cross-posted from: https://feddit.online/c/euro@feddit.online/p/2022995/traced-how-pesticide-industry-demands-made-their-way-into-omnibus-x

The pesticide industry and big farming lobby have succeeded in getting a string of their demands into the European Commission’s Food & Feed Omnibus and amendments tabled by European Parliament co-rapporteurs, a new investigation by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) reveals. Lobby demands from Bayer, BASF, CropLife Europe and Copa-Cogeca on unlimited pesticide approvals, longer grace periods and wider derogations made their way into the Omnibus proposals. Taken together, the changes would weaken key EU pesticide safeguards and keep harmful pesticides in use for longer, rather than accelerating the shift to safer alternatives.

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Alexander Krasiy, an assistant military attaché, held the same position at the Russian Embassy in Bulgaria before moving to Serbia. In April 2021, Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry said it was expelling a Russian diplomat but did not name him. The news agency Zona News and Bulgarian National Television identified him as Krasiy.

The decision [to expell Krasiy in Bulgaria] came amid an investigation into explosions at four weapons depots and production facilities between 2011 and 2020. Bulgarian prosecutors suspected six Russians of involvement. According to prosecutors, the explosions may have been linked to the attempted poisoning of Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev and were intended to “halt deliveries of military supplies to Georgia and Ukraine.”

After his expulsion, Krasiy resurfaced in Serbia. In 2021, he was photographed among instructors and participants in a professional development course at the University of Defense in Belgrade. He received accreditation as an assistant military attaché in 2026.

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Russian intelligence services reportedly used Serbia as a base to prepare an unsuccessful sabotage attempt at Leipzig Airport in August 2026. The suspected organizer, Oleg Levushkin, left Europe through Serbia, while his accomplice, Maxim Lapunov, entered Europe through Belgrade. Investigators believe the explosives intended to blow up a Ukrainian aircraft may also have reached Germany through Serbia.

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In September 2026, Agentstvo included Krasiy on a list of 29 Russian Embassy employees in Serbia with confirmed or possible ties to intelligence services. The outlet said Russia’s embassy and trade mission in Serbia employ a total of 78 people, while just 18 Russian diplomats work in neighboring Bulgaria, which has a comparable population.

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Krasiy is not the first Russian diplomat to continue working in Serbia after being expelled from the EU. In 2023, RFE/RL found that at least three Russian diplomats expelled from the EU after the start of the war had received accreditation in Serbia. Two of them were found to have ties to Russian intelligence services.

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Archived

Spain has concluded this week a new legislature without yet addressing the recommendations of the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) - a Council of Europe body that aims to improve its members' capacity to fight corruption - regarding the regulation of the links between political leaders, especially parliamentarians, and the so-called interest groups. This is a requirement that this body of the Council of Europe has been raising since 2014 and which is also supported by the European Commission.

GRECO, to which Spain joined in 1999, has insisted since 2014 on the need to establish controls and provide transparency to the actions of interest groups and their influence on the drafting of laws.

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Spain has been under scrutiny for 12 years due to the absence of specific regulations in this area and seeing how GRECO demands that it ensure greater transparency both about the activities of those trying to influence and those receiving that influence.

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In its most recent report, from 2024, the European Commission also pointed out that Spain had not registered additional progress in this area and urged it to advance a law that contemplated the creation of a mandatory public register of "lobbies".

Limited progress in Parliament

For its part, GRECO has been warning that it is not enough to establish a register of influence groups, but it is essential to make public the agendas of parliamentarians to know who meets with whom, for what purpose, and what issues are addressed.

In the realm of the Cortes, there have been some formal progress, but GRECO continues to consider them insufficient. In 2019, Congress greenlit its Code of Conduct, which already required its members to publish their agendas on the Chamber's website and include in any case the meetings held with representatives of any entity with the condition of an interest group.

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Archived

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11842129

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"This is a major miscalculation, because deals with dictators are the road to hell. Innocent people are being killed for gas and fuel money. And what is very likely is that the hoped-for fuel will not come," the Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said [regarding the US' temporary license for Russian diesel supplies to the world market, valid until April 7 next year].

