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Ukraine war briefing: Italy sending another Samp/T air defence system
Tue, 04 Jun 2024 00:26:17 GMT
Further permission needed to hit targets in Russia, says Kuleba; Kamala Harris to attend Swiss peace conference. What we know on day 832
Italy will send a second Samp/T air defence system to Ukraine, its foreign minister has said. The Italian-French system also known as Mamba can track dozens of targets and intercept 10 at once. It is the only European-made system that can intercept ballistic missiles.
Ukraine will ask its allies to further lift restrictions on using their weapons against targets inside Russia, the foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said.
Western air defence systems and permission to strike targets in Russia with western weapons “remain crucial for Ukraine to repel Russian glide bomb and missile strikes against Kharkiv city”, the Institute for the Study of War wrote in an assessment on Tuesday.
The ISW also wrote: “Ukrainian field commanders are reportedly compensating for training difficulties that mobilisation has exacerbated by training new personnel on the frontline. Ukrainian field commanders’ decisions to train newly deployed personnel on the front before committing them to combat indicates that the overall quality of Ukrainian forces will likely remain higher than that of Russian forces in the near- to mid-term.”
Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, will travel to Switzerland for the Ukraine peace summit on 15 June, White House officials have said. Harris will be accompanied by Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. The White House defended Biden’s decision to skip the summit in favour of attending an election fundraiser. “There hasn’t been any single leader around the world who has supported Ukraine more and more stridently than Joe Biden,” said John Kirby, national security council spokesperson.
A group of about 20 women held a rare protest outside Russia’s defence ministry on Monday demanding the return of their mobilised husbands and sons from Ukraine. Russian authorities have labelled at least one such group as a “foreign agent”, a tactic used to silence dissent.
French police are investigating whether the placing of five full-sized coffins covered with the French tricolour at the Eiffel Tower at the weekend was another act of Russian interference.
Poland has arrested 18 people on allegations of pursuing pro-Russian and pro-Belarusian hostile actions, including a person alleged to have been involved in a plan to assassinate Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Polish interior minister said. Ten arrested since December were directly involved in planning sabotage across Poland, said the interior minister, Tomasz Siemoniak.
Continue reading...Across Europe, saturation tourism has had an environmental and social impact that needs to be addressed
In 2021, as the easing of Covid restrictions prompted a tentative recovery in Europe’s shell-shocked tourist industry, Spain’s Balearic Islands welcomed back holidaymakers with enthusiasm and relief. During the pandemic, overall numbers of visitors dropped by around 80%, laying waste to the local economy. Three years on, however, Mallorca and Ibiza are on the frontline of a different crisis – one that is less dramatic in scale, but growing in profile.
To mark the beginning of this year’s summer holiday season, an estimated 10,000 locals marched through Mallorca’s capital, Palma, last week, protesting against the saturation tourism that they say has rendered their city unliveable. Demonstrations are expected to continue through the summer.
Continue reading...Trump fans say his conviction is an overreach. But a close look at another recent fraud trial shows his case was run-of-the-mill.
The post To Understand the Trump Verdict, Look at the Case Against Shukhratjon Mirsaidov appeared first on The Intercept.
A hundred years after his death, the author’s presence is as strong as ever in the Czech capital – from his childhood homes and the literary cafes he frequented to the remarkable buildings immortalised in his work
It’s a boiling summer’s day in Prague and I’m staring into the austere face of Franz Kafka. Not the real Kafka, of course – he died exactly a century ago, which is why I’m here – but a cast-iron plaque on the wall of his birthplace. The house, a replica as it turns out, sits pretty much on Old Town Square, which as usual is thronged with tourists snapping pics of its fairytale architecture, sipping drinks on terraces and gawking at its 15th-century astronomical clock. It’s impossible to imagine Kafka – 6ft tall and skinny, with dark, intense eyes – in this vibrant, carefree milieu. But then the Prague that Kafka was born into, in 1883 – the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, part of the Austro-Hungarian empire – was a very different city. And Kafka himself, alienated both as a Jew and a minority German speaker, had a sensitive imagination that interpreted the city’s narrow, winding streets as claustrophobic and its looming spires as threatening.
