Why do I always have to flip it 10 times before plugging in

China opposed what it said was "unilateral bullying" after Washington ordered a blockade of sanctioned tankers entering and leaving oil-rich Venezuela, but did not say exactly how it would come to the South American country's aid or offer any refuge for its embattled leader.

Earlier this week, Donald Trump ordered a complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers attempting to leave Venezuelan waters, and those arriving, as Washington massed troops and warships in the region.

China is the biggest buyer of Venezuelan crude, which accounts for roughly 4% of its imports, with shipments in December on track to average more than 600,000 barrels per day, analysts have said.

Right wing media and think tanks consistently blitz the news and press when tax increases are discussed, threatened or, in the recnent instance of Mamdani, the new more progressive mayor of NY, that progressive taxation policy drives the rich to leave.

I wanted to share this article about the UK media outlets misleading, inaccurate and over representation of coverage here of the identical issue as the same schlock fear mongering without any data is done there as in the US. I assume the playbook is the same in Canada, Australia and elsewhere but would be interested to hear from those better informed.

Coordinated, well funded attacks on critical democratic infrastructure are not coincidence globally, they are the playbook.

cross-posted from: https://leminal.space/post/29858954

BIG UP DA THEMDEM

Archive/non-paywall link.

• Description: Every cat dreams of freedom. As a spoiled cat, Moka longs for adventure and escapes his home, only to find an unexpected world. Now, appreciative of what he had, he must learn how to survive to make his way back home before he loses everything. Witness a journey full of danger, friendship, and hope, brought to life with hand-drawn animation.
• Price: $14.99 ($10.49 till 9th Jan)
• Link: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/stars-in-the-trash-switch/
• Platform: Nintendo Switch

The EU has once again launched its Galileo satellites on a European rocket, after years of being dependent on the Russians and Americans.

The administration of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, in coordination with the ruling coalition, is considering stricter immigration controls as part of its foreign resident policy. A comprehensive plan is set to be finalized in January 2026, with specific visa categories and measures now coming into focus.

At the end of 2015, Japan had about 2.23 million foreign residents. By the end of June this year, that number had increased to approximately 3.95 million, a 1.7-fold increase over 10 years. Foreign residents now make up about 3% of the population. It is estimated that the rate will exceed 10%, which is the average for OECD countries, in 2070.

The EU-Latin America trade deal has been in the making for a quarter of a century. Though Germany's chancellor called for its completion, France and Italy said it would be "premature" to sign.

Italian authorities may not withdraw all support, including accommodation and food, from an asylum seeker merely because the person refuses transfer to another reception centre, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Thursday.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/qopoo

The Swedish public prosecutor said on Thursday that the investigation into the murder of former prime minister Olof Palme, who was killed nearly 40 years ago, will not be reopened, but cast doubt over the evidence provided for naming the chief suspect.

Palme, a Social Democrat, was fatally shot on a Stockholm street shortly before midnight on February 28, 1986, while on his way home from the cinema with his wife, who suffered a graze wound.

In 2020, investigators were finally certain they could name the alleged perpetrator: a man who had long since died, named Stig Engström, often referred to in Sweden as the "Skandia man."

However, because Engström had been dead since 2000, no charges could be brought against him.

In late September, prosecutors received a request to reopen the investigation given the possibility of new DNA technology that could be used to analyse samples from Palme's coat.

On Thursday, Director of Prosecution Lennart Guné said in a statement that "there are currently no circumstances known to me that have the potential to lead a reopened investigation to prosecution and conviction."

"I have found that I do not have grounds to reopen the investigation in order to conduct renewed analyses and samples of Olof Palme's coat," Guné said in the statement.

Nonetheless, he said that after reviewing the evidence against the deceased suspect, it is "not sufficient to form the basis for identifying him as the designated perpetrator."

Guné said that while the case would not be reopened, the reason for closing the inquiry would be changed: "Based on the investigation material that is now available, it is not possible to prove who the perpetrator is and further investigation cannot be assumed to change the evidence in a decisive way."

