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● 06.21.23

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● Links 21/06/2023: Titanic Darwin Award and Juneteenth

Posted in News Roundup at 6:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ Ex-teacher seeks old laptops to help London kids without one | London Free Press

• Woods replaces existing operating systems with the system Ubuntu Mate 20.04 LTS.

=> ↺ APNIC ☛ Enabling IPv6 support for IPv4-only apps on Linux

• To prove that IPv6 is ready for production use, I’ve been using an IPv6-only setup on my Ubuntu PC for more than four months. To access the legacy IPv4 Internet, I use a NAT64 gateway based on Tayga deployed on a RockPro64 SBC in my cupboard: [...]

=> ↺ Linux.Chat Set to Disrupt the Market by Launching Linux.Chat Support Forums, Expanding the Multi-Platform Community.

• Linux.Chat, the renowned multi-platform online community, is pleased to announce its new launch Linux.Chat Support Forums on Linux.Forum offers a space for Linux enthusiasts to connect, share knowledge, and seek support.

Applications

=> ↺ Make Use Of ☛ 7 Tips to Organize Files on Linux and Declutter Your PC

• On Linux, a file does not only refer to regular files but also to directories, pipes, network sockets, devices, etc. Actually, the phrase “Everything is a file” is a common principle on Linux. Left unchecked, files can clutter your system and reduce productivity.

• To improve your workflow and make it easy to navigate your PC, it is important to organize your files properly and be consistent and decisive in organizing files.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Trend Oceans ☛ How to Create and Configure 404 Error Page in NGINX

=> ↺ Kifarunix ☛ Step-by-Step Tutorial: Install Minikube on Debian 12

• I want to run a single node Kubernetes cluster on my local machine.

=> ↺ Barry Kauler ☛ Cannot open URL in browser from flatpak app

• This is discussed somewhere on the Puppy Forum. Forum member dimkr posted that ‘xdg-desktop-portal’ and ‘xdg-desktop-portal-gtk’ packages are required.

• I have compiled those in a running EasyOS, but no joy. Tested starting the daemons. Tested KeePassXC flatpak, when click on a URL, nothing happens, nothing output to the commandline either.

• This problem is reported so many times on the Internet, did a quick google, can’t see a solution. Will have to troubleshoot it more thoroughly later. Might bring out Easy 5.4.2 and try to fix the this problem afterward.

=> ↺ TecAdmin ☛ How to Change the Timezone in a Docker Container

• Docker has revolutionized the software development world with its concept of containerization, providing lightweight, standardized, and reproducible environments. While Docker containers can be exceptionally useful, they also come with their own set of intricacies, one of them being timezone management. T

=> ↺ TecAdmin ☛ Getting Started with Terraform: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

• In the realm of DevOps and Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Terraform has emerged as a leading tool, allowing engineers to manage and provision their infrastructure in a predictable and efficient way. This guide aims to help beginners get started with Terraform, using practical examples.

=> ↺ Unix Men ☛ Open Source Screen Reader Orca 3.17.3 is out now, Install it on Ubuntu 15.04 GNOME

• Orca is well known open source screen reader application which is part of ubuntu GNOME desktop environment, ubuntu is operating system for every kind of users, such apps help people with visual impairments to use the operating system with ease. Orca has been facilitating large number of such users from over years now. It is available for both GNOME and Unity desktops. Today, Orca 3.17.3 beta has been released . GNOME development team is busy with finalizing the new releases of this awesome desktop environment, 3.17 and 3.18, Orca also got some fantastic updates in this proess. Orca 3.17.3 has been revamped and many new features have been added. In this article, we will be reviewing its important new features and installation process on ubuntu 15.04 GNOME.

=> ↺ Chen HuiJing ☛ State of CSS survey 2023 is live!

• I’m excited to share with everyone that the State of CSS survey for 2023 has gone live! Yes, it is slightly earlier in the year than last year’s iteration, but given the number of CSS features that have shipped in the meantime, we’d love to see if and how folks are using them. Or at least, help bring awareness of them to the broader web developer community.

=> ↺ Rohan Kumar ☛ De-federating P92

• Facebook (“Meta”) is launching a Twitter alternative that will interoperate with the Fediverse, currently codenamed “Barcelona” and “P92” (and likely to be known as “Threads”). We don’t know the extent to which this will or won’t interoperate; admins who’ve met with Facebook/Meta employees to discuss P92 have signed non-disclosure agreements. Most discussion can be framed in two ways:

• 1. Whether P92 in particular is worth defederating from, should it involve an ActivityPub server.

• 2. Whether Facebook/Meta projects in principle would be worth proactively blocking, should they attempt to interoperate with a Fediverse instance.

• I’m going to focus on the latter topic, as we know little about the former.

=> ↺ Make Use Of ☛ How to Disable Automatic Updates in Ubuntu

• Regularly updating your applications is important to protect your system from vulnerabilities and keep it updated with the latest features and security patches.

• In Ubuntu, automatic updates are enabled by default and keep your system updated without needing to manually update packages. Some users prefer to have manual control over updates as it gives them the flexibility to install updates according to their preferences.

Games

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ RetroDECK got a lot bigger and better for emulation on Steam Deck

• RetroDECK is just one of the ways you can set up your Steam Deck for emulation and their team recently put up a rather great sounding upgrade in v0.7.0b. During the Beta period their focus is on the Steam Deck but it will eventually expand fully onto desktop Linux too.

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Valve moving away from the Battle Pass in Dota 2

• As Dota 2 comes up to the 10 year anniversary, Valve developers have put up a blog post going over some of their thoughts on the future.

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Pixel art RTS TFC: The Fertile Crescent adds in factions and dynamic music

• TFC: The Fertile Crescent is a great fast-paced pixel-art take on an RTS, a little in the spirit of Age of Empires and similar games. The latest update is the biggest yet adding in a faction system.

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Crusader Kings III: Wards & Wardens releases August 22 focusing on child rulers

• Crusader Kings III is expanding again with a new event pack in Crusader Kings III: Wards & Wardens releasing on August 22nd that will focus on your children. Time to carefully steer your heir.

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Fanatical’s Diamond Collection has some worthy games to pick up

• Fill up your cart to sit inside and play games this Summer. Fanatical’s Diamond Collection build your own bundle has some interesting picks for you. I’ll be listing each title along with the expected compatibility on Steam Deck and desktop Linux as well. Either Native Linux or ProtonDB ratings to save you some clicking around. Each is also a Steam link in case you need more info first.

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ DLC announced for beat-’em-up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

• Announced on June 7th (so a little bit late on this one – oops!), the native Linux beat-’em-up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge will be getting a DLC expansion titled “Dimension Shellshock” later this year.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ 9to5Linux ☛ KDE Plasma 5.27.6 Is Out to Improve Plasma Wayland Session, Support for Flatpak Apps

• KDE Plasma 5.27.6 is here one and a half months after the KDE Plasma 5.27.5 point release and further improves the Plasma Wayland session by fixing a source of crashes in the Powerdevil daemon when the screen is sleeping and cursor handling bugs causing muse cursors to look weird in XWayland apps.

• Also for Plasma Wayland, the KDE Plasma 5.27.6 update improves fractional scaling so you no longer see line glitches all over the place and fixes some issues with blurred and transparent Breeze-themes context menus causing weird visual glitches.

Distributions and Operating Systems

Reviews

=> ↺ IT Pro ☛ Kali Linux review | ITPro

• With the current shortage of skills, there are plenty of career opportunities for people interested in cybersecurity. Luckily, there are plenty of tools too. One of the most respected is Kali, a secure Debian Linux-based distribution specifically targeting penetration testers and digital forensics experts. The company that makes it, Offensive Security (Offsec), unveiled it in 2013. It recently released the tenth-anniversary edition of the distro, 2023.1, so we thought it was time we took a look.

• You don’t need to use Kali for penetration testing. It’s essentially Debian with a collection of third-party tools, all of which you can install yourself from elsewhere. However, this distro offers some distinct advantages.

• The first is convenience. Offsec has bought hundreds of tools together in this OS, organizing them neatly in a thoughtfully designed menu system.

• Another advantage is Kali’s focus on its own security. It uses a minimal, trusted set of repositories to host additional programs. It also has a customized version of the kernel, fitted with a patch to support wireless injection for pen testing, along with support for many external wireless cards. The default installation also comes with network services disabled so that you don’t accidentally announce yourself to your target network when you turn it on.

BSD

=> ↺ Undeadly ☛ shutdown/reboot now require membership of group _shutdown

• It is entirely possible other ports need to be updated too, so please test your favorite (and maybe some not-so-favorite) software on the latest snapshot you can get your hands on!

=> ↺ FreeBSD ☛ Celebrating 30 Years of FreeBSD: Security

• Today’s Theme: Security

• Whether it’s using FreeBSD to create security focused products or strengthening security for the FreeBSD Operating System, we all know that the effort to keep any type of technology secure is extensive and never-ending.

• So how do folks within FreeBSD handle the gigantic task? By focusing on several different areas of security within the Project. Take minute to find out more in: Keeping FreeBSD Secure: Learn the Whys and Hows with the FreeBSD Sec Team

=> ↺ InfoWorld ☛ Happy 30th, FreeBSD! Why the FreeBSD open source project has endured

• FreeBSD’s 30th birthday presents an opportunity to look back and examine why this open source operating system has not only endured, but thrived across many organizations and use cases for so long. While open source projects are born out of different circumstances, FreeBSD grew from a mold of its own. The path the project took has everything to do with its longevity and why, 30 years after FreeBSD launched, you’ll find FreeBSD code helping to power everything from your content on Netflix to your games on PlayStation.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Latest SUSE Linux Enterprise goes all in with confidential computing

• According to SUSE, the latest version of its enterprise platform is designed to deliver high-performance computing capabilities, with an inevitable mention of AI/ML workloads, plus it claims to have extended its live-patching capabilities.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ OnLogic Connects Contemporary and Heritage Systems

• The OnLogic Helix 511 Edge Computer has been deployed to the manufacturing, automation, energy management, and other edge and IoT markets. The solution is ideal for designers looking for contemporary and heritage connectivity options that simply interface with onsite systems.

=> ↺ CNX Software ☛ Espressif ESP Thread Border Router board combines ESP32-H2 & ESP32-C3 wireless chips

• Espressif Systems has launched the ESP Thread Border Router/Zigbee Gateway board based on ESP32-H2 (802.15.4) and ESP32-C3 (WiFi + BLE) modules following the contention of the Thread Interoperability Certificate V1.3 for the board and associated ESP Thread Boarder Router SDK built on top of the ESP-IDF framework and the open-source OpenThread protocol stack. The ESP Thread Border Router supports the protocol functions of the 1.3 Thread standard such as bidirectional IPv6 connectivity, Service Discovery Delegate, Service Registration Server, Multicast Forwarding, NAT64, and more, as well as product-level features such as a Web GUI for device configuration, automatic RCP (Radio Co-Processor) upgrade, RF coexistence, and so on.