I’m here on the Kafka trail because the city is celebrating the centenary of the author’s death throughout 2024, with events, lectures, exhibitions, tours and more. There’s a forthcoming biopic, Franz, being made here too, by Polish director Agnieszka Holland (Europa Europa, Green Border), starring German actor Idan Weiss as the enigmatic author. Local artist David Černý’s famous 11-metre kinetic sculpture, Head of Franz Kafka, outside the Quadrio shopping centre, has also been refurbished for the occasion.
Continue reading...When she was sworn in, aged 20, she was the youngest MP to be appointed since 1832. Now the SNP’s deputy leader at Westminster, she looks back on 10 years of hard work and ‘hellish’ travel
For some MPs, the general election announcement came as a shock; for others, a starting pistol. But for Mhairi Black it was the end of “a sort of purgatory”, as she prepared to step down as MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, a position she has held for almost a decade. She will turn 30 in September. “I’m about to be exactly where I was 10 years ago, asking: ‘What am I going to do with my life?’”
The Scottish National party’s deputy leader at Westminster announced last summer that she intended to leave the Commons, a place she has variously described as “defunct”, “depressing”, “sexist”, “poisonous” and “one of the most unhealthy workplaces that you could ever be in”.
Continue reading...Israel warns against travel to archipelago and calls for citizens there to consider leaving after president’s announcement
The Maldives says it will ban Israelis from entering the country, known for its luxury resorts, with the office of the president making the announcement as public anger rises over the war in Gaza.
The Maldives president, Mohamed Muizzu, has “resolved to impose a ban on Israeli passports”, a spokesperson for his office said in a statement, without giving details of when the new law would take effect. The country is visited by thousands of Israelis every year.
Continue reading...The photographer’s shot of girls at the Highland Games was taken during five years visiting traditional gatherings
I’m not aware of a Highland Games prize for the neatest hair bun, but if there were one, this row of contenders would take on all-comers. The picture is included in Robbie Lawrence’s Long Walk Home, a double volume of photographs that are the result of five years of travels in Scotland and Scottish outposts in the US in search of the true tartan spirit of Highland gatherings. “Every event I photographed,” Lawrence writes by way of introduction, “whether on a dusty sports field in Denver, or at the local park in Burntisland, is at its core a coming together of friends and family to enjoy sports, dance and music.”
To begin with, on this quest, Lawrence hoped to strip away the myth-making, to look beneath the kilt of the games, to capture something like their authentic nature. He abandoned that idea, however. Instead, his pictures of grunting caber tossers and spry country dancers, and pipe bands emerging from dreich summer weather, became an attempt “to engage with the myriad of fabricated ideas surrounding the modern Highland Games”, the ways in which those rooted in glens by daily fact or inherited memory find joy in their Scottishness.
Long Walk Home is published at the end of the month by Stanley/Barker (£75 for a double volume)
Continue reading...India is in the final stages of a general election, and almost one billion people are registered to vote. The country's prime minister ,Narendra Modi, has been in power for more than 10 years, and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) is seeking a third term.
But critics of Modi and the BJP say his government has become increasingly authoritarian, fracturing the country along religious lines and threatening India’s secular democracy. At the same time, the space for freedom of speech has been shrinking while disinformation and hate speech has exploded on social media.
The Guardian’s video team travelled through India to explore how fake news and censorship might be shaping the outcome of the election
Brian Krebs reports on research into geolocating routers:
Apple and the satellite-based broadband service Starlink each recently took steps to address new research into the potential security and privacy implications of how their services geolocate devices. Researchers from the University of Maryland say they relied on publicly available data from Apple to track the location of billions of devices globally—including non-Apple devices like Starlink systems—and found they could use this data to monitor the destruction of Gaza, as well as the movements and in many cases identities of Russian and Ukrainian troops...
Is this what the “pro-life” movement wanted?
