The same ballistic missile cruiser that caused a reaction from soldiers
stationed on Snake Island back in March at the time they memorialized a MIDDLE GESTURE PHRASE:
It’s all just kind of a depressing coda to an otherwise inspiring story - a stand-off back in March when the same ballistic missile carrier asked them to surrender, answered by one combatant Ukrainian saying ‘Russian Warship, Go Fuck Yourself"
First response was conflicting a series of different conflicted stories put out by media on both sides, and now there's this claim of American action
A sacred place for three religions - for Muslims Ramadan this year coincides with the Jewish Passover holiday and Christian holy week, bringing thousands of pilgrims and other visitors to Jerusalem.
Israeli forces raid Al-Aqsa Mosque, over 150 Palestinians injured
Hundreds of Palestinians detained after Israeli police entered the mosque compound before dawn.
Israeli forces raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem with medics reporting at least 158 Palestinians injured in the ensuing violence as hundreds were detained.
The Islamic endowment that runs the site said Israeli police entered in force before dawn on Friday, as thousands of worshippers were gathered at the mosque for early morning prayers.
Videos circulating online showed Palestinians throwing rocks and police firing tear gas and stun grenades. Others showed worshippers barricading themselves inside the mosque amid what appeared to be clouds of tear gas.
It was the most serious violence at the holy site in nearly a year. Palestinians view any large deployment of police at Al-Aqsa as a provocation. . .
Israeli police said they arrested at least 300 Palestinians during the latest escalation. However, Palestinian sources put the number at 400. Three officers were wounded from “massive stone-throwing”, it said.
Israeli police said they entered the compound, the third holiest site in Islam and revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, to break up a “violent” crowd that remained at the end of the morning prayers.
They went in “to disperse and push back” the crowd after a group of Palestinians began throwing rocks towards the nearby Jewish prayer space of the Western Wall. . .
‘Deeply outraged’
Neighbouring Jordan, which has custodianship over the holy site, and the Palestinian Authority issued a joint statement accusing Israel of “a dangerous and condemnable escalation that threatens to explode the situation”. Egypt also condemned the “Israeli raid”.
Hundreds of people gathered outside Al-Kalouti mosque, near the Israeli embassy in Jordan, to show their solidarity with Palestinians and in support of Al-Aqsa Mosque. The demonstrators chanted pro-Palestine and Hamas slogans.
Israel’s public security minister, Omer Barlev, who oversees the police force, said Israel had “no interest” in violence at the holy site, but that police were forced to confront “violent elements” who attacked them with stones and metal bars. He said Israel was committed to freedom of worship for Jews and Muslims alike. . .
Reporting from Damascus Gate, Al Jazeera’s Najwan al-Samri said Israeli police stormed the mosque compound without pretext and assaulted worshippers near the Qibly prayer hall following the morning prayer.
She added the escalation came as far-right Jewish groups called for raids of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound during the Jewish Passover holiday, and the offering of animal sacrifices in its courtyards, which has not occurred since ancient times. . .
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara blamed the Israeli occupation, the “international community’s indifference to Palestinian suffering” amid the Ukraine crisis, and the “paralysis of the Palestinian leadership” as reasons behind the latest developments in Jerusalem.
Far-right Jewish groups have called for raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound [Ahmad Gharabli/AFP]
Angry responses
Responding to the developments, the Palestinian presidency said in a statement the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound by Israeli police was “a dangerous development” and “a declaration of war”.
It added the Palestinian people would not allow Israeli occupation forces and Jewish settlers to take over the holy site, and called on the international community to “end Israeli aggression”.
Al-Aqsa has been a major flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian violence for decades and was the epicenter of the 2000-2005 Palestinian intifada, or uprising.
Israel captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognised internationally. Palestinians want the eastern part of the city to be the capital of a future state including the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel also captured during the war.
IMPACT: Arizona health officials confirmed more than 23,000 cases of Valley fever from January 2020 through December 2021
WHAT THE HELL IS VALLEY FEVER: Valley fever, formally known as coccidioidomycosis, is caused by a fungus endemic to the Southwest that naturally occurs in soil.
The fungal spores can easily become airborne when wind or activity from people or machines disturb the ground.