=> ↺ CNX Software ☛ $5 Ai-M62-12F-Kit RISC-V development board features BL616 WiFi 6, BLE 5.2, and Zigbee MCU, plenty of I/Os

• Ai Thinker Ai-M62-12F-Kit is a development board based on Bouffalo Lab BL616 RISC-V microcontroller with 2.4 GHz WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 LE, and an 802.15.4 radio (Zigbee/Thread), plus thirty I/O pin for expansion.

=> ↺ Tom’s Hardware ☛ Raspberry Pi Pico Generates Speech Using Hand Gestures

• If there’s one thing the Raspberry Pi is good at, it’s bridging connections. It’s common to see models like the Raspberry Pi Pico used to make things like adapters. Today we’ve got a wonderful project demo put together by SVSEmbedded that bridges a communication gap not between devices but between people. Using a Raspberry Pi Pico, they’ve created a system that allows users who are speech impaired to relay messages using hand gestures.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Terence Eden ☛ Your phone is probably a CDO

• I’m not sure how many people know this, but I thought I’d share something I learned a few years ago when I worked for a mobile phone seller.

• Most modern smartphones are too expensive for people to purchase outright. At the most extreme end, the iPhone 14 Pro Max costs £1,2001. So a typical customer elects to pay £50 per month for 24 months.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Content Management Systems (CMS)

=> ↺ WordPress ☛ WP Briefing: Episode 58: A New Wave for WordPress Events

• Hear special guest host Chloé Bringmann and special guest Angela Jin in the WordPress Briefing as they discuss the next generation of WordCamps.

Programming/Development

3 weeks of coding for KDE!Hello again!In my last post, I talked about starting off my open-source journey with KDE’s Kalendar – specifically, adding support for calendar invitations within Kalendar. Three weeks in, here are some updates on the project:Calendar now has support for Free/Busy information retrieval and publishing.Additionally, you can configure the number of days of info to publish (or email to select contacts), and whether to upload it automatically and at what intervals.Note that Kalendar does not yet allow you to make use of others’ Free/Busy information while scheduling a meeting – more on that in the coming weeks!Now, what is free/busy information, and why should you care? Essentially, it’s a little database keeping track of the time slots for which your calendar is marked free or busy. This information (should you choose to share it), which does not include any details about why any slots are busy, can help meeting organizers keep track of when participants are available, and thus when a meeting might be scheduled. If you use Kalendar, meeting management should get a lot more doable from within the app once this is fully implemented Oh and, here’s a quick look at what the changes look like: [...]

=> ↺ Dirk Eddelbuettel ☛ Dirk Eddelbuettel: RcppArmadillo 0.12.4.1.0 on CRAN: New Upstream Bugfix

• Armadillo is a powerful and expressive C++ template library for linear algebra and scientific computing. It aims towards a good balance between speed and ease of use, has a syntax deliberately close to Matlab, and is useful for algorithm development directly in C++, or quick conversion of research code into production environments. RcppArmadillo integrates this library with the R environment and language–and is widely used by (currently) 1079 other packages on CRAN, downloaded 29.6 million times (per the partial logs from the cloud mirrors of CRAN), and the CSDA paper) (preprint / vignette) by Conrad and myself has been cited 543 times according to Google Scholar.

=> ↺ Medevel ☛ 16 Open-source and Free SQL Query Managers for PHP, C#, Python, Go, and JavaScript

• SQL Query Managers are software tools that allow users to interact with databases using SQL (Structured Query Language) queries. These tools provide an interface for users to write SQL queries and execute them against a database.

=> ↺ Fred Herbert ☛ Embrace Complexity; Tighten Your Feedback Loops

• The official talk title was “Embrace Complexity; Tighten Your Feedback Loops”. That’s the descriptive title for the talk that follows the conference’s guidelines about good descriptive titles. Instead I decided to follow my gut feeling and go with what I think really explains my perspective and the approach I bring with me to work and even my life in general: [...]

=> ↺ Marcin Juszkiewicz ☛ Searching on a static website

• It is over four years since I moved this website from being powered by WordPress to being static set of HTML files generated by Pelican. One of side effects was lack of search option. But not any more.

Perl / Raku

=> ↺ Rakulang ☛ Rakudo Weekly 2023.25 Recollections

• Jonathan Worthington returned to blogging after having attended the Raku Core Summit…

Python

=> ↺ Earthly ☛ Building Python Microservices with Docker and RabbitMQ

• Microservices are a software architectural style where an application is composed of small, independently deployable services. Each microservice has a single, narrowly defined responsibility and communicates with other microservices through APIs.

• In this article, we will learn how to convert a monolith recipe API into microservices. We will use an already-built Django and Flask application and make them communicate with each other as one.

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ Linux Handbook ☛ Check if Variable is Empty in Bash

• There are several reasons why one would want to check whether the variable is empty, such as checking for input validation.

Rust

=> ↺ LWN ☛ The Rust Leadership Council

• The Rust project has announced the formation of the Rust Leadership Council, which will take the place of the existing Core Team and Leadership Chat groups.

Leftovers

Science

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Smart Sphere Or Magnetic Magic

• Sometimes a coworker sees something on your desk, and they have to ask, “Where can I get one of those?” and that has to be one of the greatest compliments to a maker. [Greg Zumwalt] nailed it with his “Marblevator Line Follower.” Roboticists will immediately recognize a black line on a white surface, but this uses hidden mechanics instead of light/dark sensors. Check out the video after the break to see the secrets, or keep bearing with us.

=> ↺ Vox ☛ The summer solstice is Wednesday: 7 things to know about the longest day of the year

• The summer solstice is upon us: Wednesday, June 21, is the longest day of 2023, and the start of the summer season, for anyone living north of the equator.

• Technically speaking, the summer solstice occurs when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer, or 23.5 degrees north latitude. This will occur at exactly 10:57 am Eastern Wednesday. If you’re a fan of sunlight, wearing shorts, eating ice cream, and enjoying all summer has to offer, this is likely a big day for you.

• Below is a short scientific guide to the longest day of the year.

=> ↺ Science Alert ☛ Scientists Discover a Weird Material Made of Subatomic Particles

• Redefining ‘exotic’.

Darwin Award

=> ↺ Futurism ☛ CEO Who Said Safety Is a “Waste” on Board Lost Submarine

• “You know, at some point, safety is just pure waste,” Rush told CBS’ David Pogue during an episode of his “Unsung Science” podcast. “I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed, don’t get in your car, don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question.”

• “I think I can do this just as safely while breaking the rules,” he added at the time.

=> ↺ Vice Media Group ☛ Why Did the Missing Titanic Sub Use a $40 Video Game Controller?

• Since the submarine disappeared, people have been mocking OceanGate’s use of a mid-tier games controller. But it has become increasingly common for serious military equipment, including tanks and submarines, to be controlled using off-the-shelf or slightly modified video game controllers.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Race against time to find missing Titanic wreck sub with 5 on board

• US and Canadian ships and planes searched on Monday for a submarine that went missing more than a day earlier off the coast of southeastern Canada while taking tourists to explore the wreckage of the Titanic, officials said.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Tourist Submersible Vessel Vanishes on Its Way to Titanic Wreckage

• A spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard said the five people on the submersible theoretically had 70 to 96 hours of oxygen before the situation became dire.

=> ↺ Axios ☛ What to know about search for Titanic tourist vessel that vanished with 5 people on board

• A tourist submersible has gone missing while on a diving trip to the wreck of the Titanic, sparking a massive search and rescue operation in the North Atlantic.

• Driving the news: U.S. Coast Guard officials said five people were on board the submersible when it lost contact with the vessel one hour and 45 minutes into the dive on Sunday afternoon and it was reported overdue some 900 miles off Massachusetts’ Cape Cod.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Tourist submarine exploring Titanic declared missing, search ongoing

• A submersible vessel used for taking tourists to see the wreckage of the Titanic in the North Atlantic has gone missing, triggering a search-and-rescue operation, the US Coast Guard said Monday.

=> ↺ TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Deep-sea craft carrying 5 people to Titanic wreckage reported missing, search underway

• The search is being led by the U.S. Coast Guard.

=> ↺ The Kent Stater ☛ A search and rescue operation is underway for a submersible touring the wreckage of the Titanic

• CNN — The US Coast Guard launched a search and rescue operation for a submersible with five people on board that went missing during an expedition to the wreckage of the Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean. The military branch received a phone call Sunday informing them the Canadian research ship Polar Prince had lost…

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Deep-sea craft carrying 5 people to Titanic wreckage reported missing, search underway

• A search is underway for a missing submersible that carries people to view the wreckage of the Titanic. Canadian officials say the five-person submersible was reported overdue Sunday night about 435 miles south of St. John’s, Newfoundland. The search is being led by the U.S. Coast Guard. The owner of the ship that launched the submersible confirmed that it was operated by OceanGate Expeditions. That company has been operating annual voyages since 2021 to the wreckage of the iconic ocean liner. In a statement, the company said it is working to bring the crew back safely.

=> ↺ NYPost ☛ 5 aboard missing Titanic-bound sub likely experiencing ‘very uncomfortable, dark experience’

• The record-breaking depth and remoteness of the location are making the search particularly challenging.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Why are undersea rescues so difficult?

=> ↺ NYPost ☛ Rescue of lost Titanic-bound sub would be deepest recovery mission in history

• “While the submersible might still be intact, if it is beyond the continental shelf, there are very few vessels that can get that deep, and certainly not divers.”

=> ↺ teleSUR ☛ Titanic Tourist Sub Goes Missing in the Atlantic Ocean

• The submersible had a 96-hour supply of oxygen, according to David Concannon, a consultant for OceanGate Expeditions.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ A British explorer and businessman is among those on the missing submersible.

• Hamish Harding holds several Guinness World Records, including one for the longest time spent traversing the deepest part of the ocean on a single dive.

