cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5716657

Archived version

The European Union and representatives of countries in the Indo-Pacific region are meeting in Brussels for the fourth ministerial forum, which brings together around 70 participants from EU institutions and member states, countries in the Indo-Pacific, and regional organisations from the east coast of Africa to the Pacific island states.

This year's meeting focuses on the themes of resilience, prosperity and security. Each participant arrives with their own agenda and priorities.

For Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro the meeting is an opportunity to strengthen maritime cooperation in the face of Beijing's claims in the South China Sea.

Lazaro welcomes European support through its statements, but also through "a lot of support through the visits of EU member countries, frigates passing through the South China Sea and this gives a lot of impetus to relations."

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Manila and Beijing have accused each other of being responsible for collisions and incidents in the contested waters in recent months. The Chinese authorities claim most of the South China Sea, which is contested by several other countries in the region.

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The Philippines said it welcomes the participation of EU member states as observers in maritime exercises.

But Manila, which will hold the presidency of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2026, wants to go further at this forum in Brussels.

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I asked a genuine question and had replies that ignored the question I asked and insulted me and said my question was stupid. My reply telling them to stop being rude and answer the question if they want to comment was removed by the mods.

Department of Defense “contractors” landed on a Mexican beach and accidentally declared it United States territory in a bizarre incident on Monday.

A group of unidentified men hammered in six signs on Nov. 17, declaring that a beach near Playa Bagdad in Northeast Mexico was “Department of Defense property” and had been classified as a “restricted area” by “the commander.” The area is roughly twelve miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Heavily armed Mexican Navy personnel came to investigate the scene and discovered that the men had landed in Mexico by mistake and intended to plant the signs in South Texas. The situation was resolved without violence, and the Mexican Navy removed the signs. Pictures and videos of the incident circulated on social media over the following days.

Countries enforcing race or gender diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies will now be at risk of the Trump administration deeming them as infringing on human rights.

[...]

The new instructions also deem countries that subsidise abortion or facilitate mass migration as infringing on human rights.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5716339

Op-ed by Ian Bond is deputy director of the Centre for European Reform. It is based on the analysis: China and Europe: Can the EU and the UK find a shared strategy?

Archived version

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The problem for the EU and European states is that their strategies for dealing with China are vague about ends and even vaguer about means. Europeans want to maintain as good relations as possible with China, while mitigating the risks that it poses. There is too much focus among European policy-makers on developing co-operation with China – often more theoretical than real – on issues such as climate change or global health; and too little on competition, still less rivalry. They do not want to discuss how to defend European models of governance against China’s alternatives, or what it will take to challenge China successfully in advanced technologies.

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Apart from the economic consequences for Europe of China’s technological advances, Beijing is also focussed on applying civilian technology in the military sphere – a policy known as ‘military-civil fusion’. Some of its new technology is purely indigenous; some (for example, for air defence or submarines) is acquired as part of China’s close relationship with Russia; and some is developed with European help, by Chinese students and researchers from universities and research institutes with close ties to the military studying at European institutions, occasionally even with EU funding.

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China is dramatically increasing its military capability. In 2005 the Chinese navy had 221 ships; by 2030, based on current rates of ship-building, it is forecast to have 435 ships. Its nuclear warhead stockpile has more than doubled since 2019. Its air force has grown and modernised. These developments are making European partners in the Indo-Pacific region, such as Australia and Japan, extremely nervous. Although European governments, including the UK’s, are very reluctant to label China a potential adversary, they are stepping up defence and security co-operation with democratic governments in the region.

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What can Europe do?

• First, it needs to ensure that it understands what China is doing. Networks of China watchers in Europe need more support, and there needs to be more funding for the study of Chinese language, the Chinese economy and Chinese foreign policy, both inside governments and in academia. Europeans also need to strengthen their ties to democratic countries in the Indo-Pacific region, both to benefit from their insights into the regional hegemon, and to be able to co-ordinate policy where possible.

• Second, Europe needs to intensify work to reduce its dependencies on China. European countries and the EU will have to accept that China is not playing by the rules of free trade and the free market, and protect their own economies accordingly. The EU and European countries have a variety of tools for this, in terms of ensuring Europe’s economic security, protecting intellectual property and diversifying supply chains. They are often not used in a co-ordinated way, however, even when there are obvious advantages in acting at the EU level rather than nationally, for example to secure access to critical raw materials. The EU has critical minerals partnerships with more than a dozen countries or territories, but the bulk of the raw materials it can obtain still have to be processed in China; changing that situation, including by working with countries that already have processing and/or manufacturing capabilities, should be a high priority.