The post Sterilization, Murders, Suicides: Bans Haven’t Slowed Abortions, and They’re Costing Lives appeared first on The Intercept.
ICC warrants against Israeli officials would mean they can’t travel — and their patrons in the U.S. would be pressured over continued arms sales.
The post Can a U.S. Ally Actually Be Held Accountable for War Crimes in the ICC? appeared first on The Intercept.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors. You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors.
You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
Continue reading...Trump fans say his conviction is an overreach. But a close look at another recent fraud trial shows his case was run-of-the-mill.
The post To Understand the Trump Verdict, Look at the Case Against Shukhratjon Mirsaidov appeared first on The Intercept.
All over the country, architecture firms make the case for bigger jails — then get hired to design them.
The post The Little-Known Reason Counties Keep Building Bigger Jails: Architecture Firms appeared first on The Intercept.
The megadonor’s plan for a $25 million research center at Cornell fell apart. So he took his money to Texas A&M.
The post Leonard Leo Built the Conservative Court. Now He’s Funneling Dark Money Into Law Schools. appeared first on The Intercept.
Israel warns against travel to archipelago and calls for citizens there to consider leaving after president’s announcement
The Maldives says it will ban Israelis from entering the country, known for its luxury resorts, with the office of the president making the announcement as public anger rises over the war in Gaza.
The Maldives president, Mohamed Muizzu, has “resolved to impose a ban on Israeli passports”, a spokesperson for his office said in a statement, without giving details of when the new law would take effect. The country is visited by thousands of Israelis every year.
Continue reading...Far-right conspiracy theorist, who was forced to pay $1.5bn in damages over false hoax claim, complains of unfair treatment
Relatives of the Sandy Hook elementary school victims who won more than $1.5bn against the far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones over his false claim that the 2012 mass shooting was a hoax to force Americans to accept gun control are demanding his businesses be liquidated.
In a letter to a bankruptcy court judge on Sunday, relatives of those killed in the shooting, which left 20 children and six educators dead, requested the rejection of Jones’s petition to financially reorganize his company, which includes Infowars.
Continue reading...Jailed tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried believed altruism justified his actions. Was he right?
Earlier this year, the cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison on seven counts of wire fraud. It’s safe to say that his life has not gone according to plan. But was the plan itself immoral?
By his own account, Bankman-Fried aimed to accumulate wealth for philanthropic causes: “earning to give”, in the idiom of the effective altruist movement, of which he was a supporter. Billboards for his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, proclaimed: “I’m in on crypto because I want to make the biggest global impact for good.” Effective altruists often advocate utilitarianism, according to which we should promote the greatest net balance of benefits over harms, by any means necessary. In other words, we are justified in harming some – for instance, by wire fraud – if the harms are outweighed by benefits to others. According to the judge who sentenced Bankman-Fried: “He knew it was wrong; he knew it was criminal.” But even if he knew the law, Bankman-Fried may not have believed he was doing anything wrong. After all, he planned to donate billions to help those in need. He may have thought he had the answer to that age-old moral quandary: whether it’s OK to cause harm for the greater good.
Continue reading...Government prosecutors claimed they didn’t know a former detainee recanted his testimony in interviews with the government.
The post Guantánamo Prosecutors Accused of “Outrageous” Misconduct for Trying to Use Torture Testimony appeared first on The Intercept.
Found guilty on 34 counts by a New York jury, Trump might find himself campaigning behind bars.
The post These Convictions Thwart Trump’s Plan to Pardon Himself appeared first on The Intercept.
The Israeli PM’s invitation comes amid deep differences with the Biden administration
Benjamin Netanyahu is set to become the first foreign leader to address a joint session of the US Congress four times, despite deep differences with the Biden administration.
The Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement that a date for his address to Congress had yet to be set, but that it would not take place on 13 June as had been reported, due to a Jewish holiday.
Continue reading...Doctor, who was head of infectious diseases unit during height of the pandemic, tells Congress he and his family still get harassed
Anthony Fauci, the former head of the US infectious diseases unit, has received “credible death threats” stemming from his time overseeing the nation’s fight against Covid-19, he has told Congress.