Hardware

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Behind The X86 Pipeline Curtain

• We’ve often heard that modern x86 CPUs don’t really execute x86 instructions. Instead, they decode them into RISC instructions that are easier to schedule, pipeline, and execute. But we never really looked into that statement to see if it is true. [Fanael] did, though, and the results are very interesting.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Creating Lithography-Free Photonic Reprogrammable Circuits

• The field of photonics has seen significant advances during the past decades, to the point where it is now an integral part of high-speed, international communications. For general processing photonics is currently less common, but is the subject of significant research. Unlike most photonic circuits which are formed using patterns etched into semiconductor mask using lithography, purely light-based circuits are a tantalizing possibility. This is the focus of a recent paper (press release, ResearchGate) in Nature Photonics by [Tianwei Wu] and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ What’s In A Slip Ring?

• We know that when [Big Clive] puts up another video, the chances are we’re in for another fascinating look into a piece of tech on his bench. The latest is a slip ring assembly, and he gives it a teardown to reveal its secrets.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Mouse-cropad

• Okay, so you built a macropad or even a keyboard. What now? Well, most people use some kind of mouse to go along with it, but no one uses a mouse like this creation by [Joe_Scotto].

=> ↺ IT Wire ☛ Germany to contribute a third for Intel wafer fabrication unit in Magdeburg

• German Vice-Chancellor and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck said: “Today’s agreement is a milestone for Germany as a location for innovation and investment, for jobs, resilience and competitiveness.

• “Intel’s investment will raise semiconductor production in Germany to a new level and is an important contribution to growing European sovereignty.”

• The project is expected to create 7000 construction jobs during the first phase of the build, about 3000 permanent high-tech jobs at Intel and tens of thousands of additional jobs across the industry ecosystem.

=> ↺ Quartz ☛ Intel has finally cleared an obstacle to its European chip plant expansion

• Intel has secured almost $11 billion in subsidies from the German government.

=> ↺ India Times ☛ Cisco launches AI networking chips to take on Broadcom, Marvell

• Cisco said the chips could help in carrying out AI and machine learning tasks with 40% fewer switches and a lesser lag, while being more power efficient.

=> ↺ BW Businessworld Media Pvt Ltd ☛ Cisco To Challenge Broadcom, Marvell Technology With New Networking Chips For AI Supercomputers

• The announcement comes after Broadcom introduced its Jericho3-AI chip in April, which also boasted the capability to connect up to 32,000 GPU chips together. This development indicates the escalating competition within the industry as major players vie for dominance in the rapidly growing AI supercomputing market.

=> ↺ Mexico News Daily ☛ Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers visit Mexico

• The business delegation will inspect possible investment sites in Mexico, which seeks a share of the industry dominated by Taiwan.

=> ↺ Tom’s Hardware ☛ Intel Reaches Agreement to Build New Fabs in Germany and Israel

• Intel to get €10 billion subsidies from German government, plans expansion in Israel.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Chinese investigators admit to smelling a rat in college canteen food scandal

• A provincial-level probe shuts down canteen, vows to punish college, local officials for ‘wrong conclusion’

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Health violations found in assisted living in Kandava, Latvia

• The social services of Kandava and Tukums have long placed seniors and people with functional disabilities in an institution providing services similar to long-term social care and rehabilitation, but it has not been registered and does not meet the minimum requirements to be provided in such institutions, the Ombudsman’s office said on June 19.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Demand for donated food grew 20% this winter, says Samaritan movement

• Demand for donated food increased by 20% in the autumn and winter, according to the Samaritan Association of Latvia. This spring, rules on products that can be donated after expiry changed providing for a broader range of foods to be donated, Latvian Radio reported on June 19.

=> ↺ A “not antivax” COVID-19 contrarian: “RFK Jr. makes ‘reasonable’ points”

• Having just recounted yet again Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s 18+ year history of being not just rabidly antivaccine, but a leader in the antivaccine movement, all for the benefit of those who still labor under the delusion that his claims that he is “not antivaccine” but rather “for safe vaccines” are not a product of delusion or deception, I had not expected to discuss him again so soon. Unfortunately, since announcing his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President, RFK Jr. has been riding the tide of antivax activism spawned by the pandemic, and wealthy tech bros have been promoting his antivax views. Thanks to his candidacy, he is also getting way more press than he has ever gotten before in his entire life. Unfortunately, much of it is overly favorable—the Kennedy mystique isn’t dead, I guess—and glosses over his long history of antivaccine activism, first in the hypothesis that mercury in vaccines was responsible for an “epidemic” of autism but then, when that hypothesis failed, in the service of general antivaccine conspiracy theories, which has led some of us to express frustration like: [...]

Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

=> ↺ Digital Music News ☛ Spotify for Artists is Deleting Historical Song Data on July 1st — Here’s How to Download Your Data Before Then

• Historical artist data is often used to research previous tracks and trends in order to make informed decisions when planning the marketing of a new release. Spotify notes that your historical data from December 31st, 2020, and earlier is now available to download from Spotify for Artists until June 30th, 2023.

=> ↺ Riccardo Mori ☛ Apple Vision Pro — Further considerations

• In my previous article I wrote about how Apple’s constant mantra when they introduce something — We can’t wait to see what you’ll do with it! — annoys me because it actually feels like a cop-out on Apple’s part. It signals lack of ideas, and lack of a truly thought-out plan for how to take advantage of the product’s potential. It also shows… how can I put it? Lack of proactivity? Show me a wider range of use cases, but most importantly tell me why this product should matter to me — what seems to be the problem you have identified and how this product was created to address it.

• But even more annoying is the response from many tech enthusiasts, that this is a first-generation product, that you have to imagine it three iterations later, five iterations later… This is an awful excuse that further normalises this idiotic status quo in tech, where everything is in a constant ‘beta state’. When you’re at your next job interview, try telling the interviewer (clearly not impressed by your résumé) that they shouldn’t look at your qualifications today, that this is just the 1.0 version of you, that they should imagine what you’ll become in the company three years from now, five years from now. Good luck with that.

Windows TCO

=> ↺ Data Breaches ☛ Suffering from ransomware is a reason to fire more than half of the workforce. The National Court endorses it

• One of the great fears of any company is that it will be affected by a cyber attack. The presence of malware on a company’s computer equipment can be fatal by producing stoppages in production, the impossibility of accessing their records and even the danger of the personal data of its clients. But now a new fear comes into play: the possibility of employees losing their jobs.

=> ↺ International Business Times ☛ Lockbit ransomware still poses persistent threat to businesses, warn international agencies

• The advisory reveals that Lockbit was the most prevalent ransomware variant deployed globally in 2022. Moreover, its activities have persisted throughout 2023, with incidents observed as recently as late May. In response to this alarming trend, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a division of GCHQ, collaborated with agencies from the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany and New Zealand to provide guidance aimed at reducing the likelihood and severity of future attacks.

=> ↺ [Repeat] IT Wire ☛ Alphv ransomware gang wants Reddit to withdraw change in API pricing

• On their web site on the dark web, the group said that it had sought a US$4.5 million (A$6.56 million) from Reddit in exchange for deleting the stolen data.

Security

=> ↺ Bruce Schneier ☛ Power LED Side-Channel Attack

• This is a clever new side-channel attack:

=> ↺ Beebom ☛ 5 Best VPNs for Linux in 2023 (Free and Paid)

• A VPN aka Virtual Private Network can protect your privacy online by keeping you anonymous on the internet. The way a VPN works is by routing your network to a different private network and server present somewhere across the globe, thereby protecting your online activity from trackers and phishing websites. If you are on Linux, you’re already a privacy-conscious user and you would want to use a VPN. In this guide, let’s look at the 5 best VPNs for Linux.

=> ↺ LWN ☛ Security updates for Tuesday [LWN.net]

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (libxpm and php7.3), Fedora (chromium), Mageia (kernel, kernel-linus, and sysstat), Red Hat (c-ares), SUSE (libwebp), and Ubuntu (cups-filters, libjettison-java, and libsvgpp-dev).

=> ↺ Bleeping Computer ☛ Iowa’s largest school district confirms ransomware attack, data theft

• “The cyberattack against DMPS included a ransom demand. No ransom has been or will be paid in response to this attack based on the advice of our cybersecurity experts and what is in the best interest of the school district and community,” Des Moines Public Schools said.

=> ↺ Data Breaches ☛ FTC Says Genetic Testing Company 1Health Failed to Protect Privacy and Security of DNA Data and Unfairly Changed its Privacy Policy

• The Federal Trade Commission charged that the genetic testing firm 1Health.io left sensitive genetic and health data unsecured, deceived consumers about their ability to get their data deleted, and changed its privacy policy retroactively without adequately notifying and obtaining consent from consumers whose data the company had already collected.

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Over 100,000 compromised ChatGPT accounts found for sale on dark web

• Singapore-based threat intelligence outfit Group-IB has found ChatGPT credentials in more than 100,000 stealer logs traded on the dark web in the past year.

• [...]

• The amount of stolen accounts steadily climbed from 74 in June 2022 to 26,902 in May 2023. April 2023 was an outlier – a moderate decline was seen in the number of accounts, before peaking the very next month.

=> ↺ Ransomware affects emergency radiology workflows [Ed: Microsoft Windows is killing people]

• Ransomware attacks have a significant effect on emergency radiology workflows, as well as on acute care delivery and the personal well-being of healthcare providers, according to a study published June 15 in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

• Researchers led by Liselotte van Boven, MD, from VieCuri Medical Center in Venlo, the Netherlands, found several common themes among interviewed personnel, including limited preparedness by emergency departments for such attacks. They also found that many attacks occur during the acute care and recovery phases.

• “[The] interviews underscore the importance of preparation in reducing the marked clinical effect of cybercrime,” van Boven and colleagues wrote.

• Many ransomware attacks occur at hospitals, disrupting medical care. Previous reports suggest that healthcare workers, including radiologists, experience longer emergency department shifts, delayed testing and treatment, higher complication rates, and increased need for patient transfers.

=> ↺ Data Breaches ☛ Ransomware affects emergency radiology workflows

• Many ransomware attacks occur at hospitals, disrupting medical care. Previous reports suggest that healthcare workers, including radiologists, experience longer emergency department shifts, delayed testing and treatment, higher complication rates, and increased need for patient transfers.

=> ↺ Bloomberg ☛ Ransomware Gang Haunted US Firms Long Before MOVEit Hack [Ed: Microsoft Windows TCO]

• Shell Plc, IAG SA’s British Airways, the British Broadcasting Corp., the state of Minnesota’s Department of Education, multiple federal agencies — they’re among the victims of the latest data breach launched by Clop, a Russian-speaking hacking group that’s attacking targets around the world in both the public and private sectors.

• The Clop gang, also known as Cl0p, is known for “driving global trends in criminal malware distribution,” according to the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA.

