No money, no hardware decoding.

• Ukraine's European allies have reassured Zelenskyy of their 'unwavering' support in joint call
• Zelenskyy has said Kyiv was 'working on the document prepared by the American side'
• Moscow has denied involvement in the US plan but nevertheless urged Kyiv to engage in negotiations

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with top congressional leaders of both parties Wednesday morning, before an hours-long session with corporate CEOs and billionaires at the Kennedy Center in the afternoon.

The events confirm that President Trump spoke for the entire US ruling class, Democrats and Republicans alike, when he welcomed the bloodstained monarch to the White House and denounced any mention of bin Salman’s role in the gruesome murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

...

There is nothing surprising about the welcoming of the Saudi despot and mass murderer to the US Capitol. The House and Senate have given standing ovations to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on at least two occasions during the Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has addressed a joint session of Congress twice—even as he pursued policies of entrenching his authoritarian Hindu-supremacist regime and threatening nuclear war against neighboring Pakistan. British Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed Congress at the height of the US-British war of conquest in Iraq, in July 2003.

More importantly, American presidents themselves address Congress on a regular basis, and the war crimes committed by these presidents in this century alone (wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, drone missile assassinations from the Middle East to the Caribbean), dwarf those committed by any visiting monarchs, dictators or prime ministers.

After his brief session schmoozing with the congressional leadership, bin Salman travelled across town to the Kennedy Center to resume the real business of his trip: wooing and being wooed by corporate CEOs and billionaires, with Trump presiding over the scene like the head pimp at a house of ill repute.

What is up with AKEL in Cyprus, how is it as a party?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/45994892

• Taiwan starts handing out copies of new civil defence handbook
• Taiwan faces growing military pressure from China
• Japan PM assures support of Taiwan in case of Chinese military aggression

China is the real regional "troublemaker", a senior Taiwanese security official said on Friday, personally giving out copies of a new civil defence handbook the government is sending to every household on the island as China tensions rise.

The handbook, unveiled in September, includes for the first time instructions on what to do if citizens encounter enemy soldiers and stresses that any claims of Taiwan's surrender should be considered false.

[...]

It marks Taiwan's latest effort to prepare its population for crises ranging from natural disasters to a Chinese invasion, as Beijing steps up military and political pressure to assert its sovereignty claims over the democratically-governed island.

China has this month also been locked in an increasingly bitter dispute with Japan after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told parliament a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo.

Lin Fei-fan, Deputy Secretary-General of Taiwan's National Security Council who has overseen the handbook initiative, told reporters in a Taipei residential area as he handed out copies to residents that Japan had Taiwan's highest-level support.

"The Chinese communists are the real troublemaker in geopolitics of the entire region," he said.

"What we are doing now is to ensure that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait can be continued by all means necessary and that the status quo will not be unilaterally destroyed."

[...]

I currently use my laptop next to a monitor with 21" but I am thinking about an upgrade. I casually play some light games, nothing competitive. The rest is a lot of reading, office or coding work and some multimedia.

What is a nice setup in your opinion? One big screen with 27" or two smaller ones with 22" or 24" each?

I did some research and found for a 24" screen 1080p and for a 27" screen 1440p as a minimum. So I figured a 24" 1440p screen would look awesome. Do I miss something about this finding? Is 2K too much for 24" to even notice it?

The problem I have is my desk is only 65cm wide and I frequently have a book or a piece of paper between me and the keyboard+monitor. The monitor uses 22cm and the keyboard another 14cm so there is just enough space for a piece of paper. Many of the modern monitors have huge standing feets and there are not always good measurements given.

I also thought about a monitor arm but I don't know if that would help with my small desk or just create more hassle after all.

The same could be said for non-American media, but American media in particular always hops between different topics and only one at a time.

Take, for example, news surrounding the mustard orange man with a red hat. At first, the news was swirling about how he was elected for a second term despite being a felon, but eventually the media pretty much forgot about that and went to his stance on climate change (that is, he believes it doesn't exist and thinks that oil and gas are the most amazing thing in the world, ever), then to the huge budget cuts (e.g. medicine, foreign aid, NASA), then to the ICE raids and military deployments in cities as "police", and now to "the files".

He is still a felon, still pushing for fossil fuels, still cutting funding for critical services (while increasing budget for his own benefit, like the rebuilding of the east wing of the white house to be glittery gold, military spending, fossil fuels industry...), still using ICE to raid the communities and families of both legal (including U.S. citizens, what the hell!) and "illegal" immigrants (nearly all of which don't have a criminal record, don't think 3 years olds are gang members...), and still using the military in various different cities as "police".

