index european union
[Link] ‘Meltdown’ at UK passport renewals forces travellers to cancel Easter breaks
Read: 10/4/2022 www.theguardian.com
Travellers are being forced to cancel Easter travel bookings because of a backlog at HM Passport Office which is delaying renewals. Some passengers have been left hundreds of pounds out of pocket because their new passports failed to arrive before their departure date.
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[Link] Omicron, the Death Metal Band, Would Like to Clarify a Few Things.
Read: 6/12/2021 www.vice.com
Let’s cut to the chase. There’s a death metal band in Belgium that, as of last week, shares its name with a coronavirus variant. But unlike the World Health Organisation, they were “totally not” influenced by the Greek alphabet.
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[Link] Is The Game Up For Baofeng In Europe?
Read: 5/12/2021 hackaday.com
For radio enthusiasts worldwide, the inexpensive Chinese handheld radios produced by the likes of Baofeng and other brands have been a welcome addition to their arsenal.
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[Link] Court Throws Out Messages Obtained by FBI Honeypot Phone Company Anom
Read: 30/11/2021 www.vice.com
On Tuesday a Finnish court ruled that chat messages secretly gathered by the FBI from encrypted phone company Anom can’t be used as evidence against two particular suspects, according to a report from Finnish outlet Iltalehti.
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[Link] The Sicilian town where the Covid vaccination rate hit 104%
Read: 28/11/2021 www.theguardian.com
While European governments weigh up new mandates and measures to boost the uptake of Covid jabs there is on the slopes of Sicily’s Monte delle Rose a village with a vaccination rate that defies mathematics: 104%.
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[Link] Dozens arrested in Netherlands in second night of Covid protests
Read: 21/11/2021 www.theguardian.com
Five police officers have been injured and at least 40 people arrested in a second night of violence in the Netherlands, as tougher Covid-19 restrictions to curb the resurgent pandemic led to angry protests in several European countries.
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[Link] Swedish Officials Call For EU-Wide Ban On ‘Proof of Work’ Crypto Mining
Read: 16/11/2021 www.vice.com
The call came in a letter published last week signed by the directors of Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority and Environmental Protection Agency, which promotes “stability and efficiency” in the country’s financial system.
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[Link] Al Jazeera bureau chief arrested in Sudan amid deadly anti-coup protests
Read: 15/11/2021 www.theguardian.com
Sudanese security forces have raided the home of Al Jazeera’s Khartoum bureau chief and arrested him, the news outlet has said, a day after street protests across Sudan against a military takeover.
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[Link] Soccer is The Number One Gateway Sport to Online Streaming Piracy
Read: 14/11/2021 torrentfreak.com
A new report published by Synamedia shows that soccer is the number one gateway sport to other forms of sports piracy. This is also true for the US where soccer has a relatively smaller audience. India is the only exception in the researched countries, with cricket as the main piracy gateway.
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[Link] Google loses appeal, faces €2.4 billion shopping antitrust fine
Read: 12/11/2021 arstechnica.com
Google and the European Union are still battling it out over various product-bundling schemes across Google's empire. The latest news has to do with Google Shopping's integration with Google Search.
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[Link] Article 16 ‘very much on the table’ in Brexit row, says Frost
Read: 6/11/2021 www.theguardian.com
David Frost, the UK’s Brexit minister, has said triggering article 16 to suspend post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland is “very much on the table”, as he met his EU counterpart in Brussels.
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[Link] Ex-Nato head says Putin wanted to join alliance early on in his rule
Read: 4/11/2021 www.theguardian.com
Vladimir Putin wanted Russia to join Nato but did not want his country to have to go through the usual application process and stand in line “with a lot of countries that don’t matter”, according to a former secretary general of the transatlantic alliance.
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[Link] Police attacked in Belfast at protest over Northern Ireland protocol
Read: 4/11/2021 www.theguardian.com
Police in Belfast have been attacked with missiles and fireworks following a demonstration against the Brexit protocol in the north of the city. The disorder on Wednesday night took place on Lanark Way in the loyalist Shankill Road area close to the peace wall.
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[Link] RIAA Criticizes ICANN for ‘Hindering’ Its Anti-Piracy Efforts
Read: 1/11/2021 torrentfreak.com
The RIAA is helping U.S. music companies to fight piracy, which isn't always an easy task. One of the major frustrations is that, due to hidden or shielded Whois information, it's often hard to identify the people who run sites and services.
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[Link] Looks Like Facebook Found a Way to Bypass Europe’s Privacy Rules
Read: 14/10/2021 www.vice.com
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[Link] European Union announces plans to require all mobile devices to use USB-C
Read: 14/10/2021 arstechnica.com
The European Commission has announced its intent to enact legislation that would mandate all consumer electronic devices sold in the European market within certain categories have a USB-C port for charging.
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[Link] EU Parliament Committee Adopts Digital Services Act
Read: 10/10/2021 torrentfreak.com
The EU's plans to modernize copyright law in Europe are moving ahead. The Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) has just adopted a draft of the new Digital Services Act.
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[Link] What may happen if article 16 of Northern Ireland protocol is triggered?
Read: 5/10/2021 www.theguardian.com
The UK Brexit minister, David Frost, has stepped up demands on the EU to renegotiate the Northern Ireland protocol, a linchpin of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal. At a speech to the Conservative party conference, Frost said “tinkering around the edges” of the protocol would not be enough.
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[Link] European Union Will Force Apple to Use the Same Charger as Everyone Else
Read: 23/9/2021 www.vice.com
The European Union announced on Thursday that it will force manufacturers to adopt a universal phone charger, meaning the iPhone will have to use USB-C or whatever standardized charger regulators decide to use and will no longer be able to use Apple’s proprietary Lightning Charger.
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[Link] Police Announce Huge Bust of Mafia’s Cyber Crime Operations
Read: 20/9/2021 www.vice.com
Police in Europe arrested 106 people accused of working for several Italian Mafia groups and laundering more than 10 million euros they made through various cybercrimes.
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[Link] Ireland fails to enforce EU law against Big Tech
Read: 14/9/2021 arstechnica.com
Ireland is failing to apply the EU’s privacy laws to US Big Tech companies, with 98 percent of 164 significant complaints about privacy abuses still unresolved by its regulator.
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[Link] Around the world, the disadvantaged have been left behind by politicians of all hues
Read: 7/8/2021 www.theguardian.com
Given the steep rise in economic inequality in many parts of the world since the 1980s, one might have expected to see increasing political demands for the redistribution of wealth and the return of class-based politics. This didn’t quite happen – or at least not straightforwardly.
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[Link] Emmanuel Macron identified in leaked Pegasus project data
Read: 20/7/2021 www.theguardian.com
The leaked database at the heart of the Pegasus project includes the mobile phone numbers of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and 13 other heads of state and heads of government, the Guardian can reveal.
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[Link] Brexit ‘divorce bill’ higher than UK’s forecasts, Brussels estimates
Read: 14/7/2021 www.theguardian.com
The UK’s Brexit “divorce bill” is €47.5bn (£40.8bn) according to estimates from Brussels that are higher than the government’s forecasts. The first tranche, €6.8bn, is due for payment by the end of the year.