EU

Europe faces escalating wildfires, with thousands evacuating as temperatures soar and droughts worsen. In France, 100 people fled near Luglon, while Germany’s Eifel region saw 1,800 evacuated amidst the largest fire in North Rhine-Westphalia’s history. Firefighting efforts intensify across the continent.

British academic Jason Arday, 41, was found dead on Friday in south London, following his resignation from Cambridge University amid allegations of plagiarism and racism claims. His death comes shortly after a high-profile investigation into these accusations was announced.

While wars are fought between armies or militant groups, conflicts have their keyboard warriors too. It is estimated that more than half of the world uses social media, and many people do not go to traditional media as a source of information at all. As social media use increases, unease has grown among EU decision-makers about the power of these platforms to potentially distort people’s view of the world. The EU has tried to regulate on disinformation through the Digital Services Act (DSA), but how successful has that effort been? Our panellists assess the impact of the DSA and raise other issues that are connected to disinformation, such as spyware and election interference.

Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, currently serving a 19-year prison sentence, has been transferred to a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle. The IK-3 penal colony, located in Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,900 km (1200 miles) northeast of Moscow, is considered to be one of the toughest prisons in Russia. Penal colonies are descendants of Soviet-era Gulags, the notorious Stalin-era labour camps where thousands of Russians lost their lives.

Tributes from across Europe poured in for Jacques Delors, a former EU Commission chief who played an instrumental role in European integration, following his death on Wednesday (December 27) at 98.

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