The launch pad at Imam Khomeini Space Center southeast of Semnan, Iran on June 14, 2022. Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard on Saturday launched a new satellite-carrying rocket. (AP/File)
Iran’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard on Saturday launched a new satellite-carrying rocket, state TV reported, seeking to demonstrate the force’s space prowess even as anti-government protests rage across the country.
State TV said the Guard successfully launched the solid-fueled rocket — what it called a Ghaem-100 satellite carrier. Iranian state TV did not immediately show any footage of the launch. The state-run IRNA news agency reported that the carrier would be able to put a satellite weighing 80 kg (176 pounds) into orbit some 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Earth.
Gen. Amir Ali Hajjizadeh, the commander of the Guard’s aerospace division, said he hoped the Guard would soon use the rocket to put a new satellite, named Nahid, into orbit.
Iran says its satellite program, like its nuclear activities, is aimed at scientific research and other civilian applications. The US and other Western countries have long been suspicious of the program because the same technology can be used to develop long-range missiles.
The announcement came amid protests that have embroiled the country for seven weeks calling for overthrowing the clerical rule. Security forces, including paramilitary volunteers with the Revolutionary Guard, have violently cracked down on the demonstrations, killing some 300 people, according to rights groups.
Saturday's operation tested the first sub-orbital stage of the rocket, the reports added.
Iran, which has one of the biggest missile programmes in the Middle East, has had several failed satellite launches in the past few years, blamed on technical issues.
A U.N. resolution in 2015 called on Iran to refrain for up to eight years from work on ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons following an agreement with six world powers.
Iran says it has never pursued the development of nuclear weapons and, therefore, the resolution does not apply to its ballistic missiles, which Tehran had described as an important deterrent and retaliatory force.
Ilustrasi--Pohon tumbang di wilayah Jakarta Selatan. (Suara.com/Achmad Hafid Nurhabibi)
Badan Penanggulangan Bencana Daerah atau BPBD DKI Jakarta berkoordinasi dengan PLN dan Dinas Penanggulangan Kebakaran dan Penyelamatan (Gulkarmat) menangani pohon tumbang di 20 titik menimpa kabel listrik, rumah, dan kendaraan.
"Kami berkoordinasi dengan dengan Dinas Gulkarmat DKI dan PLN, juga dengan Suku Dinas Pertamanan Jakarta Selatan dan PPSU Kelurahan setempat untuk menangani pohon tumbang. Sampai saat ini beberapa titik masih dalam penanganan," kata Kepala Pelaksana BPBD DKI Jakarta Isnawa Adji dalam pesan singkatnya di Jakarta, hari Sabtu, 05/11/2022.
Isnawa menerangkan berdasarkan keterangan dari petugas Tim Reaksi Cepat (TRC) BPBD DKI Jakarta di wilayah Jakarta Selatan bahwa hingga 17:30 WIB, dari 20 titik lokasi pohon tumbang, sebanyak 11 titik pohon tumbang sudah selesai ditangani, sementara sembilan titik lainnya belum selesai ditangani.
Adapun data pohon tumbang yang belum selesai ditangani yakni:
Jalan Swadarma Raya No 2 Kel. Ulujami Kec. Pesanggrahan;
Komplek BIN, RT 11 RW 05, Kel. Pejaten Timur, Kec. Pasar Minggu;
Jalan Triloka XII Komplek AURI, RT 03 RW 04, Kel. Pancoran, Kec. Pancoran;
Twitter headquarters in San Francisco on Friday. (Jeff Chiu/AP)
Devastating cuts to Twitter’s workforce on Friday, four days before the midterm elections, are fueling anxieties among political campaigns and election offices that have counted on the social network’s staff to help them combat violent threats and viral lies.
The mass layoffs Friday gutted teams devoted to combating election misinformation, adding context to misleading tweets and communicating with journalists, public officials and campaign staff.
The layoffs included a number of people who were scheduled to be on call this weekend and early next week to monitor for signs of foreign disinformation, spam and other problematic content around the election, one former employee told The Washington Post. As of Friday morning, employee access to internal tools used for content moderation continued to be restricted, limiting staff’s ability to respond to misinformation.
Twitter had become one of America’s most influential platforms for spreading accurate voting information, and the days before elections have often been critical moments where company and campaign officials kept up a near-constant dialogue about potential risks.
