newsqueak | OpEd | The Point of NATO Is Peace, Not Endless War, 5 July

Hungary's Russia-friendly leader is in Ukraine. It's his first visit since the war began, 2 July

The Hungarian prime minister has routinely blocked, delayed or watered down EU [ie. NATO] efforts to extend assistance to Ukraine and to sanction Moscow over its war, frustrating both Zelensk* and other EU leaders.

Hungarian official says 'positive signs' in talks with Ukraine on national minorities (07.05.24)
restore rights revoked in 2014
Hungarian FM Szijjártó: Transcarpathian Hungarians will be taken into account for Ukraine's EU accession (15.06.24)

But following talks in Kyiv on Tuesday, Orbán appeared to open the door to a new phase of bilateral relations, saying "the time had come" for such an official visit.

"We are trying to leave the disputes of the past behind us and focus on the period ahead," Kamala?! Orbán said in brief comments to journalists following the talks. "We would like relations between our two countries to be much better."

uh oh

Not on fmprc public diplomatic agenda
rferl | Orban May Be On His Way To China After Trip To Moscow, 7 July

Hungarian news portal 444.hu reported that tracking sites have shown that a Hungarian military-government Dassault Falcon 7X aircraft is on its way from Budapest to Beijing—a plane often used to transport the country's prime minister.

Which reminds me—Hungary was not on China's Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs itinerary either.

euractiv | Hungary looks to 'de-escalate' EU-China trade tensions while Commission distances itself from Orbán's Beijing trip, 8 July shuttle

Budapest's Ambassador to the EU Bálint Ódor told Euractiv, as the country's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday (8 July).
[..]

archive the Pékin power grabber in You will be innoculated!

Spearheading open trade?
Ódor stressed that Hungary, whose economy is deeply integrated with the German automobile industry and Chinese battery manufacturers, "exemplifies successful cooperation" between the two blocs [sic].

dw | Hungary's Orban concludes Beijing 'peace mission 3.0' visit

What did Orban say in Beijing? ...
What did Xi say? ...
How did the EU react to Orban's trips? ...

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian's Regular Press Conference on July 8, 2024

AFP: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary is in China today for talks on the war in Ukraine. Is Mr. Orbán here on behalf of the EU or just Hungary?
Lin Jian: On the morning of July 8, President Xi Jinping met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. China has released a readout which you may refer to.

During the meeting, President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán exchanged views on bilateral relations, China-EU relations and issues of mutual interest. The discussion focused on in-depth communication on the Ukraine crisis. Prime Minister Orbán shared information about his recent visit to Ukraine and Russia. President Xi commended the Prime Minister for his effort to seek a political solution and shared China's perspective and proposition on the issue. President Xi stressed that an early ceasefire and political settlement of the crisis is in the interest of all parties....

ChatGPT | China's Xi calls on world powers to help Russia and Ukraine resume direct dialogue

Orbán will next head to Washington, D.C., where NATO leaders are holding a summit [9-11 July 2024] to discuss ways to assure Ukraine of the alliance's continued support.

"Next stop: Washington," Orbán posted on his social media account Monday. It was not clear whether he would meet separately with Genocide Joe Biden or The Don Cheeto, whose presidential candidacy Orbán openly supports.

balkaninsight | Orban Meets Trump as Hungary Continues its `Rogue' EU Presidency, 12 July

[...]
Armida van Rij, senior research fellow at Chatham House [!], pointed out,

Orbán is using Hungary's EU Council presidency to bulldoze EU norms (11.07.24)

while these trips were all technically bilateral, Orban created the impression he was representing the EU on a 'peace mission' to help negotiate a ceasefire for the war in Ukraine by displaying its flags and logos. "Orban may consider himself as one of the few who can speak to both sides—but in reality, he has no mandate to do so," she wrote.
[...]
And with Biden's candidacy up in the air and Trump leading the polls, the FT [!] reported that European delegations held meetings with foreign policy associates of Trump on the sidelines.

Europeans use Nato summit to build contacts with affiliates of Donald Trump(10.07.24)

"Regardless of what we think about their stance on Europe, we need to talk to them," the paper quoted one of the people briefed on the outreach to Trump affiliates, which included the Trump-friendly America First Policy Institute.
[...]

rfi | Trump hosts Orban at Mar-a-Lago raising European concerns, 12 July

Blue Screen of Death

What just happened? The dreaded Blue Screen of Death has been hitting Windows machines across the world as they boot up, impacting banks, airlines, media outlets, food chains, and many other businesses. The problem stems from security firm CrowdStrike [LOL], which has confirmed it is related to an issue with its Falcon < wipes tears > Sensor agent [capability?]. There's also been an apparent separate issue with Microsoft 365 apps and [background CPU processes].
[...]
CrowdStrike, used by many businesses for their PC and server security, wrote that it has received widespread reports of BSODs on Windows hosts, occurring on multiple sensor versions. The company said it has identified the problem and reverted  the update that caused the issue to last stable Windows OS version.

