An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: While global tech stocks teeter, in China they have already crashed as lofty valuations collapse under worries about AI demand and curbs on Chinese exports. The meltdown, tanking the mainland STAR50 index of AI and semiconductor leaders by 40% in less than four months and vaporizing some $480 billion in market value, is an ill omen for wobbly world markets and a dampener on China's efforts at encouraging its savers into stocks to fund the AI boom. It has also slammed the brakes on a rally running two years, since economic stimulus promises sent shares soaring, and has stalled Beijing's push to break with a long boom-bust pattern and drive a "slow bull" market that delivers reliable performance. China's broad blue-chip index has dropped about 20% from highs made in June. "The stock market later evolved into a speculative crazy bull," said Beijing-based fund manager Dong Baozhen. "And now we see the bubble bursting." There was no clear trigger for the selloff in China, though traders pointed to high valuations, tax bills, and the threat of foreign bans on Chinese data center equipment. According to Goldman Sachs, AI stocks account for 42% of China's market capitalization and 57% of trading turnover, leaving investors widely exposed to the downturn.
"What's happening is now going to put a stop for many of the companies trying to get themselves listed," said Hong Hao, managing partner and chief investment officer at Lotus Asset Management in Hong Kong.

"Overemphasising the 'technology content' -- that is, the weighting of tech companies by market value in major indexes -- leads to a deviation, even a distortion, in capital behavior," said Leo Wang, partner at Beijing-based Qianchuang Capital. "This created a severe bubble in certain sectors and a serious drain on others."

"Just like all other Chinese manufacturers, (chipmakers and AI suppliers) will eventually end up in a price war," said fund manager Wang Zhuo, partner at Shanghai Zhuozhu Investment Management. "There's no exception," he said. "All bubbles inevitably burst."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Nachtmerries die je zelfs in D-films als Citizen Vigilante zouden misstaan wegens too on the nose zijn in Nederland gewoon realiteit, zoals die groepsverkrachting van een 18-jarig meisje door een 21-jarige Syriër, z'n Syrische broertje, neef, drie anderen en daarna door nóg vier anderen op twee parkeerplaatsen te Sliedrecht, 26 mei 2025. De groepsverkrachting werd gefilmd en op Snapchat gedeeld, en uit die beelden bleek dat er in totaal 10 daders waren, waarvan er vier nooit zijn gepakt. De verdachten volharden dat de seksuele handelingen van het meisje vrijwillig waren, maar tijdens de inleidende zitting weerspreekt de officier van justitie dit stellig. Omroep Rijnmond schrijft:

"De officier van justitie: “De verkrachtingen zijn gefilmd en rondgegaan op Snapchat. We hebben eerst geprobeerd de hele groep in kaart te brengen, maar toen dat niet lukte, is ervoor gekozen zes verdachten aan te houden.” Het langlopende onderzoek is ook de reden dat de zaak pas recentelijk naar buiten kwam. De filmpjes zijn volgens de officier het bewijs dat het niet vrijwillig is gegaan. “We horen het slachtoffer ‘nee, nee!’ roepen. Ze wordt ‘kankerslet’ genoemd, aan de haren getrokken en op de billen geslagen. In deze zaak zijn alle grenzen overschreden. Het slachtoffer is gezien als een voorwerp waar iedereen gebruik van kon maken.” Ze verwijst naar de afgeluisterde gesprekken, waarin zou zijn gezegd dat het slachtoffer onder druk gezet moest worden. “U praat respectloos over haar."”

Ook bleek tijdens dezelfde zitting dat een hoofdverdachte probeert het slachtoffer te dwingen haar verklaring in te trekken: "Een van de verdachten in de zaak van de Sliedrechtse groepsverkrachting zou het slachtoffer willen dwingen haar verklaring in te trekken. Hij zou dat doen via vriendinnen die het 18-jarige meisje moesten benaderen."

En belangrijke noot: dit zijn soennitische Syriërs voor wie Syrië helemaal niet meer onveilig is. Wat zou betekenen dat hun lichamen veilig terug naar Syrië gestuurd kunnen worden.

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Eerst Albanië, dan de rellen in Frankrijk, dan de studentenbeweging in Servië, de overwinning van Lula in Brazilië en ook bij de verkiezingen in Israël en de VS lijken jongeren aan de stoelpoten van de zittende machtshebber te gaan zagen. Waarom houdt deze generatie zo weinig rekening met de toekomst van oude machtige mannen? “De ene na de andere hulpeloze witte machtige man moet het veld ruimen”, constateert ook onderzoeker Herman Stevens. “Kijk bijvoorbeeld naar Vučić in Servië, Rama in Albanië. Maar ook dichter bij huis. Macron, Merz. Waar ligt hun toekomst? Waar zijn zij wel nog welkom? Als het aan de jongeren ligt is er geen enkel perspectief voor hen. Terwijl zij ook gewoon mondjes te voeden hebben.” Waar die houding precies vandaan komt, kan Stevens niet zo snel duiden: “Het zal iets van deze tijd zijn. Geen lange termijn perspectief bieden voor de generaties voor je. Van Gen Z’ers wordt vaak gezegd dat ze gewoonweg niet veel ophebben met oude witte machtshebbers, maar dat ze er echt tegen in opstand komen is een nieuw fenomeen. Hoe je het ook wendt of keert, het is pure leeftijdsdiscriminatie.” Jongeren zouden minder bezig moeten zijn met zichzelf, aldus een anonieme bron uit Den Haag. “Ze willen enkel hun eigen hachje redden door klimaatverandering tegen te gaan, onrecht te bestrijden en het onderwijs te verbeteren. Maar ze denken niet na over wat er gebeurt met een autocraat wanneer die het veld moet ruimen. Hoe moet zo’n persoon verder met zijn leven? Daar hoor je al die studenten niet over. Denk eens aan een ander!”

