One rum, two owners: the decades-long legal battle between the Cuban government and spirits giant Bacardi over the popular Havana Club rum brand has entered a new phase with the enactment of a new US trademark law.Entitled “No Stolen Trademarks Honored in America Act” and signed into law last month by outgoing US President Joe Biden, it prohibits US courts from recognizing trademarks that were “illegally confiscated” by the Cuban government since the 1959 Cuban Revolution.The law cements Bacardi’s rights to Havana Club and could prevent Cuba’s state-owned Cubaexport and its French partner, beverage giant Pernod Ricard, from asserting their rights to the brand in the United States.While Cuba currently cannot export its rum to the United States because of a decades-long trade embargo, the government in Havana and Pernod Ricard believe that maintaining trademark rights to the iconic drink is important in case restrictions are lifted.The law, which was championed by incoming Secretary of State and Cuba hardliner Marco Rubio, was swiftly criticized by the government of the Communist island, which said that it violates international norms.”Once again, the United States government provides space for the dark interests of the most aggressive anti-Cuban sectors whose manipulation of the American political system has become a practice,” the government said in a recent statement.Bacardi, which was exiled from Cuba after the country’s Communist revolution, says that the Cuban government unlawfully seized rum distilleries and the Havana Club brand from its founder Jose Arechabala SA in 1960. But the Cuban government has maintained its rights to the brand and has marketed Havana Club worldwide, with the exception of the United States because of the embargo Washington imposed in 1962. In 1976, Cuba managed to assert its rights to the brand in the United States, until Bacardi contested it in 1995 and started selling its own rum in the United States under the Havana Club brand.- Booming market -The legal fight is unlikely to subside because the rum industry is booming.According to a recent report by Dublin-based consultancy Research and Markets, the global rum market is expected to grow at an average rate of 7.7 percent per year over the next six years, jumping from $19.1 billion in 2024 to $32.2 billion by 2031. In 2016, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) renewed Cubaexport’s registration of the Havana Club brand for ten years, but the enactment of the law is likely to complicate its renewal in 2026.John Kavulich, director of the New York-based Cuba-US Trade and Economic Council described the law as “an immensely cost-effective” lobbying effort for Bacardi.”Most significantly was the complete lack of opposition — even from the most vocal members of the United States Congress who support commercial, economic, financial, and political re-engagement with Cuba,” Kavulich said to AFP.After the brief thaw in US-Cuban ties that began under Barack Obama (2009-2017) and the strengthening of sanctions during Republican Donald Trump’s first presidency (2017-2021), which largely remained unchanged under Democrat Biden, tensions with Havana could rise further under Trump’s second term.

Donald Trump returns to the White House in two weeks with everything seemingly going his way — from stronger grassroots support than ever to a cowed billionaire class and a demoralized opposition.Yet a chaotic and polarized Republican Party on Capitol Hill threatens to frustrate his ambitions for a legacy-defining second term unless he is able to master the political equivalent of herding cats.The Republican rank-and-file reveres Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) agenda of tax cuts, tough border controls and boosted fossil fuel production, but long-simmering disagreements on how to get it into law are starting to boil over.”Our members are ready to get to work and we have hit the ground running, as we promised everyone we would on the campaign trail,” an upbeat Mike Johnson, who leads the Republicans in the House of Representatives, told reporters this week.But Johnson’s troops have been locked in an increasingly heated debate with their Senate colleagues over whether to pass Trump’s entire agenda in one giant, all-or-nothing package or break it up into smaller chunks.Top MAGA policy aides have argued that a piecemeal approach would allow Trump to notch a straightforward early win on border security without having to get bogged down in more contentious fights.But House Republicans worry that, with their threadbare and fractious majority, they will only get one swing at this — and that renewing Trump’s fast-expiring 2017 tax cuts will fall by the wayside if it is peeled off from immigration reform.- ‘Big, beautiful bill’ -Trump muddied the waters in his inimitable style by flip-flopping on his own preference.”I like one big, beautiful bill and I always have, I always will,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “But if two is more certain, it does go a little bit quicker, because you can do the immigration stuff early.”The fight is just one of many potential speed bumps as Trump races against time to make his mark before the Republican iron grip on Washington is potentially weakened by midterm elections in just 22 months. The former real estate mogul, 78, is already behind the pace he set on winning his first term in 2016, when the Senate took important procedural steps towards passing his priorities before he set foot on Pennsylvania Avenue.Trump has previewed other upcoming battles — from reversing President Joe Biden’s offshore drilling restrictions to acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal — that could drag the administration into court.But support from a Supreme Court bolstered by three of Trump’s own nominees seems more assured than an easy ride in Congress.Trumpist Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin acknowledged during a leadership challenge in the House last year that a disunited rank-and-file on Capitol Hill could be Trump’s biggest frustration.”The Republican Party, it’s like trying to herd cats. Everyone is going in different directions,” he told Fox News.Trump has already demonstrated that he is not above rolling up his sleeves and wading into the fray. – Charm offensive -He micro-managed Republicans through the recent House leadership election, upbraiding lawmakers by telephone in the middle of votes for ticking the wrong box, and strategizing in daily phone calls with key players.He has spent much of the post-election period on a charm offensive targeting high-profile business executives and key Republican interest groups at Mar-a-Lago, the oceanfront redoubt that he calls his “Winter White House” in Florida.Having won what critics see as tacit concessions from leading press barons and tech CEOs that he can expect less friction in 2025 than he got in 2017, Trump was due in Washington on Wednesday to build trust with Senate Republicans.A dinner is planned at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday with Republican governors — heavyweight, largely independent-minded politicians needed by Trump to execute his program at a state level — and various lawmakers are dropping by on Saturday.Trump also plans a giant bash for the entire Senate Republican group in the coming weeks, US media reported. On the Democratic side, leaders in Congress have pledged to work with Republicans to improve people’s lives — but also to hold Trump’s feet to the fire over campaign promises.”They are now in the majority. They now have the responsibility,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor of the chamber on Tuesday.”We and the American people will be watching.”

