Europe

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.06.21-163843/https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/germany-hire-11000-more-military-personnel-this-year-bild-reports-2025-06-21/

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.06.20-141716/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/technology/us-tech-europe-microsoft-trump-icc.html

When President Trump issued an executive order in February against the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for investigating Israel for war crimes, Microsoft was suddenly thrust into the middle of a geopolitical fight.

For years, Microsoft had supplied the court — which is based in The Hague in the Netherlands and investigates and prosecutes human rights breaches, genocides and other crimes of international concern — with digital services such as email. Mr. Trump’s order abruptly threw that relationship into disarray by barring U.S. companies from providing services to the prosecutor, Karim Khan.

Soon after, Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash., suspended Mr. Khan’s I.C.C. email account, freezing him out of communications with colleagues just a few months after the court had issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for his country’s actions in Gaza.

Microsoft’s swift compliance with Mr. Trump’s order, reported earlier by The Associated Press, shocked policymakers across Europe. It was a wake-up call for a problem far bigger than just one email account, stoking fears that the Trump administration would leverage America’s tech dominance to penalize opponents, even in allied countries like the Netherlands. (…)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/41927759

https://archive.is/a2U6t

ArcelorMittal said it would turn down €1.3bn in public subsidies aimed at supporting it in adapting facilities in Bremen and Eisenhüttenstadt to use hydrogen rather than coal in its steel furnaces.

It has also warned that it could shut its flagship green ethanol plant in Belgium because of restrictive EU regulation defining biofuels and emissions reductions that means that it would have to sell its output at a loss.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/41926212

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.06.20-210634/https://www.ft.com/content/1ca893d0-7384-45c6-b305-904fb2f6c0af

German public opinion has shifted dramatically against Israel, with 57% now holding a negative view of the country following its military actions in Gaza, according to a new survey released Friday.

The poll by Allensbach research institute for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper marks a striking reversal from 2022, when only 23% expressed negative views of Israel.

The survey found growing concerns about Israel's military attacks, with 65% of Germans considering Israel's actions in Gaza “inappropriate.” Only 13% voiced support for the military campaign.

In a particularly notable finding, 73% of respondents indicated they saw “some truth” in the statement that Israel's actions in Gaza constitute “genocide,” while only 9% explicitly rejected this characterization.

In the wake of the tragic and violent Islamophobic murder of Aboubakar Cissé — who was stabbed 57 times in a mosque — Muslims were left to grieve for both his loss and the countless lives lost in Palestine.

The State had the opportunity to halt its relentless Islamophobic agenda. It did the exact opposite. The Minister of the Interior refused to visit the mosque where the murder took place, and on 21 May he divulged a report on the alleged infiltration of French society by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The publication exacerbated an already intense moral panic, depicting Muslims as conspirators on the verge of seizing power. Ten days after the publication, a second racist murder occurred: a man stabbed his Tunisian neighbour, Hicham Miraoui, to death and subsequently published a series of videos on social media in which he declared his racism.

The British government will move to ban the activist group Palestine Action and proscribe it as a terrorist organisation, after two activists broke into the UK's largest airbase on Friday on electric scooters and damaged two Royal Air Force (RAF) planes.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will submit a statement before parliament on Monday which if passed will make it illegal to be a member of the group, the BBC reported.

Footage shared by Palestine Action purported to show two protesters riding scooters towards the RAF planes on the runway at the Brize Norton airbase, where they used "repurposed fire extinguishers to spray red paint into the turbine engines" and "caused further damage using crowbars". The activists then evaded security and escaped the base.

The group announced on its website on Friday that the airbase was targeted because flights leave daily from there "for RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, a base used for military operations in Gaza and across the Middle East".

BRUSSELS — Israel’s actions in Gaza may have violated the terms of the country’s agreement with the EU, the bloc’s diplomatic corps found.

“On the basis of the assessments made by the independent international institutions … there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations under Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement,” the European External Action Service (EEAS) concluded, according to a leaked document seen by POLITICO.

