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● 05.30.23

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● Links 30/05/2023: LibreOffice 7.6 in Review and More Digital Restrictions (DRM) From HP

Posted in News Roundup at 7:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ OMG! Linux ☛ This App Lets You Apply Dither Effects to Images on Linux

• Using Halftone you can evoke a computer graphic aesthetic reminiscent of the late 1980s/early 1990s. We’re talking pixels, dots, dither, low color count, and more — all that’s missing is the flicker of a CRT-monitor and the garble of a dial-up modem.

=> ↺ John Goerzen ☛ Recommendations for Tools for Backing Up and Archiving to Removable Media

• Backups are designed to recover from a disaster that you can fairly rapidly detect.

• Archives are designed to survive for many years, protecting against disaster not only impacting the original equipment but also the original person that created them.

=> ↺ Connor Tumbleson ☛ CSS Framework Evolution

• A long time ago I wanted to build a website and I did using nothing but my own code for the interface and logic behind the scenes. This site was absolutely garbage from a design perspective and was quickly abandoned after it became obvious that any change would break 15 other things. The site had no support for any screen size except for the one it was built on, so I went on the hunt for a mobile friendly CSS framework.

=> ↺ Andrew Healey ☛ Building Family Websites

• Here’s why it’s the worst: every time we want to update it, we need to log onto Google Drive (where we store our photos), download a zip file, extract the photos, run two scripts (turn HEIC files into JPG, resize with a max width), run the build script, and push everything into source control (the HTML pages and the images).

=> ↺ TecMint ☛ Learn the Basics of Git to Manage Projects Efficiently {Beginner’s Guide}

• Git is the most popular version control system (VCS) used by developers and development teams to keep track of changes made to source code. In fact, it is the most popular version control system used in DevOps.

• A Version Control System is software that tracks or records changes made to software code over time in a special database referred to as a repository. With Git, you can track project history and see what changes were made and who made them.

=> ↺ TecMint ☛ 20 Basic ‘ls’ Command Examples in Linux

• Listing files is one of the most widely undertaken tasks by ordinary Linux users and system administrators. In Linux, the ls command, short for “list” is used to list or display the contents of a directory.

• This could either be your current directory or any other directory on the system. The command displays both files and subdirectories and in most cases distinguishes between different file types using color codes.

=> ↺ Linux Handbook ☛ Appending to Arrays in Bash

• Unlike many programming languages, bash doesn’t have any pre-built function that lets you append data to arrays in bash.

WINE or Emulation

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Wine 8.9 released with more PE work, Mono 8.0 and more Wayland updates

• The latest biweekly development release for the Windows translation tool Wine is out, Wine 8.9 as usual brings new features and fixes that will eventually make their way into Steam Play Proton.

Games

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Steam Deck hits South Korea retail via Electromart on June 1st

• Valve’s partner Komodo has announced that they’re expanding the Steam Deck retail presence into South Korea on June 1st. They’ll be doing this through Electromart through a partnership with SHINSEGAE I&C, the leading retail tech company of SHINSEGAE, the largest retail group in South Korea. This will include the Steam Deck and the Docking Station at all of the Electromart stores nationwide.

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Entropy : Zero 2 the excellent Half-Life 2 mod adds Linux and Steam Deck support

• After being in Beta since late last year, Half-Life: 2 mod Entropy : Zero 2 has now released the full Native Linux and Steam Deck support. The Steam page hasn’t yet been updated to note this new support, and you may need to force the Steam Linux Runtime in the compatibility options to get it to download until they’ve done this.

=> ↺ Boiling Steam ☛ Best Steam Deck Games Released in the Past Week, with Pocket Mirror, Rayze and Mechabellum – 2023-05-28 Edition

• We had an outage during the weekend so this post is one day late. Between 2023-05-21 and 2023-05-28 there were 119 new games validated for the Steam Deck.

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Tactical RPG ‘Radix Chronicle’ getting Linux support

• Radix Chronicle is an in-development tactical RPG from Marcus Sanders, better known as EpicNameBro for making videos about Fromsoft games and their own game will now support Linux.

Distributions and Operating Systems

=> ↺ HaikuOS ☛ [GSoC 2023] First course of action: fix memory leaks

• The coding period has started today! In the last blog post related to GSOC, I said “Here are the plans that I currently have. As with all plans, they are subject to change.” They did indeed change since I found a tool to find memory leaks.

• Before I was accepted into GSOC, I had been thinking about porting AddressSanitizer to Haiku to find memory leaks. I decided against it. During the community bonding period, I found a file called leak_analyser.sh, which was made for finding memory leaks, exactly like AddressSanitizer! It was a good thing I had decided against porting AddressSanitizer to Haiku. I now want to work on getting rid of the memory leaks from Icon-O-Matic.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Arduino ☛ Electronic game of Connect Four played on an 8×8 LED matrix

• In order to display the current grid to the player(s), Pavleski purchased an 8×8 WS2812B individually addressable LED matrix that gets powered by the Arduino Nano‘s 5V regulator. Because the game can either be played against another human or an AI opponent, the cabinet contains three buttons for selecting the chip’s drop location and a buzzer to deliver audible feedback when an event occurs. The entire device was constructed from a few 5mm PVC boards lined with colored paper for an old-fashioned aesthetic.

=> ↺ Olimex ☛ ESP32-SBC-FabGL tested with RunCPM 5.7 and 6.0, TinyCPC Amstrad, TinyNes, TinyMCUME

• [...] as this one has plenty of software inside like WordStar, MBasic, Turbo Pascal, E editor, Z80asm assembler etc.

=> ↺ The Drone Girl ☛ Yes, you can buy your own delivery drone capable —and it’s capable of carrying 5 kgs

• Now you can buy your very own, ready-to-fly delivery drone. And this is not one of those cheap, hardly-useful devices you buy online that can only fly something light, like a single taco. This one is capable of flying 15 lbs. Called the RDSX Pelican, this delivery drone is the new, flagship product from A2Z Drone Delivery — and it can be yours.

