Tag: World News

Ankara (TIP)- A new world war is being fought “piecemeal” and is endangering the future of humanity, Pope Leo has warned, as he arrived in Turkey for his first foreign trip since becoming head of the Catholic church. Speaking in Ankara, where he was welcomed on Thursday by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Leo said the world was experiencing “a heightened level of conflict on the global level, fuelled by prevailing strategies of economic and military power”.

Recalling a description of the world’s conflicts by his predecessor, the late Pope Francis, Leo said “a third world war is being fought piecemeal”.

“We must not give in to this,” he added. “The future of humanity is at stake.”

After Leo’s visit to Turkey – a country with a Muslim majority and home to an estimated 36,000 Catholics – he is due to travel to Lebanon on Sunday.

His arrival in Beirut is especially anticipated amid fears of a deepening conflict between Israel and Hezbollah after an Israeli strike earlier this week on a neighbourhood in southern Beirut that killed four Hezbollah operatives and one of the group’s most senior military commanders.

Leo urged Turkish leaders to “embrace” the country’s role of being “a source of stability and rapprochement between peoples, in service of a just and lasting peace”, in reference to its growing role in conflict resolution efforts in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere.

Leo will meet Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians, for celebrations of the 1,700th anniversary of a major early church council in Nicaea, now Iznik, which settled ideological disputes. His packed schedule also includes a visit to the Blue Mosque in Istanbul and the celebration of a Catholic mass at the city’s Volkswagen Arena.

Francis, who died in April, had planned to visit both countries but was unable to because of ill health.

Leo is considered more of a moderate, low-key operator than the charismatic but often divisive Francis, and the choice of Turkey and Lebanon for his first overseas trip is highly strategic, while also presenting an opportunity for the pope to show the world his style and personality.

In recent weeks, Turkish media has buzzed with images of Vatican delegations touring the country, while in Beirut banners showing Pope Leo’s smiling face have lined the stone outer walls of churches in the Lebanese capital’s central Christian neighbourhoods.

“This is a trip where Leo will get to promote one of the central themes of his papacy, peace – and he’ll have two different audiences in mind,” said Christopher White, a Vatican expert and author of Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy.

Hong Kong  (TIP)- At least 94 people were killed and dozens injured in a massive fire that tore through a Hong Kong apartment complex on Wednesday, Nov 26, with some 280 still listed as missing.

Seven of the eight residential towers at Wang Fuk Court in the Tai Po district caught fire in the Chinese city’s deadliest blaze in almost 80 years, forcing nearly 900 of the 4,800 residents to stay in temporary shelters overnight.

Five more bodies, including of two children, were found on Friday after flames reignited in the early hours.

A unit of the complex burst into flames again at around 5am local time with fire tongues visible through windows, accompanied by heavy smoke, The Standard reported. The fire services department said the death toll had risen to 94 while 76 people were undergoing treatment for various injuries, including 11 firefighters.

Firefighters had mostly contained the fire by Thursday, Nov 27,  evening and rescue workers were scouring the complex’s smouldering remains for survivors.

“Hope they can find more survivors. I think they have tried their best. The firefighters have done a lot,” resident Jacky Kwok said. “It’s a terrible disaster that no one wanted to happen.”

Rescuers battled intense heat, thick smoke and collapsing scaffolding and debris as they fought to reach residents feared trapped on the upper floors of the complex.

The blaze was expected to be extinguished by Friday evening, fire services deputy director Derek Armstrong Chan said, adding that firefighters had located multiple survivors in the destroyed buildings.

Most of the victims were found in two towers of the complex, the deputy director said.

As many as 279 people were listed as missing on Thursday and that figure was yet to be updated.

Chan said 25 calls for help to the fire services remained unresolved, including three in recent hours, which would be prioritised.

A distraught woman carrying her daughter’s graduation photograph searched for her child outside a shelter, one of eight that authorities said were housing the nearly 900 displaced residents.

“She and her father are still not out,” said the woman, who gave only her surname, Ng, as she sobbed. “They didn’t have water to save our building.”

The fire has put a spotlight on the use of bamboo scaffolding in the city, a decades-long practice, after bamboo lattices came crashing down in flames.

