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Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi Visits Earth Friendly Products to Discuss Green Technology Innovation and Skilled Jobs Education in Illinois
Krishnamoorthi Points to Earth Friendly Products as a Model for Sustainable Business in the State
ADDISON, ILL. (PRWEB) OCTOBER 20, 2017
Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi joined Earth Friendly Products®, the maker of ECOS™ environmentally friendly cleaning products, on Tuesday for a discussion with constituents about Illinois’ need for more green jobs and a strong, skilled workforce to compete in the new global economy.
Krishnamoorthi selected Earth Friendly Products in Addison as the location for his remarks because of the company’s ongoing commitment to sustainable manufacturing, a high minimum wage, and benefits that support working families, making the company a model of innovative green business in the state.
“When it comes to trends that will keep America competitive in the global economy for generations to come, we think of innovation, entrepreneurship, environmentally friendly businesses, and manufacturing,” Krishnamoorthi said. “Earth Friendly Products is a great example of using clean technology to do that while creating jobs for Illinois working families.”
“We were honored to have Congressman Krishnamoorthi join us for this important event,” says Kelly Vlahakis-Hanks, president and CEO of Earth Friendly Products, who welcomed the congressman to the Addison facility. “Congressman Krishnamoorthi has been a strong supporter of Earth Friendly Products, and we’re proud to be part of the conversation about strengthening Illinois’ economy through innovation and supporting working families,” added Vlahakis-Hanks.
Krishnamoorthi pointed to the need for greater investment in career and technical education, citing the fact the six million jobs across the U.S. remain unfilled because of a lack of qualified applicants. As the co-chair of the New Economy Task Force and the newly launched Jobs for America Task Force in the House Democratic Caucus, Krishnamoorthi is calling for modernizing and funding training programs to prepare students for the jobs of the 21st century economy.
Krishnamoorthi is the co-author of the Thompson-Krishnamoorthi Bill, also known as H.R. 2353, the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act. Passed by the House and introduced into the Senate this summer, the bipartisan legislation will strengthen and improve career and technical education across the U.S.
Congressman Krishnamoorthi spoke to the group about the need for Illinois businesses to integrate sustainable energy technologies into their operations. As the former head of a company that researches national security & solar-energy technologies, Krishnamoorthi spoke from personal experience about the rewards and challenges of adopting renewable energy technologies to compete in the modern global economy.
Earth Friendly Products is a pioneer in innovative green technologies and sustainable manufacturing. Founded in 1967, the family-owned and -operated company uses 100% renewable energy, including solar energy generated at its four U.S. facilities, to manufacture its ECOS™ green laundry detergents and cleaners. The company’s Addison facility uses solar panels to supply a significant portion of its renewable energy needs. When the facility opened in 2010, it was the largest commercial solar array in the state.
Earth Friendly Products is also a leader in corporate social responsibility and “high-road employer” practices. Citing the benefits of supporting working families, Vlahakis-Hanks implemented a living wage policy in 2014 that raised the company’s minimum wage to $17 per hour, one of the highest in the country. It’s the latest in a series of above-average wage increases over many years.
Says Vlahakis-Hanks, “We’ve discovered that paying a living wage and providing strong benefits not only supports our employees and the local economy, it creates a workplace with lower turnover, higher productivity, and higher job satisfaction, which has been the key to our success for 50 years here in Illinois.”
ABOUT EARTH FRIENDLY PRODUCTS
Family owned and operated since 1967, Earth Friendly Products® is the maker of ECOS™ Laundry Detergent and over 200 other environmentally friendly products that are safer for people, pets, and the planet. ECOS™ plant-powered cleaners are made in the USA using thoughtfully sourced global ingredients. Made without dyes, parabens, phosphates or phthalates, ECOS™ cleaners are pH balanced, readily biodegradable, and never tested on animals. Earth Friendly Products is a leader in sustainable manufacturing with carbon neutral, water neutral, and Zero Waste Platinum certified facilities that save over 53 million pounds of carbon dioxide annually and divert over 95% of all their waste from landfills. The company has received many awards for its innovations in safer green chemistry and is a two-time winner of the U.S. EPA’s coveted Safer Choice Partner of the Year. ECOS™, Baby ECOS™, ECOS™ for Pets!, and ECOS™ Pro products are available at major club and grocery retailers and natural foods stores throughout the U.S., in over 60 countries, and online at http://www.ecos.com.
Author: Trisha Kent


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Trade magazine publishing house, New Media has launched a B2B magazine called SeaPorts Business. The bimonthly magazine will offer in-depth information and analyses covering all aspects of the ports and shipping sectors and allied services.
The Maritime Agenda 2010-20 of the government was launched in January, 2011 where plans to spend an estimated US$110 billion to develop ports and shipbuilding by 2020 was revealed.
Commenting on the launch of SeaPorts Business, Satya Swaroop, managing editor, New Media says in a press statement, "Presently, Indian ports are being modernised and expanded on a massive scale. There is infusion of new technology in equipment, services and operations. There is also hectic activity under public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the ports sector. We see there is a great need for information and its dissemination among vast numbers of port users, both domestic and foreign."
"New Media has conceived, designed and launched SeaPorts Business in order to connect the different players in the ports and shipping sectors and service providers and bring to their doorsteps the world's best practices in these areas, which are the key engines of economic growth," adds Swaroop.
The inaugural issue of the magazine includes a wide canvas of the government's policy initiatives, details of PPP ventures at both major and non-major ports, interviews with the top honchos in the sector, presentations by foreign port technology experts and other analytical articles.
The magazine, with its niche nature, will be available on a subscription basis only - both online and for physical copies. SeaPorts Business is being offered at a cover price of Rs 100.
While the current ad to edit ratio is being maintained at 20:80 in favour of editorial content, going forward, New Media will look to increase the ad content with the ratio being 30:70. Advertisements are being sought from companies within the logistics sector.
The magazine is being promoted through trade exhibitions across the globe, for which media partnerships have been formed by New Media.

