What a force!

The company has been embroiled in scandal.

Oh, how the tables have turned.

The stars looking stunning tonight as the grace the carpet.

What does extraordinary mean to you!?

Zia Chishti — an American businessman who served as the CEO of Bermuda-based Afiniti — has stepped down after a former employee alleged that he sexually assaulted her. The company said, “The Board of Directors of Afiniti, Ltd. announces that Mr. Zia Chishti has stepped down from his role as Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and […]

Victor Scott School Educational Therapist Shacolbi Basden has released a music video for her song ‘Lockdown.’ Ms. Basden explained to Bernews, “I have been an educator in the Bermuda public school system for 24 years and am currently the Educational Therapist at Victor Scott School. “I fought back my excitement as lockdown ended and I […]

Season 2, Act I of "Arcane," the animated series based on the popular multiplayer online battle arena game League of Legends, also had a strong debut, taking second place with 6.3M views.

It can be quite cathartic writing a song when a parent dies. This is my tribute to Dad who died in October. Maybe there’s a little Gerry Rafferty in here, a dash of ELO, there’s probably no Roy Orbison nor Buddy Holly in it, except in spirit, perhaps.* Hand-me-down Parade by Dave Bradley Inevitably, it’s … Continue reading "Hand-me-down Parade – A song"

Popular repair site iFixit today disassembled one of Apple's new M4 Mac mini machines for a teardown video that gives us a more complete look at the inside of the device.

Compared to the prior version of the Mac mini, the M4 model is densely packed with little space between components, which is how Apple slimmed down the size so much. The ‌M4 Mac mini‌ measures in at 5x5 inches, down from 7.5x7.5 inches, a size reduction that makes a major difference.

The power supply module is a board that extends across the top of the case, a design that Apple has previously used for the HomePod. The power supply normally takes up a lot of space, so that's how Apple shrunk it down without compromising performance.

In the middle of the ‌Mac mini‌, there's a fan that works with the redesigned thermal management system of the machine to pull in air from the environment, circulate it through each level of the ‌Mac mini‌, and then vent it out through the bottom. Because the M4 Pro versions of the ‌Mac mini‌ need more cooling power, Apple equipped them with a larger copper heatsink than the heatsink in the standard ‌M4 Mac mini‌ models.

iFixit is a little late to the ‌Mac mini‌ teardown, which means we have seen prior videos that provided some insight into the machine's internal components. We've already learned that the ‌Mac mini‌ has modular storage that can technically be upgraded after purchase, and iFixit confirmed that. iFixit swapped a 512GB SSD from one ‌M4 Mac mini‌ to another ‌M4 Mac mini‌ that had a 256GB SSD, and the swap was successful.

The M4 and M4 Pro ‌Mac mini‌ models use different NAND modules that aren't physically interchangeable, and iFixit was not able to use an M4 SSD in an M4 Pro ‌Mac mini‌, so users who plan to swap out their own storage will need to make sure to get the correct SSD for their device.

RAM for the ‌Mac mini‌ is tightly integrated into the M4 chip inside and is not upgradeable after purchase, and the ports are also soldered, which can make replacement difficult.

iFixit found other components in the ‌Mac mini‌ are simple to swap out, and the site gave the ‌Mac mini‌ a repairability score of 7 out of 10 thanks to the easy to remove components, swappable SSD, and the detailed repair manuals that Apple made available. iFixit says users could get at least a decade of use out of the ‌M4 Mac mini‌.
This article, "iFixit Shares M4 Mac Mini Teardown" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Delighted that my THE DOWNLOADED is the #1 Science Fiction bestseller on the Audible.com monthly bestsellers list as reported in the March 2024 issue of Locus, the trade journal for the science fiction and fantasy fields, which came out today. Get THE DOWNLOADED here: Canada: https://adbl.co/45WsEqI US: https://adbl.co/49kuCEc UK: https://adbl.co/3tUfJbJ

From holes on Mars to a spun-around moon and a flipped reflection, space science involves looking at things from all different angles.

Down will be without injured pair Danny Hughes and Dan Gordon for Sunday's National Football League semi-final against Cork.

Defending champions Cork beat Down 2-17 to 1-12 in the National League Division One semi-final at Croke Park.

Providence Friars' Oswin Erhunmwunse threw down a powerful two-handed dunk against the Hampton Pirates.

Matthew Nicholson threw down a two-handed slam to help the Northwestern Wildcats lead over the the UIC Flames going into the half.

