FORMULA 1 ARAMCO UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX 2022 - Top 10 Qualifying Results
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EU countries are discussing whether to contribute funding to ensure Ukrainians keep their access to vital Starlink internet services currently paid for by Tesla boss Elon Musk. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis disclosed the plans, which are at an early stage, in an interview with POLITICO on Monday.
The proposal follows warnings from Musk that his SpaceX rocket company could not indefinitely continue paying for Ukrainians to have access to Starlink internet services, amid suggestions that he wanted the U.S. government to foot the bill. Musk, the world’s richest man, later changed his mind and said he would carry on funding the service. But the scare raised concerns about the security of Ukraine’s continued access to a crucial telecommunications system that has played a vital role in their counteroffensives against Russian troops in occupied territories, as well as keeping the civilian population connected. Landsbergis suggested Ukraine's internet access should not be left in the hands of a single "super-powerful" person who could "wake up one day and say, ‘This is no longer what I feel like doing and this is it.’ And the next day, Ukrainians might find themselves without the internet.” He continued: “I figured that it's probably way better to have this as a contractual agreement between, let's say, a coalition of countries that could purchase a service from Mr. Musk, the Starlink service, and provide it to the Ukrainians and keep on providing it to Ukrainians.” The topic made it into the discussion at the meeting of the 27 EU foreign ministers Monday, according to Landsbergis. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell raised the subject, “and certain countries also joined in,” the minister said, without specifying which countries. “If it happens in EU, it's even better,” he said. “I don't see why it couldn't.” Sweden won't share findings of the investigation into the explosions of the Nord Stream gas pipelines with Russian authorities or Gazprom, Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said on Monday.
A Swedish crime scene investigation of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines from Russia to Europe has found evidence of detonations and prosecutors suspect sabotage. Last week Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin sent a letter to the Swedish government demanding that Russian authorities and Gazprom would be allowed to be involved in the investigation, which Sweden denied. On Monday Andersson said Sweden won't even share the findings of the explosions that took place in the Swedish economic zone, with Russian authorities. "In Sweden, our preliminary investigations are confidential, and that, of course, also applies in this case," she told reporters. The members of K-pop band BTS will serve their mandatory military duties under South Korean law, their management company said Monday, effectively ending a debate on whether they should be granted exemptions because of their artistic accomplishments. Big Hit Music said the band’s oldest member, Jin, will revoke his request to delay his conscription at the end of the month and undertake the required steps. The six other BTS members also plan to serve in the military and are “looking forward to reconvening as a group again around 2025 following their service commitment,” the company said in a statement.
No further information on the timing of their service was given. The band members performed together in Busan over the weekend in support of the city’s EXPO bid, which will be their last concert as a group until they finish serving in the military, according to their label. Hybe Corp., the parent company of Big Hit, said in an email to The Associated Press that each member of the band for the time being will focus on individual activities scheduled around their military service plans. In a letter to shareholders, Hybe CEO Park Jiwon downplayed financial concerns related to the BTS hiatus, saying it has a broad enough lineup of artists, including other popular K-pop groups such as Le Sserafim and NewJeans and Western performers Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande. “We have always been aware of the eventuality of mandatory military service, and we have long been making preparations to be ready for this moment,” Park wrote. “In the short term, individual activities for several of the members are planned into the first half of 2023, and we have secured content in advance, which will enable BTS to continue their engagement with fans for the foreseeable future.” The announcement came after Lee Ki Sik, commissioner of the Military Manpower Administration, told lawmakers this month that it would be “desirable” for BTS members to fulfil their military duties to ensure fairness in the country’s military service. After enlisting, Jin and other BTS members will receive five weeks of combat training before being assigned to specific units and duties, according to officials at the Military Manpower Administration, who stressed that the singers would go under the same process as other South Korean men. While South Korea’s military for years had assigned enlisted entertainers to duties related to producing radio and TV material promoting the military, the “entertainment soldier” system was retired in 2013 following complaints over fairness. Defence Minister Lee Jong-sup said in August that if BTS members join the military, they would likely be allowed to continue practicing and to join with the group for tours overseas. Whether the BTS members must serve in the army had been a hotly debated issue in South Korea as Jin faced possible enlistment early next year. Jin turns 30 in December, the age at which men can no longer delay enlistment. Other members are currently between 25 and 29 years old, with Suga turning 30 in March. Under South Korean law, most able-bodied men are required to perform 18-21 months of military service, but special exemptions had been granted for athletes and artists who excel in certain international competitions that have been tied to national prestige. The band — its other members being