India has welcomed the birth of four cheetah cubs – more than 70 years after the animals were declared officially extinct there.
Taking to Twitter, Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav called the ocassion a “momentous event in our wildlife conservation history”.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi also welcomed the announcement, calling it “wonderful news”.
The country has been trying to reintroduce the big cats for decades, and last year brought eight cheetahs over from Namibia as part of the plan. Another 12 cheetahs were brought to India from South Africa last month.
The cubs were born to Siyaya and Freddie, two of the eight rehabilitated cheetahs brought from Namibia to India’s Kuno National Park in the central state of Madhya Pradesh last September.
The cubs were believed to have been born five days ago, but they were spotted by officials on Wednesday, the Press Trust of India reported.
A park official told the news agency that the mother Siyaya and the cubs are fine and healthy.
But the announcement of the new cubs came just two days after one of the other eight Namibian cheetahs, a female named Sasha died at the Kuno National Park due to kidney failure.
When they were transported to India last year, it was the first time a large carnivore had been moved from one continent to another and reintroduced in the wild.
Lawmakers from the Freedom Party of Austria (German: Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ) walked out of the lower house of the country’s parliament during a speech by Ukrainian President [V]olodymyr [Z]elensky.
The comedian who became an instant president addressed the chamber via video link yesterday, thanking Austria for its humanitarian aid and help with projects such as clearing land mines.
Austria says its neutrality prevents it from military involvement in the conflict and, while it supports Ukraine politically, it cannot send the country weapons in its fight against Russia.
In fact, FPÖ had warned days before that they would hold some form of protest against [Z]elensky’s address. Party leader Herbert Kickl (right) said in a statement on Tuesday: “It is sad that the FPÖ (are) the only party in parliament that take our ever-lasting neutrality seriously, thereby also standing up for peace”.
Note: Of the five parties in parliament, the FPÖ have the third-biggest number of seats in the lower house. They currently have a small lead in opinion polls over the opposition Social Democrats and Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s conservatives, who govern in coalition with the Greens.
European unhappiness with [Z]elensky and Ukraine is building.
TikTok are being blamed for being an energy-guzzler!
At Raufoss (about 120 kilometers north of Oslo in Norway), a weapons firm co-owned by the Norwegian government and a Finnish state-controlled defence company, said they can’t meet the surging demand for artillery shells because a TikTok data center there is using up the electricity!
Elvia, the local energy company, confirmed that the electricity network has no spare capacity after promising it to the data center as they allocate it on a first come, first served basis.
Experts say fights over which companies and which type of industry get priority access to electricity grids are likely to increase across Europe. Data centres have flourished in the Nordic countries because of once-plentiful and cheap electricity, as well as a colder climate that keeps cooling costs down.
“We are concerned because we see our future growth is challenged by the storage of cat videos", Morten Brandtzæg, the CEO of Nammo AS, said in an interview with the Financial Times. (I guess he doesn't like cats!)
Brandtzæg said that the demand for artillery rounds was 15 times higher than normal – a trend driven by the war in Ukraine, which has featured heavy artillery use. Ukraine, for instance, would like to increase its daily usage of rounds from 6,000 to 65,000, he explained.
It isn’t known if Nammo shells are being used in Ukraine – their customer base, as described in a 2021 annual report, is overwhelmingly EU and NATO states, which have been making huge donations to Ukraine since Russia launched its Special Military Operation.
TikTok and other tech giants have faced criticism for their energy use. Back in July, a report from the FT found that the electricity usage of large companies – including Microsoft, Oracle, LG, Huawei, Amazon, and Dell – was making it harder to build more homes in London, UK.
Due to the electricity grid running out of capacity, the report stated that the capital could face a ban on new housing projects until 2035.
An earlier report from 2019 by EirGrid, Ireland's electrical grid operator, found similar conclusions for Ireland, which is a popular base for global companies' European data centers.
It found that data centers can often require the "same amount of energy as a large town", and could account for "29% of electricity demand in Ireland by 2028".
I went to GSC Subang Parade yesterday to watch “John Wick Chapter 4”. I know I had to because the hype says this is no ordinary action movie. And I was already getting super excited. It’s a Keanu Reeves-starred film, after all!
And I am absolutely loving it! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐!
