Category: Uncategorized

United Nations envoy says consultations with Sudanese civil society groups to begin on Monday.

Israel would continue to act against Iran as it sees fit without any ‘limitations,’ PM Naftali Bennett has said

Tel Aviv is “concerned” about the potential outcome of the Vienna talks on the Iranian nuclear program that might be unfavorable to Israel, the prime minister has said, adding that its military would still act as they see fit. 

“Israel is not part of the agreements,” Bennett told the Israeli parliament’s powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday. Tel Aviv “is not bound by what is written in the agreements if they are signed,” he added.

The prime minister maintained that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will do whatever is deemed necessary to ensure Israel’s security. It will also make sure to retain “full freedom of operation in any place and at any time, with no limitations,” Bennett said. 

Still, he admitted that “in terms of “the Vienna talks, the nuclear talks, we are indeed concerned.” According to the Israeli media, Tel Aviv fears that the talks might end up in a deal that it would deem unacceptable or no agreement at all. 

Read more

Israel doesn’t need US permission to strike Iran – FM

The Times of Israel also reported that the IDF was “working intensively” to prepare a potential military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites in case of such an outcome. It did not cite any sources or data to justify this claim, though. Similar reports surfaced in the Israeli media in October 2021 when IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi reportedly ordered the nation’s air force to “intensely” drill for a potential strike. 

On Monday, Bennett also said that the IDF was in the process of its largest rearming in years. The 2022 defense budget amounted to $19.2 billion, with a significant part of it allegedly dedicated to a potential military engagement against Iran, the Israeli media reported. 

“We are investing in security rearmament of the IDF and the entire defense establishment. I would say this was rearmament that we haven’t seen for years. This rearmament is important to our survival,” Bennett said. 

Tehran previously dismissed Israel’s claims as “empty threats,” but vowed a harsh response in the case of an attack. 

Talks on the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which de-facto crumbled after the US unilaterally withdrew from it under former president Donald Trump, have been ongoing at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters in Vienna. In late December, Iran said that the talks, which have been repeatedly paused for various reasons, were making “satisfactory progress.”

The car firm’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ software allows vehicles to drive with varying degrees of assertiveness on the road

Tesla is inching further toward handing full self-driving power to its cars, with software that can run in three modes, from “chill” to “assertive.” The latter allows a “smaller follow distance” and “may perform rolling stops.”

The three presets for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta software, presumably designed to match an individual driver’s preferred means of navigating traffic, run the gamut from timid to bold.

Engaging the “assertive” driving mode enables one’s vehicle to follow other cars more closely, increases its likelihood of changing speed lanes and staying in passing lanes, and means it “may perform rolling stops,” according to its official description. Some drivers are concerned this means vehicles won’t stop at stop signs, and it’s unclear how following “closely” will affect vehicles’ performance in inclement weather or heavy traffic situations.

Read more

Tesla Bots could become companions with ‘unique’ personalities, Musk says

“Average” mode gives the car a “medium follow distance,” though notes it may also “perform rolling stops,” while Teslas operating in “chill” mode give the vehicle in front a wide berth and “perform fewer speed lane changes.”

While FSD is still in beta, a Tesla equipped with the technology was recently involved in a crash, with the driver-assist feature engaged. The incident took place in November, and while no humans were injured in the crash, the Model Y Tesla involved reportedly sustained severe damage on the driver side.

Despite the name, FSD is not actually an autonomous AI driving system, and drivers are supposed to remain engaged with the vehicle, watching the road and touching the steering wheel. Wider rollout has required the driver to receive a high “Safety Score,” as judged by a five-point evaluation system that Tesla uses to estimate “the likelihood that your driving could result in a future collision.” The system has aroused the attention of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The US government also recently opened an investigation into Autopilot-enabled Teslas crashing into parked emergency vehicles, a problem shared by other driver-assist programs that are trained not to react to stationary objects, lest they balk at every building or sidewalk obstacle the car senses.

