Links 10/04/2024: Biden Reportedly Considers Dropping the Charges Against Julian Assange
Contents
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Leftovers
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Hackaday ☛ On Cloud Computing And Learning To Say No
Do you really need that cloud hosting package? If you’re just running a website — no matter whether large or very large — you probably don’t and should settle for basic hosting. This is the point that [Thomas Millar] argues, taking the reader through an example of a big site like Business Insider, and their realistic bandwidth needs.
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Science
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New York Times ☛ Ancient Foxes Lived and Died With Humans
Extinct foxes and other animals were an important part of early South American communities, a new study has found.
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Science Alert ☛ NASA Has Finally Identified The Reason Behind Voyager 1's Gibberish
Say what?
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CS Monitor ☛ Some things are worth missing school for. An eclipse road trip, and a search for wonder.
Our reporter, like many parents, wanted his son to experience the wonder of a total solar eclipse. As so often happens with parenting, the one left most in awe by the celestial event was not the fifth grader.
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Education
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LRT ☛ Lithuanian education minister quits over flawed school examination system
Lithuanian Education, Science and Sport Minister Gintautas Jakštas is asking Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė to accept his resignation, he announced at a press conference on Tuesday.
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Latvia ☛ Latvia's teachers to hold protest in May
A teachers' protest organized by the Latvian Education and Science Employees Union (LIZDA) is planned for May 21 outside the government building, LIZDA Chairman Inga Vanaga said in a statement on April 8.
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Hardware
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CubicleNate ☛ Steam Games Using the Discrete AMD GPU on Haswell Laptop
I have a couple of, now older, 4th Generation Intel, Haswell, Dell Latitude E6x40 machines that have discreet AMD GPUs.
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Ruben Schade ☛ Deshrouding my ZOTAC RTX 3070 Twin Edge?
I picked up the ZOTAC RTX 3070 Twin Edge graphics card right at the peak of blockchain scams, back when we were stuck at home and few cards were in stock. I paid way too much for it in retrospect, but the joy and entertainment it’s provided over these last couple of years are also worth something.
Alas, the card is loud. All the usual YouTube reviewers claimed the fans on the Twin Edge 3070 and 3060 Ti were “fine”, but they’re only able to maintain temperatures by being as noisy as my PowerMac G5 of yore. I’ve throttled back graphics settings so I can hear Clara on the other side of the table, but it’s a steep downgrade from what I paid for.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Science Alert ☛ This Japanese Diet Is Linked to Less Brain Shrinkage in Women, Experts Say
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Science Alert ☛ Transplanting Feces From One Person to Another Could Ease Parkinson's Symptoms
It's not all about the brain.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Michael Geist ☛ AI Spending is Not an Hey Hi (AI) Strategy: Why the Government’s Artificial Intelligence Plan Avoids the Hard Governance Questions
The government announced plans over the weekend to spend billions of dollars to support artificial intelligence. Billed as “securing Canada’s Hey Hi (AI) Advantage”, the plan includes promises to spend $2 billion on an AI Compute Access Fund and a Canadian Hey Hi (AI) Sovereign Compute Strategy that is focused on developing domestic computing infrastructure.
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Defence/Aggression
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The Strategist ☛ How to prevent a war over Taiwan
Might China try to attack Taiwan by 2027? The outgoing chief of the US Indo-Pacific Command, Philip Davidson, thought so in 2021, and he recently reaffirmed his assessment.
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Democracy Now ☛ 30 Years Later, Rwanda Genocide Shows Consequences of U.S. Refusal to Prevent Mass Killing
Rwanda is holding a week of commemorations to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, a period of around 100 days in which up to 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu militias while powerful countries, including the United States, stood by and refused to stop the mass killings. Shortly after the genocide, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame took power and has since ruled Rwanda with an iron fist, leading a harsh crackdown on the press and opposition groups. We look back at the 1994 genocide and discuss the country’s trajectory since then with two guests: Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch and now a visiting professor at Princeton, and Noël Zihabamwe, a survivor of the genocide whose parents were killed during the violence in 1994 and whose brothers were disappeared by the Kagame regime in 2019. Zihabamwe now lives in Australia and runs the African Australian Advocacy Center.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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European Commission ☛ Speech by Executive Vice-President Dombrovskis at the European Parliament S&D group conference: "Standing with Ukraine: European Parliament's legacy for the sanctions regime"
European Commission Speech Brussels, 09 Apr 2024 Madam Chair, Honourable Members, ladies and gentlemen: thank you for inviting me to this seminar on the EU sanctions regime.
