logo
#

Latest news with #IvoryCoast

Short Covering Boosts Cocoa Prices on Resilient North American Q2 Cocoa Demand
Short Covering Boosts Cocoa Prices on Resilient North American Q2 Cocoa Demand

Yahoo

time2 days ago

  • Business
  • Yahoo

Short Covering Boosts Cocoa Prices on Resilient North American Q2 Cocoa Demand

September ICE NY cocoa (CCU25) today is up +460 (+6.29%), and September ICE London cocoa #7 (CAU25) is up +193 (+4.02%). Cocoa prices today are sharply higher as short covering has emerged after North American Q2 cocoa grindings did not decline as much as those in Europe and Asia. North American Q2 coca grindings fell -2.8% y/y to 101.865 MT. More News from Barchart Coffee Prices Retreat Due to a Stronger Dollar Cocoa Prices Finish Sharply Lower as Global Cocoa Demand Craters Dollar Strength Sparks Long Liquidation Pressures in Coffee Futures Stop Missing Market Moves: Get the FREE Barchart Brief – your midday dose of stock movers, trending sectors, and actionable trade ideas, delivered right to your inbox. Sign Up Now! Cocoa prices sold off this week, with NY cocoa sinking to an 8-month nearest-futures low Thursday and London cocoa slumping to a 17-month nearest-futures low. Weakness in global cocoa demand hammered prices. The European Cocoa Association reported Thursday that Q2 European cocoa grindings fell by -7.2% y/y to 331,762 MT, a bigger decline than expectations of -5% y/y. Also, the Cocoa Association of Asia reported that Q2 Asian cocoa grindings fell -16.3% y/y to 176,644 MT, the smallest amount for a Q2 in 8 years. Cocoa prices have also seen weakness on reports of favorable weather conditions in cocoa-growing areas in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, although the weather is less favorable in Nigeria and Cameroon. Demand concerns are weighing on cocoa prices after chocolate maker Barry Callebaut AG reduced its sales volume guidance last Thursday for a second time in three months, citing persistently high cocoa prices. The company projects a decline in full-year sales volume and said there was a -9.5% drop in its March-May sales volume, the largest quarterly drop in a decade. In a bearish factor, ICE-monitored cocoa inventories held in US ports climbed to a 10-month high of 2,363,861 bags on June 18 and were modestly below that high at 2,346,466 bags as of Thursday. Higher cocoa production by Ghana is bearish for cocoa prices. On July 1, the Ghana Cocoa Board projected the 2025/26 Ghana cocoa crop would increase by +8.3% y/y to 650,000 from 600,000 MT in 2024/25. Ghana is the world's second-largest cocoa producer. Monday's government data showed that Ivory Coast farmers shipped 1.73 MMT of cocoa to ports this marketing year from October 1 to July 13, up +6.8% from last year but down from the much larger +35% increase seen in December. Cocoa prices have support from quality concerns regarding the Ivory Coast's mid-crop cocoa, which is currently being harvested through September. Cocoa processors are complaining about the quality of the crop and have rejected truckloads of Ivory Coast cocoa beans. Processors reported that about 5% to 6% of the mid-crop cocoa in each truckload is of poor quality, compared with 1% during the main crop. According to Rabobank, the poor quality of the Ivory Coast's mid-crop is partly attributed to late-arriving rain in the region, which limited crop growth. The mid-crop is the smaller of the two annual cocoa harvests, which typically starts in April. The average estimate for this year's Ivory Coast mid-crop is 400,000 MT, down -9% from last year's 440,000 MT. On May 30, the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) revised its 2023/24 global cocoa deficit to -494,000 MT from a February estimate of -441,000 MT, the largest deficit in over 60 years. ICCO said 2023/24 cocoa production fell by 13.1% y/y to 4.380 MMT. ICCO said the 2023/24 global cocoa stocks/grindings ratio fell to a 46-year low of 27.0%. Looking ahead to 2024/25, ICCO on February 28 forecasted a global cocoa surplus of 142,000 MT for 2024/25, the first surplus in four years. ICCO also projected that 2024/25 global cocoa production will rise +7.8% y/y to 4.84 MMT. On the date of publication, Rich Asplund did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

I was once hit with a superinjunction and know how democracy dies in the dark
I was once hit with a superinjunction and know how democracy dies in the dark

