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Posted in News Roundup at 8:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Applications

=> ↺ Linux Links ☛ 5 Best Free and Open Source CalDAV Servers

• The CalDAV protocol is a calendar sharing protocol. Just like CardDAV it was originally proposed as standard by Apple, RFC 6638. It uses WebDAV to share appointment data in the iCalendar-format. The “Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification” is an open standard itself, RFC 5545, that is widely supported. CalDAV allows multiple devices and apps to access your calendar, allowing cooperative planning and information sharing.

• This article recommends the best CalDAV servers. We only include free and open source software here. The chart below captures our verdict. Note that there are a variety of other applications that include a CalDAV server. They are deliberately not included here. Other software that includes CalDAV functionality include Nextcloud, SOGo, Kopano, and Horde.

Instructionals/Technical

idroot

=> ↺ ID Root ☛ How to Fix “Exec Format Error” on Linux

• The Linux operating system is known for its robustness and flexibility, but even the most seasoned users may encounter the dreaded “exec format error.”

=> ↺ ID Root ☛ How To Install Jenkins on Fedora 38

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Jenkins on Fedora 38. For those of you who didn’t know, In the dynamic landscape of software development, efficiency and automation are paramount.

=> ↺ ID Root ☛ How To Install Fail2Ban on AlmaLinux 9

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Fail2Ban on AlmaLinux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, Fail2Ban, at its core, is a powerful intrusion prevention tool that acts as a vigilant guardian for your server.

=> ↺ University of Toronto ☛ The effects of modest TCP latency (I think) on my experience with some X programs

• As I mentioned recently, I recently had an extended outage on my home Internet. When my Internet came back, it was a little bit different. My old home Internet was DSL with 14 Mbits down, 7 Mbits up, and about 7 milliseconds pings to work. The new state of my home Internet is still DSL from the same provider, but now it’s 50 Mbits down, 4 Mbits up, and about 18 milliseconds pings to work at the moment. When my Internet first came back, I didn’t expect to feel or see any real difference in the experience. It turns out that I was naive.

=> ↺ University of Toronto ☛ How changing a ZFS filesystem’s recordsize affects existing files

• Simplifying slightly, ZFS files (in fact all filesystem objects) are made up of zero or more logical blocks, which are all the same logical size (they may be different physical sizes on disk, for example because of ZFS compression). How big these blocks are is the file’s (current) (logical) block size; all files have a logical block size. Normally there are two cases for the block size; either there is one block and it and the logical block size are growing up toward the filesystem’s recordsize, or there’s more than one logical block and the file’s logical block size is frozen; all additional logical blocks added to the file will use the file’s logical block size, whatever that is.

=> ↺ Dan Langille ☛ Getting the right type of certificate

• This post covers my debugging of a self-signed certificate on one of my Bacula instances.

=> ↺ Emily M Stark ☛ E2EE on the web: isolating plaintext

• With the publication of Messaging Layer Security (MLS) as an RFC, I’ve been pulled into some recent discussion about bringing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to the web. This is a topic that comes up every so often and has weirdly haunted me throughout my career. (I spent my undergrad and graduate research years working on cryptography implementations in Javascript and how to use them in applications.)

• In this post, I’m going to discuss an idea that I’ve seen coming up a lot lately: the idea of isolating plaintext in an E2EE application so that it can’t be accessed by application code. But first, some background on E2EE on the web generally.

=> ↺ OSTechNix ☛ SaveDesktop: An Easy Way to Save Your Linux Desktop Environment Configuration Settings

• Have you ever spent hours customizing your Linux desktop environment, only to accidentally change something and lose all of your hard work? If so, you’re not alone. This is a common problem, but there is a solution. Say hello to SaveDesktop, a graphical application to save your Linux desktop environment configuration settings.

=> ↺ LinuxTechi ☛ How to Install Proxmox VE on Bare Metal Step-by-Step

=> ↺ Ubuntu Handbook ☛ Kdenlive 23.08 is Now Available to Install via Ubuntu PPA

• The popular free open-source Kdenlive video editor released version 23.08.0 more than a week ago. For those who are sticking to the native .deb package format, the official Ubuntu PPA finally updated with the new release package!

=> ↺ Own HowTo ☛ How to Install Nobara Linux 38

• Nobara is a new Linux distro.

• The reason why Nobara looks like Fedora, is that Nobara is actually a customized version of Fedora. If you’ve ever used Fedora, then you may also like Nobara.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Handbook ☛ How to Install Firefox Nightly in Ubuntu 22.04, 23.04 & 23.10

• This simple tutorial shows how to install the latest Firefox Nightly in all current Ubuntu releases! Firefox Nightly is the bleeding edge version of the web browser that updates twice a day. It contains features that are still in developments months or even years before they become mainstream.

=> ↺ Linux Handbook ☛ How to Extract and Create RAR Files in Linux

• Got an RAR file? Learn to extract the rar file in the Linux command line. Also learn to create a RAR file in this quick tutorial.

Games

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Here’s how to get PAYDAY 3 Beta to work on Steam Deck & Linux

• PAYDAY 3 has a technical Beta currently live, as they’re testing out their servers ready for the full release on September 21st. Getting it running on Steam Deck and desktop Linux needs a little fix to work so here’s how.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ 9to5Linux ☛ KDE Frameworks 5.110 Adds Support for the QOI Image Format to All KDE Apps

• While the KDE devs are working hard on the massive KDE Plasma 6 desktop environment series, which has been slated for release in February 2024, KDE Frameworks 5.110 looks like a small update that only adds a few changes like support for the QOI image format in all KDE apps.