• Third, it needs to step up both its own research and development spending (a longstanding EU goal) and protect its intellectual property better – including by paying much closer attention to the possible military or defence industry connections of Chinese researchers seeking to study sensitive technologies in Europe.

• Finally, it must compete more effectively with Chinese soft power, both within Europe and in the global south. Shrinking aid budgets, the retreat of Western broadcasters like the BBC World Service, tough European visa policies and unwelcoming attitudes to students and researchers from many parts of the global south have given China an opening to promote itself as a better partner. In reality, Europe’s political and economic system still has much more to offer than Chinese state capitalism and the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. Europe needs to invest more in getting that message across.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5716280

Archived version

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Today, Chinese companies control more than 220 gigawatts of Europe’s installed solar capacity via inverters—the digital brains that convert direct current into grid-usable alternating current. These (usually) remotely programmable computers generate data, receive software and firmware updates, adjust voltage and frequency, and can be switched on and off as needed—or tampered with. Huawei (deemed “high risk” for many European telecoms networks) has become Europe’s largest supplier of inverters.

In normal times, inverters maintain grid stability and facilitate the integration of renewable energy. In a world where technology can be weaponised, they also offer a handful of operators potential levers inside Europe’s critical infrastructure. The irony is that clean technologies disperse energy generation across countless sites, but the digital centralisation of their data and control on cloud platforms makes them more vulnerable to attack.

In effect, while European dependence on solar panels from China may not be the most risky of dependencies, the EU’s energy grid backbone increasingly runs on Chinese hardware, software and data access. European countries need to spend hundreds of billions of euros over the coming years to upgrade their ageing grid, and China is well-placed to extend this dominant inverter supplier position into other power equipment, including transmission lines, distribution transformers and software for managing grid integration. Beijing has already shown that it will use dependencies as geoeconomic weapons, from rare earths to automotive chips. Europe’s grid could be next.

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There’s no shortage of ways inverters can be turned into weapons. State-linked actors could deploy malware that cripples the power system and knocks out critical services. Espionage teams might map the grid to help pinpoint the best places to disconnect for maximum impact. Cyber attacks on operating systems could plunge wide areas into darkness for weeks.

There are also geoeconomic threats. Imagine China restricted the sale of components and maintenance services to its grid technologies. European countries would not be able to simply switch to a different supplier, because switching often requires replacing large parts of the network, leaving operators unable to patch known flaws and thereby inviting more cyber attacks or extortion.

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How to secure the European grid

• Exclude high-risk vendors from the EU, e.g., the Cybersecurity Act, as well as the Cyber Resilience Act, could therefore offer the Commission another pathway to enforce Union-wide bans on risky products and services
• Condition funding on exclusions, e.g., conditioning EU funding for renewable energy projects and auctions on the exclusion of hardware and software from high-risk suppliers
• Tighten economic security measures, e.g., protecting domestic manufacturers by launching trade defence investigations (anti-dumping) into imported inverters and other power grid equipment
• Prevent circumvention and strengthen oversight, e.g., making sure that member states EU regulations by outsourcing operational control functions of inverters to (shell) companies in high-risk countries
• Promote trust standards among allies, e.g., encouraging its member states to adopt similar trust standards for their energy grid

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The same could be said for non-American media, but American media in particular always hops between different topics and only one at a time.

Take, for example, news surrounding the mustard orange man with a red hat. At first, the news was swirling about how he was elected for a second term despite being a felon, but eventually the media pretty much forgot about that and went to his stance on climate change (that is, he believes it doesn't exist and thinks that oil and gas are the most amazing thing in the world, ever), then to the huge budget cuts (e.g. medicine, foreign aid, NASA), then to the ICE raids and military deployments in cities as "police", and now to "the files".

He is still a felon, still pushing for fossil fuels, still cutting funding for critical services (while increasing budget for his own benefit, like the rebuilding of the east wing of the white house to be glittery gold, military spending, fossil fuels industry...), still using ICE to raid the communities and families of both legal (including U.S. citizens, what the hell!) and "illegal" immigrants (nearly all of which don't have a criminal record, don't think 3 years olds are gang members...), and still using the military in various different cities as "police".

Questioning orange man's relation with bald egg man should be rightfully done, but why is the media practically ignoring everything else (esp. given that he was already convicted for doing similar acts as well as a bunch of other naughty stuff to do with money and government documents)

The American media can only latch onto one "hot" topic at a time and it's infuriating. You go to any of the news about orange man right now and it's all about non-Sonic billionaire eggman. The public is not as "one brain cell" as the media, but still, most people in the U.S. usually latch on to one thing only (whether it's ICE, the budget cuts, or the files, ESPECIALLY the files, it may as well be a copypasta at this point)

Similar could be said for big non-orange topics too, like on Israel (their invasion and genocide in Gaza, settlement of the West Bank, bombings of Lebanon, Syria, and now the "scary" proposal that - gasps - mentions a Palestinian state, etc.), Russian invasion of Ukraine, etc.

Why is the American media like this? Same could be said for all media, but American media in particular seem to always be tunnel visioned to one issue at a time. The American public also seem pretty tunnel visioned to a single issue, though not to the extent of the media companies

Note: I am not an American and do not, have never, and probably will never (due to the anti-immigrant administration) live in the US. I am not saying "haha Americans are dumb", that wouldn't be very nice. I just read a lot of news, some of which is American, and this has been a weird pattern I've been noticing and it drives me crazy.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5716161

Archived version

On November 18, Russia’s State Duma passed the 2026 draft budget in its second reading. The plan includes raising the value-added tax (VAT) from 20 to 22 percent and increasing taxes on small and medium-sized businesses. During the same session, lawmakers also approved a “technology fee” that will be charged to importers and manufacturers of household appliances and electronics.

The Putin administration for state-run and pro-government media, designed to help them present the new policies in a way that suits the Kremlin.

TL;DR:

• The West is to blame for the tax hikes.
• Media outlets are strongly advised to avoid mentioning Putin's name in stories about rising taxes to make sure clear that the public does not associate any of these unpopular decisions with Putin personally
• The Putin administration recommends citing European countries that are supposedly “slashing social programs to fund weapons.”
• Fears that tax increases drive up prices should be eased by saying that the tax changes will have only a “minimal” impact on inflation.
• In addition, the Putin administration urges loyal media to shift attention toward a separate tax increase on bookmakers, portraying it as a “fair” measure.

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Meanwhile, Russia starts selling off its gold reserves to fund the war budget, breaking a long-held taboo, as the country’s Central Bank confirmed to Russian media outlet Interfax.

The move marks a significant shift in how Moscow is tapping its financial buffers to sustain government spending during the war against Ukraine.

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Archived version

On November 18, Russia’s State Duma passed the 2026 draft budget in its second reading. The plan includes raising the value-added tax (VAT) from 20 to 22 percent and increasing taxes on small and medium-sized businesses. During the same session, lawmakers also approved a “technology fee” that will be charged to importers and manufacturers of household appliances and electronics.

The Putin administration for state-run and pro-government media, designed to help them present the new policies in a way that suits the Kremlin.

TL;DR:

• The West is to blame for the tax hikes.
• Media outlets are strongly advised to avoid mentioning Putin's name in stories about rising taxes to make sure clear that the public does not associate any of these unpopular decisions with Putin personally
• The Putin administration recommends citing European countries that are supposedly “slashing social programs to fund weapons.”
• Fears that tax increases drive up prices should be eased by saying that the tax changes will have only a “minimal” impact on inflation.
• In addition, the Putin administration urges loyal media to shift attention toward a separate tax increase on bookmakers, portraying it as a “fair” measure.

...

Meanwhile, Russia starts selling off its gold reserves to fund the war budget, breaking a long-held taboo, as the country’s Central Bank confirmed to Russian media outlet Interfax.

The move marks a significant shift in how Moscow is tapping its financial buffers to sustain government spending during the war against Ukraine.

...

From “Commie Scum” to GOP Star

For many people who have only recently begun to follow politics or know him only as Katy Perry’s ex-husband, little of this information will be shocking. Yet less a decade ago, Brand was one of the most vocal and recognizable figures on the global revolutionary left.

