Links 05/10/2023: Tantek Çelik on the Web, UK Government Cracking Down on 'Cloud Computing' Monopoly Abuse
Contents
- GNU/Linux
- Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
- Digital Restrictions (DRM)
- Monopolies
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GNU/Linux
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Games
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Techdirt ☛ Starfield DLSS Modder Has Mods Behind Paywall, Briefly Threatens To Booby Trap ‘Pirated’ Mods
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how Bethesda’s latest opus, Starfield, was shipping without support for Nvidia’s DLSS technology, but did have a deal to support AMD’s version of that upscaling technology. And after plenty of commenters pointed out that I was coming at that post from the wrong angle, I jumped into the comments thanking them and admitting so, particularly when it comes to how FSR is open source and works on all graphics cards, as well as several other particulars I wasn’t informed enough to recognize. Whoops! My fault!
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Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
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Standards/Consortia
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Tantek Çelik: More Thoughtful Reading & Writing on the Web
Beyond the insights and excellent developer how-to in his post, I believe it points to something larger: a fundamental thoughtfulness difference between writing rapid short-form posts (whether tweets or toots) and medium or longer form writing (on blogs or journals), and the impact of that difference on readers: that the act of reading more thoughtful writing nudges & reinforces a reader into a more thoughtful state of mind.
If you have not read Derek Powazek’s watershed blog post “The Argument Machine”,
I highly recommend you do so. In the nearly ten years since his post, Derek’s hypothesis of Twitter’s user interface design being the ultimate machine to create & amplify disputes has been repeatedly demonstrated.
Derek’s post predated Mastodon’s release by nearly three years. Ironically, by replicating much of Twitter’s user experience, Mastodon has in many ways also replicated its Argument Machine effects, except distributed across more servers.
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Leftovers
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Jamie Zawinski ☛ Dish Network fined nearly 0.00009% of their net worth
A fine is a price.
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Computers Are Bad ☛ overheard overhead
Let's talk about overhead paging. The concept goes by various names: paging, public address, even intercom, although the accuracy of the latter term can be questionable. It's probably one of the aspects of business telephone systems that gets the most public attention, on account of the many stories (both true and mythical) of the exploits of people who have figured out the paging extension at a given WalMart.
Some form of public address is about as old as telephony, but voice paging is a relatively new innovation. Early telephone systems relied on the microphone, more properly called the transmitter, in a telephone to create the talking current. The amount of power produced by the transmitter was very small... small enough that the volume level of telephone calls would degrade over long loops, even with the very high efficiency of the telephone receiver (speaker).
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Zach Flower ☛ README.ZACH
I have never experienced having myself as a manager, so take this document with a grain of salt: I wrote some of it, and stole the rest from far more experienced people. Just know that I want you to be successful at your job, and I want to be successful in mine. Hold me accountable and tell me when there's something I can do to improve.
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Science
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New York Times ☛ Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded to 3 Quantum Dots Researchers
Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov developed and discovered quantum dots, particles whose size governs their properties.
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New York Times ☛ Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to 3 Scientists for Work on Electrons
Techniques resulting from the work of Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier let scientists capture the motions of subatomic particles moving at impossible speeds.
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Meduza ☛ Russian chemist Alexei Ekimov one of three nanotechnology researchers honored by this year’s Nobel Prize — Meduza
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Science Alert ☛ Feel Like You're Not Alone, But You Are? Science Can Explain That Creepy Feeling
Don't want to be all by yourself.
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Education
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ANF News ☛ Harvard offers Kurdish Language Course for the first time in the University's history
Harvard invited socio-anthropologist and Bentley University professor Ahmad Mohammadpour to teach the course. Mohammadpour, who is from Eastern Kurdistan, Iran, pointed to the millions of people who speak the language.
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Truthdig ☛ The MAGAfication of California’s Largest School District
But this modest effort is too much for MAGA conservatives who’ve become obsessed with purging public schools of “wokeness.” In July, a group called Parents Defending Education filed a complaint against L.A. Unified with the civil rights division of the U.S. Dept. of Education, demanding an investigation. It accuses the district of “discrimination on the basis of race in programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance in violation of both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964…and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
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Hardware
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Silicon Angle ☛ Soft guidance and lackluster demand weigh on Micron’s stock
Memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc. delivered fiscal fourth-quarter results today that surpassed Walll Street’s expectations, but its forecast for its first quarter came up light, sending its stock lower in extended trading. During the quarter just gone, Micron said it racked up a net loss of $1.43 billion.
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Hackaday ☛ 2023 Halloween Hackfest: Flickering Pumpkin Pin Is Solidly Built
Now first of all, [Steph] grants that you can already take your pick of several LED pumpkin badges out there on IO. That’s not the point. The point is that this flickering pumpkin pin is nicely-built as well as being open source.
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Hackaday ☛ One-String, One-Trick Pony Plays “the Lick”
Wouldn’t you love to be able to play a song on a stringed instrument even though you don’t have an iota of musical talent? That’s the idea behind Strumli, a single-string instrument built by [Factorem] that plays “the lick”. You know, the lick. Chances are, you’ve heard it somewhere before.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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RFA ☛ North Korea executes warehouse manager for stealing penicillin
But some who were forced to watch doubted one person could commit such a crime.
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France24 ☛ France to hold crisis meetings over 'scourge' of bedbugs
The French government said Tuesday it would host emergency meetings this week to examine surging numbers of reported bedbug cases, which are being increasingly seen as a major potential public health problem.
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Science Alert ☛ Mouse Study Reveals Unexpected Connection Between Menthol And Alzheimer's
Sniff.
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Science Alert ☛ New Drug Mimics Exercise, Causing Obese Mice to Burn Fat And Lose Weight
Muscles, activated.
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uni Stanford ☛ Over the CREST: Students conduct summer cancer research
Every year, 25 undergraduate students participate in Stanford’s cancer research program, Canary Cancer Research Education Summer Training (CREST). The program offers an immersive research experience in advanced labs to learn about early cancer detection with funding from the National Cancer Institute.
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YLE ☛ Police uncover major Swedish drug gang operations in Finland
Helsinki police and the National Bureau of Investigation have uncovered a large international drug distribution organisation which is suspected of having brought hundreds of kilos of drugs into Finland.
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YLE ☛ STT: Swedish gang suspected of smuggling drugs to Finland
Authorities believe the case is linked to the seizure of a large number of weapons in Sweden last spring.
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Reason ☛ Rishi Sunak To Ban Cigarettes for Brits
The U.K.’s “conservative” prime minister wants to prohibit people born in 2009 and later from buying cigarettes—forever.
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YLE ☛ Snus smuggling plummets after nicotine pouch law reform
The widespread availability of strong nicotine pouches in Finland has dramatically reduced the smuggling of oral tobacco products from neighbouring Sweden.