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

=> ↺ NPR ☛ A 3-hour phone call that brought her to tears: Imposter scams cost Americans billions

• Law enforcement agencies across the country are warning about imposter scams. The Federal Communications Commission has made YouTube videos and tip sheets for people to learn how to spot caller ID spoofing. The agency says it’s best to hang up and call back.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Stacey on IoT ☛ The FCC launches a privacy task force focused on wireless

• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to get back into the business of regulating privacy. On Wednesday, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced the agency had created a Privacy and Data Protection Task Force that will be led by Loyaan Egal, the head of the enforcement bureau.

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ More than adequate: New directions in international data transfer governance

• What is the future for transatlantic and international data transfer mechanisms? Can existing efforts achieve greater policy coherence across the global ecosystem?

=> ↺ FSF ☛ We have nothing to hide, only everything to protect

• “I have nothing to hide.” That’s what most people say when I start a conversation about privacy. Have you ever wondered why you should use software that protects your privacy and the privacy of the people you communicate with? To understand this better, I recommend watching the first talk in our LibrePlanet 2023 lightning talk series. In her five minute talk, the speaker will convince you that you are worthy of all the privacy you want and need. For people who claim that they have nothing to hide, she has a persuasive reply: “I have nothing to hide, only everything to protect.”

• If you don’t use free software for the sake of your own privacy, then use it to protect your loved ones; if you don’t value yourself enough to make sure that information that’s yours — and only yours — stays with you, then at least honor the privacy of the most vulnerable people in our society. History shows that even societies that are considered to be free have areas in which they struggle to exercise equal treatment and fail to guarantee human rights for everyone who lives within them. In the above-mentioned lightning talk, the speaker cites the example of the Underground Railroad, a network of secret routes and safe houses that helped enslaved African Americans in the 19th century escape from slavery. The Underground Railroad would not have been possible without privacy!

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Palantir’s deals with NHS England top £60M – without competition

• NHS England, the health department quango, first started working with the US data analytics company during the height of the pandemic, when a £1 award [PDF] led to a £1 million ($1.7 million) deal, and then a £23 million ($29.2 million) contract signed in December 2020 without competition for a COVID-linked data store and related analytics.

• That deal was subject to the threat of judicial review from campaigners, who argued the contract represented such a change in data usage it warranted public consultation under British data protection law. NHS England later agreed not to extend Palantir’s contract beyond the pandemic without consulting the public.

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Oreo cookie maker says crooks gobbled up staff info [Ed: Microsoft Windows]

• Considering Mondelez was among the global companies hit in the NotPetya outbreak — and it recently settled its lawsuit against Zurich American Insurance Company, which it brought because the insurer refused to cover Mondelez’s $100-million-plus cleanup bill — the fact that this was a third-party privacy breach probably provided a small bit of relief somewhere. Bryan Cave, we note, did not represent Mondelez in the NotPetya insurance legal battle.

=> ↺ Banks, Institutions Pay Over N200m Fines for Breaching Privacy Rights of Nigerians

• The Federal Government has collected a total sum exceeding N200 million from at least seven banks and various institutions. The Federal Government collected these payments from these financial institutions as a consequence of their infringement upon the data privacy rights of Nigerian citizens. Read more: https://www.legit.ng/business-economy/technology/1540251-banks-institutions-pay-n200m-fines-exposing-privacy-rights-nigerians/

=> ↺ 16,000 Vermont health insurance customers affected by data theft, more than previously known

• The personal information of at least 16,000 Vermont health insurance customers was stolen in a cyberattack in January — more than twice the number originally reported.

• The affected people included over 14,000 Vermont residents, of whom 13,700 were members of Vermont Blue Advantage health insurance plans, the state Attorney General’s Office said in response to a VTDigger inquiry.

• It said the other residents were on different insurance plans: nearly 300 with Aetna ACE and about 50 with UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Jacobin Magazine ☛ Canada’s Political Elites Are Climate Criminals in the Pocket of Big Oil

• It is only to be expected that Trudeau would want to distance himself from his conservative rivals at both the federal and provincial level. Their crude efforts to downplay the significance of the wildfires, often bordering on outright climate denial, are not for him. He is careful to say all the right things about environmental issues, even as he serves the interests of fossil fuel companies. And he is not alone — parties from across the political spectrum greenwash their public statements while courting Big Oil.

=> ↺ Scoop News Group ☛ DOJ establishes cybercrime enforcement unit as U.S. warnings mount over Chinese [cracking]

• The National Security Cyber Section — NatSec Cyber, for short — has been approved by Congress and will elevate cyberthreats to “equal footing” with other major national security issues, including counterterrorism and counterintelligence, Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matt Olsen said in remarks at the Hoover Institution in Washington.

• The new section enables the agency to “increase the scale and speed of disruption campaigns and prosecutions of nation-state cyberthreats as well as state-sponsored cybercriminals, associated money launderers, and other cyber-enabled threats to national security,” Olsen said.

=> ↺ AntiWar ☛ US Hypocrisy About Chinese Spy Base in Cuba

• Reports that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was constructing a base in Cuba devoted to spying on the United States immediately generated concern among members of America’s foreign policy establishment. Now that U.S. intelligence agencies contend that Beijing is expanding a small facility that has operated since 2019, concern has risen toward outright alarm.

=> ↺ The Strategist ☛ Micronesia as headline fodder in the US–China contest

• In the context of world events, an announcement that US President Joe Biden would sign agreements with Pacific island nations may not seem to be headline news.

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ Experts react: Blinken makes the rounds in Beijing. Will there be a US-China thaw?

• The US secretary of state has just wrapped up meetings with top Chinese officials in Beijing. Read insights from Atlantic Council experts on what was revealed and what to look for next.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ New Chinese premier’s visit to Germany, France highlights strained relations with EU

• China’s new Premier Li Qiang is currently on a visit to Germany, his first trip abroad since taking office in March. With France lined up as the next stop on his agenda, Li’s Western European excursion is the subject of much speculation amid strained relations between China and the EU.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Xi hosts Blinken for talks, sees ‘progress’ in stabilising US-China ties

• President Xi Jinping hosted Antony Blinken for talks in Beijing on Monday, capping two days of high-level discussions between the US secretary of state and Chinese officials.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China’s Xi tells US Sec. of State Blinken he hopes visit makes ‘positive contribution’ to ties

• President Xi Jinping hosted Antony Blinken for talks in Beijing on Monday, capping two days of high-level discussions between the US secretary of state and Chinese officials. Blinken’s visit is the highest-level trip by a US official to China in nearly five years with ties severely strained between the world’s two largest economies.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ INTERVIEWS: Hong Kongers overseas keep alive their struggle for freedom and democracy

• ‘We who can still do something do what we can,’ says one.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Blinken Meets Xi as China and the U.S. Try to Ease Tensions

• U.S. diplomats visited Beijing to try to ensure that competition “does not veer into conflict.” The talks pave the way for a possible Biden-Xi meeting.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Blinken’s Visit to China: What to Know

• There’s much to talk about, but it’s not clear if it will be constructive. Meetings in Beijing will offer clues as to whether the two nations can smooth over tensions.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ China’s president meets top US diplomat in Beijing

• Despite low expectations, Xi and Blinken’s last-minute meeting suggests a thawing in relations.

=> ↺ AntiWar ☛ We Need a Peace President

• Most people agree that we are closer to nuclear war than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Some would even argue that we are closer now than we were in those fateful days, when Soviet missiles in Cuba almost triggered a nuclear war between the US and the USSR.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Myanmar’s ousted president receives medical treatment in prison

• A doctor was brought in to treat Win Myint for an unspecified disease.

=> ↺ Juneteenth Can Be a Call to Action on Climate and More

• Building community resilience was clearly born out of necessity, but more importantly, it was grounded in a shared African cultural ethos of Ubuntu, meaning, “I am because you/we are.” Ubuntu uplifts our oneness and recognizes that well-being flows from caring relationships with each other, our community, and nature. Ubuntu maintained us through enslavement and reconstruction, and while somewhat eroded over time through assimilation into western culture, it is finding a resurgence. The cooperative spirit of Ubuntu is central to the Juneteenth story, and provides a way forward in this new era of climate, political, economic, and social disruptions.

=> ↺ Juneteenth: Meet the first and last racist

• To sustain such longevity and diversity, Kemet embodied the Ubuntu spirit — wisdom, science, inclusiveness, and tolerance fostered by polytheism.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ The Settler-Colonialist Alliance of India and Israel

• In 1962, after a series of border conflicts over the disputed territory of Aksai Chin—which both China and India claimed, and still continue to claim, as their own—the two countries fought a one-month war. India’s troops in Namka Chu Valley were considerably weaker and the state of Israel quickly responded to India’s request for assistance. Then–Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion wrote to his Indian counterpart, Jawaharlal Nehru, emphasizing his country’s “fullest sympathy and understanding” and offering to provide weapons to Indian forces. Nehru requested that the weapons be sent in unmarked ships, aware that accepting Israeli assistance could affect India’s relations with Arab nations. Ben-Gurion declined and said, “No flag. No weapons.” Eventually, India relented and accepted arms transported in ships with the Israeli flag. And though India lost the conflict, the country was now aware that in times of need, Israel could be counted on as a potential ally.1

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Juneteenth!

=> ↺ ACLU ☛ Reparations, in Our Lifetime

• Once dismissed by many as impractical, the quest for reparations for the descendants of African people enslaved in the United States is now being embraced as a legitimate concept to be taken seriously. The remedy is not only being sought to address harms from the enslavement era, but also for lingering impacts which manifest today. The illegal kidnapping, cultural assault, and nearly 300 years of forced free labor, followed by 100 years of convict leased labor, Black codes, sharecropping, the peonage system, lynchings, mass murders, systemic racism, Jim Crow, gerrymandering, redlining, educational inequities, health disparities and mass incarceration, still reverberate within the collective genes of Black people in this country.

• These harms were multi-faceted; thus, remedies must be as well. Indeed, reparations can be fashioned in as many ways as necessary to equitably address the countless manifestations of injustice emanating from America’s original sin.

=> ↺ Axios ☛ Juneteenth draws attention to sites linked to enslavement after decades of neglect.

• Historic sites linked to enslavement and emancipation are getting new attention — and funding for preservation — after years of neglect.

• The big picture: The popularity of Juneteenth and the racial reckoning after George Floyd’s murder in 2020 led several cities and states to rethink how they commemorate difficult chapters of American history, including slavery.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Macron urges Europe to find alternatives to German-led air defence plan

• President Emmanuel Macron said he made some progress on Monday in convincing some of France’s EU allies to look at a more home-grown defence strategy, in contrast to a German-led effort to jointly procure air defence systems from outside Europe.

