(date: 2024-09-02 10:35:31)
date: 2024-09-02, from: VOA News USA
In New York, aspiring fashion designers often attend colleges like the Fashion Institute of Technology or Parsons School of Design. But for those without the means or access to higher education, a Harlem-based fashion incubator – a company that helps new fashion designers grow and learn the business – is providing alternative paths to the industry. VOA’s Tina Trinh shows us two emerging talents. Camera: Tina Trinh
https://www.voanews.com/a/harlem-designers-defying-the-odds-/7768509.html
date: 2024-09-02, from: VOA News USA
Washington — A Chinese bookstore reopened in Washington on Sunday, six years after the Chinese government forced it to close its doors in Shanghai.
JF Books was teeming with books — and customers — when it opened its doors in Washington’s Dupont Circle neighborhood. In the storefront, the shop’s name is displayed in English and Mandarin in neon green lights. The sporadic rain was perhaps fitting considering the bookstore’s namesake “jifeng” means “monsoon” in Mandarin.
The bookstore is located next to Kramers, an indie bookstore that has been a Washington fixture for decades. Yu Miao, who runs JF Books, says he hopes his bookstore becomes an institution for the local community, too.
“I hope the bookstore can establish a connection between people in the Chinese community, and this connection could be established through knowledge,” Yu told VOA shortly before the shop opened for business. “Also, I hope the bookstore’s function can go beyond the Chinese community. It can also contribute to the local community.”
The shop sells Chinese-language books from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, in addition to a selection of English-language books. It will also regularly host speakers for events.
Founded in Shanghai in 1997 as Jifeng Bookstore, the shop ran into trouble in 2017 when its landlord said the lease couldn’t be extended. The bookstore looked for a new location, but the prospective landlords at each potential site received warnings or notifications from the government.
Jifeng Bookstore is one of several independent bookstores that Beijing has forced to close in recent years.
The fact that bookstores have become a battleground underscores the Chinese government’s broader repression of free expression and crackdown on anything deemed to be critical of the government, according to Sophie Richardson, the former China director at Human Rights Watch.
“[Chinese President] Xi Jinping and his government have clearly targeted a great deal of hostility at scholars,” Richardson told VOA at the bookstore. “Their books are regarded as potential threats, and so the party does what the party knows how to do, which is to send people into exile, to send them to jail, to shut down bookstores.”
China’s Washington embassy did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment for this story.
Gesturing at the throngs of people who were looking at books about everything from Chinese history to science, Richardson, who is now a visiting scholar at Stanford, added that there is a clear hunger for Chinese books.
“It’s amazing to see this clear demand for this kind of material in an environment where people can get it free of fear of persecution,” she said.
That’s another reason why Yu wanted to reopen the bookstore: It can be difficult to find Chinese-language books in the United States, he said. “And so, I think there must be many others that have the same concern,” he said.
When Jifeng Bookstore closed its doors in 2018, Yu never expected it to reopen.
“I thought it was closed, then its story ended,” Yu said. “I never imagined to reopen the bookstore.”
Now, JF Books has joined a rising number of independent Chinese bookstores that are being opened by members of the diaspora in cities around the world. They sell books and hold discussions about politics and history in a way that the Chinese government has stifled inside China.
JF Books already has scheduled three speakers for September. Howard Shen, a graduate student at Georgetown University, told VOA that he’s especially excited about the upcoming events.
“It’s such a big thing in the Chinese speaking community in D.C. We are all very excited to have this bookstore. It’s such a meaningful place for all Chinese in the world who love freedom,” said Shen, who is from Taiwan.
One corner of the store features farewell messages that customers wrote back when the store was forced to shutter in 2018. Leading up to the bookstore’s second floor, photos on the wall memorialize the bookstore’s two-decade history in Shanghai. At the top of the staircase, photos show the bookstore’s final day in 2018.
“Jifeng Bookstore will soon depart from Shanghai,” the caption of one photo reads, “but the monsoon will continue to blow.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/shuttered-in-shanghai-chinese-bookstore-reopens-in-washington/7768504.html
date: 2024-09-02, from: VOA News USA
date: 2024-09-02, updated: 2024-09-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, who was cuffed and charged by the French police last week, was “too free” in his approach to managing the global messaging platform, according to Russia’s foreign minister.…
date: 2024-09-02, from: Curious about everything blog
The many interesting things I read in August 2024
https://jodiettenberg.substack.com/p/forty-two
date: 2024-09-02, updated: 2024-09-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
NASA has confirmed the names of the two crew members who will be flying to the International Space Station (ISS) on the next SpaceX mission: NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/nasa_confirms_crew_dragon/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-02, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
She is so good. So many nuggets I need to absorb into my vocabulary:
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNoBmtKV/
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113068505197484201
date: 2024-09-02, from: Liliputing
The Orange Pi RV is a single board computer that’s slightly larger than a credit card (or a Raspberry Pi 5), but still small enough to easily hold in the palm of your hand or slide into a pocket. It’s also one of the first Orange Pi-branded products to feature a RISC-V processor. The 89 x […]
The post Orange Pi RV is a single-board RISC-V PC with up to 8GB RAM and an M.2 slot appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/orange-pi-rv-is-a-single-board-risc-v-pc-with-up-to-8gb-ram-and-an-m-2-slot/
date: 2024-09-02, from: VOA News USA
washington — As North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs become increasingly sophisticated, U.S.-based experts see the United States shifting the focus of its diplomacy from the pursuit of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula to one of deterrence.
Officially, the U.S. State Department insists that denuclearization remains the primary goal of the United States and South Korea, a policy that is unlikely to change regardless of the outcome of the November U.S. presidential election.
But in a series of email interviews with VOA Korean, more than half a dozen experts said they saw scant hope that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un could be persuaded to give up his growing nuclear arsenal and that the U.S. must concentrate instead on seeing that it is never used.
“I think, in practical terms, most Americans believe we have little choice at this point but to prioritize deterrence, at least for the foreseeable future,” said Michael O’Hanlon, director of foreign policy research at the Brookings Institution in Washington, in an email to VOA Korean this week.
Robert Peters, research fellow for nuclear deterrence and missile defense at the Heritage Foundation, told VOA Korean via email that American politicians on both sides of the political spectrum are questioning whether North Korea would even consider abandoning its nuclear weapons.
“I think there is little appetite in either political party to seek denuclearization with North Korea, given the failures of the late 2010s,” Peters said, referring to the collapse of the nuclear talks between former U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who met three times in 2018 and 2019.
“I think all sides recognize that Kim will not give up nuclear weapons at any price.”
Shifting priorities
Negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program between Washington and Pyongyang have been nearly nonexistent since October 2019.
Peters added, “Bottom line — without question, the ground has shifted regarding how we think about the North Korean nuclear threat.”
Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, said Washington’s shift in direction was inevitable.
“The U.S. government has been forced to place more emphasis on deterrence over denuclearization because Kim Jong Un has shown no willingness to negotiate a nuclear deal or even meet with the U.S. to discuss denuclearization,” Samore told VOA Korean via email.
“Instead, North Korea has continued to advance its nuclear and missile program, and the U.S. has responded by strengthening military cooperation with the ROK and Japan, including joint efforts to enhance extended deterrence.”
ROK stands for Republic of Korea, the official name of South Korea.
Denuclearization of North Korea is now viewed in Washington as a “mission impossible,” said Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation.
“I think it is fair to say that the U.S. government is now more focused on deterrence, which is largely succeeding, than on denuclearization,” Bennett told VOA Korean via email.
“This change does not mean that the U.S. and ROK have abandoned trying to negotiate for denuclearization, which North Korea steadfastly refuses to do, but rather that our governments no longer see denuclearization as a viable solution to the North Korean nuclear weapon threat.”
Markus Garlauskas, director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, told VOA Korean via email it was “fully appropriate” that Washington has been paying more attention in recent years to deterring North Korean aggression than attempting to negotiate denuclearization.
“I have long argued that Kim Jong Un does not intend to give up his nuclear weapons, that the nuclear weapons and missile capabilities of North Korea have grown and will continue to grow, meaning that we in the United States and its allies must adjust our strategy and policy accordingly,” he said.
“We should not let hopes of negotiations get in the way of making tough decisions to improve deterrence,” added Garlauskas, who served as the U.S. national intelligence officer for North Korea from 2014 to 2020.
He stressed, however, that “accepting the reality that North Korea is nuclear-armed and will remain so while under Kim Jong Un’s leadership” does not mean that the U.S. should or would give up denuclearization as a goal.
“Our principled stand can and should remain that North Korea must comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions by halting its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and relinquishing its nuclear weapons, and I do think there is still broad agreement on that in Washington,” Garlauskas said.
Commitment to denuclearization
Sydney Seiler, who until last year was the national intelligence officer for North Korea on the U.S. National Intelligence Council, said the U.S. should keep denuclearization as a priority, adding that “denuclearization and deterrence are not mutually exclusive.”
“We have a responsibility on a day-by-day basis to deter provocative actions, coercion, blackmail and even possible invasion by North Korea and have been doing so for the last 70 years of armistice,” said Seiler, who is now a senior adviser on Korean affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Successfully ensuring deterrence does not mean abandoning the goal of the denuclearization of North Korea,” he told VOA Korean via email.
Robert Abrams, a retired U.S. Army four-star general who served as commander of U.S. Forces Korea from 2018 to 2021, emphasized that a strategy of deterrence should be clearly differentiated from the goal of denuclearization.
“The U.S. strategic deterrent was never about stopping the North Korean regime from developing their own nukes,” Abrams told VOA Korean in an August 20 email.
“Sanctions and diplomatic efforts were intended to stop North Korea’s nuclear program. The strategic deterrent is to deter North Korea from ever using nuclear weapons, and that has obviously been very successful.”
Officially, Washington reiterates that denuclearization of North Korea remains a goal of the U.S.-South Korea alliance.
“The United States and the ROK continue to pursue the shared objective of the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA Korean via email this week. “We believe that the only effective way to reduce nuclear threats on the peninsula is by curbing the proliferation of nuclear weapons.”
But the spokesperson stressed that deterrence was also a crucial element of U.S. policy toward North Korea.
“At the same time, the United States and the ROK will continue working together to strengthen extended deterrence in the face of increasingly aggressive DPRK rhetoric about its nuclear weapons program,” the spokesperson said.
He added that the 16-month-old Washington Declaration “reinforces the fact that any nuclear attack by [North Korea] against [South Korea] will be met with a swift, overwhelming and decisive response from the United States.”
In April 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol adopted the Washington Declaration, which outlines a series of measures to deter North Korea’s nuclear weapons use.
date: 2024-09-02, from: VOA News USA
los angeles, california — Halloween has arrived earlier than ever at major U.S. theme parks, as operators such as Disney, Six Flags, and Universal Studios seek to expand their reach and build on consumers’ love of spooky costumes and scares.
Theme park operators have introduced a range of attractions, live performances, merchandise and food and beverages in August — before summer has ended and well before the October 31 holiday — to take advantage of the surging popularity of Halloween. These holiday-themed efforts come at a time when domestic theme park attendance has slumped, following a surge in demand after COVID.
Edithann Ramey, chief marketing officer at Six Flags, told Reuters that the theme parks saw attendance gains and increases in guest spending in 2023 when it introduced attractions based on the horror films “SAW” and “The Conjuring.”
The offerings were so successful that the theme park company has been investing more in Halloween experiences, Ramey said.
“It’s become this time of the year that’s grown in explosive ways,” Ramey said. “It’s become a billion-dollar industry in the last five years.”
Jakob Wahl, chief executive for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, said Halloween has become one of the strongest selling points for parks that cater to young people and families.
“We actually see a growth every year in terms of Halloween events, not only North America, but across the world,” Wahl said.
Disney starts season in August
Walt Disney’s parks started the Halloween season earlier than ever this year with “Mickey’s Not So Scary Party” beginning on August 9 and running through the end of October.
The Oogie Boogie Bash, a separately ticketed event named for the “Nightmare Before Christmas” villain, sold out this year in 11 days, Disney said. Its popularity prompted the company to push the release date to August 25 from September 5.
“We’ve seen from our guests in years past that there’s a demand for them to come and enjoy that season with us,” said Tracy Halas, creative director of Disney Live Entertainment.
Six Flags also kicks off Halloween early this year, on September 14, with a new experience called “Saw: Legacy of Terror” celebrating the 20th anniversary of the “SAW” horror movie franchise.
Following the $8 billion merger of Six Flags and former rival Cedar Fair, which created the nation’s largest amusement park operator, with 42 parks across 17 states, Six Flags is increasing its investment in Halloween.
That includes adding Hollywood-themed experiences to Six Flags Fright Fest based on Netflix’s science fiction series, “Stranger Things,” as well as horror films “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and “The Conjuring.”
Universal adds ‘Ghostbusters’ haunted house
Comcast-owned Universal Studios 2024 Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando runs from August 30 to November 3, the longest season they’ve ever had. The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Universal is adding a “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” haunted house to its Halloween programming alongside the first attraction inspired by horror franchise, “A Quiet Place.”
Universal also aims to attract guests at Universal Studios Japan with a new 4D show in collaboration with the anime television series “Chainsaw Man.”
Both Universal Orlando and Japan will add cast members dressed as the antagonists called Death Eaters to haunt Diagon Alley during Horror Nights.
