Part of a U.S. military aid package to Ukraine in April 2022, the M113 armored personnel carrier has proved vital in conducting assault operations and providing protection for Ukrainian infantry. And many of these vehicles are still up and running nearly three years later. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. Camera: Pavel Suhodolskiy
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STOCKHOLM/VILNIUS — An undersea fiber optic cable between Latvia and Sweden was damaged on Sunday, likely as a result of external influence, Latvia said, prompting NATO to deploy patrol ships to the area and triggering a sabotage investigation by Swedish authorities.

Sweden’s Security Service has seized control of a vessel as part of the probe, the country’s prosecution authority said.

“We are now carrying out a number of concrete investigative measures, but I cannot go into what they consist of due to the ongoing preliminary investigation,” senior prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said in a statement.

NATO was coordinating military ships and aircraft under its recently deployed mission, dubbed “Baltic Sentry.” The effort follows a string of incidents in which power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines have been damaged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina said her government was coordinating with NATO and other countries in the Baltic Sea region to clarify the circumstances surrounding the latest incident.

“We have determined that there is most likely external damage and that it is significant,” Silina told reporters following an extraordinary government meeting.

Latvia’s navy said earlier on Sunday it had dispatched a patrol boat to inspect a ship and that two other vessels were also subject to investigation.

Up to several thousand commercial vessels make their way through the Baltic Sea at any given time, and a number of them passed the broken cable on Sunday, data from the MarineTraffic ship tracking service showed.

One such ship, the Malta-flagged bulk carrier Vezhen, escorted to Swedish waters by a Swedish coastguard vessel on Sunday evening, MarineTraffic data showed. It later anchored outside the Swedish naval base in Karlskrona in southern Sweden.

It was not immediately clear if the Vezhen, which passed the fiber optic cable at 0045 GMT on Sunday, was subject to investigation.

A Swedish coastguard spokesperson declined to comment on the Vezhen or the position of coastguard ships.

Bulgarian shipping company Navigation Maritime Bulgare, which listed the Vezhen among its fleet, did not immediately reply to requests for comment outside of office hours.

NATO cooperation

Swedish navy spokesperson Jimmie Adamsson earlier told Reuters it was too soon to say what caused the damage to the cable or whether it was intentional or a technical fault.

“NATO ships and aircrafts are working together with national resources from the Baltic Sea countries to investigate and, if necessary, take action,” the alliance said in a statement on Sunday.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said his country was cooperating closely with NATO and Latvia.

NATO said last week it would deploy frigates, patrol aircraft and naval drones in the Baltic Sea to help protect critical infrastructure and reserved the right to take action against ships suspected of posing a security threat.

Finnish police last month seized a tanker carrying Russian oil and said they suspected the vessel had damaged the Finnish-Estonian Estlink 2 power line and four telecoms cables by dragging its anchor across the seabed.

Finland’s prime minister in a statement said the latest cable damage highlighted the need to increase protection for critical undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.

The cable that broke on Sunday linked the Latvian town of Ventspils with Sweden’s Gotland island and was damaged in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone, the Latvian navy said.

Communications providers were able to switch to alternative transmission routes, the cable’s operator, Latvian State Radio and Television Centre (LVRTC), said in a statement, adding it was seeking to contract a vessel to begin repairs.

“The exact nature of the damage can only be determined once cable repair work begins,” LVRTC said.

A spokesperson for the operator said the cable was laid at depths of more than 50 meters (164 feet).

Unlike seabed gas pipelines and power cables, which can take many months to repair after damage, fiber optic cables that have suffered damage in the Baltic Sea have generally been restored within weeks.
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London — Ireland called in help from England and France on Sunday as repair crews worked to restore power to hundreds of thousands of people after the most disruptive storm for years.

More than 1 million people in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland were left without electricity after Storm Eowyn roared through on Friday.

In Ireland, which suffered the heaviest damage, the wind snapped telephone poles, ripped apart a Dublin ice rink and even toppled a giant wind turbine. A wind gust of 183 kph was recorded on the west coast, breaking a record set in 1945.