J-Hope, RM, Jungkook, V and Jimin — launched in 2013 and has a legion of global supporters who call themselves the “Army.” After building a huge following in Asia, BTS expanded its popularity in the West with its 2020 megahit “Dynamite,” the band’s first all-English song that made it the first K-pop act to top Billboard’s Hot 100. The band has performed in sold-out arenas around the world and was even invited to speak at United Nations meetings. Since South Korea’s draft interrupts young males in their professional careers or studies, the dodging of military duties or creation of exemptions is a highly sensitive issue. Opinion surveys in recent weeks showed that the public was split over whether the BTS members should serve in the military. © 2022 The Associated Press Who runs Wagner? Western intelligence agencies have long believed Wagner to be financed by Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s chef” for his lucrative catering contracts with the Kremlin and close ties to the Russian president. Prigozhin is also wanted by the United States for funding the state-backed troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency, which is accused of influencing the 2016 US presidential election in favour of Donald Trump. For years, Prigozhin (who turned a hotdog stand into a food empire after serving serious prison time) vehemently denied the Wagner connection. He sued journalists who made the link, even as he raked in wealth from the group’s deployments overseas in Syria and Africa. Then, in September, Prigozhin finally admitted he owned Wagner, having been filmed touring prisons to offer convicts early release in exchange for six months fighting alongside Wagner in Ukraine. “I cleaned the old weapons myself, sorted out the bulletproof vests myself and found specialists who could help me with this,” Prigozhin said in a statement released by his Concord catering firm. “From that moment, on May 1, 2014, a group of patriots was born, which later came to be called the Wagner Battalion. I am proud that I was able to defend their right to protect the interests of their country.” Experts suspect the Russian state may directly bankroll parts of Wagner too, supplying them with weapons and aircraft and offering training. The French government has accused the Kremlin of “providing material support” to Wagner where it operates in Mali, West Africa, for example. Back home, Wagner’s training base is next door to that of the Russian army, although officially the site is listed as a children’s holiday camp. And there have been cases of Wagner troops evacuated from conflict zones to Russian military hospitals, Currie says, including after that 2018 US air strike on attacking Wagner forces in Syria. “Generally, private military companies would not receive such benefits, specialised military health care, from the state.” In 2021, Russian journalist Ilya Barabanov, along with Nader Ibrahim at the BBC, stumbled upon a discarded Wagner tablet and uncovered a “shopping list” of weapons and equipment the organisation had sent Russian authorities directly. It’s not the only time the group has been careless. In August, a pro-Kremlin war blogger inadvertently revealed the location of Wagner’s main base in eastern Luhansk, Ukraine, when he posted a photo with fighters there. Within days, Ukrainian rockets had reduced it to rubble. Currie recalls seeing the image pop up on open-source intelligence channels, as investigators, both amateur and professional, around the world scrambled to identify its location. “There were clues like a sign on a building we were looking at. Then I woke up the next day and someone had cracked it and the Ukrainians had taken it out.” The casualties for Wagner were reportedly grave. Prigozhin himself had been photographed at the base just before the strike, but he soon resurfaced at a high-profile funeral elsewhere, disproving rumours he’d been killed. Russian outlet Medusa reports that, before the invasion, Prigozhin had somewhat fallen out of favour with the Kremlin, publicly feuding with many of its high-ranking officials and other oligarchs. A large Wagner force was not deployed to Ukraine until the end of the war’s first month, when UK intelligence said more than 1000 mercenaries had joined the fighting. What does Wagner mean for the Ukraine war, and for Putin?
As the first Russian missiles fell on Kyiv, Wagner mercenaries were reportedly already prowling its streets with orders to hunt down Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. (Ukraine’s military later posted photos of dog tags it said belonged to the dead “Wagnerists” whose assassination plots it foiled.) Many months on, Ukraine continues to win back ground, and Russia is increasingly turning to Wagner in tight spots. The private army appears to have been allocated entire sections of the frontline like a normal military unit, according to UK Ministry of Defence intelligence. At times, they are helping command squads. But, while the mercenaries have had greater success against Ukraine’s seasoned fighters of the Donbas (compared to a Russian army beset by low morale and inexperience) the group, and the other rag-tag mix of “volunteers” the Kremlin has deployed to Ukraine, is unlikely to win the war for Russia. Already, Wagner appears to be feeling the pinch of poor co-ordination across the wider Russian military machine. And it is thought to be suffering its heaviest losses of any conflict so far, such is the scale of the fighting. While Currie says there is still strong support for Putin among Wagner channels online, she is seeing frustration too. “We don’t have exact figures of how many Wagner mercenaries died [in the recent strike on their Luhansk base] for example, but it was a lot. Enough to generate frustration. There’s quite a legacy of Wagner mercenaries feeling abandoned to an extent by Russia.” Ex-Wagner fighter Gabidullin, for example, has hit out at the Kremlin for abandoning his team at that US airstrike during the 2018 battle in Syria, and for using Wagner to hide Russian army casualties. Back in 2016, Australian startup Fomofx launched a digital whammy bar called the Virtual Jeff that could be mounted to just about any guitar, without having to modify the host instrument. Now the novel vibrato arm has gone Pro.
