Citizens have enrolled with little opposition, albeit with some concerns over security and privacy, as UK plans system
For Danish teenagers, getting enrolled for MitID (my ID) has become somewhat of a rite of passage.
From the age of 13, Danes can enrol for the national digital ID system, which can be used for everything from logging into online banking to signing documents electronically and booking a doctor’s appointment.
Continue reading...Russia shrugs off criticism as Poland and Estonia speak about incursions at emergency meeting of UN security council
European allies have vowed to shoot down any Russian aircraft violating their airspace after Nato members accused Moscow of repeated incursions into the alliance’s territory in recent weeks.
“If another missile or aircraft enters our space without permission, deliberately or by mistake, and gets shot down and the wreckage falls on Nato territory, please don’t come here to whine about it,” Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, told an emergency meeting of the UN security council in New York on Monday that was called to discuss a Russian airspace incursion over Estonia.
Continue reading...Russian Il-20M reconnaissance plane ignored requests to make contact, in latest of what are seen as provocative acts by Kremlin
Two German Eurofighter jets were scrambled on Sunday to intercept a Russian military aircraft above the Baltic Sea, as Estonia said it would call an emergency meeting of the UN security council after Russian planes violated its airspace.
Germany’s air force said the Russian Il-20M reconnaissance plane had switched off its transponders and ignored requests to make contact. The Eurofighters took off from the Rostock-Laage airbase to head off the aircraft as it flew in international airspace.
Continue reading...Captain and first and second officers of Eagle S, understood to be part of Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’, charged over incident
Finnish authorities have filed charges against members of the crew of an oil tanker suspected of damaging five undersea cables by dragging its anchor between Finland and Estonia.
Finland’s deputy prosecutor general’s office said on Monday it had filed charges of aggravated sabotage and aggravated interference with telecommunications against the captain and first and second officers of the Eagle S. The Cook Islands-registered tanker is understood to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” – comprising vessels that sail under foreign flags to evade sanctions.
Continue reading...Spate of incidents in Baltic Sea and around Taiwan are harbinger for further disruptive activity, cybersecurity firm says
The risk of Russia- and China-backed attacks on undersea cables carrying international internet traffic is likely to rise amid a spate of incidents in the Baltic Sea and around Taiwan, according to a report.
Submarine cables account for 99% of the world’s intercontinental data traffic and have been affected by incidents with suspected state support over the past 18 months.
Continue reading...Centre-right government rejects long-established national policies focused on rehabilitation and reintegration
Sweden is moving away from criminal rehabilitation in favour of US-style mass incarceration, experts have said, as the country prepares to rent places in Estonian jails to help house its rapidly expanding prison population.
The move to outsource prison places is one of a slew of policies aimed at transforming the Swedish criminal justice system as the centre-right government struggles to tackle gang violence and prisons warn of overcrowding.
Continue reading...Country at top of education charts aims to equip students and teachers with ‘world-class artificial intelligence skills’
While many schools in England have banned smartphones, in Estonia – regarded as the new European education powerhouse – students are regularly asked to use their devices in class, and from September they will be given their own AI accounts.
The small Baltic country – population 1.4 million – has quietly become Europe’s top performer in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s programme for international student assessment (Pisa), overtaking its near neighbour Finland.
Continue reading...Heavy combat unit of 4,800 soldiers and 200 civilian staff inaugurated in Lithuania on Nato’s eastern flank
The German chancellor has visited Lithuania to mark Berlin’s first permanent foreign troop deployment since the second world war, as he called on allies to dramatically expand their efforts to bolster European defences against a hostile Russia.
As a crowd waved Lithuanian, German and Ukrainian flags, Friedrich Merz and his defence minister, Boris Pistorius, attended a ceremony launching the official formation of an armoured brigade aimed at protecting Nato’s eastern flank.
Continue reading...Fleet of tankers sailing under flags of convenience estimated to carry up to 85% of Russia’s oil exports
Calls to step up and coordinate the interdiction of the unflagged Russian “shadow fleet” of oil tankers in the Baltic Sea were made this weekend before the EU foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, which is expected to impose sanctions on 180 ships, taking the total number of ships sanctioned by the EU to 350.
The efforts to stop the fleet, estimated to be carrying as much as 85% of Russia’s oil exports and so funding roughly a third of Russia’s budget, is seen as a critical proof of the EU’s determination to keep the economic pressure on Russia.
Continue reading...Tommy Cash says he did not expect Espresso Macchiato to cause such offence with references to the mafia and coffee
Estonia’s entry for this year’s Eurovision song contest has said he never intended to offend Italy with his song that pokes fun at Italian stereotypes of coffee-drinking, spaghetti-eating mafiosi – and said he submitted the song after his grandmother cried over it.
There have been calls in Italy for Tommy Cash’s catchy song, Espresso Macchiato, to be banned from the competition, which takes place in Basel, Switzerland, in May.
