I'm not sure which organizations the law is really aimed at, but it seems like it would mean that anyone in Georgia who wants to get involved with some international NGO — Amnesty International, Extinction Rebellion, Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, FSF Europe, or whatever — would be required to register as an agent of foreign influence.
A large threat to any sovereign nation is having a captured media by an unfriendly actor.
Exactly. It's a fight between Pro-Russian and Pro-Western forces over media access. The Pro-Russian forces want to shove down the Pro-Western media and vice-versa. Which side you see as "unfriendly" depends on which side you personally are on.
I wouldn't use "Pro US" here. We're discussing Georgia and the E.U. is heavily involved so I think "Pro Western" is more accurate.
Regardless of that I don't know that a list is necessary, the tilt involved in media is normally pretty apparent. Additionally while I can't read the law myself I'm going to guess that there's more to this law than simple list making. I'll have to see if I can find an English or German translation in order find out.
Edit: As I suspected there's a lot more to it than list making. I can't read Georgian but if the ICNL is too be believed this legislation has a whole host of problems.
Thousands of people in Georgia have again taken to the streets of the capital Tbilisi to protest against the controversial foreign influence transparency law.
The divisive draft law requires media and non-commercial organisations to register as being under the foreign influence if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad.
Critics have dubbed it 'the Russian law', because Moscow uses similar legislation to stigmatise media and organisations seen as being at odds with the Kremlin.
Many protesters fear the proposed legislation would undermine democracy and derail the country’s chances of joining the European Union.
Either we save our country and maintain our European path, or we lose our homeland," said protester Ana Subeliani, "But this energy and faith, the number of youngsters here, gives me hope that we will have victory at the end".
But despite fierce public opposition, the ruling Georgian Dream party appears determined to press ahead with the law.
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I see no reason why european countries would turn down nuclear energy for coal (germany) or natural gas.
In all honesty, I am starting to think that aluminum foil headed individuals are more powerful than expected or that the energy lobbies are once again tampering with people’s interests
Months earlier, during a visit to the Arabelle turbine manufacturing site in Belfort, Macron unveiled an ambitious nuclear program.
Minister Habeck defended his ministry's actions, emphasising the need to focus on replacing Russian natural gas rather than relying on nuclear energy for electricity.
The decision to extend the life of the last three nuclear power plants was eventually reached several months later, reflecting a compromise pushed by the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) .
The handling of this matter has faced criticism from Germany's conservative opposition, who argue that the process lacked transparency and openness.
The Spanish government announced in December plans to phase out the country's nuclear reactors, with the first plant shutdown scheduled for 2027.
In March this year, Portugal took a significant step towards dismantling its long-serving nuclear reactor, which had been instrumental in scientific research and education for over five decades.
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The use of spyware in Poland under the previous government resulted in accusations that the authorities were abusing power and eroding democratic guardrails.
“It is sad for me that even in this room I am speaking to people who were victims of this system,” Bodnar told the Sejm, the lower house of parliament.
He also said that the Polish state doesn't have full control over the data that is gathered because the system operates on the basis of a license that was granted by an Israeli company.
Pegasus, produced by Israel's NSO Group, has been sold to governments and is described as a tool to fight criminals and terrorists.
Pegasus gives its operators complete access to a mobile device, allowing them to extract passwords, photos, messages, contacts and browsing history and activate the microphone and camera for real-time eavesdropping.
Its use in Poland under the previous government, led by the Law and Justice party, resulted in accusations that the authorities were abusing power and eroding democratic guardrails.
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And not only along the border with Ukraine but also in the easternmost parts of Russia," Vladyslav Havrylov, War Crimes Investigator for the PR Army, said.
Long sought by Ukrainian leaders, the new missiles give Ukraine nearly double the striking distance, up to 300 kilometres, it had with the mid-range version of the weapon given by the US last October.
One of the officials said the US is providing more of these missiles in the new military aid package signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
The Russian army launched a missile attack in Odesa on a storage facility for damaged vehicles on Wednesday morning.
Two Russian S-300 missiles also struck the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv early Wednesday, injuring six people, local authorities said.
Footage released by the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration showed buildings with broken windows and a large crater in the ground.
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Even elected officials lack the basic understanding of inflation. Many think a declining inflation rate results in prices also declining and push policy according to that.
I would venture to suggest that perhaps Eurobarometer polls might be more-representative of the population than your circle of friends and family.
I remember the first time I saw a poll as to the percentage of people here in the US that believed in ghosts and was very surprised. If you'd asked me prior to seeing poll data, I'd have guessed that the number would be below 1%.