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi ☛ 24850 young people’s programs ran in space for Astro Pi 2022/23

• Over 15,000 teams of young people across Europe had their programs run on the International Space Station in this year’s Astro Pi Challenge.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Gadget Bridge ☛ Best 6 Ways to Find Hidden Apps on Android Devices

=> ↺ Handy Android Features You Should Use – Business Review

=> ↺ Android Police ☛ The Android Police podcast desperately needs the Moto Razr Ultra

=> ↺ TechCrunch ☛ A popular Android app began secretly spying on its users months after it was listed on Google Play | TechCrunch

=> ↺ Phone Arena ☛ Contacts gone on your Android phone? Don’t panic! You may need to check this one setting – PhoneArena

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Undeadly ☛ New versions of LibreSSL released

• The LibreSSL project has announced the release of versions 3.6.3 and 3.7.3, and (development) version 3.8.0 of the software.

Events

=> ↺ LWN ☛ Videos from LSFMM+BPF 2023

• Thanks to an LWN comment from “engla”, we have learned that the videos from the recently completed 2023 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management and BPF Summit are now available on YouTube. LWN sat in on many of the talks, of course, and we are still chugging along on our coverage of the conference.

Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

=> ↺ DebugPoint ☛ LibreOffice 7.6: Discover the Best New Features

• LibreOffice 7.6 is currently under development. The Document Foundation released the first Alpha (alpha1) on May 17, 2023. However, it is now unstable, and many bug fixes are ongoing.

• Feature-wise, as usual, many changes have arrived in Calc and Writer. A few minimal updates to Impress and no such update on the Base or Math module. In addition, a good number of compatibility updates to Microsoft Office 365 are also promised in this version.

• Here are the highlights.

Education

=> ↺ Adolfo Ochagavía ☛ On being paid to learn

• Regular readers of my blog know I have been planning to write on my recent contract contributing to Quinn, the popular Rust implementation of the QUIC protocol. I originally intended to write a deep-dive into the QUIC features I implemented, but the blog post took a life of its own and ended up as a short essay on being paid to learn. Enjoy!

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Hackaday Prize 2023: Scratch Made 8-Bit Educational Computer

• To demonstrate the functionality of an 8-bit computer processor at a very basic level,  [Mazen Gomaa] assembled a Homemade 8-Bit Educational Computer using common CMOS logic chips, a handful of prototyping boards, and an impressive number of carefully connected wires. [Mazen] was inspired by Ben Eater’s 8-bit TTL Breadboard Computer but opted to solder the chips and other components onto proto boards instead of using solderless breadboards.

Licensing / Legal

=> ↺ Deep Content GbR ☛ OpenLLaMA is an open-source reproduction of Meta’s LLaMA language model and can be used commercially.

• The Berkeley team is now releasing an early version of the 7-billion-parameter OpenLLaMA model, which has so far been trained on 300 billion of 1.2 trillion tokens. Performance is already said to be approaching the level of LLaMA, and the team is confident that the fully trained OpenLLaMA will be competitive with Meta’s original.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Radford Neal ☛ Fixing R’s design flaws in a new version of pqR

• I’ve released a new version of my pqR implementation of R. This version introduces extensions to the R language that fix some long-standing design flaws that were inherited from S.

=> ↺ Rlang ☛ ‘Build your first Shiny App’ with us

• Shiny is the ever more popular approach to share R data analysis and reports that are required to make data-driven decisions.

Python

=> ↺ Announcing the Python Language Summit 2023 blog posts

• I just hit “publish” on the blog posts for the Python Language Summit 2023!

=> ↺ LWN ☛ Sessions from the 2023 Python Language Summit

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ OSTechNix ☛ Linux Command Line Tricks For Efficient And Faster Workflow

• In the world of Linux, mastering the command line is essential for developers, system administrators, and power users. With the right command line tricks, you can significantly enhance your productivity and streamline your workflow. In this guide, we will explore a collection of Linux command line tricks that will help you work more efficiently and accomplish tasks with speed and precision.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ European Commission ☛ Update of standards for the 112-based eCall in-vehicle systems

• All new types of passenger cars and vans are equipped with eCall. This is the system that automatically dials the European emergency number 112 in the event of a serious road accident and helps saving lives. Currently, eCall systems work over 2G/3G networks. Given that these networks are to be switched off in the coming years, this initiative sets out provisions for the transition of eCall to 4G/5G network.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Shirish Agarwal: Pearls of Luthra, Dahaad, Tetris & Discord.

• Pearls of Luthra is the first book by Brian Jacques and I think I am going to be a fan of his work. This particular book you have to be wary of. While it is a beautiful book with quite a few illustrations, I have to warn that if you are somebody who feels hungry at the very mention of food, then you will be hungry throughout the book. There isn’t a single page where food isn’t mentioned and not just any kind of food, the kind of food that is geared towards sweet tooth. So if you fancy tarts or chocolates or anything sweet you will right at home. The book also touches upon various teas and wines and various liquors but food is where it shines in literally. The tale is very much like a Harry Potter adventure but isn’t as dark as HP was. In fact, apart from one death and one ear missing rest of our heroes and heroines and there are quite a few. I don’t want to give too much away as it’s a book to be treasured.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Thank You For Our Disservice

=> ↺ Unix Men ☛ Unlocking the Power of Unix: A Guide for Aspiring Bloggers and Writers [Ed: Several links in this bizarre ‘article’ reek of linkspam]

=> ↺ Unix Men ☛ Unlocking the Power of Unix: A Guide for Aspiring Bloggers and Writers [Ed: Several links in this bizarre ‘article’ reek of linkspam]

Science

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ South Korea Successfully Sends Satellites To Orbit

• South Korea’s KARI ( Korea Aerospace Research Institute ) successfully put a commercial satellite into orbit Thursday, achieving another milestone in their domestic space program. The Nuri rocket (aka KLSV-2) left the Naro Space Center launch pad on the southern coast of the peninsula at 18:24 KST, after a communications glitch in the pad’s helium tank facility caused a one-day slip. The primary payload was the 180 kg refrigerator-sized Earth observation satellite NEXTSat-2. It uses synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and also has instruments to observe neutrons in near-Earth orbit due to the impact of solar activity on cosmic radiation. In addition, seven CubeSats were successfully deployed:

Education

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Your Engineering Pad In Browser

• It was always easy to spot engineering students in college. They had slide rules on their belts (later, calculators) and wrote everything on engineering pads. These were usually a light brown or green and had a light grid on one side, ready to let you sketch a diagram or a math function. These days, you tend to sketch math functions on the computer and there are plenty of people willing to take your money for the software. But if you fire up your browser, head over to EngineeringPaper.xyz and you might save a little cash.