• Support for libavif 1.0 has been added as well in this release, which also adds an option to disable the installation of desktop themes, adds support for the XFC v12 image format, and improves the Ask Jeeves search provider.

Distributions and Operating Systems

BSD

=> ↺ Undeadly ☛ p2k23 Hackathon Report: Marc Espie (espie@) on a flurry of packages activity

• You know a good hackathon when you still have things to do at the end !

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Unicorn Media ☛ Fedora Has a Kernel ‘Test Week’ and a Toolbx ‘Test Day’ Coming Up

• Fedora’s Sumantro Mukherjee posted a reminder in Fedora Magazine on Friday about a “test week” that starts on Sunday and a “test day” scheduled for later in the week, that are being conducted by the Red Hat maintained Linux distribution.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Debian ☛ Bits from Debian: DebianDay Celebrations and comments

• Debian Celebrates 30 years!

• We celebrated our birthday this year and we had a great time with new friends, new members welcomed to the community, and the world.

=> ↺ Debian ☛ Bits from Debian: DebConf23 welcomes its sponsors!

• DebConf23, the 24th edition of the Debian conference is taking place in Infopark at Kochi, Kerala, India. Thanks to the hard work of its organizers, it will be, this year as well, an interesting and fruitful event for attendees.

• We would like to warmly welcome the sponsors of DebConf23, and introduce them to you.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Linux Gizmos ☛ Asus’ RK3288-based SBC sells for £99

=> ↺ Linux Gizmos ☛ Orange Pi Unveils Cost-Effective Alternative to RPi Zero 2W

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Andrew Hutchings ☛ Amiga 1200: PiStorming

• Now that my new Amiga 1200 has been restored, and the boot loop repaired, I have been having a play with the PiStorm32-Lite. Things have come along leaps and bounds since this Amiga 1200 board was released, so I wanted to go over setting it up and running it.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers/Web Servers

Chromium

=> ↺ Dedoimedo ☛ Google Chrome & ad privacy feature, the slow death of the Web

• Google decided to forge ahead with this initiative despite protests and recommendations from pretty much everyone else (in this regard Apple and Mozilla, creators of Safari and Firefox). But it has always been the case, and most ideas and improvements that Google suggests are only good for Google really. Now, I am not really affected, for now, as I use Firefox as my primary browser, and with a nice, juicy adblocker like UBlock Origin (UBO), things are quiet and sane. Now, wait until I tell you about Manifest v3, woo-hoo!

• The destruction of the Internet will not stop until it becomes just like the pay-per-view cable TV of the late 80s and early 90s. It would seem it’s the only business model the “management” understands. After all, to have a super-successful mega-corporation, you must follow the rules – and that’s the 1950s shoe-in-the-door salesman, with a side dish of MBA and a touch of Californian sun for good measure, perhaps an inspirational quote or two on your “business social media” profile. But inevitably, this is where we’re going. Service as a service, ads, DRM, everything locked and triple-locked. The Internet began its death around 2013 or so, and it’s transforming into new-age cablenet. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Rlang ☛ Pearson, Spearman and Kendall correlation coefficients by hand

• In statistics, a correlation is used to evaluate the relationship between two variables.

=> ↺ Didier Stevens ☛ Update: zipdump.py Version 0.0.28

• This is an update linked to option -f l to find PKZIP records. When option -E all is used, field externalattributes is parsed now: zipdump_v0_0_28.zip (http)MD5: 288DBCFACB42E6563F417E46BD6081BCSHA256: 4C3AD3A49FCFC1B5A680EAE80CE129A67912BCC03402EC9F46D08F902BC512A1

=> ↺ Daniel Janus ☛ My mental model of transducers

• I’ve been programming in Clojure for a long time, but I haven’t been using transducers much. I learned to mechanically transform (into [] (map f coll)) to (into [] (map f) coll) for a slight performance gain, but not much beyond that. Recently, however, I’ve found myself refactoring transducers-based code at work, which prompted me to get back to speed.

• I found Eero Helenius’ article “Grokking Clojure transducers” a great help in that. To me, it’s much more approachable than the official documentation – in a large part because it shows you how to build transducers from the ground up, and this method of learning profoundly resonates with me. I highly recommend it. However, it’s also useful to have a visual intuition of how transducers work, a mental model that hints at the big picture without zooming into the details too much. In this post, I’d like to share mine and illustrate it with a REPL session. (Spoiler alert: there’s core.async ahead, but in low quantities.)

Leftovers

=> ↺ Ruben Schade ☛ Macroblogging

• But the phrase microblog implies the existence of a macroblog, and that’s what I miss the most. Back when people used to write more than a sentence or two about their day, the flowers they saw, the problems the solved, the people they talked with, the places they travelled.

Education

=> ↺ Alex Ewerlöf ☛ Senior to Staff Engineer

• I work as a Senior Staff Engineer. One of my most important missions is to help grow the next generation of leaders using a variety of tools.

• One such tool is mentorship. Mentorship is a two-way street where I get to learn from the experience and questions of someone who has put their trust in me.

• Below is an interesting Slack conversation I had with a Senior Engineer about the role of Staff Engineer, promotions, and required skills.

=> ↺ Emily M Stark ☛ Complaints about program committees

• After several years of serving on program committees at computer security conferences, I recently decided to take a hiatus. The time commitment became overwhelming, but overall I consider serving on PCs a worthwhile experience and hope to eventually get back in the game after taking a break. If you’re considering donating time to review papers, I’ll mention a few things that I find worthwhile about the experience: [...]

