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Tunisia hands back €60M of EU funding as migrant deal tensions soar

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 09:00:51 GMT

BRUSSELS — Tunisia returned EU cash amid escalating tensions between Brussels and Tunis over a controversial migrant deal.A Commission spokesperson confirmed to POLITICO the North African country returned €60 million of budget support delivered by the EU executive in September.This comes as a major blow to the controversial migrant deal signed by the European Commission with Tunisia in July that offered cash in exchange for help stemming migrant flows across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.Tunisia gave back the money as a sign of its dissatisfaction toward the Commission. The North African country accused the EU executive of withholding more funds it had promised under the migrant agreement. Relations between Tunis and Brussels have collapsed since July as the EU punted on handing out the promised cash — worth €255 million — to the North African country, amid growing criticism over the funding. Tunis accused the bloc of pledging funding that originates in ongoing programs that pred...

EU looks to boost secure submarine internet cables in 2024

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 09:00:51 GMT

The European Union’s executive wants to help invest in “cable projects of European interest” that would reduce its reliance on too few undersea internet connections and make it less vulnerable to sabotage, a document seen by POLITICO showed. The EU push is expected to come in early 2024 as part of a new strategy to boost its telecom sector and internet infrastructure. It will lay the ground word for a new “digital networks act,” announced by Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton on Tuesday and expected in 2025, that would help telecoms players speed up technological advances by easing restrictions and attracting more capital. An internal paper of the Commission, seen by POLITICO earlier, laid out details of the plan. It said the Commission plans to draft a non-binding recommendation to national governments on “secured subsea infrastructure for Europe,” which would “set criteria to facilitate the identification and financing of &#...

It’s the EU and US against the rest of the world in new steel club

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 09:00:51 GMT

Brussels and Washington plan to team up to create a joint tariff zone that will impose duties on steel and aluminum imports from non-market economies such as China, a European Commission proposal for an EU-U.S. deal seen by POLITICO shows. Under the proposed interim deal dated October 3, Washington and the EU agree to provide “adequate tariff protection against imports of steel and aluminum from sources of non-market excess capacity,” the document reads. That would mean 25 percent for steel, and 10 percent for aluminum. In other words, the idea is to create a club of like-minded economies that would put tariffs on imports from economies that are seen as pouring subsidies into key sectors like steel and clean tech.The two powers are negotiating down to the wire on this global-oriented club as a solution to their transatlantic dispute on steel and aluminum. Those tensions date back to former U.S. President Donald Trump, who in 2018 imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports fr...

Law firm rescinds job offer to NYU Law School Bar Association president over Israel-Hamas comments

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 09:00:51 GMT

Brian Niemietz | New York Daily News (TNS)A prominent international law firm has rescinded its job offer to NYU Law School Bar Association student president Ryna Workman over “inflammatory” comments regarding the deadly weekend attacks on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas.“I want to express, first and foremost, my unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression toward liberation and self-determination,” the nonbinary student wrote in a school-wide newsletter posted to social media. “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life. This regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary. I will not condemn Palestinian resistance.”Workman’s missive instead condemned several ideas and institutions — including the “United States military-industrial complex” and “the violence of trapping thousands in an open air-prison” — but not Hamas.The Gaza Strip houses more than 2 million Pa...

Israel tells residents in north to shelter after “hostile aircraft” enter from Lebanon

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 09:00:51 GMT

By JOSEPH KRAUSS and WAFAA SHURAFA (Associated Press)JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said Wednesday night that hostile aircraft had entered the country from Lebanon, setting sirens blaring across northern Israel as it urged citizens there to shelter.The military did not specify the kind of aircraft. But Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah and Palestinian militants are known to have drones and gliders. The news came after Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles at an Israeli military position earlier Wednesday, claiming to have killed and wounded troops. The Israeli military confirmed the attack but did not comment on possible casualties. The Israeli army shelled the area in southern Lebanon where the attack was launched.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a leading opposition figure on Wednesday created a war-time Cabinet overseeing the fight to avenge a stunning weekend attack by Hamas m...

The power dynamic in labor has shifted and pickets are seemingly everywhere. But for how long?