Disney villain Cruella de Vil hosted a “Let’s Get Wicked” celebration at Hong Kong Disneyland in 2022, which received an industry award and returns this year.
https://www.voanews.com/a/at-us-theme-parks-halloween-celebrations-start-2-months-early/7764945.html
date: 2024-09-02, updated: 2024-09-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The Zen Browser is a new effort to modernize web browsing by bringing tiling, workspaces, and so on – and it’s blissfully free of Google code.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/zen_firefox_fork_alpha/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
One of the nicest things about ChatGPT is that it's always up for working with you. The critics of AI don't begin to understand this.
http://scripting.com/2024/04/16/140810.html#a140820
date: 2024-09-02, from: VOA News USA
A U.S. Supreme Court decision in June makes it easier for communities across the nation to fine and arrest people living and sleeping in public spaces. That has left many of America’s hundreds of thousands of homeless people in a difficult situation. Angelina Bagdasaryan looks at what California is doing to address the problem. Anne Rice narrates. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-02, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Shit I don’t like this, but these are very good points:
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113068382930595507
date: 2024-09-02, from: 404 Media Group
The organization that runs National Novel Writing Month, a November challenge to write 50,000 words, said “the categorical condemnation of Artificial Intelligence has classist and ableist undertones.”
https://www.404media.co/nanowrimo-ai-policy-classist-ableist/
date: 2024-09-02, from: Daniel Stenberg Blog
Yes! It is yet again time for a dual Zoom-twitch curl webinar. This one-hour (or so) session will be live-streamed on Twitch and broadcast on Zoom concurrently. Of course entirely free to attend. Date: September 5, 2024Time: 17:00 UTC (19:00 CEST, 10:00 PDT) Everyone uses curl, the Swiss army knife of Internet transfers. While this … Continue reading webinar: mastering the curl command line
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/09/02/webinar-mastering-the-curl-command-line/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-02, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
I just realized America is 300 million racists on a “principles” trench coat, and now everything makes sense.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113068325860174416
@Tomosino’s Mastodon feed (date: 2024-09-02, from: Tomosino’s Mastodon feed)
If you’re a podcaster check out @Castopod . It’s what I use for @SolarpunkPrompts
https://tilde.zone/@tomasino/113068314475884381
date: 2024-09-02, updated: 2024-09-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Windows 11 continues to nibble at the market share of Windows 10, although has a way to go before finally surpassing its predecessor.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/windows_11_market_share/
date: 2024-09-02, from: Blog by Fabrizio Ferri-Benedetti
I’ve recently found out about TypeSpec, a new language aimed at describing web APIs, through an interview that bears the provocative title of API Design in the Post-OpenAPI Era. Leaving aside the fact that OpenAPI is very much alive, what left me stupefied was the assertion that OpenAPI files should be “automatically generated artifacts and nothing more”. After digging a bit, I found the picture to be slightly more reassuring, but still quite representative of a world that keeps steering away from human-driven design to bury itself in curly brackets paradises. A regression, rather than progress, if you ask me.
https://passo.uno/typespec-openapi-api-design/
@Tomosino’s Mastodon feed (date: 2024-09-02, from: Tomosino’s Mastodon feed)
clean your desk
https://tilde.zone/@tomasino/113068175292420229
date: 2024-09-02, from: Digital Humanities Quarterly News
Join us for a chat with Dr. Julie Christen, a Learning Experience Designer at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Hosted by Anuj Gupta, PhD Candidate at the University of Arizona and a DRC Fellow, this episode covers Julie’s journey from academia (where she did a PhD specialising rhetoric, writing, UX, and technical communication) to Amazon (where […]date: 2024-09-02, updated: 2024-09-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
HPE will pursue the widow of Mike Lynch for the $4 billion in damages it sought from him over the Autonomy merger following the Brit tech tycoon’s recent death in a sailing tragedy off the coast of Sicily.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/hpe_mike_lynch_damages/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Show notes page for my first in-the-car podcast on Sept 1, 2004. I love cross-country driving, as you can tell from the tone.
https://shownotes.scripting.com/podcast0/2024/09/02/firstInthecarPodcast.html
date: 2024-09-02, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Activists are blocking roads across Israel during a general strike called to demand the government agree to a ceasefire deal in Gaza to secure the release of the remaining hostages. Plus, a look at a global scam tricking foreign students in Britain into paying tens of thousands of dollars for worthless work visa documents. And, there is a new way of making the world’s favorite indulgence — chocolate.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
How podcasting got its name. The real story, not the bs on Wikipedia.
http://scripting.com/2013/04/07/howPodcastingGotItsName.html
date: 2024-09-02, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Labor Day weekend is usually a hectic travel weekend, but this year is set to break records as people travel across the country to celebrate the holiday. We look at the economic drivers of what’s projected to be a very busy few days at airports, highways, and train stations nationwide. Plus, a look at a new chocolate production technique promising to boost the fortunes of producers and consumers of the much-loved treat.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The voting rights situation in some swing states is quite alarming.
date: 2024-09-02, updated: 2024-09-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Updated UK banking giant Lloyds is struggling to account for malfunctioning online services today as customers report being unable to view transactions through the app or website.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/black_horse_down_lloyds_online/
date: 2024-09-02, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Since the beginning of labor unions and collective action in the workplace, songs have served as a way to build camaraderie and communicate complaints between workers. As part of our “Econ Extra Credit” series, we delve into the storied history of the humble work hymn and how songs continue to shape organized labor efforts today. Plus, a look at how monetary policymakers at the Fed might analyze upcoming jobs numbers as they consider a potential rate cut.
date: 2024-09-02, from: Tilde.news
https://retrochallenge.org/2024/
date: 2024-09-02, updated: 2024-09-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The NHS has launched a competition worth up to £1.5 billion for suppliers to provide a variety of computer hardware to the world’s biggest healthcare organization, including PCs, printers, and peripherals.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/nhs_hardware_procurement/
date: 2024-09-02, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Remote robotics development for university students isn’t a pipe dream — it’s very real at Wrocław University of Science and Technology.
