Official indicates vessel is subject to sanctions after Trump’s ‘blockade’ on sanctioned tankers in and out of Venezuela

US Coast Guard officials said on Sunday that they are tracking an oil tanker in international waters close to Venezuela, according to Reuters, marking the second such action over the weekend – and the third within the past week.

One official indicated that the tanker is subject to sanctions. The officials, who requested anonymity, did not disclose the precise location of the pursuit.

Donald Trump had recently declared a “blockade” targeting all sanctioned oil tankers traveling into or out of Venezuela.

The US president’s campaign to increase pressure on authoritarian Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has involved a strengthened American military presence in the region, along with more than two dozen military strikes against vessels in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea near the South American country. Those attacks have resulted in at least 100 deaths.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/51996289

The U.S. Department of Energy said on Thursday it has signed agreements with 24 organizations, including tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia to advance the Genesis Mission.

The mission is a national program aimed at using artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific research and strengthen U.S. energy and security capabilities.

The department said the program is designed to boost scientific productivity and reduce reliance on foreign technology.

Participants include major cloud and chip providers such as AWS, Oracle, IBM, Intel, AMD, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, alongside AI specialists OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI.

Nvidia will provide accelerated computing platforms and AI models for scientific simulations, while Microsoft and Google will contribute cloud infrastructure and AI tools to support large-scale research.

Oracle is expected to assist in building high-performance computing systems, and Palantir will offer data integration and analytics capabilities. Startups Cerebras and Groq will supply advanced AI chips optimized for scientific workloads. OpenAI signed a memorandum of understanding under its "OpenAI for Science" initiative, deploying frontier AI models in national lab research environments and providing its tools and workflows to DOE scientists.

Anthropic will supply its Claude models and offer a dedicated engineering team to DOE to develop AI agents, model context protocols, or MCPs, and specialized Claude "skills" for national labs. The partnerships will focus on AI models for applications ranging from nuclear energy and quantum computing to robotics and supply chain optimization.

The Genesis Mission builds on earlier collaborations between the DOE and the booming industry to deploy high-performance computing systems at Argonne and Los Alamos National Laboratories.

The department said it expects the effort to significantly accelerate scientific discovery, as it plans to expand partnerships with academia and non-profits.

At least 13 people in Gaza, including two-week-old and one-month-old babies, have died from winter weather and a lack of adequate shelter and aid – blocked by Israel.

Opinion piece by Sir William Browder, founder and head of the [Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign](Sir William Browder is the author of Red Notice and Freezing Order, and head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign)

...

The EU agreed to extend a €90 billion (£79 billion) interest-free loan to Ukraine, intended to safeguard the country’s defences and basic functioning for the next two years.

It was a vital lifeline but it came with a grave failure: the outright rejection of a far bolder and more just plan to confiscate Russia’s frozen central bank assets and put them to work for Ukraine.

...

The assets in question amount to roughly €210 billion in Russian central bank reserves, immobilised inside the EU just weeks after Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. They represent a vast war chest belonging to a regime committing mass murder, war crimes and territorial theft in plain sight. Yet they remain untouched, sitting inert in the West’s financial institutions while Ukrainian cities are reduced to rubble.

...

The urgency of this moment cannot be overstated. The Brussels summit took place against a backdrop of mounting danger for both Ukraine and Europe. Since returning to office in January, President Trump has followed through on his campaign promise to slash American support for Ukraine. In February 2025, after a shameful attack on President Zelensky in the Oval Office, Trump ordered a full pause on all US military assistance. Up to that point, the United States had provided roughly 40 per cent of Ukraine’s military support. Its sudden withdrawal pushed Kyiv to the edge of disaster.

...

Putin is already testing the boundaries of Western resolve. Russia’s drones have violated Polish airspace. Its fighter jets have breached Estonian skies. In the Baltic Sea, undersea cables have been cut in acts of suspected sabotage. These are calculated provocations, designed to probe Nato’s defences and measure our willingness to respond.

...

