Chinese company Tencent enlisting U.S. cloud hosting provider Vultr to enforce censorship well beyond the borders of China
cross-posted from: lemmy.sdf.org/post/46930338
Archived
- Tencent, China’s largest publicly traded company, operates WeChat, a chat and social media platform with 1.3 billion users in China. As all Chinese services and companies in the country's domestic markets, Tencent's WeChat is subject to Beijing's censorship.
- To Combat this censorship, the NGO "GreatFire" has been running a project called FeeWeChat. GreatFire constantly monitors WeChat for posts that contain certain “sensitive” keywords and archives them. If the archived posts later are removed on the WeChat site by Chinese censors, they mark them accordingly as 'censored.'
- FreeWeChat has documented over 45 million posts since 2015, with more than 700,000 later censored, providing insights how China's censorship machine works.
- GreatFire has been using U.S.-based cloud hosting company Vultr for its work. Now Tencent, through its intermediary Group IB, accused FreeWeChat of trademark infringement and of promoting banned content, despite the project’s role in exposing censorship practices.
- After months of silence and failed negotiations, Vultr formally terminated FreeWeChat’s hosting in November 2025, ignoring arguments from the GreatFire NGO and letters of support from human rights groups.
[...]
GreatFire.org - We use AI to Monitor Censorship and Expand Free Speech
Fighting censorship with technology since 2011. We use AI to monitor censorship and expand free speech worldwide.GreatFire.org
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China funnelled $80 billion into overseas cleantech in past year, report says
Research from the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University found that 75% of China's low-carbon foreign direct investment is in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.Southeast Asia remained the top destination for Chinese cleantech manufacturing investments, the CEF report found
The Middle East and North Africa were the fastest-growing investment destinations, driven by national strategies for diversifying away from oil.
Germany's in the crosshairs of Russian operations – and Moscow shows no hesitation to kill
cross-posted from: mander.xyz/post/43244142
A new joint assessment by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) aims to dispel any remaining scepticism among those who still fail to recognise the threat from Russia.The document [is] not yet public ... The weekly newspaper Spiegel obtained a draft and outlined its main findings [links to article in German]. The 30‑page analysis details cases of disinformation, espionage, sabotage, subversion and political influence operations in Germany.
The study covers the period from July 2024 to June 2025, also examining the consequences of earlier incidents. In just the first six months of 2025, 143 suspected acts of sabotage were recorded – an upward trend.
...
“The central conclusion: Germany is at the heart of hybrid threats. They emanate not only from Russia, but above all from Russia,” Spiegel writes. The aim of hybrid operations is to foster a sense of insecurity and destabilise the state. The analysis suggests that various incidents that have shaken Germany form a chain of hybrid attacks either orchestrated or exploited by Russia.
A recent public hearing with all three German intelligence agencies likewise concluded that Russia is the primary actor behind sabotage and subversive activity in the country.
...
Another key finding: in planning acts of sabotage, Russia shows no hesitation in taking lives. One example concerns an attack in the logistics sector with links to Lithuania.
In July 2024, incendiary devices were sent by DHL aircraft from Lithuania to the UK and Germany. A major disaster was narrowly avoided: the parcels did not make it onto the intended aircraft because it was delayed. The devices ignited in DHL’s Leipzig warehouse instead.
Investigators believe so‑called single‑use agents – individuals recruited via channels such as Telegram and given limited information – were used in Lithuania and other countries to carry out such operations.
Low‑level agents, often drawn from the criminal underworld, are suspected in other cases too – including a 2024 attempt to cast a shadow over then Vice‑Chancellor Robert Habeck and his Green Party. Hundreds of exhaust pipes were clogged with expanding foam, and cars were plastered with stickers featuring Mr Habeck’s image. These actions are seen as an attempt to influence the Bundestag election campaign.
...
The report also identifies tools of political influence, such as the pro‑Russian platform Voice of Europe, through which pro‑Kremlin members of the European Parliament were allegedly financed. AfD MEP Petr Bystron is among those investigated over suspected payments from the portal.
Security agencies also point to the instrumentalisation of violent attacks on German society for propaganda purposes. After the fatal attack at Magdeburg’s Christmas market last December, Russian channels used the incident to discredit the German government and praise the AfD as a “positive alternative”, fuelling social tension and seeking to shift Germany’s political course.
...
Germany's in the crosshairs of Russian operations – and Moscow shows no hesitation to kill
Germany has spent recent days showcasing its new defence capabilities – unveiling a system capable of intercepting ballistic missiles and preparing to open a centre dedicated to countering drone threats.Vytenė Banser, LRT.lt (lrt.lt)
How the US freight rail industry got dirtier than coal power plants
U.S. freight railroads are a major source of pollution, chuffing out more nitrogen oxide, the primary component of smog, than all the nation’s coal-fired power plants combined, according to a Reuters calculation using government data.
"Key target of Beijing’s influence:" Berlin should strengthen its laws and enhance coordination among authorities to combat China’s repression on German soil, study warns
cross-posted from: mander.xyz/post/43242104
You can download the study here: No sense of safety under heaven...
Beyond individual intimidation, the study highlights how these pro-China diaspora networks try to influence local politics. Community groups and lobbyists aligned with Beijing work to shape debates in foreign parliaments, cultivate alliances and strengthen what the author, Ray Wong, calls a “repressive nationalist diaspora.” Such efforts, the study warns, do more than target individuals: they erode basic rights and shift political environments in ways favorable to China’s foreign policy objectives.
...
Current [German] legislation does not yet clearly address harassment, coercion or intimidation carried out by non-state actors acting on behalf of a foreign government. As a result, some dissidents living in Germany - including Uyghur, Tibetan, Hong Kong and mainland Chinese activists - may face gaps in protection. Enhancing the legal framework, the study suggests, would help ensure that all individuals on German soil can fully rely on the country’s commitment to safeguarding fundamental rights.
...
The study acknowledges Germany’s strong emphasis on victim protection and crisis response, but notes that these efforts could be further strengthened through more robust preventive measures. Enhancing legal tools to address foreign-directed surveillance and harassment, it suggests, would help ensure that critics are better protected and that authorities are fully equipped to respond effectively.
...
The author also calls for a central coordinating authority to link intelligence services, law enforcement, foreign policy units and victim support agencies. Such coordination, the study suggests, would enable Germany to respond even more effectively to emerging challenges and align more closely with other democracies that are enhancing their approaches to foreign interference.
Ultimately the study serves as a stark reminder: the battleground over fundamental rights is no longer limited by geography. Taking proactive steps, it suggests, would not only strengthen Germany’s national security but also reinforce the country’s longstanding commitment to human rights and democracy at home.
PUBLICATION: China’s Repression on German Soil, Transnational Repression
China’s efforts to silence critics far beyond its borders have become a feature of its global reach. A new study commissioned by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom warns that Germany - home to one of Europe’s largest Chinese diaspora commun…Friedrich Naumann Foundation
Body parts of baby found in freezer at Tokyo adult entertainment business
Body parts of baby found in freezer at Tokyo adult entertainment business
An employee of the business found the baby's head when he was cleaning a refrigerator in an office. Read more at straitstimes.com.ST
Water leak in the Louvre damages hundreds of works, museum says
Open valve in heating system affects 300 to 400 items just weeks after a brazen jewel theft raised security concerns
A water leak in late November damaged several hundred works in the Louvre’s Egyptian department, the Paris museum said on Sunday, weeks after a brazen jewel theft raised concerns over its infrastructure.
“Between 300 and 400 works” were affected by the leak discovered on 26 November, the museum’s deputy administrator, Francis Steinbock, said, describing them as “Egyptology journals” and “scientific documentation” used by researchers.
The damaged items dated from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and were “extremely useful” but “by no means unique”, Steinbock added.
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These weren't really attracts. These were journals kept by archeologists much more recently.
And quite honestly, the artifacts would be in better hands with the people from whom they were stolen.
Does the Louvre actively refuse all attempts to retrieve original works and tell the requestors the fuck off the way the British Museum does?
From my understanding that's more of a British-specific problem, not most museums in general.
China is buying Russian sanctioned military hardware to prepare for a Taiwan invasion, leaked documents show
cross-posted from: mander.xyz/post/43239009
Web archive linkHere are the documents (in Russian).
- After Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine, China decided to purchase Russian aircraft, combat vehicles, ammunition, and equipment to enhance its paratroopers.
- Chinese officers and representatives of defense manufacturers have repeatedly visited Russia to inspect examples of weaponry and negotiate deals.
- In 2023 and 2024, Beijing entered into several confidential contracts with Moscow to acquire Russian armaments, with the funds intended for Russian arms manufacturers being subject to international sanctions.
- The known deadline for implementing some of the contracts is 2027.
- The Kyiv Independent has identified several dozen Chinese military personnel and employees of arms manufacturers who continued to cooperate with the Russian arms industry, thereby violating international sanctions.
...
A little over a month after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian government received a request from China, according to leaked correspondence reviewed by the Kyiv Independent.
In it, Beijing asked to buy a set of weapons and armored vehicles for airborne troops. The request, numbered ZH2022-Y53, was received on April 7, 2022, the documents show.
Three weeks later, according to the documents, Russia's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation instructed Rosoboronexport, the state-owned company responsible for all arms exports from Russia, to demonstrate Russian air-droppable combat vehicles to a Chinese delegation.
...
The agreements are set to provide sanctioned Russian arms manufacturers with revenue from the export of their weaponry to China. In return, China will receive weaponry and equipment for its airborne forces, the PLAAF Airborne Corps, which have been strengthening amid expectations of an attack on Taiwan.
...
A key element of the cooperation is the steady flow of Chinese officers and defense industry officials who have been traveling to Russia since 2023 for closed-door talks. By piecing together leaked Russian documents with photos and travel data, the Kyiv Independent was able to identify many of these previously anonymous visitors by name and rank.
Chinese Major General Fan Jianjun was photographed during his visit to the annual Russian arms forum in the Moscow suburbs in August 2023. He was pictured showing then-Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu models of Chinese weaponry.
Fan Jianjun represented China's highest military authority, the Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of China (PRC). In 2023, he led the Bureau of Military Equipment and Technical Cooperation within the Equipment Development Department of the PRC Central Military Commission.
The Bureau's procurement division purchases imported weapons and equipment for China, including from Russia.
None of the Russian media that covered the event mentioned who was in the photo next to Shoigu.
...
Investigation: Secret visits to Moscow by China’s military expose deep defense cooperation, military procurement deals
Key findings: * After Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine, China decided to purchase Russian aircraft, combat vehicles, ammunition, and equipment to enhance its paratroopers.Alisa Yurchenko (The Kyiv Independent)
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- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
A Journalist Reported From Palestine. YouTube Deleted His Account Claiming He’s an Iranian Agent.
IN FEBRUARY 2024, without warning, YouTube deleted the account of independent British journalist Robert Inlakesh.
His YouTube page featured dozens of videos, including numerous livestreams documenting Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank. In a decade covering Palestine and Israel, he had captured video of Israeli authorities demolishing Palestinian homes, police harassing Palestinian drivers, and Israeli soldiers shooting at Palestinian civilians and journalists during protests in front of illegal Israeli settlements. In an instant, all of that footage was gone.
In July, YouTube deleted Inlakesh’s private backup account. And in August, Google, YouTube’s parent company, deleted his Google account, including his Gmail and his archive of documents and writings.
The tech giant initially claimed Inlakesh’s account violated YouTube’s community guidelines. Months later, the company justified his account termination by alleging his page contained spam or scam content.
However, when The Intercept inquired further about Inlakesh’s case, nearly two years after his account was deleted, YouTube provided a separate and wholly different explanation for the termination: a connection to an Iranian influence campaign.