“John Wick Chapter 4” is an engrossing slaughterfest, an immensely enjoyable audio-visual spectacle and an entertaining cinematic experience! And it is sure to go down as one of the best action movies of all time! A polished tour de force that is beautifully brutal.
To me, nothing can equal “John Wick”, the first movie and it goes without saying that "JW2" and "JW3" are insanely awesome too. But “JW4” is something else. An incendiary finale of epic proportions!
Honestly, this is the best action franchise of all time given how sumptuously spectacular each one of the “John Wick” movies have been.
What started out as a high-octane action flick featuring a fictional character created by Derek Kolstad had, over the years, grown into a full-blown action odyssey – with each movie working tirelessly to expand the lore. In fact, all four movies didn’t let us down.
But I daresay the fourth installment blows the rest out of the water.
Consistent with the John Wick style and approach, we witness drop-dead thrills that enthusiastically embrace us with adrenaline-pumping tension and which is closely accompanied by wickedly vicious action. Every scene feels palpable and every scenario is genius.
I’m in complete awe at the choreography for the action sequences and I have to admit that I was immersed in the movie from start to finish. Truly, an action-packed masterpiece that is staggeringly majestic! Sure, it may have run for 169 minutes – but it has deservedly earned that runtime.
I mean, the movie has everything! The beautiful cinematography, the resplendent lighting, the synchromatic music, the colorful characters, the intense fights, the whopping kill count. Everything comes together into one massive powder keg of a movie!
I mean it! Just when you think, you’ve seen “JW1” and “JW2” and “JW3” and you tell yourself, it’s hard to beat that – and then comes “JW4” which surpasses all expectations!
I kid you not! “JW4” is a master stroke! Directed by Chad Stahelski and returning Keanu Reeves in the titular role as the bad ass assassin, the unstoppable action pic serves up a huge $73.8 million in North America after pristine reviews and an A CinemaScore from audiences. The results are just as impressive overseas, where the movie debuted to a resounding $67.6 million from 71 markets for a global start of $141.4 million, a series record on all fronts.
Records have been broken. The original “John Wick” opened domestically in 2014 at $14 million, Chapter 2 in 2017 at $30 million, and Chapter 3 in 2019 at $56 million, making Chapter 4's $73.8 million a pretty sizable jump from the other entries. And given that the movie had a budget of $100 million, its opening weekend alone has already exceeded the production costs.
I’ve seen the trailers, I’ve read the reviews, I’ve soaked up the YouTube videos about other people’s take on the movie – but it’s only when I went to watch "John Wick Chapter 4" on the big screen was I able to really affirm how damn good the movie is! It is worth much much more than the RM10 I paid for the ticket!
If “John Wick Chapter 4” doesn’t satisfy you, then I don’t know which action movie will! Moreover, Reeves is a guy you can definitely relate to!
As somebody said "John Wick 4 is why we love movies"!
A mammoth meatball created by a cultivated meat company and which resurrected the flesh of long-extinct animals – was unveiled on Tuesday at NEMO Science Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The project initiated by Australia’s Vow takes a different approach to cultured meat. They aim to demonstrate the potential of meat grown from cells, without the slaughter of animals, and to highlight the link between large-scale livestock production and the destruction of wildlife and the climate crisis.
There are scores of companies working on replacements for conventional meat, such as beef, chicken and pork. But Vow aim to mix and match cells from unconventional species to create new kinds of meat.
In fact, Vow have already investigated the potential of more than 50 species, including alpaca, buffalo, crocodile, kangaroo, peacocks and different types of fish.
The first cultivated meat to be sold to diners will be Japanese quail, which can be expected to be in restaurants in Singapore this year.
“We have a behaviour change problem when it comes to meat consumption”, said George Peppou, CEO of Vow .
“The goal is to transition a few billion meat eaters away from eating [conventional] animal protein to eating things that can be produced in electrified systems. And we believe the best way to do that is to invent meat. We look for cells that are easy to grow, really tasty and nutritious, and then mix and match those cells to create really tasty meat”.
Tim Noakesmith, who co-founded Vow with Peppou, said: “We chose the woolly mammoth because it’s a symbol of diversity loss and a symbol of climate change”.
The beast (Scientific name: Mammuthus primigenius) is thought to have been driven to extinction by hunting by humans and the warming of the world after the last Ice Age.