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Saputo boosts offer for Australia’s Warrnambool Cheese
Montreal-based Saputo Inc. (TSX:SAP) has raised its offer for an Australian dairy company that is the focus of a heated takeover battle.
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MONTREAL—Montreal-based Saputo Inc. (TSX:SAP) has raised its offer for an Australian dairy company that is the focus of a heated takeover battle involving at least two other contenders.
Saputo’s new offer is $9 per share in Australian currency, valuing Warrnambool Cheese and Butter at about A$499 million, or about C$487 million.
Saputo’s previous offer was A$8 per share but rival Murray Goulburn Co-operative announced earlier this week that it would offer A$9 per share for Warrnambool.
A combination of Murray Goulburn and Warrnambool would have 41 per cent of the Australian market while a deal with Saputo would give the Canadian company about 10 per cent.
Saputo says its offer will be unconditional and superior to all other proposals, including the one from Murray Goulburn or another from Bega Cheese Ltd., which has offered about A$8.675.
Saputo’s says Murray Goulburn’s offer is “highly conditional” because it is subject to receiving approval from Australian authorities.
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Cisco has acquired privately held Tail-f Systems, a Swedish virtualization startup, for $175 million in a bid to give its cloud offerings a boost.
Tail-f employees are to join Cisco’s Cloud and Virtualization Group led by Gee Rittenhouse, vice president […]
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The rules for Web content are clear; search engines demand unique, quality writing that engages the reader and contains valuable information. Furthermore, portable devices are challenging marketers to get creative.
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- The pandemic has helped the
edtech sectorin India flourish. Many players have witnessed impressive growth since the lockdown led to closure of educational institutes. Cuemath, an edtech platform focused on Math and coding grew 3X last year and is expecting to top that this year. It is also confident of becoming a unicorn by 2022.
- We talk to
Arvind Iyer, Marketing Director, Cuemath who tells us about the platform's growth story and all that its doing to bring more students to its platform.
According to a recent report released by transaction advisory firm RBSA Advisors, the
While we have seen players that cover the entire spectrum of education, multiple subjects, test preparations, competitive exams, there also are subject-specific platforms that are making their presence felt in the domain.
Cuemath was started in 2013 by
The platform, in the initial few years, found growth primarily through word-of-mouth. What started in India soon found takers in other countries too, considering every child, across the globe, has to learn Math. In fact, currently, Cuemath is present in 20 countries, a number that the leaders hope to take to 50 by the end of this year.
“Math is a universal need. It’s not a niche need. Every kid around the world needs to do Math. Therefore, every student is our target student. We are therefore creating and enhancing our market. And since Math is a basic global requirement, we get an edge over our competition,” said Arvind Iyer, Marketing Director, Cuemath.
Currently, Cuemath’s key markets are across four regions, North America and Canada; the Middle East, especially Dubai and Qatar, UK and Europe, where its business is growing steadily. The startup currently has plans of scaling 3-4X times in the US alone this year. “Cuemath is present in 20-odd countries, and it wants to reach over 50 countries by the end of this year. This plan includes strengthening its presence in North America, APAC, UK and Europe, and the Middle East, as well as entering countries in Africa and South America,” explained Iyer.
The platform also underwent a rebranding recently to represent its evolution in the past 1.5 years, primarily its pivot from an offline to an online entity. The rebranding entails a new logo and colour palette.
Explaining the thought behind the rebranding, Iyer said, “We want to make parents and students believe in the power of math and its potential to unlock innumerous possibilities. We intend to project ourselves as a brand of consequence where intuition for math trumps marks and performance in exams. Being a company that works at scale across geographies, we needed a winning strategy that will be in alignment with our mission to be a Global Math Leader of the future - to portray trust, expertise, and freshness, globally. This needed a fresh way of looking at our brand, our visual identity, and our communication objectives which are: to come across as trustworthy but not formal, to sound lighthearted but not juvenile, to have academic rigor but not be strict and to be viewed as innovative not newfangled.”
It has also refreshed its tagline to ‘Get better at Math, Get better at everything else’.
When it comes to marketing, the platform has been following a targeted approach, while monitoring its funnel conversion metrics closely. “We are constantly improving our communication assets to make them work harder for the parent, and get them to discover the Cuemath method. We believe in always adding value to the lives of parents, students and teachers. Everything we do is a reflection of what they seek and find useful. Having said that, our focus this year is going to be on building brand awareness and performance marketing to acquire new students through all our social, digital, TV and PR channels,” explained Iyer.
If a recent estimate from
Owing to the fact that the knowledge of Math is a universal requirement, Iyer is confident that they will be able to capture the global markets too. Since 2017, it has grown over 10 times, from Rs 15 crore to now a Rs 150 crore company. From 7000 students on its platform in 2017, the platform grew to 60,000 students in 2020. From 1000 in 2017, it increased its teachers count to 10,000 in 2020.
“We have very strong unit economics, which means we don’t lose any money on a consumer acquisition but on an overall level since we are re-investing all of our revenue back into growth, we aren’t profitable yet. So profitability right now isn’t a goal, but growth is the focus. The Math market around the world is a 20 Billion Dollar market and we plan to win that market. Our focus is to drive growth and become a unicorn, a billion dollar company by the end of 2022,” concluded Iyer on an optimistic note.


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“Sustainability starts with our own health,” says Sean Kelly, a high-energy entrepreneur taking an icon of junk food – the vending machine – and turning it into something that is actually good for you.
Kelly is co-founder of California-based HUMAN Healthy Vending, a company committed to increasing access to healthy foods and drinks. HUMAN – Helping Unite Man and Nutrition – refrigerated vending machines are stocked with granola bars, protein bars, dried fruit, trail mix, organic juices, premium waters, organic cookies, organic chocolate milk and more. Each machine contains a mix of more than 1,000 products customized to the location.
Better eating habits are essential to stem the tide of obesity, says Kelly. Yet high-calorie, high-fat, high-sugar junk food is much easier to find.
“If you don’t have access to healthy foods, nothing else matters,” says Kelly. “Our goal is to make healthy food more convenient to buy than junk foods and put it absolutely everywhere.”
The company seems to be moving toward achieving that goal. About 500 HUMAN vending machines were in schools, hospitals, health clubs and office buildings in early 2011. That number has jumped to about 1,100 now and more than 2,000 machines will be in the field by the end of 2012, Kelly says.
HUMAN Healthy Vending machines are found in Atlanta, Denver, Houston, Washington, D.C., and more than 70 other markets. Machines will be found in 125 markets by the end of the year.
The vending machines – built according to HUMAN Healthy Vending specifications – incorporate cutting-edge vending technology. The machines are refrigerated to allow a wide mix of products – from yogurt to cold drinks to organic snacks. Like a growing number of vending machines, HUMAN vending machines are equipped with card readers to allow purchases with a debit card or credit card.
The HUMAN machines are 30-50 percent more energy-efficient than traditional vending machines, Kelly says. The savings could contribute significantly to the bottom line of a location such as a school, which may use the profits from campus vending machines to fund programs or projects.
“A school could save hundreds of dollars per machine per year in energy costs,” Kelly says.
Most of the vending machines come equipped with a 23-inch LCD television screen that displays nutritional information and, in some cases, advertising that generates additional revenue for the machine location.
Making healthy eating easier results in healthy profits, Kelly says. Schools that replace traditional vending machines filled with soft drinks, chips and candy with HUMAN Healthy Vending machines see higher sales about 90 percent of the time. The company guarantees an increase in revenue to schools that replace all the machines on campus.
The lure of junk food is strong, Kelly acknowledges. When a healthy vending machine and junk food-filled traditional vending machine share space, there is only about a 50-50 chance the HUMAN machine will take in more revenue.
The company recently launched the industry’s first line of vending machines to vend healthy hot foods, cold drinks, and snacks simultaneously from the same machine. HUMAN’s line of hot food vending machines, coined the “Hot HUMAN,” vend cold drinks, such as Zico Coconut Water, healthy snacks, such as Pop Chips and Pirate’s Booty, and entire entrées – such as an Amy’s Organic entrées or Kashi frozen entrées, which the machines heat automatically before dispensing.
Get inspired: Learn about others who are making a difference with MNN's Innovation Generation project.


