cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/53719117

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The EU and four Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) States (Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles) concluded negotiations on an enhanced Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

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This Agreement will set a new standard for EU-Africa economic relations by providing clear rules and opportunities on:

• Services and investment: the enhanced EPA improves legal certainty and conditions for companies supplying services in each other's market. It also provides greater predictability for investors and ensures fair and non-discriminatory treatment.

• Public procurement: businesses will have access to clear and transparent information on public procurement opportunities. This will make it easier for businesses on both sides to take part in public tendering and will support ESA States' expected economic growth and modernization plans.

• Intellectual property: the enhanced EPA establishes a modern and predictable framework covering all major categories of intellectual property and strengthens enforcement tools to support innovative and creative industries in ESA States. It will also protect 135 EU Geographical Indications (GIs) in Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles, after a transition period.

• Digital trade: the deal will make it easier to carry out digital transactions and trade using electronic means without applying customs duties on electronic transmissions. It will enhance online consumer protection and reduce unnecessary red tape. This allows the EU and the ESA States to promote and support digital trade more widely.

• Sustainability: the deal contains binding and enforceable commitments, as well as cooperation provisions, in a dedicated Trade and Sustainable Development chapter.

...

The EU is ESA4's largest trading partner, accounting for 24% of its total trade in goods and for 33% of its total trade in services.

In 2024, total trade in goods and services between the EU and the ESA4 States reached €9.7 billion, comprising €5.2 billion in EU imports and €4.5 billion in EU exports.

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https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/06/16/yum-brands-sells-pizza-hut-to-private-equity-firm-longrange-capital-for-2point7-billion.html

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) admits its staff were accused of sexually abusing at least 59 Sudanese refugees who had fled the civil war in search of safety.

Young girls were exploited in some cases, and often food or jobs were offered in exchange for sex.

The offences were committed in eastern Chad and date back to 2024 - about a year into Sudan's still-raging civil war.

MSF says it has sacked 18 culprits but tells the AP news agency it was unable to identify some of the other alleged perpetrators.

You come for the king on his b-day and fight night, you will pay.

Comments

Έχω ένα δέμα από Αγγλία, το οποίο στο site της ΕΛΤΑ λέει ότι θέλουν απόδειξη πληρωμής. Το θέμα μου είναι πως το στέλνω? Δεν έχει έρθει μύνημα η κάτι τέτοιο.
Θα πάρω τηλέφωνο αύριο.

Book is Everyday Stalinism

Paris (France) (AFP) – France's government took a new step Tuesday in search of "strategic autonomy" for its intelligence services, announcing that it would ditch American AI giant Palantir's data sifting systems in favour of a domestic provider.

The move comes as European governments are increasingly uneasy about relying on US-controlled technologies, with Washington squeezing access last week to the latest model from AI giant Anthropic.

"We cannot accept new strategic dependencies in the digital sphere," Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said as he announced the break by its DGSI agency with Palantir.

France must instead "build real autonomy" and "not depend on the goodwill of certain partners, who are capable of turning off the access tap" for artificial intelligence, he said.

French company ChapsVision will now become the "technological foundation" for "many public agencies for their critical data processing needs", the company said in a statement.

ChapsVision, founded in 2019, is a relative minnow compared to American AI behemoths, reporting 200 million euros ($232 million) of revenue in 2025 compared to Palantir's $4.5 billion.

Its tools designed to gather, prepare and analyse vast swathes of data have also been selected by Germany's VS internal security service, according to specialist media.

For its part, Palantir said in a statement that its contract with the DGSI "remains fully in force" and that "the company will continue to support the French government wherever its solutions are needed".

The continued Palantir contract was "to avoid suffering a capacity gap in this sensitive field essential to our national security", Lecornu's office told AFP.

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Mirror

PDF https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/pdf/10.1103/1h9j-df4k

Starbucks Korea will simultaneously close all its stores for a mandatory history lesson, after a disastrous promotion that evoked memories of a pro-democracy massacre sparked public and political backlash.

More than 2,000 stores will temporarily close at 3pm on 22 June, the company said, so staff can watch recorded lectures on modern Korean history and engage in “social sensitivity” training. The half-day closures will cost Starbucks an estimated 2.1bn won ($1.4m) in lost sales, according to data firm IGAWorks.

The measures follow a public relations crisis triggered when Starbucks Korea ran a discount promotion for its “Tank” tumbler series on 18 May, the anniversary of a 1980 massacre in Gwangju. The promotion led to store boycotts, customers smashing Starbucks mugs and tumblers and government ministries cutting ties with the chain.

Chung Yong-jin, the billionaire chair of Shinsegae Group, which operates Starbucks Korea under licence from its US parent company, will take the same training on 24 June alongside other executives.

Perhaps most surprising here is that the entire thing was homegrown, not an idea someone had in Seattle and forced upon Korea.

PDF https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/pdf/10.1103/1h9j-df4k

A group of Democratic senators and one Republican, as well as two Democratic House committees, sent letters on Monday to the National Science Foundation asking it to reverse course on its plan to dismantle a sprawling ocean monitoring network, with House lawmakers going further and accusing the agency of acting illegally.

The Ocean Observatories Initiative is a network of more than 900 ocean sensors built at a cost of $386m. Over the last decade it has tracked ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, climate change and extreme weather, producing data freely available to the public and informing more than 500 scientific publications. The project was slated to run another 15 to 20 years.

The National Science Foundation had directed the removal of most of the system’s instruments from waters off Oregon, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina and Greenland by 2027 – a decision scientists said came with no warning and no scientific review. The independent federal agency, which was established by Congress, described the move not as a cancellation but as a “descoping” aligned with a strategy to prioritize “evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies”. The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 budget had included a 55% cut to the agency.

“It just seems like this is supreme stupidity and a violation of the fundamental distribution of powers in our Constitution,” Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator of Oregon, told the Associated Press. “This program is authorized, it’s funded, and for the administration to shut it down without direction from Congress violates that vision in which the people’s representatives decide what’s done and funded, and the executive branch executes that vision.”

The bungee firm employees who killed a model by throwing her after her safety cord came loose have testified in court.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/53719117

...

The EU and four Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) States (Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles) concluded negotiations on an enhanced Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

...

This Agreement will set a new standard for EU-Africa economic relations by providing clear rules and opportunities on:

• Services and investment: the enhanced EPA improves legal certainty and conditions for companies supplying services in each other's market. It also provides greater predictability for investors and ensures fair and non-discriminatory treatment.

• Public procurement: businesses will have access to clear and transparent information on public procurement opportunities. This will make it easier for businesses on both sides to take part in public tendering and will support ESA States' expected economic growth and modernization plans.

• Intellectual property: the enhanced EPA establishes a modern and predictable framework covering all major categories of intellectual property and strengthens enforcement tools to support innovative and creative industries in ESA States. It will also protect 135 EU Geographical Indications (GIs) in Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles, after a transition period.

• Digital trade: the deal will make it easier to carry out digital transactions and trade using electronic means without applying customs duties on electronic transmissions. It will enhance online consumer protection and reduce unnecessary red tape. This allows the EU and the ESA States to promote and support digital trade more widely.

• Sustainability: the deal contains binding and enforceable commitments, as well as cooperation provisions, in a dedicated Trade and Sustainable Development chapter.

...

The EU is ESA4's largest trading partner, accounting for 24% of its total trade in goods and for 33% of its total trade in services.

In 2024, total trade in goods and services between the EU and the ESA4 States reached €9.7 billion, comprising €5.2 billion in EU imports and €4.5 billion in EU exports.

...

Comments