Fauci, who was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during the height of attempts to halt the spread of the virus, told a hearing on Capitol Hill that the threats had continued until the present day, even though he retired in 2022.
Continue reading...The leader of the Morena party could pass legislation and budgets unopposed through congress
Claudia Sheinbaum seems poised to cement her historic victory as Mexico’s first female president with a supermajority in congress that would let her party pass legislation and budgets unopposed – and perhaps even change the constitution without need for compromise.
Sheinbaum, a 61-year-old climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, won the presidency with 59.5% of the vote, according to a rapid sample count by Mexico’s electoral authority.
Continue reading...Party will have to pick coalition partners and then try to reform itself in response to declining support
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party has lost its three-decade electoral majority in devastating fashion. As the former liberation movement faces the task of building a coalition government, it remains to be seen how it will respond to the message sent to it by voters.
The ANC’s vote share collapsed from 57.5% in 2019 to 40.2% in last week’s elections, amid chronic unemployment, degraded public services and high rates of violent crime.
Continue reading...Former Mexico City mayor’s Morena party also on track for possible two-thirds supermajority in Congress
Claudia Sheinbaum has won a landslide victory to become Mexico’s first female president, inheriting the project of her mentor and outgoing leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose popularity among the poor helped drive her triumph.
Sheinbaum, a leftwing climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, won the presidency with between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote, according to a rapid sample count by Mexico’s electoral authority.
Continue reading...ANC says demands that President Cyril Ramaphosa must step down is ‘no-go area’ as rival Jacob Zuma stokes fears of violence
Final results from Wednesday’s seismic South Africa elections have confirmed that the African National Congress (ANC) party has lost its majority for the first time in 30 years of full democracy, firing the starting gun on unprecedented coalition talks.
The ANC, which led the fight to free South Africa from apartheid, won just 159 seats in the 400-member national assembly on a vote share of just over 40%. High unemployment, power cuts, violent crime and crumbling infrastructure have contributed to a haemorrhaging of support for the former liberation movement.
Continue reading...After 30 years in power, the African National Congress, which took 40.2% of the vote, must engage in tricky coalition talks with rivals
The African National Congress’s (ANC) three decades of political dominance in South Africa has come to an end after it was announced that it had won just 40.2% of the vote in last week’s general election.
The ANC’s dramatic decline – the first time it has failed to win a majority of the votes since Nelson Mandela led it to victory in the first democratic election in 1994 – will lead to a chaotic round of coalition negotiations, with all of its potential partners posing difficulties.
Continue reading...Collapse in support means ANC may not reach 50% vote share needed to rule alone. Which parties are contenders for coalition?
South Africa is facing the uncertain possibility of a coalition government after a collapse in support for the ruling African National Congress party in Wednesday’s election meant it probably will not reach the 50% vote share needed for it to rule on its own. Here is a guide to the three main contenders for coalition partners:
Continue reading...The Intercept’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft shows how digital outlets are uniquely vulnerable.
The post Scarlett Johansson Isn’t Alone. The Intercept Is Getting Ripped Off by OpenAI Too. appeared first on The Intercept.
He tells the world he intends to be an authoritarian. So why won’t journalists repeat it?
The post The Media Still Doesn’t Grasp the Danger of Trump appeared first on The Intercept.
The U.S. held Saeed Bakhouch at Guantánamo Bay for 20 years without charge, then sent him to have his rights violated in Algeria.
The post After Torturing Him, U.S. Breaks Guarantees of Safety to Former Guantánamo Detainee appeared first on The Intercept.
ICC warrants against Israeli officials would mean they can’t travel — and their patrons in the U.S. would be pressured over continued arms sales.
The post Can a U.S. Ally Actually Be Held Accountable for War Crimes in the ICC? appeared first on The Intercept.
The battalion has a dedicated U.S. nonprofit to support its operations — whose president is supporting AIPAC’s political agenda.
