Month: November 2023
Chinese dispute with the Philippines
The South China Sea is a dangerous and revealing place just now. Both China and America have every reason to avoid conflict there. But China yearns to expose America as an unreliable ally, and to make the Philippines obey Chinese-drawn red lines, or pay a visible price. To keep the peace, rules will be of
Oil Traders in Venezuela
The last month’s sudden lifting of American sanctions on Venezuela, the country which boasts the world’s largest proven oil reserves, that has lured the dealmakers there. On October 18th the us Treasury Department announced that it was immediately removing almost all the restrictions it had imposed on Venezuela’s oil, banking and mining sectors for years.
Israel-Hamas war: Antisemitism surges in France
France’s struggle against antisemitism has become politically divisive. A cross-party march in Paris against antisemitism, organised by the heads of the two houses of parliament, is planned for November 12th. Marine Le Pen of the hard-right National Rally party, whose father once called the Holocaust a “detail” of history, promises to attend. To some surprise,
Uganda tax on digital services
Countries adopt VAT on digital services to level the playing field between local service providers that are already mandated to charge VAT and the foreign service providers that did not have this obligation before. Uganda recently joined the list of countries around the world collecting Value Added Tax (VAT) on electronic services, an official from
US “healthy” relationship with China
A trade war, launched by former US President Donald Trump, concerns over increasing Chinese aggressiveness in Asia and the Pacific especially regarding the autonomy of Taiwan and China’s support for Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine have all soured relations between the two superpowers. But a series of talks between high-ranking ministers over the past
Teams and Xbox outage
Microsoft last faced outages in January when tens of thousands of customers reported problems. Microsoft has said problems with accessing its Teams messaging app and XBox gaming platform across the United Kingdom and Europe have now been resolved. The problem was unique to customers in the UK and Germany, Microsoft had said earlier on Friday,
Tentative deal between actors and Hollywood studios
Studios have been experimenting with AI in recent years, and safeguards for actors formed a key part of the negotiations. There were some fears that background actors could be the first to lose their jobs as a result of AI. tentative deal between actors and Hollywood studios includes AI safeguards and requirements for intimacy co-ordinators
The NFTs
NFTs are digital tokens of ownership usually bought with cryptocurrency. They’re often linked to images or videos, but owning an NFT does not normally mean the buyer gets the copyright of the picture. Anyone can view it online and even copy and save it, but only the buyer has the status of being the official
Twenty years before Ukraine can join the European Union
On Wednesday, the EC recommended starting negotiations on EU membership with Ukraine and Moldova, conditioning the process on the fulfilment of several conditions by Kyiv and Chisinau. On Feb. 28, 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed Ukraine’s application for membership in the community bloc. Ukraine’s accession to the European Union (EU) will probably take at
Australia to release immigrants in detention
Australia on Friday announced it would begin releasing immigrants held in indefinite detention. This landmark decision comes after Australia’s High Court ruled against indefinitely holding immigrants, marking a significant shift from the country’s longstanding policy. The ruling was prompted by the case of a stateless Rohingya man, previously detained for child sexual offenses and unable