As before, the Pro doesn't involve breaking out the power tools to permanently modify the body, doesn't alter the string tension in any way (so no tuning nightmares), and it's made up of two main components. Most players will likely choose to mount the vibrato arm part of the setup behind the bridge or tailpiece for familiarity, but it could be placed anywhere that doesn't interfere with existing controls and hardware. The Virtual Jeff comes with a mounting block that's attached to the guitar using supplied adhesive tape and is reckoned to take just 10 seconds to install, then the whammy just slides on. The vibrato arm module then needs to be connected to a companion control box – though the company recommends a cabled connection between the Virtual Jeff Pro mounted on the host guitar and the control stomp on the floor, a 2.4-GHz mini-link transmitter is supplied. The host guitar's output jack also needs to be cabled up to the instrument input on the control box (though wireless systems like Line 6's Relay G10 are also supported). The player can set exactly how far up or down the pitch travels during a sweep, and can set up and switch between two different whammy presets. A new virtual capo mode is included for instant up-shifts but also drop tuning, and pickers can blend the original guitar sound with a pitched sound for "glorious chorus, metal sub-octaves, parallel harmonies and much more." A hold feature freezes the pitch during a bend to free up the picking hand. There are three footswitches atop the control box. The first is used to turn the system on or off, and two bypass modes are included. True bypass means that the system will not influence the guitar's output in any way, but the Pro also offers a studio-quality analog buffer for silent switching and to maintain a consistent tone. The middle footswitch hops between A and B presets, and the third is used to engage the virtual capo. It looks like you will need to invest in a separate A/B switch for the blend/hold feature though. London Metropolitan Police arrested two environmentalists on Friday after throwing tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s iconic ‘Sunflowers’ portray. A video exhibiting two younger ladies emptying a can of Heinz soup into the glass-encased 1888 masterpiece has gone viral on social media.
“Officers have been shortly on the scene on the Nationwide Gallery this morning after two Simply Cease Oil protesters threw a substance over a portray after which glued themselves to a wall. Each have been arrested for felony harm and aggravated trespassing,” according to London’s police headquarters. The Nationwide Gallery later revealed that the body of ‘Sunflowers’ was barely broken, however the paintings itself was intact. Simply Cease Oil, which is making an attempt to get British authorities to cease all new fossil-fuel tasks, has been blocking bridges and busy intersections throughout London for the previous two weeks. Regardless of the arrest of dozens of its members, the youth group issued a direct warning to regulation enforcement on October 11. Friday’s assault on a Van Gogh portray shouldn’t be the primary time Simply Cease Oil has focused the paintings. Earlier, employees vandalized Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Final Supper’, John Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ and Van Gogh’s ‘Peach Timber in Blossom’. In September, a employee, 21-year-old Louis McKenney, was sentenced to 6 weeks in jail after chaining himself to a goalpost throughout a match between Everton and Newcastle United in Liverpool on March 17. Simply Cease Oil was based in February. As a significant supply of funding, it lists the Local weather Emergency Fund, a US-based charity that has funded the abolitionist riot and Britain’s containment – two actions infamous for his or her disruptive protests in London and past.
It comes just days before the Communist Party's National Congress, which only occurs every five years. A banner was unfurled on Sitong Bridge in the Chinese capital's Haidian district, brandishing the words: "We need food, not COVID tests. We want freedom, not lockdowns," in reference to China's strict zero-COVID policy.