Police said that “the building’s exterior walls had protective nets, membranes, waterproof tarpaulins, and plastic sheets suspected of not meeting fire safety standards”.

The blaze started on the external scaffolding of a 32-storey tower, engulfed its bamboo scaffolding and construction netting, moved inside the building, and eventually leapt to nearby high-rises, likely aided by windy conditions.

In the wake of the fire, police arrested two directors and an engineering consultant of Prestige Construction, which was contracted to perform maintenance on the building, on suspicion of manslaughter.

Budapest (TIP)- A remarkably well-preserved Roman sarcophagus has been unearthed in Hungary’s capital, offering a rare window into the life of the young woman inside and the world she inhabited around 1,700 years ago.
Archaeologists with the Budapest History Museum discovered the limestone coffin during a large-scale excavation in Óbuda, a northern district of the city that once formed part of Aquincum, a bustling Roman settlement on the Danube frontier.
Untouched by looters and sealed for centuries, the sarcophagus was found with its stone lid still fixed in place, secured by metal clamps and molten lead. When researchers carefully lifted the lid, they uncovered a complete skeleton surrounded by dozens of artefacts.
“The peculiarity of the finding is that it was a hermetically sealed sarcophagus. It was not disturbed previously, so it was intact,” said Gabriella Fényes, the excavation’s lead archaeologist.
The coffin lay among the ruins of abandoned houses in a quarter of Aquincum vacated in the 3rd century and later repurposed as a burial ground. Nearby, researchers uncovered a Roman aqueduct and eight simpler graves, but none approaching the richness or pristine condition of the sealed tomb.
Keeping with Roman funerary customs, the sarcophagus held an array of objects: two completely intact glass vessels, bronze figures and 140 coins. A bone hair pin, a piece of amber jewellery and traces of gold-threaded fabric, along with the size of the skeleton, point to the grave belonging to a young woman. The objects, Fényes said, were “items given to the deceased by her relatives for her eternal journey.” “The deceased was buried very carefully by her relatives. They must have really loved who they buried here,” she said. During the Roman period, much of what is now Hungary formed the province of Pannonia, whose frontier ran along the right bank of the Danube River less than 1.6 km from the site. A short distance away stood a legionary camp guarding the empire’s border, and the newly found structures are believed to have been part of the civilian settlement that grew around it. Anthropologists will now examine the young woman’s remains, a process expected to reveal more about her age, health and origins. But even now, the grave’s placement and abundance of artefacts offer strong clues.
The sarcophagus and its contents “definitely make it stand out,” said Gergely Kostyál, a Roman-period specialist and coleader of the project. “This probably means that the deceased was well-to-do or of a higher social status.” “It is truly rare to find a sarcophagus like this, untouched and never used before, because in the fourth century it was common to reuse earlier sarcophagi,” he added.

Abuja (TIP)- Gunmen attacked a Catholic boarding school in a western region of Nigeria and abducted more than 200 schoolchildren Friday, Nov 21, the Christian Association of Nigeria said, in the latest in a spate of abductions in Africa’s most populous country. The attack and abductions took place at St. Mary’s School, a Catholic institution in the Agwara local government’s Papiri community. Attackers seized 215 pupils and students as well as 12 teachers, said Daniel Atori, a spokesperson for the Niger state chapter of CAN. “I just got back to the village tonight after I visited the school where I also met with parents,” Atori said in a statement, quoting the Most Rev. Bulus Dauwa, the CAN chairman in Niger. The statement added that the association is working “to ensure our children’s safe return.” The Niger State Police Command said the abductions took place in the early hours, and that military and security forces have since been deployed to the community. It described St. Mary’s as a secondary school, which in Nigeria would serve children between the ages of 12 and 17.
A satellite image shows that the school compound is attached to an adjoining primary school, with more than 50 classroom and dormitory buildings. It’s located near a major road linking the towns of Yelwa and Mokwa.
Dauda Chekula, 62, said that four of his grandchildren, ranging in age from 7 to 10, were among the schoolchildren abducted. “We don’t know what is happening now, because we have not heard anything since this morning,” Chekula said. ”The children who were able to escape have scattered, some of them ran back to their houses and the only information we are getting is that the attackers are still moving with the remaining children into the bush.” The statement by the secretary to the Niger state government said that the abduction occurred, despite prior intelligence warning of heightened threats.
“Regrettably, St. Mary’s School proceeded to reopen and resume academic activities without notifying or seeking clearance from the State Government, thereby exposing pupils and the staff to avoidable risk,” it read.
Umar Yunus, a Papiri resident, said there were only local security arrangements and no official police or government forces securing the school at the time of the attack on Friday.
The Catholic Diocese of Kontagora said in a statement that a security staffer was “badly shot” during the attack. Authorities, meanwhile, closed 47 of the country’s federal unity colleges that are mostly in conflict-battered northern states. The unity colleges — a group of elite government schools with attendance drawn from across the country — are to be closed immediately, according to a circular issued by Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Education. The abductions took place days after gunmen on Monday attacked a high school and abducted 25 schoolgirls in the neighbouring Kebbi state, in Maga, around 170 kilometres from Papiri.