"Such an agreement runs counter to the Western world's long-standing efforts to limit the flow of money from energy carriers to [Vladimir] Putin. The US has until now persuaded its allies to abandon Russian fuel — we have too," Michal said.

According to him, the long-term line of cutting Russia off from money is correct and must continue.

"It is worth discussing in Estonia and at the European Council next week whether we can quickly contribute more to Ukraine so they can blast Russia's oil refineries to smithereens," Michal added.

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Mihkelson said Trump's efforts to end the war through negotiations have produced not the slightest result.

"The fighting is bloodier than at any previous moment in the entire full-scale invasion," he said. "If you give an aggressor oxygen, the war will not stop."

He stressed that Europe's allies have only one path — to ensure Russia's strategic attack goals fail and the Kremlin's imperial wars end in defeat.

"This clear strategic goal should also be in the US interest, because Russia's long-standing desire, together with China and Iran, to weaken the United States' leadership role is reaching a decisive phase," Mihkelson continued.

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Ahead of next month's midterm elections, U.S. President Donald Trump has struck a deal with Vladimir Putin for Russia to supply millions of tonnes of diesel to the world market, reversing years of Western pressure on the Kremlin.

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Archived

cross-posted from: https://feddit.online/c/euro@feddit.online/p/2022016/ranking-who-in-the-eu-parliament-fights-for-your-privacy-and-who-for-big-tech

If the European Commission and the EU Member States have their way, the so-called Digital Omnibus will result in a fundamental change to EU privacy laws. But what about the European Parliament? To find out more, noyb has analysed more than 1,000 amendments that Members of Parliament (MEPs) have tabled for the GDPR and ePrivacy Directive to shed a light on their actions. This shows that many MEPs are in favour of stripping people of their privacy rights – while others still push back.

Go to gdpr-omnibus.eu to see who tries to defend your privacy and who wants to undermine currently existing protections. Look up your MEP by country and political group.

The belief that the country is on a downward slope fuels the appeal of radicalism.

Poland is probing what officials said was a “possible assassination” risk to Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the country's defense minister, with a special meeting of the security services convened on Sunday after emailed threats were received.

Speaking after the meeting, Jacek Dobrzyński, spokesperson for the minister overseeing Poland's intelligence services, warned there was a “high likelihood” that threats against Tusk and Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz would be carried out.

He said the information had initially reached the State Protection Service, which is responsible for protecting senior government officials, before being passed to police for further verification.

The meeting brought together representatives of the police, the State Protection Service and Poland's ABW domestic intelligence agency at its counterterrorism center in Warsaw.

Interior Ministry spokesperson Karolina Gałecka said Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński and intelligence services coordinator Tomasz Siemoniak had ordered the agencies to take action.

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In August, Polish police detained a 23-year-old man accused of calling for the assassination of senior politicians.

Sunday's announcement came as authorities in Poland have been on high alert following a wave of violence at schools that resulted in the death of a 37-year-old female janitor on Thursday.

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Across Europe, spy agencies have warned that Russia steps up bid to kill European defence chiefs (Archived).

Western intelligence agencies have warned Europe’s defence bosses that Russia is stepping up efforts to assassinate them, prompting companies to increase personal security around their top executives.

With progress on the battlefield deadlocked in Ukraine and Russia’s economy struggling, the Kremlin has ordered an expansion of sabotage and “hybrid” operations in Europe as it seeks to fatally weaken support for Kyiv in the coming months.

Assassinations against European civilian targets — once considered taboo, even by Russia’s spy agencies — are an increasingly prominent part of those plans, European intelligence services have said.

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Executives at smaller companies — especially those involved in the manufacturing of drones or their components — are also in their sights, the people said.

“The threat level has risen in Europe. To property but also to people,” said one senior European intelligence official.

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Archived

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11836803

• China-linked company Integrity Technology Group has been exposed by the UK and international partners for enabling cyber actors to target organisations worldwide.
• AI-enabled tools, large-scale botnets and hands-on exploitation techniques being used to compromise networks and steal sensitive data.
• Organisations are being urged to strengthen their cyber resilience and defend against this evolving threat.

