CPO Test Instance

South Africa has accused the US of using Kenyan nationals who did not have work permits at a facility processing applications by white South Africans for refugee status.

Seven Kenyans were arrested after intelligence reports revealed that people "had recently entered South Africa on tourist visas and had illegally taken up work" at the centre, said a statement from South Africa's department of home affairs.

The BBC has approached the US State Department for comment.

While the US is trying to reduce overall levels of migration, it says that members of South Africa's white Afrikaner community can get asylum because they face persecution - a claim South Africa's government strongly rejects.

The unthinkable has happened. The US is Europe’s adversary. The stark, profound betrayal contained in the Trump administration’s national security strategy should stop any further denial and dithering in Europe’s capitals. Cultivating “resistance Europe’s current trajectory in European nations” is now Washington’s stated policy.

But contained within this calamity is the gift of clarity. Europe will fight or it will perish. The good news is that Europe holds strong cards.

The US’s bet on AI is now so gigantic that every Maga voter’s pension is bound to the bubble’s precarious survival. AI investment now rivals consumer spending as the primary creator of American economic growth. It accounted for virtually all (92%) GDP growth in the first half of this year. Without it, US GDP grew only 0.1%. Despite Donald Trump’s posturing, he is on shaky economic ground.

Trump’s political coalition is shaky, too. In July and again this month, he has been unable to force Senate Republicans to pass his AI moratorium bill, which would have prevented states from drafting their own AI laws. The Steve Bannon wing of Maga fears that AI will displace workers en masse, and is appalled by what children are exposed to on digital platforms. Maga voters particularly mistrust big tech’s political power. Tech is a dangerous topic for Trump.

In a warm bunker, lined with wooden logs, it is Dmytro’s job to monitor and help the drone crews on the frontline. Perhaps a dozen video feeds come through to his screen on an increasingly hot section of the front, running roughly from Pokrovske to Huliaipole, 50 miles east of Zaporizhzhia city.

Dmytro, 33, is with the 423rd drone battalion, a specialist unit only formed in 2024. He cycles through the feeds, on Ukraine’s battlefield Delta system, expanding each in turn. The grainy images come from one-way FPV (first person view) drones; clearer footage, with heights and speed, from commercially bought Mavic drones; at another point there is a bomber drone, available munitions marked in green.

Maksym, 29, and Serhii, 24, have just returned from five days on the front, part of a mixed crew of FPV and Mavic pilots. Now they are resting, one playing a video game, Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, a post-apocalyptic shooter set in the exclusion zone surrounding the destroyed nuclear power plant – raising the obvious question of whether there is any similarity to their frontline work.

"It helps us do our job,” Maksym says, smiling. “If you are flying a jet in one of the battlefield games, it’s basically the same as flying a Mavic. It’s good practise.”

Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a naval blockade of “sanctioned oil vessels” leaving and heading to Venezuela, sharply escalating his pressure campaign against Caracas.

The US has for months been building a major military deployment in the Caribbean – with the stated goal of combatting drug trafficking, but Venezuela views the operation as a campaign to oust Nicolas Maduro.

Trump said the armada – which includes the world’s largest aircraft carrier – “will only get bigger” until Venezuela returns “to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us”.

The alleged Bondi attacker who survived a shootout with police has been charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder and one count of committing a terrorist act in what investigators allege may have been “inspired by Isis”.

New South Wales police charged Naveed Akram, 24, on Wednesday, after he was arrested at the scene and taken to a Sydney hospital with critical injuries on Sunday night.

Akram was charged after waking from a coma on Tuesday, with the matter heard in court on Wednesday afternoon.

He did not apply for bail, and will next face court again on 8 April.

Explanation: Plenty of European cultures and languages directly owe their existence (or nonexistent, see: Gaul) to the actions of the Roman Empire. The idea is that colonialism apologists like to say colonialism is too far into the past for its effects to matter to African development (and therefore it's not Europeans' fault for stealing incomprehensible amounts of wealth from the continent) while speaking in languages that wouldn't exist if not for nonsense a some Italians got up to millennia ago.

Next year I’m turning 50 & also become eligible for retirement. Retirement age in my country for the general population (men) is 65, but the judiciary has separate rules. I’m seriously considering retirement but I have older colleagues who are still working because they say with the life expectancy rising who knows how much that great pension in the present will be worth in the future, so why not keep it going for an additional source of income?

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/43794611

A Taiwanese government-backed drone alliance and a Polish uncrewed system industry group have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to develop a "non-China" drone supply chain and work together on key technologies.

The MOU, signed by the Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance (TEDIBOA) and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems (PISB) in Poland on Wednesday, would improve ties between the Taiwanese and Polish drone industries, the alliance said in a statement.

Beyond paving the way for creating a non-China supply chain and integrating drone systems, the MOU would also support laws favorable to the market and plans for joint testing at cross-border technology exhibitions, it said.

...

In an op-ed, a researcher Konrad Szatters published a comment in CHOICE (China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe):

This development sheds light on several broader issues. It offers insight into how CEE countries are reassessing their technological and security dependencies. It also suggests that Taiwan is finding practical, relatively low-profile, forms of engagement with Europe, and highlights that certain EU member states are willing to explore such avenues of cooperation. This creates an opportunity for Taiwan to strengthen its ties with Europe and make itself more indispensable for its partners, especially in the context of EU’s ongoing ‘de-risking’ from China. Finally, it highlights gaps in Europe’s own defense-industrial capabilities and shows the direction of choices certain governments may make when domestic supply becomes limited.

Boost 1.0.28
Android 14

Images in cards seem to work fine, but when clicked to open in fullscreen it loads with a black screen and just stays black.

Has anyone encountered such behaviour?

Mozilla Firefox is not a privacy browser anymore

As I'm walking to work (instead of cycling, which I normally do, in an effort to slow down the mind somewhat) I was thinking of what other things I could do to try and break the routine of a workday. What are other people doing?

Mozilla Corporation has named its new CEO in replacing interim CEO Laura Chambers.

Anthony Enzor-DeMeo has been named the new CEO of Mozilla Corporation. Anthony Enzor-DeMeo was SVP of Firefox from 2004 to July 2005 and then from July until now was the GM of Firefox at Mozilla. He's written a public message today in his first day serving as the new chief executive for Mozilla.

Third: Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software. Firefox will remain our anchor. It will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions."