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By Pietro Lombardi and Corina Pons VILLANUEVA DE GALLEGO, Spain, Oct 6 (Reuters) – Aragon, a sparsely populated region of northeast Spain, has become one of Europe’s fastest-growing digital infrastructure hubs due to what tech companies hail as its agile local permitting laws and swift decision making. Located at the crossroads of major international cable connections, Aragon offers abundant renewable energy and land, and is set to see more than €60 billion ($67.55 billion) of investment in data centres and digital infrastructure in the next decade. A dozen company officials, experts and campaigners told Reuters that the most decisive factor drawing investment to the region is its data centre–friendly governance. Big tech companies believe Aragon could serve as a model for a European Union seeking to triple its data centre capacity within seven years, and narrow the AI infrastructure gap with the US and China. However, global concerns over data centres’ resource consumption, environmental impact and burden on local communities are growing, and Spain’s national government is seeking to impose new resource requirements. STREAMLINING A COMPLEX PROCESS In Aragon, the regional government defends its strategy. “Are we overlooking any requirements for the sake of speed? The answer is no,” said Eva Valle, Aragon’s economy minister. “We’re simply streamlining a process that can be very complex. It’s surprising how much time can be saved simply by bringing a little order to it.” Aragon offers qualifying projects a “Project of General Interest of Aragon”, or PIGA status, which brings swift planning decisions, facilitates land expropriations and local tax breaks. The region is also unique in providing a one-stop investor service that supports applications and gives companies weekly progress updates on their projects. PIGA status can cut approval times from years to under 12 months. AMAZON A HUGE INVESTOR IN ARAGON On the outskirts of Villanueva de Gallego, a small Aragonese town north of Zaragoza, hundreds of workers have been constructing Amazon Web Services’ new facilities. The company is investing a total of €33.7 billion ($38.4 billion) in the region in cloud services and AI infrastructure, its largest investment of this kind outside the US. The new facilities moved through most of the permitting procedure in around a year, lightning speed for Europe’s often glacial pace of infrastructure licensing. Aragon has fast-tracked over a dozen large data centre projects also for Microsoft and others, regional data shows. TOO FAST? Critics of the scheme say the fast-track process undermines public and environmental accountability. By reducing administrative procedures such as public consultation requirements, “it becomes very difficult to conduct genuine scrutiny,” said Manuel Garcia, a researcher at the state-run science and technology centre CSIC. The public had just 23 days at the end of 2024 to review about 25,000 pages of Amazon project documentation and submit objections if they wished, a feat Garcia called “physiologically impossible”. Environmental group Ecologistas en Accion has challenged Aragon over the fast track granted to Amazon in what is believed to be Spain’s first lawsuit targeting a major data centre development. But experts say any court ruling could take years, by which time many facilities would be operational. The European Commission recently proposed new rules for data centres, including faster permitting, and received submissions from Amazon and Microsoft praising Aragon. “Based on our experience, the PIGA process in Aragon, Spain, has been successful to reduce the administrative burden on companies and most importantly the handling time, while ensuring a high compliance standard with applicable regulations,” Amazon said in its submission. Microsoft pointed to Aragon as an example of a European region giving data centres “prioritized and streamlined permit application review… while still ensuring full compliance with local laws.” Spanish property company Merlin Properties’ €1.2 billion project is among those being fast-tracked, and its CEO Ismael Clemente said the region has “managed to be very quick.” MADRID’S NEW RULES SPARK BACKLASH The push in Aragon, run by Spain’s conservative opposition People’s Party, coincides with growing opposition around the world to data centres due to land use, power costs and water resources. The central government, facing surging energy demands from the sector and still grappling with consequences of last year’s catastrophic blackout, has drafted tougher water and electricity rules for data centres. These have been criticised by the industry and energy companies, as well as by Aragon’s authorities, who say the measures would put multi-billion-euro investments at risk. A snap election called for November 29 looms over the draft rules, adding a layer of uncertainty. “If the proposed decree is approved, many of the projects will surely be re-evaluated,” said Alberto Nadal, People’s Party deputy secretary for the economy, blaming Madrid for failing to expand the power grid. Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft said their plans in the region remain unaltered. A spokesperson for AWS urged Spain to protect long-term investment by aligning data centre regulation with emerging EU frameworks. AWS has also said it will spend €30 million on local community programmes in education and sustainability for example, in areas where it is present. A spokesperson for Microsoft, which plans to invest up to €10 billion in Aragon, underlined the importance of “legal certainty, predictability and conditions” for continued long-term investment in Spain. The company also has community programmes. Judith Arnal, a senior research fellow at think tank Fedea, said data centre investment must be balanced with regional economic benefits. “We need to roll out the red carpet for data centres … but we also need to try to extract as much economic value as possible.” ($1 = 0.8780 euros) (Reporting by Pietro Lombardi and Corina Pons, editing by Andrei Khalip, Alexandra Hudson) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

By Krisztina Than BUDAPEST, Oct 6 (Reuters) – In a historic move, Hungary will soon start releasing tens of thousands of Communist-era police files in an online public database, giving people access to lists of informers and collaborators used by the former state security services. The release, timed for the 70th anniversary of Hungary’s 1956 anti-Soviet uprising, is part of Prime Minister Peter Magyar’s pledge to make the records, stored in a vast basement of archives in Budapest, public and allow Hungarians to come to terms with their totalitarian past. Although Communist rule ended in 1989, Hungary delayed fully opening the files due to a lack of strong political will from successive governments. So far, apart from researchers, ordinary people could only request access to their own records or those of close family members but now anybody will be able to conduct searches in the online database. During the Cold War, secret police agencies in eastern Europe such as East Germany’s Stasi or Hungary’s security services relied on collaborators drawn from the public, often via blackmail, threats or rewards. Between 1956 and 1989 some 55,000 secret collaborators were recorded in Hungary. They monitored friends, family members, neighbours and co-workers to detect signs of dissent and Western influence — and their reports often led to arrests and interrogation. Many flats in downtown Budapest — called K-flats or conspiracy flats — served as locations for meetings between secret police officials and civilian collaborators. MUSIC BANDS TARGETED In the 1980s, informants attended concerts in Budapest’s underground rock scene that attracted youthful crowds and were seen by the authorities as potentially subversive. Peter Muller “Sziami”, still an iconic figure in today’s music scene, recalls his band Kontroll Csoport (group) performing in 1983 a song he had written titled “Informers and Provocateurs”.  “In our own way,” the lyrics read, “we keep watch too: the one standing in front of you is our man — you’ve blushed, you’ve been exposed, informers and provocateurs.” “And then we turned spotlights on the crowd and we saw the audience of around 1,000 people spinning around, looking to see who could be the informers,” Muller, 74, said in his studio, smiling mischievously. Muller was almost thrown out of college for his music, and police banned some of his concerts and interrogated him. His first punk-rock band called “URH” in 1980, legendary in the underground culture, was named after the radio frequency band used by the state police and was often targeted. Despite those memories, however, Muller has mixed feelings about the opening of the files after such a long time. “I do not feel entirely comfortable with the idea that society needs such a cleansing or catharsis after all this time — that people must be singled out, humiliated, shamed, and punished when they have either already died or moved on to a different stage of life,” he told Reuters. CONFRONTING OUR PAST ‘MORE DEEPLY’ The Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security (ABTL) manages the former state security services’ records, with files comprising the names of 50,000 to 60,000 collaborators. Its director, Bendeguz Gergo Cseh, hailed the release of the Communist-era files, based on a law passed by parliament in September, as a “historic step” and said it went further than elsewhere in the former eastern bloc. Poland opened its archives much earlier but does not allow open, unrestricted searches, as will be the case now in Hungary. Germany also took a more restrictive approach in its 1991 act to open the Stasi files, while in the Czech Republic not all files have been uploaded to an online database.  The Hungarian law says understanding the past and the transparency of public institutions are “essential prerequisites” for the functioning of a democratic state.  The release of four types of files will come in two stages, starting on November 4. On that day in 1956 Soviet tanks entered Budapest to crush a pro-democracy uprising that had begun on October 23. Some details of the files will be redacted to protect sensitive personal information, including health records, addictions and sexual orientation.  “As both an archivist and a historian, I believe that passing judgment based on this information is inappropriate,” Cseh told Reuters. “However, I do think it is possible to gain insight into life stories and confront our past more deeply — not only at an individual level but also at a societal one.” (Reporting and writing by Krisztina ThanEditing by Gareth Jones) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

