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Russian and Chinese support for Venezuela has largely dried up, with no prospect of real military or financial aid.

International human rights groups have condemned the re-arrest of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi in Iran, with the Nobel committee calling on Iranian authorities to immediately clarify her whereabouts.

Mohammadi's French lawyer, Chirine Ardakani, said on X that the human rights activist was arrested on Friday after denouncing the suspicious death of lawyer Khosrow Alikordi at his memorial ceremony in the northeastern city of Mashhad.

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Mashhad prosecutor Hasan Hematifar told reporters she [Mohammadi] and Alikordi's brother had made provocative remarks at the event and encouraged those present "to chant 'norm‑breaking' slogans" and disturb the peace, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

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The Norwegian Nobel Committee called on Iranian authorities "to immediately clarify Mohammadi’s whereabouts, ensure her safety and integrity, and to release her without conditions."

The European Union also called for Mohammadi's release. "The EU urges Iranian authorities to release Ms Mohammadi, taking also into account her fragile health condition, as well as all those unjustly arrested in the exercise of their freedom of expression," an EU spokesperson said on Saturday.

A video purportedly showing Mohammadi, 53, without the mandatory veil, standing on a car with a microphone and chanting "Long Live Iran" in front of a crowd, has gone viral on social media. Ardakani said Mohammadi was beaten before her arrest.

Reporters Without Borders said four journalists and other participants were also arrested at the memorial for human rights lawyer Alikordi, who was found dead in his office on December 5.

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Archived version

Hong Kong’s High Court ... pronounced publisher and democracy activist Jimmy Lai guilty on trumped-up national security and sedition charges for his work at the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper.

The verdict delivers yet another blow to Hong Kong’s press freedom and underscores the extent to which the Hong Kong authorities have eroded the city’s rule of law.

Lai was convicted by three handpicked judges, having been denied his constitutionally protected right to a jury trial, for “colluding with foreign forces” and for “conspiracy to publish seditious material.”

“Jimmy Lai is a British citizen. His release should be a condition of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s planned trip to Beijing in January,” the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation writes in a statement.

Prior the the verdict, Starmer has called the release of Lai, a British citizen, a priority. ...

Several rights groups have called the conviction "a cruel judicial farce" ...

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According to reports, Lai will learn his sentencing on a later date. A mitigation hearing is scheduled for Jan. 12.

Lai has yet to decide on whether to appeal the verdict, according to his lawyer Robert Pang.

European Union finance ministers agreed on Friday to set a 3 euro ($3.52) customs duty on low-value parcels arriving in the bloc, part of efforts to crack down on cheap Chinese e-commerce imports such as from online retailers Shein and Temu.

The duty will apply from July 1, 2026, and will be in place until a permanent solution is found to eliminate the "de minimis" duties exemption for online purchases below 150 euros, the EU's Council of its 27 governments said in a statement.

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The bloc was due to remove the exemption in 2028 as part of an overhaul of its customs system, but pressure to act faster has grown amid concerns about Chinese goods being dumped in Europe.

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The number of low-value e-commerce packages arriving in the bloc doubled last year to 4.6 billion, over 90% of them from China. Imports this year are set to be even higher.

The EU is also considering a separate handling fee, which the European Commission has proposed should be set at 2 euros per parcel. It is not clear when it would be imposed.

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The German Foreign Office said Friday it summoned the Russian ambassador, Sergei Nechayev, over allegations of repeated hybrid attacks on Germany.

The move followed what officials described as mounting evidence of coordinated Russian activity aimed at undermining Germany's internal stability.

"The goal of these Russian cyber and disinformation attacks is clear: It is to divide society, stir up mistrust, provoke rejection, and weaken confidence in democratic institutions," Foreign Office spokesperson Martin Giese said.

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The Foreign Office listed some cases that it said were perpetrated by Moscow.

In one instance, Giese said, a cyberattack against Germany's air traffic control authority in August 2024 could be clearly attributed to the Russian hacker group "Fancy Bear."

