Europe

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/24583867

archived (Wayback Machine)

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.07.11-182512/https://www.ft.com/content/238c5965-01ad-48af-9f20-db6aa11f76e6

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3507456

Archived version

***- Russians are hunting for the private data of thousands of people they consider Putin’s enemies. They use the data for doxing – exposing them to online attacks.

• Deploying a method that had previously proven successful in Ukraine, they published a list of Poles—activists, politicians and journalists—who support Ukraine.
• The “doxing Wikipedia” includes names from many countries, including Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary.
• In Central Europe, no one is effectively countering doxing.***

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On Facebook, Kateryna comes across a photo of Oleksiy [her husband who volunteered in the Ukrainian army, both his and his wife's name have been changed to protect their identity], uploaded by an unknown woman. The caption under the photo says in Russian that the man is wanted. Kateryna writes to the author: how does she know her husband? Why is she posting his photo online? What is he wanted for?

The stranger’s account immediately disappears.

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According to Mykola Balaban, deputy head of the Center for Strategic Communications of Ukraine (Stratcom), doxing is one of the key tools of Russian information and psychological warfare. It is meant to create an atmosphere of fear, to weaken morale. To destabilize the opponent’s base.

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This is confirmed by Maria Pavena, a specialist working for the Ukrainian government on the search for missing persons in the central and northern regions of Ukraine. On a daily basis, Pavena works with families who have lost contact with their loved ones, helping to get information and advising on how to respond in similar situations. She hears horror stories about victims of Russian doxing.

“Scammers found a contact for one woman on social media and demanded $15,000 from her,” she says. “They threatened that if she didn’t pay, her relative, who is in captivity, would spend the night naked outside. They sent a video as proof. After she told them that she had no such money, the contact stopped.”

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Doxing poses a challenge to legal systems. We asked institutions in Poland, as well as the neighboring Czech Republic and Slovakia, how they are approaching the problem.

The Polish Ministry of Justice explains that doxing is not a separate crime under Polish law. However, it can be classified as stalking, defamation or illegal solicitation of information. The most common actions in such cases are the initiation of criminal proceedings, securing data on the internet, imposing a penalty and, in some cases, a ban on contact or an order to refrain from certain activities.

There is also no separate criminal provision for doxing in Czech law. “It is an act that can be of a very diverse nature,” explains Hanna Malá from the communications department of the Czech Interior Ministry. “Therefore, each time the legal qualification depends on the specific case: it could be a crime of unauthorized access to a computer system, a violation of the confidentiality of transmitted information, or a violation of RODO regulations [the Czech Office for Personal Data Protection is responsible for enforcing the latter – ed]”.

Slovak police spokeswoman Martina Sláviková responds similarly. In response, she stresses that the term “doxing” is not in the Slovak Criminal Code, but that actions of this type—depending on their scale and consequences—can be classified as dangerous electronic harassment or violation of the rights of others, among other things.

Sláviková adds that police do not keep separate statistics on doxing. These cases are recorded under other crime categories.

Why doesn’t Telegram block sites that directly incite hatred and murder?

The platform has not answered our questions for months. Last August, police in France detained Telegram’s owner, Pavel Durov. French prosecutors accused him of not doing enough to moderate toxic material on Telegram.

Archived version

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Climate-related risks are an immediate concern for financial stability and economic growth. Yet until very recently, there have been no tools to systematically assess their short-term effects. The innovative short-term scenarios devised by the NGFS – the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System which brings together central bankers and supervisors from around the world to work on climate-related issues – fill this gap. The new scenarios offer financial institutions a comprehensive framework for quantifying the impacts that transition and physical risks could have on the economy by 2030. They reveal that a series of extreme climate events could cause euro area GDP to fall by up to 5% – a downturn similar in magnitude to the economic impact of the Global Financial Crisis. This blog post provides a deep dive into the results of new NGFS short-term scenarios for the euro area.

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The NGFS short-term scenarios focus on a five-year horizon, which aligns closely with the decision-making horizons of central banks, financial institutions and supervisors. The scenarios show how natural hazards and climate policies affect the economy and inflation. They also account for the reaction of the financial system by assessing how financing conditions might change, and which economic sectors could face pressure to adjust to climate shocks.

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A major innovation of the scenarios is their approach to modelling physical risks. For the first time, the NGFS captures the impact of compounding extreme weather events and how they propagate across borders through international supply chains.

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• In the Disasters and Policy Stagnation scenario, a series of natural hazards affects all European countries, starting with heatwaves, droughts and wildfires in 2026, followed by a combination of floods and storms in 2027. The compounding effects of these hazards could lead to a decline in euro area annual GDP of up to 4.7% by 2030. As production is disrupted and borrowing gets more expensive for vulnerable industries, inflation increases.

• In the Highway to Paris scenario, carbon tax revenues are invested effectively in green technologies, and euro area GDP and employment slightly increase. The green transition has limited inflationary effects. The euro area position in this scenario stands out because it has previously adopted ambitious climate policies, particularly the European Green Deal, which targets a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared with 1990 levels.

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A man who became "pen friends" with a top terrorist responsible for 9/11 has been given a senior role by Reform UK, the Express can reveal. Rory Green, who was elected as a Reform UK county councillor in May, made national headlines in 2014 when he began corresponding with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the “architect” of the terror attacks that killed 3,000 people.

Mr Green has now been appointed as the council cabinet member responsible for children and families on Nottinghamshire County Council. At the time, Mr Green said he wrote to Mr Mohammed because he “had this compassion for him” as a result of his Christian faith. He told the media: “He is obviously an educated individual, an intellectual. It must be so lonely in that prison. I just had this compassion for him."

The Reform councillor received a 27-page handwritten reply from the top Al Qaeda organiser, who has been in captivity at Guantanamo Bay since 2006.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3494923

• MEPs praise Albania’s steadfast commitment to the EU and urge it to fight corruption and strengthen the rule of law
• Call for reform and unity in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to tackle corruption and division
• North Macedonia encouraged to continue its efforts on the EU path despite political challenges and public frustration

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The three country reports adopted by the EP support all countries' EU accession bid, but also highlight the urgent need for EU-related reforms, effective use of the Growth Plan and a decisive stance against foreign interference.

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The report on BiH ... stresses concerns about malign foreign interference and disinformation campaigns by foreign actors, notably Russia and China, that erode public trust in the EU.

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The Parliament is deeply concerned that North Macedonia and other EU accession countries in the Western Balkans are being particularly hard hit by foreign interference and disinformation campaigns. It is also alarmed by the roles of the Hungarian Government and the Serbian Government in advancing China’s and Russia’s geopolitical objectives, states the resolution.

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Archive link

https://archive.ph/H6OEK

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3482865

Archived version

• Father and son arrested by Kyiv's domestic security agency
• Duo accused of trying to steal secrets on missile programme
• Kyiv believes China is supporting Russia's war effort

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[Ukrainian] counterintelligence officials arrested a 24-year-old former [Chinese] student in Kyiv after they provided him with "technical documentation" related to Neptune production, it said in a statement.

They later detained his father, who had aimed to smuggle out the documents to the Chinese special services, the Ukrainian intel SBU said. The father had been living in China but visited Ukraine to "personally coordinate" his son's work, the agency said.

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President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has accused China of supplying weapons and gunpowder to Russia, and has sanctioned Chinese firms Kyiv believes are aiding Moscow's war machine, including by providing components for drones.

He has also said Ukrainian forces have captured Chinese nationals fighting for Russia on the battlefield.

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