Our latest report for from the triple frontier that connects #Ukraine, #Belarus and #Russia. After months following the retreat of Russian troops, signs of a possible heat up are emerging. youtu.be/oChL4n3XDlE
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marc hofer
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shoot/edit with Sky News, Europe@Brussels, former Nairobi, Kampala, Beirut and Beijing. Was part of a BAFTA win or something like that.
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Here's my investigation into Fusus, a police surveillance firm that's quietly expanding into smaller towns & suburbs across the US.
Their goal? To give small town cops big-city-style surveillance—including live access to private cameras around town.
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“One Chinese official confirmed to Reuters that a renewed Blinken visit would be more likely if the U.S. accommodated Beijing's wish to shelve the issue, adding that China had conveyed it did not want the FBI to release details of its investigation into the downed balloon.”
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Why the US delayed China sanctions after shooting down a spy balloon | Reuters “to try to limit damage to the U.S.-China relationship, according to four sources with direct knowledge of U.S. policy” reuters.com/world/us/why-u
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US watchdog: audits KPMG in China & PwC in HK rammelden. Tekortkomingen waren zo groot dat er te weinig bewijs was voor financiele statements van bedrijven. Or: be careful where you invest in... Accountants krijgen 2 jaar to clean up: fd.nl/bedrijfsleven/ #FD #Accountancy
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I don’t think that it would have made a massive difference. The quiet, stealth approach has been tried before and in the end they still come for you. It’s a slow suffocation, digestible to the public and without obvious drama. But the end result is just the same.
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That's just a reality: if you really love Sixth Tone, you should have kept your mouth shut to prevent it from being put under further microscope and attack.
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Yes, truly strange that propaganda videos would put literal model minorities in them rather than cross-eyed fuglies.
Now dance! DANCE, I SAY! THAT IS YOUR LOT & PURPOSE, SHAOSHUMINZHU!!! DANCE LIKE YOU WANT TO WIN! DANCE! LEAVE YOUR FRIENDS BEHIND! ALL SINGING! ALL DANCING!!
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Kazakh people in PRC Xinjiang.
Kazakhs are very beautiful people. I have never seen one ugly Kazakhs.
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Many commentators in the west, mainly in the US, underestimate the impact the invasion of Iraq has had on the reputation of the US and democracy as a whole. These days they gloss it over or move on quickly to their current talking point. It’s a massive oversight and mistake.
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One of the terrible legacies of US adventurism in Iraq is a generation of folks who confuse protecting democracy with imposing it. They see supporting Ukraine or protest movements in Hong Kong or Thailand, as something similar to Iraq. Ironically failing to hear out local voices.
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Often, I have been asked why people do not collect and make money from the plastic in the river, I tell them it is a hard & expensive task to do . Yesterday, I challenged myself- got into the water for one hour to see how much of the recyclable plastic waste I’d be able to gather
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For the >media brand< it would not matter. ST’s time was obviously up. They chipped away on it for a while but eventually you cross a certain threshold and then it’s clear where it’s going.
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Replying to @bucketoftongues
put st in an even more tricky and fragile position - not his fault, but the only and total expectable consequence.
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Who exactly extended the invitation, if anyone did, and or what are the terms of her engagement to presumably speak when there? She represents no one. Should be treated as such. Liz Truss’s plan to visit Taiwan called ‘worst kind of Instagram diplomacy’
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This is absoutely isnane 🤯
A ChatGPT trading algorithm delivered 500% returns in the stock market.
A University of Florida study revealed ChatGPT achieved a staggering 500% return in one investing model
This outpaces conventional sentiment analysis models used by hedge funds… Show more
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I have to say, massive respect and surprise in general how long this publication was able to withstand the general pressure in the past years, putting up some great reports on issues even many foreign journalists could not access. twitter.com/bibekbhandari/
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Reminds me a little bit of all the German scientists scouring Tibet to trace the “Aryans” : bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi
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In East Turkestan, Han Chinese archeologists work tirelessly to publish papers on "historical presence of Han Chinese" - recently, several teams were sent to Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, how will their findings be framed?
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Chinese donated Nuctech scanner at entrance of the Sacred City of Kandy. On the road, especially in the country side, telling people I’m from China is always a valuable experiment to really understand perception of China & local effectiveness of PRC outreach.
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Sinicisation of Russia's economy is on steroids. Fresh Chinese customs data for 4 month of 2023 is out.
🇨🇳🇷🇺 trade in Jan-Apr +41.3% ($73.15b)
🇷🇺 exports to 🇨🇳 +24.8% ($39.5b)
🇨🇳exports to 🇷🇺 + 67.2% ($33.7b) ❗️
Source: customs.gov.cn/customs/302249
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GPU shortage in China must be really bad by now… those units where from 2014.
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10% of mines around the world are in protected areas, this extraordinary survey finds. This is only going to increase with the rush for ‘green’ minerals.