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Economic reports continue to be positive as the service sectors experienced another month of growth in August. Construction spending rose and light vehicle sales surged to their highest level since early-2006. Moreover, the trade deficit declined, led by gains in exports. The Fed’s latest Beige Book survey reported that economic activity picked up during the summer and the economic outlook has brightened. The ISM manufacturing report was very positive and factory orders rose sharply. Job growth was lower than the month before and the unemployment rate just barely budged down, but despite the deceleration in August, job growth since the beginning of the year has averaged 215,000 per month - the best performance in more than a decade.
The ISM report indicates that the chemical industry was one of the 17 manufacturing industries reporting expansion in August. Production expanded as did new orders, which is good for future production. The backlog of orders, however, contracted. Export orders expanded as did imports. Inventories trended higher during the month and slower supplier deliveries were noted. Customer inventories were deemed to too low. Employment increased during the month. One chemical industry respondent noted that "Demand in the United States is consistent and geopolitics remains a concern.”
This ISM report is of significance to the business of chemistry because on average, the goods sectors purchase $43 worth of chemistry for every $1,000 worth of output (or revenues). In contrast, the services sectors purchase only $11 for every $1,000 worth of output. As a result, production of basic industrial chemicals and specialties tends to track this PMI fairly well.
Construction spending on new chemical manufacturing facilities surged to a $29.6 billion pace, an all-time high. This level of construction spending reflects new capacity being built to take advantage of abundant natural gas and NGL supplies. Spending has surged recently as several large projects have broken ground.
Chemical equities also continued to outperform the broader market. Throughout August, the S&P 500 index for chemical companies also rose by 3.8%. Equity prices are often a good indicator of future activity and represent one component of the leading economic indicators. The S&P chemicals index was up 10.1% from the beginning of the year. By comparison, the S&P 500 index was up 8.4% from the start of the year.
Additionally, the Chemical Activity Barometer continued to see moderated upward growth this month, with a 0.2 percent gain over July as measured on a three-month moving average (3MMA). This represented a deceleration from the 0.4 percent gain in July and an average gain of 0.5 percent for the first six months of 2014. Despite the softening pace, the August CAB marked a string of gains going back to April 2013. Though the pace of growth has slowed, current gains have the CAB up a solid 4.3 percent over this time last year, and the barometer remains at its highest level since January 2008.
“Consistent with other recent economic reports, including the Conference Board and the Chicago Fed National Activity Index, the Chemical Activity Barometer continues to point to a slowly expanding U.S. economy, at least through the first quarter of 2015,” said Dr. Kevin Swift, chief economist at ACC. “What makes the CAB unique however, is its lead time in predicting the ebbs and flows of the economy, and the slight drag on plastic resins used in consumer and institutional applications parallels the weaker consumer confidence we are seeing,” Swift added.
Though the production indicator was flat in August, construction-related coatings, pigments and other performance chemistries remained strong. Likewise, chemical equities outpaced the broader market this month. Commenting further on this month’s results, Swift also noted that despite renewed economic troubles in Europe, China, and Latin America, U.S. exports are picking up with the United Kingdom and our NAFTA partners.
The Chemical Activity Barometer is a leading economic indicator derived from a composite index of chemical industry activity. The chemical industry has been found to consistently lead the U.S. economy’s business cycle given its early position in the supply chain, and this barometer can be used to determine turning points and likely trends in the wider economy. Month-to-month movements can be volatile so a three-month moving average of the barometer is provided. This provides a more consistent and illustrative picture of national economic trends.


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Following a brief teaser earlier this week, Nike presents the Air Force 1 Foamposite Max for Black Friday. Similar to this year’s Air...


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Revenge Spending is happening. Is your brand taking advantage of it?
Over the course of these last few months, GDP in most of parts of the world has shrunk. An indication of Covid’s impact in the financial sector is clearly evidenced by the contraction of the Chinese economy which, over the course of a single calendar quarter, has shrunk threefold from 1 trillion USD to 350bn USD! A staggering statistic!
Obviously, prescient eyes lay on China and how its consumption will rebound from Covid’s devastating impact – gauging when and how spending will return to pre Covid 19 levels. While these answers are not yet evident, what is already discernably clear is that spending will contract – by how much still remains to be seen. In several sectors, China is responsible for 50% of overall sales generated– making this Asian powerhouse a market whose importance has arguably no peer. During 2020 a number of luxury brands pulled out of China completely, while others – though cautious – have been resilient and remain.
There are two schools of thought regarding the pandemic versus its impact on global spending figures: on the one hand, there are those who believe that as soon as the market returns back to within so-called “normal” parameters (however this new normal will be defined), consumers will rush back into the market, spending at restaurants, retail stores and shops like crazy – while those on the other hand predict a return to a far more prudent overall spending pattern for the vast majority of consumers.
One of the most oft-used terms in recent months has been “Revenge Spending”, but what does this phrase actually mean? Put simply, it describes the behaviour of those consumers emerging from isolation and seeking to spend more than they routinely had done so before the events of the pandemic. An anti-spendthrift mindset formed in response to months of imposed isolation and restrictions on movement and freedom – an almost child-like acting-out against being forced to eat ones own cooking or continue to wear last season’s clothing.
How Can Brands Take Advantage of Revenge Spending?
It is pivotal during this lockdown period that companies continue to communicate and engage with their consumers by adhering to a strong advertising strategy – only in this way can they ensure that, as soon as everything opens up, they will have TOMA (Top of Mind Awareness). Out-of-Home Media is a great advertising option to ensure continued brand awareness, while at the same time it can also provide brands the balance they are seeking between conversion campaigns and brand awareness campaigns.
With this in mind, brands would be best served by keeping an unwavering eye, not only on overall trends in “consumer behavior”, but also on the specific “revenge spending” phenomenon – keeping an ear to the ground and thereby ensuring that there are no surprises waiting for them around the corner.


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If you missed the third season premiere of Insecure on HBO, you'll want to go catch up immediately (it's really, really good — as always). Without giving away too many spoilers, main character Issa has picked up a new side hustle: Lyft driving. Those of us who are frequent rideshare app users have probably gotten into cars that are decked out with candy and water bottles, ready and waiting to be consumed by riders. Whether you're desperately thirsty or coming back from a night out, these little rideshare car perks can make all the difference. In Insecure, Issa got creative with a completely genius way to make her customers' nights: handing out Capri Sun pouches in her Lyft.
Imagine the car you called from a rideshare app pulling up and offering you a Capri Sun as soon as you take a seat — it's basically reminiscent of when your mom would pick you up from carpool in fifth grade. And unsurprisingly, the idea of bringing Capri Suns to Lyfts has already taken Twitter by storm.
Bustle reached out to Lyft about the buzz, and it turns out the company is more than on board with the idea. “Issa is definitely one of our most popular Lyft drivers and that comes as no surprise since she’s handing out Capri Suns and her passengers seem to love it. We’re not sure just yet if we’re bringing Capri Suns into all Lyft rides, but they could definitely be a thing in the future,” Lyft tells Bustle.
Who knows, in a few years' time Capri Sun and rideshare drive experiences could be a package deal (fingers crossed). Getting to taste that quintessential childhood drink could beat one of those miniature water bottles any day, and Twitter seems to agree.
Automatic five stars sounds about right — and I wholeheartedly second the notion that Issa's Capri Sun-stocked Lyft has changed the rideshare game. We may not have a company-wide Capri Sun policy available in all rideshare app cars yet, but we are getting closer. Grab and Uber have partnered up with Cargo, a New York-based startup company setting rideshare drivers up with boxes of snacks, drinks and beauty products to offer to passengers. For passengers, it's as simple as choosing a product from their driver's Cargo box, ordering it from their phones, and adding the cost to their ride fares. Drivers who use Cargo have the opportunity to make extra money on their rides — according to CNN, they could both improve their ratings and earn up to an extra $190 a month.
You'll find Cargo's vending machine-like in Ubers across larger cities like Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. They seem to have a pretty wide range of options, from protein bars to spearmint gum to cans of Pringle — but something is still missing. Our recommendation? They add Capri Suns to the menu.
Lunchables too? If it were a perfect world, rideshare cars would be stocked up with all the best childhood snacks and drinks — I'm talking decked out with Uncrustables, Gushers, Sunny D, and cosmic brownies. Insecure is only three episodes into its third season and its already managed to rock the rideshare service industry. Issa (and her Capri Suns) for the win.


