Extreme heat is pushing global food and farming systems to the brink, threatening the livelihoods of over a billion people as rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves redefine how food is produced worldwide, a new UN report warns.
Author: tio
-
Long hours, stress and harassment are causing hundreds of thousands of early deaths, says UN labour agency
More than 840,000 people die each year from health conditions linked to risks such as long working hours, job insecurity, workplace harassment and bullying, according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO). -
Muskism as Fordism
It has often been noted that Elon Musk and Henry Ford have much in common. Both were hailed as technological geniuses who made breakthroughs in production processes and consumer products. Both were politically conservative. And both espoused reactionary views through their personal media outlets, with Ford famously publishing a series of antisemitic articles in his newspaper…
-
Executive at Alleged Cambodian ‘Criminal’ Conglomerate Bought Tokyo Mansion
A downtown Tokyo mansion was purchased by a Prince Group senior executive just days before the U.S. and U.K. slapped sanctions on the Cambodian conglomerate, alleging that it ran cyber-scam compounds staffed by trafficked workers.
Chen Bo bought the sprawling house directly across from Tokyo’s Zenpukuji Park on October 10, 2025, according to Japanese land records obtained by reporters.
Four days later, the U.S. and U.K. announced sanctions against the so-called “Prince Group Transnational Criminal Organization.”
The U.S Treasury Department accused the Prince Group of crimes including running “industrial scale cyberfraud operations” out of “compounds reliant on human trafficking and modern-day slavery.”
Chen Bo was not among the 146 sanctioned individuals and entities listed by the Treasury Department. However, Cambodian corporate documents show that he is a senior executive at sanctioned Prince Group companies.
Chen Bo did not respond to requests for comment emailed to six companies where he is an active chairman or director.
The Cambodian corporate register lists Chen Bo as the former chair of the board of directors of Byex Exchange Co Ltd, a cryptocurrency platform the U.K. sanctioned for allegedly laundering the proceeds of scam operations. He is listed as chair of Tian Xu International Technology Plc, which the U.K. sanctioned for allegedly “providing financial services” for the Prince Group.
Chen Bo is a director of six more sanctioned Prince Group companies, and a former director of another. He is also the former chair of Cambodia Airways, which was reportedly owned by Prince Group.
Japan’s Kyodo News agency reported earlier this month that two Prince Group senior executives purchased real estate in Tokyo, but did not name them.
The property records obtained by OCCRP’s Japanese media partner, Tansa, show that Chen Bo transferred ownership of the Tokyo mansion — which is gray with Palladium-style columns — to his wife in November, 2025.
His wife, He Yujing, has not been sanctioned. She did not respond to a request for comment emailed to one of her Cambodian companies.
He Yujing was a social media “influencer” who posted photos online of her extravagant lifestyle, some of which have been picked up by Chinese-language media. She deleted posts on the Chinese social media platform RedNote after the Prince Group was sanctioned.
Photos featured her modelling designer clothes and handbags, travelling by private jet, and comparing the size of her hand to a wooden container of Japan’s giant Hokkaido crabs.
Originally from China, records show that both Chen Bo and He Yujing acquired Cypriot citizenship in 2020, on the same day as another Prince Group senior executive. Chen Bo also acquired a Cambodian passport in 2014, according to the government’s citizenship gazettes.
Cambodia has extradited two Prince Group senior executives to China this year, including its chairman, Chen Zhi. He is suspected of crimes including running fraud operations and concealing the proceeds, according to Chinese state media.
Chen Zhi’s legal representatives did not respond to a request for comment at the time of his extradition. The Prince Group has said the allegations made by U.S. and U.K. authorities are “baseless and appear aimed at justifying the unlawful seizure of assets worth billions of dollars.”
-
Hay fever misery does last longer – here is how to cope
Symptoms are lasting for up to two weeks longer than in the 1990s, according to a major report – so what can you do about the pollen bomb? -
Bird flu vaccine trial against potential pandemic strain begins
The jab targets the H5N1 flu strain which has caused devastating infections in bird populations worldwide, but has yet to spread between humans. -
US Congressional Committee Chips Away at Corporate Transparency Act
A Republican-led House committee voted on Tuesday to effectively dismantle a landmark anti-corruption law, advancing legislation that would exempt American business owners from a federal requirement to disclose their true identities to the government.
The House Financial Services Committee voted 26 to 25 to repeal the Corporate Transparency Act, a bipartisan measure enacted in December 2020. In its place, the panel advanced the Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act, a bill with strong Republican backing and 191 co-sponsors that would significantly narrow the scope of federal financial disclosures.
Under the proposed replacement, foreign nationals would still be required to report their beneficial ownership to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). However, U.S. citizens operating domestic businesses would be entirely freed from the requirement.