But a representative from one of the national party committees said they are seeing hours-long delays in responses from their contacts at Twitter, raising fears of the toll workplace chaos and sudden terminations is taking on the platform’s ability to quickly react to developments. The representative spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
Some researchers tracking online threats said they also feared that the cuts would interrupt lines of communication between the company and police that have been used to identify people threatening voter intimidation or offline violence.
“Law enforcement may lose precious minutes in identifying that person who we think is posing an actual threat,” said Katherine Keneally, a senior research manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that studies political extremism and polarization.
Keneally said she’d already seen an uptick in threatening content related to the election. She pointed to one post where a user wrote of the need to “pour in bleach or gasoline” at ballot drop boxes, a target of right-wing conspiracy theories about systematic voter fraud.
President Biden on Friday criticized Twitter’s role in spreading false information.
“Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that spews lies all across the world,” he said while attending a political fundraiser in Chicago. “There’s no editors anymore in America.”
Twitter communications officials did not respond to requests for comment. Many of them were among the layoffs.
Yoel Roth, the company’s head of safety and integrity and one of the few top executives to survive Musk’s takeover, tweeted on Friday evening that the company’s “core moderation capabilities remain in place.” He said that the cuts to Twitter’s Trust & Safety division were about 15 percent, in contrast to the nearly 50 percent in cuts across the company.
“With early voting underway in the US, our efforts on election integrity — including harmful misinformation that can suppress the vote and combatting state-backed information operations — remain a top priority,” he tweeted.
Musk, the world’s richest person who spent $44 billion for the site, has said the massive cuts of the company’s 7,500-person staff will help prepare it for future success, and he has instructed workers to roll out services he says will safeguard the platform as a digital town square.
Some of his more aggressive changes, however, are also sparking unease. Under Musk, the company is pushing ahead on a service — scheduled to be unveiled Monday, a day before the election — that would give any paying user the “verified” check-mark icon now offered only to politicians, journalists and other notable figures who have confirmed their identity. That move, some political officials said, could fuel deep confusion in the final hours of the race.
“Impersonation of election (officials) is a serious concern for us as the platform considers modifications to their verifications,” said Amy Cohen, the executive director of the National Association of State Election Directors. “We hope that Twitter leadership deploys any changes in advance of the election carefully and recognizing the critical role the platform plays in the election information ecosystem.”
Among the cuts to Twitter was its curation team, a key part of the company’s efforts to guide users to reliable news sources and tamp down on viral hoaxes and conspiracy theories. The team has worked for years to counter election-related falsehoods, such as claims that vote-by-mail ballots would be discarded, and provide credible information in cases where losing candidates have falsely claimed victory.
In October 2020, ahead of the U.S. presidential election, the team added context to all trends that could be found in Twitter’s prime real estate — its “For you” and “What’s happening” boxes — on its app and website. As recently as two weeks ago, Twitter was touting the team’s debunking efforts as a key aspect of its approach to the 2022 midterms.
But on Friday, multiple Twitter employees told The Washington Post the entire team appeared to have been cut amid Musk’s layoffs. Edward Perez, a former Twitter product director and an expert on election integrity, said, “For Musk to back away from Twitter’s positive efforts to pre-bunk or debunk false claims, just days before a major election, is simply terrible timing.”
Twitter to charge $8 a month for verification. What you need to know.
The cuts also have shaken members of civil rights and advocacy groups who met with Musk earlier this week to share their concerns about his takeover. Musk had “promised to retain and enforce the election integrity measures that were on Twitter’s books before his takeover,” Jessica González, a co-leader of the group Free Press, said Friday. “With today’s mass layoffs, it’s clear that Musk’s actions betray his words. … Even before Musk took over, this operation was dangerously under-resourced.”
Rashad Robinson, the president of the civil rights group Color of Change, took issue with Musk’s proposal to change Twitter’s “verified” system right before midterms, saying it “could have [an] unprecedented impact on election chaos.”
“Any right-wing troll can pay $8 on Monday, get a blue check mark and then change their username to ‘CNN’ or ‘Georgia secretary of state’ and appear as verified and call races,” he said.
Musk meeting with civil rights groups upsets his fans
Even before the layoffs, experts had warned that Twitter did not have enough people on staff to handle content moderation. An audit that company whistleblower Peiter Zatko commissioned from the company Alethea Group found that Twitter’s integrity teams were “persistently understaffed” and “have had to make significant trade-offs.”
During U.S. elections, Twitter has set up an election squad that includes people from outside of the core content moderation units to help identify threats; the company’s ability to staff that unit will probably be impacted by the cuts.
