United Kingdom

Archive link https://archive.is/xZVYs

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11175769

The former employee of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and whistleblower Emma Reilly alleges that “dangerous ‘favours’” are “being rendered by OHCHR to the Chinese government” and “these favours fall into a broader effort of the Chinese government to instrumentalise the UN to serve its national interests”. Her evidence alleges a “UN cover-up of special favours for the PRC [Peoples Republic of China]”.

Ms Reilly alleges that “during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals” that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the General Assembly who ultimately oversaw the process and had significant influence over the final texts put to the Assembly”. Her evidence alleges that the PRC “imposes a secret conditionality across UN agencies that the monies so provided may not be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan”.

The UK jobs market is showing signs of stalling as the number of people out of work rose, according to new figures.

The unemployment rate increased to 4.2% between December and February, which is the highest level for six months.

Meanwhile, the rate of people with a job dipped and the economically inactive - those not in work or looking for employment - ticked higher.

Economists suggested the data could spur the Bank of England to cut interest rates in the summer.

The UK economy is going to grow less than expected this year - with the International Monetary Fund warning the country will remain the second worst performer in the G7.

Newly revised forecasts indicate the UK's gross domestic product will expand by just 0.5% in 2024 - a slight downgrade from previous estimates in January - compared with global growth of 3.2%.

However, UK GDP is tipped to increase by 1.5% in 2025 - making it the third-best performer among G7 nations - as households recover following a prolonged cost of living crisis.

According to the IMF, inflation in the British economy will remain at about 2.5% for the rest of this year but fall towards the Bank of England's target of 2% next year.

...

When looked at per head - with output split across the UK's population - GDP flatlines, with no growth at all for 2024 and 1.1% in 2025.

cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/6041838

The results are in! 🎶

Hey everyone!

Thank you for participating, I gathered the votes submitted until this morning and put together this little graphics to announce the results, it looks like The Northern Boys were a clear favourite with their eccentric yet catchy song ; Azahriah and Bagarre, both ex-aequo, follow them closely in second position.

Congratulations to everyone for submitting great songs!

The ranking is based on the average position out of every vote, here are the details:

1. The Northern Boys - Sexy Train (avg. rank : 3.4)
2. Azahriah - Introvertált dal (4.2)
3. Bagarre - On est les mêmes (4.2)
4. Royel Otis - Heading for the Door (4.5)
5. Tiki Taane - Tangaroa (4.6)
6. Cassette Beasts - Your Inception (4.9)
7. Pil - Dronning af månen - (5.0)
8. Lu Kala - Hotter Now (5.2)
9. Puggy - Lost Child (5.5)

The ranks are super close, I personally liked every single song and it was hard to have to rank them, because the last position didn't necessarily mean the song was bad.

But wait there's more! Here's a ranking based on how many time each song was ranked first :

1. The Northern Boys - Sexy Train (21 times ranked first!)
2. Tiki Taane - Tangaroa (13)
3. Bagarre - On est les mêmes (10)
4. Azahriah - Introvertált dal (8)
5. Royel Otis - Heading for the Door (8)
6. Lu Kala - Hotter Now (4)
7. Pil - Dronning af månen (3)
8. Cassette Beasts - Your Inception (2)
9. Puggy - Lost Child (1)

That means every single song submitted was at least one person's favourite song, which is heartwarming, everyone got to discover new music!

There's even more! Here's a small list of every instance's most favourite songs (the songs that were most ranked first for each instance), Belgium sadly didn't vote :

• Australia (aussie.zone) : The Northern Boys & Tiki Taane
• Canada (lemmy.ca) : The Northern Boys
• Denmark (feddit.dk) : The Northern Boys
• France (jlai.lu) : The Northern Boys, Royel Otis
• Hungary ([email protected]) : Tiki Taane
• New Zealand (lemmy.nz) : Pil
• Programming.dev (programming.dev) : The Northern Boys
• United Kingdom (feddit.uk) : Bagarre, Tiki Taane, Lu Kala
• 3rd party voters : The Northern Boys, Bagarre, Royel Otis

Again, I want to reiterate how thankful I am that y'all participated. I didn't expect any response at all for such a niche event in such a niche social media, it was scary to be responsible that everything goes smoothly, but so rewarding to see people coming together and sending songs, and discovering new music from you!

What's next for Lemmyvision?

I'm going to keep the community open if you want to use it to share lesser known songs from where you're from, that you'd like people to discover, feel free to use [email protected] as you wish, as long as it's in the spirit of this contest.

Obviously another edition will happen, and hopefully with more people, as Lemmy grows, and gathers more users, and I manage to make contact with more instances, there is an opportunity to discover even more music! If you'd like to help, feel free to send a message too!

However, I do find the idea of having smaller scale, thematic, events, or just prompts in between, like how the speedrunning event AGDQ has the SQDG in summer ; I'll think about something, but feel free to share ideas as well.

Thank you, and see you next year for Lemmyvision 2 !! 🎶

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/13167838

[...]Seabound found BLOQS, a 32,000-square-foot converted warehouse in the north London suburb of Enfield, fully kitted out with £1.3 million (around $1.7 million) worth of light industrial equipment for all kinds of manufacturing, including wood processing and metal fabrication, laser cutting and engraving, 3D printing, sewing machines, spray painting and more. If that didn’t already make the case for moving in, the flexible membership structure then quickly sealed the deal for Fredriksson and Wen.

The initial sign-up is free, with members simply paying a daily rate for the machinery they need to use, as well as for flexible office and storage space if they need it. Raw materials are available to purchase too, price-matched with local suppliers. And if members need to learn to use a particular piece of equipment, they can pay for training. An added bonus is the on-site restaurant, where an award-winning chef serves a seasonable and affordable Mediterranean menu. Yet the biggest draw for the Seabound team was the community of 1,000 other like-minded members.

The UK's competition watchdog sniffed around the AI industry with a bit more interest than usual on Thursday at an antitrust event in the US.

Speaking at the 72nd Antitrust Law Spring Meeting in Washington, DC, Sarah Cardell, CEO of the UK Competition and Markets Authority, discussed "growing concerns" that the web of connected partnerships between AI technology companies may hinder competition.

"I think it’s fair to say that when we started this work, we were curious," said Cardell. "Now, with a deeper understanding and watching developments very closely, we have real concerns."

Taxi software biz iCabbi recently fixed an issue that exposed the personal information of nearly 300,000 individuals via an unprotected database.

The names, email addresses, phone numbers, and user IDs of the 287,961 affected individuals in the UK and Ireland were all exposed online. According to research shared with The Register ahead of publication, the details of individuals with senior roles in media outlets such as the BBC and various government departments such as His Majesty's Treasury, the UK Home Office, and the Ministry of Justice were included.

A number of former UK Members of Parliament (MPs), as well as one senior policy advisor and one EU ambassador, were caught up in the data exposure, it's understood.