Australia economy set to slow amid downside risks - IMF

marketrent · 2022-11-19T02:39:00+00:00

Frank Bajak, 19 November 2022, updated ~00:01 UTC.

Excerpt:

Three engineers who left this week described for The Associated Press why they expect considerable unpleasantness for Twitter’s more than 230 million users now that well over two-thirds of Twitter’s pre-Musk core services engineers are apparently gone.

Signs of fraying were evident before Thursday’s mass exit. People reported seeing more spam and scams on their feeds and in their direct messages. Engineers reported dropped tweets. People got strange error messages.

Still, nothing critical has broken. Yet.

One of the newly separated Twitter engineers, who had worked in core services, told the AP that engineering team clusters were down from about 15 people pre-Musk — not including team leaders, who were all laid off — to three or four before Thursday’s resignations.

Then more institutional knowledge that can’t be replaced overnight walked out the door.

“Everything could break,” the programmer said.

It takes six months to train someone to work an on-call rotation for some services, the engineers said. Such rotations require programmers to be available at all hours. But if the person on call is unfamiliar with the code base, failures could cascade as they frantically plow through reference manuals.

“If I stayed I would have been on-call constantly with little support for an indeterminate amount of time on several additional complex systems I had no experience in,” tweeted Peter Clowes, an engineer who took the severance.

“Running even relatively boring systems takes people who know where to go when something breaks,” said Blaine Cook, Twitter’s founding engineer, who left in 2008. It’s dangerous to drastically reduce a programming workforce to a skeleton crew without first bulletproofing the code, he said.

^AP ^Technology ^Writer ^Matt ^O’Brien ^contributed ^to ^this ^report.

Associated Press

marketrent · 2022-11-19T01:39:01+00:00

Updated November 18, 2022 6:05 PM UTC.

Excerpt:

Ukrainian authorities in Kyiv are warning of a “complete shutdown,” as subzero temperatures are gripping the country.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said authorities are attempting to restore the city’s power grid.

Russian strikes have inflicted heavy damage on the energy grid of the Ukrainian capital while they continue to barrage Ukraine in multiple parts of the country — from the capital city, Kyiv, in the north to Odesa in the south — crushing almost half of Ukraine’s energy system, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

"Unfortunately, Russia continues missile strikes against the civilian critical infrastructure of Ukraine, fighting against the civilian population and depriving them of light, water supply, heat and communications during the winter.”

His comments came during talks with European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis in Kyiv.

The Ukrainian prime minister added that, “On November 15, Russia fired about 100 missiles at Ukrainian cities. Almost half of our energy systems have been disabled."

^Note: ^Voice ^of ^America, ^est. ^1942, ^is ^part ^of ^the ^U.S. ^Agency ^for ^Global ^Media ^USAGM, ^the ^government ^agency ^that ^oversees ^all ^{non-military,} ^U.S. ^{international} ^{broadcasting.} ^It ^is ^funded ^by ^the ^U.S. ^Congress.

marketrent · 2022-11-19T00:49:03+00:00

Rayane Tamer, 18 November 2022, updated 19:41 UTC

Excerpt:

A tiny island that's home to only 200,000 people, Samoa is preparing for its rugby league team to take on Australia in the Rugby League World Cup final in Manchester early on Sunday morning (AEDT).

The gallant side, featuring some of the NRL's biggest stars, reached the final by knocking out hosts England in a thrilling semi-final match last Sunday.

It's the first ever time Samoa - or any Pacific Island nation for that matter - has reached a rugby league final.

In several parts of the world, including Australia, the scenes have to be seen to be believed.

Members of the Samoan diaspora have blocked off roads, blared car horns, sang, danced and prayed the night away celebrating both the win over England and the fact their team is now in the final.

Even Samoan-American actor Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson put out an impassioned plea to his people, celebrating the successes of his home country.

SBS

marketrent · 2022-11-19T00:19:59+00:00

Description:

Hollywood star Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has sent an empowering video message to the Samoa team before they face off against Australia on Sunday.

18 November 2022 04:51 UTC.

marketrent · 2022-11-18T23:31:11+00:00

Clare Roth, 18 November 2022.

Excerpt:

Negotiators from the European Parliament and the EU member states agreed Thursday to greenlight the satellite communications internet system IRIS2 (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnection and Security by Satellites).

The 6-billion-euro project is part of an initiative to wean off a bloc-wide reliance on foreign suppliers like China and Russia.

EU agencies will contribute 2.4 billion euros to the project, which lawmakers project will enable secure communication services by 2027. The private sector is expected to fund the remaining 3.6 billion euros.

IRIS2 will join EU satellite systems Galileo (navigation) and Kopernikus (Earth observation), which have been circling the globe since the late 1990s.

Deutsche Welle

marketrent · 2022-11-18T23:23:36+00:00

Excerpt:

The Irish government has asked a number of people at the Russian Embassy to leave the country.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said he would discuss with colleagues whether to take further action "in the coming week or so".

The news comes days after Moscow announced it was banning 52 Irish officials from entering Russia.

Mr Coveney said there had been "ongoing consideration in relation to the appropriate level of diplomatic representation" of Russia in Dublin, and that this was "not necessarily connected to what we've seen this week, in terms of the sanctioning of individual politicians in Ireland".

Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland on Friday, the minister said there were currently about 25 people in the Russian Embassy.

He said he had been receiving advice from An Garda Síochana (Irish police), the Irish Defence Forces and various intelligence sources to determine who was there in terms of diplomats or others who may not be involved in diplomatic work.