Hardware

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Huawei Phone Is Latest Shot Fired in the U.S.-China Tech War

• The release of a homegrown Chinese smartphone during a visit by the Biden official in charge of regulating such technology shows the U.S.-China tech conflict is alive and well.

=> ↺ Tom’s Hardware ☛ Huawei’s New Mystery 7nm Chip from Chinese Fab Defies US Sanctions

• Huawei’s Kirin 9000S that powers Huawei could pack numerous breakthroughs.

=> ↺ Pete Warden ☛ Why Nvidia’s AI Supremacy is Only Temporary

• Nvidia is an amazing company that has executed a contrarian vision for decades, and has rightly become one of the most valuable corporations on the planet thanks to its central role in the AI revolution. I want to explain why I believe it’s top spot in machine learning is far from secure over the next few years. To do that, I’m going to talk about some of the drivers behind Nvidia’s current dominance, and then how they will change in the future.

=> ↺ [Repeat] The Register UK ☛ Linux on the Arm-based Thinkpad X13S: It’s getting there

• The Lenovo Thinkpad X13S Generation 1 which we reviewed back in March is the first mainstream Arm-powered laptop that the Reg FOSS Desk has got to evaluate. There are other Arm-based laptops out there, such as Pine64′s Pinebook Pro and various Arm-powered ChromeBooks, but the X13S is closer to an ordinary X86-based laptop: it has a decent spec, with 16GB of RAM, a 256GB NVMe SSD – plus PC-industry-standard UEFI firmware, which is still relatively unusual on consumer Arm computers. Better still, you can disable Secure Boot, which many Arm-powered devices don’t allow. A decade ago, this was a critical problem with the original Microsoft Surface RT: Windows RT was a flop, and the firmware wouldn’t let you run anything else.

=> ↺ Matthias Geisler ☛ Linux on ThinkPad X13s Gen 1

• This is to document my ordeal #EmbraceTheSuck journey and work-in-progress of daily driving a Lenovo ThinkPad X13s Gen 1.

=> ↺ Tom’s Hardware ☛ U.S. Government Offers Nvidia A100 Nodes at Half Price

• The U.S. National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center is offering to rent Nvidia A100-based compute GPU nodes of the Perlmutter supercomputer with a 50% discount till the end of September, as noticed by Glenn K. Lockwood, an HPC storage specialist from Microsoft. The offer comes as demand for compute horsepower for AI training is scarce industry-wide. Meanwhile, the proposal is available for NERSC users only.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Shortage of local rice in Malaysia due to diseases and lack of clean water

• This has forced Malaysian consumers to buy the more expensive imported variety.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Tens of thousands gather in Seoul to protest Fukushima discharge

• The mass rally is the second since Japan started releasing nuclear wastewater.

=> ↺ Kev Quirk ☛ Clucking Good Fun 🐔

• My wife has wanted chickens for as long as I can remember, but we’ve never had the space to do it; when we moved here, we said that chickens would most definitely be on the horizon.

• Now they’re here.

=> ↺ NYPost ☛ Florida Surgeon General goes on anti-vaccine rant against new COVID-19 booster

• Florida’s Surgeon General slammed the recent push to receive the latest Covid-19 jab — claiming that the vaccine is littered with “red flags.”

=> ↺ Reason ☛ Federal Government Improperly “Coerced” and “Significantly Encouraged” Certain Speech Restrictions by Social Media Platforms

• In yesterday’s decision in Missouri v. Biden, the Fifth Circuit (Judges Edith Clement, Jennifer Elrod, and Don Willett) held that the federal government violated the First Amendment by causing social media platforms to block posts on various topics (including “the COVID-19 lab-leak theory, pandemic lockdowns, vaccine side-effects, election fraud, and the Hunter Biden laptop story”).…

=> ↺ DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer) ☛ COVID and Vaccine Jingoism. The Politics of a Plague.

• COVID and Vaccine Jingoism. The Politics of a Plague. There was a strange phenomenon during COVID, well, a lot of them.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ As Indian export curbs fuel global food inflation, who are the winners and losers?

• Countries like Singapore are affected in particular amid other global shortfalls caused by the war in Ukraine.

Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

=> ↺ DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer) ☛ Microsoft 365 Office; Azure Platform Went Down for Over 24 Hours.

• Microsoft blamed the outage on an “overheating issue” and lack of staff to deal with it and failed automation, after firing tens of thousands of people this year and being on a hiring freeze in most departments.

• Strangely, LibreOffice users with local office software were unaffected by the Microsoft Clown Office outage.

• IBM Red Hat officials, who just weeks ago said they were deleting LibreOffice because “everyone should use MS Office on the Cloud anyway” were unavailable for comment.

=> ↺ [Repeat] New York Times ☛ I.R.S. Deploys Artificial Intelligence to Catch Tax Evasion

• The Internal Revenue Service has started using artificial intelligence to investigate tax evasion at multibillion-dollar partnerships as it looks for ways to better police hedge funds, private equity groups, real estate investors and large law firms.

• The announcement on Friday was intended to show how a more muscular I.R.S. is using some of the $80 billion allocated through last year’s Inflation Reduction Act to target the wealthiest Americans and tackle the kinds of cases that had become too complex and cumbersome for the beleaguered agency to handle.

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Ransomware fiends pounce on Cisco VPN brute-force zero-day flaw

• The medium-severity flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-20269, exists in the remote access VPN feature of Cisco’s Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) software stacks.