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YLE ☛ Economic forecast: Price of food will finally start to fall next year
A fresh report from Finland's Pellervo economic research institute PTT says the price of food will decline by about two percent in 2024.
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DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer) ☛ The Fauci Ouchie (COVID Shots) “Wins” Again. My Cousin and Aunt Have COVID; Also, Big City Crime.
My dad E-Mailed me about my cousin going to visit my Aunt before my Aunt was due to have sinus surgery. They had to scrub the surgery because my Aunt was exposed to COVID by my cousin.
Like my spouse and I, we both got COVID 6-7 weeks after getting the bivalent, and both of them had gotten all their “COVID shots”.
Just absolutely worthless shots. The worst cases of COVID I’ve seen were in people who were “vaccinated”, including my own. Also, everyone who got “vaccinated” got COVID anyway.
Yet they want us to get more shots, now $180 each, which don’t even work. The New York Times posted an article a while back about “potentially getting them four times a year”.
This is such a bullshit racket. I cannot believe that I allowed myself to go along with it. I am definitely not getting one this year or ever again. I was deceived and lied to. Whatever trust I had in the US government, which wasn’t much is gone.
I don’t even trust my own doctor anymore. They’ve been turned into pharma salescritters and nothing more.
Suddenly, all of these diseases that we’ve never had a vaccine for “have shots” not, modeled on the ineffective and dangerous mRNA COVID shots.
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YLE ☛ Finland's macaroni shortage sparked by recall, prolonged by hoarding
Myllyn Paras' parent firm recalled several varieties of their pastas in mid-June, and demand continues to outweigh supply.
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Ruben Schade ☛ Long-term effects of concussions
Yet another reason for contact sports like rugby, Australia’s various TLAs, and American football to be put out to pasture.
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Omicron Limited ☛ US drinking water often contains toxic contaminants, scientist warns
But a new study published by a University of New Mexico scientist with colleagues from across the U.S. warns that water from many wells and community water systems contains unsafe levels of toxic contaminants, exposing millions to health risks, including cancer.
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New York Times ☛ The climate crisis is also a health crisis
But climate change has expanded the warm areas where the most dangerous species of mosquitoes, those that carry deadly diseases, can breed. As a result of those factors, and also because of the rapid evolution of mosquitoes, malaria deaths are once again on the rise, as my colleague Stephanie Nolen, The Times’s global health reporter, writes in an astounding new series about the insects and all the ways we have to fight them.
And, it’s not just malaria. Increasing temperatures have also been a gift to Aedes aegypti, the mosquitoes that transmit dengue, Zika virus and chikungunya. Dengue infections have happened in places that had never seen the virus, like France, and have grown worse in countries that have long battled the disease, like Peru and Bangladesh.
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Bridge Michigan ☛ Motorcycle deaths spike since helmets became optional for Michigan adults
“Naturally, the more safety equipment you could wear, the better off you are,” said Lt. Mike Shaw, a spokesperson for the Michigan State Police.
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Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman win the Nobel Prize, and antivaxxers lose it
Early Monday morning as I was getting ready for work, I was perusing X, a.k.a. the platform formerly known as Twitter, and came across an announcement from the Nobel Prize committee that Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman had the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of RNA modifications that made possible the incredibly rapid development of mRNA-based vaccines against COVID in 2020, from conception to testing to emergency use approval (EUA), within nine months:
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Meduza ☛ Russia moves to restrict drugs used in medical abortions — Meduza
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Pro Publica ☛ How a Big Pharma Company Stalled a Potentially Lifesaving Vaccine in Pursuit of Bigger Profits
Ever since he was a medical student, Dr. Neil Martinson has confronted the horrors of tuberculosis, the world’s oldest and deadliest pandemic. For more than 30 years, patients have streamed into the South African clinics where he has worked — migrant workers, malnourished children and pregnant women with HIV — coughing up blood. Some were so emaciated, he could see their ribs. They’d breathed in the contagious bacteria from a cough on a crowded bus or in the homes of loved ones who didn’t know they had TB. Once infected, their best option was to spend months swallowing pills that often carried terrible side effects. Many died.
So, when Martinson joined a call in April 2018, he was anxious for the verdict about a tuberculosis vaccine he’d helped test on hundreds of people.
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The Straits Times ☛ Tokyo’s Shibuya mayor asks Halloween revellers to stay away, fearing repeat of 2022 Seoul crowd crush
This is the first Halloween since Japan fully lifted its Covid-19-related border restrictions.
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The Kent Stater ☛ University falls short of pre-pandemic enrollment numbers with growing student population
The fall 2023 Fifteenth-Day report counted 25,283 students on the Kent Campus, short of the 26,804 students reported by the fall 2019 Fifteenth-Day report. The university’s highest enrollment in the last decade was fall 2016, which counted 29,105 students on the Kent Campus.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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The Register UK ☛ Human knocks down woman in hit-and-run. Then driverless Cruise car parks on top of her
The accident occurred on Monday in the US city's downtown, near the intersection of Market and Fifth Streets, at 2135 PT. Both vehicles started moving after traffic lights turned green, though the pedestrian was still in the crosswalk, Cruise told the San Francisco Chronicle.
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CNBC ☛ San Francisco woman trapped under autonomous Cruise vehicle after being struck in hit and run
The hit-and-run driver struck the pedestrian as both cars were crossing Market Street. The pedestrian did not appear to be using a marked crosswalk. The woman was thrown across the hit-and-run vehicle into the right lane where the Cruise vehicle was driving. The Cruise vehicle came to an immediate stop after the impact. NBC Bay Area reported that the woman was trapped underneath the left rear axle of the vehicle and that San Francisco Fire was forced to use the "jaws of life" to extricate her.
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NBC ☛ Hit-and-run driver strikes pedestrian, tossing her into path of Cruise car in San Francisco
Rescuers found the woman pinned beneath the left rear axel of the Cruise vehicle, according to San Francisco Fire Department Capt. Justin Schorr. After Cruise disabled the car remotely, rescuers were then "able to get the car up off her" and used the jaws of life to free her.
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GO Media ☛ Cruise Taxi Runs Over, Pins Woman Hit By Other Car To The Ground
Last night, a car in San Francisco hit a woman as she crossed the street. An adjacent Cruise robotaxi then parked on the woman’s leg, trapping her in place until emergency crews could forcibly remove the car. The San Francisco Chronicle spoke with eyewitnesses and first responders, and compiled a timeline of the incident: [...]
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San Fancisco ☛ Driver hits woman in S.F., then Cruise driverless car runs her over; photo shows victim trapped
According to Cruise, the pedestrian was in the crosswalk. The San Francisco Police Department said it could not immediately confirm that information.