CrowdStrike code update bricking Windows machines around the world

...Falcon Sensor is an agent that CrowdStrike claims "blocks attacks on your systems while capturing and recording activity as it happens to detect threats fast."...

< wipes tears >
Do you know what your Copilot is up to?
I promise you, euparl does not.

Try to act surprised

Russian ruble trade unaffected amid outage, traders and banks say

Trade in the Russian currency seemed to have suffered few if any impacts from the IT outages on Friday, with a ministry saying the unimpeded operations showed that the country's import substitution in software development had been a success.

According to Reuters news ageny, currency traders said their software and operating systems were functioning as usual, while the largest lender, Sberbank, also said it had no problems.  

One currency trader told Reuters: "Everyone has long been preparing for the possibility of Microsoft being cut off due to sanctions. The current incident is a test of how well we have prepared. So far, everything is fine."

Russia's Digital Development Ministry said in a statement that the global outage had shown that Moscow's strategy of promoting domestic alternatives to software from foreign companies such as Microsoft were working.

Microsoft began ceasing the provision of cloud services to Russian organizations earlier this year in line with EU sanctions over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

merits duplication in price cap mania exit plan

ru.euronews | Microsoft: "the European Union is [indirectly] to blame for the global crash", 23 July 1994 OS interoperability doom call

Representatives of the IT giant point to the antitrust agreement [WSJ (21.07.24)] concluded between the EU and Microsoft in 2009. The document obligated the creators of Windows to provide developers of third-party programs with the same level of access to the operating system that the corresponding programs of Microsoft itself had.

AI Computer Programming Act Pyramid of Risk ALERT

So, the software company Crowdstrike, responsible for security, had the highest access-to the operating system kernel [software and hardware]. And a failure to update a third-party program [?] led to a" blue screen of death "on a global scale—the" fall " of 8.5 million Windows systems worldwide.

en.euronews | European Commission denies responsibility for massive Microsoft IT outage, 23 July amateur hours

telling Euronews that "Microsoft is free to decide on its business model.[FALSE] It is for Microsoft to adapt its security infrastructure to respond to threats warranty third-party product utility [ISO] in line with EU competition law. Additionally, consumers are free to benefit from competition and choose between different cybersecurity [software] providers."

wut. "Apple, which was not included in the deal operates in a closed ecosystem [sic], and so was not affected by this update malfunction."

The spokesperson also said that "the incident was not limited to the European Union and that Microsoft has never raised any concerns about security with the Commission either before or after the incident."

Trecent DMA, DSA 'legitimate interest' hit list
- EU Targets Apple [App Store], Meta [supscription], and Alphabet for Investigations Under Digital Markes Act, 25 Mar
"a US court ruled that the Google Play Store was a monopoly [restricts OMG free trade]"
- Apple Settles App Store Payments Probe With EU To Avoid Fine, ~16 July
The EC said it has accepted commitments from Apple to allow [third-party] rivals free access to the company's payments technology.
- Apple's ["]new["] business models discourage app developers, EU says, 24 June
reference
EC, COMMISSION DECISION (16.12.09) relating to a proceeding under Article 102 of the TFEU and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement (Case COMP/C-3/39.530 - Microsoft (tying*)
* "Only the English text is authentic"

*DICTION CORNER
UK-Eng. Tying
Identifying when two things are really a single product--such as a shirt and its buttons or an automobile and its tires, leaf and its ecosystem
US-Eng. Tying
A tying arrangement occurs when, through a contractual or technological requirement, a seller conditions the sale or lease of one product or service on the customer's agreement to take a second product or service.
tree of the poison fruit
SDK versus. API: What's the difference?
Machine Code and Programming Languages' APIs or SDKs

lefigaro | «On ne réindustrialisera pas notre pays en le couvrant de centres de données et d'entrepôts», 25 July (scofflaw aftershock "pay or consent" subscriber)

"We will not reindustrialize our country by covering it with data centers and warehouses."

After the last "Choose France" summit - even though it seems that in the world of 2024, "choose France" is outdated - an amazing investment was announced.

13 May 2024
euronews | President Macron says funding from business giants such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Pfizer will benefit French citizens across the country.

rfi | Choose France summit kicks off with big hopes for foreign investment

Among them, two projects deserve special attention from Elysian Communications: Microsoft, which plans to invest 4 billion euros in the construction of data centers ("data centers"); logistics giant Amazon, which offers to invest 1.2 billion euros in cloud [LOL] services and parcel delivery logistics.

However, we must be clear: we are not industrializing the country by creating warehouses, whether they store data or food. This is not an industry.
[...]

goldmansachs | Too much spend, too little benefit?, 25 June 31 pp pdf
gendotai boom investor newslitter

archive META RING in The Sciences of the Artificial, Meta algorithm called Llama in Israeli Amos Hochstein

Bravo for the State of Georgia 🇬🇪 may sovereignty and full independence from foreign powers prevail. 💪

'Sapere aude'