A mass shooting in which 15 people were killed during a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney's Bondi Beach was "a terrorist attack inspired by Islamic State," Australia's federal police commissioner Krissy Barrett said Tuesday.

The suspects were a father and son, aged 50 and 24, authorities have said. The older man was shot dead while his son was being treated at a hospital on Tuesday.

A news conference by political and law enforcement leaders on Tuesday was the first time officials confirmed their beliefs about the suspects' ideologies.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6144852

Canada’s foreign minister has condemned the “politically motivated” conviction of Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and media mogul Jimmy Lai, and called for his immediate release from prison.

Lai, an outspoken critic of Beijing, was found guilty Monday of violating Hong Kong’s stringent, China-imposed national security law. The 78-year-old has already spent five years in custody while awaiting the landmark trial, and now faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life behind bars.

“Canada condemns the politically motivated prosecution of Jimmy Lai under the National Security Law in Hong Kong and calls for his immediate release,” Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said in a statement provided by her office to Global News.

“We continue to express our concerns about deteriorating rights, freedoms and autonomy which are enshrined in Hong Kong’s Basic Law.”

...

Three government-vetted judges found Lai, the founder of the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, guilty of conspiring to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiracy to publish seditious articles. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Lai was arrested in August 2020 under a Beijing-imposed national security law that was implemented following massive anti-government protests in 2019. He was previously convicted of several lesser offences related to fraud allegations and his actions during that year of protest.

...

Washington pushes for concessions from London on the broader trade relationship.

Paywall? https://archive.is/HlAbc

Last year, Meta had to reckon with an ugly conclusion about its Chinese advertising customers: They were defrauding Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users worldwide.

Though China’s authoritarian government bans use of Meta social media by its citizens, Beijing lets Chinese companies advertise to foreign consumers on the globe-spanning platforms. As a result, Meta’s advertising business was thriving in China, ultimately reaching over $18 billion in annual sales in 2024, more than a tenth of the company’s global revenue.

But Meta calculated that about 19% of that money – more than $3 billion – was coming from ads for scams, illegal gambling, pornography and other banned content, according to internal Meta documents reviewed by Reuters.

European producers of inverters, crucial components for connecting solar panels to the grid, are teaming up outside established European industry lobbying structures in a new challenge to China’s tightening grip on the supply chain.

Archived version

...

Solar panels, essentially a collection of wires and refined polysilicium, are generally considered too “dumb” to be vulnerable to cyberattacks. Not so the inverters, which are often vulnerable to easy access by ill-intentioned actors.

China dominates the solar panel supply chain, including the production of inverters, with 78% of the devices shipped to the EU coming from the world’s second-largest economy in 2023. This accounts for nine out of the 12 firms that dominate the EU market, potentially putting Beijing in a position to “significantly” affect the grid, according to a report by lobby group SolarPower Europe.

Now, Europe’s remaining inverter producers, including Austria’s Fronius, which recently quit SolarPower Europe over Huawei’s continued membership, have banded together in a bid to shore up their market – and, they say, the cybersecurity of Europe’s electricity grid.

...

The Austrian firm is joined by Germany’s SMA, Spain’s Ingeteam and others to create a “resilient, competitive, and cyber-secure ecosystem of Western inverter, storage, and EMS [energy management system] manufacturers,” according to a statement shared with Euractiv. The initiative was facilitated by the Made-in-EU solar lobby group ESMC.

Inverters are a highly sensitive topic because their vulnerability to attack poses a credible risk to Europe’s electricity security.

...

SolarPower Europe estimates that remote access to just 5 GW of solar panels through internet-connected inverters could, if abused, allow an actor or firm to “significantly” affect the grid. There are currently 13 manufacturers that could, in principle, commit such sabotage, the group suggests.

But the decision by inverter manufacturers to split from the main solar PV lobby has widened a divide with Europe’s solar sector.

On the one hand, SolarPower Europe represents Chinese manufacturers and developers who rely on their low-cost products. On the other, ESMC and the inverter producers argue for EU-based production and say the security benefits justify higher prices.

“Non-technical risk factors – such as governance structures, ownership, external influence, and the overall trustworthiness of entities – are as decisive for security as technical safeguards,” the new alliance says.

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6143364

Archived version

Germany will take in former Belarusian political prisoners Maria Kalesnikava and Viktar Babaryka, who were released on Saturday ... A statement from German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt cited by broadcaster ZDF confirmed Berlin’s offer to Kalesnikava and Babaryka.

Kalesnikava and Babaryka were among more than 120 people pardoned by Alexander Lukashenko and freed in recent days. Other prominent figures on the list included veteran human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

...

