Europe

• Archived version of The Guardian article (archive.is)
• "Cut-price Magna Carta 'copy' now believed genuine" (BBC)

Paywall? https://archive.is/M1OtV

It's Romania now.

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Olena Yahupova was taken into a room where she was interrogated for hours. Russia’s Federal Security Service [FSB] agents beat her over the head with a bottle of water, choked her with a cable, and held her at gunpoint, demanding that Yahupova give them information about her husband’s brigade and that of other people associated with Ukrainian troops in Kamianka Dniprovska. Despite reiterating to the soldiers that she had no information on either, she continued to be detained for hours, blood dripping down her back from head injuries she sustained during interrogation without receiving medical attention. She was eventually taken to a holding cell, where she spent the next two weeks being taken out and routinely interrogated.

Meanwhile Russian soldiers fabricated a case against her. They broke into her apartment, planting guns in her rooms, and two anti-tank launchers in the cellar. The soldiers then returned to her home to conduct a staged “raid,” the videos of which were later broadcast on pro-Kremlin news channels. The first prison that Yahupova was sent to, one of a few where she was detained over the next five months, was where an FSB agent raped Yahupova; but it was far from the last time she would be assaulted by her Russian captors.

Conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) has long been a war crime, and from February 2022 to August 2024, the United Nations Human Rights Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) documented at least 382 cases of CRSV committed by the Russian Federation.

However, Danielle Bell, Head of Mission for the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), emphasized that the figure does not reflect the full scope of potential cases. The mission is unable to document the experiences of individuals still imprisoned by Russia or living under occupation, as the Russian Federation continues to deny access to territories it controls.

“There are also survivors who have yet to come forward and others who were killed before they could speak up,” said Bell.

Throughout the war, Bell said the HRMMU has documented rape, attempted rape, electric shocks and beatings to the genitals, sexual degradation, threats of rape, and threats of castration. Bell spoke at the organization office in Kyiv and added that they are also documenting “unjustified cavity searches, forced witnessing of sexual violence, prolonged nudity."

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Belle confirmed that her office has heard of cases of women being subject to the same treatment as Yahupova while in Russian custody.

“Some of the acts that have been described to us are so grotesque that we could not report on them publicly even though we have the consent to use these stories. They’re too awful,” said Bell.

“I’ve been doing this [work] for 25 years and I’ve never seen anything this horrific. The treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war by the Russian Federation is the worst I’ve seen in my career. It’s simply incomparable to what I’ve seen,” Bell said, sighing deeply..

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For the next five months, Yahupova was shuffled around various Russian labor camps near their frontline positions. The conditions at the camp were “inhumane,” Yahupova said. She was forced to dig trenches for Russian soldiers, wash their clothes, and prepare food for their troops, while doing so, Yahupova said Russian soldiers also raped her.

Prisoners who were detained in the summer were forced to wear the same clothing even during the winter months, with no additional protection provided by soldiers against the bitter Ukrainian winter, which constantly reaches temperatures below freezing.

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Yahupova was told that she would spend the rest of her life in Russian custody. But in March 2023, she was inexplicably released from the camp after one Russian soldier — perhaps out of sympathy.

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Yahupova was then sent back to Kamianka Dniprovska, which remains under Russian occupation. When she returned home, a shell of her former self, she found that Russian soldiers had killed her dog.

In Kamianka Dniprovska, one Russian soldier told Yahupova she was forbidden to speak about what happened to her.

...

As Yahupova tried to reintegrate back into Ukrainian society, she hid her rape from her family. “People would just be traumatized, but the problem wouldn’t be solved,” she said.

On May 1, 2023, two months after being freed from the Russian prisons, Yahupova went to a police station in Kyiv to prepare a statement on her experiences while in captivity. Over the next few months, with the help of Ukraine’s Security Service [SBU], Yahupova managed to track down the identities of the Russian men who raped her.

Since then, Yahupova has been building a case against her assaulters and is planning to bring it to international courts, where she hopes the men can be charged with crimes against humanity for the torture, rape, enslavement, and murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war like her.

...

Archived

Ahead of the Romanian presidential election runoff on Sunday 18th May, Refute has uncovered a widespread international influence operation targeting Romanian expat voters on TikTok.

The campaign includes inauthentic—in some cases, AI generated—videos deliberately targeting locations with high Romanian expat populations across Europe.

Refute detected approximately 32,500 videos on TikTok containing slogans promoting populist candidate George Simion and annulled candidate Calin Georgescu. Many of these videos are inauthentic, such as videos that have been duplicated in a coordinated manner across dozens of accounts.

Despite the fact that only 24% of Romanian nationals live outside of Romania, 48% of engagement with these videos (40 million likes and comments) came from outside Romania. Countries outside of Romania with the greatest share of engagement were the UK (15%), Italy (7%), Germany (7%), Spain (5%) and France (2%).