The initial idea was from Bas Korsten at creative agency Wunderman Thompson: “Our aim is to start a conversation about how we eat, and what the future alternatives can look and taste like. Cultured meat is meat, but not as we know it”.
Plant-based alternatives to meat are now common but cultured meat replicates the taste of conventional meat.
The idea is not really new. In 2018, another company used DNA from an extinct animal to create gummy bears made from gelatine from a mastodon, another elephant-like animal.
Vow worked with Professor Ernst Wolvetang (left), at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering at the University of Queensland, to create the mammoth muscle protein. His team took the DNA sequence for mammoth myoglobin, a key muscle protein in giving meat its flavor, and filled in the few gaps using elephant DNA.
This sequence was placed in myoblast stem cells from a sheep, which replicated to grow to the 20 billion cells subsequently used by the company to grow the mammoth meat.
No one has yet tasted the mammoth meatball. “We haven’t seen this protein for thousands of years”, said Wolvetang. “So we have no idea how our immune system would react when we eat it. But if we did it again, we could certainly do it in a way that would make it more palatable to regulatory bodies”.
Wolvetang admitted he could understand people initially being wary of such meat: “It’s a little bit strange and new – it’s always like that at first. But from an environmental and ethical point of view, I personally think [cultivated meat] makes a lot of sense”.
Seren Kell, at the Good Food Institute Europe, said: “I hope this fascinating project will open up new conversations about cultivated meat’s extraordinary potential to produce more sustainable food. However, as the most common sources of meat are farm animals such as cattle, pigs, and poultry, most of the sustainable protein sector is focused on realistically replicating meat from these species”.
Shou Zi Chew (right), the chief executive of TikTok underwent a 5-hour grilling on March 23, 2023, when US lawmakers railed against the possibility of China using the wildly popular, partly Chinese-owned app to spy on Americans.
But they did not mention how the US government themselves use US tech companies that effectively control the global Internet to spy on everyone else!
As the US considers banning the short video app used by more than 150 million Americans, lawmakers are also weighing the renewal of powers that force firms like Google, Meta and Apple to facilitate untrammeled spying on non-US citizens located overseas.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which the US Congress must vote to re-authorise by December to prevent it from lapsing under a sunset clause, allows US intelligence agencies to carry out warrantless spying on foreigners’ email, phone and other online communications.
While US citizens have some protections against warrantless searches under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, the US government have maintained that these rights do not extend to foreigners overseas, giving agencies such as the National Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency practically free rein to snoop on their communications.
And information may also be turned over to US allies like the United Kingdom and Australia.
Though it is common for governments to spy abroad, Washington enjoys an advantage not shared by other countries: jurisdiction over the handful of companies that effectively run the modern Internet, including Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft.
For billions of Internet users outside the US, the lack of privacy mirrors the alleged threat that US officials say TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, poses to Americans.
“It is a case of ‘rules for thee but not for me'”, Asher Wolf, a tech researcher and privacy advocate based in Melbourne, Australia, told Al Jazeera.
“So, the noise the Americans are making about TikTok must be seen less as a sincere desire to protect citizens from surveillance and influence operations, and more as an attempt to ring-fence and consolidate national control over social media”, Wolf added.
US President Joe Biden’s administration are, in fact, pushing for both the power to ban TikTok and the renewal of Section 702.
Already, the app has been banned on US government devices, as well as official devices in countries including Canada, Belgium, Denmark, and New Zealand – although an outright ban is seen as more legally fraught due to possible conflict with the First Amendment of the constitution that safeguards free speech.
Amid the growing chorus of voices casting TikTok as a threat, the privacy rights of non-Americans have received little mention. In 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, the US targeted 232,432 “non-US persons” for surveillance, according to government data.
The American Civil Liberties Union estimate that the US government collected more than one billion communications per year since 2011, based on how the number of targets has grown since that year.
There's only one conclusion. TikTok is targeted for being a Chinese app.
Disney are set to shed 7,000 employees (roughly 3.2% of their 220,000 global employees) as part of a company-wide cost-savings plan and “strategic reorganization”.
Already, the first batch being laid off is being notified this week, followed by two additional groups before the start of the summer, CEO Bob Iger reportedly said in a staff memo Monday.
In a call with analysts on February 08. he had described the job cuts a “necessary step to address the challenges we face today”.