Once inhaled, the spores infect the lungs, producing symptoms that can range from fatigue and cough to pneumonia. In rare cases, the disease can spread throughout the body, sometimes infecting the brain and spinal column.
"Researchers from Arizona’s three state universities will get $3.1 million to pinpoint hotspots and infection patterns for Valley fever, providing new tools to combat the fungal disease that sickens more people in Arizona than in any other state.
The three-year grant, awarded to the Valley Fever Collaborative by the Arizona Board of Regents, represents the largest state investment targeting the respiratory disease in recent Arizona history. It comes six months after a series of AZCIR reports highlighted the difficulty of tracking and preventing Valley fever infections, and exposed how a dearth of dedicated state funding has limited public understanding about the ecology and true impact of the dust-borne pathogen.
“We know Arizona is responsible for two-thirds of all U.S. Valley fever infections, but just looking across the land, we can’t tell which places the the fungus grows or are the source of so many infections,” Dr. John Galgiani, director of the University of Arizona College of Medicine’s Valley Fever Center for Excellence in Tucson, said in a statement.
“This study will try to connect the dots between strains that cause people to get sick, where in the land they come from, and what it is about those hotspots that makes the fungus thrive. With this new information, we might prevent infections at work sites or even for everyone who lives here.”
Valley fever, formally known as coccidioidomycosis, is caused by a fungus endemic to the Southwest that naturally occurs in soil. The fungal spores can easily become airborne when wind or activity from people or machines disturb the ground. Once inhaled, the spores infect the lungs, producing symptoms that can range from fatigue and cough to pneumonia. In rare cases, the disease can spread throughout the body, sometimes infecting the brain and spinal column...
Insufficient data collection and a lack of state and federal funding have long prevented the public from fully understanding the risks surrounding the disease, according to AZCIR’s previous reporting: Funding for Valley fever surveillance has appeared just once in the past 15 years as a $300,000 line item in the state health department budget, approved by the Arizona Legislature in 2007.
The $3.1 million ABOR award, which relies on Technology and Research Initiative Fund dollars, marks a “sea change in the idea of having state leadership at various levels see that this is an important project,” Galgiani told AZCIR.
“This is really, really different for the state of Arizona.”
On the environmental front, researchers will pair air and soil samples to identify fungus hotspots, work to determine the types of soil in which spores thrive, examine which conditions encourage the movement of those spores and more thoroughly investigate how airborne transmission works. . ."
AZCIR reporter Shaena Montanari contributed to this report.
Intro: This attack is the largest crypto hack in history, with the previous most significant theft of cryptocurrency being the $611 million Poly Network hack from August 2021.
NOTE THE NAME The Lazarus Group, a Biblical reference to someone who miraculously rose from the dead.
The Lazarus Group (tracked as HIDDEN COBRA by the United States Intelligence Community) is a North Korean military hacking group active for more than a decade, since at least 2009.Its operators are linked to multiple high-profile hacks, including the 2017 global WannaCry ransomware campaign and attacks against Sony Films and various banks worldwide.
Here are snippets of two reports in the past two days, one after the other - the first is taken from The Verge. The second is taken from Bleeping Computer
"The US Treasury Department blames North Korean hacking group Lazarus for stealing $625 million in cryptocurrency from the Ronin network, the blockchain backing the Axie Infinity play-to-earncrypto game, according to a report from Vice. On Thursday, the Department of Treasury updated sanctions to include the wallet address that received the funds and attributed it to the Lazarus group.
In an updated post about the incident, the Ronin network, which is owned by developer group Sky Mavis, explains the US Department of Treasury and FBI have pinned the attack on Lazarus. “We are still in the process of adding additional security measures before redeploying the Ronin Bridge to mitigate future risk,” the post reads. “We expect to deliver a full post mortem that will detail security measures put in place and next steps by the end of the month.” Ronin says it will bring its bridge back online “by the end of the month.” The bridge allows users to transfer funds between other blockchains and Axie Infinity and has been blocked off since the attack.
As noted by Vice, the flagged wallet address currently contains over $445 million USD (148,000 Ethereum) and sent almost $10 million (3,302.6 ETH) to another address less than a day ago. Crypto transaction tracker Etherscan labels the address as “reported to be involved in a hack targeting the Ronin bridge.”
