Interesting. Seems like the DOD has been aware, but just can’t do much about it. They can control how emails get sent from military/government accounts, but they can’t influence or filter what others send to them. I imagine it would be diplomatically problematic for the US government to take control of certain sites under the .ml domain without negotiating with Mali.

Worth noting is that some entities are legally contesting the notion that a nation can have jurisdictional rights to a domain.

Reading russian cursive is a truly mind melting experience.

I’m still convinced I’m looking at one.

Putin is in a tight spot. He has everything to lose geopolitically in Africa and militarily in Ukraine by removing Prigozhin/Wagner from the equation. But I believe the current situation is untenable and will burst at the seams soon, one way or another. I wonder whether the loss of Wagner’s influence would be a stabilizing or destabilizing event in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Not OP, but I’ve asked myself this as well. I think it depends on where you live and what you want out of your language learning experience. If your goal is to learn something more useful in everyday life and you live in the southern US, Spanish is a great option. If you’re from Canada, French is probably the most useful. German and Mandarin are useful in the business world, but the latter is significantly harder to learn. If you’re not worried about maximizing the utility of what you learn, Norwegian is considered one of the easiest languages for English speakers, and let’s be real, Norway is awesome.

It’s more important that you stick with whatever you choose though. That’s the part I’ve struggled with.