British police chief reiterates 'legitimate' decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans
The head of a police force at the centre of a row over a ban on Israeli football fans has defended his decision in front of British MPs.
The West Midlands Police assessment which led to the ban was based on intelligence provided by Dutch police about the conduct of Maccabi fans during a match against Amsterdam in November 2024.
A Guardian report on 21 October said that the police assessment "concluded the biggest risk of violence came from extremist fans of the Israeli club".
Middle East Eye seperately revealed that Dutch police told their British counterparts that over 200 Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans who wreaked havoc in Amsterdam were "linked" to the Israeli military.
Documents seen by MEE said hundreds of fans were "experienced fighters", "highly organised" and "intent on causing serious violence". Dutch police reported that "significant numbers of Maccabi fans were actively involved in demonstrations and confrontations".
Early reporting by media outlets on the violence in Amsterdam in 2024 characterised the violence as a "pogrom" against Jewish football fans. Footage later emerged of Maccabi fans attacking locals and chanting racist slogans against Arabs.
Violence involving Maccabi Tel Aviv fans is not limited to matches outside of Israel. On 19 October, Israeli authorities in Tel Aviv cancelled the match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Tel Aviv due to what police there described as "violent riots".
British police chief reiterates 'legitimate' decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans
The head of a police force at the centre of a row over a ban on Israeli football fans has defended his decision in front of British MPs.MEE staff (Middle East Eye)
Splitgate 2 returns with a new name this month "after extensive redevelopment"
1047 Games is ready to show off the new and improved version of Splitgate 2 after it pulled the game back into beta earlier this year.
Chicago Tribune sues Perplexity
The newspaper is alleging copyright infringement and calling out Perplexity's Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) as a culprit.
Gazan wedding photographer-turned-documenter of Gaza destruction said killed by IDF in Khan Younis
A Gazan photojournalist was killed today by an Israeli drone strike in the center of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on the Hamas-controlled side of the ceasefire line, the city’s Nasser Hospital says.
Wadi’s Instagram profile describes him as the owner of Khan Younis-based drone photography company Alquds Studio.
The studio’s Facebook account, which has over 50,000 followers, indicates it focuses on wedding photography. One wedding-themed post was published on October 6, 2023. The account’s next post, published December 19, 2024, also documents a wedding taking place “despite all the difficult conditions and the war.”
On April 7 this year, the studio announced “with tearful eyes and hearts heavy with pain” that the business had been destroyed by Israel. The studio appeared to still manage to photograph weddings in May and September, according to its social media accounts.
On May 25, the studio posted a video of children begging for food. “Today, we fix our lenses on Gaza to document an entirely different story,” said the studio, explaining its pivot from wedding videos.
Palestinian photojournalist killed in Israeli drone strike; Indonesia floods death toll tops 700; 40 killed in Sudan in alleged army strike
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/39770036
Israeli military kills Palestinian photojournalist in Gaza; as Israeli forces also kill two Palestinian teenagers in the West Bank. 200 trucks enter Gaza daily (far below the number required by the ceasefire agreement), while 6,600 trucks wait. More reports emerge of drugs being smuggled into Gaza by Israel-supported gangs. Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks with President Trump again and receives another invitation to the White House. Saudi Arabia sends the Palestinian Authority $90 million. Northwestern University surrenders to Trump and accepts additional federal government control over campus policies, admissions, and more. The Trump administration now admits it struck a “drug smuggling” boat in the Caribbean twice in a September operation. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem wants an even wider travel ban, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says that the U.S. takes in “essentially…zero” refugees. Starbucks is ordered to pay up for labor law violations in New York. “Operation Midway Blitz” is suffocating the economy of the city’s most prominent Latino neighborhood. The U.S. wants to increase uranium mining, even if it means spiking cancer rates for the communities that do the work and for those who live nearby. Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces takes a critical transportation hub in the South, where another attack leaves 40 dead. Gang operations overrun central Haiti. The Nigerian government grants asylum to the leader of Guinea-Bissau’s opposition.
Palestinian photojournalist killed in Israeli drone strike; Indonesia floods death toll tops 700; 40 killed in Sudan in alleged army strike
Israeli military kills Palestinian photojournalist in Gaza; as Israeli forces also kill two Palestinian teenagers in the West Bank. 200 trucks enter Gaza daily (far below the number required by the ceasefire agreement), while 6,600 trucks wait. More reports emerge of drugs being smuggled into Gaza by Israel-supported gangs. Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks with President Trump again and receives another invitation to the White House. Saudi Arabia sends the Palestinian Authority $90 million. Northwestern University surrenders to Trump and accepts additional federal government control over campus policies, admissions, and more. The Trump administration now admits it struck a “drug smuggling” boat in the Caribbean twice in a September operation. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem wants an even wider travel ban, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says that the U.S. takes in “essentially…zero” refugees. Starbucks is ordered to pay up for labor law violations in New York. “Operation Midway Blitz” is suffocating the economy of the city’s most prominent Latino neighborhood. The U.S. wants to increase uranium mining, even if it means spiking cancer rates for the communities that do the work and for those who live nearby. Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces takes a critical transportation hub in the South, where another attack leaves 40 dead. Gang operations overrun central Haiti. The Nigerian government grants asylum to the leader of Guinea-Bissau’s opposition.