But the House of Mouse aren’t alone in tightening their belt. Across the media and entertainment industry, companies are shedding staff, winnowing budgets and looking to shore up cash on hand as they navigate an uncertain future.
Warner Bros. Discovery already cut hundreds of jobs over the last year and Netflix followed a similar tack. Now United Talent Agency, NBCUniversal and Paramount Global are laying off employees too.
The pain for the broader entertainment workforce probably won’t abate any time soon. Dan Ives, a tech analyst and managing director at Wedbush Securities, estimates that the industry will ultimately cut costs and jobs by 7% to 10%.
The retrenchment in Hollywood mirrors some of the cost-cutting that has hit tech giants (e.g. Meta and Amazon) as well as news media enterprises (including News Corp, Vox Media and the Washington Post).
Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Pinterest, Twitter and Snap have all laid off staff in recent months, as have smaller tech firms. In fact, some of tech’s struggles have been prompted by factors that mimic what’s happening in media. A slowdown in the advertising industry has affected social networks, including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms, but also old-school media companies such as Disney, said Dave Heger, a senior analyst for equity research at the financial services firm Edward Jones.
And since I'm on the subject of Disney, I'm going to gripe about this 100-year-old company. Methinks, they are hell-bent on ruining Marvel and Star Wars.
Firstly, there’s way too much content being churned out, and Disney persist in making more and more. A clear case of quantity over quality.
As a point of comparison, during their Phase 4, Marvel Studios released a breakneck 18 projects across theatrical and streaming: four films and five TV shows in 2021; three films and three TV shows in 2022; plus a few specials. (The studio released just 11 projects from Phase 3, which ran from 2016 to 2019).
Secondly, there’s an over-investment in wokeism. Disney’s blatant and brazen embrace of identity politics and their attempt to remake Western society in their image is just too much. This promotion of feminism, critical race theory, and LGBTQ culture have overshadowed their drive to tell good stories and make great films. I, for one, am tired of it – almost everything is now turned into something that is heavy-handed and overbearing.
I don't know about you but I'm so put off that I've stopped watching Disney movies.
US President Joe Biden, who was to make a statement on the school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee – read my post “America's 129th Mass Shooting This Year” published earlier today – started his address with an ice cream joke!
And you can hear his audience laughing!
What’s wrong with these Americans?
Biden had said: “I came down because I heard there was chocolate chip ice cream” – before discussing the shooting that killed six, three of whom were children. Later, Biden described the Nashville shooting as 'sick' and 'heart-breaking'.
However, the shocking start of the statement had already left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. Predictably, Joe Biden's gag triggered massive outrage on social media.
Another mass shooting – where else but in the US of A!
A gunman opened fire at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee on Monday, killing three children and three adults, authorities said.
The suspect, a Nashville resident police say was once a student at the private Christian school for preschool through 6th grade, in the city's Green Hills neighborhood, was killed during gunfire with police.
The shooter said to be a 28-year-old woman, Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who identified as transgender, had drawn detailed maps of the school and written a manifesto, which is being studied by local and federal investigators.
Police said Hale got in by firing through one of the school doors, which were all locked. She was armed with two assault weapons and a handgun.
The Covenant School incident is America’s 129th such mass shooting – an incident during which four or more people are shot, as defined by the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that tracks gun violence data – since the beginning of 2023.
And according to data compiled by Education Week, there have been 12 school shootings that have resulted in deaths or injuries in the US this year up until the end of last week. And it’s only March!
Haven’t I been saying that America is a sick country?!
If you're a fan of pasta with a little alcoholic kick, then Heinz and Absolut Vodka have got your back with the latest addition to their collection – the Heinz x Absolut Tomato Vodka Pasta Sauce.
Pasta ala Vodka rose in popularity in 2020 after American model Gigi Hadid (right) admitted she liked her pasta with a little vodka kick – sending social media into a frenzy, with adoring fans trying to replicate the dish.
But now Heinz and Absolut Vodka have made everyone's culinary lives easier by bringing the sauce to people's kitchens in jar form for their convenience – and it's described as a "match made in heaven".
The vodka is claiming to be the magic that unlocks the flavors and intensifies the aroma of this rich and creamy tomato, basil and cheese sauce.
During the cooking process, most of the alcohol from the vodka is reduced, boosting the volatile flavor compounds already present in the tomatoes, creating a rich texture that perfectly balances the creamy, cheese notes with the rich tomato and fragrant basil.