A Journalist Reported From Palestine. YouTube Deleted His Account Claiming He’s an Iranian Agent.
YouTube offered conflicting explanations for deleting the account of Robert Inlakesh, who covered Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.Jonah Valdez (The Intercept)
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"independent British journalist Robert Inlakesh"
I guess they can just decide that anyone they don't like is Iranian and remove them.
I think the youtube removal is a load of crap, dont get me wrong...
... But yes, the british part means nothing. You can have russian spies act like american journalists too. Welcome to international espionage and infiltrations. Stuff like that has happened since the middle ages :')
Israeli surveillance targets US and allies at joint base planning Gaza aid and security, say sources
Israeli operatives are conducting widespread surveillance of US forces and allies stationed at a new US base in the country’s south, according to sources briefed on disputes about open and covert recordings of meetings and discussions.
The scale of intelligence gathering at the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) prompted the US commander of the base, Lt Gen Patrick Frank, to summon an Israeli counterpart for a meeting to tell him that “recording has to stop here”.
Staff and visitors from other countries have also raised concerns about Israel recording inside the CMCC. Some have been told to avoid sharing sensitive information because of the risk it could be collected and exploited.
"The IDF documents and summarises meetings in which it is present through protocols, as any professional organisation of this nature does in a transparent and agreed upon manner,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
“The claim that the IDF is gathering intelligence on its partners in meetings which the IDF is an active participant is absurd.”
Israeli surveillance targets US and allies at joint base planning Gaza aid and security, say sources
Concerns over recording of meetings at coordination centre excluding Palestinians that was set up to provide support for Trump’s Gaza planEmma Graham-Harrison (The Guardian)
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Israel is going out of its way to make people say, "maybe Hitler was on to something."
It's deplorable shit they are doing.
You know a state is fucked up if its alienating the biggest and most powerful terrorist state in the world
Was just browsing reddit and the amount of israeli simping is insane.. just the sheer amount of money they have to spend on propaganda campaigns…. dismantle the terrorist dystopian state and the ideology its based on, one palestinian state with equal rights for all
The hidden Kenyan workers training China’s AI models
- Chinese AI companies are quietly tapping into Kenya’s young workforce, hiring students and recent graduates to label thousands of videos a day.
- The work is done through opaque networks of middlemen and WhatsApp groups that operate like digital factory floors.
- Kenya’s weak labor protections and soaring youth unemployment have made it a hot spot for cheap AI labor, prompting officials and unions to warn of a new form of digital colonialism as the government rushes to draft regulations.
Chinese tech companies hire Kenyan workers for AI training - Rest of World
Unemployed young people are hired over WhatsApp for low-wage data labeling jobs.Munira Mutaher (Rest of World)
Of course, it's not a good thing when anyone does it.
And isn't everything? We rely on the most exploited at the lowest levels to provide our raw resources. The whole global system is fucked.
True that brother. I make way less than what I should be making. in the summer when I'm whored out I make $40 base. Rest of the year or internal work I'm making $26
i can go independent and charge $120+ an hour but it's hard to get clients when the two big players will purposely go out of their way to fuck you over.
A Chinese dissident died suddenly in B.C. This ex-spy who snooped on him says it may not have been an accident
A man who spent a decade and a half working as a Chinese spy has shared details of some of his missions with Radio-Canada, including what he knows about a Chinese dissident who died in B.C. in 2022.
"From 2008 to 2023, my real job was to work for China's secret police. It's a means for political repression," said "Eric," who was interviewed in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. "Its main targets are dissidents who criticize the Chinese Communist Party."
Eric shared a variety of documents — including financial records, secret money transfers and the names of spies — with journalists from the Australian Broadcasting Corp. and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, of which CBC/Radio-Canada is a partner.
For example, while on assignment in Cambodia, his cover was with the Prince Group, a multibillion-dollar conglomerate with interests in real estate and financial and consumer services. (The company did not reply to messages from Radio-Canada.)
In 2020, Eric said he was tasked with snooping on a dissident named Hua Yong, an artist and hardcore opponent of China's Communist Party who eventually ended up on B.C.'s Sunshine Coast.
(The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa did not reply to multiple messages about the details of this story, including an interview request.)
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Japan's JERA signs first long-term LNG export deal with India's Torrent Power
Japan's JERA signs first long-term LNG export deal with India's Torrent Power
NEW DELHI, Dec 8 : Japan's top power generator JERA has signed its first long-term liquefied natural gas export deal with India's Torrent Power to deliver 4 LNG cargoes annually for 10 years from 2027, the Japanese company said on Monday.CNA (Channel NewsAsia)
Mozilla’s Betrayal of Open Source: Google’s Gemini AI is Overwriting Volunteer Work on Support Mozilla
Mozilla’s Betrayal of Open Source: Google’s Gemini AI is Overwriting Volunteer Work on Support Mozilla
TL;DR: Mozilla’s translation bot on Support Mozilla (that is currently overwriting user contributions is based on the closed source, copyright infringing LLM, Google Gemini.Youssuff Quips
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Time to switch to LibreWolf or something else.
Can I use that to sync passwords, history, etc. between phone and PC in some way of form, even if self-hosted?
Cruise ship departure delayed by a day after bananas fall overboard
Cruise ship departure delayed by a day after bananas fall overboard
Eight of the containers were reported as carrying bananas, two as carrying plantain, one as carrying avocadosDan Haygarth (The Independent)
Wow, that's a terrible article. They just repeated three times that stuff fell into the sea, and the cruise ship is stuck for at least a day.
They implied the stuff fell off the cruise ship, but they don't actually say it.
They implied that the stuff was undeclared, but don't actually say it.
They don't actually say why the cruise ship is stuck. Are the containers blocking the ship from leaving? Are they stuck cause they had undeclared fruit and they need to be held for paperwork/questions? Are they held cause they're not sure if something else will fall from the ship?