The Independent

time2 days ago

  • Politics
  • The Independent

I was once hit with a superinjunction and know how democracy dies in the dark

I was once smacked with a superinjunction … and lived to tell the full Kafkaesque tale. So I have a lot of sympathy for The Independent and other media organisations who, for nearly two years, have been forced to sit on a story which the British state didn't want told. My own experience of being gagged involved an unappetising company called Trafigura, which had been caught dumping toxic chemicals off West Africa in 2006. The company had shelled out more than £30m in compensation and legal costs to 30,000 inhabitants of Abidjan in Ivory Coast who claimed to have been affected by the dumping. Trafigura was keen to suppress the findings of an internal report, which could have proved embarrassing. So they obtained an injunction to stop The Guardian from publishing it – and then, for good measure, a further injunction to prevent us from revealing the existence of the original injunction. Welcome to superinjunctions, which were, for a while, sprayed around like legal confetti – often by errant footballers keen to keep their off-pitch escapades secret. The Trafigura case represented a novel application of the law to silence investigative journalism, seemingly contradicting the only dictum about the courts that most people are familiar with – the principle that the law must be seen to be done. Trafigura went one step further. When a Labour MP tabled a question about their use of a superinjunction, their lawyers, the unlovely company Carter-Ruck, even warned newspapers that they would be in contempt of court if they dared mention this parliamentary intervention. That was plainly ludicrous. Trafigura's legal pitbulls had lost sight of the fact that people risked their liberty and their lives to fight for the right to report what their elected representatives say and do. The super injunction collapsed like an undercooked souffle. And here we are 16 years later, discovering that, for 683 days, a tiny handful of lawyers, judges, politicians and civil servants had been silencing the press from telling the most extraordinary story of how a hapless MoD official caused a catastrophic data breach, putting the lives of thousands of Afghans in peril. The saga began in September 2023 when Mr Justice Knowles issued a gagging order contra mundum (against the world) forbidding anyone from revealing the leak, which named Afghans who had assisted the British forces in Kabul – and who might now be at risk of reprisals from the Taliban. The judge spoke in lukewarm terms about the importance of freedom of expression, but considered a blanket gag was essential to give MoD time to mitigate the harm. Since then, a growing number of journalists became aware of the story, and another judge, Mr Justice Chamberlain, held multiple hearings – many of them closed to outsiders – to decide how long the injunction should hold. At one point, about a year ago, he thought enough was enough, but was overruled by the Court of Appeal. It was only this week that the curtain was lifted and we were allowed to know that as many as 18,500 Afghans had secretly been flown to Britain at a cost variously estimated to be between £400m and £7bn (ie we don't know). British spies and special forces soldiers were also among the tens of thousands of people potentially put at risk by the catastrophic Afghan data leak. The clincher for Chamberlain was a risk assessment report commissioned by the current government from a retired civil servant, Paul Rimmer. Rimmer took a markedly different view of the ongoing risk and, said Chamberlain, 'fundamentally undermined' the case for the gagging order to continue. And so it was that, at midday on Tuesday, the jaw-dropping nature of what had been going on was finally revealed. Some might argue that, back in September 2023, there was a case for some kind of news blackout to give the authorities a chance to alert those most at risk, and to extricate as many people as possible. The question is, was it right to keep the gagging order in place for so long? Chamberlain clearly thought it was fine to discharge it a year ago. Was he right? Or was the MoD justified in arguing for more time? The first thing to be said is that the state (in the form of governments and Whitehall) will, in such circumstances, always argue for more secrecy. They will say they are acting in the national interest. But history tells us that the government of the day can often not be trusted in their judgment of where the national interest lies. In 1938, the government of the day attempted to use the Official Secrets Act to compel Duncan Sandys MP to disclose the source of his information about the state of anti-aircraft defences around London. Sandys later became defence minister. Historians now take a different view of those who opposed appeasement in the 1930s. Also in the 1930s, the appeasing government condemned the 'subversive' whistleblowers who were feeding Winston Churchill information about Britain's readiness for war. 'The damage done to the Services far outweighs any advantage that may accrue,' raged a now-forgotten war minister. He was wrong: Churchill and his informants were right. The government of the day tried in 1967 to prevent The Sunday Times, under its editor, Harold Evans, from publishing an accurate account of the case of former MI6 agent Kim Philby and his life as a double agent. The then foreign secretary, George Brown, having failed to prevent publication, publicly accused Evans of being a traitor and of 'giving the Russians a head start... for god's sake, stop!' It's not just a British instinct. In 2004, George W Bush talked The New York Times out of running a series of articles which revealed that the US National Security Agency [NSA] had been eavesdropping on the communications of Americans without any warrant. Bush told the editor: 'You'll have blood on your hands.' The editor spiked the articles. So Mr Justice Chamberlain was right to be a little sceptical about what the state's representatives were telling him during this two-year saga. As he pointed out, the potential sums of money involved (£7bn!?) and the sheer number of urgent migrants were entirely legitimate subjects of political debate. Even more troubling is the fact that members of parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) were also kept in the dark. In June 2024, a court of appeal judge suggested that the ISC might be allowed access to the issue. But the lead KC for the MoD poo poohed the idea. Lord Beamish, the ISC's chair, said the decision not to keep his committee in the loop was 'appalling'. He's right. The ISC is a statutory committee intended to scrutinise the work of Britain's spy agencies, including GCHQ, MI6 and MI5. Being told that the MoD doesn't trust them with 'certain pieces of information' calls into question the entire mechanism of oversight in the secret state. What else do the spooks not think they can be trusted to know? Ironically, the seven media organisations – including The Independent – that were in on the secret by the time the injunction was finally discharged all behaved impeccably in not breathing a word. It's a topsy-turvy world in which journalists can be trusted with knowing information that the ISC was denied. Lord Beamish is right to be furious – and no doubt his committee will want answers. They're not the only ones. There should be the fullest possible reckoning. As the saying goes, democracy dies in darkness.