Here is the fill report including technical detalis: Chinese Government-linked Cyber Threat Actors Combine Automated and Hands-on Hacking Tools to Steal Sensitive Data (pdf)

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A range of malicious cyber activities enabled by a China-linked technology company and the wider ecosystem poses a significant threat as the UK and international partners urge organisations to improve their defences.

Alongside eight international partners from six countries, the National Cyber Security Centre – a part of GCHQ – has issued a new advisory revealing how, Integrity Technology Group (Integrity Tech), a company based in China with links to the Chinese Government, has enabled malicious China-linked cyber actors to exploit and compromise networks belonging to organisations across the globe.

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Archived

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/73037191

Police reportedly received an email about a possible threat to Donald Tusk

On the night of March 20, 2024, unusually humid and mild in London, three people in their twenties pulled up at an industrial estate in the east of the city in a cherry-red Kia Picanto. They went inside, set fire to a warehouse, and filmed the blaze on a cellphone. The video of the flames consuming the premises ended up in the hands of another 20-year-old, Dylan Earl, who was reached via the Telegram messaging app by the Russian paramilitary organization Wagner, linked to the Kremlin, which had in turn recruited others to do the dirty work. One of the burned units contained humanitarian aid and Starlink satellite equipment destined for Ukraine. According to the British investigation, the three young men who lit the fuse did not know they were actually working for Russia.

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Moscow’s espionage in Europe has traditionally been associated with diplomats, bureaucrats, undercover intelligence officers and clandestine agents. Many of those actors remain. But since Vladimir Putin launched the war in Ukraine in February 2022, European governments have expelled hundreds of Russian officers, tightened counterintelligence measures, and severed some of the Kremlin’s valuable tentacles that it is now desperately trying to rebuild.

Russia is adapting parts of its operations in Europe to that new reality, several intelligence officials specializing in Moscow’s networks told this newspaper, and academic reports show similar trends. Rather than routinely sending its own agents — primarily from its military intelligence service, the GRU — and the units it has traditionally relied on, Moscow is outsourcing many of those activities. That ranges from recruiting students at universities worldwide to gather information, to sabotage, plots, or cybercriminal activity. Moscow denies the accusations.

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A study by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) and the think tank Globsec counted 151 known cases of sabotage, arson, attempted attacks, and other operations linked to Russia in Europe. That figure covers only February 2022 to February 2026, although the institution warns the real total is likely higher. Researchers identified 172 people involved in those cases; 95% had no formal ties to Russian intelligence services.

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The criminal connection

“Russian services are currently focusing more on the underworld, motivating and assigning tasks to individuals from that milieu,” [Jan Pad’ourek, former deputy head of Czech foreign intelligence and now a professor at CEVRO University in Prague], says. “It’s an effective, simple and cheap method that also enables rapid execution. The Russian services assume no responsibility for these people; if they are discovered, they are left entirely to their own devices. Many of the people deceived in this way are not even aware they are working for Russia.”

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Furthermore, another veteran official from a European agency who is still active and spoke on condition of anonymity says Russia’s intelligence services — which since Soviet times have had some links to organized crime — are increasingly turning to criminal organizations or people with criminal records for their hybrid operations in Europe. “At times, for significant cases, they provide information and logistics from Moscow or even involve an agent to verify,” the former Czech official notes.

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The point is not that there is a single European criminal network subordinated to the Kremlin. The evidence instead points to ad hoc, pragmatic relationships: when a service needs someone who can move around a country, gather information, intimidate a person or commit an act of sabotage, it can turn to intermediaries who have access to people willing to do it.

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The Kremlin has targeted dissidents for years, including on foreign soil. Opponents living abroad, especially in eastern Europe, regularly receive warnings from European authorities to exercise extreme caution. Two weeks ago, Washington charged five people who allegedly worked for Russian intelligence with planning to “carry out attacks and assassinations worldwide, including in the United States.” The State Department speaks of alleged plots involving surveillance, recruitment, and targeted killings. Recently, dissident and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov revealed that U.S. and Lithuanian security services had warned him that his life was in danger.

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Russia also targets journalists. In 2025, the United Kingdom sentenced six Bulgarian nationals to between five and 10 years in prison for spying for Moscow.