The sauce needs to be warmed through on the hob alongside the cooked pasta, and you'll understand why people have been going crazy for it in no time.
As Heinz New Ventures Director, Caio Fontenele, confessed: "While it may have taken over 150 years of tomato expertise to launch our first Heinz pasta sauce, we're determined to continue innovating and delighting consumers with delicious flavors, at the speed of social media trends.
We are thrilled with the partnership between these two centenary brands, bringing the first tomato vodka pasta sauce to major UK supermarkets. The iconic combination of Heinz's high-quality tomato sauces and Absolut's premium vodka is set to offer fans the ultimate pasta ala vodka experience. And the result is absolutely delicious!"
And if you want to try it, you better be quick, as a limited number of the Heinz x Absolut Tomato Vodka Pasta sauce jars will be available in the UK at Waitrose from mid-April for £2.50 for a 350g jar.
Post-World War II, the UN, World Bank, IMF and WTO buttressed US hegemony through a unipolar, Dollar-dominated world. That makes the US dollar the most important global currency.
In fact, the greenback is still very much considered a safe-haven currency in spite of the fact that the country's federal debt ($31.2 trillion and rising) to GDP ratio is 121%. It is an anomaly that a country with an annual budget deficit of $1.2 trillion with annual spending of $6.1 trillion still has any credit at all.
But there’s no doubt that de-dollarization has already begun and gaining momentum in countries across Asia, Africa and South America. These countries are trying to untangle their dependence on the USD so as to insulate themselves from economic shocks including falling currency, high inflation and debt burden.
BRICS countries have been actively examining possibilities of creating an alternative international currency. On January 25, 2023, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – BRICS countries – will discuss creating a common currency at the BRICS Summit, set to take place in South Africa this August.
"Serious, self-respecting countries are well aware of what is at stake, see the incompetence of the 'masters' of the current international monetary and financial system, and want to create their own mechanisms to ensure sustainable development, which will be protected from outside dictates.
It is in this direction that the initiatives that have been voiced recently... about the need to think about creating our own currencies within the framework of BRICS", he had explained.
We all know that Russia had been ousted from Swift, the international payment system used by thousands of financial institutions. Simply put, the Dollar was weaponized in order to hit the country's banking network and its access to funds via Swift, which is pivotal for the smooth transaction of money worldwide.
But it is not only Russia that was driven to de-dollarization. Brazil, China, India, Iran, Libya, North Korea, South Africa, Syria and Venezuela are all interested in de-dollarization, even if for different reasons. Taking the argument to a global level allows the consideration that the Ukraine conflict has indeed accelerated the movement away from the Dollar and prepared the way for the creation of an alternative or alternatives to the US currency.
For sure, we can expect to see the creation of a bipolar financial world where the USD is confronted with another system of exchange. Meaning, Australia, Canada, the EU, Israel, New Zealand and maybe a couple of other countries constitute along with the US one bloc that is separate from the rest of the world.
Of course, the US Dollar is unlikely to collapse any time soon as the major global currency – but I reiterate here again, the process of de-dollarization is already ongoing.
Many countries are aware that the undue hold of the American Dollar is making them powerless in exercising control over the macroeconomic processes. And the unbridled flow of Dollars is distorting many economies, sullying stock markets and national debts are making countries poorer.
Sure, the entire process will be gradual – but one cannot rule out black swan events and a faster rate of de-dollarization. What is clear is that we are in the midst of tectonic global geopolitical shifts that will have deep and lasting effects on international finance.
In any case, I am sure the world sans the US and its vassals, will, no doubt, welcome de-dollarization. It's part of the process of the remaking of a new world order.
Jack Daniel’s Whiskey have a bone to pick with a company, which they said are breaking federal trademark laws with dog toys that resemble their iconic whiskey bottle.
VIP Products LLC have a line of spoof products that lampoon famous brands (e.g. Mountain Drool, a parody of Mountain Dew, and Heini Sniff'n, a parody of Heineken). The rubber toy in question was modeled on and closely resembles the distinctive square bottle in which Jack Daniel’s have marketed their whiskey since the 19th century – with the same size and shape and a label with a similar shape and font.