=> ↺ India Times ☛ Artificial intelligence technology behind ChatGPT was built in Iowa, with a lot of water

• As they race to capitalize on a craze for generative AI, leading tech developers including Microsoft, OpenAI and Google have acknowledged that growing demand for their AI tools carries hefty costs, from expensive semiconductors to an increase in water consumption.

Windows TCO

=> ↺ Windows TCO: Silicon Angle ☛ Lessons from a ransomware attack: How one healthcare CIO helped her company recover

• In the early-morning hours of Feb. 25, 2021, Terri Ripley got the call every chief information officer dreads: Her company, OrthoVirginia Inc., had been hit by a massive attack of the Ryuk ransomware that had shut down its entire computing fabric.

• Although it would be 18 months before systems were fully restored, OrthoVirginia never shut down operations or abandoned patients. What it learned during the crisis is a lesson for any organization that might become an attack target [sic]. Today, that’s everyone.

Security

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

=> ↺ Sean Conner ☛ How common is it for people to not know their own email address?

• I’m still receiving all sorts of email from other Sean Conners to my sean.conner@gmail.com address, and I’m seriously wondering how? Do these people not know their email address? Currently: [...]

=> ↺ WhichUK ☛ Don’t get scammed twice: how recovery scammers trick vulnerable victims

• Fraudsters stalk social media offering fake reimbursement services

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirms China visit, as Beijing ready to resume exchanges

• Australia’s prime minister confirmed Thursday he will visit China later this year after talks with China’s premier, who said Beijing was ready to resume bilateral exchanges after years of friction.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Chinese delegation led by non-Politburo-member to visit Pyongyang, state media says

• Sending an official of a lower rank in contrast to five years ago may reveal Beijing’s complex position.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ US senators question defense sharing with Australia

• Australia’s spy chief acknowledged Chinese espionage is rife, committee chair says.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Hong Kong detention center overflowing as thousands serve time for protests

• Prison visitors say they could be targeted by police for helping jailed pro-democracy protesters.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ G20 to meet amid a global turn inward

• Xi won’t be in New Delhi for the summit, but China is not the only country turning away from the world.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Putin Congratulates North Korea’s Kim, Latest Hint Of Deepening Ties

• Russian President Vladimir Putin called for strengthening ties with Pyongyang, as he congratulated North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on the 75th anniversary of North Korea’s founding.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has photo session, but quiet amid talk of Russia visit

• September 10, 2023 1:34 PM

• Mr Kim was expected to travel to the Russian city of Vladivostok to meet President Vladimir Putin.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Shockingly, Kim Jong Un calls South Korea by its official name

• North Koreans say Kim’s use of ‘Republic of Korea’ is a display of respect, but experts see it as mockery.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ South Korea names former North Korean diplomat as aide to unification minister

• Appointment reflects Seoul’s renewed hardline policy towards the North amid rising tensions.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ North Korea says it has launched a new ‘nuclear attack submarine’

• North Korea said Friday it has launched a purported nuclear attack submarine it has been developing for years, a step leader Kim Jong Un described as crucial in his efforts to build a nuclear-armed navy to counter the United States and its Asian allies.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ North Korea warns of underwater nuke attack as new submarine unveiled

• Kim finds it ‘exhilarating’ the new vessel will pose a challenge to the enemy’s invasion fleet: state media.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ North Korea unveils first tactical, nuclear-armed submarine

• Leader Kim Jong Un, who attended the launch ceremony, said arming the navy with nuclear weapons was an urgent task.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ North Korea Says Its New Submarine Can Launch Nuclear Missiles

• South Korea’s military expressed skepticism, saying that the converted Soviet-era submarine “doesn’t look capable of normal operation.”

=> ↺ RFA ☛ North Korea publicly executes 9 people for running beef smuggling ring

• Authorities forced 25,000 residents to gather at the airport to watch them being shot by firing squad.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ South Korea warns the North to stop nukes program or risk regime instability

• Yoon said global community’s resolute to deter Pyongyang must exceed its will to pursue nuclear development.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ North Korea test-fires missiles as part of a simulated ‘nuclear attack’

• North Korea staged a “simulated tactical nuclear attack” drill at the weekend with mock atomic warheads attached to two long-range cruise missiles that were test-fired into the ocean, state-controlled media reported Sunday.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ North Korea says it staged ‘tactical nuclear attack’ drill

• The drill included two long-range cruise missiles carrying mock nuclear warheads.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ North Korea fires several cruise missiles towards sea, says South Korean military

• It was the latest in a series of missile tests and military exercises conducted by the North in recent weeks.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ Red Cross removes 42 dead bodies from Somaliland conflict frontline during latest clashes

• The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported Friday that 42 bodies were retrieved from the Somaliland conflict front line.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ US federal judge sentences Proud Boys members for their roles in January 6, 2021 Capitol riot

• A Washington DC judge sentenced on Friday multiple members of a far-right nationalist group known as the Proud Boys for their role in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. Former leader of the Proud Boys Ethan Nordean received an 18 year prison sentence, and member Dominic Pezzola received a ten year prison sentence.

Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Six out of 178 Leopard 1 tanks pledged to Ukraine by European countries had to come out of Danish museum collections — Meduza

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Increased military activity near Zaporizhzhia NPP raises concern over nuclear safety at the site — Meduza

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Trapped in the trenches Russia appears to be covertly recruiting Cuban men for the war with Ukraine. Like the two teens in this story, many of them cannot read their contracts. — Meduza

=> ↺ France24 ☛ 🔴 Live: Russia launches drone attack over Kyiv region, say Ukrainian authorities

• Russia launched an air attack on Kyiv early on Sunday, with blasts ringing out across the Ukrainian capital and its region for almost two hours and drone debris falling on several of the city’s central districts.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ G20 leaders paper over serious divisions on Ukraine and climate change

• G20 leaders papered over deep divisions on the war in Ukraine and tackling climate change Saturday, avoiding direct criticism of Moscow and any concrete pledge to phase out polluting fossil fuels.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Ukraine Says Russian Drone Strike On Kyiv Mostly Shot Down

• Russian forces launched an air strike on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, with dozens of Iranian-made Shahed drones early on September 10, wounding one person and causing a fire near a city park, Ukrainian authorities said.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Russia says G20 declaration ‘balanced’ as summit moves to final day

• Russia praised a G20 summit declaration that stopped short of directly criticising Moscow for the war in Ukraine and said the bloc’s leaders had acted in the interest of conflict resolution as deliberations headed into a second day on Sunday.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Discussions on G-20 leaders’ declaration went on till last minute, says EU official

• G-20 adopted a consensus declaration that avoided condemning Russia for the war in Ukraine.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Divided G20 Statement Angers Kyiv As New Drone Fragments Found In Romania

• The final declaration of the Group of 20 (G20) major economies in India left Kyiv angry over its refusal to condemn Moscow for its aggression against Ukraine, even as casualties mounted from Russian missile attacks.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ In a surprise move, G-20 leaders release declaration amid Ukraine differences

• Analysts said the show of unity is crucial as some countries slip into recession and developing nations face high debt.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ G20 Declaration Omits Criticism of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

• American officials defended the agreement, saying it built on the statement released last year and that the United States was still pressing for peace in Ukraine.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Russian Torture of Ukrainians Amounts to State Policy, Expert Says

• The U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture said Moscow’s refusal to address the issue represented tacit approval of its use. Russia has denied it practices torture.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ In Ukraine, a U.S. Arms Dealer Is Making a Fortune and Testing Limits

• Billions are pouring into a clubby, secretive arms market. With Pentagon cash and unusually close Ukrainian military ties, Marc Morales has few peers.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Takeaways From a New Elon Musk Biography: Ukraine, Trump and More

• The biography, by Walter Isaacson, portrays Mr. Musk as a complex, tortured figure.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Romania Finds New Possible Fragments Of Russian Drone On Its Territory

• New fragments of a drone similar to those used by the Russian military were found on Romanian soil, the Defense Ministry said on September 9, and President Klaus Iohannis said this indicated an unacceptable breach of Romania’s airspace had occurred.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Karabakh Separatist Leaders Say Deal Reached With Azerbaijan On Transport Corridors

• Armenian-backed separatist leaders in Nagorno-Karabakh have said Azerbaijani authorities agreed to allow aid deliveries to the breakaway region through the Lachin Corridor from Armenian territory in an operation to be controlled by Russian peacekeeping troops and the Red Cross.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Myanmar receives first shipment of Russia’s Su-30 fighter jets: Russian state news agency

• September 10, 2023 12:31 PM

• The 2 sides signed a contract in September 2022 for the delivery of six Su-30SME fighter jets.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Vietnam in Secret Talks to Buy Arms From Russia

• Defying U.S. sanctions, a Vietnamese government document lays out a plan to buy Russian weapons, which officials see as a way to upgrade its military as a hedge against China.

=> ↺ LRT ☛ Lithuania offers alternatives to Belarusians as Minsk stops issuing passports abroad

• As the Belarusian government stopped issuing passports in diplomatic representations, Lithuania is offering a “foreigner’s passport” to Belarusian émigrés, while the opposition is planning to have the EU recognise its own alternative documents. Not all are convinced.

Environment

=> ↺ Omicron Limited ☛ Whales stop singing and rock lobsters lose their balance: How seismic surveys can harm marine life

• As marine biologists with research expertise in this field, here we give a roundup of the latest evidence on the effects of seismic surveys. It shows there are many potential harms to marine life, and many unanswered questions.

=> ↺ Science Alert ☛ Even Dimming The Sun Wouldn’t Save Antarctica’s Ice Now, Scientists Say

• There’s only one thing left that could, and it’s the very same thing we’ve been failing to do for 40 years now: stop burning fossil fuels.

=> ↺ Vox ☛ The world’s brutal climate change report card, explained

• “The Paris Agreement has driven near-universal climate action,” the report notes, but “much more is needed now on all fronts.”

• The task ahead is immense: According to the report, global emissions need to be slashed 43 percent by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, one of the main goalposts of the Paris agreement. But the world has already warmed about 1.2 degrees so far above preindustrial averages and is on track to pass the key threshold in the next few years. So when negotiators reconvene at the next climate summit, the stocktake will shape the discussion.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ UN Puts Out ‘Truly Damning Report Card’ for Climate Action Before Global Summits

• “This report is a wake-up call to the injustice of the climate crisis and a pivotal opportunity to correct course,” Dasgupta continued. “We already knew the world is failing to meet its climate goals, but leaders now have a concrete blueprint underpinned by a mountain of evidence for how to get the job done.”

• “There are a few bright spots worth celebrating,” he noted. “But overall, the report finds there are more gaps than progress—gaps that can only be erased by transformational change across systems like energy, food, land, and transport. The future of our planet depends on whether national leaders use this stark assessment as a catalyst for bold systems transformation.”

• “This report makes clear that President Biden is squandering precious time every second he fails to take bold action on fossil fuels.”

