Europe

Saturday's vote will pit an unprecedented alliance of pro-Western opposition forces against the ruling Georgian Dream party, accused by Brussels of shifting towards authoritarianism and derailing EU candidate Tbilisi from its European path.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators, waving EU and Georgian flags and holding banners that read "Georgia chooses the European Union" gathered at Tbilisi's central Freedom Square after marching towards the venue from five different locations

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Pro-Western President Salome Zurabishvili -- at loggerheads with the government -- joined the rally, which she said "shows that Georgia has already won and will reintegrate with Europe".

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Analysts have warned of the risk of turmoil if Georgian Dream attempts to hold onto power regardless of the vote's outcome.

In power since 2012, the party initially pursued a liberal pro-Western policy agenda, but over the last two years has reversed course and been accused of moving closer to Moscow.

Bids for membership of the EU and NATO are enshrined in Georgia's constitution and supported by some 80 percent of the population, according to multiple opinion polls commissioned by groups including the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute.

The US, China, Turkey and Brazil are just some of the countries that are putting more and more people behind bars. But in the Netherlands, it's a different story. Some empty prisons there have now been re-purposed as hotels or cultural centers.

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A study conducted by the Universities of Leiden (Netherlands) and Portsmouth (UK)

found that the number of people in prison in the Netherlands fell from 94 per 100,000 citizens to 51 per 100,000 between 2005 and 2016.

Although the downward trend has not continued since, figures from Eurostat

suggest that the imprisonment rate has stabilized at this low level. In 2021 and 2022 it was at 54 per 100,000.

That makes the Netherlands one of the few countries that have seen their prison populations decline. Data platform World Prison Brief (WPB) has identified a similar trend in Germany, Liechtenstein, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania, and the Baltic states.

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The number of people receiving custodial sentences from the courts has fallen significantly in the Netherlands. In 2005, Dutch courts imposed prison sentences on some 8,305 convicted criminals. Ten years later, only 4,540 offenders were sent to jail. Studies show that the decrease in custodial sentences was seen across the full spectrum of criminal activities.

Crimes against property saw a 44% decrease in prison sentences, violent crime and sexual crime saw imprisonment rates fall by 39%, and for drug-related crimes the drop was as much as 49%. The number of people sent to jail for failing to pay a court-imposed fine decreased by 38%.

The Netherlands also has an unusually low average length of custodial sentence. The criminologists at the University of Leiden noted in their study that half of all those sent to prison there were released again within one month.

By contrast, according to a report by the University of Lausanne that looked at prisoner rates across the 46 members of the Council of Europe, just 5.2% of inmates spend less than six months in jail, and some 21.3% serve between 12 months and three years.

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Another major factor in the Netherlands is the fall in the number people being held in pre-trial detention. The study shows that 21,029 spent time on remand in Dutch prisons in 2005, with that number falling to 13,350 by 2016 — a decrease of 37%.

In the same period — 2005 to 2016 — the number of crimes registered in the Netherlands fell from 1.35 million to 930,000. Crimes against property fell by 216,000 (-27%) and there were 32,000 fewer violent crimes (-26%).

They just crossed the line. Very tight race in the end.

Live tracker here.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/45441063

https://archive.is/haF5d

Northvolt has been plagued by problems from incompetent management and poor safety standards to over-reliance on Chinese machinery, according to current and former workers at the cash-strapped Swedish battery maker.

Northvolt grew so fast in terms of employees and projects that processes were chaotic and management often incompetent, most of the workers said.

Since 2021 Northvolt has been involved in 47 workplace accidents involving chemicals classified as particularly dangerous by Sweden’s work environment authority, according to public broadcaster SVT.

Foreign nationals and Dutch citizens with a family heritage from at least eight different countries often face intense pressure to show loyalty to foreign governments, carry out espionage activities on their behalf, or to monitor those in their communities, Dutch counterterrorism office NCTV and intelligence service AIVD warns.

The AIVD said it confirmed that Iran, Morocco, Pakistan, Turkey and others specifically attempt to gather intelligence on their diaspora communities in the Netherlands, and there is a strong suspicion that China, Eritrea and Syria does the same.

