Both sides are right You will never win against me because I agree with you

In short:

Asia is home to nine of the world's 10 most populous cities in 2025, according to the United Nations.

A new report identifies Jakarta, with 42 million residents, as having the largest population globally.

Tokyo had long held the title as the world's largest city, but its population growth has stagnated.

A deep dive into the secrets of the FSB's feared 2nd Service: how they poison opposition figures, what promotions Navalny's killers got, how they engineered the fake referendum in Crimea and helped Bachar El Assad.

An informative confession from ex-FSB Colonel.

Venezuelan group known as Cartel of the Suns designated as terrorist organization despite doubts over its existence

Venezuela’s government has accused the US of peddling “ridiculous hogwash” about its supposed role in sponsoring “narco-terrorism” as Washington continued to turn up the heat on Nicolás Maduro’s regime and leftwing European politicians warned South America faced being plunged into “a torrent of bloodshed”.

On Monday, the Trump administration officially designated a Venezuelan group known as the “Cartel de los Soles” (the Cartel of the Suns) a terrorist organization – despite widespread doubts over its actual existence.

The move was the latest chapter in a four-month US pressure campaign, officially designed to combat South American drug traffickers but which many suspect is a pretext to overthrow Maduro who Trump tried, but failed, to topple during his first term.

Germany’s association of family-owned companies has lifted its ban on contacts with AfD lawmakers, signalling the far-right party’s growing acceptability in parts of the business community as it climbs in the polls.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/53738376

(Bloomberg) -- New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has selected several corporate executives to join his transition team as the democratic socialist seeks to mollify concerns his policies might harm the city’s business community.

Among those chosen to help in his move to City Hall are former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partner Margaret Anadu, developer Jed Walentas and Kathy Wylde, head of the Partnership for New York City. Wylde and Anadu will serve on the Committee on Economic Development & Workforce Development, and Walentas will join the Committee on Housing, according to a statement from Mamdani’s transition team on Monday.

Walentas, the Brooklyn developer behind the revamp of the Domino Sugar Refinery, had spoken with Mamdani before the election as part of a charm offensive by the candidate to reassure business leaders who were wary of the 34-year-old’s policies. The incoming mayor, who takes office on Jan. 1, ran on a pledge to freeze rents and provide free childcare and bus service, and promised to pay for his programs with a tax on corporations and the wealthy.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5784157

Archived version

Russia launched a wave of attacks on Ukraine on Tuesday, killing at least six people in overnight strikes that hit city buildings and energy infrastructure, while a Ukrainian attack in southern Russia killed three people and damaged homes, authorities said.

The large-scale attacks come during a renewed U.S. push to end the war that has raged for nearly four years and talks about a U.S.-brokered peace plan. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll met with Russian officials for several hours in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, a U.S. official confirmed to The Associated Press.

...

Russia fired 22 missiles of various types and over 460 drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram, noting that four drones flew into Romania and Moldova.

...

The Russian strikes knocked out water, electricity and heat in parts of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. Video footage posted to Telegram showed a large fire spreading in a nine-story residential building in Kyiv’s eastern Dniprovskyi district.

Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said two people were killed and five injured in Dniprovskyi and another residential building in the central Pecherskyi district was badly damaged.

Liubov Petrivna, a 90-year-old resident of a damaged building in the Dniprovskyi district, told the AP “absolutely everything” in her apartment was shattered by the strike and “glass rained down” on her.

Petrivna said she didn’t believe in the peace plan now under discussion: “No one will ever do anything about it. Putin won’t stop until he finishes us off.”

...

Ukraine’s energy ministry also said energy infrastructure had been hit, without describing the extent of the damage. Ukraine’s emergency services said six people, including two children, were injured in a Russian attack on energy and port infrastructure in Odesa region.

...

Three people were killed and eight more were wounded in a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s southern Rostov region overnight. The casualties occurred in the city of Taganrog not far from the border in Ukraine, Gov. Yuri Slyusar said in an online statement Tuesday.

The attack damaged private houses and multistory residential blocks, unspecified social facilities, a warehouse and a paint shop, Slyusar said.

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5784029

The Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernisation is working on the so-called Germany Stack, which is intended to “create a sovereign, European-compatible and interoperable digital infrastructure for federal, state and local governments” as “national sovereign technology platform”. Until the end of November 2025, a public consultation is running, to which the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has today submitted a statement (open new link in German).

...

The Germany Stack can only achieve its stated aim if it consistently relies on Free Software. A proprietary stack would merely replace existing dependencies with new ones. Proprietary software developed by manufacturers in Germany or Europe does not provide the necessary conditions for sovereignty, creates new lock-in effects, and can at any time be withdrawn from access by public authorities – for instance, if a manufacturer becomes insolvent or is bought by a non-European competitor. Trust issues also remain when the code is intransparent, and security bugs may persist if there is no right to fix the software. Defining availability as Free Software as a criterion for components of the Stack does not disadvantage manufacturers of proprietary software. Rather, this decision creates an incentive for all manufacturers to produce and publish Free Software, from which not only public administrations but also the European economy and society as a whole will benefit.

...

- As a yunohost user I find the yunohost discourse forum really useful - but I also find that tracking posts and discussions in the forum - the many other forums for other software I use - and then related conversations on ActivityPub time consuming.

