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La Société de financement du développement international des États-Unis a annoncé mardi (16 juillet) ses premiers investissements dans les infrastructures énergétiques et de transport d’Europe centrale et orientale afin de contrer l’influence russe et chinoise dans la région.

Kedden 15:00 óra körül áramütés ért egy 14 éves fiút Pozsonyborostyánkőn, a Malackai járásban, a futballpálya közelében. A fiatalt mentőhelikopterrel szállították kórházba. A rendőrség eljárást indított az ügyben.

Bytedance v Commission
Approximation of laws
Digital Markets Act: The General Court dismisses the action brought by Bytedance (TikTok) against the decision of the Commission designating it as a gatekeeper

Bytedance kontra Bizottság
Jogszabályok közelítése
A digitális piacokról szóló jogszabály: a Törvényszék elutasítja a Bytedancenek (TikTok) az őt kapuőrnek minősítő bizottsági határozat elleni keresetét

Bytedance / Commission
Rapprochement des législations
Règlement sur les marchés numériques : le recours de Bytedance (TikTok) contre la décision de la Commission la désignant comme contrôleur d'accès est rejeté

Márkusfalván (Markušovce) egy családi ház előtt parkoló autóban hagytak egy gyermeket, elhunyt a felforrósodott kocsiban.

Auken and Others v Commission
Law governing the institutions
The Commission did not give the public sufficiently wide access to the purchase agreements for Covid-19 vaccines

Auken és társai kontra Bizottság
Intézményi jog
The Commission did not give the public sufficiently wide access to the purchase agreements for Covid-19 vaccines

Auken e.a. / Commission
Droit institutionnel
La Commission n’a pas donné au public un accès suffisamment large aux contrats d’achat de vaccins contre la Covid-19

573097 Marina Živaljević

Following the publication of the report  “From Paper to Practice” in June, main findings and figures of the project implementation from July 2021 to March 2024 are now included in a factsheet. During the three years, 59 organised crime and corruption cases were monitored in Montenegro, providing a significant basis for the evidence-based findings published by the project. With the goal of remedying the challenges noted, the report introduces a comprehensive set of 19 targeted and actionable recommendations directed towards the judiciary, to help in the process of developing a more effective system in the fight against organised crime and corruption.

Length of proceedings from indictment to final judgement, quality of legal acts, independence, deterrence policy – these are the main identified areas for further improvement of Montenegro’s judicial responses to serious organized crime and corruption, as noted in the Western Balkans Trial Monitoring factsheet.

“The Project’s trial monitoring identified symptoms of systemic challenges at the institutional, legislative and policy level. However, some initiatives are already underway to address many aspects of the issues identified in the report. These include strategies, action plans, guidelines on sanctioning in plea-bargaining agreements, targeted capacity building as well as steps to improve the efficiency of proceedings by narrowing down the subject matter jurisdiction of the

Specialized Prosecutor’s Office. These are substantial investments, that with sustained efforts can lead to substantial progress,” as said in the report.

On the way forward, it is recommended, among others, to strengthen independence of judges and autonomy of prosecutors, improve indictments and judgements, ensure effective case management and create a more robust deterrent policy and practice in organised crime and corruption cases.

In June, Head of OSCE Mission to Montenegro Dominique Waag officially handed over to the Chief Special Prosecutor Vladimir Novović and President of the High Court in Podgorica Zoran Radović the recommendations for judicial reform in Montenegro. She highlighted the importance of the cases prosecuted by the Special Prosecutor’s Office for the Montenegrin society, congratulated president Radović on his recent election, and praised the important and courageous work done in tackling organized crime and high-level corruption.

Chief Special Prosecutor Novović thanked Ambassador Waag for the support the Mission has provided to the Special State Prosecutor’s Office during her mandate. “The OSCE report was done very thoroughly and diagnosed the main problems of the proceedings before the courts in Montenegro, and also provided good solutions to overcome them. The co-operation of the Special State Prosecution and the OSCE, along with the assistance provided by the studious and expert analyzes of the current situation in the judiciary, are of great importance for the improvement of the judicial system and an effective fight against corruption,” said Chief Special Prosecutor Novović.

The High Court President Radović agreed with the conclusions and recommendations related to cases of organized crime and corruption in Montenegro, supporting the ongoing co-operation with the OSCE.

Kanak Pro-Independence supporters display the Kanak flag during a rally in the streets of Noumea prior to New Caledonia's first referendum on Independence in 2018. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
NOUMEA, New Caledonia , Jul 17 2024 (IPS)

It’s been 26 years since a peace agreement, the Noumea Accord, was signed following an outbreak of conflict in the 1980s between Kanak islanders and French armed forces in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia.

But the eruption of turbulent protests and unrest again two months ago has shown that the cleavage of indigenous political grievances with the French state remains deep in this group of islands located east of Australia in the southwest Pacific.

The centre of New Caledonia’s capital, Noumea, a popular holiday destination in the Pacific Islands, is usually abuzz with tourists patronizing sidewalk cafes. But many of the streets, now patrolled by French police, are deserted and eerily quiet.

