From streets to supermarkets, global boycotts for Gaza have grown as a fragile ceasefire holds for now.

Seeing the livestreamed genocide Israel perpetrated in Gaza has had an effect globally, with the call to boycott Israel at an all-time high.

Quiet boycotts, which started in supermarkets nearly two decades ago, have turned into widely used apps that help millions make choices about purchases.

Campus protests and encampments in the US and Canada have led some major education institutions to cut ties with Israeli counterparts, while investments into Israel have dipped, and some of the world’s largest economies have recognised Palestine as a state.

Nearly 50,000 pro-Palestine protests in two years

The BDS movement has identified numerous companies that are considered complicit in Israel’s occupation, human rights violations, or apartheid policies.

The incumbent: "Goldman is among the wealthiest members of Congress, with an estimated personal net worth of up to $253 million"

Potential 2028 candidate?

Since his return to power in January, Trump has been increasingly focused on the Nobel Peace Prize. He has claimed to have ended several conflicts around the world.

Experts, however, contest his claims.

Many world leaders and lawmakers are adopting a new tactic to stay in Trump's good graces — praising his peace efforts and nominating him for the Peace Prize.

Humanity has failed to limit global heating to 1.5C and must change course immediately, the secretary general of the UN has warned.

In his only interview before next month’s Cop30 climate summit, António Guterres acknowledged it is now “inevitable” that humanity will overshoot the target in the Paris climate agreement, with “devastating consequences” for the world.

He urged the leaders who will gather in the Brazilian rainforest city of Belém to realise that the longer they delay cutting emissions, the greater the danger of passing catastrophic “tipping points” in the Amazon, the Arctic and the oceans.

The requirements for governance, model transparency/notification, began in August 2025. General applicability of most of the AI Act including obligations for “high-risk” AI systems begin in August 2026. Obligations for high-risk AI systems that are part of safety components in regulated products become applicable in August 2027.

By introducing a tiered, risk-based regime, the law bans certain AI practices outright, layers strict obligations on high-risk systems, and establishes unprecedented oversight for general-purpose AI and foundation models, especially those with systemic impact. Its reach is global—any company placing AI into the EU market must comply and its penalties are steep.

For businesses and their counsel, compliance isn’t optional. It’s now the price of entry into one of the world’s largest markets, and it will influence how innovation is documented, safeguarded, and patented.

It’s important to understand the AI Act’s most consequential provisions for patent strategy, particularly how regulatory documentation duties intersect with data provenance, inventorship disputes, trade secret versus patent trade-offs, claim drafting under new compliance constraints, and geo-strategic filing decisions.

The AI Act distinguishes between four key categories of AI systems:

Minimal-risk systems (AI-enabled video games, spam filters)

Limited-risk systems (chatbots interacting with users)

High-risk systems (AI in health care, education, employment, infrastructure, biometric identification)

General purpose and foundation models

While minimal and limited risk systems carry only modest obligations, the regulation of high-risk and general-purpose/foundation models forms the core of the AI Act and presents the most significant patent implications.

Before entering the market, high-risk systems must clear a conformity assessment and provide detailed technical documentation that includes:

System description and intended purpose

System architecture, algorithms, and datasets used

Risk management, testing, and validation protocols Transparency and human oversight measures

Properly managed, these records can help distinguish human inventive contributions from AI-assisted outputs, providing valuable support for defending inventorship and reinforcing patent validity in a contested landscape.

Documentation and dataset summaries may further reduce the viability of trade secret protection. Both the EU Trade Secrets Directive and US law require that information be kept confidential through reasonable protective measures.

By mandating disclosures, the AI Act can erode this confidentiality, making secrecy harder to sustain in practice. This shift alters the calculus for IP strategy. In some cases, patenting may become the safer path, as certain technologies no longer can be reliably safeguarded as trade secrets.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5321915

The UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights has called for urgent action to prevent goods produced with forced labour from entering the country, warning that existing laws fail to protect workers or hold companies accountable.

