00:00Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in the United States to meet Donald Trump for a three-day summit
00:04to discuss trade, AI and rare earth minerals, which Europe will be watching closely.
00:11The European Commission has unlocked 4.2 billion euros of cohesion funding to Hungary.
00:20Rebels in northern Ethiopia's Tigray region seized control of a key airport
00:25and clashed with federal troops in a neighboring region.
00:30Europe will be watching closely as Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in the United States for a three-day summit
00:35with Donald Trump.
00:37Decisions on trade, artificial intelligence and rare earths could directly affect European economic interests.
00:43The EU is already negotiating with Beijing to reduce a trade deficit worth around 1 billion euro a day,
00:49with an October deadline for tangible progress.
00:52We are engaged in a dialogue with China to rebalance our trade.
00:56U.S. tariffs on China are also a concern for Europe because they can redirect Chinese exports towards the EU
01:02market.
01:03Rare earths will be another key issue, with European industry heavily exposed to Chinese supply.
01:08The summit is Trump and Xi's third in-person meeting in just under a year,
01:12with both sides likely to seek an extension of the trade truce they reached last October.
01:21The European Commission will not extend its November 1 deadline for phasing out Chinese-made power inverters
01:28from EU-funded energy projects, despite calls from investors and the renewable energy industry for more time.
01:34From November 1, projects connected or due to be connected to the EU electricity grid
01:40will have to exclude high-risk suppliers or progressively switch to inverters from suppliers not deemed high-risk.
01:47The move was driven by cybersecurity concerns,
01:51particularly the risk that manufacturers could remotely access and manipulate inverters,
01:56potentially destabilizing electricity grids and triggering blackouts.
02:00But stakeholders argue that the Commission's timetable is unrealistic
02:05and could create significant financial and practical problems for renewable energy projects
02:10at a time when energy costs are soaring across the EU.
02:14The Commission, for its part, says that a viable alternative supply of non-Chinese inverters already exists
02:21and that the price of guaranteeing the security of Europe's energy infrastructure is a modest one to pay.
02:30Israel was quick to respond after Emmanuel Macron spoke at the UN on Tuesday.
02:35The Israeli government's reaction was unusually harsh.
02:38Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office denounced the remarks as grotesque nonsense
02:41to dismiss criticism regarding the West Bank and France's position on Hamas.
02:46Speaking at the United Nations, Emmanuel Macron condemned not only the humanitarian situation in Gaza
02:51but also Israeli actions in the West Bank.
02:53The French president notably asserted that Hamas had never been active there
02:56even though the Palestinian Authority exercises some of its functions in the region.
03:00But what is our credibility if we continue to stay inactive face to Gaza?
03:06Do we have to contemplate this spectacle which makes us angry at all?
03:11Never.
03:14Look at what's happening in Cisjordania
03:17where every day the violations are made in the name of what?
03:24Hamas never died in Cisjordania.
03:28Netanyahu's office claimed that Hamas regularly attacked Jews in the West Bank
03:31and accused Emmanuel Macron of denying this reality.
03:35To support its response, Netanyahu's office cited the death on Sunday of a French-Israeli man,
03:40a father of six, who was shot and killed in the center of the West Bank.
03:46Finally, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee,
03:49also described the French president's speech as out of touch with reality.
03:58Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan
04:01says Europe cannot become stronger or safer if Turkey is excluded from its security architecture.
04:07Addressing the UN General Assembly in New York,
04:10Erdogan described Turkey as an integral part of Europe
04:13and said it played a significant role in the continent's security and welfare.
04:18He pointed to Turkey's role in NATO and said the country was ready
04:23to take greater responsibility for European security.
04:26Erdogan also said he expected relations with the United States
04:30to flourish during Donald Trump's second term,
04:33highlighting cooperation in defense, energy and trade.
04:36The Turkish president also renewed his push for reform of the United Nations Security Council.
04:42He called for the abolition of veto power and proposed
04:45replacing permanent seats with seats filled by members
04:49elected by the General Assembly for fixed terms.
04:53Erdogan argued that simply adding more permanent members
04:56would not solve the concentration of decision-making power
04:59among a small number of states.
05:08The European Commission has unlocked 4.2 billion euros of cohesion funding to Hungary,
05:14citing progress made by the country in strengthening its rule of law.
05:17In addition, Hungarian students will regain access to the Erasmus Plus student abroad program
05:22and Hungarian scientists are to regain access to the Horizon Europe research scheme.
05:27The Commission considers that Hungary has addressed the rule of law breaches affecting the EU budget
05:31by correcting weaknesses and shortcomings in areas such as public procurement,
05:38the anti-corruption framework, the prevention of conflicts of interest
05:41and the effectiveness of prosecutorial action.
05:45In 2022, the EU suspended 6.3 billion euros in cohesion funding to Hungary,
05:51citing rule of law breaches.
05:52Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar, who won a landslide election victory in April,
05:58had campaigned on a promise to unlock EU funds suspended during Viktor Orban's 16-year rule.