The post RemoteLab robotics development for universities | #MagPiMonday appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/remotelab-robotics-development-for-universities-magpimonday/
date: 2024-09-02, updated: 2024-09-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Google’s Pixel 9 phone appears to be made of pure unobtainium if the experience of some O2* customers is anything to go by.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/o2_google_pixel_9_delays/
date: 2024-09-02, from: Howard Jacobson blog
A piece I resurrect as we move from summer to autumn and our minds turn to renewing our wardrobes.
https://jacobsonh.substack.com/p/i-fail-to-join-the-mafia
date: 2024-09-02, updated: 2024-09-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Opinion We may not know exactly when or how, but we do know that the Windows Control Panel is gasping its last. Hurrah.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/microsoft_control_panel_opinion/
date: 2024-09-02, updated: 2024-09-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Who, Me? Greetings, gentle reader, and may peace be upon you, for yea verily it is once again Monday and unto Monday we render another instalment of Who, Me? in which Reg readers unburden themselves with confessions of technical mishap.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/who_me/
date: 2024-09-02, updated: 2024-09-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Efforts to add Rust code to the Linux kernel suffered a setback last Thursday when one of the maintainers of the Rust for Linux project stepped down – citing frustration with “nontechnical nonsense.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/rust_for_linux_maintainer_steps_down/
date: 2024-09-02, updated: 2024-09-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Data protection software vendor Veeam has delivered its promised support for open source virtualization contender Proxmox.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/veeam_proxmox_support_arrives/
date: 2024-09-02, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-honors-workers-with-labor-day-holiday-/7767888.html
date: 2024-09-02, updated: 2024-09-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Chinese web champ Tencent’s cloud is being used by unknown attackers as part of a phishing campaign that aims to achieve persistent network access at Chinese entities.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/securonix_china_slowtempest_campaign/
date: 2024-09-02, from: VOA News USA
Sacramento, California — California lawmakers approved a host of proposals this week aiming to regulate the artificial intelligence industry, combat deepfakes and protect workers from exploitation by the rapidly evolving technology.
The California Legislature, which is controlled by Democrats, is voting on hundreds of bills during its final week of the session to send to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. Their deadline is Saturday.
The Democratic governor has until Sept. 30 to sign the proposals, veto them or let them become law without his signature. Newsom signaled in July he will sign a proposal to crack down on election deepfakes but has not weighed in on other legislation.
He warned earlier this summer that overregulation could hurt the homegrown industry. In recent years, he often has cited the state’s budget troubles when rejecting legislation that he would otherwise support.
Here is a look at some of the AI bills lawmakers approved this year.
Combating deepfakes
Citing concerns over how AI tools are increasingly being used to trick voters and generate deepfake pornography of minors, California lawmakers approved several bills this week to crack down on the practice.
Lawmakers approved legislation to ban deepfakes related to elections and require large social media platforms to remove the deceptive material 120 days before Election Day and 60 days thereafter. Campaigns also would be required to publicly disclose if they’re running ads with materials altered by AI.
A pair of proposals would make it illegal to use AI tools to create images and videos of child sexual abuse. Current law does not allow district attorneys to go after people who possess or distribute AI-generated child sexual abuse images if they cannot prove the materials are depicting a real person.
Tech companies and social media platforms would be required to provide AI detection tools to users under another proposal.
Setting safety guardrails
California could become the first state in the nation to set sweeping safety measures on large AI models.
The legislation sent by lawmakers to the governor’s desk requires developers to start disclosing what data they use to train their models. The efforts aim to shed more light into how AI models work and prevent future catastrophic disasters.
Another measure would require the state to set safety protocols preventing risks and algorithmic discrimination before agencies could enter any contract involving AI models used to define decisions.
Protecting workers
Inspired by the monthslong Hollywood actors strike last year, lawmakers approved a proposal to protect workers, including voice actors and audiobook performers, from being replaced by their AI-generated clones. The measure mirrors language in the contract the SAG-AFTRA made with studios last December.
State and local agencies would be banned from using AI to replace workers at call centers under one of the proposals.
California also may create penalties for digitally cloning dead people without consent of their estates.
Keeping up with the technology
As corporations increasingly weave AI into Americans’ daily lives, state lawmakers also passed several bills to increase AI literacy.
One proposal would require a state working group to consider incorporating AI skills into math, science, history and social science curriculums. Another would develop guidelines on how schools could use AI in the classrooms.
date: 2024-09-02, updated: 2024-09-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
ASIA IN BRIEF Chinese academics have suggested nuclear weapons are the only effective way to destroy an asteroid that threatens to collide with Earth – if it’s detected at short notice.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/asia_pacific_tech_news_roundup/
date: 2024-09-01, from: Advent of Computing
I’m finally back to my usual programming! This time we are taking one of my patent pending rambles through a topics. Today’s victim: the humble type-in program. Along the way we will see how traditions formed around early type-in software, and how the practice shifted over time. Was this just a handy way to distribute code? Was this just an educational trick? The answers are more complex than you may first imagine.
Selected Sources:
https://s3data.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/DEC.pdp_1.1964.102650371.pdf - LISP for the PDP-1
https://archive.org/details/DigiBarnPeoplesComputerCompanyVol1No1Oct1972 - PCC Issue #1
https://archive.org/details/Whattodoafteryouhitreturn - What To Do After You Hit Return
https://adventofcomputing.libsyn.com/episode-138-type-it-yourself
date: 2024-09-01, from: Tedium site
An analysis of how three weird-but-widespread game controllers shaped the way we play.
https://feed.tedium.co/link/15204/16790159/defining-video-game-controllers-history
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Dear NY Times, before we get rid of the penny, let’s open up your op-ed page to include criticism of the NYT. You can handle a little pushback, you need it desperately.
date: 2024-09-01, from: Tilde.news
https://web.archive.org/web/19961226202219/http://sysdoc.pair.com:80/
date: 2024-09-01, from: Tilde.news
https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
date: 2024-09-01, from: Tilde.news
https://www.righto.com/2024/08/pentium-navajo-fairchild-shiprock.html
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-01, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
I just realize that you can weaponize cringe to avoid criticism.
I shall be deploying this new insight in future debates.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113063731297705957
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Dialysis May Prolong Life for Older Patients. But Not by Much.
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-01, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
The Bluesky vibe continues to be a stream of small cultural accidents turned into funny trends.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113063655896081726
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
New York — A broadening rally in U.S. stocks is offering an encouraging signal to investors worried about concentration in technology shares, as markets await key jobs data and the Federal Reserve’s expected rate cuts in September.
As the market’s fortunes keep rising and falling with big tech stocks such as Nvidia NVDA.O and Apple AAPL.O, investors are also putting money in less-loved value stocks and small caps, which are expected to benefit from lower interest rates. The Fed is expected to kick off a rate-cutting cycle at its monetary policy meeting on Sept. 17-18.
Many investors view the broadening trend, which picked up steam last month before faltering during an early August sell-off, as a healthy development in a market rally led by a cluster of giant tech names. Chipmaker Nvidia, which has benefited from bets on artificial intelligence, alone has accounted for roughly a quarter of the S&P 500’s year-to-date gain of 18.4%.
“No matter how you slice and dice it you have seen a pretty meaningful broadening out and I think that has legs,” said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment officer at Charles Schwab.
Value stocks are those of companies trading at a discount on metrics like book value or price-to-earnings and include sectors such as financials and industrials. Some investors believe rallies in these sectors and small caps could go further if the Fed cuts borrowing costs while the economy stays healthy.
