Non paywall at... is/0uOOv

• Laszlo Papp [the mayor if the Hungarian cirty if Debrecen] has publicly called for Chinese battery-parts manufacturer Semcorp to exit after pollution incident after tests revealed contamination 13,000 times above limit
• The $210 million plant was closed last month because of elevated metal levels detected in local water sources.
• The government led by recently appointed Prime Minister Peter Magyar has promised to shift away from reliance on foreign assembly operations and has accused the previous administration of ignoring environmental infractions at foreign investments.

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Papp wrote on social media: "The local authority and all its subsidiaries will refuse any cooperation with Semcorp in the future," calling the company "irresponsible."

Semcorp did not respond when contacted via email for comment. The administration of recently elected Prime Minister Peter Magyar has promised to shift Hungary's economic strategy away from relying on foreign assembly operations, and accused Orban's former officials of ignoring environmental breaches while assisting projects with preferential treatment and state funds.

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The Fidesz party of Orban, which includes Mayor Papp among its members, has rejected these claims. Accusations of environmental misconduct at multiple major foreign projects played a key role in Magyar's electoral win. All the factories involved have maintained that they comply with environmental regulations.

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To provide additional context, Debrecen has long been a focal point of Hungary's battery industry ambitions. The Semcorp facility, built to manufacture battery components, represented one of the largest single foreign investments in the region. Its sudden closure not only idles hundreds of local workers but also raises doubts about the viability of future projects that were planned under the previous administration's aggressive recruitment of Asian manufacturers.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/9971596

Mercedes-Benz looks set to move production of the compact G-Class away from Germany. Instead, the electric model is expected to roll off the production line at the Kecskemét plant in Hungary in 2027. The Rastatt site, where Mercedes also produces compact models, will reportedly not be awarded the contract.

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Kecskemét is set to become Mercedes’ largest European plant as a result of this expansion. There, an additional production module has doubled capacity to between 300,000 and 400,000 vehicles annually. This will increase the Hungarian site’s share of European Mercedes production from 15 to ~30 per cent. For the German plants in Sindelfingen, Rastatt, and Bremen, this leaves an estimated total of approximately 900,000 units – about 100,000 fewer than before.

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Ukraine hopes to sign major defence deals with at least seven Nato countries by the end of the year, according to a top official, highlighting a new aspect of Kyiv’s foreign policy intended to show it can be a provider as well as a recipient of military hardware and expertise.(..)

The initiative is called the drone deal, but it actually covers way more than just drones … what’s even more important is the experience and knowledge, the access to all the components that form the system here in Ukraine,” said Davyd Aloian, the deputy secretary of Ukraine’s security council and one of those in charge of the deals.

Rather than relying on proprietary models from OpenAI or Google, Lumo uses a mix of open-source foundation models. According to Proton, these currently include Qwen 3.5, GLM 5.2, Image-Turbo and FireRed-Image-Edit-1.1.

They should consider changing the name of their country.

"United Scum of America" or "United Stupids" sounds better.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/9957785

Within Russia, the war has come under growing criticism as Ukraine has ramped up strikes inside the country and Russian casualties keep growing ... These deadly attacks are a 'sign of desperation' as Putin is realising he might not win the war.

Here is an Invidious alt for the video (4 min) inside the linked article.

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The Hajdú-Bihar County Government Office took action against Semcorp Hungary Kft., which manufactures lithium-ion battery separator films, following an investigation that uncovered severe subsurface contamination. The findings also detected a range of other heavy metals, while the mayor of Debrecen has announced a criminal complaint in the case.

The company had previously maintained that a leaking, pungent, unidentified substance was merely condensation water and posed no environmental risk.

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Chinese company insisted substance was harmless

The investigation began after samples were taken in February from a rainwater drainage channel near the industrial site, following an operational incident. During an on-site inspection on 26 February, officials recorded that a steaming, sharp-smelling, unidentified substance was seeping into the soil.

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Laboratory results revealed unexpectedly severe contamination. Aluminium concentrations in groundwater reached 2,676,000 micrograms per litre, compared with a legal threshold of 200 micrograms per litre — more than 13,000 times the permitted level, local Debreciner wrote.

In addition to aluminium, elevated levels of several metals were detected, including arsenic, zinc, lead, cobalt, cadmium, nickel, barium, chromium, copper, manganese, lithium and iron. According to the authorities, most of these are not of natural origin, a conclusion supported by baseline environmental data from 2021.

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Documents now in the public domain show that the authorities had already established a regulatory breach on 22 May. The contamination was traced to a section of the plant where aqueous aluminium oxide solutions are used — an area the company had intended to keep in operation.

