Europe

Thousands of French police officers protested in Paris on Tuesday, led by the Alliance Police Nationale union. Concerns over working conditions, staff shortages, and stagnant allowances are driving demands for increased funding of up to €500 million annually to address these issues. Authorities have shown signs of responsiveness following the demonstrations.

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Russian attacks across Ukraine have killed at least five people and injured over 12 in the last 24 hours. Strikes targeted Kyiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and Sloviansk, while Ukraine’s military reported successful counteroffensive operations near Lyman, clearing an area of approximately 75 square kilometres.

Former Moroccan intelligence officer Mehdi Hijaouy sought protection from extradition by offering information on Morocco’s intelligence operations to Spanish authorities. He claimed knowledge of the Pegasus spyware targeting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez but ultimately abandoned this route and fled Spain, with his current location unknown.

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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