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A woman who was trafficked from Cape Town to Jeffrey Epstein's private island in the Caribbean and ranch in New Mexico says her entrapment was more than physical.

Jeffrey Epstein's trafficking ring extended all the way to Africa's southern coast - held together by the invisible chains of psychological bondage that kept his victims ensnared for years at a time.

"Invisible chains is a good way to put it, it was like I was handcuffed invisibly," says 43-year-old Juliette Bryant.

"I'd never even told my family, I never told anyone about what happened with him until he died."

Friends had this bottle that had lost its stand, asked me for a replacement, super happy with the result. First time I've managed a proper glossy finish that I'm actually pleased with

If you haven’t already heard, BMW’s R&D teams have been busy “innovating.” Unfortunately, they aren’t focusing on the things that actually matter—like stellar engine performance or the legendary driving dynamics that gearheads love. Instead, the C-suite execs decided that the best use of their engineering budget was to design a proprietary security screw specifically intended to prevent BMW drivers from fixing their own cars.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, February 14, urged calm and restraint after the fatal beating of a 23-year-old French youth aligned with the far-right on the sidelines of a conference by a hard-left lawmaker in the southeastern city of Lyon.

The death of the young man – identified only as Quentin – has intensified tensions between France's far-right and radical left who are both eyeing 2027 presidential elections.

He had been hospitalized in Lyon on Thursday after being attacked while providing what his supporters said was security for a protest against an appearance by hard-left MEP Rima Hassan at the Lyon branch of the Sciences Po university.

The condition, known as tattoo-associated uveitis, can lead to permanent vision loss, glaucoma, and patients requiring immunosuppressants for the rest of their life.

While tattoo-associated uveitis was thought to be extremely rare, research published in the journal Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology has documented 40 new cases of the condition in Australia

doubling the number of published cases detected around the world since 2010.

The research, undertaken by a team of Australians, suggests this complication, while still rare given the number of people who get tattoos, may be more common than we thought.

Vielleicht benutzt das ja auch der Chouf Chouf Lavagrill in Höchst.

Speaking in Munich, Volodymyr Zelenskyy also called for a clear date for his country to be allowed to join the EU

Ukraine wants security guarantees for a minimum of 20 years from the US before it can sign a peace deal with dignity, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ahead of talks with Russia and the US scheduled for next week.

Speaking in Munich on Saturday, he also called for a clear date for Ukraine to be allowed to join the EU. Some EU officials have put the date as early as 2027.

Speaking to the annual Munich security summit, Ukraine’s president said he hoped “the trilateral meetings next week will be serious, substantive, helpful for all of us but, honestly, sometimes it feels like the sides are talking about completely different things”.

“The Americans often return to the topic of concessions and too often those concessions are discussed only in the context of Ukraine, not Russia,” he added.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/7237606

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David Stern accompanied Andrew on his publicly funded visit to Hong Kong and the Chinese city of Shenzhen in October 2010. The German citizen was a trusted business contact of Epstein’s at the time of the trip, which took place years before he was appointed to manage two different organisations connected to the royal family.

The visit is a key part of Thames Valley police’s scrutiny of Andrew’s time as UK special trade representative between 2001 and 2011. The force is assessing claims that Andrew forwarded reports from his trips to southeast Asia and Afghanistan to Epstein and whether there are grounds for an investigation into allegations of a criminal offence of misconduct in public office

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Stern was so close to Epstein, who he referred to as his “boss”, that he asked the paedophile to be his child’s godfather.

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Court Circular records show Andrew met the executive vice-president of Huawei, the Chinese telecoms company, and had dinner at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel with “British and Shenzhen businesses” in Shenzhen. In Hong Kong, he attended a lunch given by the British Chamber of Commerce and met the British consul-general.

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Though Andrew lost his role as trade envoy because of his ties to Epstein in early 2011, in October that year Stern wrote again to Epstein that he was going to China with “PA”, understood to be Prince Andrew. He said: “Most meetings by now are organised by me except mayors and governors,” he said. “I stay in the background/hidden. Just make the arrangements.”