In its new report, the Committee found that the UK’s current approach based largely on voluntary corporate reporting under the Modern Slavery Act is fails to prevent exploitation.

The report follows a long inquiry into how the UK addresses forced labour in global supply chain. The Committee received extensive evidence, including submissions from Walk Free.

The lack of meaningful enforcement and the absence of mandatory due diligence requirements mean that goods made with forced or child labour are likely being imported and sold in the UK.

...

Walk Free’s Global Slavery Index estimates the UK imports around US$26 billion in goods at risk of forced labour each year, including US$14.8 billion worth of solar panels.

The Committee highlighted the need to address forced labour risks in the green energy transition. Especially sourcing key materials used in solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicle batteries.

Cobalt, lithium, and rare earth elements are essential components of renewable energy technologies. But these are frequently mined or processed in regions with high rates of labour exploitation.

More than 70% of the world’s cobalt supply comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where forced and child labour in artisanal mining is well documented.

China produces around 90% of the world’s polysilicon, most originating in Xinjiang. Investigations have revealed the use of state-imposed forced labour involving Uyghur and Turkic Muslim minorities.

...

Poland signed two separate deals with Palantir Technologies Inc. and Anduril Industries Inc. on Monday as the country steps up to upgrade its army amid record military spending.

Poland’s Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz and Palantir Chief Executive Officer Alex Karp signed a letter of intent on data, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity in Warsaw. At the same time, state-owned PGZ SA agreed with Anduril to cooperate on making Barracuda-500M cruise missiles, without saying when production would start or how much the deal was worth.

The Palantir deal is an early stage agreement and neither the government nor the company said how much the deal was worth. Poland is interested in several systems the company offers, including for battlefield management and logistics, Kosiniak-Kamysz said.

The minister said the Palantir CEO told him the company planned to invest in Poland, tapping into the potential of the local defense industry and engaging Polish engineers, without giving details. The country expects to sign deals with Palantir for specific systems in the next two or three months.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/44795915

Archived

Defeating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is critical to restraining China in the Indo-Pacific, Finland’s defence minister has said, warning Europe and democratic partners, including Australia, face a fight of global consequences. Antti Häkkänen praised Donald Trump’s decision to impose sanctions on two Russian oil companies last week, calling the move a major sign of resolve by the US president against Vladimir Putin’s three-year long war.

In an interview with Guardian Australia at the ministry of defence in Helsinki, Häkkänen said the West’s willingness to stay the course in opposing Russia’s aggression would be closely scrutinised.

“China is watching. Does the West have a muscle and resilience, when the autocrats and dictators think they can wage war for another year, and the democratic countries will become fed up?

“No. We have to show that we are even more putting stronger support against violence. It’s not only on Ukraine. It’s against violence, against war, and that’s a signal also for China and the Indo-Pacific area.”

Ending the Ukraine conflict required a three-pillar approach, he said:

• tougher sanctions on the Russian economy and energy exports;
• stronger military assistance to Ukraine;
• and the use of long-range weapons to destroy factories for drones and missiles.

[...]

Häkkänen said any weakness in resolve would embolden China. “If there will be some kind of military conflict in the Indo-Pacific area, caused by China, Russia will be somehow involved, through supporting China or something like that,” he said.

“We see now that Russia, by their own resources, cannot continue this kind of warfare, but China is helping them a great deal. They are giving a lot of money to support their economy, from energy exports, and giving them a lot of military components and industrial cooperation.”

[...]

China considers Taiwan part of its territory and foreign policy experts believe Beijing is aiming to be capable of making a military move against its independence as early as 2027, amid increased military activity in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

While criticising countries not pulling their weight with Ukraine, Häkkänen said he was optimistic about possible peace.

“European countries have in the last month or so chosen really good steps in supporting Ukraine, investing heavily in our own defence.”

[...]

Häkkänen, who has met the [Australian] defence minister, Richard Marles, said Australia had played a “tremendous” role as one of the biggest non-Nato contributors supporting Ukraine.