“The fact that nearly half of engagement with videos pushing populist candidates comes from outside of Romania—twice the percentage of Romanians living abroad—indicates that Romanian expat voters are being disproportionately targeted to manipulate the election rerun." -- - Vlad Galu, Refute co-founder and CTO and Romanian native

[...]

“We’ve already seen the use of influencers and bot farms in the November 2024 election, but this is a new example of a sophisticated influence operation crossing international boundaries to sway Romanian voters living abroad,” added Tom Garnett, Refute co-founder and CEO.

“Refute’s platform uses learnings from behaviours observed in last year’s election to automatically score and predict coordinated and inauthentic behaviour with unmatched speed and accuracy.”

[...]

The November 2024 Romanian presidential election was annulled due to alleged foreign interference, which is thought to have contributed to the success of first round winner George Simion, as well as continued support for the banned candidate Calin Georgescu.

[...]

A few days ago, I realised that it is very easy to submit an EU petition.

https://feddit.org/post/11980768

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/petitions/en/home

When I asked whether anyone had any experience with this topic, there was no answer. Nevertheless, it seems to be of interest. So I'm starting this thread to describe how my first EU petition went.

I'll create a comment for each step and number them. Furthermore, I am writing in English/German, as the English is only translated with Deepl (free version) and briefly skimmed anyway.

--------DE--------

Vor ein paar Tagen hatte ich festgestellt, dass es sehr einfach ist, eine EU-Petition einzureichen.

https://feddit.org/post/11980768

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/petitions/en/home

Auf die Frage, ob jemand schon Erfahrung mit dem Thema hat gab es keine Antwort. Trotzdem scheint das Thema zu interessieren.Deshalb starte ich diesen Faden um zu beschreiben, wie meine erste EU-Petition gelaufen ist.

Ich erstelle für jeden Schritt einen Kommentar und nummeriere diese durch. Desweiteren schreibe ich auf englisch/deutsch, da das Englische eh nur mit Deepl übersetzt und kurz überflogen ist.

Archived

Russia’s state-controlled news media have received instructions from the Kremlin’s domestic policy team to portray this week’s negotiations in Turkey as a distinctly Moscow-driven event. Propagandists are advised to stress that “neither anything Donald Trump said nor anything Zelensky declared” influenced how Vladimir Putin assembled Russia’s delegation. The core public message is continuity, underscored by the return of presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who led Moscow’s delegation during the last Istanbul talks in 2022. The Kremlin instructed media outlets to emphasize that his role in this week’s negotiations is “only logical.”

[...]

Sanofi said on Wednesday that it is planning on investing $20 billion (€17.8 billion) in the next five years to expand its capacity to manufacture drugs in the US.

https://archive.is/epMcs

Nissan’s new chief executive has signalled the possibility of its Chinese partner to use the Sunderland car plant to produce vehicles

As part of Nissan’s turnaround, the Japanese group has unveiled plans to work more closely with Dongfeng, its partner in China for more than 20 years, to export vehicles jointly developed in China.

Espinosa said he was open to the idea of Dongfeng producing its vehicles at Nissan’s factory in Sunderland

In 2023, Nissan announced a £1.12bn investment in its Sunderland plant to make two electric models at the site, but also warned of job cuts in the UK because of the government’s EV targets, which have since been watered down.

The European Commission has informed TikTok of its preliminary view that the company does not fulfil the Digital Services Act (DSA)'s obligation to publish an advertisement repository. Such an advertising repository is critical for researchers and civil society to detect scam advertisements, hybrid threat campaigns, as well as coordinated information operations and fake advertisements, including in the context of elections.

The Commission has found that TikTok does not provide the necessary information about the content of the advertisements, the users targeted by the ads, and who paid for the advertisements. Moreover, TikTok's advertisement repository does not allow the public to search comprehensively for advertisements on the basis of this information, thereby limiting the usefulness of the tool.

[...]

TikTok now has the possibility to exercise its rights of defence by examining the documents in the Commission's investigation file and by replying in writing to the Commission's preliminary findings. In parallel, the European Board for Digital Services will be consulted.

If the Commission's preliminary views were to be ultimately confirmed, the Commission may issue a non-compliance decision, which may trigger a fine of up to 6% of the total worldwide annual turnover of the provider as well as an enhanced supervision period to ensure compliance with the measures the provider intends to take to remedy the breach. The Commission can also impose periodic penalty payments to compel a platform to comply.

[...]

[The EU sees the advertisement repository as a vital tool enabling researchers to detect scam ads and coordinated campaigns that aim to disrupt elections such as it happened in Romania that was plunged into political chaos last year when the first round of the presidential election was annulled. Back then, the country’s intelligence services alleged that Russia had mounted an online campaign to promote a far-right and previously widely unknown politician who topped the poll. On Sunday [May 18], Romania will choose between two candidates in the second round of the rescheduled presidential elections.]

Ursula von der Leyen just lost the "Pfizergate" legal case—and it’s a huge deal. EU judges ruled that she must reveal her secret vaccine deal text messages with Pfizer. Was there a cover-up? Political fallout? Or is this just about transparency? We break down what happened, what’s at stake, and what could happen next.