The main difference is that instead of describing “Old No. 7 Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey” manufactured by “Jack Daniel’s”, the toy refers to a “Bad Spaniels” that makes “Old No. 2 on your Tennessee carpet”. Not only that but the "Bad Spaniels Silly Squeaker" toy reads "43% poo by volume" and "100% Smelly" while the bottle of liquor says "40% alcohol by volume".
Jack Daniel's are claiming the lookalike chew toy infringes on their trademark.
VIP Products LLC counter-argue that it is an obvious parody and should be protected as free speech.
The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in 2020 had ruled in favor of the toy company, saying that their toys are protected under the First Amendment, which prompted Jack Daniel's to seek further review from the Supreme Court.
"Freedom of speech begins with freedom to mock", insisted VIP Products, in court documents.
But Jack Daniel's said the joke is not funny.
The filing continued to say the Arizona toy company was profiting "from Jack Daniel's hard-earned goodwill" and confusing consumers, by getting them to "associate Jack Daniel's whiskey with excrement".
The case centers on the Lanham Act, which prohibits using a trademark that can cause customer confusion, and the US Constitution's First Amendment, which protects forms of parody and satire as necessary aspects of free speech.
"The Bad Spaniels Silly Squeaker toy is indisputably a good-faith (and successful) parody", wrote Bennett Cooper, an attorney representing VIP Products, in a court filing.
Major brands – such as Nike, Campbell Soup Company, Patagonia and Levi Strauss – have urged justices to side with Jack Daniel's.
And the Biden administration are also supporting Jack Daniel's claim, filing a brief that said First Amendment concerns do not override the Lanham Act, which protects trademarked brands from parodies that cause confusion. The brief also took issue with classifying the parody toy as a "non-commercial" expression, since it was a commercial product.
Meanwhile free speech advocates have filed briefs in support of VIP Products.
The Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday, and will likely issue their decision in June.
If you have been following Andrew Henderson (the Nomad Capitalist), he'll convince you that US banks are weaker than you think. In fact, he insists your money isn’t safe anymore.
Notwithstanding, a research paper posted on the Social Science Research Network on March 24, 2023 titled “Monetary Tightening and US Bank Fragility in 2023: Mark-to-Market Losses and Uninsured Depositor Runs?” had concluded that 186 banks in the US are at risk of failure due to rising interest rates and a high proportion of uninsured deposits.
The economists who conducted the study warned that these 186 banks are at risk without government intervention or recapitalization. The findings underscore the importance of careful risk management and diversification of funding sources for banks to ensure their stability in the face of market fluctuations.
In the meantime, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised that the country’s largest lender, Deutsche Bank, will not suffer the same fate as embattled Credit Suisse, after the bank’s shares fell by more than 14 percent on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on Friday morning trading before clawing back ground in the afternoon to trade 9.5 percent lower, at 8.43 euros ($9.07) a share.
Tumbling bank stocks dragged down markets across Europe on that same day with Germany’s Commerzbank down 7.5 percent, France’s Societe Generale off 5.9 percent and Austria’s Raiffaisen down 5.9 percent.
Deutsche Bank are one of 30 banks considered globally significant financial institutions, so international rules require them to hold higher levels of capital reserves because their failure could cause widespread losses.
Certainly, the banking sector is not out of the woods and US banks in particular are vulnerable.
If there’s anybody on the planet who should be arrested and tried for war crimes, it should be these two: Barack Obama (44th US President, 2009–2017) and George W Bush (43rd US President, 2001–2009).
And that is why I am so glad that US hegemony is ending.
In fact, I read today that “reckless militarization, sanctions against everyone, and military adventures around the world have already cost (the USA) almost $33 trillion”!
Oh yes, before I forget, please include their chump and yes-man, Tony Blair (UK Prime Minister, 1997-2007) too.
Imagine Malaysia having a national football team called Harimau Malaya, but there are hardly any Malayan tigers left in the country's forests.
This grim scenario is haunting the Youth and Sports Ministry and the Football Association of Malaysia.
And so, both the Ministry and FAM on Thursday announced they are collaborating on a Malayan Tiger conservation initiative – and will use football, via the national team – who are also known as Harimau Malaya – to save the Malayan tiger from extinction.
This is in support of efforts by the Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change, which spearhead the drive on biodiversity conservation.
Towards this goal, FAM are pledging one ringgit from every ticket sold for the national team's matches will go towards the Malayan Tiger conservation project.