The US government's cybersecurity watchdog has confirmed attackers are exploiting both critical PHP2Shell vulnerabilities, giving federal agencies three days to patch the bugs that have wreaked havoc across the web over the past week. CISA added CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog on Monday, setting an October 29 deadline for federal civilian agencies to address the flaws. The move marks a shift from last week, when the agency warned of the danger posed by PHP2Shell but said it had not yet observed successful exploitation in the wild. Both bugs are rated 9.2 on the CVSS scale and can be exploited without authentication to run code on vulnerable PHP servers. That's bad news given how much of the web still relies on PHP, and just how many sites could be left exposed. Patches landed on October 21, but attackers had already beaten the maintainers to it. AWS spotted attempts to exploit the flaws as early as October 17, four days before the bugs were publicly disclosed. CISA's confirmation comes amid growing evidence that attackers are doing more than simply knocking on the door. On October 24, Perplexity security researcher Adel Karimi recorded 35 successful shell executions across three honeypots running PHP 8.4.26 under Apache mod_php. The attacks came from two IP addresses and used memory exhaustion and disclosure to achieve remote code execution. The attackers then tried to contact external servers using PHP, curl, and wget, although no additional malware was successfully downloaded. Karimi's findings were consistent with exploitation of CVE-2026-109618, but he found no evidence that the second PHP2Shell flaw was involved. He also warned that the honeypots used a favorable single-worker configuration, so the results don't necessarily reflect how reliably the exploit works against production servers. Still, attackers appear to be giving it a good go. Delft University's Threat Intelligence Lab has tracked more than 50,000 PHP2Shell exploitation requests from over 600 IP addresses across 70 countries. Of those, 171 addresses went beyond probing for vulnerable servers and started sending exploit code or malware droppers. CISA's confirmation also comes after some of the earlier reports of successful PHP2Shell attacks turned out to be rather premature. Sophos walked back its initial assessment after determining that the activity it observed amounted to scanning and failed attempts, while Palo Alto Networks withdrew claims linking the vulnerabilities to an intrusion at a European government agency. CISA has not disclosed which organizations have been compromised or provided details of the attacks behind its decision to add the flaws to KEV. The listing confirms that the agency considers both vulnerabilities actively exploited, but it does not confirm how many production systems have been successfully breached. For federal agencies, the clock is now ticking. CISA is also urging organizations outside the federal government to prioritize the fixes, although the deadline does not apply to them. Admins should update to PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, or 8.2.35, depending on their release branch. Those running older, unsupported versions face the added headache of upgrading or obtaining vendor-supported fixes, while systems that cannot be secured should be taken offline until the risk is addressed. And with CISA now officially acknowledging exploitation, anyone still waiting for more proof before patching may be waiting a little too long. ®

OMG, the height of these waves hitting a seawall in Taiwan as Typhoon Champi hit the island nation a few days ago. That’s gotta be close to 100 feet. Waves also inundated this 75-foot-tall lighthouse and a crane 164 feet tall, knocking it over.

Rotterdam krijgt een schaatsbaan op een bijzondere plek. Bij het Noordereiland kan binnenkort gegleden worden op de Nieuwe Maas. Het wordt een plek met kerstverlichting, kerstbomen en houten huisjes. "Met het mooiste uitzicht op de skyline", zeggen de bedenkers.

The Russian president also confirmed potential joint energy projects with the United States in the Arctic.

De Europese Commissie kondigt dinsdag nieuwe bevoegdheden aan voor grensagentschap Frontex. Met dit mandaat wil het agentschap onder meer een grotere rol spelen bij crisissituaties aan de grens.

Ollie Bearman and Pierre Gasly have reflected on their collision in the United States Grand Prix, with the former stating "I don't regret going for the move" despite being handed a penalty.

DirtyGlassEye has added a photo to the pool:

Of all things categorized as the "far east" in the world, Tokyo or Japan in general are probably what come to mind. Not South Korea, The Phillipines, Polynesia, Taiwan, or China (curse that name), but Japan. So that got me thinking, what would be the ideal defining look for Tokyo, something very recognizable and in this instance probably in the daylight (cause not everyone likes doing things at night, as blasphemous as that sounds).
My answer came on day 3 when I visited the Skytree. I already tried shooting it at night and was stopped by clouds, which I worried would be a solid premonition (thank gosh that wasn't the case and was able to shoot it multiple times in later days). But by now I was barely alive. I've walked a total of 30-35 miles up to this point and it's been less than 72 hours since I arrived in the country. That may not seem like much for some, but it was for me.
I was waiting on a timed entry in Solomachi (Skytree's mall) so I was trying to kill time, anything that didn't involve being on my feet. I leaned up and got this without thinking about it much (my mood would change that night was the Skytree was lit up and still in full view).
I didn't notice until it was time to edit, but the haze here was so strong you can see a faint shadow of the tower tracing off the tip-top. I wanted this to look like a typical "day 1" shot so I kept the light and saturation in some areas and the framing didn't need to be changed at all. This is something tourists will try to take out thegate, or the first image that comes up when you look up "Tokyo". And I ain't even half done yet with this tower. じゃあまたね