Yes, in genuine democracy where the means of production are not wholly owned by capitalists. You really need to learn what the difference between a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and a dictatorship of the proletariat is. China is far from perfect but the voice of the populace is vastly more powerful there and actually does steer the state. Considering the topic here was "voting out fascism" one obvious thing to note is that you won't find China or the DPRK ever led by actual straight up fascists as is the case openly right now in the US.
Here's the thing:
I didn't believe for a second that a Kamala victory would have crushed fascism forever.
In fact, I'm positive the GOP would place Trump's cold corpse as their nominee in all future elections if they had to.
The problem is simple:
Fascists are in power right now.
They wouldn't be in nearly as much power if Kamala had won
Because the fascists are in power, its exceedingly unlikely we'll ever have a fair election again with this government
That wouldn't be nearly as likely to be the case if Kamala had won.
Furthermore, I'm tired of white leftists screaming for revolution while they themselves know damn good and well they'd never fight in one themselves, and they wouldn't suffer even close to as much as racial, sexual and gender minorities will in resisting fascism.
The white leftists who refused to vote for Kamala suffer nowhere near as much as any minority living under Trump, and they knew that and still relax with their arms behind their heads today.
The white leftists who refused to vote for Kamala suffer nowhere near as much as any minority loving under Trump, and they knew that and still relax with their arms behind their heads today
The smug liberals who refused to have a backbone or humanity in the face of their party's genocide suffer nowhere near as much as Palestinans suffered under Biden and Harris, and they knew that and still relax with their fingers in their ears today
So you're not at all refuting that minorities are suffering g far more than white people under Trump?
And here's the issue with using the genocide of the Palestinians as an excuse to abandon all other minorities:
Resistance against the genocide in Palestine exists almost entirely within the progressive wing of the Democratic party.
Democracy would still almost certainly continue to exist in some capacity if Kamala had won.
But now that Trump won, Israel is not only entirely free, with zero guard rails whatsoever, to complete their genocide and attack all of their neighbors, but now the US is further involved than ever, outright bombing Iran in the process.
And genocide is your concern, huh?
What about the 4k (minimum) missing minorities that were kidnapped by ICE?
The mass building of concentration camps on US soil?
The massacre of Venezuelan civilians as prelude to an outright war and enslavement of Venezuela?
The campaign of the GOP's to destroy the 14th amendment and Voting Rights Act? You know, eliminating birthright citizenship and voter rights, the same shit the Nazis did to Jews leading to the start of the Holocaust.
Oh, and the total betrayal of Ukraine in Russia's genocidal war on them?
Refusal to vote for Kamala produced more genocide. Kamala was objectively the less genocidal option than Trump.
As opposed to...?
You understand the US has a binary party system, right? You have 2 choices.
Since the GOP primaries for Trump, and Biden totally fucked over the Dem party by dropping too late for anyone other than Kamala to take the ticket, that was the choice.
A revolution that you mfers will never fight in.
Time and time again we see terminally online leftists scream for revolution, and absolutely no indication one will ever happen, let alone that they'll participate.
Nice psychological projection!
You disphits realize we wouldn't currently be living under fascism if Kamala had won, right?
Like, objectively we wouldn't be.
And yes, you chicken-hawk cowards will never participate in a revolution. You rather put everyone else in a state of such extreme desperation that they feel the need to fight for you.
Fucking pathetic.
Just like the dipahits in MAGA
Y'all don't actually give a fuck about Palestine, or any marginalized groups. You just want to see other people pissed off so you can feel superior for the very first time in your life.
Truly pathetic. Makes sense why y'all would let Trump win then. Y'all are one in the same with MAGA
Russia's genocidal war
Words have meaning, and war is not genocide. You people support the Ukrainian coup government, who were doing actual ethnic cleansing before the Russian Federation finally stopped them. Anyone in the Donbas region would throw you in a hole for this equivocation, and you would deserve it. It makes me sick when liberals just mindlessly project the crimes of America's vassals and allies on America's enemies. Israel and Ukraine are allies. Israel trains both the Ukranian military and ICE. You are supporting, either tacitly or overtly, two different sets of nazis. You are a nazi supporter.
Refusal to vote for Kamala produced more genocide. Kamala was objectively the less genocidal option than Trump.
This is genocide-justifying horseshit to soothe your guilty conscience. Gaza was levelled under the Democrats. I'm not reading the rest of your fascist apologia because frankly, you people all spew the same delusional arguments. Anyone in Palestine would throw you into the sea for this inhumanity, and you would deserve it. Your cowardice and servility in the face of unimaginable cruelty has doomed you to live the rest of your life as a Good German. I would say good luck, but I don't wish good luck for you. I wish you a sudden moment of terrible clarity.