I wouldn't be surprised if this article was entirely written by AI with no editing.
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They didn’t fall off the cruise ship, but off of a container ship nearby.
Sixteen containers fell from a cargo ship near the Nab tower lighthouse off Bembridge, Isle of Wight, at around 6pm on Saturday.
The cruise ship is stuck because the container ship needs to recover the containers to protect the environment (and they don’t explicitly say, but moving a cruise ship through the harbor will kick up sediment and might damage the containers).
Still relevant, hasnt changed much after 2 years
Lemmy Needs to Fix Its Community Separation Problem
For the unaware, is a alternative to platforms such as Reddit and Tildes. I've been using Lemmy as one of my main social platforms for the past 6 months...Popcar's Blog
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Technically, I agree.
Practically, I myself have experienced several fragmented communities about the same topic with similar ethos. This was not a healthy separation based on different norms. It was simple, ineffective fragmentation. Or, at least the ethos and norms differences wasn't clear.
I feel like it is just a matter of time before either:
- The fragmented communities develop more and become distinct, so that they are more unique and shouldn't merge.
- One of the communities becomes the more popular "default" option, and the other becomes less active as people gather in the more popular one.
Even if that doesn't happen, redundancy isn't bad. We've seen how hard it is to migrate when there's only 1 real option and that option disappears or goes bad for some reason (i.e. reddit). If there was another fairly active community with the same focus, that would make it easier to keep going. That's part of why decentralization is good.
Russia increases recruitment of foreign fighters through targeted social media campaigns - drawing foreigners into front-line combat roles in Ukraine despite promises of 'safe service'
cross-posted from: mander.xyz/post/43232410
...Russia has ramped up its recruitment of foreign fighters through a targeted social media campaign, offering citizenship and money to those who join its fight.
...
The promise of roles away from the front line are aimed at enticing people to sign up, but experts [like] Sascha Bachmann, a professor in law and security at the University of Canberra, said the promise of safe service was "not true".
"Russia is trying to close a manpower gap. They sign people up for a promised non-combat role but they then end up as part of Moscow's meat grinder," he said.
"It is deception."
Data sourced by OpenMinds, a defence tech company, shows that by mid-2025, one in three contract announcements posted by Russian government pages was aimed at foreigners.
In total, the number of these posts has risen to more than 4,500 a month from less than 100 in early 2024.
...
Dr Bachmann believed the main reason Russia had increased recruitment efforts abroad was because it "has real problems recruiting from within its population".
Dr Bachmann called it "cognitive domain propaganda", which he said refers to military activities that are designed to affect the attitude of the public.
"Russia is very interested in having more foreign volunteers … because then they can say they have common power, more boots on the ground. It helps them form a fresh narrative," he said.
...
In one of the social media posts, a phone number is provided and people in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Serbia, Kyrgyzstan, Africa, India and others are encouraged to call.
However, residents of other countries have been targeted too, including China, India, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Bangladesh and others in Asia, and the Middle East.
...
ABC News
ABC News provides the latest news and headlines in Australia and around the world.Lewis Wiseman (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
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Putin arrest warrant will stand even if US-led peace talks agree Ukraine amnesty, ICC prosecutors say
cross-posted from: mander.xyz/post/43231856
International Criminal Court [ICC] arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and five other Russians accused of war crimes in Ukraine will stay in place even if a blanket amnesty is approved during U.S.-led peace talks, ICC prosecutors said on Friday.Deputy prosecutors Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal and Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji, who have been responsible for investigations at the court since the chief prosecutor went on leave, said a United Nations Security Council resolution would be required to suspend court-issued warrants.
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The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin and the other five over their alleged roles in atrocities during the war that began with Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Putin and Russian Child Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova face allegations of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.
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Among other high-profile Russian suspects sought by the International Criminal Court are Sergei Shoigu, the former defence minister, and Russian general Valery Gerasimov, who are wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity for attacks on civilians.
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"If there is a peace deal which then leads the Security Council to ask us to defer an investigation, then that's a matter - that's a political process for the Security Council. But as far as we're concerned...at the end of the day, it does not stop the way that justice is delivered," Deputy Prosecutor Khan said, citing the court's founding Rome Statute.
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Deputy Prosecutor Niang said that "apart from the bracket we mentioned in respect of the Security Council route, we are obligated to observe our statute, which does not give weight to some of those political arrangements".
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Ukraine's ambassador to the Netherlands, Andriy Kostin, who previously served as its prosecutor general, dismissed the idea of a blanket amnesty. "...With such mass atrocities committed in the course of these years, it's impossible to grant impunity for all those responsible, all those who committed these crimes and who ordered the commission of these crimes," he [said].
...
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Israel’s biggest defence company suspended by NATO amid corruption probe
Israel’s largest defence company, Elbit Systems, has been suspended by NATO’s procurement agency amid a major corruption probe, Follow the Money and its media partners La Lettre, Le Soir, and Knack can reveal.
The NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) is at the centre of a wide-ranging graft scandal, with current and former staff under investigation for bribery. Several suspects were arrested in May in police raids across seven nations, including Belgium and the U.S.
FTM has also learned that a key figure associated with Elbit – an Italian citizen identified as Eliau E. – is wanted internationally for his alleged role in bribing NSPA staff.
Elbit is Israel’s biggest arms manufacturer, with a turnover of almost 7 billion dollars in 2024. The Haifa-based company – which makes drones, tanks and ammunition, among other military equipment – ranks 25th on the list of the world’s 100 largest defence companies compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
https://www.ftm.eu/articles/israel-defence-elbit-systems-suspended-nato-corruption-investigation
Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau make their relationship Instagram official
Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau make their relationship Instagram official
The singer posted a photo of the pair smiling cheek to cheek and a video of them eating sushi together while in JapanJessica O'Bryan (The Guardian)
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Went from dating the lead singer of an emo/rap band that was a Fall Out Boy side project to former Prime Minister of Canada.
