The hype around Artificial Intelligence, the now failed U.S. attempt to monopolize it, and the recent counter from China are a lesson in how to innovate. They also show that the U.S. is losing the capability to do so.

In mid 2023, when the Artificial Intelligence hype gained headlines, I [MOON OF ALABAMA] wrote:

'Artificial Intelligence' Is (Mostly) Glorified Pattern Recognition

The European Idea is anchored by the desire to banish war from the continent forever and foster collective development by creating a quasi-federated Europe. This idea is embodied in the step-by-step creation of the European Union (EU). That idea today looks exceptionally compromised, not least due to growing European divergence about how the EU’s best interests can be secured. Moreover, despite its fundamentally destabilising impact, American power ruthlessly shaping this outcome is compliantly welcomed by European elites. Any “Euro-tiger” image once projected by the EU in its prime has now vanished.

BEFORE GOING TO A VERY SLANTED/BIASED/ERRONEOUS ARTICLE FROM THE ABC IN REGARD TO YUCKRAINE, WE NEED TO STATE:

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

TRANSNISTRIA WILL BE PART OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT (except the writer of the ABC article).

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German opposition leader Friedrich Merz has floated proposing legislation to tighten Germany's border controls, and claimed it would be on the SPD and Greens if he had to pass it with votes from the far-right AfD.

German opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on Monday announced his intention to propose legislation on Wednesday to bring back permanent controls at Germany's borders with more police presence. 

Moscow is open to dialogue with the new US administration but no contact has been established yet, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has stated.

Speaking to journalists on Monday, Ryabkov said that a phone call between the two countries’ presidents is not being planned while there is no agreement or understanding on the matter. All contacts are currently being carried out at the embassy level, he noted.

US President Donald Trump, who took office last Monday, has said he is ready to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin as quickly as possible to negotiate an end to the Ukraine conflict. The Kremlin had previously stated that Moscow is ready to talk and is awaiting signals from the Trump administration. 

“As the Russian President has repeatedly said, we are open to dialogue and contacts, conversations and meetings,” Ryabkov reiterated.

British ships spent several days tracking down a suspected Russian stealth submarine before concluding the suspicious sonar signature may have actually belonged to a farting whale, a Royal Navy source has told The Sun.

Two mystery sounds were picked up off the northwestern coast of Scotland, between Applecross and the Isle of Raasay, according to the UK tabloid. Convinced they were man-made, the Royal Navy went on a deep-sea hunt.

“We have been analyzing the sounds and now believe it was a marine mammal. A whale,” an anonymous naval official told The Sun, adding that the whale may have been passing gas at the time.

“We are taking it very seriously,” another Royal Navy source said. “We have to assume the worst.”

.... Speaking at the Jewish Community Centre in Krakow before the [Auschwitz] memorial, King Charles warned of the risks of allowing evil to flourish. 

On the eve of the war 56,000 Jews lived in Krakow, but when Nazi Germany was defeated only about 4000 Jews remained in the city. The community centre now has 1000 Jewish members including 58 Holocaust survivors, and is the heart of the city’s growing Jewish community.

“It is a moment when we recall the depths to which humanity can sink when evil is allowed to flourish, ignored for too long by the world,” he said.

London: Britain would have the right to buy Greenland before the US, the island’s last Danish minister has said.

Tom Hoyem was Copenhagen’s last permanent representative in the Arctic territory, which established its parliament in 1979 and began a new era of self-rule 30 years later.

Donald Trump has made clear to Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s prime minister, that he wants to place Greenland under American control.

But Hoyem said Trump would require approval from Britain’s Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer because of an undertaking signed in 1917, the first time the US was interested in acquiring the island.

Russia’s exclusion from the commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation is not just a diplomatic snub – it is an insult to history and to the memory of millions who suffered and died during World War II. This decision, part of a growing trend of historical revisionism, diminishes the decisive role played by the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany and liberating concentration camps, including Auschwitz. It’s a troubling development that undermines the lessons of the past in favor of political expediency.

Affront to history: The nation that liberated Auschwitz is being excluded from memory
A growing trend of revising World War II history risks erasing the immense sacrifices made by the Soviet Union in the fight against Nazi Germany

By Nadezhda Romanenko

Sussan Ley's analogy comparing the arrival of the First Fleet to Australia with Elon Musk's efforts to get to Mars was "strange" and disrespectful to Indigenous people, the prime minister says.

The deputy Liberal leader delivered an Australia Day message at a local church service on Sunday, where she said: "In what could be compared to Elon Musk's SpaceX's efforts to build a new colony on Mars, men in boats arrived on the edge of the known world to embark on that new experiment."

Ms Ley added that like astronauts arriving on Mars, the first British settlers would be confronted with "a different and strange world, full of danger, adventure and potential".

The CIA on Saturday offered a new assessment on the origin of the Covid outbreak, saying the coronavirus is "more likely" to have leaked from a Chinese lab than to have come from animals. 

But the intelligence agency cautioned it had "low confidence" in this determination. 

A spokesperson said that a "research-related origin" of the pandemic "is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting".

The decision to release that assessment marks one of the first made by the CIA's new director John Ratcliffe, appointed by Donald Trump, who took over the agency on Thursday. 

Donald Trump’s billionaire ally Elon Musk proposed renaming the English Channel to the ‘George Washington Canal’ after America’s first president.

After suggesting changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the ‘Gulf of America,’ arguing it has a ‘beautiful ring to it’, the tech mogul has made yet another stir in the international pot.

US President Donald Trump has suggested that neighboring Arab countries should take in Palestinian refugees and “clean out” the embattled Gaza Strip.

Speaking to journalists aboard Air Force One on Saturday, Trump said that he spoke to King Abdullah II of Jordan over the war and was planning to speak with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Sunday.

“I’d like Egypt to take people, and I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump said. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, we just clean out that whole thing. It’s a real mess.”