stated after announcing a deal with Israel to open more border crossings and aid routes. “The aim is not to punish Israel. The aim is to really improve the situation in Gaza,” Kallas explained.

Taking into consideration the current humanitarian disaster in Gaza, why would the EU not want to punish Israel for genocide? Why would the EU not try to come up with alternatives that would ensure safe delivery of humanitarian aid? Without punitive measures and accountability for genocide, and without alternatives to the GHF, the distribution sites will continue contributing to the genocide.

Israel no longer needs to repeat its security narrative as it did at the start of the genocide. The message has been completely absorbed by its international allies. But the GHF’s constant reminders, such as blaming ‘elements’ for any killings occurring at distribution sites or their vicinities helps to maintain continuity and perpetuate an alleged reason for its presence and the violence unleashed upon the Palestinian people, as if bombs were not enough. The EU, meanwhile, conveniently works around what needs to be faced, because, as Kallas stated, the aim is not to punish Israel. Without punishing colonialism, there can only be rewards for colonialism.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3616088

Archived version

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According to Rossinskaya, she fell foul of the Russian authorities because of her volunteer work. ... She said that security forces and Moscow-installed officials in Ukraine’s occupied territories don’t want independent volunteers to know what’s really happening there. Rossinskaya learned, for example, that the occupation authorities in the village of Kozacha Lopan in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region had started charging locals a tax just to sell vegetables from their own gardens. She also discovered that humanitarian aid left by volunteers at the local village council building was being stolen. After that, she began delivering food and medicine directly to people’s homes.

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In May 2023, following a series of threats, Rossinskaya left Russia for Turkey, and then went to Georgia. A year later, however, she returned to Russia for reasons that remain unclear. A week after she came back, on February 1, 2024, FSB agents arrested her in a rented apartment in Belgorod and charged her with “publicly calling for actions that threaten the country’s territorial integrity.”

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In February 2022, Nadezhda Rossinskaya helped evacuate the family of a Ukrainian woman named Iryna Pereborshchykova from Cherkaski Tyshky, a village in the Kharkiv region that was under heavy shelling. The couple initially fled to Russia, then moved on to Georgia. From there, Iryna began helping Rossinskaya’s aid group: the Army of Beauties website listed Iryna’s Georgian bank account among donation options.

After Rossinskaya’s arrest, FSB officers visited the apartment of Iryna’s sister in Voronezh. From there, they called Iryna and asked why her bank details appeared on Rossinskaya’s social media profile. “I told them she saved us, and we’re very grateful. She stayed with us [in Georgia] for a couple of months before returning to Russia and was shocked by how we were living. We had holes in the walls,” Iryna recalled in an interview with Bereg.

According to Iryna, Rossinskaya offered to help raise money so the family could “at least patch the walls,” and they agreed to use Iryna’s card for donations. “Then the disaster at the Kakhovka Reservoir happened,” Iryna continued. “And what was I supposed to do? Just say thanks and move on? People started donating to my cards again.”

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Iryna said she agreed to speak with the Russian officers because she feared for her sister (they already knew her address) and other relatives living in Russia. According to her lawyer, Anton Prisny, donations were also sent to the Russian bank card of Iryna’s niece, who then passed the money on to Iryna. The niece later testified in court that she believed the funds were for her aunt’s dog shelter.

“My family is [the Russian security forces’] leverage,” Iryna said.

I could have just told them to get lost and refused to talk. But they’d have found another way to mess with my family — and forced us into contact anyway. My sister initially refused to appear in court, but they told her she’d be brought in by force. They asked her to help get me to visit her ‘due to her worsening health.’ Even the lawyer [Prisny] said it would be good if I came to Russia — that nothing would happen to me, since I’m a foreign citizen. But I haven’t lost my mind just yet.

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[One Russian] FSB officer began pressuring Rossinskaya’s mother and stepfather, demanding they convince her to confess. He warned them that if she didn’t cooperate, there’d be “the sound of breaking bones — and not just Nadezhda’s.” This same officer had previously called Iryna Pereborshchykova as well.

“When he was interrogating Nadezhda in the first few days, he flat-out told her, ‘You realize I could snap your neck like a chicken’s right now and nothing would happen to me?’” [Nadezhda's mother recalls]. “Right in front of us, he threatened Nadezhda, saying he’d crush her and she’d pay for everything. And to me, he leaned in and said, ‘What about you, Mom — are you her handler? Is she doing all this on your orders?’”

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One Kneecap member, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, known as Mo Chara, has been charged with a terrorism offence for allegedly holding a Hezbollah flag at a London gig last November. The 27-year-old denies the charge and is to appear in court in August.

Kneecap said on Friday they had received a “private email” to say no further action would be taken over last month’s performance. “We played a historic set at Glastonbury. Whole area closed an hour before due to crowds,” the group said on X. “A celebration of love and solidarity. A sea of good people at the world’s most famous festival.”

They added: “Every single person who saw our set knew no law was broken, not even close … yet the police saw fit to publicly announce they were opening an investigation. This is political. This is targetted. This is state intimidation”

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3613886

Archived version

Executive Summary

Events over the last eighteen months indicate that the risk environment for submarine cables has very likely escalated, and the threat of state-sponsored malicious activity targeting submarine cable infrastructure is likely to rise further amid heightened geopolitical tensions. Insikt Group’s assessment of the current risk environment for submarine cables aligns with the findings of our 2023 assessment, which highlighted the convergence of geopolitical, physical, and cyber threats. Based on an analysis of 44 publicly reported cable damages occurring in 32 distinct groupings in 2024 and 2025 (Appendix A), Insikt Group assesses that three factors in the submarine cable ecosystem –– lack of redundancy in cable networks, lack of diversity of cable routes, and limited global repair capacity –– very likely increase the likelihood of significant outages from damages. Regions with low redundancy, such as parts of West and Central Africa, isolated Pacific islands, and certain secondary European routes, are more likely to suffer disproportionate impact from cable damage, especially when geopolitical tensions coincide with infrastructure constraints.