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ Reaction: U.N. stocktake report warns world off-track to cut emissions

• “This report makes clear that President Biden is squandering precious time every second he fails to take bold action on fossil fuels,” said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Every day we’re seeing and feeling the harms of fossil-fueled climate change from extreme heat to deadly wildfires and devastating floods. As leader of the world’s largest oil and gas producer, Biden has more power than anyone to stop expanding the fossil fuels driving this deadly crisis. Ahead of the U.N.’s Climate Ambition Summit, thousands of people will be in the streets of New York on September 17 for the March to End Fossil Fuels. This is the perfect opportunity for Biden to declare a climate emergency, use all his executive powers to phase out fossil fuels, and finally secure a legacy as a climate leader.”

=> ↺ Futurism ☛ People Are “Fishing” by Just Throwing Dynamite in the Water

• While there are short-term benefits for blast fishers — including that the yield can be up to 2,200 pounds of fish in a single go, versus the 50 or 60 one gets from traditional methods — its long-term implications are numerous. Blast fishing not only destroys marine flora, as the report explains, it can also affect the generation of fish, leading to shortages that are affecting the livelihoods of fishers in Salpayaru and other areas that mainly rely on fishing.

• “An entire generation [of fishers] will be destitute [because of blast fishing],” Perera said.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ ‘Extremes will become normal’: Hong Kong needs better disaster awareness, ex-Observatory chief says after record rainfall

• An hourly rainfall of 158.1 millimetres was recorded in the hour after the Black rain warning was hoisted, the highest since records began in 1884. It was 12.6 mm more than the 145.5 mm in 2008, the previous record.

• “The flood reminds us that climate change is really here,” Lam, who led the Hong Kong Observatory between 2003 and 2009, said in a Cantonese phone interview with HKFP.

=> ↺ Axios ☛ Scorching heat wave pushes U.S. Open players to the brink

• Why it matters: New York’s late-summer heat wave can get dangerous fast when you’re chasing serves above 130 mph for hours in the sun.

=> ↺ Modern Diplomacy ☛ Window to reach climate goals ‘rapidly closing’

• The world is not on track to meet the long-term goals set out in the Paris Agreement for limiting global temperature rise, a major UN report warned on Friday, calling for a commitment to decisive action.Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which issued the report, called for “greater ambition and accelerating action”.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Storms Cause Major Flooding in Hong Kong and Nearby Cities

• Rainstorms caused by remnants of Typhoon Haikui, which had been churning along the Chinese coast, submerged roads and homes, and set rainfall records.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong sweats through hottest summer since records began in 1884

• Hong Kong has just recorded its warmest August ever, the city’s Observatory has said, adding that this summer was also the hottest since records began in 1884. The Hong Kong Observatory recorded an average temperature of 29.7 degrees Celsius in August, which is 1 degree above normal levels, according to a statement released on Monday.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Court suspends government order to disband climate group for sabotage

• France’s top administrative court suspended the dissolution of climate activist group Les Soulevements de la Terre (SLT) on Friday, saying that it was not clear that the group had provoked violence.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ How to Make Sure Federal Climate Money Helps Everyone

• The Biden administration is spending billions to transform how Americans use and consume energy. How can we make that process more equitable?

=> ↺ France24 ☛ French court suspends dissolution of climate activist group shut down by government

• France’s top administrative court suspended the dissolution of climate activist group Les Soulevements de la Terre (SLT) on Friday, saying that it was not clear that the group had provoked violence.

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ China Is Flooding the World With Car Exports

• Even as China’s other exports falter, its carmakers are seeing big increases in overseas sales, mainly for gasoline-powered models.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Australia to consider extending life of largest coal power plant

• A government-commissioned report had made the case for extending the plant’s life.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ G-20 per capita coal emissions growing: Research

• The group, whose leaders meet in New Delhi this weekend, accounts for 80% of global power sector emissions.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Bolt Latvia continues monitoring reckless scooter drivers

• Two months ago, the Bolt ride-sharing platform introduced a system allowing for monitoring of electric scooter drivers. Around two thousand drivers received warnings at this time, while around 150 people were temporarily banned from driving the scooter, Latvian Television reported on August 25.

=> ↺ BW Businessworld Media Pvt Ltd ☛ EU To Invest 4 bn Euros In Renewable Energy, Hydrogen In Developing Economies In Next 5 Years: European Commission President

• She further said, “We need to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency until 2030 if we are to reach our goal of limiting temperature increases to 1.5 degrees. Only what gets measured gets done, we know that principle.”

• She then called to anchor a global goal at COP28 for renewable energies that have to be reached by 2030 and energy efficiency by 2030. Global goals will provide a benchmark against which to track progress and a strong signal of predictability to the private sector.

=> ↺ Interesting Engineering ☛ This 2-liter car engine can run entirely on hydrogen

• The powertrain developed by researchers at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) and the Zero-Carbon Engine Research Lab of Hyundai-Kia Motor Company (HMC) is a 2-liter direct injection hydrogen engine that runs entirely on hydrogen fuel.

=> ↺ Positech Games ☛ Solar farm mini-update: Waiting for rego

• What causes mayhem is that the earthing has to be approved by the DNO (who will have their own substation), but they only design ‘their bit’ and then we have to use external consultants to design our bit, and then both sides have to agree that the other sides design doesn’t interfere with them, and then you can proceed. This involves at least 5 companies (mine, the HV consultant, the farm developer, the DNO and the earthing specialist), and everyone seems to take it in turns to have summer holidays, which has stretched things out enormously

=> ↺ Dirk Eddelbuettel ☛ Carmageddon by Daniel Knowles: A Brief Review

• Daniel Knowles’ Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse and What to Do About It is an entertaining, lucid, and well-written “manifesto” (to borrow a term from the author) aiming to get us all thinking a bit more about what cars do to society, and how to move on to a better outcome for all.

