Month: September 2024

Przemysl, Poland — The top U.S. and British diplomats headed together into Ukraine on Wednesday to discuss further easing rules on firing Western weapons into Russia, whose alleged acquisition of Iranian missiles has raised new fears. In a rare joint trip, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was taking the train to Kyiv with Foreign Secretary David Lammy, whose 2-month-old Labor government has vowed to keep up Britain’s role as a key defender of Ukraine. The pair, who boarded the train early Wednesday at the Polish border town of Przemysl, are expected to meet in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, …

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LONDON — Google lost its last bid to overturn a European Union antitrust penalty, after the bloc’s top court ruled against it Tuesday in a case that came with a whopping fine and helped jumpstart an era of intensifying scrutiny for Big Tech companies. The European Union’s top court rejected Google’s appeal against the $2.7 billion penalty from the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer, for violating antitrust rules with its comparison shopping service. Also Tuesday, Apple lost its challenge against an order to repay $14.34 billion in back taxes to Ireland, after the European Court of Justice issued …

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WASHINGTON — A controversial law on “foreign influence transparency” is heading toward full implementation in Georgia, even though the country aspires to join the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. September 2 was the deadline for Georgian nongovernmental organizations and media organizations receiving more than one-fifth of their funding from abroad to register as “organizations serving the interests of a foreign power.” Only 1.6% of the country’s organizations chose to do so. Many organizations expect they will be forced to register and fined for allegedly serving foreign interests. Georgia’s so-called “foreign agent” law has been labeled a “Russian-style law” and …

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Taipei, Taiwan — Russia and China are holding a series of joint military naval and air force exercises this month in a bid to deepen ties and counter increased security coordination between the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific region, analysts say.  “Russia wants to demonstrate that they can engage in a full-scale war with Ukraine while deploying resources to the Indo-Pacific region and China wants to show that they can deepen its relationship with Russia and cause problems in the region, primarily in the South China Sea but also around Japan,” said Stephen Nagy, a regional security expert …

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London — The United States and Britain formally accused Iran on Tuesday of supplying short-range ballistic missiles to Russia to use in the war in Ukraine, and said they will take measures to punish those involved. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking alongside British Foreign Secretary David Lammy during a visit to London, said that sanctions would be announced later Tuesday. “Russia has now received shipments of these ballistic missiles and will likely use them within weeks in Ukraine, against Ukrainians,” Blinken said. “The supply of Iranian missiles enables Russia to use more of its arsenal for targets that are …

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London — Google lost its final legal challenge on Tuesday against a European Union penalty for giving its own shopping recommendations an illegal advantage over rivals in search results, ending a long-running antitrust case that came with a whopping fine.  The European Union’s Court of Justice upheld a lower court’s decision, rejecting the company’s appeal against the $2.7 billion penalty from the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer.  “By today’s judgment, the Court of Justice dismisses the appeal and thus upholds the judgment of the General Court,” the court said in a press release summarizing its decision.  The commission’s …

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