Tech giant Meta has rolled back restrictions around topics such as gender and sexual identity, a sweeping move advocacy groups fear will fuel hate speech.The change coincides with the company’s shock announcement on Tuesday that it was ending its third-party fact-checking program in the United States and adopting a crowd-sourced model to police misinformation similar to the Elon Musk-owned X.The latest version of Meta’s community guidelines said its platforms — which include Facebook and Instagram — would now permit users to accuse people of “mental illness or abnormality” based on their gender or sexual orientation.The updated version also struck out previous restrictions on referring to women as “household objects or property,” Black people as “farm equipment” and transgender or non-binary people as “it.””We’re getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate,” Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, wrote in a blog post.”It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms.”But advocacy groups quickly voiced concern that the policy shift threatened the safety of marginalized communities.”Removal of fact-checking programs and industry-standard hate speech policies make Meta’s platforms unsafe places,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president of the advocacy group GLAAD.”Without these necessary hate speech and other policies, Meta is giving the green light for people to target LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and other marginalized groups with violence, vitriol, and dehumanizing narratives.”Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, in a video announcing the changes, claimed the previous restrictions on immigration and gender were “just out of touch with mainstream discourse.””What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it has gone too far,” Zuckerberg said.The move comes just weeks before Donald Trump returns to the White House with his Republican Party also back in control of Congress after fiercely attacking social media speech restrictions during the election campaign.Gender identity issues were also a key line of attack by Trump and Republicans against their Democratic opponents.After the move was announced on Tuesday, CyberWell, a nonprofit focused on combating online antisemitism, denounced the “systematic lowering of the bar” by Meta on policies against hate speech and harassment.”This change particularly undermines the safety of all marginalized communities,” CyberWell executive director Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor said in a statement.

Two US astronauts who have been stuck for months on the International Space Station (ISS) said Wednesday they have plenty of food, are not facing a laundry crisis, and don’t yet feel like castaways.Veteran astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived at the ISS in June aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, and were due to spend only eight days on the orbiting laboratory.But problems with the Starliner’s propulsion system prompted NASA to change plans, with a return flight now scheduled for late March at the earliest.Williams said spirits were still high despite the unexpectedly long stay in space.”It’s just been a joy to be working up here,” he said during a call with NASA officials.”It doesn’t feel like we’re cast away,” he added. “Eventually we want to go home, because we left our families a little while ago but we have a lot to do while we’re up here.”Wilmore chuckled while offering reassurance about food supply.”We are well fed,” he said.Laundry requirements are also not comparable to Earth, he explained. “Clothes fit loosely up here. It’s not like on Earth where you sweat and it gets bad. I mean, they fit loosely. So you can wear things honestly, for weeks at a time, and it doesn’t bother you at all,” he said. After the propulsion problems developed, NASA ultimately decided to return the spacecraft to Earth without its crew, and to bring the two stranded astronauts back home with the members of the SpaceX Crew-9 mission.Crew-9’s two astronauts arrived at the ISS aboard a Dragon spacecraft in late September, with two empty seats for Wilmore and Williams. The plan was for all four to return home in February 2025.But the return was postponed last month when NASA announced that Crew-10, which would relieve Crew-9 and the stranded pair, would now launch no earlier than March 2025, and both teams would remain on board for a “handover period.”According to those timelines, Wilmore and Williams are scheduled to spend more than nine months in space.”When we get home, we’ll have lots of stories to tell,” Williams said. 