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|This Slide: #82 of 100|
Slide #82. Trulia — Market Leader
Trulia (NYSE:TRLA), announced today that it completed the acquisition of Market Leader, combining Trulia's vibrant marketplace for consumers and real estate professionals with the most comprehensive operating system for the real estate industry. The acquisition was previously announced on May 8, 2013.
Tremor Video is an advertising technology company that provides software for video advertising. Co.'s buyer and seller platforms enable transactions in a video marketplace by providing control and transparency to its clients. Co.'s technology optimizes performance of video ad campaigns across all screens, including computers, smartphones, tablets and TVs. Co.'s proprietary technology analyzes video content, detects viewer and system attributes, and utilizes its repository of stored and integrated third-party data. Through Co.'s All-Screen optimization solution, buyers are able to choose a single campaign goal, eliminating the need to allocate campaign budgets to a specific screen or device.
Open the TRLA Page at The Online Investor »
Hold (2.29 out of 4)
(ranked higher than approx. 100% of all stocks covered)
Based on Zacks ABR data;
powered by Xignite


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Following a bout with nasty spring storms, berry crops were looking good in late April, marketers said.
“It’s been a wild ride in California,” said Doug Perkins, managing director, HBF International LLC, McMinnville, Ore. “We have seen hail, cold temperatures, rain and very warm temperatures.”
Cindy Jewell, marketing director, California Giant Berry Farms, Watsonville, Calif., said on April 25 that it was raining and more wet weather was forecast.
The rain temporarily slowed harvesting, but marketers expect good quality berries and enough supplies for Mother’s Day retail promotions.
Michelle Deleissegues, marketing director for Red Blossom Farms, Los Olivos, Calif., said all strawberry districts in California — Oxnard, Santa Maria and Salinas — received rain during the last week of April, which slowed harvest. The sun was shining on April 27, though, and Deleissegues said she expected the first week of May to be a good week.
In late April, Oxnard strawberry production was peaking and fruit quality was excellent, Deleissegues said.
Santa Maria production was increasing and expected to peak beginning May 1, and Salinas strawberry crops were just getting started and quality looked good, she said on April 27.
Red Blossom’s strawberry crops were hit by rainstorms and hail in April, Deleissegues said. In mid-April, the company was cleaning up crops by picking the damaged berries.
Generally, when berry crops get too much rain, the berries, not the plants, are damaged. The damaged berries have to be picked, which leads to a gap in supply, Jewell said.
“It doesn’t affect long-term production or later berries,” she said. “It’s warming up in Southern California, and the plants and fruit will rebound quickly.”
Jewell said California Giant expects a good overall season. Each growing region has its own peak in production, but generally California strawberries peak from about May through June, she said.
Deleissegues also said she’s optimistic about the season despite unpredictable weather this spring. She said she expects California strawberry volume to be up and demand to be strong.
Berry marketers declined to discuss their predictions for this season’s pricing, but prices in late April were slightly higher than at the same time last year.
On May 2, flats of eight 1-pound lidded containers of large strawberries from Santa Maria, Calif., were priced at $8-10 at the Los Angeles terminal market, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported. Prices were occasionally higher, the USDA reported.


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Bristol greengrocer Stokes plc goes into administration
Bristol greengrocers chain Stokes plc has gone into administration resulting in 65 redundancies across ten stores.
The company, which claims it is largest independent greengrocer in the UK, employs 277 staff in 27 stores in south-west England and Wales.
Richard Hill, partner at administrators KPMG, said: "Unfortunately, declining sales in some stores have resulted in losses being incurred."
The remaining 17 stores will continue to trade while a new buyer is found.
The company, which has its headquarters in St Phillips, Bristol, closed down 10 of its stores earlier in October before administrators were called in.
"Despite efforts to reduce costs, these losses have resulted in significant cash flow problems and the company was unable to continue without a radical restructuring," said Mr Hill.
The affected stores include Bath, Exeter, Abergavenny, Falmouth and Sherborne.


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Report suggests banks are taking steps to improve products
The Fairbanking Ratings report indicates that banks are beginning to take action on improving their products and helping their customers.
The report reviews core-banking products such as current accounts, savings accounts, credit cards and personal loans, and determines to what extent each product reviewed includes features that are likely to improve a customer’s financial wellbeing.
The average rating for products has risen from the 19% in 2011, when the survey was last carried out, to 41% this year. The Fairbanking Foundation said overall it was “very encouraged by the extent of improvement”, although the organisation noted that it had come from a low base and there was still a lot of room for improvement.
Antony Elliot, CEO of the Fairbanking Foundation, said, “It is exciting to see the pace of product improvement really picking up now, just three years after we ran the first ratings survey and granted the first Fairbanking marks to the products that earned accreditation.”
He added that this year’s report gave solid evidence that banking providers are keen to improve the extent to which their products help their customers.
A separate report, A better kind of banking, was also published simultaneously and looks at the need for a revolution in the banking industry in order to improve its ethics.
Business author and innovation guru Charlie Leadbetter, who co-authored the report, commented, “Banks need to start by facing up to the fatal mix which caused the mess that has left their reputation with customers in tatters: a flawed business model combined with questionable culture and values.”
The report notes that innovation that changes an industry rarely starts in the mainstream but adds that new players are hovering in the wings and have the potential to change the industry.
These new players have pursued different business models from the traditional high street banks and prove that it is possible to run a commercially successful financial business that works responsibly with customers, the report argues.
Adam Lent, director of the RSA Action and Research Centre, stated that banks now have a “once in a lifetime opportunity to change for the better”. He added that by learning from the newest players and allowing them to grow the industry can change and create a better future with the “customers’ interests at its heart”.
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The Secret World's Digging Deeper update has been delayed into next week, Funcom has announced.
The issue found, and the same one we reported yesterday, could cause severe exploit.
"Unfortunately, it will take us some more time to make sure the issue is removed and the new version has been thoroughly tested," said Funcom. "We will keep on working over the weekend to fix the remaining issue and make sure that the final version will be ready for the live servers next week.
"As soon as all the details are available, we will announce the downtime for the update over the usual channels early next week.
"We need to make sure that the version is ready and doesn’t contain any severe issues before it’s deployed to the Live servers. We apologize for the delay and thank you for your patience and understanding."
Digging Deeper was scheduled to launch today after being delayed from September 11.
The update was originally slated for release on August 28.