Further, people in the Netherlands identified as dissidents by Russia, China and Iran have also been secretly monitored by those governments. The report cautioned that people with heritage and connections to the eight countries mentioned, and others not mentioned, can face intimidation, threats of kidnapping and murder, in addition to others spying on them.

“These forms of state interference not only put pressure on the personal freedoms of residents of the Netherlands, but also undermine the democratic legal order in the Netherlands,” the NCTV said. Its report about foreign state interference in diaspora communities noted that that this can attempt to “influence political decisions or sentiment in Dutch society.”

The report noted a wide range of attempts to either monitor or influence foreign residents of the Netherlands, and Dutch citizens with familial ties to other countries. This includes identifying those who might be able to be used to influence those communities, while also observing those who might become supporters of an opposition movement.

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That intelligence can then be used to either repress people and their families, or manipulate them into carrying out economic espionage in the Netherlands. The two agencies again raised warnings about the China Scholarship Council, which helps Chinese students get grants to study abroad in exchange for loyalty pledges, and a promise to obey directives from Chinese embassies and consulates.

The NCTV and AIVD also noted China’s treatment of Uyghurs living in the Netherlands. The ethnic minority has been subjected to years of harassment, unjust imprisonment, and discrimination in China.

Once [Chinese citizens are] in the Netherlands, they can find themselves on the receiving end of phone calls about family members who are “under the control” of Chinese authorities. “This message is usually accompanied by a clear ‘request’ to stop certain activities, such as publishing critical publications, or participating in or organising demonstrations, or to cooperate with the Chinese authorities,” the NCTV and AIVD stated.

It also noted reports about incidents of harassment that Russian scientists and students have had to endure. “The callers claimed to be from the Russian government and asked them where their loyalty lay in the war with Ukraine. The AIVD confirmed the practices after the reported incidents and made a direct connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” the report said.

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Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s goal to turn Hungary into a global EV battery hub is facing environmental backlash and legal challenges.

• Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wants to make Hungary a global EV battery hub and Chinese investors have funneled billions into the sector.

• Locals fear environmental degradation, and previously spent years opposing South Korean battery plants.

• Grassroots protests, including legal challenges, have seen success in halting projects and pressuring regulators to impose fines for pollution.

Eva Kozma watched as excavators raked up clouds of dust and flatbed trucks shuttled steel beams across a bustling construction site on the outskirts of a tranquil Hungarian village. A longtime resident of the village, Kozma pointed at the former farmland where Chinese battery giant CATL is building a factory. Bales of hay still dotted the 221-hectare industrial park.

“Before the factories, we had fields of corn, wheat, and sunflowers. There were apple and cherry farms, and the cows were still grazing,” Kozma, a 48-year-old mother of three with an environmental engineering background, told Rest of World.

CATL, the world’s largest producer of electric vehicle batteries, is constructing an $8-billion battery plant just north of Mikepércs, a town of around 5,000 located 250 kilometers east of Budapest. “We fear that CATL will bring pollution and environmental consequences on our land,” Kozma said.

CATL dominates global EV battery production with a more than 40% market share, employing over 80,000 people worldwide and supplying leading car brands including Tesla, Ford, and Volkswagen. The company operates five overseas factories in the EU and Southeast Asia, and is in talks with American carmakers to launch plants in the U.S. CATL did not respond to Rest of World’s request for comment.

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The announcement of the massive CATL factory in 2022 has sparked a new phase in small-town Hungary’s ongoing battle against the burgeoning EV battery industry, with powerful new players: Chinese investors. In 2023 alone, China funneled over $8.5 billion in foreign direct investment to Hungary. The funds largely went to its battery sector. Chinese battery manufacturers have announced planned investments of over $10 billion to produce EV batteries in Hungary.

“People fear them as poison factories. Once they hear that a new battery plant is coming … they think it’s another polluting and problematic company,” Andrea Éltető, economist and senior research fellow at the Institute of World Economics’ Hungary branch, says.

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Locals protesting the now China-dominated EV battery ecosystem told Rest of World that they are not against the role of EVs in combating climate change, but are troubled by what they view as the government’s opaque decision-making that has silenced public input.

