Nachdem wir jahrelang gehrt haben, wie toll und schlagkrftig die
Wagner-Sldner sind, und dann monatelang, dass die schlecht
ausgerstet in den Krieg geschickt werden.
Wieso wrde Russland seine strkste Armee so in der Ukraine
verheizen?
Nun, das ist eben nicht Putins Privatarmee. Im Zweifel folgen
die den Befehlen von Prigoshin. Es gibt noch ein paar andere
Sldnerheere in Russland. Putin hat zwar einerseits ein Interesse
daran, diesen Krieg zu gewinnen, aber da der Krieg auf dem
Territorium der Ukraine stattfindet und er der Angreifer ist, kann
er den Krieg eigentlich auch jederzeit einfach beenden und
weiterregieren. Wichtiger fr Putin ist daher das Krfteverhltnis
innerhalb Russland.
Tja und da muss er halt drauf achten, dass er nicht sein Heer
verheizt, und am Ende die Wagner-Armee brig bleibt und
schlagkrftiger ist als die Einheiten unter seiner eigenen
Kontrolle.
Diese Interpretation bietet sich jedenfalls an, wenn man
von diesem Leak hrt, dass Prigoshin der Ukraine angeboten haben
soll, wenn sie sich aus Bachmut zurckziehen, dass er ihnen dann
Stellungen der Russen verrt. Das wren dann Putin-Russen, nicht
Wagner-Russen, nehme ich an.
"Die Zugbegleiterin hat geweint, sie wusste nicht mehr
weiter." Diese meinte, es msse von auen kommen, denn alle Versuche,
das Tonband zu unterbrechen, scheiterten. "Sie hat die Sicherungen
rausgetan und alles versucht", auch mit der Durchsage-Taste war die
Stimme Hitlers nicht zu unterbinden.
Besonders krass: Es gab vor ein paar Tagen bereits schon einen
solchen Fall, nur halt ohne den Hitler-Teil.
An AI-based decoder that can translate brain
activity into a continuous stream of text has been developed, in a
breakthrough that allows a person's thoughts to be read
non-invasively for the first time. The decoder could
reconstruct speech with uncanny accuracy while people listened to a
story or even silently imagined one using only fMRI scan data.
Previous language decoding systems have required surgical implants.
Large language models the kind of AI underpinning OpenAI's ChatGPT
... are able to represent, in numbers, the semantic meaning of
speech, allowing the scientists to look at which patterns of
neuronal activity corresponded to strings of words with a
particular meaning rather than attempting to read out activity word
by word. The decoder was personalised and when the model was tested
on another person the readout was unintelligible. It was also
possible for participants on whom the decoder had been trained to
thwart the system, for example by thinking of animals or quietly
imagining another story. Jerry Tang, a doctoral student at the
University of Texas at Austin and a co-author, said: "We take very
seriously the concerns that it could be used for bad purposes and
have worked to avoid that. We want to make sure people only use
these types of technologies when they want to and that it helps
them." Prof Tim Behrens, a computational neuroscientist ... said it
opened up a host of experimental possibilities, including reading
thoughts from someone dreaming.
Tessa Jolls, president of the Center for Media Literacy, published a report
last month entitled "Building Resiliency: Media Literacy as a
Strategic Defense Strategy for the Transatlantic." It reads
like a blueprint for indoctrinating students in corporatism and
militarism under the auspices of media literacy education. The
standard definition of media literacy used in American
education is "the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create and
act using all forms of communication." In response to the post-2016
panic over fake news, there was a demand for more media literacy
education in schools. This provided a window of opportunity for
major media companies which had long sought to enter the
classroom to advertise their products and collect student data to
move rapidly toward indoctrinate students with corporate propaganda
under the "media literacy" umbrella. The same military and
intelligence communities now calling for "media literacy" have been
producing and spreading fake news, at home and abroad, for at least
70 years. Jolla' report ignores that members of the same
military and intelligence communities that she lauds have produced
and spread fake news to U.S. citizens, from the time
of Operation Mockingbird in the mid-20th century
up through the present on various social media platforms. She also never
discusses public efforts to disempower the military-industrial
complex's ability to dictate truth. Real media literacy education
empowers students to ... ask their own questions.
The U.S. Army Cyber Command told defense contractors
it planned to surveil global social media use to defend the "NATO
brand," according to a 2022 webinar recording reviewed by The
Intercept. "NATO is one of our key brands that we are pushing, as
far as our national security alliance," [Lt. Col. David Beskow]
explained. The mass social media surveillance appears to be
just one component of a broader initiative to use private-sector
data mining to advance the Army's information warfare efforts.
Beskow expressed an interest in purchasing access to nonpublic
commercial web data, corporate ownership records, supply chain
data, and more. While the U.S. national security
establishment frequently warns against other countries'
"weaponization" of social media and the broader internet, recent
reporting has shown the Pentagon engages in some of the very same
conduct. Researchers from Graphika and the Stanford Internet
Observatory uncovered a
network of pro-U.S. Twitter and Facebook accounts covertly
operated by U.S. Central Command, an embarrassing
revelation that led to a "sweeping audit of how it conducts
clandestine information warfare." Despite years of alarm in
Washington over the threat posed by deepfake video fabrications to
democratic societies, The Intercept reported
last month that U.S. Special Operations Command is seeking
vendors to help them make their own deepfakes to deceive foreign
internet users.
Oil and gas companies, led by Shell, Eni, Chevron, Total and
ExxonMobil, spilled 110,000 barrels of oil into Nigerias Bayelsa
state over the past 50 years, a new report says. The report,
released by a commission of experts set up by the state government
in 2019, also reported finding levels of heavy metals associated
with oil production in human tissue in the state that are far
higher than safe levels. The commission, the first of its kind to
be directly appointed by a state government in Nigerias notoriously
polluted Niger Delta, called for Shell and others to set up a $12
billion cleanup fund to address the environmental and health
impacts of the oil industry in Bayelsa. Bayelsa state lies on
Nigerias coastline and once included parts of Africas largest
mangrove forest. Its mangroves, coastal barrier islands and
freshwater and lowland rainforests are home to a wide variety of
wildlife, including threatened red colobus monkeys (Piliocolobus
epieni). Bayelsa was also once home to robust populations of
chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes ellioti) and pygmy hippos (Choeropsis
liberiensis), but these have now all but vanished. Long years of
exploitation of the areas resources by transnational companies,
beginning with palm oil for the Royal Niger Company in the 17th
century and continuing into the present with unregulated logging
and, since the late 1950s, the petroleum industry, have taken
a terrible toll on the environment and fishing and farming
communities of the delta. The first oil well in Nigeria, drilled by
Shell in Bayelsa inThis article was originally published on
Mongabay
Earlier this month, a fisherman reported oil leaking from an old
wellhead at Okpoama, in the southern part of Nigerias Bayelsa
state. The Niger Delta suffers more than 200 oil spills every year,
many of them far worse than this one, which elicited only a rote
complaint from a local youth leader and a jaded call from
environmental activists in the region for communities to be
involved in a joint investigation. A new report released today
takes a comprehensive look at the cumulative effects of 50 years of
oil pollution on the states people and environment: the findings
are damning, but some locals told Mongabay they dont expect much
will change. The May 8 spill took place in the Brass locality, near
the ocean where the water in the creeks of the Niger Delta is
brackish with seawater. The delta region is one of the worlds
largest wetlands, and hosts Africas largest mangrove forests. Its
people long prospered amid spectacular biodiversity. But decades of
oil production have severely damaged the swamp, forest and marine
habitats of the region, threatening species such as the West
African manatee (Trichechus senegalensis), the pygmy hippo
(Choeropsis liberiensis heslopi) and the Niger Delta red colobus
monkey (Piliocolobus epieni). Nearly a fifth of Nigerias oil
production is from Bayelsa, and Brass is at the heart of the web of
poorly maintained infrastructure that brings oil and gas to the
surface and transports it to terminals for export. Shell
contractors and regulators responding to a 2015 spillThis article
was originally published on
Mongabay
The Amnesic Incognito Live System (Tails) is a Debian-based live
DVD/USB with the goal of providing complete Internet anonymity for
the user. The project has added a few new tools to the distribution
in Tails 5.13, including the cURL downloading program which will
run over the Tor network....
While the Loongson 3A6000 processors have yet to be officially
launched, rumors since last year put it on target for launching in
the first half of this year and some claims that there is such
performance uplift that these Chinese CPUs could rival AMD Zen 3 or
Intel Tiger Lake levels of performance. Ahead of the 3A6000 series
launch, Linux patches have begun appearing for these next-gen
LoongArch processors...
Las instituciones federales de cultura del Estado mexicano han
sido incapaces de colaborar, por medio de las reparaciones
simblicas, en las demandas de representacin de vctimas
de desaparicin forzada, seal Rodrigo Quintero
Murgua, egresado de la Maestra
en Derechos Humanos de la Universidad
Iberoamericana Ciudad de Mxico.
En Mxico, dijo, es necesario contar con una poltica integral en
donde las reparaciones simblicas sean parte de un plan de accin
apegado a los parmetros internacionales de derechos humanos,
compartido por instituciones culturales y
organizaciones de sociedad civil para tener una
representacin consensuada y elementos estticos que contribuyan a la
cohesin social.
As lo expuso al defender su tesis de grado La ausencia de las
instituciones culturales federales en los procesos de reparacin
simblica del derecho a la memoria de las vctimas de desaparicin
forzada en Mxico, una investigacin sobre los sitios de
memoria, monumentos y antimonumentos.
Entender cmo desde hace algunos aos las narrativas perifricas
tratan de ser parte del espacio pblico -y no nada ms dejar ste a la
narrativa oficial del Estado- es la trascendencia y relevancia de
este tema, en una poca en que en diferentes pases las sociedades ya
no estn dando por hecho que en su espacio pblico se puedan permitir
el racismo, los procesos colonizadores o que no haya justicia para
ciertos colectivos.
En un pas como Mxico, con una emergencia
nacional por las ms de 100 mil personas
desaparecidas, convendra relacionar la violencia con
la justicia transicional, que aporta formas de
entendimiento en las que se puede hacer justicia.
El postgraduado explic que a los cuatro pilares de la justicia
transicional: verdad, justicia, reparacin y medidas de no repeticin
-estudiados por las Naciones Unidas-, Fabian Salvioli, en su
informe como relator especial sobre la promocin de la verdad en El
Salvador, aadi un quinto, relativo a la necesidad de
crear memoria y memorializacin en los Estados en
donde ha existido violencia. Dentro de la memoria y memorializacin,
abund, se encuentra la reparacin simblica, una manera
de reconstruir el tejido social por medio expresiones
culturales.
Rodrigo Quintero aborda en su tesis la importancia de
esos lugares de memoria desde el punto de vista
de Pierre Nora, quien habla de la diferencia entre
historia y memoria. Con la primera, el Estado trata de
explicar lo que es la nacin y de fundamentar un sentido
nacionalista. En cambio, la memoria es un proceso de ritualizacin
de las personas.
Ciudad de Mxico | Desinformmonos. Las acciones
de gobiernos municipales, estatales y federales para detener la
tala ilegal en la Sierra Tarahumara de Chihuahua no son
suficientes, ya que se encuentran implicados mltiples intereses
econmicos y polticos de los que las autoridades no tienen un
control adecuado, denunciaron la organizacin Indigenous Peoples
Rights International (IPRI) y la Red Nacional de Organismos Civiles
de Derechos Humanos Todos los Derechos para Todas y Todos (Red
TDT).
En conferencia de prensa, representantes de ambas organizaciones
acusaron que la tala ilegal en la Sierra Tarahumara, que se
intensific en 2015 y que se ha agravado en los ltimos ocho meses,
es causa de dao ambiental, desplazamiento forzado interno,
asesinatos y violaciones a los derechos humanos y del pueblo
tarahumara a la libre determinacin, la autonoma, la consulta
previa, libre e informada, entre otros.
Sealaron que actualmente no existe un plan gubernamental de
accin integral que evite la tala ilegal en los bosques, por lo que
las comunidades tarahumaras se han organizado desde hace ms de 30
aos para defender su territorio a travs de la va agraria, civil y
penal en contra de los intereses comerciales de personas con poder
vinculadas a grupos criminales. Por esta labor, al menos 22
personas fueron asesinadas desde 1966, puntualizaron.
Por ello, las organizaciones exigieron la creacin de un plan de
accin integral para frenar la tala ilegal en la Sierra Tarahumara,
as como acciones urgentes para detener el desmonte y la
implementacin de operativos permanentes, la revisin de centros de
transformacin de la madera y las redes de comercializacin de la
madera ilegal.
Finalmente, demandaron medidas de proteccin para las vctimas de
la tala y la violencia que ha originado en las comunidades, as como
la garanta de un retorno seguro para los desplazados.
A continuacin el comunicado completo:
Es urgente frenar la tala ilegal en la Sierra Tarahumara de
Chihuahua debido al dao ambiental, el desplazamiento forzado
interno, los asesinatos y las mltiples e irreparables violaciones a
derechos humanos como la autonoma, la libre determinacin, la
consulta libre, previa e informada, los derechos a vivir en
comunidad y de acuerdo con el propio pensamiento y cultura, el
idioma, el bienestar comunitario de la niez a curarse por medio de
la medicina tradicional y alimentarse con las plantas comestibles.
Tambin se han visto coartados los derechos a vida, libertad,
seguridad y a una vida libre de violencia.
Los pueblos originarios de la regin han denunciado que la tala
ilegal se intensific desde 2015 y en los ltimos 8 meses se ha
agravado. Actualmente no existe un plan de accin integral que evite
la tala ilegal en los bosques de la Sierra Tarahumara de Chihuahua,
las acciones que han realizado los gobiernos municipales, estatales
y federales no son sufic...
The Department of Defense (DoD) has released multiple documents
pertaining to the Airborne Object Identification and
Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) case 22-F-0249 with OSD/JS filed by The
Black Vault. This development provides intriguing insights into the
DoDs research into Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), and the
processes surrounding the establishment and evolution of groups
dedicated to this purpose within the Pentagon.
The AOIMSG was a specialized task force established by the
Department of Defense (DoD) to investigate and manage Unidentified
Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings and encounters. This groups
primary function was to coordinate and synchronize efforts across
various military and governmental departments to gather, analyze,
and share information regarding UAP.
The spotlight of this release falls squarely on the OSD(PA)
Briefing Cards related to the establishment of the AOIMSG. The
unveiling of these briefing cards is a rare glimpse into the DoDs
internal communications and strategies regarding the AOIMSG and its
role in researching UAP. The Black Vault has also received numerous cards in the past, also
shedding light on UAP research efforts.
Earlier this month, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin introduced
The Building American Energy Security Act of 2023. This legislation
changes how federal agencies handle energy projects and takes the
dangerous and unprecedented step of requiring agencies to issue all
permits within 30 days for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP),
without further public involvement and without judicial review.
Make no mistake: No project should be exempt from full
protections afforded by cornerstone laws like the Clean Water Act
and the Endangered Species Act, which the MVP has a long history of
violating.
While there is much debate over the need for permitting reform
to aid in our energy transition, this provision is reckless and
unfair. Still, together, we can send a united message to our
leaders to protect West Virginians and our right to fair and equal
treatment under the law.
Today, we are calling on our supporters to contact
President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Senate
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to tell them that fast-tracking
fossil fuel projects puts our communities and the planet at risk.
Can we count on you to take action with us today?
After youve signed your name and added your comments, could you
forward the link to your family and friends to ask them to use
their voices to stand with West Virginians rights to fair and equal
protections?
Together we have built a powerful coalition. With your continued
support, well keep growing our numbers to protect access to clean
water.
Sources told Middle East Eye on Tuesday that Istanbul Mayor
Ekrem Imamoglu is set to assume a more prominent role in shaping
Kilicdaroglu's new electoral strategy.
The decision comes after Erdogan secured 49.5 percent of the
votes in the presidential race, well ahead of Kilicdaroglu who
managed 44.9 percent, according to Turkeys election authority.
A runoff election is scheduled for 28 May.
Kilicdaroglu took decisive action following the election,
beginning with the dismissal of Onursal Adiguzel, the deputy
chairman of the Republican People's Party (CHP), who led the
elections and propaganda team responsible for monitoring the
vote.