“It’s a big political message here in Europe, that Australia has been a part of the support,” he said. “That will send the signal that if Australia has some challenges in security or defence, Europe knows that we have to be in the same family.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/44795915

Archived

Defeating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is critical to restraining China in the Indo-Pacific, Finland’s defence minister has said, warning Europe and democratic partners, including Australia, face a fight of global consequences. Antti Häkkänen praised Donald Trump’s decision to impose sanctions on two Russian oil companies last week, calling the move a major sign of resolve by the US president against Vladimir Putin’s three-year long war.

In an interview with Guardian Australia at the ministry of defence in Helsinki, Häkkänen said the West’s willingness to stay the course in opposing Russia’s aggression would be closely scrutinised.

“China is watching. Does the West have a muscle and resilience, when the autocrats and dictators think they can wage war for another year, and the democratic countries will become fed up?

“No. We have to show that we are even more putting stronger support against violence. It’s not only on Ukraine. It’s against violence, against war, and that’s a signal also for China and the Indo-Pacific area.”

Ending the Ukraine conflict required a three-pillar approach, he said:

• tougher sanctions on the Russian economy and energy exports;
• stronger military assistance to Ukraine;
• and the use of long-range weapons to destroy factories for drones and missiles.

[...]

Häkkänen said any weakness in resolve would embolden China. “If there will be some kind of military conflict in the Indo-Pacific area, caused by China, Russia will be somehow involved, through supporting China or something like that,” he said.

“We see now that Russia, by their own resources, cannot continue this kind of warfare, but China is helping them a great deal. They are giving a lot of money to support their economy, from energy exports, and giving them a lot of military components and industrial cooperation.”

[...]

China considers Taiwan part of its territory and foreign policy experts believe Beijing is aiming to be capable of making a military move against its independence as early as 2027, amid increased military activity in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

While criticising countries not pulling their weight with Ukraine, Häkkänen said he was optimistic about possible peace.

“European countries have in the last month or so chosen really good steps in supporting Ukraine, investing heavily in our own defence.”

[...]

Häkkänen, who has met the [Australian] defence minister, Richard Marles, said Australia had played a “tremendous” role as one of the biggest non-Nato contributors supporting Ukraine.

“It’s a big political message here in Europe, that Australia has been a part of the support,” he said. “That will send the signal that if Australia has some challenges in security or defence, Europe knows that we have to be in the same family.”

Archived

Defeating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is critical to restraining China in the Indo-Pacific, Finland’s defence minister has said, warning Europe and democratic partners, including Australia, face a fight of global consequences. Antti Häkkänen praised Donald Trump’s decision to impose sanctions on two Russian oil companies last week, calling the move a major sign of resolve by the US president against Vladimir Putin’s three-year long war.

In an interview with Guardian Australia at the ministry of defence in Helsinki, Häkkänen said the West’s willingness to stay the course in opposing Russia’s aggression would be closely scrutinised.

“China is watching. Does the West have a muscle and resilience, when the autocrats and dictators think they can wage war for another year, and the democratic countries will become fed up?

“No. We have to show that we are even more putting stronger support against violence. It’s not only on Ukraine. It’s against violence, against war, and that’s a signal also for China and the Indo-Pacific area.”

Ending the Ukraine conflict required a three-pillar approach, he said:

• tougher sanctions on the Russian economy and energy exports;
• stronger military assistance to Ukraine;
• and the use of long-range weapons to destroy factories for drones and missiles.

[...]

Häkkänen said any weakness in resolve would embolden China. “If there will be some kind of military conflict in the Indo-Pacific area, caused by China, Russia will be somehow involved, through supporting China or something like that,” he said.

“We see now that Russia, by their own resources, cannot continue this kind of warfare, but China is helping them a great deal. They are giving a lot of money to support their economy, from energy exports, and giving them a lot of military components and industrial cooperation.”

[...]

China considers Taiwan part of its territory and foreign policy experts believe Beijing is aiming to be capable of making a military move against its independence as early as 2027, amid increased military activity in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

While criticising countries not pulling their weight with Ukraine, Häkkänen said he was optimistic about possible peace.