A prolonged dry spell combined with strong winds has created the “perfect conditions” for Los Angeles wildfires to rage out of control, even though experts say it’s too soon to pinpoint exactly how much climate change contributed.At the same time, perennial debates over suburban sprawl and forest management are intensifying, spurred by political mudslinging from incoming President Donald Trump and his close ally Elon Musk.”We see these fires spread when it is hot and dry and windy, and right now all of those conditions are in place in southern California,” Kristina Dahl, vice president for science at Climate Central, told AFP. “The clearest climate signal for those three conditions is with the temperature,” she added.While it’s not yet known what started the blazes, “human-caused climate change is intensifying the heat that drives wildfires, increasing temperatures in southern California up to two-degrees Celsius (3.6F) since 1895,” Patrick Gonzalez, a climate change scientist at the University of California, Berkeley told AFP.2024 is set to be named the hottest year on record for both the United States and the world, capping a decade of unprecedented heat.- ‘Widening’ fire season -Although wildfire activity can vary greatly from year to year, short-term extreme weather conditions helped create the “perfect conditions” for the rencent blazes, said wildfire scientist Maria Lucia Ferreira Barbosa of the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.Last year’s El Nino weather system brought heavy rains that fueled excessive vegetation growth in the first half of 2024. But the second half of the year was marked by drought across southern California, setting the stage for what scientists call “precipitation whiplash,” another potential hallmark of climate change that turned the region into a tinderbox.Low humidity — combined with strong, dry Santa Ana winds blowing inland — further parched the already desiccated shrublands.Small embers can also be carried by the wind to ignite new areas, explained Rory Hadden, Professor of Fire Science at the University of Edinburgh. This can quickly overwhelm firefighters “and can also make escape challenging as visibility is reduced,” he added.”The ongoing wildfires in California are unprecedented, in the sense that they are dramatic for this time of the year,” said Apostolos Voulgarakis, an atmospheric scientist at Imperial College London, adding that research shows the state’s fire season is “widening” as a consequence of climate change.Attribution studies, which use statistical modeling to measure humanity’s impact on climate, will be needed to determine the precise culpability of human-driven warming on the current fires. However, scientists broadly agree that rising temperatures are making such fire-prone conditions more frequent. A recent UN Environment Programme report found a potential global increase in extreme fires by up to 14 percent by 2030, 30 percent by 2050, and 50 percent by the end of the century.- Prescribed burns and political feuds – As more people move into wildfire-prone ecosystems — partly driven by housing costs in safer coastal areas — the danger to lives and property only grows.Dahl noted that this dynamic is especially visible in places like Lake Tahoe, which has attracted newcomers, resulting in a marked growth in what is called the “wildland-urban interface.”Forest management is also under scrutiny. The United States long practiced aggressive fire suppression before gradually embracing prescribed burns — a tactic supported for centuries by Native American tribes. California treats about 125,000 acres (50,000 hectares) of wildlands each year with controlled burns, but it isn’t clear if that’s sufficient, and the state’s patchwork of regulations governing land under state, federal or private jurisdictions pose challenges to scaling it. In the political arena, Musk took to X to slam “nonsense regulations” he believes hamper more active fire prevention, while Trump labeled Gavin Newsom “the incompetent governor,” highlighting how the growing number of disasters is increasingly fueling ideological battles.

A member of the Japanese yakuza criminal underworld pleaded guilty to handling nuclear material sourced from Myanmar and seeking to sell it to fund an illicit arms deal, US authorities said Wednesday.Yakuza leader Takeshi Ebisawa and co-defendant Somphop Singhasiri had previously been charged in April 2022 with drug trafficking and firearms offenses, and both were remanded.He was then additionally charged in February 2024 with conspiring to sell weapons-grade nuclear material and lethal narcotics from Myanmar, and to purchase military weaponry on behalf of an armed insurgent group, prosecutors said.The military weaponry to be part of the arms deal included surface-to-air missiles, the indictment alleged.”As he admitted in federal court today, Takeshi Ebisawa brazenly trafficked nuclear material, including weapons-grade plutonium, out of Burma,” said Acting US attorney Edward Kim, using another name for Myanmar.”At the same time, he worked to send massive quantities of heroin and methamphetamine to the United States in exchange for heavy-duty weaponry such as surface-to-air missiles to be used on battlefields in Burma.”Prosecutors alleged that Ebisawa, 60, “brazenly” moved material containing uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, alongside drugs, from Myanmar.From 2020, Ebisawa boasted to an undercover officer he had access to large quantities of nuclear materials that he sought to sell, providing photographs of materials alongside Geiger counters registering radiation.During a sting operation including undercover agents, Thai authorities assisted US investigators in seizing two powdery yellow substances that the defendant described as “yellowcake.””The (US) laboratory determined that the isotope composition of the plutonium found in the Nuclear Samples is weapons-grade, meaning that the plutonium, if produced in sufficient quantities, would be suitable for use in a nuclear weapon,” the Justice Department said in its statement at the time.One of Ebisawa’s co-conspirators claimed they “had available more than 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) of Thorium-232 and more than 100 kilograms of uranium in the compound U3O8 — referring to a compound of uranium commonly found in the uranium concentrate powder known as ‘yellowcake’.”The indictment claimed Ebisawa had suggested using the proceeds of the sale of nuclear material to fund weapons purchases on behalf of an unnamed ethnic insurgent group in Myanmar.Ebisawa faces up to 20 years imprisonment for the trafficking of nuclear materials internationally.Prosecutors describe Ebisawa as a “leader of the Yakuza organized crime syndicate, a highly organized, transnational Japanese criminal network that operates around the world (and whose) criminal activities have included large-scale narcotics and weapons trafficking.”Sentencing will be determined by the judge in the case at a later date, prosecutors said.