The protests, which began in mid-May, escalated to armed clashes between activists and French security forces, resulting in ten deaths. And the destruction of homes, public buildings and looting of shops and businesses has had a devastating impact on the small island society. The cost of the damage is estimated to be more than USD 1 billion; at least 7,000 people have lost jobs and incomes, and the territory’s economy has suffered a major downturn.

Barricades were erected in the streets of Noumea when confrontations escalated between Pro-Independence activists and French police in May following the French Parliament’s adoption of electoral reforms in New Caledonia. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

The unrest has revealed the gaping fracture between France’s determination to retain control of the territory and the indigenous Kanak islanders, who are riled at lack of progress toward their call for self-determination.

“We protested in the streets. We wanted to say to the French state, you must respect the Kanaks because France voted for the reforms without consent from us,” Jacques (his name has been changed), a Kanak activist in Noumea, told IPS.

He was speaking of the adoption of electoral changes in New Caledonia by the French Parliament, which would have opened the electoral roll to tens of thousands of recent migrant settlers, the majority from Europe.

About 41 percent of New Caledonia’s population is indigenous and many believe it would have led to the declining influence of their vote against rising numbers of Loyalists in future elections and referendums. The changing demographic balance between Kanaks and non-Kanaks is a longstanding grievance.

The uprising in the 1980s was driven by grievances about land dispossession, poverty, inequality, the absence of civil and political rights, and France’s policy of promoting migration from France to New Caledonia.

While French President Emmanuel Macron suspended the electoral reforms in mid-June, many Pro-Independence supporters are unappeased.

Jacques is among a group of Kanak activists who have set up a campaign site next to a main road on the outskirts of the capital. They are sitting around a table under a marquee, surrounded by flags and banners.

“We want our country to be decolonized, as it is written in the Noumea agreement. The French state is only interested in dominating the population here. If the French state stays here, we will have more violence,” Jacques claims.

The French government agreed in the 1998 Noumea Accord to grant New Caledonia more governing powers, recognition of Kanak culture and right to consultation, restrictions on the local electoral roll allowing only Kanaks and long-term residents to vote and the holding of referendums on its future political status.

But by 2021, three referendums had been held, all with majority outcomes, to remain part of France. There was a 43.33 percent vote for Independence in the first referendum in 2018, which increased to 46.74 percent in the second in 2020. But Kanaks, severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, boycotted the third referendum in 2021. The overwhelming Loyalist vote of 96.5 percent has never been accepted by Pro-Independence political parties, such as the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS).

“We firmly support the call by FLNKS for the UN to declare the result of the third referendum null and void due to the non-participation of the people of Kanaky. Voter turnout was below 50 percent of registered voters; hence, it cannot be taken as the legitimate wish of the silent majority,” the sub-regional inter-governmental organization, the Melanesian Spearhead Group, stated in 2021.

Kanak separatists’ determination to keep their aspirations alive, even though options for changing the political status quo through referendums have been exhausted, has led to an increasingly polarized political landscape. Some entrenched Loyalists believe that the French state should “take over the New Caledonian government because of all the political problems that we have,” Catherine Ris, President of the University of New Caledonia in Noumea, told IPS. And, “on the Pro-Independence side, we do not hear the moderate people anymore.”

The recent mobilization of the Field Action Coordinating Cell (CCAT) by the Pro-Independence Caledonian Union party was a sign of some Kanaks’ belief that their demands are not being met through the political process. The core group of activists were a major force behind the recent protests and the Cell’s leader, Christian Tein, is currently being held in a jail in France on charges related to the unrest. Similarly, the major presence of youths on the streets in May is evidence that a new generation has lost faith in the pace of social and political change.

“The younger people want the change now because in their lives they have experienced and seen a lot of hardship—the persecution of the Kanak people, the difficulties of getting a job,” Jacques emphasized. An estimated 45 percent of people in New Caledonia who don’t have a high school certificate are indigenous, and the Kanak unemployment rate is reported to be as high as 38 percent.

Yet the representation of Kanaks in the territory’s government and politics has steadily increased over the past two decades. The number of seats held by Pro-Independence politicians in New Caledonia’s 54 seat Congress rose from 18 to 25 between 2004 and 2014, while Loyalists witnessed a decrease from 36 to 29 seats, reports Australia’s Lowy Institute for International Policy.

In 2021, Louis Mapou, the first Kanak Pro-Independence President of the government, was elected. And, following the French national election this month, Emmanuel Tjibaou, a Kanak leader from the rural North Province, was voted in as one of New Caledonia’s two members of the National Assembly in Paris.

In the wider region, New Caledonia’s self-determination movement has the international support of other Pacific Island countries, especially those that have indigenous Melanesian populations, such as Papua New Guinea and Fiji, as well as Azerbaijan and Russia. And the French overseas territory has been on the United Nations’ Decolonization List since 1986.

Yet there are New Caledonians who are concerned about the viability of a New Caledonian state. The territory relies heavily on France’s fiscal support, which amounts to 20 percent of the local gross domestic product (GDP) and pays for public services, local economic development programs and civil service salaries.

