Tag: Region Europe

“Following a complaint, an investigation was opened in December 2022 into deceptive marketing practices and programmed obsolescence,” the office said in a statement on Monday, adding that the complaint was filed by an activist group called ‘Halte a L’Obsolescence Programmee’ (HOP).  The group’s complaint centers around the practice of ‘serialization’, whereby spare parts like microchips or speakers are matched with serial numbers to a specific generation of iPhone. This prevents third-party repairers from using generic parts, and as models are phased out by Apple, so too are the associated spares, forcing customers to shell out for a newer model.

airBaltic, Latvia’s flag carrier has acknowledged that a ‘technical error’ exposed reservation details of some of its passengers to other airBaltic passengers. Passengers also reported receiving unexpected emails which addressed them by the name of another customer. The Riga-based airline, incorporated as AS Air Baltic Corporation operates flights to 80 destinations and is 97% government-owned. Although the air carrier says the leak impacts a small percentage of its customers and that no financial or payment data was exposed, the airline has…

BERLIN – The German security authorities believe that China is still conducting police activities on German soil even though Beijing assured Berlin in February that it had ceased to do so, the German foreign and interior ministries said on Monday.

“The security authorities continue to assume that there are two so-called overseas police stations in Germany,” a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said at a regular press conference.

Berlin called on Beijing in November to shut down extraterritorial police stations in the country.

In an article on Sunday, Politico quoted an anonymous official from Macron’s office as saying that “what Ukraine needs is combat equipment, armored vehicles, tanks, artillery.” In addition, Paris will heed Kiev’s calls to supply more air defense systems, the source stated.

When asked whether France was considering sending fighter jets to Ukraine, the official dismissed the issue as “a bit premature,” stressing that the focus should currently be on land operations and air defense.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will pledge to send more weapons to Ukraine including attack drones and air defence systems, as the country’s president, Mr Volodymyr Zelensky, made a surprise visit to Britain. 

Mr Sunak will host Mr Zelensky on Monday at the prime minister’s countryside retreat Chequers north of London on the heels of similar visits by the Ukrainian leader to France, Germany and Italy. The pledge of additional military support from Britain comes as Kyiv’s forces prepare for a counter-offensive to take back territory occupied by Russian forces. 

Britain will confirm the transfer of hundreds of air defence missiles and further unmanned aerial systems, including hundreds of new attack drones with a range in excess of 200km.

Iran Press TV Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has plotted in private to launch bold attacks inside Russia, according to leaked documents. Zelensky, who till recently was refused long-range weapons to use in attacks against Russia, behind closed doors sketched out plans earlier this year for major military actions such as occupying cities and villages inside Russia, bombing a pipeline that transfers Russian oil to Hungary, and using long-range missiles to hit targets on the Russian side of the border. The…

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin approved an inter-governmental agreement to supply natural gas to China through the Far East Route. The move will accelerate energy cooperation between Russia and China, experts stated.

Sino-Russian energy cooperation is strategic, whereas the implementation of the agreement on gas supplies to China via the Far Eastern line is beneficial both to Russia and China, Mishustin said at a government meeting on Thursday, Tass reported.

The cooperation deal was signed on January 31, 2023 and defines the terms of cooperation for the supply of gas from Russia to China via the Far Eastern route, including the cross-border section of the gas pipeline across the Ussuri River near the cities of Dalnerechensk in Russia, and Hulin, Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, according to media reports.

Pyongyang, May 15 (KCNA) — Kim Sol Hwa, researcher of the Institute for Japan Studies of the DPRK Foreign Ministry, issued the following article titled “What is final aim of Japan’s Military Collusion with NATO” on May 14:

The unprecedented military nexus between Japan and NATO has recently aroused great concern and vigilance of the international community. A typical example is that Japan is planning to open the NATO liaison office in Japan for the first time in Asia…

WASHINGTON/BERLIN – Leaders of the Group of Seven (G-7) nations plan to tighten sanctions on Russia at their summit in Japan this week, with steps aimed at energy and exports aiding Moscow’s war effort, said officials with direct knowledge of the discussions.

New measures announced by the leaders during the May 19-21 meetings will target sanctions evasion involving third countries, and seek to undermine Russia’s future energy production and curb trade that supports Russia’s military, the people said.

Separately, US officials also expect G-7 members will agree to adjust their approach to sanctions so that, at least for certain categories of goods, all exports are automatically banned unless they are on a list of approved items.

