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Fiat to be first electric car produced in Serbia after EU lithium deal

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Fiat to be first electric car produced in Serbia after EU lithium deal

The agreement made in June has been fiercely criticised by environmentalists and opposition groups in Serbia, who argue that it would cause irreversible environmental damage while bringing little benefit to its citizens.

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A new trial production line of the electric version of Fiat’s Grande Panda car was inaugurated in Kragujevac last Monday.

Built at the factory known for producing the Italian brand’s vehicles since it was rebranded under Fiat Chrysler — now Stellantis — in 2008, it’s set to become the first-ever electric car to be mass-produced in Serbia, with production expected to begin this October.

Its launch follows a deal on lithium reached with the EU in early July in Belgrade that could reduce Europe’s dependency on China and push Serbia, which has close ties to Moscow and Beijing, closer to Brussels.

That deal, however, has been fiercely criticised by environmentalists and opposition groups in Serbia, who argue it would cause irreversible damage to the environment while bringing little benefit to its citizens.

According to the 2023 US Geological Survey, Serbia is estimated to have around 1.2 million tonnes of lithium reserves, a critical mineral for making electric batteries, as the transition to zero-emission vehicles accelerates.

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For Fiat’s Grande Panda vehicle, the Stellantis group said it took two years to adapt the Kragujevac plant so it could produce EVs.

The Grande Panda comes with distinctive LED lights and an interior made using up-cycled materials.

After rolling off the production line in Kragujevac, the cars will be delivered to showrooms in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares says his company is ready to rise to the challenge from Chinese EV makers. “We at Stellantis are ready for the fight,” he says.

“We are going to demonstrate to them that we are hard-working. We are going to demonstrate to them that we have the right technology. We are going to demonstrate to them that we are a very fierce competitor.”

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Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić was at the inauguration of the new trial production line.

“I congratulate you on this big day. I congratulate everyone in Serbia. I am proud of our Serbia, proud of Fiat, and proud of Stellantis,” he says.

“I am proud of our cooperation, which is not always simple and easy, and we love that fighting spirit that we saw here today. We will not lack that, and we will fight and work hard in order to catch the most developed countries of Europe and the world.”

The Stellantis group, which sold 1.35 million vehicles worldwide last year, recently reported net profits down by half in the first half of the year due largely to lower sales and restructuring costs.

Created in 2021 from the merger of Fiat-Chrysler with PSA Peugeot, the Franco-Italian multinational reported net profits of €5.6 billion in the period, down 48% compared with €11bn in the same period last year.

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Thousands in Serbia protest lithium deal

Meanwhile, on Monday, thousands of people rallied in several towns in Serbia to protest a lithium excavation project the Balkan country’s government recently signed with the European Union.

The protests were held simultaneously in the western town of Šabac and the central towns of Kraljevo, Aranđelovac, Ljig, and Barajevo.

They followed similar gatherings in other Serbian towns in the past few weeks. The biggest lithium reserve in Serbia lies in a western valley that is rich in fertile land and water.

The multinational Rio Tinto company had started an exploration project in the area several years ago, which sparked huge opposition, forcing its suspension.

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Earlier this month, however, Serbia’s constitutional court overturned the government’s previous decision to cancel a $2.4bn (€2.21bn) mining project launched by the British-Australian mining company in the Jadar Valley, paving the way for its revival.

Vučić has said that any excavation would not start before 2028 and that the government would seek firm environmental guarantees before allowing the digging.

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Minnesota braces for what’s next amid immigration arrests and in the wake of Renee Good shooting

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Minnesota braces for what’s next amid immigration arrests and in the wake of Renee Good shooting

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration officer, Minnesota’s Twin Cities on Sunday braced for what many expect will be a new normal over the next few weeks as the Department of Homeland Security carries out what it called its largest enforcement operation ever.

Protesters screamed at heavily-armed federal agents and honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt their operations in one Minneapolis neighborhood filled with single-family homes.

There was some pushing and several people were hit with chemical spray just before agents banged down the door of one home on Sunday. They later took one man away in handcuffs.

“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”

Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.

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People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners in the neighborhood where 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed Wednesday, watching for any signs of federal agents.

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More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .

“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.

The protests have been largely peaceful, but the Twin Cities remained anxious. Minneapolis public schools on Monday will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.

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Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.

While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said on Sunday that the investigation into Good’s shooting death shouldn’t be overseen solely by the federal government.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.

“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened,” Smith said on ABC’s “This Week.”

The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.

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Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”

“That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.

Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn’t be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”

The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests across the country over the weekend.

Thousands of people marched Saturday in Minneapolis, where Homeland Security called its deployment of immigration officers in the Twin Cities its biggest ever immigration enforcement operation.

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Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis, Thomas Strong in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.

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Netanyahu and Rubio discuss US military intervention in Iran amid ongoing nationwide protests: report

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Netanyahu and Rubio discuss US military intervention in Iran amid ongoing nationwide protests: report

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of U.S. intervention in Iran, according to a report.

The two leaders spoke by phone Saturday as Israel is on “high alert,” preparing for the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Iran, according to Reuters, citing multiple Israeli sources. A U.S. official confirmed the call to Fox News Digital but did not provide additional details.

The report comes as nationwide anti-regime demonstrations across Iran hit the two-week mark.

On Saturday, the Iranian regime triggered an internet “kill switch” in an apparent effort to conceal alleged abuses by security forces and as protests against it surged nationwide, according to a cybersecurity expert. The blackout reduced internet access to a fraction of normal levels.

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KEANE WARNS IRANIAN REGIME TO TAKE TRUMP ‘DEAD SERIOUS’ ON PROTEST KILLING THREAT AMID ONGOING DEMONSTRATIONS

Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds his end-of-year press conference at the State Department in Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2025. (Kevin Mohatt/Reuters)

On Sunday, Iran’s parliament speaker warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America strikes the Islamic Republic.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf issued the threat as lawmakers rushed the dais in the Iranian parliament, shouting, “Death to America!” according to The Associated Press.

President Donald Trump offered support for the protesters on Saturday, writing on Truth Social that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”

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IRANIAN MILITARY LEADER THREATENS PREEMPTIVE ATTACK AFTER TRUMP COMMENTS

In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

At a news conference Friday, Trump said Iran was facing mounting pressure as unrest spreads across the country.

“Iran’s in big trouble,” he said. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago. We’re watching the situation very carefully.”

The president said the U.S. would respond forcefully if the regime resorts to mass violence. 

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“We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts,” he said.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Protests in Iran intensify for the 12th day. (The National Council of Resistance of Iran)

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department and White House for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Emma Bussey, Brie Stimson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Four killed, 20 injured in overnight Russian strikes across Ukraine

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Four killed, 20 injured in overnight Russian strikes across Ukraine

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Russia fired more than 150 drones overnight into Sunday targeting close to two dozen locations across Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring 20 more.

Ukraine’s Air Forces say they intercepted 125 drones aerially but confirmed that at least 25 strike drones struck their targets.

They added that Moscow’s latest barrage mainly targeted Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, all of which were targeted in Saturday’s overnight strikes as well.

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Local officials in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia say the strikes targeted residential areas and energy infrastructure. More than 385,000 homes were affected by electric, gas or water outages, at a critical time as temperatures plunged to 10 degrees below Celsius.

Regional lawmakers say service was restored to most of the affected households and areas by Sunday morning, but added that emergency work was still being carried out to restore power to the remaining homes.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of timing their attacks with the cold peaks of winter as to maximise civilian suffering.

“They struck targets that have no military purpose whatsoever – energy infrastructure, residential buildings. They deliberately waited for freezing weather to make things worse for our people. This is deliberate, cynical Russian terror specifically against civilians,” wrote Zelenskyy in a post on X.

He also noted that this week had seen heightened Russian assault on Ukrainian cities, announcing that his country’s defence forces recorded thousands of attacks using a variety of different weapons.

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“Over the course of this week, Russia launched almost 1,100 attack drones against Ukraine, more than 890 guided aerial bombs, and over 50 missiles of various types – ballistic, cruise, and even the Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile.”

The Ukrainian leader thanked all units responsible for protecting the country and responding to attacks, and praised their tireless efforts and resilience.

He also called on allies to ensure his embattled country maintains “stable support”, in defence and diplomatic fields as coordinated dialogue efforts continue in search of peace.

Meanwhile, Russia says that one person was killed in Ukrainian strikes on the western city of Voronezh. Officials say a young woman succumbed to her wounds at an intensive care unit of a local hospital after debris from a drone fell on her house during Saturday’s attacks.

They added that at least three others were injured in the attacks which targeted more than 10 residential apartment buildings, private homes and a high school.

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The city of Voronezh lies just 250 kilometres from the Ukrainian border and is home to approximately one million people. The attacks, which Kyiv have yet to confirm, came after the Kremlin’s major offensive on Ukraine in the early hours of Saturday.

Additional sources • AP

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