This year's results showed a slight drop in Americans who say ghosts are real. In 2019, 4 in 10 Americans believed in ghosts, and more than 46% agreed that supernatural beings exist. In this year's survey, about 41% of adults said they believe in ghosts.
Slate Star Codexhad an article a while back about the remarkable impact of social bubbles. It was really talking about how people isolate themselves into "political bubbles" of Democrats and Republicans, and how people in each camp should be more tolerant of each other. But I think that one can generalize the mathematical side of what the article was talking about, that one can have a social circle that is statistically insanely not-representative of the population as a whole, because of tendency of people with similar viewpoints to cluster.
A quote from the article:
There are certain theories of dark matter where it barely interacts with the regular world at all, such that we could have a dark matter planet exactly co-incident with Earth and never know. Maybe dark matter people are walking all around us and through us, maybe my house is in the Times Square of a great dark matter city, maybe a few meters away from me a dark matter blogger is writing on his dark matter computer about how weird it would be if there was a light matter person he couldn’t see right next to him.
This is sort of how I feel about conservatives.
I don’t mean the sort of light-matter conservatives who go around complaining about Big Government and occasionally voting for Romney. I see those guys all the time. What I mean is – well, take creationists. According to Gallup polls, about 46% of Americans are creationists. Not just in the sense of believing God helped guide evolution. I mean they think evolution is a vile atheist lie and God created humans exactly as they exist right now. That’s half the country.
And I don’t have a single one of those people in my social circle. It’s not because I’m deliberately avoiding them; I’m pretty live-and-let-live politically, I wouldn’t ostracize someone just for some weird beliefs. And yet, even though I probably know about a hundred fifty people, I am pretty confident that not one of them is creationist. Odds of this happening by chance? 1⁄2^150 = 1⁄10^45 = approximately the chance of picking a particular atom if you are randomly selecting among all the atoms on Earth.
About forty percent of Americans want to ban gay marriage. I think if I really stretch it, maybe ten of my top hundred fifty friends might fall into this group. This is less astronomically unlikely; the odds are a mere one to one hundred quintillion against.
People like to talk about social bubbles, but that doesn’t even begin to cover one hundred quintillion. The only metaphor that seems really appropriate is the bizarre dark matter world.
Apparently nearly 70% of US is religious, so I don't know why you'd be surprised about people believing in ghosts. I would even say you need a deeper understanding of the world to understand why ghosts can't exist.
Do spirits of souls stay as ghost according to us christians? I thought one of the core tenets are that souls get judged and then accepted to heaven or thrown into the trash heap or hell depending on reading
EU citizens are not doing well when it comes to financial literacy. Nearly half lack an understanding of basic financial concepts, including inflation.
I can believe that.
On the other hand, I kind of suspect that one might see similar results here in the US, not to mention in other places.
The best performers were the Netherlands (43%), Denmark (40%), Finland (40%) and Estonia (39%) where about four in 10 respondents display a high level of financial knowledge.
While the scores of France and Italy were slightly below the EU average, this figure was noticeably low in Spain at 19%.
Proportion answering this question correctly ("Less than you could buy today") was below 60% in Cyprus, Portugal, Greece, Romania, and Italy whereas Finland and Estonia had the highest share at 84%.
The proportion with a high score varied between from 11% in Portugal and Latvia to 27% in Denmark, Slovenia and Sweden, and 28% in the Netherlands.
To illustrate, when participants were asked whether they keep track and monitor their expenses, only 16% in Finland replied, "completely agree".
The EU is working to ensure that its citizens have the knowledge and skills they need to make good financial decisions.
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Come on, our prisons are not Istanbul bad and the people that we jail are killed very rarely. Additionally policemen never go to prison so you know you're protected by the best that society has to offer.
Polish man arrested on suspicion of spying in Zelenskyy assassination plot.
The man was accused of being prepared to pass security information to Russian agents.
A Polish man has been arrested in Poland on Wednesday on allegations of being ready to help Russia’s military intelligence in an alleged plot to assassinate Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Polish prosecutors said Thursday.
The office of Poland’s National Prosecutor said in a statement that the man was seeking contact with Russians directly involved in the war in Ukraine and was expected to pass on detailed information about the Rzeszow-Jasionka airport in south-eastern Poland, near the border with Ukraine, which is the gateway for international military and humanitarian supplies for Ukraine.
If convicted, the man could face up to eight years in prison, the statement said.
European Union member Poland has been a staunch supporter of neighbouring Ukraine and Zelenskyy in fending off Russia’s aggression of more than two years.
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euronews.com
Heiß