Peru announced on Monday that it had cut off diplomatic ties with Mexico over the asylum claim of former Peruvian Prime Minister Betssy Chávez, who is facing charges in her homeland over the alleged 2022 coup attempt by then President Pedro Castillo.

A new report reveals salmonella is widespread in U.S. poultry production, with major brands like such as Costco regularly exceeding federal safety limits.

The USDA lacks authority to enforce salmonella standards or halt sales; inspectors can only note violations.

When the government reclassified E. coli into a more serious category, there were more recalls and fewer cases of illness.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/52380670

EU climate ministers will make a last-ditch attempt to pass a new climate change target on Tuesday, in an effort to avoid going to the U.N. COP30 summit in Brazil empty-handed.

Countries including China, Britain and Australia have already submitted new climate targets ahead of COP30.

The draft compromise ministers will discuss, seen by Reuters, includes a clause demanded by France allowing a weakening of the 2040 goal in future, if it becomes clear EU forests are not absorbing enough CO2 to meet it.

Brussels has also vowed to change other measures to attempt to win buy-in for the climate goal. These include controlling prices in an upcoming carbon market and considering weakening its 2035 combustion engine ban as requested by Germany.

Canada’s clampdown on international students has hit applicants from India particularly hard, government data shows, as what was once a preferred destination loses its allure for Indian students.

Canada lowered the number of international student permits it issues for the second year in a row in early 2025 as part of a broader effort to reduce the number of temporary migrants and address fraud related to student visas.

About 74% of Indian applications for permits to study at Canadian post-secondary institutions in August - the most recent month available – were rejected, compared to about 32% in August 2023, according to immigration department data provided to Reuters.

Nintendo Switch 2 has sold 10.36 million units and Switch has sold 154.01 million units worldwide as of September 30, 2025, Nintendo announced in its latest earnings release.

The 10 best-selling first-party titles are:

Switch 2

1. Mario Kart World – 9.57 million
2. Donkey Kong Bananza – 3.49 million

Switch

1. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 69.56 million
2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 48.62 million
3. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 36.93 million
4. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 33.34 million
5. Super Mario Odyssey – 29.84 million
6. Pokemon Scarlet / Pokemon Violet – 27.61 million
7. Pokemon Sword / Pokemon Shield – 26.96 million
8. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – 22.15 million
9. Super Mario Party – 21.23 million
10. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe – 18.53 million

Newly announced additional first-party sales numbers include:

• Super Mario Party Jamboree – 8.64 million

More than 20.62 million Switch 2 games and 1,452.79 million Switch games have been sold worldwide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/38310899

Software to check PDF-UA compatibility?

My university is pushing for us to ensure that all our documents are accessibility-friendly. I write all my documents in LaTeX and have been taking the steps and measures to ensure that everything I generate is tagged, has alt text, and colour-blind-friendly.

Unfortunately, it seems the only way I can check for PDF-UA compatibility is with Acrobat Pro which the uni does not provide for us. What's more is that I use Linux and Acrobat doesn't work in that OS.

Is there a Linux-friendly libre software that can check if my PDF document is compatible with the machine-checkable requirements of Matterhorn Protocol?

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5451316

Background

The river Drina is formed by the confluence of the Montenegrin rivers Tara and Piva at the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), in an area popular for rafting and angling.

The Buk Bijela hydropower plant - one of 14 dams planned on the upper Drina and its tributaries - is planned on the Drina within BiH, with its reservoir stretching 11 kilometres upstream to the Montenegrin border.

A larger version of Buk Bijela has been disputed since the 1970s due to its impacts on the protected Tara canyon in Montenegro – both a UNESCO World Heritage site and part of the Durmitor National Park.

The current version is being pushed by Elektroprivreda Republike Srpske (ERS), a public utility owned by the Republika Srpska entity. It would still be extremely damaging, especially as the Foča and Paunci hydropower plants are planned further downstream as part of the same complex. A fourth plant, the 44 MW Sutjeska plant, was also planned but has been abandoned.

Legal challenges on environmental permitting

Buk Bijela has repeatedly been challenged by civil society organisations and the Republic of Montenegro, due to Republika Srpska’s attempts to move forward with the project on the basis of an old and inadequate Environmental impact assessment (EIA).

After decisions by UNESCO and the Espoo Convention, and a mediation process led by the Energy Community Secretariat, in 2024 a new EIA process started. However, the screening study shows that Buk Bijela’s impacts will be assessed on their own in the main study, not in combination with the other plants in the Upper Drina complex. And some of the other plants planned in the area will be excluded from the cumulative impact assessment section of the EIA, undermining the whole point.

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity and civil society organisations have questioned whether a new EIA process should be starting at all, as constitutional issues remain unresolved.

Chinese companies interested

Republika Srpska signed a memorandum on construction of the project with China’s AVIC-ENG in July 2017. But it was reported in 2023 that three other Chinese companies – Dongfang, Sinohydro and China Energy Engineering Corporation had submitted offers to build the project, in a closed procedure without a call for tenders. Later in the year, local media reported that the companies were concerned about the project’s constitutional issues and as of early September 2025, no contracts appear to have been signed.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank have both confirmed that they will not finance the project. A 2021 World Bank report found a number of deficiencies in the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the project and proposed a complete redesign.

[...]

A new environmental impact assessment procedure started in 2024 but looks set to exclude most of the cumulative impacts of planned dams in the area.

A legal dispute is ongoing on whether the Republika Srpska entity needs to obtain state-level consent to issue concessions for the project, while civil society organizations criticize authorities over a lack of information available to the public on the project’s feasibility.