Reports suggest that there was confusion within the party on
election night wh...
Since 2018, Hunter Biden has been under a series of
investigations into tax-related crimes, drug use, money laundering
and illegal business dealings in foreign countries, including
Ukraine and China.
On Monday, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) removed the
investigative team from their protracted tax fraud probe of Hunter Biden,
in an apparent retaliation against a whistleblower who raised
concerns about the handling of the case.
The whistleblowers lawyers Mark Lytle and Tristan Leavitt wrote
to Congress that the IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent they
represent was informed that he and his entire investigative team
are being removed from the ongoing and sensitive investigation of
the high-profile, controversial subject about which our client
sought to make whistleblower disclosures to Congress. He was
informed the change was at the request of the Department of
Justice.
The two also recalled that on April 27, 2023, IRS Commissioner
Daniel Werfel appeared before the House Committee on Ways and Means
to testify without any hesitation there will be no retaliation for
anyone making an allegation or a call to a whistleblower
hotline.
However, this move [by the IRS] is clearly retaliatory and may
also constitute the obstruction of a congressional inquiry, the
lawyers added.
They added that they respectfully request that you [the IRS]
give this matter your prompt attention and that removing the
experienced investigators who have worked this case for years and
are now the subject-matter experts is exactly the sort of issue our
client intended to blow the whistle on to begin with.
This comes a few weeks after insiders revealed that US District
Attorney of Delaware David Weiss is close to making a decision on
whether to charge Hunter Biden with a crime over tax and
gun-related offenses.
The First Son is reportedly being investigated by Weiss for two
misdemeanor tax filing charges, one pertaining to a felony tax
evasion and other to a false statement about a gun purchase.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed by former
President Bill Clinton in 1995 and blocked as a Supreme Court
nomination in 2016 by Senate Republicans said his office would
respect the outcome of Weiss investigation. I stand by my testimony
and I refer you to the attorney for the District of Delaware, who
is in charge of this case and capable of making any decisi...
SQLite 3.42 is now available as the newest update to this
widely-used, embed-friendly SQL database option that is used by
countless applications and other software for lightweight and
speedy data storage purposes...
Every time we check in with [Hyperspace Pirate] hes trying to
make things cold. Really cold. His recent two-part video shows a
propane vapor compression system that can go down to
-37 C as well as a two-stage system using homemade ethylene that
can get to -83 C. Hes trying to get to -100, so hes close, and we
have no doubt hell get there.
The video explains that using two different refrigerants makes
the design more practical. At the low temperatures involved, you
have to deal with compressor oil freezing. There is a lot of theory
required to design an efficient cooler and a lot of know-how
required to make gas-tight connections with all the different
materials involved.
Using propane in both stages did provide a little additional
cooling. But using ethylene in the second stage didnt work as
expected. There were two issues to work through. Part of it was the
average temperature of the system, and also, the homemade ethylene
needed purification. The ethylene purification setup was almost as
complex as the main system and also reminded us, for some reason,
of the movie Darkstar. It didnt work as well as he wanted,
which means we have to wait for part two to see it all actually
working.
Weve seen this same guy make
dry ice. Hes also tried to make...
La reconocida intelectual norteamericana Nancy Fraser desentraa
en El capitalismo canbal las mltiples
dimensiones en las que este orden social est fagocitando cualquier
posibilidad de reproducir otra cosa que no sea la barbarie.
Estamos atravesando una crisis muy peculiar. No slo una crisis
de desigualdad arrasadora y de trabajo precario mal remunerado;
tampoco es nada ms una crisis de las labores de cuidado o la
reproduccin social; ni apenas una crisis de la migracin y la
violencia racialidad; ni siquiera simplemente una crisis ecolgica
en la que un planeta que se calienta arroja plagas letales, o
exclusivamente una crisis poltica que presenta una infraestructura
vaciada, un militarismo intensificado y una proliferacin de hombres
fuertes 1. Lo que
atravesamos es una crisis general de todo el orden social en la que
convergen todas esas calamidades, agudizndose unas a otras y
amenazando con tragarnos enteros.
El orden social que nos condujo a este estado de cosas, uno que
por su propia lgica amenaza lo que son condiciones fundamentales
para su propia existencia, es lo que Nancy Fraser se propone
desentraar en El capitalismo canbal, libro que acaba
de ser editado en espaol por Siglo XXI.
El libro se propone un dilogo con el bienvenido regreso en los
ltimos tiempos, dentro de las corrientes de pensamiento crtico,
especialmente en el mundo anglosajn, de la discusin sobre el
capitalismo. El retorno de este concepto al debate, es un claro
indicador, si es que hiciera falta alguno, de la profundidad de la
crisis actual. El problema, seala Fraser, es que gracias a dcadas
de amnesia social, generaciones enteras de jvenes activistas y
acadmicos se han convertido en sofisticados practicantes de anlisis
de discurso mientras se mantienen absolutamente inocentes respecto
de las tradiciones de Kapitalkritik. Pero al mismo
tiempo, la autora observa que los veteranos de eras previas de
fermento anticapitalista fracasaron en gran medida [] en incorporar
las ideas del pensamiento feminista, ecolgico, poscolonial y de
liberacin negra en su comprensin del capitalismo de manera
sistemtica. Es a esta articulacin que se propone contribuir con
Capitalismo canbal, para formular concepciones del capitalismo y de
la crisis capitalista adecuadas a nuestro tiempo.
El capitalismo, argumenta Fraser, no puede entenderse
simplemente como un sistema econmico basado en la propiedad privada
y el intercambio de mercado, el trabajo asalariado y la produccin
con fines de lucro. Esta definicin resulta en su opinin demasiado
estrecha, oscureciendo en lugar de revelar la verdadera naturaleza
del sistema. En contraposicin, considera que debe entenderse el
capitalismo como un orden social que faculta a una economa
impulsada por las ganancias para aprovechar los soportes
extraecon...
Mishandling of guest SSBD selection on AMD hardware
ISSUE DESCRIPTION
=================
The current logic to set SSBD on AMD Family 17h and Hygon Family
18h
processors requires that the setting of SSBD is coordinated at a
core
level, as the setting is shared between threads. Logic was
introduced
to keep track of how many threads require SSBD active in order
to
coordinate it,...
Five billion people spend almost half of their waking hours
online. According to a new study from
Aalto University, browser clutter is a serious problem for one in
four of them. The results will be presented on April 27 at CHI
2023, the leading conference for human-computer interaction
research.
'We began exploring which challenges make users feel overwhelmed
when browsing the internet. We also mapped the behaviors that cause
the clutter and how users react to the stress,' says Associate
Professor and Head of Department Janne Lindqvist.
Browsing habits play a major role in cluttering up a browser.
Using interviews and an online survey, the researchers found that
clutter-related stress goes up when users keep a large number of
tabs and browser windows open, as well as because of interactive
elements like ads and pop-up windows.
Multitasking adds to the problem, and it gets worse if users are
hesitant to close tabs or are dealing with complex tasks. Clutter
also accumulates when users have tabs open related to different
online activities for example, if they're managing a travel
reservation in one tab and chatting with friends or colleagues in
another.
[...] The study found that many users react to stress by trying
to change either their behavior or their attitude towards the
clutter. Only the former, problem-focused solutions, proved helpful
in solving the issue. An example solution would be to consciously
minimize clutter by deciding on an upper limit to the number of
tabs you have open.
All Israeli wars on the Palestinians throughout the years have
been promoted and justified by Tel Aviv in the name of security and
fighting terrorism.
Israels biggest challenge throughout many of these wars was
hardly the Palestinian Resistance, however steadfast and resilient.
The challenge has always been Tel Avivs ability to
kill many Palestinians, including civilians, without tarnishing
its image internationally as an oasis of democracy and
civilization.
Israel has been losing the public relations battle rapidly so,
and now, it is losing a different kind of battle as well.
Throughout its 75-year-old history, from its violent
birth on the ruins of historic Palestine in May 1948 up to its
latest war on besieged Gaza on May 9, Israels history has been
associated with violence.
Pro-Israel Western propaganda, along with masterful Israeli
manipulation of facts and rewriting of history, allowed Israel to
blame the violence on others: first, the Arabs who supposedly
attacked Israel, unprovoked, time and again; then the Palestinian
terrorists from all ideological colors, the socialists, the
secularists and, as of late, the Islamic fundamentalists.
Alas, the Israeli hasbara worked, not because of its sheer
genius but because of the near-total embargo on the Palestinian
voice in all aspects of life. This embargo continues to this day
and has extended to reach dominant social media platforms, leading
amongst them, Facebook.
But the fight for the truth, intellectual integrity and freedom
of speech continues, and Palestinian successes are now far greater
than all attempts by Israel, its benefactors and supporters to
censor, sideline or muffle the Palestinian voice.
The days of hiding Israeli crimes or blaming them on someone
else seem to be over.
There are reasons why Israels propaganda is living its worst
days. Aside from the power and influence commanded by Palestinian
intellectuals, social media activists and the numerous platforms
made available to them through innumerable solidarity networks
around the world, Israeli hasbara has itself grown weak and
unconvincing.
Israel is a fragmented society. While it is true that Israelis
often unite during times of war, this time around, their unity is
stale and unimpressive.
It is no news that Declan Rice is attracting a lot of admirers
across Europe and Premier League rivals are monitoring his
situation. However, New Telegraph gathered that West Ham will not
entertain any bids for Rice until the season is over. Reports which
emerged on Monday revealed that Arsenal wants to open talks
with...
President Trump has called for everyone involved in the Russian
collusion ploy, including Hillary Clinton, to pay a heavy price,
after a report
from Special Counsel John Durham concluded that the FBI
investigation into the 2016 Trump presidential campaign was totally
unfounded.
After extensive research, Special Counsel John Durham concludes
the FBI never should have launched the Trump-Russia Probe! In other
words, the American Public was scammed, just as it is being scammed
right now by those who dont want to see GREATNESS for AMERICA!
Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Trump added The Durham Report spells out in great detail the
Democrat Hoax that was perpetrated upon me and the American people.
This is 2020 Presidential Election Fraud, just like stuffing the
ballot boxes, only more so. This totally illegal act had a huge
impact on the Election. With an honest Media, we are looking at the
Crime of the Century!
Trump also called for Hillary Clinton, James Comey and the
Democrats to be punished for treason.
In a further interview with
Fox News, Trump said I, and much more importantly, the American
public have been victims of this long-running and treasonous
charade started by the Democrats, started by Comey.
Public anger over this report is at a level that I have not seen
beforethere must be a heavy price to there pay for putting our
country through this, Trump added.
The Durham report notes that Based on the review of Crossfire
Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we conclude that the
Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of
strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and
activities described in this report.
It adds that Our investigation also revealed that senior FBI
personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the
information that they received, especially information received
from politically affiliated persons and entities, presumably a
reference to the infamous Clinton campaign-funded Fusion GPS pee
dossier.
Responding to the findings, Republicans have called for a
complete overhaul of the FBI, with Senator Josh Hawley declaring we
need to end the FBI as we know it.
People need to be prosecuted for this, Hawley asserted, adding
The Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton herself is it any
coincidence that she is tweeting about collusion at exactly the
same time her campaign operatives are feeding this BS to the FBI? I
d...
Lebanon's Central Bank chief
Riad Salameh during a studio photo session in Beirut, on 20
December 2021 (AFP)
French
prosecutors issued an international arrest warrant for Lebanese
Central Bank governor Riad Salameh on Tuesday, according to sources
close to the case.
Earlier in the day, Salameh failed to show up to a hearing
in Paris where an investigative magistrate was expected to
indict him over preliminary fraud and money laundering
charges.
The investigators suspect the 72-year-old, who has been Lebanon's
central bank chief for three decades, of misusing public funds and
using fraudulent financial systems to amass a network of assets
across Europe.
His lawyer told Reuters he did not show up to the summons
because they were sent to him too close to the day of the hearing.
Instead of issuing a fresh summons, the prosecutors issued an
international arrest warrant, sources said.
"By having notified the summons less than 10 days before the
scheduled date of the interrogation, the rules were not respected,"
lawyer Pierre-Olivier Sur told Reuters. "The summons is therefore
null and void."
The Anambra State Chapter of the All Progressives Grand Alliance
(APGA) has dismissed an alleged plot to hijack the electoral
process. The party further warned those it called rumor mongers to
desist from making malicious and undignified statements against the
party and its Congresses insisting that there is no anointed
candidate. According to the State...
Se realiz la Feria del libro de Buenos Aires, como el autor y
Quimantu en el marco de 50 aos, postulamos ir con el libro
Escenas Perdidas, que recoge la investigacin de 8 aos de
un periodista porteo, sobre el mundo del cine de la CUT y el
registro de los balnearios populares en tiempos de la UP, en esos
tiempos en que todos ramos cineastas, actores, guionistas y
tramoya, si las circunstancias lo pedan y el colectivo lo
trabajaba.
La solicitud fue rechazada por el Ministerio de Cultura diciendo
que no estaba seleccionado para la FILBA, que haba alcanzado 93
puntos de 100, y que diez das eran muchos.
Sin embargo, Santiago de Chile era el invitado especial a la
Feria Internacional del Libro de Buenos Aires, ese evento que se
realiza todos los aos en La Rural SA, propiedad de empresas que
explotan comercialmente un inmenso predio: 50%, Sociedad Rural
Argentina; 25%, Fnix Entertainment Group; y 25% APSA. Todos de la
clase terrateniente argentina, como la familia Martnez de Hoz,
parte de la dictadura de Videla. Un espacio mercantilizado por las
elites, y agenciado por las grandes editoriales, donde todo se
paga
El mandatado para hacerse cargo de la representacin nacional fue
el creador de la cultura chatarra televisiva, Don Jaime de Aguirre,
que a pesar de ser arte y parte del financiamiento ilegal de la
poltica con SOQUIMICH, Aguas Andinas, y el grupo Angelini, es hoy
Ministro de Cultura, y mentor de la presencia de Chile en el pas de
Julio Cortzar, Rodolfo Walsh, Roberto Arlt, de Alfonsina Storni, y
30.000 desaparecidos.
Qu miedo la misma tecnocracia que en 1992, Chile transport un
iceberg a la Exposicin Universal de Sevilla extrado de la Antrtida
y trasladado en un buque de la Armada hasta Europa, con el obsceno
costo para el Estado de 12 millones de dlares. 85 toneladas de
aguas prstinas para renovar votos con el rey de Espaa por 500 aos
ms de colonialismo, y de paso blanquear la concertada salida de la
dictadura cvico militar.
Todo un operativo de idelogos, consejeros, publicistas,
empresarios, polticos y militares, para exhibir un Chile en venta
en el mercado internacional de la globalizacion. Fue la punta del
Iceberg, pues a partir de ah, nuestros bienes comunes se venderan
para usufructo de ese 0,7 % de la poblacin, dueo de todas nuestras
riquezas. Otro zarpazo del jaguar o puma chileno en contra de su
pueblo por las castas de arriba.
85 toneladas que por 50 aos siguen derritindose y pesando sobre
nuestro pueblo y territorios, a manos de un modelo neoliberal
depredador y mercantil nico en el mundo, que termin con todas
nuestras aspiraciones como pueblo soberano.
The Senate, on Tuesday, mandated the Clerk to the National
Assembly (CNA), to transmit a Constitution alteration bill No. 58
to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent, in line with the
provisions of the Authentication Act. The bill among other things,
seeks to provide for independent candidacy in presidential,
governorship, national and state assemblies, and local...
Late Tondon, the Indian chef and the record breaker of the
longest cooking hour in 2019 has said that Guinness World Record
for marathon cooking is a record and not a competition. The
Guinness World Record holder made this known while reacting to the
news of the Nigerian Akwa-Ibom chef, Hilda Basi who breaks
the...
En Mxico, de los ms de 1.2 millones de maestras y maestros que
hay, el 69.9 por ciento son mujeres (878 mil), de acuerdo con el
Instituto Nacional de Estadstica y Geografa (INEGI). Y pese al
valor social que significa su labor, perciben bajos salarios y poco
reconocimiento ante una profesin que tiene a pioneras que
impulsaron sus derechos.
