Links 30/12/2023: 40% Surge in Tech Layoffs and Russian Weapons Over Poland
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- 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/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Ricardo García ☛ Year-end donations round, 2023 edition
As in previous years, I’ve made a small round of personal donations now that the year-end is approaching. This year I’ve changed my strategy a bit, donating a bit more and prioritizing software projects. My motivation to publish the list is to encourage others to donate and to give ideas for those looking for possible recipients.
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Jay Little ☛ Tying Up Tech Loose Ends : 2023 Edition
In any event, I received my Raspberry Pi 5 a few weeks ago and decided that it would serve as the deployment platform for my new camera software setup because I was operating under the assumption that the crappy video encodes were a hardware performance issue rather than a software issue (spoiler alert: this was not accurate). So last week I got cracking and installed the 64 bit version of Raspberry Pi OS on an external Samsung Fit USB drive because booting operating systems off of SD Cards is for suckers.
So what software did I decide to go with? ZoneMinder of course. To be frank, setting all of this up was a lot more painful and time consuming than setting up MotionEyeOS was as that was designed to be easily setup and maintained whereas this new setup was more of a full server type of setup as I would have to manage system updates on my own. I did this of course using the same auto update scripts that I use on my older but ultra-reliable Raspberry Pi400 file and media servers.
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Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Derek Sivers
This is the 18th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Derek Sivers and his blog, sive.rs
Derek is currently a writer but he's been many things in his life, from entrepreneur, to musician, to public speaker. He's also the creator of the /now page movement. I have a /now page thanks to him and so are many other people.
To follow this series subscribe to the newsletter. A new interview will land in your inbox every Friday. Not a fan of newsletters? No problem! You can read the interviews here on the blog or you can subscribe to the RSS feed.
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Nicholas Tietz-Sokolsky ☛ Reflecting on 2023, preparing for 2024
I thought last year was action-packed and, uh, this year has kind of set the new bar. It was literally a transformative year for me, but in the way of butterflies: I'm becoming the person I am meant to be. I'm going to list professional things first, then personal things, then community and broader events.
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Adriaan Zhang ☛ So Long, 2023
Along the way, I did end up getting a lot of new blogpost ideas, some of which I am currently working on. Time has been hard to come by ever since starting college, but I still think that blogging is just a great way to share cool stuff and I want to keep doing it.
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Hackaday ☛ How US Steel Changed From World-Leading To Industry-Trailing
It was recently announced that US Steel will be acquired by Tokyo-based Nippon Steel for a measly $14.1 billion , ending the former’s 122 year history as a former US industrial powerhouse. Yet what happened to degrade what was once the number one steel maker in the world upon its formation out of two existing industrial giants in 1901 into a has-been? This is the topic that [Brian Potter] dives into in a recent article.
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Defence Web ☛ SAPS continues crackdown on illegal mining operations
More than 90 people suspected of illegal mining have been arrested in various parts of Gauteng. In a statement on Friday, the South African Police Service (SAPS) in Gauteng said integrated law enforcement operations against disruptive illegal mining are conducted weekly, focusing on districts such as Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and the West Rand.
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Tedium ☛ 2024: Live Another Day
Tedium embraces year nine with another look-ahead. No, we didn’t make our own wall calendar this year, but we’ll still complain about wall calendars anyway.
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Ruben Schade ☛ Ordering my first nylon 3D printed part
NOTE: Posting about 3D printing is an exercise fraught with peril; you’ll always be told you used the wrong materials or hardware, that you bought it from the wrong place, that you should have done something else, and/or you’ll be lectured by an armchair chemist about formulations they read on Wikipedia. This post shows something that worked amazingly well for me in this specific use case, but it’s up to you to do research if you attempt one of these yourself.
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Valhalla's Things: I've been influenced
By the influencers on the famous proprietary video platform1.
When I’m crafting with no powertools I tend to watch videos, and this autumn I’ve seen a few in a row that were making red wool dresses, at least one or two medieval kirtles. I don’t remember which channels they were, and I’ve decided not to go back and look for them, at least for a time.
course.↩︎
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Science
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El País ☛ Who is my father? The psychological impact of at-home DNA tests
The number of people who decide to analyze their DNA through at-home genetic tests is on the rise, currently exceeding 30 million. Thanks to genetics, today it is possible to reveal biological family relationships, find our true ethnic origins and expose old family secrets, such as extramarital affairs or births that were possible through a donor. But discovering that the man who raised you is not biologically related to you can trigger a storm of emotions. The estimation of paternal discrepancies, or non-paternity events (NPEs), in the general population, according to data published by the International Society of Genetic Genealogy, can be as high as one in ten people.
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Science Alert ☛ Expert Traces The History of Time Thousands of Years Into The Past
An obsession for millennia.
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Science Alert ☛ This Simple 5-Minute Exercise Can Give Reading Skills a Powerful Boost
And it's free!
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Science Alert ☛ AI Detects Unusual Signal Hidden in a Famous Raphael Masterpiece
The mystery deepens.
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Science Alert ☛ Unique Flow of Information Identified in The Human Brain
We truly are one of a kind.
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Education
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The Atlantic ☛ Taylor Swift at Harvard
In some ways, the answer is simple. If the humanities ought to study culture, including the culture of the present day, and Taylor Swift is all over that culture, then of course we should ask why and how the Swift phenomenon came to be. That’s what a cultural historian of the future would do, looking back at how Americans embraced Swift as an artist, debated her rise, and changed their perceptions of her over time. It’s also what a cultural anthropologist would do, decoding the rituals around Swift’s concerts and album drops, or finding cross-cultural patterns in the way that her fans respond to her voice and her work.
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Hardware
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Zimbabwe ☛ I can’t help but miss the headphone jack, Bluetooth is not a worthy successor
Whatever we think we gained from losing the 3.5mm headphone jack on modern smartphones is not worth it.
The main reason (or excuse) we were given for why we lost the useful jack was “it creates space inside the phone that could be used for all sorts of cool stuff.” It’s possible, we’ll give them that, and the promise of bigger batteries sounded like it could be a good trade.
It’s been years now and smartphone battery sizes and battery lives have hardly changed, despite the space created by removing the headphone jack. So, what did we actually gain from losing it? We are still waiting for the “cool stuff” we were promised.
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Hackaday ☛ Flashlight Door Lock Is A Bright Idea
There are many ways to lock a door. You could use a keypad, an RFID card, a fingerprint or retina scan, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, the list goes on. You could even use a regular old metal key. But none of these may be as secure as [mircemk]’s Arduino-based door lock that employs a smartphone’s flashlight as a pass code.
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Hackaday ☛ This Baby ‘Scope Is Within Your Reach
The modern oscilloscope is truly a marvelous instrument, being a computer with a high-speed analogue front end which can deliver the function of an oscilloscope alongside that of a voltmeter and a frequency counter. They don’t cost much, and having one on your bench gives you an edge unavailable in a previous time. That’s not to dismiss older CRT ‘scopes though, the glow of a phosphor trace has illuminated many a fault finding procedure. These older instruments can even be pretty simple, as [Mircemk] demonstrates with a small home-made example that we have to admit to rather liking.
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Hackaday ☛ Sound-Reactive Light Saber Flips Allegiance Via Vowel Sounds
Students [Berk Gokmen] and [Justin Green] developed an RP2040-based LED-illuminated lightsaber as a final project with a bit of a twist. It has two unusual sound-reactive modes: disco mode, and vowel detection mode.
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Hackaday ☛ Peltier Mini Fridge For Class By Class
How do you keep a few sodas in your classroom cool? Well, if you are teacher [Ethan Hunt], you have your students design and build a solid-state mini refrigerator that can beat his prototype fridge. The prototype uses a Peltier effect module to get three cans down to 11 C (52 F), with a final goal of reaching 5 C (41 F). It’s not all fun and games either — [Ethan] provides a suggested lesson plan with a total of thirteen modules made to fit in an hour each.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Latvia ☛ Covid incidence stable in Latvia; flu infection spreads
While the number of infected and inpatient Covid-19 patients stabilized last week, the incidence of influenza is gradually increasing, the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (SPKC) reported December 28.