Investing.com-- Bitcoin fell from record highs on Wednesday, retreating as optimism over a Donald Trump presidency now appeared to be cooling, with focus turning to upcoming U.S. inflation data for more cues. Major meme token Dogecoin also retreated on Wednesday after a stellar run-up to…

It shouldn’t be a big story that a desktop computer has upgradeable internal storage, but with Apple’s cute new 2024 Mac mini, that’s exactly where we are. It’s possible to pop the SSD out after removing a screw, and then switch in a bigger one. We didn’t run into the software blocks we saw in the…

Even before Donald Trump named Elise Stefanik the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the New York representative had touted how the president-elect would return to a "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran. The Wall Street Journal said Trump would "drastically increase" sanctions to "choke…

Why can Google just not index these web directories they believe to be not so worthy? Google can still let company’s submit to directories but do not have to index these directories. Sure Google can still then chose which ones are valid or not.  So what is now considered an honest legitimate directory for safe […]

Lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on all kinds of social behaviors, from discrimination to civic engagement and protests. What effect has the pandemic had on more extreme behaviors, like terrorist attacks from groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)? Many armed actors, such as ISIS, threatened to use the […]

Tonight We're Gonna Party, Like it's 1939!

In this episode I'm joined by Lewis Ambrose to discuss England's 2-1 win over the Netherlands on Wednesday night, which sends them through to the final of Euro 2024. We chat about the goal England conceded, the contentious penalty award which provided the equaliser, the second half in which fatigue clearly played a part for both sides, and how an injection of energy was so important. Should Ollie Watkins goal propel him into the starting line-up for Sunday's clash with Spain? All that, plus a round-up of the Arsenal transfer news.

Follow Lewis @LGAmbrose

Get extra bonus content and help support Arseblog by becoming an Arseblog Member on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/arseblog

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INTERPOL on Tuesday said it took down more than 22,000 malicious servers linked to various cyber threats as part of a global operation. Dubbed Operation Synergia II, the coordinated effort ran from April 1 to August 31, 2024, targeting phishing, ransomware, and information stealer infrastructure. "Of the approximately 30,000 suspicious IP addresses identified, 76 per cent were taken down and 59

The Canadian government on Wednesday ordered ByteDance-owned TikTok to dissolve its operations in the country, citing national security risks, but stopped short of instituting a ban on the popular video-sharing platform. "The decision was based on the information and evidence collected over the course of the review and on the advice of Canada's security and intelligence community and other

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The following article, Trump Throws Down the Gauntlet to Leftists, was first published on The Black Sphere.

Controversy right out of the starting blocks for Donald Trump. And Americans exclaim, "What a difference a day makes!"

Continue reading Trump Throws Down the Gauntlet to Leftists ...

The following article, Democrats May Soon Need Another Beatdown, was first published on The Black Sphere.

If you think Democrats are soul-searching the bona fide ass-kicking they took in the 2024 election, then you don't know Democrats.

Continue reading Democrats May Soon Need Another Beatdown ...

Now that Donald Trump has won the election, he is going to have to deal with Vladimir Putin and Russia, and that isn’t going to be easy.  The Russians have no incentive to end the conflict because they are steadily gobbling up territory in eastern Ukraine.  As long as the Russians are making progress toward …

People affected by rare blood clots say they feel they have been airbrushed out of the pandemic.

How some of Jersey's best cricketers have moved to Australia to try and help their chances of making the T20 World Cup.

McLaren's Lando Norris says title rival Max Verstappen "knows he did wrong" in their battle in last weekend's Mexico City Grand Prix.

Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou says their inconsistent start is down to him rather than his players after a fifth Premier League defeat.

John White did the League and Cup Double, but his sudden death left his son searching for the man behind the comic-book persona.

Is the Premier League title race down to two teams after just 11 games? BBC Sport looks at the chances of the top four.

Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou accepts responsibility for his side's 2-1 Premier League defeat at home by a previously winless Ipswich.

1. Sensex, Nifty50 decline for 5th straight session; now down over 9% from peak | Stock Market News  Mint
2. Stock Market LIVE Updates: Nifty at 23,700, Sensex tanks 520 pts; auto, metal, realty major drag  Moneycontrol
3. Markets fall, Nifty, Sensex slip nearly 1 per cent: What’s worrying investors at the moment?  The Financial Express
4. Sensex Today | Stock Market LIVE Updates: Sensex off day's low, trades 500 pts lower; Nifty below 23,750;...  The Economic Times
5. Stock market today: Trade setup for Nifty 50 to Q2 results today; five stocks to buy or sell on Wednesday — Nov 13  Mint

velocityconf: What Is the Risk That Amazon Will Go Down (Again)? http://t.co/DgnfQynjcM Thank you @bergstrom_johan for the awesome #velocityconf post.

In some parts of the capital, protesters negotiated with police. In other parts there was no talking.