• The book alternates between historical context and background, lived experience (as the author is a foreign correspondent who had the opportunity to travel), and researched content. It is refreshingly free of formalities (no endless footnotes or endnotes with references, though I would have liked occassional references but hey we all went to school long enough to do a bit of research given a pointer or two). I learned or relearned a few things as I was for example somewhat unaware of the air pollution (micro-particle) impact stemming from tires and brake abrasions—for which electronic vehicles do zilch, and for which the auto-obesity of ever larger and heavier cars is making things much worse. And some terms (even when re-used by Knowles) are clever such bionic duckweed. But now you need to read the book to catch up on it.

=> ↺ NDTV ☛ Global Biofuels Alliance Announced By PM Modi At G20 Summit: 10 Facts

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched the Global Biofuels Alliance (GBA) on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in New Delhi and said that it marks a “watershed moment” in the quest towards sustainability and clean energy.

Finance

=> ↺ Press Gazette ☛ NationalWorld.com staff say morale at ‘rock bottom’ in letter to HR

• Rounds of compulsory and voluntary redundancies have hit the national news site in recent months.

=> ↺ Cost of living in İstanbul rises 80,6 percent in a year

• According to a study by the Istanbul Planning Agency, the cost of living in Istanbul has increased by 80.59% compared to August of the previous year, reaching 42,593 lira per month for a family of four.

=> ↺ NYPost ☛ Homeless destroy motel in Wyoming city, leave about 500 pounds in feces on streets: mayor

• Meanwhile, city staff has been forced to scoop up about 500 pounds of human feces in Casper’s downtown, where many homeless people loiter, the news outlet reported.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ French-Israeli Business Tycoon Steinmetz Detained In Cyprus On Romanian Warrant

• French-Israeli business magnate Beny Steinmetz, who faces a five-year prison term in Romania, has been arrested in Cyprus on a European warrant issued by Bucharest, his spokesman said on September 3.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Australian PM to visit China soon as both sides hail progress

• Australia’s values will not always align with China’s, “but we understand dialogue is absolutely critical”, said Mr Albanese.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ China, Australia hold first high-level dialogue in three years in Beijing

• Diplomatic exchanges have been ramping up between the two countries recently.

=> ↺ teleSUR ☛ The 26th ASEAN-China Summit is Held in Jakarta

• The summit was attended by the leaders of countries such as Indonesia, Lao, Brunei, Cambodia, Malaysian, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, and Timor-Leste.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ China Premier Li met Vietnam PM at ASEAN summit – Chinese foreign ministry

• China’s Premier Li Qiang met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Indonesia, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Thursday.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ China says 90 countries have confirmed attendance for Belt and Road Initiative conference

• The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) will be held in Beijing in October.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ China says willing to work with Italy to improve trade, investment

• The commerce ministry’s comment follows a recent visit by Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani to Beijing.

=> ↺ University of Michigan ☛ U-M students bridge cultures, empower communities around world

• From China to Mongolia, and from France to South Africa, U-M students embarked on expeditions that defied borders and redefined cultural connections this summer.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Philippines says ‘ready’ to chair Asean in 2026 instead of Myanmar

• A diplomat said Asean wrote to the Philippines to ask if it was willing to accept the chair for 2026, and Manila accepted.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Naomi Klein, Naomi Wolf and the Political Upside Down

• “Doppelganger” is a brilliant examination of a berserk political moment.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Vanuatu parliament to elect new prime minister after court appeal dismissed

• Vanuatu’s parliament will elect a new prime minister after the Pacific Island nation’s court on Monday dismissed an appeal against a decision that would remove Ishmael Kalsakau from the role.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ More than half of Australians oppose Indigenous panel in Constitution, poll shows

• The Labor govt is struggling to lift support for the landmark proposal ahead of a vote in 6 weeks.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Asean leaders to meet in Jakarta for regional summit, amid tensions over new Chinese map

• The meeting will focus on developing and strengthening Asean cooperation with external partners.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ As Delhi spruces up for G-20 summit, its urban poor take a hit

• Thousands of street vendors and slum dwellers have been evicted from different parts of Delhi since July.

=> ↺ YLE ☛ More than 10,000 gather in Helsinki to protest racism, government

• A large-scale anti-racism demonstration took place in central Helsinki on Sunday afternoon.

=> ↺ The Atlantic ☛ Elon Musk’s Latest Target Hits Back

• I’m pretty familiar with the ADL. Like many reporters and subject-matter experts on anti-Semitism, I’ve spoken at some of the organization’s events. I haven’t always agreed with its approach, whether on social-media moderation or Israel. But though the ADL doesn’t get everything right, it has a better batting average than most organizations in this difficult space. In any case, as I wrote earlier this week, none of what is happening to the group today has much to do with the specific policies it advocates, whatever their merits. Rather, the ADL is being scapegoated on Twitter for the platform’s own failings, and attacked as a stand-in for supposed Jewish power.

=> ↺ FAIR ☛ In AI Regulation Coverage, Media Let Lawmakers off the Hook

• The guests of the “listening session,” per the Times, will include Twitter.com‘s Elon Musk, Google’s Sundar Pichai, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella. Might the fact that each of them has fought tech-industry constraints have some bearing on the future? Reading the Times story, which didn’t deem this worth a mention, one wouldn’t know.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ The Strategist ☛ Examining Australia’s bid to curb online disinformation

• Hardly a day had passed after the government unveiled its initial draft of the Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2023 when critics descended upon it. ‘Hey Peasants, Your Opinions Hell, your facts Are Fake News’, …

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ A Decade Ago, Jeff Bezos Bought a Newspaper. Now He’s Paying Attention to It Again.