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Reason ☛ Brickbat: Making It Up As We Go Along
A report by the New Brunswick, Canada, auditor general's office found that the provincial Department of Public Health could not provide documentation to support any of a sample of 33 policy recommendations it made during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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BIA Net ☛ Challenges persist in Adıyaman 10 months after quakes
Ten months after the earthquakes, Adıyaman, one of the provinces most heavily hit by the February earthquakes, continues to wrestle with fundamental issues such as water and healthcare accessibility, unemployment, and a shortage of labor.
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RFERL ☛ Family Of Iranian Prisoner Warns Of Missed Medical Appointments
The family of Miryousef Younesi, a political prisoner held in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison, says it is concerned after a series of his specialized medical appointments were abruptly canceled.
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RFA ☛ Relatives say imprisoned Vietnamese journalist’s health declining
Le Huu Minh Tuan said during a visit this week that he is ‘too weak to bear any more.’
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Mexico News Daily ☛ Dengue cases on the rise in Guerrero
The virus has exploded in areas affected by Hurricane Otis, as public health officials try to curb mosquito populations.
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Latvia ☛ Latvia's emergency service awaits New Year with apprehension
The State Emergency Medical Service (NMPD) is expecting the new year with concern, said Liene Cipule, director of the service, in an interview with the Latvian Television on December 28.
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Latvia ☛ Parents' house at Children's hospital might have to depend on donations
Funding from the state and European Structural Funds for the Parents' House of the Children's Clinical University Hospital (BKUS) runs out next year and its maintenance will depend solely on donations in the future, Latvian Radio reported December 29.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Xbox Has Come Under Fire After Posting AI-Generated Art to Promote Indie Game Development [Ed: Did Microsoft sack all the artists? Plagiarism now?]
AI-generated art has been a controversial topic for a long time now, with AI platforms like Dall-E, Midjourney, Jasper, Photosonic, and others being used by many for art. While it is still debated, gamers and artists have always been against it for the imperfections in the art, and big corporations are choosing to squeeze a few bucks using AI.
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The Atlantic ☛ Where Will AI Take Us in 2024?
What will next year hold for AI? In a new story, Atlantic staff writer Ross Andersen looks ahead, outlining five key questions that will define the technology’s trajectory from here. A big one: How will it affect the election? “Many blamed the spread of lies through social media for enabling [Donald] Trump’s victory in 2016, and for helping him gin up a conspiratorial insurrection following his 2020 defeat,” Andersen writes. “But the tools of misinformation that were used in those elections were crude compared with those that will be available next year.”
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Off Guardian ☛ 2023: The Year of the Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Chaffbot Scare
VN Alexander 2023 was the year that an artificial intelligence (AI) known as ChatGPT-4 spectacularly passed the Turing Test. For a hundred million users, interacting with the Chat bot was indistinguishable from interacting with a human being. The bot appeared to be able to understand questions and reason out competent answers.
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India Today ☛ Google, Amazon, other tech giants have paused hirings in India: Story in 5 points
The starting of year 2023 witnessed a major upheaval in the tech industry, with layoffs and concerns about job security shaking even the giants. FAANG companies - Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Alphabet - led the charge, shedding thousands of employees globally, including from Indian offices. These cuts were driven by both economic slowdown and internal restructuring plans. However, as the year draws to a close, the turbulence shows no signs of stopping.
A recent report by ET is further painting a worrying picture, suggesting that tech giants are scaling back their recruitment efforts in India. The report suggests that the companies might pause, with only critical roles being filled for the near future.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Bruce Schneier ☛ AI Is Scarily Good at Guessing the Location of Random Photos
This kind of thing will likely get better. And even if it is not perfect, it has some pretty profound privacy implications (but so did geolocation in the EXIF data that accompanies digital photos).
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Privacy International ☛ Micro-targeting
The processes behind micro-targeting are extremely opaque and reliant on a hidden data ecosystem made up of hundreds of companies you have most likely never heard of or interacted with. Users are left with little information as to how they came to be targeted by a particular ad, and why. PI research has shown that tracing the journey of one’s own personal data is fraught with obstacles. When companies that you never interacted with come to hold your personal data, legitimate questions arise regarding the fairness and lawfulness of that data processing, and the impact on your right to privacy.
That’s just the beginning. Some forms of micro-targeting can be particularly insidious, such as psychographic targeting, which relies on personality and behaviour data and inferences. Some advertisers may use such data to build an intricate profile on a person’s perceived interests, values and vulnerabilities, and target ads accordingly. PI research revealed that popular websites about depression in France, Germany and the UK share user data with advertisers, data brokers and large tech companies, while some websites offering depression tests leak answers and test results to third parties.
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El País ☛ The risk of trusting ChatGPT with personal secrets
This delicate issue does not only affect the new generative AI. Sending an email via Gmail to a friend, or sharing photos or documents in cloud spaces such as OneDrive, are everyday acts that authorize the providers of these services to share information with third parties. Companies such as OpenAI, Microsoft and Google may disclose information to service providers to meet their business needs, as indicated in their privacy policies.
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EFF ☛ First, Let’s Talk About Consumer Privacy: 2023 Year in Review
While consumer privacy will not solve every problem, it is superior to many other proposals that attempt to address issues like child mental health or foreign government surveillance. That is true for two reasons: well written consumer privacy laws address the root source of corporate surveillance, and they can withstand constitutional scrutiny.
EFF’s work on this issue includes: (1) advocating for strong comprehensive consumer data privacy laws; (2) fighting bad laws; (3) protecting existing sectoral privacy laws.
This year, EFF released a report titled “Privacy First: A Better Way to Address Online Harms.” The report listed the key pillars of a strong privacy law (like no online behavioral ads and minimization) and how these principles can help address current issues (like protecting children’s mental health or reproductive health privacy).We highlighted why data privacy legislation is a form of civil rights legislation and why adtech surveillance often feeds government surveillance. And we made the case why well-written privacy laws can be constitutional when they regulate the commercial processing of personal data; that personal data is private and not a matter of public concern; and the law is tailored to address the government’s interest in privacy, free expression, security, and guarding against discrimination.
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Defence/Aggression
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Scheerpost ☛ Justice Department Threatens to Sue Texas Over Anti-Migrant Law
Earlier this month, Abbott signed a pair of bills: S.B. 3, which allocates over $1.5 billion for “border security” measures including barriers meant to stop migrants from crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into Texas, and S.B. 4, which empowers local and state authorities to arrest and expel undocumented immigrants.
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New York Times ☛ ‘We Are Not Equipped to Deal With This’: Migrant Surge Overwhelms U.S. Border
This is the crisis unfolding at the southern border, as migrant encounters once again hit record levels and test the capacity of American law enforcement to contain an explosion of illegal crossings with far-reaching repercussions for the Biden administration.
Thousands of migrants are arriving at the border every day, trekking from the farthest reaches of the globe, from Africa to Asia to South America, driven by relentless violence, desperation and poverty.
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VOA News ☛ France, Germany, UK and US Condemn Iran's Increased Uranium Enrichment
France, Germany, Britain and the United States on Thursday condemned Iran’s increase in its production rate of highly enriched uranium of up to 60% purity, close to the level used for nuclear weapons fuel.
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Omicron Limited ☛ Social media platforms generate billions in annual ad revenue from US youth: Study
Social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube collectively derived nearly $11 billion in advertising revenue from U.S.-based users younger than 18 in 2022, according to a new study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study is the first to offer estimates of the number of youth users on these platforms and how much annual ad revenue is attributable to them.
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Harvard University ☛ Social media platforms generate billions in annual ad revenue from U.S. youth
The study found that in 2022, YouTube had 49.7 million U.S.-based users under age 18; TikTok, 18.9 million; Snapchat, 18 million; Instagram, 16.7 million; Facebook, 9.9 million; and X, 7 million. The platforms collectively generated nearly $11 billion in ad revenue from these users: $2.1 billion from users ages 12 and under and $8.6 billion from users ages 13-17.
YouTube derived the greatest ad revenue from users 12 and under ($959.1 million), followed by Instagram ($801.1 million) and Facebook ($137.2 million). Instagram derived the greatest ad revenue from users ages 13-17 ($4 billion), followed by TikTok ($2 billion) and YouTube ($1.2 billion). The researchers also calculated that Snapchat derived the greatest share of its overall 2022 ad revenue from users under 18 (41%), followed by TikTok (35%), YouTube (27%), and Instagram (16%).