=> ↺ TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Americans mark Juneteenth with parties, events and quiet reflection on the end of slavery

• Americans observed the relatively new Juneteenth federal holiday with festivals, parades, cookouts and other gatherings.

=> ↺ The Atlantic ☛ Six Essential Reads to Understand Juneteenth

• Spend time with beautiful pieces of writing that highlight the fortitude of Black Americans.

=> ↺ Reason ☛ Juneteenth Celebrates a Great American Achievement

• The emerging culture war over the holiday is misguided. In reality, Juneteenth celebrates one of the greatest triumphs of America and its founding principles.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Uruguay’s President Halts Plan to Turn Bronze Nazi Eagle Into Peace Dove

• President Luis Lacalle Pou said that he was canceling a project to melt down and recast a 700-pound relic of World War II after thousands signed a petition calling for it to be preserved in a museum.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Americans mark Juneteenth with parties, events and quiet reflection on the end of slavery

• Americans across the country are observing the relatively new Juneteenth federal holiday with festivals, parades, cookouts and other gatherings. On a long holiday weekend seen by many as a reason for a party, others are urging quiet reflection about the end of slavery and the treatment of Black Americans throughout U.S. history. In Fort Worth, Texas, the woman known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth,” Opal Lee, led her annual Walk for Freedom on Monday. The 96-year-old former teacher and activist is largely credited for rallying others behind a campaign to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. This year, Lee became only the second Black person to have her portrait hung in the Senate chamber of the Texas Capitol.

=> ↺ CS Monitor ☛ Juneteenth is celebrated on June 19. But do you know why?

• Juneteenth marks June 19, the day when the last enslaved people in the United States learned they were free. For generations, Americans have celebrated the day with parades and cookouts, but knowledge of its history is also important.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Celebrating Juneteenth by Emancipating History

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ These Cowboys Build a New Juneteenth Tradition at a Rodeo in Portland

• The cowboy is “a shorthand for independence and grit and all of these things about America,” an organizer said. “But then you combine it with Black culture, and it just wiggles your brain.”

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Celebrating Juneteenth by Emancipating History

• Several years ago my dad, Gerald Lenoir, discovered the plantation where our family was enslaved. Through his extensive genealogical research, he determined that my great-great-grandfather Thomas H. Lenoir was born into slavery on the Lenoir Plantation in Morgantown, Miss., in March of 1844. After the Civil War, Thomas married my great-great-grandmother Laura; together they had 17 children. Thomas died on March 1, 1929, at the age of 84 in Sartinville, Walthall County, Miss. My dad also discovered that the white Lenoir enslavers were originally French and had traveled to New York and then the Carolinas before settling in Morgantown, where they established a cotton and tobacco plantation.

War in Ukraine

=> ↺ NPR ☛ How Ukraine created an ‘Army of Drones’ to take on Russia

• Second, the Ukrainians have employed drones creatively for both reconnaissance and attacks. The drones have nowhere near the firepower of fighter jets. Hence, Ukraine has sought U.S. F-16s since the war began, and now has pledges that it will receive them in the coming months. Still, the drones have allowed Ukraine to surveil and harass Russian troops in ways that would otherwise not be possible.

• [...]

• Ukraine, in turn, says it’s working on software that can prevent Russian electronic jamming.

• Russian drone use has been more limited and less effective than Ukraine’s. In recent months, Russia has relied heavily on military drones from Iran, called Shaheds. By one recent count, Ukraine has shot down more than 900 of the 1,200 Shahed drones fired by Russia, a rate of more than 75%.

=> ↺ LRT ☛ IFV repair workshop completed in Lithuania’s Rukla

• A repair workshop for the Vilkas (Wolf) infantry fighting vehicles and other military transport equipment has been completed in Lithuania’s Rukla, the Defence Ministry said on Monday.

=> ↺ LRT ☛ Lithuania’s Customs intercepts more than €27,000 smuggled from Belarus

• Customs officers at Lithuania’s Raigardas road post have intercepted Belarusian citizens as they attempted to smuggle over 27,000 euros into the country, the Customs service’s Kaunas territorial office said on Monday.

=> ↺ LRT ☛ Lithuania expects to set up 100 km of patrol trail along Belarus border this year

• Lithuanian Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė expects a 100-kilometre-long patrol trail along the border with Belarus to be set up this year.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russia blocks UN from delivering aid to areas flooded after Kakhovka dam collapse — Meduza

• The Russian authorities have refused to allow UN representatives to enter the Russian-controlled areas in Ukraine’s Kherson region that were flooded after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam to deliver humanitarian aid, according to Denise Brown, the organization’s Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar reports on counteroffensive in progress — Meduza

• Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar reports that the Ukrainian army has liberated the village of Pyatykhatky in southern Zaporizhzhia.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ The mystery of Evgeny Prigozhin Why does Putin let Wagner Group’s founder make statements that would land anyone else in court? — Meduza

• In recent months, Wagner Group paramilitary cartel founder Evgeny Prigozhin has repeatedly made statements that nobody else in Russia would be able to get away with. As the independent outlet iStories recently noted, Prigozhin frequently refers to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a war, rather than the Russian government’s preferred (and legally-mandated) term, “special military operation”; he regularly insults the country’s military leaders publicly; and he’s openly acknowledged that the war against Ukraine has failed miserably to bring the changes Vladimir Putin intended. What’s more, he’s spoken positively about jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny and his ability to expose corruption in the Russian government, and he’s raised the prospect of the Russian people lifting the country’s elites on pitchforks. Any one of these comments would have been enough to land anybody else in court, if not behind bars, but Prigozhin is currently touring around the country giving press conferences. To better understand why the firebrand tycoon is allowed so much leeway, journalists from iStories spoke to former Russian intelligence officers, a person close to the Russian Defense Ministry, and a business owner close to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. Meduza is publishing translations of their explanations.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Jailed Putin critic Alexey Navalny announces new project to ‘turn people against the war’ — Meduza

• Alexey Navalny has announced the launch of a new project that he referred to as an “electoral campaign against the war and against Putin.” A statement outlining the initiative appeared on Navalny’s website on Monday as the politician attended the first hearing in a new “extremism” case that could see an additional 30 years added to his prison sentence.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ The worst of the worst Russia’s Defense Ministry is recruiting prisoners whose crimes would have disqualified them from Wagner Group — Meduza

• The independent outlet Verstka has identified multiple people with past convictions for violent crimes serving in the Russian Defense Ministry’s Storm Z unit, which contains former inmates from Russian prisons that the ministry recruited following the model first used by the Wagner Group paramilitary cartel. These convicts-turned-soldiers include a man sentenced to 26 years in prison for murdering a 91-year-old woman and previously convicted of rape, an offense that would have disqualified him from joining Wagner Group. Meduza summarizes Verstka’s findings.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ The Loving Truth-Teller That Was Daniel Ellsberg

=> ↺ Counter Punch ☛ Daniel Ellsberg and the Endless Federal Lies

• Ellsberg was an antiwar icon for more than 50 years after the Justice Department failed to destroy his life in the early 1970s. As a former Marine lieutenant and a Harvard Ph.D., Ellsberg was hired by John McNaughton, the assistant secretary of Defense, and started work in August 1964 on the day the Gulf of Tonkin crisis erupted. Ellsberg relates receiving the “flash” wire dispatches from the U.S.S. Maddox. Within hours after the U.S. destroyer reported being attacked by North Vietnamese PT boats, the ship’s commander had wired Washington that the reports of an attack on his ship may have been wildly exaggerated: “Entire action leaves many doubts.”

=> ↺ Quartz ☛ What happened to Tank Man, China’s most famous Tiananmen Square protester?

• It’s also possible that Tank Man may have been simply a regular citizen in Beijing who had seen or heard of the brutal government crackdown that left students, workers, children, doctors and passers-by dead, many of them shot in the back. According to film footage and witnesses, he was walking alone along the six-lane avenue, holding a bag of shopping, when he saw the tanks and decided to do something.

=> ↺ Gizmodo ☛ The Company Behind the Missing Tourist Sub Fired an Employee After He Expressed Safety Concerns

• OceanGate Expeditions, which charters insanely expensive aquatic trips like the one that went awry this weekend, was previously the subject of a lawsuit involving its former director of marine operations. The exec in question, David Lochridge, lost his job at the company in January of 2018 after he delivered a “scathing” report to the company’s senior management that highlighted numerous safety concerns with its business model, TechCrunch reports.

Environment

Axios ☛ “Blistering” heat wave fuels deadly storms and power outages across southern U.S.An extreme, prolonged heat wave from Texas to Louisiana is helping fuel deadly southern storms that have resulted in the deaths of at least six people and left hundreds of thousands without power.State of play: A series of tornadoes hit Mississippi overnight, killing at least one person, wounding almost two dozen others and leaving over 49,000 without power, officials said. The severe weather also caused outages for nearly 187,000 people in Oklahoma, almost 79,000 others in Texas and some 69,000 in Louisiana as of Monday evening, per utility tracker poweroutage.us. An estimated 26,000 people in Arkansas also experienced outages, where a flash flood emergency was issued in the state’s southwest:

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Using Trash To Keep Plastic Trash Out Of Oceans By Kabooming Them

• For a few years now, [Richard] of Tropical Ocean Cleanup fame has been working hard to clean the Philippines of the plastic trash that litters everything, and washes down the canals and rivers into the ocean. Using nothing but what is essentially trash – old car tires, rope and empty soda bottles – he creates ‘kabooms’ that prevent this trash  floating in the canals from polluting the beaches, kill wildlife and gather in the oceans. In a recent video he covers how he creates these systems, and the basics of how they are installed.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Montana officials downplay first-of-its-kind climate trial

• Montana officials are seeking to downplay a first-of-its-kind trial over a state’s obligations to protect residents from climate change. State officials said Monday that a victory by the young plaintiffs would not change approvals for fossil fuel projects. The 16 plaintiffs range in age from 5 to 22 years old. They say they’re being harmed by wildfire smoke, excessive heat and other effects of climate change. They’re asking a state court to declare unconstitutional a Montana law that prevents agencies from considering the effect of greenhouse gases when they issue permits for fossil fuel development.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Only One State in America Includes the Study of Climate Change for All Grades

• Schools can teach children how important it is for everyone to help.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Rising Temperatures Speeding Up Himalayan Glacier Loss

• Glaciers in the region melted faster between 2010 and 2019 than in the previous decade. “Things are just happening so fast,” one researcher said.

=> ↺ NPR ☛ Defense arguments are set to open in a landmark climate case brought by Montana youth

• Vlases and her co-plaintiffs are asking the state to set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions. Montana is America’s fifth largest coal producer. The plaintiffs say both the legislature and executive branch continue to prioritize fossil fuels.

