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Swedish telecommunications major Ericsson has agreed to plead guilty to past accusations of bribes, falsifying books and records, after accepting it had breached a USA deferred prosecution agreement (DPA). It will now have to pay an additional criminal penalty exceeding USD206 million.…

 

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) has warned in its latest 2022 annual report that last year, cross-border VAT fraud accounted for 47% of the estimated EUR14.1 billion lost to frauds affecting European Union (EU) revenue and expenditure. That covers the 1,117 active EPPO investigations by the end of 2022, a year in which the office received and processed 3318 crime reports and opened 865 inquiries.…

The disturbing comments published by Twitter about Canada’s Governor General Mary Simon require the same response such defamation would spark against any newspaper should it have distributed such lies – she should sue.

Yes, Canada’s respected 75-year-old first ever indigenous Governor General should sue Elon Musk for defamation, as owner of Twitter, which published these untrue and poisonous comments.

Twitter and Musk made money from them – they attracted eyeballs, which boosted ad clicks, and boosted the social media site’s profile.…

In the seven years since the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that Tokyo would be the host city of the summer Olympic Games and the Paralympics in the summer of 2020, companies in the paint and coatings sector have enjoyed a steady uptick in demand.

This increase in demand is linked to the construction of venues and facilities for the Games, as well as for connected infrastructure, such as new hotels and transport facilities.

And with the final touches added to the Tokyo Aquatics Centre in early March, the preparations for sporting venues were completed – well ahead of schedule, a bright contrast to the last-minute construction that bedevilled the 2016 summer games in Rio de Janeiro.…

Campaigns to end the cruel practice of shooting stray animals by municipalities in Tunisia are struggling in the face of a weak government and a downwardly spiralling economy.

Dogs have a troubled life in Tunisia. While in some neighbourhoods pet ownership has become more popular, as evidenced by the proliferation of new pet stores, these areas give an illusion that Tunisia is generally a dog-loving society. In reality, there is a much darker side of life for dogs in this country, where pedigree pooches are stolen for resale on the black market or females are made to breed puppies for profit, yet it is the native breeds that suffer the worst treatment.…

When Saif al-Ashqar was tasked with rebuilding the library of the University of Mosul in Iraq, he was given a free rein – but no cash. Islamic State, which occupied the city between 2014 and 2017, had burned the prestigious library to the ground, destroying what remained of its vast collection of books, historic maps and ancient manuscripts.…

The 11% year-on-year increase in output by Canada’s automotive manufacturing industry in 2022, reverses a five-year trend of contraction, but will this increase be sustained?

Canada’s 2022 production uptick, according to figures from Wards Intelligence, is certainly significant. The bulk of the expansion was in the dominant light truck segment, with 933,091 vehicles being produced, compared to 814,263 in 2021.…

Growing online sales of tobacco products within the European Union (EU) are boosting industry revenues, despite increasing sales restrictions, including some outright bans on internet purchases of tobacco products. The German market and consumer data platform Statista foresees 2.5% of the total USD170 billion [EUR160 million] sales generated by the tobacco sector – all products – within 2023 will come from online sales, meaning USD4.25 billion [EUR4 billion].…

Russia’s bio-based oil sector looks set to benefit from the spoils of war, being poised to become the new global leader in the export of sunflower oil over the current agricultural year, overtaking past export leader Ukraine, which its military has invaded since last February, with 8,317 civilian deaths as of March 20 (2023).…

The international clothing and textile sector will have to take account of the first global sustainability reporting standards designed to become compulsory in many countries worldwide from January 1, 2024. These will be published by June, having been approved in February by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).…