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 09:00:51 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — From auto production lines to Hollywood, the power of labor unions is back in the national spotlight.But despite historic strikes and record contract negotiations this year, there’s a lot stacked against labor organizers today. Union membership rates have been falling for decades due to changes in the U.S. economy, employer opposition, growing political partisanship and legal challenges.“Even though we’re seeing stronger support for unions, (with) the highest popularity of union favorability in polls since at least 1960s, translating the worker desire for representation into actual representation is really hard under our current system,” Alexander Colvin, dean of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, told The Associated Press.WHAT’S DRIVING UNION ACTIVITY NOW?At least 457,000 workers have participated in 315 strikes in the U.S. just this year, according to Johnnie Kallas, a Ph.D. candidate and the project director of Cornell...

Russian authorities fine a human rights advocate for criticizing the war in Ukraine

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 09:00:51 GMT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Human rights advocate Oleg Orlov was fined about $1,500 on Wednesday for criticizing the war in Ukraine, the latest step in a relentless crackdown on activists, independent journalists and opposition figures.Orlov, co-chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial, was convicted of publicly “discrediting” the Russian military after a Facebook post in which he denounced the invasion of Ukraine. A law adopted shortly after the Kremlin sent troops across the border made it a criminal offense if committed repeatedly within a year; Orlov has been fined twice for antiwar protests before facing criminal charges.A Moscow court began hearing the case in March, and Orlov faced up to five years in prison if convicted. In closing arguments Wednesday, however, the prosecution asked the court to impose a fine of 250,000 rubles (about $2,500). “Thank God!” gasped Orlov’s wife when she heard that in court, according to the Russian news outlet Med...

House Republicans are trying to nominate a new speaker after ousting McCarthy but it could be a wait

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 09:00:51 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Stalemated over a new House speaker, the Republican majority is meeting behind closed doors Wednesday to try to choose a new leader, but lawmakers warn it could take hours, if not days, to unite behind a nominee after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster.The two leading contenders, Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio, appear to be splitting the vote among their Republican colleagues. McCarthy, who had openly positioned himself to reclaim the job he just lost, told fellow GOP lawmakers not to nominate him this time. “I don’t know how the hell you get to 218,” said Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, referring to the majority vote typically needed in the 435-member House to become speaker. “It could be a long week.”It’s an extraordinary moment of political chaos that has brought the House to a standstill at a time of uncertainty at home and crisis abroad, just 10 months after Republicans swept to power. Aspiring t...

Lidia dissipates after killing 1, injuring 2 near Mexico resort, Atlantic sees Tropical Storm Sean

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 09:00:51 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Lidia dissipated Wednesday after hitting land as a Category 4 hurricane near the resort of Puerta Vallarta, where one person was killed by a falling tree and two others injured The hurricane knocked over trees and blew roofs off houses with winds as high as 140 mph (220 kph) before moving inland. Laura Velázquez, the head of Mexico’s civil defense system, said one person died on the northern outskirts of Puerto Vallarta after being hit by a falling tree, and two others were injured elsewhere in the area.The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Wednesday that Lidia’s winds were down to 35 mph as it dissipated about 145 miles (235 kilometers) north-northeast of the city of Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city and the capital of the western state of Jalisco.Lidia made landfall Tuesday on Cabo Corrientes, a sparsely populated peninsula, and then moved inland south of Puerto Vallarta with winds of 105 mph (165 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center. The h...

Wisconsin GOP leader reveals names of former justices he asked to look at impeachment

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 09:00:51 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s Republican Assembly speaker revealed the names of the three former state Supreme Court justices he asked to investigate possible impeachment of a sitting justice for the first time in a court filing made public Wednesday.Assembly Speaker Robin Vos floated impeaching liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz if she did not recuse from a redistricting lawsuit seeking to toss GOP-drawn legislative district boundary maps. On Friday, she declined to recuse herself, and the court voted 4-3 along partisan lines to hear the redistricting challenge. Vos asked three former justices to review the possibility of impeachment, but he refused to name them. David Prosser told The Associated Press that he was on the panel, but other justices either said they weren’t on it or did not comment. In a court filing, Vos identified the other two as former Chief Justice Patience Roggensack and former Justice Jon Wilcox. All three of those picked by Vos are conservatives...