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PC Mag ☛ Social Media Companies Raked in Estimated $11B From Kids Last Year
Specifically, they raked in $8.6 billion from users ages 13-17 and $2.1 billion from those under 12, even though these networks technically ban kids under 13 to comply with COPPA.
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PLOS ☛ Social media platforms generate billions of dollars in revenue from U.S. youth: Findings from a simulated revenue model
Social media platforms are suspected to derive hefty profits from youth users who may be vulnerable to negative mental health outcomes, including depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. Platforms, however, are not required to make these data publicly available, which may limit the abilities of researchers and policymakers to adequately investigate and regulate platform practices. This study aimed to estimate the number of U.S.-based child (0–12 years old) and adolescent (13–17 years old) users and the annual advertising revenue generated from youth across six major platforms. Data were drawn from public survey and market research sources conducted in 2021 and 2022. A simulation analysis was conducted to derive estimates of the number of users and the annual advertising revenue per age group and overall (ages 0–17 years) for 2022. The findings reveal that, across six major social media platforms, the 2022 annual advertising revenue from youth users ages 0–17 years is nearly $11 billion. Approximately 30–40% of the advertising revenue generated from three social media platforms is attributable to young people. Our findings highlight the need for greater transparency from social media platforms as well as regulation of potentially harmful advertising practices that may exploit vulnerable child and adolescent social media users.
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Interesting Engineering ☛ Social media giants bagged $11 billion in ads from underage users in 2022
The researchers believe that this information shows why it's important for the government to regulate social media platforms since they might not be doing enough to regulate themselves. The concern is that these platforms could be having negative effects on the mental health of young users.
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NBC ☛ The secret U.S. effort to track, hide and surveil the Chinese spy balloon
On Dec. 18, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller issued a statement calling on the United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization “accelerate efforts to identify solutions for manned and unmanned aviation traffic in that airspace, and use the coming year to advance important technical work in this area.”
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NBC ☛ U.S. intelligence officials determined the Chinese spy balloon used a U.S. internet provider to communicate
The balloon connected to a U.S.-based company, according to the assessment, to send and receive communications from China, primarily related to its navigation. Officials familiar with the assessment said it found that the connection allowed the balloon to send burst transmissions, or high-bandwidth collections of data over short periods of time.
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The Hill ☛ New Jersey man ‘motivated’ by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack faces terror charges, feds say
A New Jersey man arrested in Kenya last month was charged with attempting to provide material support for the Islamist militant group Al-Shabab in Somalia, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday.
Prosecutors said Karrem Nasr, 23, was “motivated” by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and “devoted himself to waging violent jihad against America and its allies.”
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The Straits Times ☛ McDonald’s Malaysia sues Israel boycott movement for $1.7 million in damages
It is seeking damages amounting to six million ringgit ($1.31 million) over "false and defamatory statements".
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The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia anti-graft body probing ex-finance minister for abuse of power, money laundering
December 30, 2023 4:28 PM
He was a key ally of ex-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.
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New York Times ☛ China Appoints Adm. Dong Jun as Defense Minister
The promotion of Adm. Dong Jun may calm uncertainty after the unexplained disappearance of the previous minister, Gen. Li Shangfu.
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RFA ☛ Former navy commander appointed as China’s new defense minister
Adm. Dong Jun replaces Li Shangfu, who was removed in October and has been missing from public view since Aug. 29.
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The Straits Times ☛ China abruptly ousts nine military lawmakers as defence purge widens
China's top legislative body revoked the lawmakers’ membership during a Dec 29 meeting.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China ousts defence firm executives from top political body
Three executives at leading Chinese missile defence firms have been removed from Beijing’s top political advisory committee, according to state media, in the latest high-level demotions in the country’s military establishment.
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France24 ☛ China expels nine army officials from parliament in latest reshuffle
China has expelled nine military officials from its parliament, including four generals of the army’s strategic missile unit, in a sweeping reshuffle following the appointment of a new defence minister.
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The Straits Times ☛ Taiwan’s sovereignty belongs to its people, says presidential front runner Lai Ching-te
December 30, 2023 5:43 PM
The DPP candidate reiterated he is open to talks with China, though Beijing has rebuffed his offers of dialogue.
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RFA ☛ INTERVIEW: Politics is the same as selling insurance, says Taiwan heiress
Taiwan People's Party vice presidential hopeful Cynthia Wu speaks about campaigning as a business ‘princess.’
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teleSUR ☛ South Sudan: China Supports Displaced Persons
The donation by China will be used to shelter the returnees and refugees at the transit sites and the final destinations.
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JURIST ☛ China warn’s against travel to northern Myanmar as unrest continues
The Chinese embassy in Myanmar urged all Chinese nationals on Thursday to leave northern Myanmar, which borders China’s Yunnan Province and Tibet Autonomous Region. The embassy’s statement came as military operations between the ruling junta in Naypyidaw and rebel ethnic armed forces coalition known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance continues in northern Myanmar.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ With China tensions rising, US revives WWII-era Pacific airfield
In the middle of the Pacific ocean, an abandoned US airfield once key to dropping the nuclear bomb on Japan — and nearly lost to history amid encroaching forest — is being revived.
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NYPost ☛ Foreign exchange student, 17, missing in Utah as parents receive ransom note in China: police
The school contacted the police department regarding a possible kidnapping at around 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 28.
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JURIST ☛ Iran executes four with alleged links to Israel intelligence agency
Iran executed four individuals on Friday, including a woman, over allegations that the four were involved in sabotage operations in connections with Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, according to state-affiliated news agency Mizan. Mizan reported Iran executed four individuals in its West Azerbaijan province, including Vafa Henareh, Aram Omari, Rahman Parehzou, and Nasim Namazi.
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Democracy Now ☛ Maine Joins Colorado Barring Trump from Ballot for Violating Constitution’s Insurrection Clause
On Thursday, the state of Maine joined Colorado in barring Donald Trump from the Republican primary ballot over his role in the January 6 insurrection. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows issued a written decision saying the insurrection clause in the 14th Amendment makes the former president ineligible to run for public office again. These cases are “about defending our republic,” says constitutional attorney John Bonifaz, who previews upcoming cases in Oregon and Trump’s ballot eligibility being decided by the Supreme Court. “This is a matter of critical importance for the state and for the nation.”
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France24 ☛ The Observers’ top investigations of 2023
The Islamic State group attacking truffle producers in the Syrian desert, an Ivorian recruited to fight with the Wagner militia in Ukraine and the far-reaching impacts of India’s “love jihad” conspiracy. These are just a few of the stories that shaped 2023 for us. The FRANCE 24 Observers team takes a look back at some of the key investigations from this year.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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YLE ☛ Survey: Two-thirds of Finns support government's eastern border closure decisions
People over the age of 70 were the most supportive of the government, while their 18 to 29-year-old counterparts were the most critical.
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RFERL ☛ Former Top Officials At Major Truck, Tractor Producers In Belarus Handed Lengthy Prison Terms
Several former top officials at BelAZ -- one of the world's largest producers of dump trucks -- and the Minsk Tractor Works (MTZ) were handed lengthy prison terms on December 29 on bribery charges.
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Meduza ☛ Poland says Russian missile likely entered its airspace — Meduza
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RFERL ☛ Unidentified Object Entered Poland From Direction Of Ukraine, Polish Army Says
An unidentified aerial object entered the airspace of Poland from the direction of the border with Ukraine early on December 29, the Polish Army's Operational Command said.
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RFERL ☛ NATO, U.S. Consult With Warsaw After Apparent Intrusion Of Russian Missile Into Polish Airspace
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he spoke with Poland’s president about indications that a Russian missile entered Polish airspace on December 29 during a barrage of Russian missiles and drones fired at Ukraine.
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Meduza ☛ Russia refuses to explain missile that reportedly entered Poland’s airspace, calls accusations ‘baseless’ — Meduza
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LRT ☛ Lithuanian leaders slam Russia’s large-scale airstrike on Ukraine as ‘terrorist attack’
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda and Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis on Friday condemned the large-scale Russian airstrike on Ukraine.
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Meduza ☛ Russian military charged record number of soldiers with abandoning positions in 2023 — Meduza
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New York Times ☛ Russia Sends Navalny Associate to Prison for ‘Extremism’
The nine-year sentence reflects how the Kremlin continues to crack down on Aleksei A. Navalny’s political movement years after his organization was banned.
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Meduza ☛ Russia gives nine-year prison sentence to former lawmaker Ksenia Fadeyeva, one of few Navalny associates who stayed in the country — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Openly gay Russian journalist reportedly beaten in Moscow — Meduza
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RFERL ☛ Kremlin Says It Has List Of Western Assets To Be Seized If Russian Assets Confiscated
Russia has a list of Western assets that would be seized if Group of Seven (G7) leaders decided to confiscate $300 billion in frozen Russian central-bank assets, the Kremlin said on December 29.
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Latvia ☛ Seized Russian fertilizers sent to Nigeria by Latvia
On 27 December 2023, 34,000 tonnes of mineral fertilizer was shipped from the Latvian port of Ventspils to Nigeria, as a donation to the UN World Food Programme initiative, said the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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Latvia ☛ New procurements for some parts of Latvia-Russia border fence
In the Latvian-Russian border fence construction, builders have been confirmed for about two-thirds of the fence, but in other sections, builders will have to be sought for again, Latvian Radio reported on December 29.
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Meduza ☛ Russia launches massive drone and missile strike across Ukraine, killing and wounding civilians — Meduza
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France24 ☛ At least 30 dead across Ukraine as Russia launches largest aerial assault since war began
Russia launched 122 missiles and 36 drones against Ukrainian targets, officials said Friday, killing at least 30 civilians across the country in what an air force official said was the biggest aerial barrage of the 22-month war.
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Ruben Schade ☛ Russia’s latest volley at Ukraine, and Poland
Russia has launched a huge wave of missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, including the capital, in one of the biggest attacks on the country since the start of the war.
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RFERL ☛ Air Attacks On Ukraine Ease As Deaths, Condemnation Mount From Massive Russian Bombardment
Aerial attacks continued overnight between Russia and Ukraine but appeared to have abated early on December 30, one day after Russia carried out its most intense bombardment of Ukrainian military and civilian targets in the 22-month-long war.
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New York Times ☛ At Least 30 Killed in Ukraine After Russian Missile Attacks
The missile and drone attacks killed at least 30 people and damaged critical industrial and military infrastructure, part of a wintertime campaign that Ukraine had been dreading.
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New York Times ☛ As War Rages in Ukraine, Denmark Turns an Office Park Back Into an Arsenal
The conflict and surging arms production in Russia have spurred demand for ammunition manufacturing across Europe.
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France24 ☛ 'Almost Naked' party of Moscow elites sparks outrage in increasingly conservative Russia
A celebrity-studded "Almost Naked" party in Moscow's famed Mutabor nightclub has drawn outrage from Russia's political establishment, which has become increasingly po-faced since the assault on Ukraine.
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Meduza ☛ Moscow court fines Russian TV presenter Nastya Ivleeva for hosting ‘almost naked’ party — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Ukraine says Russia’s overnight air attack biggest since start of full-scale invasion — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Zelensky visits Ukrainian troops on front lines in Avdiivka — Meduza
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RFERL ☛ Russian Veteran Sentenced For Killing Man Who Criticized Service In Ukraine
A court in the Siberian city of Yakutsk on December 29 sentenced local resident Viktor Zabolotsky to 7 1/2 years in prison for stabbing to death a man who criticized Zabolotsky's participation in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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RFERL ☛ Russia Launches New Investigation Of Exiled Kremlin Critic Novikov
Russian media quoted law enforcement officials on December 29 as saying that a new probe on a charge of distributing "fake" information about the Russian armed forces has been launched against noted Russian lawyer and outspoken Kremlin critic Ilya Novikov, who lives in Ukraine.
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Meduza ☛ Kevin Rothrock’s list of the best investigative reporting on Russia in 2023 — Meduza
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AntiWar ☛ No Peace on Earth? Blame Woodrow Wilson
Another Christmas and there is still no peace on earth.
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RFERL ☛ Russian Report Says 74 Sailors Died In Ukraine's Attack On Novocherkassk
The Novosti Sevastopolya news website quoted the Russian Black Sea Fleet's press service on December 29 as saying that 74 Russian sailors were killed and 27 were injured in Ukraine's missile attack on Russia's Novocherkassk landing ship near the Crimean port city of Feodosia.
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RFERL ☛ Hungary Refuses To Extradite Russian Suspected Of High-Profile Killing In Kyiv
Hungary has refused to extradite to Ukraine a Russian man suspected in the 2017 killing Amina Okuyeva, a member of the volunteer Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion consisting of natives of the North Caucasus region of Chechnya, according to police.
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Meduza ☛ Local news agencies publish, then remove articles saying 74 Russian sailors killed in Ukraine’s strike on Russian military ship in annexed Crimea — Meduza
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LRT ☛ Man wearing Wagner symbols detained at Vilnius Airport
On Thursday, a man carrying a bag with a Wagner badge was detained at Vilnius Airport.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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Associated Press ☛ A Jan. 6 [insurrecionist] was convicted and sentenced in secret. No one will say why
The Justice Department has refused to say why the case remains under wraps, and attorneys for Lazar did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Associated Press. The judge overseeing Lazar’s case in May rejected a request from media outlets — including the AP — to release any sealed records that may exist.
The case is raising concerns about transparency in the massive Jan. 6 investigation — the largest in Justice Department history. Court hearings and records — including sentencing hearings and plea agreements — are supposed to be open and available to the public and the press unless there’s a compelling need for secrecy.
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[Old] NBC ☛ Jan. 6 [insurrectionist] who was accused of urging the mob to steal police guns scheduled to be sentenced
Samuel Lazar, a Donald Trump supporter and Jan. 6 [insurrectionist] who was accused of urging his fellow rioters to steal officer's guns and assaulting officers with pepper spray, was scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, according to a source familiar with the proceedings.
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Environment
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NPR ☛ Wildfire smoke this year woke up places unaccustomed to its effects. Now what?
In early June, the air quality index in New York City hit 460 for the whole-day average. Air quality indexes measure air pollution: the higher the number, the worse the pollution. That number shocked doctors and medical experts. The previous daily record, from 2003, was 86 – what the EPA considers moderately unhealthy. But during the smoke event, New York's air quality was nearly off the EPA's chart, well into the realm it considers an "emergency."
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Overpopulation ☛ The Quixotic pursuit of sustainability: our year in review
As TOP turned six in 2023, we continued to explore and encourage discussion of the population / environment connection, particularly regarding climate disruption and biodiversity loss. We wish all our friends, colleagues and readers “lycka till och framgång” in the new year!
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Bridge Michigan ☛ ‘Forever chemicals’ found in freshwater fish, yet most states don’t warn residents
Today, a branch of the Rouge River runs through Eisenman’s property in a suburb north of Detroit. But in recent years, he has been wary about a group of chemicals known as PFAS, also referred to as “forever chemicals,” which don’t break down quickly in the environment and accumulate in soil, water, fish, and our bodies.
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LRT ☛ Spectacle and environmental hazard: fireworks are falling out of fashion
While fireworks have been an essential attribute of New Year’s celebrations, scientists warn their effects on the environment and the health of people and animals may outweigh the benefits.
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Energy/Transportation
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DeSmog ☛ Burgeoning hydrogen industry draws $41 million in federal lobbying from fossil fuel companies
This story was produced by the Energy News Network in partnership with Open Secrets, and is reprinted with permission.
The number of companies and organizations lobbying the federal government on issues related to hydrogen increased nearly tenfold since President Joe Biden took office — from about two dozen at the end of 2020 to more than 200 this year, according to an OpenSecrets analysis of lobbying disclosures.