=> ↺ RTL ☛ What does the UN high seas treaty mean for protecting the ocean?

• The UN treaty, which will open for signatures on September 20, will go into force 120 days after 60 countries have ratified it.

• Here are the key points of the text approved in March. [...]

=> ↺ Truthdig ☛ Canada May Become Ground Zero for a Fire Age

• You might think that a place so vast, and so combustible, would be filled with fire traditions, a fire literature and fire art, fire institutions, a fire culture in the fullest sense. But while colonized Canada has a first-world fire establishment, and displays developed-world fire pathologies, it shows a remarkable disconnect between fire’s presence on the land and its manifestation in the culture. This is particularly true among elites who live in cities, not the bush. Only over the past couple of decades has fire entered common currency. Canada may be a firepower, but it punches below its weight internationally. Its muted presence makes a striking contrast to Australia.

=> ↺ RIPE ☛ Environmental Impact of Internet: Urgency, De-Growth, Rebellion

• Second, what follows is an (edited) transcript of a talk I gave during RIPE 86 called The Environmental Impact of Internet: Urgency, De-Growth, Rebellion. The slide deck from that presentation are available in the archives, and the video is included here below.

• Finally, in the original talk and so here also, I’m approaching this hugely, colossally important topic from a high level of abstraction. Some of you might think of this as a political piece, or as a stab at cultural perpetuity – so if you’re more used to a more technical read, please bear with me as there won’t be many numbers in here.

=> ↺ Gannett ☛ If global warming isn’t controlled, Himalayan glaciers could lose 80% of volume, study finds

• Among the key findings from Tuesday’s report are that the Himalayan glaciers disappeared 65% faster since 2010 than in the previous decade, and that reducing snow cover due to global warming will result in reduced fresh water for people living downstream. The study found that 200 glacier lakes across these mountains are deemed dangerous, and the region could see a significant spike in glacial lake outburst floods by the end of the century.

=> ↺ DeSmog ☛ Montana’s Narrow Defense in Youth Climate Trial Was Devoid of Climate Science

• The historic youth climate trial in Montana concluded today ahead of schedule, after the state presented a condensed defense on Monday that steered clear of disputing climate science. It also excluded testimony from witnesses it had previously planned to call upon, including a neuropsychologist who admitted she had no expertise on climate change’s mental health impacts on youth and climatologist-turned-climate-denier Judith Curry, who had been billed as the state’s star witness.

• Curry’s withdrawal came unexpectedly on Friday. Phil Gregory, an attorney for the youth plaintiffs, informed Judge Kathy Seeley that Curry’s anticipated court appearance had been canceled. The precise reason for the cancellation is unclear, and the Montana attorney general’s office did not respond to DeSmog’s inquiry.

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ DeSmog ☛ Danielle Smith’s False and Misleading Statements at Global Energy Show

• Recently elected Alberta Premier Danielle Smith provided the lunch hour address on the first day of the 2023 Global Energy Show, held in Calgary on June 13. Smith was one of three representatives from her new government to make statements at the conference’s opening day, along with newly minted energy minister Brian Jean, and environment minister Rebecca Schulz. Smith was followed by Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe.

• In the roughly 15-minute prepared speech Smith made several misleading statements, in addition to taking a potshot at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s apparent hostility to the fossil fuel sector. In fact, not even two weeks ago the Trudeau government announced $3 billion (CAD) in loan guarantees for the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which it bought in 2018. The pipeline brings Alberta crude oil and refined petroleum products to Canada’s West Coast.

=> ↺ H2 View ☛ Labour leader wants UK to lead global hydrogen from Scotland energy HQ

• Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has placed his full support behind hydrogen during an event to mark Scotland’s central role in the party’s UK-wide clean energy push.

=> ↺ NBC ☛ Four killed in a fire that started in a New York City e-bike shop

• Electric bikes have become popular, non-gasoline-burning ways to make deliveries, commute and zip around a city that has promoted cycling in recent decades. Many run on lithium-ion batteries, which have been blamed for numerous fires.

=> ↺ The Hill ☛ [Cryptocurrency] [breach] alarms ramp up as authorities crack down after $3.7 billion stolen

• The rapid growth of cryptocurrency theft over the past few years has become a major concern for U.S. authorities, who are ramping up efforts to crack down on [attackers] and illicit [cryptocurrency] schemes.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Public outrage after guide dog not allowed on airBaltic flight

• Social media in Latvia has been inflamed following an account of a woman who was not allowed to take her guide dog with her on board an airBaltic flight.

=> ↺ Quartz ☛ Cathay Pacific is making amends after being accused of discriminating against mainland Chinese passengers

• Cathay Pacific reportedly announced today (June 19) it will hire more Mandarin-speaking employees from mainland China and launch “culture training” on the language beginning in July.

=> ↺ DeSmog ☛ Confronting Big Oil at Cannes Lions: The Viral Moment That Exposed the Ad Industry’s Complicity in the Climate Crisis

• There is something uniquely intimidating about standing a few feet away from somebody working in a senior position in a company that is in part responsible for fueling the climate crisis that keeps you up at night, worried for your future. Add a heatwave to this scenario, and the discomfort of feeling like an outsider amidst a crowd who’ve jetted in from across the globe creates the perfect cocktail for a panic attack — which is precisely what I experienced this time last year when I asked Dean Aragón, chief executive officer of Shell Brands, a disruptive question during an event at Cannes Lions 2022.

• I was in Cannes as part of my campaigning work with Clean Creatives — an organization calling on the advertising industry and its agencies to stop working with fossil fuel clients. Our efforts generated some of the festival’s most viral social media content: a significant accomplishment at a gathering brimming with globally renowned, award-winning creative talent.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ France24 ☛ ‘A fighting chance’: UN adopts first-ever treaty to protect high seas marine life

• Members of the United Nations adopted the first-ever treaty to protect marine life in the high seas on Monday, with the UN’s chief hailing the historic agreement as giving the ocean “a fighting chance.”

Finance

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russia’s tax authority reports record gross revenue made by Russian businesses in 2022, even as real profits shrank — Meduza

• According to Russia’s Federal Tax Service, the gross revenue made by Russian businesses in 2022 exceeded a quadrillion rubles, setting a historic record. Based on the 2022 corporate tax filings, gross business revenue came to an unprecedented 1.268 quadrillion rubles (or roughly $15.1 trillion), as reported by the Russian news outlet RBC.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Asia shares fall on China’s modest rate cut

• Stocks in Asia have fallen in early trade as investors worry China’s latest rate cut is not enough to boost confidence in the weakening economy as they await a wider stimulus package by Beijing.

• China, in a highly anticipated move, cut two key benchmark lending rates for the first time in 10 months on Tuesday, with its one-year loan prime rate (LPR) lowered by 10 basis points to 3.55 per cent and the five-year LPR cut by the same margin to 4.20 per cent.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ RBA says jobs market too tight to control inflation

• The jobs market is too strong and the unemployment rate too low for the Reserve Bank to stamp down inflation.

• RBA deputy governor Michele Bullock says an unemployment rate of around 4.5 per cent is roughly the lowest possible level that’s consistent with the RBA’s two-to-three per cent inflation target.

=> ↺ Union confederation expresses concerns over Turkey’s ongoing minimum wage talks

• These worries come amidst contentious official inflation statistics and a rapidly depreciating lira.

=> ↺ Reason ☛ The Fed Won’t Save Us From the Inflation Iceberg

• Plus: Was Gerald Ford right to pardon Richard Nixon?

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ China’s Central Bank Cuts Loan Prime Rates

• The reduction in the rates, which are used to set corporate loans and home mortgages, signal concern that the country’s post-pandemic rebound is stalling.

=> ↺ Helsinki Times ☛ Finland’s Stora Enso mulling widespread staff cuts

• STORA ENSO is mulling over a series of structural changes that could result in the termination of more than 1,000 jobs in Finland, Estonia, Poland and the Netherlands.

• The Finnish paper and packaging materials company revealed last week it is considering the permanent closure of its pulp mill in Kotka, Finland, a containerboard plant in the Netherlands, one of the production lines at its plant in Poland and a sawmill in Estonia.

=> ↺ YLE ☛ Coca-Cola HBC to buy Finlandia vodka brand for €200m

• The deal is subject to regulatory approval but is expected to be completed later this year.

=> ↺ Reason ☛ Study: Banning Investors From Buying Homes Leads to Higher Rents, More Gentrification

• Home prices were unaffected by a ban on buy-to-rent housing in the Netherlands, but more affordable rental housing disappeared.

=> ↺ LRT ☛ Lithuanian economy not in recession, just in ‘short-term dip’ – prime minister

• Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė insists Lithuania’s economy is not in recession, despite indicators suggesting the country’s GDP is contracting this year.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ PM considers timing of Indigenous voice referendum

• Australians will soon know when they will vote on a referendum to recognise Indigenous people in the constitution.

• A day after parliament endorsed a bill setting out the question and constitutional change, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has begun working with advisers and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders to settle on a date for the vote.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ [rewind] Julian Bond Was a Radical Long Before MLK

• This Feb. 2020 episode of the SI podcast brings two relevant topics into light: Black history and the anti-war movement.

=> ↺ Shadowproof ☛ Redacted: Massachusetts Withholding Plans For New Women’s Prison

• When the state House and Senate passed a five-year moratorium on building any new prisons and jails last year, those who had spent years fighting against the construction of a new women’s prison thought that the Legislature was finally listening.

• But, in one of his last moves in office last August, former Gov. Charlie Baker vetoed the bill. Now, under Gov. Maura Healey, the new women’s prison is back on the table. What’s more, the state agencies in charge of prisons and public construction are blocking public records requests from activists opposed to the project for meeting minutes and other planning documents.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ The UAE and Qatar reopen embassies as Gulf Arab relations improve after a yearslong rift

• The United Arab Emirates and Qatar have reopened their embassies following a yearslong rift. The two countries issued statements on Monday saying the Qatari Embassy in Abu Dhabi and a Qatari Consulate in Dubai, as well as an Emirati Embassy in Qatar’s capital, Doha, had resumed operations. The UAE joined Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt in imposing a boycott and blockade of Qatar in 2017 in large part over its support for Islamist groups across the Middle East that the other Arab countries consider terrorist organizations. The boycott was officially lifted in January 2021.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ British MPs endorse report finding Boris Johnson lied over ‘Partygate’

• Britain’s parliament delivered another blow to the political career of former prime minister Boris Johnson on Monday when it endorsed a report that concluded that he deliberately lied over rule-breaking parties.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Macron ally causes stir with proposal to abolish presidential term limit

• One of French President Emmanuel Macron’s closest political allies caused a stir on Monday by backing constitutional changes to enable the head of state to seek a third term in office.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ US magistrate rules evidence cannot be made public in Trump classified documents case

• A federal magistrate in Florida ruled in favor of a protective order, forcing former President Donald Trump and his attorneys not to release evidence in the federal criminal case surrounding Trump’s storage and maintenance of classified documents. District Court Southern District of Florida Magistrate Bruce Reinhart ordered: Defendants and Defense Counsel shall not disclose the Discovery Materials…

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Levits wants law on Latvia’s de-russification

• The outgoing President of Latvia, Egils Levits, urged the Saeima to adopt a law on the renaming of places where the impact of the Communist totalitarian regime and russification policies remains, according to a release from his office on June 19.