I know that the discourse forum software has a plugin that allows content in the forum to be followed via ActivityPub without impacting the ability for the forum losing control of content moderation in the forum (or having to deal with ActivityPub replies and conversation) meta.discourse.org/t/activityp…

I while ago I posted in the forum about the idea forum.yunohost.org/t/discourse… - but perhaps because it mightnt have been seen by ActivityPub users - there wasnt much interest.

I think that making it easier to follow and share forum content would also promote yunohost to activtypub users.

What do people here thing? - What are your thoughts ?
@yunohost

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5783864

[Op-ed by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, two Russian investigative journalists and co-founders of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of Russian secret service activities.]

...

Whatever the outcome of the current negotiations, Putin’s obsession with Europe is so great that leading European nations and hardline anti-Kremlin states like Germany, France, Poland, the Baltic states, and the UK will continue to experience attacks.

Ukraine has been the fulcrum of the Russian president’s campaign to change the post-Cold War settlement of 1989-91, but it is only one part of a much more ambitious campaign to build a more Russia-friendly Europe.

It’s worth remembering that Putin’s ultimatum to the West in December 2021, on the eve of his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, was primarily targeted at NATO’s presence on the European continent. In particular, it made extraordinary demands for the withdrawal of troops and weapons from NATO’s Eastern flank, including the return of NATO forces to their bases of 1997. That would have meant withdrawing garrisons in the Baltic states, Poland, and Romania.

...

Moscow firmly believes that Europe must be put “in its place” regardless of any deal over Ukraine.

This explains the Kremlin’s accelerating shadow war operations against Europe — including arson, sabotage, drone attacks, targeted assassinations of Russian emigres, and cyberattacks against infrastructure — that aim to unnerve the population and pressure governments to shift policy in Russia’s favor. An end to fighting in Ukraine does not change this logic.

...

Internal Russian factors also make a sustained peace improbable. Three and a half years of war in Ukraine have eroded the role of many key Russian institutions in anything involving relations with the outside world.

For instance, nobody cares what role Lavrov and his foreign ministry play in the current negotiations; the real talks with the Americans are taking place elsewhere and are handled by other actors — starting with Putin himself, his personal appointees such as Kirill Dmitriev, and the intelligence agencies, which have boosted their influence through several rounds of hostage exchanges.

...

The security agencies, meanwhile — omnipresent and all-powerful after two decades of growing power — have made full use of the Kremlin’s paranoia about Ukrainian spies and saboteurs, and now have their fingers in everything of any importance in the country — from federal ministries and regional governments, which are kept in line through selective repression carried out by the FSB, to corporations harassed by innumerable criminal investigations, which involve the FSB, or military counterintelligence, in one way or another.

...

Territorial gains in Ukraine, the fate of Zelenskyy, or a downsized Ukrainian army are too trivial to matter. By Russian spy standards, such outcomes would simply be inconsequential. It would merely enable a greater focus on the next round, with the new and bigger target of democratic Europe.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5783864

[Op-ed by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, two Russian investigative journalists and co-founders of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of Russian secret service activities.]

...

Whatever the outcome of the current negotiations, Putin’s obsession with Europe is so great that leading European nations and hardline anti-Kremlin states like Germany, France, Poland, the Baltic states, and the UK will continue to experience attacks.

Ukraine has been the fulcrum of the Russian president’s campaign to change the post-Cold War settlement of 1989-91, but it is only one part of a much more ambitious campaign to build a more Russia-friendly Europe.

It’s worth remembering that Putin’s ultimatum to the West in December 2021, on the eve of his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, was primarily targeted at NATO’s presence on the European continent. In particular, it made extraordinary demands for the withdrawal of troops and weapons from NATO’s Eastern flank, including the return of NATO forces to their bases of 1997. That would have meant withdrawing garrisons in the Baltic states, Poland, and Romania.

...

Moscow firmly believes that Europe must be put “in its place” regardless of any deal over Ukraine.

This explains the Kremlin’s accelerating shadow war operations against Europe — including arson, sabotage, drone attacks, targeted assassinations of Russian emigres, and cyberattacks against infrastructure — that aim to unnerve the population and pressure governments to shift policy in Russia’s favor. An end to fighting in Ukraine does not change this logic.

...

Internal Russian factors also make a sustained peace improbable. Three and a half years of war in Ukraine have eroded the role of many key Russian institutions in anything involving relations with the outside world.

For instance, nobody cares what role Lavrov and his foreign ministry play in the current negotiations; the real talks with the Americans are taking place elsewhere and are handled by other actors — starting with Putin himself, his personal appointees such as Kirill Dmitriev, and the intelligence agencies, which have boosted their influence through several rounds of hostage exchanges.

...

The security agencies, meanwhile — omnipresent and all-powerful after two decades of growing power — have made full use of the Kremlin’s paranoia about Ukrainian spies and saboteurs, and now have their fingers in everything of any importance in the country — from federal ministries and regional governments, which are kept in line through selective repression carried out by the FSB, to corporations harassed by innumerable criminal investigations, which involve the FSB, or military counterintelligence, in one way or another.

...

Territorial gains in Ukraine, the fate of Zelenskyy, or a downsized Ukrainian army are too trivial to matter. By Russian spy standards, such outcomes would simply be inconsequential. It would merely enable a greater focus on the next round, with the new and bigger target of democratic Europe.