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Security Week ☛ Apple Warns of Newly Exploited iOS 17 Kernel Zero-Day
The Cupertino device maker on Wednesday rushed out a new patch to cover a pair of serious vulnerabilities and warned that one of the issues has already been exploited as zero-day in the wild.
In a barebones advisory, Apple said the exploited CVE-2023-42824 kernel vulnerability allows a local attacker to elevate privileges, suggesting it was used in an exploit chain in observed attacks.
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Riccardo Mori ☛ Apple’s DNA and Europe’s DMA
Prosser’s video first points out how the appearance of USB‑C in iPhones is remarkable because for the first time in Apple’s history, it’s not exactly there because Apple chose to go this route, but it was a decision heavily influenced by EU legislation and its Digital Markets Act. Prosser theorises that this turning point — Apple’s compliance with government legislation — may very well be the beginning of the end for Apple. Because now that the EU Commission has successfully forced Apple’s hand, like the story of the mouse and the cookie, the EU will want more, the EU will require Apple to make changes to their products in ways that go against Apple’s own direction, and ultimately against Apple’s DNA. This is what Prosser calls ‘the end of Apple’.
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LWN ☛ AI from a legal perspective [Ed: Lindberg is a corporate shill pushing for openwashing and fake "openness"]
The AI boom is clearly upon us, but there are still plenty of questions swirling around this technology. Some of those questions are legal ones and there have been lawsuits filed to try to get clarification—and perhaps monetary damages. Van Lindberg is a lawyer who is well-known in the open-source world; he came to Open Source Summit Europe 2023 in Bilbao, Spain to try to put the current work in AI into its legal context.
Lindberg began by introducing himself; he has been involved in computer law for around 25 years at this point. Throughout that time he also worked in open source (notably as the former General Counsel for the Python Software Foundation). He has also been working on AI issues since 2008, so he is well-positioned to assist in those matters now that "the entire world started going crazy about AI".
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Japan ☛ Bitcoin’s power-hungry history offers lessons for AI’s future
Though most customers will be opting for something less fancy than the Superchip, they do buy processors in bulk to connect together into a massive AI server and that is where the hunger for electricity really kicks in. One study published last year looked at the energy consumption required to train a single large language model used to output text in multiple languages.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Silicon Angle ☛ UK passes Online Safety Bill, vows to tame the ‘Wild West’ of online communications
The British government today passed the controversial and groundbreaking Online Safety Bill after the legislation received the green light in what was the final parliamentary debate on the matter. -
The Register UK ☛ Microsoft attempts to woo governments with Cloud for Sovereignty preview
Microsoft has also unveiled Transparency Logs, where sovereignty customers are given visibility into occasions where Microsoft engineers accessed their resources. A handy tool, for sure, and we're not sure why this could not be extended to all customers – Customer Lockbox, for example, is a paid service. Microsoft said: "These transparency logs give sovereign customers visibility above and beyond what the Azure commercial cloud currently provides."
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DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer) ☛ Windows Defender Flags Tor Browser as “Trojan Horse” Malware.
The United States has committed cyberwarfare using Windows, to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program, with malware like Flame and Stuxnet, which set up on millions of Windows computers and completely eluded anti-virus programs for years.
China and Russia target Windows. Lots of governments do things like this.
Why do these go undetected for years? Are the government attackers really that good at hiding it, or do the anti-virus companies suck that much, or are they told not to do anything? Some of each?
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EFF ☛ See What We Accomplished Together in EFF's 2022 Annual Report
2022 was a big year: we had 17 legal and legislative victories, and an average of 78 press mentions per day globally. EFF spoke with the power of 34,500 members worldwide on issues at the local, state, federal, and international levels.
We conducted original investigations and shared critical digital privacy information with the public. For example, EFF exposed Fog Data Science, a shadowy company that sells geolocation information of hundreds of millions of Americans to law enforcement agencies. We found that Fog Data Science provides law enforcement with easy and often warrantless access to the precise and continuous geolocation of hundreds of millions of Americans, collected through a wide range of smartphone apps and then aggregated by intermediary data brokers. We worked with the Associated Press for an exclusive story, which was carried by hundreds if not thousands of subscribers in English, Spanish, French, German, Polish, Chinese, and Japanese. It also generated significant secondary attention via requests for interviews at other media outlets, and an op-ed in Slate. Lawmakers from Oregon and California cited our investigation in their comments to the Federal Trade Commission urging them to investigate Fog Data Science’s practices.
EFF continued our fight for digital medical privacy, creating a principled guide for platforms to respect users’ rights to privacy and bodily autonomy, and working with legislators on commonsense privacy legislation to protect not only health-related data but the full range of consumer data that could be weaponized against patients and providers alike. We also researched apps used by daycare centers to collect and share information about children with their parents—finding that the apps are dangerously insecure. We encouraged parents to become advocates and published basic recommendations, such as implementing two-factor authentication, to help parents push for better security for their children’s sensitive information.
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Site36 ☛ New EU biometrics system: Frontex and German Police develop app for EU travelers
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Site36 ☛ Europe’s drone agency: Frontex paves the way for military drones in domestic airspace
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Defence/Aggression
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RFA ☛ Three Filipino fishermen dead after foreign vessel 'rams' boat
The incident took place on Monday near the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.
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The Straits Times ☛ 3 Philippine fishermen dead after South China Sea ramming by oil tanker
The boat was transiting waters 157km north-west of the disputed Scarborough Shoal.
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RFA ☛ Seoul, Tokyo to resume financial talks amid geopolitical risks
Collaboration would fend off potential spillover financial risks from China’s shaky property market.
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RFA ☛ Conflict in Myanmar’s Shan state drives 1,000 civilians into China
The military’s recent use of air power and artillery prompted the exodus.
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RFA ☛ Big Chinese state-owned enterprises setting up army-linked militias
A major government-backed developer in Shanghai is the latest to launch its People’s Armed Forces department.
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The Straits Times ☛ Taiwan says China has ‘very diverse’ ways of interfering in election
China has increased military activities around Taiwan since the last election in 2020.
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The Straits Times ☛ Choppy waters as Europe navigates China-US rivalry
At a World Trade Organization event in September, former British prime minister Gordon Brown voiced out loud the fear that has quietly started to echo in the halls of power across Europe.
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The Straits Times ☛ North Korea criticises new US strategy on weapons of mass destruction
It accused the US of increasing nuclear threats, citing joint military drills with South Korea.
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Zimbabwe ☛ American experts on why ChatGPT is not available in Zimbabwe
On the U.S. tour, we got to meet a number of lawyers and policymakers and I would ask why services like ChatGPT are not available in countries like Zimbabwe. See, OpenAI does not really give reasons why we are cut off and so we are forced to speculate.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Border checks back in several European countries
Slovakia reported that around 40,000 undocumented migrants, mainly from the Middle East, entered the country since the beginning of the year, many coming through Hungary.