The post This AIPAC Donor Funnels Millions to an IDF Unit Accused of Violating Human Rights appeared first on The Intercept.
In the survey of Democrats and independents in five battleground states, 2 in 5 voters said a ceasefire and conditioning aid would make them more likely to vote for Biden.
The post Conditioning Aid to Israel Would Boost Support for Biden in Key States, New Poll Finds appeared first on The Intercept.
Scientists say calamities on same scale as disaster that has killed 169 will become more common if emissions not cut
The unusually intense, prolonged and extensive flooding that has devastated southern Brazil was made at least twice as likely by human burning of fossil fuels and trees, a study has shown.
The record disaster has led to 169 deaths, ruined homes and wrecked harvests, and was worsened by deforestation, investment cuts and human incompetence.
Continue reading...Willie Walsh, now boss of Iata, also calls for more investment in sustainable aviation fuels
Green aviation policies should be abandoned if the costs outweigh the benefits, the head of the world’s most influential airlines body has said.
Willie Walsh, the director general of the International Air Transport Association (Iata) and a former British Airways boss, said achieving net zero by 2050 was “existential, not optional”.
Continue reading...Technology was once simply a tool—and a small one at that—used to amplify human intent and capacity. That was the story of the industrial revolution: we could control nature and build large, complex human societies, and the more we employed and mastered technology, the better things got. We don’t live in that world anymore. Not only has technology become entangled with the structure of society, but we also can no longer see the world around us without it. The separation is gone, and the control we thought we once had has revealed itself as a mirage. We’re in a transitional period of history right now...
SEMrush and Ahrefs are among
the most popular tools in the SEO industry. Both companies have been in
business for years and have thousands of customers per month.
If you're a professional SEO or trying to do digital
marketing on your own, at some point you'll likely consider using a tool to
help with your efforts. Ahrefs and SEMrush are two names that will likely
appear on your shortlist.
In this guide, I'm going to help you learn more about these SEO tools and how to choose the one that's best for your purposes.
What is SEMrush?
SEMrush is a popular SEO tool with a wide range of
features—it's the leading competitor research service for online marketers.
SEMrush's SEO Keyword Magic tool offers over 20 billion Google-approved
keywords, which are constantly updated and it's the largest keyword database.
The program was developed in 2007 as SeoQuake is a
small Firefox extension
Features
Ahrefs is a leading SEO platform that offers a set of
tools to grow your search traffic, research your competitors, and monitor your
niche. The company was founded in 2010, and it has become a popular choice
among SEO tools. Ahrefs has a keyword index of over 10.3 billion keywords and
offers accurate and extensive backlink data updated every 15-30 minutes and it
is the world's most extensive backlink index database.
Features
Direct Comparisons: Ahrefs vs SEMrush
Now that you know a little more about each tool, let's
take a look at how they compare. I'll analyze each tool to see how they differ
in interfaces, keyword research resources, rank tracking, and competitor
analysis.
User Interface
Ahrefs and SEMrush both offer comprehensive information
and quick metrics regarding your website's SEO performance. However, Ahrefs
takes a bit more of a hands-on approach to getting your account fully set up,
whereas SEMrush's simpler dashboard can give you access to the data you need
quickly.
In this section, we provide a brief overview of the elements
found on each dashboard and highlight the ease with which you can complete
tasks.
AHREFS
The Ahrefs dashboard is less cluttered than that of
SEMrush, and its primary menu is at the very top of the page, with a search bar
designed only for entering URLs.
Additional features of the Ahrefs platform include:
SEMRUSH
When you log into the SEMrush Tool, you will find four
main modules. These include information about your domains, organic keyword
analysis, ad keyword, and site traffic.
You'll also find some other options like
Both Ahrefs and SEMrush have user-friendly dashboards,
but Ahrefs is less cluttered and easier to navigate. On the other hand, SEMrush
offers dozens of extra tools, including access to customer support resources.
When deciding on which dashboard to use, consider what
you value in the user interface, and test out both.
If you're looking to track your website's search engine
ranking, rank tracking features can help. You can also use them to monitor your
competitors.