Do tell me what the roadmap for establishing progressive policies is like under Trump vs Kamala
Seems we're objectively further away from a progressive government than ever. Am I wrong?
Not a rebuttle to my point at all.
I'll take it that you have absolutely no reasonable counter argument and are just shitposting images of minorities being attacked with no real goal in mind.
How typical
Palestinian Americans waiting for Harris to show she’s different from Biden on Gaza
(AP)—Demoralized by the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s war on Gaza, Palestinian American Samia Assed found in Vice President Kamala Harris’ ascension—and her running mate pick—“a little ray of hope.People's World
European fraud probe targets former EU official Mogherini
European fraud probe targets former EU official Mogherini
EU prosecutors have detained three officials, including Italian politician Federica Mogherini. They suspect fraud in a 2021 and 2022 training program for junior diplomats and its tender process.Mark Hallam (Deutsche Welle)
Trump Frees Ex-President of Honduras, Right-Wing "Narco-Dictator" Convicted of Drug Trafficking
In a 26th floor courtroom overlooking Manhattan’s frigid winter skyline, dozens of immigrants sat in on the trial of their former president, the once untouchable symbol of a “narco-dictatorship” that reorganized of the government’s judicial, police, and military leadership to collude with drug traffickers.
It wasn’t Nicolás Maduro — though the Venezuelan president had likewise been indicted in the Southern District of New York. It was Juan Orlando Hernández, the former Honduran president who, as U.S. prosecutors said in their closing arguments in 2024, “paved a cocaine superhighway” to the United States. In a monthlong trial we covered from New York that winter, Hernández was convicted of three counts of drug trafficking and weapons charges, earning him a 45-year prison sentence.
Trump Frees Ex-President of Honduras, Right-Wing “Narco-Dictator” Convicted of Drug Trafficking
The pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, who served less than two years of a 45-year sentence for drug trafficking, comes as Trump threatens war on Venezuela over “narcoterrorism.”Jared Olson (The Intercept)
In a plot twist worthy of a political thriller, the EU’s new diplomatic chief, Kalla Kallas, finds her shiny new office getting a surprise “spring cleaning” from Belgian police. Raids, seized documents, and detentions over alleged fraud and corruption have arrived just in time to spice up the bloc’s already strained credibility. Nothing says “united front” like a corruption probe at the heart of your foreign policy HQ.
also wtf
ECB refuses to provide backstop for €140bn Ukraine loan
ECB refuses to provide backstop for €140bn Ukraine loan
Central bank rejects role in European Commission proposal that would use frozen Russian assetsOlaf Storbeck, Henry Foy, Paola Tamma and Laura Dubois (The Irish Times)
Police detain former EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini in anti-fraud probe
The EU's former foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, has been detained by Belgian police as part of an anti-fraud investigation. Stefano Sannino, a top EU civil servant, was also taken into questioning on Tuesday.
Mogherini was among three suspects taken for questioning on Tuesday morning after Belgian authorities searched the offices of the European External Action Service (EEAS), the College of Europe in the city of Bruges and a series of private homes.
As High Representative, Mogherini helmed the EEAS and led the bloc's foreign policy between 2014 and 2019. She has been the rector of the College of Europe, a prestigious university that receives EU funding, since September 2020.
The investigation is seeking to determine whether the EEAS broke its tendering rules by sharing information with the College before the project was formally awarded.
The EPPO said there are "strong suspicions" that EU rules on fair competition were breached during the tendering process and that "confidential information related to the ongoing procurement was shared with one of the candidates participating in the tender."
Toddler star Ms. Rachel named finalist for 'Antisemite of the Year' amid Gaza advocacy
Toddler star Ms. Rachel named finalist for 'Antisemite of the Year' amid Gaza advocacy
Ms. Rachel, a social media sensation among toddlers, was named a top ten finalist for StopAntisemitism’s Antisemite of the Year Award.ELAINE MALLON | The National News Desk (The National Desk)
Entire Chain of Command Could Be Held Liable for Killing Boat Strike Survivors, Sources Say
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is under increasing fire for a double-tap strike, first reported by The Intercept in early September, in which the U.S. military killed two survivors of the Trump administration’s initial boat strike in the Caribbean on September 2.
The Washington Post recently reported that Hegseth personally ordered the follow-up attack, giving a spoken order “to kill everybody.” Multiple military legal experts, lawmakers, and now confidential sources within the government who spoke with The Intercept say Hegseth’s actions could result in the entire chain of command being investigated for a war crime or outright murder.
