Woland

"The North Atlantic just completely destroyed its June average temperature record, breaking the previous record by more than 0.4 °C (0.7 °F).

A stunningly sharp excess for such a large body of water."

https://berkeleyearth.org/june-2023-temperature-update/

One of the most chilling pieces of evidence of the brutal Argentinian dictatorship, which lasted from 1976 to 1983, is a small airplane. The Skyvan, a British-made aircraft, was used by Argentina's military junta to make political opponents disappear. The "death flights" saw dozens of people killed when they were thrown from the planes into the sea. The location of the last Argentinian Skyvan was a mystery for decades. But it was recently found in Florida and returned to Buenos Aires: a powerful symbol for families of victims of the regime, as well as for survivors.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in favour of Germany’s anti-cartel watchdog, which had argued that it could take data privacy issues into account when considering antitrust cases.

One of the key issues in the case was Meta’s ability to link data across platforms, which allows it to closely target adverts at users, the principal way it makes money.

The German watchdog barred Meta from mixing personal data gathered on Facebook with details harvested from Instagram or WhatsApp, arguing that it amounted to an abuse of its dominant market position in Germany.

The European court said cartel offices were within their rights to carry out investigations under the EU’s huge data protection regulation (GDPR).

“The judgment will have far-reaching effects on the business models used in the data economy,” tweeted Andreas Mundt, head of the anti-cartel watchdog.

Some key takeaways :

The Kremlin struggled to cohere an effective rapid response to Wagner’s advances, highlighting internal security weaknesses likely due to surprise and the impact of heavy losses in Ukraine.

Putin unsurprisingly elected to back the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and its ongoing efforts to centralize control of Russian irregular forces (including Wagner) over Prigozhin.

The Lukashenko-brokered agreement will very likely eliminate Wagner Group as a Prigozhin-led independent actor in its current form, although elements of the organization may endure under existing and new capacities.

Prigozhin likely gambled that his only avenue to retain Wagner Group as an independent force was to march against the Russian MoD, likely intending to secure defections in the Russian military but overestimating his own prospects.

The optics of Belarusian President Lukashenko playing a direct role in halting a military advance on Moscow are humiliating to Putin and may have secured Lukashenko other benefits.

The Kremlin now faces a deeply unstable equilibrium. The Lukashenko-negotiated deal is a short-term fix, not a long-term solution, and Prigozhin’s rebellion exposed severe weaknesses in the Kremlin and Russian MoD.