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The Atlantic ☛ Electric Cars Are Already Upending America
If the story of American EVs has long hinged on one company—Tesla—then this was the year that these cars became untethered from Elon Musk’s brand. “We’re at a point where EVs aren’t necessarily exclusively for the upper, upper, upper class,” Robby DeGraff, an analyst at the market-research firm AutoPacific, told me. If you wanted an electric car five years ago, you could choose from among various Tesla models, the Chevy Bolt, the Nissan Leaf—and that was really it. Now EVs come in more makes and models than Baskin-Robbins ice-cream flavors. We have more luxury sedans to vie with Tesla, but also cheaper five-seaters, SUVs, Hummers, pickup trucks, and … however you might categorize the Cybertruck. Nearly 40 new EVs have debuted since the start of 2022, and they are far more advanced than their ancestors. For $40,000, the Hyundai Ioniq 6, released this year, can get you 360 miles on a single charge; in 2018, for only a slightly lower cost, a Nissan Leaf couldn’t go half that distance.
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David Rosenthal ☛ Make Up Your Mind
This isn't America's Finest News Source, it is this morning's Crypto page from Bloomberg. I couldn't resist posting it.
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Eesti Rahvusringhääling ☛ Finland achieves electricity independence
Finland is able to produce all the electricity it needs starting from this year. The country used to import around a quarter of its power.
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Trail Of Bits ☛ Billion times emptiness
Behind Ethereum’s powerful blockchain technology lies a lesser-known challenge that blockchain developers face: the intricacies of writing robust Ethereum ABI (Application Binary Interface) parsers. Ethereum’s ABI is critical to the blockchain’s infrastructure, enabling seamless interactions between smart contracts and external applications. The complexity of data types and the need for precise encoding and decoding make ABI parsing challenging. Ambiguities in the specification or implementation may lead to bugs that put users at risk.
In this blog post, we’ll delve into a newfound bug that targets these parsers, reminiscent of the notorious “Billion Laughs” attack that plagued XML in the past. We uncover that the Ethereum ABI specification was written loosely in parts, leading to potentially vulnerable implementations that can be exploited to cause denial-of-service (DoS) conditions in eth_abi (Python), ethabi (Rust), alloy-rs and etheriumjs-abi, posing a risk to the availability of blockchain platforms. At the time of writing, the bug is fixed only in the Python library. All other libraries decided on full disclosure through GitHub issues.
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NL Times ☛ Sharp drop in solar panel demand amid lower energy prices, political uncertainty
ING Research did not have exact figures on the number of solar panels, but looked other aspects, like the online search behavior of consumers. Due to the sharp rise in energy prices, interest in energy-saving measures increased enormously last year. But now the number of Google searches for solar panels has almost returned to pre-energy crisis levels.
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Silicon Angle ☛ Judge rules that Terraform Labs Luna and Mir crypto tokens are securities
A federal judge sided with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a fraud case against failed blockchain company Terraform Labs Pte. Ltd. and its Chief Executive Do Kwon, ruling that two crypto assets offered by the company – Luna and Mir – are unregistered securities.
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Wildlife/Nature
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NDTV ☛ "Hooker's Lips": Costa Rica's Stunning Plant Faces Threat Of Extinction
Unfortunately, the gradual disappearance of this plant is attributed to deforestation and climate change. Therefore, it is crucial that special care and protection are provided to ensure the survival of this rare species, preventing us from bidding it farewell.
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[Old] China Global Television Network ☛ Hooker's lips: A tropical plant with enchanting red bracts
Hooker's lips, scientifically known as Psychotria elata, is a tropical plant native to rainforests in Costa Rica, Ecuador and other Central and South American countries.
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Overpopulation
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Insight Hungary ☛ Danube water level at its highest since 2013
The Danube experienced a breach of its banks in Budapest, reaching water levels unseen in a decade. This unusual event resulted from heavy rain and snow, followed by mild weather, leading to premature winter floods. Fortunately, this year's flooding did not cause substantial damage.
Hungary's General Directorate for Water Management reported that the Danube peaked at 6.93 meters late on Wednesday. Although this was below the 8.91 meters recorded in 2013 during the onset of extreme flooding in Central Europe after heavy May rains, it marked a significant rise.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ World population increased 75 million in 2023
Data released by the US Census Bureau on Thursday said the world population grew by 75 million people over the past year. On New Year's Day it will stand at more than 8 billion people.
The projected world population on January 1, 2024 is 8,019,876,189, up by 75,162,541 (0.95%) from New Year’s Day 2023.
At the beginning of 2024, 4.3 births and two deaths are expected worldwide every second, according to the Census Bureau.
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VOA News ☛ World Population Up 75 Million This Year, to Top 8 Billion by Start of 2024
The worldwide growth rate in the past year was just under 1%. At the start of 2024, 4.3 births and two deaths are expected worldwide every second, according to the Census Bureau figures.
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NPR ☛ There's a water crisis in Gaza that the end of fighting might not solve
The Gaza Strip has no streams, lakes or other surface sources of water. In the years prior to the war, water for bathing and laundry in the Palestinian territory has come mostly from a coastal aquifer that had become contaminated. About 97% of the water from that source doesn't meet World Health Organization standards for human consumption, the U.N. says.
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Denver ☛ Colorado River: A crisis from headwaters to delta
Today, this 1,450-mile-long river continues to serve as a vital water source, sustaining the needs of millions of people and playing a crucial role in supporting agriculture, industry, and urban life throughout the Southwest. The challenges of finding sustainable solutions for water management, compounded by the impacts of climate change, are pushing the river to the edge of crisis.
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[Old] Denver ☛ The West’s most important water supply is drying up. Soon, life for 40 million people who depend on the Colorado River will change.
The chalky ring around Powell is just one sign of many that the 40 million people who directly depend on the Colorado River must fundamentally change their way of life, experts agree. And it’s going to hurt, experts say.
“This is not a drought, this is aridification,” Rhett Larson, a water law professor at Arizona State University, said. “This is not something we can wait out. This is not something we can survive. This is the new world we live in.”
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[Old] Reuters ☛ U.N. sees steep Gaza population growth in 30 years, with economic problems ahead
Thomsen said that even by 2030 there would be 1.3 million additional people in Gaza, territory ruled by the Hamas Islamist group, and meeting their needs will be challenging.
Gaza, where Israel and Hamas last fought a war in 2014, already needs thousands of housing units and hundreds of schools and medical centres, aid officials say.
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International Middfle East Media Center ☛ WAFA: “Number of Palestinians worldwide doubled 10 times since Nakba, official figures show”
The population of Palestine in 1914 was around 690 thousand; of whom only 8% were Jewish. In 1948, the number of Palestinians in Palestine exceeded 2 million; 31.5% of them were Jews. Between 1932 and 1939, the largest number of Jewish immigrants to Palestine reached 225 thousand Jews. Between 1940 and 1947, more than 93 thousand Jews poured into Palestine. Thus, Palestine received around 318 thousand Jews between 1932 and 1947 and 540 thousand from 1948 to 1975.
Despite the displacement of more than 800 thousand Palestinians in 1948, as well as the displacement of more than 200 thousand Palestinians (majority of them to Jordan) after the 1967 war, the Palestinian world population was 14 million by the end of 2021, which means that the number of Palestinians in the world has doubled about 10 times since the Nakba, and more than half of them lived in historical Palestine by the end of 2021, according to PCBS figures.
Accordingly, their number reached 7 million (1.7 million in the occupied territories in 1948). Population estimates indicate that the number of population by the end of 2021 in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, was 3.2 million and around 2.1 million in the Gaza Strip. As for the population of Jerusalem Governorate, it was about 477 thousand of which approximately 65% (about 308 thousand) lived in those parts of Jerusalem which were annexed by the Israeli occupation in 1967 (J1).
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Finance
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2023 Tech Job Loss Soars: 40% Surge, 260K Workers Hit
2023 Tech Job Loss: The technology industry faces unprecedented challenges in 2023 as job losses surge by 40%, impacting 260,000 workers. Economic downturn, supply chain issues, and revenue slowdown contribute to the highest number of layoffs on record. Industry giants like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon lead the way, with smaller tech firms across various sectors also making painful cost-cutting measures. The extensive series of job cuts has resulted in the closure of numerous workplaces, transforming 2023 into the most challenging year on record for the tech sector, according to information from AltIndex.com.
From January to December 2022, the number of layoffs by tech companies reached 164,744 employees, which is nearly eleven times higher than the 15,000 reported the previous year, as indicated by data from Layoffs.fyi.
In January, an astonishing 75,912 individuals were left jobless, constituting nearly half of all the job reductions reported throughout 2022.