DUBAI, Oct 6 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s airports in Jazan and Najran were targeted in two attacks on Monday evening, injuring three people and causing limited damage, the Saudi aviation authority said, as hostilities between the kingdom and Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis escalated. The attacks came as Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces pressed a major offensive to retake territory from the Houthis after weeks of rebel advances, with Riyadh stepping up airstrikes in support of the campaign. The Houthis have responded with missile and drone attacks on targets in Saudi Arabia, including airports, oil facilities and military sites. Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said it was assessing the damage at the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Airport and Najran International Airport and taking measures to ensure the safety of passengers and staff and the security of the kingdom’s civil aviation system. (Reporting by Jana Choukeir; Editing by Alexandra Hudson) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

Oct 6 (Reuters) – Britain’s regulator said on Tuesday it has opened an investigation into whether Meta Platforms breached UK online safety laws by failing to properly assess risks posed by its Instagram Instants feature before launching it in May. Instants allows content shared by users in social media platform Instagram to disappear after being viewed. (Reporting by Raechel Thankam Job in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

By Inti Landauro PARIS, Oct 6 (Reuters) – France braced on Tuesday for a day of nationwide high-school blockades and trade union-led street protests in support of students demanding that President Emmanuel Macron’s cash-strapped government tackle understaffed and dilapidated schools. Teenage students stood on barricades made of trash cans in front of schools from Lille in the north to Marseille in the south, and from Strasbourg in the east to Nantes in the west. In Paris they held up banners reading “We want to be heard, not teargassed” and “Our future is not optional”. Tuesday’s demonstrations come after a fortnight of protests which began in Paris’s deprived suburbs before spreading across the country. The government responded with riot police, saying the movement had now morphed into urban violence. A teenager’s hand was blown off as high-school protesters clashed with riot police in northern France on Monday. François-Xavier Lauch, prefect of Pas-de-Calais, declined to comment on the exact circumstances, saying some 200 to 250 protesters had been hurling objects at police. The regional newspaper La Voix du Nord said the 15-year-old lost his hand and part of his lower arm after picking up a police dispersal grenade. PRIME MINISTER PROMISES A RESPONSE Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has ordered his ministers to tackle the students’ leading demands. Those include ensuring absent teachers are replaced, reviewing the length of the 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. school day and the need for longer lunch breaks. The government would also look at repairs needed to ageing school buildings, said Lecornu, who demanded ministers send in their first proposals by the end of October. But finding spare cash will be difficult. The protests have piled pressure on a government trying to narrow a ballooning budget deficit as investor concerns about France’s growing debt pile, weak growth and reluctance to rein in spending push bond yields higher. The yield on France’s 10-year bonds briefly hit a 24-year high of over 5% last week. The surge in French borrowing costs has started to spill into the broader euro area, with the sliding euro currency the latest alarm bell for policy makers. Finance Minister Roland Lescure said on Tuesday there was no need for the European Central Bank to step in. THOUSANDS OF ARRESTS France’s Justice Ministry said 5,060 people have been arrested since the protests began, with 87% of them minors. More than 1,800 people are being prosecuted, including 1,483 minors, the ministry said, without specifying the crimes. It said 790 cases had been dismissed. At least 715 police officers and 215 teenagers have been injured in clashes, according to Lecornu’s office. Six months before an election to replace Macron, his government and the far-right National Rally, led by presidential frontrunner Marine Le Pen, have accused hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) lawmakers and mayors of stoking the protests. The LFI denies the accusation. Bally Bagayoko, the LFI mayor of Saint-Denis, a poor Paris suburb, said he opposed violence but stood beside the protesting students. “I stand by being on the side of my residents, and high school students are my residents,” he said. (Reporting by Inti Landauro; writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Andrew Heavens) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com