This will mark Canada's demise. An ex Blackrock executive for US-CA relations, he will sell our lives for a quick buck and a place near his mates.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6267966

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6267965

Archived version

...

“A Russian soldier came to her house in May 2022, smashed her face with his rifle butt and broke her teeth, slashed her stomach with a knife, and raped her. He then stole her bicycle and left her a Kalashnikov bullet as a souvenir.”

...

“How can you look in the eyes of this 75-year-old woman and say there won’t be punishment for what that Russian soldier did to you?” said Kovalenko, her own eyes wet with tears.

The 38-year-old [Ukrainian documentary-maker Alisa Kovalenko] from Zaporizhzhia was one of a group of four Ukrainian survivors of sexual violence and activists who came to London last week to lobby MPs, members of the House of Lords, and Foreign Office officials to try to get British support against the proposed amnesty.

...

Google has removed dozens of new Sci-Hub domain names from its search results in the United States. Unlike typical DMCA takedowns, the removals were triggered by a dated court order that was not enforced for several years. This appears to be one of the first times Google has deindexed an entire pirate site in the U.S. based on a 'site blocking' style injunction.

An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.

Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.

A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86m music files from Spotify and 256m rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100m tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.

The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, said it had “identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping”.

“An investigation into unauthorised access identified that a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management] to access some of the platform’s audio files,” said Spotify.

Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a “‘preservation archive’ for music”.

The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via “torrents”, a means of sharing large digital files online.

“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.

“With your help, humanity’s musical heritage will be forever protected from destruction by natural disasters, wars, budget cuts and other catastrophes,” said the group.

Shamelessly stolen from r/MarxismMemes

Want to get your feet wet with Marxism-Leninism? Check out the intro Marxist-Leninist reading list I made.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/15338

The police have arrested activist Greta Thunberg at a protest to un-proscribe Palestine Action. Thunberg was holding a sign which read:

I support Palestine Action prisoners.

I oppose genocide.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Canary (@thecanaryuk)

She is the latest activist to be arrested by British police amidst an ongoing crackdown on civil liberties and free speech in support of Palestine.

Greta Thunberg shows support for hunger strikers unwavering

A press release documenting Greta Thunberg’s arrest reads as follows:

“Greta Thunberg was arrested under the Terrorism Act at the Prisoners for Palestine lock-on protest outside the offices of Aspen Insurance at Plantation Place, 30 Fenchurch Street, London, EC3M 3BD. She arrived after the protest began, with a sign reading “I support the Palestine Action prisoners. I oppose genocide”

This morning two activists covered the front of the building with symbolic blood-red paint, using re-purposed fire extinguishers, and the pair then locked-on at the front of the building, with the intention of drawing attention to Aspen’s complicity in Genocide, disrupting their business, and closing down the building.

Aspen Insurance, a global speciality insurer and reinsurer were targeted because they provide services to Elbit Systems UK, providing the arms manufacturer with the mandatory Employer Liability insurance without which Elbit could not produce weapons in Britain. Elbit are Israel’s biggest weapons maker, producing over 85% of their killer drone fleet and land-based equipment.

The action [by Greta Thunberg and others] was also carried out in solidarity with the Prisoners for Palestine hunger-strikers, who are now in the eighth week of a hunger-strike, launched on November 2nd. The first 2 prisoners to join the protest, are now on their 52nd day on hunger-strike, and at a critical stage, where death is a real possibility. David Lammy, British Minister of Justice, has refused to speak to legal representatives of the hunger-strikers, or their families.

After the two activists locked-on at the front of the Aspen offices, they were joined by supporters. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg then arrived, holding a banner reading, “I support the Palestine Action prisoners. I oppose genocide.” She was then arrested by police. This follows an arrest in Scotland, where a protestor was arrested under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, for holding a sign reading, “I support the Palestine Action hunger strikers.”

In a statement of solidarity with the hunger-strikers released on Instagram a few days ago, Greta Thunberg said:

It is up to the state to intervene, and put an end to this by meeting these reasonable demands that pave the way for the freedom of all those who choose to use their rights trying to stop a genocide, something the British state has failed to do themselves. Mobilise and escalate to ensure the government cannot ignore their demands, and most importantly continue to answer their calls to Shut Elbit Down. Free Palestine!

The protest is ongoing”.

Greta Thunberg was at the pro-Palestine Hanukkah demo last night arranged by Jewish activists (reporting to follow).

Featured image via Greta Thunberg

By Willem Moore

From Canary via This RSS Feed.

A top Amazon executive has said the US technology giant has blocked more than 1,800 job applications from suspected North Korean agents.

North Koreans tried to apply for remote working IT jobs using stolen or fake identities, Amazon's chief security officer Stephen Schmidt said in a LinkedIn post.

"Their objective is typically straightforward: get hired, get paid, and funnel wages back to fund the regime's weapons programs," he said, adding that this trend is likely to be happening at scale across the industry, especially in the US.

Authorities in the US and South Korea have warned about Pyongyang's operatives carrying out online scams.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6267965

Archived version

...