The controls include spot checks at road, rail and waterway crossings.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ EU ambassadors reach migration reform deal
The agreement will form the basis of further negotiations between member states and the European Parliament. The measures are likely to be voted on next year.
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American Oversight ☛ In the Documents: Allegations of Interference by Election Denial Group During 2022 Michigan Recounts
Last year, one such group in Michigan — the Election Integrity Fund and Force (EIF) — was behind recounts of two ballot initiatives, one that expanded voting rights and another that enshrined the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. EIF recruited and trained challengers to monitor recount sites, and according to reporting by Votebeat following the December recounts, election officials encountered problems with some challengers who had attempted to touch ballots they wanted rejected or had threatened officials with criminal charges.
An email obtained by American Oversight provides more details about complaints from public interest groups about the conduct of EIF challengers who were disturbing the recount process, including by touching election materials, entering certain areas without authorization, or threatening and harassing workers.
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Marcy Wheeler ☛ Elon Musk’s Machine for Fascism: A Tale of Three Elections
Since the spring (when I first started writing this post), I’ve been trying to express what I think Elon Musk intended to do with his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, to turn it into a Machine for Fascism.
Ben Collins wrote a piece — which he has been working on even longer than I have on this post — that led me to return to it.
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Meduza ☛ Grozny police decline to investigate Ramzan Kadyrov’s son for beating defenseless prisoner — Meduza
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RFERL ☛ Russia, U.S. Confirm Talks Including EU Held On Karabakh Before Baku's Military Takeover
Russia and the United States on October 4 confirmed reports that talks were held along with EU officials before Azerbaijan's lightning military operation that allowed it to retake the ethnic Armenian-held breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
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YLE ☛ Several Finnish websites report cyber-attacks
Several sites reported slowness or shutdowns after a Russian hacker group said it was launching denial-of-service attacks.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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The Straits Times ☛ German sanctions officers raid Russian citizen's properties in Bavaria
October 05, 2023 6:14 PM
German police and customs officers on Thursday searched several properties in southern Germany belonging to a Russian national in relation to assets frozen under European Union sanctions, customs officials said.
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YLE ☛ Finland joining Nato was 'act of peace,' Sanna Marin tells UCLA students
"The only border that Russia will not cross is Nato's. That's why Finland is now a member of Nato," she told students at a university speaking event in Los Angeles.
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YLE ☛ Man who delivered electronics to Russia sentenced on money-laundering charges
A man from Lappeenranta appealed his conviction for aggravated money laundering, but it was upheld by the appeals court.
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CS Monitor ☛ Big leaps to escape Russia’s orbit
Armenia joins the International Criminal Court, the latest move among former Soviet states to affirm civic principles different from the Kremlin’s.
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RFERL ☛ FIFA Lifts Ban On Russia Under-17 Teams Competing In International Soccer
World soccer governing body FIFA on October 4 said it had lifted Russia's ban from international soccer by allowing under-17 girls and boys teams from the country to take part in tournaments.
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LRT ☛ Lithuania expects to receive air defence capabilities from Sweden, Finland – minister
As Lithuania seeks allies to contribute to the recently agreed rotational air defence model in the Baltic states, Defence Minister Arvydas Anušauskas says he expects Finland and Sweden to contribute to the effort.
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Meduza ☛ Russia to force hospitals and private clinics to share potential conscripts’ patient records with military enlistment offices — Meduza
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Atlantic Council ☛ Putin’s fleet retreats: Ukraine is winning the Battle of the Black Sea
Putin was already struggling to account for his army’s evident inability to conquer a nation that he insists does not exist. He must now also explain how his once vaunted Black Sea Fleet is being defeated by a country without a navy, writes Peter Dickinson.
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AntiWar ☛ Beyond the Neocon Debacle and Towards Peace in Ukraine
We are entering the end stage of the 30-year U.S. neoconservative debacle in Ukraine. The neocon plan to surround Russia in the Black Sea region by NATO has failed. Decisions now by the U.S. and Russia will matter enormously for peace, security, and wellbeing for the entire world.
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The Kent Stater ☛ Exclusive: US will transfer weapons seized from Iran to Ukraine
The US will transfer thousands of seized Iranian weapons and rounds of ammunition to Ukraine, in a move that could help to alleviate some of the critical shortages facing the Ukrainian military as it awaits more money and equipment from the US and its allies, US officials said.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Are Americans more supportive of Ukraine than Congress is?
New polling provides further evidence that American public support for Ukraine remains robust and bipartisan, and may even be more forward-leaning than the opinions of many in Congress or the White House.
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France24 ☛ 🔴 Live: Ukraine says more than 26,000 people missing since full-scale Russian invasion last year
Ukraine said Thursday that thousands of people, including many civilians, were unaccounted for since Russia launched its full-scale invasion last year. The news comes after President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he was in the Spanish city of Granada to attend a summit bringing together leaders of almost 50 European countries.
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France24 ☛ US sends Ukraine 1.1 million rounds of seized Iranian ammunition
The US has transferred to Ukraine 1.1 million rounds of ammunition that it seized from Iran, US Central Command confirmed Wednesday in a statement. The delivery was announced after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv was doing "everything" to make sure the war-torn country receives more air defence systems in the next few months.
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LRT ☛ No EU support envisaged for Ukrainian grain transit via Klaipėda – commissioner
The European Union has no plans, at least for now, to support the transit of Ukrainian grain through Lithuania, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius said on Thursday.
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RFERL ☛ Ukraine Says More Than 26,000 People Missing Since Start Of Full-Scale Invasion
More than 26,000 people have gone missing -- almost half of them civilians -- since the start of Russia's unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Leonid Tymchenko told state television on October 5.
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RFERL ☛ Award-Winning Journalist And RFE/RL Contributor Missing In Russian-Occupied Territory
Award-winning Ukrainian freelance journalist and RFE/RL contributor Viktoria Roshchina has been missing since she went on a reporting trip to Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine more than two months ago.
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RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy In Spain For European Summit In Push To Ward Off Donor Fatigue
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has arrived in Granada, Spain, for a summit of European leaders as he steps up efforts to secure more military aid for Ukraine in its fight to repel Russia's unprovoked invasion amid signs in some allies of donor fatigue as the war nears its 20th month.
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RFERL ☛ Global Red Cross Urges Ouster Of Belarus Chapter Chief Who Boasted Of Bringing In Ukrainian Children
The international Red Cross called for the ouster of the head of the Belarusian Red Cross, who stirred international outrage for boasting it was actively ferrying Ukrainian children from Russian-controlled areas to Belarus.
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RFERL ☛ U.S. Sends Ukraine 1.1 Million Rounds Of Ammunition Seized From Iran
The United States has transferred to Ukraine 1.1 million rounds of small-arms ammunition it seized from Iran, U.S. Central Command said on October 4.