Let's take a look at Ahrefs vs. SEMrush to see which
tool does a better job.
The Ahrefs Rank Tracker is simpler to use. Just type in
the domain name and keywords you want to analyze, and it spits out a report
showing you the search engine results page (SERP) ranking for each keyword you
enter.
Rank Tracker looks at the ranking performance of
keywords and compares them with the top rankings for those keywords. Ahrefs
also offers:
You'll see metrics that help you understand your
visibility, traffic, average position, and keyword difficulty.
It gives you an idea of whether a keyword would be
profitable to target or not.
SEMRush offers a tool called Position Tracking. This
tool is a project tool—you must set it up as a new project. Below are a few of
the most popular features of the SEMrush Position Tracking tool:
All subscribers are given regular data updates and
mobile search rankings upon subscribing
The platform provides opportunities to track several
SERP features, including Local tracking.
Intuitive reports allow you to track statistics for the
pages on your website, as well as the keywords used in those pages.
Identify pages that may be competing with each other
using the Cannibalization report.
Ahrefs is a more user-friendly option. It takes seconds
to enter a domain name and keywords. From there, you can quickly decide whether
to proceed with that keyword or figure out how to rank better for other
keywords.
SEMrush allows you to check your mobile rankings and
ranking updates daily, which is something Ahrefs does not offer. SEMrush also
offers social media rankings, a tool you won't find within the Ahrefs platform.
Both are good which one do you like let me know in the comment.
Keyword research is closely related to rank tracking,
but it's used for deciding which keywords you plan on using for future content
rather than those you use now.
When it comes to SEO, keyword research is the most
important thing to consider when comparing the two platforms.
The Ahrefs Keyword Explorer provides you with thousands
of keyword ideas and filters search results based on the chosen search engine.
Ahrefs supports several features, including:
SEMrush's Keyword Magic Tool has over 20 billion
keywords for Google. You can type in any keyword you want, and a list of
suggested keywords will appear.
The Keyword Magic Tool also lets you to:
Both of these tools offer keyword research features and
allow users to break down complicated tasks into something that can be
understood by beginners and advanced users alike.
If you're interested in keyword suggestions, SEMrush
appears to have more keyword suggestions than Ahrefs does. It also continues to
add new features, like the Keyword Gap tool and SERP Questions recommendations.
Both platforms offer competitor analysis tools,
eliminating the need to come up with keywords off the top of your head. Each
tool is useful for finding keywords that will be useful for your competition so
you know they will be valuable to you.
Ahrefs' domain comparison tool lets you compare up to five websites (your website and four competitors) side-by-side.it also shows you how your site is ranked against others with metrics such as backlinks, domain ratings, and more.
Use the Competing Domains section to see a list of your
most direct competitors, and explore how many keywords matches your competitors
have.
To find more information about your competitor, you can
look at the Site Explorer and Content Explorer tools and type in their URL
instead of yours.
SEMrush provides a variety of insights into your
competitors' marketing tactics. The platform enables you to research your
competitors effectively. It also offers several resources for competitor
analysis including:
Traffic Analytics helps you identify where your
audience comes from, how they engage with your site, what devices visitors use
to view your site, and how your audiences overlap with other websites.
SEMrush's Organic Research examines your website's
major competitors and shows their organic search rankings, keywords they are
ranking for, and even if they are ranking for any (SERP) features and more.
The Market Explorer search field allows you to type in
a domain and lists websites or articles similar to what you entered. Market
Explorer also allows users to perform in-depth data analytics on These
companies and markets.
SEMrush wins here because it has more tools dedicated to
competitor analysis than Ahrefs. However, Ahrefs offers a lot of functionality
in this area, too. It takes a combination of both tools to gain an advantage
over your competition.
When it comes to keyword data research, you will become
confused about which one to choose.
Consider choosing Ahrefs if you
Consider SEMrush if you:
Both tools are great. Choose the one which meets your
requirements and if you have any experience using either Ahrefs or SEMrush let
me know in the comment section which works well for you.
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