US ordered TSMC, not Taiwan the country. The vast majority of sales are made to US based firms so they likely have a lot of sway.

US is the major customer of TSMC, so they can order them, not to mention we protect them with defense pacts, so they might want to actually listen. Pretty sure they make some of our military grade chips as well.

Cutting edge chips are used in cutting edge military hardware. TSMC provides a lot of the chips used in advanced American weapons. Turns out a faster chip in a missile makes the missile better able to make sophisticated split second decisions.

US can order most of its allies to do anything. Remember when the US thought Edward Snowden was on the Bolivian presidential airplane and within the span of like, half a hour, managed to get all of western europe to deny airspace to Bolivia, ground the literal presidential plane and search him like a dirty drug mule? Was pretty awkward after that when Snowden wasn't even there.

[Cobbled from Reddit thread]

Julian Assange in a parliamentary hearing on his detention and conviction - and their chilling effect on human rights - on 1 October 2024 ahead of a full plenary debate on this topic by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

In his first public remarks since his release from detention at Belmarsh Prison in the UK, Mr Assange told parliamentarians: "I want to be totally clear. I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today because after years of incarceration I pleaded guilty to journalism. I pleaded guilty to seeking information from a source, and I pleaded guilty to informing the public what that information was."

Hamas is literally an internationally recognized terrorist organization, proscribed by many countries including the UK and the Arab League.

CBC also refuses to call Hamas terrorists despite their government labeling them as such.

Alt text: cartoon frame #1 shows disembodied arm reaching out to pluck a speaker's speech bubble.

Frame #2 shows speaker looking puzzled wondering where his speech bubble has gone.

Frame #3 the arm reappears having reshaped it into a regular inflatable balloon and offers it back to the speaker.

[alt-text: Still from the Monty Python dead parrot sketch with Musk's face replacing that of John Cleese returning a blue twitter logo with an X for a dead eye. Pet store owner, Michael Palin, says "it was alive when you bought it"]