• The Amazon founder, who purchased The Washington Post for $250 million in 2013, has taken a more active role in the paper’s operations this year.

=> ↺ The Gray Zone ☛ BBC ‘disinformation’ correspondent busted spreading disinfo on her own bio

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Rakuten CEO touts Viber’s ability to counter Russian ‘fake news’ during Kyiv visit

• Hiroshi Mikitani, the founder and chief executive of Rakuten Group (4755.T), on Saturday touted the ability of his company’s Viber messaging platform to counter Russian propaganda.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Press Gazette ☛ If the big corporate publishers disappeared so would much local news investment

• Staying relevant to readers, not ownership, is the biggest issue for local news media.

=> ↺ Press Gazette ☛ Memoir sheds light on lost golden age of local news and democratic accountability

• Journalist Nigel Heath, aged 76, has just published his memoirs of years spent on a local weekly and then a city evening newspaper, before he launched a news-led PR company.

• But he did not realise he would also be shining a light on a golden age of journalism that has quietly faded away into the past, its disappearance almost unnoticed by the general public, who are the poorer for its loss.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Reporter Elena Milashina cancels plans to travel to Chechnya, rebukes Russian human rights NGO for revealing her intent to go to Grozny — Meduza

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Korean police nab man disguised as blonde woman in bathhouse

• He had been filming the inside of the bathhouse.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Fiji to deport members of South Korean ‘cult’

• The cult’s founder Shin Ok-ju persuaded hundreds of followers in 2014 to start a new life in Fiji.

=> ↺ The Strategist ☛ Vulnerable young men, masculinity and extremism

• Elements of society continue to apply subtle and not-so-subtle pressure on boys to be ‘real men’, which can have negative impacts on their development and on social cohesion.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Kyrgyz Opposition Party To Contest Leader’s Detention

• Kyrgyzstan’s leading opposition party said authorities were trying to destroy it and vowed to fight the detention of its leader, who is accused of treason.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ Tunisia authorities place opposition leader under house arrest

• Tunisian authorities placed Abdel Karim Harouni, the head of Ennahda party’s advisory council and a senior opposition figure, under house arrest on Saturday, according to a statement from the National Salvation Front, Tunisia’s main opposition coalition.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ Hong Kong singer given 26-month sentence for sedition and money laundering

• Hong Kong District Court judge Ernest Lin Kam-hung handed down a judgment Thursday sentencing Tommy Yuen, a former Cantopop boy band member, to 26 months of imprisonment.

=> ↺ Vice Media Group ☛ ‘It Feels Horrible’: Amazon Workers Delivered Packages During Destructive Tropical Storm

• “It was tough being on the road,” said one driver who delivered in California the day it experienced flooding and record rainfall.

=> ↺ Quartz ☛ Amazon was accused of calling the police on employees in the latest union-busting case

• Amazon was accused of violating federal law multiple times to obstruct unionization efforts at a warehouse near Albany, New York, last year, according to a new complaint filed by a regional director at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), first reported by Bloomberg.

=> ↺ EDRI ☛ CSA Regulation Document Pool

• This document pool contains updates and resources on the EU’s proposed ‘Regulation laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse’ (CSA Regulation)

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Those Double-Parked Amazon Trucks Are More Than Just an Annoyance

• Double-parked delivery trucks raise a political question about the use of our roadways.

=> ↺ WhichUK ☛ Scamwatch: ‘An Amazon delivery driver tricked me and stole my new phone’

• We help a reader who fell victim to a one-time password scam

=> ↺ Reason ☛ Ron DeSantis Bullies Bud Light Like Elizabeth Warren Bullies Amazon

• DeSantis talks a lot about freedom but increasingly only applies it to those who agree with him.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ The Atlantic ☛ Streaming Has Reached Its Sad, Predictable Fate

• What should I watch? is now a much easier question than How do I watch it?

Monopolies

Patents

=> ↺ Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ EPO Propaganda Master Class – or: How to Justify Higher Fees for Lower Quality Work

• It will be nothing new for regular readers of this blog that I and many others have long been advocating for more well-qualified examiners at the EPO, e.g. here. Obviously, these examiners also need to be given adequate time to scrutinize the ever-increasing number of new patent applications per year thoroughly.

Copyrights

=> ↺ iFixit ☛ What’s Inside That McDonald’s Ice Cream Machine? Broken Copyright Law

• We’d love to be able to make a tool to read the error codes and help franchise owners troubleshoot their machines. But copyright law says “no.”

• For those of you who aren’t copyright law buffs: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has a section (1201) that makes it illegal to bypass software locks on devices, even to repair them. This might have made sense when it was all about CD piracy back in the day, but fast-forward to today, and it’s a straight-up brain freeze.

=> ↺ India Times ☛ Amazon to require some authors to disclose the use of AI material

• The Authors Guild praised the new regulations, which were posted Wednesday, as a “welcome first step” toward deterring the proliferation of computer-generated books on the online retailer’s site. Many writers feared computer-generated books could crowd out traditional works and would be unfair to consumers who didn’t know they were buying AI content.

=> ↺ Torrent Freak ☛ WordPress Rejects 86% of All DMCA Takedown Notices

• WordPress has published its latest transparency report which shows that it only takes action for a small fraction of the piracy takedown notices it receives. A whopping 86% don’t result in any removals. This high rejection rate is mostly the result of “careless” incomplete notices sent by takedown companies, the report notes.

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