Questioning orange man's relation with bald egg man should be rightfully done, but why is the media practically ignoring everything else (esp. given that he was already convicted for doing similar acts as well as a bunch of other naughty stuff to do with money and government documents)

The American media can only latch onto one "hot" topic at a time and it's infuriating. You go to any of the news about orange man right now and it's all about non-Sonic billionaire eggman. The public is not as "one brain cell" as the media, but still, most people in the U.S. usually latch on to one thing only (whether it's ICE, the budget cuts, or the files, ESPECIALLY the files, it may as well be a copypasta at this point)

Similar could be said for big non-orange topics too, like on Israel (their invasion and genocide in Gaza, settlement of the West Bank, bombings of Lebanon, Syria, and now the "scary" proposal that - gasps - mentions a Palestinian state, etc.), Russian invasion of Ukraine, etc.

Why is the American media like this? Same could be said for all media, but American media in particular seem to always be tunnel visioned to one issue at a time. The American public also seem pretty tunnel visioned to a single issue, though not to the extent of the media companies

Note: I am not an American and do not, have never, and probably will never (due to the anti-immigrant administration) live in the US. I am not saying "haha Americans are dumb", that wouldn't be very nice. I just read a lot of news, some of which is American, and this has been a weird pattern I've been noticing and it drives me crazy.

Crosspost

The U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika — an emblem of fascism and white supremacy inextricably linked to the murder of millions of Jews and the deaths of more than 400,000 U.S. troops who died fighting in World War II — as a hate symbol, according to a new policy that takes effect next month.

Instead, the Coast Guard will classify the Nazi-era insignia as “potentially divisive” under its new guidelines. The new policy, set to take effect Dec. 15, similarly downgrades the definition of nooses and the Confederate flag, though display of the latter remains banned, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5716657

Archived version

The European Union and representatives of countries in the Indo-Pacific region are meeting in Brussels for the fourth ministerial forum, which brings together around 70 participants from EU institutions and member states, countries in the Indo-Pacific, and regional organisations from the east coast of Africa to the Pacific island states.

This year's meeting focuses on the themes of resilience, prosperity and security. Each participant arrives with their own agenda and priorities.

For Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro the meeting is an opportunity to strengthen maritime cooperation in the face of Beijing's claims in the South China Sea.

Lazaro welcomes European support through its statements, but also through "a lot of support through the visits of EU member countries, frigates passing through the South China Sea and this gives a lot of impetus to relations."

...

Manila and Beijing have accused each other of being responsible for collisions and incidents in the contested waters in recent months. The Chinese authorities claim most of the South China Sea, which is contested by several other countries in the region.

...

The Philippines said it welcomes the participation of EU member states as observers in maritime exercises.

But Manila, which will hold the presidency of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2026, wants to go further at this forum in Brussels.

...

Archived

[...]

“The overcapacity problem is continuing to grow and it has a devastating effect on global steel markets,” Cobden, who was present at the meeting, told the Financial Times.

Global steel capacity is forecast to exceed demand by 38 per cent, or 721mn metric tonnes (mmt), by 2027, according to the OECD. A significant portion of the excess comes from China, which is responsible for more than 50 per cent of steel supply globally, after a slowdown in its property market sapped domestic demand. According to the body’s calculations, China subsidises its production at 10 times the average level of OECD countries.

In a statement issued after the meeting, the 25-member steel committee warned that excess capacity was increasing this year at the fastest pace since the 2009 global financial crisis, risking “severe trade disruptions, and leading to national and economic security risks”.

[...]

Canada in June announced tight quotas and 50 per cent tariffs on excess steel products from countries that are not part of free trade agreements. It has previously raised concerns about subsidised steel from other Asian countries, including Vietnam and South Korea.

“It is clear that free trade in the steel industry is dead. Governments are being forced to protect their industries by China’s market distorting subsidies and colossal overproduction,” said Peter Brennan, policy director of the British lobby group UK Steel, who was also present at the OECD meeting.

Eurometal, which represents downstream steel users in Europe’s manufacturing supply chains, has claimed that three million EU industrial jobs are at risk from a “silent surge” of unfairly subsidised steel embedded in imported goods.

[...]

Trade policy experts said the prospect of joined-up action to counter the strategic threat posed by Chinese steel overproduction could be the first move towards a “League of Democracies” defending common interests.

“If democracies team up in response to security threats — as they did to deny Russia access to their markets after the invasion of Ukraine — there’s nothing to stop them doing the same for economic threats,” said Simon Evenett, professor of geopolitics and strategy at IMD business school in Lausanne, Switzerland.

[...]

Meta "had exercised an unfair market advantage by extracting personal data of internet users in violation of European law and using it to create more effective advertising".

