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Cake day: January 29th, 2025

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  • “One of the scenarios is… to give up territory. It’s not fair. But for the peace, temporary peace, maybe it can be a solution, temporary,” he said […]

    […] his country may have to give up territory, albeit temporarily.

    What does this mean? How do you give up territory “temporarily,” especially as “the 53-year-old […] stressed that the Ukrainian people would ‘never accept occupation’ by Russia”?

    Mr. Klitschko should rather listen to Svitlana, the teacher cited at the end of the article: “Those who think that Putin will stop if he is given Crimea, they don’t know who the Russians are, he is not going to stop.”


















  • Trump Tower Moscow, Rare Earths and Geopolitical Perks: How the Kremlin Plans to Bait Trump Into a Grand Bargain

    As Moscow prepares for possible negotiations with Washington aimed at ending its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it is seeking a far more ambitious outcome than a mere ceasefire: a global reordering of spheres of influence.

    In the Kremlin’s view, such an agreement would effectively mean U.S. recognition of Russian dominance in the post-Soviet space — including Ukraine — and, to some extent, an acknowledgment of its influence in Europe.

    To secure that goal, the Kremlin is now scouring for incentives it believes can catch and hold President Donald Trump’s attention, ranging from rare earths deals and geopolitical leverage in Iran and North Korea to a long-dreamed-of Trump Tower in Moscow.

    Five current Russian government officials, including two diplomats, three sources close to the Kremlin and employees of three major state-owned companies confirmed this to The Moscow Times, all speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

    “The main thing is that they [the Americans] don’t interfere in our affairs and don’t tell us how to live,” said a senior Russian official familiar with the Kremlin’s negotiating logic. “That they don’t hinder us in doing what we are doing.”













  • Yeah, China and Spain appear to have good relationships. Spain’s PM Pedro Sanchez visited China just last week again, after his visits in 2024 and 2023.

    One of Mr. Sanchez’s trusted figures regarding China-relations is former PM José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero from the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), who co-founded the Gate Center, a Spanish-Chinese organization aiming to strenghten the two countries’ ties., together with Chinese businessman Du Fangyong.

    Mr. Zapatero has also acted as an intermediary to improve the image of Chinese company Huawei in Spain. The partner of Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares was vice president of Huawei Spain, and Esteban González Pons, deputy secretary general of Spain’s People’s Party (PP), supported Huawei’s participation in European technological infrastructure projects.

    In 2021, another PP politician, MEP Gabriel Mato supported the EU-China Investment Agreement, highlighting its potential to open the Chinese economy to European investors and promote what he called “fairer conditions” (Mr. Mato did not elaborate about Beijing’s conditions for foreign investments in China, though). Last year, in 2024, Juanma Moreno, the president of the Spanish region of Andalusia, also made an official visit to China.

    None of them ever discussed human rights issues, though.




  • As EDRi-advisor Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal cited in the article says, “Reopening the GDPR for simplification is risky," but the whole article is not about what its title suggests. I don’t want to play this down, but it’s a bit another clickbait headline by Axel Springer media. They somehow contradict themselves in the end:

    According to Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, the GDPR is still a “huge target” for lobbyists, but its core rules can’t easily be scrapped since the protection of personal data is enshrined in the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights as an inalienable freedom.

    “A Court of Justice would annul a GDPR that doesn’t have these core elements," Schrems said. "So if it’s where [lobbyists] want to spend their energy, be my guest, but they’re not going to get there.”