06:03The full unlocking of the funds now needs to receive final approval from EU member states within one month.
06:13Russia hammered Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, with drones and daylight attacks on Wednesday,
06:17just hours before President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was set to deliver his address to the UN General Assembly.
06:24Ukrainian officials say two people were killed and over two dozen others were wounded in the strikes,
06:29which sent plumes of black smoke billowing above the city.
06:32The attacks on the capital targeted what local authorities said were residential buildings,
06:37as well as essential infrastructure sites.
06:40Ukrainian Railways Chief Aleksandr Pertsovsky said Kyiv's rail network was under fire,
06:45and urged maximum vigilance from passengers using the city's central station.
06:50The Kremlin's bombardment had already targeted other areas across the country in their overnight attacks.
06:55In Zaporizhia, two men were wounded after a Russian projectile struck a shopping mall,
07:01sparking a large fire.
07:02And in the southern port city of Odessa,
07:05a cargo ship captain was killed after a wave of strikes were traded from both sides,
07:09aimed at commercial vessels and designed to hit export revenues.
07:16The discussion and debate is all about Ukraine's recovery.
07:20Latvia's Prime Minister Andriy Skulbergs has told Uranus that his country pushed until the end
07:25to prevent two Russian oligarchs from being removed from a new sanctions list.
07:29The renewal of a package of sanctions on a list of individuals and entities
07:33accused of supporting Russia's war on Ukraine
07:36was finally approved by all EU member states on Tuesday.
07:39Nevertheless, Skulbergs warned the exemptions provided to Alisha Ousmanov and Mikhail Friedman
07:45should be a one-off and never occur again in future talks on new sanctions.
07:50Either it is sports what we've seen, either culture,
07:53and now one by one cherry-picking out of sanctions, that is not the way to go.
07:58That is normalizing Russia.
08:00France succeeded in removing Alisha Ousmanov from the sanctions list
08:04as part of a prisoner release with Azerbaijan brokered by Uzbekistan.
08:08Following the EU's move, Azerbaijan's President Ilya Maliev pardoned Martin Ryan,
08:14a Frenchman jailed in his country for espionage charges since 2023.
08:18Another Russian businessman, Mikhail Friedman, was removed after Slovakia and Luxembourg
08:23called for his delisting.
08:24This is not a good message, generally not.
08:29This, I'm worried here about the playbook which it leaves.
08:34I don't think this is a very good example because that gives a message,
08:39oh, hey, we arrest some politicians somewhere and then we can ask for a sanctions package.
08:46You know, this is not a good playbook and that's exactly why we freeze its 36 months.
08:51Until now, the bloc was renewing the sanctions against entities and individuals
08:56accused of supporting Russia's war in Ukraine every six months.
08:59The three-year extension is meant to offset the political pain of delisting the two Russian businessmen.
09:08Rebels in northern Ethiopia's Tigray region seized control of a key airport
09:14and clashed with federal troops in the neighbouring region of Afa on Wednesday
09:18as long-standing tensions split into open battle.
09:23Local and security sources said Tigrayan forces were in control of the airport
09:28in the regional capital, Mekele.
09:30A foreign security source based in Ethiopia confirmed the information.
09:34Between 2020 and 2022, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the TPLF,
09:42fought a devastating war with the federal government
09:44that resulted in the deaths of some 600,000 people, according to African Union estimates.
09:51Sporadic clashes in recent months have raised fears of a return to war.
09:57Rights groups have accused the TPLF of a campaign of forced recruitment this year
10:02as it prepares for renewed fighting.
10:05The region has not recovered from the last war,
10:08with around one million people still displaced
10:10and many parts of the peace deal unfulfilled.
10:14The TPLF ruled Ethiopia from 1991 to 2018
10:18before being sidelined by the rise of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed,
10:23which eventually triggered the war in 2020.
10:30Chinese tech giant Alibaba announced on Wednesday at its annual conference
10:34that it's expanding its overseas data centers to Europe.
10:37The company said it plans to establish its first cloud regions in Finland,
10:42the Netherlands, and Turkey,
10:43as it expands its data center footprint in Germany, France,
10:46the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, and Hong Kong over the coming 12 months.
10:51Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu said that machine thinking
10:54makes up just 3% of all human thinking presently,
10:57but noted that the company expects it to eventually grow to 1,000 times human capacity.
11:02He added that the company's building on that bet
11:05has to be well positioned for the next era of technology and human life.
11:09The Chinese firm is already presently one of the frontrunners
11:13in China's artificial intelligence industry,
11:15with its Gwen models among the most downloaded in the world.
11:18Wu stressed that the expansions to its AI infrastructure
11:22will significantly boost its model's parameters
11:24and make it several times bigger than the current largest Chinese competition.
11:29The expansion will also make use of the company's newly unveiled AI chips,
11:33the Genwoo V900,
11:35which is widely believed to be twice as powerful as NVIDIA's H20,
11:39a downgraded China-specific chip built on its flagship Blackwell platform.
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