The market’s rotation has recently accelerated, with 61% of stocks in the S&P 500 .SPXoutperforming the index in the past month, compared to 14% outperforming over the past year, Charles Schwab data showed.
Meanwhile, the so-called Magnificent Seven group of tech giants — which includes Nvidia, Tesla TSLA.O and Microsoft MSFT.O — have underperformed the other 493 stocks in the S&P 500 by 14 percentage points since the release of a weaker-than-expected U.S. inflation report on July 11, according to an analysis by BofA Global Research.
Stocks have also held up after an Nvidia forecast failed to meet lofty investor expectations earlier this week, another sign that investors may be looking beyond tech. The equal weight S&P 500 index, a proxy for the average stock, hit a fresh record [last] week and is up around 10.5% year-to-date, narrowing its performance gap with the S&P 500.
“When market breadth is improving, the message is that an increasing number of stocks are rallying on expectations that economic conditions will support earnings growth and profitability,” analysts at Ned David Research wrote.
Value stocks that have performed well this year include General Electric GE.N and midstream energy company Targa Resources TRGP.N, which are up 70% and 68%, respectively. The small-cap focused Russell 2000 index, meanwhile, is up 8.5% from its lows of the month, though it has not breached its July peak.
The jobs report “tends to be one of the more market moving releases in general, and right now it’s going to get even more attention than normal.”
Investors are unlikely to turn their back on tech stocks, particularly if volatility gives them a chance to buy on the cheap, said Jason Alonzo, a portfolio manager with Harbor Capital.
Technology stocks are expected to post above-market earnings growth over every quarter through 2025, with third-quarter earnings coming in at 15.3% compared with a 7.5% gain for the S&P 500 as a whole, according to LSEG data.
“People will sometimes take a deep breath after a nice run and look at other opportunities, but technology is still the clearest driver of growth, particularly the AI theme which is innocent until proven guilty,” Alonzo said.
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-administration-delays-announcement-on-china-tariffs-/7767399.html
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-01, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
I am a couple of paragraphs into this Paul Graham post and I find myself nodding constantly.
The worst guidance with most catastrophic consequences was always given by the management mode people:
https://paulgraham.com/foundermode.html
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113063156264702711
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The networks should put Trump on time delay and when he says you can legally murder babies in some states, that should be treated as if he said fck or sht. Put up a screen that explains why he was cut off, then go to commercial.
https://mastodon.social/@bkize@hachyderm.io/113062650913634400
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Paul Graham wrote a very useful piece about "Founder Mode." As a founder myself, I think I can tell you why founders have a central role to play as a company grows.
http://scripting.com/2024/09/01.html#a155212
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
It's totally okay that Bluesky and Mastodon don't interop. We can flatten it out, as earlier developers did with TCP.
https://www.threads.net/@thebrianpenny/post/C_XR5WWxEoj
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Scripting News: News on the web still sucks.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/29/153350.html
date: 2024-09-01, from: Status-Q blog
I’ve just come back from bobbing about in a small boat on the crystal blue waters of the Greek bit of the Mediterranean – a marvellous excerience! I’m sitting in the tender here because, as anyone who has tried it will confirm, it’s much easier to land a drone on a boat that doesn’t have Continue Reading
https://statusq.org/archives/2024/09/01/12156/
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
Venice, Italy — Hollywood heavyweights George Clooney and Brad Pitt admit they are disappointed their latest comedy “Wolfs” is not getting a broad cinema release and instead heading almost straight onto Apple TV.
“It is a bummer,” Clooney said on Sunday, adding that television streamers, such as Apple, were nevertheless vital to the future of filmmaking, presenting actors with opportunities and generating bigger audiences for their work.
“Streaming, we need it, our industry needs this,” he said.
Written and directed by Jon Watts, “Wolfs” is an old-fashioned crime caper with Clooney and Pitt playing lone-wolf professional fixers who are forced to work together with comically unfortunate consequences.
Apple originally signaled it would place the film in a large number of cinemas before the TV release, but instead opted to show it briefly in a restricted number of U.S. movie theatres and then run it on its global TV service.
“We’ll always be romantic about the theatrical experience. At the same time, I love the existence of the streamers because we get to see more story, we get to see more talent, it gets more eyes,” said Pitt. “It’s a delicate balance right now and it’ll right itself.”
Asked what it meant if two of the biggest names in the business could not get a broad cinema release, as they had requested, Clooney quipped: “Clearly we’re declining.”
Sixteen years after last appearing together in 2008’s Coen brothers’ comedy “Burn After Reading,” Pitt and Clooney said they jumped at the chance to reunite when they read Watts’ script for “Wolfs.”
“I got to say, just as I get older, just working with the people that I just really enjoy spending time with has really become important to me,” said Pitt, who turned 60 last year.
In a news conference full of light-hearted banter, Clooney, said Pitt, was fortunate still to be offered parts. “He’s 74 years-old and he’s very lucky at this age to still be working.”
On a more serious note, he denied a New York Times story in August that said both he and Pitt had been paid more than $35 million each to appear in the film.
“I’m only saying that because I think it’s bad for our industry if that’s what people think is the standard bearer for salaries. I think that’s a terrible thing. It will make it impossible to make a film,” he said.
“Wolfs” is showing out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, which runs until Sept. 7.
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-01, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Some months ago, I did entertain the idea of “maybe I could automatically walk the UI tree from a Godot dialog and produce a SwiftUI one”.