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In another case, Berlin claimed it was now certain that Russia attempted to influence the most recent general election. According to Germany, this was done through the propagandist group "Storm 1516,” which creates and spreads online disinformation to further the interests of the Russian government.

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Two days before the early federal election in February, the government said security agencies had identified fake videos alleging ballot manipulation as part of a Russian disinformation effort.

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Russia is accused of various acts of hybrid warfare — actions that fall below the threshold of open military conflict but are designed to weaken states politically. They include:

• Hacking government ministries, parliaments, and defense institutions
• Targeting critical infrastructure such as energy grids, transport systems and air traffic control
• Spreading disinformation during election campaigns
• Amplifying fake stories or manipulated content via social media
• Using bot networks and troll farms to influence voter sentiment
• Targeting specific candidates seen as unfavorable to Moscow
• Acts of sabotage against railways, cables, pipelines, or military logistics
• Surveillance or targeting of infrastructure linked to Ukraine support
• Encouraging or facilitating irregular migration toward EU border

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Archived link

The contribution on low-value postal packages, ⁠set at 2 euros for each shipment, is expected to garner 122.5 million euros next ⁠year and 245 million in both 2027 and 2028, according to parliamentary documents seen by Reuters.

With this move, which is in line with ‍a proposal ‌being discussed at European Union level, Italy targets online platforms ⁠such as Shein ‌and Temu and aims to protect its fashion ‌industry from low-cost foreign imports mostly from China.

EU customs authorities handled around 4.6 billion low-value packages bought online in 2024, 91% of them coming from China and double the ‍2023 figure, latest data shows.

The government also intends to increase Italy's tax weighing on the transfer of shares and ‌other financial ⁠instruments ​to 0.4% from a current 0.2%, in a ⁠move ​that should yield an additional 337 million euros from next year.

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• The European Union is investigating Chinese security firm Nuctech amid concerns subsidies from Beijing gave it an unfair market advantage over local EU firms.
• The European Commission said handouts could have bolstered Nuctech’s strength in Europe to the detriment of rivals in the market.
• The EU has powers to vet subsidies that can hamper European markets, and could issue fines, orders to suspend tenders, or outright blocks of takeovers by state-funded firms.

Archived link

Chinese security firm Nuctech has been hit by a full-scale European Union investigation amid concerns subsidies from Beijing gave it an unfair market advantage over local EU firms.

The European Commission said handouts in the form of “grants, preferential tax measures, and preferential financing” could have bolstered Nuctech’s strength in Europe to the detriment of rivals in the market.

The probe means the company — which specializes in the production and sale of threat detection systems as well as related services — will be under pressure to file commitments to fix any harm to fair competition.

“We want a level playing field on the market for such systems, keeping fair opportunities for competitors, customers such as border authorities,” said EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6061854

Archived version

• Italy's landmark China Truck mafia trial stalled for years
• Missing interpreters, lost files fuel sabotage suspicions
• "Coat hanger wars" spread violence across Europe's fashion hub
• Weak China cooperation hobbles probes, Italian prosecutors say

A landmark trial in Italy of Chinese crime gangs has suffered so many mishaps - from the disappearance of documents to the resignation of interpreters - that a senior prosecutor suspects it's being sabotaged to protect the criminals' grip on Europe's fashion industry.

The case, launched after two Chinese men were hacked to death with machetes in 2010, is aimed at dismantling an illicit network accused of controlling the logistics of the continent's multi-billion-euro garments sector from the city of Prato in Tuscany.

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"The suspicion is that there is interference from the Chinese community and Chinese authorities in this matter," said Luca Tescaroli, a veteran of Italy's war against the mafia who is now Prato's chief prosecutor and leading the charge against Chinese crime gangs.

The Chinese embassy in Rome did not reply to emails requesting comment on Tescaroli's remarks.

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When the latest court interpreter failed to show up to a hearing at the end of September, a quick check revealed she had returned to China and her transcripts were "incomprehensible and unusable", Tescaroli said.

The translator was the second to walk off the job and no other Chinese interpreter in Tuscany has agreed to take over. Tescaroli has opened an investigation into the possibility that someone is looking to sink the trial.