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Latvia ☛ Latvian Radio investigates manganese ore transit via Latvia to Russia
While Ukraine has been fighting the Russian military machine on the battlefield every day for more than two years now, the Latvian transit business and politicians have not closed the gates to the flow of manganese ore to the aggressor country – and Russia can use this raw material for the production of military equipment, reports Latvian Radio's 'Atvertie Faili' (Open Files) investigative show.
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AntiWar ☛ Ukraine in NATO: What Blinken Says Versus What Blinken Means
NATO is less a defensive alliance than it is a provocative alliance. A quarter of a century ago, the Soviet Union dismantled itself by its own will. With that titanic change, NATO’s sole purpose dissolved.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Russian Orthodox Church declares “Holy War” against Ukraine and West
The Russian Orthodox Church has approved a remarkable new document that declares a holy war against Ukraine and the wider Western world, writes Brian Mefford.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Georgia launches new push to adopt Russian-style foreign agent law
Georgia’s ruling party has revived plans to pass legislation tightening restrictions on civil society, despite the fact that the same draft law sparked mass protests just one year ago, writes Mercedes Sapuppo.
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RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Inspects Fortifications In Kharkiv, Urges Western Partners To Send More Aid
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on April 9 visited the Kharkiv region to inspect defensive fortifications and issue another appeal for more military aid from Ukraine's Western backers in light of daily shelling of the region by the Russian military.
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RFERL ☛ U.S. Sent Seized Iranian Munitions To Ukraine
The United States has given Ukraine small arms and ammunition that were seized while being transferred from Iran to Tehran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen, the U.S. military said on April 9.
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RFERL ☛ Belarusian Activist Gets 10 Years In Prison For Supporting Ukraine
A court in the southeastern Belarusian region of Homel sentenced activist Ivan Sukhamerau to 10 years in prison on April 8 on charges of taking part in an extremist group's activities, financially supporting Ukraine's armed forces, and planning to join the Kastus Kalinouski Regiment.
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RFERL ☛ Ukraine Says It Struck Russian Aviation Center In Voronezh
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) has confirmed that an aviation training center in Russia's southwestern Voronezh region was struck in a drone attack early on April 9.
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RFERL ☛ Ukraine Strikes Reportedly Prompt Russia To Ask Kazakhstan For Gasoline
Reuters cited three sources on April 8 as saying Russia had asked Kazakhstan to supply it with 100,000 tons of gasoline in case of shortages caused by Ukrainian drone attacks at Russian oil refineries.
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RFERL ☛ In A First, Ukraine Cites Damage To Russian Warship In Baltic Sea
Ukraine's military intelligence reportedly carried out a special operation that damaged a Russian warship docked off the exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea, which, if true, would demonstrate Kyiv's increasing ability to hit Kremlin assets far beyond its borders.
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teleSUR ☛ Russia Requests Emergency IAEA Meeting Over Zaporozhye Attacks
On Sunday, Ukraine attacked the nuclear power plant with drones, leaving three people injured.
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YLE ☛ MPs mostly opposed to sending troops to Ukraine
French President Emmanuel Macron floated the idea of possibly sending Western troops to Ukraine in February. Yle found Finnish MPs reluctant to back the move.
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New York Times ☛ A Drone Strike in Odesa, Ukraine, Shatters a Family’s Life
Serhii Haidarzhy’s wife and son were killed when their apartment block was hit. He and their daughter survived. The tragedy has become a symbol in Ukraine of the war’s terrible toll on civilians.