Brussels (TIP)- Kaja Kallas, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, chaired the fourth EU-Indo-Pacific Ministerial Forum in Brussels, on 20 and 21 November 2025. During the Forum, participants focused on how to enhance cooperation and deepen solidarity in three parallel roundtables: Security priorities in the face of current geopolitical developments. Shared prosperity, economic security, and digital connectivity. Common endeavours for a clean and sustainable future.
The Forum brought together around 70 delegations from the EU institutions and EU member states, as well as from countries and regional organisations from the Indo-Pacific region, spanning from the East coast of Africa to the Pacific Islands countries.
The EU Indo-Pacific Ministerial Forum has become a unique platform for the EU and its member states to engage collectively with Indo-Pacific partners. It reflects a shared interest in fostering concrete cooperation on a region-to-region basis, enhancing mutual security, prosperity and resilience, and laying the foundations for an ever more ambitious partnership.
Amid geopolitical shifts and economic uncertainty, Europe and the Indo-Pacific find their futures increasingly intertwined. Recent challenges, from growing pressure on the multilateral system to the weaponisation of trade and technology and the accelerating climate crisis, are bringing the two regions closer together. In this context, they continue to rely on the rules-based international order, and the multilateral institutions which ensure compliance as well as accountability with agreed rules and norms.

The Forum offered a good opportunity for the EU to highlight the concrete progress made in strengthening partnerships with Indo-Pacific countries and organisations since the previous Ministerial meeting in February 2024. This includes the Security and Defence Partnerships agreed with Japan and the Republic of Korea; the conclusion of negotiations on the EU-Indonesia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement; the signature of the EU Clean Trade and Investment Partnership with South Africa; the EU financial and technical support to the ASEAN Power Grid development; the first-ever EU-Pacific Business Forum that unlocked nearly EUR300 million in new investments and budget support; as well as numerous other cooperation agreements and initiatives led by EU member states.