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Oppy’s summer starts with BC blues
The first week of summer brings one of the season’s favorite flavors—BC-grown blueberries—into the market earlier than ever from The Oppenheimer Group.
Grown just down the road from the company headquarters, BC blueberries have become a signature item for the marketer in recent years. This season, the fruit is ten to 14 days earlier than usual, according to Jason Fung, Oppy’s director of category development.
“The BC blueberry crop is enjoying the benefits of the mild winter and warm spring experienced in the Pacific Northwest and Lower Mainland,” Fung said. “We’re expecting consistent volumes of large berries through July and August.”
Fung noted that blueberry production in California, Oregon and Washington are ahead of schedule as well, making room for BC blueberries to dovetail seamlessly into promotional calendars at retail, especially in July.
“While our early and mid-season varieties are very prolific, we’re confident in a consistent supply through early September from our three strong grower partners,” Fung said. “Things will tighten up a little toward the end of the season, but we expect to have good volumes of fruit for the next few months.”
Oppy is offering BC blueberries in varied pack styles, including 6-oz., pint, 18-oz. and 2-lb clamshells sporting Sesame Street characters and/or the Oppy brand.
For customers in the Eastern U.S. and Canada, Oppy is featuring New Jersey blueberries simultaneously.
“It’s rare to have the BC blueberry season sync up with the New Jersey supply, but the weather in both places has changed things up this year. For us, it means delivering the freshest possible blues to customers in any region virtually all summer,” Fung said.
In season, Oppy also offers blueberries from Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay.


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By Amanda Russo and Harrison Wolf
Right now, most countries restrict who and how you can fly drones. They can only be flown within the operator’s line of sight, and operators cannot oversee more than one aircraft. Safety and security are important, but these regulations mean we are not maximizing the benefits that drones can provide for everyone.
Drones are great for doing dull, dirty, dangerous and data-rich jobs. You can fly a drone through a field of volcanic ash or have it inspect a power line. Instead of a human conducting aerial surveillance for many hours a day, drones can be deployed to continuously scan an area. And drones can help save lives.
Certain remote areas of Rwanda’s mountainous countryside are difficult to reach. In rural hospitals, healthcare providers struggle to provide adequate blood supplies to mothers during childbirth, and inefficiencies in the logistics and storage of the blood cold chain exacerbate wastage of vital supplies.
In 2016, the government of Rwanda brought in Zipline, a California-based drone start-up, to improve blood delivery. This evolved into a drone delivery programme on a national scale, leading the world in its impact and scope. Lives were saved and blood wastage nearly eliminated, demonstrating the vital role that drones could play.
Rwanda accelerating and scaled the benefits of drone technology. In 2017, as the positive impact from initial tests were apparent and the programme began to scale throughout the country, the government of Rwanda entered into partnership with the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This new partnership looked to foster a broader ecosystem of unmanned aircraft systems, to build on the success of domestic and international operators in Rwanda. These strategies are intended to accelerate and expand the types and benefits of drone operations while mitigating risk, creating a model that can be used by other regulators and policy-makers around the world.
Crucially, Rwanda provides access to airspace. The country’s new performance-based regulation opens the door for drone companies and manufacturers to test their new technology, if they can prove that it meets safety requirements. Rwanda gives drone companies and manufacturers something that they cannot easily get in the US or Europe: access to airspace in a timely manner.
What is the performance-based regulation that Rwanda adopted? It means that airspace can be accessed by any unmanned aircraft on a mission-specific basis. The government specifies the safety standard of the mission, and the drone operators specify how they are going to meet it. This regulation is agile. It enables the government to keep up with the rapid development of the technology. Certification takes time, and technology is moving faster than governments. For example, by the time Amazon got clearance for its drone, it was multiple versions ahead of the version that had been approved.
Why is this important? The regulation cuts the time to access airspace and expands the range of possible applications. With this framework in place, Rwanda has removed the limitations and constraints that drone companies and manufacturers experience in the US and Europe, giving them a sandbox to test their ideas.
Is Rwanda the first? A lot of countries are considering performance-based regulation, but Rwanda is the first country in the world to implement it for all drones. And regulators are already looking at replicating it. Tanzania, after seeing the dramatic benefits that drones present, recently turned to Rwanda’s regulatory framework for guidance. One senior aviation safety technician from the Tanzanian Civil Aviation Authority announced: “We have taken the regulatory framework that Rwanda has passed and the work that the Kenyan CAA had done as models for our work. We want to have a flexible, scalable regulatory framework”.
What else we can expect from 2019? The World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution will be releasing the Advanced Drone Operations Toolkit (ADOT) at the Annual Meeting 2019. It provides case studies from Rwanda and Switzerland on implementing performance-based regulation, so that other countries can learn from those models. Currently, several governments in Asia are expected to announce they will be using the ADOT to develop regulations that will enable their own drone delivery programmes.


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Pro-marijuana activists unsatisfied with the state of Ohio's medical marijuana program have filed petitions with the state in the first of many steps to bring an adult-use marijuana referendum before voters this fall.
Tom Haren, a cannabis lawyer with Frantz Ward representing the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, announced that initial petitions were filed with the Ohio attorney general's office on March 2.
The state has 10 days to sign off on the language for the petition — the goal there is to ensure the accuracy of a summary of the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol amendment — followed by the state ballot board, which will also have 10 days to review its appropriateness as a single-issue amendment.
If/when all that goes through, the process begins to collect nearly 443,000 valid signatures by July 1 to bring the measure before voters. That will be a challenging and expensive task.
But if all goes according to the petitioners' plans, Ohio will have a recreational, adult-use marijuana market beginning in July 2021. That would greatly increase citizen access to marijuana while also supporting businesses in the supply chain that would benefit from a more robust market.
"We were promised in 2016 we would get a program giving access to Ohioans and it didn't seem like the state was that interested in following through on those promises," Haren said, citing issues with the current heavily regulated program that restricts patient access. "We think it's time for the voters to take the issue back in their own hands."
You can find the entirety of the proposed amendment at the bottom of this story.
Members of the petition committee and some of its supporters at this time include marijuana patients, a mental health physician, a couple of licensed marijuana cultivators and a former Ohio State University and Washington Redskins wide receiver who decries the use of opioids to treat pain (and supports marijuana as an alternative) and has established a legal cannabis-minded private equity fund based in Columbus called Project Alpha Management.
Haren confirmed two companies are actively supporting the initiative. Those are Pure Ohio Wellness, which runs a grow facility in Springfield and a dispensary in Dayton, and Galenas, a Level II cultivator in Akron. He said other businesses are backing the effort but declined to name them.
The Ohio Medical Cannabis Industry Association (OMCIA), the state's main marijuana industry trade group with approximately 14 member/license-holders today, is not currently supporting any legalization measure.
"From the association standpoint right now, we are not backing any sort of initiative," OMCIA executive director Matt Close said. "We are trying to fix the current program."
This is the first time Ohioans could vote on a recreational marijuana amendment since the failure of Issue 3 in 2015.
In addition to allowing marijuana sales for anyone age 21 or older, here's a look at some of the other big takeaways of the amendment and why they matter:
• Households would be permitted to grow up to six marijuana plants on their own in enclosed spaces for personal use, three of which can be mature, flowering plants. The measure also outright legalizes possession of up to an ounce of marijuana, with not more than eight grams of that being in the form of marijuana concentrate.
• The state would be allowed to issue additional cultivator licenses providing for up to an additional 1.5 million square feet of growing space, should market demand call for it. The amendment is drafted to provide for increased demand without creating an overabundance in supply, Haren said. There are currently 19 large-scale (Level I) and 13 small-scale (Level II) cultivators. Per existing rules, those are permitted to grow in 25,000 square feet and 3,000 square feet, respectively, to start. However, there are already options for those to scale up two times at different steps. Regulators can permit Level I groups to expand up to 50,000 and then 75,000 square feet, while Level II groups can expand up to 6,000 and then 9,000 square feet. At max size, all 32 cultivators would represent 1.54 million square feet of growing space, so the amendment would effectively allow the state to double that. No one has expanded yet, so those 32 cultivators today represent about 514,000 square feet of possible growing space.
• Additional dispensary licenses will be made available, though they are initially limited to one retail license per 60,000 Ohio residents. That would equal approximately 194 additional dispensaries (based on Ohio's 2018 population). As Haren explained, the initial store limit would expire automatically at the beginning of 2026, however,both the retail store and cultivation area limits could be increased earlier than that if the operators were able to engage in interstate commerce (as in, if marijuana were federally legalized) or if regulators determined that increasing those limits would not result in a significant excess supply of marijuana in the market.
• The measure would provide a framework for a special marijuana sales tax — a tax rate cannot constitutionally be built into the amendment and would need to be set by the general assembly — that calls for funding a Commission on Expungement, Criminal Justice, Community Investment, and Cannabis Industry Equity and Diversity. This is noteworthy as a provision in Ohio's original medical marijuana bill, H.B. 523, called for awarding a number of licenses to minority-owned businesses, but that was later deemed unconstitutional. The framework in the measure suggests allotting at least 25% of marijuana sales tax to this new diversity-minded commission/fund, which would make recommendations on how that money should be spent to support minority-owned businesses. Combined with expungement laws, "We think that will result in the most enduring social-equity provisions" yet in an adult-use marijuana program, Haren said.
• The amendment also calls for marking at least 50% of sales tax revenue for the State Local Government Fund and allocating another 10% to be shared among local municipalities in which the sales took place, according to proportional amounts based on total sales. That would leave 15% of sales tax unaccounted for — the legislature would decide where that goes. Haren said if Ohio had a recreational marijuana market as robust per capita as Colorado, which he says is possible, that 50% allotment for the State Local Government Fund would fill the gap left by Gov. John Kasich's cuts to that fund years ago and then some.
• Local governments would still have the authority to regulate dispensaries in terms of open hours or even permitting them at all, preserving local control over the businesses. Employers would still be allowed to have their own workplace policies, meaning a zero-tolerance policy at work would still be allowed regardless of the existence of a recreational marijuana market.
Follow me on Twitter for more takes on finance, law, booze, cannabis and whatever else I'm thinking about.


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Digital Lending Post COVID: How Micro-Credit Holds the Key for Small Merchants, Customers to Bounce Back
We live in a world where Covid-19 has become a major part of our lives. It has not only disrupted our lifestyle and how we do businesses but brought unprecedented challenges to the economy. While the world gradually finds a viable path to normalcy, it is interesting to see how the crisis has also ensued opportunity for innovation, learnings and behavioural shifts. Digital transformation has accelerated, businesses have amplified their technology investments on cloud-based products and services, and digital sales has gained momentum with traditional retail stores going online for the first time. Covid-19 lockdown has expedited the digital-first approach helping the country’s Digital India vision move a step closer to reality.
Among other sectors, digital payments have experienced a significant boost during the crisis. Areas such as online grocery stores, online pharmacies, OTT players, edtechs, online gaming, recharges and utility payments have seen an uptick in digital payments due to a growth in their adoption. Having said that, once lockdown measures are further eased and markets get back to their routine, cashless transactions are poised to gain more prevalence. This is because Covid-19 has incited people to follow various safety measures like ‘social distancing’ and made them more cognizant about transmission through human touch and cash exchange.
In such a scenario, consumers will become more mindful of large spending, and digital lending will gain momentum with people’s disposable incomes impacted. As consumers cope to maintain their lifestyles, there will be a surge in micro-credit. Microfinance lenders must be equipped to address the credit requirement while offering affordable and convenient repayment solutions to ease the impact of the crisis. Digital disbursement of buy-now-pay-later solutions will gain propulsion as micro-credits help in providing relief during cash-crunch. With a minimal burden on interest, if repaid within a specific timeframe, digitization of short-term credit processes such as eKYC and V-CIP will only aid the upsurge in the trend.
Being seamless and digital in nature, it will offer people the convenience to continue life amid salary or reimbursement delays. Using micro credits, customers can clear their utility bills and even use the solution during medical emergencies. Leveraging technologies such as AI, ML and Big Data Analytics, automated loan offerings and contactless lending services will act as enablers of timely digital disbursements. These micro-credits can be accessed by consumers in less than an hour of virtual e-KYC completion.
Apart from maintaining the current lifestyle, micro-credits will be crucial for low-income groups employed in the informal sector, as they are one of the worst affected by the pandemic. This has put an impetus on financial inclusion now more than ever and made financial institutions rethink their operations. Many customers cannot access traditional credit because the unit economics necessary to serve them, are not accepted by banks. With the economy on a slowdown and credit slated to rise post-Covid-19, it will become more difficult for small merchants and consumers to garner loans. However, digital lending platforms with the principles of financial inclusivity will emerge as the heroes of the financial crisis. By leveraging the right technology such as AI/ML, they will be able to verify creditworthiness and drive financial inclusion – underwriting the risk of providing credit services to people that banks will not.
Lastly, technology will act as an enabler for innovation and risk mitigation as it will be a key priority for digital lending companies. Focus on data science and analytics will remove the risk of fraud and delinquencies. It will also be a driver to navigate consumers through credit complexities created by Covid-19. Once the pandemic is over, it will become extremely important to ensure that fintechs can provide the services the consumers need. Hence, the implementation of automated processes to gain insights into customer’s eligibility and enable rapid origination and processing will become key to their success.
Photo courtesy of USAID.


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New research from CyberCatch, a London-based cybersecurity platform provider, shows that 75 percent of small- and midsize businesses would be forced to close shop if a bad actor demanded a ransom not to infect their systems with malware. The survey of 1,200 small- to midsize businesses in The UK was conducted by Momentive, a market insights company, on behalf of CyberCatch, in March of this year.
It’s not just the ransom’s ££ amount that can push a business over the edge, it’s the complete disruption to operations that ensues when an organisation must navigate an attack.
And businesses aren’t preparing for those disruptions. Thirty percent of small-and-midsize businesses polled in the CyberCatch survey did not have a written incident response plan, which helps spell out how an organisation should respond during a breach.
While preparation is key to preventing a cyber incursion, how you respond in the days just following an attack is also vital. In the immediate aftermath, here are four ways to soften the impact and protect yourself:
1. Assess the attack
Take a picture of the infected device’s screen before unplugging it. Businesses should pay attention to any payment deadlines imposed by the bad actor, or the number of days they have until the ransom may increase. They should also check their systems to ensure that the rest of their network is not compromised.
2. Call in the experts
After a business unplugs the infected device (or devices), Miller says the next step is to dial legal counsel to gauge the appropriate next steps for reporting the attack. Data privacy solicitors may be helpful in these situations, too. Then it’s time to call your cyber insurer, and, if necessary, law enforcement.
3. Dive into data recovery
Check up on backup systems to assess what data is recoverable. For those that don’t have backups, we recommend working with an incident response company that is better equipped to communicate with the cyberattackers and can even help negotiate and reduce the price of the ransom. He cautions that if a business does pay up, and access to its files is restored, “this doesn’t guarantee full recovery, because frequently a percentage of files are corrupted.”
4. Reset your systems
It’s imperative for an organisation to reset all passwords within the company following an attack. Businesses should also make sure that they have the latest versions of software and run any patches (or modifications to existing programs) to strengthen security. Organisations should keep an eye out for backdoors into their organisations that bad actors could exploit. Looking into some form of anti-ransomware service could also benefit businesses.
While larger companies can afford to take the hit and pay the ransom, many small businesses aren’t as well equipped to throw money at the problem. There’s also ample debate on whether ransoms should be paid;
There is a problem with paying these people and letting them know that you’re willing to pay, because it gives them precedent to come right back one year later and do it over again. Businesses “need to figure out what hole [they] have that let the ransomware through, and fill it.


