The cause of the blaze in the northern Tai Po district was not immediately known, but it was fanned by green construction mesh and bamboo scaffolding

Hong Kong is one of the last places in the world where bamboo is still widely used for scaffolding in construction.

A firefighter was among the 44 killed, with 45 people in hospital in critical condition

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39323927

Wut.

I just read about people struggling with Next loud in the OpenDesk thread and wanted to share this in case someone is interested in contributing to this project.

Following the same legislative and narrative pattern as the EU for “Chat Control”, similar laws and rhetoric are now cropping up in the US. The narrative is “save the children from porn” but the action is censorship, mass surveillance, and the elimination of privacy on the Internet.

As of this writing, Wisconsin lawmakers are escalating their war on privacy by targeting VPNs in the name of “protecting children” in A.B. 105/S.B. 130. It’s an age verification bill that requires all websites distributing material that could conceivably be deemed “sexual content” to both implement an age verification system and also to block the access of users connected via VPN. The bill seeks to broadly expand the definition of materials that are “harmful to minors” beyond the type of speech that states can prohibit minors from accessing—potentially encompassing things like depictions and discussions of human anatomy, sexuality, and reproduction.

Wisconsin’s bill has already passed the State Assembly and is now moving through the Senate. If it becomes law, Wisconsin could become the first state where using a VPN to access certain content is banned. Michigan lawmakers have proposed similar legislation that did not move through its legislature, but among other things, would force internet providers to actively monitor and block VPN connections. And in the UK, officials are calling VPNs "a loophole that needs closing.

Hello comrades,

(Origianlly posted in r/TankieTheDeprogram)

Belgium is in the middle of a nationwide strike week against the austerity agenda of Bart De Wever’s Arizona-coalition and right on cue, MR president Georges-Louis Bouchez, and Education Minister Valérie Glatigny (MR) held a conference in Liège to promote their neoliberal education reforms. It went about as well as you would expect.

Around 500 protesters, mobilized by Antifa and other left-wing groups, gathered near the Liège conference centre. When police blocked access, the crowd moved toward City Hall. About ten protesters tried to force the doors open, windows were smashed, and the offices of La Meuse and RTL were hit with paint, fruit, and eggs. As they deserve.

Police had prepared heavily: large deployments, container barricades, closed bridges and parks, and water cannons were eventually used to disperse the crowd in front of City Hall. This follows similar clashes at an MR meeting in September.

As expected, Bouchez filed a complaint and demanded the dissolution of Antifa, “liberals” once again showing that they are for fascism.

And of course, the Belgian subreddits are doing what they always do: handwringing over broken windows and paint, rather than supporting workers, students, and activists who are actually resisting the Arizona-coalition’s policies.

Feel free to discuss Belgian politics, the current union strikes, and the broader implications of these protests. How do you see working-class resistance developing in Wallonia and Flanders? What lessons can other movements take from these actions?

Also, please send solidarity to the workers on strike or, if you can, consider supporting or joining their union actions.

N.B.: I might make a separate post later about the Belgian protests, as well as the fact that the ARIZONA coalition finalized their budget agreement without taking the unions’ demands into account

Sources (links not included to avoid tracking):

• VRT News: “Protest tegen MR-voorzitter Bouchez in Luik escaleert: demonstranten proberen stadhuis binnen te dringen”

• RTL “Conference du MR à Liège: tout s’est déroulé dans le calme, 400 manifestants sur place”

• Qu4tre: “Un mur de containers près du Palais des Congrès pour la venue de Georges-Louis Bouchez”

• TodayinLiege: “La venue du président du MR G.L. Bouchez au Palais des Congrès ce mercredi fait craindre des heurts”

In its new draft for combating child abuse online, the EU is abandoning chat control. Instead: risk assessments and voluntary measures

I've been seeing the use of the phrase "functinally illiterate", and it got me thinking that I don't think there is such a thing when it's speech instead of the written word. There are plenty of instances I can think of where I or someone I knew was simply not capable of or didn't want to try to understand something that was said. Is there something that means not bring able or refusing to comprehend speech when that person is fluent in the language being spoken?

Willie Shane broke the asphalt on Elon Musk’s Music City Loop project this summer. Seven of his crew had been the sole excavators, fabricators and dump trucking company on The Boring Company’s proposed tunnel through Nashville for months.

Then came Monday night, when they walked off the site.

“I moved the equipment myself,” Shane said in an interview with the Banner on Tuesday.

“We were really skeptical from the beginning, and then since then, things pretty much just went downhill,” he added.

You can find Immich at https://immich.app/ If you want to buy Immich merch, go to https://immich.store/ You can learn more about FUTO at https://futo.org/

To be clear, I'm not advocating for online age verification. I'm very much against it in any form. I'm just curious from a technical standpoint if it's possible somehow to construct an accurate age verification system that doesn't compromise a user's privacy? i.e., it doesn't expose the person's identity to anyone nor leaves behind a paper trail that can be traced to that person?

Police in Hong Kong arrested three men on suspicion of manslaughter, several local news media reported, in connection with a blaze that has killed at least 36 people and left another 279 missing in the city’s deadliest fire in years.

Hundreds of residents were evacuated as the fire which started on Wednesday afternoon, spread across seven of the eight high-rise apartment buildings in a housing complex in Tai Po district, a suburb in the New Territories. At least 29 others remained hospitalized. Bright flames and smoke shot out of windows as night fell.

Authorities said earlier that investigators would be looking into factors including whether material on the exterior walls of high-rise buildings met fire resistance standards, as the rapid spread of the fire was unusual.

Officials said the fire started on the external scaffolding of one of the buildings, a 32-storey tower, and later spread to inside the building and then to nearby buildings, likely aided by windy conditions.

France’s government is taking action against billionaire Elon Musk ‘s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok after it generated French-language posts that questioned the use of gas chambers at Auschwitz, officials said.

Grok, built by Musk’s company xAI and integrated into his social media platform X, wrote in a widely shared post in French that gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp were designed for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus” rather than for mass murder — language long associated with Holocaust denial.

The Auschwitz Memorial highlighted the exchange on X, saying that the response distorted historical fact and violated the platform’s rules.

Generated Summary:

Sabby's Analysis: The Pragmatist vs. The Movement

Sabby's analysis centers on a central, disillusioned thesis: Zohran Mamdani, despite his radical background, is governing as a political moderate by making pragmatic deals with the Democratic establishment, a strategy that Sabby argues is historically ineffective and morally compromising.

Her critique is structured around several key points, which she supports with evidence from Mamdani's own words and actions.

1. The Core Argument: Capitulation to the Establishment

Sabby's Claim: Mamdani is abandoning the confrontational, movement-politics of the DSA in favor of backroom deals with party leaders to advance his agenda.

• Key Evidence:
  • Opposing a Primary Challenge: Mamdani actively discouraged the NYC-DSA from endorsing a primary challenge against House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
  • Endorsing Jeffries for Speaker: Mamdani gave a swift, unequivocal "Yes" when asked if he wanted Jeffries to be Speaker if Democrats win the House.
• Sabby's Interpretation: These are not independent acts but likely parts of a pre-arranged "quid pro quo" deal. She speculates the agreement was: "If you support me and not a primary challenge against me, I'll make sure I do everything I can to get that economic agenda of yours accomplished in New York City." She finds Mamdani's endorsement of Jeffries particularly telling because of its speed and lack of hesitation, which she interprets as a sign of a firm commitment.

2. The Philosophical Disagreement: Caution vs. Confrontation

Sabby contrasts two models of political change, firmly siding with one.

• Mamdani's Stated Framework (The Pragmatist): As explained in his Majority Report interview, Mamdani believes the choice is between "fulfilling the agenda" and "defending the caricatures of that movement." He argues that to deliver tangible results like rent freezes and universal childcare—the "power of example"—he must work with the existing power structure, even if it means temporary compromises. His goal is to show disillusioned New Yorkers that politics can deliver concrete improvements to their lives.
• Sabby's Framework (The Confrontationalist): Sabby labels Mamdani's approach as "playing it cautious" and argues this strategy has a proven track record of failure. She presents a historical narrative:
  • Obama's caution led to the election of Trump.
  • Biden-era progressive caution (e.g., behind-the-scenes pressure on Gaza rather than public confrontation) led to Trump's re-election.
  • Her conclusion: Caution creates a pendulum effect, swinging voters between two corporate-aligned parties and preventing any real leftward shift. She advocates for a "wrecking ball" approach—direct confrontation with the establishment.

3. The Moral Imperative: The Litmus Test of AIPAC

For Sabby, the alliance with Hakeem Jeffries is not just a pragmatic misstep but a profound moral failure, primarily over the issue of Palestine.

