Europe

I'll get it started. I just had Aldi noodles for the first time and they were pure shite.

So....Lidl is better for cheap noodles (the 5 pack ones are very decent at only 30c a pack in the 5 pack).

Aldi has a far better frozen section generally IMO.

https://archive.is/lVsdZ

Italy, Spain, Greece, Malta and Cyprus sent a letter to the European Commission last month objecting to a French-British deal on the grounds it might lead more migrants to settle in the EU countries where they first land.

least 14% of pesticides used on EU fields today are illegal, up from around 10% in 2015, EU data show

The problem is likely even larger because so much smuggling goes undetected, said authorities in Greece and in several of Europe's main agricultural producers: France, Germany and Spain.

Archived

The Czech Republic has banned the use of any products by the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek in state administration over cybersecurity concerns, authorities said Wednesday.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said the government acted after receiving a warning from the national cybersecurity watchdog, which noted a threat of unauthorized access to users data because the firm is obliged to cooperate with Chinese state authorities.

The move follows similar steps made by some other countries that aimed to protect users’ data, including Italy, which in January blocked access to the chatbot, and also Australia.

The Czech government in 2018 stopped using the hardware and software made by Chinese telecoms company Huawei and another Chinese telecommunications company, ZTE, after a warning they posed a security threat.

DeepSeek was founded in 2023 in Hangzhou, China, and released its first AI large language model later that year.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/43600386

The 12-meter-long low-floor buses, provided by BYD, are equipped with a 400 kWh battery pack that allows a range of up to 300 km and can be recharged in under two hours

Each bus accommodates 71 passengers and includes designated spaces for wheelchairs and strollers, reflecting a strong focus on accessibility. Additional features such as USB charging ports and free Wi-Fi

Multiple countries in the Mediterranean region have been battling intense wildfires this summer, including France, Greece, Syria and Turkey. These aggressive, recurring fires suggests a new normal of altered lives, landscapes and economies in the Mediterranean basin.

Archived (archive.org)

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.

...

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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The enormous workload at the borders also has a "noticeable impact on regular police work," as many of the officers deployed are "absent from their regular duties elsewhere," warned the commissioner.

"Prosecutors said they are investigating allegations of illegal financing of longtime party leader Marine Le Pen’s 2022 presidential bid, and the party’s European Parliament and French parliamentary campaigns. The National Rally, which seeks to sharply curtail migration and restrict Muslims’ rights, is the biggest single party in France’s lower house of parliament.

Jordan Bardella, 29, who took over the presidency of the popular party in 2022, said that police seized “all files relating to the party’s recent regional, presidential, legislative, and European campaigns — in other words, all of its electoral activity"