The violence prosecutors hoped to curb has only intensified as the trial flounders, with the battle for control of coat hanger production and fast-fashion freight spawning a string of bomb and arson attacks in Italy, France and Spain.

...

The Prato prosecutor and his colleagues are pressing the judges in the so-called China Truck trial to define the Chinese gangs legally as mafia groups – a designation that would unlock sweeping powers, asset seizures and stiffer sentence.

However, in Italy that label is difficult to secure, even more so if the organisations are rooted abroad, making them harder to penetrate than home-grown crime groups such as Sicily's Cosa Nostra.

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Wedged in the hills northwest of Florence, Prato is billed as Europe's largest textile manufacturing hub, hosting more than 7,000 textile and garment companies that register some 2.3 billion euros ($2.68 billion) in official annual exports. Over 4,400 of firms are Chinese owned, local authorities say.

Almost a quarter of its residents are foreigners, the largest ratio in Italy, but the percentage is likely much higher as many newcomers are illegal immigrants without work permits.

Prato's streets are lined with Chinese-owned workshops, warehouses, and businesses that have transformed the city into a global fast-fashion production centre, and a flashpoint for violence linked to criminal networks.

The China Truck investigation closed in 2018 with prosecutors alleging that the 58 suspects had formed "a criminal association equipped with very significant financial means ... with support and resources abroad".

Seven years on, not a single defendant or witness has been called to testify.

Meanwhile, the alleged mastermind Zhang Naizhong, described by investigators as a "boss of bosses", slipped back to China in 2018 after he was released from pre-trail custody and prosecutors doubt he will ever return to Italy.

...

Chinese businesses in the textile district have long operated within what investigators call the "Prato system", marked by corruption and irregular practices, including labour and safety abuses as well as tax and customs fraud.

These companies can appear and disappear overnight, engaging in a cat-and-mouse game with authorities to dodge taxes and avoid having to give workers proper contracts, according to Arturo Gambassi, a representative from the Sudd Cobas union, which defends workers' rights in the textile sector.

"In all the firms where we have initiated labour disputes, we saw that their business name had changed in the previous two years," he told Reuters.

Police say fabrics are often smuggled in from China to avoid customs duties, while profits are sent back through illicit money-transfer channels, with up to 4 million euros shipped out of Rome's Fiumicino airport each week, according to prosecutors and police.

To maintain their competitive edge, the industry depends on cheap, round-the-clock labour, largely from China and Pakistan, with workers facing a backlash if they seek legal contracts.

On November 17, more than 15 Chinese citizens assaulted a union demonstration in Prato. Plain clothes police who were observing the protest were also attacked, with two officers needing hospital treatment, a police statement said.

...

Without the mafia designation or Chinese cooperation, Tescaroli's case in the China Truck trial relies on the fragile scaffolding of Italian procedure, and the willingness of translators to show up.

...

Archived version

• Italy's landmark China Truck mafia trial stalled for years
• Missing interpreters, lost files fuel sabotage suspicions
• "Coat hanger wars" spread violence across Europe's fashion hub
• Weak China cooperation hobbles probes, Italian prosecutors say

A landmark trial in Italy of Chinese crime gangs has suffered so many mishaps - from the disappearance of documents to the resignation of interpreters - that a senior prosecutor suspects it's being sabotaged to protect the criminals' grip on Europe's fashion industry.

The case, launched after two Chinese men were hacked to death with machetes in 2010, is aimed at dismantling an illicit network accused of controlling the logistics of the continent's multi-billion-euro garments sector from the city of Prato in Tuscany.

...

"The suspicion is that there is interference from the Chinese community and Chinese authorities in this matter," said Luca Tescaroli, a veteran of Italy's war against the mafia who is now Prato's chief prosecutor and leading the charge against Chinese crime gangs.

The Chinese embassy in Rome did not reply to emails requesting comment on Tescaroli's remarks.

...