“Some of the ways that platform worked yesterday are not going to be the way they work today, tomorrow and going into the election on Tuesday,” she said.
Joan Donovan, research director at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, said she had also seen reports of increased coordinated activity, hateful content and harassing messages. But she said she was encouraged by Musk’s decision not to allow banned users immediately back on the platform, which, she predicted, would avert the “avalanche of misinformation many people are anticipating.”
On alternative platforms, meanwhile, there was glee over the possibility of less content moderation on Twitter. A user with more than 72,000 followers on the chat app Telegram celebrated that the anticipated changes were taking place “RIGHT BEFORE THE US ELECTION” so that “whatever goes down on Tuesday … a lot more people will be talking about it on Twitter.”
To Donovan, that expectation could actually blunt the impact of misinformation. “Because the chaotic changes at Twitter have been playing out in public view, many people are already going to be skeptical of the information they’re getting from the platform,” she said. “It’s not considered a very reliable source in this moment.”
Some employees in roles related to the midterms announced on Twitter that they had been terminated. Michele Austin, the director of U.S. and Canada public policy at the company, wrote that she helped lead the 2022 midterms on the platform and was “in denial” that her time at the company was over.
Kevin Sullivan, a civic integrity specialist who said on LinkedIn that he led editorial planning for the 2022 midterms and election misinformation, also announced his departure.
“He couldn’t have waited till Wednesday? #Election2022,” he tweeted.
Matt Brown, Naomi Nix, Will Oremus, Brittany Shammas and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez contributed to this report.
Officers of the Russian military intelligence are carrying out the most difficult tasks in the course of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Saturday on the occasion of Military Intelligence Day in the country.
Russia celebrates Military Intelligence Day, a professional holiday commemorating the establishment of the Registration Office coordinating intelligence agencies of the Red Army, on November 5.
"Today, in the course of the special military operation, military intelligence personnel demonstrate exceptional courage and dedication, clearly and efficiently carry out the most difficult and demanding tasks," Shoigu said.
The minister noted that the military intelligence has been carrying out tasks competently and effectively, both in peacetime and the years of severe challenges.
"They have been obtaining valuable information necessary for making the most important government decisions in a timely manner under trying circumstances, sometimes risking their lives," Shoigu said.
The minister expressed great appreciation to the intelligence veterans, whose service to the country is an example for the younger generation.
Serangan presisi terhadap infrastruktur Ukraina telah dilakukan oleh Rusia sejak 10 Oktober (dua hari setelah serangan teroris di Jembatan Krimea).
The West continues pursuing a wrong policy believing that the Ukrainian situation can be resolved on the battlefield while in fact it must be considered how to find a negotiating solution, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said on Saturday.
"Regarding new decisions of the American administration on additional supplies of weapons to Ukraine I would like to point out that our so-called partners continue with a wrong policy believing that the problem can be solved on the battlefield and keep spending more energy and means. Now they are amassing armed forces near the Russian borders," Antonov told journalists commenting on a new package of the US military aid for Kiev.
"The developing situation is extremely alarming," he said. "In fact, in Ukraine, on the Ukrainian soil, we are fighting not against the Ukrainians, but against the collective West, which tries to undermine the foundations of Russia, to exhaust us, to deplete us of all economic and military resources and to stage a situation, in which Russia would never have a chance to negotiate equally with the Western countries on the international arena," the diplomat stressed.
However, according to Antonov, Russia will manage to win no matter what Washington is trying to do.
"We have no other way out and no doubts that we pursue the right cause and we will win," he noted.
Antonov said that the present-day situation cannot be solved on a battlefield and the West should start looking to settle it by means of negotiations.
"We must think today not about pumping up Kiev with additional weapons, but about how to find a negotiating solution. It is impossible to completely solve the problem on the battlefield," he said.
Deputy Pentagon Spokesperson Sabrina Singh announced on Friday that under the new package of assistance, Ukraine would receive 90 refurbished T-72 tanks, 1,100 Phoenix Ghost kamikaze drones, HAWK air defense systems and other means.
Developments in Ukraine
The situation along the line of engagement in Donbass escalated on February 17. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) reported the most massive bombardments by the Ukrainian military back then, which damaged civilian infrastructure and caused civilian casualties.
On February 21, President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow was recognizing the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Russia signed agreements on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance with their leaders. Moscow recognized the Donbass republics in accordance with the DPR and LPR constitutions within the boundaries of the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions as of the beginning of 2014.