Hardware

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Google Nest Hub Teardown

• Seeing the guts of devices is a fascination that many hackers share. [Txyz] tore down a 2nd gen Google Nest Hub for all of us to enjoy. The video after the break is well produced and relaxing to watch as various heat shields are removed and debug cables are soldered on.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Automate Handwritten Postcards With Robots

• As someone notorious for not doing things the old-fashioned manual way, we’re not sure by [Shane] of Stuff Made Here was thinking when he promised to send out a few hundred handwritten letters. Predictably he built an automated production line for the task. Video after the break.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ All Your Robots Are Belong To Us: You Just Rent Them

• Monthly bills. Everyone has them. Except if you go far enough back, not everyone had them. After all, you might live in a home your family has owned for generations. You might be able to produce all the basic necessities using your homestead: food from a garden, water from a well, textiles, soap, and candles. You might have to buy the occasional animal, but your recurring bills could be modest outside of the ever-present tax burden.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Mat Boards Are Spendy, So DIY CNC Tool To The Rescue

• Mats are flat pieces of paper-based material that fill the space between a frame and the art within. They perform a number of aesthetic and practical functions, and they can also be expensive to purchase. Making them by hand is an option, but it’s an exacting process. [wooddragon48] felt that a CNC solution would serve this need nicely, and began designing a DIY CNC tool to do exactly that.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ teleSUR ☛ Russia Sends 30,000 Tons of Free Fertilizer to Kenya

• “We cannot but assess the actions of the European Union as open sabotage of the goals set in the field of food security,” the Russian FM said.

=> ↺ NPR ☛ A ‘natural death’ may be preferable for many than enduring CPR

• But the true odds are grim. In 2010 a review of 79 studies, involving almost 150,000 patients, found that the overall rate of survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest had barely changed in thirty years. It was 7.6%.

• Bystander-initiated CPR may increase those odds to 10%. Survival after CPR for in-hospital cardiac arrest is slightly better, but still only about 17%. The numbers get even worse with age. A study in Sweden found that survival after out-of-hospital CPR dropped from 6.7% for patients in their 70s to just 2.4% for those over 90. Chronic illness matters too. One study found that less than 2% of patients with cancer or heart, lung, or liver disease were resuscitated with CPR and survived for six months.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Teenager walks at brain injury event weeks after getting shot in head for knocking on wrong door

• Ralph Yarl — a Black teenager who was shot in the head and arm last month after mistakenly ringing the wrong doorbell — walked at a brain injury awareness event Monday in his first major public appearance since the shooting.

• The 17-year-old suffered a traumatic brain injury when he was shot while trying to pick up his younger brothers in April, the Kansas City Star reported.

=> ↺ Broadband Breakfast ☛ ‘Urgent’ Social Media Advisory, Tribal Broadband Awards, Permitting Reform Progress, BroadbandNow Podcast

• United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Tuesday issued an advisory warning that social media carries a “profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents,” naming it an “urgent public health issue.”

• The advisory called on Congress to develop age-appropriate safety standards for technology platforms, require a higher standard of data privacy for children and pursue policies that limit children’s access to social media.

Proprietary

=> ↺ The Economist ☛ Nvidia is not the only firm cashing in on the AI gold rush

• The most obvious winners from surging demand for computing power are the chipmakers. Companies like Nvidia and AMD get a licence fee every time their blueprints are etched onto silicon by manufacturers such as TSMC on behalf of end-customers, notably the big providers of cloud computing that powers most AI applications. AI is thus a boon to the chip designers, since it benefits from more powerful chips (which tend to generate higher margins), and more of them. UBS, a bank, reckons that in the next one or two years AI will increase demand for specialist chips known as graphics-processing units (GPUs) by $10bn-15bn.

=> ↺ International Business Times ☛ French Open uses AI to protect players from online abuse

• Other tennis players have opened up about receiving death threats and other forms of abuse online. Some say that even their families are not safe from nasty comments and malicious messages sent by the general public.

• With this in mind, organisers of the ongoing French Open at Roland Garros have decided to make use of the wildly popular albeit controversial Artificial Intelligence technology to help protect players.

=> ↺ Terence Eden ☛ The limits of General Purpose Computation

• Sage of the Internet, and general Sooth Sayer, Cory Doctorow once gave an impassioned speech on “The Coming War on General Computation”. I’ll let you read the whole thing but, I think, the salient point is that some people want to restrict the maths we’re allowed to do on our computers.

=> ↺ arXiv ☛ The False Promise of Imitating Proprietary LLMs

• An emerging method to cheaply improve a weaker language model is to finetune it on outputs from a stronger model, such as a proprietary system like ChatGPT (e.g., Alpaca, Self-Instruct, and others). This approach looks to cheaply imitate the proprietary model’s capabilities using a weaker open-source model. In this work, we critically analyze this approach. We first finetune a series of LMs that imitate ChatGPT using varying base model sizes (1.5B–13B), data sources, and imitation data amounts (0.3M–150M tokens). We then evaluate the models using crowd raters and canonical NLP benchmarks. Initially, we were surprised by the output quality of our imitation models — they appear far better at following instructions, and crowd workers rate their outputs as competitive with ChatGPT. However, when conducting more targeted automatic evaluations, we find that imitation models close little to none of the gap from the base LM to ChatGPT on tasks that are not heavily supported in the imitation data. We show that these performance discrepancies may slip past human raters because imitation models are adept at mimicking ChatGPT’s style but not its factuality. Overall, we conclude that model imitation is a false promise: there exists a substantial capabilities gap between open and closed LMs that, with current methods, can only be bridged using an unwieldy amount of imitation data or by using more capable base LMs. In turn, we argue that the highest leverage action for improving open-source models is to tackle the difficult challenge of developing better base LMs, rather than taking the shortcut of imitating proprietary systems.

=> ↺ [Repeat] Silicon Angle ☛ Facebook users lose access after violations of linked spam Instagram accounts they don’t own

• Where the case becomes strange is that hackers have found a way to link Instagram accounts to unrelated Facebook profiles before they violate community guidelines. This not only results in the newly linked Instagram accounts getting disabled but also the Facebook profiles of unrelated users, as they’re seen as being guilty by association.

• Exactly how this happens is not clear. An analysis by SiliconANGLE can find no evidence of hacking, although this cannot be categorically ruled out. There is no sign of account compromise and best practices were used with passwords. The Facebook account was never compromised, the only evidence being that the spam Instagram account had become linked to the user’s Meta account, hence the eventual ban.