The vote marks a sharp reversal for a transparency initiative that was originally fueled by years of global investigative journalism, including the Panama Papers and the Russian Laundromat, which exposed how anonymous shell companies are routinely exploited to facilitate tax evasion, terrorism, and international money laundering.
The committee’s actions drew fierce criticism from advocates pushing for a fairer, more transparent global financial system.
“There could be no greater gift to the fentanyl traffickers, fraudsters, and U.S. adversaries that rely on the anonymity that shell companies provide than gutting the Corporate Transparency Act,” said Erica Hanichak, deputy director of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition.
Representing a non-partisan alliance of more than 100 organizations dedicated to combating money laundering and corporate secrecy, Hanichak added, “Congress should be moving to strengthen this critical anti-money laundering law, not tear it down.”
For veteran law enforcement officials, the proposed repeal represents a major setback. Debra LaPrevotte, a former F.B.I. official and senior investigator at Restitution Impact Ltd., said her three decades of tracking international corruption showed exactly who benefits from corporate secrecy.
“I’ve seen firsthand how anonymous U.S. shell companies are used by kleptocrats, foreign officials, and cartels to launder illicit funds and purchase luxury assets in this country,” LaPrevotte said. “Gutting the Corporate Transparency Act would eliminate a key tool needed by law enforcement to follow the money and stop the United States from being a safe haven for criminal proceeds.”
The legislative push aligns with a broader policy shift by President Donald J. Trump. Although he signed the Corporate Transparency Act into law during his first term in 2020, he abruptly changed course last year. Shortly after taking office for his second term in 2025, he ordered the Treasury Department to halt the collection of beneficial ownership information from Americans, limiting the mandate exclusively to foreign-owned entities.
During a contentious hearing on Tuesday, Democrats fiercely criticized the repeal effort, warning that creating a carve-out for Americans would severely hobble law enforcement. They pointed to public support for the existing law from various civil society groups and the National Association of District Attorneys.
“Weapons trafficking, human trafficking, terrorism — without this data, prosecutors are left blind when investigating shell companies,” said Representative Stephen Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts.
Lynch argued that the Republican proposal would “greatly curtail our ability to combat shell companies fueling illegal operations” and jeopardize national security. Representative Nydia Velázquez, Democrat of New York, echoed those concerns, warning that the bill’s passage would “tie the hands of law enforcement, increase criminal activity, and endanger our economy.”
To underscore the domestic threat, committee Democrats invoked the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Under the new Republican framework, Democrats noted, an American like Epstein would not be legally obligated to declare his ownership of the vast network of shell companies recently detailed in the Justice Department’s release of his files.
Republicans countered that the 2020 law is a regulatory boondoggle that unfairly burdens up to 33 million American small businesses, many of which already report ownership information to their lenders.
Representative French Hill, Republican of Arkansas and the committee chairman, defended the repeal by noting that bad actors abroad would still face scrutiny. “People from outside the U.S., corporations or individuals who try to form a pass-through entity in the U.S., would be subject to this rule,” Hill said.
He also cast doubt on the efficacy of ownership registries entirely. “I would remind my friends that Cyprus, U.A.E., Turkey, all have beneficial ownership databases. And they’re the most renowned money laundering places on the planet, according to the Financial Action Task Force.”
The Republican effort received unexpected external validation over the weekend from the Washington Post editorial board, which endorsed an overhaul of the Corporate Transparency Act. The editorial highlighted mounting constitutional challenges in federal courts and the law’s exorbitant costs.
“This has created significant compliance costs, more than $1 billion a year by one estimate, with little to no public benefit,” the editorial stated, criticizing the law’s murky definition of “substantial control,” which could theoretically force every employee of a 10-person small business to register.
The repeal effort will now head to the floor of the full House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a slim majority. Even if it passes as a stand-alone measure, its ultimate path to becoming law may depend on whether it can be attached as an amendment to a larger, must-pass piece of legislation—a maneuver identical to the one that originally enacted the Corporate Transparency Act as part of a defense spending bill in 2020.
-
Standing for Nothing
“If I forget thee, O Israel, may I cut off my right hand.” — Cory Booker (D, NJ)
Cory Booker, a Democratic U.S. Senator from New Jersey and likely 2028 presidential candidate, has written a book about taking moral stands. Last year, Booker delivered the longest floor speech in the history of the U.S. Senate, 25 hours and 5 minutes. (A full transcript and video are helpfully available on the Senator’s website.) The record for longest individual speech in Senate history was previously held by South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes to oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
-
Copyright and DMCA Best Practices for Fediverse Operators
People building the future of the social web — interoperable and decentralized — need to protect themselves against copyright liability. Like anyone who creates and operates platforms for user-uploaded content, the hosts of the decentralized social web can take preventive measures to reduce their legal exposure when a user posts material that violates someone’s copyright.