An afternoon press conference on Thursday could reveal more details.

A Swedish trauma

The crime and the subsequent slow-moving investigation were a great trauma for the Swedish nation.

The case is considered Sweden's biggest criminal case of the past century and is to the Scandinavian country roughly what the assassination of John F Kennedy was to the United States. International interest was also enormous.

U.S. trade officials are signalling that Canada will need to make policy changes if it wants long-term certainty under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), as the trade deal comes up for mandatory review next year.

I want to set up my own Nepenthes against LLMs. I have purchased a domain, say "wowsocool.com".

I have a RaspberryPi 4B that I want to use as an nginx reverse proxy, and an old Acer laptop that will host the Nepenthes. I am going to host this at my current residence router as I won't be staying there too long. I thought this was a cool temporary project.

My problem is that the website sort of glosses over the whole nginx setup and IP pointing etc.

If anyone has done this before, is it possible to please write up a dummy's guide that goes through everything. I am quite unconfident and my skills are nonexistent in this field.

Pretty please.

Update as of 9:20 pm Dec. 16: Following the publication of this article, House Science Committee Democratic staff told FYI that DOE has not yet determined which Fusion Energy Sciences programs will be moved from the Office of Science to the Office of Fusion, aside from the Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program and the INFUSE program. They also said it is unclear if the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations will continue to exist. The headline of this story has since been updated accordingly.

Basic research in quantum information science and fusion energy sciences will continue within the Department of Energy Office of Science, Under Secretary for Science Darío Gil said at a House Science Committee hearing last week. Gil will oversee DOE’s newly created Office of Fusion and Office of AI and Quantum, which he said will focus on supporting companies to deliver “real” quantum capabilities and fusion power plants.

The hearing focused on the DOE-led Genesis Mission to develop AI, but also touched on major changes to DOE’s organization announced in November.

Gil said the work of the new offices will be “complementary” to the basic research in the Office of Science. “Sometimes people say, ‘Well, are you doing it in tension with the support of the basic science?’ We’re not. We’re saying, because we’ve succeeded in investing in that, we have the opportunity now to create an industry,” he said.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced bills in the House and Senate this week to codify the new fusion office at DOE.

Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) asked Gil whether he supports a one-time $10 billion infusion of federal funds for fusion research and commercial demonstration, as recommended by the bipartisan Commission on the Scaling of Fusion Energy. Gil pointed to the DOE fusion roadmap released in October, which he said “lays out the infrastructure investments that we need to make as a department to complement the $9 billion of venture capital that has been invested into fusion energy.”

Lofgren said the huge amount of funds from the private sector is “wonderful,” but that federal funds are necessary for research that will benefit the entire industry. She also raised concerns about proposals to reallocate funds appropriated to fusion in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which she said would be an illegal impoundment.

Plan for some offices remains murky

The new organization chart does not include several previous offices, such as the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Energy Secretary Chris Wright signaled his desire to shutter OCED earlier this year.

Gil said OCED will not be eliminated but will be integrated into a different office, and that he did not have details on EERE or any other offices outside his purview.

Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) said he expects Gil to provide projected headcounts and previous headcounts for each office on the organization chart. “We want to make sure that its capacity is there, not just that there’s a place on the org chart,” Foster said.

Lofgren criticized Wright for not testifying before the committee, saying “there must be accountability” for actions at DOE this year, including “the mass firings and coerced departures of dedicated experts throughout DOE, the illegal elimination of the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, insanely inaccurate statements regarding the role that renewables play in ensuring the reliability of our electric grid, [and] the widely debunked climate ‘science’ report that the secretary commissioned.”

“I am happy to hear from you today, Dr. Gil, but Secretary Wright really has a responsibility to respond to our inquiries on each of these matters himself,” Lofgren added.

Wright was scheduled to appear before the committee on Sept. 18 but canceled, and was rescheduled to appear on Oct. 15 but could not due to the federal government shutdown, Lofgren and Babin said. Babin added that Wright will testify before the committee early next year.