It felt wrong, but I can now with confidence say, it would be shit.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113062902453095713
date: 2024-09-01, from: OS News
Telegram doesn’t hold up to the promise of being private, nor secure. The end-to-end encryption is opt-in, only applies to one-on-one conversations and uses a controversial ‘homebrewn’ encryption algorithm. The rest of this article outlines some of the fundamentally broken aspects of Telegram. ↫ h3artbl33d Telegram is not a secure messenger, nor is it a platform you should want to be on. Chats are not encrypted by default, and are stored in plain text on Telegram’s server. Only chats between two (not more!) people who also happen to both be online at that time can be “encrypted”. In addition, the quotation marks highlight another massive issue with Telegram: its “encryption” is non-standard, home-grown, and countless security researchers have warned against relying on it. Telegram’s issues go even further than this, though. The application also copies your contacts to its servers and keeps them there, they’ve got a “People nearby” feature that shares location data, and so much more. The linked article does a great job of listing the litany of problems Telegram has, backed up by sources and studies, and these alone should convince anyone to not use Telegram for anything serious. And that’s even before we talk about Telegram’s utter disinterest in stopping the highly illegal activities that openly take place on its platform, from selling drugs, down to far more shocking and dangerous activities like sharing revenge pron, CSAM, and more. Telegram has a long history of not giving a single iota about shuttering groups that share and promote such material, leaving victims of such heinous crimes out in the cold. Don’t use Telegram. A much better alternative is Signal, and hell, even WhatsApp, of all things, is a better choice.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140647/heliography-in-darkness/
date: 2024-09-01, from: Enlightenment Economics
Already September 1st, and a tang of autumn in the morning air. I had a two-week holiday with no laptop or emails, and lots of reading. Then a two-week scramble to catch up with the accumulated email and work. So … Continue reading
http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/index.php/2024/09/where-did-summer-go/
date: 2024-09-01, from: OS News
If you’re reading this, you did a good job surviving another month, and that means we’ve got another monthly update from the Servo project, the Rust-based browser engine originally started by Mozilla. The major new feature this month is tabbed browsing in the Servo example browser, as well as extensive improvements for Servo on Windows. Servo-the-browser now has a redesigned toolbar and tabbed browsing! This includes a slick new tab page, taking advantage of a new API that lets Servo embedders register custom protocol handlers. ↫ Servo’s blog Servo now runs better on Windows, with keyboard navigation now fixed, –output to PNG also fixed, and fixes for some font- and GPU-related bugs, which were causing misaligned glyphs with incorrect colors on servo.org and duckduckgo.com, and corrupted images on wikipedia.org. Of course, that’s not at all, as there’s also the usual massive list of improved standards support, new APIs, improvements to some of the developer tools (including massive improvements in Windows build times), and a huge number of fixed bugs.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140645/servo-gets-tabbed-browsing-windows-improvements-and-more/
date: 2024-09-01, from: The Lever News
A supermarket chain deletes evidence, fossil fuels score their own justice, and more from The Lever this week.
https://www.levernews.com/lever-weekly-corporations-didnt-save-their-receipts-2/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
There Are No Backsies on Dobbs.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/09/01/there-are-no-backsies-on-dobbs/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Clash of the Tech Titans: Silicon Valley Fractures Over Harris vs. Trump.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Abortion is the clearest issue there is. If you think women should choose you must vote for Harris.
https://politicalwire.com/2024/09/01/trump-and-gop-struggle-to-address-abortion-issues/
date: 2024-09-01, updated: 2024-09-01, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Review It’s no secret that this vulture is partial to an adult beverage or two. But brewing your own? That way lies madness due to the complexities involved. However, the iGulu F1 seeks to make home-brew disasters a thing of the past thanks to automation and idiot-proof ingredients.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/01/igulu_f1_home_brewer/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-01, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Founder Mode.
https://paulgraham.com/foundermode.html
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
New York — Does American tennis have a pickleball problem?
Even as the U.S. Open opened this week with more than a million fans expected for the sport’s biggest showcase, the game’s leaders are being forced to confront a devastating fact — the nation’s fastest-growing racket sport (or sport of any kind) is not tennis but pickleball, which has seen participation boom 223% in the past three years.
“Quite frankly, it’s obnoxious to hear that pickleball noise,” U.S. Tennis Association President Dr. Brian Hainline grumbled at a recent state-of-the-game news conference, bemoaning the distinctive pock, pock, pock of pickleball points.
Pickleball, an easy-to-play mix of tennis and ping pong using paddles and a wiffleball, has quickly soared from nearly nothing to 13.6 million U.S. players in just a few years, leading tennis purists to fear a day when it could surpass tennis’ 23.8 million players. And most troubling is that pickleball’s rise has often come at the expense of thousands of tennis courts encroached upon or even replaced by smaller pickleball courts.
“When you see an explosion of a sport and it starts potentially eroding into your sport, then, yes, you’re concerned,” Hainline said in an interview with The Associated Press. “That erosion has come in our infrastructure. … A lot of pickleball advocates just came in and said, ‘We need these tennis courts.’ It was a great, organic grassroots movement but it was a little anti-tennis.”
Some tennis governing bodies in other countries have embraced pickleball and other racket sports under the more-the-merrier belief they could lead more players to the mothership of tennis. France’s tennis federation even set up a few pickleball courts at this year’s French Open to give top players and fans a chance to try it out.
But the USTA has taken a decidedly different approach. Nowhere at the U.S. Open’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is there any such demonstration court, exhibition match or any other nod to pickleball or its possible crossover appeal.
In fact, the USTA is flipping the script on pickleball with an ambitious launch of more than 400 pilot programs across the country to broaden the reach of an easier-to-play, smaller-court version of tennis called “red ball tennis.” Backers say it’s the ideal way for people of all ages to get into tennis and the best place to try it is (wait for it) on pickleball courts.
“You can begin tennis at any age,” USTA’s Hainline said. “We believe that when you do begin this great sport of tennis, it’s probably best to begin it on a shorter court with a larger, low-compression red ball. What’s an ideal short court? A pickleball court.”
And instead of the plasticky plink of a pickleball against a flat paddle, Hainline said, striking a fuzzy red tennis ball with a stringed racket allows for a greater variety of strokes and “just a beautiful sound.” Players can either stick with red ball tennis or advance through a progression of bouncier balls to full-court tennis.
“Not to put it down,” Hainline said of pickleball, “but compared to tennis … seriously?”
So what does the head of the nation’s pickleball governing body have to say about such comments and big tennis’ plans to plant the seeds of its growth, at least in part, on pickleball courts?
“I don’t like it but there is so much going on with pickleball, so many good things, I’m going to stick to what I can control, harnessing the growth and supporting this game,” said Pickleball USA CEO Mike Nealy.
Among the positive signs, Nealy said, is the continuing construction of new pickleball courts across the country, raising the total to more than 50,000. There’s also growing investment in the game at clubs built in former big-box retail stores, pro leagues with such backers as Tom Brady, LeBron James and Drake, and the emergence of “dink-and-drink” establishments that tap into the social aspect of the game by allowing friends to enjoy pickleball, beer, wine and food under the same roof.
“I don’t think it needs to be one or the other or a competition,” Nealy said of pickleball and tennis. “You’re certainly going to have the inherent frictions in communities when tennis people don’t feel that they’re getting what they want. … They’re different games but I think they are complimentary. There’s plenty of room for both sports to be very successful.”
Top-ranked American tennis player Taylor Fritz agreed. “There are some people in the tennis world that are just absolute pickleball haters, and that’s fine. But for me, I don’t really have an issue with pickleball. I like playing sometimes. … I don’t see any reason why both of them can’t exist.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/pickleball-picks-away-at-american-tennis/7763499.html
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
CHEYENNE, Wyoming — A “mega den” of hundreds of rattlesnakes in Colorado is getting even bigger now that late summer is here and babies are being born.
Thanks to livestream video, scientists studying the den on a craggy hillside in Colorado are learning more about these enigmatic — and often misunderstood — reptiles. They’re observing as the youngsters, called pups, slither over and between adult females on lichen-encrusted rocks.