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned the address that received the cryptocurrency stolen in the largest cryptocurrency hack ever, the hack of Axie Infinity's Ronin network bridge.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said two North Korean hacking groups, Lazarus and BlueNorOff (aka APT38), were behind last month's Ronin hack.
"Through our investigation, we were able to confirm Lazarus Group and APT38, cyber actors associated with the DPRK, are responsible for the theft of $620 million in Ethereum reported on March 29th," the FBI said.
"The FBI, in coordination with Treasury and other U.S. Government partners, will continue to expose and combat the DPRK's use of illicit activities — including cybercrime and cryptocurrency theft — to generate revenue for the regime."
. . .On March 29, Sky Mavis disclosed that the Ronin bridge was hacked, with 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC tokens stolen in two transactions [1 and 2], worth over $617 million.
Sky Mavis also published an update to their initial blog post disclosing the attack, saying the FBI now attributes the attack to the North Korean-backed Lazarus Group hacking group.
"Today, the FBI attributed North Korea based Lazarus Group to the Ronin Validator Security Breach," Sky Mavis said today..."
It's no doubt now it is Zelenskiy's "More Weapons Less War Sooner Peace" moment
in the aftermath of one incident. Consequent media reports have proved the fallacy of that statement and curiously enough there was this announcement - not from the Ukraine President's Press Office but from
Russian ship Moskva was hit by 2 Ukrainian missiles: US official
The United States now believes the sunken Russian missile cruiser Moskva was hit by two Ukrainian missiles, a senior US official said.
The senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were Neptune anti-ship missiles. The US believes there were Russian casualties, though numbers are unclear, the official added.
Russia warns US against providing weapons to Ukraine: Reports
Russia has warned the United States of “unpredictable consequences” should US President Joe Biden’s administration continue to transfer weapons to Ukraine, The Washington Post reported.
The Post said on Friday that it had reviewed a copy of a diplomatic note that Russia sent the US this week, which warned that US and NATO shipments of the “most sensitive” weapons systems to Ukraine could bring “unpredictable consequences”.
‘Three objects’ hit outside Kyiv last night: Ukraine authorities
Responding to Russian defence ministry claims that they had hit a weapon-producing factory on the outskirts of the capital last night, a statement from the Kyiv regional military administration says “three objects” were targeted by Russian forces, Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford reported from Kyiv
Russia will increase strikes in response to attacks on territory: AJ correspondent
According to the Russian defense ministry, they will increase the scale of their missile attacks on Kyiv should there be any attacks on Russian territory, Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari reported from Moscow.
“This comes after reports of two incidents alongside Russia’s border with Ukraine on Thursday,” she added.
“Now, we cannot independently verify the information that has come from those regions but according to the local governor of Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine and Belarus, Ukrainian helicopters entered Russian air space on Thursday and carried out at least six missile strikes on residential areas.”
Zelenskyy appealed to US to designate Russia ‘state sponsor of terrorism’: Reports
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently made a direct appeal to President Joe Biden for the US to designate Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism,” the Washington Post reported, citing people familiar with the conversation.
Biden did not commit to specific actions during that call, the Post said.
The label can be applied to any country that has “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism,” the newspaper said, citing a State Department fact sheet.
The list currently includes four countries: North Korea, Cuba, Iran and Syria.
Mike Masnick has something to say about early day techies who originally created social media when all of them eventually learned that their simplistic belief in how things should work does not work in reality. He goes on to assert that Musk ignores all of that while (somewhat hilariously) suggesting that all of those things can be figured out eventually, . .
Elon Musk Demonstrates How Little He Understands About Content Moderation
"Lots of talk yesterday as Elon Musk made a hostile takeover bid for all of Twitter. This was always a possibility, and one that we discussed before in looking at how little Musk seemed to understand about free speech. But soon after the bid was made public, Musk went on stage at TED to be interviewed by Chris Anderson and spoke more about his thoughts on Twitter and content moderation.
