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Hey Anti-Piracy Haters! Meet CETA, The 'Trojan Horse' Of Just Rejected ACTA

LE MONDE (France), TORONTO STAR, RABBLE (Canada)

Worldcrunch

According to Canadian expert in copyright, Michael Geist, the European Commission is planning to implement the recently rejected provisions of ACTA with a clever little workaround: by applying the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

The Canadian publication Rabble reports that Canada and the European Union are trying to ratify the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement through the backdoor.

Michael Geist, who is also the Toronto Star"s Internet legal affairs columnist, stated: "The European Commission strategy appears to use CETA as the new ACTA, burying its provisions in a broader Canadian trade agreement with the hope that the European Parliament accepts the same provisions it just rejected with the ACTA framework."

On his blog, Mr Geist presents the similarities between ACTA and CETA provisions, mainly concerning the Internet Provider Liability, the Civil and Criminal Enforcement, as well as the Border Measures.

French daily Le Monde points out that according to leaked documents from February 2012, the CETA agreement will oblige Internet providers to disclose the identity of their users suspected of piracy.

Dubbed "ACTA's Trojan horse" by several European websites, CETA is currently in its last stage of negotiation.

As for the ACTA treaty, which the European MPs massively rejected in the voting session last week, it is to be examined by the European Court of Justice. ACTA could be re-examined by the EU Parliament, if the Court decides it respects fundamental rights.

In the meantime, reaction was fierce in Europe to reports of this Plan B for anti-piracy policy:

French Indignados' reaction on CETA: "Europe thinks you are idiots'

"Brussels is trying to cancel the rejection of ACTA. Did you say European democracy???"

"Goodbye ACTA, hello CETA; A new struggle begins."

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Why Every New Parent Should Travel Alone — Without Their Children

Argentine journalist Ignacio Pereyra travels to Italy alone to do some paperwork as his family stays behind. While he walks alone around Rome, he experiences mixed feelings: freedom, homesickness and nostalgia, and wonders what leads people to desire larger families.

Photo of a man sitting donw with his luggage at Athens' airport

Alone at Athens' international airport

Ignacio Pereyra

I realize it in the morning before leaving: I feel a certain level of excitement about traveling. It feels like enthusiasm, although it is confusing. I will go from Athens to Naples to see if I can finish the process for my Italian citizenship, which I started five years ago.

I started the process shortly after we left Buenos Aires, when my partner Irene and I had been married for two years and the idea of having children was on the vague but near horizon.

Now there are four of us and we have been living in Greece for more than two years. We arrived here in the middle of the pandemic, which left a mark on our lives, as in the lives of most of the people I know.

But now it is Sunday morning. I tell Lorenzo, my four-year-old son, that I am leaving for a few days: “No, no, Dad. You can’t go. Otherwise I’ll throw you into the sea.”

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