Cocoa Prices Finish Sharply Lower as Global Cocoa Demand Craters
Cocoa Prices Finish Sharply Lower as Global Cocoa Demand Craters

Yahoo

time2 days ago

  • Business
  • Yahoo

Cocoa Prices Finish Sharply Lower as Global Cocoa Demand Craters

September ICE NY cocoa (CCU25) on Thursday closed down -330 (-4.32%), and September ICE London cocoa #7 (CAU25) closed down -258 (-5.10%). Cocoa prices plunged on Thursday, with NY cocoa sliding to an 8-month nearest-futures low and London cocoa slumping to a 17-month nearest-futures low. Weakness in global cocoa demand is hammering prices. The European Cocoa Association reported Thursday that Q2 European cocoa grindings fell by -7.2% y/y to 331,762 MT, a bigger decline than expectations of -5% y/y. Also, the Cocoa Association of Asia reported that Q2 Asian cocoa grindings fell -16.3% y/y to 176,644 MT, the smallest amount for a Q2 in 8 years. More News from Barchart Bears Have the Advantage as Arabica Coffee Falls. Here Are the Levels to Watch Before You Sell. Arabica Coffee Resumes Climb on Dry Brazil Weather Cocoa Prices Fall on Expectations for Weak Q2 Demand Figures Tired of missing midday reversals? The FREE Barchart Brief newsletter keeps you in the know. Sign up now! Cocoa prices have also seen weakness on reports of favorable weather conditions in cocoa-growing areas in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, although the weather is less favorable in Nigeria and Cameroon. Demand concerns are weighing on cocoa prices after chocolate maker Barry Callebaut AG reduced its sales volume guidance last Thursday for a second time in three months, citing persistently high cocoa prices. The company projects a decline in full-year sales volume and said there was a -9.5% drop in its March-May sales volume, the largest quarterly drop in a decade. In a bearish factor, ICE-monitored cocoa inventories held in US ports climbed to a 10-month high of 2,363,861 bags on June 18 and were modestly below that high at 2,346,466 bags as of Thursday. Higher cocoa production by Ghana is bearish for cocoa prices. On July 1, the Ghana Cocoa Board projected the 2025/26 Ghana cocoa crop would increase by +8.3% y/y to 650,000 from 600,000 MT in 2024/25. Ghana is the world's second-largest cocoa producer. Monday's government data showed that Ivory Coast farmers shipped 1.73 MMT of cocoa to ports this marketing year from October 1 to July 13, up +6.8% from last year but down from the much larger +35% increase seen in December. Cocoa prices have support from quality concerns regarding the Ivory Coast's mid-crop cocoa, which is currently being harvested through September. Cocoa processors are complaining about the quality of the crop and have rejected truckloads of Ivory Coast cocoa beans. Processors reported that about 5% to 6% of the mid-crop cocoa in each truckload is of poor quality, compared with 1% during the main crop. According to Rabobank, the poor quality of the Ivory Coast's mid-crop is partly attributed to late-arriving rain in the region, which limited crop growth. The mid-crop is the smaller of the two annual cocoa harvests, which typically starts in April. The average estimate for this year's Ivory Coast mid-crop is 400,000 MT, down -9% from last year's 440,000 MT. On May 30, the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) revised its 2023/24 global cocoa deficit to -494,000 MT from a February estimate of -441,000 MT, the largest deficit in over 60 years. ICCO said 2023/24 cocoa production fell by 13.1% y/y to 4.380 MMT. ICCO said the 2023/24 global cocoa stocks/grindings ratio fell to a 46-year low of 27.0%. Looking ahead to 2024/25, ICCO on February 28 forecasted a global cocoa surplus of 142,000 MT for 2024/25, the first surplus in four years. ICCO also projected that 2024/25 global cocoa production will rise +7.8% y/y to 4.84 MMT. On the date of publication, Rich Asplund did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Fake AI videos of R. Kelly, pope spread cult of Burkina junta chief
Fake AI videos of R. Kelly, pope spread cult of Burkina junta chief

