● 07.25.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 25/07/2023: Shotwell 0.32.2 and More Akademy 2023 Reports

Posted in News Roundup at 3:50 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

• We cover user groups that are running in Montenegro. This article forms part of our Linux Around The World series.

Audiocasts/Shows

• A simple GUI for browsing SQLite databases, a terminal IRC client, some great Python resources, a clone of Task Manager for Linux, decoding data from random satellites, and a slick Mastodon client.

Applications

• Inkscape, the popular free open source vector graphics editor, announced the 1.3 stable release few days ago! Here’s how to install it in all current Ubuntu releases.

• Inkscape 1.3 features include…

• Qusly is a new FTP client for Windows, macOS, & Linux Desktops, It’s built with React/ NodeJS and uses Electron to built multi-platform packages. Qusly supports FTP, FTPS (FTP over SSL), & SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol).

• GnuCash is personal and small-business financial-accounting software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL and available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

• There is a new application available for Sparkers: Teams for Linux What is Teams for Linux? Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux using Electron. It uses the Web App and wraps it as a standalone application using Electron.

• Cross-platform desktop GUI app to clean image metadata

• FBReader is a popular eBook reader that supports many eBook formats such as EPUB, Mobi, ETF, and fb2.

• RSS Guard is a simple RSS/ATOM feed reader for Windows, Linux, BSD, OS/2 or macOS which can work with RSS/ATOM/JSON feeds as well as many online feed services: [...]

Instructionals/Technical

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Fail2ban on Debian 12. For those of you who didn’t know, Fail2ban acts as a vigilant gatekeeper, analyzing log files for patterns indicative of malicious activity.

• This tutorial will guide you on how to install and configure the latest version AbanteCart platform in Debian release, in order to create a free online shopping store.

• In this guide, we will show you how to install and configure the latest version of the phpBB3 platform on Debian 11 to create a free online forum website.

• Have you heard about RAM – Random Access Memory?

• Am I using X11 (Xorg) or Wayland? Here is how to check for Wayland or Xorg (X11) Linux desktops using the CLI and GUI options.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Kdenlive on Fedora 38. Kdenlive is a feature-rich, open-source video editing software that has gained popularity among content creators. If you’re a Fedora 38 user and eager to harness Kdenlive’s potential, you’re in the right place.

• Inkscape, an open-source vector graphics editor, provides a comprehensive toolkit for digitally illustrating your ideas. Vector graphics, distinguished by their ability to maintain high resolution regardless of scaling, are fundamental in web design, logo creation, and other graphical work.

• Grub Customizer is a powerful Linux tool celebrated for its versatility and user-friendly interface. It’s specifically designed to manage the GRUB bootloader, an area often intimidating to newcomers.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Sublime Text on Debian 12.

• Introduction Calculating percentages by group is a common task in data analysis. It allows you to understand the distribution of data within different categories.

• NTP, or Network Time Protocol, is a networking protocol for time and clock synchronization on the computer network. In the following guide, I will show you how to install Chrony on an AlmaLinux 9 server. We will install Chrony as an NTP server and NTP client. Furthermore, you will also learn how to use the chronyc command line for managing and monitoring Chrony.

• Being a Linux user, you might face a situation where you require to search for multiple files having different extensions.

• Kanboard is a lightweight kanban project tracker that you can host on your own server. Unlike other kanban trackers, it aims to create a simple and intuitive interface that you can access from anywhere.

• This article will show you how you can install Kanboard in Ubuntu 22.04. It will also highlight the process of extending Kanboard using community plugins.

• One of the biggest advantages of Kanboard is that it can work on almost any server through the magic of Docker. As a result, hosting Kanboard is both painless and easy even for non-technical users.

• So you tried running pip command on Arch Linux, and you got the error “bash: pip: command not found” on the terminal?

• This error happens because python package index (pip) it’s not installed on your system.

• In this tutorial, you will learn how to install fedora workstation on your computer. Fedora workstation is a very stable and reliable linux distro that you can use for anything.