The state electricity company, ESB Networks, said that more than 300,000 properties in Ireland still had no power on Sunday, down from 768,000 on Friday. The Irish military was also helping out, but the company said that it could be two more weeks before electricity is restored to everyone.

Irish Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary said authorities were “throwing everything at it.”

“We’re bringing additional people from England today and we’re looking for people from France, additional technicians,” he told broadcaster RTE. “What we’re focused on is getting our infrastructure back up, getting our power back up, getting our water and connectivity back up as soon as is possible.”

Another 75,000 people were still without power on Sunday in Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom and neighbors the Republic of Ireland.

At least two people died during the storm. Kacper Dudek, 20, was killed when a tree fell on his car in County Donegal in northwest Ireland, local police said.

Police in Scotland said that a 19-year-old man, who hasn’t been named, died in a hospital on Saturday after a tree fell on his car in the southwestern town of Mauchline on Friday.

More rainy and windy weather battered Britain and Ireland on Sunday, with a gust of 132 kph recorded at Predannack in southwest England.
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ROME — Italy’s prime minister addressed growing criticism Saturday of the repatriation of a Libyan warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court, as Giorgia Meloni cited an appeals court order and security concerns.

The repatriation of Ossama Anjiem to Libya, a key partner in Europe’s efforts to keep migrants from crossing the Mediterranean and landing on its shores, sparked outrage from human rights groups and questions from Italy’s opposition parties.

Meloni said her government will ask the ICC to clarify why it took months to issue the arrest warrant for Anjiem, also known as Ossama al-Masri, and why it was issued only after he traveled through at least three European countries.

“Al-Masri was released by an order of Rome’s Court of Appeal … It was not a government choice,” Meloni told journalists during a trip to Saudi Arabia.

Italy has close ties to Libya’s internationally recognized government in Tripoli and relies on it to patrol its coasts and prevent migrants from leaving. Any trial of al-Masri in The Hague could bring unwanted attention to Italy’s migration policies and its support of Libya’s coast guard.

Al-Masri leads the Tripoli branch of the Reform and Rehabilitation Institution, a notorious network of detention centers run by the government-backed Special Deterrence Forces. He was arrested Sunday in Turin, where he reportedly attended the Juventus-Milan soccer match the night before.

The ICC warrant, dated the day before his arrest, accused al-Masri of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Mitiga prison, starting in 2015, that are punishable with life in prison. The court said he was accused of murder, torture, rape and sexual violence. The prison holds political dissidents, migrants and others.

Human rights groups for years have documented abuses in Libyan detention facilities where migrants are kept.

The ICC said the arrest warrant was transmitted to member states Saturday, including Italy, and that the court had told Italy to contact it “without delay” if it ran into problems cooperating with the warrant.

But Rome’s court of appeals ordered al-Masri freed Tuesday, citing a “procedural error” in his arrest. The ruling said Justice Minister Carlo Nordio should have been informed ahead of time since the ministry handles all relations with the ICC.

Al-Masri was sent to Libya aboard an aircraft of the Italian secret services.

The ICC said it had not been given prior notice of the appeals court’s decision, as required, and was “yet to obtain verification from the authorities on the steps reportedly taken.”

Meloni said Italy’s government, “faced with a dangerous individual, decided to expel him immediately and, as it happens in many cases with dangerous prisoners who are repatriated, didn’t use a regular flight, also for passengers’ safety.”

She said Italy will provide all needed clarifications to the ICC.

Opposition parties have asked Meloni to urgently explain the “very serious” development, while calling on the justice minister to resign.
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HAIFA, ISRAEL — Naftali Furst will never forget his first view of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, on Nov. 3, 1944. He was 12 years old.

SS soldiers threw open the doors of the cattle car, where he was crammed in with his mother, father, brother, and more than 80 others. He remembers the tall chimneys of the crematoria, flames roaring from the top.

There were dogs and officers yelling in German “Get out, get out!” forcing people to jump onto the infamous ramp where Nazi doctor Josef Mengele separated children from parents.

Furst, now 92, is one of a dwindling number of Holocaust survivors able to share first-person accounts of the horrors they endured, as the world marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis’ most notorious death camp. Furst is returning to Auschwitz for the annual occasion, his fourth trip to the camp.