Russian President Putin announced on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics for assistance he had decided to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine. The DPR and the LPR launched an operation to liberate their territories under Kiev’s control.
From September 23 to September 27, the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic as well as the Kherson Region and the Zaporozhye Region held a referendum where the majority of voters opted to join Russia.
On September 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the heads of the DPR, the LPR, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions signed treaties on their accession to Russia. Later, the State Duma and the Federation Council (the lower and upper houses of Russia’s parliament) approved legislation on ratifying these treaties, as well as federal constitutional laws on the accession of the four regions to Russia.
viral acara pernikahan tetap digelar di tengah banjir. (lumajangsatu / Instagram)
Momen pernikahan adalah waktu seseorang merasa bahagia dan haru karena bisa melangkah ke jenjang yang lebih serius. Keluarga dan sahabat pun memberikan ucapan selamat kepada pengantin dan orang tua yang telah menikahkan anaknya.
Salah satu bentuk kebahagiaan itu adalah dengan menggelar resepsi pernikahan.
Namun, bagaimana jika peristiwa tak terduga terjadi saat resepsi tengah berlangsung?
Hal itulah yang dialami oleh pasangan pengantin di Desa Tempursari, Kabupaten Lumajang, Jawa Timur ini.
Tujuh guru besar Fakultas Ekonomi dan Bisnis Universitas Hasanuddin (Unhas) Makassar mundur usai dipaksa meluluskan mahasiswa yang tidak memenuhi syarat lulus yaitu tidak pernah kuliah.
Salah satu guru besar yang mundur mengajar di Program Pasca Sarjana S3 Ilmu Manajemen Prof Muhammad Idrus Taba mengatakan, intervensi dekan yang memaksa agar mahasiswa yang tidak pernah hadir dalam perkuliahan bisa diluluskan menjadi alasan dirinya bersama guru besar lain untuk mundur.
"Kebetulan yang mengalami masalah itu adalah Prof Siti Haerani dan Prof Idayanti yang mengajar mata kuliah, kemudian mahasiswa itu tidak diluluskan, karena tidak memenuhi syarat, tidak ikut kuliah. Kemudian sudah dijelaskan, lalu dekan minta diluluskan," kata dia, hari Kamis, 03/11/2022.
Idrus mengakui tidak tahu alasan dekan menginginkan mahasiswa yang tak pernah hadir dalam perkuliahan namun tetap diluluskan.
"Itu hak dosen. Kejadian itu di semester lalu bukan semester baru," kata Idrus.
Dua dosen yang mengajar mahasiswa itu lalu memutuskan untuk tidak meluluskan. Mahasiswa tersebut lalu drop out (DO) karena tak pernah hadir dalam perkuliahan.
Ketujuh Guru Besar FEB Unhas, kata Idrus tetap mengajar untuk semester ini. Namun, ia tidak bisa memastikan apakah mereka semuanya mau mengajar di semester depan atau tidak. Mereka sudah mengajukan pengunduran diri sebagai pengajar S3 Program Ilmu Manajemen.
"Kita menunggu perkembangan nantinya," kata dia.
Sementara itu, dekan Fakultas Ekonomi dan Bisnis Unhas masih bungkam. Namun, Rektor Unhas Jamaluddin Jompa mengklaim masalah sudah selesai antara guru besar FEB dengan dekan.
Sementara itu, dekan Fakultas Ekonomi dan Bisnis Unhas masih bungkam. Namun, Rektor Unhas Jamaluddin Jompa mengklaim masalah sudah selesai antara guru besar FEB dengan dekan.
Dikatakannya, ketujuh guru besar FEB ini tidak mengundurkan diri sebagai dosen, melainkan hanya mengajukan tidak lagi mengajar di program S3 Ilmu Manajemen.
"Tidak ada guru besar yang mundur, cuma mundur untuk tidak mengajar lagi di Program S3. Bukan mengundurkan diri sebagai dosen," kata dia.
As the US midterms are approaching, the US mainstream media has again started to speculate about Russia's "nuclear bugaboo," citing a US intelligence assessment of alleged discussions about nuclear weapons by the Russian military, with a proviso that there is zero indication that Moscow has any intent to use weapons of mass destruction.