Instead of making Russia pay for the destruction it has caused, we are asking citizens across Europe to underwrite Ukraine’s survival through public debt. It is a stopgap, not a solution, and it signals weakness where strength is required.

...

There was, at least, one modest breakthrough. Days before the summit, the EU invoked an emergency legal mechanism to freeze Russia’s €210 billion in assets indefinitely, rather than renewing the sanctions every six months. Until now, a single member state could veto each renewal.

...

What is most dispiriting is why confiscation was rejected. A small group of countries, led by leaders openly sympathetic to Moscow, blocked the plan. Hungary and Slovakia played their expected roles. More shocking was the opposition from the Czech Republic, a country with its own painful history of Russian domination. Belgium, which holds most of the assets through its Euroclear depository, ultimately refused to move forward after its prime minister [Bart De Wever] reportedly was personally threatened by the Kremlin.

This capitulation is shameful. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czechs are all net beneficiaries of EU funds. Yet they have forced the rest of Europe’s 450 million citizens to shoulder the cost of supporting Ukraine, while Putin’s money remains untouched. Taxpayers in Germany, France, the Netherlands and elsewhere will now foot the bill. The Kremlin, meanwhile, is openly mocking Europe’s timidity.

...

History teaches us that financial pressure can succeed where diplomacy fails. Russia may not count its dead but it surely count its money. Seizing those frozen reserves would strike at the heart of Putin’s system and hasten an end to the war.

...

This debate is not over. The assets remain frozen. The war continues. The moral case for confiscation grows stronger every day. Europe’s leaders must return to this issue. Countries that obstruct justice should face consequences, including reductions in EU funding to offset the cost of the loan. Belgium’s prime minister should be shamed for yielding to intimidation. And the UK, which is not constrained by EU infighting, should set an example. Instead of copying the EU and standing down, which it announced on Friday, the UK should confiscate the billions in Russian assets frozen in London and transfer them to Ukraine.

After two decades confronting the Kremlin, I have learnt one lesson above all others: evil advances when good people hesitate. Putin invaded Ukraine expecting a divided and fearful West. We must prove him wrong. Confiscating his frozen billions is not theft. It is restitution. It is justice. And it is long overdue.

Archive link

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/40626783

The Jewish-Arab movement is celebrating its 10th anniversary after a period of rapid expansion. But as it grows, so do questions about its political stances, its electoral ambitions, and the limits of binational organizing.

from +972’s Sunday Recap
#972Magazine [published in #Israel]
Dec 21, 2025

Also:

• After the Bondi massacre, we don’t have the luxury to grieve silently
• Is Israel’s genocide economy on the brink?
• From cash brokers to crypto, Gazans struggle to stay financially afloat
• PODCAST: Who’s afraid of Palestinian Christianity?

Pim De Witte, founder of General Intuition and Medal.tv, turned down a deal reportedly worth $500 million from OpenAl, and instead raised $134 million to build an Al lab rooted in games, not words.

Context; EU AI Startup " While most 2025 AI and robotics rounds reported by EU-Startups have ranged between €3 million and €12 million, General Intuition’s raise underscores a sharp contrast in both scale and ambition – particularly notable given its early stage and cross-continental structure spanning New York and Geneva.

“When you play video games, you essentially transfer your perception, usually through a first-person view of the camera, to different environments,” added de Witte. “You get this selection bias towards precisely the kind of data you actually want to use for training work.”

Note: YT vid is 55 mins instead of 5,5 mins. My bad.

I wrote this as a long comment in reply to this thread and I was proud of it, so wanted to share it further (Shout-out to the OP of the meme, @LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone , who is a wonderful presence wherever she goes)

Step 1: throw away self help books that are aimed at neurotypicals. The advice in them is probably not helpful for us, and will just exacerbate internalised ableism. Not only will it take different strategies to get there, but "composed and focussed" will look different for you than it will for neurotypical people.

For example, a friend I had found that she was only able to complete her university essays when she engaged in an odd sort of task circuit-training, where she had multiple different tasks that she could cycle between as soon as she found herself losing focus. To an external, neurotypical observer, this looked like absurd chaos, but that was how she found her focus.