Kallas told lawmakers in the European Parliament on Wednesday that “Israel has the right to self-defense, but what we see in practice from Israel goes beyond self-defense,” adding that Israel is “undermining decades of humanitarian principles” by blocking food and medicine for Palestinians in Gaza, along with sidestepping U.N. aid.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37084496

Archived

Thousands of North Koreans are entering Russia, posing as students on “practical training” but instead coming to labor under slave-like conditions [...] The practice directly violates UN sanctions — sanctions that Russia itself has agreed to. The workers toil six days a week, sometimes for up to 20 hours a day, while their wages are divided between the North Korean regime and Russian companies. Among those profiting from the forced labor system is an organization linked to Artem Chaika, the son of Russia’s former prosecutor general.

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Pyongyang uses its labor force as a vital source of hard currency. In 2015, Marzuki Darusman, the former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, reported that foreign employers paid the regime in Pyongyang “significantly higher amounts” than the workers themselves were told they were earning, allowing the government to collect an estimated $1.2 to $2.3 billion annually.

Meanwhile, the workers themselves often received little or nothing in exchange for working grueling shifts of up to 20 hours a day — all while living in conditions of constant surveillance and with insufficient food. In one of his messages, Tkachuk noted that each group of North Korean workers must include a designated “senior” supervisor — a minder tasked with overseeing and controlling the group on behalf of the regime.

[...]

According to Cedric Ryngaert, Head of the Department of International Law at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, given the findings of The Insider’s investigation are correct, Russia is likely to violate UN Security Council resolutions 2375 and 2397, both adopted in 2017. These resolutions, among other conditions, require member states to stop issuing work permits to North Korean labourers and repatriate all of them to their home country within 2 years.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37083862

Archived

The head of one of Russia’s largest steel producers has warned of imminent production cuts and plant closures in the country’s steel industry as a strengthening ruble and high interest rates choke off demand and profitability.

The steel industry, which employs more than 600,000 workers and accounts for roughly 10% of Russia’s export revenues, has long been a pillar of the nation’s heavy industry.

Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Thursday, Severstal CEO Alexander Shevelev said the industry could be unable to sell up to 6 million metric tons of steel this year, nearly 10% of last year’s total output.

The current forecast for domestic steel consumption predicts that demand could fall from 43-45 million tons to just 39 million tons this year, he said.

“That’s effectively the disappearance of an entire industry’s worth of demand,” Shevelev said.

At the same time, exporting steel has become unprofitable due to the sharp appreciation of the ruble.

“The industry … today is practically unable to export metal products, because it is economically unviable,” Shevelev said.

[...]

Meanwhile, Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov warned Thursday that Russia's economy is teetering on the "brink of recession", casting a downbeat tone over the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), a key event aimed at attracting investment to the country.

Speaking on the second day of the forum, Reshetnikov said "current business sentiment and indicators" point to a looming downturn.

"Overall, I think we are on the brink of a recession," he told journalists. "Everything else depends on our decisions," he added, urging Russia's Central Bank to show "a little love for the economy."

Russia's economy has been marked by volatility since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with growth now slowing after a period when record defense spending led to "overheating."

[...]

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3196178

Archived version

Italy's antitrust watchdog AGCM said on Monday it had opened an investigation into Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek for allegedly failing to warn users that it may produce false information.

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The Italian regulator, which also polices consumer rights, said in a statement DeepSeek did not give users "sufficiently clear, immediate and intelligible" warnings about the risk of so-called "hallucinations" in its AI-produced content.

It described these as "situations in which, in response to a given input entered by a user, the AI ​​model generates one or more outputs containing inaccurate, misleading or invented information."

In February, another Italian watchdog, the data protection authority, ordered DeepSeek to block access to its chatbot after it failed to address its concerns on privacy policy.

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As an addition:

What They’re Not Telling You: China’s New DeepSeek Censors Even More Than Old Models

• China’s DeepSeek releases advanced AI model R1-0528, rivaling Western systems but heavily censoring political criticism and human rights issues.
• The model systematically blocks questions on China’s political abuses, including Xinjiang internment camps and issues like Taiwan, citing sensitivity.
• Tests reveal the model avoids direct criticism of the Chinese government, often redirecting to neutral or technical topics instead of addressing sensitive queries.
• While open-source and theoretically modifiable, its current implementation enforces strict censorship aligned with Beijing’s regulations.
• Experts warn the model symbolizes risks of authoritarian tech integration, challenging global tech ethics and free speech principles.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3194360

Archived version

The EU and Australia announced on Wednesday they will start talks for a defence and security pact, with the bloc expected to strike a similar deal with Canada next week, a first step that could eventually allow both NATO allies to take part in the EU's €150 billion programme to boost military production.

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Brussels and Canberra emphasised their cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, where China's military is increasingly active and assertive, and which has become a key pillar of Washington's foreign policy.

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The EU and Australia are also currently negotiating a Free Trade Agreement but the talks for the SPD will remain separate.

A Security and Defence Pact (SPD) - like the one the EU signed with the UK last month - is one of the likely deliverables of the EU-Canada summit to be held on Monday in Brussels between European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, European Council president Antonio Costa, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

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A second agreement, allowing for the third country's participation in SAFE, will also be required.

SAFE was approved by member states late last month and governments now have a few months to submit to the Commission the joint procurement projects they want to take part in. The EU executive could then start releasing money to fund these projects before the end of the year.

France announced on Tuesday that Bulgaria had joined its initiative for joint acquisitions of THALES radar intended to strengthen aerial surveillance.

"Other countries have already shown a strong interest in this approach and, with the support of the initial partner countries, are expected to join the cooperation in the near future," the French ministry for the armed forces said.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3186636

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3186635

Archived version

The Australian government has imposed sanctions on 60 vessels linked to Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet”*, as the country’s prime minister Anthony Albanese joined G7 leaders in condemning Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

It marks the first time Canberra has directly penalised ships helping Moscow skirt wide-ranging economic curbs resulting from the Ukraine invasion, which Russia calls a “special military operation”.

In a June 18 statement, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the blacklisted ships, which often disable their tracking systems and register under flags of convenience, are being used to enable the illicit trading of Russian oil and other sanctioned goods.

“Russia uses these vessels to circumvent international sanctions and sustain its illegal and immoral war against Ukraine,” she said, adding that Australia remained committed to ensuring Russia faces consequences.

The sanctions reinforce similar restrictions unveiled recently by Canada, the UK and the European Union that seek to starve Russia’s military of revenue from oil trade.

All these 60 vessels have already been designated under various Western sanctions regimes, including those of the EU, UK, Canada and the US, with most appearing on multiple lists.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3195372

The European Commission decided to exclude Chinese companies from EU government purchases of medical devices exceeding €5 million. This measure follows the conclusions of the first investigation under the International Procurement Instrument (IPI), and allows no more than 50% of inputs from China for successful bids.

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Global public procurement, worth over €11 trillion per year, is an important business opportunity for European companies. The EU public procurement market remains one of the most open in the world. For example, Chinese exports of medical devices to the EU have more than doubled between 2015 and 2023.

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China has erected significant and recurring legal and administrative barriers to its procurement market: 87% of public procurement contracts for medical devices in China were subject to exclusionary and discriminatory measures and practices against EU-made medical devices and EU suppliers, according to a 2025 Commission report. The report was the result of the Commission's first investigation under the IPI Regulation, launched on 24 April 2024.

The Commission has repeatedly raised this issue with the Chinese authorities, seeking a constructive and fair solution that would enable EU companies to access the Chinese market on terms comparable to those enjoyed by Chinese firms in the EU. Despite these efforts, China has so far not offered specific commitments that would address the discriminatory measures and practices identified.

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