“European countries have in the last month or so chosen really good steps in supporting Ukraine, investing heavily in our own defence.”

[...]

Häkkänen, who has met the [Australian] defence minister, Richard Marles, said Australia had played a “tremendous” role as one of the biggest non-Nato contributors supporting Ukraine.

“It’s a big political message here in Europe, that Australia has been a part of the support,” he said. “That will send the signal that if Australia has some challenges in security or defence, Europe knows that we have to be in the same family.”

Archived

Russia’s economy has proven remarkably resilient, despite years of sanctions and economic statecraft. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t deep cracks in Russia’s unstable economic foundation, with only a thin veneer masking increasingly severe shortages — especially of workers.

Russia is in a desperate labor bind. The country has a shrinking, aging population — a fact it ignores as it sends its young men into the meatgrinder of the war in Ukraine. To generate military manpower, Russia has gotten creative, recruiting criminals out of prisons, North Koreans, and mental health patients. Regardless, the endless need for fresh troops on the front line has taken bodies away from industry just as Russia’s military-industrial needs are expanding rapidly.

Russia now desperately needs to fill jobs on assembly lines that make war materiel, but it has a plan: exploiting the Global South, including its so-called friends.

BRICS members India, Brazil, and South Africa have all been recruitment targets for what appears to be forced labor. Russia issues to their citizens a siren song against which many young women are unable to steel themselves, with devastating results.

For at least two years, Russian company Alabuga Special Economic Zone has been luring young women from developing countries with the promise of good jobs and educational opportunities. When they arrive, they are pressed into drone production. They are made to work with corrosive chemicals for long hours, with restricted communications and few or no rights. The women have faced sexual harassment and seen “deductions” taken from their already meager pay for things like rent.

[...]

Educational institutions in Uganda and Burkina Faso have hosted Alabuga recruitment drives; economy-focused civil society organizations in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, and Madagascar have met with Alabuga officials; and diplomats from African and Latin American states have visited and some have promoted Alabuga sites.

Alabuga SEZ has targeted 84 countries, prioritizing recruitment in Africa and Latin America. Although some countries have called out Russian labor fraud, it has been too little, too late. South Africa’s warning and investigation, which began in August, does little to help women already taken to these sweatshops.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/37944842

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5321003

Archived version

The Management Initiative on International Undersea Cables aims to "bring together stakeholders, align standards, promote best practices, and turn shared concerns into beneficial cooperation," Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said.

The project will be known as "RISK," an acronym for risk mitigation, information sharing, systemic reform, and knowledge building, he said at the seminar titled "Taiwan-Europe Subsea Cable Security Cooperation Forum."

...

"This is not a national project but rather a global partnership," Lin said, calling on stakeholders around the world to join the initiative.

The project is "an open, inclusive, and collaborative platform" to secure a future "where data flows freely and securely, where no nation is left behind, and where connectivity is treated as a public good, not a geopolitical weapon," he said.

At the seminar, a member of the European Parliament Rihards Kols said that currently there are more than 600 operational or planned cables worldwide, stretching nearly 1.5 million kilometers.

"These are not just lines of data. They are the nervous system of democratic connectivity," which is under stress, he said.

...

Between 2023 and 2025, there were 12 separate incidents that affected energy lines and undersea cables across the Baltic region, Kols said, adding that he believes they were "acts of sabotage."

Taiwan sits at a vital juncture of the Indo-Pacific's digital infrastructure and is a strategic hub for global connectivity, said Kols, who is from Latvia.

In recent years, Taiwan has repeatedly experienced the consequences of cable disruptions, in instances where local authorities have found damage to cables connecting its outlying islands, the minister said.

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5321003

Archived version

The Management Initiative on International Undersea Cables aims to "bring together stakeholders, align standards, promote best practices, and turn shared concerns into beneficial cooperation," Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said.

The project will be known as "RISK," an acronym for risk mitigation, information sharing, systemic reform, and knowledge building, he said at the seminar titled "Taiwan-Europe Subsea Cable Security Cooperation Forum."

...

