Russia will attack the next country. (If this country falls, guess what?)

A quick reminder that 1.5 percentage points of the Nato countries’ 5% GDP military spending target is earmarked for areas beyond traditional military defense such as arson attacks, cyber attacks, and the like.

Completely failing is too much imo. But China and Russia are interfering heavily, especially with the far-right and far-left in Europe, and that is a constant threat.

This website (which appears to have been created less than three weeks ago) consists of exclusively sensationalist headlines followed by very brief texts that all predict the apocalypse and are accompanied by AI generated images.

In other news, five German MAN e-buses coming in Bavaria, Germany, in April 2025, Italy’s Iveco Bus provides 13 in France, and so it goes on.

Market leaders in Germany are eCitaro (by Germany’s Daimer), followed by Germny’s MAN, and the two Dutch companies Ebusco and VDL. Similar to the EV market, BYD has only a very small fraction of the market, but the propaganda goes on.

Back in June, several media reported that Teresa Ribera is refusing to exempt any sort of operational cost when it comes to solar panel, wind turbine, and battery producers from the bloc’s strict state aid regime.

One such article is here, saying, amongst others:

The powerful competition directorate of the European Commission is indeed going ahead and blocking a push that would enable the governments to subsidize their production costs when it comes to clean energy technologies, thereby flaring-up the tensions between the EU officials who are enforcing the state-aid rules and the ones who are working on the industry … This internal battle underscores the EU’s executive struggle in order to navigate the barriers of supporting the emerging technologies in the global race between Europe and China as well as the US, but at the same time also holding firm to its traditional free market approaches when it comes to subsidies.

This is a low-quality post to say the least, and by that I don’t even refer to the source which is (even explicitly) a tankie propaganda outlet.

New map shows how much arson attacks have risen in London neighbourhoods after massive surge in 3 years

Chair of the Fire Committee Zack Polanski AM wrote to the Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan to share ‘deep concern’ about a ‘sustained increase’ in arson incidents over the last three years.

why would they put a stamp on it? And why is that one half Cyrillic half Latin?

If something originates from China it originates from China, if even there were stamps 'half Cyrillic and half Latin", to use your fabricated quotation.

It’s somewhat similar to Russia’s shadow fleet, don’t rely on the flags under which the ships sail …

“One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”

Technological progression will make the Taiwanese want to join China. Only a war could prevent this …

Do yourself a favour and stay away from wherever you get such stuff.

Russia increasingly targets Ukraine’s cities with cluster munitions, raising civilian toll

Cluster munitions are a type of weapon that scatter small explosive bomblets across a large impact area, designed to inflict maximum injuries to people …

“The vast majority of cluster munitions that are being used in the world today are being used by Russia in Ukraine,” said Mary Wareham, deputy director of the Crisis, Conflict, and Arms Division at Human Rights Watch.

Addition:

Ukraine’s Contaminated Land: Clearing Landmines With Rakes, Tractors and Drones

[Deminer Viktoria] Shynkar and her colleagues, who work for the demining charity the Halo Trust, uncovered 243 TM-62 Soviet-designed anti-tank mines left by the Russian army in a neighbouring field.

A chunky and intimidating 32-centimetres in diameter and 13-cm-wide, the TM-62 contains 7.5 kilos of TNT and can puncture a tank if triggered.

The presence of landmines and other unexploded ordnance is a significant issue in Ukraine, impacting civilians and Ukraine’s agricultural industry – a major employer and source of income to the country.

When Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited Russia in May 2025 to celebrate victory day in Moscow, Chinese state-controlled media outlet South China Morning Post reported that China’s Xi Jinping kicked off his state visit by thanking Moscow for supporting Taiwan’s reunification with mainland China.

In a signed article in Russia’s state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper … [Xi Jinping wrote that Taiwan’s] unification [with China] must be upheld as part of the post-war international order … Celebrating the “enduring friendship” between Moscow and Beijing, he said the two countries had supported each other since World War II …

The war in Ukraine and China’s aggression against Taiwan are apparently closely linked, at least from China’s point of view. There may or may not be a threat of a U.S.-China war, but here this is just a red herring.

@huppakee@feddit.nl

Believe or not, but I have been reading the articles and your comments you are mentioning, and when I read now this post, I was expecting such a comment, not to say literally waiting for it. 😅 Again, it perfectly fits ;-)

All you need is a clickbait headline and an absurdly bad interpretation of a study, and you see doomerism (and some tankies) in full force.

As someone already wrote in this thread, the study has a different outcome than what the title suggests. I encourage everyone to click the original study link (it’s in German, but there is DeepL and the like …).

The young European don’t loose faith in democracy, but I have been loosing faith in the Guardian for some time.