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New York Times ☛ David Cameron Reaches Out to Trump, Taking a Risk on His U.S. Trip
David Cameron, the British foreign secretary, said he spoke with Donald Trump, the former, and possibly future, president, about Ukraine and the Israel-Gaza conflict.
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New York Times ☛ Xi of China Meets With Russia’s Foreign Minister, Reaffirming Ties
The visit came days after the U.S. threatened new sanctions against Chinese companies if they aided Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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Meduza ☛ ‘They were told fairy tales’ Russia recruited these women prisoners to fight in Ukraine. Six months later, they’re still waiting to be deployed. — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Moscow resurrects Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory in terrorism allegations — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Tanks but no tanks Russia makes breakthroughs along the front line in Ukraine, but its equipment losses could be a point of vulnerability — Meduza
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Latvia ☛ Tens of kilometers of trucks queueing at Latvian-Russian border
Queues of trucks started to form at the border checkpoint (BCP) "Grebņeva" earlier this year, but now the number of trucks has doubled and local residents are raising the alarm. The situation is similar at the BCP Terehova, Latgale regional television reports April 9.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Beijing to ‘strengthen strategic cooperation’ with Moscow, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi says
By Oliver Hotham China’s top diplomat said Tuesday that Beijing would strengthen strategic cooperation with Moscow and that the two must stand on the side of “fairness and justice” as he met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.
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LRT ☛ Person suspected of attack on Russian Embassy detained in Vilnius
Vilnius police have detained a person suspected of having thrown bottles with incendiary liquids at the Russian Embassy on Sunday and Monday nights.
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RFERL ☛ U.S. Lawmakers Call For Kara-Murza's Release, Say Russian Prisoner 'Not Forgotten'
Two years after Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza's arrest and conviction on terrorist charges viewed as politically motivated, U.S. lawmakers say they haven't forgotten their "friend."
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RFERL ☛ Chechen Woman's Disappearance Investigated As Possible Murder, Rights Group Says
Police in St. Petersburg are investigating the disappearance of a Chechen woman who was forcibly sent back to Chechnya last year as a possible murder, the SK SOS human rights group said on April 8.
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RFERL ☛ Kremlin Warns Worse To Come As Floods Ravage Russia, Kazakhstan
The Kremlin has warned that water levels have yet to peak in several regions of the country as tens of thousands in southern Russia -- and in neighboring Kazakhstan -- scrambled to avoid some of the worst flooding in decades as unseasonably warm temperatures melt snow faster than usual.
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CS Monitor ☛ A welcome for German leadership
In its first permanent stationing of combat troops outside of its borders, Germany shows it will stand for NATO’s values as well as defend countries most vulnerable to Russia.
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LRT ☛ Strasbourg Court opens case against Lithuania over penalising migrant aid NGO
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has opened a case against Lithuania over penalties slammed on an NGO that was helping migrants stranded on the Belarus border.
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RFERL ☛ Nobel Laureate Byalyatski's Condition Worsens After 1,000 Days In Belarusian Prison, Wife Says
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Byalyatski marked his 1,000th day in prison in Belarus on April 9 amid increasing fears about his deteriorating health, his wife said.
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ADF ☛ Russia Tightens Control of Malian Gold
Since the notorious Russian mercenary outfit formerly known as the Wagner Group began reorganizing under the control of the Russian Defense Ministry in 2023, controlling gold mining sites in Mali has been a priority
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RFERL ☛ Prison Term Of Former Head Of Navalny's Bashkortostan Team Extended
The Supreme Court of Russia's Bashkortostan region on April 9 extended the prison sentence of Lilia Chanysheva, the former head of late opposition leader Aleksei Navalny's team in Ufa, by two years after prosecutors said her initial 7 1/2-year sentence for extremism was too lenient.
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Environment
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DeSmog ☛ The ECHR’s First Climate Ruling: What Does it Mean?
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has today ruled that insufficient action to tackle climate change is a violation of human rights.