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Outsourcing has not removed the GRU from operations, but in some cases it may have distanced the service from the final link. Russian military intelligence can decide the target and coordinate a mission while intermediaries, recruiters, and low-level operatives carry it out.

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In that layer of spies, saboteurs, or hitmen that form the new tentacles the Kremlin uses in Europe, the person who places the explosive can be far removed from the one who decided the target. Intermediaries, recruiters, and operators who know only part of the mission can stand between them. Russian military intelligence can remain at the far end of that chain, providing instructions, logistics, or contacts while others assume the risk on the ground. The classical spy has not disappeared. In some operations, they simply no longer need to be there when the fuse is lit.

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Archived (removepaywall.com)

Europe must strengthen its own defense, support the UK rejoining the European Union, and make immigration work amid aging societies as internal divisions and geopolitical tensions are threatening the continent's future, says Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies emeritus at the University of Oxford and a Senior Fellow of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

[Original in Spanish. This is a paraphrased automated translation with minimal edits.]

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"Jean Monnet wrote in his memoirs that [the European project] needed the British for two reasons: because they are very good at making the institutions work and because they have love for freedom. I think he was right, and that both arguments are still in place," says Garton Ash.

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"I was excited when I heard [British Prime Minister Andy Burnham] announce [defines the Brexit as a failure and does not rule out a possible re-entry of the United Kingdom into the EU], because in recent years public opinion has been far ahead of politicians. Finally someone dared to say: the Brexit has not worked, let's look at what options we have. That's just what to do. I have no doubt that the best option would be to re-enter the EU, if there are a majority of British people who want it, and if so the European Union also wants it," he explains.

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"Although it is clear that the policy needed to achieve that goal, here and across the channel, will be very difficult," he admits, without losing hope. "The pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will," will repeat over and over again the maximum of the Italian intellectual Antonio Gramsci throughout our talk to explain his hope for the European project, despite the very delicate moment that it is going through.

"Everything that has been achieved [in Europe] since 1945, which many young Europeans take for granted, ... could end up destroyed very quickly. ... If you think it is worth keeping this Europe we have, you must do something about it," Garton Ash passionately defends.

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[Garton Ash] is concerned about the situation the EU is living today: "China, from an economic point of view; Russia militarily, and the United States, politically. A triple challenge that Europe had never faced before. And at a time when we are internally divided and with problems; and we must also respond to so-called global challenges, such as climate change or artificial intelligence," he summarized.

The urgency is called Ukraine, whose future is unquestionably linked to that of the EU, according to Garton Ash. "I think we are right to give full military, political and economic support to Ukraine. Our own security depends on it, and this is not a rhetorical formulation. All this hybrid war Putin is deploying against Europe is seeking to break unity around Ukraine," he explains.

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"Much of the attention [in Eurpoe] is focused on irregular immigration. The most dramatic case, no doubt, was Ceuta's. Seeing all these people swim, people concluded that the state was not in control of the situation. It is no coincidence that the great success of the Eurosceptics slogan in the UK was' Take back control '," he explains.

"When people talk about immigration, they do not refer to the number of people who arrived last year, but to the cultural, social and demographic change that has occurred in the last 50 or 60 years. It is a difficult problem to address, but the reality is that we have an ageing population, a large welfare State and economies that are not growing too much. We need immigration, we have no choice but to make it a success," says Garton Ash.

"And should the EU respond to all these challenges? Are our current leaders up to it?" I ask you, before we say goodbye.

"The problem is that very few of [European politiicans] are systematically defending the need for a stronger Europe in the area of their domestic policy. Because the policies we need today, in areas such as defence, capital markets or IA, must be European. But we also need Europeanism to start at home. Our politicians must defend the need for Europe on their national level. But not all responsibility lies with the leaders. It must also be demanded of the citizens."

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Archived (removepaywall.com)

Germany on Saturday quickly rejected a new proposal for the European Union's next seven-year budget as unacceptable, saying the spending cuts did not go far enough.

The European Parliament adopted a recommendation on EU-China political relations that rejected China’s efforts to restrict Taiwan’s participation in international organizations and exchanges.