Each time he returns, he thinks of those first moments there.

“We knew we were going to certain death,” he said from his home in Haifa, northern Israel, earlier this month. “In Slovakia, we knew that people who went to Poland didn’t return.”

Strokes of luck

Furst and his family arrived at the entrance to Auschwitz on Nov. 3, 1944 -– one day after Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler ordered the cessation of the use of the gas chambers ahead of their demolition, as the Soviet troops neared. The order meant that his family wasn’t immediately killed. It was one of many small bits of luck and coincidences that allowed Furst to survive.

“For 60 years, I didn’t talk about the Holocaust, for 60 years I didn’t speak a word of German even though it’s my mother tongue,” said Furst.

In 2005, he was invited to attend the ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald, where he was liberated on April 11, 1945, after being moved there from Auschwitz. He realized there were fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors who could give first-person accounts, and he decided to throw himself into memorial work. This will be his fourth trip to a ceremony at Auschwitz, having also met Pope Francis there in 2016.

Some 6 million European Jews were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust — the mass murder of Jews and other groups before and during World War II. Soviet Red Army troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau on Jan. 27, 1945, and the day has become known as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. An estimated 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Just 220,000 Holocaust survivors are still alive, according to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, and more than 20% are over 90.

A meeting place after the war

Furst, originally from Bratislava, then part of Czechoslovakia, was just 6 when the Nazis first started implementing measures against the country’s Jews.

He spent ages 9 to 12 in four different concentration camps, including Auschwitz. His parents had planned to jump off of the cattle car on the way to the camp, but people were packed so tightly they couldn’t reach the doors.

His father instructed the entire family, no matter what, to meet at 11 Sulekova St. in Bratislava after the war. Furst and his brother were separated from their mother. After numbers were tattooed on their arms, they also were taken from their father. They lived in Block 29, without many other children. As the Soviet army closed in on the area, so close they could hear the booms from the tanks, Furst and his brother, Shmuel, were forced to join a dangerous journey toward Buchenwald, marching for three days in the cold and snow. Anyone who lagged behind was shot.

“We had to prove our desire to live, to do another step and another step and keep going,” he said. Many people gave up, longing to end the hunger and thirst and cold, and just sat down, where they were shot by the guards.

“We had this command from my father: ‘You must adapt and survive, and even if you’re suffering, you must come back,'” Furst recalled.

Furst and his brother survived the march, and an open-car train ride in the snow, but they were separated at the next camp. When Furst was liberated from Buchenwald, captured in a famous photo that included Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel in the bunkbeds, he was sure he was alone in the world.

But within months, just as Furst’s father had instructed, the four family members reunited at the address they memorized, the home of family friends. The rest of their family –- grandparents, aunts, uncles — were all killed. His family later moved to Israel, where he married, had a daughter, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, with another on the way.

‘We couldn’t imagine this tragedy’

On Oct. 7, 2023, Furst awoke to the Hamas attack on southern Israel, and immediately thought of his granddaughter, Mika Peleg, and her husband, and their 2-year-old son, who live in Kfar Aza, a kibbutz on the border with Gaza where scores of people were killed or kidnapped.

“It just kept getting worse all day, we couldn’t get any information what was happening with them,” said Furst. “We saw the horrors, that we couldn’t imagine this type of horror is happening in 2023, 80 years after the Holocaust.”

Toward midnight on Oct. 7, Peleg’s neighbors sent word that the family had survived. They spent almost 20 hours locked inside their safe room with no food or ability to communicate. Her husband’s parents, who both lived on Kfar Aza, were killed.

Despite his close connection, comparisons between Oct. 7 and the Holocaust make Furst uncomfortable.

“It’s awful and terrible and a catastrophe, and hard to describe, but it’s not a Holocaust,” he said. As awful as the Hamas attack was for his granddaughter and others, the Holocaust was a multi-year “death industry” with massive infrastructure and camps that could kill 10,000 people a day for months at a time, he said.

Furst, who was previously involved in coexistence work between Jews and Arabs, said his heart also goes out to Palestinians in Gaza, although he believes Israel needed to respond militarily. “I feel the pain of everyone who is suffering, everywhere in the world, because I think I know what suffering is,” he said.