The public can watch too on the Project RattleCam website and help with important work including how to tell the snakes apart. Since researchers put their remote camera online in May, several snakes have become known in a chat room and to scientists by names including “Woodstock,” “Thea” and “Agent 008.”
The live feed, which draws as many as 500 people at a time online, on Thursday showed a tangle of baby snakes with tiny nubs for rattles. They have a lot of growing to do: A rattlesnake adds a rattle segment each time it sheds its skin a couple times a year, on average.
The project is a collaboration between California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, snake removal company Central Coast Snake Services and Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
By involving the public, the scientists hope to dispel the idea that rattlesnakes are usually fierce and dangerous. In fact, experts say they rarely bite unless threatened or provoked and often are just the opposite.
Rattlesnakes are not only among the few reptiles that care for their young. They even care for the young of others. The adults protect and lend body heat to pups from birth until they enter hibernation in mid-autumn, said Max Roberts, a CalPoly graduate student researcher.
“We regularly see what we like to call ‘babysitting,’ pregnant females that we can visibly see have not given birth, yet are kind of guarding the newborn snakes,” Roberts said Wednesday.
As many as 2,000 rattlesnakes spend the winter at the location on private land, which the researchers are keeping secret to discourage trespassers. Once the weather warms, only pregnant females remain while the others disperse to nearby territory.
This year, the scientists keeping watch over the Colorado site have observed the rattlesnakes coil up and catch water to drink from the cups formed by their bodies. They’ve also seen how the snakes react to birds swooping in to try to grab a scaly meal.
The highlight of summer is in late August and early September when the rattlesnakes give birth over a roughly two-week period.
“As soon as they’re born, they know how to move into the sun or into the shade to regulate their body temperature,” Roberts said.
There are 36 species of rattlesnakes, most of which inhabit the U.S. They range across nearly all states and are especially common in the Southwest. Those being studied now are prairie rattlesnakes, which can be found in much of the central and western U.S. and into Canada and Mexico.
Like other pit viper species but unlike most snakes, rattlesnakes don’t lay eggs. Instead, they give birth to live young. Eight is an average-size brood, with the number depending on the snake’s size, according to Roberts.
Roberts is studying how temperature changes and ultraviolet sunlight affect snake behavior. Another graduate student, Owen Bachhuber, is studying the family and social relationships between rattlesnakes.
The researchers watch the live feed all day.
“We are interested in studying the natural behavior of rattlesnakes, free from human disturbance. What do rattlesnakes actually do when we’re not there?” Roberts said.
Now that the Rocky Mountain summer is cooling, some males have been returning. By November, the camera running on solar and battery power will be turned off until next spring, when the snakes will re-emerge from their “mega den.”
date: 2024-09-01, updated: 2024-09-01, from: Robin Rendle Essays
https://robinrendle.com/notes/notes-on-font-licensing/
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
washington — The United States has handed over to the Uzbek government possession of aircraft that former Afghan air force personnel flew to Uzbekistan after the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021.
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told VOA on Thursday that the ownership of “some aircraft” was transferred to Uzbekistan as part of the Department of Defense’s Excess Defense Articles program.
“This transfer was agreed in the context of our strong bilateral cooperation on counterterrorism, counternarcotics and enhanced border security,” the spokesperson told VOA in an email, without saying how many aircraft were transferred to the Uzbek government.
The fate of aircraft that were flown to Uzbekistan after the fall of Afghanistan into the hands of the Taliban has been a bone of contention between the Taliban and Uzbekistan for three years.
Afghan air force personnel flew about 46 aircraft — 22 military planes and 24 helicopters — to Uzbekistan as the government in Afghanistan collapsed in the face of the Taliban’s advances in August 2021.
The Taliban, who consider the aircraft to be Afghan property, objected to the handover of the aircraft to Uzbekistan.
“The Ministry of Defense [of the Taliban] clearly declares that the United States has no right to donate or confiscate the property of the Afghan people,” the spokesperson of the Taliban’s Ministry of Defense said in an audio message sent to media this week.
The Taliban spokesperson also called on Uzbekistan to make a “reasonable decision” to return the aircraft to the Taliban.
Local media in Uzbekistan reported last week that the U.S. ambassador said the aircraft had already been transferred.
Tashkent has not commented yet on the transfer. However, Uzbek authorities previously said that the aircraft belonged to the United States because the U.S. government paid for them and that it would not return the military equipment to the Taliban.
Tashkent-Taliban relations
Alisher Hamidov, an expert on Central Asia, told VOA that the transfer of aircraft to Uzbekistan may complicate the relations between Tashkent and the Taliban.
“The situation with the planes may now endanger Uzbekistan’s diplomatic relations,” he said, adding that Tashkent has been playing mediator between Kabul and other countries over the past three years.
“The main goal was to bring Afghanistan [Taliban] to the international arena, restore relations and, of course, strengthen Uzbekistan’s economy and foreign policy,” Hamidov added.
Uzbekistan has cultivated close relations with the Taliban, though it does not officially recognize the Taliban’s government in Afghanistan.
On Thursday, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister, Abdul Ghani Baradar, attended the inauguration ceremony of the Termez International Trade Center in Uzbekistan’s border town of Termez.
On August 17, the prime minister of Uzbekistan, Abdulla Aripov, visited Kabul and signed 35 trade and investment agreements valued at $2.5 billion.
Malik Mansur of VOA’s Uzbek Service contributed to this report, which originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
JERUSALEM — Tens of thousands of Israelis protested in the streets Sunday night, chanting “Now! Now!” as they demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach a cease-fire with Hamas after six more hostages were found dead in Gaza.
Thousands of people gathered outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem. In Tel Aviv, hostages’ relatives marched with coffins to symbolize the death toll.
“We really think that the government is making these decisions for its own conservation and not for the lives of the hostages, and we need to tell them, ‘Stop!’” Shlomit Hacohen, a Tel Aviv resident, told The Associated Press.
The protest appeared to be the largest such demonstration in nearly 11 months of war.
Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu vowed to intensify the fight with Hamas after the Israeli military recovered the bodies of six hostages, all of whom were apparently shot to death by the militants just as troops were zeroing in on their location in Gaza.
“Those who kill hostages do not want an agreement” for a Gaza cease-fire, Netanyahu said in a statement, telling Hamas leaders, “We will hunt you down, we will catch you and we will settle the score.”
A military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, told reporters in a briefing, “According to our initial estimation, they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short time before we reached them.” They were found in a tunnel in the southern city of Rafah.
By evening, grieving and angry Israelis surged into the streets, chanting, “Now! Now!” and demanding that Netanyahu reach a cease-fire with Hamas to bring the remaining hostages home and halt nearly 11 months of fighting in Gaza.