UN chief Antonio Guterres addresses envoys during talks on Afghanistan in Qatar on May 2, 2023 The UN reaffirmed its “commitment to stay” in Afghanistan on Friday, in a review assessing its operations in the country in light of the Taliban banning women from working for the world body. The United Nations announced on April 4 that the Taliban had barred Afghan women from employment in UN offices countrywide, a prohibition that had previously only affected NGOs but spared the…

BERLIN (AP) — Police across Europe arrested dozens of people, raided homes and seized millions of euros in assets on Wednesday, in a coordinated crackdown on Italy’s ’ndrangheta organized crime syndicate, one of the world’s most powerful, extensive and wealthy drug-trafficking groups.

The operation, coordinated by European Union judicial cooperation agency Eurojust, aimed to dismantle a network that includes the n’drangheta, Colombian drug producers and paramilitary groups, and moves tons of cocaine to Europe and Australia each year.

The investigation uncovered how these networks used ports in Ecuador, Panama and Brazil to ship the Colombian drugs to northern European ports while also dealing in weapons. The drug proceeds were then laundered through restaurants, ice cream shops and car washes, and money sent back to Colombian drug producers via a Chinese wire transfer service, according to Italian officials and a Carabinieri press release.

Rioters smashed shop fronts and tried to set fire to police officers in Paris as up to a million people marched across France in May Day protests against President Macron’s reform to the pension age. Young men dressed in black from the anarchist “black block” movement were joined by hardline yellow vest protesters on a rampage at the front of the peaceful union-organised march, which moved through central Paris from the Place de la République to the Place de la Nation. The anarchists broke shop windows and bank frontages and set fire to bins as riot police on motorcycles moved in.

Officers using teargas and batons arrested several dozen violent protesters in the capital and at similar outbreaks on the edges of marches in Lyons, Toulouse and Nantes, which were staged by unions and left-wing parties as a “show of contempt” for Macron’s reform. About 12,000 police had been deployed for the marches after the interior ministry said it expected trouble from two or three thousand black block “wreckers” and violent followers of the yellow vest movement, whose protests inflicted heavy damage in Paris and other cities in 2018 and 2019.

Protesters from the radical climate movements were also active, spraying paint on shop fronts in the Place Vendôme, the central Paris home to jewellery shops, and also on the façade of the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the contemporary art museum financed by LVMH, the luxury brand giant.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Washington Post in an interview published on Tuesday that the White House did not inform him about a leak of secret US documents that grabbed attention around the world in April.

“I did not receive information from the White House or the Pentagon beforehand,” Mr Zelensky was quoted as saying.

“It is unprofitable for us,” he added. “It is not beneficial to the reputation of the White House, and I believe it is not beneficial to the reputation of the United States.”

The materials posted online offered a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on April 12 that the Pentagon document leaks contained a mixture of true and false information about his country’s military, and downplayed its negative impact.

Italy’s right-wing government on Monday rolled back anti-poverty subsidies introduced four years ago that helped some four million people last year, as critics denounced a “provocation” on the international May Day labour holiday.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who leads the country’s most far-right coalition since World War II, said the “citizens’ income” benefits would be replaced by a more limited “inclusion cheque” for qualifying households.

The government says the current subsidies cost too much, at around eight billion euros (S$11 billion) last year, and discourage able-bodied people, especially youths, from looking for jobs.

The new inclusion cheques, set to begin in January 2024, would cost around 5.4 billion euros annually, and be available only to households with minors, seniors 60 or older, and handicapped people.

The Biden administration will continue to allow tens of thousands of Afghans who fled Taliban control more than two years ago to stay and work in the U.S., as congressional efforts have stalled that were meant to permanently resolve their immigration status, according to two people familiar with the plan.

As soon as this summer, eligible refugees will be able to renew temporary work permits and protections from deportation for another two years, according to two administration officials, who spoke to The Associated Press condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss plans that haven’t yet been released. The protections were initially given in 2021, and renewed last year.

The effort is a temporary fix for more than 76,000 Afghans who arrived in the U.S. following the military’s chaotic and deadly withdrawal of U.S. troops, some of the darkest moments of Biden’s presidency. Many of those who arrived in the country have worked with U.S. officials, some for many years, as translators, interpreters and other partners.

All Britons will be called on to swear allegiance to King Charles III at his coronation, an oath hitherto reserved for British nobility.

It is a move that has upset anti-royalists.