“Those directly involved in the strike could be charged with murder under the UCMJ or federal law,” said Todd Huntley, a former Staff Judge Advocate who served as a legal adviser on Joint Special Operations task forces conducting drone strikes in Afghanistan and elsewhere, using shorthand for the Uniform Code of Military Justice. “This is about as clear of a case being patently illegal that subordinates would probably not be able to successfully use a following-orders defense.”
Entire Chain of Command Could Be Held Liable for Killing Boat Strike Survivors, Sources Say
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s actions could spark investigations for war crimes or outright murder, sources told The Intercept.Nick Turse (The Intercept)
Fed’s $13.5B Repo Injection Sparks Liquidity Alarm
Fed’s $13.5B Repo Injection Sparks Liquidity Alarm
The Federal Reserve quietly pumped $13.5 billion into overnight repo markets—one of the largest operations since 2020. What does this sudden cash injection mean for stocks, Bitcoin, and the broader financial system?CapWolf
Jewish organisation calls for Ms Rachel to be named 'anti-Semite of the year'
The American pro-Israel group StopAntisemitism has included children’s content creator Ms Rachel on its “Antisemite of the Year” list, targeting her for highlighting the suffering of Palestinian children.
StopAntisemitism has repeatedly attacked Ms Rachel on social media for sharing content with her more than 20 million followers showing starving Palestinian children and highlighting the plight of youngsters who have lost limbs in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The pro-Israel organisation even has even urged US Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Accurso is receiving foreign funding to promote anti-Israel messaging and influence public opinion. There has been no evidence provided such accusations.
Jewish organisation calls for Ms Rachel to be named 'anti-Semite of the year'
The American pro-Israel group StopAntisemitism has included children’s content creator Ms Rachel on its “Antisemite of the Year” list, targeting her for highlighting the suffering of Palestinian children.
StopAntisemitism has repeatedly attacked Ms Rachel on social media for sharing content with her more than 20 million followers showing starving Palestinian children and highlighting the plight of youngsters who have lost limbs in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The pro-Israel organisation even has even urged US Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Accurso is receiving foreign funding to promote anti-Israel messaging and influence public opinion. There has been no evidence provided such accusations.
Does it make sense to use --show-error by itself in curl
I was trying to read up on it and just based off of the manual it seems not to make sense if I'm not using --silent alongside it, but I found this one article stating otherwise: nrogap.medium.com/show-error-r…
I can't figure out if it's just AI slop or badly researched since it doesn't even show a real URL to test the commands against.
::: spoiler Manual entry:
>
<br /> -S, --show-error
When used with -s, --silent, it
makes curl show an error message
if it fails.
This option is global and does not
need to be specified for each use
of -:, --next.
Providing -S, --show-error multi‐
ple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --no-show-
error.
Example:
curl --show-error --silent https://
example.com
See also --no-progress-meter.:::
They're just examples of things you could pipe curl into, but no not really. If the download fails you end up with an incomplete file in your tmpfs anyway, and have to retry. Another use I have is curl | mysql to restore a database backup.
If the server supports resuming, I guess that can be better than the pipe, but that still needs temporary disk space, and downloads rarely fail. You can't corrupt downloads over HTTPS either as the encryption layer would notice it and kill the connection, so it's safe to assume if it downloaded in full, it's correct.
With downloads being IO bound these days, it's nice to not have to read it all back and write the extracted files to disk afterwards. Only writes the final files once.
That's far from the weirdest thing I've done with pipes though, I've installed Windows 11 on a friend's PC across the ocean with a curl | zstd | pv | dd, and it worked. We tried like 5 different USBs and different ISOs and I gave up, I just installed it in a VM and shipped the image.
Just learned that you can pipe tar into any compression tool, if that is not natively supported.
It has less integrity checks but huge performance benefits for sure
A compulsory mandated app installed on every Indian citizen's new phone
‘If you don’t want…' Jyotiraditya Scindia says Sanchar Saathi app is optional amid strong Opposition protests | Today News
Following backlash on the government directive to pre-install the Sanchar Saathi app on all phones within 90 days, Union Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia claimed that users can delete the app if they do not want it.Livemint (mint)
like this
like this
3½ years of anti-China & anti-Russia news posts by several similar Lemmy accounts
What they seem to have in common is:
- Way more posts than comments.
- Almost exclusively posting news articles.
- The vast majority of the articles are critical of Russia or China.
- Virtually always posting to the same few communities. Often there’s overlap in the communities the accounts target.
- Consistent weekly output.
| Username | Start | End |
|---|---|---|
| tardigrada@beehaw.org | May 2022 | Dec. 2024 |
| 0x815@feddit.de | Apr. 2023 | Jun. 2024 |
| thelucky8@beehaw.org | Apr. 2024 | Jan. 2025 |
| 0x815@feddit.org | Jun. 2024 | Dec. 2024 |
| Anyone@slrpnk.net | Jan. 2025 | Apr. 2025 |
| @randomname@scribe.disroot.org | Jan. 2025 | – |
| @Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org | Jan. 2025 | – |
| @Scotty@scribe.disroot.org | Aug. 2025 | – |
| @Sepia@mander.xyz | Nov. 2025 | – |
FYI, @haui@lemmygrad.ml, you had this to say back in June on !europe@lemmy.dbzer0.com, before the post was removed by a mod:
OP is one of their propagandists from the looks of it. Please look at the post history and report if you see a pattern.