Israel’s largest trade union, the Histadrut, called a general strike for Monday to try to bring economic pressure on the government. The strike is expected to shut down or disrupt major sectors of the economy, including banking, health care and the country’s main airport.
Netanyahu also accused Hamas of carrying out a shooting attack earlier Sunday that killed three police officers near the city of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hamas has not claimed responsibility for the attack but called it a “heroic operation by the resistance.”
Netanyahu said, “We are fighting on all fronts against a cruel enemy who wants to murder us all. The fact that Hamas continues to commit atrocities such as those it committed on October 7 obliges us to do everything we can to ensure that it can no longer do so.”
The Israeli military said the West Bank attackers fired at a vehicle at the checkpoint near Hebron. “Security forces have begun to search for the terrorists,” it said in a statement.
While the fighting in Gaza and the West Bank remained at the forefront, “humanitarian pauses” were started at several locations in Gaza so that the U.N. agency for Palestinians and the World Health Organization could start vaccinating 640,000 children under the age of 10 over the next several days against the threat of polio.
The disease was recently detected in Gaza for the first time in 25 years.
An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, told CNN’s “State of the Union” show that Israeli forces are continuing to search tunnels near where the bodies of the hostages were found, only a kilometer from where a living hostage, Qaid Farhan Alkadi, a member of the Bedouin community in southern Israel, was rescued last week.
Oma Neutra, the mother of another hostage, Omer Neutra-Oma, said on CNN, “It’s time for the leaders to get this done,” to reach a cease-fire to halt nearly 11 months of fighting in Gaza precipitated by the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of about 250 hostages.
“Enough is enough,” she said.
The Israeli counteroffensive has killed nearly 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to Gaza health officials, while the Israeli military says the death toll includes several thousand Hamas combatants.
Israel says it believes 101 Israeli and foreign hostages remain in Gaza, but about one-third of them is believed to be dead, while the fate of the others is not known.
Senior Hamas officials said that Israel, in its refusal to sign a cease-fire agreement, was to blame for the newest deaths.
“Netanyahu is responsible for the killing of Israeli prisoners,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters. “The Israelis should choose between Netanyahu and the deal.”
Hamas has offered to release the hostages in return for an end to the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of dozens of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants, jailed by Israel.
The Hostage Families Forum called on Netanyahu to take responsibility and explain what was holding up an agreement.
“They were all murdered in the last few days, after surviving almost 11 months of abuse, torture, and starvation in Hamas captivity. The delay in signing the deal has led to their deaths and those of many other hostages,” it said.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called on the government to reverse a decision last Thursday to keep Israeli forces in the Philadelphi Corridor along the border with Egypt, a key point of contention in negotiations for a cease-fire in Gaza.
“The Cabinet must gather immediately and reverse the decision made on Thursday,” Gallant said in a statement. “We must bring back the hostages that are still being held by Hamas.” Gallant and Netanyahu got into a shouting match over the corridor issue, but other security officials sided with Netanyahu.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who has closely followed the fate of the hostages, said the six bodies found in the Gaza tunnel included Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Biden said he was “devastated and outraged.”
“Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages,” he said in a statement.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, said she and her husband, Doug Emhoff, spoke to Goldberg-Polin’s parents, Jon and Rachel, to express their condolences.
“My heart breaks for their pain and anguish,” Harris said. “I told them: As they mourn this terrible loss, they are not alone. Our nation mourns with them.”
Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
JERUSALEM — The family of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin announced the young man’s death early Sunday, ending a relentless campaign by his parents to rescue him that included meetings with world leaders and an address to the Democratic convention last month.
Goldberg-Polin, 23, was seized by militants at a music festival in southern Israel on October 7. The native of Berkeley, California, lost part of his left arm to a grenade in the attack. In April, a Hamas-issued video showed him, his left hand missing and clearly speaking under duress, sparking new protests in Israel urging the government to do more to secure his and others’ freedom.
Israel’s announcement is bound to bring urgent new calls for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a deal to bring home remaining hostages. The Israeli leader has taken a tough line in negotiations and repeatedly said that military pressure is needed to bring home the hostages. According to Israeli media, he has feuded with top security officials who have said a deal should be reached urgently.
President Joe Biden, who had met with the parents, said he was “devastated and outraged.”
“It is as tragic as it is reprehensible,” he said. “Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.”
The family issued a statement early Sunday, hours after the Israeli army said it had located bodies in Gaza.
“With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh,” it said. “The family thanks you all for your love and support and asks for privacy at this time.”
There was no immediate comment from the army, details on the exact circumstances of his death or identities of other bodies recovered.
Asked about the case earlier on Saturday, Biden said bodies were still being identified and that families were being notified. But he called for an end to the war and said cease-fire efforts were progressing.
“I think we’re on (the) verge of having an agreement,” he said as he left church in Delaware. “It’s just time to end. It’s time to finish it.”
Goldberg-Polin’s parents, U.S.-born immigrants to Israel, became perhaps the most high-profile relatives of hostages on the international stage. They met with Biden, Pope Francis and others and addressed the United Nations, urging the release of all hostages.
On August 21, his parents addressed a hushed hall at the Democratic National Convention — after sustained applause and chants of “bring him home.”
“This is a political convention. But needing our only son — and all of the cherished hostages — home is not a political issue. It is a humanitarian issue,” said his father, Jon Polin. His mother, Rachel, who bowed her head during the ovation and touched her chest, said “Hersh, if you can hear us, we love you, stay strong, survive.”
Both wore stickers with the number 320, representing the number of days their son had been held. It had long become part of a morning ritual — tear a new piece of tape, write down another day.
“I find it so remarkable how nauseating it is every single time,’’ Rachel Goldberg-Polin told The Associated Press in January, ahead of the 100-day mark.”And it’s good. I don’t want to get used to it. I don’t want anybody to get used to the fact that these people are missing.’’
She asked other people around the world to take up the ritual, too, not only for her son, who moved to Israel with his family when he was 7, but for the other hostages and their families.
She and her husband sought to keep their son and the others held from being reduced to numbers, describing Hersh as a music and soccer lover and traveler with plans to attend university since his military service had ended. At events she often addressed her son directly in the hope he could hear her, urging him to live another day.
Some 250 hostages were taken on October 7. Before the military’s announcement of the latest discovery of bodies, Israel said it believed 108 hostages were still held in Gaza and about one-third of them were dead. In late August, the Israeli military recovered the bodies of six hostages in southern Gaza.
Eight hostages have been rescued by Israeli forces, the most recent found on Tuesday. Most of the rest were freed during a weeklong cease-fire in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Two previous Israeli operations to free hostages killed scores of Palestinians. Hamas says several hostages have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and failed rescue attempts. Israeli troops mistakenly killed three Israelis who escaped captivity in December.
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date: 2024-09-01, from: VOA News USA
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