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The EV investment boom of recent years boosted Budapest and Beijing’s relationship, and led to China becoming Hungary’s top foreign investor in 2023. Almost half of all Chinese foreign direct investment in Europe now flows to Hungary. The country’s proximity to EU markets means easier access for Chinese companies. CATL’s Hungarian gigafactory plans to supply batteries to carmakers including BMW and Mercedes-Benz, according to partnership agreements.

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In [the Hungarian city of] Ács, a battle is playing out at the courthouse between a local environmental organization and the county government office that issued the operational permit for Bamo Technology Hungary, the domestic subsidiary of a Chinese cathode factory. The trial, which began this month, could take half a decade to conclude, and has cost the environmental group tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, a resident involved in the lawsuit told Rest of World, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

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As civic action ramps up, so, too, has government pressure. Last month, the government launched a “special investigation” into Göd-ÉRT, a civic organization led by a local investigative journalist [...] Authorities have accused the association of using foreign aid to influence elections, and are requesting extensive data and documents that include information on their press appearances, databases, and “public opinion” campaigns. Orbán’s office did not respond to Rest of World’s request for comment.

The women from Mikepércs fear that they will be targeted next. But they and other activists in Hungary’s small towns say they will continue their work. They are celebrating other small victories this year, such as in Alsózsolca, where local protests halted a Slovenian firm’s plans to build a battery recycling plant. Meanwhile, CATL told Chinese state media earlier this year that “everything is on schedule,” and its battery plant near Mikepércs will begin production in 2025.

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Archived link

In a comprehensive statement delivered during the 57th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the European Union (EU) reiterated its concerns about the continuous dire human rights situation in several countries around the globe, including regions under Chinese influence, namely Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong.

Especially for Xinjiang, the EU condemns political re-education camps, mass arbitrary detentions, widespread surveillance, tracking and control measures, systemic and severe restrictions on the exercise of fundamental freedoms, including freedom of religion or belief, as well as the non-transparent use of the death penalty, the use of forced labour and labour transfer schemes, torture, forced abortion and sterilization, birth control and family separation policies, and sexual and gender-based violence, a statement reads.

The human rights situation in Tibet continues to be dire. Indicators of this include obligatory boarding schooling and DNA sampling, as reported by civil society organisations. The EU will closely monitor the preservation of the fundamental freedoms, cultural heritage and identity of Tibetans and calls on China to ensure full bilingual education both in Tibetan and Chinese at all levels of the schooling system. Cases of closure of schools teaching in Tibetan language are a worrying development. The EU also encourages China to allow more visits from the international community, UN Special Procedures Mandate Holders and civil society organisations to Tibet. Human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, other media workers, academics, writers and intellectuals among others continue to be exposed to harassment, intimidation and surveillance, including at transnational level.

The EU criticizes the sentencing and enforced disappearance including via Residential Surveillance in a Designated Location (RSDL) that could amount to torture and ill-treatment. The EU urges China to introduce a moratorium on the death penalty, adopt rigorous procedures for reviewing capital sentences and reporting death penalty cases. China must also respect the principle of non-refoulement and refrain from extraterritorial activities (including coercion) that are not in line with international law.

The EU also says that in Hong Kong, the repressive use of the China-imposed National Security Law continues to undermine human rights and fundamental freedoms. The broad and vague definition of certain provisions in the new national security legislation adopted in March 2024 and the first arrests under the new legislation add to these concerns. The legislation exacerbates the erosion of fundamental freedoms and political pluralism in the Special Administrative Region. Of particular concern is its extraterritorial application, including the decision to issue arrest warrants for 13 individuals living outside Hong Kong. The sweeping changes in the electoral system have eroded democratic principles and political pluralism.

The EU is following with great concern the national security trials of politicians, media practitioners and pro-democracy advocates, including Jimmy Lai and Chow Hang-tung, and is very concerned about the guilty verdict against them.