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"The Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union will be forced to toughen customs procedures for Ukraine and may withdraw from the free trade area with Ukraine if Kyiv signs the agreement on association and free trade with the EU," Russian presidential advisor Sergey Glazyev said in an interview on Wednesday.
“The question of ending free trade relations with Ukraine may be raised. The Eurasian Economic Commission is studying this issue," Glazyev said. According to him, the Customs Union will need to tighten customs procedures in order to avoid re-imports of European goods via Ukraine. "We will have to tighten the veterinary and sanitary control when Ukraine switches to EU standards," he said. "Many projects that we have planned together with our Ukrainian partners, including in the nuclear power engineering, defense, space rocketry, and aircraft-building industries will be revised, reduced, and cut since Ukraine is going to assume too strict obligations in complying with European technical regulations and European defense and foreign policies," Glazyev said.


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The investigation revealed that with privacy settings that prevents Google from tracking your location, its still doing so, without even letting you know!
India is right now preparing a new Cloud Computing Policy, and there can be a big blow to companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and more. Reason: Very soon, these companies can be ordered to store data of Indians, in India.
Chris Peterson, Mozilla's software technical program manager brought up a storm by tweeting about how Google is ruining net neutrality.
Named as Titan Key, this is a physical device having USB and Bluetooth connectivity with laptops, desktops, tablets and even smartphones. In the tech industry, they are also called as U2F keys (Universal 2nd Factor).
During Cloud Next Conference, which is happening at San Franciso, Fei-Fei Li, Chief Scientist at Google said, “Our true goal is to empower a contact centre’s human agents, as well as the customers that rely on them.”
This is certainly not a good news for foreign companies who are offering their services in India - A new form of tax can be soon charged by them, by the Indian Govt.
Since Reliance Jio arrived, India has become one of the largest mobile data consumers in the world. Currently India is the world's fastest growing market for mobile apps on both Android and iOS platforms combined with one of the most…
As per a recent report commissioned by Google, new WiFi hotspots across India has create 40 million or 4 crore new users of Internet, all over the country.
Wall Street Journal has claimed that Google is still reportedly allowing the users to access Gmail accounts. These are the third-party app developers who have access to scan through Gmail accounts.
Google’s investment in the KaiOS Technologies is a part of the ‘Next Billion Users’ programme. Google will now put in a bunch of Android apps in the KaiOS system. From now on, KaiOS users will have Google Assistant, Google Maps, YouTube,…


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Smartphone connectivity is becoming increasingly popular now even in two-wheelers and three-wheelers. In a new development, Harley-Davidson has become the first bikemaker to have introduced Android Auto compatibility with an onboard infotainment system.
Harley-Davidson will provide Android Auto as a standard feature in its 2021 Trike, 2021 CVO and 2021 Touring motorcycles that come with the Boom! Box GTS infotainment system. The American motorcycle manufacturer already provides support for Apple CarPlay (requires use with optional Harley-Davidson Genuine Motor Accessories headsets).
The existing customers of the Trike, CVO and Touring motorcycles that were manufactured in 2014 or later will be able to enjoy the benefits of Android Auto, too. Harley-Davidson will provide a software update for the Boom! Box GTS units at the beginning of summer (June-September) this year. Customers will have the option to either update the system themselves or with the support of an authorized Harley-Davidson dealer.
With the Android Auto, Harley-Davidson owners will be able to access their favourite smartphone apps through the Boom! Box GTS and a wired connection to a compatible Android smartphone. For example, navigation would become a whole lot easier by using Google Maps. With Google Assistant, several voice commands would come in handy. Also, various useful information like weather can be accessed easily.
In India, Harley-Davidson sells the Street Glide Special, Road Glide Special and Road King under its Touring motorcycle category. We also have the Harley-Davidson CVO Limited. However, the Trike, which is a three-wheeled motorcycle, is unavailable in our market.
Also Read: Talks still going on to slash import duty on American bikes, indicates Trump - Report
In other news, Harley-Davidson has previously publicly announced that it is looking for a partner in India which has a manufacturing and distribution setup capable of making lightweight, sub-500 cc motorcycles. Hero MotoCorp has shown its interest in this regards.


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… we shared a lectern with each other at an October 2004 Cato University session in Quebec. Dan at that time was working on trade at Cato; he is now, as readers of this blog know, working on trade at the Mercatus Center. He is a marvelous colleague and friend, and one of the most effective champions today for free trade and much more liberalized immigration.
I thank Cafe Hayek patron Kent Early for alerting me today to the on-line availability of the transcript both of Dan’s remarks and of my remarks . (The vanity license tag to which I refer near the beginning of my remarks is:
I still proudly have this tag on my foreign-assembled automobile.)
Here’s a slice from Dan’s remarks:
Ninety percent plus [of Americans polled] will say trade is bad for workers. It’s good for the country, bad for workers. You figure it out. But 90 percent or more will say trade is good, as long as we require minimum labor and environmental standards in poor countries. All sorts of qualifications. So you see this gap.
And this, despite 200 plus years of having “The Wealth of Nations.” And if you haven’t read “The Wealth of Nations,” it’s such a wonderful book, and it’s so applicable to today. Adam Smith’s writing is just so lively and applicable. Frederic Bastiat, I’m not sure how anybody could explain free trade better than Frederic Bastiat. And yet, here we are, 150 years later, still debating, trying to explain free trade.
Why is it such an uphill battle? There are a number of reasons. One, and Frederic Bastiat said this, what is seen and what is unseen. The cost of free trade we see. It’s so visible. It’s that factory in North Carolina that gets shut down. Or that factory in Canada that gets put out of business because of competition. Where the benefits tend to be spread out and harder to see, more of a challenge for a TV news crew to find that.
Secondly, the political scales are imbalanced. Those benefits are diffused. It’s saving $10 when you go to Wal Mart from free trade. You’re hardly aware of it. But the cost, the textile industry in the United States, they have a lot to lose from free trade, or at least they think they do. They will hire the lobbyists. They will fly off to Washington. They’ll buy the ads in the newspaper. Diffused benefits from free trade, concentrated costs. Therefore, the people who benefit from protectionism tend to be more noisy and more influential.
And here’s a slice from my remarks (with the correct spelling of Kathy Gornik’s name):
But as I said, there is nothing unique about changes in trade patterns that cause unemployment. The example I like to use this year is the following: Fifty years ago this past summer, so 50 years ago just a few months ago, Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Sabin introduced the first successful — and it was remarkably successful immediately — vaccine against polio. It wiped out polio as a disease that we in the West have to worry about.
Now, that’s an economic change. It didn’t have anything directly to do with foreign trade. But think of the devastation it imposed on the American economy. All those people who worked in wheelchair factories, their jobs were wiped out. People who made crutches, their jobs were wiped out. People who made iron lung machines for severe polio victims, their jobs were wiped out. Nurses and doctors and hospitals who specialized in caring for polio victims, their jobs were wiped out.
Well, it’s true, the jobs were wiped out. Would anybody say, well, we should rethink that polio vaccine thing? We might not want to introduce it now.
The point here is any economic change — any economic change — creates changes in production patterns, because you have new consumer patterns of buying that have to be satisfied by new producer patterns of producing. And you can only produce more here if you produce less here. So when consumers shift their demands from this sector and move it to that sector, workers and firms in this sector will suffer. But workers and firms in that sector will prosper. Over time, because of the dynamism and flexibility of the economy, everybody’s livelihood over time everyone’s livelihood increases.
I’ll give you another example of a devastating change in consumer tastes that is wiping out all sorts of jobs, turning high profits into no profits or losses. The Atkins Diet. It’s just devastating. Because all those workers in high carb factories, workers in pasta factories, breweries, chocolate factories, bakeries, these people are losing jobs because consumers are buying fewer high carb goodies.
Now, you can save those jobs. You can try to freeze the economy, just freeze dry it, and prevent any kind of economic change from disrupting anyone’s life. That’s kind of the ideal that a lot of Social Democrats have. Any threat of any change in your life is somehow the result of unfairness and something being wrong in the world, and it requires government intervention to protect you from that change. I find it difficult to conceive of the amount of tyranny that would have to be unleashed in an economy to protect and to prevent all economic change. I can’t even describe it. But if you think about it, you can see it pretty easily. Okay, Ms. Gornik, you are spending your money in this way today. You must do that for the rest of your life. In fact, don’t die, because that’s going to cause a change in spending patterns.