When the latest court interpreter failed to show up to a hearing at the end of September, a quick check revealed she had returned to China and her transcripts were "incomprehensible and unusable", Tescaroli said.

The translator was the second to walk off the job and no other Chinese interpreter in Tuscany has agreed to take over. Tescaroli has opened an investigation into the possibility that someone is looking to sink the trial.

The violence prosecutors hoped to curb has only intensified as the trial flounders, with the battle for control of coat hanger production and fast-fashion freight spawning a string of bomb and arson attacks in Italy, France and Spain.

...

The Prato prosecutor and his colleagues are pressing the judges in the so-called China Truck trial to define the Chinese gangs legally as mafia groups – a designation that would unlock sweeping powers, asset seizures and stiffer sentence.

However, in Italy that label is difficult to secure, even more so if the organisations are rooted abroad, making them harder to penetrate than home-grown crime groups such as Sicily's Cosa Nostra.

...

Wedged in the hills northwest of Florence, Prato is billed as Europe's largest textile manufacturing hub, hosting more than 7,000 textile and garment companies that register some 2.3 billion euros ($2.68 billion) in official annual exports. Over 4,400 of firms are Chinese owned, local authorities say.

Almost a quarter of its residents are foreigners, the largest ratio in Italy, but the percentage is likely much higher as many newcomers are illegal immigrants without work permits.

Prato's streets are lined with Chinese-owned workshops, warehouses, and businesses that have transformed the city into a global fast-fashion production centre, and a flashpoint for violence linked to criminal networks.

The China Truck investigation closed in 2018 with prosecutors alleging that the 58 suspects had formed "a criminal association equipped with very significant financial means ... with support and resources abroad".

Seven years on, not a single defendant or witness has been called to testify.

Meanwhile, the alleged mastermind Zhang Naizhong, described by investigators as a "boss of bosses", slipped back to China in 2018 after he was released from pre-trail custody and prosecutors doubt he will ever return to Italy.

...

Chinese businesses in the textile district have long operated within what investigators call the "Prato system", marked by corruption and irregular practices, including labour and safety abuses as well as tax and customs fraud.

These companies can appear and disappear overnight, engaging in a cat-and-mouse game with authorities to dodge taxes and avoid having to give workers proper contracts, according to Arturo Gambassi, a representative from the Sudd Cobas union, which defends workers' rights in the textile sector.

"In all the firms where we have initiated labour disputes, we saw that their business name had changed in the previous two years," he told Reuters.

Police say fabrics are often smuggled in from China to avoid customs duties, while profits are sent back through illicit money-transfer channels, with up to 4 million euros shipped out of Rome's Fiumicino airport each week, according to prosecutors and police.

To maintain their competitive edge, the industry depends on cheap, round-the-clock labour, largely from China and Pakistan, with workers facing a backlash if they seek legal contracts.

On November 17, more than 15 Chinese citizens assaulted a union demonstration in Prato. Plain clothes police who were observing the protest were also attacked, with two officers needing hospital treatment, a police statement said.

...

Without the mafia designation or Chinese cooperation, Tescaroli's case in the China Truck trial relies on the fragile scaffolding of Italian procedure, and the willingness of translators to show up.

...

Archived version

Solar panels used widely across Ireland, including in large solar farms, at airports, and on government buildings, were sourced from companies linked to forced labour and environmental devastation in the Xinjiang region of China, RTÉ Investigates has found.

Two Chinese solar panel manufacturers, JA Solar and Jinko Solar, were sourcing a raw material called polysilicon – one of the essential ingredients in the manufacture of panels – from Xinjiang, where China has built a regime of forced labour and repression targeting the region's ethnic minorities, particularly Uyghurs, a system some critics, including the US government, describe as a genocide.

In a landmark 2022 report, the United Nations concluded that human rights abuses in [Xinjiang] were widespread and could constitute crimes against humanity.

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JA Solar and Jinko Solar panels can be found on sites across Ireland, including at a new solar farm at Shannon Airport, opened by Minister for Climate Energy Darragh O’Brien on 28 November, in Wicklow County Council’s car park, and in Ireland’s largest solar farm developments, including at sites owned by ESB.