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ Daniel Ellsberg’s Dying Wish: Free Julian Assange, Encourage Whistleblowers & Reveal the Truth

• Whistleblower Dan Ellsberg joined us after the Justice Department charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for publishing U.S. military and diplomatic documents exposing U.S. war crimes. Assange is locked up in London and faces up to 175 years in prison if extradited and convicted in the United States. Ellsberg died Friday, and as we remember his life and legacy, we revisit his message for other government insiders who are considering becoming whistleblowers: “My message to them is: Don’t do what I did. Don’t wait ’til the bombs are actually falling or thousands more have died.”

=> ↺ Counter Punch ☛ Honor Daniel Ellsberg by Abrogating the Espionage Act

• Under the Espionage Act of 1917, Ellsberg could have faced a faced a potential 115-year prison sentence. Fortunately, the Nixon administration’s illegal harassment of Ellsberg led a federal judge to dismiss all charges against him because of “gross prosecutorial misconduct” so severe as to “offend the sense of justice.”

• The Obama administration invoked the Espionage Act more than any other administration in history. Whistleblowers Chelsea Manning and Reality Winner were tried under the Act and received long prison sentences. Julian Assange is facing charges under the Espionage Act, and former Times’ reporter James Risen was charged for doing his job. Former president Donald Trump is guilty of numerous acts of obstruction of justice and theft and retention of government property, but he shouldn’t be tried under the Espionage Act.

=> ↺ India Times ☛ Biden administration taps Google chair for chips research effort

• Hennessy and the other selected individuals are set to be announced by the Commerce Department on Tuesday, according to a statement seen by Reuters. They will be responsible for picking a board of trustees to run the National Semiconductor Technology Center.

• That public-private partnership was authorized to lead research on next-generation chips as part of last year’s bipartisan $52.7 billion semiconductor manufacturing and research law, which also subsidizes new chip plants. The nonprofit board is expected make politically sensitive decisions, including where in the United States to locate the center’s research facilities.

=> ↺ Computer World ☛ UK targets new funding to support the development of ‘responsible AI’

• These include $126 million in funding for a Foundation Model Taskforce, which aims to support the development of secure and reliable AI models that can be used in industries such as healthcare and education, and a new AI research award which will offer $1.2million per year to the company that has achieved the “most groundbreaking British AI research.”

=> ↺ The Hill ☛ Biden to meet with AI experts on managing risks

• The president will be joined by Jim Steyer, the CEO of Common Sense Media, Tristan Harris, the co-founder of the Center for Human Technology, Joy Buolamwin, the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, and Oren Etzioni, the former CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, among others. The president is in San Francisco until Wednesday.

=> ↺ ABC ☛ Homeland Security deputy secretary retiring

• “After 26 years of combined federal service including three combat tours in Iraq and living apart from my family for the last two years, I have decided to return to Atlanta to re-join them there,” Tien said to the Department workforce in an email. “When I depart from DHS on July 20, 2023, I will most fondly remember what the Secretary and I tried to do for the workforce to vastly improve the lives of our fellow employees in terms of pay, training, facilities, and technology support, all essential to improving morale.”

=> ↺ Paolo Melchiorre ☛ 2023 Python Software Foundation Board Nomination

• So this year, for the first time, I decided to answer the call from the Python Software Foundation and run for a seat on the Python Software Foundation (PSF) board.

=> ↺ Michael Geist ☛ As Government Moves to Cut Off Bill C-18 Debate, the Reality is Artificial Intelligence Renders Bill Already Out of Date

• The lion’s share of attention on Bill C-18 has thus far focused on the response of the two internet companies, as both have raised the prospect of blocking news content on their platforms if faced with new financial liability for linking. Yet my Globe and Mail op-ed argues that focus ignores a vital new reality that may already render the bill out of date. Several witnesses before the Senate committee studying the bill pointed to the emergence of generative artificial intelligence and its impact on the news business. They included The Logic’s David Skok and Globe and Mail publisher Phillip Crawley, who warned that links to news content on Google – a primary portal for consuming news for many – “could be disrupted in the next six to 12 months quite significantly by the difference that ChatGPT and generative AI is already making in only six months.”

=> ↺ Quartz ☛ Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is fighting a losing battle against the site’s moderators

• While Reddit management has a long history of warring with its mods, this particular skirmish isn’t likely to break its way. Reddit’s quest for more income jeopardizes the free labor it’s built on—the entire structure of the company. It’s betting that the financial windfall from invoicing AI companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google will exceed any losses from sticking it to its mods. But in going head-first against its army of free labor, Reddit might be betting the house on this proposition.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ AntiWar ☛ Was ‘Philip Cross’ an AI?

• Walter Bragman, author of Important Context, recently wrote about leaked emails from a Brownstone internal discussion that he had viewed. In one of these emails, I had mentioned the story of a strange pattern of edits that had been systematically applied to the Wikipedia pages of anti-war activists. The story is an important one.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Reason ☛ Journal of Free Speech Law: “How Local TV News Is Surviving Disruption as Newspapers Fail: Lessons Learned,” by Prof. Laurie Thomas Lee

• Just published as part of the symposium on Media and Society After Technological Disruption, edited by Profs. Justin “Gus” Hurwitz & Kyle Langvardt.

=> ↺ PRIDE MONTH: İstanbul MP faces criminal complaint for calling police ‘occupiers’ at Trans Pride March

• Police barricades and detentions marred the 9th edition of the march, which was banned due to concerns about its ‘threat to the family institution’.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong opposition party League of Social Democrats urges HSBC to reverse unexplained account closures

• The pro-democracy League of Social Democrats (LSD) has written to HSBC, urging the bank to reverse a decision to close their accounts. The opposition party – one of the city’s last – had been using the accounts to receive donations.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Composer reuploads ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ to Spotify, as gov’t seeks blanket ban on protest song

• Pro-democracy protest anthem Glory to Hong Kong has been reuploaded to streaming platforms KKBox and Spotify, days after the latter told HKFP that it had been removed by the distributor. It came as the government seeks to ban all forms of the song and its derivatives.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Shadowy, Israel-Linked Group Attempts to Censor Pro-Palestine Spotify Artists

• Alan Macleod uncovers how a shadowy pressure group linked to Israel is attempting to silence artists advocating for Palestinian liberation on Spotify.

=> ↺ PRIDE MONTH: LGBTI+ breakfast gathering in İzmir faces harassment by group chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’

• A pro-government secular party and an Islamist group jointly protested the gathering organized by the provincial bar association. The lawyers criticized the police for their lenient approach towards those harassing the event.

=> ↺ AKP-run municipalities persist in concert bans following artists’ support for LGBTI+, opposition

• One mayor defended the concert bans on Melike Şahin and Hüseyin Turan, stating that they will continue with artists who respect ‘the national will and society’s values.’

=> ↺ İstanbul Trans Pride March: Detained activists released

• Ten people, including a minor, were detained during the event, whcih was banned by the authorities.

=> ↺ Quartz ☛ 261 ways to refer to the Tiananmen Square massacre in China

• China Digital Times (CDT), a news site affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley, has assembled a list of 261 distinct terms that have been used on the Chinese internet to refer to the Tiananmen massacre, and have at some point been blocked by censors. The list includes straightforward terms like ”Tiananmen” and “June 4,” as well as more absurd examples of linguistic acrobatics that can circumvent censors, like “May 35” (meaning four days after May 31, or June 4).

• Most of the terms are in Chinese, but sometimes to evade censors internet users write in English or Romanized Mandarin. Some terms—like “25th anniversary” and “24 years”—were only blocked temporarily, during a period of particularly heavy use, and may be allowed online today.

=> ↺ CPJ ☛ Turkish journalist Sinan Aygül hospitalized after attack by Tatvan mayor’s bodyguards

• Aygül told CPJ that he believed Geylani had ordered the attack in response to his recent coverage of alleged corruption in the municipality. He said that Baysal told him, “You will die if you write about the mayor once more.” In a statement released shortly after the attack, Geylani denied any involvement.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Mint Press News ☛ Chris Hedges: The Imminent Extradition of Julian Assange and the Death of Journalism

• Julian Assange’s legal options have nearly run out. He could be extradited to the U.S. this week. Should he be convicted in the U.S., any reporting on the inner workings of power will become a crime.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ PR expert who met with jailed WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich before his arrest released from prison — Meduza

• Yaroslav Shirshikov, a public relations expert who met with jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich shortly before the latter’s arrest and was himself arrested several weeks later, has been released on his own recognizance, according to the Yekaterinburg news outlet It’s My City.

=> ↺ Press Gazette ☛ Tom Olsen Lecture 2023: How good journalism can save the world from generative AI threat

• Dominic Ponsford marks 20 years at Press Gazette with the 2023 Olsen Lecture.

• /blockquote>

=> ↺ Press Gazette ☛ Top 50 biggest news websites in the world in May 2023: Year-on-year traffic slump at every top ten site

• Press Gazette’s monthly ranking of the top 50 news websites in the world, using Similarweb data.

=> ↺ Press Gazette ☛ Kamal Ahmed: Publishers, don’t dump ‘unreliable’ tech platform ‘boyfriends’

• BBC, The News Movement and Reuters leaders respond to Digital News Report findings.

=> ↺ VOA News ☛ Tunisian Judge Bars Broadcast Media From Opposition Conspiracy Cases

• A Tunisian judge has barred radio and television news programs from covering the cases of prominent opposition figures accused of conspiring against state security in recent months, official news agency TAP said Saturday.

• The order fuels concerns over rights in Tunisia since President Kais Saied seized extra powers in 2021, moving to rule by decree and then assume authority over the judiciary.

