Dr Karly Burch (she/her)

Peace Action Wellington completely opposes the opening of a US FBI office in Aotearoa New Zealand. The decision by the NZ government to allow a foreign country’s police force to operate here is terrifying.

Fascinating. Microsoft emailed me to say it was raising the price of Microsoft 365, but when i went to cancel it offered me me the old price — without all the AI bullshit.

It’s forcing AI on everyone and making them pay more for it, then only telling them they don’t have to if they try to cancel.

Something needs to change. We need to build an antinuclear movement like we had in the 1980s. We need to galvanize, inspire, and educate in a new way. Here it is: www.nucleartimes.com.

I suspect that fact that the vast majority of LLM users don’t seem to have received this (really very simple!) message is because the AI companies have a vested interest in us not understanding it. “ChatGPT is smart, it just makes mistakes sometimes” is much more marketable than the truth.

ICAN condemns the United States’ illegal military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
By joining Israel’s strikes, the US is violating international law and putting global non-proliferation efforts at risk.

The NZ Parliament website seems to be struggling.
I am going to guess everyone is submitting last minute and smashing that server's load.

If you are in line, stay in line!

#NZPol #RSB #ToitūTeTiriti

LAST STRETCH! If you haven't done your submission yet, let us do one for you.... comment RSB below or go to tinyurl.com/KillTheRSB and enter your deets, we will do your submission for you. If you've already done yours PLEASE SHARE this.

United States attacks Iranian nuclear facilities, raising the possibility of Iranian retaliation, sprint for nuclear weapons The United States bombed three Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday, an intervention that came just days after President Donald Trump suggested he would wait two weeks before deciding whether to take mil...

Yesterday the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear sites. A review of what we know so far and how the world reacted:
thebulletin.org/2025/06/unit...

Australia urged to press US to ‘act responsibly’ as threat of nuclear disaster rises amid Israel-Iran conflict Nobel prize-winning anti-nuclear group calls for ‘urgent de-escalation and a return to diplomacy’

“The prospect of radiation release, the erosion of non-proliferation norms, and the emboldening of nuclear-armed states to act without accountability – the deadly logic of nuclear deterrence playing out in real time.” - Gem Romuld, the Australian director of ICAN
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

A man who presided over a military parade on his birthday one week ago and still hasn’t called the governor of the state where 2 lawmakers were assassinated, also one week ago. A personalist dictator in all but name. www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

The radiation risks of Iran’s nuclear program, with or without a strike on Fordow Israel’s attacks create significant risks at Iran's nuclear sites. What could go wrong?

On Saturday, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. carried out strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.

Yesterday, Bulletin nuclear affairs editor François Diaz-Maurin assessed the risks associated with such attacks.
thebulletin.org/2025/06/the-...

So, the President of the Signal Foundation (ie those who run Signal) @meredithmeredith.bsky.social is more badass than I knew.

The terror theater is changing venues because of inconvenience to patrons

Regulatory Standards Bill - New Zealand Parliament Public submissions are now being invited on this Bill

I’ve made my submission. Don’t forget to make yours. The consultation for the Regulatory Standards Bill closes on Monday, the 23rd at 1pm rather than the more common 11:59pm. #nzpol www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/mak...

Meanwhile, academics can't use an image they are analyzing in an article without fear of being taken to court.

This is what revisionist history looks like, in real time. And this also is why it might appear that archaeologists and historians have to dig deep to discover the existence of powerful women and marginalized groups -- because their legacies are so often erased.

Trump’s Immigration Threats Are Already Wrecking the Food Industry Immigrant farm workers are too scared to show up to work.

About 75% of immigrant farm workers did not show up for work this week in Bakersfield, California, as the threat of Trump’s immigration raids looms.

The AfD/Musk-supporting terrorist who attacked the German Christmas market planned his atrocity in full view on TwitterX over the course of a year. He was reported multiple times, but TwitterX did nothing to take him down or report him to authorities.

“A healthy and thriving society is about more than simply GDP and long-term societal benefits stem from diverse research areas, including humanities and social sciences.” www.royalsociety.org.nz/early-career...

Another example for #NZ’s science minister (Collins) how investigator-driven research that might seem trivial (a study of lizard saliva) can ultimately have high economic value, but is not directly commercialisable. Commercialisation usually comes long after the research, by quite different workers.

Telegram ‘rape chat groups’ with up to 70,000 members uncovered Users from multiple countries have been sharing tips on how to sedate and sexually assault women, German investigation finds

To every guy who came into the comments on my Gisele Pelicot article to yell “not all men” at me and demand I give due deference to the good guys… It’s time to be quiet.

Investigation uncovered more than 70,000 users in Telegram group chats admitting to raping women & sharing tips to sedate them 🧵

You can add your name to the petition mentioned in the article here: www.aitrainingstatement.org

Aaron Swartz died because rapacious capitalists insisted that sharing knowledge and ideas — not for profit but to enrich society — was theft. Now we have a whole Silicon Valley industry devoted to undoing artistic copyright, and for what? Fake emails and shitty advertising copy.

Changes to MBIE’s Horizon Europe Top-Up fund scheme Tēnā koutou MBIE is providing an update on the Horizon Europe Top-Up funding scheme. Change to Top-Up fund eligibility for projects in Cluster 2  From 1 February 2025, projects in Cluster 2, Culture, Creativity & Inclusive Society, will no longer be eligible for funding through the MBIE Horizon Europe Top-Up funding scheme. This change is being made to align the Top-Up fund settings with the Government’s priorities for Science, Innovation & Technology investments, and direction outlined in the Catalyst Fund investment Plan. Research organisations who have submitted a proposal for a Cluster 2 project which opened before 1 February 2025 and who registered for Top-Up funding with MBIE within 10 working days of the European Commission (EC) call for proposals closing will still be eligible for Horizon Europe Top-Up funding.

And funding opportunities for the social sciences and humanities have been cut from the Horizon Europe programme. 🤬

To be clear - Horizon Europe is a programme which gives our researchers opportunities to be funded *by the EU* to collaborate with European researchers, but because of the differences in funding between NZ and Europe our people need top-ups to meet all their costs (1/2)

By removing these top-ups for social sciences & humanities projects it will become difficult or impossible for them to access this funding *even though our international partners view these research areas as worthy of funding*. This is vicious, mean decision-making. (2/2)

This govt really is the grinch who stole Christmas. What an awful month for social sciences and humanities scholars in Aotearoa - here culture is also named! Feeling deeply for colleagues and very worried for our universities and society. This stuff matters!

Serbia used Israeli firm’s tech to enable spy campaign, Amnesty says Serbian officials installed homegrown spyware on the phones of dozens of journalists and activists, Amnesty International said in a report released on Monday, citing digital forensic evidence and testimony from activists who said they were hacked in recent months.

Serbian officials installed homegrown spyware on the phones of dozens of journalists and activists, Amnesty International said in a report, citing digital forensic evidence and testimony from activists who said they were hacked in recent months reut.rs/4iB5ZIa

Save Humanities and Social Sciences Join us in building a better world

Please sign if you agree it’s a bad idea to cut all public funding for social science and humanities research. www.together.org.nz/love_humanit...