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RFERL ☛ Ukrainian, Azerbaijani Leaders Affirm 'Territorial Integrity' In Talks
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on October 4 said he and Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev both "affirmed our commitment to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity" during a telephone conservation.
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RFERL ☛ Ukraine's Economy Set To Continue To Grow Next Year, IMF Official Says
Ukraine's economy is adapting well to the wartime environment following Russia's invasion and growth will continue next year, a top International Monetary Fund (IMF) official said on October 4.
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CS Monitor ☛ For these Ukrainian volunteers, mission is to bring elders out of harm’s way
Fleeing one’s home in war is often a difficult choice to make, but it is particularly so for Ukraine’s seniors, who have survived hard times before. It often falls upon volunteers to bring them to safety.
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New York Times ☛ A Wartime Election in Ukraine? It’s a Political Hot Potato.
In normal circumstances, President Volodymyr Zelensky would be running for re-election next spring. Analysts say an election is unlikely, but the prospect is causing some anxiety in Kyiv.
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New York Times ☛ Russia-Ukraine War : Biden Worries U.S. Political Tumult Could Disrupt Aid to Ukraine
The president emphasized bipartisan support for the assistance, as a power struggle in the Republican Party has left the House of Representatives without a leader and brought legislative business to a halt.
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New York Times ☛ US Sends Ukraine 1.1 Million Rounds of Ammunition Seized from Iran
The military transferred rounds for machine guns that it said had been bound for Yemen.
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Latvia ☛ 3,255 Russians will receive letters asking them to leave Latvia
The Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (PMLP) has sent out 3,255 information letters about the expiry of residence permits to those Russian citizens who have not submitted documents requesting the status of a long-term resident of the European Union (EU), PMLP Chief Maira Roze told Latvian Television on October 5.
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LRT ☛ Over 3,000 Russians will receive letters asking them to leave Latvia
Latvia’s Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (PMLP) has sent out 3,255 letters about the expiry of residence permits to Russian citizens, the Latvian public broadcaster LSM reports.
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Environment
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France24 ☛ Pope warns world 'is collapsing' due to climate change, urges action at COP28
Eight years after his landmark thesis outlined the devastation of manmade climate change, the 86-year-old pontiff published a follow-up that warned that some damage was "already irreversible".
"With the passage of time, I have realised that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point," he wrote in the 12-page letter.
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Axios ☛ "Gobsmackingly" warm September was Earth's hottest on record
The big picture: Following the hottest June through August on record, and the globe's hottest ever month in July, last month's preliminary data has astonished climate researchers who anticipated such extremes eventually.
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La Prensa Latina ☛ Ozone hole over Antarctica grows to one of the largest on record
This year, the ozone hole got off to an early start and has grown “rapidly” since mid-August, “making it one of the biggest ozone holes on record,” Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service senior scientist Antje Inness said in a statement. The size of the ozone hole is largely determined by the strength of a strong wind band that flows around the Antarctic area, a result of the rotation of the Earth and the oppositional temperature differences between polar and moderate latitudes.
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The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia has no plans to carry out cloud seeding operation to tackle haze
The govt would continue to monitor haze situation, said Malaysia's Environment Minister.
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YLE ☛ Finland sees warmest September on record
Last month the country saw average temperatures of around 16 degrees along the southern coast to just below eight degrees in northwestern Lapland.
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Site36 ☛ Complaint against water cannons: German police use excessive force against Dutch climate protest
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Energy/Transportation
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H2 View ☛ Electric Hydrogen raises $380m in funding to scale electrolyser systems
Electric Hydrogen (EH2) has raised $380m in Series C financing to accelerate its green hydrogen system manufacturing and deployment plans to meet customer demands.
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H2 View ☛ Tasmania receives funding to scale up its green hydrogen capacity
New funding has been announced to advance Tasmania’s green hydrogen production capability by 2025.
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YLE ☛ Chinese firm to build €1.3 billion battery-materials factory in Finland
Ningbo Shanshan is the world’s largest supplier of electric car battery materials.
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YLE ☛ Finland's Shell-branded petrol stations soon a thing of the past
The rebranding to St1 across three Nordic countries will take place after a license agreement expires.
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Texas Public Radio ☛ Texas paid a bitcoin miner more than $31 million to power down during heat wave
According to the company’s monthly report, it curtailed its power usage by more than 95% during peak demand by powering down its computers that were grinding out bitcoins.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Cryptocurrency fraud: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried on trial
The 31-year-old American faces seven counts of fraud and conspiracy, including accusations that he embezzled money from FTX depositors. The trial in New York began on October 3 with the process of selecting the jury and is expected to last six weeks.
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New York Times ☛ ‘Lied to the World’ or Acted in ‘Good Faith’: Sam Bankman-Fried’s Trial Opens
A onetime [cryptocurrency] wunderkind, Mr. Bankman-Fried, 31, became a tousle-haired billionaire virtually overnight, only to see his company collapse last year and his fortune evaporate. He has been charged with orchestrating a conspiracy to use $10 billion that FTX’s customers had entrusted to him for all manner of personal projects, including venture capital investments, political donations and luxury real estate purchases.
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H2 View ☛ Alstom unveils Italy’s ‘first’ zero-emission train planned for hydrogen valley
The locomotive is expected to be Italy’s first zero direct carbon dioxide emission train, boasting hydrogen fuel cells, a 260-passenger capacity, and a range of more than 600km.
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Vice Media Group ☛ A Computer Model Is Causing Years of Delays for Amtrak's New High-Speed Trains, Scathing Audit Finds
A scathing new report paints a bleak picture of Amtrak’s highly profitable Acela route: trains are running out of spare parts, the new fleet is years delayed and not even close to entering service, and the current fleet is being maintained by harvesting the corpses of old trains and running unsupported software on old circuit boards made by companies that no longer exist.
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DeSmog ☛ Carbon Capture Is Risky But We Need It, Say Tory MPs At Chevron-Sponsored Event
Conservative MPs gave resounding backing to the fossil fuel industry this week at a conference event paid for by U.S. oil giant Chevron.
The panel “Can fossil fuel companies play a role in the energy transition?” was hosted on Tuesday in Manchester by Conservative think tank Bright Blue and Chevron.
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DeSmog ☛ Revealed: Meetings Blitz Between Big Ag and Anti-Green Lawmakers in Europe
Agriculture lobby groups have been in constant contact with a small group of influential European politicians, holding an average of over two meetings a week while the bloc negotiated flagship reforms to protect nature and climate, DeSmog can reveal.
Between January 2020 and July 2023, over 400 meetings took place between industry and key members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who have been at the forefront of efforts to stall reforms since the Farm to Fork strategy launched in 2020.