[Edited to update links for thelucky8@beehaw.org and and the archived post]
Your sides should be thrown away, your turkey should be frozen or almost gone.
Hell yeah im poly. Poly gonna eat way to much even though its not Thanksgiving anymore.
Late to posting this one. Holidays are hard on me because I have to interact with my family. You know what blood is thicker then water? A moldy scab.
A third Russian tanker attacked in the Black Sea, Turkish authority says
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A tanker carrying sunflower oil from Russia to Georgia was attacked in the Black Sea, the Turkish maritime authority said Tuesday, days after two Russian “shadow fleet” oil tankers were attacked by Ukrainian naval drones.
The Turkish Directorate General of Maritime Affairs said the MIDVOLGA-2 came under attack about 130 kilometers (80 miles) off the Turkish coast. The 13 crew members were unharmed and the vessel has not requested assistance.
It was heading toward the Turkish port of Sinop, the maritime authority said in a statement on X.
On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke out against Ukraine’s drone attack on two Russian vessels, the Kairos and Virat, saying it signaled a “worrying escalation” of the conflict.
It's a RUSSIAN FLAGGED ship. This isn't "grey fleet" under the guise of a "neutral" nation or anything like it. There is no deniability, this is literally just a russian vessel.
It's also waaaay outside turkish national waters, which end (if you're feeling generous) at 24 nautical miles.
Russia should just call their insurance. And then watch what's going to happen to their premiums now that it's russian-ship-season.
like this
There's a small legal step that Ukraine needs to do.
It needs to declare a blockade and declare which goods are blockaded, e.g. "all liquids transportable by ship".
Then, shipping companies will know in advance: "you cannot transport liquids to or from Russia, if your ship looks like a tanker, don't go" and dangerous drone strikes aren't needed.
It's fortunate that no sailors have been lost so far. But without a policy announcement, the discouraging effect is maybe too small and additional ships may try to run the blockade, which could lead to loss of life and environmental harm - which would be bad.
A third Russian tanker attacked in the Black Sea, Turkish authority says
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A tanker carrying sunflower oil from Russia to Georgia was attacked in the Black Sea, the Turkish maritime authority said Tuesday, days after two Russian “shadow fleet” oil tankers were attacked by Ukrainian naval drones.
The Turkish Directorate General of Maritime Affairs said the MIDVOLGA-2 came under attack about 130 kilometers (80 miles) off the Turkish coast. The 13 crew members were unharmed and the vessel has not requested assistance.
It was heading toward the Turkish port of Sinop, the maritime authority said in a statement on X.
On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke out against Ukraine’s drone attack on two Russian vessels, the Kairos and Virat, saying it signaled a “worrying escalation” of the conflict.
Rules of war
For those who missed it, Liberals are criticizing Trump for double tapping Venezuelan boats who (of course) surrendered after getting hit by a US terrorist bombing
But the actual problem is massacring innocent fishermen without evidence or trial.
Guy... nobody outside Trump's immediate circle was cheering the boat strikes in the first place. People are just talking now about this new more egregious and obvious war crime aspect instead of the war crime aspect they were talking about previously.
edition.cnn.com/2025/09/06/pol…
Why is it always this wild cartoonish bullshit with you guys lol
Where are US military planes and ships stationed near Venezuela?
The build-up in the Caribbean began in August with the deployment of air and naval forces, including a nuclear-powered submarine and spy planes, according to US officials.
It now includes a range of aircraft carriers, guided-missile destroyers, and amphibious assault ships capable of landing thousands of troops.
Analysis of satellite images has made it possible to identify at least six military vessels in the region over the past week.
Where are US military planes and ships stationed near Venezuela?
The US has justified its air and naval campaign as necessary to fight drug smuggling into the US.Jake Horton, Barbara Metzler & Joshua Cheetham (BBC News)
Where are US military planes and ships stationed near Venezuela?
The build-up in the Caribbean began in August with the deployment of air and naval forces, including a nuclear-powered submarine and spy planes, according to US officials.
It now includes a range of aircraft carriers, guided-missile destroyers, and amphibious assault ships capable of landing thousands of troops.
Analysis of satellite images has made it possible to identify at least six military vessels in the region over the past week.
Where are US military planes and ships stationed near Venezuela?
