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"We're currently observing a steady trend towards an increase in the number of appeals from children about recruitment attempts," says Vasyl Bohdan, Head of the Juvenile Police of Ukraine, on the national joint 24/7 newscast, as reported by the Ukrinform news agency.

"As of today, almost 50 children have reported to the National Police that they had been contacted via messengers and social media by unknown persons from fictitious accounts who were agitating for arson attacks on military vehicles, government and local authority buildings, civilian and critical infrastructure, as well as collecting various information, for which they promised financial reward."

Bohdan said that the Juvenile Prevention Unit of the National Police, together with the Security Service of Ukraine, is implementing an information campaign across Ukraine. During visits to schools, they hold lectures, discussions and open lessons for teenagers to raise their legal awareness.

Law enforcement officers also work with parents and teachers to explain how to recognise the signs of recruitment, how to talk to children and how to act in the event of a threat.

At first, children may be given simple tasks such as gathering information about the location of military facilities or distributing leaflets discrediting the Ukrainian Armed Forces or containing elements of Russian propaganda, before being assigned more complex missions.

The "Accept all" button is often the standard for cookie banners. An administrative court has ruled that the opposite offer is also necessary.

Lower Saxony's data protection officer Denis Lehmkemper can report a legal victory in his long-standing battle against manipulatively designed cookie banners. The Hanover Administrative Court has confirmed his legal opinion in a judgment of March 19 that has only just been made public: Accordingly, website operators must offer a clearly visible "reject all" button on the first level of the corresponding banner for cookie consent requests if there is also the frequently found "accept all" option. Accordingly, cookie banners must not be specifically designed to encourage users to click on consent and must not prevent them from rejecting the controversial browser files.

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Advanced persistent threat (APT) groups with ties to China have become persistent players in the cyber espionage landscape, with a special emphasis on European governmental and industrial entities, according to a thorough disclosure from ESET’s APT Activity Report for Q4 2024 to Q1 2025.

The report, covering activities from October 2024 to March 2025, highlights the sophisticated tactics and tools employed by these threat actors to infiltrate sensitive networks.

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These diverse and innovative techniques illustrate the persistent dedication of China-aligned APTs to espionage, often prioritizing long-term access over immediate financial returns.

The ESET report emphasizes that the highlighted operations are merely a snapshot of the broader threat landscape, with intelligence derived from proprietary telemetry data and verified by expert researchers.

The sustained focus on European targets by these APT groups signals a strategic intent to gather sensitive political and industrial intelligence, potentially influencing geopolitical dynamics.

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The German chancellor has visited Lithuania to mark Berlin’s first permanent foreign troop deployment since the second world war, as he called on allies to dramatically expand their efforts to bolster European defences against a hostile Russia.

As a crowd waved Lithuanian, German and Ukrainian flags, Friedrich Merz and his defence minister, Boris Pistorius, attended a ceremony launching the official formation of an armoured brigade aimed at protecting Nato’s eastern flank.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64669223

"What is happening there is unjustified and unacceptable. Israel must stop these operations immediately," Mitsotakis told Greek broadcaster Skai.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64669906

https://archive.is/MLDhz

• Proposed EU reforms would cut a minimum eight-year window companies have to exclusively sell new drugs they produce before cheaper generic competitors can enter the market.

• Pharmaceutical companies have fiercely opposed any reduction in the minimum eight-year window, where they have “protection” over their research and data from clinical trials.

• Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke said the Government now supports the position pushed by the pharmaceutical industry that there should be no change. “We are prepared to accept eight years,” he said in Brussels on Thursday.

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In addition to the three MEPs already publicly identified this week, Metsola revealed two more on Wednesday afternoon: Italian European People's Party lawmakers Fulvio Martusciello and Giusi Princi.

Martusciello, who currently leads the Italian EPP delegation, has previously been linked to two letters central to the Belgian probe. Signed by several MEPs in 2021, the letters concerned Europe’s 5G market, where the China-based Huawei was looking to expand its influence.

Martusciello was among the signatories, and prosecutors allege he encouraged other MEPs to sign.

In March, a parliamentary assistant to Martusciello was arrested in Italy under a European arrest warrant. She later agreed to cooperate with Belgian authorities and, after clarifying her position, returned to Italy. Her lawyers told Euractiv that they will request the case be dismissed.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/30061303

Chinese automaker BYD sold more electric vehicles in Europe than Tesla for the first time, according to a report by JATO Dynamics, as an aging model lineup and CEO Elon Musk's politics hurt demand for the U.S. EV maker's cars.

BYD, which also makes plug-in hybrid vehicles, registered 7,231 battery-powered electric vehicles (BEV) in Europe in April, while Tesla registered 7,165 units, the market research firm said.

"This is a watershed moment for Europe's car market, particularly when you consider that Tesla has led the European BEV market for years, while BYD only officially began operations beyond Norway and the Netherlands in late 2022," JATO Dynamics' global analyst Felipe Munoz said.