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DeSmog ☛ Revealed: Fossil Fuel Giants Have Committed £41 Million to UK Universities Since 2022
Major fossil fuel firms have committed tens of millions in finance to UK universities since 2022, DeSmog can reveal.
Many of these commitments have been accepted by institutions that have actively pledged to divest from oil and gas companies.
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uni Stanford ☛ Letter to the Editor | Across diverse backgrounds, we are more aligned on how to approach Stanford’s fossil fuel engagement than you might think
Six graduate students speak up on the Doerr School's entanglement with fossil fuel companies, suggesting a set of recommendations for Stanford's Committee on Funding of Energy Research and Education.
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Wildlife/Nature
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YLE ☛ WWF calls for restrictions on most Baltic herring
The Baltic Sea's main herring stocks have fallen below target levels, which is an alarming sign of changes in the sea's ecosystem, according to WWF Finland.
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Finance
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YLE ☛ Finland's 'biggest landlord' raising rents by average of 12%
The city-owned Helsinki City Housing Company Heka says that rents for its more than 1,600 flats will rise because of higher operating costs and interest rates.
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YLE ☛ Helsinki faces Finland's worst-ever labour shortage
Thousands of nurses, early childhood education teachers and doctors will retire in Helsinki in the next few years.
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New York Times ☛ TikTok Shuts Shop Feature in Indonesia Following Ban
TikTok’s retail ambitions have confronted an obstacle in its second-largest market, which views the app as a threat to local businesses.
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Reason ☛ The Debt Crisis Is Getting Real
Rising bond yields mean the national debt is going to be a lot more expensive in the next few years, and we just keep adding to it.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Beijing says US congressional visit can enhance lawmakers’ ‘objective understanding of China’
Beijing, China Beijing said on Wednesday it welcomed an upcoming visit to China by US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other senior lawmakers, saying it hoped the trip would enhance their “understanding” of the country.
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RFA ☛ Myanmar company director and regional officials ‘arrested in China’
Nearly a dozen businessmen from Shan state reportedly detained while attending a trade fair
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RFA ☛ Taiwan communist party leaders indicted for ‘infiltration’
Lin Te-wang and Cheng Chien-hsin were accused of colluding with China
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New York Times ☛ An 8-Year-Old Is at the Heart of a Fight Over Tibetan Buddhism
He may have to defend the faith in Mongolia against pressure from China’s ruling Communist Party.
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RFERL ☛ Kyrgyz Investigative Group Says Charity Led By President's Wife Received Foreign Funding
A Kyrgyz investigative group says a charity led by the country's first lady received huge funding from foreign sources, even as the government seeks to adopt a law that would allow it to register organizations receiving financing from abroad or foreign nationals as "foreign representatives."
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The Straits Times ☛ New Zealand's National Party looks to cement lead 30 days out from election
Thirty days out from New Zealand’s general election, recent polls show the opposition party National cementing its lead, as both parties are on the campaign trail trying to win over voters with proposed tax cuts and funding for infrastructure.
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LRT ☛ Lithuania to lose millions in EU funding if it fails to carry out reforms
Lithuania is yet to inform Brussels about the Law on Real Estate for the European Commission to unblock 26 million euros in Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) funding.
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LRT ☛ Lithuania risks losing EU funding if tax reform stalls – EU Commissioner Dombrovskis
Lithuania must push forward with key reforms, such as its stalled tax changes, or risk losing millions of euros in EU funding, European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis has said.
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YLE ☛ Finnish Customs criticise government plans to cut funding
The agency argues that it has been allocated proportionately-less funding compared to the Police and the Finnish Border Guard.
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teleSUR ☛ S. Sudan: Humanitarian Agencies to Reduce Aid, Funding Gaps
"We have worked closely with the government of South Sudan to ensure we are reaching communities most in need of assistance. The simple fact is that there are not enough resources available to the humanitarian community to meet the needs in South Sudan," Walker said.
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Techdirt ☛ 5th Circuit Continues To 5th Circuit, Issues Yet Another Version Of Its Injunction, This Time Including CISA
Look, I don’t want to suggest that maybe the 5th Circuit’s analysis on issues in the Missouri v. Biden case is not particularly well considered, but, um, it’s not at all clear that the 5th Circuit’s analysis on the Missouri v. Biden case is well considered. After all, the original ruling made a series of embarrassing factual errors, falsely presenting comments by White House officials as being about content moderation when they were not, and failing to highlight how certain speech was coercive beyond “we think it is.” It also failed to attribute many of the comments it quoted, so it was impossible to backtrack who said what and in what context, and further failed to distinguish between different platforms who acted very differently.
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Democracy Now ☛ A New Occupation Force? Haitians Denounce U.N. Vote to Deploy U.S.-Backed, Kenyan-Led Troops
The United Nations Security Council has approved an international armed force to address spiraling gang violence in Haiti, where street battles have paralyzed the capital Port-au-Prince since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. The U.N. mission, which came at the repeated request of Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry, is being led by Kenya, marking the first deployment of international security forces to Haiti in nearly 20 years. The U.S.-backed proposal received 13 votes in favor, with Russia and China abstaining, and allows foreign troops to remain in Haiti for one year. “This validates the criminal government of Ariel Henry,” says Haitian pro-democracy advocate Monique Clesca, who says the $100 million the U.S. has pledged to support the U.N. mission would have been better used to support civil society. “The big problem right now is the governance system.” We also speak with UC Irvine’s Mamyrah Prosper, host of the podcast Haiti: Our Revolution Continues, who says many Haitians are rightly skeptical given the history of foreign interventions in the country, including by U.N. troops. “This is not the first time that the Security Council has voted to send what Haitians are calling an occupation force,” says Prosper. “These missions don’t really come in, in fact, to protect the population. They are there to protect multinational investments.”
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Democracy Now ☛ Rep. Ro Khanna: It Is “Unfortunate” Gov. Newsom Didn’t Appoint Barbara Lee for Feinstein’s Seat
Laphonza Butler was sworn in Tuesday to fill the California Senate seat of the late Senator Dianne Feinstein, who died last week at age 90. This makes Butler the only Black woman currently in the Senate and the first out Black lesbian in Congress — but the appointment also frustrated many progressives who had been pushing for Congressmember Barbara Lee to get the nod. Congressmember Ro Khanna, co-chair of Lee’s Senate campaign, says it was “unfortunate” that California Governor Gavin Newsom didn’t name her. Although Butler would be a “formidable candidate” if she runs for the seat in 2024, Khanna predicts that Lee can still win. “She has a record that speaks volumes for the type of country we need to be,” says Khanna.