Study author says tech companies are reaping benefits of artificial intelligence age but society is left to pay cost

The AI boom has caused as much carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere in 2025 as emitted by the whole of New York City, it has been claimed.

The global environmental impact of the rapidly spreading technology has been estimated in research published on Wednesday, which also found that AI-related water use now exceeds the entirety of global bottled-water demand.

The figures have been compiled by the Dutch academic Alex de Vries-Gao, the founder of Digiconomist, a company that researches the unintended consequences of digital trends. He claimed they were the first attempt to measure the specific effect of artificial intelligence rather than datacentres in general as the use of chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini soared in 2025.

Pressure is growing on member states to back a €90bn loan for Kyiv ahead of a Brussels summit

European leaders are being urged to decide whether to use Russia’s frozen assets to fund Ukraine’s defence at a time of unprecedented pressure from the US.

At a critical summit in Brussels on Thursday, EU leaders will be asked to make good on a promise to find urgently needed cash for Ukraine, with Kyiv under pressure to cede territory as Russia ekes out advances on the battlefield.

Arriving at the summit, Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said Europe had a choice between “money today or blood tomorrow”. He said he was “not talking about Ukraine only, I am talking about Europe. And this is our decision to make and only ours. I think all European leaders have to finally rise to this occasion.”

The initiative invites the Commission “to propose a regulation that establishes a standardised oversight of human rights across its areas of competence in its external action with third countries". According to the organisers, the "regulation should ensure that the Commission monitors, evaluates, and responds to human rights violations in a manner that is transparent, consistent, effective, proportionate and timely.”

Following today's registration, the organisers have six months to open the 12-month period of signature collection. If an ECI receives at least one million statements of support during that time, with minimum numbers reached in at least seven Member States, the Commission is required to react, and decide what, if any, action it will take in response to the initiative, justifying its decision.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/43863645

Nazi salutes such as “Heil Hitler” or “Sieg Heil” are illegal in Germany. Members of the AfD, which Germany’s counterintelligence service described in May as a demonstrably right-wing extremist party, have faced a number of scandals in the past over using Nazi salutes or slogans.

[Alternative for Germany (AfD) MP Matthias] Moosdorf’s case happened in June 2023 when, according to the public prosecutor’s office, he greeted his colleague in the Nazi manner by clicking his heels together and raising his right arm at the entrance to the locker room area of the lower house. The public prosecutor’s office has now charged him with using unconstitutional symbols.

The Bundestag has already stripped 60-year-old Moosdorf of his immunity from prosecution. [He] is described by critics as particularly pro-Russian.

Since the start of Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moosdorf has opposed weapons aid to Kyiv, claiming that opposing Russia means that Germany will end up like it did “in 1945”. The Soviet Union and the Western Allies defeated Nazi Germany that year.

Last year Moosdorf also became a target of criticism even within his own party after he accepted an honorary professorship at the Moscow Academy of Music [he is a Cellist]. Until June this year he held the post of the party’s foreign policy spokesperson.

Moosdorf’s predecessor in that position was Petr Bystroň, who is of Czech origin. Bystroň now faces suspicions of accepting bribes from the pro-Russian “Voice of Europe” news server.

Germany prohibits the distribution or public use of symbols of unconstitutional groups, in particular, flags, forms of greeting, insignia, slogans, and uniforms. Among other things, the ban applies to Nazi greetings, as well as to the farewell phrase “with German regards” (mit deutschem Gruß), which the Nazis also abused.

Nazi salutes such as “Heil Hitler” or “Sieg Heil” are illegal in Germany. Members of the AfD, which Germany’s counterintelligence service described in May as a demonstrably right-wing extremist party, have faced a number of scandals in the past over using Nazi salutes or slogans.