WASHINGTON (TIP)- Ukraine would give up a swathe of eastern territory to Russia and slash the size of its army under a sweeping 28-point peace plan backed by US President Donald Trump, according to a draft obtained by AFP.
Kyiv would also pledge never to join NATO, and would not get the Western peacekeepers they have called for, although European warplanes would be stationed in Poland to protect Ukraine.
A US official tells AFP the draft plan includes a powerful security guarantee for Kyiv, modeled on NATO rules, which would commit the US and European allies to respond to any attack on Ukraine.
Russia would meanwhile be readmitted to the G8 group of nations and be rewarded with sanctions relief under the plan, which US officials say was still a “working document.”
The proposal involves major concessions by Kyiv, which has previously refused to cede any land, while appearing to meet many of Moscow’s maximalist demands following its 2022 invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he expected to discuss the plan with Trump “in coming days.” He says any deal must bring a “dignified peace” that respects Kyiv’s sovereignty.
The White House denies reports it had cooked up the proposal with Moscow, saying envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been “quietly” working with both sides for the past month.
Key parts of the proposal correspond to Moscow’s previous demands and cross Ukraine’s red lines.
These include that Ukraine would withdraw from the Lugansk and Donetsk regions, the frontline industrial belt known collectively as the Donbas that Ukraine still partly holds.
The two regions and Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, “will be recognized as de facto Russian, including by the United States,” while a demilitarized zone would be created in the Donbas.
The war-torn southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — which Russia falsely claims to have annexed — will be “frozen along the line of contact,” it said.
Russia’s army occupies around a fifth of Ukraine — much of it ravaged by years of fighting.
Ukraine security
Ukraine had been hoping for European-led peacekeepers but Russia’s refusal to accept any such force also wins out in the plan.
NATO would agree not to station troops in Ukraine, while the country would be barred from joining NATO by both its own constitution and the alliance’s statutes.
Kyiv meanwhile would reduce its army by a little less than half, to 600,000 personnel.
In return, Ukraine would receive “reliable security guarantees,” the plan says without specifying, but “European fighter jets” would be stationed in neighboring Poland.
Ukraine would also have to hold elections in 100 days — a further Russian demand and one echoed by Trump, who called Zelensky a “dictator without elections” earlier this year. Amid a spiralling corruption scandal in Ukraine that has claimed the jobs of two ministers, Kyiv had meanwhile removed language about an audit of foreign aid and replaced it with a call for a “full amnesty,” a senior US official told AFP.
G8 return for Russia?-
Under the proposal, Russia would be “reintegrated into the global economy” and be allowed back into the G8, from which it was expelled in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea.
Sanctions would snap back if it invades Ukraine again.
Yet Russia meanwhile faces few military restrictions under the plan, which says only that “it is expected that Russia will not invade neighboring countries.”
The contents of the proposal plan have fuelled suggestions that Moscow was involved in drafting it. “It seems that the Russians proposed this to the Americans, they accepted it,” a senior Ukrainian source told AFP.
But US officials insisted all sides were involved. Zelensky also met a Pentagon delegation headed by US Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll in Kyiv on Thursday.
The timing has also raised questions, coming as the corruption row rattles Zelensky and Russia pushes forward with its grinding offensive. On the ground, Russia claimed Thursday to have recaptured the key city of Kupiansk in eastern Ukraine — which Kyiv denied — as Putin visited an army command post to speak with officers.

Paris (TIP)- Coordinated terrorist attacks turned Paris into a theatre of blood and calamity 10 years ago on Thursday, with gunfire on cafe terraces, explosions by a stadium and a nighttime massacre at the Bataclan concert hall, leaving 132 people dead and hundreds injured.
Many families measure time as “before” and “after” the attacks. The night reshaped France’s sense of safety and purpose, hardening security while deepening a civic reflex for solidarity that endures a decade on.
Paris is marking the Thursday anniversary with tributes led by President Emmanuel Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo at each attack site.
The events start at Gate D of the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, where the first victim, Manuel Dias, was killed, then move to the cafe terraces in the 10th and 11th arrondissements and finally the Bataclan.
Parents, partners and friends of victims will stand closest to the plaques for each minute of silence, with a small group of relatives beside Macron for the wreath-laying under the ceremony’s “families first” protocol. At Place de la Republique, Parisians are leaving candles, flowers and notes at the foot of the statue of national symbol Marianne, as in 2015, and are following the ceremonies on a giant screen. Children are coming with parents to light candles and lay flowers as small, familiar gestures that turn the square into a shared memory. City officials have asked the public to keep gatherings calm and give families space at the memorials.
On the eve of the anniversary, Wednesday, the statue and surrounding buildings were lit in blue, white and red and dozens gathered for a nighttime vigil, candles at their feet.
“Ten years later, the emotion is still intact”, and hope must be shared “despite the pain and the absence,” Hidalgo said at the event.
The commemorations will culminate with the Jardin du 13-Novembre, a new memorial garden opposite City Hall. Conceived with victims’ associations, it bears the 132 names of those killed on granite stelae, with plantings that echo the attack sites and benches for reflection. Designers added small signs of life — bird baths, nesting boxes, shade — for children at the request of families. The ceremony is scheduled for 6 p.m. and will be attended by Macron and Hidalgo.
The Eiffel Tower is to be lit again in the colours of the French flag after nightfall, as it was on Wednesday night, a silent tribute in the Paris skyline. The French soccer federation will observe a minute of silence and other tributes at France’s World Cup qualifier against Ukraine at the Parc des Princes.

