50501

Gift link, but requires registration. Not pasting the URL into archive.is because the Hearst laywers don't like it when people do that.

12/13/03 A date that will live in infamemey.

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The activist who heads the Ukrainian organization Center for Civil Liberties, which won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, warns that ending the invasion will only be possible if the Kremlin feels that ‘the price of continuing the war is higher than the price of stopping it’.

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Oleksandra Matviichuk: It’s not just about Ukraine. Russia is an empire. An empire has a center, but it has no borders. An empire is always trying to expand. These aren’t my words. They are Vladimir Putin’s, who claimed that the borders of the Russian Federation “never end.” And I’ve seen it even in my human rights work. When I interviewed people who survived Russian captivity, they told me that Russians see their future like this: first we will occupy Ukraine, and then, together with you, we will go on to conquer other countries. Putin sees Ukraine as a bridge to attack the next European country. His logic is historical. He dreams about his legacy. He wants to forcibly restore the Russian Empire because the collapse of the Soviet Union was, to quote him, “the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the past century.” So he wants revenge. And this means that people in the European Union are safe only because the Ukrainians are still resisting and not allowing the Russian army to advance and attack the next country.

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The European Union leadership is behaving as if they have time. As if they have several years before Russia starts attacking. But Putin isn’t stupid. Why do they think he’ll give them several years to prepare and not attack now?

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The European Union must take decisive action. Such as creating a special tribunal on aggression, using frozen Russian assets for self-defense and the reconstruction of Ukraine. And also helping Ukraine close its airspace. I literally don’t understand what the problem is with shooting down a piece of metal that costs €1,000 [$1,160]. I’m referring to a Russian drone. It’s not an airplane with a pilot, just a piece of metal. Russia sends hundreds and hundreds of drones every day to destroy Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. And they succeed, because now we have lost the vast majority of the energy infrastructure in Ukraine, which poses a real threat to millions of people who could face winter without heating, without water, without energy, without electricity. It’s a vital problem because you can’t even warm milk for a newborn.

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I was furious [because of the recent anti-corruption investigation in Ukraine that forced the resignation of the president’s chief of staff]. Furious, like millions of people in Ukraine, for an obvious reason: we all donate a lot. We donate to the Ukrainian army, to the wounded, to people who lost everything in this war, to the victims of Russian war crimes. Ukrainian pensioners give the last of their pensions as donations.

But when we look at the situation from a pragmatic point of view, first, this corruption scandal has happened not because of a journalistic investigation, but because of an official investigation by state anti-corruption agencies, which shows that these official anti-corruption agencies are working effectively. Just 12 years ago, this was unthinkable.

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So yes, we are not perfect. We have a lot of problems that we take seriously. It is our responsibility. But we are still a democracy. A democracy in transition, and we are on the right track.

An interpreter broke down in tears at the European Parliament in Brussels while translating for an 11-year-old Ukrainian boy who was injured in a Russian missile strike on a hospital in central Ukraine in 2022.

Roman Oleksiv's mother was killed in the attack and he has undergone multiple surgeries since.

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The European Union is continuing to insist on Russia's full responsibility for crimes against Ukraine and, in particular, on the swift completion of the establishment of the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine.

The EU wants to finalise the establishment of the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, which concerns the order by Kremlin ruler Vladimir Putin to attack Ukraine, as soon as possible.

"First of all, the position of the European Union will continue to be that there should be full accountability for Russian crimes in Ukraine. That is our position, and it will remain our position," Michael McGrath, EU Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law and Consumer Protection, told European Pravda.

He said it is "vital" to ensure "that those who are the victims of the crime of aggression perpetrated by Russia have their rights vindicated and that they have justice served to them".

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cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/51506595

A raccoon that broke into a Virginia store and joyfully drank its way through the liquor aisle is now suspected of a wider crime spree, officials say.

A Hanover animal control officer suspects the stripe-tailed mammal also broke into a nearby karate studio and then raided the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) for snacks.

"Supposedly, this is the third break-in he's had," said Officer Samantha Martin.

Ms Martin says it's only a matter of time before the masked bandit strikes the shopping centre again.

FYI - there are tshirts and hoodies available, but only for another 41 hrs.

https://www.bonfire.com/trashed-panda/

As of Wednesday, all youth under 16 in Australia will be banned from major social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Reddit, Twitch, and X. For over a decade, whistleblowers, politicians, academics, and experts around the world have sounded the alarm about the online harms people of all ages are exposed to.

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The ban does nothing to prepare teens to respond to digital harms. It makes no investments in education, community training, or parental support. Youth will not be magically prepared to address problematic online behaviours or content when they turn 16.

The time and resources spent on the ban could be better spent on things like providing education and support for digital citizenship, media literacy, privacy rights or resource centres.

If social media is problematic for a 13, 14 or 15 year old, it’s still likely to be problematic for a 16, 25, or 80 year old. There is no body of research that establishes 16 as a “safe threshold” for social media use and the age for healthy use can vary across genders.

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Under the current model, companies will not be inclined to improve their reporting systems for harmful content. In fact, in response to the ban, YouTube is actually removing a feature that would allow teens to report content they find inappropriate.

Youth under 16 who find ways to use these platforms, despite the bans, will be unlikely to come forward and ask for help if things go wrong. After all, they weren’t supposed to be online in the first place.

The answer to mitigating online harms is not kicking teens offline.

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Social media companies also need to be accountable to the ways the platforms are designed and run. These platforms are designed in ways that push certain content and elicit particular engagements.

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The premier of Bavaria, who is also the leader of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), has called on his party and democratic parties as a whole to unite in a common fight against threats from both domestic and foreign sources.

Rust for Linux lead developer Miguel Ojeda posted the patch a short time ago to "conclude the Rust experiment". The "experiment" of Rust programming language code in the Linux kernel is over as it's now accepted to be a success and "Rust is here to stay" in the kernel.

Following discussions at the Linux Plumbers Conference this week in Japan, Miguel Ojeda is now comfortable in declaring Rust for the Linux kernel a success in being able to drop the "experiment" flag on the effort. Ojeda wrote this evening on the kernel mailing list

You're all about to become aware

Looking for a self hosted, web search trends monitor. I have looked at Plausible Analytics, OpenSearch, Matomo, and some other website analytics platforms, but I'm not necessarily wanting to monitor a specific website(s). Rather, I want to monitor what people are searching for on the internet.

Is such a thing possible?

The decision is a significant step towards using the cash to aid Ukraine’s defence – but Moscow is threatening to retaliate

The EU has agreed to indefinitely freeze Russia’s sovereign assets in the bloc, as Moscow stepped up its threats to retaliate against Euroclear, the keeper of most of the Kremlin’s immobilised money.

The decision by the EU to use emergency powers to immobilise €210bn (£185bn) of Russia’s central bank’s assets marks a significant step towards using the cash to aid Ukraine’s defence.

European Council president António Costa confirmed on Friday that EU leaders had delivered on a commitment, made in October, to “keep Russian assets immobilised until Russia ends its war of aggression against Ukraine and compensates for the damage caused”.

Farmers in southwest France blocked major roads overnight from Friday to Saturday, setting fire to hay bales and clashing with police in protest at government‑ordered cattle culls linked to an outbreak of lumpy skin disease.