“A Russian soldier came to her house in May 2022, smashed her face with his rifle butt and broke her teeth, slashed her stomach with a knife, and raped her. He then stole her bicycle and left her a Kalashnikov bullet as a souvenir.”

...

“How can you look in the eyes of this 75-year-old woman and say there won’t be punishment for what that Russian soldier did to you?” said Kovalenko, her own eyes wet with tears.

The 38-year-old [Ukrainian documentary-maker Alisa Kovalenko] from Zaporizhzhia was one of a group of four Ukrainian survivors of sexual violence and activists who came to London last week to lobby MPs, members of the House of Lords, and Foreign Office officials to try to get British support against the proposed amnesty.

...

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/44154827

While interviewing Malian refugees about alleged abuses by Russia’s newly deployed Africa Corps military unit, West Africa correspondent Monika Pronczuk and freelancer Caitlin Kelly encountered a teenage girl lying on the ground in a tent, visibly ill and barely responsive. Her family said she had been raped by Africa Corps fighters — and hadn’t received medical care because they couldn’t afford it.

Pronczuk and Kelly immediately connected the family with a Doctors Without Borders clinic offering free treatment. The girl’s story became the emotional and narrative center of the second installment in AP’s investigation into Africa Corps, this time focusing on sexual violence in the conflict-ravaged region of Mali, where Russian forces and the Malian government continue to target al-Qaida-linked militants.

Their reporting revealed disturbing new details about how women and girls are suffering in silence in areas where few international observers are allowed. The team spoke with multiple survivors and documented accounts that painted a broader picture of abuse by all sides in the conflict — but with particular focus on the conduct of Russian-aligned troops now operating under direct Kremlin control.

...

Web archive link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/44153480

...

Certainly on the surface it appears China’s alliance with Russia has only grown stronger since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Nowhere has this been more evident than when looking at trade between the two countries, which has boomed ever since the West slapped Putin with massive sanctions.

Last year, the value of trade between Russia and China hit a record $245bn (£182bn), fuelled by Xi becoming the world’s largest buyer of Putin’s oil and gas. Overall, China also became Russia’s biggest supplier of goods.

However, closer ties with China have come at a cost.

In particular, Russian businesses have grown increasingly frustrated at a flood of cheap Chinese goods.

Vladimir Milov, who worked in the Russian government from 1997 to 2002 before becoming a vocal Putin critic, says the economic alliance is backfiring badly for Russia.

“It is deeply disadvantageous,” he says. “China is taking advantage because it knows that Russia has nowhere to go.”

Such warnings could signal that the economic ties between the two countries are beginning to fray.

While mutual trade hit a record high in 2024, it has fallen by nearly a tenth so far this year.

...

One key area of tension is cars.

After Western manufacturers cut ties with Russia in 2022, Chinese competitors duly stepped in.

In the two years to 2024, Chinese car exports to Russia have increased sevenfold, prompting a growing number of complaints from domestic manufacturers.

Maxim Sokolov, the chief executive of Russian carmaker AvtoVAZ, has accused the Chinese of “unprecedented dumping”, which he said in December has crossed “all imaginable boundaries”.

Sales of his company’s signature Lada car have plunged, pushing the company to slash production by nearly half and move to a four-day work week at the end of September.

...

There are signs that Russia’s steel sector is also hurting.

Andrey Gartung, chief executive of the Chelyabinsk Forging and Press Plant, warned last year: “Russian enterprises competing with Chinese ones are holding on by the skin of their teeth.”

Not one to shy away, China has hit back with trade restrictions of its own.

Most notably, Xi reintroduced tariffs on Russian coal in January 2024, two years after the restrictions were first lifted.

This has already hit exports to China, with Milov claiming that the levies are adding to what is the worst crisis for Russia’s coal industry since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

...

Elsewhere, China has so far refused to lift a longstanding ban on imports of Russia’s largest agricultural exports – winter wheat and barley. Instead, it buys from Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

What China does import from Russia, it gets incredibly cheaply because it has a monopoly as one of Russia’s only buyers, says Milov.

...

The average annual flow of Chinese investment into Russia has plummeted from an average of $1.2bn from 2011 to $400m, says Milov ... In 2022, China dropped Russia from its Belt and Road financing programme, while in July, China’s commerce ministry “strongly advised” carmakers against investing in Russia.

Many major projects that were previously announced with Chinese backing have now been scrapped or are on hold.

Russia quietly disappeared from what was supposed to be a joint development of a long-haul aircraft with the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China.

...

Plans for Chinese CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles to build a high-speed rail line between Moscow and Kazan in south-west Russia have also been paused.

Separately, there has been no progress on the development of the Tianjin oil refinery, a joint venture between Rosneft and the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), which was approved in 2014.

...

This may be a sign that, for all the pomp and ceremony, the countries’ authoritarian alliance may be weaker than it appears.

“Despite all these hugs and kisses at summits, China and Russia are very much far apart,” says Milov.

Web archive link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/44153480

...

Certainly on the surface it appears China’s alliance with Russia has only grown stronger since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Nowhere has this been more evident than when looking at trade between the two countries, which has boomed ever since the West slapped Putin with massive sanctions.