The EU urges the Chinese government and the Hong Kong authorities to restore full respect for the rule of law, fundamental freedoms, and democratic principles, and to preserve Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy under the ‘one country, two systems’ principle, in compliance with Hong Kong’s Basic Law and China’s domestic and international obligations.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/45399196

“I’m not aware of anywhere else where we’ve seen such a brazen and open attempt to corrupt an election,” Moldova’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor, Veronica Dragalin, told me this week in her office in Chisinau.

We’re talking about a foreign country sending money in an attempt to influence the election,” Ms Dragalin spells it out. She details evidence gained through wiretaps, police infiltrators and witnesses – some of which her office has made public.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/45300137

Taiwan is expected to have access to low earth orbit satellite internet service by the end of the month, a step the government says is crucial in case a Chinese attack cripples the island’s communications.

The forthcoming service is via a contract between Taiwan’s main telecoms company, Chunghwa, and a UK-European company, Eutelsat OneWeb, signed last year, and marks a new milestone in Taiwan’s efforts to address technological vulnerabilities, particularly its internet access, after attempts to get access to Elon Musk’s Starlink service collapsed.

Chunghwa co-president Alex Chien said 24-hour coverage was expected by the end of the month, with commercial access as soon as sufficient bandwidth was reached.

Taiwan is under the threat of attack or invasion by China, which claims historical sovereignty over Taiwan and has vowed to annex it, by military force if necessary. In the meantime it is under a near constant barrage of cyber-attacks, and has had some of its 15 undersea cables connecting it and its outer islands to the world cut multiple times, usually by accidental anchor snags from passing ships.

Russia has had to cope with an almost systematic increase in sanctions in scope and scale in order to conduct its invasion of Ukraine. These sanctions aim to hobble Russia’s capacity to procure and produce the necessary products to resupply its military. However, while sanctions have significantly affected Russia’s economy and war effort, Russia has shown adaptability in circumventing these restrictions through various initiatives and engaging with strategic partners, most importantly, the People’s Republic of China and its business entities.

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A study by the KSE Institute utilizing Harmonized System (HS) codes [...] analyses forty-five common high-priority items (i.e., battlefield goods) and 485 HS codes for critical components [...] Between January and October 2023, Russian imports of battlefield goods totalled $8.77 billion, while critical components amounted to $22.23 billion. Within the 2023 KSE Institute compiled dataset, China has exercised a pivotal role in Russia’s efforts to import battlefield goods and critical components for its military and defence industry. This is observed from the immediate aftermath of Western sanctions being imposed to August-December 2022 when imports of battlefield goods and critical components increased by 84% and 42% respectively.

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China was instrumental in all stages of the Russian defence industry’s external supply chain between January and October 2023. For instance, where businesses are headquartered, China accounts for 41% of battlefield goods and 41.2% of critical components. Interestingly, the total non-coalition sanctions accounted for 48%, and of these, China represented 46.7%, making China the most dominant power outside the coalition-sanction countries and the most dominant single entity.

China’s role increases substantially during manufacturing, representing 63.1% of battlefield goods and 58.7% of critical components produced for Russia.

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Data shows that Chinese and Hong Kongese companies’ data combined led the sales of the goods and components in question to Russia, accounting for 68.9% of battlefield goods and 57% of critical components. Finally, China also plays a pivotal role in goods and components shipped directly to Russia, with China representing 53.2% of battlefield goods and 53.8% of critical components, respectively. Again, China is followed by Hong Kong at 22.7% and 12.9, with a combined 75.9% and 66.7%.

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Specific Chinese exports of dual-use components and materials related to Russia’s defence industry and equipment that is being utilized by Russia’s military, including construction equipment, comprises:

• Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines
• Semiconductors
• Microelectronics and Electronic Components
• Ball Bearings
• Nitrocellulose
• Drones and Electronic Warfare systems
• Body armour and Helmets

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China’s continued support for Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine poses significant risks and challenges that far outweigh any short-term benefits. By aiding Russia, China jeopardizes its international reputation as a responsible global power, becoming a complicit actor in the conflict, violating international law and the core principles of sovereignty.

Moreover, Chinese entities supporting Russia and the Chinese government’s lackadaisical response to Western complaints will eventually lead to secondary sanctions, deepening economic strains and retaliation from Western nations.

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