FAM president Hamidin Amin said the Malayan tiger, which is an iconic Malaysian symbol, is facing extinction. Alarmingly, there are fewer than 150 Malayan tigers (Scientific name: Panthera tigris jacksoni) left in the wild.
"This is an important mission… Every time we go out to play and watch football, we contribute to the survival of every Malayan tiger".
Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh said: "Harimau Malaya is a symbol and sacred calling for the national football team. We don't want tigers to be a mere mascot or slogan one day and no longer roaming the forests.
If the species becomes extinct, the country’s sustainability soul would simply fade – and it would be meaningless for our national team to be still called Harimau Malaya”.
Thumbs up to the Youth and Sports Ministry and FAM!
Former US President Donald Trump getting gang-tackled by riot-gear-clad New York City police officers. Russian President Vladimir Putin behind the bars of a dimly lit concrete cell.
The highly detailed, sensational images have inundated Twitter and other platforms in recent days, amid news that Trump faces possible criminal charges and the International Criminal Court have issued an arrest warrant for Putin.
But neither visual is remotely real. The images – and scores of variations littering social media – were produced using increasingly sophisticated and widely accessible image generators powered by artificial intelligence.
You may also check out the news from India's Firstpost:
Misinformation experts warn the images are harbingers of a new reality: waves of fake photos and videos flooding social media after major news events and further muddying fact and fiction at crucial times for society.
“It does add noise during crisis events. It also increases the cynicism level”, said Jevin West, a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle who focuses on the spread of misinformation. “You start to lose trust in the system and the information that you are getting”.
While the ability to manipulate photos and create fake images isn’t new, AI image generator tools by Midjourney, DALL-E and others are easier to use. They can quickly generate realistic images – complete with detailed backgrounds – on a mass scale with little more than a simple text prompt from users.
Some of the latest images have been driven by this month’s release of a new version of Midjourney’s text-to-image synthesis model, which can, among other things, now produce convincing images mimicking the style of news agency photos.
In one widely-circulating Twitter thread, Eliot Higgins (right), founder of Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism collective, used the latest version of the tool to conjure up scores of dramatic images of Trump’s fictional arrest.
The visuals, which have been shared and liked tens of thousands of times, showed a crowd of uniformed officers grabbing the billionaire and violently pulling him down onto the pavement.
Higgins, who was also behind a set of images of Putin being arrested, put on trial and then imprisoned, says he posted the images with no ill intent. He even stated clearly in his Twitter thread that the images were AI-generated.
Still, the images were enough to get him locked out of the Midjourney server, according to Higgins. And the San Francisco, US-based independent research lab didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.
“The Trump arrest image was really just casually showing both how good and bad Midjourney was at rendering real scenes”, Higgins wrote in an email. “The images started to form a sort of narrative as I plugged in prompts to Midjourney, so I strung them along into a narrative, and decided to finish off the story”.
He pointed out the images are far from perfect: in some, Trump is seen, oddly, wearing a police utility belt. In others, faces and hands are clearly distorted.
But it’s not enough that users like Higgins clearly state in their posts that the images are AI-generated and solely for entertainment, says Shirin Anlen, media technologist at Witness, a New York-based human rights organization that focuses on visual evidence.
Too often, the visuals are quickly reshared by others without that crucial context, she said.
Indeed, an Instagram post sharing some of Higgins’ images of Trump as if they were genuine garnered more than 79,000 likes.
“You’re just seeing an image, and once you see something, you cannot unsee it”, Anlen said.
In another example, social media users shared a synthetic image supposedly capturing Putin kneeling and kissing the hand of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The image, which circulated as the Russian president welcomed Xi to the Kremlin this week, quickly became a crude meme.
It’s not clear who created the image or what tool they used, but some clues gave the forgery away. The heads and shoes of the two leaders were slightly distorted, for example, and the room’s interior didn’t match the room where the actual meeting took place.
Arthur Holland Michel, a fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York, USA who is focused on emerging technologies, said he worries the world isn’t ready for the impending deluge.
He wonders how deepfakes involving ordinary people – harmful fake pictures of an ex-partner or a colleague, for example – will be regulated.
“From a policy perspective, I’m not sure we’re prepared to deal with this scale of disinformation at every level of society”, Michel wrote in an email.
“My sense is that it’s going to take an as-yet-unimagined technical breakthrough to definitively put a stop to this”.
