Taiwan will prepare itself for combat within the next two years amid "intensifying" threats from China, the nation's president has declared.

Lai Ching-te held a news conference on Wednesday morning amid a ramping up of military and political pressure by Beijing, which views the democratically-governed island as its own territory.

Speaking after announcing plans to boost defence spending with a "special" $40bn (£30.6bn) budget, Mr Lai said Xi Jinping's regime was "speeding up military preparations to take Taiwan by force".

It comes after Mr Xi used a phone call with Donald Trump to describe Taiwan's return to mainland China as "an integral part of the post-war international order".

As Europe pursues the vision of becoming an AI continent, the AI infrastructure boom in Germany is already exposing the limits of the energy supply and physical infrastructure. And the question remains: What price will society and consumers ultimately pay?

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s chief interlocutor with the Russian government last month advised a senior aide to Vladimir Putin on how the Russian leader should go about pitching the U.S. president on a peace plan aimed at bringing an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to a transcript of the call published by Bloomberg News on Tuesday.

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, according to a transcript of the Oct. 14 call published by the news service, advised Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov that Putin should call Trump to congratulate him for the Gaza peace deal, say Russia had supported it and that he respects the president as a man of peace.

• Description: Demonschool is a new-style tactics RPG where motion equals action. Defeat big weirdos in between the human and demon worlds as Faye and her misfit companions, while navigating university life on a mysterious island.
• Price: $24.99 ($22.49 till 2nd December)
• Link: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/demonschool-switch/

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/42515141

Italian police raided two Amazon sites on Monday as part of a growing investigation into alleged customs and tax fraud involving Chinese imports, three sources with direct knowledge of the case said.

Prosecutors suspect the e-commerce giant acted like a "Trojan horse", bringing Chinese goods into Italy without paying sales taxes or customs duties, according to a court document.

...

The scheme could have cost the state hundreds of millions of euros and may extend across the European Union, sources said.

Dozens of officers from the Guardia di Finanza and the customs agency seized around 5,000 products at a logistics hub operated by the e-commerce giant in Cividate al Piano, in the northern province of Bergamo, the sources said.

At Amazon’s Italian headquarters in central Milan, police seized IT equipment and identified the manager responsible for the movement of goods within Italy.

...

NES:

• Battletoads
• Ninja Gaiden 2: The Dark Sword of Chaos

Gameboy:

• Bionic Commando
• Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters

Italian police raided two Amazon sites on Monday as part of a growing investigation into alleged customs and tax fraud involving Chinese imports, three sources with direct knowledge of the case said.

Prosecutors suspect the e-commerce giant acted like a "Trojan horse", bringing Chinese goods into Italy without paying sales taxes or customs duties, according to a court document.

...

The scheme could have cost the state hundreds of millions of euros and may extend across the European Union, sources said.

Dozens of officers from the Guardia di Finanza and the customs agency seized around 5,000 products at a logistics hub operated by the e-commerce giant in Cividate al Piano, in the northern province of Bergamo, the sources said.

At Amazon’s Italian headquarters in central Milan, police seized IT equipment and identified the manager responsible for the movement of goods within Italy.

...

Archived version

Spain’s top prosecutor has been banned from his post for two years after being found guilty of leaking confidential information about a tax case involving a businessman who is the boyfriend of a prominent rightwing politician.

Álvaro García Ortiz, who has served as attorney general since 2022, was also fined €7,300 (£6,428), and ordered to pay €10,000 in damages to the businessman, Alberto González Amador.

The verdict, announced by the supreme court on Thursday, will come as a blow to Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, who had insisted on García Ortiz’s innocence, and who is under increasing pressure because of a series of corruption allegations facing his family and his allies.

...

The case has reignited the debate over the politicisation of the judiciary and comes as investigations continue into allegations of corruption involving Sánchez’s wife and his brother. While the prime minister has dismissed those allegations as politically motivated smears, in June he ordered his right-hand man, Santos Cerdán, to resign as the socialist party’s organisational secretary after a supreme court judge found “firm evidence” of his possible involvement in taking kickbacks on public construction contracts.

The corruption investigations, which also involve the former transport minister José Luis Ábalos and one of his aides, are particularly damaging as Sánchez came to power promising to crack down on graft. The prime minister has previously cast doubt on the independence of some members of the Spanish judiciary, claiming in an interview in September “there’s no doubt that there are judges doing politics and there are politicians trying to do justice”.

...

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/41364587

I'm getting errors and I want to pick better indexers.