Step 2: try your best to work against the aforementioned internalised ableism. This, unfortunately, is an ongoing task, because even once we throw away unhelpful frameworks, we can't escape from the unreasonable expectations that the world places upon us. That is not your fault, and you are not broken just because you can't fit into the pre built mould that society offers you. It is possible to build new frameworks that will comfortably fit and support you, but we're going to have to do a lot of that work ourselves. This is a task that will be an ongoing one, so proceed to step 3 whenever you feel ready.

Step 3: find neurodivergent community. This is the most important step, because it can do wonders for helping with step 2; it gets tiring to have to constantly remind ourselves that we're not broken, so it's helpful to have other people help remind us of this sometimes. Plus ADHD folk often find it's easier to care for other people than for themselves, so you might find it easier to affirm other people than yourself. That can be a good starting point for learning how to extend that same grace to yourself.

It doesn't matter whether it's online or irl, a space specifically dedicated to discussing ADHD/autism or just a hobby community with lots of neurospicy folk — just find your people. It's daunting to feel like you have to build an entire mode of living from scratch, but you're not doing it alone. Ask people what strategies they have found useful for coping, and if you find anything, share that with others too. We're not a monolith, so not everything will work for every person, but having these conversations about what works and what doesn't is super useful.

Step 4: Remember that there is no silver bullet here, no single strategy that will fix everything. I'm sorry to have to emphasise this, but the best tool is the one you use. Try not to fixate on the next shiny thing, because that's a false comfort. I know that actually using the tools and strategies is the hard part, but that's why we need to keep working at it. You will struggle with this, but that's not failure, it's part of the process. Refer back to Step 2 if you need to.

Step 5: Remember the big picture. What we're building here is social and informational infrastructure. My own experience has been improved by having access to resources and communities online that are made by and for neurodivergent people; if I were born 100 years ago, I might've ended up in an asylum. It often doesn't feel like it, but things are getting better. It's overwhelming and scary to be building something new on the margins of society, but we have the ability to improve things both for ourselves, and the people who come after us.

We're trying to do something radical here, and that will take time and a lot of work. Most of us were only taught how to be successful neurotypicals, which is something that we can never be. We are having to learn from scratch how to be successful neurodivergent people, but there isn't a simple guidebook for that. We have to muddle along as best we can and write that guidebook ourselves. In this way, learning how to live as ourselves is a powerful form of political praxis[1] (which may be a helpful thing to remember if you tend to beat yourself up about being too burnt out to engage in as much activism as you'd like).

[1] : Praxis can be generally defined as the process of putting theory or ideas into practice. In this case, we can say "we deserve better than to live believing that we are no more than failed neurotypicals", but then there's the tricky question of how do we put that ideal into practice? That's the ongoing quest. Praxis in this context also draws from how it's used in Marxist thought, which is that praxis is about actions that are oriented towards changing society.

Edit: formatting

Archived version

..

"We have always been grateful to Poland. There must be no hostility between us," Zelensky said in an interview with Polish public media outlets on Friday, following his meetings with top officials in Warsaw.

“Russia very much wants the Polish-Ukrainian alliance to be destroyed," he told public broadcaster Polish Radio, state television TVP and state news agency PAP.

Zelensky was in the Polish capital for talks with President Karol Nawrocki and Prime Minister Donald Tusk, in what he described as a “very important” visit.

It was his first visit to Poland since Nawrocki took office in early August.

...

The Ukrainian leader welcomed a decision by European Union leaders this week to provide Ukraine with a EUR 90 billion loan for the next two years, partly backed by frozen Russian assets.

He said the move strengthens Ukraine’s position and morale at a critical stage of the war.

...

Poland's Tusk said on Friday that the funding gives Kyiv "stronger cards" and urged Europe to move further toward using frozen Russian assets.

Zelensky said holding Russia financially accountable is not only an economic issue, but also a moral and legal one.

"Russia must bear responsibility for all the evil it has brought to our land," he said, adding that the funds would eventually be used to rebuild Ukraine.