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Overheard in Bangkok: "There is definitely demand from China for properties in Thailand…Chinese are buying houses, sending their children to international schools and having their parents come stay in Thailand to take care of the grandkids."
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If they zero in on you, they will pull all this elements into a indictment to add nails to the coffin. The same applies for VPN’s or some financial regulations. It’s relatively simple to fly under the radar for a while, but when you pop up, the scrutiny raises exponentially.
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The authorities still struggle with the technicalities to enforce many regulations, despite codified, on private citizens in a sweeping manner. But …
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A good showcase of how many regulations in China are not heavily enforced, initially.
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I spoke with six @binance Chinese users who say their accounts were suspended. Four of them live in mainland China and passed KYC using Chinese IDs.
This shows China's crypto ban is either ineffective or loosely enforced. bloom.bg/44Fv4dS
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“I believe the excitement has less to do w a Chinese change of heart and more..of the Europeans’ wish to hv been handed justification for keeping business as usual w Beijing,”
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India wants its cake …and eat it.
In Israel, AI surveillance is being used in ways comparable to what China did in Xinjiang. Facial recognition reinforces boundaries in the West Bank w/ traffic light color codes. Soldiers train algos at checkpoints, collect Palestinian biometrics w/ apps.
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I've spent today hearing haunting testimony from survivors who've escaped Myanmar's scam industry. Shutting this down in all its forms, wherever it exists, is vitally important. The first step is awareness it's happening, & Dubai has flown under the radar
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Happy 59th birthday to #GuiMinhai. Here is how it all started: an investigation revealing how and when he was actually kidnapped, and the bungled investigation by Swedish police.
safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/gui-mi
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Last night, national security adviser Jake Sullivan delivered a keynote on the Middle East at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy.
It was long and perhaps the clearest articulation yet of a pretty rudderless approach to the Middle East.
Here are 10 points to draw out:
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As the whole socio-political discourse in China has gone more towards nationalism and ethnic homogeny over the past 5-6 years, I doubt migration policies will be super liberal. They will be very practical for the production industries, but not liberal.
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Great deep dive on the nordstream pipeline bombing a year ago, with new info being revealed and new witnesses interviewed:
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That’s indeed a rather surprising confession on Chinese TV by a person who claims to be tortured by police. Wonder what happened to let this thing go on air ?
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This man describes torture and forced confession on Guangdong Cable TV. He was held 7 days and nights w/o sleep; when he fell on the floor, police pulled his hair and burned him w a cigarette. At a detention center in Zhejiang, inmates beat him, the cell boss proposed to write a… twitter.com/hellojixian/st… Show more
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Meta found a Chinese troll network hiring anti-Soros protesters, setting up a fake company in London, and shitposting anti-immigrant takes in an apparent (lame) attempt to stir up division in the west. So naturally I applied. They're hiring, folks. rollingstone.com/politics/polit
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“the fundamental challenge of all news broadcasting — how to make the most difficult and expensive content on earth pay for itself — had still not been solved. In the end, it was all a mirage.”
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“Like Isis, Vice was a 2010s phenomenon that wrongly thought it could take on the giants and win.” @arisroussinos on the meteoric trajectory of Vice News unherd.com/2023/05/my-par
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Useful data point in evaluating impact of October's GPU export controls.
A100 is blocked but A800 that Nvidia created to be *just* outside of controls performs very similarly to A100s. So controls make LLM training ~30% more expensive and 3x slower in China.
Welcome corrections
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I call in this opinion piece featured today in Just Security for targeting the war chests of Sudan’s rival armies as their fighting inflicts untold pains and suffering on the Sudanese:
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Can't help but feel partly responsible. Years ago, I wrote a story about Amazon using more fossil fuels than other big tech cos; we published it on Motherboard. Turned out Vice was about to close a multimillion $ deal w Amazon the same day and they walked
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BREAKING: Chinese police in Shanghai are building a surveillance system that alerts them every time a foreign journalist tries to visit Xinjiang ipvm.com/reports/shangh via @ipvideo
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IMPORTANT: Most Sudanese people cannot flee the war. It's mostly privileged people getting evacuated - foreigners, dual nationals with 2 passports or permanent residency elsewhere. Regular Sudanese people are at the bottom of the queue. Our CNN report from Saudi Arabia
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The delta of the hoops that Apple jumps through to preeminently cater to security concerns from the Chinese side and their image of data privacy advocates in the west is at times mind blowing. Some of the features, like Air Drop restrictions, have made it to intl iOS versions too
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Good lord how many paranoid restrictions does the Chinese government put on iphones bought in China?
Restricted airdrops, no walkie talkie app? No facetime links and no facetime through the Apple Watch?
Seems a terrible idea to buy an iphone on mainland, not least for privacy.
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The renminbi is unlikely to supplant the dollar any time soon, but Chinese authorities are still interested in chipping away at its lead — particularly if it can help provide a buffer against the threat of American sanctions.
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