Compartir lo que s y la experiencia de lo aprendido es
inigualable, pero aprender de los alumnos lo mejor; lo que te
mantiene al da y lo que nutre tu labor, comparti Bertha Romero,
maestra mexicana.
Ella, como ms de 800 mil mujeres, es maestra en Mxico, pas donde
ms poco ms de 29 millones de alumnas y alumnos de escuelas pblicas
y privadas de educacin bsica, media superior y normales, de acuerdo
con cifras de la Secretara de Educacin Pblica (SEP).
Maestras que dejaron huella y abrieron caminos en
Mxico
La educacin de la mujer es el nico medio de conseguir la
felicidad de la gran familia humana, Rita
Cetina.
Entre las mujeres que han abierto caminos para las maestras y
nias en Mxico encontramos a Rita Cetina Gutierrez, mejor conocida
como la primera mentora yucateca.
Y es que a Rita Cetina se le atribuye el comienzo en pblico del
despertar femenino en la pennsula. Fue maestra, poeta y feminista
mexicana que comenz su labor magisterial en 1871 en la escuela
primaria gratuita para nias de escasos recursos La
Siempreviva.
Ello impuls la creacin de la revista Siempreviva, la cual
contena mensajes en favor de la educacin de la mujer, as como la
importancia de una escuela para ellas.
Despus de estas experiencias, Rita Cetina se desempe como
directora y maestra por 18 aos en el recin creado Instituto
Literario de Nias, el cual fue considerado la primera escuela
Normal de su ciudad. En esta institucin, Rita impuls la
profesionalizacin de las alumnas por medio de exmenes que las
acreditarn como profesoras.
Entre las mujeres que tambin abrieron camino a la maestras en
Mxico se encuentra Rosaura Zapata Cano, quien es considerada
pionera en la educacin preescolar en nuestro pas.
Rosaura estudi en la ciudad de Mxico y en 1898 obtuvo el ttulo
de profesora. Tambin estudi psicologa y pedagoga en la Universidad
Nacional. Despus de ejercer el magisterio por un tiempo, en 1902
fue becada para estudiar pedagoga en escuelas de San Francisco,
California y New York.
The Senator-elect representing Plateau Central Senatorial
District, Hon. Diket Plang, has condemned in strong terms the
latest attack at Kubwat and Fungzai communities in the Mangu local
government area of Plateau State, which claimed lives and property.
Hon. Plang, in a statement signed and issued on Tuesday in Jos said
the constant onslaught against the...
[S]uffice it to state that the US Guardian Elite are very much
of and for the overworld of private wealth. Since the end of World
War II, the US Guardian Elite have functioned most decisively as
executors of dark power.
Aaron Good, American Exception, p 107
Aaron Good, who received his PhD in political
science at Temple University, has written an exceptional book:
American Exception: Empire and the
Deep State (Skyhorse, 2022). The title of the first
chapter broadly lays out the thesis of the book: Empire, Hegemony,
and the State.
Good develops two terms, exceptionism
(institutionalized lawlessness) and the tripartite state
(which includes the public state, security state, and the deep
state), that he fleshes out throughout American
Exception.
The author identifies the US as exceptionist in that it
serially violates its own constitution. The United Nations
Charter forbids warmaking and covert operations, and since the
United States government has ratified the UN Charter it is legally
applicable as per the US Constitution. Thus, the launching of wars
and CIA cloak-and-dagger missions are in contravention of the US
Constitution, adducing the exceptionism of the US.
Anti-communism, the boogeyman of the American establishment,
used to serve as a pretext for US exceptionism, but as Good points
out, with the fall of the Soviet Union this pretext has vanished.
Since the military-industrial complex needs a boogeyman, the Global
War on Terror, Russophobia, and the China Threat have been reified
to keep the war machine cranking along for imperial
hegemony, what Good defines as hegemony in the pursuit of
empire. (p 15)
The US hegemon demands that all nation states, excluding itself,
must adhere to the rules based order, which is
not the same as the rule of law. In this rules based
international order, elitists in the periphery benefit themselves
by subordinating their nation states to the US hegemon.
The author asks, Can the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] manage
and constrain these forces [of its billionaire class], or will
Chinese elites inc...
Durhams long awaited Justice Department report concludes that
the FBI investigation was politically motivated and that the FBI
should never have investigated Trump. Durham concludes that The
Justice Department and FBI failed to uphold their mission when they
created a false narrative for the purpose of discrediting the
President of the United States. But Durham didnt indict the
criminals who failed to uphold their mission.
In other words the FBIs creation of a false narrative in order
to severely influence an election is devastating to the FBI, but
there is no accountability for the FBI criminals.
In his investigative report, Special Counsel Durham said: the
government possessed no verified intelligence reflecting that Trump
or the Trump campaign was involved in a conspiracy or collaborative
relationship with officials of the Russian government. Indeed,
based on the evidence gathered in the multiple exhaustive and
costly federal investigations of these matters, including the
instant investigation, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the
Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual
evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the
Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
What, then, explains the investigation? Durhams report concludes that there was
a predisposition to open an investigation into Trump. Among those
predisposed to get Trump, Durham mentions Peter Strzok, who was
deputy director of the counter-intelligence division of the FBI,
and Andrew McCabe, who was Deputy Director of the FBI and CNNs
senior law enforcement analyst.
There you have it. As I reported, Russiagate was an organized
plot to destroy the President of the United States who was
disapproved by the ruling establishment.
Even CNNs Jake Tapper, who I regard
as among the most corrupt of the presstitutes, said that Durhams
report was devastating to the FBI and does exonerate Donald Trump.
Well, has Tapper apologized for hyping the fake narrative?
Have any of the presstitutes apologized for the lies they
repeated over and over and over? No.
Will the presstitutes apologize? No. The way they see it, it is
OK to lie in order to get Trump.
No real American believes one word about the failed impeachment
charges, the false narrative insurrection charges, the Documentgate
charges, the false narrative NY prosecution charges, or the false
rape charge.
The list of sanctioned entities comprises IT companies operating
within the Russian Federation, notably Gazpromneft IT Solutions,
RT-Invest Transport Systems, InnoTech, Softline Trade, Zericoder,
Geekbrains and other organizations affiliated with the Russian
government.
The roster of companies that have also recently faced sanctions
encompasses Global Invest, Studio Soyuz, Group-IB and its
affiliated entities, such as Group-IB Global Private Limited,
headquartered in Singapore, along with various Russian
organizations like the National Informatization Center (NIC),
Technolink, renowned domain registrar REG.ru, and several other IT
companies originating from Russia.
These restrictions applied via the sanctions are to block
assets, termination of trading operations, annulment of licenses,
as well as to ban the conclusion of contracts and transactions with
these companies.
Last December, delegates from nearly 200 governments adopted the
Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework at the United
Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal, Canada. This
agreement aims to conserve 30 percent of the earth by 2030 a goal
colloquially known as 3030. But its one thing to set aside areas
for conservation and another to actually protect habitat in a state
that sustains the health of ecosystems and wildlife populations:
Numerous studies have shown that formal protected areas often fail
to effectively safeguard nature. However, its one challenge to
designate areas for conservation, and quite another to genuinely
protect habitat in a way that maintains the vitality of ecosystems
and wildlife populations. Many studies indicate that officially
protected areas often fall short in effectively safeguarding
nature. Jeff Morgan, the founder of Global Conservation, identifies
this as a significant shortcoming in the attempts to combat
biodiversity loss and climate change. His California-based
non-profit organization focuses on strengthening protection within
a distinct segment: UNESCO World Heritage Sites in lower and
middle-income countries. Global Conservation is the only nature
conservation group whos sole mission is the direct funding of park
protection systems for saving our most important and endangered
world heritage and national parks in developing countries, the
organization asserts. Map showing Global Conservation project
sites. Global Conservation strategically targets UNESCO World
Heritage Sites because governments tend to prioritize them over
other areas due to their prestigious U.N. designation and potential
for tourism, explains Morgan. Clearly, simple designation of
protected areas isnt whatThis article was originally published on
Mongabay
In a plenary session on the first day of the 2023 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory-Management and BPF Summit, Stephen Bates led
a discussion about peer-to-peer DMA (P2PDMA).
The idea is to remove the host system's participation in a transfer
of data from one PCIe-connected device to another. The feature was
originally aimed at NVMe SSDs so that data could simply be copied
directly to and from the storage device without needing to move it
to system memory and then from there to somewhere else.
The Chinese nation-state actor known as Mustang
Panda has been linked to a new set of sophisticated and
targeted attacks aimed at European foreign affairs entities since
January 2023. An analysis of these intrusions, per Check Point
researchers Itay Cohen and Radoslaw Madej, has revealed a custom
firmware implant designed explicitly for TP-Link routers. "The
implant features several malicious
Spring 2023 IN THIS E-BULLETIN MOTHERS DAY ACTION AT U.S.
TRIDENT NUCLEAR SUB BASE NUCLEAR RESISTERS OBSTRUCT
RUNWAY CONSTRUCTION AT GERMAN AIR BASE ANTI-NUCLEAR POWER
ACTIVISTS DETAINED IN TURKEY ANOTHER AMERICAN ACTIVIST
IN GERMAN PRISON FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROTEST ARRESTS AT TWO U.S.
DRONE BASES GOOD FRIDAY ARRESTS AT NEVADA TEST SITE MILITARY
RECRUITMENT []
On Sunday, June 12, 2016, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said
in an interview on the British political show, ITV
Peston: We have upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton
We have emails pending publication, that is correct, Assange
said.
As soon as I saw this Washington Post report,
I suspected it was a fraud perpetrated by Hillary Clintons friends
in the U.S. government and mainstream media. Prima facie, it was
pretty clear that the Russian DNC hack story was a way to distract
attention away from the embarrassing content of the leaked DNC
E-mails.
One of the oldest dirty tricks in the political playbook is to
speak of the treachery of foreigners whenever a countrys rulers
perceive that their power if threatened. As James Madison put
it:
The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the
instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing
maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended.
The E-mail correspondence of Hillary Clinton and her campaign
manager, John Podesta, contained numerous expressions of a
duplicitous, cynical, and Machiavellian nature. Clearly they felt
threatened by the publication of these documents that showed their
true colors. They therefore felt compelled to take strong action to
change the subject. And what better way to change the subject than
to speak loudly about Russian perfidy?
And so the Russian-Collusion Hoax was born. At the time I was
astonished that such a huge swath of the permanent political class
and mainstream media were allin a perfectly coordinated
fashiontalking such patently mendacious nonsense. I remember
thinking that such orchestrated lying revealed extraordinary
centralized control of our institutions. I also remember thinking
that if this network of power could get away with tellingfor months
on endsuch a whopper about President Trump, there was no telling
what other colossal, organized frauds were going to be committed in
the years ahead. Wow, whats next? I asked my younger brother in one
of our conversations about the hoax.
Commend Emefiele for Naira Redesigned Policy which grounded the
activities of bandits The Arewa Youth Assembly has called on the
President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to be weary of people such as
the Governor of Zamfara State, Bello Matawalle. The youth group
made the call in a statement issued on Tuesday while reacting to a
comment...
On the heels of similar decisions last
month, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday delivered another win for climate
accountability, rejecting fossil fuel corporations attempt to
quash lawsuits filed by the city of Hoboken, New Jersey,
and the state of Delaware.
Both filed in September 2020, the suits from Hoboken and Delaware like those
filed by dozens of other municipalities and states take aim at
companies including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil,
and Shell for fueling
the climate emergency. The fossil fuel industry has repeatedly tried
to evade accountability by shifting such cases from state to
federal court.
We appreciate and agree with the courts order denying the fossil
fuel companies petition, which aligns with dozens of decisions in
federal courts here in Delaware and across the country, said
Democratic Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings in response to
Mondays decision.
The Supreme Courts decision means that both of these cases will
now move forward in state court.
Jennings on Monday cited an opinion piece she wrote
for Delaware Online with Shawn Garvin,
secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and
Environmental Control, back when they launched the
legal effort in 2020:
A Guardian op-ed by
veteran Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti on May 15th commemorates the
75th anniversary of what Palestinians call the Nakba (A
just and democratic society that benefits all: thats what
Palestinians are fighting for). The 15th of May, in 1948, is
the date on the Gregorian calendar when Israel declared its
independence.
Though Palestinians are ostensibly mourning the flight
of hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians during the 1948-49 war on Nakba Day,
its really about lamenting the catastrophe of Israels existence the
fact that Arab armies failed, a mere three years after six million
Jews were murdered by the Nazis, to destroy the nascent Jewish
state.
Barghouti uses his Guardian platform to advocate for the
delusion known as the one-state solution that is, the end of the
worlds only Jewish state. In so doing, he attempts (as so
many Palestinian
leaders do) to undermine the legitimacy of Israel by engaging
in a historicallie:
suggesting that Jews dont have a connection to the land, framing
them as colonialists who replaced the indigenous Palestinian
population.
Further, like so many Palestinian figures whove contributed to
the outlet before him, such as Mahmoud
Abbas, Barghouti’...
SolarWinds announces its adding transformative artificial
intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to its IT
service management (ITSM) solutions. The new AI features include a
virtual agent to help users solve everyday IT problems and guided
incident resolution to empower agents with the information they
need to effectively resolve complex issues. The new SolarWinds
Service Desk additions are designed to reduce ticket volume by
enabling users to remediate easier-to-solve issues so IT
practitioners can More
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, World BEYOND War,
May 16, 2023
On May 16, 2023, The New York Timespublished
a full-page advertisement signed by 15 U.S. national security
experts
about the war in Ukraine. It was headed The U.S. Should Be a Force
for Peace in the World, and was drafted by the Eisenhower Media
Network.
While condemning Russias invasion, the statement provides a more
objective account of the crisis in Ukraine than the U.S. government
or The New York Times has previously presented to the
public, including the disastrous U.S. role in NATO expansion, the
warnings ignored by successive U.S. administrations and the
escalating tensions that ultimately led to war.
The statement calls the war an unmitigated disaster, and urges
President Biden and Congress to end the war speedily through
diplomacy, especially given the dangers of military escalation that
could spiral out of control.
This call for diplomacy by wise, experienced former insidersU.S.
diplomats, military officers and civilian officialswould have been
a welcome intervention on any one of the past 442 days of this war.
Yet their appeal now comes at an especially critical moment in the
war.
On May 10th, President Zelenskyy announced that he is delaying
Ukraines long-awaited spring offensive to avoid unacceptable
losses to Ukrainian forces. Western policy has repeatedly put
Zelenskyy in near-impossible
positions, caught between the need to show signs of progress on the
battlefield to justify further Western support and arms deliveries
and, on the other hand, the shocking human cost of continued war
represented by the fresh graveyards where tens of thousands of
Ukrainians now lie buried.
It is not clear how a delay in the planned Ukrainian
counter-attack would prevent it leading to unacceptable Ukrainian
losses when it finally occurs, unless the delay in fact leads to
scaling back and calling off many of the operations that have been
planned. Zelenskyy appears to be reaching a limit in terms of how
many more of his people he is willing to sacrifice to satisfy
Western demands for signs of military progress to hold together the
Western alliance and main...
Less than 24 hours after the death of a Yoruba actor, Murph
Afolabi, another Yoruba actor, Ayo Olaiya loss his brother,
Temitope Olaiya to the cold hands of death. New Telegraph had
earlier reported that the filmmaker, Murphy Afolabi died on Sunday
morning at the age of 49 years after he slip in the
bathroom....
With landers on places like Enceladus conceivable in the not
distant future, how we might recognize extraterrestrial life if and
when we run into it is no small matter. But maybe we can draw
conclusions by addressing the complexity of an object, calculating
what it would take to produce it. Don Wilkins considers this
approach in todays essay as he lays out the background of Assembly
Theory. A retired aerospace engineer with thirty-five years
experience in designing, developing, testing, manufacturing and
deploying avionics, Don tells me he has been an avid supporter of
space flight and exploration all the way back to the days of
Project Mercury. Based in St. Louis, where he is an adjunct
instructor of electronics at Washington University, Don holds
twelve patents and is involved with the universitys efforts at
increasing participation in science, technology, engineering, and
math. Have a look at how we might deploy AT methods not only in our
system but around other stars.
by Don Wilkins
A continuing concern within the astrobiology community is the
possibility alien life is detected, then misclassified as built
from non-organic processes. Likely harbors for extraterrestrial
life if such life exists might be so alien, employing chemistries
radically different from those used by terrestrial life, as to be
unrecognizable by present technologies. No definitive signature
unambiguously distinguishes life from inorganic processes. [1]
Two contentious results from the search for life on Mars are
examples of this uncertainty. Lack of knowledge of the environments
producing the results prevented elimination of abiotic origins for
the molecules under evaluation. The Viking Landers metabolic
experiments provide debatable results as the properties of Martian
soil were unknown. An exciting announcement of life detection in
the ALH 84001 meteorite is challenged as the ambiguous criteria to
make the decision are not quantitative.
Terrestrial living systems employ processes such as
photosynthesis, whose outputs are potential biosignatures. While
these signals are relatively simple to identify on Earth, the
unknown context of these signals in alien environments makes
distinguishing between organic and inorganic origins difficult if
not impossible.
The central problem arises in an apparent disconnect between
physics and biology. In accounting for life, traditional physics
provides the laws of nature, and assumes specific outcomes are the
result of specific initial conditions. Life, in the standard
interpretation, is encoded in the...
Confluent has unveiled new Confluent Cloud capabilities that
give customers confidence that their data is trustworthy and can be
easily processed and securely shared. With Data Quality Rules, an
expansion of the Stream Governance suite, organizations can resolve
data quality issues so data can be relied on for making
business-critical decisions. In addition, Confluents new Custom
Connectors, Stream Sharing, the Kora Engine, and early access
program for managed Apache Flink make it easier for companies
More
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has
announced the suspension of two of its Sokoto zonal command
officers over offences bordering on alleged culpable homicide
(murder), and criminal conspiracy. Specifically, the anti-graft
agency said the criminal suspects, Assistant Superintendent, Apata
Odunayo, and Inspector of Ogbuji Tochukwu, are standing trial
before a Magistrate court over...
5 suspected insurgents arrested, weapons The Department of State
Services (DSS) has said that joint operations comprising its
personnel, troops of the Nigerian Army, as well as police
operatives disrupted plans by suspected terrorist elements to
establish strongholds in the North West general area. According to
the intelligence agency, the kinetic operations resulted in
the...
Montana Governor Greg Gianforte has signed a bill into law that
stops the state from taking climate impacts into consideration in
its analysis of projects like
power plants and
coal mines.
An extremely
controversial measure,
House Bill 971 (HB 971) drew 1,000 comments during the most
recent legislative session, 95 percent of which expressed
opposition to the proposed bill, reported Montana Free Press.
The new law bans state regulators like the Montana Department of
Environmental Quality from including climate impact and
greenhouse gas emissions analyses when conducting comprehensive
reviews of large projects, both inside and outside state
borders.
Climate change is real, it matters, the climate is part of our
environment, and we cannot ignore the changes that are occurring,
said Anne Hedges with the Montana Environmental Information Center,
who anticipates HB 971 will be the subject of a constitutional
lawsuit, as Montana Free Press reported.
The foundation for the bill, which was signed into law on May
10, is an old law which bans the state from considering actual or
potential impacts that are regional, national, or global in nature
in environmental reviews.
Environmental and climate groups argued that the measure
frustrates the ability of the state to tackle the greenhouse gas
emissions that are causing Montanas snowpack to melt, which reduces
much-needed
water from streams in the summer and fall and contributes to
more intense wildfires, as
well as flooding.
Opponents of the measure said most Montana residents are in
favor of substantive climate action and believe in human-caused
climate
change.
Our families are already suffering from an increase in the
number...
Says Investable Territory Decreasing The Federal Government has
advised the incoming government at the sub-national level to
prioritise security in their states and expressed worry that
several states are spending a considerable share of their budgets
on security. Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF)
Boss Mustapha, in a keynote address at the ongoing...
A recent study in Nature Scientific
Reports by Jonathan P. R. Scott and colleagues makes the case
for sending exclusively all-female crews on long-duration missions.
The reasoning here is simple: women have significant less body
mass, with in the US the 50th percentile for women being 59.2 kg
and 81.8 kg for men. This directly translates into a low total
energy expenditure (TEE), along with a lower need for everything
from food to water to oxygen. On a long-duration mission, this
could conceivably save a lot of resources, thus increasing the
likelihood of success.
With this in mind, it does raise the question of why female
astronauts arent more commonly seen throughout Western space
history, with...
May 17th, 2023 By Nikki Harper Staff Writer for Wake Up World
The new moon in Taurus on the 19th of May is a potent time to
re-evaluate your relationship with money and material possessions.
Taurus is a sign ruled by Venus, the planet of beauty and luxury.
It is associated with the earth element, []
CellTrust is teaming up with Proofpoint to help organizations
manage mobile communication information risk and improve
investigative readiness. As the number of mobile communication
channels (text, chat, voice, app to app) grows, highly regulated
organizations are relying on technology to help them enable,
manage, and govern regulatory compliance. Law often requires them
to capture, archive, and retain the data across mobile
communication channels for eDiscovery and compliance audit
purposes. While using personal mobile devices for More
People arrive to vote in the
presidential and parliamentary elections in the Turkish city of
Antakya, which was largely destroyed by this year's earthquake, 14
May 2023 (AFP)
The term depremzede, meaning earthquake victim, became a
trending topic on Turkish social
media following the announcement of the election results, which saw
the opposition underperforming compared to predictions in opinion
polls.
Opposition supporters had anticipated a change in the voting
preferences of the earthquake-affected region after widespread
criticism of the government's handling of the disaster in February,
which left over 50,000 dead and millions of people homeless.
This disappointment quickly transformed into anger.
A TikTok influencer
said in a video that we will not do anything for you as of now.
First, well ask who you voted for.
She was arrested later with the accusation of insult.
In another video, a man was seen
swearing to the quake-hit victims, asking how it was possible to
vote for Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the wake of the
disaster.
This is factual: Patriot Missiles Wont Save Ukraine - National
Interest - May 9, 2023 Patriot systems are limited to pinpoint
defense of major assets and are designed to operate in tandem with
air defenses engaging targets at higher and...
In a recent Guardian advert pleading for readers to
hand over money to the paper, leading columnist Marina Hyde
declared: My absolute favourite
thing about the Guardian is not being told what to
write.
Hyde or Marina Elizabeth Catherine Dudley-Williams, as she
prefers not to be known was, in fact, making the most stupid boast
that could be made by a journalist, to quote George Seldes (1890-1995), the US press
critic. He was scornful of journalists who proclaimed: I have never
been given orders; I am free to do as I like.
Likewise, the American political writer Michael Parenti once
noted:
You say what you like, because they like what you say. you dont
know youre wearing a leash if you sit by the peg all day.
Or, as Noam Chomsky told a young, befuddled Andrew Marr:
Im not saying youre self-censoring. Im sure you believe
everything you say. But what Im saying is if you believed something
different you wouldnt be sitting where youre sitting.
Journalists are filtered by the elite-serving propaganda system
such that difficult, crusading, awkward, firebrand reporters are
usually identified and stifled from clambering beyond a few lowly
rungs of...
Donald Trump has promised to release all outstanding files on
the assassination of John F. Kennedy should he be re-elected as
President next year.
Trump made the announcement in aMonday interview with
The Messenger, vowing that every single remaining file on
the JFK assassination would be made public.
I released a lot, as you know. And I will release everything
else, Trump said.
It would mean that some 4300 files that are still redacted would
become available.
In 2018, Trump delayed the full
release of the remaining JFK documents until October 2021, with Joe
Biden later postponing that until December 2022, citing the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden did release more documents, but thousands still remain
hidden.
Trump refused to be drawn on what is in the files, noting Well,
I dont want to comment on that. But I will tell you that I have
released a lot. I will release the remaining portion very early in
my term.
During his first term, Trump reportedly told Judge Andrew
Napolitano If you saw what I saw [in the files] you wouldnt want to
release it either, with an official statement noting certain
information should continue to be redacted because of identifiable
national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs
concerns.
As we highlighted earlier this month, Democratic Presidential
candidate Robert F. Kennedy Junior declared that he believes the
CIA was involved in the murder of his uncle and has presided over a
60-year cover-up.
RFK Jr. doubled down on the assertion, adding that There were
multiple people involved they were all working together in cahoots
with the CIA.
A straphanger who was on the subway when former Marine Daniel
Penny placed Jordan Neely in a fatal chokehold said Thursday she's
"praying" for Penny after it was revealed the 24-year-old would
face charges tied to the high-profile case. "I hope he has a great
lawyer, and I'm praying for him," the 66-year-old woman, who did
not want to be identified, told The Post Thursday night. "And I
pray that he gets treated fairly, I really do. Because after all of
this ensued, I went back and made sure that I said 'Thank you' to
him." The Manhattan District Attorney's Office confirmed Thursday
afternoon Penny would be charged with second-degree
manslaughter.
I just love it when all the media political pundits and talk
show hosts ( News Talk?) throw out that word Democracy. You dont
have to go to a ranch to find more bull excrement than that. Folks,
this is not a democracy and probably never was one, all the way
back to our founding. Why? MONEY MONEY MONEY is the answer. As long
as the masters of our republic keep allowing private money into
electoral politics you will continue to smell that bull excrement
period!
The Open
Secrets site follows the flow of money in political
campaigns. After reading the enclosed data you may see why so many
of our fellow citizens do not even bother to vote. Not good to do,
but here is why, according to 2022 figures:
The average House of Representatives winner spent upwards
close to $ 3 million. The loser spent on average around
$800k.
The average Senate winner spent over $26 million. The
loser spent around 1/2 of that ($13 million)
In my state of Florida DeSantis spent around $200
million. Democrat Charlie Crist spent $31 million, and
people wonder why there was such a LANDSLIDE.
In 2022, 384 incumbents ran for
re-election in the House 359 won!!
In 2022, 28 incumbents ran for re-election in the
Senate 28 won!
If Claude Rains from the film Casablanca was monitoring
things for our elections he would have said: I am shocked! There is
massive spending going on here!
Statewide and local citywide races are not really different. If
someone wishes to run for just about any elected office, where they
allow party affiliations, if you are not from one of the Two
Party/One Party gangs, then forget it buster! Oh yes, the only
exclusion is for someone to be super duper wealthy enough to spend
his or her own money to equal that of the other two gangsters. Or
have some very very rich friends. If you cannot get your name and
ideas out to the general public with an equally massive staff and
volunteers. No way Jose! Money talks and everyone else walks! Is
that what we want, super rich people being the only ones outside of
the Two Party/One Party scam to win office?
In 1997, this writer was living in Indianapolis, Indiana. I was
active in street protests against the empire, on both foreign and
domestic issues. I was also a writer for a progressive weekly and
was lucky to interview attorney Ed Garvey from Wisconsin. He was
travelling the nation promoting the just passed Maine Clean
Election Laws. In Maine, they actually were able to legislate some
form of public funding of statewide elections. Candidates could
decide to forego accepting private donations and rely on the small
amounts of public funding for their campaigns. Obviously, their
Republican and Democrat competitors would still outspend
them...
When Canadian Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino attempted
to hype up the so-called Chinas overseas police stations, one word
stood out could. Mendicino concedes there could be new Chinese
police stations in Canada, the countrys CTV News reported on
Sunday.
The first paragraph of the article is filled with similar
expressions, such as there may be new Chinese police stations and
Royal Canadian Mounted Police will close any new sites if they do
exist.
The real story should be why this speculation without evidence
became a news story in the first place.
In April, the US arrested two Chinese Americans, accusing them
of operating a secret police station, attempting to label China as
engaging in illegal extraterritorial law enforcement and
undermining the sovereignty of other countries. After that, the
Canadian government was demanded to follow suit and take more
proactive actions against such stations, Deutsche Welle
reported on Monday.
Canada now shows its obedience. However, when it makes audacious
slander against China based solely on vague information, it is
making a fool of itself pretending to be serious in dealing with a
national security threat yet with nothing more than junky
information at hand.
China has repeatedly clarified, as Wang Wenbin, Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesperson, said again on Monday, there is no so-called
overseas police stations. The relevant institutions helped overseas
Chinese who could not return to China due to the pandemic renew
their driving licence and perform physical examination. They are
not so-called police stations or police service centers at all. The
local Chinese groups who helped provide venues for the services and
the volunteers are Chinese from the local communities who are
willing to help their compatriots, not Chinese police personnel. In
light of the evolving COVID situation and relevant services now
available online, the relevant service centers have been closed.
China always upholds the principle of non-interference in other
countries inter...
Netflix's "docudrama" Queen Cleopatra launched two weeks ago and
now looks to have earned the unenviable plaudit of drawing the
worst audience score in TV history. Forbes magazine reports the
controversial production has not just garnered the lowest audience
score in Netflix history on debut, it has essentially the lowest
audience score possible on Rotten Tomatoes at one percent. Not a 10
percent. A one percent, although Forbes reports it has later
stumbled upwards to hit the giddy heights of two percent.
Were currently working with companies that develop software and
tools that make surgery smarter and safer while they empower
surgeons and providers to improve patient outcomes, enhance
operational efficiency and increase profitability with data-driven
surgery using AI, automation and operating room analytics. This is
where analytic components such as data lakes and warehouses are
already making a difference in healthcare. Weve seen them capable
of powering millions of facts and patient records at a time. Tied
to expertise, these tools allow data-informed decisions for
measurable improvements in clinical, financial and operational
aspects.
For instance, weve helped design and develop surgical
applications to improve operating room efficiency, tele-surgery,
data lake construction and surgical analytics. Clients come back
with feedback on our skills and technical experience, feeling
supported by the flexibility and technical boost we give their
teams.
Collaboration between technology outsourcing companies and
healthcare providers can result in considerable optimization,
including improved patient care and maximized processes. Tech
providers can strive for the perfect collaborative balance with the
above key conversations while boosting robust ecosystems, shared
platforms and data.
DAMON is a
framework that allows user space to influence and control the
kernel's memory-management operations. It first entered the kernel
with the 5.15 release, and has been gaining capabilities ever
since. At the 2023
Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management and BPF Summit,
DAMON author Seongjae Park provided an overview of the current
status of DAMON development and where it can be expected to go in
the near future.
Months in the making have been the patches for x86_64 parallel
CPU boot support to allow secondary CPU cores to be booted in
parallel for shortening Linux kernel boot times. Over time the
Linux parallel CPU bring-up patches have gone through many
revisions while it looks like this work is now positioned for
introduction with the Linux 6.5 kernel later this summer...
IBM has acquired Polar Security, an innovator in technology that
helps companies discover, continuously monitor and secure cloud and
SaaS application data and addresses the growing shadow data
problem. This news marks IBMs 5th acquisition in 2023. Since Arvind
Krishna became CEO in April 2020, IBM has acquired more than 30
companies, bolstering its hybrid cloud and AI capabilities. The
pandemic drove a sharp increase in cloud adoption, leaving
organizations to grapple with a More
Yes, this is the unclear area, and is the reason for me asking
for
clarification. Is using a public cloud under a private account
considered
sharing with the cloud provider?
While they claim they have mechanisms in place to prevent their
employees from
accessing private customer data, I am skeptical that a bad employee
wouldn't be
able to leak sensitive embargoed information, and I wouldn't be
able to find
out, or investigate...
Fraudsters are trying out a new approach to convince companies
to pay bogus invoices: instead of hijacking existing email threads,
they are creating convincing ones themselves. A clever payment
request fraud The fraud attempt begins with an email containing a
payment request for a fake invoice. The recipient an employee in
the companys finance department reads the email and checks who sent
it. The senders email address looks like it belongs to one More
The second half of 2022 marked a significant turning point in
the security landscape. In several high-profile incidents,
application programming interfaces (APIs) emerged as a primary
attack vector, posing a new and significant threat to organizations
security posture, according to Cequence Security. API breaches have
plagued numerous high-profile organizations in recent months,
elevating the need for CISOs to prioritise API protection.
Attackers are getting more creative and specific in their tactics,
and traditional protection techniques More
most of the cold-weather records in Delhi have gone unreported
in Western media, which are mainly interested in showcasing the
citys extreme summer temperatures
Although Recep Tayyip Erdogans victory in the
second round of the presidential election in Turkey is almost
assured ahead of the second round of votes, opposition leader Kemal
Kilicdaroglu, in case of victory, would alter the countrys foreign
policy and put the relationship with Russia into a framework that
is acceptable to the US. The question surrounding Kilicdaroglu is
whether he would introduce sanctions against Russia or turn Turkey
away from its newfound independent foreign policy.
Turkey is heading to the second round of the election after
Erdogan achieved a better-than-expected result in the polls and has
a significant lead over his rival, but not enough to win in the
first round. Neither Erdogan nor the opposition candidate
received 50 per cent and will face off again on May 28.
The second round was expected, but Erdogan still surprised
everyone by achieving a figure of nearly 50 per cent, precisely
49.51% against Kilidaroglus 44.88%. Erdogan gained much more than
the polls gave him credit for. Still, the pollsters often fail,
especially in Turkey, because they do not include many groups of
people, such as the diaspora, those who work in the state
bureaucracy, nationalists, young people, and pensioners.
American President Joseph Biden did not influence the elections
in Turkey, this to the disappointment of the entire West who openly
expressed dissatisfaction with Erdogans increasingly independent
foreign policy. Erdogan is responsible for transforming Turkey from
Kemalist ideology to a more Islamist one, and one not entirely
beholden to the West, as has been the situation since the country
became a NATO member in 1952.
Erdogans candidate rival has received much adulation from the
West, which is constantly growing and will probably be connected to
the constant effort to compromise Russia as an international actor.
The current Turkish president never questioned the countrys
membership in NATO because he did not want Turkey to be just a
regular member of the Alliance but rather a partner with
independent interests that must be respected. This will
characterise Ankaras relations with the West even if Kemal
Kilicdaroglu eventually prevails.
Early on the morning of May 3rd the Kremlin was attacked by two
explosive drones, and although these were destroyed by the
defenses, the Russian government claimed that the incident had
probably been an assassination attempt against President Vladimir
Putin. I was skeptical at the time, but when Ray McGovern was
interviewed a few days later he seemed to take the accusation
seriously. Given his 27 years as a CIA Analyst, including serving
as head of the Soviet Policy Group, I tend to trust his judgment on
such matters:
When ProPublicas
investigation into links between Republican donor Harlan Crow
and the US Supreme Court surfaced, there was a sense that dark
waters lurked beneath the revelations. While Justice Clarence
Thomas featured prominently as the recipient of largesse and pomp
from Crow island hopping in Indonesia, private jet travel, among
other treats things were bound to get worse.
At the time of the unveiling of such ignominious conduct, Thomas
did not heed the wise injunction of Lord Acton to avoid too much
explaining lest the excuses become too many. His hand caught in the
till, Thomas dismissed such generosity as mere hospitality, a point
reiterated in a statement from Crow. Besides,
he had been advised by his fellow brethren troublingly so that
he could accept such gifts of hospitality without fear of conflict
and compromise. The clincher here: that Crow did not have any
business before the court.
The Thomas-Crow relationship has had a decent pickling,
stretching back a good number of years. In 2011, Crow
lavished $500,000 upon Thomas wife to form a Tea Party Group.
Thomas also received a $19,000 Bible said to belong to Frederick
Douglass. In rather smelly fashion odorous, that is, in the links
between think-tank land, wealth and policy Thomas received a
$15,000 gift from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), with
Crow serving on the board at the time. More recently, it has also
been revealed that Crows generosity extended to funding the
private school education of Thomass grandnephew to the sum of
$6,000 a month.
The pong becomes a full raging stench with the realisation that
the AEI filed three briefs with the Supreme Court soon after giving
Thomas the gift, with all rulings being
decided in their favour. While influence should not be confused
with association, the appearance of conflict would be fatal to even
the most disciplined of judicial minds.
The link with Crow becomes even more taut with revelations from
ThinkProgress in 2011 about the legal successes of the
Crow-affiliated group, Center for the Communit...
International travelers can now contribute valuable data to
COVID-19 surveillance efforts in the United States from above the
clouds.
San Francisco International Airport has launched a new program
to test airplane wastewater for variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus
responsible for COVID-19,
the airport announced May 9. The program is the first in the
country to continuously monitor sewage from airplanes, after
previous studies demonstrated the potential value of this work.
Airplane wastewater is a key source for COVID-19 surveillance
because international travelers frequently bring new variants into
the country, experts say. As fewer people get their noses swabbed
in health care facilities, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention is looking for
new ways to keep tabs on how the coronavirus mutates. Searching
for genetic material in airplane
bathroom waste can help fill that data gap and even provide
early warnings for future health crises.
CVE-2023-25717
Ruckus Wireless Access Point (AP) software contains an unspecified
vulnerability in the web services component. If the web services
component is enabled on the AP, an attacker can perform cross-site
request forgery (CSRF) or remote code execution (RCE). This
vulnerability impacts Ruckus ZoneDirector, SmartZone, and Solo APs.
In early May, FortiGuard Labs researchers have
recently observed a
spike in attacks attempting to exploit the Ruckus Wireless Admin
remote code execution vulnerability tracked as CVE-2023-25717. The
activity is associated with a known DDoS botnet tracked as
AndoryuBot that first appeared in February 2023. The bot supports
multiple DDoS attack techniques and uses SOCKS5 proxies for C2
communications.
Fortinet researchers also reported that a Proof-of-Concept (PoC)
code for this vulnerability is publicly available and urges owners
to install the patch as
soon as possible.
polkit is an
application-level toolkit for defining and handling the policy that
allows unprivileged processes to speak to privileged processes, it
is installed by default on several Linux distributions.
CVE-2014-0196
Linux Kernel contains a race condition vulnerability within the
n_tty_write function that allows local users to cause a
denial-of-service or gain privileges via read and write operations
with long strings.
CVE-2010-3904
Linux Kernel contains an improper input validation vulnerability in
the Reliable Datagram Sockets (RDS) protocol implementation that
allows local users to gain privileges via crafted use of the
sendmsg and recvmsg system calls.
Degraded by human activity, mountain forests across the tropical
Andes are having a hard time bouncing back. But while scientists
have long analyzed what drives their decline, they have largely
understudied how these ecosystems, some of the worlds most
biodiverse, behave after disruption. But a better insight into
forest recovery pathways could help governments in the region
direct restoration efforts where they are most needed, a new study
suggests. The Andes havent received the attention that a lot of the
other key biodiversity hotspots have, says Tina Christmann,
environmental scientist at the School of Geography and the
Environment at the University of Oxford and lead author of the
study. Exploited for centuries, mountain forests in the tropical
Andes have become increasingly threatened, as deforestation for
land conversion, wildfires and climate change have accelerated
degradation over the last decades. According to the study, between
2001 and 2014, about 5 million hectares (about 12.3 million acres)
of woody vegetation was cleared in the tropical and subtropical
Andes, undermining ecosystem services and boosting carbon
emissions. But during the last 20 years, land abandonment due to
economic shifts and rural-to-urban migration have also created
opportunities for forest regeneration. Andean tropical mountain
forests have a hard time recovering. But identifying what type of
recovery they are experiencing could help researchers pinpoint
where restoration is needed most. Image by Rhett Butler. Using
high-resolution satellite imagery, researchers looked for potential
restoration areas in former pastures, logging sites and
agricultural lands, targeting areas where forests began to
bounceThis article was originally published on
Mongabay
This Friday is the planned Git packaging migration for the Arch
Linux distribution that will see some repository splits as well as
discontinuing SVN access...
Countless smartphones seized in arrests and searches by police
forces across the United States are being auctioned online without
first having the data on them erased, a practice that can lead to
crime victims being re-victimized, a new study found. In response,
the largest online marketplace for items seized in U.S. law
enforcement investigations says it now ensures that all phones sold
through its platform will be data-wiped prior to auction.
Researchers at the University of Maryland last
year purchased 228 smartphones sold as-is from
PropertyRoom.com, which bills itself as the
largest auction house for police departments in the United States.
Of phones they won at auction (at an average of $18 per phone), the
researchers found 49 had no PIN or passcode; they were able to
guess an additional 11 of the PINs by using the top-40 most popular
PIN or swipe patterns.
Phones may end up in police custody for any number of reasons
such as its owner was involved in identity theft and in these cases
the phone itself was used as a tool to commit the crime.
We initially expected that police would never auction these
phones, as they would enable the buyer to recommit the same crimes
as the previous owner, the researchers explained in a paper
released this month. Unfortunately, that expectation has proven
false in practice.
The researchers said while they could have employed more
aggressive technological measures to work out more of the PINs for
the remaining phones they bought, they concluded based on the
sample that a great many of the devices they won at auction had
probably not been data-wiped and were protected only by a PIN.
Beyond what you would expect from unwiped second hand phones
every text message, picture, email, browser history, location
history, etc. the 61 phones they were able to access also contained
significant amounts of data pertaining to crime including victims
data the researchers found.
Some readers may be wondering at this point, Why should we care
about what happens to a criminals phone? First off, its not
entirely clear how these phones ended up for sale on
PropertyRoom.
Some folks are like, Yeah, whatever, these are criminal phones,
but are they? said Dave Levin, an assistant
professor of computer science at University of Maryland.
We started looking at state laws around what theyre supposed to
do with lost or stolen property, and we found that most of it ends
up going the same route as civil asset forfeiture, Levin continued.
Meaning, if they cant find o...
Ransomware affiliates associated with the Qilin
ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) scheme earn anywhere between 80% to
85% of each ransom payment, according to new findings from
Group-IB. The cybersecurity firm said it was able to infiltrate the
group in March 2023, uncovering details about the affiliates'
payment structure and the inner workings of the RaaS program
following a private conversation
This summer marks a year since Ukraine became an official
candidate for European Union (EU) membership under an
accelerated process following Russias invasion. Kyiv currently
sits at the doorstep of the negotiations stage, which could start
this year according to
EU officials. Historically, this stage is the longest, most
technical, and bureaucratic part of the process, requiring
extensive reforms under the
Copenhagen criteria a set of political, legal, and economic
membership conditions.
In June 2022, the European Commission recommended granting
Ukraine candidate status with an
understanding that Kyiv must implement seven steps to
strengthen anti-corruption and rule of law standards.
Kyiv recently stated that it has complied with each of these
conditions. The decision now lies with the EU, who must determine
if Ukraine fulfilled basic requirements before the rigid
negotiation process can start.
While Ukraines progress from applicant to candidate status was
rapid, advocates should temper expectations for subsequent steps
toward membership; they will not be as swift or simple. Kyiv could
be caught in pre-negotiation limbo akin to current Western Balkan
EU hopefuls. For reference, it took
Belgrade and
Podgorica about two years to start negotiations after reaching
candidate status.
Tirana waited six years to open formal negotiations after
becoming a candidate in 2014, while
Skopje sat idle for 15 years before opening talks with
Brussels. Each nation had a particular set of challenges
prohibiting their progress, but these roadblocks were nowhere near
Ukraines predicament of fending off an invading military prior to
starting negotiations.
The EUs
new accessions methodology, revised in 2020, is intended to
make enlargement a more credible, predictable, and dynamic. But
this modified approach likely wont yield faster results for Ukraine
or current candidates. EU accession is grounde...
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia The peoples of the Lower Omo River Valley
in southwestern Ethiopia have never had an easy task in ensuring
their own survival. Hot and dry, with temperamental rainfall, the
region demands ingenuity and flexibility from its inhabitants. At
least 200,000 people from the Bacha, Bodi, Dasanech, Hamar, Kara,
Kwegu, Murle, Mursi and Nyangatom ethnic groups call this region
home. Over the centuries, these varied peoples have developed ways
of life often generalized as agropastoralist, a term that
acknowledges the centrality of both farming and herding to their
existence. In practice, each has honed quite sophisticated and
diverse ways of making a living from patchy environments and
unpredictable rains and flood-prone rivers, Edward Stevenson, an
assistant professor and anthropologist at the U.K.s Durham
University, said in an interview. But recent changes to their
homelands mean that many of those strategies are no longer
reliable. Unfortunately, this way of life has vanished, Desalegn
Tekle Loyale, a Nyangatom community leader, told Mongabay.
Researchers, human rights advocates, and residents like Desalegn
say government projects aimed at economic development are laying
waste to these unique ways of life and have touched off recurrent
famine in the region. Traditional Mursi houses in the cattle
village of Dirikoro. Image by Anonymous. The linchpin of these
initiatives was the massive Gilgel Gibe III Dam built on a stretch
of the Omo River above the valley. The goal was to produce
electricity for use domestically and abroad, stoking Ethiopias
rapidly growing economy in the process.This article was originally
published on
Mongabay
West Bank: 'Shocking'
restrictions imposed on foreign entry to occupied territory, says
report
Reforms introduced by Israel
in 2022 have seen arbitrary exclusionary policies placed on foreign
entry to occupied territories, including for diaspora
Palestinians
Palestinian men wait at an
Israeli checkpoint in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank on 14
April 2023 (AFP)
Israel has
introduced a "confusing, complex and arbitrary" set of restrictions
on foreign entry into the occupied West
Bank, often based on racial and ethnic profiling, according to a
new report.
In a
press release published on Tuesday, the International Centre of
Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) said an array of new procedures
introduced by Israel in 2022 - collectively named COGAT
22 - have stood to entrench the military occupation of the West
Bank and deny access to millions of Palestinians
in the diaspora.
Under the regulations, foreign passport holders - including
Palestinians living abroad - will also no longer be able to obtain
visas on arrival and instead have to apply for them at least 45
days in advance, the ICJP report said.
In most cases, foreigners visiting the West Bank will no longer
be able to arrive via Israel's main airport near Tel Aviv, and will
instead be required to enter through the land crossing between
Jordan and the West Bank.
The new rules do not apply to those visiting Jewish-only
settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Operational technology (OT) cybersecurity is a challenging but
critical aspect of protecting organizations' essential systems and
resources. Cybercriminals no longer break into systems, but instead
log in making access security more complex and also more important
to manage and control than ever before. In an effort to solve the
access-related challenges facing OT and critical infrastructure
A preparatory meeting was held in Jeddah ahead of the Arab
League summit. It was broadcasted live by El-Ekbarriya state
television channel. Saudi Finance Minister Mohamed Al-Jaddan warmly
welcomed the Syrian delegation, which included Foreign Affairs
Minister Faisal Miqdad, Information Minister Boutros Al-Hallaq,
Deputy Foreign Minister Ayman Soussaner, as well as the Director of
the Foreign Minister's Office, Jamal Najib. Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad has been invited to the summit, (...)
The threat actors behind the CopperStealer malware resurfaced
with two new campaigns in March and April 2023 that are designed to
deliver two novel payloads dubbed CopperStealth and CopperPhish.
Trend Micro is tracking the financially motivated group under the
name Water Orthrus. The adversary is also assessed to
be behind another campaign known as Scranos,
which was detailed by Bitdefender in
This week at Starbase Ship 25 goes through another round of cryo
testing, work continues on Booster 11, Ship 29 and the new mega
bay, and crews begin working on new pilings for the water deluge
system, while over at Cape Canaveral SpaceX continues their rapid
pace of launch and recovery operations.
Contemporary approaches to the legacy of colonialism tend to
narrowly emphasize political agency as the solution to Africas
problems. But agency is configured through historically particular
relations of which we are not sole authors.
Though for many there is little dispute that colonialism
happened. What that historical fact means for the contemporary
lives of people across the world today is matter of dispute,
and not only amongst scholars. Those who were once upon a time
either colonizer or colonized would more readily find agreement
that some countries colonized other countries. Or more precisely,
that some European empires colonized many territories.The
recent coronation of a new British monarch recalls that famous
phrase that the sun never sets on the British empire.Simply put,
the British Empires reach was so geographically expansiveit is said
nearly 25% of the Earths land mass at its mightiestthat if the sun
was setting in some part of the empire it was also simultaneously
rising in another part of the empire.