Hey I kinda liked Gym Class Heroes.
Australian government prepares social media ban amid opposition to privacy and free speech violation
Australian government prepares social media ban amid opposition to privacy and free speech violation
The ban is not a child welfare measure but a direct intervention by the state to dictate how ordinary people will be allowed to use the internet.World Socialist Web Site
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Not a single government today is beholden to its citizens.
We are all cattle and donkeys so people richer than us can live like gods.
Ironically, if age estimation was done via usage history algorithms, it'd be a much more privacy preserving technique than literally scanning your face or ID into a website that then hands it off to a barely known biometrics company so you can keep using your account...
It's so strange how this legislation apparently is supposed to safeguard the safety of kids on the internet, but hands tremendous risk to adults who verify, or parents who's kids sneakily took their ID to verify their accounts, since it seems that we may be the cyberattack victim capital of the world; see Qantas, Lattitude Financial, Optus, Medibank, and so on until the end of time.
Bosch Rexroth workers in Scotland to strike for a week against pay cuts
Bosch Rexroth workers in Scotland to strike for a week against pay cuts
Over 280 workers at Bosch Rexroth's plant in Glenrothes, Scotland, are to strike for a week from Monday against a cut in pay and working hours. The Bosch parent company is planning to sack 22,000 workers as the European car industry faces collapse.World Socialist Web Site
Tankie / red fash source!
If workers went on strike in China, Russia or Venezuela they would be calling it a CIA op!
Does Bonfire have any public instances?
is for testing Bonfire Social, the microblogging part. (This one not federated)
Creative workers on the affects of AI on their jobs
I do retouching work. Recently lost a client to an 'AI' retouching firm. When the client came back to me to fix loads of stuff and I looked at the output, it became apparent that the work had actually just been outsourced to India and there was no magic AI solution.
Gen AI is an amazing tool but not a one click solution like so many are claiming.
With Hollywood strapped for cash, Saudi Arabia is re-emerging as a key financial backer
Hollywood is feeling the lure of Saudi Arabian money (...)Saudi money is also behind a portion of Paramount Skydance’s more than $60 billion bid this week for Warner Bros Discovery, according to Variety, which cites multiple sources, and Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the discussions. A spokesperson for Paramount declined to comment.
Additionally, the kingdom is backing a $1 billion new independent content studio called Arena SNK launched in October by former Lionsgate executive Erik Feig, and a $55 billion deal for video game maker Electronic Arts announced in September. A representative for Feig declined to comment.
Executives from Sony traveled to Saudi Arabia this fall for meetings, a spokesperson confirmed. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts also traveled to the country this fall to attend a conference and view a potential theme park site in Qiddiya, a tourism megaproject in Riyadh province, according to a source with knowledge of Roberts’ trip who was not authorized to speak on the record about it. (Comcast owns NBCUniversal, which is the parent company of NBC News.)
The Red Sea Film Festival 2025 is going on right now (Dec 4-13). The glitterati are partying with Saudi royalty & following the money while blithely ignoring Saudi human rights abuses
With Hollywood strapped for cash, Saudi Arabia is re-emerging as a key financial backer
Hollywood is feeling the lure of Saudi Arabian money.Rebecca Keegan (NBC News)
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Thailand launches airstrikes on Cambodia as Trump’s peace agreement hangs in balance
Thailand launched airstrikes against Cambodia on Monday as a new wave of fighting erupted between the southeast Asian neighbors, marking the potential collapse of a peace plan presided over by Donald Trump just two months ago.
Both sides accused the other of launching strikes along their disputed border Monday morning, after weeks of simmering tension and the earlier suspension of progress on the ceasefire agreement by Thailand.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/07/asia/thailand-cambodia-border-clashes-december-intl-hnk
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Weird Generalization and Inductive Backdoors: New Ways to Corrupt LLMs
Weird Generalization and Inductive Backdoors: New Ways to Corrupt LLMs
LLMs are useful because they generalize so well. But can you have too much of a good thing? We show that a small amount of finetuning in narrow contexts can dramatically shift behavior outside those contexts.arXiv.org
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Samsung to halt SATA SSD production, leaker warns of up to 18 months of SSD price pressure, worse than Micron ending consumer RAM
Samsung to halt SATA SSD production, leaker warns of up to 18 months of SSD price pressure, worse than Micron ending consumer RAM
Samsung is reportedly preparing to wind down its SATA SSD business, and a notable hardware leaker warns the move could have broader implications for consumer storage pricing than Micron’s decision to end its Crucial RAM lineup.Yetnesh Dubey (Notebookcheck)
Hundreds of works in the Louvre damaged by flooding
Hundreds of works in the Louvre damaged by flooding
Hundreds of works were damaged at the Louvre in Paris when a pipe burst because of flooding, the museum’s deputy general administrator saidMarlene Lenthang (NBC News)
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LIVE: Israel attacks Gaza with artillery and air strikes despite ceasefire
Updates: Israel attacks Gaza as Palestinian man shot dead in West Bank
Helicopter gunship and artillery fire hit major cities in north and south Gaza as Israeli truce violations continue.Virginia Pietromarchi (Al Jazeera)
PSA: Don't use nextcloud's auto upload on the android app as a backup
Android Client does not auto upload all images?
This is the same crap as version 3.30.8! These people just can’t get to grips with making properly functioning software! They have been working on it for 8 years but it still doesn’t work properly.Nextcloud community
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I thought with this for years. It's unreliable and buggy on Android and iPhone. I caved and paid for some photo sync app and it's been super stable.
That or folder sync on Android. Then feed into immich or photosphere.
I spent many nights running diff and comparing sources and destinations and md5sums and so on
Is that the proprietary FolderSync or is there a FOSS solution for syncing folders ?
I used FolderSync with OneDrive (in the past) a'd it worked ok, not shitting on it, I'm just looking for a FOSS equivalent with Nextcloud
Thanks but the goal is to sync with the "cloud", for backup in case of fire or something.
