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Tens of thousands of students and other opponents of Serbia’s populist president are converging on the northern city of Novi Sad for the massive commemoration of the victims of a tragedy a year ago that killed 16 people.

Ahead of the commemorative rally, momentum has been building in favor of opposition demands for major changes in the Balkan country, after nearly a year of student-led anti-government protests that have seriously shaken President Aleksandar Vucic and his firm grip on power.

As thousands of protesters arrive in Novi Sad from all over the country, Vucic has threatened mass arrests if the mourners turn to violence, and defiantly said his supporters are planning “a much bigger” rally in the city later in November.

He has also tried to downplay the expected size and importance of the commemorative opposition rally.

When asked by a TV reporter to comment on the commemoration on Saturday, Vucic said: “What is happening in Novi Sad? Is some soccer match being played?”

He said that “many will be disappointed due to excessive expectations from the rally,” adding that “there will be no change of government.”

[...]

Most of the student led-protests have so far been peaceful, with sporadic incidents caused by Vucic supporters. However, tensions are boiling after a year of protests and emotions are high.

Riot police have cracked down hard against the protesters. Hundreds of Vucic’s opponents have been arrested for taking part in the previous anti-government rallies, including at least two huge demonstrations in the capital, Belgrade.

People are expected to gather in several separate rallies throughout Novi Sad, a tactic believed to be designed to make it more difficult for the police to intervene than if one central rally was held at a single location.

[...]

The catalyst for monthslong protests was the deadly collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad on Nov. 1, 2024 which resulted in 16 fatalities. This incident has been widely attributed to governmental negligence, endemic corruption and shady deals made with Chinese construction companies that took part in the recent renovations of the station.

[...]

At the same time Vucic has described the protests as a ploy organized in the West to oust him from power. Vucic has sought and obtained support from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin as well as China while cracking down on liberal rights groups at home.

[...]

According to reports, the Novi Sad station’s modernization was a key component of a high-profile infrastructure project aimed at upgrading the railway link between Belgrade and Budapest, which has itself become a symbol of Serbia’s growing cooperation with China. Completed in the summer of 2024, the $1.5 billion project – funded through a loan agreement between the Serbian government, China’s Exim Bank, and the Russian government under the China-CEEC cooperation framework – was hailed as a milestone in regional connectivity.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/38831491

What's going on on your servers? Smooth operations or putting out fires?

I got some tinkering time recently and migrated most of my Docker services to Komodo/Forgejo. Already merged some Renovate PRs to update my containers which feels really smooth.

Have to restructure some of the remaining services before migrating them and after that I want to automate config backup for my OpnSense and TrueNAS machines.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/44995727

Japan's new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Friday (Oct 31) she raised "serious concerns" about the South China Sea, Hong Kong and Xinjiang in her first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Xi, in turn, told Japan's first woman prime minister, long seen as a China hawk, at the talks in South Korea that he hopes her government will have a "correct understanding" of his country, according to state media.

Takaichi has been a regular visitor to the Yasukuni shrine that honours Japan's war dead and is an outspoken backer of Taiwan, advocating security ties with the island that China claims as its territory.

[...]

"We ... expressed serious concerns regarding actions in the South China Sea, as well as the situations in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region," Takaichi said.

[...]

Takaichi said she also raised with Xi the Japanese-administered Senkaku islands, known as the Diaoyu in China, in the East China Sea where Japanese and Chinese vessels frequently face off.

[...]

Takaichi added that she also pressed for the release of Japanese citizens detained in China and requested that the safety of Japanese expatriates in China be ensured.

"I conveyed that we would like these matters to be addressed," she said.

"Regarding Taiwan, there was some discussion from the Chinese side," Takaichi said.

"I stated that for the stability and security in this region, maintaining good cross-strait relations is important," she said.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/56676234

Gotta ditch Microsoft like years ago...

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/53274856

Likely related

https://apnews.com/article/icc-trump-sanctions-karim-khan-court-a4b4c02751ab84c09718b1b95cbd5db3

Microsoft, for example, cancelled Khan’s email address, forcing the prosecutor to move to Proton Mail, a Swiss email provider, ICC staffers said. His bank accounts in his home country of the U.K. have been blocked.

Microsoft has since denied this, but they haven't released much info on what they say happened instead.

https://www.politico.eu/article/microsoft-did-not-cut-services-international-criminal-court-president-american-sanctions-trump-tech-icc-amazon-google/

A Microsoft spokesperson said that it had been in contact with the court since February “throughout the process that resulted in the disconnection of its sanctioned official from Microsoft services.” The spokesperson added that “at no point did Microsoft cease or suspend its services to the ICC.”

Khan's email disconnection has sparked Europe's fears that Trump could flip a "kill switch" to cut digital services through American tech giants, as the continent seeks to become less dependent on U.S. technology. Companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and others dominate Europe's cloud and digital services sectors.

Microsoft declined to comment further in response to questions regarding the exact process that led to Khan's email disconnection, and exactly what it meant by “disconnection.” The ICC declined to comment.

They also said that they'll be adding legal clauses that would stop them from doing that, but I'm not sure how much that actually helps in practice.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/52170881

Sukuk are Islamic financial certificates similar to bonds, but they represent ownership in an asset rather than a debt obligation. They are structured to comply with Sharia law by providing profit from the asset instead of interest payments.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/52170574

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/52170022wo

One of the best pieces of self-hosted software ever to exist.

Edit: This is Immich! for the folks who don't know.

z-lib seems to have highlighted a leftist collection as an Editor's Choice. I don't know if this is something tailored for me or is everyone seeing it.

theodosia

• Academic non-fiction
• No popular history unless it's been reviewed in an academic journal.
• Updated regularly!

This topic is very broad compared to my other lists. There's no specific region or time period (although as usual, books on England/the U.S are overrepresented.) Some of my personal interests:

• Mining

• Strikes, lock-outs, labour disputes of all kinds.

• Unions and labour laws

• Development of various leftist ideologies/movements

• Intersections of class, race, gender, and sexuality.

• Relationship between labour and environmental destruction, esp. in…

Hey folks, sorry I missed last week! Not so weekly I guess 😓 . Anyway, I've recently picked up Fire Emblem Warriors, and it's been pretty fun! I love the musou genre. (in addition to shmups, of course!) Feel free to use this thread for general discussion too, if you'd like!

What an odd thing to say...

Paywall? https://archive.is/JWfDJ

I am 100% invested in the Erikkka leather hot pants infedelity storyline. I can't decide if I want the season finale to reveal that Trump ordered the event or that his neck just did that. The false flag would be a better plot but jugular autophagy is way funnier.

I remember several years back people were mad that a phone brand (can't remember which one, I think it was Samsung?) was claiming to be able to take superzoom photos of the moon, but were actually just replacing the very fuzzy moon with a clear image. Nowadays, you have phone brands (all of them, not just the one) actively promoting adding people into image, removing people from images, hell, even changing the entire SKY, with little to no reaction from most people. What happened, why doesn't anyone care anymore?

Of note, I do not feel particularly strongly for or against artificially enhanced smartphone photographs. I'm just wondering why no one is talking about any of this...