Last week I was in Brazil for a number of different meetings and events. On Thursday evening I held a Masterclass on ‘Compliance Management, Security and our new global borders’ at World Trade Center in Sao Paulo. 


The event was the opening session of a new national Trade Compliance Officer (TCO) Certificate Education programme. 


Brazil are taking huge steps forwards on Customs and border processing with iäthe introduction of a top modern Compliance Management programme, AEO Brazil. 

The TCO is a great initiative to also prepare the Brazilian business environment and private sector for the new Compliance Management process. 
The Masterclass was held for the 30 first students of the TCO programme -and for approximately 120 additional invited guests.

It was a wonderful evening and I received very positive feedback for the Masterclass. 

When I travel I always read the local newspaper to learn more about the city and country I am in. 


I also find it interesting to see what type of news are covered in national and local media in different coutries, bothvthe domestic news and international news feeds. The politics and development news are normally whst I am looklng for, but also some other topics, Like the sports, one of my favourite parts if any ooer or magazine. The sports pages also tells a story about country you are in, the culture and the interest. 

So what sports are covered is in the Gulf News today? 

Today Gulf News have four pages about the EuroCup 2016, half a page about Copa Americana, some indoors soccer, F1, naturally cricket and as always at least one page of golf. Cricket and golf are big sports here, but like in most countries football/soccer is the dominating sport by far. 

In February this year Sweden re-inforced continued support for the East African Community integration process.


Katarina Rangnitt, the Swedish Ambassador to Tanzania and the EAC, said at the time that cooperation among the five EAC Partner States was crucial to relations between Sweden and East Africa. And the support continues. 


Yesterday the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ms. Margit Wallström, signed an important Economic Partnership Agreement with East African Community Partners. 


Sweden has over the past nine years disbursed generous financial support amounting to 7,225,155 Swedish Kroner to the EAC, monies that have been channeled through the EAC Partnership Fund. 


In addition Sweden finacially supports Trademark East Africa and the Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency (SIDA) has major programmes in the region.

Also in the area Customs Capacity Building has Sweden offered strong support for EAC over the last decade. One example is that the EAC AEO programme was introduced with Swedish contributions.