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The investigation also found that** enormous volumes of coal**, the dirtiest fossil fuel, were being mined and burned in order to process and purify the polysilicon.

This lead to extremely high levels of air pollution in an industrial zone called Zhundong Development Park, one of the most important areas for polysilicon production in China, where polysilicon companies are co-located with vast open-pit coal mines. Three of the world’s top ten polysilicon manufacturers are based in the park.

China's subsidisation of its solar industry has driven down prices and made solar power the most affordable energy source in the world, but critics say this has been done at a human and environmental cost that is too great to ignore.

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China's production of panels ... has vastly overshot demand. It produces twice as many as is needed by the global economy, and the environmental cost has primarily been borne by Xinjiang.

"There are crimes against humanity being perpetrated in the Uyghur region, so we don't see this as a trade issue or even a national security issue," said Patricia Carrier, a human rights lawyer with the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region.

"The Chinese government has purposefully invested heavily in several sectors to ensure that they are concentrated in or reliant on Uyghur forced labour and also very lax environmental standards...so not only is there forced labour being used, but it is also very environmentally damaging."

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Industry bodies say that China's dominance comes at the cost of social and human rights, and has "jeopardised" and "undermined" Europe's commitment to a "fair and resilient energy transition."

"The nexus between forced labour and the unsustainably low prices of Chinese-made solar PV modules and inverters poses a serious threat," said the European Solar Manufacturing Council in a letter addressed to the then taoiseach Leo Varadkar and energy minister Eamon Ryan in January 2024.

"Without EU regulations scrutinizing goods throughout the value chain for forced labour, European PV manufacturers, adhering to higher social and environmental standards, are jeopardised."

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Though allegations of forced labour and environmental issues in China’s solar industry have been known since at least 2020, Ireland continued to import and deploy panels from JA Solar and Jinko Solar.

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6033366

Archived version

Britain announced sanctions against Russian media and ideas outlets on Tuesday as the U.K’s top diplomat warned Western nations must raise their game to combat information warfare from “malign foreign states.”

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the U.K. was imposing sanctions on the microblogging Telegram channel Rybar and its co-owner Mikhail Sergeevich Zvinchuk, the Foundation for the Support and Protection of the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad — also known as Pravfond and described by Estonian intelligence as a front for the GRU spy agency — and the Center for Geopolitical Expertise, a think-tank run by Russian ultranationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin.

Two China-based firms — i-Soon and the Integrity Technology Group — also were sanctioned “for their vast and indiscriminate cyber activities against the U.K. and its allies,” Cooper said.

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[Cooper] said threats include physical attacks such as sabotage as well as disinformation campaigns “flooding social media with generative AI and manipulated videos” aimed at undermining Western support for Ukraine’s resistance to Russian invasion.

British officials point to fake websites and political ads during Moldova’s recent election and fake news sites carrying videos with false claims about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his wife designed to undermine support for Ukraine.

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6033366

Archived version

Britain announced sanctions against Russian media and ideas outlets on Tuesday as the U.K’s top diplomat warned Western nations must raise their game to combat information warfare from “malign foreign states.”

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the U.K. was imposing sanctions on the microblogging Telegram channel Rybar and its co-owner Mikhail Sergeevich Zvinchuk, the Foundation for the Support and Protection of the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad — also known as Pravfond and described by Estonian intelligence as a front for the GRU spy agency — and the Center for Geopolitical Expertise, a think-tank run by Russian ultranationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin.

Two China-based firms — i-Soon and the Integrity Technology Group — also were sanctioned “for their vast and indiscriminate cyber activities against the U.K. and its allies,” Cooper said.

...

[Cooper] said threats include physical attacks such as sabotage as well as disinformation campaigns “flooding social media with generative AI and manipulated videos” aimed at undermining Western support for Ukraine’s resistance to Russian invasion.

British officials point to fake websites and political ads during Moldova’s recent election and fake news sites carrying videos with false claims about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his wife designed to undermine support for Ukraine.

...