Mr Coveney said Russia's decision to ban 52 Irish politicians and officials was a very "unwelcome distraction" and Ireland "should not play this game".

18 November 2022

marketrent · 2022-11-18T23:15:34+00:00

Excerpt:

Mr Schlosser pleaded guilty on 15 November 2022 to one count of trading while in possession of inside information and one count of communicating inside information to an associate in breach of s1043A of the Corporations Act.

Mr Schlosser has been committed to the Sydney District Court where he will appear on 16 December 2022 for a sentence date to be fixed.

The matter is being prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

At the time of the offending each breach of s1043A of the Corporations Act carried a maximum penalty of 15 years imprisonment.

^Last ^updated: ^16/11/2022 ^01:05

ASIC

marketrent · 2022-11-18T22:18:56+00:00

Kylie Robison for Fortune Media, November 18, 2022 17:17 UTC.

Excerpt:

According to a source at Twitter, preliminary data at the company indicates that between 1,000 and 1,200 Twitter employees opted not to click “yes,” by Thursday’s deadline, on a form that required employees to affirm their intention to keep working at Twitter.

Employees who did not click yes, were effectively deemed to have resigned.

It’s unclear exactly how many employees remain at Twitter.

On Friday, Musk sent an email summoning remaining employees who “actually write software” to meet him at the Twitter headquarters.

“Before doing so, please email me a bullet point summary of what your code commits have achieved in the last ~6 months, along with up to 10 screenshots of the most salient lines of code,” Musk wrote.

About 20 minutes after his first email, Musk sent a follow-up to address remote workers. He directs them to “email the request below” and he will perform “short, technical interviews” over video. Only those who cannot physically get to Twitter HQ or “have a family emergency” are excused, Musk said.

Then, several minutes after the second email, Musk sent a third email asking employees to fly to SF to be present in person if they can.

“I will be at Twitter HQ until midnight and then back again tomorrow morning,” Musk wrote.

Roughly an hour later, Musk sent a fourth email to staff telling them “flying out to SF would be appreciated, but is not essential.”

ETA, 19 November 2022 02:22 AM UTC —

Three engineers who left this week described for The Associated Press why they expect considerable unpleasantness for Twitter’s more than 230 million users now that well over two-thirds of Twitter’s pre-Musk core services engineers are apparently gone.

Signs of fraying were evident before Thursday’s mass exit. People reported seeing more spam and scams on their feeds and in their direct messages. Engineers reported dropped tweets. People got strange error messages.

https://apnews.com/article/world-cup-elon-musk-twitter-inc-technology-sports-d9217e91f876794bd7816013fbbc8cbb

marketrent · 2022-11-18T21:02:03+00:00

Excerpt:

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Experts from Ukraine have joined Polish and American investigators who are looking into a missile blast that killed two men in eastern Poland this week.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Friday that the Ukrainian experts were at the grain-drying facility in the Polish village of Przewodow where the missile landed Tuesday. The village is located about 6 kilometers (4 miles) from Poland’s border with Ukraine.

“We will continue our cooperation in an open and constructive manner, as closest friends do,” Kuleba tweeted.

“I am grateful to the Polish side for granting them access,” he wrote.

According to Reuters, November 17, in Przewodow:

Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Wednesday that including Ukrainian officials in the investigation would require the agreement of both countries leading an ongoing investigation, Poland and the United States.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-will-probably-get-access-blast-site-says-polish-official-2022-11-17/

marketrent · 2022-11-18T20:49:45+00:00

Excerpt:

Although mitigation activities involve costs that are distinct from investments, our work focuses specifically on modeled estimates of regional mitigation investment needs.

This work provides a pathway to address the retrospective and prospective perspectives on climate equity in the literature: first, that wealthier high-emitting countries have historically benefited from fossil energy at the cost of poorer low-emitting countries (8), and second, that for cost-effective mitigation pathways to be fair, national and international redistributive measures are likely necessary (9).

The magnitude and direction of interregional flows that we derive can also serve as input for policy and climate negotiations in the short term to ratchet up mitigation ambition, signal to the international private financial sector the magnitude of the required increase of interregional finance, and guide industrial pathways and value chain development toward a just and sustainable energy transition.

S. Pachauri et al., Science, 10.1126/science.adf0067 (2022)

marketrent · 2022-11-18T19:41:51+00:00

Excerpt:

The Epoch of Reionization is a period that remains poorly understood by scientists. Until now, researchers have not had the extremely sensitive infrared instruments needed to observe galaxies that existed then.

Prior to cosmic reionization, the early universe remained devoid of light because ultraviolet photons from early stars were absorbed by the hydrogen atoms that saturated space.

Scientists think that sometime within the universe’s first billion years radiation emitted by the first galaxies and possibly by the first black holes caused the hydrogen atoms to lose electrons, or ionize, preventing photons from “sticking” to them and clearing a pathway for the photons to travel across space.

As galaxies began to ionize larger and larger bubbles, the universe became transparent and light traveled freely, as it does today, allowing us to view a brilliant canopy of stars and galaxies each night.

Roberts-Borsani’s finding that galaxies formed faster and earlier than previously thought could confirm that they were the culprits of cosmic reionization.

The study also confirms the distances to two of the farthest galaxies known using a new technique that allows astronomers to probe the beginning of cosmic reionization.

Guido Roberts-Borsani et al 2022 ApJL 938 L13, DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/ac8e6e

marketrent

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