Furst knows that he is one of very few Holocaust survivors still able to travel to Auschwitz, so it’s important for him to be present there to mark the 80th anniversary.

These days, he is telling his story as many times as he can, taking part in documentaries and movies, serving as the president of the Buchenwald Prisoner’s Association and working to create a memorial statue at the Sered’ concentration camp in Slovakia.

He feels a responsibility to be the mouthpiece for the millions who were killed, and people can relate to the story of a single person more than the hard numbers of 6 million deaths, he said.

“Whenever I finish, I tell the youth, the fact that you were able to see living testimony (from a Holocaust survivor) puts a requirement on you more than someone who did not: you take it on your shoulders the obligation to continue to tell this.” 
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WASHINGTON — Ahead of Belarus’ presidential election this weekend, a media advocacy group filed a complaint Friday with the International Criminal Court accusing the country’s longtime leader of crimes against humanity against journalists.

The complaint, filed by Reporters Without Borders, known by French acronym RSF, accuses President Alexander Lukashenko of orchestrating a harsh crackdown on independent media that began after he claimed victory in the disputed 2020 election.

That election was widely seen as rigged, with opposition candidates jailed or forced to flee. Security forces violently suppressed the subsequent mass protests.

Paris-based RSF cited in its complaint the imprisoning and persecution of journalists and displacement of media workers as examples of crimes against humanity.

“RSF calls on the ICC Prosecutor to include these crimes against journalists in its preliminary investigation,” Antoine Bernard, RSF’s director of advocacy and assistance, said in a statement.

Since the crackdown on independent media began, Belarus has ranked among the worst jailers of journalists in the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Belarusian media experts say the dire environment has made it harder to access credible information.

“The Belarusian information space is tightly controlled by the government,” Natalia Belikova, the head of international cooperation at Press Club Belarus, told VOA from Warsaw.

Repression against journalists and activists has been increasing in the lead up to the election, she said. Press Club Belarus counts more than 40 journalists currently jailed in the country.

The European Parliament and exiled Belarusian leader Svetlana Tikhanovskayahave condemned the upcoming election in Belarus as a sham.

Since 2020, the Belarusian government has pressured independent media through raids on news outlets, blocking websites and designating media organizations as “extremist.”

The harsh environment forced some reporters to quit their jobs. Meanwhile, hundreds of other journalists fled into exile, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

“For five years, the Belarusian regime has systematically persecuted independent voices, starting with journalists,” Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, said in a statement.

Belikova said she thinks the complaint to the ICC is significant.

“On the level of raising the profile of repression in Belarus, especially against journalists and free press, I think this is a very important move,” she said.

But Belikova added that she wasn’t sure whether the complaint will improve the crisis facing Belarusian journalists.

The office of the ICC prosecutor said it does not comment on complaints but confirmed it had received one from RSF.

The Belarusian Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment for this story.

The assault on independent media has created an environment where state-run propaganda can thrive, according to analysts.

Beginning last week, the Belarusian state-run television network ONT has aired a series of propaganda films that feature three jailed journalists. The journalists are seen in prison facilities, looking emaciated and exhausted as they are asked questions.

The journalists — Ihar Losik and Andrey Kuznechyk, who work for VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Ihar Karney, who previously contributed to RFE/RL — are jailed on charges that press freedom groups view as politically motivated.

The ONT propaganda series accused the journalists of trying to “set Belarus on fire.”

“It is a very bad and malicious practice. It is against all human rights,” Belikova said about the interviews.

Belikova said the interviews were likely intended to discredit RFE/RL in the eyes of Belarusians. RFE/RL’s Belarusian Service is one of the main independent outlets delivering independent news to people inside the country.

RFE/RL said it had no comment on the interview series.

Despite the proliferation of state-run propaganda, Belarusians still regularly access banned news sites.

The five biggest sites had over 17 million visits in December 2023, according to a 2024 JX Fund report. Belarus has a population of around 9 million people.
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Officials in Ukraine say Russia launched a barrage of drones in an overnight attack Friday killing at least two civilians, wounding several others and damaging commercial and residential buildings.