In a historic judgement, the court ruled that Switzerland’s failure to do enough to cut its greenhouse gas emissions breached the rights to life and respect for family and private life of some of its most vulnerable citizens.
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European Commission ☛ Opening remarks by Commissioner Hoekstra at the Clean Transition Dialogue with the construction sector
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Fantastic to have you here all around the table.
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Wildlife/Nature
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New York Times ☛ New Method That Pinpoints Wood’s Origin May Curb Illegal Timber
The study could help identify wood from Russia, which has been banned by many countries because of the war.
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Free Speech
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New York Times ☛ Canada Wants to Regulate Online Content. Critics Say It Goes Too Far.
A bill introduced by the Canadian government to safeguard against online harms has stirred opposition from free speech advocates.
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Techdirt ☛ Elon Finally Finds A Government He’s Willing To Stand Up To: When The Censorship Demands Target His Political Allies
Over the last few years, Elon Musk has repeatedly said that his definition of free speech means “that which matches the law.”
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RFERL ☛ EU Drops Sanctions On Iranian Tech Firm Accused Of Internet Censorship
A European Union official says the bloc has removed sanctions on the Iranian tech startup ArvanCloud because it "no longer" saw the need to keep them on a company it once accused of being involved in Tehran's crackdown on Internet access.
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EFF ☛ Speaking Freely: Mary Aileen Diez-Bacalso [Ed: But this author does not support free speech and she attacks Wikileaks]
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Mary Aileen Diez-Bacalso is the executive director of FORUM-Asia. She has worked for many years in human rights organizations in the Philippines and internationally, and is best known for her work on enforced disappearances. She has received several human rights awards at home and abroad, including the Emilio F. Mignone International Human Rights Prize conferred by the Government of Argentina and the Franco-German Ministerial Prize for Human Rights and Rule of Law.
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BBC ☛ Biden considering Australian request to drop Assange charges
US President Joe Biden has said that he is considering a request from Australia to drop the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The country's parliament recently passed a measure - backed by PM Anthony Albanese - calling for the return of Mr Assange to his native Australia.
The US wants to extradite the 52-year-old from the UK on criminal charges over the leaking of military records.
Mr Assange denies the charges, saying the leaks were an act of journalism.
The president was asked about Australia's request on Wednesday and said: "We're considering it."
The measure passed the Australian parliament in February. Mr Albanese told MPs: "People will have a range of views about Mr Assange's conduct... But regardless of where people stand, this thing cannot just go on and on and on indefinitely."
Mr Assange, 52, is fighting extradition in the UK courts.
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Patents
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JUVE ☛ Düsseldorf local division upholds sales ban against Mammut avalanche rescue devices [Ed: UPC is illegal and unconstitutional. This publisher took bribes to help this crime and boost it with fake news.]
In the case between sporting goods retailers Ortovox and Mammut, the latter company has failed in its bid to overturn an ex-parte preliminary injunction. As laid out by the UPC’s Düsseldorf local division, Mammut has also failed to gain permission to sell its products again (case ID: UPC_CFI_452/2023).
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Trademarks
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Reason ☛ Does Equity Respect Separate Corporate Personality?
If you're interested in the intersection of corporate law, trademark, accounting for profits, and federal equity jurisdiction, you'll be interested in a new amicus brief that my colleague Paul Miller and I just filed in support of a cert petition in Dewberry Group, Inc. v. Dewberry Engineers Inc.
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Copyrights
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Public Knowledge ☛ Public Knowledge Responds to MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin on Site-blocking
Today, Motion Picture Association Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin delivered remarks confirming the organization is working with Congress to enact site-blocking legislation which would force broadband providers, DNS lookups, and other infrastructure providers to refuse public access to websites accused of copyright monopoly infringement – risking the ability of all people to communicate freely online.
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Techdirt ☛ AI-Powered Fake Copyright Trolling Threat Letters Really Just An SEO Scam
This headline is like a version of Mad Libs for Techdirt titles.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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