The lights never went out, so to speak. Extending this luminous
metaphor further, it was projected that the light of Enlightenment
radiated by British civilization would also illuminate the darkness
of consciousness amongst the colonized. But as signaled by British
prime minister Harold Macmillans famous speech to the whites-only
parliament of South Africa in Cape Town in 1960, the winds of
change were to set the sun on the political rule of empires over
colonies, at least as a legitimate political practice that had
started in 1497, for the British. Chiding his white South African
audience a tinge, Macmillan observed:
In the twentieth century, and especially since the end of the
war, the processes which gave birth to the nation states of
Europe have been repeated all over the world. We have seen the
awakening of national consciousness in peoples who have for
centuries lived in dependence upon some other power. Fifteen years
ago this movement spread through Asia. Many countries there of
different races and civilisations pressed their claim to an
independent national lifeThe wind of change is blowing through this
continent, and, whether we like it or not, this growth of national
consciousness is a political fact.
The idea of national consciousness as the inevitable expression
of freedom, in this account, first thought of and lived out in
Europe, was now repeating itself in the rest of the world. This was
how Macmillans liberal contemporaries had come to philosophize the
relinquishing of political rule and trusteeship ove...
A shark attacked a man fishing from his kayak off the coast of
Hawaii in a harrowing encounter that he caught on video. The man
wasn't hurt in the brief attack. Scott Haraguchi was fishing less
than 2 miles off the island of Oahu around midday Friday. After he
caught a fish, he told a local TV station he left his GoPro camera
running. "It was incredibly bad luck but incredibly good luck to
capture it," Haraguchi told KITV.
Ever wondered how to approach making your own digital guitar
effects pedal? [Steven Hazel] and a friend have done exactly that,
using an Adafruit Feather M4 Express board and a Teensy Audio
Adapter board together to create a DIY programmable digital unit that looks
ready to drop into an enclosure and get put right to work in the
studio or on the stage.
Police are searching for an angler who went missing at a lake in
Hokkaido, suspecting he may have been attacked by a bear after a
human head was found in the area Monday, they said. According to
the police, a boat dropped off Toshihiro Nishikawa, 54, to fish
unaccompanied at a spot on Lake Shumarinai in Horokanai early
Sunday. An employee of the boat operator later saw a bear nearby
with waders dangling from its mouth and attempted to call Nishikawa
by phone, but could not reach him. The information prompted the
town office to launch a bear hunt operation and a member of the
group killed one Monday afternoon, according to a town
official.
A blue
morpho butterfly sits on a leaf. A new study finds that butterflies
likely originated somewhere in western North America or Central
America around 100 million years ago. Kristen Grace/Florida
Museum
It is almost a certainty that if you visit Costa Rica you will
see the blue morpho floating by somewhere. And you may be in the
location of its origin story:
Akito Kawahara remembers being eight years old when he went on a
special tour of the insect collection at the American Museum of
Natural History in New York City. He marveled at the vast array of
pinned bugs before stopping in front of a large picture of the
butterfly family tree.
The PXP project has been an interesting language effort in
recent times that aims to become a superset of PHP with additional
syntax options and greater run-time capabilities. PXP 0.0.1 was
released yesterday as the first very early, pre-production release
for this open-source project...
LAKE AMBAVARANO, Madagascar On March 5, 2022, following days of
cyclone-induced flooding, executives at the Rio Tinto-owned QMM
mine in Madagascar shot off an urgent request to the countrys water
regulator. They wanted to release 1 million cubic meters (264
million gallons) of wastew ater into the Mandromondromotra River
that flows along the mines northeastern perimeter. A few days
later, Simon Razanandrianas eldest son, Derrick, came home with
distressing news: Thousands of dead fish were floating on Lake
Ambavarano, where their family has fished for generations. No one
can help us. Even the government works with QMM, Simon
Razanandriana said. Image by Malavika Vyawahare/Mongabay. The
Mandromondromotra drains into Ambavarano, which is one of a string
of estuarine lakes located between the mine and the Indian Ocean.
The fishing hamlet of Manaka, or Emanaka, where the Razanandriana
family lives, sits on the sandy bank separating the lakes and the
sea. Plying their dugout canoes on subdued lake waters, fishers can
sometimes hear the whirr of the mines heavy machinery over the roar
of the ocean. Civil society groups say the mines effluent enters
neighboring water bodies with alarming regularity, endangering
peoples health and robbing them of their livelihoods, and that the
mining company is doing little to better the lives of Malagasy
people most impacted by its activities. They say the threat posed
by the mine grows as climatic changes bring more destructive storms
to Madagascars shores. A lake that belches dead fish The city of
Fort Dauphin. Image byThis article was originally published on
Mongabay
French electronics manufacturer Lacroix closed three factories
as a result of a cyberattack they intercepted over the weekend, the
company has announced on Monday. Lacroix designs and produces
electronic equipment for the automotive, home automation,
aerospace, industrial and health sectors, as well as connected
equipment for the management of critical infrastructures. The
Lacroix cyberattack During the night of May 12 to May 13, the
company has blocked a cyberattack on its French (Beauprau), German
(Willich) More
Libproxy as the open-source library providing automatic proxy
configuration management on Linux, Windows, and macOS systems has
seen a big update thanks to an unlikely contributor...
In het kader van haar kinderlijke ontboezemingen
meldt de zionistische columniste Natascha van Weezel vandaag
in Het Parool:
Ooit was Isral mijn tweede
thuis. Als kind ging ik elk voorjaar samen met mijn ouders en opa
een weekje naar het strand van Tel Aviv. Tijdens die vakanties
maakten we altijd een uitstapje naar Jeruzalem. Daar bezochten we
de Oude Stad. Mijn moeder schreef dan namens mij een briefje met
een wens erop. Dat briefje stopte ik vervolgens in de Klaagmuur.
Steevast vroeg ik om de nieuwste Barbie.
Zij voegt hier geheel vrijblijvend aan
toe:
in Isral regeert momenteel een
extreemrechts kabinet. Op de Westbank zijn al jaren geen
democratische verkiezingen meer gehouden en rondom Gaza wordt aan
weerszijden weer eens gezellig met raketten geschoten. Het liefste
zou ik stellen dat daar over 75 jaar wl vrede heerst. Maar eerlijk
gezegd betwijfel ik of dat realistisch is.
Dit is vis noch vlees, de bekende
zionistische propaganda waarmee joden in de zogenaamde
'diaspora' de Joods-Israelische terreur proberen
te rechtvaardigen. Natuurlijk wil ook Van Weezel 'vrede,' wie niet, maar dat haar voormalige 'tweede thuis' dan zal moeten ophouden met het verder
etnisch zuiveren van het land dat de wereldgemeenschap aan de
Palestijnse bevolking heeft toegewezen en bovendien moet stoppen
met het stelen van grote delen van de Westbank, blijft zij hier
angstvallig verzwijgen.
De huidige fascistische Joodse machthebbers
wachten op het juiste moment om de rest van het gebied in n klap te
kunnen zuiveren van Palestijnse chri...
A letter sent Tuesday to the firms limited partners says startup
founders are modern day navigators who deserve to share in the
spoils of conquest.
Dan Teran, one of the founders of the New York City-based
venture firm Gutter Capital, is no stranger to shaking things up.
Back in 2016, as CEO of the office management service Managed by Q,
Teran instituted profit sharing within the startup, even giving
ownership to its the companys handymen and cleanerssomething that
earned him praise from then-U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez.
One of the great longtime features of Ubuntu Linux has been
Launchpad's Personal Package Archives (PPAs) for easily augmenting
the official Ubuntu repositories with additional packages either to
supply updated versions of select software or for software not yet
found in the official Ubuntu archives. With Ubuntu 23.10 a change
is being made in how PPAs are managed to enhance the security and
reliability...
In a study published today in the journal Quaternary Science
Reviews, an international research team led by scientists from
the University of Tbingen and the Senckenberg Center for Human
Evolution and Paleoenvironment presents the earliest human
footprints known from Germany. The tracks were discovered in the
roughly 300,000-year-old Schningen Paleolithic site complex in
Lower Saxony. The footprints, presumably from Homo heidelbergensis,
are surrounded by several animal trackscollectively, they present a
picture of the ecosystem at that time.
[...] The various tracks at Schningen offer a snapshot of a
family's daily life and may provide information about the behavior
and social composition of hominin groups as well as spatial
interactions and coexistence with elephant herds and other, smaller
mammals, according to the study. "Based on the tracks, including
those of children and juveniles, this was probably a family outing
rather than a group of adult hunters," says the archaeologist and
expert on fossil footprints.
In addition to the human tracks, the team analyzed a series of
elephant tracks attributable to the extinct species Palaeoloxodon
antiquusan elephant with straight tusks that was the largest land
animal at the time and whose adult bulls reached a body weight of
up to 13 tons.
Journal Reference:
Flavio Altamura, Jens Lehmann, Brbara Rodrguez-lvarez, et al.
Fossil footprints at the late lower Paleolithic site of
Schningen (Germany): A new line of research to reconstruct animal
and hominin paleoecology , Quaternary Science Reviews (DOI:
10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108094)
VE
just taken a snapshot of the
figures posted about an hour ago, showing that from 10059
deaths in week 17 of 2019 (before COVID-19 broke out) we rose to
12152, or an increase of 2093 deaths for the week. Thats an
increase of 21%. Health emergency, right? Just dont ask our
government for comment theyd rather not discuss this or investigate
the cause/s.
Japanese manga comics have always been popular on
pirate sites but, where other categories have seen stalled growth,
manga piracy boomed.
This unauthorized activity has not gone unnoticed by publishers,
whove made it clear that piracy will not be tolerated, wherever it
takes place in the world.
Japans largest publisher Shueisha finds itself at the frontline
of this battle. The company has taken a variety of legal actions,
also in a U.S. court, where it hoped to find
evidence against the operators of Manganato.com; thus far
without result.
With more than 122 million monthly visits, Manganato is one of
the largest piracy sites of its kind. In Japan, however, there are
other sites that take the top spots. Several of these local
favorites were targeted by a legal request filed at a U.S. court
last week.
Shueisha Target Pirate Sites
Shueisha obtained a DMCA subpoena at a California federal court
which requires CDN provider Cloudflare to share all personal
information it holds on the people who maintain the accounts of
13dl.to, takefile.link, novafile.org, wupfile.com, hexupload.net,
and manga-zip.is.
These sites are all most popular in Japan and they have millions
of monthly visitors. Earlier this month the publisher already asked
Cloudflare to disable infringing copies of the Grand Jump magazine
made available through these sites.
We demand that you immediately disable access to the Infringing
Work and cease any use, reproduction, and distribution of the
Original Work. Specifically, we request that you remove or disable
the Infringing Work from [the sites] or any of your system or
services.
DMCA Notice to Cloudflare
Cloudflare typically doesnt remove cached CDN content and that
didnt happen here either. Instead, Shueisha is now trying to
identify the sites operators di...
The second-largest bank in the U.S. is set to pay out $8 million
to customers who were hit with certain penalties.
Bank of America, the second-largest bank in the United States,
has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit brought against it for
charging repeated fees for some insufficient funds transactions.
Heres what to know about the class action lawsuit, and if Bank of
America owes you some money.
Silverdale, Washington: Activists blockaded the entrance
to the US Navys west-coast nuclear submarine base, which is home to
the largest operational concentration of deployed nuclear weapons,
in a nonviolent direct action the day before Mothers Day.
Eight peace activists from the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent
Action, holding banners reading The Earth is Our Mother Treat Her
With Respect and Nuclear Weapons are Immoral to Use, Immoral
to Have, Immoral to Make, briefly blocked all incoming traffic at
the Main Gate at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in Silverdale, Washington
as part of a May 13th Mothers Day observance.
Traffic was diverted as the 15 member Seattle Peace Chorus
Action Ensemble, facing the Navys security detail, sang The Lucky
Ones, an original composition by their director, Doug Balcom of
Seattle, to the assembled guards and Navy personnel. The song
describes the different stages of personal, regional & global
destruction that a nuclear war would inflict on humanity and the
earths biosphere, and posits whether survivors to later stages of
the devastation would wish theyd perished earlier; it ends with a
call to save us from this fate by eliminating all nuclear
weapons. The group then led the assembled activists in
singing various traditional protest songs, while the State Patrol
processed the demonstrators who were being cited for interrupting
traffic.
Those blocking the roadway were removed from the highway by
the Washington State Patrol, cited for violating RCW 46.61.250
(Pedestrians on Roadways), and released at the scene. The
demonstrators, Tom Rogers (Keyport), Michael Siptroth (Belfair),
Sue Ablao (Bremerton) Lee Alden (Bainbridge Island) Carolee Flaten
(Hansville) Brenda McMillan (Port Townsend) Bernie Meyer (Olympia)
and James Manista (Olympia, range in age from 29 to 89 years old.
Tom Rogers, a retired Navy captain and former nuclear
submarine commanding officer, stated: The destructive power of the
nucle...
Video
download link | md5sum
b43a8714d95a926e3a638b57659a2470 Quite Likely Last Year of Sirius
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: The situation at Sirius Open Source is getting grimmer by
the day or by the week; theres almost nobody left at the company
and those who are still there look for a way out, an escape from
the sinking ship
THE crimes of Sirius aside, as the
police investigates these too slowly (as expected all along and
right from the start), today we take a quick look at the company as
seen from the eyes of Microsoft (LinkedIn). There seems to be
almost nobody left there; from what we can gather, its a very
contingency-based semi-operational mode, trying to retain whats
left of the contracts. A couple of months ago a reasonably new
employee was given more authority, as others left the company,
creating a highly critical skills vacuum.
Will the company reach its 25th anniversary? That
doesnt seem so likely. For privacy reasons the video above does not
show the screen and instead Im reading or explaining what I am
seeing before me (on a separate computer).
Video
download link | md5sum
b43a8714d95a926e3a638b57659a2470 Quite Likely Last Year of Sirius
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: The situation at Sirius Open Source is getting grimmer by
the day or by the week; theres almost nobody left at the company
and those who are still there look for a way out, an escape from
the sinking ship
THE crimes of Sirius aside, as
the police investigates these too slowly (as expected all along
and right from the start), today we take a quick look at the
company as seen from the eyes of Microsoft (LinkedIn). There seems
to be almost nobody left there; from what we can gather, its a very
contingency-based semi-operational mode, trying to retain whats
left of the contracts. A couple of months ago a reasonably new
employee was given more authority, as others left the company,
creating a highly critical skills vacuum.
Will the company reach its 25th anniversary? That
doesnt seem so likely. For privacy reasons the video above does not
show the screen and instead Im reading or explaining what I am
seeing before me (on a separate computer).
Video download link |
md5sum d37058853e2497e86d26b96a72d82e61 My Desk Explained
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: After various changes (adding plants, 3
large speakers etc.) Ive decided to explain how my office is
configured for maximal visibility (almost no need for virtual
desktops)
THE other day I
was asked about my desks arrangement and how it was facilitating
improved workflow, productivity etc. in light of
this post and photograph. It was about the site turning 16.5
years old (well soon have 36.5k blog posts!).
All the machines run GNU/Linux and
the recording above was done using OBS.The video above
illustrates some of the things I learned through trial and error,
including being able to exercise while working (mostly reading) and
ergonomically important tips/tricks. Being at the desk about 100
hours a week means that posture and micro-breaks are very
important. The way different computers and screens are used is
explained in passing (not in-depth; we did that in past years) and
there are changes coming next week while my wife goes on holiday,
rendering her second computer available to me (so a total of 8
keyboards on the desk). All the machines run GNU/Linux and the
recording above was done using OBS. No preparations done for this
video; it was 100% spontaneous.
Research published in Nature Communications today, has
shown that techniques initially developed for astronomy and ecology
can be used to study the microenvironment of solid tumors.
Led by Peter Macs 2020 Lea Medal winner Dr. Anna Trigos and
Yuzhou Feng, the study looked at patient tumor samples from
prostate, colon and breast cancers and identified novel cancer
subtypes, new patterns associated with patient survival, and was able to predict which patients
were likely to develop metastasis first.
These exciting results have generated significant interest from
medical oncologists, pathologists and immunologists.
A recent study published in Nature Neuroscience indicates
that, contrary to common belief, the immune cells of the brain,
known as microglia, are not all the same. Researchers found that a
unique microglial subset with unique features and function is
important for establishing proper cognitive functions in mice.