Security

=> ↺ LWN ☛ Security updates for Monday

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (docker-registry, gpac, libraw, libreoffice, rainloop, and sysstat), Fedora (bottles, c-ares, edk2, libssh, microcode_ctl, python-vkbasalt-cli, rust-buffered-reader, rust-nettle, rust-nettle-sys, rust-rpm-sequoia, rust-sequoia-keyring-linter, rust-sequoia-octopus-librnp, rust-sequoia-openpgp, rust-sequoia-policy-config, rust-sequoia-sop, rust-sequoia-sq, rust-sequoia-sqv, rust-sequoia-wot, and xen), SUSE (opera), and Ubuntu (Jhead, linuxptp, and sudo).

=> ↺ Email Phishing Using Kali Linux

• No matter how often you go online and how or why you primarily use the Internet, you’ve probably seen phishing attack attempts. They’re now so common and problematic that cybersecurity professionals regularly provide information to help people spot and avoid phishing attacks.

• Phishing can be extremely damaging and have widespread consequences for victim organizations including financial losses, data theft, and severe, lasting reputational harm. For this reason, many cybersecurity teams have in-house training that tests how employees respond to phishing attacks. Cybersecurity teams use phishing training tools to send spoofed emails, create fake login pages and otherwise behave as genuine scammers would.

• Kali Linux is an open-source, Debian-based Linux platform for digital forensics and penetration tests. Using open-source tools with it allows people to run phishing simulations. The results of those efforts can illuminate vulnerabilities and indicate what leaders should do to make phishing attacks less likely. This article will demonstrate how you can conduct your own email phishing training using open-source tools on Kali Linux to improve your organization’s security posture and protect against cyberattacks and data breaches.

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ New York county still dealing with ransomware eight months after attack

• The fallout from an eight-month-old cyber attack on a county in Long Island, New York has devolved into mud-slinging as leaders try to figure out just what is going on.

• Suffolk County was hit with a ransomware attack in early September 2022, which led county executive Steve Bellone to issue nine separate emergency declarations, Long Island publication Newsday said – the most recent of which was enacted earlier this month.

=> ↺ Data Breaches ☛ New York county still dealing with ransomware eight months after attack

• The fallout from an eight-month-old cyber attack on a county in Long Island, New York has devolved into mud-slinging as leaders try to figure out just what is going on.

=> ↺ Insurance regulators examining Point32Health data breach

• The Division of Insurance is monitoring the Point32Health data breach, which may have compromised personal data including addresses, medical history and Social Security numbers of current and former Harvard Pilgrim Health Care policyholders, according to Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development spokesperson Margaret Quackenbush.

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

=> ↺ Nicholas Tietz-Sokolsky ☛ Email addresses are not primary user identities

• A lot of applications treat your email address as something immutable that is linked to you and which will never change. It can’t be linked to someone else, and it can’t change.

• This is, of course, not true. Email addresses do change. I changed my work email address recently (associated with the same account) and let me tell you: almost no software handled it correctly.

• This is the story of how badly applications handled this, how a surprising application handled it perfectly, and how you should handle this in your own code.

=> ↺ Eesti Rahvusringhääling ☛ Electoral Committee: M-voting entails too many risks

• In mid-May, the Estonian National Electoral Committee said that allowing voters to use a voting app on their smartphones would prevent the state from carrying out necessary checks on the app and its authenticity and would leave the distribution of the app in the hands of Google and Apple.

• The committee said that it is important to be aware of all the risks associated with m-voting; the technical solutions developed to date do not mitigate these risks sufficiently and implementing m-voting does not only require the decision of the Electoral Commission, but also requires a change in electoral laws.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ RTL ☛ Russian ‘spy’ whale surfaces in Sweden

• A harness-wearing Beluga whale that turned up in Norway in 2019, sparking speculation it was a spy trained by the Russian navy, has appeared off Sweden’s coast, an organisation following him said Monday.

• First discovered in Norway’s far northern region of Finnmark, the whale spent more than three years slowly moving down the top half of the Norwegian coastline, before suddenly speeding up in recent months to cover the second half and on to Sweden.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Lawmakers Move Victory Day From May 9 To May 8

• [...] Most European countries celebrate Victory in Europe Day on May 8 to mark the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in 1945. [...]

=> ↺ Vox ☛ What Erdogan’s win means for the West — and the world

• Of course, it wasn’t a completely fair fight. Erdoğan largely controls the media and state resources, and he exercised those levers ahead of the election. Erdoğan’s built-in advantage, with a side of election irregularities, almost guaranteed he’d win, and he did.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Five Takeaways From Turkey’s Presidential Election

• Mr. Erdogan even went so far as to air videos at his rallies that had been doctored to show militant leaders singing along to Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s campaign song. Many voters believed him, saying in interviews that they did not trust the opposition to keep the country safe.

=> ↺ The Gray Zone ☛ The Grayzone debates National Endowment for Democracy VP on group’s CIA ties

=> ↺ Telex (Hungary) ☛ Hungary sends military medical team to Kosovo to treat injured Hungarian KFOR peacekeepers

• The Hungarian Defence Forces’ A319 Airbus, designed for providing medical care, left Kecskemét for Kosovo on Monday evening, honvedelem.hu reports

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ Free Julian Assange: Noam Chomsky, Dan Ellsberg & Jeremy Corbyn Lead Call at Belmarsh Tribunal

• Former British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and famed linguist and dissident Noam Chomsky joined others earlier this year calling on President Biden to drop charges against Julian Assange. The WikiLeaks founder has been languishing for over four years in the harsh Belmarsh prison in London while appealing extradition to the United States. If he is extradited, tried and convicted, Assange faces up to 175 years in jail for violating the U.S. Espionage Act for publishing documents that exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Belmarsh Tribunal at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., in January was organized by the Progressive International and the Wau Holland Foundation. We spend the hour airing excerpts.

=> ↺ VOA News ☛ Russia Issues Arrest Warrant for US Senator Graham Over Ukraine Comments

• While Graham appeared to have made the remarks in different parts of the conversation, the short video by Ukraine’s presidential office put them next to each other, causing outrage in Russia.

=> ↺ BBC ☛ Why Erdogan’s victory matters for the West

• First out of the box was Russian President Vladimir Putin.

• He was so keen to stroke the ego of his Turkish counterpart and fellow “strongman” leader that he didn’t even wait for the official results of the vote before singling out Mr Erdogan’s “independent foreign policy” as a reason for his victory.

