Ruling likely to put European Commission on collision course with billionaire, and possibly Donald Trump

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Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, has been fined €120m (£105m) after it was found in breach of new EU digital laws, in a ruling likely to put the European Commission on a collision course with the US billionaire and potentially Donald Trump.

The breaches, under consideration for two years, included what the EU said was a “deceptive” blue tick verification badge given to users and the lack of transparency of the platform’s advertising.

Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and the Netherlands pull out after decision not to hold vote on Israel’s participation

Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and the Netherlands will boycott next year’s Eurovision after Israel was given the all-clear to compete in the 2026 song contest despite calls by several participating broadcasters for its exclusion over the war in Gaza.

No vote on Israel’s participation was held on Thursday at the general assembly of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the body that organises the competition.

Move follows Guardian revelations of Israel’s mass surveillance of Palestinians using Microsoft cloud

Irish authorities have been formally asked to investigate Microsoft over alleged unlawful data processing by the Israeli Defense Forces.

The complaint has been made by the human rights group the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) to the Data Protection Commission, which has legal responsibility in Europe for overseeing all data processing in the European Union.

Commission unveils €3bn strategy to de-risk and diversify supply chains for critical rare earth metals and elements

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The EU is considering legally forcing industries to reduce purchases from China to insulate Europe from future hostile acts, the industry commissioner, Stéphane Séjourné, says.

He made his remarks as the European Commission unveiled a €3bn (£2.63bn) strategy to reduce its dependency on China for critical raw materials amid a global scramble caused by Beijing’s “weaponisation” of supplies of everything from chips to rare earths.