Young Mozambicans from opposition parties have given Frelimo until midday to relinquish power or face more unrest, after days of violence and looting in the country.

Nintendo is cracking down on emulators of its hardware and media depicting their use. First Yuzu was taken down with a lawsuit, and now departs Ryujinx, a similar project that had sought to avoid the legal landmines Yuzu stepped on. — Read the rest

The post Another emulation project disappears amid Nintendo crackdown appeared first on Boing Boing.

The following article, ‘Burn The System Down’: Democrats Now Face Charges They Are The Ones Trying To Destroy Democracy, was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

Protecting democracy was a catch phrase that Democrats have used for years to explain their hatred of now President-elect Donald Trump. He was, after all, they said, a “Hitler.” He would be a dictator. He would use the military against his political opponents, jailing them and worse. The only salvation for America’s “democracy” would be …

Continue reading ‘Burn The System Down’: Democrats Now Face Charges They Are The Ones Trying To Destroy Democracy ...

Even after her loss on Nov. 5, Vice President Kamala Harris’ election campaign is still hounding donors for money. Harris’ campaign has bombarded supporters with fundraising messages following her election […]

The post Kamala's Campaign Is Still Aggressively Shaking Down Supporters For Cash appeared first on The Western Journal.

Shortly after President-elect Donald Trump appointed Tom Homan as “border czar,” the immigration hardliner’s hilarious 2019 smackdown of Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York went viral on social media. […]

The post Flashback: Video of Tom Homan Taking Down AOC Resurfaces, Showing Why Trump Picked Him appeared first on The Western Journal.

Cracking down on kleptocracy Interview LJefferson 4 August 2022

In the third of a series of interviews with the Queen Elizabeth II Academy faculty, Alex Cooley examines the challenges of reigning in kleptocratic networks.

Recently you spoke at the Queen Elizabeth II Academy about kleptocracy, and the impact of the individual sanctions used to target kleptocrats since the war on Ukraine began.

As you can imagine, the problems of dark money and  kleptocracy are familiar to Londoners. People tend to associate kleptocracy with Russia; why is that? Is its rise linked to the global decline of democracy that has taken place over the past 15 years?   

This is a great question. Kleptocracy literally means ‘rule by thieves’, and in contemporary usage refers to the plundering of economies and societies by political elites for their own personal gain. 

It does not necessarily have to track with democratic backsliding, but in many countries, it has for a couple of reasons. First, over the last 30 years, as globalization has expanded, with more integrated financial markets and greater provision of services to support this expansion (accountants, shell company providers, lawyers), transnational kleptocracy networks have also become more expansive as there is now a more sophisticated co-mingling of licit and illicit funds through these networks of globalization.

Second, like the illiberal norms and practices that are promoting democratic backsliding, kleptocracy networks should be thought of as global in scale and reach. Corruption tends to be framed as an illegal act that takes place within states, while international rankings of levels of corruption by watchdogs like Transparency International tend to reinforce this view.

However, corrupt acts that may initially occur domestically are facilitated by a number of transnational actors and processes, many of them operating out of so-called ‘clean’ countries. At the end of the day, for a kleptocrat to profit from his or her stolen loot, they must store those funds where their value will be guaranteed by strong property rights protections. That means that the destination for kleptocrats is often the West, jurisdictions that enjoy rule of law, that have good financial services, and that guarantee privacy to client services. 

To give  a brief example of a hypothetical kleptocrat, take a regional official in China who has skimmed money off a state contract; that money will be booked into by an accounting firm in Hong Kong, then will be used to purchase an offshore vehicle – another tool of globalization – a shell company that is registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) but is sold, as part of a complex structure of nested companies, by a shell company provider, such as the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, at the centre of the Panama Papers exposé, which specialized in selling complex shell company structures to conceal the true owners.

Then, that entity will open an actual corporate bank account in a global financial centre, say in Switzerland. Finally, that account from a ‘clean’ jurisdiction may purchase a luxury asset, such as a condominium in New York, without having to disclose the actual beneficial owner. That is a relatively simple transaction, but it includes jurisdictions from Hong Kong, the BVI, Panama, Switzerland, and New York to abet this initial act of local embezzlement by a mid-level Chinese official. 

You’re telling the story of why this has become transnational and global, but this is very much a supply-driven story. Is there a demand-side to this story?  

Sure, and this is the other side of globalization. You asked initially why so many Russians and former Soviet individuals were associated with kleptocratic schemes. This is because in the 1990s, as these institutions and tools of globalization proliferated, there was a chaotic economic transition underway in the former Soviet Union.