Last year, the value of trade between Russia and China hit a record $245bn (£182bn), fuelled by Xi becoming the world’s largest buyer of Putin’s oil and gas. Overall, China also became Russia’s biggest supplier of goods.

However, closer ties with China have come at a cost.

In particular, Russian businesses have grown increasingly frustrated at a flood of cheap Chinese goods.

Vladimir Milov, who worked in the Russian government from 1997 to 2002 before becoming a vocal Putin critic, says the economic alliance is backfiring badly for Russia.

“It is deeply disadvantageous,” he says. “China is taking advantage because it knows that Russia has nowhere to go.”

Such warnings could signal that the economic ties between the two countries are beginning to fray.

While mutual trade hit a record high in 2024, it has fallen by nearly a tenth so far this year.

...

One key area of tension is cars.

After Western manufacturers cut ties with Russia in 2022, Chinese competitors duly stepped in.

In the two years to 2024, Chinese car exports to Russia have increased sevenfold, prompting a growing number of complaints from domestic manufacturers.

Maxim Sokolov, the chief executive of Russian carmaker AvtoVAZ, has accused the Chinese of “unprecedented dumping”, which he said in December has crossed “all imaginable boundaries”.

Sales of his company’s signature Lada car have plunged, pushing the company to slash production by nearly half and move to a four-day work week at the end of September.

...

There are signs that Russia’s steel sector is also hurting.

Andrey Gartung, chief executive of the Chelyabinsk Forging and Press Plant, warned last year: “Russian enterprises competing with Chinese ones are holding on by the skin of their teeth.”

Not one to shy away, China has hit back with trade restrictions of its own.

Most notably, Xi reintroduced tariffs on Russian coal in January 2024, two years after the restrictions were first lifted.

This has already hit exports to China, with Milov claiming that the levies are adding to what is the worst crisis for Russia’s coal industry since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

...

Elsewhere, China has so far refused to lift a longstanding ban on imports of Russia’s largest agricultural exports – winter wheat and barley. Instead, it buys from Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

What China does import from Russia, it gets incredibly cheaply because it has a monopoly as one of Russia’s only buyers, says Milov.

...

The average annual flow of Chinese investment into Russia has plummeted from an average of $1.2bn from 2011 to $400m, says Milov ... In 2022, China dropped Russia from its Belt and Road financing programme, while in July, China’s commerce ministry “strongly advised” carmakers against investing in Russia.

Many major projects that were previously announced with Chinese backing have now been scrapped or are on hold.

Russia quietly disappeared from what was supposed to be a joint development of a long-haul aircraft with the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China.

...

Plans for Chinese CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles to build a high-speed rail line between Moscow and Kazan in south-west Russia have also been paused.

Separately, there has been no progress on the development of the Tianjin oil refinery, a joint venture between Rosneft and the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), which was approved in 2014.

...

This may be a sign that, for all the pomp and ceremony, the countries’ authoritarian alliance may be weaker than it appears.

“Despite all these hugs and kisses at summits, China and Russia are very much far apart,” says Milov.

Web archive link

Ukrainian President Zelensky says Russia launched a "massive" overnight attack on Ukraine, using more than 600 drones and 30 missiles.

...

"Putin still cannot accept that he must stop killing," says Zelensky. "And that means that the world is not putting enough pressure on Russia"

The energy operator, Ukrenergo, says "emergency power outages" are in place in "several regions" of Ukraine, as temperatures approach 0C.

...

On Monday, Zelensky warned it was Russia's "nature to make some kind of massive strike on our Christmas... especially on December 23, 24, and 25"

This morning's air attack punctured weeks of relative calm in the capital Kyiv.

...

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.ca/post/57314517

In December, Sweden announced a 10bn kronor (£800m) cut in development funding to Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Liberia, Tanzania and Bolivia. Germany's humanitarian budget of €1.05bn (£920m) for 2026 will be less than half of last year's, with spending refocused on areas deemed a priority to Europe.

The UK also announced earlier this year that it would be cutting aid to fund defence spending. Norway has increased its civilian support to Ukraine by 2.5bn kroner (£185m), to a quarter of its aid budget, but has been accused of making Africa pay for that rise with a 355m kroner cut (£26m).

France's budget for 2026 will also see a €700m cut to aid spending, with a 60% reduction in food aid, while increasing defence spending by €6.7bn.

Archive link

A satirical sculptor from Düsseldorf has expressed bewilderment after Russian prosecutors charged him in a Moscow court with criminally defaming the country’s army.

Jacques Tilly, 62, is Germany’s most prominent designer of carnival floats and has spent 40 years creating outsized and grotesque papier-mâché models of figures including President Trump, Angela Merkel and Baroness May of Maidenhead.

Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, his floats have repeatedly mocked President Putin’s brutality.

...

This year’s float for the Düsseldorf carnival depicted Trump and Putin shaking hands, with President Zelensky crushed in their grip and haemorrhaging blood, along with the caption: “Hitler-Stalin pact 2.0”.

Previous editions have shown Putin choking on a map of Ukraine and posing naked alongside Trump and President Xi of China, with a gigantically enlarged scrotum emblazoned with the words “Make Russia great again”.

...