"This is not a national project but rather a global partnership," Lin said, calling on stakeholders around the world to join the initiative.

The project is "an open, inclusive, and collaborative platform" to secure a future "where data flows freely and securely, where no nation is left behind, and where connectivity is treated as a public good, not a geopolitical weapon," he said.

At the seminar, a member of the European Parliament Rihards Kols said that currently there are more than 600 operational or planned cables worldwide, stretching nearly 1.5 million kilometers.

"These are not just lines of data. They are the nervous system of democratic connectivity," which is under stress, he said.

...

Between 2023 and 2025, there were 12 separate incidents that affected energy lines and undersea cables across the Baltic region, Kols said, adding that he believes they were "acts of sabotage."

Taiwan sits at a vital juncture of the Indo-Pacific's digital infrastructure and is a strategic hub for global connectivity, said Kols, who is from Latvia.

In recent years, Taiwan has repeatedly experienced the consequences of cable disruptions, in instances where local authorities have found damage to cables connecting its outlying islands, the minister said.

...

Asked a question on an annoyingly written post blaming the secretary of defence (or wtf ever the title is) for causing the loss of aircraft. Dude's an absolute idiot, but he didn't personally drive an F/A 18 into the largest body of water known to man.

I have no time for pointless inflammatory bullshit. Put your energy into a useful fight.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5320580

Archived

Researchers from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD) analysed the response of four popular chatbots (ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok and DeepSeek) to a range of questions in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian on topics related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Almost one-fifth of responses cited Russian state-attributed sources, many of them sanctioned in the EU. Questions biased in favour of Russia were more likely to include these sources in responses, as did queries related to Ukraine’s military conscription of civilians and the perception of NATO. Some chatbots struggled to identify state-affiliated content especially when it had been disseminated by third-party outlets or websites.

With close to 45 million users in the EU, ChatGPT is close to reaching the threshold for a higher level of regulatory scrutiny from the European Commission as a Very Large Online Search Engine (VLOSE) under the Digital Services Act, the research firm writes.

Key points of the research:

• ISD tested 300 queries in five languages and Russian state-attributed content appeared in 18 percent of responses. These included citations of Russian state media, sites tied to Russian intelligence agencies, and sites known to be involved in Russian information operations that were surfaced during prior research into chatbot responses.
• Almost a quarter of malicious queries designed to elicit pro-Russian views included Kremlin-attributed sources compared to just over 10 percent with neutral queries. This suggests LLMs could be manipulated to reinforce pro-Russia viewpoints rather than promoting verified information from legitimate sources.
• Among all chatbots, ChatGPT cited the most Russian sources and was most influenced by biased queries. Grok, meanwhile, often linked to Russian-aligned but non–state-affiliated accounts amplifying pro-Kremlin narratives. Individual DeepSeek responses sometimes produced large volumes of state-attributed content, while Google-owned Gemini frequently displayed safety warnings for similar prompts.
• Some topics surfaced more Russian state-attributed sources than others. For instance, questions about peace talks resulted in twice as many citations of state-attributed sources as questions about Ukrainian refugees. This suggests that LLM safeguards may vary in effectiveness depending on the specific topic.
• The language used in queries had limited impact on the likelihood of LLMs citing Russian state-attributed sources. While each model responded differently, the sources surfaced to users were roughly similar across the five languages tested. Spanish and Italian prompted Russian sources that were mostly in English, which appeared in 12 results out of 60, compared to 9 of 60 for German and French (the languages with the lowest rates)

Archived

Researchers from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD) analysed the response of four popular chatbots (ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok and DeepSeek) to a range of questions in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian on topics related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Almost one-fifth of responses cited Russian state-attributed sources, many of them sanctioned in the EU. Questions biased in favour of Russia were more likely to include these sources in responses, as did queries related to Ukraine’s military conscription of civilians and the perception of NATO. Some chatbots struggled to identify state-affiliated content especially when it had been disseminated by third-party outlets or websites.

With close to 45 million users in the EU, ChatGPT is close to reaching the threshold for a higher level of regulatory scrutiny from the European Commission as a Very Large Online Search Engine (VLOSE) under the Digital Services Act, the research firm writes.