Maria Kalesnikava is a Belarusian political activist and a key figure in the 2020 protest movement. She served as the head of Viktar Babaryka’s campaign during the 2020 presidential election, was a representative of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s united campaign team, and was a member of the Coordination Council’s presidium. She helped coordinate peaceful protests against Alexander Lukashenko following the disputed election results. In September 2020, authorities attempted to forcibly expel her from the country, but she refused to leave and was arrested. In 2021, a Minsk court sentenced her to 11 years in prison.

Viktar Babaryka is a Belarusian banker and politician, former chairman of Belgazprombank, and one of the most popular opposition contenders in the 2020 presidential race. He was detained in June 2020 while collecting signatures for his candidacy and was sentenced a year later to 14 years in prison.

...

Archive version

The EU has announced a €3 billion ($3.52 billion) strategy to reduce its dependency on critical raw materials and other goods from China, citing the nation’s “weaponization” of supplies.

...

EU industry commissioner Stéphane Séjourné said the trading bloc is considering legally forcing industries to reduce purchases from China in order to insulate Europe from future hostile acts.

The Commission's newly unveiled ReSourceEU program seeks to de-risk and diversify the bloc’s supply chains by introducing new rules to stop scrap aluminum leaving the bloc, recycling of magnets used in car batteries and a new €2 billion-per-year fund backed by the European Investment Bank to support industries diversifying away from cheap Chinese supplies.

Séjourné said that, if European industry did not respond, the commission reserved the right to introduce legislation.

“We would force European companies legally to diversify their sources of supply. That is not the case now, and it is not what is proposed in the plan [ReSourceEU], but this is a wakeup call, a strong wakeup call,” said Séjourné.

The EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said Brussels remained committed to the concept of open access to its markets but that was repeatedly “fire-fighting” a succession of crises, including the disruption to the car industry caused by the recent, now lifted, ban on exports of chips by China in response to the Dutch government taking control of the Chinese-owned chip firm Nexperia.

...

Meanwhile, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas also warned that China is increasingly weaponizing economic ties for political gains.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/55094518

“The UK government wants technology companies to block explicit images on phones and computers by default to protect children, with adults having to verify their age to create and access such content,” the FT report said. “Ministers want the likes of Apple and Google to incorporate nudity-detection algorithms into their device operating systems to prevent users taking photos or sharing images of genitalia unless they are verified as adults.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/55095474

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/43734791

Just as Russian President Vladimir Putin was clear about his intentions toward Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping has left no doubt about his plans for Taiwan. The only way to deter him from pursuing "reunification" with the island is to make clear that the costs of doing so will be punishing.

Web archive link

...

Last month, Japan’s new prime minister, Takaichi Sanae, stated that Chinese aggression against the self-governing democratic island could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, warranting a military response.

Takaichi is right, but it is not just Japan that would be affected. Because Taiwan produces 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors and hosts one of its most vibrant globalized tech ecosystems, a blockade or invasion would send shockwaves through the global economy, potentially tilting the race for AI leadership in China’s favor. The fall of free Taiwan would also upend the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, placing much of Asia under China’s yoke, while cementing China’s chokehold on the South and East China Seas. For these reasons, a conflict over the island has the potential to escalate into a broader war.

...

Just as Russian President Vladimir Putin was clear about his intentions toward Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping has left no doubt about his plans for Taiwan. The only way to deter him from pursuing "reunification" with the island is to make clear that the costs of doing so will be punishing.

Web archive link

...

Last month, Japan’s new prime minister, Takaichi Sanae, stated that Chinese aggression against the self-governing democratic island could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, warranting a military response.

Takaichi is right, but it is not just Japan that would be affected. Because Taiwan produces 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors and hosts one of its most vibrant globalized tech ecosystems, a blockade or invasion would send shockwaves through the global economy, potentially tilting the race for AI leadership in China’s favor. The fall of free Taiwan would also upend the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, placing much of Asia under China’s yoke, while cementing China’s chokehold on the South and East China Seas. For these reasons, a conflict over the island has the potential to escalate into a broader war.

...

The EU executive appears to have yielded to the call from carmakers to be allowed to keep selling plug-in hybrids and range extenders with CO2-neutral biofuel or synthetic fuel

the electric vehicle industry says this will undermine investment and result in the EU yielding even more ground to China in the shift to EVs

“The UK government wants technology companies to block explicit images on phones and computers by default to protect children, with adults having to verify their age to create and access such content,” the FT report said. “Ministers want the likes of Apple and Google to incorporate nudity-detection algorithms into their device operating systems to prevent users taking photos or sharing images of genitalia unless they are verified as adults.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/55094411

beware with twitter bait...it's just a ploy for elon musknik

the reality is stranger than fiction