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On April 23, 2017, [Stern] emailed Epstein about a dinner in May at Windsor Castle with “50 top Chinese” businessmen and women, including Pony Ma of Tencent and Yang Huiyan, who Stern described as the “wealthiest woman in Asia, age 36”.

“Plus top UK and other guests,” Stern wrote.

Stern stepped down from his role at St George’s House in November 2022. He is now based in Abu Dhabi, according to Companies House.

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The U.S. State Department has ordered certain public libraries nationwide to cease processing passport applications, disrupting a long-standing service that librarians say their communities have come to rely on and that has run smoothly for years.

Democratic and Republican members of Congress from Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Maryland are pushing back, sending a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio this month asking him to extend the existing program until Congress finds a permanent solution.

The lawmakers' letter said people will have to travel long distances, take unpaid time off from work or forgo getting a passport when demand is surging due to Real ID requirements. If Republicans in Congress impose strict new voting rules, citizens could need their passport or birth certificate to register. People fearing immigration agents are also increasingly carrying passports to confirm their citizenship.

After losing her siblings to Parvo; my little survivor is on the way to her forever home today. She’s so sweet and full of life. 🥹

Google has criticized the European Union’s intentions to achieve digital sovereignty through open-source software. The company warned that Brussels’ policies aimed at reducing dependence on American tech companies could harm competitiveness. According to Google, the idea of replacing current tools with open-source programs would not contribute to economic growth.

Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer, warned of a competitive paradox that Europe is facing. According to the Financial Times, he said that creating regulatory barriers would be harmful in a context of rapid technological advancement. His remarks came just days after the European Commission concluded a public consultation assessing the transition to open-source software.

Google’s chief legal officer clarified that he is not opposed to digital sovereignty, but recommended making use of the “best technologies in the world.” Walker suggested that American companies could collaborate with European firms to implement measures ensuring data protection. Local management or servers located in Europe to store information are among the options.

The EU is preparing a technological sovereignty package aimed at eliminating dependence on third-party software, such as Google’s. After reviewing proposals, it concluded that reliance on external suppliers for critical infrastructure entails economic risks and creates vulnerabilities. The strategy focuses not only on regulation but also on adopting open-source software to achieve digital sovereignty.

According to Google, this change would represent a problem for users. Walker argues that the market moves faster than legislation and warns that regulatory friction will only leave European consumers and businesses behind in what he calls “the most competitive technological transition we have ever seen.” As it did with the DMA and other laws, Google is playing on fear. Kent Walker suggested that this initiative would stifle innovation and deny people access to the “best digital tools.”

The promotion of open-source software aims to break dependence on foreign suppliers, especially during a period of instability caused by the Trump administration. The European Union has highlighted the risks of continuing under this system and proposes that public institutions should have full control over their own technology.

According to a study on the impact of open-source software, the European Commission found that it contributes between €65 billion and €95 billion annually to the European Union’s GDP. The executive body estimates that a 10% increase in contributions to open-source software would generate an additional €100 billion in growth for the bloc’s economy.

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https://lemmy.world/c/bdsm

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In tsarist days, legend has it that Prince Yusupov fed cyanide to Rasputin in cakes and a glass of Madeira wine, hoping to kill him. When that failed, Rasputin was shot in the head. Today’s toxins are more terrifying — and their use by the state a powerful deterrent to Putin’s opponents.

Who can forget the haunting images of Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian defector and Putin critic, as he lay in bed suffering an agonising death in London in 2006 after drinking a cup of tea laced with radioactive polonium-210?

“It sends a very clear message: ‘If you screw with us terrible things will happen,’” says a security source. “The message is not only that the state can kill, but that it can do so without ever admitting it has done anything at all.”

Nor is poison the only method favoured for its ambiguity. In recent years a striking number of Russian officials, business figures and critics of the Kremlin have died after falling from windows or balconies — deaths routinely described as suicides. Like poisoning, defenestration offers deniability without subtlety: a violent end that leaves no obvious weapon, no clear perpetrator and just enough uncertainty to smother accountability.

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A few years ago (linked for reference) a group of friends faked a fashion look to get access to an important fashion show. The narrative was that the industry is pretentious and can easily be trolled.

However, objectively they just proved that it is about creativity and not money. They actually showed that the industry cares more about art than being famous or rich.