• Firewalld stands as a pivotal shield in network security, serving as a dynamic firewall manager on Linux operating systems, notably Fedora. It provides a secure, robust framework for managing network traffic, offering an extra layer of defense against unauthorized access and potential cyber threats.

• Neovim, an open-source project, is a modern reinvention of the classic Vim text editor, expanding its potential with new features, easier usability, and a powerful plugin architecture.

• Texmaker, a celebrated LaTeX editor, has gained popularity among tech enthusiasts for its intuitive design and robust capabilities. This open-source platform offers a user-friendly interface for creating scientific documents, setting it apart in a competitive market.

• The digital landscape of Linux-based systems offers an array of desktop environments, each with its unique blend of aesthetics, functionality, and resource utilization. Among these, Xfce and GNOME have carved out a substantial niche in the hearts of users.

• One tool is uniquely impactful in PHP development, turning many a developer’s headache into a breeze: PHP Composer. This powerful, highly-efficient dependency management system elegantly streamlines the handling of PHP packages, providing a robust structure for your web development projects.

• thc-hydra is A very fast network logon cracker with a dictionary attack tool that supports many different services.

• Fonts play a significant role in giving your documents a personalized touch and enhancing their overall appearance. This easy-to-follow guide will walk you through the steps to install fonts on your favourite office suites, whether you’re using Windows, Linux, or macOS.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• Akademy started with two days full of talks on Saturday and Sunday and I have to say sometimes it was hard to choose between the two parallel tracks. Overall it provided a nice mixture between what happens in the community, learning how people solved problems and learning from them (for example Ingo fixing accessibility in Kleopatra) and insight into new technologies (I had never heard of Slint before). Apart from the two standout keynotes about Kdenlive and the Libre Space Foundation I want to highlight Joseph’s talk about Internal Communication at KDE which it turns out also projects outwards for example to new potential contributors. The talk itself was well structured and presented and had engaged with the audience nicely as well.

• This year I did not submit a talk myself but stood in for Albert for an update about what’s happening in the KDE Free Qt Foundation and in the KDE e.V. KDE Free Qt Working Group during the KDE e.V. Working Group reports. since he had a talk at the same time in the other room.

• Akademy is KDE’s annual event where the community comes together in one place to meet in person, share ideas and hack on common projects.

• This year’s Akademy was held in Thessaloniki, Greece and started on July 15th and ran until July 21st. This year 150 people attended Akademy in person, and 220 tuned in online to attend chats and BoFs over video conference.

• The first weekend of Akademy, as is tradition, was dedicated to talks, panels and fireside chats. The sessions, which were streamed live to the whole world, covered a wide variety of KDE-related topics, ranging from the hot topic of the road to Plasma 6, to how to hack off-the-shelf solar panels, and many things in between.

• Some time ago I bought a car. Anyway, it’s all-electric, and also the first car I’ve ever owned in over 35 years of holding a driver’s license. To give this a bit of a KDE spin, after Akademy in Greece I stuck a week of vacation on to it and rented a car. An ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) one, which felt backwards and weird. It is entirely a practical consideration, though.

• From my house in the Netherlands, in a small town of 12 thousand people, there are 7 charger poles (2 spots each) within 300m. Only two are particularly convenient to reach, but there’s always something available. I haven’t even bothered to count the total in town – lots.

• Akademy, KDE’s annual conference, recently took place in Thessaloniki, Greece. Lots of people were super excited about the prospect of getting GUI Testing off the ground based on the Selenium tech I built last year. Since KDE produces cross-platform applications an obvious question arose though…

GNOME Desktop/GTK

• The Shotwell photo manager and viewer got a new point release few days ago. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 22.04 and 23.04. The new Shotwell 0.32.2 added .hif file format support.