Economic transition in places like Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan andTajikistan, transpired at the time of this financial deregulation, where there was a general perception that all capital account openness was good and that the international community assisted these countries with financial liberalization. The offshore dynamic is particularly pronounced in the post-Soviet countries because the state-building, regime consolidation, and reform of these economies coincided with this era of financial globalization.  

Why has the UK government turned a blind eye to this problem for so long? Is there profit that has been made? Is it too difficult?  

This is a really good question. First, the UK is the centre of many of the service providers that are absolutely critical for the operation of kleptocratic networks. There are two sides to being a kleptocrat. One is the money-laundering side, where dubiously acquired loot needs to be turned into legitimate assets that are safe and protected by the rule of law – this requires Western-based wealth managers, bankers, lawyers, real estate brokers and accountants.

The second is reputation laundering. How do you recast yourself in the global spotlight from a controversial figure who made money in controversial transactions into an internationally respected, global business and philanthropist? Doing so requires that you donate to philanthropic causes, secure appointments on corporate and non-for-profit boards, support higher-education institutions and retain lobbyists, advisors, and cultivating allies within your residing country’s political system. These are all ways in which you can try and manage your image.

Also, because of the UK’s strict libel laws, you have leaders in public relations and reputation management industries that are retained to closely monitor all media mentions of that individual, and to challenge or quash any negative characterizations about them. 

It is easy to see why the UK is attractive to kleptocrats, but why has it taken the UK government so long to respond? Is it just a simple calculation: this is money that is hard to turn down and there is at least plausible deniability of its more nefarious sources? 

It is really good money and kleptocrats engage in various legitimate business and cultural activities in order to obscure their sketchy pasts. It is very difficult to prove that their original wealth was actually obtained illegally. And, until now, there has not been a strong international norm and cooperation against kleptocrats the way there is with illicit actors such as terrorists or drug traffickers. 

Is it also because it is not strictly speaking illegal? Is there a sense that there is ‘money from uncertain sources being put to good purposes’? 

Many will make this argument too! If the source of funds is not strictly illegal, then why not actually use this wealth to ‘do good’? For example, why not have scholarships for students who need them at the university?  As long as there is no overt interference in the terms of these donations, what is the harm?

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it allows kleptocrats to create positive profiles. Indeed, these acts of charity can be leveraged in legal proceedings or in public opinion to burnish their reputations and establish track records of being good citizens.

It also creates supportive constituencies in society. For example, if you buy, even with your questionably acquired wealth, a major football team and you take it to the peak of success, you are revered and now have a platform to even contest previous critical accounts of you. 

Do you think that the war in Ukraine will prove to be an inflection point in terms of how other advanced democracies in Europe and North America treat this problem, and not only the UK?

I hope so – I have seen some hopeful trends. For instance, some countries have expedited the implementation of important anti-corruption legislation that they already passed. And there is a broader understanding that it is now a matter of national security to actually know who owns what in your country, whether it’s a company, commercial property, a bank account, or a holding company. 

I also think the Russian oligarchs themselves have been fatally stigmatized.. They can no longer control the overwhelmingly negative image and association with the Kremlin that this ghastly war has brought. Also, we are seeing push in the UK for reform on SLAPPS, while the National Crime Agency has established a dedicated ‘kleptocracy cell’ designed to investigate the hidden wealth of oligarchs and possible sanctions avoidance.

But the latter will require sustained funding and staffing. Unfortunately, most of their assets are not in luxury yachts that are relatively easy to seize, but embedded in complex webs of opaque global transactions. It will be challenging to even identify these assets, let alone freeze and confiscate them. 

We have talked a lot about Russia for obvious reasons, but if you go down the list, who’s next when it comes to the source of this problem? 

Countries with especially powerful ruling families that have been in power for a long time, and that have some sort of rentier economy, either extractives, natural resources, or big former state-operated enterprises that perhaps have been privatized.

For example, oil-exporting countries like Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan have incubated classic kleptocrats along with transnational reputation laundering schemes involving Western institutions.   

During your talk with the Academy fellows at Chatham House, you suggested that the pressure on kleptocrats would also have broader geopolitical effects. Can you say more about this? Is there a risk that measures intended to excise kleptocrats from our economies leads to greater divisions globally?

Whether there will be comprehensive anti-kleptocracy reforms in the US, London, Canada and Switzerland  remains an open question, but already  kleptocrats are shifting away from Western jurisdictions and going further Eastward; they are going to Singapore, and they are also going to the Gulf, especially the UAE.

There are a number of reports now of Russian oligarchs relocating and residing there and taking their assets with them. The UAE is not part of the sanctions regime even though it is a US security partner, and in fact it has scored very poorly on illicit money laundering rankings and watchdog lists.