CTV News

time3 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • CTV News

Fake AI videos of R. Kelly, pope spread cult of Burkina junta chief

R. Kelly turns to exit during a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court building, in Chicago, Sept. 17, 2019. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune via AP) Abidjan, Ivory Coast -- If you believe the viral videos online, R. Kelly and Pope Leo XIV agree on one thing -- that Burkina Faso's junta chief, Captain Ibrahim Traore, is a fantastic leader. The images are AI-generated propaganda, part of what experts have called a vast disinformation campaign spreading the 'personality cult' of the west African country's strongman. Beyonce and Justin Bieber are among the other celebrities to have their faces and voices altered through artificial intelligence to shower praise on Traore. In one video, attributed to R&B star R. Kelly, the lyrics praise Traore, who seized power in a 2022 coup: 'for the love of his people, he risked it all... bullets fly but he don't fall... he's fighting for peace in his motherland.' Kelly is serving a 30-year-prison sentence in the United States, yet the song generated by artificial intelligence has been viewed more than two million times since it came out in May. The images have been widely shared on west African social media. It follows a wave of coups not only in Burkina Faso but also in Mali, Niger and Guinea, while the region is further destabilised by jihadist attacks. 'These are influence and disinformation campaigns aimed at extending the personality cult surrounding Captain Traore to Burkina Faso's English-speaking neighbours,' said an American researcher who spoke on condition of anonymity. Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traore Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traore speaks in Moscow, Russia, on Saturday, May 10, 2025. (Angelos Tzortzinis/Pool Photo via AP) Restoring control After seizing power in a coup in September 2022, Traore pledged to quickly restore control in Burkina Faso, which has been plagued by violence from jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Three years later, jihadist attacks have continued, causing thousands more deaths, and have even intensified in recent months. Several officers accused of attempting to stage a coup have been arrested and comments attributed to then head of US Africa Command General Michael Langley, accusing Traore of using the country's gold reserves for personal protection, sparked anger and protests. Around that time, a series of videos exalting Traore started mushrooming on social media. 'Information manipulation has become a lever for retaining power and legitimizing the junta's presence,' said a Burkinabe specialist in strategic communication, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons. 'Digital army' Viral campaigns mixing propaganda and AI-generated content have been shared by activists and English-speaking influencers, notably to denounce Langley and glorify Traore. While some are riding the wave for their own financial gain, others are working for the junta's cyber propaganda entity called Rapid Communication Intervention Battalions (BIR-C), the Burkinabe source said. 'They truly operate like a digital army,' the source said, adding it was led by US-based activist Ibrahima Maiga, ruling out any 'direct links with foreign Russian influence.' But the group's anti-imperialist narrative, 'presenting Captain Traore as the one who will save Burkina and Africa from Western neocolonialism... suits Russia, which amplifies it in turn,' the source said. Russian connections But the American researcher noted 'some reports have established Russian connections in the recent surge of these disinformation operations', particularly in campaigns targeting Ghana and Nigeria. 'Destabilising the Nigerian government would have significant regional effects,' he warned. Nigerian journalist Philip Obaji, who specialises in Russian influence operations, agreed, adding that 'media in Burkina and Togo have accepted money from agents linked to Russia to relay these campaigns'. Meanwhile, Burkina's junta has expelled international press that had been working in the country, while local outlets self-censor in fear of arrest and deployment to the front lines against jihadists -- already a fate for some journalists. While the Burkinabe diaspora has attempted to fight back against the pro-junta narrative, including promoting jihadists' attack claims, commenting on or sharing posts is considered glorifying terrorism, punishable by one to five years imprisonment.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store