Distributions and Operating Systems

Gentoo Family

• Hi! This (and last week) I’ve spent my time polishing the LLVM/Clang crossdev work. I have also created ebuilds for llvm-libc, libc-hdrgen and also the SCUDO allocator. But I will probably bake SCUDO into the llvm-libc ebuild instead actually.

• One thing I have also made is a cross eclass that handles cross compilation, instead of having the same logic copy-pasted in all ebuilds. To differentiate a “normal” crossdev package and LLVM/Clang crossdev I decided to use “cross_llvm-${CTARGET}” as package category name. This is necessary since you need some way to tell the ebuild about using LLVM for cross. My initial idea was to handle all this in the crossdev script, but crossdev ebuilds are self-contained, and you can do something like “emerge cross_llvm-gentoo-linux-llvm/llvm-libc” and it will do the right thing without running emerge from crossdev. Hence I need to handle cross compilation in the ebuilds themselves, using the eclass. Me and sam are not sure if a new eclass is the right thing to do but I will continue with it until I get some more thoughts as we can just inline everything later without wasting any work.

• I feel pretty much done now except for baking SCUDO directly into the llvm-libc ebuild. Actually it is very simple to do but I got some issues with libstdc++ when using llvm/ as root source directory for the libc build, which is necessary to use when compiling SCUDO. Previously I used runtimes/ as root directory, and that worked without issue. Currently to work around this you can just compile the source files in llvm-project/compiler-rt/lib/scudo/standalone and append the object files into libc.a. LLVM libc then just works with crossdev and you can compile things with the emerge wrapper as usual, but currently a lot of autotools things break due to me not having specified gnuconfig for llvm-libc yet.

• Hi! This week I have been working on LLVM/Clang support for Crossdev. This is currently done by swapping out the different Crossdev stages for ones that make sense for LLVM.

• Currently it replaces stage0 with checking whether LLVM can target the target triple’s architecture by checking the LLVM_TARGETS USE-flag.

• Stage1, which normally installs libc headers and compiles a -stage1 C compiler is replaced by installing libc headers and compiling

• Stage2 (kernel headers), is the same.

• Stage3 (libc install), is the same.

• Stage4, which compiles a full compiler is skipped completely.

Fedora Family / IBM

• His post was prompted by Red Hat’s decision on 21 June to announce that from that day onwards, only those who bought RHEL licences from the company would have access to the distribution’s source code.

• {loadposition sam08}As background, a project named CentOS was distributing RHEL without Red Hat’s trademarks — the only proprietary bits — until Red Hat bought the project and took it in-house in 2014.

• The saga continues.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• While the Linux 6.5 kernel is yet to be released yet, the stars (or rather the release calendars) have aligned to make its inclusion in the “Mantic Minotaur” a dead-cert. Current daily builds of Ubuntu 23.10 include the Linux 6.3 kernel.

• Linux 6.5 is due for release in mid to late August. Ubuntu 23.10’s kernel freeze takes effect on September 28. And the final stable release of Ubuntu 23.10 goes live on October 12. Development of Linux 6.6 will be underway by this point but it won’t be “ready” enough to squeak in.

• But that’s not a bad thing: Linux 6.5 (naturally) offers a ton of improvements, enablements, enhancements, etc — especially when compared to the Linux 6.2 kernel Ubuntu 23.04 ships with.

• Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 797 for the week of July 16 – 22, 2023. The full version of this issue is available here.

Devices/Embedded

• The similarities between these boards are striking. All have 4 cores and all except the HiFive board have 8GB of RAM (HiFive Unmatched has 16GB). All have some kind of flash-based storage: The Raspberry Pi and Sipeed Lichee are using external SanDisk SSDs connected by USB 3. The HiFive Unmatched and VisionFive 2 have NVMe drives (I hope all SBCs provide an NVMe slot going forward).

• Since I mainly use these for compiling Fedora packages, I tested compiling qemu using identical configurations. I built it a few times to warm up and then timed the last build, on otherwise unloaded machines. Here are the results…

Open Hardware/Modding

• _G4M3R_ has put together a sweet ADS-B receiver in their attic to track nearby airplanes using our favorite SBC, the Raspberry Pi.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers/Web Servers

• Wayland, a modern protocol for communication between the display server and the clients, is now the default for many mainstream Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.). One of the problems you might face is the text on webpages in Firefox/Chrome are a little blurry.

• The problem lies with some settings in your browser. Your Linux distribution is not at fault, or rather the Wayland.

• So, if you face this, here’s how to fix it.

FSF

Programming/Development

• Go, often referred to as GoLang, is an open-source programming language created by Google. It was designed by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson and first introduced in 2009.

Python

• In Python, the “DataFrame.to_dict()” method of the “pandas” module is used to convert the specified Pandas DataFrame to Dictionary.

• The “DataFrame.set_index()” method is used to set the single or multiple existing columns as the index of the Pandas DataFrame.

• The “random.randint()”, “essential-generators”, “random.choice()”, and “secret.choice()” methods are used to generate random sentences in Python.

Leftovers

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• We still don’t know how the pandemic started. Here’s what we do know — and why it matters.

• Idaho resident Gabriel Rench was awarded a hefty settlement for his 2020 arrest during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Registered Republicans experienced a “significantly higher” rate of excess deaths than Democrats in Florida and Ohio in the months after COVID-19 vaccines were made widely available, a new study has found.

• Why it matters: The Yale researchers note in their study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine Monday, the findings “suggest that well-documented differences in vaccination attitudes and reported uptake between Republican and Democratic voters may have been a factor in the severity and trajectory of the pandemic.”

Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Three vulnerabilities have been discovered within the Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) service – a proprietary messaging protocol designed to enable secure communication between applications running on separate computers.

• FortiGuard Labs, the cybersecurity research arm of Fortinet, described the flaws in an advisory published on Monday.

• The first of them resulted from a lack of proper validation in the message header parser routine. Attackers could exploit this flaw to trigger an out-of-bounds read, potentially causing denial-of-service attacks by accessing invalid memory addresses.

• In yet another Microsoft 365 outage this year, enterprise users faced disruptions in their OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online applications on Monday night.

Security

• We have published Qubes Security Bulletin 090: Zenbleed (CVE-2023-20593, XSA-433). The text of this QSB and its accompanying cryptographic signatures are reproduced below. For an explanation of this announcement and instructions for authenticating this QSB, please see the end of this announcement.

• An Ivanti EPMM product zero-day vulnerability tracked as CVE-2023-35078 has been exploited in an attack aimed at the Norwegian government.

• /blockquote>

• 100% key capture rate and successful ransomware decryption shows progress in ransomware defense capabilities.

• Experts believe the Cl0p ransomware gang could earn as much as $100 million from the MOVEit hack, with the number of confirmed victims approaching 400.

• Over 20,000 appliances are vulnerable to a new exploit technique targeting a recent Citrix ADC zero-day vulnerability CVE-2023-3519.

• Atlassian patches high-severity remote code execution vulnerabilities in Confluence and Bamboo products.

• Linux security is anything but stagnant. It’s no secret that cybercriminals are exploiting the growing popularity of the OS and the high-value servers and devices it powers worldwide with new and evolving attacks such as malware and rootkits. Despite the reputation Linux has earned of being an exceptionally secure and stable OS , Linux malware is on the rise, and the number of new Linux malware variants reached a record high in the first half of 2022 , as researchers discovered nearly 1.7 million samples during this period.

• A new kernel module rootkit malware was released recently on GitHub, dubbed Reptile. It’s an open-source rootkit that has the ability to hide itself, other malicious codes, files, directories, and network traffic.

• Cybersecurity firm Perimeter81 appears to have botched the responsible disclosure process for a privilege escalation vulnerability found in its macOS application.

• This story was originally published in my weekly newsletter on Friday July 21, 2023. You can sign up for my newsletter here.  This week, the Biden administration shared its plans for a label for consumer connected devices that would indicate a device had passed certain cybersecurity criteria.

• As any system administrator knows, effectively monitoring your IT infrastructure is crucial to ensure smooth operation. Nagios is a highly regarded, open-source software that provides comprehensive monitoring of systems, networks, and infrastructure. With Nagios, you can keep track of server performance, spot potential issues before they become major problems, and even automate fixes for common issues.

• A headless server, as the name suggests, is a server that is operated without a monitor, keyboard, or mouse. These servers are typically managed remotely, making them an efficient and cost-effective choice for businesses, developers, and home users alike. Whether you’re setting up a web server, a file server, or a game server, a headless Linux server can be a powerful tool.

• In a world of increasing online surveillance and data breaches, maintaining privacy on the internet is paramount. That’s where Tor Browser comes into play. As an open-source browser, Tor allows you to browse the internet anonymously, protecting your online identity and sensitive data. By routing your connection through several servers, it shields your online activity from prying eyes, making it a top choice for those concerned with privacy and security.

• ONLYOFFICE Docs is an open-source office suite that comprises collaborative editors for text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and digital forms, along with a PDF viewer and converter. In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to connect the instances of ONLYOFFICE Docs and Odoo using an integration app.

• In this guide, I explain how to set up a bash script that can be run at login on Ubuntu. It automatically checks for any new updates and installs them to make sure you’re running the latest software.

• In this How to Make Tech Work tutorial, Jack Wallen shows how to add another layer of security to your Linux machines with just two files.

• In this How to Make Tech Work tutorial, Jack Wallen shows how to add another layer of security to your Linux machines with just two files.

Privacy/Surveillance

• Move over, fake IDs: Biometric systems that can “read” a person’s face or palm image and determine if they’re too young for a beer are gaining traction at sports stadiums and liquor shops.

Defence/Aggression

• If global interest in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) started to rise after their armed deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan, the massive – and effective – use of drones in Nagorno-Karabakh, Syria, Libya and especially Ukraine are pushing world’s powers to invest even more in new technologies and aircraft.

• In an interview with FRANCE 24, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba condemned Russia’s recent strikes on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports in the wake of Moscow’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative. “Russia’s objective is to provoke the increase of [a] global food crisis, export its own grain without any hindrances and make as much money as they can,” Kuleba said. “But the people of Ukraine and Africa are paying the price.” He added: “Russia will fill its pockets to fund [its] war machine, at the expense of Africa”.

War in Ukraine

• Last week Western leaders started voicing their frustration with the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The frustration is rooted in Ukraine not using “combined arms” tactics on the battlefield. This means integrating infantry, armored vehicles, and artillery. Basically, their complaint is that Ukraine isn’t going hard enough.

• In a rare public display of division and lost tempers, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Western partners exchanged expressions of frustration with each other at the recent NATO summit in Vilnius Lithuania.

• International attention is currently focused on the physical reconstruction of postwar Ukraine’s devastated infrastructure, but rebuilding the country’s democratic institutions will be just as important, writes Oleksii Antoniuk.

• Ukraine’s underground gas storage facilities are the largest in Europe and offer considerable untapped opportunities to enhance the continent’s energy security, writes Sergiy Makogon.

• Russia launched its sixth air attack this month on Kyiv early on Tuesday, the military administration of the Ukrainian capital said, a day after Russia warned of “tough retaliatory measures” after a drone attack on Moscow. And the UN’s nuclear watchdog said it had found anti-personnel mines in an area of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

• UNESCO released a statement Sunday condemning Russian strikes on Odesa, Ukraine, which allegedly damaged several World Heritage Sites, including the first Orthodox Christian church built in Odesa, the Transfiguration Cathedral. Ukraine is home to eight locations on the World Heritage List.

• A recent statement by Audrius Valotka, head of Lithuania’s State Language Inspectorate, on Polish signs in Vilnius District has provoked outrage from Polish Ambassador to Lithuania Konstanty Radziwiłł, LRT RADIO reports.