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Democracy Now ☛ Chaos in Congress: Rep. Ro Khanna on Historic Ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy
Democrats united Tuesday to join a revolt by far-right Republicans to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy after just nine months on the job. No other speaker in U.S. history has ever been voted out, and the unprecedented development has thrown the House into deeper chaos and ground legislation to a halt. Republican Patrick McHenry of North Carolina has taken up the speaker’s gavel temporarily, but who can unite the party’s fractious caucus remains a mystery. “Congress is at a halt, at a standstill,” says Congressmember Ro Khanna, who blames far-right Republicans for being more focused on theatrics than on governing. “There is no effort to actually address the economic issues, the kitchen-table issues that affect the American public.”
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Techdirt ☛ Trump FCC Pick Nathan Simington Wants You To Think Net Neutrality Is A Secret Cabal By Big Tech To ‘Censor Conservatives’
The modern authoritarian GOP knows its radical policies are widely unpopular, which is why it increasingly needs to rely on propaganda. That’s also why the party pretends that absolutely any effort to moderate online political propaganda is “censorship.” With young voters turning away from the GOP in record numbers, propaganda, gerrymandering, and race-baiting anti-democratic bullshit is all the party has.
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Off Guardian ☛ US testing “Emergency Alert System” later today
The Federal government will be testing its nationwide “Emergency Alert System” (EAS) and “Wireless Emergency Alerts” (WEA) today – Wednesday October 4th – at 2.20pm Eastern time. The WEA allows the Federal government to send a simultaneous message to every cellphone in the country, regardless of network, supposedly to notify people of emergencies. …
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Censorship/Free Speech
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JURIST ☛ Lawmakers in Bosnia’s Republika Srpska pass ‘foreign agent’ law, drawing condemnation from EU
The EU expressed concern on Thursday over a decision by lawmakers in Bosnia’s autonomous Republika Srpska to pass a draft law that labels non-governmental organizations (NGOs) supported by foreign funding as “foreign agents.”
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El País ☛ Saudi Arabia punishes critical tweets with the death penalty or 45 years in prison
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy in which the king controls the legislative, executive and judicial powers. There is no separation of powers or rule of law. The crown prince has “more power than any other member of the Saud family since the founding of the kingdom,” in the words of journalists Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck, in their book Blood and Oil. Shortly after Mohammed bin Salman — who currently exercises the power that formally corresponds to his father, the 87-year-old King Salman — was named heir to the kingdom, the new anti-terrorist law was sanctioned, allowing for convictions such as the one affecting the professor sentenced to death.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Man with white flowers arrested in Hong Kong on China’s National Day holiday
Videos on social media showed the man, dressed in a black t-shirt with characters reading “Hong Kong add oil” on it – a phrase of encouragement that roughly translates to “come on” – outside Sogo department store. He was also holding up white flowers. In Chinese culture, white flowers represent death and are often used in funeral arrangements.
When asked by plainclothes police officers to display his Hong Kong identity card, the man did not respond and began swearing, according to the video clips. After multiple warnings, three officers then pinned the man down and tied his hands behind his back as he struggled.
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The Register UK ☛ Russia to ban all VPNs – again – says senator
The report suggests that Roskomnadzor will intervene to stop VPNs from reaching resources banned within Russian borders.
Which sounds like a big win for Vladimir Putin's regime of pervasive censorship – save for the fact that he's been trying to crack down on VPNs for years with precious little success.
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Meduza ☛ RT executive Margarita Simonyan launches defamation suit after suggesting Russia should blow up nuclear bomb ‘somewhere over Siberia’ — Meduza
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Reason ☛ Idaho Man Sued For Defamation After Speaking Out Against Local Airstrip
Critics have argued the legal action is a meritless SLAPP suit.
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RFERL ☛ Attacks On Free Expression Online 'Grew More Common' Around The World
Rights watchdog Freedom House said global Internet freedom declined for the 13th consecutive year in 2023 as attacks on freedom of expression grew more common.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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The Straits Times ☛ India police raid media office and journalists’ homes in illegal funding probe
Police arrested the founder and editor-in-chief of online news portal NewsClick and a journalist.
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The Straits Times ☛ India police raid media office, journalists' homes in illegal funding probe
Police reportedly arrest the founder and editor-in-chief of online news portal NewsClick and a journalist working there.
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Kansas Reflector ☛ Police chief embarrassed Marion with newspaper raid. His resignation was necessary, but not enough.
Cody never quite understood why his overreach created a national frenzy. He huffed and puffed and defended his officers. But each revelation made clear that he couldn’t be trusted to oversee the department.
“If they were any other Joe Citizen, no one would think twice,” he told the Washington Post in August. “But because they’re journalists, I am being attacked everywhere.”
Yes, chief. That’s the point. That’s why you had to go.
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ANF News ☛ Journalist Ayşenur Arslan released
The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) launched an investigation against Halk TV and Arslan due to the statements Arslan used after the attack in Ankara, and Halk TV Concessionaire Cafer Mahiroğlu announced that the Medya Mahallesi (Media Quarter) program presented by Arslan was taken off the air.
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EDRI ☛ Will the European Parliament walk the talk and protect journalists?
The harms of spyware are well-known and documented. In 2021, we found out about the over 180 journalists in 20 countries, including Hungary, Spain and France, whose phones were infected by the Pegasus spyware, often by their own countries’ governments.
It became immensely clear that spyware lets governments get unchecked and unlimited access to a person’s communications, intimate photos, personal contacts and online behaviour data — everything without the knowledge of the victim.
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Meduza ☛ ‘Their father is a hero’: A Dagestani columnist was sentenced to 17 years on fabricated charges. His wife talks about the terrorism trial and how their four children are coping. — Meduza
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Civil Rights/Policing
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RFA ☛ Vietnam police extend detention of former prisoner of conscience
Le Minh The is being investigated for ‘abusing democratic freedoms.’
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New York Times ☛ An Ambitious Antiracism Center Scales Back Amid a Funding Slowdown
Ibram X. Kendi, the center’s leader who has become a flashpoint of national controversy, also faces an inquiry into the center’s management.
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Federal News Network ☛ Massachusetts has a huge waitlist for state-funded housing. So why are 2,300 units vacant?
Massachusetts has about 184,000 people on a waitlist for the state’s public housing. Yet a WBUR and ProPublica investigation found that nobody is living in nearly 2,300 state-funded apartments, with most sitting empty for months or years due to state and local mismanagement. Units have been vacant for years because the state implemented a flawed online waitlist system and has provided insufficient funding for staff and building repairs.
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Helsinki Times ☛ Discrimination-free workplace requires concrete legislative actions
Akava, a leading trade union confederation in Finland, has welcomed the Finnish government's announcement on enhancing equality and non-discrimination but stresses the need for concrete legislative changes and funding decisions. While acknowledging the government's commitment to promoting equality, the union emphasizes the importance of action beyond just declarations.
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ACLU ☛ Florida’s Statewide Prosecution of Voting with a Past Conviction is Unlawful
After Ronald Miller registered to vote in 2020, the State of Florida sent him a voter information card in the mail. Mr. Miller did not find out that a prior felony conviction made him ineligible to register or vote until, in 2022, Florida state officers arrested him. Now, Mr. Miller is one of several returning citizens that Florida’s Office of Statewide Prosecution (OSP) is prosecuting for making what appear to be good-faith mistakes about their voter eligibility. Rather than helping their citizens understand Florida’s complicated voter eligibility rules, the State has instead resorted to these intimidating, anti-democratic prosecutions.
Today, we — along with our partners at the ACLU of Florida, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the Brennan Center for Justice — filed an amicus brief in Mr. Miller’s case highlighting OSP’s unlawful prosecution against Mr. Miller and other returning citizens in Florida, which disproportionately implicate Black citizens.
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YLE ☛ Lutheran archbishop slams government’s programme, defends church’s right to social criticism
Archbishop Tapio Luoma of Finland's Evangelical Lutheran Church argues the government is over-stressing the importance of work, which he says is not a measure of human dignity.
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ANF News ☛ 16-year-old Kurdish girl attacked by the Iranian "morality police" in a coma for three days
According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Association, citing eyewitnesses, an argument erupted after the morality police warned a group of girls to “wear the hijab properly”. Armita Girawend was battered and hit on the head during the quarrel, after which she fell down and moved on to the subway with the help of her friends. She is reported to have lost consciousness and gone into a coma afterwards.
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RFA ☛ ‘Lying flat’: Song about being young and poor goes viral in China
"Lying flat," also translated as "lying down," is a buzzword that concerns the ruling Chinese Communist Party, which has targeted online content linked to the idea and played down dire youth unemployment figures, insisting that young people get less picky about the jobs they will do and show a more positive attitude.
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Jacobin Magazine ☛ Unionized Starbucks Workers Are Considering Calling for a Boycott
In the wake of both a recent SBWU day of action and Cornell University’s announcement of plans to cut ties with the corporation, SBWU said in a statement to Jacobin: “Our campaign hasn’t yet called for a boycott, though it’s clear that Starbucks customers are fed up with the company’s union busting and are ready to take action.” The campaign expressed the need for and appreciation of customer solidarity as it has been demonstrated through past store adoptions and the customer pledge. “We understand the power of consumers in our fight for a better Starbucks,” SBWU said in the statement. “Their solidarity is part of how we will win our fight for a union and a fair first contract.”
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Quartz ☛ Bad bosses are harder to hide on remote teams
But the data is, in fact, in. Countless studies have proven the benefits that both employers and workers gain when working remotely. Our 2023 study across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America revealed that 69% of employers saw increased retention after adopting remote work, with 57% stating it’s easier to hire and retain talent. Moreover, only 17% of remote workers contemplated leaving their jobs, compared with 24% of office-based employees. Our data also discredits the recurring narrative that remote teams are less productive, with a remarkable 72% of employers with international remote teams reporting a boost in productivity.
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Techdirt ☛ New York Bans Facial Recognition Tech In Schools While Montana Decides Students Aren’t Covered By Its Statewide Ban
For the children. For the children. For the children.
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Pro Publica ☛ Louisiana Supreme Court Ruling Overturns Reform Law Intended to Fix “Three-Strikes” Sentences
In September, the Louisiana Supreme Court issued a ruling that appeared to be a major blow to criminal justice reformers seeking to shrink the state’s bloated prison population.
The 4-3 ruling struck down a law that empowered prosecutors to revisit and reduce excessive sentences through post-conviction plea agreements with defense attorneys. The law, which passed the state Legislature unanimously in 2021 and had the backing of the Louisiana District Attorneys Association, was meant to create a formal process to release prisoners serving decadeslong sentences, in many cases for relatively minor crimes, handed down under the state’s habitual offender, or “three strikes,” law.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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APNIC ☛ APNIC celebrates 30 years: Part 4 — Rundown to final /8 and the birth of IPv6
By mid-2005, it was predicted that by 2010 all the RIRs would have received their last allocations of address space from IANA, and have only small amounts of addresses to distribute — mainly comprising returns to the RIRs, small holes between larger blocks, and the remainder of whatever space IANA distributed last. Something would have to be done.
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Techdirt ☛ FCC Starts Taking ‘Space Junk’ More Seriously, Fines Dish For Parking Satellite In A Dumb Spot
While technologies like low orbit satellite can help shore up broadband access, they come with their own additional challenges. One being that services like Space X’s Starlink have cause potentially unavoidable light pollution, harming scientific research. The other being the exponential growth in space detritus, aka space junk, that will make space navigation increasingly difficult.
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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Digital Music News ☛ Will Spotify Pay Another $200 Million to Keep Joe Rogan Exclusive?
Joe Rogan helped cement Spotify’s place of dominance in the world of podcasting. Will the audio giant drop another $200 million to keep him exclusive? The landscape is vastly different three years later.
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Monopolies
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CS Monitor ☛ Big Tech monopolies? Amazon suit broadens an antitrust revival.
A new antitrust suit against Amazon represents the Biden administration’s latest step to aggressively oppose what it sees as growing monopoly power in the United States, particularly in the technology sectors of the economy.
As a retailer, Amazon sells just about anything. It’s also a digital platform for other companies to sell their products. The government’s suit alleges that Amazon has used this dual role to suppress lower-priced competition on rival platforms.
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Techdirt ☛ Google Accused Of Secretly Altering Search Queries To Drive More Ads And Sales
I know many of you have heard this before, but Cory Doctorow’s “enshittification” concept is such a useful framework to think about things:
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Patents
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Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ First months of the UPC: ‘A very special time for patent enthusiasts’ [Ed: UPC is illegal. It is also unconstitutional. This post is celebrating crime. The people who trashed the legal system did so for profit while everyone else suffers. Calling patent extremists, patent profiteers and trolls "patent enthusiasts" is just incredible.]
The start of the Unified Patent Court is a very special time for patent enthusiasts in Europe.
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Unified Patents ☛ Patent Dispute Report: Q3 2023 in Review
District litigation continues to slump with the notable absence of IP Edge and Cedar Lane. The multiple third-party funding disclosure requirements and decrease in filings show that those entities are rethinking their strategies. This has shifted the venue of choice between the Western and Eastern Districts of Texas are separated by five cases.
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Copyrights
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Torrent Freak ☛ Plex Sued for Copyright Infringement by Press Agency
Plex is a multi-functional streaming platform that allows users to watch, organize and curate their favorite media entertainment. Plex is cracking down on people who abuse its platform for copyright-infringing purposes, but also took action internally, after ZUMA Press filed a copyright infringement lawsuit at a California federal court.
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