Cuba on edge as US seizure of oil tanker puts supply at risk

[https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/cuba-edge-us-seizure-oil-tanker-puts-supply-risk-2025-12-12/]

from #Reuters
By Dave Sherwood and Marianna Parraga
December 12, 2025 2:14 PM EST

Summary

• Seizure threatens #Cuba's oil supply from #Venezuela, may worsen economic crisis
• Venezuela's oil covers about 50% of Cuba's deficit, loss may strain energy infrastructure
• Diaz-Canel calls #US tanker seizure 'piracy'
• Cuba to fast-track the building of solar parks

#EndTheBlockadeEmbargo
#HandsOffVenezuela
#CubaSolidarity
#LetCubaLive
#EndSanctionsAgainstCuba #OffTheList
#VivaCuba #CubaSí #AbajoElBloqueo
#LatinAmerica #Caribbean
#news #politics #USpol
@cuba

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/43693292

Bloc’s justice commissioner says action needed to protect consumers from products sold on platforms such as Shein.

Archive link

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[European Justice Commissioner] Michael McGrath [said] that the bloc was not protecting its citizens sufficiently from a rising tide of unsafe goods sent directly from China to customers’ homes.

“I am very concerned about the volume of unsafe products coming into the European Union. I think we have a duty to better protect EU citizens, and we also have a duty to European businesses to ensure that they are operating on a level playing field,” McGrath said.

The Irish commissioner said that “year in, year out” national authorities found products that were “very dangerous, with life-changing consequences for individuals” and which could “even cause loss of life”.

Customs and enforcement officers were overwhelmed, with only “a tiny proportion of the unsafe products coming into the European Union” being stopped, McGrath admitted. “That’s not good enough.”

Some 4.6bn low-value parcels entered the EU in 2024, and the number is continuing to double every two years, he said. Around 90 per cent come from China.

...

He said when dangerous goods were identified, often by consumer groups, platforms usually got away with taking them off sale. “I think there needs to be a stronger deterrent,” he said.

Cosmetics and toys are among the most common types of products detected.

...

Last month, Brussels said it was examining Shein’s sale of potentially illegal products, including childlike sex dolls and weapons, under its Digital Services Act, which regulates online content.

Brussels has asked for additional information from the company, which could lead to an in-depth investigation and fines.

It followed a move by Paris to suspend the site in France for allegedly advertising the products. France is also seeking to ban AliExpress, owned by Chinese tech group Alibaba, and Portugal-headquartered Joom for similar reasons.

...

Bloc’s justice commissioner says action needed to protect consumers from products sold on platforms such as Shein.

Archive link

...

[European Justice Commissioner] Michael McGrath [said] that the bloc was not protecting its citizens sufficiently from a rising tide of unsafe goods sent directly from China to customers’ homes.

“I am very concerned about the volume of unsafe products coming into the European Union. I think we have a duty to better protect EU citizens, and we also have a duty to European businesses to ensure that they are operating on a level playing field,” McGrath said.

The Irish commissioner said that “year in, year out” national authorities found products that were “very dangerous, with life-changing consequences for individuals” and which could “even cause loss of life”.

Customs and enforcement officers were overwhelmed, with only “a tiny proportion of the unsafe products coming into the European Union” being stopped, McGrath admitted. “That’s not good enough.”

Some 4.6bn low-value parcels entered the EU in 2024, and the number is continuing to double every two years, he said. Around 90 per cent come from China.

...

He said when dangerous goods were identified, often by consumer groups, platforms usually got away with taking them off sale. “I think there needs to be a stronger deterrent,” he said.

Cosmetics and toys are among the most common types of products detected.

...

Last month, Brussels said it was examining Shein’s sale of potentially illegal products, including childlike sex dolls and weapons, under its Digital Services Act, which regulates online content.

Brussels has asked for additional information from the company, which could lead to an in-depth investigation and fines.

It followed a move by Paris to suspend the site in France for allegedly advertising the products. France is also seeking to ban AliExpress, owned by Chinese tech group Alibaba, and Portugal-headquartered Joom for similar reasons.

...

Zink voted for Trump but said he doesn’t agree with everything the president does. Zink clarifies he calls himself a “conservative” over calling himself a “Republican.” He doesn’t like Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric. “I prefer common sense in the middle,” he said.

The first country to impose a blockade in the South China Sea is 🥁🥁🥁 Thailand!

https://www.oglaf.com/cartomancy/

On the one-month anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration earlier this year, a group of his appointed aides gathered to celebrate.

For four weeks, they had been working overtime to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, freezing thousands of programs, including ones that provided food, water and medicine around the world. They’d culled USAID’s staff and abandoned its former headquarters in the stately Ronald Reagan Building, shunting the remnants of the agency to what was once an overflow space in a glass-walled commercial office above Nordstrom Rack and a bank.

There, the crew of newly minted political figures told the office manager to create a moat of 90 empty desks around them so no one could hear them talk. They ignored questions and advice from career staff with decades of experience in the field.

Far-right, pro-Israel candidate José Antonio Kast will become the next president of Chile after winning the second-round voting on Sunday with 60% of the votes.

Son of a former Nazi official, Kast will replace a Chilean administration led by Gabriel Boric, a vocal critic of Israel and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to the point of stopping diplomatic relations months after the October 7 attacks.