This post gives an overview of the steps to take. It’s meant for operators of Mastodon and other ActivityPub servers, Bluesky hosts, RSS mirrors, and other decentralized social media protocols, and developers of apps for those protocols — but it will apply to other hosts as well. This isn’t legal advice, and can’t substitute for a consultation with a lawyer about your specific circumstances. It focuses on U.S. law — the law may impose different requirements elsewhere. Still, we hope it helps you get started with confidence.
Why should I care? Copyright’s Sword of Damocles
In some circumstances, the operator of a platform that handles user content can be legally responsible for content that infringes copyright. That can happen when the platform operator is directly involved in copying or distributing the copyrighted material, when they promote or knowingly assist the infringement, or when they benefit financially from infringement while being in a position to supervise it. But these judge-made rules are often difficult and uncertain to apply in practice — and the penalties for being found on the wrong side of the law can be severe. Copyright’s “statutory damages” regime allows for massive, unpredictable financial liability. That’s why it’s important to limit your risk.
For Server Operators: Limiting Risk with the DMCA Safe Harbors
If you run a social network server, the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) are an important way to limit your liability risk. The DMCA shields server operators from nearly all forms of copyright liability that can result from “storage at the direction of a user” — in other words, hosting user-uploaded content. But to qualify for this protection, there are steps a server operator has to take.
1. Designate A Contact To Receive Copyright Infringement Notices
First, you’ll need to provide contact information for someone who can receive infringement notices (a “designated agent”). That information needs to be posted in at least two places: on your server in a place visible to users (such as a “DMCA” page or post, or as part of your Terms of Service), and in the U.S. Copyright Office’s “Designated Agent Directory.” To post that information to the directory, you have to create an account at https://www.copyright.gov/dmca-directory/ and pay a small fee. The directory listings expire after three years, and once expired, your safe harbor protection goes away, so it’s important to keep that listing current.
2. Respond Promptly to Notices and Counter-notices
When you receive infringement notices, it’s important to respond to them promptly. Notices are supposed to identify the copyright holder, the copyrighted work they claim was infringed, and the post they claim is infringing. By deleting or disabling access to the posted material, you protect yourself from liability with respect to that material.
The theory behind Section 512 is that hosts don’t have to be in a position of deciding whether a post infringes someone’s copyright — it’s up to the poster, the rights holder, and potentially a court to decide that. A host who takes down posts whenever they receive an infringement notice is well-protected. But it’s equally important to recognize that hosts aren’t required to take down content in response to every notice. Infringement notices are frequently wrong, misguided, or abusive, or simply incomplete. Hosts who want to stand up for their users’ speech can choose to disregard infringement notices that seem suspect. While this risks losing the automatic protection of the safe harbor in each instance, it can still be done safely with careful preparation, ideally using a plan crafted with help from a lawyer. Bear in mind that people sending false notices, including by failing to consider whether a post is a fair use before asking a host to take it down, can be liable for damages under the DMCA.
The DMCA also allows the person who posted the material to send a “counter-notification” asserting that they really did have the right to post and that there’s no copyright infringement. Responding to counter-notifications is a good way for a host to demonstrate that they look out for their users. When a host receives a counter-notification, they should forward it on to the person who sent the original takedown notice and let them know that the post will be restored in 10 business days. Then, after that waiting period has elapsed, the host can restore the posted material. Just like with infringement notices, a host isn’t required to honor a counter-notification that appears to be fraudulent, but there’s no penalty for honoring it anyway.
3. Have A Repeat Infringer Policy
The next requirement is to have a policy of terminating the accounts of “subscribers and account holders” who are “repeat infringers” in “appropriate circumstances,” and to carry out that policy. Yes, that’s a vague requirement. It doesn’t require a “three strikes” policy or any other sports analogy. It just needs to be reasonable. Be sure your policy is spelled out in your website terms or “DMCA” page.
4. Don’t Ignore Known Infringement
Hosts need to take down user posts whenever the host actually knows that the post is infringing. In other words, a host isn’t protected if they ignore takedown notices based on technicalities in the notices, or if they learn about the infringement some other way. But hosts don’t need to actively look for infringement on their servers — only to act when someone notifies them.
5. Don’t Encourage Infringement
Finally, make sure that nothing you post or advertise actively encourages copyright infringement. For example, don’t post examples of users uploading copyrighted music or video without permission, or insinuate that your server is a good place for infringing content.
There are some other technicalities in the DMCA that can affect the safe harbor, which is why it’s always a good idea to consult with a lawyer. But following these steps will help protect you when you run a social media server — or any other kind of user-uploaded content platform.