The US has justified its air and naval campaign as necessary to fight drug smuggling into the US.Jake Horton, Barbara Metzler & Joshua Cheetham (BBC News)
Locals Say National Guard Shooter Was Imprisoned in Afghanistan After “Zero Unit” Killings
from Drop Site News
Dec 01, 2025
Story by Emran Feroz and Abdul Rahman Lakanwal
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who was arrested for shooting two National Guard soldiers last week in D.C., was briefly imprisoned in Afghanistan alongside other members of his Zero Unit team, according to five Afghan sources. The detention by local government forces came after Zero Units killed Afghan police forces in Kandahar they were supposed to be defending.Notwithstanding their arrests, there were no longterm consequences for the Zero Units; the Afghan state had no authority over them and the Americans shielded them. During his few days in prison, which Lakanwal and his comrades had to face after the incident in Kandahar, they still received their pay from the CIA, sources said.
Locals Say National Guard Shooter Was Imprisoned in Afghanistan After “Zero Unit” Killings
Before D.C. shooter Rahmanullah Lakanwal attacked two National Guard members last week, he was part of a CIA-backed unit that killed many Afghans.Drop Site News
According to former militia commander Rafeh—who is still living, in hiding, in Afghanistan—the circumstances that shaped Lakanwal were common among resettled militia veterans. “Many former soldiers and militiamen lived for the war and experienced trauma. It’s not compatible with their new lives in Europe or in Northern America. Also, their former NATO allies are abandoning them more and more. Many still don’t have documents while their family members are forced to hide themselves in Afghanistan”, Rafeh said. “If they are also traumatized drug addicts like Lakanwal, they are literal time bombs created through American warfare itself.”
Trump, Gaza, and Oslo Déjà Vu
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/39755013
Jeremy Scahill and Jawa Ahmad
Dec 01, 2025
Trump’s 20-point plan has been endorsed by an assortment of Arab and Islamic states and Mahmoud Abbas, the deeply unpopular 90-year old head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), but it has been rejected by a wide cross section of other Palestinian political factions and parties.“It’s an Israeli plan that has been rebranded as a Trump plan,” said Diana Buttu, a human rights lawyer who previously served as an advisor to Palestinian negotiators. “All of the guarantees are being given to Israel, but there’s no guarantees that are given to Palestinians. The fact [is] that all of the control rests in the hands of Israel. No control is ceded to anybody else; it looks to me entirely like an Israeli plan that was rebranded as a Trump plan—not the other way around,” Buttu told Drop Site. “It was a plan that was designed to ease the pressure off of Israel and, at the same time, let Israel continue to kill Palestinians—let them try to ethnically cleanse Gaza. It exactly matches what Israel said from the beginning.”
Trump, Gaza, and Oslo Déjà Vu
Jeremy Scahill and Jawa Ahmad
Dec 01, 2025Trump’s 20-point plan has been endorsed by an assortment of Arab and Islamic states and Mahmoud Abbas, the deeply unpopular 90-year old head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), but it has been rejected by a wide cross section of other Palestinian political factions and parties.“It’s an Israeli plan that has been rebranded as a Trump plan,” said Diana Buttu, a human rights lawyer who previously served as an advisor to Palestinian negotiators. “All of the guarantees are being given to Israel, but there’s no guarantees that are given to Palestinians. The fact [is] that all of the control rests in the hands of Israel. No control is ceded to anybody else; it looks to me entirely like an Israeli plan that was rebranded as a Trump plan—not the other way around,” Buttu told Drop Site. “It was a plan that was designed to ease the pressure off of Israel and, at the same time, let Israel continue to kill Palestinians—let them try to ethnically cleanse Gaza. It exactly matches what Israel said from the beginning.”
Trump, Gaza, and Oslo Déjà Vu
The U.S. is pushing its colonialist plan, as Israel keeps killing. Mahmoud Abbas is changing election laws to ban Hamas. And a battle is brewing over who speaks for the Palestinian liberation cause.Jeremy Scahill (Drop Site News)
The Fediverse and Content Creation: Monetization
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about PeerTube, Loops, Bandwagon, and other platforms in the Fediverse that are geared around artists. I might get flamed for this, and you’re welcome to disagree, but I think the network is in dire need of having support for commerce.
Not “Big Capitalism” commerce, but the ability for people to buy and sell things, support projects, and commission their favorite creators to keep making more stuff.
The Fediverse and Content Creation: Monetization
One thing that I've been thinking about for a while: the PeerTube platform is somewhat limited in providing tools for video-makers to receive financial support. At best, PeerTube offers a "Support" button on videos, but all this really does is provide a lightbox with links to various donation pages.It's better than nothing, but not by much.
I actually think this is a bit of a problem when it comes to getting creators to use platforms such as PeerTube or Loops. A lot of people don't really see a point in joining a whole new ecosystem when they're well-established on YouTube or Tiktok to begin with, and a lack of financial incentives might make this seem like an exercise in futility.The majority of this post is going to be focusing on financial support mechanisms specifically, but I want to be clear that this alone is not a silver bullet solution. It's just something that I think requires a lot of attention first. I'm going to talk about a few things the Fediverse ecosystem offers to mitigate this problem, with some thoughts on how we can better support video makers on federated platforms.