Kyiv (TIP)- Ukraine’s top military commander said on Thursday he visited troops holding the front line in a key eastern city besieged by Russian forces, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy grappled with the fallout from a corruption scandal that has engulfed his administration.
After Zelenskyy’s justice and energy ministers quit on Wednesday amid the investigation into alleged energy sector graft, the government fired the vice president of Energoatom, the state-owned nuclear power company believed by investigators to be at the centre of the kickback scheme.
The heads of Energoatom’s finance, legal and procurement departments and a consultant to Energoatom’s president were also dismissed in the clear-out, Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said late on Wednesday.
A Kyiv court has begun hearing evidence from anti-corruption watchdogs whose 15-month investigation, including 1,000 hours of wiretaps, has brought the detention of five people and implicated another seven in the scheme that allegedly earned about USD 100 million.
Tymur Mindich, a co-owner of Zelenskyy’s Kvartal 95 media production company, is the conspiracy’s suspected mastermind. His whereabouts are unknown.
The investigation has prompted questions about what the country’s highest officials knew of the scheme. It has also awakened memories of Zelenskyy’s attempt last summer to curtail Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdogs. He backtracked after widespread street protests in Ukraine and pressure from the European Union, which has pushed the country to address entrenched corruption.
While Ukrainians expressed anger and disbelief at the unfolding scandal, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU would disburse on Thursday a 6 billion euros (USD 7 billion) loan to Ukraine and promised more money for Kyiv.
“We will cover the financial needs of Ukraine for the next two years,” she said in a speech to the European Parliament.
The EU and other foreign partners have poured money into Ukraine’s energy sector. Russia has relentlessly bombarded the power grid, which requires repeated repairs.
The EU is looking into how it can come up with more money for Ukraine, either by seizing frozen Russian assets, raising funds on capital markets, or having some of the 27 EU nations raise the money themselves.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “thinks he can outlast us” in the battle over Ukraine’s future, nearly four years after Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbour, von der Leyen said.
“And this is a clear miscalculation,” she said. “Now is therefore the moment to come, with a new impetus, to unlock Putin’s cynical attempt to buy time and bring him to the negotiation table.”
Meanwhile, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top military commander, visited units fighting to hold Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region and coordinate operations in person, he said on the messaging app Telegram.
Ukrainian troops are locked in street battles with Russian forces in the city and fighting to prevent becoming surrounded by a bigger Russian force as Russia’s war of attrition slowly grinds across the countryside.

UNITED NATIONS (TIP)- There is no genocide in northern Nigeria, the African Union Commission chairperson said on Wednesday, rejecting accusations by U.S. President Donald Trump that “very large numbers” of Christians were being killed in Africa’s most populous country.
“What’s going on in northern part of Nigeria has nothing to do with the kind of atrocities we see in Sudan or in some part of eastern DRC,” Mahmoud Ali Youssouf told reporters at the United Nations in New York, referring to Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Think twice before… making such statements,” he said. “The first victims of Boko Haram are Muslims, not Christians.”
The extremist Islamist armed group Boko Haram has also terrorized northeast Nigeria, an insurgency that has killed tens of thousands of people over the past 15 years. Human rights experts have said most Boko Haram victims have been Muslims. Trump earlier this month said he has asked the Defense Department to prepare for possible “fast” military action if Nigeria fails to crack down on the killing of Christians. He did not provide any specific evidence for his accusation.
He also threatened to “stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”
Nigeria’s Foreign Ministry has said the country would keep fighting violent extremism and that it hoped Washington would remain a close ally, saying it “will continue to defend all citizens, irrespective of race, creed, or religion.”
Nigeria, which has 200 ethnic groups practicing Christianity, Islam and traditional religions, has a long history of peaceful coexistence. But it has also seen flare-ups of violence among groups, often exacerbated by ethnic divisions or conflict over scarce resources.
Why Donald Trump targeted Nigeria
When Donald Trump claimed recently that the Nigerian government was failing to protect Christians from “massacres” by Islamist extremists, warning that Washington would “cut off all aid” to the country and even “hit hard and fast”, he raised quite a few eyebrows.
Nigeria rejected this narrative, stating the violence is not a campaign of religious persecution but a complex web of terrorism, banditry, land disputes, and ethnic rivalries that impact both Muslims and Christians. The episode highlights crucial questions over sovereignty, diplomacy, and the place of religion in global politics. Were the dispute to widen, it could create problems for Nigeria.
Trump’s criticism draws on reports, often amplified by US evangelical groups, of attacks on Christian communities in central and northern Nigeria, particularly in Plateau, Benue, and Kaduna states. These regions have seen recurrent massacres blamed on Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and armed Fulani militias. To Trump’s core voter base, these attacks fit a narrative of Christians under siege in Muslim-majority regions.
Nigerian officials and international observers offer a nuanced view: extremist groups target both Christians and Muslims. Many attacks stem from disputes over land, grazing routes, and local authority rather than religion alone.
Indeed, the Middle Belt, where much of the violence occurs, is a mosaic of ethnic and religious communities competing for dwindling land amid desertification and rapid population growth.
Nigeria’s response to Trump’s claims was measured but firm. Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar said, “It’s impossible for there to be religious persecution supported in any way by the Government,”, reaffirming that the constitution guarantees religious freedom and equality.A presidential adviser said Nigeria welcomed US counterterrorism assistance “as long as it recognises our territorial integrity.”