I have hundreds (thousand ?) of albums I need to backup. I can reencode them cause 98% are on CD, but if I loose both my computers and my CDs, I'm done :/
I only use cloud backup for music and the few photos I take with my phone so I don't really need real-time syncing.
Yes, you should look up your home’s disaster risk | How one community figured out how to reduce fire threats — and their insurance rates.
Yes, you should look up your home’s disaster risk
Zillow pulled its flood and wildfire scores after complaints that the numbers hurt sales. But communities that actually act on these risks are saving money.Umair Irfan (Vox)
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A comprehensive absolut beginner's guide
I just got my hands on an old PC, and I took it as a sign to finally start my on server. Right now, I'd mostly be looking into running jellyfin since I'm working on a digital music library. On the technical side, I run Mint on my laptop, so I have basic familiarity with Linux. Are there any guides you recommend that will take me through installation of OS to a functional server?
Thank you!
Hey, welcome to the concept of self-hosting! This is where I was 15+ years ago.
Realistically, I'd just recommend installing something and trying it out. You'll iterate many time before you'll slowly start to align somewhere I suspect, in terms of software/approaches etc.
If you want the very first steps, then why not simply connect your old PC to a monitor and install a Desktop version of Mint? It's super-"wrong", but it'll get you started. Once you reach a stage of not wanting to waste memory/CPU on a graphical system, you'll be able to do something like systemctl disable lightdm.service and voila, graphics don't load on start anymore. Once you get even more confident, apt remove gdm3 xfce4 xfdesktop will remove any extra disk space (I'm dropping DE names that I approximately remember off the top of my head). With the packages for graphics gone, your system is indistinguishable from a server now.
Overall it's a nice path to walk, or at least it was fun and somewhat educative and very frustrating and giving a sense of control for me personally. Do you have any specific questions?
This is the answer.
You probably could learn *nix terminals, networking, hosting, security, and a myriad of other skills all at once if you really had to focus on it--but more often, that will just result in half-started projects and systems which never come together. Dipping your toes in first, and then gradually migrating as you build up your knowledge is the best way to not be overwhelmed, burnt out, or frozen from decision overload.
One of the nicest things about Linux is you can run most any software written for Linux on most any distro (although some may require more work than others). Picking a beginner friendly distro like Mint, with helper tools and a gui, and installing Jellyfin on it will give you a place to start. You can gradually learn the console and install other services and build out organically. Rather than hopping straight into some Enterprise Linux.
I know Jellyfin/Emby is compatible with music, but I'm advising you now to not try and cram all your media in one software. I recommend Navidrome as a music hoster. The con is that I haven't written a guide for it, as I run Proxmox it was almost too easy to need one.
As you're just starting out I'd recommend picking any Linux distro, putting the ISO on a USB drive and booting the server machine from it to install. Well, you know how to install an OS. Next, install Navidrome (guide) via the Linux or Docker guides, modify the config file to point to your music folder and change any setting you like, for example the port, and run it via systemctl or docker.
After that, login via browser with the given admin creds, make a user account for you and anyone else, install slskd for downloading and beets for correctly organising into the music directory, set up a reverse proxy to point to the Navidrome UI or connect via IP from any Subsonic client or web browser.
If you want you can install Proxmox from the start - I found it incredibly handy to make different containers and VMs to handle different projects, and in terms of Navidrome I got the install script from tteck, ran it, and once done I modified the toml variables to what I wanted and restarted the service. Plug & play.
60,000 African penguins starved to death after sardine numbers collapsed – study
More than 60,000 penguins in colonies off the coast of South Africa have starved to death as a result of disappearing sardines, a new paper has found.
More than 95% of the African penguins in two of the most important breeding colonies, on Dassen Island and Robben Island, died between 2004 and 2012. The breeding penguins probably starved to death during the moulting period, according to the paper, which said the climate crisis and overfishing were driving declines.
The losses that researchers recorded in those colonies were not isolated, said the paper, which was published in Ostrich: Journal of African Ornithology. “These declines are mirrored elsewhere,” said Dr Richard Sherley, from the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter. The African penguin species has undergone a population decline of nearly 80% in 30 years.
60,000 African penguins starved to death after sardine numbers collapsed – study
Climate crisis and overfishing contributed to loss of 95% of penguins in two breeding colonies in South Africa, research findsPhoebe Weston (The Guardian)
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Apparent coup attempt in Benin, govt claims army has situation 'under control'
A group of soldiers on Sunday appeared on Benin's state television claiming to have removed President Patrice Talon from office and dissolved all state institutions. Talon's office, meanwhile, said that loyalist forces had managed to get the situation "under control".
West Africa's ECOWAS bloc deploys standby force to Benin in response to coup attempt
Soldiers from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Ghana are being sent to Benin after West Africa's regional bloc ECOWAS ordered the immediate deployment of elements of its standby force to the country following an attempted coup on Sunday.FRANCE 24
Ooooh, are we doing another stint of coups and attempts across West Africa?
Last time was so lame. Do Togo next!
Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on?
Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on?
Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on? par Ploum - Lionel Dricot.ploum.net
Re: Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on?
Response from Dan
@dansup/115678527443322224">mastodon.social/[url=activityp…/115678527443322224[/url]
Pixelfed has always been and will always be a platform that centers photos and creative artwork first and foremost.It is deliberately not a microblogging platform, there are plenty of other microblogging platforms.
The criticism? I hear it. But we're not backing down from our vision.
Photo sharing first, foremost and forever.
Fixed link (at least for Piefed): mastodon.social/@dansup/115678…
it makes sense to be honest, the OP article isn't really convincing
Pixelfed has always been and will always be a platform that centers photos and creative artwork first and foremost.It is deliberately not a microblogging platform, there are plenty of other microblogging platforms.
The criticism? I hear it. But we're not backing down from our vision.
Photo sharing first, foremost and forever.
