cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/44098631

Payment arrears by Russian state-owned companies to domestic businesses have surged in 2025, rising nearly threefold year-on-year, the Vedomosti business daily reported Monday, citing data from the state-backed SME Corporation.

The increase concerns contracts awarded under Russia’s public procurement law for state-owned enterprises known as 223-FZ.

According to the SME Corporation, 548 complaints worth nearly 4.03 billion rubles ($51 million) were filed this year compared with 200 complaints totaling 1.5 billion rubles ($19 million) in 2024.

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) said in November that it had opened 1,173 administrative cases over non-payment in public procurement since the start of the year, a 20% increase from the total number of such cases in 2024.

...

“The problem of non-payments by state corporations is systemic and very serious,” Alexei Kuchmin, founder of the AIR Group, told Vedomosti. He said companies often delay payments for one to three months, effectively using suppliers’ funds as interest-free loans.

Kuchmin added that companies most active under 223-FZ operate in IT and telecommunications, as well as construction and industrial manufacturing.

Delayed payments under 223-FZ became widespread from late 2024, driven by falling revenues at state companies and the high cost of borrowing amid elevated interest rates, Alexander Kalinin, president of the Opora Russia business association, told Vedomosti.

...

Several major state-controlled companies have reported deteriorating financial results:

• Rosneft, Russia’s largest state oil producer, saw its profit fall threefold in the first half of the year
• Gazprom posted a net loss of 170 billion rubles ($2.1 billion) in its core gas business over the first nine months
• Russian Railways (RZhD) became loss-making for the first time in five years, cutting spending on construction and procurement by 40%.
• Uralvagonzavod, the country’s largest tank manufacturer, has begun mass layoffs due to financial difficulties
• Sberbank has announced plans to cut about 20% of its workforce.

The government has decided to set up a working group to monitor the situation amid the surge in payment arrears, Vedomosti reported, citing two sources present at a Dec. 16 meeting of the SME Corporation’s board.

...

Web archive link

Richard Attenborough

What I want is a darkest

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6252199

Archived version

[UK] General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, the first sea lord, [said] that Moscow was renewing investment in the Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research (GUGI) team and that Britain could not afford to ignore the threat posed by Russia’s advanced underwater capabilities, which were “improving all the time”.

The unit of expert submariners is responsible for mapping and potentially disrupting seabed infrastructure — such as internet cables and gas pipelines — on which Britain and its Nato allies rely for communications and power supplies.

“We’ve seen GUGI’s subsurface capabilities restarting,” Jenkins said in an interview. “We know that they’ve had some issues with that programme. It appears that they have reset that programme. So we’re expecting them to deploy again.”

GUGI can operate submersibles at extreme depths, which “gives [Moscow] the option for physical action, if they want it,” he added.

While GUGI has been conducting underwater missions for several decades, its actions are highly classified and UK naval chiefs have, until recently, refused to acknowledge its existence or discuss what they know of its activities.

...

Jenkins — who was appointed first sea lord and chief of the naval staff in May this year — declined to say exactly what “physical action” by GUGI might constitute.

But naval experts have suggested that Moscow could plant explosives at the nodes where cables meet.

“You have an aggressive regime with an acknowledged capability, an acknowledged desire to implement sabotage and transition towards points of tension, and you have a facility that enables them to go to depths with submersibles on mapped infrastructure that is sensitive to us,” Jenkins said. “That doesn’t seem like a good combination to me.”

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“The Russians continue to invest in these [naval] capabilities, and they’re improving all the time . . . we should take that threat very seriously, because the comfort that we take from being an island that is separated from continental Europe is a false comfort,” added Jenkins.

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His comments come as spies and defence chiefs have drawn attention to the increasing threat of Russian sabotage in the UK and across Europe.

In her first public remarks since taking the helm of the Secret Intelligence Service in October, MI6 chief Blaise Metreweli last week accused Moscow of “testing” Britain with “grey zone” activities including state-sponsored sabotage, cyber attacks and drone harassment at airports and military bases.

...

This post is for seeking some advice on what's the best route to try to help some friends get some of their offline lives back.

This year, a large percent of my friend group from my hometown have stopped interacting much with anyone outside of immediate family such as parents and work. Very noticeable for those that are under 30 (I'm 30) compared to those a few years older than me. For 3 of them that were pretty close, they still send memes and Instagram reels all day almost daily but never respond to any messages nor send any anymore. The only way to get them to do anything is to show up semi unannounced with tickets to go somewhere or with food to get them out of the endless scroll, and even then 2 of them will still scroll no matter what's going on around them, even while driving.

Seeing the reels that get shared since the summer, nearly all of them are AI or extreme (not political, moreso like extreme overeating, extreme overpriced buying/unboxing videos or people fighting past what mma/ufc would allow type content). This seems to have led a few to being scared of the outside while a few others consider outside to be too boring now. When we do hang out I notice my algorithm is completely different than theirs with every reel scroll. We were all very tech focused coming our of school but I'm 1 of 2 that didn't make it into a long term career, a couple of them have been on the AI hype train for a few years now.