“We have a good economy here,” Marcieux, a Frenchman who has lived in New Caledonia for 30 years, told IPS in Noumea. “It is easy to speak of independence, but, in reality, it is very difficult. You need a way to make independence.”

But, until the yawning political divisions laid bare by the events of May are addressed, it will be difficult for New Caledonia’s leaders to present a united will to President Macron and the French Parliament located more than 16,000 kilometres away.

However, Tjibaou, the new member of the French National Assembly, is the focus of hope that meaningful dialogue can emerge from the recent conflict. He told local media soon after his election this month that “we all have to offer a framework for discussions to resume between the three partners, which are France, the FLNKS and the Loyalists… we have to capitalize on this.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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An important milestone was reached for the Maritime Surveillance Network III (MARSUR III) on 26 June 2024 as it marked the deployment phase of the network following the approval of the User Acceptance Test (UAT) results by the 16 contributing Member States (BE, BG, CY, DE, EL, ES, FI, FR, IE, IT, MT, NL, PL, PT, RO, SE) at the last Project Arrangement Board hosted by the EDA.

The UAT, hosted by the European Union Satellite Centre (SatCen) on 4 June 2024, is a technology development phase in which the network and its software were tested in the real world by its intended users. The test environment used for the MARSUR UAT consisted of 3 real nodes with synchronised software running on national servers located in SatCen, Italy and Cyprus and connected via the MARSUR network.

The success of the User Acceptance Test was witnessed by the MARSUR Technical Arrangement Board members from the 16 contributing Member States and MARSUR community representatives from 21 European Navies, both in person and remotely via a VTC connection.

All tests outlined in the approved User Acceptance Test Plan & Use Case Scenarios of real maritime track and information exchanges were fully and correctly executed, demonstrating the robustness and resilience of the MARSUR network.

This was an important milestone in a long and successful history that dates back to 2005, when EDA defence ministers asked the agency to create a maritime network using existing naval and maritime information sharing systems in the EU. Following the EDA Cat B projects MARSUR I and II, this latest EDA Cat B project MARSUR III was launched in December 2020 and will run until 2026, successfully fighting the obsolescence and technical problems of its predecessors.

16 contributing Member States now have an effective system for developing European Maritime Situational Awareness based on the MARSUR III network, and the deployment phase will provide confidence that the use of the network will increase, making it the tool of choice in the very short term and a capability to be recommended to any maritime commander.

The whole MARSUR initiative is one of the many excellent examples of what the Agency's framework can bring in terms of capability development for our participating Member States.

Background

One of the longest-running projects undertaken by the European Defence Agency (EDA), the Maritime Surveillance (MARSUR) project is a technical solution that allows dialog between European maritime information systems.

In August 2019 an updated version of the MARSUR Exchange System was agreed and has replaced the previous one. Under the latest EDA project in support of maritime surveillance (MARSUR III) a next-generation technology is being developed, enhancing the capabilities and improving performance. In addition, a “classified layer” is being developed at the level of EU RESTRICTED in a first phase, with a possible future upgrade to EU SECRET, based on the assessment of available budget, operational needs, and limitations.

   

Am Dienstag (16. Juli) haben die Europaabgeordneten die Vizepräsidenten des EU-Parlaments gewählt. Dabei wurden jedoch Kandidaten der extremeren rechten Fraktionen von den pro-europäischen Parteien abgeschmettert, um die Brandmauer nach rechts zu sichern.

Békéscsabán, a Kígyósi úton július 14-én délelőtt a Készenléti Rendőrség orosházi osztályának munkatársai szolgálatteljesítés közben észrevettek egy családi házból kiáramló füstöt. A rendőrök azonnal a helyszínre siettek, ahol egy magatehetetlen férfit találtak a földön fekve, aki segítségért kiáltott.

A rendőrök nem haboztak, bemásztak az ablakon, felemelték a férfit, majd a hátsó ajtón keresztül biztonságba helyezték. Az időközben kiérkező mentők kórházba szállították a füstmérgezéssel küzdő férfit.

A bátor rendőrök ezután visszatértek az égő házba, hogy átvizsgálják, van-e még bent valaki. Miután meggyőződtek róla, hogy a ház üres, vödrökben hordták a vizet az utcáról, és elkezdték oltani a lángokat. A tűzoltók kiérkezése után átadták a helyszínt, akik befejezték az oltást.

A készenléti rendőrök gyors és határozott fellépése emberéletet mentett, és megakadályozta a tűz továbbterjedését. Hősies tettét a helyi közösség is elismeréssel fogadta.

The post Hősies rendőrök mentettek ki egy férfit az égő házból Békéscsabán appeared first on Biztonságpiac.

Wednesday, 17 July

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

Wednesday, 17 July

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

Wednesday, 17 July

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

Wednesday, 17 July

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

Bei den Gesprächen rund um die EU-Spitzenposten ist die italienische Ministerpräsidentin Giorgia Meloni außen vor gelassen worden. Trotzdem wird ihre Partei Fratelli d’Italia diese Woche wohl für eine weitere Amtszeit von der Leyens stimmen, wie Euractiv aus Parteikreisen erfahren hat.