• Fresh from a recent trip to Ukraine, veteran anti-war activist Medea Benjamin speaks on the Biden administration’s controversial move to send cluster munitions to the country and more in this revealing interview with Alan Macleod.

• European Union agriculture ministers met on July 25 to discuss ways of moving grain vital to global food security out of Ukraine after Russia halted a deal that allowed the exports.

• Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found antipersonnel mines planted “on the periphery” of the territory of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is under Russian military occupation, the UN nuclear watchdog said.

• Russia launched a new wave of drone strikes on Kyiv, officials said, and Moscow said it warded off a Ukrainian attack on one if its patrol boats in the Black Sea amid reports that the United States will announce a new military aid package to Ukraine worth some $400 million.

• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Moscow on July 24 to restart the grain deal brokered by the world body, which allows shipments to be made from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports hours after reports said Russian drones had struck a key Danube River export route.

• The Foreign Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova described the drone attack against Moscow as an act of international terrorism.

• Can a progressive cardinal—who’s seen as a possible future Pope—help bring an end to the war in Ukraine?

• The attack on a grain hangar on the Danube River, an alternative export route that has become an economic lifeline, complicates Ukraine’s efforts to export its grain.

• Russian authorities accused Ukraine of launching drone strikes in Moscow and Crimea on Monday, even as Russian attacks on Ukraine continued.

• Driving the news: Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote in a Telegram post that Ukrainian drones struck two non-residential buildings in Moscow, though no casualties or serious damage was reported.

• Two buildings were hit but there were no reports of casualties. Video verified by The New York Times shows smoke and damage to several buildings.

• Some of the “Wagner” group went to Latvia’s neighboring country, Belarus, following the uprising in Russia at the end of June. The Latvian Ministry of Defense (AM) stresses that there is currently no military threat to Latvia and, even if it would arise, the services are more than prepared, Latvian Television reported on July 24.

• A grueling obstacle course, a few miles from the fighting with Russia, is a final step in the initiation for Ukrainian marines.

• Lithuania’s preparedness for possible threats is adequate for the current situation, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said following the arrival of fighters from the Russian mercenary group Wagner in Belarus last week.

• Lithuania’s State Defence Council on Monday instructed the country’s government to reach an agreement with Latvia and Estonia on the synchronisation of the Baltic electricity grids with Western Europe and their disconnection from Russia’s BRELL system in early 2025.

• Russia’s Investigative Committee has filed final charges against Darya Trepova, who is suspected of involvement in the April killing of Vladlen Tatarsky, the pen name of prominent pro-Kremlin blogger Maksim Fomin.

• A drone attack on a port near Romania signaled that Moscow, after pulling out of a deal enabling Ukraine to ship grain via the Black Sea, is targeting alternate export routes.

• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu will visit North Korea for Korean War armistice anniversary celebrations, Pyongyang’s state media said on July 25, a sign it appears to be reopening its borders to high-level visitors after a lengthy pandemic closure.

• The assault, across the river from Romania, heightened the risk of a more direct confrontation with a NATO member and came on the same day that drones struck buildings in Moscow.

• Russia continues to fight in Ukraine according to its doctrine, but now, it no longer has the reserves to maintain its defensive lines. This is not the only problem facing the Kremlin, and it is becoming more and more difficult for the regime to find a balance in critical situations, Riley Bailey, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), says in an interview with LRT.lt.

• In a joint letter on Monday, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, Transport and Communications Minister Marius Skuodis, and Agriculture Minister Kęstutis Navickas called on the European Commission to strengthen Ukraine’s alternative grain export route through the Baltic states.

• Russia and the countries taking part in this week’s Russia-Africa summit will discuss Moscow’s grain and fertilizers exports, Oleg Ozerov, ambassador at large at the Russian Foreign Ministry, told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency on July 25.