That's one helluva law.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/53468400

Archived version

On November 18, Russia’s State Duma passed the 2026 draft budget in its second reading. The plan includes raising the value-added tax (VAT) from 20 to 22 percent and increasing taxes on small and medium-sized businesses. During the same session, lawmakers also approved a “technology fee” that will be charged to importers and manufacturers of household appliances and electronics.

The Putin administration for state-run and pro-government media, designed to help them present the new policies in a way that suits the Kremlin.

TL;DR:

• The West is to blame for the tax hikes.
• Media outlets are strongly advised to avoid mentioning Putin's name in stories about rising taxes to make sure clear that the public does not associate any of these unpopular decisions with Putin personally
• The Putin administration recommends citing European countries that are supposedly “slashing social programs to fund weapons.”
• Fears that tax increases drive up prices should be eased by saying that the tax changes will have only a “minimal” impact on inflation.
• In addition, the Putin administration urges loyal media to shift attention toward a separate tax increase on bookmakers, portraying it as a “fair” measure.

...

Meanwhile, Russia starts selling off its gold reserves to fund the war budget, breaking a long-held taboo, as the country’s Central Bank confirmed to Russian media outlet Interfax.

The move marks a significant shift in how Moscow is tapping its financial buffers to sustain government spending during the war against Ukraine.

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5716280

Archived version

...

Today, Chinese companies control more than 220 gigawatts of Europe’s installed solar capacity via inverters—the digital brains that convert direct current into grid-usable alternating current. These (usually) remotely programmable computers generate data, receive software and firmware updates, adjust voltage and frequency, and can be switched on and off as needed—or tampered with. Huawei (deemed “high risk” for many European telecoms networks) has become Europe’s largest supplier of inverters.

In normal times, inverters maintain grid stability and facilitate the integration of renewable energy. In a world where technology can be weaponised, they also offer a handful of operators potential levers inside Europe’s critical infrastructure. The irony is that clean technologies disperse energy generation across countless sites, but the digital centralisation of their data and control on cloud platforms makes them more vulnerable to attack.

In effect, while European dependence on solar panels from China may not be the most risky of dependencies, the EU’s energy grid backbone increasingly runs on Chinese hardware, software and data access. European countries need to spend hundreds of billions of euros over the coming years to upgrade their ageing grid, and China is well-placed to extend this dominant inverter supplier position into other power equipment, including transmission lines, distribution transformers and software for managing grid integration. Beijing has already shown that it will use dependencies as geoeconomic weapons, from rare earths to automotive chips. Europe’s grid could be next.

...

There’s no shortage of ways inverters can be turned into weapons. State-linked actors could deploy malware that cripples the power system and knocks out critical services. Espionage teams might map the grid to help pinpoint the best places to disconnect for maximum impact. Cyber attacks on operating systems could plunge wide areas into darkness for weeks.

There are also geoeconomic threats. Imagine China restricted the sale of components and maintenance services to its grid technologies. European countries would not be able to simply switch to a different supplier, because switching often requires replacing large parts of the network, leaving operators unable to patch known flaws and thereby inviting more cyber attacks or extortion.

...

How to secure the European grid

• Exclude high-risk vendors from the EU, e.g., the Cybersecurity Act, as well as the Cyber Resilience Act, could therefore offer the Commission another pathway to enforce Union-wide bans on risky products and services
• Condition funding on exclusions, e.g., conditioning EU funding for renewable energy projects and auctions on the exclusion of hardware and software from high-risk suppliers
• Tighten economic security measures, e.g., protecting domestic manufacturers by launching trade defence investigations (anti-dumping) into imported inverters and other power grid equipment
• Prevent circumvention and strengthen oversight, e.g., making sure that member states EU regulations by outsourcing operational control functions of inverters to (shell) companies in high-risk countries
• Promote trust standards among allies, e.g., encouraging its member states to adopt similar trust standards for their energy grid

...

AI isn’t just another tech trend — it’s at the heart of most apps, tools and technology we use today.

After the fascist and Nazi regimes were defeated in 1945, European post-war historiography largely overlooked right-wing extremism. New research now shows how extremists rebuilt cross-border networks in Europe and the part Switzerland played.

For more depth on the usages of Fascism and it's history, context etc. see this link about this new book. Facsism" by Princeton History Prof Federico Marcon.

The faster we recognise it, the better we can counter it.

A New Jersey woman who was found bound with zip ties in the woods and marked with a derogatory phrase referencing President Donald Trump is now accused of staging the attack.

Natalie Greene, 26, is charged with conspiracy to convey false statements and hoaxes and making false statements to federal law enforcement.

According to court documents, Greene and a co-conspirator called 911 late July 23 and claimed that three men had attacked them on a trail at the Egg Harbor Township Nature Reserve. The co-conspirator told dispatchers the men referenced Greene by name and mentioned her job in politics. According to reports, Greene previously worked for a Republican congressman.