Four Israeli arms manufacturers that have long supplied the Israeli army with the means to carry out such attacks – including weapons, drones and parts for fighter jets, armoured vehicles and naval vessels – are Elbit Systems , Rafael Advanced Defense Systems , Israel Aerospace Industries, (state-owned), and its subsidiary Elta Systems

Drawing on hundreds of pages of export records and company disclosures from India and the Netherlands, this long-read reveals how three Dutch businessmen– Tom Krieckaert, Paul Krieckaert, and Vincent van Campen – play a key role in supplying electronic components to these four arms manufacturers. Operating through an India-based electrical engineering company, SASMOS HET Technologies (SASMOS), they provide components which are vital for the operation of military planes and vehicles.

SOMO discovered the links between the Dutch businessmen and the Israeli weapons industry in the summer of 2024 while investigating Israeli arms supply chains. In this research, SASMOS – based in the city of Bangalore in India – emerged as a steady supplier of electronic components to Israel’s largest arms companies.

Between October 2023 and early April 2025, SASMOS sent components worth an estimated US$ 25 million to the four arms manufacturers listed above.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64661470

These are the top comments, and there is many more. I thought this is about Europe. Is this community (sp.?) being brigaded?

For over a decade, ‘Pravfond’ has been providing legal aid to Russians across the world. Internal emails obtained by journalists show how it collaborated with spies, funded propaganda efforts, and built points of influence along the way.

Canada sought to send a firm message with a Ukrainian minister's presence at the start of a G7 finance leaders gathering Tuesday, where war in Ukraine and economic turmoil from US President Donald Trump's tariffs remain top of mind.

In meetings through Thursday [May 22], leaders will discuss global economic conditions and seek a common position on Ukraine, whose representatives have been invited to attend.

Ukraine's presence "sends a strong message to the world" that members are recommitting to support the country against Russia's invasion, Canadian Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne told reporters Tuesday.

"We're also going to talk about what we're going to be doing in terms of reconstruction," he said in a joint press conference with Ukrainian counterpart Sergii Marchenko.

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The Elysee Presidential Palace has called for a measured response after a new report on the Muslim Brotherhood said the movement posed a threat to national unity. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt almost 100 years ago, but now has branches in countries across the world. The French report will be discussed at a Defence Council meeting today, chaired by President Macron.

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The Polish internet infrastructure recently withstood an unprecedented distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack measuring an astonishing 1.3 terabits per second – marking the largest such attack ever recorded in the country. Security teams have been battling this extensive cyber assault over several days, effectively neutralizing what would have otherwise caused significant disruption to digital services nationwide.

This record-breaking attack has already overshadowed previous incidents documented in the CERT Orange Polska Report for 2024, establishing a new benchmark for cybersecurity threats in the region.

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Over the past week, cybersecurity specialists observed and continuously mitigated a series of attacks directed at one of Poland’s leading companies. The threat actors employed significant volumetric attacks, utilizing nearly every available traffic amplification technique to maximize impact.

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The Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Berlin announced Tuesday that the BDS movement has been classified as “unconstitutional.”

The head of the office, Michael Fischer, explained that the movement’s status in Berlin’s antisemitic and anti-Israel landscape has significantly strengthened over the past year.

Fischer clarified that BDS’s ideology is based on “explicit denial of Israel’s right to exist.” According to him, BDS activity goes beyond boycotting cultural events or Israeli economic products. “The goal is to make the existence of Israel impossible in the international context. It is aimed at its destruction,” Fischer stated.

National broadcasters for Spain and Belgium have now complained to the competition’s organisers, the European Broadcasting Union, after Israel won the public vote by a large margin.

RTVE, Spain’s public broadcaster, and VRT, the Flemish broadcasting company, are demanding that organisers investigate the televoting system, which allows voters at home to vote up to 20 times for a small cost charged to each vote by text or phone call.

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The EBU confirmed that RTVE and VRT had been in contact and said it took the complaints “seriously”.

Martin Green, the director of Eurovision, said: “It is important to emphasise that the voting operation for the Eurovision Song Contest is the most advanced in the world and each country’s result is checked and verified by a huge team of people to exclude any suspicious or irregular voting patterns.”

Archived

Chinese exports of video game consoles to Russia have jumped nearly sevenfold since 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to Chinese customs data, raising concerns that such devices could be diverted for military use.

In 2024, China shipped $95.38 million worth of gaming devices, including controllers, to Russia, according to customs data released earlier this month. A Chinese research firm has said the sharp increase indicates gaming equipment is "becoming increasingly popular in Russia."

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Earlier this year, Japan, Britain and the European Union banned the export of game controllers to Russia, citing concerns that such devices could be repurposed to operate drones on battlefield in Ukraine.

China has opposed Western sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and continued to trade with it, despite international concern that Chinese exports may be aiding the Russian war effort.

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Archived version of BBC News article (archive.li)