While accidents will very likely continue to cause the majority of day-to-day interruptions, recent incidents in the Baltic Sea and around Taiwan indicate that submarine cable systems remain vulnerable to threats such as anchor dragging, which states can use as a low-sophistication tactic to target adversaries’ critical infrastructure while maintaining plausible deniability. Insikt Group identified four incidents involving eight distinct cable damages in the Baltic Sea and five incidents involving five distinct cable damages around Taiwan in 2024 and 2025. At least five of these nine incidents were attributed to ships dragging their anchors, including four Russia- or China-linked vessels operating under suspicious circumstances or with opaque ownership structures, although the resulting investigations have highlighted the difficulty of attributing cable cuts to state-sponsored sabotage. Such campaigns attributed to Russia in the North Atlantic–Baltic region and China in the western Pacific are likely to increase in frequency as tensions rise, leveraging deniable tactics in both shallow and deep water to apply political pressure without overt escalation.

Without a significant expansion of dedicated repair vessels, repair capacity is very likely to lag behind demand, pushing median restoration times beyond the current 40‑day benchmark. National permitting delays and conflict zone access restrictions will likely extend repair times further, making streamlined diplomatic clearance processes an increasingly critical element of submarine cable resilience. Satellite and microwave links will almost certainly remain partial stop‑gaps, restoring only a fraction of lost bandwidth during major outages. To mitigate these challenges, joint public-private partnerships investing in repair and maintenance capabilities, improving real-time monitoring and security measures around submarine cable infrastructure, and conducting comprehensive stress tests are critical to improving resilience and guarding against a low-probability but high-impact event in which damages to multiple cables cause prolonged connectivity issues.

Key Findings

• Insikt Group identified a total of 44 publicly reported cable damages in 2024 and 2025 occurring in 32 distinct groupings. Unknown causes accounted for the largest number of damages (31%), followed by anchor dragging (25%) and seismic activity or other natural phenomena (16%).
• Of the identified cable damages, three caused significant and prolonged outages. These cases indicate that three factors –– lack of redundancy, lack of diversity of cable routes, and limited repair capacity –– very likely raise the risk of severe impact from damages to submarine cables.
• Insikt Group identified four incidents in the Baltic Sea involving eight distinct submarine cable damages and five incidents around Taiwan involving five distinct submarine cable damages in 2024 and 2025, four of which involved China- or Russia-linked vessels with opaque ownership or suspicious maneuvers near the damaged cables.
• Geopolitical tensions –– namely, Russia’s war against Ukraine and China’s coercive actions toward Taiwan –– very likely remain the primary drivers of state-linked sabotage activity targeting submarine cables.
• Joint public-private partnerships promoting investment in cable repair and maintenance capabilities, enhancing security and surveillance of critical submarine infrastructure, and improving resilience in current and future cable networks will be critical to addressing rising threats to cable infrastructure.

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Archive: https://archive.is/2025.07.18-120506/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-18/meta-says-it-won-t-sign-eu-s-ai-code-calling-it-overreach

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3611920

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This association agreement strengthens the EU's geopolitical alliance with like-minded countries. The association will lead to greater opportunities for deepening joint research across continents in many fields, such as digital transition, health, and technological innovation aiming at carbon neutrality.

Since 1 January 2025, under the transitional arrangement, Korean entities have been able to apply and be evaluated as prospective beneficiaries in Horizon Europe proposals for all calls implementing Pillar II already in the budget 2025.

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The victim's gofundme

Europe’s largest missiles maker, MBDA, is selling key components for bombs that have been shipped in their thousands to Israel and used in multiple airstrikes where research indicates Palestinian children and other civilians were killed.

With concerns mounting about the extent to which European companies may be profiting from the devastation of Gaza, a Guardian investigation with the independent newsrooms Disclose and Follow the Money has examined the supply chain behind the GBU-39 bomb, and the ways in which it has been deployed during the conflict.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3598985

Archived version

Top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas said on July 15 that Russia's intensifying use of chemical weapons during its war against Ukraine shows Moscow "wants to cause as much pain and suffering as possible."

Citing recent reports by the Dutch and German intelligence agencies, Kallas said that Russian forces have carried out over 9,000 chemical attacks against Ukrainian troops since the outbreak of the full-scale war in 2022.

"Again, it shows that Russia wants to cause as much pain and suffering as possible so that Ukraine would surrender," Kallas said at a press conference during a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels. "It is really unbearable," she added."

The Netherlands Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) reported on July 4 that Russian troops are increasingly deploying chemical weapons — including chloropicrin, a highly toxic World War I-era agent — in the field.

The agent is reportedly dropped by drones to flush Ukrainian soldiers from trenches, leaving them exposed to further drone or artillery strikes. At least three Ukrainian soldiers have reportedly died from direct exposure.

Western reports support Kyiv's own warnings about Russia's intensifying use of chemical agents on the battlefield, a method of warfare banned under the Geneva Conventions.

[...]

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.07.17-070725/https://www.ft.com/content/8f38514b-3265-496e-91e2-f8a44daa0ab6

Archive: https://archive.is/88hzL