...

“Our shared history has tragic moments, but also many that unite us,” he said, arguing that Ukraine’s resistance has helped prevent Russian forces from threatening Poland’s borders.

Turning to Russia, Zelensky sharply criticised President Vladimir Putin after the Russian leader again denied responsibility for the war. Zelensky said Putin lies to justify the invasion to his own population and warned against taking his statements at face value.

“He said he would not occupy Crimea, and then he did. He said he would not start a full-scale war, and he did,” Zelensky said. “When he says today that he is not guilty, he is guilty 100 percent.”

...

Archived version

...

The sharpest decline in trust was seen among leaders who had topped the rankings in previous year, according to a public opinion survey among Ukrainians titled “Foreign Policy and Security" on Dec. 15.

Trust in Polish President Karol Nawrocki fell by 20.6 percentage points to 44%, while trust in U.S. President Donald Trump dropped by 20.2 points to 24.4%. The lowest rankings were held by the leaders of Hungary, China, Belarus and Russia.

...

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer topped Ukrainians’ trust rankings of world leaders in 2025 ... Second and third place were nearly tied, held by Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs (73.5%) and French President Emmanuel Macron (73.4%). At the same time, trust in the leaders of the United States and Poland fell to record lows.

Fourth place went to Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson with 73%, followed by Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda (72.8%) in fifth and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (72.7%) in sixth.

...

Archived version

Presenting the annual review, deputy interior minister Czesław Mroczek said around 1.6 million people – mostly women and children – found refuge in Poland between February 2022 and the end of 2024, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

...

Most {Ukrainian refugees], he said, do not rely on social assistance.

"These changes have tightened the system, increased internal security and significantly reduced the cost of aid," the deputy minister said, referring to amendments to the emergency law adopted in March 2022.

According to government figures cited in the debate, in addition to the costs already detailed in the report, spending from special aid funds reached almost PLN 12 billion (EUR 2.85 billion) in 2022 and over PLN 8 billion (EUR 1.9 billion) in 2024.

At the same time, tax and social security revenues linked to Ukrainians’ economic activity have risen sharply.

...

In 2024 alone, Ukrainians generated an estimated PLN 5 billion (EUR 1.19 billion) in income tax, PLN 12.7 billion (EUR 3.02 billion) in social security contributions, and PLN 4 billion (EUR 950 million) in VAT receipts, the deputy minister said.

The special law guaranteeing Ukrainians legal residence, access to healthcare, benefits, work and schooling will remain in force until March 2026, after which refugees are to be covered by Poland’s general migration system.

...

A tape-based piece of unique Unix history may have been lying quietly in storage at the University of Utah for 50+ years. The question is whether researchers will be able to take this piece of middle-aged media and rewind it back to the 1970s to get the data off.

See also

https://archive.org/details/utah_unix_v4_raw

TAR file

http://squoze.net/UNIX/v4/

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6236953

Archived version

"We were mistreated": Former worker at Chinese company in Serbia tells of 'forced labour experience'

• Suspicions of forced labor at the Chinese Linglong factory in Serbia emerged several years ago, when local and international organizations warned about it
• The EU issued a Resolution on forced labour in the Linglong factory and environmental protests in Serbia [opens pdf]
• MAN Truck & Bus had stopped taking tyres from Chinese Linglong’s Serbian plant already in 2024 after reports alleging the exploitation and possible trafficking of Vietnamese and Indian workers
• This week, The US banned the import of car tyres made by China’s Shandong Linglong Tire Co owing to suspicions that the company has used forced labour

...

"What we experienced in Serbia was forced labor," Rafik Buks from India [said] ... During 2024, he worked on the construction of the Chinese Linglong factory in northern Serbia. "We were controlled, exploited and treated without dignity," says Buks.

...

"We were under constant pressure, under threats, and there were even physical fights. We were forced to endure mistreatment," Buks said.

...

He says that the agency they worked for sent them not only to the factory construction site, but also to other construction sites of Chinese companies in Serbia, "while Linglong later claimed that we never worked for them."