The interior ministry said two victims were killed by drone debris in the central Kyiv region. It said a multistory residential building and commercial buildings were among the infrastructure that sustained damage during the attack.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses intercepted and destroyed some 120 drones over a dozen regions, including Moscow, overnight Friday, launched by Ukraine.

No casualties were reported.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he would talk soon with Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to push the Russian leader to end his nearly three-year war on neighboring Ukraine.

“Millions of young lives are being wasted. That war is horrible,” Trump, via video link from Washington, told global business leaders meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

He said that “Ukraine is ready to make a deal,” although no peace negotiations have been announced. “This is a war that never should’ve started.”

Trump, three days into his second term in the White House, said he would ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to cut global oil prices, now about $77 a barrel, to curb Russia’s oil revenues, which it uses to fund the war.

“If the price comes down,” Trump said, “the war in Ukraine will end immediately.”

“It’s so important to get that done,” he said. “It’s time to end it.”

Trump’s new remarks on the war came a day after he described the conflict as a “ridiculous war” and told Putin in a social media message that if he didn’t move to end it, the U.S. would impose new tariffs, taxes and sanctions on Russian exports to the West.

But the Kremlin was unmoved by Trump’s threat, saying Thursday it did not see any particularly new elements in U.S. policy toward Russia.

“He likes these methods, at least he liked them during his first presidency,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Peskov said Russia remains ready for “mutually respectful dialogue” with the United States as Trump starts a four-year term in the White House.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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NUUK, GREENLAND — The mineral wealth on the Arctic island of Greenland is in the global spotlight after U.S. President Donald Trump said he wants to take control of the territory from Denmark, prompting alarm from European allies.

Trump’s words were echoed in a January 12 interview on “Fox News Sunday” by Vice President JD Vance, who said, “There is a deal to be made in Greenland,” and that the island has “a lot of great natural resources.”

Until now, Greenland’s mining industry has struggled to turn a profit, but could that be about to change?

‘Full of minerals’

Greenland currently has only one active commercial mine — White Mountain —located north of the capital, Nuuk, and gets its stark, monochrome color from anorthosite rock, which is rich in calcium deposits and other minerals.

The mine’s operator, Lumina Sustainable Materials, ships the rock from Greenland’s western coastline to Asia, Europe and North America, where it is used to make a variety of products such as fiberglass, paint, fillers, cement and polymers. Efforts are under way to exploit aluminum deposits within the anorthosite.

“Greenland is a country full of minerals. We have, literally, minerals available all over the place,” Bent Olsvig Jensen, Lumina’s managing director in Greenland, told VOA in an interview.

Dozens of other mining companies from around the world are conducting exploration and feasibility studies across Greenland, although White Mountain remains the only commercial operation currently trading.

China competition

The minerals include plentiful rare earth elements such as lithium and scandium, which are critical for devices such as batteries. Global supply chains for those elements are currently dominated by China.

Trump has repeatedly said that U.S. control of Greenland is necessary for “international security.” His comments caused a political storm in Greenland and Denmark, but mining companies see an opportunity.

“His interest in Greenland can actually help the industry get access to further investment, which is needed for the industry to develop in Greenland,” Jensen said. “So, yes, I definitely welcome it. And I think it’s important that both from the industry side but also from the political side in Greenland that we position ourselves towards Trump and the U.S.”

‘Not for sale’

Greenland’s government is largely autonomous, although Denmark is responsible for the island’s security.

Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for resources, emphasized the government’s long-held response to Trump’s interest: Open for business, but not for sale.

“We do want American investments. We do want collaboration with the U.S. State Department, and we’ve been trying to advocate for that for some time,” she told VOA.

Greenland signed a deal with Trump during his first administration in 2019 to boost the mining industry.

“The U.S. funded our direct marketing towards investors all over the world, and this agreement has just come to its end. So we’ve been trying to … get engagement from the U.S. for some time now in order to renew this deal,” Nathanielsen said.

Challenges

Despite widespread recognition of Greenland’s mineral wealth, attracting investment in mining has been a long-term problem.