Tesla announced last week that it would be raising the price of its FSD software to $12,000 from $10,000, effective January 17 for US customers only. Monthly subscription prices are also supposed to increase as the software, currently in beta, approaches wide release, even though CEO Elon Musk has acknowledged there is no expectation that vehicles thus equipped will be able to fully “self-drive” – beyond maybe “from one’s house to work, most likely without interventions.”

Supermarket brand Morrisons claims the ‘bold’ move will reduce milk wastage

British supermarket chain Morrisons has been criticized over its decision to remove ‘use-by’ expiry dates on milk cartons – instead, asking customers to conduct a “sniff test” to check whether the dairy had gone bad.

Announcing the “bold step” over the weekend, the retailer said it will instead use ‘best before’ labels on about 90% of its brand milk packaging from the end of the month. The chain claimed the move will reduce milk wastage.

While the terms ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ are often used interchangeably, the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) notes on its website, that ‘best before’ labels relate to food quality while ‘use-by’ dates are a matter of food safety. By the FSA’s guidance, milk consumed after a ‘best before’ date is “safe” but its “flavor and texture might not be as good.”

The agency specifically warns consumers not to “trust the sniff test” to determine food quality since people “cannot see, smell or taste the bacteria that cause food poisoning.” Morrisons, however, said it will encourage shoppers to take a whiff to check.

I would be interested to see how many times you get to sniff test a four pint bottle of milk in Morrisons before you’re asked to leave. You won’t know it’s off until you come to use it back at home surely??

— Fuzzy Man (@Fuzzy_man74) January 10, 2022

The retailer told the BBC that its research had apparently shown that milk does not need to be labeled as a perishable food, but the FSA told the public broadcaster that the labels and dates printed on all food and drink need to be based on “robust evidence about the product concerned.”

Since “generations before us have always used the sniff test,” the chain’s senior milk buyer Ian Goode told media outlets that Morrisons “believe(s) we can too.” He described it as a “bold step” to ask “customers to decide whether their milk is still good to drink.”

READ MORE: Intelligence chief arrested over top-secret leaks

The move – which Morrisons claimed would save seven million pints (3.3 million liters) of its brand milk from being wasted annually – was praised by recycling charity Wrap. The non-profit said that some 490 million pints (232 million liters) of milk were wasted yearly in the UK – out of which an estimated 85 million pints (40 million liters) were apparently poured out due to ‘use by’ labels.

However, the majority of shoppers complained about the decision on social media, with several asking whether stores will let them smell the milk before purchase. Others pointed out that the company needed to “brainstorm again” since loss of taste and smell is a common Covid-19 symptom.

@Morrisons @MorrisonsNews Dispensing with the USE BY date on milk? Have you thought this through? People, regrettably and unfortunately, are having, both, their senses of TASTE and SMELL compromised and negated by COVID. What barometer will they use? Better brainstorm again!

— IanRW (@Square_Peg4u) January 10, 2022

Djokovic wins court case. Bitter, defeated Morrison considers nuclear option

***News Topic 688***
Djokovic reacts to ruling by making vow

Djokovic reacts to ruling by making vow

The controversial world number one has spoken out publicly for the first time since being freed by a court in Melbourne on Monday Novak Djokovic has issued a message about his devoted fans and shared a photo of himself for the first time since a court verdict on his visa row with the Australian government over his Covid vaccination status.

Hating on Novak has become a national sport

Hating on Novak has become a national sport | The Spectator Australia

The whole country is hating on Novak Djokovic right now because he had the courage to do what most of us did not – stand up for himself. Novak’s principled stance has only served to highlight the fact that millions of Australians have allowed themselves to be abused for the past two years.

Over the past week, the Western corporate media, in lockstep, has focused on fuel protests in Kazakhstan – protests which, in the space of several days, have rapidly escalated into nationwide violence which has so far seen the deaths of 18 Kazakh security services members, including two who were decapitated, and the deployment of the Russian-led CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organisation) military alliance into the former Soviet state, at the request of Nur-Sultan, in a bid to quell the ongoing violence.