• Jeffries' Record: She meticulously outlines Jeffries' positions to demonstrate his incompatibility with progressive values:
  • He is "against Medicare for All."
  • He "voted to condemn socialism."
  • He "still won't call what's happening in Gaza a genocide."
• Damning Evidence: She plays a clip of Jeffries giving a staunchly pro-Israel speech, ending with "Israel today, Israel tomorrow, Israel forever." She then highlights Mamdani's own 2022 tweet criticizing this very speech, creating a powerful contrast that paints Mamdani as a hypocrite.
• The Binary Choice: Sabby frames this as a non-negotiable litmus test: "Either you are going to support candidates that take money from the Israeli lobby or you're not." By supporting Jeffries, Mamdani has, in her view, chosen the wrong side.

4. The Predictive Warning and Cynical Realism

Sabby doesn't just critique the present; she predicts the future and offers a cynical but realistic view of political ambition.

• The Prediction: She warns that this is the beginning of a slippery slope. "Zohran is going to end up capitulating more and more to what Hakeem and the other Democrat leadership and establishment want instead of the other way around." She is deeply skeptical that the establishment will hold up its end of the bargain, citing Jeffries' record as proof.
• The "Game of Politics": Sabby operates on the assumption that all political actions are driven by calculated self-interest and "backroom deals." She speculates that Mamdani's actions might be part of a larger chess game involving AOC's potential Senate run, where supporting Jeffries now earns favors for the broader "Squad" later. She also suggests Mamdani may have his own future ambitions (Congress, Governor) that require playing nice with the party brass.
• The "Mixed Bag" Acknowledgment: To maintain credibility, she acknowledges that Mamdani's appointment of police abolitionist Alex Vitale to his transition team is a "really good pick" and that his administration seems to be a "mixed bag." However, she uses this to reinforce her main thesis: he will be a moderate, blending some progressive appointments with establishment alliances, not a radical reformer.

5. The Final Lesson: Politicians Are Not Heroes

Sabby concludes with a lesson aimed directly at her audience, meant to manage expectations and redirect political energy.

• Managing Disappointment: She states that disappointment is inevitable "when you put all of your hope and faith in a politician."
• Redirecting Agency: Her key takeaway is: "You are the hero that you're looking for, the people in the community are the hero that you're looking for." This is a classic tenet of leftist movement politics—that change comes from mass movements and grassroots organizing, not from electing a savior.

Summary of Sabby's Perspective

Sabby analyzes Mamdani's actions through a lens of strategic skepticism and moral absolutism. She sees his pragmatism as a familiar and failed pattern within the Democratic Party—one that neutralizes left-wing movements by absorbing them into a system designed to maintain the status quo. While she understands the tactical argument for delivering tangible wins, she fundamentally believes that allying with figures like Hakeem Jeffries is a losing strategy that sacrifices the moral core of the movement for political crumbs that may never materialize. Her analysis is a warning that the system co-opts radicals, and her final advice is to place faith in the people, not the politicians.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are holding the mother of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s nephew in custody, multiple media outlets reported on Wednesday.

Bruna Ferreira, 33, is currently being held at an ICE facility in Louisiana after she was taken into custody in Revere, Massachusetts, at some point this month. The exact date of the detention is unclear. WBUR, which first reported the incident, says it took place earlier in November.

Ferreira was initially taken to a women’s prison in Vermont before being moved to South Louisiana. She is currently in removal proceedings because her family is accused of overstaying a tourist visa that expired in 1999, according to Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.

Ferreira came to the US as a child in 1998 from Brazil and has an 11-year-old son with Michael Leavitt, Karoline’s brother. The two were engaged in 2014, but later broke up. It is unclear when they separated, but the pair shares custody of the child.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/42547282

Archived

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Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the centre has rescued over 100,000 children from the frontlines and more than 1,000 from the occupied territories and Russia, through unofficial routes and brave, special operations. It estimates that one in 10 of these children has experienced sexual abuse. The victims, of all ages and sexes, include girls who have been raped and suffered forced pregnancy, “so they will give birth to future Russian soldiers,” said Alina Dmytrenko, government relations officer at the Save Ukraine Centre, an NGO that helps families escape Russian occupation, returns children abducted by Russia.

“We have these cases which are very sensitive,” she confirmed. “It is a system. It is part of Russia’s aim when it comes to children: to break Ukrainian identity and trust. To turn Ukrainians into Russians. All the children who come here are traumatised, afraid to talk, to express emotion. But with sexual abuse, all of this is much heavier.”

“Russia is specifically targeting children,” she added. “It is shocking. How can you abuse the most vulnerable?”

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