“For many years now, we have seen that there has been some hesitance in the investor environment to engage in high-risk, long-term projects. We only have one American-owned license at the moment. In comparison, we have 23 from Canada, 23 from the U.K. and about 10 from Denmark. So, it’s not an area where you see a lot of U.S. engagement as of now. Of course we welcome it, and there’s plenty of opportunity,” Nathanielsen said.

Greenland’s government is pushing for full independence from Denmark. Supporters hope the island’s mineral wealth could one day provide the economic foundation for full statehood. But there’s a long way to go, said Ulrik Pram Gad, an analyst at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen.

“If you want minerals out of the ground and financing Greenlandic self-sufficiency economically, then you will need to have the uptake in the international processing going,” Gad told VOA.

“And then, probably you’ll have to think very closely about how to make sure that these mining projects benefit people who live close to them, rather than being a new version of imperialist extraction. Because then, the Greenlanders might not want it in the end,” he explained.

The risk doesn’t always end in reward. Rubies and pink sapphires were extracted at the Aappaluttoq mine until 2023, when its operator, Greenland Ruby, went bankrupt, $71 million in debt. The company is restructuring and seeking new investors, with a goal of restarting operations.

Greenland’s 2.1 million square kilometers of land is icebound for much of the year.

“Obviously, we are in the middle of the Arctic, so there are some logistical challenges,” Jensen of Lumina said. “Not all of Greenland is open all year round. However, that is something that we can plan our way out of.”

Jensen added that investors must have patience to make a profit.

“It takes time to develop a project from the early-stage exploration until you actually have a mine where you can extract and start selling. And as we all say in mining, ‘Time is money.'”
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London — Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS are facing fresh scrutiny from Britain’s competition watchdog, which announced investigations Thursday targeting the two tech giants’ mobile phone ecosystems under new powers to crack down on digital market abuses. 

The Competition and Markets Authority said it launched separate investigations to determine whether the mobile ecosystems controlled by Apple and Google should be given “strategic market status” that would mandate changes in the companies’ practices. 

The watchdog is flexing its newly acquired regulatory muscles again after the new digital market rules took effect at the start of the year. The CMA has already used the new rules, designed to protect consumers and businesses from unfair practices by Big Tech companies, to open an investigation into Google’s search ads business. 

The new investigations will examine whether Apple or Google’s mobile operating systems, app stores and browsers give either company a strategic position in the market. The watchdog said it’s interested in the level of competition and any barriers preventing rivals from offering competing products and services. 

The CMA will also look into whether Apple or Google are favoring their own apps and services, which it said “often come pre-installed and prominently placed on iOS and Android devices.” Google’s YouTube and Apple’s Safari browser are two examples of apps that come bundled with Android and iOS, respectively. 

And it will investigate “exploitative conduct,” such as whether Apple or Google forces app makers to agree to “unfair terms and conditions” as condition for distributing apps on their app stores. 

The regulator has until October to wrap up the investigation. It said it could force either company to, for example, open up access to key functions other apps need to operate on mobile devices. Or it could force them to allow users to download apps outside of their own app stores. 

Both Google and Apple said the work “constructively” with the U.K. regulator on the investigation. 

Google said “Android’s openness has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps. It’s the only example of a successful and viable open source mobile operating system.” 

The company said it favors “a way forward that avoids stifling choice and opportunities for U.K. consumers and businesses alike, and without risk to U.K. growth prospects.” 

Apple said it “believes in thriving and dynamic markets where innovation can flourish. We face competition in every segment and jurisdiction where we operate, and our focus is always the trust of our users.”
…

A record 47% of the European Union’s electricity now comes from solar and other renewables, a report Thursday said, in yet another sign of the growing gap between the bloc’s push for clean energy and the new U.S. administration’s pursuit of more fossil fuels.

Nearly three-quarters of the EU’s electricity doesn’t emit planet-warming gases into the air — with another 24% of electricity in the bloc coming from nuclear power, a report released by the climate energy think tank Ember found. This is far higher than in countries like the United States and China, where nearly two-thirds of their energy is still produced from carbon-polluting fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

Experts say they’re encouraged by Europe’s fossil fuel reductions, particularly as the U.S. looks set to increase its emissions as its new president pledges cheaper gas prices, has halted leases for wind projects and pledged to revoke Biden-era incentives for electric vehicles.