Kast was one of the main opponents of Boric’s foreign affairs policy, and promised during his campaign that he “would rectify the mistakes made by Boric,” which he called “whims” and “tantrums” on more than one occasion.

“Chile's foreign relations are too relevant to prioritize the whims of a President over the interests of the Nation. Boric, once again, evidences his antisemitism by leaving Israel out of FIDAE [Santiago’s international air show], in an irresponsible and markedly ideological decision,” he posted on X in March 2024.

An Apple fan who has spent “nearly 30 years as a loyal customer” says they’ve been “permanently” locked out of their Apple Account due to what might be the overzealous actions of Apple’s automated anti-fraud system. It’s left them locked out of “20 years of digital life,” and it all started with the seemingly straightforward purchase of an Apple gift card.

The ultra-Zionist cult Chabad and its complicity in genocide in Gaza

Excerpt:

Chabad is an ultra-orthodox Jewish cult. It has many adherents in the genocidal Israeli occupation forces. Many of them wear Chabad patches on their uniforms. Here is a Zionist tank flying the distinctive Chabad flag in Gaza.

spoiler

In addition, there are also Chabad Rabbis attached to the Israeli occupation forces. One notes that the genocide is actually about “rooting out evil”. Here two Chabad Rabbis erected the Jewish religious symbol, the Menorah, in Gaza.

But what is Chabad? It styles itself as a friendly outgoing Jewish movement dedicated to helping Jews reconnect with Judaism. However, in reality, it is a supremacist, hate-mongering Zionist cult.

In the past it was anti-Zionist, but back then, even as far back as 1929, its adherents in Al Khalil (or Hebron as it is called by Zionists) were involved in spying on the Palestinians for the Haganah terror militia as well as storing weapons for them.

Chabad is now so ultra-Zionist that it called in December for Gaza to be recolonized with Jewish settlers. Worse, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports, its adherents believe - as laid out in the Tanya, Chabad’s key religious text - gentiles have only animal souls, not human souls.

In January, the Tanya was printed out by the Israeli occupation forces in Gaza. This supremacism is carried over into its attitude to the Palestinians.

Followers of a Chabad Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh are known as the ‘hilltop youth’. Two of his followers wrote the hugely controversial King Torah, which was also recommended by Ginsburg.

The book states that it is permissible to kill Palestinian children, including babies.

....

KEY POINTS

• The 78-year-old was charged under Hong Kong’s controversial national security law.

• The law was enacted by Beijing in 2020 after pro-democracy protests swept the region in 2019. 

• The businessman founded Asian clothing brand Giordano, newspaper Apple Daily and digital media company Next Digital.

• The verdict comes on the heels of the dissolution of Hong Kong’s last pro-democracy party on Sunday after 31 years.

Taiwan's population declined for the 23rd straight month in November, with almost twice as many deaths as births—putting it on track to match the previously reported record low.

Jaume Collboni and 16 other city leaders urge EU to unleash billions in funding as it prepares to tackle crisis

The soaring cost of housing is akin to a “new pandemic” sweeping across Europe, the mayor of Barcelona has said, as he and 16 other city leaders urged the EU to respond to the crisis by unleashing billions in funding for the hardest-hit areas.

The EU is expected to present its first-ever housing plan on Tuesday, after consultations with experts, stakeholders and the public. For months, those on the frontlines of the crisis have warned the problem is too big to ignore.

“The new pandemic affecting European cities is called the cost of housing,” said Jaume Collboni, the mayor of Barcelona, who launched the Mayors for Housing alliance last year with the support of his counterparts in Paris and Rome.

Naveed Akram previously known to security agencies, prime minister says. His gun-owning father, Sajid, was shot dead by police at the scene

The alleged gunmen behind the Bondi beach attack are a father-son duo suspected of using legally obtained firearms to commit the massacre, according to police.

Naveed Akram, 24, was arrested at the scene and taken to a Sydney hospital with critical injuries. His 50-year-old father, who the Sydney Morning Herald first reported to be Sajid Akram, was shot dead by police.

The pair allegedly killed 15 people, with dozens more injured in the shootings, which took place on Sunday during a gathering to celebrate the first night of Hanukah.

The son was known to New South Wales police and security agencies, while his father had a firearms licence with six weapons registered to him. All six firearms have been recovered, police said.

and Vote on that Thang

On social media, the upcoming generation is expressing more European solidarity than the continent has seen in decades.

A futuristic EU soldier stands guard, laser blaster at the ready. European fighter jets zoom through the sky over thumping Eurodance beats. An imaginary map shows a vastly enlarged EU, swallowing everything from Greenland to the Caucasus.

Welcome to the wild world of pro-Europe online propaganda, where the EU isn’t a fractious club of 27 countries but a juiced-up superpower on par with China or the United States, only wiser and more cultured.

This type of content, which re-imagines the EU as a pan-European empire, a European Federation or the United States of Europe — take your pick — has flooded social media platforms over the past two years, garnering billions of views collectively on X, TikTok and Instagram as the EU has reeled from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a U.S.-EU trade deal decried as “humiliation” for Brussels in many parts of Europe.

More like doubling down. Personally, I'd be let's go nuts here, let large free, but not bad. Here's hoping the grid doesn't break and consumer run virtual power plants (VPPs) get a chance to shine. Put a smile on my face for Solstice Season.