HowRu68

Cross-posted

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday revealed details of the latest US-backed 20-point plan to end the war in Ukraine, saying it has been sent to Moscow for feedback. Zelensky gave a point-by-point briefing to journalists in Kyiv, including details on the creation of demilitarised zones.

The European Commission and Japan have successfully concluded negotiations on Japan's association to Horizon Europe, the EU's flagship €93.5 billion research and innovation funding programme. The agreement, expected to be signed in 2026, represents the closest form of collaboration offered by the EU to global partners in this field. It will enable Japanese researchers to lead and coordinate their own research and innovation projects under the programme, to apply and receive funding, and to seek closer collaboration with partners in the EU and other associated countries.

The EU has formal security and defence partnerships with Australia, Japan and South Korea, and in 2020 signed a broad “strategic partnership” with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional group, which includes co-operation on counterterrorism and maritime and cyber security.(..)

Kallas said the EU was “not the traditional security actor”, but Asian countries had been raising the possibility of working with it on issues such as maritime security, freedom of navigation and cyber security.(..)

“China is telling us that they want to be good partners and they are interested in our partnership,” she said. “If you want to have a partnership, then you also listen to the worries that the other side has.” Arch

Poster of Danish movie Festen ( The Confrontation), as a critical thought of what Xmas is or should be. During this movie years long lingering burried emotions and harsh truths are voiced and acted upon.

Pim De Witte, founder of General Intuition and Medal.tv, turned down a deal reportedly worth $500 million from OpenAl, and instead raised $134 million to build an Al lab rooted in games, not words.

Context; EU AI Startup " While most 2025 AI and robotics rounds reported by EU-Startups have ranged between €3 million and €12 million, General Intuition’s raise underscores a sharp contrast in both scale and ambition – particularly notable given its early stage and cross-continental structure spanning New York and Geneva.

“When you play video games, you essentially transfer your perception, usually through a first-person view of the camera, to different environments,” added de Witte. “You get this selection bias towards precisely the kind of data you actually want to use for training work.”

Note: YT vid is 55 mins instead of 5,5 mins. My bad.

BRUSSELS ― A summit of EU leaders Thursday will test whether the bloc will hold together — or whether Donald Trump can divide it.

A high-stakes disagreement between European governments on using Russian assets frozen since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to fund the county’s rebuilding lays bare a deeper division across the continent over how to deal with a new world order and unprecedented pressure from the U.S.(..)

The American influence campaign that has seen Trump administration officials bypassing Brussels and backchanneling with capitals has led to Italy, Bulgaria, Malta and Czechia joining the group of dissenting countries.

In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence, smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned

Completed in early 2025 and now undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML (ASML.AS), opens new tab who reverse-engineered the company's extreme ultraviolet lithography machines or EUVs, according to two people with knowledge of the project.

Add: Arch

Breakdown of all 61 analysed reports (between 9 September and 27 November)

• No drone, other object: 14
• No evidence / origin unknown: 41
• Confirmed Russian drone: 3
• Confirmed hobby/tourist drone: 3

This report suggests 3 confirmed Ruzz drones and 41 unknowns. Anyone got a take on this?

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chile’s ultra-conservative former lawmaker José Antonio Kast secured a stunning victory in the presidential election Sunday, defeating the candidate of the center-left governing coalition and setting the stage for the country’s most right-wing government in 35 years of democracy.

Add context: Under former dictator Augusto Pinochet’s regime (1973-1990) many were tortured ( ca. 10 K) and killed (ca. 3/4 K)

A JetBlue flight from the small Caribbean nation of Curaçao halted its ascent to avoid colliding with a US air force refueling tanker on Friday, and the pilot blamed the military plane for crossing his path.

“We almost had a midair collision up here,” the JetBlue pilot said, according to a recording of his conversation with air traffic control. “They passed directly in our flight path ... They don’t have their transponder turned on, it’s outrageous.”

More than a third of Tuvalu citizens have entered the ballot for a world-first climate visa which would allow them to permanently migrate to Australia.

Opening for the first intake on 16 June, the influx of registrations could indicate that programme will be hugely oversubscribed, with only 280 visas awarded to Tuvalu citizens from the random ballot each year.

"Almost 6,700 American nationals had applied for a visa to work, be with family or study in the Netherlands by the end of November this year, according to immigration service figures, and that is by far the highest number in the past 10 years.

The total is likely to be higher once December, traditionally a busy month, is taken into account, current affairs programme Nieuwsuur reported at the weekend. (...)

Asylum requests submitted via the IND are also rising, with over 60 since the beginning of this year, compared with around 20 in the whole of 2024. Most are from members of the LGBTQ+ community fleeing repression under Trump."

NOS NL