“Fossil fuels are losing their grip on EU energy,” said Chris Rosslowe, an energy expert at Ember. In 2024, solar power generated 11% of EU electricity, overtaking coal which fell below 10% for the first time. Clean wind power generated more electricity than gas for the second year in a row.

2024 data wasn’t available for all countries. Ember’s data for the world’s largest generators of electricity for 2023 show Brazil with the largest share of its electricity from renewables, almost 89%, with much of that coming from hydroelectric power. Canada had about 66.5%, China 30.6%, France 26.5%, the U.S. 22.7% and India 19.5%.

One reason for Europe’s clean power transition moving at pace is the European Green Deal, an ambitious policy passed in 2019 that paved the way for climate laws to be updated. As a result of the deal, the EU made their targets more ambitious, aiming to cut 55% of the region’s emissions by the end of the decade. The policy also aims to make Europe climate neutral — reducing the amount of additional emissions in the air to practically zero — by 2050.

Hundreds of regulations and directives in European countries to incentivize investment in clean energy and reduce carbon pollution have been passed or are in the process of being ratified across Europe.

“At the start of the Deal, renewables were a third and fossil fuels accounted for 39% of Europe’s electricity,” Rosslowe said. “Now fossils generate only 29% and wind and solar have been driving the clean energy transition.” The amount of electricity generated by nuclear energy has remained relatively stable in the bloc.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also spurred the move to clean energy in Europe. Gas prices skyrocketed — with much of Europe’s gas coming from Russia becoming unviable — forcing countries to look for cheaper, cleaner alternatives. Portugal, Netherlands and Estonia witnessed the highest increase in clean power in the last five years.

The transition to clean power helped Europe avoid more than $61 billion worth of fossil fuel imports for generating electricity since 2019.

“This is sending a clear message that their energy needs are going to be met through clean power, not gas imports,” said Pieter de Pous, a Brussels-based energy analyst at European think tank E3G. De Pous said the EU’s origins were “as a community of coal and steel because those industries were so important,” but it is now rapidly becoming a “community of solar and wind power, batteries and smart technologies.”

Nuclear growth in the bloc, meanwhile, has slowed. Across the European Union, retirements of nuclear plants have outpaced new construction since around the mid-2000s, according to Global Energy Monitor.

As President Trump has pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement aimed at curbing warming and is pursuing a “drill, baby, drill” energy policy, Rosslowe said the EU’s leadership in clean power becomes all the more important. “It’s about increasing European energy independence, and it’s about showing this climate leadership,” he said.

On Tuesday, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said: “Europe will stay the course, and keep working with all nations that want to protect nature and stop global warming.”
…

LONDON — Prince Harry claimed a monumental victory Wednesday as Rupert Murdoch’s U.K. tabloids made an unprecedented apology for intruding in his life over decades and agreed to pay substantial damages to settle his privacy invasion lawsuit.

News Group Newspapers offered a “full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex for the serious intrusion by The Sun between 1996 and 2011 into his private life,” Harry’s attorney, David Sherborne, read from a statement in court.

The statement even went beyond the scope of the case to acknowledge intruding on the life of Harry’s mother, the late Princess Diana, and the impact it had on his family.

“We acknowledge and apologize for the distress caused to the duke, and the damage inflicted on relationships, friendships and family, and have agreed to pay him substantial damages,” the settlement statement said.

His phone was hacked, and he was spied on

It was the first time News Group has acknowledged wrongdoing at The Sun, a paper that once sold millions of copies with its formula of sports, celebrities and sex — including topless women on Page 3.

Harry had vowed to take his case to trial to publicly expose the newspaper’s wrongdoing and win a court ruling upholding his claims.

In a statement read by his lawyer, Harry claimed he achieved the accountability he sought for himself and hundreds of others, including ordinary people, who were snooped on.

News Group acknowledged “phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators” aimed at Harry. News Group had strongly denied those allegations before trial.

“This represents a vindication for the hundreds of other claimants who were strong-armed into settling without being able to get to the truth of what was done to them,” Sherborne said outside the High Court in London.