• We can safely assume the Turkish policy that Russia is particularly fond of is Mr Erdogan’s refusal to ostracise the Kremlin after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, even as Turkey’s allies in Nato imposed sanctions and slashed their energy reliance on Russia.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ If You Wish Someone a Happy Memorial Day, You Fail to Understand Its True Meaning

• The mythology perpetuated at Memorial Day benefits no one save the militarists and war profiteers.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Open Carry

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ The Revolutionary Fight to “Begin the World Over Again” Did Not End in 1776

• The first soldiers in the cause of the American experiment were called to action by Thomas Paine, the radical pamphleteer who in 1776 declared: We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the events of a few months. The reflection is awful, and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do the little paltry cavilings of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russia launches another round of missile strikes on Kyiv — Meduza

• The Russian military launched air strikes on Kyiv for the second time in one day.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Belgorod governor says Russia could guarantee region’s security by annexing Ukraine’s Kharkiv region — Meduza

• Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, said in an interview on Monday that the problem of shelling in the region from across the Ukrainian border could be solved by Russia annexing Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Krasnodar bans signs in foreign languages. The city’s mayor called them ‘unpatriotic.’ — Meduza

• In Krasnodar, the city’s authorities banned the use of signs in foreign languages, according to the Krasnodar administration’s press service.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ China’s military build-up stirs concern in Australia

• Australia is urging China to be more transparent about its unprecedented military build-up.

• Defence force chief Angus Campbell said Australia didn’t condemn any country for shoring up its own national security.

War in Ukraine

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Poland set to close border to freight vehicles registered in Belarus and Russia — Meduza

• Freight trucks registered in either Belarus or Russia will not be permitted entry into Poland when entering through its border with Belarus, according to a government order published on May 29.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Russia issues arrest warrant for Lindsey Graham over Ukraine comments

• Russia’s Interior Ministry has issued an arrest warrant for U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham following his comments related to the fighting in Ukraine. Graham met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday. Zelenskyy’s office later released an edited video of the encounter in which Graham notes that “the Russians are dying” and describes the U.S. military assistance to the country as “the best money we’ve ever spent.” Graham appeared to have made the remarks in different parts of the conversation. But the short video by Ukraine’s presidential office put them next to each other. It caused outrage in Russia. The Russian Interior Ministry issued the arrest warrant on Monday.

=> ↺ Defence Web ☛ South Africa’s pact with Russia – and its actions – cast doubt on its claims of non-alignment

• Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 South Africa has proclaimed a policy of non-alignment in that conflict. This position was placed in doubt when US Ambassador Ruben Brigety claimed recently that he had evidence that South African arms and ammunition were loaded on a Russian ship in December 2022.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Exclusive: Ukraine prepares counter-offensive on the front line near Bakhmut

• Near the front line of the devastated city of Bakhmut, Ukraine is preparing for its long-anticipated counter-offensive against Russia. Some of the Ukrainian soldiers posted there say it has already begun. Embedded with Ukraine’s 28th brigade, FRANCE 24’s Catherine Norris Trent, Johan Bodin and Dmytro Kovalchuk filed this report.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ 🔴 Live: At least one killed, four injured in Russian pre-dawn attack on Kyiv, officials

• Russia launched a pre-dawn attack on Ukraine’s capital Tuesday as its air defenses worked to stop drones in what has been a relentless wave of daylight and nighttime bombardments targeting Kyiv. At least one person died and four were injured when falling debris from a destroyed Russia-launched air target hit a high rise apartment building early on Tuesday, sparking fire, officials of the Ukrainian capital said.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ Russia issues arrest warrant for US Senator Lindsey Graham over Ukraine comments

• Russia’s Interior Ministry issued an arrest warrant Monday for US Senator Lindsey Graham over his comments pertaining to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Graham made the comments that triggered this action in a meeting Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

=> ↺ LRT ☛ Monument to Lithuanian, Ukrainian prisoners to be unveiled in Kazakhstan

• A monument to Lithuanians and Ukrainians who were imprisoned in the post-war camps in Balkhash and East Kounrad will be unveiled in Kazakhstan.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Pays Tribute To Americans Who Fought For Ukraine In Memorial Day Message

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on May 29 thanked U.S. citizens who have fought for Kyiv following Russia’s full-scale invasion of February 2022.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Lawmakers Approve Sanctions On Iran For 50 Years

• Ukrainian lawmakers on May 29 approved a bill proposed by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to impose sanctions on Iran for 50 years.

=> ↺ The Atlantic ☛ Biden Is More Fearful Than the Ukrainians Are

• The U.S. president has promised Ukraine “whatever it takes, as long as it takes.” But out of anxiety about escalation, Washington is making decisions that could prolong the war.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Forces Shell Settlements In Russia’s Belgorod Border Region, Says Governor

• The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, said on May 29 that several frontier settlements were being shelled simultaneously by Ukrainian forces.

=> ↺ YLE ☛ Survey: Finns more concerned about risk of Russian invasion than three years ago

• The increase is due to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine as well as the general geopolitical relations between Finland and Russia, according to the interior ministry.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Russian Guards Beat and Tortured Kherson Prisoners, Leading to Deaths

• Ukraine has charged four members of Russia’s National Guard with war crimes in Kherson. The four acted with such impunity, the authorities say, they did not mask their identities.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Ukraine Bets on Wind Power, Which Missiles Can’t Damage as Easily

• Bombarding the power grid has been an essential part of Russia’s invasion, but officials say it would take many more missile strikes to badly damage a wind farm than a power plant.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Russia Targets Kyiv With Third Wave of Strikes in 24 Hours, Killing One

• The attack followed a rare daytime assault on Monday. Russia has stepped up attacks on the capital this month as Ukraine prepares for a counteroffensive.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Kyiv Residents Scramble for Shelter From Daytime Russia Missile Barrage

• A drone attack on Tuesday came after a barrage of missiles on Monday sent schoolchildren running for shelter as explosions echoed across the Ukrainian capital, rare daytime aerial assaults on the city.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Russia Puts U.S. Senator Graham On Wanted List; Remarks Taken Out Of Context

• Russia’s Interior Ministry has put U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina) on a wanted list, Russian media reported on May 29.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ HRW Urges Vigilance On Cluster Munitions, Chides Russia For Usage In Ukraine

• Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for greater global efforts to ensure an international treaty banning cluster munitions achieves its goal of ending the usage of such weapons, which it says are being used “repeatedly” by Russia in its war against Ukraine.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Putin Signs Law Allowing Elections In Russian-Occupied Ukrainian Regions

• Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 29 signed into law a bill legalizing elections planned for later this year on Ukrainian territories that Moscow took over during its ongoing invasion.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Lawmakers Move Victory Day From May 9 To May 8

• In another move to distance their country from Russia, Ukrainian lawmakers on May 29 approved a bill proposed by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to set May 8 as the Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in World War II, instead of the Soviet-inherited celebrations of Victory Day on May 9.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ House Arrest Of Orthodox Metropolitan Pavlo Extended In Kyiv

• A court in Kyiv on May 29 extended until at least July 1 the pretrial house arrest of Metropolitan Pavlo of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a former abbot at the famed Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Toqaev ‘Appreciates’ Lukashenka’s ‘Joke’ Proposal For Kazakhstan To Join Russia-Belarus Union

• Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has called a proposal by the authoritarian ruler of Belarus, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, for Kazakhstan to join the so-called Russia-Belarus Union State a “joke” that has no resonance in the Central Asian country, given its commitments to international treaties.

=> ↺ YLE ☛ Monday’s papers: Falling electricity prices, Russians in Finland and a cool start to summer

• Why are electricity prices falling?

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Polish President To Sign Russian Influence Bill, Despite Opposition Protests

• Poland’s president said on May 29 that he would sign a bill authorizing a panel to investigate Russian influence, despite opposition criticism that it creates a witch hunt against government opponents in an election year.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Multiple apartment buildings hit, injuries reported What we know about the drone attack on Moscow — Meduza

• Multiple residential buildings in Moscow were hit by drones on Tuesday morning. One drone hit a building on the city’s Profsoyuznaya Street and another hit one on Atlasov Street in New Moscow, part of the Moscow metropolitan area. At 98 Profsoyuznaya Street, a drone hit an apartment building’s upper floors, damaging the facade and windows and causing residents of three stories to evacuate. The Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported that a building on Atlasov Street also had its facade and windows damaged by a drone.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russian authorities report drone attack on Moscow — Meduza

• Moscow was attacked by drones on Tuesday morning, according to the city’s mayor, Sergey Sobyanin. Writing on Telegram, he said that several buildings sustained “minor damage.”

Environment

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ Positech Games ☛ Solar Farm Update: New connection plans

• I’m going to try to get into the habit of more frequent updates to my ongoing solar-farm-project, because stuff is starting to happen now. Here is a brief run-down on whats happened since the last blog post on April 3 2023.

=> ↺ Eesti Rahvusringhääling ☛ Study: Only half of cars in Estonia driven every day

• Half of cars in Estonia are not driven every day, with car use heavily dependent on where the owner lives, a study published on Tuesday reveals.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Mandatory gas code of conduct still being finalised

• Energy market intervention has been defended at a parliamentary hearing, despite another round of price hikes for many in the coming year.

• Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy said he did not believe the success of gas market intervention over the past nine months would deter investment in new supply.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ After McGowan exit, Palaszczuk insists she has energy

• Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk insists she still has the energy for the top job following the shock resignation of West Australian counterpart Mark McGowan.

• Mr McGowan on Monday announced he was stepping down from WA’s helm citing exhaustion after nearly three decades in politics.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Battery industry investors wary as plug pulled on grant

• Electric car batteries with a smaller environmental footprint are still possible but international investors are wary after the federal government pulled the plug on a $120 million grant.

• Brisbane-based Pure Battery Technologies’ planned refinery in Western Australia has lost taxpayer backing despite the Albanese government’s push for Australia to be part of the global battery supply chain.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Labour hire firm banned from rail projects amid probe

• A labour hire firm embroiled in an alleged fraud scandal involving Victoria’s Big Build has been suspended from major rail projects.

• Morson International, a third-party supplier for the multibillion dollar Metro Tunnel project, has been banned by network operator Metro Trains amid a probe into alleged overcharging and fraud.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Science Alert ☛ Mysterious ‘Spy’ Whale Surfaces Off The Coast of Sweden

• Top secret.

Finance

=> ↺ Axios ☛ Insurer cites “growing catastrophe exposure” as it stops new sales in California

• State Farm says it’s no longer accepting homeowner insurance applications in California due to “historic increases in construction costs outpacing inflation” and “rapidly growing catastrophe exposure” to extreme weather events like wildfires.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Belarus Has No Immediate Plans To Adopt Russian Currency, Lukashenka Says

• Belarus and Russia have no plans to adopt a joint currency in the near future, Belarus’s strongman leader announced on May 29.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Tax office thwarted tax dodging based on PwC breach

• Swift action by the tax office stopped Australian taxpayers from losing roughly $180 million in revenue each year to multinationals acting on PwC’s tax-dodging advice.

• Australian Taxation Office commissioner Chris Jordan said the regulator acted “immediately” to crack down on a handful of multinationals trying to skirt new multinational tax laws back in 2016.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Shrinking households, migration return driving rents up

• The pursuit of extra home space in the latter stages of the pandemic and throughout the recovery has added around 130,000 households compared to pre-pandemic levels.

• The top Treasury official said the shift to smaller households, such as adult children moving out of their parents’ homes, was contributing to housing demand alongside the return of migration.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Consumers have their most pessimistic month since 1990

• High prices in the shops and aggressive interest rate hikes have pushed consumer confidence to its lowest monthly level in more than three decades.

• The weekly measure of consumer confidence from ANZ and Roy Morgan has been stuck at low levels, and in May returned its worst calendar month average since December 1990.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Progressives Condemn Biden-GOP Debt Ceiling Deal as ‘Cruel and Shortsighted’

• “For no real reason at all, hungry people are set to lose food while tax cheats get a free pass.”

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Treasury officials set to be questioned on PwC scandal

• Treasury officials are set to be questioned on their knowledge of the PwC tax advice leak, as the consultancy firm stood down multiple partners involved in the scandal.

• Officials, including department secretary Steven Kennedy, will appear before Senate estimates on Tuesday, where questions on the tax advice scandal are set to feature prominently.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Spain shows rightward swing in local and regional elections

• Spain’s ruling Socialists suffered heavy losses to opposition conservatives in Sunday’s local election, with around 95% of the votes counted, showing their electoral vulnerabilityahead of an end-of-year general election.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Ukraine downed 58 out of 59 drones in Russia’s overnight attack, says Kyiv

• Kyiv on Sunday said it had shot down 58 out of the 59 drones that Russia launched in an overnight attack. The attack was the largest of its kind on the Ukrainian capital since the start of the war, according to local officials.