"We want dignity, not lies. We need reform, no cultural revolution," the white banner continued in red letters. "We want to vote, not a leader. Don't be slaves, be citizens." 'Dictator Xi Jinping' heard on a megaphone Over a megaphone, a voice could be heard demanding: "Oust dictator Xi Jinping," according to footage circulating on social media. Smoke was also set off at the scene of the protest, and a scorched pavement could be seen from the same location later on Thursday. According to news agency dpa, police could also be seen taking one person into custody and loading him into a van while the banner was removed. Shortly after the protest, the search term "Sitong Bridge" was blocked on the Chinese short message service Weibo. The incidents come as members of the country’s ruling Communist Party gather for a twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle that begins Sunday. At the meeting, Xi is poised to tighten his grip as China's most powerful leader in decades by securing a third leadership term. Officially, Wagner doesn’t exist. Mercenaries – contractors who fight wars for money rather than as part of an army – aren’t legal in Russia (nor in most countries, including the US and Australia, in light of international bans). But private groups of this kind still operate all around the world, including America’s Blackwater (now known as Academi), whose staff were convicted of killing Iraqi civilians in 2007. Wagner has left its own (much larger) trail of war crimes across the globe, says the chair of the UN working group on mercenaries, Dr Sorcha MacLeod. “Russia is not the only country with a mercenary group,” she says. “We know Turkey has one too, but Wagner, based on what we know about where it’s been and where it operates, seems to be the biggest. It’s really a proxy force of the Russian state.” Wagner is pronounced “Vagner” for Hitler’s favourite composer. It’s also the call sign of the group’s unconfirmed leader, Dmitry Utkin, a former Russian military intelligence lieutenant, Wagner fan and suspected neo-Nazi. Wagner emerged in 2014 as Russia seized Crimea, part of the “little green men” (soldiers in unmarked green uniforms) sent in to take Ukrainian territory. Utkin himself was wounded in the fighting that became the long-running war of the Donbas. Unofficially, Wagner mercenaries are sometimes called “the cleaners” or “the orchestra”, known for “making noise” with brutal onslaughts. In Syria, they’ve backed Bashar al-Assad’s regime and guarded lucrative oil fields; in Libya, they joined the forces of rebel general Khalifa Haftar in 2019 after he attacked the UN-backed government in the capital, Tripoli. And across Africa, they’ve been brought in to help military governments crack down on rebellion and terrorist cells (and seize diamond mines). Now in Ukraine, they’re back fighting in large numbers, reportedly “rented out” as a strike team by Russian army units and increasingly acting as a regular part of the military. Using mercenaries means Russia can distance itself from Wagner atrocities – the group often do the Kremlin’s dirty work, experts say – and it helps quell fears at home of Russian soldiers returning in body bags. “It’s about plausible deniability,” says MacLeod. “Russia says – and has said when we’ve sent them allegation letters [over Wagner] human rights violations – that mercenaries aren’t permitted under Russian law, so they can’t be doing that.” Hired guns are not new – popes and kings have used them – and, historically, they’ve been known for brutality. They do not have the same chain of command and oversight that regular armies do. But, in modern times, Wagner has taken that to a new level, says MacLeod. “There are no ID numbers, or uniforms, no accountability. Locals might recognise them as the white guys, or the Russians, even as Wagner, but usually that’s as far as it goes.” Fighters are made to sign non-disclosure agreements and are hired through a complex web of shell companies. In fact, many experts now understand the group as more of a network of Russian military contractors – code for the Kremlin outsourcing – rather than one single business entity. “Of course, for an organisation like this that operates in the shadows, it suits them for there to be speculation about who they are, their size, where they are,” MacLeod says. “That adds to the mystique.” Still, journalists and international investigators such as MacLeod have pieced together a picture of how Wagner operates.