Wrongdoing alleged at the top

The bombshell announcement came after the trial’s start was postponed a day as last-minute settlement talks heated up outside court.

Harry, 40, the younger son of King Charles III, and Tom Watson, a former Labour Party member of Parliament, were the only two remaining claimants out of more than 1,300 others who had settled lawsuits against News Group Newspapers over allegations their phones were hacked and investigators unlawfully intruded in their lives.

The company engaged in “perjury and cover-ups” to obscure the truth for years, deleting 30 million emails and other records, Harry and Watson said in a joint statement read by Sherborne.

“There was an extensive conspiracy,” the statement said, in which “senior executives deliberately obstructed justice.”

News Group said in a statement that it would have disputed at trial that evidence was destroyed and that it continues to deny those allegations.

While News Group had issued an unreserved apology for its wrongdoing at the shuttered News of the World, it had never done so at The Sun and had vehemently denied those allegations.

The statement read by Sherborne took aim at Rebekah Brooks, now the CEO overseeing News Group, who had been the editor at The Sun when she was acquitted at a criminal trial in a phone hacking case.

“At her trial in 2014, Rebekah Brooks said, ‘When I was editor of The Sun, we ran a clean ship,'” he said. “Ten years later when she is CEO of the company, they now admit, when she was editor of The Sun, they ran a criminal enterprise.”

News Group apologized for wrongdoing by private eyes hired by The Sun, but not for anything done by its journalists.

Two cases down, one to go

In all the cases that have been brought against the publisher since a widespread phone hacking scandal forced Murdoch to close News of the World in 2011, Harry’s case got the closest to trial.

Murdoch closed the paper after the Guardian reported that the tabloid’s reporters had in 2002 hacked the phone of Milly Dowler, a murdered 13-year-old schoolgirl, while police were searching for her.

Harry’s case against News Group was one of three he brought accusing British tabloids of violating his privacy by eavesdropping on phone messages or using private investigators to unlawfully help them score scoops.

His case against the publisher of the Daily Mirror ended in victory when the judge ruled that phone hacking was “widespread and habitual” at the newspaper and its sister publications.

During that trial in 2023, Harry became the first senior member of the royal family to testify in court since the late 19th century, putting him at odds with the monarchy’s desire to keep its problems out of view.

The outcome in the News Group case raises questions about how his third case — against the publisher of the Daily Mail — will proceed. That trial is scheduled next year.

Source of a bitter feud

Harry’s feud with the press dates to his youth, when the tabloids took glee in reporting on everything from his injuries to his girlfriends to dabbling with drugs.

But his fury with the tabloids goes much deeper.

He blames the media for the death of his mother, who was killed in a car crash in 1997 while being chased by paparazzi in Paris. He also blames them for the persistent attacks on his wife, actor Meghan Markle, that led them to leave royal life and flee to the United States in 2020.

The litigation has been a source of friction in his family, Harry said in the documentary “Tabloids On Trial.”

He revealed in court papers that his father opposed his lawsuit. He also said his older brother, William, Prince of Wales and heir to the throne, had settled a private complaint against News Group that his lawyer has said was worth over 1 million pounds ($1.23 million).

“I’m doing this for my reasons,” Harry told the documentary makers, although he said he wished his family had joined him.

Harry was originally one among dozens of claimants, including actor Hugh Grant, who alleged that News Group journalists and investigators they hired violated their privacy between 1994 and 2016 by intercepting voicemails, tapping phones, bugging cars and using deception to access confidential information.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would likely impose sanctions on Russia if its president, Vladimir Putin, refuses to negotiate about ending the war in Ukraine. 

Trump gave no details on possible additional sanctions. The United States has already sanctioned Russia heavily for its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

Trump said his administration was also looking at the issue of sending weapons to Ukraine, adding his view that the European Union should be doing more to support Ukraine. 

“We’re talking to [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy; we’re going to be talking with President Putin very soon,” Trump said. “We’re going to look at it.” 

Trump said he had pressed Chinese President Xi Jinping in a call to intervene to stop the Ukraine war. 

“He’s not done very much on that. He’s got a lot of … power, like we have a lot of power. I said, ‘You ought to get it settled.’ We did discuss it.”  
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