Evidence for such microglial subsets exists also for the human
brain, opening exciting new possibilities for novel therapies.
An international collaboration led by researchers from
University of Helsinki, Karolinska Institutet and University of
Seville characterized ARG1+microglia, a subset of microglial cells, that produces
the enzyme called arginase-1 (ARG1). Using advanced imaging
techniques, the team found that ARG1+ microglia are
abundant during development and less prevalent in adult animals.
Strikingly, these ARG1+ microglia are located in
specific brain areas important for cognitive functions such as
learning, thinking and memory.
Cognition and memory are crucial components of what makes us
human, and microglia are necessary for proper brain development and
function. Cognitive decline is a common feature of
neurodegenerative and psychiatric conditions like Alzheimers and
Parkinsons disease, schizophrenia and depression, says Dr. Vassilis
Stratoulias, senior researcher at the University of Helsinki and
lead author of the study.
Immune checkpoint blockade therapies have been revolutionary in
the treatment of some cancer types, emerging as one of the most
promising treatments for diseases such as melanoma, colon cancer
and non-small cell lung cancer.
While in some cases checkpoint blockade therapies elicit a
strong immune response that clears tumors, checkpoint inhibitors do
not work for all tumor
types or all patients. Moreover, some patients who do
experience an initial benefit from these therapies see their
cancers recur. Only a small minority of patients treated with
checkpoint blockade therapies see lasting benefits. Researchers
have developed various combination therapy strategies to overcome
resistance to checkpoint blockade therapies, with the STING pathway
emerging as one of the most attractive lines of inquiry.
In a study published in Advanced Healthcare Materials, a
team of MIT researchers engineered a therapeutic cancer vaccine
capable of restoring STING signaling and eliminating the majority
of tumors in mouse models of colon cancer and melanoma, with
minimal side effects. The vaccine also inhibited metastasis in a
breast cancer mouse model and prevented the recurrence of tumors in
cured mice.
Impulsive or Helium-3 enriched solar energetic particle (SEP)
events, characterized by Helium-3 and ultra-heavy ion abundances,
show high association with type III radio bursts. Minor (B-or
C-class) GOES soft X-ray flares often accompany these events.
There are reports on such events measured in clusters from
sub-flares in single active regions, where abundance showed
significant variations. Imaging observations revealed that sources
of these recurrent Helium-3 enriched are jets from solar plages
(patches of scattered magnetic fields) or coronal hole edges.
From a distance of only half an astronomical unit (AU), or
around 46.5 million miles, scientists from the Southwest Research
Institute (SwRI) have made the first close-up observations of a
source of energetic particles ejected from the Sun. ESAs Solar
Orbiter provided high-resolution images of the solar
flare.
Sorry for our mistake. My friend is not familiar with the rules.
We
should send it to OSS-security after the bug is fixed. The patch
now
is sent to the open mailing list. Sorry again for the
unintentional
mistake.
Meta has unveiled Chat Lock within WhatsApp, a feature that
allows users to keep sensitive and intimate conversations safe from
prying eyes. WhatsApp Chat Lock (Source: WhatsApp) Enabling Chat
Lock By tapping on a one-to-one or group conversation, users can
easily enable Chat Lock and choose between password or biometric
authentication options. Once activated, Chat Lock conveniently
hides the conversation in a separate folder within the app,
ensuring that it remains discreet and inaccessible from More
As part of Googles commitment to building a strong cybersecurity
workforce, the Google Cybersecurity Certificate offers an
affordable and accessible pathway to a career in cybersecurity. In
this Help Net Security interview, Phil Venables, CISO at Google
Cloud, sheds light on how this initiative will create greater
opportunities for individuals worldwide and contribute to meeting
the increasing demand for cybersecurity professionals. What
inspired Google to launch the Cybersecurity Certificate, and what
is its role in More
The Integrated Alumni
charity, in partnership with the Integrated Education
Fund (IEF), hosted an event that looked at
the cost of division in Northern Ireland, especially its education
system. This included a discussion among a panel of candidates for
the upcoming local government elections and an audience of several
dozen adding live, interactive responses with their mobile
phones.
Matt ONeill (chairperson, Integrated Alumni) welcomed guests and
introduced Dr Matt Milliken (Ulster University), who presented an
overview of a briefing paper that
he and Dr Stephen Roulston produced last month. Milliken explained
that Northern Irelands deeply divided education system parallels
wider societal divisions. Within education, this includes
segregation by: age, community identity, gender, (dis)ability,
class, and language. He pointed out that 92% of children and young
people are educated separately and that segregation persists in the
classrooms, staff rooms, and boardrooms, reflected in the history
that is taught, the games that are played, and the holidays that
are observed.
Milliken outlined societal, environmental, and economic costs of
Northern Irelands segregated education system. For example,
societally he c...
LAGOS MAY 16TH (URHOBOTODAY)-As some state governors is
getting ready to hand over power to the incoming governors on May
29th, 2023, reports has disclosed that the Delta State government
owes more debt than any other state in Nigeria.
According to a recent report, it has been revealed that
despite owing N304.25bn domestic debt and $58.77m foreign
debt, Delta State pays their former governors a total of N50
million every year as pension.
The law that entitles past Delta State governors this
huge pension is contained in the Delta State Governor and Deputy
Governor Pension Rights and Other Benefits Law, 2005, which was
signed into law by former governor James Ibori, who ruled the state
between 1999 and 2007. The law was later amended in
2009.
Deltans are protesting against the law with few days for
Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State to hand over after
exhausting the constitutional two terms of four years each at
Dennis Osadebey House, Asaba.
As expected, the astute politician would be retiring into a life
of sustained luxury like his successors, courtesy of the Delta
State Governor and Deputy Governor Pension Rights and Other
Benefits (Amendment Law) 2019, which makes provision for generous
retirement benefits.
The law was enacted by the state House of Assembly in 2005
during the tenure of ex-governor James Ibori and his deputy,
Benjamin Elue, and was first amended in 2009 during the tenure of
Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan.
Its amendment in 2019 during Okowas tenure, was ostensibly
tailor-made to extend the pension largesse to his kinsman, Sam Obi
(now late) who was acting governor for about six weeks in 2010.
The law makes provision for ex-governors to be paid allowances
and other benefits pegged at N50 million annually.
The listed life benefits include a furnished duplex in Delta
State or any state in the country worth over N300 million; 350 per
cent gratuity of basic salary for the first tenure; and gratuity of
450 per cent of basic salary for second tenure.
It also includes a pension of 70 per cent of the first term; a
pension of 80 per cent of second term; medical treatment for him
and members of his immediate family; and two vehicles, including an
utility vehicle not below N20 million each every two years.
E-commerce company Shopify teamed up with Deloitte to create the
first-ever Shopify Entrepreneurship Index.
Small business is on the rise. In 2021, there were 5.4 million
applications to start a new business in the United States alone,
the highest since the U.S. Census started tracking this
data in 2004, and last year there were 5 million applications.
Its always pleasing to see a project we covered in its early
stages reach maturity, so were very happy to bring you an update on
[Daniel Molina]s 74HCT6526. Its
a long-running effort to produce in 74 logic a faithful replica of
the MOS Technologies CIA, the integrated I/O and timer chip
found in so many of the 1980s Commodore machines. When we first
covered it there was only one PCB, now the project has grown to a
stack of three, with the remaining functions intended to fit on two
more boards.
It was very common at the time for chips such as the CIA to
integrate a set of common 8-bit peripherals onto one piece of
silicon, both in general purpose with almost all functions of the
original now implemented. hips and in more manufacturer specific
parts such as this one. A project like this one is valuable because
it provides a dive into the now less-common world of
interfacing directly to a microprocessor data and address line. Its
unlikely that many Commodore 64s will end up with this stack of
boards inside them, but its not impossible the design may help a
few old machines when put on an FPGA.
A court in the Malaysian state of Sarawak announced May 15 that
it will delay the hearing of a defamation suit filed by a logging
conglomerate against Indigenous-led environmental rights group SAVE
Rivers. In its announcement, officially released the same day the
trial was scheduled to begin, the Miri High Court cited the need to
prioritize an urgent criminal case as the reason for the delay. The
case, filed by Malaysia-based timber company Samling, is now
scheduled to start Sept. 18. This marks the fourth time the trial
has been postponed, protracting the financial and legal pressure on
Indigenous activists within and outside SAVE Rivers. The deferment
comes just days after the Forest Stewardship Council, an
international organization that operates a certification scheme for
sustainable forestry, said it had accepted a complaint against
Samlings forest concessions sent by a cohort of NGOs and would
investigate alleged violations of the councils policies. Activists
demonstrate outside the Miri High Court, where a defamation trial
against Indigenous-led environment rights group SAVE Rivers was
deferred for a fourth time. Image courtesy of The Borneo Project.
Though the adjournment of the case had been anticipated, roughly 45
Indigenous activists and other environmentalists showed up outside
the High Court of Sabah and Sarawak in traditional clothes May 15,
carrying signs saying Stop the SLAPP to voice their support for
SAVE Rivers. Komeok Joe, CEO of the Penan Indigenous rights
organization Keruan, said he was frustrated by the case, noting
that Samling the biggest among theThis article was originally
published on
Mongabay
The first (original) Nazi Party was in Germany, but the
ideology, of imperialistic racist fascism (the lower-case "nazism"
ideology, instead of just the original, upper-case "N" Nazi Party
that was an example of it) can be in any country. German
racist-fascism or Nazism was organized by Hitler as anti-Jewish,
anti-communist, and for a Thousand-Year Reich in which "Aryans" or
purebred descendants of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, would have
control over the entire world, and there would be no descendants
from the snake (Satan) in Genesis 3, which Hitler believed Jews to
be. The Slavic peoples in the Soviet Union would become enslaved to
Aryans, and that land would be the main breeding ground or
"Lebensraum" to expand the numbers of Aryans so that they could
achieve further conquests, and he thought that the most difficult
country for Germany to defeat would be America but, that he and his
fascist allies would first need to defeat all of Eurasia. Then, he
would take on America. That...
A Golang implementation of Cobalt Strike called Geacon is likely
to garner the attention of threat actors looking to target Apple
macOS systems. That's according to findings from SentinelOne, which
observed an increase in the number of Geacon payloads appearing on
VirusTotal in recent months. "While some of these are likely
red-team operations, others bear the characteristics of genuine
People who follow the Mediterranean dietrich in fats from olive
oil and nutstend to live longer, healthier lives than others who
chow down primarily on fast food, meat and dairy. But it hasn't
been clear on a cellular level exactly why the diet is so
beneficial.
Now researchers led by the Stanford School of Medicine have
found one of the first cellular connections between healthy
fatsknown as monounsaturated fatty acidsand lifespan in laboratory
worms. The finding hints at a complex relationship between diet,
fats and longevity.
"Fats are generally thought to be detrimental to health," said
professor of genetics Anne Brunet, Ph.D. "But some studies have
shown that specific types of fats, or lipids, can be
beneficial."
The researchers learned that one of the fats in the
Mediterranean diet, oleic acid, increases the number of two key
cellular structures, or organelles, and protects cellular membranes
from damage by a chemical reaction called oxidation. This
protective effect has a big payoff: Worms fed food rich in oleic
acid lived about 35% longer than those consigned to standard worm
rations, the researchers found.
Journal Reference:
Papsdorf, Katharina, Miklas, Jason W., Hosseini, Amir, et
al. Lipid droplets and peroxisomes are co-regulated to
drive lifespan extension in response to mono-unsaturated fatty
acids [open], Nature Cell Biology (DOI: 10.1038/s41556-023-01136-6)
People with disabilities were the original hackers. The
world can feel closed to them, so they often have had to be
self-reliant in how they interact with society. And that creativity
and ingenuity is an unappreciated resource.
Henry Claypool has been an observer and champion of that
resource for decades, both in government and in the nonprofit
sector.Hes a national policy expert and consultant
specializing in both disability policy and technology policy,
particularly where they intersect.He knows real harm
can result from misuse of technology, i...
We are so used to seeing weathered ruins, that we
forget that maintenance is all about protection. So yes, and
particularly concrete based post and slab constructure can last
forever.
In fact, the slab has replaced outright land as a
store of real estate value. After all, it is no trick to do
in and gut a suite or floor and then redo the works to the
most modern standards.
This is now a global standard and all those
crumbling areas will ultimately be cleaned out and replaced with
condo builds akong with parks.
The surprise is just how potentially permanent it
all can be. we now preserve antique facades in order to
sustain street views. Pretty matters today..
What is the life expectancy of the
Empire State Building?
Ben Levy
Building Repairer
Well, you've asked the right person. My company
just finished some work at the foundation. I have been up and down
that place, I know it well.
The Empire State Building, and buildings like
it, will last as long as there exists a civilization capable of
maintaining it and willing to do so. Every component, every steel
beam, brick, and Indiana Limestone block can be individually
repaired or replaced as needed, and many already have
been.
The elevators upgrade was very recently
completed. The second time. In 1966 the...
what makes this interesting is that the base of
the power towers can be used to lay out artificial reefs using
metal screen constructs charged with low level direct
current. such a reef then protects and feeds local fish and
acts as a fish refuge, to say nothing about shellfish and all
that.
It is very interesting and cheap to make
happen.
It is not the great barrier reef, but it can
expand over centuries from a modest base and evenbe augmented as
well .with retired shipping..
For Baby Cod, Offshore Wind
Turbines Offer an Alluring Tone
Offshore wind power is a booming slice of the
renewable energy mix. But like everything else, building machines
in the ocean has some side effects.
Photo by Janice Alamanou/Alamy Stock
Photo
Experiments show larval cod will orient
themselves toward the simulated sound of a turbine.
Is it possible that the CCP is now manipulating
our currency decisions through bribery against our interests?
The reason that I ask is because the decisson
making process itself has always been opaque and then explained
with public relations. If you trust any of that, youare
crazy, yet we have tolerated it forever because not much actually
happened and until Reagan the politicians typically interferred for
election purposes.
We have been watching the Supreme Court like a
hawk, but have totally forgot about this. Perhaps written
decissions are needed here.
An ongoing debate concerns the plunge in the
four-week Treasury note yield in relation to the three-month
Treasury yield. At least one tweeter claims its all about the
coming debt ceiling showdown with the difference in rates (3.145
percent versus 5.070 percent) reflecting the risk of having
liquidity tied up within three months as the debt ceiling exercise
is run through DC sausage making.
On the other side is Eurodollar Universitys
Jeffrey Snider who tweeted in response, The behavior of bills
today, esp. 4w[eek], was way too like April 2008 not debt ceiling.
Just massive demand for these things to the point that its
2008-style below other money alternatives. This aint debt ceiling
rather pure collateral run.
I bring this up because I had seen no such report before. Of
course these were very rare in the past, but are now common enough
because medical intervention makes it possible.
quite a tale and reflects then expectations. recall hades was
an actual physical construct near Etna long after all this.
We have also had reports without the death aspect. Swedenborg
in particular experienced a cityscape like what he lived in and met
former contemporaries there. It is clear that we take our
visual expectations with us which are then modified with contact
with our spirit guides.
It helps to know that the other side is physical and without
death. We come into our present to experience. and all of a
sudden it matters little except to learn from experience.
This means we deeply influence the other side. it is not a one way
street. .
Near-Death-Experiences Of The Ancients
MAY 2023
By jim willis
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle formed a trio
toward the middle of the fourth century BC in ancient Greece to
become the most well-known philosophers who ever lived. They were
the founders of the present-day discipline. Any philosophers who
lived before them are called pre-Socratics. Most people, even if
they know nothing about the field of philosophy, recognize the
names of Socrates, his pupil Plato, and Platos pupil, Aristotle,
who went on to become the private tutor of Alexander the
Great.
Er the Pamphylian
In Platos Republic, he mentions a speech by
Socrates, in which Socrates remembers the near-death experience of
a warrior bold who went by the name of Er the Pamphylian.
According to Socrates, Er was killed in battle. Tradition has it
that his body was placed on a funeral pyre after a period of some
12 days. Before the fires were lit, howe...