Payments, Access, and Friction
There are a few sticking points here that are worth thinking about. First and foremost is that, historically speaking, most Fediverse platforms don't offer good mechanisms for providing access to special paid content. From my limited understanding, there are two parts to think about:
- Payment Systems - payments in the Fediverse is still kind of a nascent, fledgling thing. A few systems offer the capability of buying or selling things through one or two major payment processing systems, and it's usually Stripe or PayPal. Part of the headache here is that this situation inherently props up a few monopolistic platforms, rather than allowing people to use whatever payment system is available in their own countries. Some of this can be worked around using cryptocurrencies – famously, the Mitra project leverages Monero for this very purpose, although I'm told it now can accept other forms of payment as well.
- Account Access - Historically speaking, the lion's share of Fediverse platforms lack a granular system for granting permissions to remote accounts. Most platforms in the Fediverse emulate Mastodon's privacy scopes, which don't do the best job of delegating which groups of people can see or interact with something. Either everybody can see a post, or just your mutuals can. Complicating things even further, there's not a great way to set something visible to a specific someone and let them know about it, unless you're specifically sending them a Private Message directly.
What's Available Today
There are a few cutting-edge attempts to solve this problem, and I think they might offer different pieces of the puzzle.Premium Users
One PeerTube plugin I have a lot of admiration for is simply called Premium Users, and it does exactly what you'd expect. PeerTube channels that have this integration set up offer a special paid subscription button on their pages, and it does two things:
- It takes a Stripe transaction to process payments.
- It takes note of which Fediverse accounts made this transaction, and adds them to a special group that can see videos intended specifically for them.
On paper, this is great! We at least have a proof-of-concept to say that hey, this thing is in fact doable. Unfortunately, there are a few shortcomings:
- Limited Utility — people can only get this special access by clicking the button on PeerTube. If they tried to pay you out of band, through something like Patreon or Kofi, there isn't a way to easily set up their Fediverse account as Premium Subscribers. The payment system has no concept of what their Fediverse identity is, and the manual way for adding people is kind of messy and confusing.
- Rigid Scope — the plugin basically has to get set up by an admin, and use their Stripe account. Users then upgrade their own PeerTube accounts to add payment, and they get upgraded to a special user type. Anyone with that user type can see "Premium" videos from anybody on the instance, and the money only goes to the instance admin. This is less than ideal.
- Vendor Limitations — it only works with Stripe at the moment, which is not necessarily what other people are using to make simple donations. Trying to account for multiple vendors might be challenging, as it means that such an integration has to abstract away the specific vendors in another layer. This is not impossible, but can be somewhat cumbersome if you're trying to just offer a simple plugin that's easy to set up.
Unfortunately, this is kind of a deal-breaker if you wanted to create something similar to YouTube's "Channel Membership" feature for the Fediverse. It's less Patreon-like, and more like a way to see all the exclusive paywalled media in one place.
At the very least, we have a proof-of-concept on how to at least broker access to special content on PeerTube using payments. It's not perfect, but maybe it could be a foundation to build on?Granular Permissions / Circles
Some of the most impressive development on this front comes from the Bonfire project, because their system actually lets people put their contacts into special collections.
Circles, which are Bonfire's concept for addressable groups, and Boundaries, which are the permission sets that can be assigned to them.
While it can be a little bit tedious to set up manually, the main thing to understand is that this works really, really well. You can have as many collections as you'd like, they can all have special rules applied to them, and you can decide which collections can see which things you post.
This can easily get super, super comprehensive. The UX definitely still needs some love to make it easier to manage.
From a technical perspective, I see Bonfire as a shining example for what all Fediverse platforms should follow: we need to think about access, permissions, and addressing for posts, all at the same time. You can create special custom presets today, and scope it to a specific group of people.
While I think the UX behind this is still complicated, I think the concept is solid, and a simplified version could be a very powerful way to create special scopes of friends or followers.Paid Circles
The Emissary project has been thinking long and hard about this problem by offering Circles, which are the very user collections we've been talking about up to this point. For their Bandwagon application, the lead dev has been thinking a lot about music sales, as well as different ways to support artists. As a result, the UX is very much simplified, and more user-friendly.
Examples of how different Circles can be set up as support tiers for artists.
Bandwagon does something neat by allowing musicians to turn membership of a specific Circle into a paid subscription. This allows artists to create special private things.posts, share events for secret shows, and even offer special tracks and albums to the people supporting them.
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The lead dev, Ben Pate, has gone on the record in stating a desire to support many different payment providers in order to avoid monopolization of just one or two big vendors. He gave a really good presentation about the subject back in August for FediCon 2025, and it's worth watching.CrowdBucks
CrowdBucks is still a relative newcomer to the space, and offers a few novel approaches that are worth thinking about. It's open source, and you can host it yourself, and the project acts as a wrapper around payment integrations to provide payment status, as well as subscriber information. That includes Fediverse handles!