It’s worth watching, though mostly for how it shows how very, very little Musk understands about all of this. Indeed, what struck me about his views is how much they sound like what the techies who originally created social media said in the early days. And here’s the important bit: all of them eventually learned that their simplistic belief in how things should work does not work in reality and have spent the past few decades trying to iterate. And Musk ignores all of that while (somewhat hilariously) suggesting that all of those things can be figured out eventually, despite all of the hard work many, many overworked and underpaid people have been doing figuring exactly that out, only to be told by Musk he’s sure they’re doing it wrong.
Because these posts tend to attract very, very angry people who are very, very sure of themselves on this topic they have no experience with, I’d ask that before any of you scream in the comments, please read all of Prof. Kate Klonick’s seminal paper on the history of content moderation and free speech called The New Governors. It is difficult to take seriously anyone on this topic who is not aware of the history.
But, just for fun, let’s go through what Musk said. Anderson asks Musk why he wants to buy Twitter and Elon responds:
Well, I think it’s really important for there to be an inclusive arena for free speech. Twitter has become the de facto town square, so, it’s really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they’re able to speak freely within the bounds of the law. And one of the things I believe Twitter should do is open source the algorithm, and make any changes to people’s tweets — if they’re emphasized or de-emphasized — that should be made apparent so that anyone can see that action has been taken. So there’s no sort of behind-the-scenes manipulation, either algorithmically or manually.
First, again, this is the same sort of thing that early Twitter and Facebook and other platform people said in the early days. And then they found out it doesn’t work for reasons that will be discussed shortly. Second, Twitter is not the town square, and it’s a ridiculous analogy. The internet itself is the town square. Twitter is just one private shop in that town square with its own rules.
Anderson asks Musk why he wants to take over Twitter when Musk had apparently told him just last week that taking over the company would lead to everyone blaming him for everything that went wrong, and Musk responds that things will still go wrong and you have to expect that. And he’s correct, but what’s notable here is how he’s asking for a level of understanding that he refuses to provide Twitter itself. Twitter has spent 15 years experimenting and iterating its policies to deal with a variety of incredibly complex and difficult challenges, nuances, and trade-offs, and as Musk demonstrates later in this interview, he’s not even begun to think through any of them.
My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization.
Again, this is the same sort of things that the founders of these websites said… until they had to deal with the actual challenges of running such platforms at scale. And, I should note, anyone who’s spent any time at all working on these issues knows that “maximally trusted” requires some level of moderation, . .
[. ] The problem is not “someone I dislike saying something I dislike” the problem is spam, abuse, harassment, threats of violence, dangerously misleading false information, and more. Musk not understanding any of that is just a representation of how little he understands this topic.
Anderson then asks Musk about what changes he would make to Twitter, leading Musk to basically contradict everything he just said and go straight to banning speech on Twitter:
Frankly, the top priority I would have is eliminating the spam and scam bots and the bot armies that are on Twitter. You know, I think, these influence… they make the product much worse.
Um, nearly all of those are legal (the scam ones are a bit more hazy there, but the spam ones are legal speech). And just the fact that he acknowledges that they make the product much worse underlines how confused he is about everything else. . .
[. ] Musk jokes about how he’s not always right, and explains that he’s only now realized that just how hard a problem driverless artificial intelligence is, and he talks about how every time it seems to be moving forward it hits an unexpected ceiling.
The simple fact is that dealing with human nature and human communication is much, much, much more complex than teaching a car how to drive by itself. And there is no perfect solution. There is no “congrats, we got there” moment in content moderation. Because humans are complex and ever-changing. And content moderation on a platform like Twitter is about recognizing that complexity and figuring out ways to deal with it. But Musk seems to be treating it as if it’s the same sort of challenge as self-driving — where if you just throw enough ideas at it you’ll magically fix it. But, even worse than that, he doesn’t realize that the people who have actually worked in this field for years have been making the kind of progress he talked about with self-driving cars — getting the curve to move in the right direction, before hitting some sort of ceiling. And Musk wants to take them all the way back to the ground floor for no reason other than he doesn’t seem to recognize that any of the work that’s already been done."
![<div class=__reading__mode__extracted__imagecaption>The Palestinian Red Crescent says Israeli forces hindered the arrival of ambulances and paramedics to the mosque [Ahmad Gharabli/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/000_328D2H8.jpg?resize=770%2C513)
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