Trump tears into 'treacherous
charade' of Russian collusion probe - and calls for Hillary, James
Comey and the Democrats to 'pay a heavy price' for Durham report
that's sparked 'public anger' at a 'level I have not
seen' | 15 May 2023 | Donald Trump has lashed out at
ex-FBI Director James Comey after a new report concluded his probe
into alleged Russian collusion should never have been opened. The
former president, who has long decried that investigation as a
"witch hunt," said in an interview with Fox News Digital that those
officials should be held accountable. "I, and much more
importantly, then American public have been victims of this
long-running and treasonous charade started by the Democrats --
started by Comey," the 76-year-old real estate mogul said. "Public
anger over this report is at a level that I have not seen
before...there must be a heavy price to pay for putting our country
through this," he added. Trump, who is the runaway favorite for
Republican presidential nomination, later hit out at the FBI once
more on his Truth Social platform. "WOW! After extensive research,
Special Counsel John Durham concludes the FBI never should have
launched the Trump-Russia Probe!" Trump said.
'We have to defang and defund them!'
Matt Gaetz suggests FBI agents should be indicted after Durham
report that found no Trump collusion with Russia - as Bureau issues
groveling statement --Matt Gaetz on Monday night said that the
FBI was 'weaponized' against Donald Trump, hours after the Durham
report was made public --Jim Jordan, chair of House Judiciary
Committee, said there was a 'double standard' between Democrats and
Republicans, and FBI funding should be cut | 16 May 2023 |
Rep. Matt Gaetz suggested FBI agents should be fired and prosecuted
over the Durham report, which concluded the Bureau should never
have launched the probe into whether Donald Trump colluded with
Russia to win the 2016 election. Gaetz said the agency should be
defunded and "defanged," describing the agents' actions as "ugly,"
after Durham ruled there was insufficient evidence to probe Trump
in the first place. The Florida lawmaker said John Durham's
recommendation that only one person - a lawyer who lied to the FBI
- be charged with wrongdoing was "insufficient." "This report
is an insufficient consequence for the malfeasance and corruption
that we have seen here," Gaetz said. "It was an operation from
beginning to end to fuse political opposition research from the DNC
and the Clinton campaign with this intelligence process and
criminal process. And it's a sad day in America. If that had
been a Republican operation - an operation to help a Republican
candidate - it wouldn't have ended in a report: it would have ended
with real significant indictments."
Summary: Europes largest patent
office continues to be Shambles Defined in terms of
quality and in terms of justice; why doesnt the mainstream media
raise awareness of this? (Likely political reasons and heavy
lobbying, not to mention bribery of large publishers like the
Financial Times)
THE EPOs
staff union, SUEPO, has just highlighted this
new article. The EPO met again with in-house counsel who are
concerned that patent quality standards are slipping in favour of
speedy grants, says the introduction, but its behind a paywall.
Benot Battistelli and Antnio Campinos have done great damage to
promote European software patents
and inflate a
bubble. A source has meanwhile shared with us the way patent
attorneys leverage the Hey Hi (AI) hype to push software patents.
Bastian Best sent a message yesterday, full of tracking
inside the message, entitled Software patents in Europe
(presentation slides) (hes shamelessly promoting such patents
for 15+ years already). He says: Its all about the technical
contribution, but what exactly is technical at the European Patent
Office? Is it technical when engineers solve hard industrial
problems with AI?
Totally meaningless junk. The rest speaks of Statistics on AI
patent filings in Europe. This also mentions A checklist for
structuring software patent claims and A checklist for structuring
software patent claims
So the EPO has opened itself to such abuse, bolstered further by
buzzwords.
Where do the Boards of Appeal stand on the matter? Well, they
clearly have no independence or a mind of their own. Not
anymore
This happens to have been the subject of discussion in...
South Down, former bastion of the SDLP, once second in
importance only to Derry, has experienced sever erosion by Sinn
Fin. How much further this may go will be the focus of most of the
attention paid to the Newry Mourne and Down election by those
outside the council area.
The SDLP won seats in all seven of the council District
Electoral Areas (DEAs) in 2019, Sinn Fin in 6, and the UUP in
4. Alliance and the DUP were both successful in 2. Independents
were returned in 4 DEAs.
Both nationalists and unionists have lost share to others.
One of those Independents, Jarleth Tinnelly, was first elected
in Crotlieve in 2014. He campaigns on purely local issues and I am
not aware of him having made any statement with constitutional
implications. Tinnellys votes were not transferred in either 2019
or 2014. He stood unsuccessfully in 2011, and on that occasion his
votes transferred 4% to the UUP with 51% shared between the SDLP
and SF in what is a predominantly nationalist DEA. The fact that
nearly half of his voters did not transfer to either the unionist
or nationalist candidates suggests an extremely high level of
personal votes which makes it unwise to ascribe them to any of the
three designations. He is standing again at this election.
The votes of two other Independents, including Mark Gibbons
elected for Crotlieve, were ascribed to nationalists. Those for
Mournes Independent, Henry Reilly, have been included with
unionists, and the Downpatrick Independent, Cadogan Enwright, with
others. The rational can be found under the relevant DEA
section.
The full make-up of the council in 2014 and 2019 can be seen in
the chart below.
For the first time Sinn Fein drew ahead of the SDLP in seat
numbers. In all five seats changed hands. The SDLP lost 2 to SF,
one in Slieve Gullion and the other in The Mournes. It lost a third
in Crotlieve to Independent Gibbons. The DUP lost out in Slieve
Croob to the UUP. The final change was also in The Mournes where it
was a case of the more things change the more they stay the same.
In winning election as an Independent Henry Reilly gained the seat
from UKIP which had previously been held by Henry Reilly.
The largest change in party vote share was the 7% point fall in
the SDLP share. Interestingly Sinn Fen did not profit at all from
this, declining itself by 1%. In other words, Sinn Fin candidates
prospered...
LAGOS MAY 16TH (URHOBOTODAY)-Peoples Democratic Party
Chieftain and former Delta State Gubernatorial Aspirant, Chief
Sunny Onuesoke has reacted to Federal High Court, Warri
judgment in which eighteen aides of Niger Delta Development
Commission (NDDC) were sacked.
Besides sacking the eighteen aides the court equally
barred her from interfering with the functions of the commissions
Managing Director, Dr. Samuel Ogbuku.
The declaration was made in a suit by Dr. Mike Oberabor,
for himself and on behalf of the Oberabor Oreme-Egbede families of
the Olomoro community of Isoko South Local Government, Delta
State.
While reacting to the judgment, Onuesoke who described
Onochie as NNDC Chairperson who means well for the Commission
argued that there was no time Onochie appointed eighteen aides,
adding that to the best of his knowledge and evidence
available to him, Onochie appointed only three aides.
While referring to a publication titled, Concoction
of lies NDDC debunks claims of proposed 18 Special Assistants
against Lauretta Onochie published in Vanguard newspaper of January
15, 2023, Onuesoke wondered how come the numbers of aides
increased to eighteen.
Quoting the statement in the publication, Onuesoke stated, Niger
Delta Development Commission, NDDC, has debunked claims its
Chairperson, Lauretta Onochie proposed to have 18 Special
Assistants which is brewing a crisis in the commission.
The NDDC noted that rather than approve of such an increase in
personal staff, the Chairman, Lauretta Onochie insisted on a
drastic reduction in the number of aides attached to Board
members.
A statement sent to Vanguard, signed by Ibitoye Abosede,
Director, Corporate Affairs, said, this falsehood is being
perpetrated is an indication of a ploy to misinform the public in a
bid to distract the Board,
The truth is that the Chairman insisted on a drastic reduction
in the number of aides attached to Board members.
That this falsehood is being perpetrated is an indication of a
ploy to misinform the public in a bid to distract the Board.
We assure our stakeholders and members of the public that the
NDDC Governing Board will neither be distracted nor divided in its
resolve to do things differently and make a difference in the Niger
Delta.
The Lancefly APT group is using a
custom powerful backdoor called Merdoor in attacks against
organizations in South and Southeast Asia.
Symantec researchers reported that the Lancefly APT group is
using a custom-written backdoor in attacks targeting organizations
in South and Southeast Asia, as part of a long-running
campaign.
The highly-targeted attacks aim at organizations in government,
aviation, education, and telecom sectors. The
intelligence-gathering campaign started in mid-2022 and is likely
still ongoing.
Lanceflys custom malware, which we have dubbed Merdoor, is a
powerful backdoor that appears to have existed since 2018. reads
the analysis published by Symantec. Symantec
researchers observed it being used in some activity in 2020 and
2021, as well as this more recent campaign, which continued into
the first quarter of 2023.The backdoor is used very
selectively, appearing on just a handful of networks and a small
number of machines over the years, with its use appearing to be
highly targeted.
Merdoor is a fully-featured backdoor that supports multiple
capabilities, including installing itself as a service, keylogging,
a variety of methods to communicate with its command-and-control
(C&C) server (HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, UDP, TCP), and the ability to
listen on a local port for commands.
The instances of the Merdoor backdoor analyzed by the
researchers only differ for the embedded and encrypted
configuration, which includes C2 communication method, service
details, and the installation directory.
The experts reported that the backdoor is injected into the
legitimate processes perfhost.exe or svchost.exe.
The Merdoor dropper spread as a self-extracting RAR (SFX) that
contains three files, a legitimate and signed binary vulnerable to
DLL search-order hijacking, a malicious loader (Merdoor loader),
and an encrypted file (.pak) containing final payload (Merdoor
backdoor).
The attack chain employed in 2020 started with a phishing email
with a lure based on the 37th ASEAN Summit. In more recent attacks,
the APT group likely used phishing lures, SSH brute-forcing, or the
exploitation of exposed public-facing servers.
Lancefly APT used a multiple non-malware techniques for
credential theft on victim machines, including:
PowerShell was used to launch rundll32.exe in order to dump the
memory of a process using the MiniDump function of comsvcs.dll.
This technique is often used to dump LSASS memory.
Reg.exe was used to dump the SAM and SYSTEM registry...
Parliamentary staff have been urged to police gender pronouns
and report "negative behaviours", The Telegraph has learnt. The UK
Parliament authorities have drawn up gender-identity guidance for
hundreds of civil servants working in administrative roles in the
House of Commons and Lords, which has been circulated internally
for the last three years. One section of the 15-page guide warns
that staff should "learn to identify what transphobic behaviour
looks like and understand that these must be met with an attitude
of zero-tolerance". It lists examples including "another colleague
refusing to use a trans person's preferred pronouns or names",
adding that this "should be dealt with in an appropriate manner".
The pamphlet, obtained by The Telegraph, has been criticised by
campaigners and a senior MP as "concerning" and "compelled
belief".
The credibility of the disaster-addicted Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) has been dealt a damaging blow with
recently-published research showing that 42% of its climate
scenarios rely on improbable rises in future temperature that even
the UN-funded body believes are of "low likelihood". The research
notes the IPCC admission of improbability is "deeply buried" in the
full Sixth Assessment Reports (AR6), and is "unlikely to be read by
the policy makers". The authors note that significant and important
sections of the full IPCC work emphasise these improbable claims,
"potentially invalidating those sections of the report". Climate
and emissions outline SSP5-8.5 assumes a rise of around 5C by the
end of the century. It was always somewhat detached from reality
and has long been dealt a death blow, given that global warming ran
out of steam about 25 years ago. Even the climate alarmist Zeke
Hausfather is unimpressed, and his comments can be seen on the
right of the...
In the bright sunshine of a warm spring afternoon at Delft Maker
Faire, were a row of 3D printers converted with paste extruders.
They were the work of [Nedji Yusufova], and though while were being
shown printing with biodegradable pastes made from waste materials,
we were also interested in their potential to print using edible
media.
Werewool is developing naturally occurring proteins grown in a
lab to color clothing, instead of toxic and polluting dyes.
As a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology five years
ago, Chiu-Lian Lee couldnt stop thinking about the environmental
impact of the fashion industry, from greenhouse gas emissions to
toxic dyes and other chemicals used to finish fabric. I was really
frustrated about the status quo of how textiles were being made,
she says. She joined a biodesign program to begin exploring
alternatives. At a nearby lab they visited, she and fellow students
were struck by a bright pink fluorescent vial of proteins.
Design agency Collins gives GMOs a new identity based on the
positive ways scientifically boosted crops can help navigate
climate change.
We encounter GMOs every day, and methods of selective plant
breeding have been used for thousands of years. This kind of
scientific engineering can help adapt crops to the changing climate
and our growing population. GMOs, however, are still associated
with agri-giants, which use them to enable pesticide usewith myriad
environmental and human impacts.
Los Angeles officials are trying to stop the spread of the
flesh-eating drug xylazine that has taken over the city. The
'zombie drug', a veterinary tranquilizer approved in the US for
cows and horses, is now flooding the illicit US drug market, with
dealers often cutting it with cocaine and heroin. But it is most
often used to cut fentanyl, the lethally potent synthetic opioid
that already kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. The
drug has spread to Los Angeles of late, with news crews capturing
people hunched over and on the ground, strung out on the drug. The
problem, Los Angeles County Sheriff's officials say, is that the
drug is technically a legal substance. The county is now
desperately trying to track xylazine's presence throughout the
city, according to KTLA.
Hunter Biden case takes stark twist
with allegation of retaliation against IRS whistleblower
--Lawyers for whistleblower disclose to lawmakers sudden move,
raise concerns of obstruction of congressional probe | 15
May 2023 | The Justice Department removed an IRS whistleblower and
his entire team from the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden's
taxes in what his lawyers described to Congress on Monday as an act
of retaliation and possible obstruction of congressional inquiries,
according to correspondence to lawmakers obtained by Just the News.
The IRS whistleblower, whose name has not been released, is a
decorated supervisory criminal investigative agent who led the team
probing the presidential [sic] son's tax affairs. He received whistleblower
protection a few weeks ago from Congress and the Justice
Department inspector general to disclose evidence he says shows
there was political interference in the Hunter Biden probe. "Today
the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Supervisory Special
Agent we represent was informed that he and his entire
investigative team are being removed from the ongoing and sensitive
investigation of the high-profile, controversial subject about
which our client sought to make whistleblower disclosures to
Congress, the whistleblower's lawyers, Mark Lytle and Tristan
Leavitt, wrote in a letter to multiple House and
Senate committees. "He was informed the change was at the request
of the Department of Justice."
Erin Lee, mother of a child whose daughter was invited to attend
her school's secret gender club, joins The Faulkner Focus with
former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to discuss the issue. A
Colorado mother said her daughter was among a group of
sixth-graders recruited to a deceptive after-school "art" club that
turned out to be much more than it seemed. "When she got there, she
very quickly learned it was actually a gender and sexuality
awareness club," Erin Lee told Fox News' Harris Faulkner on
Tuesday. "The art teacher had invited in an outside presenter into
the classroom that day, and this woman did absolutely unthinkable
things with the kids."
Chemotherapy that does not harm the body, but effectively fights
cancer cells: that is the goal of chemist Sylvestre Bonnet and his
team. During his Ph.D. research, chemist Xuequan Zhou brought that
goal a little closer. He developed molecules that, upon injection
into the bloodstream, self-assemble into nanoparticles that
accumulate in the tumor. Targeted irradiation with visible light
then attacks the tumor. The research has now been published in
Nature Chemistry.
"Conventional anti-cancer drugs often do not differentiate
enough between good and bad cells," Bonnet explains. "They kill
them both." The researchers have come up with a solution to this
problem: nanoparticles that target the tumor and only become active
under the influence of visible light. "This anticancer phototherapy
allows doctors to treat a specific part of the body without
damaging the rest. It is already in use in several hospitals."
Molecules that form nanoparticles by themselves
Until now, chemists had to first attach the chemotherapy drugs
to nanoparticles in the lab. Doctors then administered them by
injection into the patient's bloodstream. Conjugation to the
nanoparticles helped the chemotherapy find the tumor. Zhou's drug
works slightly differently. "The lab work is no longer necessary,"
he says. "You can administer the molecules directly. Once in the
blood, nanoparticles then form all by themselves."
Journal Reference:
Zhou, Xue-Quan, Wang, Peiyuan, Ramu, Vadde, et al. In
vivo metallophilic self-assembly of a light-activated anticancer
drug [open], Nature Chemistry (DOI: 10.1038/s41557-023-01199-w)