=> ↺ YLE ☛ Finnish cities to start requiring permits for ‘professional’ Airbnb hosts

• The association — which represents a large proportion of Finnish towns and cities — has taken the view that if a host does not live in the property but rents it out on a regular basis for short periods, they should be required to apply for a permit.

=> ↺ US News And World Report ☛ Vatican Chastises Bishops Who Stoke Division on Social Media

• The Vatican urged bishops and high-profile lay Catholic leaders on Monday to tone down their comments on social media, saying some were causing division and stoking polemics that harmed the entire Church.

• The appeal was part of a 20-page document by the Vatican’s communications department titled, “Towards Full Presence. A Pastoral Reflection on Engagement with Social Media.”

=> ↺ NBC ☛ Vatican chastises bishops who stoke division on social media

• The document, addressed to all Catholics, warned of the dangers of fake news on social media and other forms of abuse that had turned people into commodities whose data is sold, often without their knowledge or consent.

• It condemned polarisation and extremism that had led to “digital tribalism” on social media, saying individuals were often locking themselves in silos of opinion that hindered dialogue and often led to violence, abuse and misinformation.

=> ↺ Teen Vogue ☛ Anderson Clayton, North Carolina Democratic Party Chair, on Youth Power and Rural Organizing

• In this March conversation with Teen Vogue, Clayton speaks about her historic victory, the value of rural communities, and more.

=> ↺ Computer World ☛ OpenAI has ‘no plans to leave’ Europe due to regulations, CEO says

• His earlier comments had angered lawmakers in Europe, with a number of politicians arguing that the level of regulation being proposed by the EU was necessary in order to deal with the concerns around generative AI.

• “Let’s be clear, our rules are put in place for the security and well-being of our citizens and this cannot be bargained,” EU Commissioner Thierry Breton told Reuters.

=> ↺ Reuters ☛ Exclusive: AI rules ‘cannot be bargained’, EU’s Breton says after OpenAI CEO threat

• Europe’s artificial intelligence (AI) rules are not for negotiation, EU industry chief Thierry Breton said on Thursday, as he criticised OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s threat to quit the continent if it cannot comply with the legislation.

• Altman’s comments at a conference a day earlier came as the European Union seeks to expand its AI rules to cover generative AI tools, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and require companies to disclose any copyrighted material used to develop their systems.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ PM and health advocates call for calm on voice debate

• Mental health advocates are appealing for calm and informed debate over the Indigenous voice to avoid harm from racism.

• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is also urging Australians to call out any incorrect or misleading information about the voice.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ ‘I appreciated his joke.’ Tokayev responds to Lukashenko’s proposal that Kazakhstan join Belarus and Russia’s Union State — Meduza

• Responding to a comment made by Alexander Lukashenko on Sunday about how “Kazakhstan and other countries” should join Russia and Belarus’ Union State, Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that Kazakhstan has “no need” to join the alliance.

=> ↺ Telex (Hungary) ☛ Novák’s visit to Szeklerland causes diplomatic tensions between Romania and Hungary again

• The Hungarian president’s recent visit to Transylvania has once again caused diplomatic tensions. The Romanian foreign ministry contacted Hungary’s ambassador in Bucharest on Sunday over “inappropriate public messages” made by Katalin Novák.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ Yahoo News ☛ France’s Digital Minister Threatens to Ban Twitter in Europe After Site Ditches Disinformation Rules

• Tensions are rising between the European Union and Elon Musk’s Twitter as France’s digital minister Jean-Noël Barrot threatened to block access to the site in Europe if it doesn’t adhere to the EU’s incoming Digital Services Act, which enforces new rules on social media and will go into effect this August.

=> ↺ CBC ☛ 2023-05-22 [Older] TikTok sues Montana to overturn first statewide ban on video-sharing app

=> ↺ Engadget ☛ 2023-05-22 [Older] TikTok is suing Montana over statewide ban

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Former Chief Of Navalny’s Team In Bashkortostan Calls Her Trial Politically Motivated

• Lilia Chanysheva, the former leader of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny’s team in the Republic of Bashkortostan, has told a court that her trial on charges of extremism is politically motivated.

=> ↺ The Economist ☛ The speech police are coming for social media

• The debate about who can say what online is heating up once more globally. Twitter, the favoured network of politicians and the press, is under the mercurial new management of Mr Musk, a self-declared free-speech absolutist who has restored the accounts of previously banned users like Mr Trump. Meta, a larger rival, is reportedly readying a text-based network of its own, to launch this summer. Social-media platforms face a test over the next 18 months as America’s presidential election approaches, one of the world’s great festivals of online bile and misinformation.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ ‘No amateur’: Identity politics, media crackdown help propel Erdogan to victory

• But culture war has been at the heart of Turkish politics ever since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk made the country a modern nation-state in 1923, introducing strict secularism as he transformed Turkey along Westernising lines. Erdogan’s traditional constituency of socially conservative Muslim voters in the Anatolian heartland have always seen him as their champion in this culture war. A gifted orator and political strategist, Erdogan has already gone down in history as the leader who smashed secular Kemalism’s long hegemony over Turkish politics.

=> ↺ Variety ☛ John Cleese Won’t Cut Controversial ‘Life of Brian’ Scene for Stage Adaptation: ‘All of a Sudden We Can’t Do It Because It’ll Offend People’

• Monty Python star John Cleese has expressed disdain for modern sensibilities and “PC culture” on several occasions in recent years. The comedian found a new battleground for those convictions by claiming that his plans to mount a stage adaptation of the 1979 comedy “Life of Brian” have been “misreported” by the Daily Mail (in a now amended article), particularly in regards to the potential decision to revive a controversial scene involving a transgender character.

=> ↺ Project Censored ☛ Censorship and Book Banning in Texas…and Going Remote: A Teacher’s Journey

• Cameron Samuels, Hayden Cohen, and Angel Wong are recent high-school graduates in Texas, now attending universities, who lobby against efforts by state and local authorities to ban books or impose restrictions on publishers and school librarians. They spoke with Mickey on May 22 from the state capitol building in Austin.