[...]

Background

The river Drina is formed by the confluence of the Montenegrin rivers Tara and Piva at the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), in an area popular for rafting and angling.

The Buk Bijela hydropower plant - one of 14 dams planned on the upper Drina and its tributaries - is planned on the Drina within BiH, with its reservoir stretching 11 kilometres upstream to the Montenegrin border.

A larger version of Buk Bijela has been disputed since the 1970s due to its impacts on the protected Tara canyon in Montenegro – both a UNESCO World Heritage site and part of the Durmitor National Park.

The current version is being pushed by Elektroprivreda Republike Srpske (ERS), a public utility owned by the Republika Srpska entity. It would still be extremely damaging, especially as the Foča and Paunci hydropower plants are planned further downstream as part of the same complex. A fourth plant, the 44 MW Sutjeska plant, was also planned but has been abandoned.

Legal challenges on environmental permitting

Buk Bijela has repeatedly been challenged by civil society organisations and the Republic of Montenegro, due to Republika Srpska’s attempts to move forward with the project on the basis of an old and inadequate Environmental impact assessment (EIA).

After decisions by UNESCO and the Espoo Convention, and a mediation process led by the Energy Community Secretariat, in 2024 a new EIA process started. However, the screening study shows that Buk Bijela’s impacts will be assessed on their own in the main study, not in combination with the other plants in the Upper Drina complex. And some of the other plants planned in the area will be excluded from the cumulative impact assessment section of the EIA, undermining the whole point.

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity and civil society organisations have questioned whether a new EIA process should be starting at all, as constitutional issues remain unresolved.

Chinese companies interested

Republika Srpska signed a memorandum on construction of the project with China’s AVIC-ENG in July 2017. But it was reported in 2023 that three other Chinese companies – Dongfang, Sinohydro and China Energy Engineering Corporation had submitted offers to build the project, in a closed procedure without a call for tenders. Later in the year, local media reported that the companies were concerned about the project’s constitutional issues and as of early September 2025, no contracts appear to have been signed.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank have both confirmed that they will not finance the project. A 2021 World Bank report found a number of deficiencies in the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the project and proposed a complete redesign.

[...]

A new environmental impact assessment procedure started in 2024 but looks set to exclude most of the cumulative impacts of planned dams in the area.

A legal dispute is ongoing on whether the Republika Srpska entity needs to obtain state-level consent to issue concessions for the project, while civil society organizations criticize authorities over a lack of information available to the public on the project’s feasibility.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/52379724

New Australia Institute polling research shows most Australians, regardless of who they vote for, think cash-for access payments represent corrupt conduct. Cash-for-access describes exclusive fundraising events where companies and lobbyists pay to meet with senior party leaders.

• Price: $59.99
• Link: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/persona-3-reload-switch-2/

Archived

Japan's Finance Ministry aims to eliminate a tax break on imports for personal use as domestic retailers are undercut by the stream of shipments through Chinese e-commerce sites such as Shein and Temu.

Under an exemption adopted in 1980, the taxable value of imports for personal use is 40% lower than that of imports for sale. This means imported products covered by the provision face lower consumption taxes and tariffs compared with the same items imported by retailers.

An imported overseas product priced at 30,000 yen ($195) and declared for personal use would be subject to taxes for only 18,000 yen of the value. With Japan's consumption tax rate of 10%, the importer would pay 1,800 yen. But a domestic retailer importing the item would face a consumption tax of 3,000 yen.

This exemption also applies when individuals in Japan buy products from overseas through e-commerce sites. The exemption is considered one reason that e-retailers such as Temu and Shein are able to sell products at low prices.

[...]

Scary shit

Do you and your human family have interest in sharing an exciting IRL experience supporting your [team of choice] with other human fans at The Big Game? In that case, don the chosen color of your [team of choice] and head to the local [iconic stadium]; Ticketmaster has exciting ticket deals, and soon you and your human family can look as happy and excited as these virtual avatars:

Ticketmaster's personalized AI slop ads are a glimpse at the future of social media advertising, a harbinger of system that Mark Zuckerberg described last week in a Meta earnings call. This future is one where AI is used both for ad targeting and for ad generation; eventually ads are going to be hyperpersonalized to individual users, further siloing the social media experience: "Advertisers are increasingly just going to be able to give us a business objective and give us a credit card or bank account, and have the AI system basically figure out everything else that’s necessary, including generating video or different types of creative that might resonate with different people that are personalized in different ways, finding who the right customers are,” Zuckerberg said.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/52372344

https://archive.is/gpak6

Changxing facility is now the world’s biggest purified terephthalic acid (PTA) producer. China, meanwhile, has gone from being a net importer of the stuff a decade ago to being the dominant supplier, accounting for more than 60% of global production. Faced with stiff competition, companies in Canada, Europe and Japan have all reduced their PTA output, or stopped making it.

The chemicals sector is known as “the industry of industries” because its products feed into all manner of goods. PTA is just one chemical, but China’s dominance spreads across many more. And it is only increasing. Officials from Washington to Brussels are focused on rare earths; they overlook chemicals at their peril. Changxing, meanwhile, is moving ahead: a new government plan calls for the island to upgrade into more specialised chemical products. Catching up with China is hard enough—and it is not a stationary target.

Precise locations and revealing movement patterns: the mobile phone location data of millions of people in the EU is up for sale. Collected supposedly only for advertising purposes, this data can also be used for espionage. European data protection is failing – even top EU officials in Brussels are affected. The EU Commission says: ‚We are concerned.“