In 2013, he edited a special edition of the New Statesman magazine, entitled “Revolution.” The following year, he authored a non-fiction book with the same name, taking inspiration from leftist figures such as Noam Chomsky, David Graeber, and Che Guevara.

At the height of his fame, he used his platform to urge the public to rebel, to boycott the electoral system, and to call for a communist-style revolution. “The planet is being destroyed. We are creating an underclass. We’re exploiting poor people all over the world. And the genuine, legitimate problems of the people are not being addressed by our political class,” he told the BBC.

The climate emergency was once a driving force behind Brand’s politics. In the same 2013 BBC interview, he stated that our political system “shouldn’t destroy the planet,” and that “The measures that are currently being taken around climate change are indifferent, will not solve the problem.” Yet, on this issue as well, his position has undergone a transformation. Climate change denialists were a favored target on “The Trews.” But by 2023, Brand was hosting controversial climate skeptic Bjørn Lomborg on his podcast. And earlier this year, he attacked Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Allies, Accusations, and a Trial Ahead

What explains this significant shift in Brand’s political outlook? For some, the answer is obvious. Facing mounting allegations of sexual assault and rape, Brand realized his existing leftist following would reject him, so he chose to move to the United States, embrace Trump and religion, and cultivate a reactionary fan base that would have little problem with his alleged sex crimes. If this is indeed the case, Brand would be far from the first to do so. Indeed, scholars and commentators have named this well-trodden path the right-wing “grift drift.”

From 2023 onwards, Brand has faced waves of accusations of sexual misconduct, as hosts of women (including one girl aged only 16 at the time) have come forward, alleging rape and sexual assault. Only four of these allegations have so far resulted in charges. Earlier this year, the comedian and film star was charged with the rape, oral rape, sexual assault and indecent assault of four women between the years of 1999 and 2005.

Brand has vigorously denied all the allegations, insisting that his relationships were “always consensual.” “I was a fool before I lived in the light of the Lord. I was a drug addict, a sex addict and an imbecile, but what I never was was a rapist,” he said in a video posted on his social media channels.

Another post from betting market company Polymarket read: "BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani to require all New York elementary school students to learn Arabic numerals." The post has almost 14 million views.

For context: I'm not from a western background. I'm Asian.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/45982251

Two months after her new sentence of four more years in prison, Zhang Zhan - the blogger and Christian human rights activist who first reported on the pandemic in Wuhan - has been moved without warning to a new detention facility with no possibility of contact with her family.

This was discovered by her lawyer, who went to visit her at the Pudong Detention Centre in Shanghai and was told that it was impossible because she had been transferred. Only after Reporters Without Borders – which awarded her the Press Freedom Award in 2021 and has been following her case for some time – made the news public did the local authorities announce that she is now in the Women's Prison, also in Shanghai but in the Songjiang district.

According to what Zhang Zhan's mother was told, she was sent to this new location for a month of “education” and visits are not allowed.

After already serving four years in prison, on 19 September, in a closed-door trial in a Shanghai court , Zhang Zhan was again convicted on charges of disturbing social order and provoking quarrels for travelling to Gansu province to meet human rights activist Zhang Pancheng, who was arrested for participating in protests in defence of workers who had been treated unfairly.

‘We are deeply concerned about her situation,’ said Antoine Bernal of Reporters Without Borders. ‘The international community must not remain silent. It must call for an end to this shameful persecution of this heroine of journalism.’

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39099089

The news comes in the wake of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s, formerly known as Prince Andrew, summons deadline today, and pressure is mounting on him to respond.

The survivor accused Trump: “He had to have known something. He had to have had an idea. 

“You know, he always boasted about their friendship, but I never knew how close or how involved they were.”

The anonymous victim was speaking exclusively to Channel 5 in the United Kingdom (Channel 5)

She said, “he had pictures of them at his house together,” which she says she has seen. 

“They were friends… I don't know how he couldn't have [not known].”

The statement from the Infrastructure and Transport Ministers' meeting: https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/itmm-communique-21-november-2025.pdf

The same statement from WeRide on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/werideaustralia/posts/pfbid0KpgL2Xxi54XVQNk557nVm9SXCFwVvtu6VtW7GbMSDcCRkwYKh2imTuAFSRfAni65l