"It's simply a sign of weakness and desperation on the part of Joe Biden and his administration," said Larry Johnson, a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism, which provided training to the US military’s special operations taskforce for 24 years. "If things were going well in Ukraine, as far as the United States was concerned, if Ukraine really was defeating Russia on the battlefield, there'd be no need to talk like this. But that's not the case. The tables have turned and Ukraine is in a very desperate situation. And so, as a result, you get these kinds of lies being circulated to try to rally public support.
The US media first broke about the alleged nuclear chatter by the Russian military on November 2, presenting a gloomy picture of imminent nuclear doom. One US newspaper claimed that "senior Russian military leaders" had recently held discussions on "when and how Moscow might use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine," adding that the intelligence assessment of the alleged conversations circulated within the US government in mid-October.
However, later in the day, another American media outlet clarified that the assessment, which was drafted by the National Intelligence Council, is neither "a high confidence product" nor raw intelligence, but just an "analysis." There is also a possibility that the document was taken out of context and that it does not necessarily mean that Russia is up to using nuclear arms, according to the US media.
To cap it off, there is also zero indication that Russian President and Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin was involved in the alleged discussions, the media outlet continued, admitting that Washington has still not seen any signs that the Kremlin has any intention to use nuclear arms against Kiev.
"I don’t have any comment on the particulars of this reporting," National Security Council official John Kirby said when asked about the NIC's "analysis." He underscored that the US sees no indications that Russia is making preparations for the use of nuclear arms.
Kirby noted, however, that "Russia’s comments about the potential use of nuclear weapons are deeply concerning, and we take them seriously," in reference to Vladimir Putin's September 21 speech in which the Russian president warned Washington against nuclear blackmail and said that Russia would protect its territory with all military means. Subsequently, Putin's notion was misrepresented by US politicians and the mainstream press as nothing short of a "nuclear threat."
However, Russia's nuclear doctrine clearly forbids the use of nuclear arms of any sort unless the country is nuked, or faces a conventional attack so severe that it threatens the country’s existence.
"It's not just that they are lying, they're not even accurately representing what Vladimir Putin has said," said Johnson. "They are misrepresenting it. They are, in fact, fabricating claims that Putin has talked about using nuclear weapons. He has not. The closest he's come was two or three weeks back. He indicated that Russia would use all means at its disposal to protect itself. But he did not at any time indicate that - particularly in Ukraine - that he was prepared to use nuclear weapons. In fact, he has stated the opposite."
Dirty Bomb: 'Very Dangerous Possible Development'
The latest fuss over the alleged Russian "nuclear threat" comes against a backdrop of reports warning about a potential false flag operation by Kiev involving a "dirty bomb." A "dirty bomb" is an explosive device that contains radioactive material, be it uranium, plutonium, or other radioactive waste material. After being detonated, a dirty bomb could disperse radioactive materials over several square kilometers, resulting in a contamination zone. The rationale behind such a potential false flag by Kiev would be to accuse Moscow of using nuclear arms in a bid to isolate Russia, according to Russian officials.
Previously, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu held a series of telephone talks with his French, British, American, and Turkish counterparts, warning them of a possible nuclear false flag by Kiev. Western leaders dismissed the threat, claiming that Moscow is escalating tensions over Ukraine.
One should not underestimate the possibility of such a false flag operation on the part of Kiev, warned Philip Giraldi, a former CIA station chief and military intelligence officer.
"It would be a high explosive that would be encased or covered with radioactive material that would, in theory, be set off somewhere inside Ukraine and blamed on the Russians," the CIA veteran said. "It would be carried out by the Ukrainian government, which is quite capable of doing this and which has the material in place to carry it out. Zelensky wants direct US and NATO involvement in his war and the expectation would be that the outrage over the dirty bombing would bring about that development. I think it's quite plausible that Zelensky would do this or something else like it and the US and Western media would follow his lead and blame it on Russia. This is a very dangerous possible development."
He highlighted that neither Russia nor the US is interested in a nuclear tit-for-tat, adding, however, that "there is always a danger that a bad series of decisions could place either country on the brink of considering such an action."
For its part, the US mainstream press cannot be trusted in its coverage of the nuclear weapons issue, "as it is dedicated to making both Russia and its leadership look as bad as possible," Giraldi remarked.
Earlier this week, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement urging the world's major nuclear powers to reject provocations with weapons of mass destruction.
"We are strongly convinced that in the current complicated and turbulent situation, caused by irresponsible and impudent actions aimed at undermining our national security, the most immediate task is to avoid any military clash of nuclear powers," the ministry underscored.