• The United States imposed sanctions on three Malian officials “who have worked closely” with the Russian Wagner mercenary group to facilitate and expand the group’s presence in Mali since December 2021, the State Department said on July 24.

• Thousands of Russia-linked Wagner group mercenaries have arrived in Belarus since the group’s short-lived rebellion, a military monitoring group said on July 24.

• A Moscow court sentenced three men to lengthy prison terms on July 24 for “plotting an arson attack on a local military conscription center” in the northwestern city of Vyborg last year.

• The foreign ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia will meet in Moscow on July 25 for separate and trilateral talks amid heightened tensions over the situation on the Lachin Corridor, the only road linking Armenia with Azerbaijan’s breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law raising the maximum age of people in the military reserves by five years.

• Moscow will continue “vigorous efforts to organize supplies to Africa of grain, food, fertilizers, and other goods.”

• The exhibition is dedicated to the 105th anniversary of the birth of the great African politician.

• More than 700 Russians who own property in Finland have signed a petition calling for an easing of entry restrictions.

• A Russian bombing campaign launched with Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal has targeted Odesa’s port and grain silos. But it has also targeted the city’s culture and heart. Odesans are unbowed.

• The law, part of a broader L.G.B.T.Q. crackdown, includes a ban on transition surgery.

• Pyongyang will mark 70 years since the signing of the armistice, known as Victory Day in North Korea.

Environment

• The heat wave roasting much of the U.S. for weeks is expanding its reach to the Great Basin, parts of the Rockies, and will eventually extend eastward across the Plains, Midwest and East Coast by the end of the week.

Finance

• Microsoft reduced its head count by 1,000 jobs over the past week

• The west London store has closed down along with two other Amazon Fresh stores in the capital.

• For decades, the lure of careers within the tech sector has attracted some of the world’s brightest minds. Tech companies historically set the “gold standard” for top workplaces, as employees sought leaders’ cutting-edge vision and the chance to build revolutionary technology. Beyond earning a reputation as a people-first industry, tech also seemed relatively immune from reorganization cycles. However, widespread layoffs have triggered a jolt across the sector and a reckoning among leaders.

• Just seven stocks – Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Nvidia (NVDA), Tesla (TSLA) and Meta Platforms (META) – make up close to $11 trillion in market value and contributed about 75% of returns of the S&P 500 in the first half of 2023, according to a recent Bank of America report.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Elon Musk‘s bet-the-house, against-the-odds gamble on Twitter is about to get substantially riskier — with exponentially higher stakes.

• Why it matters: Musk is obsessed with killing the Twitter name, and transforming the platform into a merger of a moneyless marketplace + public square + video content factory — his everything vision for an everything app.

• Reach half-year results hit by falling page views and lower online ad yields.

• Out with the old corruption and in with fresh scandals.

• This is the second delay of García Luna’s sentencing for drug trafficking charges; his defense has requested time to review new evidence.

• Plus: court strikes down Arizona law against filming cops, GOP candidates want to cut Social Security for young people, and more…

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

• While recent evolutions in “AI” have netted some profoundly interesting advancements in creativity and productivity, its early implementation in journalism has been a sloppy mess thanks to some decidedly human-based problems: namely greed and laziness.

Censorship/Free Speech

• In his article, Zaki referred to the marginalization suffered by the Christian minority to which he belongs. Copts represent 10 percent of the Egyptian population.

• Travis Scott faces potential cancellation of his planned performance at the Pyramids of Giza after Egypt’s Musicians’ Syndicate revoked a permit for the concert.

• One of the presidential pardons came just a day after a graduate student was sentenced to three years for writing an article critical of the government.

• A Russian court found “Team Navalny” member Vadim Ostanin guilty of ‘participation in an extremist community’ and sentenced him to 9 years in prison on Monday. Ostanin was a member of “Team Navalny”, an activist organization associated with Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Team Navalny announced Ostanin’s sentence on their Twitter page.