The immediate suspension was deemed necessary, as further environmental damage could not be ruled out even during the appeals process.

The government office also noted that although Semcorp carried out mandatory sampling, it submitted the results after the deadline, resulting in a fine of one million forints. The company has challenged this penalty in court.

Multiple regulatory proceedings are now under way. Environmental authorities have ordered remediation measures, required a full site investigation, and launched proceedings over operations deviating from permit conditions. The company must also install waterproofing in a stormwater retention basin, conduct quarterly monitoring of observation wells, expand the scope of tested substances, and reimburse procedural costs exceeding two million forints.

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László Papp, the mayor of Debrecen, said the city and its asset management company had been informed of groundwater contamination exceeding legal limits, which he described as unacceptable.

He stressed that this was not the first instance in which environmental concerns had arisen in connection with the company, and confirmed that the municipality had filed a criminal complaint.

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cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/67405919

According to a senior official, from the US perspective, a takeover of Greenland by the United States is currently the only way to address the long-term security risks surrounding the island, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

“We continue to believe that this is the best way to meet NATO’s defence requirements with regard to Greenland,” he told journalists yesterday ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara.

At the same time, he said that other options were also being examined. He did not specify what these might entail. The senior government official pointed out that there was “intense naval activity” in the region around Greenland and that US President Donald Trump was seeking a “permanent” solution.

“So far, we see the acquisition of Greenland by the United States as the only solution,” the official added.

Two workers have died within the space of just a few months at the construction site of BYD’s new factory in Szeged, raising serious concerns over safety standards. While construction is widely regarded as one of the most hazardous industries, professional bodies say two fatalities in such a short period is exceptional, even on a project of this scale.

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The National Federation of Hungarian Building Contractors (ÉVOSZ) described the occurrence of two fatal incidents in such quick succession as clearly extraordinary. Its president, László Koji, stressed that neither the size nor the complexity of an investment can ever justify serious workplace accidents. While there is no benchmark for what constitutes an “average” number of accidents on a project of this magnitude, he added, the fundamental principle of occupational safety is that no workplace accident should be considered acceptable.

Series of further accidents

The situation is compounded by a number of additional serious incidents in recent months. In May, a reversing lorry struck a worker, breaking his leg. In late April, three workers were taken to hospital after a vehicle collided with an obstacle, leaving them with head and neck injuries.

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By comparison, the construction of BMW’s plant in Debrecen has seen three workplace accidents, none of them fatal. Only one was classified as serious, involving a worker falling from scaffolding ... Suzuki stated that over the past 35 years, including the construction and expansion of its Esztergom plant, there have been no fatal or serious workplace accidents.

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Deal to reset post-Brexit relations with bloc has been further delayed.

Not posting the forbidden links, but it ends with is/CqA04

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/67406158

The newspaper said staff in management and administration are particularly affected. Around 30% of capacity at the Weissach development site north-west of Stuttgart is set to be under review.

Freedom of Information requests have increased throughout the Western Balkans and “transparency may be improving in formal terms” but institutions have found new ways of denying public access to information in practice, warns a new report (opens pdf), launched on Tuesday, based on BIRN journalists’ work during 2025.

“Delayed responses, administrative barriers, limited enforcement and different institutional practices continue to affect the public’s right to know at the same time,” Gentiana Murati, deputy regional director of BIRN, told the launch event.

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The report analysed 1,740 FoI requests submitted by BIRN journalists in 2025 in six Western Balkan countries – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia.

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“Administrative silence [non-responsiveness to FoI requests] continues to affect a substantial share of requests (28.16 per cent in 2025), while unreasoned refusals, non-responses, lengthy appeals procedures, and poor implementation of binding decisions continue to undermine the effectiveness of access-to-information regimes,” the report explains.

According to the report, “despite generally robust legal frameworks, regulatory ambiguity, the expansive use of exceptions, and the risk of legislative backsliding threaten to weaken transparency safeguards and limit effective public access to information”, adding that there were also attempts to make legal amendments that would “expand exemptions, strengthen restrictions related to data protection, and introduce potential procedural obstacles that may hinder access to information in practice.

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Megi Reci, author of the report, said it “reveals a paradox: while information is being requested more often and granted more frequently than ever before, institutional silence, delays, and widespread disregard for legal obligations continue to undermine the very purpose of transparency”.

Reci noted that the investigations featured in the report “show how access to information is directly connected to public safety, environmental protection, public spending, and democratic oversight. Secrecy does not merely obstruct journalism, it weakens society’s ability to prevent harm and hold power to account.

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