Who (and how) does Wagner recruit? The group typically recruits in code, says researcher Isabella Currie at La Trobe University, offering spots to “musicians on tour for the Wagner Conservatory” or, more recently, for “a picnic in Ukraine”. Sometimes they will pose with violins or other musical instruments in photos from the battlefield. “It’s a joke and everyone’s in on it,” Currie says. “It’s just that the joke is terrifying.” Recruits tend to be ex-military personnel, in their 30s and 40s, often with criminal histories or hailing from small Russian towns without much work. They have a reputation as elite fighters, more seasoned than the typical Russian soldier. The bar for selection and training, though, has been lowered more and more as they take big losses in Ukraine. All up, Wagner is thought to be about 10,000 fighters strong. Its casualties in combat are not recorded publicly and so, as researcher Dr Joana de Deus Pereira writes, mercenaries can “vanish without a name”. Sometimes bodies of slain soldiers are not recovered, or their families are denied agreed compensation, told their loved one wasn’t a soldier at all but was working for a gas company or some other front. Generally, though, the pay and compensation deal is very attractive to recruits – much more than the salary on offer through the Russian army. In the 50 years since their big, chrome covers first reflected a hot stage light, Fender’s Seth Lover-designed Wide Range humbuckers have gone from maligned to revered. The guitars built around Wide Range pickups are legends in their own right, too. Keith Richards’ Telecaster Custom is synonymous with the Stones dynamic and adventurous late-70s-to-early-80s period. Scores of punk and indie guitarists made the Telecaster Deluxe a fixture of those scenes. And Jonny Greenwood almost singlehandedly elevated the Starcaster from a curiosity to an object of collector lust. The fourth member of the Wide Range-based guitar family, the ’72 Telecaster Thinline, lived a comparatively low-profile life. Yet it is a practical, streamlined, uniquely stylish, and multifaceted instrument with a truly original voice—qualities that are plain to see, feel, and hear in this new American Vintage II incarnation. Though the ’72 Thinline re-issue has been a fixture in Fender and Squier lines for years, the pickups in those guitars were mere visual approximations of the Wide Range pickups that made the originals so distinct. But thanks to the introduction of Fender’s new CuNiFe magnet-based Wide Range pickups, the new American Vintage II ’72 Telecaster Thinline now exists in the most vintage-correct guise since the original—right down to the Lover-style Wide Range units, 1 meg potentiometers, and a 7.25" fretboard radius. It’s a lively, exciting, and rich-sounding instrument that spans Fender and Gibson textures while inhabiting a tone world all its own. The Verdict
In terms of function, sound, and style, time is proving kind to the ’72 Telecaster Thinline. And in this American Vintage II incarnation, the improvements to the Wide Range pickup make the Thinline a very real, appealing, and individual alternative to Gibsons and more canonical Fender sounds as well. Idiosyncrasies specific to the Wide Range pickups and 1meg potentiometer configuration won’t be for everyone. The guitar can sound pretty bright. And I suspect players that just want PAF sounds from a Telecaster will have the same complaints they’ve always had. But for any player that loves the feel of a vintage Fender but is interested in a more distinct, individual palette of sounds, the ’72 Telecaster Thinline is a sweet-playing delight
This comes less than a month after the State Bank of India had agreed to put in place a simplified rupee settlement mechanism aimed at boosting mutual trade. An Indian diplomat told the outlet that Russian banks had requested that India’s eight largest lenders organize settlement in the local currency, but had not received any response. These banks include India’s largest lender, State Bank of India, and also Punjab National Bank, Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Central Bank of India. Sources at lending institutions told the news agency that their management was not considering using this mechanism, at least not yet.
According to a senior executive at a large state-owned bank, financial entities are wary of being punished by the US and EU for trading in rupees with Russia. “They [Western nations] can impose a sanction on us, it will be a major business and reputational loss,” the banker said. Indian banks that are exposed to the international financial system stick to dollars or euros in trade with non-sanctioned Russian lenders. They are concerned that their businesses would be disrupted if targeted by sanctions. Currently, only two small lenders, Yes Bank and UCO Bank, which have agreements with Russia’s PSCB and Gazprombank, are using the rupee payment mechanism. In September, the Economic Times reported that Indian banks had received about 20 requests from Russian credit institutions to open accounts. The rupee trade initiative was set up to bypass the US dollar, thus ensuring uninterrupted cross-border business between the two countries.
2022 FORMULA 1 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP CONSTRUCTOR STANDINGS
Missile strikes on "many" Ukrainian cities including the capital Kyiv left people dead and wounded on Monday, the country's presidency said, a day after Moscow blamed Ukraine for an explosion on a bridge connecting Crimea to Russia.
"Ukraine is under missile attack. There is information about strikes in many cities of our country," Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the president's office, said on social media, calling on the population to "stay in shelters." In Kyiv, AFP reporters heard several loud explosions starting at around 8:15 a.m. local time — during Monday morning rush hour. Russia's last strike on Kyiv took place on June 26. One AFP journalist in the city said one of the projectiles landed near a children's playground, and that smoke was rising from a large crater at the impact site. Several trees and benches nearby were charred from the blast, while several ambulances had arrived in the area. "The capital is under Russian terrorists' attack!" Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on social media, adding that the strikes had hit the city centre. "If there is no urgent need, it is better not to go to the city today. I am also asking the residents of the suburbs about this — do not go to the capital today." Videos posted on social media showed black smoke rising above several areas in the city. "Air raid sirens are not subsiding around Ukraine... Unfortunately there are dead and wounded. Please do not leave the shelters," President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media, accusing Russia of wanting to "wipe us from the face of the Earth." "Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Let's hold on and be strong."
2022 Formula 1 World Championship Drivers' Standings
FORMULA 1 HONDA JAPANESE GRAND PRIX 2022 - Race Results
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