Europe

Containers of tomato paste exported from Xinjiang to Italy are the subject of domestic criminal and international complaints filed by rights lawyers on behalf of Uyghur advocacy groups who allege that the goods were produced using Uyghur forced labor.

The shipment was among 82 containers of agricultural products from China’s state-owned Xinjiang Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Investment (Group) Co., Ltd. shipped by rail and sea from Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, to southern Italy in late April, according to the plaintiffs.

The shipment also sparked outrage among Italian farmers who protested against the arrival of the cheaper processed tomato products from China in what they said were unfair imports.

The move comes less than two months after the European Parliament approved a new regulation banning products made with force labor from entering the European Union. The EU’s 27 member countries must approve the Forced Labour Regulation for it to enter into force and will have three years to implement it. “This legal challenge addresses both violations of fundamental principles of human dignity and international law instruments, as well as calling for the seizure of these recently imported goods under national law,” said a statement issued by these groups on June 3.

UniCredit said on Monday it was challenging the terms set by the European Central Bank (ECB) for the Italian bank to cut its exposure to Russia, and seeking a ruling from the European Union's General Court, as well as a freezing of the request in the meantime.

Euro zone banks still involved with Russia more than two years after Moscow invaded Ukraine have come under growing pressure in recent weeks from the bloc's supervisors, as well as U.S. authorities, over their ties to the country.

A complex regulatory backdrop, involving Western sanctions against Moscow and local laws in Russia where the Italian group runs a retail bank, meant it had to "seek clarity and certainty" on the actions it needed to take, UniCredit said in a statement two and a half years after Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine.

After Austria's Raiffeisen, UniCredit has the biggest exposure to Russia, where it runs a top 15 bank, among European lenders.

Raiffeisen has no plans to take legal action against the ECB over the request to reduce its Russia-related business, a spokesperson has said.

"For anyone who believes that Ukraine's fight against Russia is important for the security of Europe, the fact that UniCredit stayed in Russia, made profits, and is now suing the ECB over their attempts to get it to leave, this doesn't look good," said Nicolas Veron of Brussels think tank Bruegel.

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Here is the report (pdf).

Serbian authorities have adopted invasive surveillance practices and facial recognition technology to monitor political opponents, civic activists and critical journalists, says a BIRN report entitled ‘Digital Surveillance in Serbia – A Threat to Human Rights?’, published on Friday.

Equipment from Chinese manufacturers, such as Dahua and Hickvision, predominates.

Serbia’s aspirations for EU membership mean that it faces pressure to adhere to EU standards on data protection and privacy as well as cybersecurity. However, Serbia has simultaneously strengthened ties with authoritarian countries, especially China and Russia.

From !esp@lemm.ee

Additional link:https://elpais.com/tecnologia/2024-07-01/el-gobierno-presenta-el-diseno-su-app-antiporno-que-obligara-a-los-adultos-a-tramitar-acreditaciones-que-caducan-al-mes.html

More images: https://444.hu/kepek/2024/07/02/zelenszkij-kijevben-fogadta-orbant