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Even Harvard MBA Graduates Are Finding It Tough to Land Jobs
The job market for college students graduating with a Master of Business Administration degree has slowed down, even for students at some of the best business schools in the U.S.
Harvard Business School has reported that just 73% of its most recent graduating MBA class sought employment. Of those students, just 86% received a job offer.
That marks a significant fall in job placement among students enrolled at one of the best MBA programs in the country. About 95% of job seekers in the class of 2022 received job offers, while 96% of graduates seeking employment in the class of 2021 were offered jobs, according to Harvard's data.
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WSWS ☛ 2023: A year of financial turbulence
The year is set to close with the US stock market at, or very close to, record highs after what has been a turbulent year for the financial system.
The rise on Wall Street, which has been boosted by the “dovish” turn by the US Federal Reserve at its December 13 meeting, is being fuelled by market expectations of at least three and possibly as many as six interest rate cuts in 2024.
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San Fancisco ☛ Top 10 Bay Area stories of 2023 include ‘doom loop’ fears, overdoses, Feinstein’s death
The pandemic may be over, but it continued to reverberate throughout the Bay Area in 2023, with remote work and an exodus of businesses from the city’s downtown touching off a national debate over whether San Francisco may be caught in a “doom loop.”
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Latvia ☛ Latvia to redistribute some unused EU funding
Although during the 2014-2020 programming period, Latvia will not be able to invest all of the planned funding – approximately EUR 200 million – in several projects, the state will not lose this money and will use it for other projects, LSM found out at the Finance Ministry on Friday.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Federal News Network ☛ What contractors should do now about DoD’s new cyber security rule
Defense contractors are parsing out a nearly 250-page proposed rule. It landed sort like a lump of coal on Christmas Eve. It is all about a program known as Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC). At the very least, if you are even tangentially involved in the topic, you should read the proposal and prepare comments. For more, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin talked with procurement attorney Eric Crusius, a partner at Holland and Knight.
Interview Transcript: [...]
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Common Dreams ☛ Orange Man Bad: On Vermin, Grifters and Attention Whores
After a tawdry, turbulent year that hit new depths of political dysfunction - lies, schemes, crypto-fascists in the House of Reps, never mind genocide abroad - we gotta wonder if it can get any worse. Next year, of course, we'll find out. For now, what looms is a party of malignant clowns, thugs and fabulists led by a vengeful, racist, demented crook who's literally becoming Hitler before our eyes. A New Year's wish: May this be "the end of the MAGA polka."
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RFERL ☛ Sandu's Allies Amend Election Laws To Enable EU Referendum Alongside Moldova's Presidential Vote
Lawmakers from Moldovan President Maia Sandu's ruling Party of Action and Solidarity have powered through a change to election laws to allow for a national referendum alongside a presidential election next autumn, a move that appears aimed at boosting turnout and mobilizing pro-EU backers.
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RFERL ☛ Kazakhstan To Remove Taliban From List Of Terrorist Groups
Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Aibek Smadiyarov said in a televised interview on December 29 that the Central Asian state's Security Council had decided to remove the Taliban group now ruling Afghanistan from its registry of terrorist organizations.
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JURIST ☛ Hong Kong tells UN that National Security Law has caused ‘major turn from chaos to governance’
Hong Kong’s government told the UN Human Rights Council in a report on Wednesday that Hong Kong has taken a “major turn from chaos to governance” since the implementation of the National Security Law. The report was published by the Hong Kong government after three weeks of public consultation in June.
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ The guardrails that once prevented wars are failing
Wars are no longer black-swan events. They are a regular occurrence, representing the most significant transformation in global affairs since 9/11. The Israel-Hamas war is an ominous message to the world: The guardrails that long stopped wars from breaking out are now effectively failing, writes Abishur Prakash, the founder of ‘The Geopolitical Business’, a global Canadian keynote speaker.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas signals that a new era has begun — one where wars are no longer black-swan events that occur every decade or so. Rather, they are becoming a regular occurrence, representing the most significant transformation to global affairs since 9/11. This is a pivotal moment in history, as it signals that whatever stood in the way of conflicts erupting is now falling by the wayside. Nations are no longer scared to throw punches, and war has become acceptable again.
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James G ☛ Small towns
The community is interconnected. Fine threads of shared culture wove us together. Appreciation for the local park, complaints about the council, yearning for new investment in public infrastructure, and annual celebrations. A beautiful town. A place where, despite not being born there, is what I refer to as my hometown.
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The Straits Times ☛ South Korea to launch ‘digital nomad’ visa on Jan 1
Visitors with annual income of over $86,700 can stay up to 2 years with a job back home.
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The Straits Times ☛ China eases visa application for US tourists
The move is the latest by China to revive tourism and boost its economy.
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Marcy Wheeler ☛ Rudy Giuliani’s Scott Brady Interview Doesn’t Appear in His Warrant Affidavit
The warrant affidavit targeting Rudy from April 21, 2021 relied on articles, interviews, and Tweets to source Rudy's own claims about what he was doing in Ukraine in 2019.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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Salon ☛ “Illegal”: Trump explodes on Truth Social after Jack Smith corners him on Jan. 6 conspiracy theory
“Although the Court can recognize these efforts for what they are and disregard them, the jury — if subjected to them — may not,” the filing said. “The Court should not permit the defendant to turn the courtroom into a forum in which he propagates irrelevant disinformation, and should reject his attempt to inject politics into this proceeding.”
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VOA News ☛ Police in Iran Falsely Deny Arresting Man for Dancing and Singing
An abundance of evidence confirms the prosecution of Bagheri and others. That includes a response from Iran’s top official, press reports, interviews, and the Gilan province police’s statement at the time of the arrests.
Before issuing the denial, the deputy police commander of Gilan province, Brigadier-General Hossein Hassanpour, told the media that 12 individuals had been arrested for taking part in Bagheri’s dance and the distribution of the video. Brigadier-General Hassanpour also said that the police took control of the social media accounts belonging to the arrested men and that four shops at the Rasht bazaar were shut down for participating in the dancing and singing. He said such behavior violated public morals and broke norms, as cited by London-based Iran International, a Persian language television network.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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JURIST ☛ X loses preliminary injunction request against California content moderation law
The social control media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, lost a court case Thursday challenging a California law that obligated it to publicly reveal its content moderating procedures and issue a comprehensive service report on their moderating activity to the state.
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[Repeat] France24 ☛ Navalny's penal colony in the Arctic is direct heir to Russia's Gulag
Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, currently serving a 19-year prison sentence, has been transferred to a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle. The IK-3 penal colony, located in Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,900 km (1200 miles) northeast of Moscow, is considered to be one of the toughest prisons in Russia. Penal colonies are descendants of Soviet-era Gulags, the notorious Stalin-era labour camps where thousands of Russians lost their lives.
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RFA ☛ Hong Kong puts runaway activist Tony Chung on wanted list
Police also hauled in the parents of democracy activist Agnes Chow, who skipped bail and fled to Canada.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Tony Chung: Hong Kong orders activist back to prison after breaching supervision order and fleeing to UK for asylum
Hong Kong authorities have condemned independence activist Tony Chung for “telling a lie” and breaching a post-prison supervision order, after he said he had left the city to seek asylum abroad.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Parents of Hong Kong self-exiled activist Agnes Chow questioned by police – local media
Hong Kong police have questioned the parents of pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow after she announced she had fled to Canada, local media reported on Friday citing sources. Chow failed to report to authorities this week, as per the bail conditions surrounding her national security allegation.
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[Old] New York Times ☛ A Viral Dance and ‘Happiness Campaign’ Frustrates Iran’s Clerics
Then came the crackdown. Local police in Rasht announced on Dec. 7 that they had arrested a group of 12 men who appeared in the video and shut down their Instagram pages and removed the video from several websites.
On Mr. Bana Motejaded’s Instagram page, then with about 128,000 followers, an emblem of the judiciary appeared in the place of his profile photo. All his posts had disappeared and instead a single post from the judiciary read, “this page has been shut down for creating criminal content” and that the person who had engaged in the activity “has been dealt with.”