Britain should simply re-join. Problem solved.

mining should just be banned

Mining the way you described it should be banned. No one has said that it should be done this way.

One thing we urgently need is transparent supply chains to exactly prevent ‘neoliberal mining policies’ (and exploitative practices in other industries). It is exactly China which is among the countries massively lobbying against such transparency, and there is strong evidence for forced labour practices in the country.

Pointing the finger to the West and its exploitative history without mentioning how Chinese and other authoritarian governments are using exactly these neoliberal practices today amounts to nothing else than whataboutery imo.

I agree, the NIMBY framing seems indeed to be misplaced here. There are similar issues regarding Chinese investments in Europe, e.g., in Hungary, where a Chinese gigafactory has been raising concerns since around 2023 about water shortage as local residents struggle to get information from their government.

… on the outskirts of the city of Debrecen, the scale of Hungary’s ambitions to adapt to the electric transition is visible. Chinese-owned Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) is building its new gigafactory, which will occupy over 200 hectares — over 280 football fields — once finished … [local residents] are worried that the new plant will be a health hazard for their crops, as well as for people in the area [over] the industrial water consumption in the already arid region … Intransparent communication is a key point of frustration for locals, who feel the decision for the investment was made without their consent. According to a … survey, almost two-thirds of residents view the battery plant critically.

@Regna@lemmy.world

@Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org

@Havatra@lemmy.zip

These children and their families go through hell. This is pure genocide. There are no “not so bad aspects” of things. It is only black, there is no white at all,

Fact Sheet: Russia’s Kidnapping and Re-education of Ukraine’s Children – [from March 2025]

• Yale HRL [Humanitarian Research Lab] has identified more than 8,400 children from Ukraine who have been systematically relocated to at least 57 facilities––including 13 facilities in Belarus and 43 facilities in Russia and Russia-occupied territory.

• Russia targeted vulnerable groups of children for deportation, including orphans, children with disabilities, children from low-income families, and children with parents in the military.

• There are documented cases in which children were physically abused, denied communication with their families in Ukraine, and given inadequate access to food and care after being taken to Russia.

• Russia has refused to give Ukrainian authorities a list of children taken to Russia––as required by international law––and has engaged in various activities to conceal their forced deportation and illegal adoption of children from Ukraine.

• The** kidnapping and indoctrination, including military training, of children from Ukraine was ordered by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin** and executed by Russia’s federal, regional, and occupation officials. Russia’s security services and criminal investigative agency systematically targeted vulnerable groups of children and transported them to Russia, where regional officials subjected them to re-education and listed children for adoption. Russia’s Investigative Committee has set recruitment quotas and designated a cadet school for children from Ukraine, creating a direct pipeline into federal security service.

• Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova have been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the forced deportation of Ukraine’s children.

• Hundreds of children––including those with families––were taken from Ukraine and illegally placed for adoption in Russia or placed in Russian families. In at least one case, Russia’s government re-issued the child’s birth certificate, changing the child’s name and place of birth. Such changes in personal information present significant barriers to identifying the child for return.

Addition:

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly just issued a report yesterday (30 June) urging governments to act on the deportation and Russification of Ukrainian children (the report is here as pdf).

TLDR:

• Albeit less overtly violent, these crimes consist of the erasure of Ukrainian identity and militarization of children who are forced not only to endure a brutal war of aggression during those formative childhood years, but to have Russian imperialism, aided by Belarus and North Korea, kill their parents, siblings, relatives, friends, language, culture and home. Because of Putin’s war, these children are being robbed of their identity.
• Sources on the number of Ukrainian children that have been forcibly deported to Russia vary: 19,546 have been confirmed by Ukraine, while the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab places the number closer to 35,000. Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights (wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court) has claimed that over 700,000 Ukrainian children have been “relocated” to Russia, while her Ukrainian counterpart, Daria Herasymchuk, estimates the true number to be between 200,000—300,000. Russia has consistently refused to provide Ukraine or other international parties with any records of transferred children, in violation of international law.
• The experiences of these deported children vary, but many are forced to undergo intense efforts to erase their Ukrainian identity. Children are subjected to Russification and militarization, including being forced to speak Russian, sing the Russian national anthem, participate in military marches and handle firearms. Moreover, the few children that have returned from these camps demonstrate signs of having been psychologically and physically abused and of the resulting trauma, including unquestioning obedience of adults and fear of using the Ukrainian language.
• Adding to the difficulty is the fact that many children have had their birth records and names changed to appear Russian, and the fact that some children were deported at such a young age that they might not remember their origin and home in Ukraine. Most importantly, the Russian Federation needs to agree to return the children – if not, it will be practically impossible, even if the children are identified and located.

The report makes a range of recommendations to address this nightmare.