Continue reading...Consumer group complains about song’s stereotypes of Italians – but other Italians say the lyrics are ‘no stresso’
The Eurovision song contest is several months away but the drama has already begun, with calls from Italy for Estonia’s catchy pick for the competition to be scrapped due to lyrics poking fun at Italian stereotypes of being coffee-drinking, spaghetti-eating mafiosi.
Espresso Macchiato, by the rapper Tommy Cash, is sung in a blend of broken English and Italian and depicts a life of sweet indulgence. “Ciao bella, I’m Tomaso, addicted to tobacco. Mi like mi coffè very importante,” the first verse begins.
Continue reading...Electricity cable link to Estonia was damaged on Christmas Day in suspected Russian act of sabotage
Finnish investigators say they have found a seabed trail stretching almost 100km (about 60 miles) around the site of an underwater electricity cable that was damaged on Christmas Day in a suspected act of Russian sabotage.
The ship under suspicion of causing the damage, a vessel called the Eagle S flying the flag of the Cook Islands, is believed to be part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, used for transporting Russian oil products subject to embargos after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading...Finland investigating tanker that sailed from Russian port over disconnection of Estlink 2 cable on Christmas Day
Estonia has begun naval patrols to protect a cable supplying electricity from Finland after the suspected sabotage of another one on Christmas Day, the Estonian defence minister, Hanno Pevkur, said.
“We’ve decided to send our navy close to Estlink 1 to defend and secure our energy connection with Finland,” he posted on X.
Continue reading...The Finnish electricity grid’s head of operations says sabotage can’t be ruled out
An undersea power cable linking Finland and Estonia broke down on Wednesday, Finland’s prime minister said, the latest in a series of incidents involving cables and energy pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
The Finnish electricity grid’s head of operations, Arto Pahkin, told the public broadcaster Yle that sabotage could not be ruled out.
Continue reading...Regional leaders meet after undersea telecoms cables severed, while Chinese ship remains at anchor nearby
The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, has said the Baltic sea is now a “high risk” zone as he met Nordic and Baltic leaders days after a suspected sabotage attack on undersea cables.
The Swedish prime minister declined to speculate on who may have been responsible for the severing of two fibre optic telecoms cables in the Baltic last week. A Chinese ship – the Yi Peng 3 – that sailed over the cables about the time they were severed has remained anchored in the Kattegat strait between Sweden and Denmark since 19 November.
Continue reading...Investigators gather evidence at two Baltic sites while Danish navy is shadowing Chinese cargo ship
Swedish police investigating the believed sabotage of two fibre-optic undersea cables in the Baltic Sea have said a Chinese ship off the coast of Denmark was “of interest” as Danish officials said its navy was shadowing a Chinese-registered cargo ship.
The ship, identified by Denmark as the Yi Peng 3, passed the two cables on Sunday and Monday about the time it is believed they were severed in a suspected malicious attack. The ship has been shadowed by a Danish navy vessel since it was located in waters between Sweden and Denmark.
Continue reading...Strike with US-made missiles has prompted fears of Russian reprisal that would broaden the scope of a frontline
A Ukrainian strike using American-made missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia using American-made weaponry, has prompted renewed fears of reprisal through “hybrid warfare” – a chaotic tool of conflict that muddies borders and broadens the scope of a frontline.
Over recent years, European nations have witnessed a spate of incidents – cyber-attacks, arson, incendiary devices, sabotage and even murder plots. The aim of such episodes, security officials believe, is to sow chaos, exacerbate social tensions among Ukraine’s allies and disrupt military supplies to Kyiv.
Continue reading...Contender says ‘it is about being brave and not being scared that the Guardian is going to mock us’
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, has told MPs that magistrates are getting powers to sentence offenders for longer – to reduce the number of prisoners being held on remand and to cut the backlog in crown courts
In a statement to MPs, she said that, although this would increase the prison population slightly, by reducing the number of offenders being held on remand it would free up spaces in reception prisons where overcrowding is particularly serious.
Unless we address our remand population, we could still see a collapse of the system, not because of a lack of cells, but because we do not have those cells in the places that we need them. It is therefore crucial that we bear down on the remand population.
This government inherited a record crown court backlog. Waits for trials have grown so long that some cases are not heard for years.
The impact on victims of crime is profound. For some justice delayed is, as the old saying goes, justice denied as victims choose to withdraw from the justice process altogether rather than face the pain of a protracted legal battle.
I have made it my personal mission to constrain the Kremlin, closing the net around Putin and his mafia state using every tool at my disposal.
Continue reading...Cooler temperatures expected to replace record highs in Estonia, while China braces for Super Typhoon Yagi
Since the start of September, swaths of central and eastern Europe have experienced temperatures well above average, with some places up to 10C (50F) above the seasonal norm.
A date temperature record was set in Estonia on Wednesday, where it hit 29.8C in Haapsalu. The September peak in the country is 30.3C, reached on 1 September 1992.
Continue reading...Kallas has been nominated to serve as the EU’s next high representative for foreign affairs, succeeding Josep Borrell
Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen was sentenced in absentia to eight years jail by a Moscow court today, AFP reported.
The court sentenced Gessen for “knowingly spreading false information about the use of the Russian army.”
Continue reading...