Or, if you prefer to watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5mFl-P8bHc

Google, Microsoft, Amazon, X, and the entire tracking-based advertising industry rely on the “Transparency & Consent Framework” (TCF) to obtain “consent” for data processing. This evening [May 14] the Belgian Court of Appeal ruled that the TCF is illegal. The TCF is live on 80% of the Internet.

The decision arises from enforcement by the Belgian Data Protection Authority, prompted by complainants coordinated by Dr Johnny Ryan, Director of Enforce at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. The group of complainants are: Dr Johnny Ryan of Enforce, Katarzyna Szymielewicz of the Panoptykon Foundation, Dr Jef Ausloos, Dr Pierre Dewitte, Stichting Bits of Freedom, and Ligue des Droits Humains.

[...]

LISBON, May 15 (Reuters) - The leader of Portugal's far-right party Chega collapsed on Thursday during an open-air campaign rally ahead of Sunday's general election and was rushed to a hospital, just two days after suffering a similar incident at another party event.

Archived

The European Union has categorically ruled out any revival of the stalled Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) with China, with a top EU official stating there is “absolutely no intention” to reinitiate negotiations, even as Beijing signals openness to rekindling economic ties.

Marjut Hannonen, head of trade at the EU delegation in Beijing, reportedly made the remarks during a panel discussion marking 50 years of diplomatic relations between the EU and China, reported the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP). Dr Sari Arho Havrén from UK's Royal United Service Institue posted on social media, citing Hannonen: "“[It] is already challenging enough to try to make progress on existing problems so there is absolutely no intention on the EU side to do anything on CAI which is there somewhere in the closet.”

Hannonen said EU-China relations had “steadily deteriorated” over the past two decades, pointing to increasing market barriers and what the EU sees as unfair trade practices from China.

[...]

The CAI, finalised in 2020 but never officially signed, was once hailed as a landmark economic agreement to deepen investment flows between Brussels and Beijing. But the deal hit a deadlock in 2021 after the European Parliament froze it in response to retaliatory sanctions from China over the EU’s criticism of alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

[...]

Since the deal fell through, Chinese officials have lobbied quietly to restart the dialogue, including overtures from Fu Cong, China’s former ambassador to the EU. Last month, China lifted sanctions on five Members of the European Parliament and the subcommittee on human rights—a move widely seen as an olive branch.

Yet EU officials remain unconvinced.

[...]

Among the most pressing concerns voiced by the EU is China’s industrial overcapacity, particularly in sectors such as electric vehicles (EVs), steel, and solar panels. European leaders argue that state subsidies in China allow firms to export products at artificially low prices, undercutting local industries and creating a growing trade imbalance.

[...]

In a keynote speech at the conference, former French PM Michel Barnier also emphasized that China’s "distortive policies" would lead to industrial overcapacity. He also urged China to use its leverage over Moscow to "encourage Russia to end this aggression in Ukraine and respond to Ukraine’s proposal for a full ceasefire of hostilities."

"These challenges are not only economic issues but also have a social and political nature as our public opinions turn an increasingly negative eye to free trade because ongoing imbalances threaten European industries and ultimately European jobs," Barnier said.

"This trend is fueling populism in European countries, including France, and can only have bad consequences for us Europeans but also for our trade and relations with China against which populist will inevitably turn against, as they did in the United States."

[...]

While photovoltaics (PV) play an increasingly central role in Europe’s clean energy transition and energy independence, a hidden vulnerability threatens this progress: the software-based remote access to inverters, the critical “brains” of any PV system.

“Today, over 200 GW of European PV capacity is already linked to inverters manufactured in China – the equivalent of more than 200 nuclear power plants,” said Christoph Podewils, the European Solar Manufacturing Council (ESMC) Secretary General.

“This means Europe has effectively surrendered remote control of a vast portion of its electricity infrastructure.”

[...]

Further concerns include:

• 70% of all inverters installed in 2023 came from Chinese vendors, mainly Huawei and SunGrow.
• These two companies alone already control remote access to 168 GW of PV capacity in Europe (DNV Report, p. 40), by 2030, this figure is projected to exceed 400 GW – comparable to the output of 150–200 nuclear power plants.
• One of these vendors [China's Huawei] is already banned from the 5G sector in many countries and is currently under investigation in Belgium for bribery and corruption.

[...]

In light of these findings, the ESMC calls for the immediate development of an EU “Inverter Security Toolbox”, modeled after the successful 5G Security Toolbox. This would involve:

• A comprehensive risk assessment of inverter manufacturers.
• A requirement that high-risk vendors must not be permitted to maintain an online connection to European electricity systems.
• Consideration of outright bans for such vendors from connecting to the grid.
• A replication of Lithuania’s proactive legislation – banning inverters from China – across all EU Member States – ensuring security measures apply to PV systems of all sizes.