Leaving aside the sudden coordinated focus by the Western media on the Republic in central Asia, a region rarely covered by the BBC, CNN, Sky et al, being perhaps the most obvious clue so far to indicate a CIA-orchestrated colour revolution, as well as the sudden use of extreme violence by ‘protesters’, a tactic used by agent provocateurs in previous colour revolutions in Syria and Ukraine, the motivation for Western-backed regime change in Kazakhstan should be clear.

With a 7,000km border being shared between Kazakhstan and Russia, the largest land border between Russia and any other country, and the second-largest land border in the world after the United States and Canada, should Kazakhstan fall into political instability amidst the current violence, it would only be a matter of time before the after effects of such destabilisation began to spill over from the central Asian Republic into its larger northern neighbour – indeed, the use of regime change in Kazakhstan as a means to destabilise Moscow is outlined as such in a May 2020 document published by influential neoconservative think tank, the RAND corporation.

The current regime-change attempt in Kazakhstan also comes at the convenient time of increased tensions in Eastern Europe, with Russia being accused of planning an imminent invasion of neighbouring Ukraine, and Belarusian President and key-Russian ally Alexander Lukashenko, himself the target of a Western-backed regime change attempt in August 2020, being accused of attempting to destabilise the European Union via a build-up of African and Middle Eastern migrants, many of whom are fleeing US-NATO led wars and regime change operations in the first place, on the Belarus-Poland border – timing which suggests the goal of the current attempt at a Kazakh colour revolution is to stretch Russia’s resources along its Western and Southern borders.

A noticeable feature of the Western mainstream media’s reaction to the current violence in Kazakhstan however, and one which again strongly suggests external influences at play, is the contrast in their response to genuine human rights protests currently taking place closer to home – protests currently taking place in numerous European countries against mandatory vaccination and the current attempt at establishing a global corporate dictatorship, in line with the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset initiative, and which have so far drawn a brutal, repressive response from the governments of said countries.

On the 2nd of January, the same day as the current disturbances in Kazakhstan began, Dutch police used baton charges and attack dogs against participants of a prohibited anti-lockdown march in Amsterdam, less than seven weeks after police opened fire on anti-lockdown protesters in Rotterdam.

Two days later, similar scenes of violence erupted at anti-lockdown marches in Germany, protests which, in a similar vein to the Netherlands, were also prohibited under German law, and which saw the detainment and arrest of protesters by German police. These demonstrations also came in the same week in which French President Emmanuel Macron made a clear attempt to divide French society amongst those who have chosen to take the COVID-19 vaccine and those who haven’t, with his vow to ‘piss off’ the latter group.

Despite this attempt to dehumanise an entire segment of the French population, and the violence employed by Dutch and German authorities against human rights protesters in their respective countries, there has been virtually no criticism of Macron, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte or German Chancellor Olaf Scholz by the corporate media in relation to the current protests against lockdown measures and mandatory vaccination taking place in Europe – in stark contrast to their coverage of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s vow to crack down on the agent provocateurs currently vying to impose a Maidan-style colour revolution on his country via the use of extreme violence, a media stance which amidst the current wider geopolitical context, will only serve to further increase tensions between Russia and the West.

The men’s world number 1 says he wants to compete in next week’s tournament after a court overturned his visa cancellation.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he will put thousands more police on the streets, at a time when the main challengers to him winning re-election say he has let the French down on security.

Morocco take on Ghana in one of the most hotly anticipated opening matches of the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) in Cameroon, at 5 pm local time (GMT+1). Follow the action on FRANCE 24’s liveblog.

Senagal, one of the favourites to take the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) trophy, disappointed in the first match of the tournament against Zimbabwe, after positive Covid tests took some of their biggest stars out of action. But a moment of drama at the last minute saved them, as a clinical penalty finish in injury time from their talisman Sadio Mané saw the Teranga Lions prevail.