A person close to Mr. Bana Motejaded who was familiar with the details of the arrests and asked his name not be published for his own security said in a telephone interview from Rasht that the local intelligence division of the Revolutionary Guards had summoned the men and then interrogated them for many hours. He said they were blindfolded, beaten, threatened with legal action and forced to sign a pledge that they would never again sing and dance in public.
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ABC ☛ After serving jail term, a Hong Kong pro-independence activist seeks asylum in UK
Chung was convenor of the now-dissolved pro-independence student organization Studentlocalism before being arrested in 2020 near the United States consulate in Hong Kong, where media reports said he was hoping to seek protection.
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VOA News ☛ Hong Kong Democracy Advocate Seeks Asylum in Britain
He said he had been closely watched by Hong Kong's national security police despite his jail term having ended in June and was blocked from taking up work.
The Washington Post reported he was released early for good behavior.
Authorities also stopped him from seeking legal assistance by citing a confidentiality clause under the security law, Chung added.
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Chicago Tribune ☛ A president was furious over a comedy skit. It wasn't Trump fuming about 'SNL.'
For LBJ, it was the last straw. In the middle of the night, he phoned CBS head William Paley about the Smothers Brothers, demanding that the TV executive "get those bastards off my back." That day Paley asked the heads of CBS entertainment shows to get the brothers to back off, according to author David Bianculli in his book, "Dangerously Funny. The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour."
The Smothers Brothers show continued its anti-war satire against Nixon. The new president wasn't amused. It was later revealed that some Nixon campaign funds were used to pay for a private investigation of the Smothers brothers.
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Hollywood Reporter ☛ Tom Smothers, Comedian, Musician and Scourge of CBS Censors, Dies at 86
At the time, the Nixon administration had put the FCC on notice to watch for content it deemed inappropriate. After CBS banished the brothers, they filed a lawsuit against the network for breach of contract and copyright infringement. They won a settlement of about $900,000 but never regained their clout.
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New York Times ☛ Tom Smothers, Comic Half of the Smothers Brothers, Dies at 86
For the rest of his life, Mr. Smothers remained convinced that President Richard M. Nixon, who had assumed office just three months earlier after defeating Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, had pressured CBS to cancel the show.
“When Nixon said, ‘I want those guys off,’ they were off,” he told “Speaking Freely,” a television program produced by the First Amendment Center, in 2001. “If Humphrey had been elected, we would have been on.”
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San Fancisco ☛ Tom Smothers of the Smothers Brothers dies at 86
Tom Smothers and his brother Dick booked a two-week slot at the Purple Onion in 1959, making their official debut as musical-comedy duo the Smothers Brothers.
They ended up performing at the legendary San Francisco comedy club for a record-breaking 36 weeks, launching the pair’s trailblazing career, defined by genre-mixing performances that melded entertainment with social commentary and helped make “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” a vital piece of TV history.
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[Old] San Fancisco ☛ Comic duo's controversial past told in 'Smothered' / Brothers battled CBS over free speech
"There's this illusion that you can say anything you want (now), with the four-letter words and the sexual conversations and the sense of violence," said Tom Smothers from his Sonoma-area home. "But there's not much political commentary. The last time there was political satire in prime time was 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.' That was thirtysomething years ago."
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Gray Media Group ☛ University chancellor says he was fired for producing and appearing in porn
Gow said he’s considering a lawsuit over the firing, saying it infringes upon his free speech rights. He also said he was never told what policies he was violating, nor was he given a chance to defend himself.
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Wisconsin Public Radio ☛ Former UW-La Crosse chancellor Joseph Gow says firing over adult films disregards his rights
In an interview Thursday, Gow said the books and videos they made were produced as private citizens under their First Amendment rights, noting they didn't refer to Gow's position as chancellor. Even so, Gow indicated they would be protected under the board’s policy on academic freedom and freedom of expression, adding the policy protects ideas even if people disagree or find them "repugnant."
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Associated Press ☛ Wisconsin university chancellor says he was fired for producing and appearing in porn videos
“My wife and I live in a country where we have a First Amendment,” he said. “We’re dealing with consensual adult sexuality. The regents are overreacting. They’re certainly not adhering to their own commitment to free speech or the First Amendment.”
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Gannett ☛ University of Wisconsin-La Crosse chancellor fired for appearing in porn videos
No university property or funds were used to create the books or videos, Gow said. He created the content on his own personal time and spent more on production costs than the "minimal" money the videos have earned through the websites.
Gow questioned whether the board afforded him due process because he said he wasn't given an opportunity to make his case. He said no one at the UW System nor on the UW Board of Regents contacted him ahead of the Wednesday meeting where the board met behind closed doors for just over three hours.
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Inside Higer Ed ☛ UW La Crosse Chancellor Fired After Appearing in Adult Videos
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Gow and his wife, Carmen Wilson, appeared in videos on several pornographic sites and they published two books, under pseudonyms, detailing their experiences in creating adult content. In an interview with the newspaper, Gow said his actions were consensual and protected by the First Amendment.
He also questioned whether he was given due process as part of his termination as chancellor, though he will return to the faculty. In August, Gow announced plans to step down at the end of the academic year after leading La Crosse for 17 years.
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ACLU ☛ Fighting Campus Censorship: The ACLU Defends Pro-Palestinian Voices in Florida
The freedom to speak out and debate matters of public concern is a fundamental right that allows our democracy to flourish. As the world bears witness to the catastrophic war in Palestine and Israel, U.S. college students on both sides of this conflict have come out to protest and speak their minds. However, across the country, at public and private universities, students supporting Palestinian human rights are being silenced and censored. In Florida, for example, state university officials, in coordination with Gov. Ron DeSantis, ordered public universities to deactivate their Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters — a clear violation of the student group’s constitutional right to free speech and association.
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Reason ☛ Court Rejects Fan's Libel Claims Against L.A. Clippers Player Russell Westbrook and the Utah Jazz
Westbrook and the Jazz characterized the fan's insults to Westbrook as racist; in context, the court concluded, these were constitutionally protected statements of opinion.
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Reason ☛ Basketball Player's Outburst to Heckling Fan Isn't Actionable Infliction of Emotional Distress
Another interesting twist from the Keisel v. Westbrook Utah Court of Appeals decision that I discuss in a separate post that deals with a libel lawsuit based on some follow-up statements: In March 2019, the Utah Jazz were playing a game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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[Repeat] JURIST ☛ Amnesty International report alleges Pegasus spyware targeted India journalists
Amnesty International released a report Thursday alleging the targeted use of Pegasus spyware against prominent Indian journalists, rekindling apprehensions about government surveillance and press freedom in the country, following the 2021 Pegasus project disclosures that sent shockwaves through India.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Int’l journalists in Taiwan up 22% in a year, foreign ministry says
Taiwan has seen a “steady increase” of international media and journalists since 2016, the island’s foreign ministry has said, with a 22 per cent increase in foreign reporters this year attributed to Taiwan’s press freedom and its position as an Indo-Pacific hub.
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RFERL ☛ Kazakh Journalist Imprisoned On Extortion Charge Launches Hunger Strike
Kazakh journalist Vladimir Severny, who was sentenced to seven years in prison earlier this month on extortion charges that he rejects, launched a hunger strike protesting his incarceration, his lawyer said on December 29.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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EFF ☛ Fighting For Your Digital Rights Across the Country: Year in Review 2023
Much of EFF's state legislative work has, historically, been in our home state of California—also often the most active state on digital civil liberties issues. This year, the Golden State passed several laws that strengthen consumer digital rights.
Two major laws we supported stand out in 2023. The first is S.B. 244, authored by California Sen. Susan Eggman, which makes it easier for individuals and independent repair shops to access materials and parts needed for maintenance on electronics and appliances. That means that Californians with a broken phone screen or a busted washing machine will have many more options for getting them fixed. Even though some electronics are not included, such as video game consoles, it still raises the bar for other right-to-repair bills.
S.B. 244 is one of the strongest right-to-repair laws in the country, doggedly championed by a group of advocates led by the California Public Interest Research Group, and we were proud to support it.
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The Nation ☛ The Healing Art of Illuminating Tragedy
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YLE ☛ Workers will see more days off in 2024
Next year, employees in Finland will get 10 "extra" days off work thanks to public holidays falling on weekdays.
