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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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German ambassador warns Trump will 'undermine' democratic principles with 'maximum disruption' agenda: report

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German ambassador warns Trump will 'undermine' democratic principles with 'maximum disruption' agenda: report

Germany’s ambassador to the U.S. has warned that President-elect Donald Trump’s administration will “undermine” democratic principles with a “maximum disruption” agenda, according to a report.

Reuters reported that it viewed a confidential briefing document signed by Ambassador Andreas Michaelis that describes the incoming Trump agenda as “a redefinition of the constitutional order – maximum concentration of power with the president at the expense of Congress and the federal states.”

“Basic democratic principles and checks and balances will be largely undermined, the legislature, law enforcement and media will be robbed of their independence and misused as a political arm, Big Tech will be given co-governing power,” reads the document, which was dated Jan. 14.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Trump transition team for comment but did not immediately hear back.

TRUMP INAUGURATION: WHO IS EXPECTED TO ATTEND, AND WHO IS BOYCOTTING?

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President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a meeting with Republican governors at Mar-a-Lago, on Jan. 9, 2025, in Palm Beach, Florida. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Michaelis said recent actions by Trump and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk could lead to a “redefinition of the First Amendment.” 

“One is using lawsuits, threatening criminal prosecution and license revocation, the other is having algorithms manipulated and accounts blocked,” the document reads, per Reuters.

Musk supported Trump throughout the election, and was tapped by the president-elect to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency. 

GERMANY ACCUSES ELON MUSK OF TRYING TO INTERFERE IN ITS NATIONAL ELECTIONS

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Last month, Germany accused Musk of attempting to interfere in the country’s upcoming parliamentary elections on behalf of the country’s far-right political party, German Alternative for Germany, citing recent social media posts and a weekend op-ed doubling down on his endorsement.

Meanwhile, Michaelis even claimed that Trump could force his agenda on states using broad legal options and that “even military deployment within the country for police activities would be possible in the event of declared ‘insurrection’ and ‘invasion’.”

The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, however, bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement unless Congress overrides the federal law.

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Despite what Michaelis says in the reported document, the German foreign ministry has acknowledged Trump won the democratic election and said it will “work closely with the new U.S. administration in the interests of Germany and Europe.”

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‘My children, my children’: The Gaza family killed minutes before ceasefire

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‘My children, my children’: The Gaza family killed minutes before ceasefire

Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Palestine – The ceasefire in Gaza was supposed to start at 8.30am (06:30 GMT). The al-Qidra family had endured 15 months of Israeli attacks. They had been displaced more than once and were living in a tent. Their relatives had been among the more than 46,900 Palestinians killed by Israel.

But the al-Qidras had survived. And they wanted to go home.

Ahmed al-Qidra packed his seven children onto a donkey cart and headed to eastern Khan Younis. It was finally safe to travel – the bombing should have stopped.

But the family did not know that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas had been delayed. They did not know that, even in those additional few hours, Israeli aircraft were still flying over the skies of Gaza, ready to drop their bombs.

The explosion was loud. Ahmed’s wife Hanan heard it. She had stayed behind at a relative’s home in the centre of the city, organising their belongings, planning on joining her husband and children a few hours later.

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“The blast felt like it hit my heart,” Hanan said. She instinctively knew that something had happened to her children, whom she had only just said goodbye to.

“My children, my children!” she screamed.

The cart had been hit. Hanan’s eldest son, 16-year-old Adly, was dead. So was her youngest, six-year-old Sama, the baby of the family.

Yasmin, 12, explained that a four-wheel drive was in front of the cart carrying people celebrating the ceasefire. Perhaps that was the reason the missile hit.

“I saw Sama and Adly lying on the ground, and my father bleeding and unconscious on the cart,” Yasmin said. She pulled her eight-year-old sister Aseel out before a second missile hit the spot where they had been. Eleven-year-old Mohammed also survived.

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But Ahmed, Hanan’s partner in life, was pronounced dead in the hospital.

The vehicle travelling ahead of the al-Qidras’ donkey cart may have been targeted in the Israeli air attack [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

‘My children were my world’

Sitting on the edge of her injured daughter Iman’s hospital bed in Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital, Hanan was still shell-shocked.

“Where was the ceasefire?” she asked. In their excitement to finally return to whatever was left of their home, the family had missed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring that the Palestinian group Hamas had not sent over the names of the three Israeli captives who would be released on Sunday as part of the ceasefire deal.

They had not seen Hamas explain that there were technical reasons for the delay, and that the names would be provided, as they eventually were.

They would not know that in the three-hour delay before the ceasefire eventually began, three members of their family would be killed. They were among the 19 Palestinians killed by Israel in those last few hours, according to Gaza’s Civil Defence.