Does this seem to be an ongoing trend for you? I know some people here have made mention over the time I've been on Lemmy but it's gotten so apparent in my life these last 2 holidays trying to make plans and soon New Years of the change and the the first time in more than a decade we're all within an hour of each other but majority of them are just socially MIA to do anything outside of scrolling on the couch laughing at nonexistent people and animals in reels. What's worked for you to help combat this within your friends without giving up on them? The best thing I've been able to find has been the bar style arcades and laser tag that's helped make that similar enjoyment while out of the house.

Contrary to concerns about cataclysmic traffic if the intersection of Portage and Main was opened to pedestrians, the actual impact was, well, almost nil.

...

That fear made the intersection focus of countless newspaper columns, radio shows and bar-stool discussions. It made it an issue in the mayoral election of 2014, and the subject of an unsuccessful plebiscite in 2018.

The theme through these years was that change was too risky. Nothing happened until maintenance costs associated with the concourse under the intersection made the status quo too expensive. This past summer, traffic lights were installed in spite of the fear.

And in early December, about six months later, the city reported that … the traffic is fine.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-cities-reform-change-winnipeg-portage-main-toronto-bike-lanes/

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's scandal-hit Socialists endured a crushing defeat in a regional election in Extremadura on Sunday, which saw far-right Vox make big gains.

The Socialists, who lead the minority national coalition, have been rocked by corruption and sexual misconduct allegations and the vote in the rural southwestern region was seen as an indicator of the party's wider prospects.

They won just 18 seats in the 65-seat assembly down from 28, their worst-ever regional result in Extremadura.

...

It was the first regional election since a court ordered Jose Luis Abalos, a former top aide to Sanchez, to stand trial over claims he took kickbacks related to the awarding of public contracts.

The prime minister's wife, Begona Gomez, and younger brother, David are also facing graft allegations.

David Sanchez is set to go on trial for influence peddling in May along with 10 other defendants including the Socialist candidate to head Extremadura's government, Miguel Angel Gallardo -- who called Sunday's election results "really bad".

The Socialists have also come under fire in recent weeks for allegedly failing to address sexual harassment by senior male officials.

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Sunday's vote will be followed by regional elections in Andalusia, Aragon, and Castile and Leon during the first half of 2026.

You like kissing beans, don't you?

The Public Health Agency of Canada is reporting a fifth hospitalization in an E. coli outbreak linked to recalled Pillsbury brand Pizza Pops.

The federal agency says 23 people in seven provinces got sick with the bacterial illness after eating or handling certain flavours of the frozen snack between early October and late November.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency recalled several pepperoni and bacon Pizza Pops on Sunday due to an E. coli contamination that is under investigation.

The outbreak has now reached Alberta, Ontario, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Edit: Thanks to the feedback I found out that the playback issues are caused by transcoding setting. I had to select QSV instead of VA-API. Now playback is smooth with any bandwidth setting.

If there are any recommendations regarding data storage in my setup, it'd be much appreciated!

So, I am running Proxmox on an old thinkpad (Intel I7 11th gen, 32 gb ram) to host home assistant, nextcloud, npm and jellyfin. I was just able to set up hardware acceleration with the iris xe driver on jellyfin and install the client on my TV, but replay struggles at 4k hdr content. I doubt that this is actually the CPU, but my LAN interface. Buying the laptop I didn't notice that it doesn't have an RJ45 socket so I have to use an USB-C adapter instead.

Additionally, I will definitely run into storage issues before getting anywhere near a reasonable movie database and adding more and more external usb drives does not seem a good idea.

I think I need a NAS. But looking at used prices of a decent 4bay device, makes me wonder if "sidegrading" my PC wouldn't be a better option. I could buy a new mainboard, cpu and memory, install all HDDs in my current case, and move my current hardware to a new, smaller one.

Does that make sense? Or is it more likely that my hardware is just incorrectly configured and a NAS would make more sense? Or should I get a DAS and set up USB pass throughout? Or...? What's your opinion?

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/55485027

German car exports to the United States dropped by nearly 15 percent in the first three quarters of 2025

Never before have Australians witnessed their alternative government blame their current government for a terrorist attack. In the midst of that, we have seen what the Jewish Council of Australia has called a “divisive pro-Israel wishlist” adopted as the only answer.

NSW premier Chris Minns has used the massacre to announce his government will adopt gun reform discussed at national cabinet as part of a major crackdown on protests. Neither Minns or his Liberal counterpart Kelly Sloane, who is in wholehearted agreement, have managed to explain how further limiting protest would make anyone safer or improve social cohesion.

Are we going to let a bunch of clankers read more obscure theory than us?!

I have a huge supply of ensure that i want to make a bit less desserty

What's your thoughts?