...

Reports of 'slave labour' at Linglong came up immediately after Chinese company started its construction site in Zrenjanin in Serbia in 2021, when around 500 Vietnamese workers were building the first Chinese tire factory in Europe. Activists back then said their working conditions are inhumane: no money, no passports, no hot water.

"It's terrible. People there don't even have medical support," says Ivana Gordic, an investigative journalist who was the first to report on the Vietnamese laborers' living and working conditions.

Footage on the cable channel N1 shows dilapidated shacks on the outskirts of the city. They have the kind of beds you find in overcrowded prisons, and there are just two old bathrooms for hundreds of people. "There's no heating and the hot water in the boiler is enough for five people at most," Gordic [said].

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/51980361

In Poland, an increase in hate crimes against Ukrainians has been recorded. From January to July 2025, the police registered 543 such cases, which is 41% more than in 2024.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/40622582

Dec. 20, 2025
[heart-breaking article]

https://archive.ph/6PgBO

Every Saturday, sheep owned by Jewish settlers march through the olive groves that Rezeq Abu Naim and his family have tended for generations, crushing tree limbs and damaging roots. The extremist settlers, armed and sometimes masked, lead their herds to drink from the family’s scant water supplies while Mr. Abu Naim watches from the ramshackle tents of Al Mughayir, where he lives above the valley.

“I beg you, I beg you. God, just let us be,’” Mr. Abu Naim recalled telling settlers during a recent confrontation. “Just go away. We don’t want any problems.”

Vast stretches of his family’s farm and wheat have been seized by Israeli settlers who have set up outposts, illegal encampments that can eventually grow to become large settlements, on the nearby hills.

South Korea urged Japan on Monday to follow through on its pledge to fully reflect the history of a UNESCO-listed heritage site linked to wartime forced labor, after finding that Japan's conservation report failed to explain the coercive nature of workers' mobilization.

The Sado mines, once famous as a gold mine between the 17th and 19th centuries, were mainly used to produce war supplies for the Japanese imperial army during World War II. More than 1,500 Koreans are reported to have been forced into labor at the mines from 1940-45, when Korea was under Japan's colonial rule.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/55426138

Archived version

"We were mistreated": Former worker at Chinese company in Serbia tells of 'forced labour experience'

• Suspicions of forced labor at the Chinese Linglong factory in Serbia emerged several years ago, when local and international organizations warned about it
• The EU issued a Resolution on forced labour in the Linglong factory and environmental protests in Serbia [opens pdf]
• MAN Truck & Bus had stopped taking tyres from Chinese Linglong’s Serbian plant already in 2024 after reports alleging the exploitation and possible trafficking of Vietnamese and Indian workers
• This week, The US banned the import of car tyres made by China’s Shandong Linglong Tire Co owing to suspicions that the company has used forced labour

...

"What we experienced in Serbia was forced labor," Rafik Buks from India [said] ... During 2024, he worked on the construction of the Chinese Linglong factory in northern Serbia. "We were controlled, exploited and treated without dignity," says Buks.

...

"We were under constant pressure, under threats, and there were even physical fights. We were forced to endure mistreatment," Buks said.

...

He says that the agency they worked for sent them not only to the factory construction site, but also to other construction sites of Chinese companies in Serbia, "while Linglong later claimed that we never worked for them."

...

Reports of 'slave labour' at Linglong came up immediately after Chinese company started its construction site in Zrenjanin in Serbia in 2021, when around 500 Vietnamese workers were building the first Chinese tire factory in Europe. Activists back then said their working conditions are inhumane: no money, no passports, no hot water.

"It's terrible. People there don't even have medical support," says Ivana Gordic, an investigative journalist who was the first to report on the Vietnamese laborers' living and working conditions.

Footage on the cable channel N1 shows dilapidated shacks on the outskirts of the city. They have the kind of beds you find in overcrowded prisons, and there are just two old bathrooms for hundreds of people. "There's no heating and the hot water in the boiler is enough for five people at most," Gordic [said].