• Prosecutors in the United Arab Emirates have ordered the arrest of a man for filming an “arrogant” TikTok video in a luxury car showroom. The video showed an Asian man in Emirati dress accompanied by assistants carrying large sums of cash. The man tosses money at employees and mocks a Ferrari SF90, with a price…

Civil Rights/Policing

• According to the new report from the European Commission, Hungary made only has made slight progress on the rule of law. While some progress has been made in a few areas, such as judicial reforms, the Commission listed several shortcomings in its annual report on the rule of law in member states. ]

• The report shows that on average, Member States have implemented 65% of the Commission’s recommendations. Hungary has taken some of them on board, but far from 65%. The Hungarian government and parliament have taken on board and implemented the recommendation to strengthen the role of the National Council for the Judiciary, abolish the appointment of judges outside the ordinary procedure, tighten the criteria for eligibility for the post of President of the Curia and strengthen the powers of control of the judiciary over the President of the Curia.

• The Department of Justice sued Texas on Monday over a string of buoys deployed by the state on the Rio Grande River to prevent people from illegally crossing into the U.S. from Mexico, saying it violates federal environmental law and threatens public safety.

• Why it matters: In addition to the floating barrier, Texas has set up miles of razor wire barriers along crossing points on the river near Eagle Pass.

• Immigration to the country was on the decline as Russians made up the largest immigrating group.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

• Spotify (SPOT) shares dropped more than 5% on Monday after announcing plans to raise its premium subscription prices to follow competitors like Apple Music and YouTube Music.

• After months of speculation – as well as price increases from Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal, and YouTube Music – Spotify has officially bumped the cost of individual subscriptions to $10.99 per month in the U.S. >

• Spotify Technology on Monday raised prices for its premium plans across several countries including the United States and United Kingdom, as the music-streaming company looks to boost profitability in an uncertain economy.

Monopolies

• There have been a bunch of attempts over the last few years to try to get around Section 230, and to sue various websites under a “negligence” theory under the law, arguing that the online service was somehow negligent in failing to protect a user, and therefore Section 230 shouldn’t apply. Some cases have been successful, though in a limited way. Many of the cases have failed spectacularly, as the underlying arguments often just don’t make much sense.

Copyrights

• Retail giant Hennes & Mauritz has sued its fast-growing rival Shein in a Hong Kong court for copyright infringement, the Swedish fashion juggernaut said Tuesday. Shein, founded in China in 2008, has swiftly claimed a top place in the global fast-fashion marketplace, offering low-priced collections attractive to young social media-savvy customers.

• According to a report published by the Ars Technica website, the software, known as Genesis, was demonstrated to the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

• {loadposition sam08}Presumably, the C-suite folks who were treated to this demo were salivating at the thought of cutting down the numbers and raising profits. Which would, no doubt, contribute to their own bonuses.

• Had Google been reported to have been trying to create software to write press releases — or even blog posts for security companies — one would have nothing to comment about. Spin, turgid spin, is what Google is best at.

• YouTube, one of Google’s properties, is a good example of this; some time back, the company stopped posting public numbers when one down-voted a video. Only the up-votes are shown. That is the exact opposite to a news report where the emperor is shown without his clothes. News reports are not nice, comfy compositions.

• Anyway, one thought the company would be the best source of information about its own ambitions. So I sent them an inquiry on the day this report ran, 21 July. Alas, the Chocolate Factory has not bothered to respond.

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• Up until quite recently, I thought that was her name, but no, “Blondie” is the name of the band, and her name is Debbie Harry. But I’m not the only one; she still is Blondie to many of us. She was a bombshell in 1978-79, perhaps at her peak then.

• Influencing numerous later animal tales told around the world, the 8th-century Arabic fables of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s *Kalīlah wa-Dimnah* also inspired a rich visual tradition of illustration: jackals on trial, airborne turtles, and unlikely alliances between species. Marina Warner follows these stories as they wander and change across time and place, celebrating their sharp political observation and stimulating mix of humour, earnesty, and melancholy.

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