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Hanan al-Qidra sits with a daughter, her other daughter lays on hospital bed
Hanan al-Qidra has to take care of her remaining children on her own after her husband Ahmed was killed in the Israeli attack in Khan Younis on January 19 [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Hanan broke down in tears. She would now have to face life without her husband and without two of her children. The loss of Sama, “the last of the bunch” as she described her with the Arabic saying, was particularly hard.

“Sama was my youngest and the most spoiled. She’d get angry whenever I talked about having another child.”

Adly had been her “pillar of support”. Her children were her world.

“We endured this entire war, facing the harshest conditions of displacement and bombardment,” Hanan said. “My children dealt with hunger, a lack of food and basic necessities.”

“We survived more than a year of this war, only for them to be killed in its last minutes. How can this happen?”

A day of joy had been turned into a nightmare. The family had celebrated the end of the war the night before.

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“Hasn’t the Israeli army had enough of our blood and the atrocities they committed for 15 months?” Hanan asked.

Then, she thought of her future. With her husband and two of her children ripped away from her, and with tears coming down her face, she asked: “What’s left?”

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Prada offers savage, instinctive menswear during Milan Fashion Week

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Prada offers savage, instinctive menswear during Milan Fashion Week

MILAN (AP) — Miuccia Prada and her co-creative director Raf Simons described the latest Prada menswear collaboration unveiled during Milan Fashion Week on Sunday as raw and cinematic.

While the Milan Fall-Winter 2025-2026 runway was full of faux fur collars, Prada went the usual step beyond and created primitive detailing in shearling that looked almost torn from the beast and set askew on outerwear lapels, or patchworked into garments.

“Maybe, it reads as savage, primitive cavemen. I think that our aim was to make it feel warm and human and instinctive, but also kind of beautifully domestic in a way,” Simons said backstage.

A model wears a creation part of the men’s Prada Fall-Winter 2025-2026 collection, that was presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

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Collection hallmarks

Cinematic references were broad and not specific to any film, director or even character type, Simons said. Western touches included scuffed cowboy boots and knitwear mimicking a wrangler’s shirt – without creating characters or caricatures.

Feminine touches flourished. Men were invited to wear jewelry, such as bracelets with mini basketballs or baseballs. Chains with amulets hung from fine knits. Fake fur-lined hoods came in florals.

The silhouette mixed skinny trousers, often in bright rock-and-roll satin, with more ample volumes like pajama tops or slightly ratty sweaters. Suits required no shirts, as the designers advocated instinctive dressing.

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One look seemed to distill the collection to its boyish essence: Straight leg jeans with a knit top featuring striped detailing, worn with floral-stamped cowboy boots.

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A model wears a creation part of the men’s Prada Fall-Winter 2025-2026 collection, that was presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

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A model wears a creation part of the men’s Prada Fall-Winter 2025-2026 collection, that was presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

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A model wears a creation part of the men’s Prada Fall-Winter 2025-2026 collection, that was presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

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Fashion as meaning

The designers said the collection was meant to offer hope in difficult times, proffering humanity as a form of resistance to whatever may be oppressing.

“It’s a bit of an answer to what of course is happening. We have to resist with our instinct, with our humanity, with our passion, with our romance,’’ Prada said backstage. Good work, she said, is also a form of resistance.

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The message contained in the collection “has to be optimistic by definition and in principle,’’ Prada said.

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A model wears a creation part of the men’s Prada Fall-Winter 2025-2026 collection, that was presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

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The Setting

The ever-transforming showroom inside the Prada Foundation’s Deposito contemporary art space was sheathed in Art Noveau carpet, and the runway was set on raised metal scaffolding. Simons said it represented contrasts, decoration and a work-in-progress.

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Suits require no shirts. Two puffers are better than one. Raw shearling collars let loose primitive instincts. Subtle jewelry and florals for men. Cowboy boots.

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Louis Partridge arrives as he attends at the men’s Prada Fall-Winter 2025-2026 collection show, that was presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

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William Gao and Olivia Hardy arrive as they attend at the men’s Prada Fall-Winter 2025-2026 collection show, that was presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

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Sebastian Stan arrives as he attends at the men’s Prada Fall-Winter 2025-2026 collection show, that was presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

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Star power

Prada’s front row hailed from across the globe and disciplines, including British actor and musician William Gao, arriving with British musician Olivia Hardy, U.S. actor Keith Powers, South Korean actress Kim Tae-ri, Chinese table tennis player Ma Long and British actor Louis Patridge. A crowd of fans waited just beyond a barricade to cheer them all.

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