Re: Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on?
The Latest Windows 11 Update Gets Rid of the Start Menu and Explorer
The Latest Windows 11 Update Gets Rid Of The Start Menu And Explorer ... - PC Perspective
The Latest Windows 11 Update Gets Rid Of The Start Menu And Explorer ... Microsoft's efforts to convince people to switch to Windows 11 continues to beJeremy Hellstrom (PC Perspective)
GitHub Actions Has a Package Manager, and It Might Be the Worst
GitHub Actions Has a Package Manager, and It Might Be the Worst
GitHub Actions has a package manager that ignores decades of supply chain security best practices: no lockfile, no integrity verification, no transitive pinningAndrew Nesbitt
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Every run re-resolves from your workflow file, and the results can change without any modification to your code.
Sounds expensive too.
Ahhh, I get it now.
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WTF Just Happened? | The Corrupt Memory Industry & Micron
cross-posted from: piefed.ca/c/technology/p/37757…
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
Capitalism can work well when it's coupled into a virtuous circle of funding R&D to create new products and services to increase income to put back into more R&D.
At the moment it seems that a lot of companies are just trying to seek ever increasing rent extraction on existing products rather than investing in trying to innovate and relying on high barriers to entry to keep competition out.
capitalism worked pretty well in the 40's and 50's, in the USA, and then the corporate leaders realized that they could be overlords if they just stopped caring about everything but money.
We know kindness and money can coexist, but if little boy jack is taught from day one that if you don't game the system, you will lose, he's going to grow up to be Elon Musk.
Capitalism works fine if it’s regulated either by governments or by workers through unions.
Both at the same time, and the third necessary component - customer associations, three independent forces as a minimum.
EDIT: This is free market, "market" and not "jungle" - because there are regulated rules, "free" - because all participants are free to associate, including association to delegate association choices. "Capitalism" is a bad word because it's a term for everything from semi-traditional economies to mercantilism to libertarianism, that has interoperability of resources and assets.
Once capitalism has regulations to keep it in check and a democratically elected government is in charge and willing to do those things it’s no longer capitalism. Capitalism is putting monied interests first and crossing your fingers that the free hand of the market is anything more than a fairy told to naive idiots to make them support a corrupt-by-design system, such that those monied interests can be said to be chosen “democratically”(vote with your wallets).
Capitalism just sucks. It was made up so parasites nobles didn’t have to give up their ill-gotten wealth when feudalism ended. Fuckin’ thing is rotten to its core.
The concept of a "corrupt industry" doesn't really make sense.
Corruption only works in non-profit/political/governmental contexts. It's when you have a job that requires you to value some specific higher goal more than your own personal benefit.
The whole purpose and the higher goal of an industry, same as capitalism in general is personal benefit. A capitalist cannot be corrupt. Or to put it differently: The thing that would make e.g. a public servant corrupt is the modus operandi of capitalism.
Edit, since a lot of people don't seem to get it:
Corruption means that you have some higher purpose that is corrupted in favour of personal gain.
Capitalism has no higher purpose than personal gain. A capitalist prioritizing personal gain is not corrupt, he is a capitalist.
Saying a capitalist is corrupt is like trying to make water wetter or trying to burn a fire.
What we call corruption for a public servant is ideal behavior for a capitalist.
A capitalist cannot be corrupt.
Alex, I'll take stupid things said on the internet for 800.
To be corrupt, you need to have another purpose than personal enrichment that you are corrupting in favour of personal enrichment.
The whole goal of capitalism is personal enrichment. There is no other purpose that could be corrupted.
It's like saying that you make water wet or that you burn a fire.
corruption
noun
- dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery.
What's dishonest or fraudulent about a capitalist doing capitalist things?
If you think there's some honest, genuine and honorable capitalists out there, you must be really credulous.
When we say corrupt, we mean someone is manipulating something for personal gain and otherwise would have a different purpose.
Capitalism is just for personal gain.
Therefore, capitalism cannot be corrupted by manipulation for personal gain, because that's its true purpose.
TLDR: saying capitalism is corrupt is a tautology. Capitalism sucksDid I rephrase your point correctly?
Pretty much, with the difference that corruption can only happen if it takes something off it's path, so to say.
If the path itself is bad, being bad is not corruption.
If steel rusts, it's being corrupted. Rust itself cannot be corrupted, because it is what it is.
And yes, I very much think that capitalism sucks.
[The New Republic] Arrest Mark Zuckerberg for Child Endangerment: Shocking new revelations about Instagram in a lawsuit against social media companies should pave the way for an ambitious prosecutor to file criminal charges.
The plaintiffs’ brief alleges that Meta was aware that its platforms were endangering young users, including by exacerbating adolescents’ mental health issues. According to the plaintiffs, Meta frequently detected content related to eating disorders, child sexual abuse, and suicide but refused to remove it. For example, one 2021 internal company survey found that more than 8 percent of respondents aged 13 to 15 had seen someone harm themself or threaten to harm themself on Instagram during the past week. The brief also makes clear that Meta fully understood the addictive nature of its products, with plaintiffs citing a message by one user-experience researcher at the company that Instagram “is a drug” and, “We’re basically pushers.”Perhaps most relevant to state child endangerment laws, the plaintiffs have alleged that Meta knew that millions of adults were using its platforms to inappropriately contact minors. According to their filing, an internal company audit found that Instagram had recommended 1.4 million potentially inappropriate adults to teenagers in a single day in 2022. The brief also details how Instagram’s policy was to not take action against sexual solicitation until a user had been caught engaging in the “trafficking of humans for sex” a whopping 17 times. As Instagram’s former head of safety and well-being, Vaishnavi Jayakumar, reportedly testified, “You could incur 16 violations for prostitution and sexual solicitation, and upon the seventeenth violation, your account would be suspended.”