=> ↺ Project Censored ☛ Trans Right Activist Morgan Artyukhina, and Community Organizer Kamau Franklin

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ State Department Won’t Say If It’s Working to Free US Citizen Detained in Ukraine

• Gonzalo Lira, a popular YouTuber and writer, was arrested by the SBU for his political views on the war

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Our Fight Against Censorship Must Go Beyond Resisting Book Bans

• In the chaotic fight against historical and cultural erasure, we must remember that we, ourselves, have stories to tell.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ BIA Net ☛ Journalists Union of Turkey: ‘We will not allow journalism to be destroyed in this country’

• Journalists Union of Turkey (TGS) President Gökhan Durmuş voiced concern about the continuence of oppressive policies and measures against journalists in the evaluation he made about the re-election of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to the presidendy.

• Durmuş declared that they will continue to struggle for press freedom. Regarding the possibility that the government will continue its old oppressive policies towards the journalists, he said, “It is not possible for us to accept this.”

• The full statement Durmuş made was as follows: [...]

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Poland Puts Sanctions On 365 Belarusians Over Journalist’s Jailing

• Poland has imposed sanctions on a further 365 Belarusian citizens over the imprisonment of a journalist of Polish origin in Belarus, the Interior Ministry said on May 29, amid rising tensions between Warsaw and Minsk. [...]

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Bruce Lehrmann settles defamation case with News Corp

• Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann will not receive any damages after settling his defamation case over News Corp’s coverage of Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations.

• The settlement was reached on Tuesday, and the Federal Court case dropped against News Life Media and national political editor Samantha Maiden.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ On captured media: we respond to Nine Entertainment and the AFR’s tepid hit-job

• Nine Entertainment’s media title the AFR has had a crack at Michael West Media. Michael West responds, gently encouraging the Liberal Party and Big Business-led media outlet to expand its activities in journalism. 

• On Monday, mingling amid the AFR’s reverential Rich List “how-great-are-billionaires” stories and the usual reworded press releases from the Big End of Town, was a Rear Window item ($) about this reporter, yes yours truly, and Geoff Shannon from Unhappy Banking.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Crown to pay $450m penalty for money laundering breach

• Casino giant Crown has agreed to pay a $450 million penalty after it failed to comply with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws. 

• Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth on Tuesday confirmed it had reached the agreement with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre. 

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Navalny Group’s YouTube Anchor Says Barred From Entering Turkey

• Irina Alleman, an anchor of the Popular Politics YouTube Channel of jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny’s team, was refused entry to Turkey.

=> ↺ Defence Web ☛ Child protection training in Somalia stepped up

• With the first phase of the ATMIS (African Union Transition Mission in Somalia) drawdown imminent – it starts next month (June) – stepping up child protection in armed conflict situations for the Somali Security Forces (SSF) takes on new momentum.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Justice chief: ‘Natural’ to discuss Hong Kong security law Article 23 in Beijing; enactment next year ‘at latest’

• Secretary for Justice Paul Lam is very likely to discuss the legislation of Article 23 with the Chinese authorities, he said on Sunday as he set off for his first visit to Beijing since taking office.

=> ↺ VOA News ☛ Iranian Female Journalist Goes on Trial on Charges Linked to Amini Protests

• An Iranian journalist went on trial behind closed doors Monday on charges linked to her coverage of the funeral of a Kurdish-Iranian woman whose death in custody last year triggered months of unrest, her lawyer told ILNA news agency.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Iranian Women Reveal Degrading Tactics Employed By Security Authorities

• Several female Iranian activists are following the lead of women’s rights leader Mojgan Keshavarz by speaking out about degrading and dehumanizing methods — including sexual harassment — being employed by staff at the country’s prisons.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ Saudi Arabia executes two men under controversial terrorism law despite Amnesty International condemnation

• A coalition of human rights organizations, including the Gulf Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, the Bahrain Forum for Human Rights and SALAM for Democracy and Human Rights condemned the executions, stating: [...]

=> ↺ EFF ☛ Podcast Episode: Who Inserted the Creepy?

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ The Courts’ Legitimacy Crisis Is an Opportunity Democrats Should Seize

• When liberals worry about the future of democracy, they have Technicolor nightmares: the orange oaf inciting an attack on the Capitol by his red-cap-wearing MAGA minions, including the QAnon shaman with his ridiculous stars-and-stripes facial makeup. But the threat to democracy is multipronged and doesn’t always come in vibrant hues.1

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russia amends martial law legislation to allow elections and deportations in annexed territories — Meduza

• Russia has amended its legislation on martial law, making it legal, among other things, for elections to be held in Ukraine’s annexed territories as well as for residents to be deported from them. The changes were signed into law by Vladimir Putin on Monday.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Australians not racist if they don’t vote for voice: PM

• Australians who oppose the Indigenous voice to parliament are not racist, Anthony Albanese says.

• It follows Opposition Leader Peter Dutton accusing the prime minister of name calling over the voice debate.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ The Verge ☛ HP has found an exciting new way to DRM your printer!

• I’m not talking about how printers quietly waste their own ink, or pretend cartridges are empty when they’re not, or lock out official cartridges from other regions. Heck, I’m not even talking about “Dynamic Security,” the delightful feature where new HP firmware updates secretly contain malware that blocks batches of third-party cartridges while pretending to harden your printhead against hacks.

• [...]

• “In fact, the only way a customer can get rid of HP+ once activated is to buy a new printer,” the IITC writes. HP didn’t answer our questions about the firmware update, including why it isn’t prominently disclosed that there’s no way to uninstall it.

Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Torrent Freak ☛ Bungie’s ‘DoNotPay’ Sleuth Doubtful That Destiny 2 Cheat Lives at Copyright Office

• After a $16 million damages award early May, Bungie has requested more time to track down foreign defendants behind Destiny 2 cheat operation, Elite Boss Tech. That task is the responsibility of investigator Kathryn Tewson, who rose to fame after tearing down DoNotPay’s artificial intelligence product earlier this year. After a suspected cheater told Tewson they live at the Romanian Copyright Office, motivation to disprove that claim won’t be in short supply.

=> ↺ Torrent Freak ☛ Yout Counters RIAA in Court, Quoting Lyrics & Highlighting YouTube’s Absence

• Popular stream-ripping site Yout.com has responded to the RIAA’s answering brief at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The site points out YouTube’s notable absence, despite being at the center of the dispute. Yout’s attorneys further try to make a point by partially quoting Carly Simon lyrics: “You’re so vain, I Bet You Think this Software’s About You,” they write.

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