The recommendation, addressed to the European Council, the European Commission and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas, includes several references to EU-Taiwan relations and expresses support for closer ties, saying they would bring positive benefits and have strategic importance.

Describing Taiwan as a valuable partner in trade and technology, the European Parliament said it “rejects China’s attempts to coerce international organizations, third countries and other actors into restricting Taiwan’s international participation and contacts.”

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It mentions as an example Chinese pressure over Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) participation in the European Conference of Ventotene for Freedom and Democracy organized by the European Parliament last month.

It also expresses “the EU’s strong disapproval of China’s transnational repression activities,” such as its investigation into Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) under a 2024 judiciary guideline accusing him of launching the “pro-independence separatist organization” Kuma Academy.

The Kuma Academy is a nonprofit dedicated to training civilians on the basics of civil defense.

The recommendation reaffirms that the EU’s “one China” policy guides its policy toward Taiwan and stresses that the EU has never endorsed China’s “one China” principle, the recommendation says.

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It also opposes any unilateral attempt to change the “status quo” by force or coercion, or any provocation or any change against the will of Taiwanese.

The recommendation calls for the EU and its member states to work with other democratic partners in the region on closer security coordination, including a continuous naval presence and joint exercises, to reinforce regional stability.

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Archived (removepaywall.com)

US President Donald Trump said Friday that Russia had agreed to immediately supply more than 300,000 tonnes of diesel to US and global markets in an effort to cut fuel prices before November's midterm elections. The move marks a stunning change of policy after the US and its allies hit Russia with waves of sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.

President Lee Jae Myung has made Arctic shipping ​a priority, and officials hope to launch regular services by ​2030.

The route runs along Russia's Arctic ​coast, and Seoul consulted with Moscow about the journey, ​including whether the ship needed help to tackle any problems, such as ‌getting ⁠stuck in ice.

[Original in German. This is a paraphrased automated translation with minimal edits.]

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"I think the Russians saw me through the drone camera. When I heard the drone, I hid in the stairwell for ten minutes. When I came back into the yard, the drone hit right next to me. My legs folded away and then I only saw a blood fountain, says the boy, who is now home after the operation. Andrij's mother, 43-year-old Yuliia Spitsa, is convinced that the Russian drone pilot knew that he had hunted a child. But that did not stop him.

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Andrij has injury of drone shards on his leg. He was rescued by Ukrainian soldiers who were passing by. They put on a pressure bandage and took the boy first to his mother, later to the hospital. Now the 11-year-old can walk again. His family says that compared to other victims of Russian drone strikes in Cherson, Andrij was quite lucky.

The 11-year-old can recognize different types of Russian weapons by their sounds, his playground is surrounded by air defenses.

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According to Human Rights Watch, 30 civilians were killed by Russian drones in Cherson between May and December 2024, and at least 500 were injured. In January 2025, short-range drones, particularly FPV drones, accounted for 70 percent of all civilian casualties in the Ukraine-controlled part of the Cherson area, according to the United Nations.

The port city of Cherson is shelled almost daily. The city on the right bank of the river Dnipro was liberated by Ukrainian troops in November 2022. According to local authorities, about 60,000 people still live here today, compared to 279,000 in January 2022.

“Santa”, the Ukrainian soldier, watched this video [showing the drone attack on the 1-year old Andrij] several times and tried to analyze the action of the Russian drone pilot.

"This was not a practice or a mistake. The man was not a beginner – he simply cold-bloodedly chased a civilian. The Russians know that they can no longer take Cherson. And they simply try to destroy what they are not entitled to, what they cannot get, says the man who has been defending his hometown since the first days of the great war."

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In one of many related report, France24 published ‘Not an isolated incident’: Russian drones stalk Ukraine’s civilians in ‘human safaris',

The video of a Ukrainian cyclist being targeted and killed by a short-range drone posted – and later deleted – by the Russian military Friday left viewers outraged and shaken. But it’s not the first time that Russian drone operators have been accused of terrorising Ukrainian civilians by deliberately targeting them in “human safaris” denounced as a war crime by an independent UN commission.

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Archived