[Alternative for Germany (AfD) MP Matthias] Moosdorf’s case happened in June 2023 when, according to the public prosecutor’s office, he greeted his colleague in the Nazi manner by clicking his heels together and raising his right arm at the entrance to the locker room area of the lower house. The public prosecutor’s office has now charged him with using unconstitutional symbols.

The Bundestag has already stripped 60-year-old Moosdorf of his immunity from prosecution. [He] is described by critics as particularly pro-Russian.

Since the start of Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moosdorf has opposed weapons aid to Kyiv, claiming that opposing Russia means that Germany will end up like it did “in 1945”. The Soviet Union and the Western Allies defeated Nazi Germany that year.

Last year Moosdorf also became a target of criticism even within his own party after he accepted an honorary professorship at the Moscow Academy of Music [he is a Cellist]. Until June this year he held the post of the party’s foreign policy spokesperson.

Moosdorf’s predecessor in that position was Petr Bystroň, who is of Czech origin. Bystroň now faces suspicions of accepting bribes from the pro-Russian “Voice of Europe” news server.

Germany prohibits the distribution or public use of symbols of unconstitutional groups, in particular, flags, forms of greeting, insignia, slogans, and uniforms. Among other things, the ban applies to Nazi greetings, as well as to the farewell phrase “with German regards” (mit deutschem Gruß), which the Nazis also abused.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/43863123

Web archive link

Kenyan authorities have secured the return of 18 citizens who were recruited inside Russia to take part in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Nairobi-based outlet The Standard reported. In total, at least 82 Kenyans have appealed to the country’s embassy in Moscow for help returning home.

The Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation reported that some of those who have been repatriated sustained serious injuries during the war in Ukraine. According to the report, the Kenyans traveled to Russia after being offered what they believed were civilian jobs. Most of those recruited into the Russian army had no prior military experience, Daily Nation said.

The Kenyan government has revoked the licenses of more than 600 fraudulent agencies that had been sending Kenyans to Russia and is also holding talks with Ukraine on the release of Kenyan prisoners of war. According to available data, more than 200 Kenyans may have been recruited into the Russian military.

The Insider has reported on the deceptive methods that are used to lure citizens of African countries into the Russian army, most notably in the article Lost in translation: How African migrants are tricked and threatened into Russian military service, as well as the video report “They took my passport and gave me a gun”: How Russia recruits Africans for its war against Ukraine.

...

At the end of October 2025, the international tribunal in The Hague heard testimony from Olena Yahupova, a resident of the town of Kamianka-Dniprovska in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Region. Recently, Yahupova shared additional details with The Insider, describing how she was abducted by Russian soldiers and detailing the torture and abuse she endured at their hands.

Web archive link

We're driven blindfolded to a secret location where Ukraine is making one of its latest weapons.

We're told to turn off our phones - such is the secrecy around the production of Ukraine's Flamingo cruise missile.

For Ukraine, dispersing and hiding the production of weapons like this is key to survival. Two factories belonging to the company that makes it - Fire Point - have already been hit.

Even under fire, Ukraine is ramping up its arms industry. President Volodymyr Zelensky says the country now produces more than 50% of the weapons it uses on the front line. Almost its entire inventory of long-range weapons is domestically made.

At the start of the war Ukraine mostly relied on its old Soviet-era arsenal. Western military support helped modernise the country's armed forces, but it now leads much of the world in developing unmanned systems – like robots and drones.

One of the first white-tailed eagles to fledge in England for hundreds of years has vanished in suspicious circumstances, alongside two more “devastating” disappearances of the reintroduced raptor.

The eagles have gone missing in Sussex, Wales and Scotland. The chick, which hatched in the wild earlier this year in Sussex, was one of the first white-tailed eagles to fledge in England for hundreds of years.

It is thought someone could have harmed or killed the birds, as the satellite trackers that allow the reintroduction team to track their location and movements had been cut off. Two of the eagles had their trackers cut off with a sharp instrument with the equipment found dumped near their last recorded location. In the third case, the tag stopped sending information on 8 November and no sighting of the bird has been recorded since.