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YLE ☛ Prosecutor files charges over assault against Ben Zyskowicz, Finland's longest-serving MP
A prosecutor has filed charges over the alleged assault and unlawful threats directed at MP Ben Zyskowicz at Itäkeskus metro station last March.
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YLE ☛ Halla-aho lodges another criminal complaint over fascism comment
Aino Tuominen, a Green Party deputy city councillor in Helsinki referred to the Finns Party politician as a fascist on social control media.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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EFF ☛ In the Trenches of Broadband Policy: 2023 Year In Review
Lawmakers recognized this during the pandemic and set in motion once-in-a-generation opportunities to build the future-proof fiber infrastructure needed to close the digital divide once and for all.
As we exit the pandemic however, that dedication is wavering. Monopolistic internet service providers (ISPs), with business models that created the digital divide in the first place, are doing everything they can to maintain control over the broadband market—including stopping the construction of any infrastructure they do not control. Further, while some government agencies are continuing to make rules to advance equitable and competitive access to broadband, others have not. Regardless, EFF will continue to fight for the vision we’ve long advocated.
This year, New York City Mayor Eric Adams turned his back on the future of broadband accessibility for New Yorkers.
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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Digital Music News ☛ How Much Does Spotify Pay Per Stream? — Let’s Ask Spotify
“Tens of millions of (tracks on Spotify) have been streamed between 1 and 1,000 times over the past year, and on average, those tracks generated $0.03 per month,” Spotify says. “Because labels and distributors require a minimum amount to withdraw (usually $2-$50 per withdrawal), and banks charge a fee for the transaction (usually $1-$20 per withdrawal), this money often doesn’t reach the uploaders — and these small payments are often forgotten about.”
But all those so-called “forgotten” payments, Spotify reveals, have added up to $40 million per year “which could instead increase the payments to artists who are most dependent on streaming revenue.”
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Techdirt ☛ New Year’s Message: Moving Fast And Breaking Things Is The Opposite Of Tech Optimism
Every year since 2008, my final post of the year for Techdirt is about optimism. This makes this year’s post (which will be the only post for today — go out and enjoy the holiday times, people) my 15th such post. As I said, this process began back in 2008 when I had a few people note that there was this weird dichotomy in which I wrote about all of the ways that technological progress was under attack, and yet I remained a strong believer in the power of innovation to make the world a better place. The question raised to me was: how is it that I remained optimistic, despite seeing all these attacks on progress?
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Patents
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Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Patent Grant Total 2023 [Ed: Patent quality gone into the ashtray to protect monopolies and aggressive lawyers who protect the wealth controllers]
The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a total of 312,100 utility patents in the calendar year 2023. This marks the fourth consecutive year of decline in the number of issued patents. The 2022 figures show a 3% decrease from the previous year and a 12% decrease from the record-high numbers seen in 2019, as depicted in the chart below. One of the biggest changes from 2022 to 2023 is that non-US patent monopoly applicants dropped from 51% of the total down to 48%. In fact, numbers from US-applicants increased over the past year. There was a roughly parallel shift when looking at the % of patents naming a US inventor — up from 47% in 2022 to 50% in 2023.
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Trademarks
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TTAB Blog ☛ TTAB Posts January 2024 Hearing Schedule
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (Tee-Tee-Ā-Bee) has scheduled seven (7) oral hearings for the month of January 2024. The first three will be held "In Person" at USPTO Headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia; the last four will be held via video conference. Briefs and other papers for each case may be found at TTABVUE via the links provided.
January 4, 2024 - 11 AM: In re Kattina V. Barsik, Linda D. Barsik, Sean E. Barsik and Tamara A. Barsik, Serial No. 90691470 [Section 2(d) refusal of THE BOOKSTORE SPEAKEASY for restaurant and bar services [SPEAKEASY disclaimed] in view of the registered mark LIBRARY BISTRO & BOOKSTORE BAR (Stylized) for "bar and restaurant services." [BISTRO and BAR disclaimed.]
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Copyrights
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Cyble Inc ☛ The New York Times Sues Microsoft, OpenAI Over Alleged Copyright Misuse in AI Development
The renowned publication contends that its intellectual property has been misappropriated in the development of large language models. The NYT lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft claims that both companies have utilized “millions” of articles from The New York Times to enhance their AI models, which now pose direct competition to the newspaper’s content.
The outcome of the lawsuit could significantly influence both the IT and media industries, potentially reshaping the operation of generative AI. It may also affect how news is produced, consumed, and monetized across these sectors.
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New York Times ☛ Boom in Hey Hi (AI) Prompts a Test of Copyright Law
The use of content from news and information providers to train artificial intelligence systems may force a reassessment of where to draw legal lines.
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Digital Music News ☛ Does ‘I Do Not Own the Rights to This Music’ Provide Protection Against Copyright Claims? Here’s a Quick Answer
Is it a good idea to attach an “I do not own the rights to this music” disclaimer to content containing a protected song or songs? Here’s a quick answer to the often-asked question.
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Torrent Freak ☛ Are Pirated Movie Screeners Off Limits Since the EVO Bust?
A decade ago, nearly all screener copies of all Oscar-nominated films leaked online. Today, these types of screener leaks are non-existent. Changes in the movie industry contributed to this change but the bust of piracy group EVO a year ago had a big impact too. The group's suspected leader was arrested in Portugal and others are still under investigation.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal/Opinions
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Stargazing: Pegasus: Fairbanks, AK, USA 2023-12-27 (publ. 2023-12-29)
We had clear skies on the evening of the 27th. I was rather tired due to some illness working through my family. Also, the full moon was very bright, dimming the stars considerably. But clear skies are rare around here, so I decided to head out to the boat launch anyway.
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A drink for the pain
Managed to get myself into a little accident a few days after my first post here. Got out of the hospital a couple of days before Christmas, sans motorbike and with a shiny new grudge and 34 even shinier implants. Hit and run is always a crappy way to conduct oneself, but the fact it happened a month before my son's first Christmas and I damn near ended up missing that one and all that followed really irks me something chronic.
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Why did the chicken...
It's so common and simple in its core idea that you probably think nothing of it. To kill the idea by saying it out loud, it plays with our assumptions of what a question should be by asking a question which implies some kind of unusual or meaningful answer, but 'surprises' us by being a simple statement which is so obvious as to be overlooked as a potential answer. It is a joke because it violates the cooperative conversational principles. It is also maybe not very funny; it has been defended as 'anti-humor' but I think that's just another way of saying not funny.
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I can't sleep
This world is stupid sometimes. The worst is that different civilisations seems to have developed this BS independently. The Wikipedia page is neat (the french one at least), just be warned: they show things with photos.
[...]
If it works well I could go back to Debian. Fedora is nice but I like Debian's update schedule better.
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🔤SpellBinding: BUKLNOC Wordo: PATTY
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Technology and Free Software
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Ferrets and End-of-Year Status
It has been sixteen days since I last posted a log--the longest break I've taken since I first launched my capsule. One event has primarily distracted me in that time. Two weeks ago, my wife and I decided to purchase two ferrets.
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Running Honk on Alpine Linux
With all the recent talk about the fediverse now that Twitter is on fire, I decided to give it a go by running my own instance. There's a lot of benefits to this - considering that you're joining a decentralised social networking system, you might as well own your data, and also start with a clean slate - you don't need to worry about other servers having already blocked the server that you're only just getting set up on.
I decided to go with an AWS t3a.nano instance running Alpine Linux for my server, and I'll be running Honk on it - this is a minimalist web application written in Go that interfaces with the rest of the fediverse using ActivityPub (the underlying standard that powers Mastodon, Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, etc.)
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Programming
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Locking It Down? Easy Tools to Help You Develop Secure Software
If you're like me, sometimes when you're working on bringing a great idea to life security can be a bit of an afterthought. You have already thought about the big stuff like TLS and implementing the right authentication and authorisation system, but there can still be blind spots - for example, how your application is handling user data flow, or how it's exposing that data to the rest of your application's code. Luckily there are tools that can help you with secure development, and I'll show you some of the big ones out there.
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Turning a Git Repository into a Simple File Host with Cloudflare Workers
Recently I used CloudFlare Workers for the first time to create the website you're reading right now (look at Fruition to learn how I did it), and I decided to try out writing some of my own workers to get an idea of what it could do.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.