Arrest Mark Zuckerberg for Child Endangerment
Shocking new revelations about Instagram in a lawsuit against social media companies should pave the way for an ambitious prosecutor to file criminal charges.The New Republic
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Videos, images, and text can absolutely compel action or credible harm.
For example, Facebook was aware that Instagram was giving teen girls depression and body image issues, and subsequently made sure their algorithm would continue to show teen girls content of other girls/women who were more fit/attractive than them.
the teens who reported the most negative feelings about themselves saw more provocative content more broadly, content Meta classifies as “mature themes,” “Risky behavior,” “Harm & Cruelty” and “Suffering.” Cumulatively, such content accounted for 27% of what those teens saw on the platform, compared with 13.6% among their peers who hadn’t reported negative feelings.
congress.gov/117/meeting/house…
reuters.com/business/instagram…
Many girls have committed suicide or engaged in self harm, at least partly inspired by body image issues stemming from Instagram's algorithmic choices, even if that content is "just videos, and images."
They also continued to recommend dangerous content that they claimed was blocked by their filters, including sexual and violent content to children under 13. This type of content is known to have a lasting effect on kids' wellbeing.
The researchers found that Instagram was still recommending sexual content, violent content, and self-harm and body-image content to teens, even though those types of posts were supposed to be blocked by Meta’s sensitive-content filters.
time.com/7324544/instagram-tee…
In the instance you specifically highlighting, that was when Meta would recommend teen girls to men exhibiting behaviors that could very easily lead to predation. For example, if a man specifically liked sexual content, and content of teen girls, it would recommend that man content of underage girls attempting to make up for their newly-created body image issues by posting sexualized photos.
They then waited 2 years before implementing a private-by-default policy, which wouldn't recommend these teen girls' accounts to strangers unless they explicitly turned on the feature. Most didn't. Meta waited that long because internal research showed it would decrease engagement.
By 2020, the growth team had determined that a private-by-default setting would result in a loss of 1.5 million monthly active teens a year on Instagram, which became the underlying reason for not protecting minors.
techoversight.org/2025/11/22/m…
If I filled your social media feed with endless posts specifically algorithmically chosen to make you spend more time on the app while simultaneously feeling worse about yourself, then exploited every weakness the algorithm could identify about you, I don't think you'd look at that and say it's "catastrophizing over videos, images, text on a screen that can’t compel action or credible harm" when you develop depression, or worse.
Meta’s Unsealed Internal Documents Prove Years of Deliberate Harm and Inaction to Protect Minors - Tech Oversight Project
Mark Zuckerberg has blood on his hands: he has known for over a decade that pedophiles and sex traffickers were targeting children on his platforms, and instead of fixing the problem, what he did was worse than nothing: he killed safety features, bur…techoversighteditor (Tech Oversight Project)
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Solutions for remote access?
I've been setting up a music server on my home server recently, looking to move away from private hosting options like iBroadcast, but I've hit a bit of a snag when it comes to actually accessing my server when away from home.
The two most common recommendations I've seen are Cloudflare and OpenVPN. My router supports OVPN access, so I gave that a try, but couldn't ever actually make it work. I don't know for sure, but I think it's probably something with my ISP that I can't really easily work around. As far as Cloudflare goes, setting up a tunnel requires you to have a domain set up with them even if you're just using Warp, and since I don't have one, that's not an option.
What other good options are there for remote access? I'm running Open Media Vault as my server. Thanks.
Edit: Based on responses, it looks like Tailscale is the way to go since it's all private to me. Thanks everyone!
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For new people, for ongoing domain registrations people should also consider the renewal costs. There are some registrars with somewhat predatory pricing schemes that end up being very expensive long term (e.g. the trendy .io TLD).
Dot com and dot net are some of the most stable ones, even though they might not appear as such at first glance. Almost anything less costly on initial costs will cost you in some other way (might not offer whois privacy (.us iirc) or be limited to residents or people with legit business on that country (.ca) or have a mixed reputation with being labeled spam (.xyz - although I believe this last one has been kind of proactive in clearing that up).
Sorry to highjack the comment, but I wish someone had warned me to look, not all TLDs are administered the same.
[Canada's] Liberals Fear Closing Arms Export Loophole Would Anger U.S.
cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/56424420
A recent report, co-authored by the Palestinian Youth Movement, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, Arms Embargo Now and World Beyond War, identified hundreds of shipments of Canadian-made F-35 fighter jet components, other aircraft parts, and explosives and flammable materials to U.S. facilities that supply the Israeli military.
The report also highlighted 433 shipments of Polish-made TNT routed through the Port Saguenay, Quebec to U.S. army ammunition plants that make bombs used by Israel in Gaza.The report stated that “by deliberately exempting U.S.-bound arms from export regulation and allowing Canadian infrastructure to transport weapons, Canada is circumventing its obligations under international law.”
Archive: archive.is/GldMU
Liberals Fear Closing Arms Export Loophole Would Anger U.S.
A leaked briefing document gives the full picture behind the government’s talking points.Alex Cosh (The Maple)
Family of Colombian fisherman killed in US boat strike files complaint alleging he was murdered
Family of Colombian fisherman killed in US boat strike files complaint alleging he was murdered
Alejandro Carranza was killed in a strike in the Caribbean on Sept. 15.Laura Romero (ABC News)
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"alleging"
Nah, he was murdered. No question about it. Same with every other person in the boat strikes.
Just because it's done with a drone or a bomb doesn't make it any different, even if they were involved in drugs or not.
If you had a guy walking around with a bunch of heroin somewhere in the states, and a cop just shoots him down with a sniper without any reasoning other than the guy had heroin, the cop would go to jail for murder.
Well, if the system weren't complete corrupt that is.
AbouBenAdhem
in reply to Hotznplotzn • • •A_norny_mousse
in reply to Hotznplotzn • • •Totally agree. However, freewechat is up - guessing they changed providers pretty quick, maybe already saw this coming. Let this be the Streisand effect they (and China) deserve.
自由微信 | FreeWeChat
freewechat.com