A demo of a CrowdBucks fundraising page.
What really sets CrowdBucks apart is this: you don't actually create an account, in the traditional sense. Instead, you log in with your existing Fediverse identity, which then allows you to financially support whoever you want, while also allowing you to do fundraising for yourself.
One other benefit I see to having services like CrowdBucks is the benefit of decoupling payment infrastructure away from Fediverse instances. Rather than trying to get a bunch of different platforms and instances to try to juggle Stripe and PayPal API keys for admins and users, it would probably be way easier to just handle the actual payment action on a separate layer outside of the social platforms themselves. Instead of every creator trying to sign into a bunch of different services, they could just authenticate against their CrowdBucks payment server instead.
Honorable Mention: Mitra
Although the project isn't as well-known as some of the other efforts on here, it's important to acknowledge Mitra and what it has pioneered. In a nutshell, this is a simple, stylish Fediverse platform that has paid subscription capabilities built in.
Subscribing to an account results in a dialogue to determine how much you're supporting a creator per month.
In a lot of ways, Mitra predates almost all of the other attempts to incorporate payments into the Fediverse. The lead dev behind it, Silverpill, is very active in the Fediverse Enhancement Proposals community, which aims to help extend ActivityPub capabilities in a somewhat standardized, grassroots way.
Posting to just your Paid Subscribers works out of the box!
Mitra has experienced some friction in being adopted by the wider Fediverse due to an ideological divide: historically, the platform has only supported Monero for payment, and the wider Fediverse itself doesn't generally hold a positive view on cryptocurrencies to begin with. A recent release no longer strictly requires Monero, but some glue code would still need to be written to support payment processors.Putting It All Together
So, we have all of these different pieces. Can we use them together to accomplish what we want?Let's say that we use CrowdBucks as the middleware that wraps around potentially many different payment solutions. It offers an API, can capture information about who is paying you for something, and can potentially even denote what thing they're paying for specifically. Great! Upon initial payment, a special follow request could get forwarded to the creator's account, which automatically gets approved upon proof of payment.
A plugin or integration could directly hook up to CrowdBucks, and then automatically put that paid subscriber into a dedicated Circle as a permission scope that can see stuff intended just for them. Additionally, this special follow request could also enable special notifications that tells the subscriber when new stuff is available to them.
A lapse in payment or cancellation could also be handled automatically through CrowdBucks, resulting in the Subscriber being automatically removed from the Circle after a set period of time.
Limitations
This concept is not without a few different headaches. Let's talk about them.Currency Support
While a fair amount of payment processors are set up to handle international currency exchanges, the experience could be messier for platforms that aren't set up to handle it.This is particularly glaring in situations where one person might want to pay with cryptocurrency, and the recipient doesn't actually accept that.
What might make sense is for CrowdBucks to allow people to plug in a multitude of different payment providers, defaulting to a "path of equilibrium" where the payee and recipient both go through whatever payment system they both have in common. The alternative is to basically establish some kind of escrow/transfer service for money in various forms, and that can get pretty complicated.
Fediverse Identity
Identity in the Fediverse is still somewhat flaky and non-standard. The secret sauce that CrowdBucks uses for Fediverse Login is really just a series of platform-specific integrations, such as "Sign in With Mastodon", "Sign in With Pixelfed", and "Sign in With PeerTube".Good concept overall, but lack of a uniform solution is killing us. Source: GreatApe
This isn't a great experience for anyone that's not using those specific platforms. Theoretically, we should all be using the ActivityPub Client-To-Server API for platform-agnostic Identity Login, but the biggest players such as Mastodon have yet to really embrace C2S in any way, shape, or form.If we could all rally around C2S for at least this singular use-case, we might be able to have a universal login system for the entire network.
Ecosystem Support
Finally, the biggest headache here is buy-in. It's very challenging to get a bunch of different groups of people to align to a common set of goals, implementations, and methodologies.My thinking here is simple: if we can get some level of integration working for PeerTube, Pixelfed, Loops, and any other federated platform where such a thing might be handy, we might be able to make major strides in solving this problem.
I'm Still Optimistic
While I think we still have a long way to go before we get to a place where there's a clear-cut "standard experience" on how these things should happen, it's evident that there are a lot of pieces being developed that could be made to work together.I hold the view that commerce, understood through the lens of "the marketplace or bazaar at the center of town", could be extremely beneficial for the Fediverse. If we are to build this thing, it's going to require a lot of careful consideration, with different builders comparing notes on how they're currently doing it.
Anyway, thanks for reading!
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A still life that I tried to reshoot, ten years later.
The components from the original take were still here, so I used them just as they were. Only differences were that I had shot the original (below) with an iPhone 6+ and I shot the modern take (above) with my Canon EOS Rebel T7; and that I rotated the gaff card in the middle of the frame to be true to my intentions, as I had many regrets once I published the original work.
Thank you for seeing my work!
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