=> ↺ CPJ ☛ Algerian appeals court increases prison sentence of journalist Ihsane el-Kadi

• On Sunday, June 18, an appeals court in Algiers increased from five to seven years a sentence for el-Kadi, editor-in-chief and director of local independent broadcaster Radio M and news website Maghreb Emergent. Two years of that sentence are suspended, according to news reports.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ ABC ☛ Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convicting them of crimes

• It’s a practice, they say, that allows police and prosecutors to avoid going after drug kingpins and instead prey on individual citizens – who may or may not have done anything wrong.

• “Citizens can have their property taken from them without ever being accused of a crime, or convicted of a crime, and that is simply not our American system of justice,” said Louis Rulli, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s led to so many abuses.”

=> ↺ Vox ☛ The hottest new perk in tech is freedom

• Smaller tech companies have since picked up the mantle of remote work. They are much more likely than their larger peers to allow people to work fully remotely, with 81 percent of those with fewer than 5,000 employees either allowing remote work or only having remote options, according to new data from Scoop Technologies, a software firm that builds tech to help hybrid teams coordinate and also tracks the office policies at major companies. Meanwhile, just 26 percent of companies with more than 25,000 employees are fully flexible.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Canada Places Sanctions On Iranian Judges Over Alleged Rights Abuses

• The Canadian government on June 19 said it imposed sanctions on Iranian judges over alleged human rights abuses, adding that the step would prohibit dealings with them and freeze any assets they may have held in Canada.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ ‘Toxic masculinity’: Macron criticised for downing beer with rugby champions

• French President Emmanuel Macron has created a brouhaha in France after being filmed downing a bottle of beer with Toulouse’s rugby players after they clinched the domestic league title at the weekend.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ More Iranian Teachers Summoned Amid Government Clampdown

• Five more teachers who supported anti-government protests in Iran have been summoned to the Revolutionary Court, the latest in a series of similar moves, including trials, of teachers in other cities across the country.

=> ↺ OpenRightsGroup ☛ Disbanding Windrush unit further undermines trust in Home Office

• Open Rights Group has responded to a Guardian report that the Home Office has “quietly disbanded” the unit created to reform the department after the Windrush scandal, which saw thousands of people from Commonwealth countries incorrectly classified as illegal immigrants.

=> ↺ The Atlantic ☛ The Bitter Truth About the Bud Light Boycott

• The right-wing backlash against a promotion involving a trans influencer has cost Bud Light millions. What made America’s best-selling beer so vulnerable?

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Iranian Student Groups Issue Warnings As Policing Of Dress Code Rises

• Students from at least a dozen universities across Iran have issued statements of solidarity with their peers protesting at Tehran’s Art University as anger builds over the increased enforcement of dress codes on campuses across the country.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Amnesty International Flags Pakistan Over Treatment Of Afghan Refugees

• The Amnesty International rights group has appealed “urgently” to Pakistan to stop “arbitrarily arresting and harassing” Afghan refugees, many of whom are running from ill-treatment by Taliban militants in their own country.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ More Than 600,000 People Have Fled Bosnia-Herzegovina In Past Decade

• An umbrella group on migration to and from Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) says the hobbled Balkan state that’s still governed under a nearly three-decade-old peace deal has seen more than 600,000 people emigrate in the past 10 years.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Latvia’s gender pay gap grew in 2022

• Provisional estimate published on June 19 by the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia (CSB) shows that in 2022 the average hourly gross earnings of women were 17.1 % lower than those of men.

=> ↺ Off Guardian ☛ Rule by Decree: The Emergency State’s Plot to Override the Constitution

• Justice Neil Gorsuch We have become a nation in a permanent state of emergency.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Ruben Schade ☛ Julia Evans posts about blogging myths

• Julia Evans

• A few years ago I gave a short talk (slides) about myths that discourage people from blogging. I was chatting with a friend about blogging the other day and it made me want to write up that talk as a blog post.

• There are some great points here, including the myth that you need be original, an absolute expert, that you must explain every concept, and that page views matter. She also raises the counter-intuitive idea that writing feels harder as you get more experienced, with which I can relate.

• It was this comment she wrote about writing “boring” posts I most appreciated:

=> ↺ James Brown ☛ On “enshittification” and the future of knowledge

• A few months ago, Cory Doctorow wrote a very memorable blog post about the enshittification of social-media platforms, focused on TikTok. I’ve been thinking since then about how prevalent this trend is and how much it makes me worry for our future.

• It’s mentioned in Doctorow’s piece, but I really want to emphasize how deleterious this effect has been on Google Search. I remember when Google was introduced! By the time I first had access to the Internet in school (perhaps 1998 or 1999), there were two options for finding things you didn’t already have a link to: Yahoo (which had terrible free-form search but a passable directory you could click through like the index to some giant poorly-edited encyclopedia), and Ask Jeeves (which was pretty good at letting you type a query into a box and get results). Then, some time around 2000 or 2001, Google entered into the public consciousness, and it was like crack. Anything you wanted to know about, you could just put into the box and get real, high-quality results from legitimate sources! Unbelievable!

• Now, though, Google is a shell of its former self. Results for technical queries are overwhelmed by low-quality content farms, and anything even slightly commercial is dominated by ads. How did we get here? I find it unbelievable that literally any person working on Google Search thinks that the often-inaccurate, ad-filled W3Schools is a better result for web-development, but nearly every search results in W3Schools at the top, with much-better secondary source MDN below it, and primary sources 10 or 20 items down, below the fold. Similarly, searches for Python builtins often feature low-quality content farms like geeksforgeeks with the actual documentation falling below the fold. And don’t even try using Google to search for something you can buy because literally everything above the fold is sponsored content (a.k.a. ads).

Monopolies

=> ↺ Gannett ☛ Gannett CEO: Here’s why we are suing Google for deceptive business practices

• This morning, Gannett, the largest news publisher in the United States including USA TODAY and hundreds of local newspapers, filed a lawsuit in federal court against Google for monopolization of advertising technology markets and deceptive commercial practices.

Trademarks

=> ↺ Wired ☛ Apple Is Taking On Apples in a Truly Weird Trademark Battle

• While the case has left Swiss fruit growers puzzled, it’s part of a global trend. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization’s records, Apple has made similar requests to dozens of IP [sic] authorities around the world, with varying degrees of success. Authorities in Japan, Turkey, Israel, and Armenia have acquiesced. Apple’s quest to own the IP rights of something as generic as a fruit speaks to the dynamics of a flourishing global IP rights industry, which encourages companies to compete obsessively over trademarks they don’t really need.

=> ↺ AppleInsider ☛ Apple wants to control every image of an apple, says Swiss fruit firm

• “We have a hard time understanding this [case with Apple], because it’s not like they’re trying to protect their bitten apple,” said Mariethoz. “Their objective here is really to own the rights to an actual apple, which, for us, is something that is really almost universal… that should be free for everyone to use.”

• “We’re concerned that any visual representation of an apple — so anything that’s audiovisual or linked to new technologies or to media — could be potentially impacted,” continued Mariethoz. “Theoretically, we could be entering slippery territory everytime we advertise with an apple.”

=> ↺ Gizmodo Australia ☛ Apple (the Company) Reportedly Wants to Own the Trademark of Apples (the Fruit)

• And this is just… Strange, right? To own the trademark rights behind an image so benign and common as an artistic representation of an apple sounds like a non-issue, but it’s actually not without precedent. Back in 2010, as pointed out by Wired, Apple entered into an out-of-court agreement with a small grocery cooperative in Switzerland to not add a bite mark to the co-op’s apple logo. Apple has also, in recent years, decided to get up in arms with the creators of an app with a pear logo and musician Frankie Pineapple, for similarities to the Apple name and image.

• This action from Apple has companies in Switzerland, such as The Fruit Union Suisse, which uses a red apple with a white cross on the inside as its logo, worried.

=> ↺ Essel Group ☛ Apple now wants to trademark whole fruit as it takes on 111-year-old Swiss firm

• According to reports, Apple is looking to trademark the full apple fruit. It has sued a 111-year-old farmer’s organisation called Fruit Union Suisse which has been using apple (fruit) as its official emblem.

• The Fruit Union Suisse uses a logo featuring a red apple with a white Swiss cross superimposed on it.

• The organisation’s director, Jimmy Mariéthoz, said they are baffled by the tech firm’s approach.

=> ↺ India Times ☛ Forbidden fruit | Apple wants 111-year-old company to change its logo: report

• Fruit Union Suisse said Apple is not just contesting its trademark apple logo, but also wants to get exclusive rights to all depictions of actual apples.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Michael Geist ☛ The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 171: What Just Happened? – A Half-Year Report on Canadian Digital Policy

• With Parliament set to break this week for the summer, this week’s Law Bytes podcast provides a half-year report on what happened over the past six months. At the start of the year, I focused on five issues in 2023 preview: the role of Canadian Heritage, the increasing tensions over digital policy, the emergence of private members bills, wireless policy disputes, as well as privacy and AI regulation. The episode revisits these issues with an examination of how Bills C-11 and C-18 were pushed through the legislative process, the battles over wireless regulation in light of the Rogers-Shaw merger, and the failure to advance privacy and AI regulation.

=> ↺ Walled Culture ☛ Talking to the wall: Portugal’s shameful approach to implementing the EU Copyright Directive

• Let that sink in: one of the most important modern laws has been passed in Portugal without the public being told what its final form would be: [...]

=> ↺ Creative Commons ☛ Stephen Wyber — Open Culture VOICES, Season 2 Episode 20

• Open Culture VOICES is a series of short videos that highlight the benefits and barriers of open culture as well as inspiration and advice on the subject of opening up cultural heritage. Stephen Wyber is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at IFLA which coordinates meetings and collaborations between GLAM institutions, namely libraries, around the world. He works to co-create meaningful understanding of the needs of libraries and what role libraries play in society and community.

=> ↺ Torrent Freak ☛ Korea Will Deploy ‘Anti-Piracy AI’ After Major Piracy Site Reincarnation

• With tens of millions of regular monthly visitors, South Korean piracy site Noonoo TV made powerful enemies. The stand-off reached the boiling point in March when broadcasters formed a new anti-piracy coalition and warned of punishing legal action. Noonoo TV responded by throwing in the towel but after clone site ‘Noonoo TV Season 2′ appeared online, the government says it will develop an AI anti-piracy system that will stop any ‘Season 3′ variants in their tracks.

=> ↺ Torrent Freak ☛ Copyright Claims Board Celebrates First Anniversary Without a Troll Party

• The US Copyright Claims Board allows rightsholders to file damages claims outside of the federal court system. Since its official launch last year, hundreds of cases have been presented to the board. Typical copyright trolls were noticeably absent and thus far there’s been just one award for damages, as the vast majority of all claims are dismissed.

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