Key points of the research:

• ISD tested 300 queries in five languages and Russian state-attributed content appeared in 18 percent of responses. These included citations of Russian state media, sites tied to Russian intelligence agencies, and sites known to be involved in Russian information operations that were surfaced during prior research into chatbot responses.
• Almost a quarter of malicious queries designed to elicit pro-Russian views included Kremlin-attributed sources compared to just over 10 percent with neutral queries. This suggests LLMs could be manipulated to reinforce pro-Russia viewpoints rather than promoting verified information from legitimate sources.
• Among all chatbots, ChatGPT cited the most Russian sources and was most influenced by biased queries. Grok, meanwhile, often linked to Russian-aligned but non–state-affiliated accounts amplifying pro-Kremlin narratives. Individual DeepSeek responses sometimes produced large volumes of state-attributed content, while Google-owned Gemini frequently displayed safety warnings for similar prompts.
• Some topics surfaced more Russian state-attributed sources than others. For instance, questions about peace talks resulted in twice as many citations of state-attributed sources as questions about Ukrainian refugees. This suggests that LLM safeguards may vary in effectiveness depending on the specific topic.
• The language used in queries had limited impact on the likelihood of LLMs citing Russian state-attributed sources. While each model responded differently, the sources surfaced to users were roughly similar across the five languages tested. Spanish and Italian prompted Russian sources that were mostly in English, which appeared in 12 results out of 60, compared to 9 of 60 for German and French (the languages with the lowest rates)

• Clarify U.S. objectives in the rivalry with language that explicitly rejects absolute versions of victory and accepts the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party.

Sudan’s civil war has become a humanitarian catastrophe of staggering scale, marked by famine, ethnic cleansing and sexual violence. Over three years, an estimated 150,000 people have been killed, and nearly 13 million have been forced from their homes. But the destruction of Sudan’s cultural heritage has drawn far less attention. Jeffrey Brown reports for our art and culture series, CANVAS.

Fred Hampton Speech: "Why don't you die for the people" [02:27 | AUG 28 2010 | jerbo414 | https://youtu.be/_7F8RfnDhkA]

Transcript:

1. If you ever think about me,
2. and if you think about me [removed]s,
3. and if you ain't gonna do
4. no revolutionary act
5. forget about me.
7. I don't want myself on your mind
8. If your not going to work for the people.
10. Like we always said,
11. If you're asked to make a commitment
12. at the age of twenty,
13. and you say,
14. "I don't want to make a commitment",
15. Only Because of the simple reason that,
16. "I'm too young to die",
17. "I want to live a little bit longer"...
18. What you did is,... you're dead already.
20. You have to understand,
21. That people have to pay
22. the price for peace.
24. If you dare to struggle,
25. you dare to win.
27. If you dare not struggle, then
28. god damn-it, you don't deserve to win.
30. Let me say peace to you.
31. If you're willing to fight for it.
33. Let me say in the spirit of liberation...
34. I've been gone for a little while.
35. At least my body's been gone
36. for a little while.
37. But I'm back now.
38. And I believe that I'm back to stay.
40. I believe that I'm going to do my job.
41. And I believe that I was born,
42. not to die in a car wreck;
44. I don't believe that I'm going to die
45. in a car wreck.
47. I don't believe I'm going to die
48. slipping on a piece of ice;
50. I don't believe I'm going to die
51. because I got a bad heart;
53. I don't believe I'm going to die
54. because of lung cancer.
56. I believe that I'm going to be able to
57. die doing the things I was born for.
59. I believe that I'm going to be able
60. to die high off the people.
62. I believe that I will be able to die
63. as a revolutionary in the
64. international revolutionary
65. proletarian struggle
67. and I hope that each one of you will
68. be able to die in the international
69. proletarian revolutionary struggle
70. or you'll be able to live in it.
71. And I think that struggle's
72. going to come.
74. Why don't you live for the people.
75. Why don't you struggle for the people.
77. Why don't you die for the people.