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dan maertens
  • For his supporters, Khamenei was not merely an Iranian leader. He was a pillar of regional resistance politics and a religious authority. He transformed political Islam into a force capable of confronting what he framed as global hegemony and modern forms of colonial domination.

     

  • Through the formation of the so-called “axis of resistance” and his consistent call for Islamic opposition to the United States and Israel, he became a leading figure for Shiite movements and segments of Sunni political Islam.

     

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Tami Brass

How to Tell What's Real and What's AI-Generated on Social Media

"Tips for How You Can Spot AI-Generated Videos on Social Media"

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dan maertens
  • The U.S. has already been at war with Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. In 1987-88, the U.S. Navy actively sided with Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran, by escorting tankers carrying Iraqi oil, attacking Iranian boats and oil rigs, and “accidentally” shooting down an Iranian civilian jetliner. This war with Iran is a continuation of a long-simmering conflict.

     

  • Yet in four decades of conflict, Iran has never sponsored an attack within the U.S., even as the U.S. has attacked its allies in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, and directly attacked its own forces in the Gulf. Only Sunni terrorists (also opposed by Iran) have attacked targets in the U.S.

     

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dan maertens
  • Het nu geëscaleerde conflict gaat over AI-gebruik voor massasurveillance op Amerikaans grondgebied en AI-gebruik voor volledig autonome wapensystemen. Anthropic wil dat expliciet uitsluiten voor zijn AI-technologie en dat specifiek opnemen in het contract met Defensie. Het ministerie wil dat niet op die manier vastleggen.

  • In tegenstelling tot Anthropic lijkt OpenAI erop te vertrouwen dat Defensie zich houdt aan de wet en dat dit gelijkstaat aan moreel of ethisch juist handelen. Altman kwam maandag nog wel met aanvullingen op de al gesloten overeenkomst, die naar zijn zeggen te haastig is gesloten. De ceo van OpenAI zegt nu met het ministerie te werken aan veranderingen. Het is de vraag of en hoe ver het ministerie daarin meegaat, nu het kennelijk de gewenste AI-deal heeft met een grote aanbieder.

     

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dan maertens
    • Mining companies are now required to process and refine minerals locally to add value before export, aligning with broader African trends.
    •    
      • Major Chinese companies have heavily invested in Zimbabwe’s lithium mining, making the country a key supplier for Chinese refineries.
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dan maertens
  • The plan was for a quick and lively campaign and a speedy takeover of a country the Russian president thought shouldn’t exist.
  • Four years on, Russia has not found itself among fellow great powers willing to divide up the globe.

      

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dan maertens
  • Even for skilled developers, it's at minimum an hour of setup. For non-developers, it's effectively impossible.

    Claude collapses all of that into a single conversation. You describe what you want, and within seconds you have a working prototype you can actually use — and share with anyone who has the link.

  • The most direct approach: tell Claude you want to build an AI-powered app, then describe the persona or purpose. Try something like: "Build me a chatbot that acts like a skeptical editor reviewing my writing" or "Create an AI assistant that only speaks in the style of a 1920s detective." Let your imagination go wild and Claude will handle the rest — writing the code, embedding the API calls and rendering the finished app in the side panel.

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dan maertens

What is Trump’s objective in Iran? | Gilbert Achcar / جلبير الأشقر

"Here lies the fundamental difference between the Trump administration’s objectives in Iran and those of the Zionist government—indeed of the Zionist state. Netanyahu has repeatedly called on the Iranian people to overthrow the regime and has openly expressed his desire for the restoration of the Pahlavi dynasty, which was overthrown by the 1979 Iranian Revolution, as represented by Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed Shah. Washington, however, has not backed the Shah’s son, just as it did not support the Venezuelan opposition leader, judging both incapable of governing their respective countries. Its primary objective is for the Iranian regime, with its core structures intact, to cooperate with the United States along the lines of Washington’s other regional allies. It fears the regime’s collapse, recognizing that such an outcome would likely lead to armed chaos and fragmentation, producing extreme instability in the Gulf region—an outcome entirely contrary to Washington’s interests, and even to Trump’s personal and familial interests (not to mention those of the Kushner and Witkoff families).

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  • As we predicted a week ago, and in light of the Iranian regime’s continued intransigence—its refusal to commit to ending uranium enrichment and to negotiate limits on its ballistic missile programme—it faced “the risk of a military strike that could create a situation threatening the entire regime, and which might ultimately lead to Khamenei’s removal from power in one way or another.” We concluded that the impending US strike was “planned to target Ali Khamenei specifically, along with the heads of the hardliners in the Iranian regime, in the hope that their removal would pave the way for Tehran’s submission to Washington’s desiderata.” (“A Game of Chicken Between Washington and Tehran?” [in Arabic], Al-Quds Al-Arabi, 24 February 2026).

  • We also explained how Donald Trump’s approach to Iran falls within the framework of the strategy he successfully implemented in Venezuela, which focuses on “changing the regime’s behaviour” rather than “changing the regime” itself, as the George W. Bush administration sought to do by invading Iraq in 2003 (see “US: an old-new imperial doctrine”, Le Monde diplomatique, February 2026). A significant difference between Venezuela and Iran, however, is that Washington had connections with key figures within the Venezuelan regime and believed they would comply with its demands once subjected to intense pressure and after the removal of their president, Nicolás Maduro, through his abduction. In Iran, by contrast, the regime exercises far tighter control and oversight over its leading figures, making the risk of any of them reaching a behind-the-scenes accommodation with Washington far lower. Moreover, kidnapping the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran was not a feasible option, and eliminating him alone would in any case have been insufficient to alter the regime’s trajectory.

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