A passenger bus fell into a deep ravine early on Nov 12 after crashing with another vehicle in southern Peru, killing at least 37 people and injuring 13 more, authorities said. The health manager of the Arequipa region, Walther Oporto, said to local radio RPP that the bus hit a pickup truck and it went off a road on a curve, falling more than 200 meters (more than 650 feet) to the banks of the Ocoña river. The bus had departed from the city of Chala, a mining area also in southern Peru, and was heading to the city of Arequipa.
Fatal bus accidents are not uncommon in Peru. The cause of Wednesday’s accident was not clear, but authorities have said in the past that reckless driving and excessive speed are behind many of these events.
In August, a bus overturned on a highway and 10 people died. In July, another bus traveling from Lima to Peru’s Amazon region also overturned, leaving at least 18 people dead and 48 injured.
In January at least six people died and 32 were injured when a bus fell into a river.

California (TIP)- Alphabet’s Google was hit with an EU antitrust investigation into its spam policy on Thursday following complaints from publishers who say it has hurt their revenues, putting the U.S. tech giant at risk of yet another hefty fine. Google began cracking down against companies gaming its search algorithm to push up rankings for other sites in March last year.
Its site reputation abuse policy targets the practice of publishing third-party pages on a site in an attempt to abuse search rankings by taking advantage of the host site’s ranking signals, commonly referred to as parasite SEO.
The European Commission said its monitoring indicated that Google is demoting news media and other publishers’ websites and content in Google search results when those websites include content from commercial partners.
It said Google’s policy appears to directly impact a common and legitimate way for publishers to monetise their websites and content.
“We are concerned that Google’s policies do not allow news publishers to be treated in a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory manner in its search results,” EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement.
“We will investigate to ensure that news publishers are not losing out on important revenues at a difficult time for the industry, and to ensure Google complies with the Digital Markets Act (DMA),” she said.
Google pushed back against the EU competition enforcer, saying the EU move risks degrading the quality of search results.
“The investigation announced today into our anti-spam efforts is misguided and risks harming millions of European users,” Pandu Nayak, chief scientist at Google Search, wrote in a blog post. “And the investigation is without merit: a German court has already dismissed a similar claim, ruling that our anti-spam policy was valid, reasonable, and applied consistently,” he said. He said Google’s anti-spam policy helps level the playing field to thwart websites from using deceptive tactics to outrank websites competing on the merits with their own content.
German media company ActMeraki in April complained to the Commission, saying that Google’s spam policy penalises websites.
The European Publishers Council, the European Newspaper Publishers Association and the European Magazine Media Association also have voiced similar grievances.
The EU investigation is under the DMA which seeks to rein in the power of Big Tech where violations can cost companies as much as 10% of their global annual sales.