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Indian motorcycle giant Hero MotoCorp is ready to set foot in the Philippine market by 2024 as part of the company’s international expansion plans.
- Hero is ready to expand its brand in the Philippines.
- The India-based company has sold more than 100 million motorcycles since its debut.
To achieve this, Hero has partnered experienced automotive firm in the Philippines, Terrafirma Motors Corporation (TMC), a subsidiary of the Columbian Group of Companies.
TMC will take charge of Hero’s motorcycle distribution in the country.
“In keeping with our R4 (Recalibrate, Revitalise, Revolutionise and Revive) strategy, we are always keenly exploring new opportunities in global markets.
“Our partnership with Terrafirma Motors Corporation (TMC) to enter the Southeast Asian region is an integral part of this expansion strategy.
“The trust and technology prowess of Hero MotoCorp combined with TMC’s automotive expertise and network in the Philippines will definitely create an impact and strengthen our footprint in this key market,” Hero MotoCorp Head of Global Business, Sanjay Bhan told ZigWheels.
Hero MotoCorp is regarded as the world’s largest two-wheel manufacturer in terms of sales, with over 100 million motorcycles sold since its debut.
Hero’s motorcycles are available in 43 countries worldwide, including Asia, Africa, and South and Central America.


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She issued a declaration on Twitter today, apparently confirming that her wedding to Jeff Bezos have been dissolved.
Jeff Bezos may be the man that is richest on earth. But while Jeff has been around the limelight for a long time by way of their founding associated with the retail giant Amazon, one other half the entire world’s wealthiest few, MacKenzie Bezos, has mostly remained from the limelight.
That reality changed in present months considering that the few announced their intends to quickly divorce accompanied by an expose posted by the National Enquirer detailing Jeff’s ongoing affair with Lauren Sanchez. While debate raged on in regards to the nature of these split, MacKenzie stayed mostly silent until very very early April, when she issued a declaration on Twitter apparently confirming that her marriage was indeed officially dissolved.
“Grateful to possess completed the process of dissolving my wedding with Jeff,” she published in an email. See clearly in complete right here:
Here is anything else you should know about Mackenzie Bezos.
She actually is a novelist.
Bezos began composing at an age that is young explaining in her own Amazon writer page, a 142-page chapter guide she composed whenever she ended up being simply six-years-old. She learned innovative writing at Princeton and contains since authored two novels: 2005’s critically-acclaimed The evaluation of Luther Albright, which won the United states Book Award, and 2013’s Traps.
She also studied under Toni Morrison pornhub..com.
The Nobel Prize-winning novelist hired Bezos as being research assistant on her 1992 novel Jazz whenever Bezos had been a pupil at Princeton. Morrison known Bezos as “one of the finest students I’ve ever had within my classes that are creative-writing . actually among the best,” to Vogue and also helped Bezos locate a literary representative.
MacKenzie came across Jeff Bezos while working at a hedge investment.
MacKenzie ended up being apparently the very first individual Jeff interviewed for administrative associate position in the hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co. in nyc, which she took to cover the bills while focusing on her novels. MacKenzie, who was simply 23 to Jeff’s 30, had been quickly infatuated.
“My office had been door that is next their, and all day long we paid attention to that fabulous laugh,” she told Vogue in 2013. “How would you perhaps not fall deeply in love with that laugh?”
The 2 had been involved within 90 days of the date that is first and in 1993.
She was greatly involved with getting Amazon from the ground.
In line with the every thing Store by Brad Stone, following the Bezoses relocated to Seattle in 1994 to start out the company, MacKenzie worked as you of Amazon’s very very first accountants, shipped a number of their very early requests, and also assisted in brainstorming names for the fledgling business. She later reportedly stepped back again to concentrate on her writing as soon as the brand name started to find success.
(it ought to be noted that MacKenzie published a review that is one-star The every thing shop on Amazon upon its book, referencing its “numerous factual inaccuracies,” though that accusation has been debated somewhere else.)
Together MacKenzie and Jeff have actually three sons and another daughter whom they adopted from Asia.
Although the Bezos moms and dads are famously personal about their children’s everyday lives, MacKenzie told Vogue that both she and Jeff are hands-on in increasing kids and now have attempted a number of parenting and training practices. “We tried all kinds of things,” she stated, “including off-season travel, kitchen-science experiments, chicken incubation, Mandarin classes, the Singapore mathematics system, and plenty of groups and recreations along with other neighbor hood children.”
In 2019, she jointly announced her divorce from Jeff Bezos january.
In a tweet from Jeff’s account on January 9, 2019, the couple went general public with regards to pending divorce or separation. “we should make people alert to a development inside our life. As us and friends understand, after a long amount of loving research and test separation, we now have chose to divorce and continue our provided everyday lives as buddies,” reads the tweet, which can be finalized with both of their names.


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Tenant will likely kill $40 million housing project
Declining a buyout to its lease, a tenant in the Lakeside Shopping Center has put the brakes on a $40 million housing project by developer Joe Krupp, according to a Wisconsin State Journal report. The project at Monona Drive and Cottage Grove Road on the city’s east side may be dropped by the developer because one tenant, NerdHaven Arcade, has a long-term lease with the current shopping center owner and has declined a buyout. The development proposal included the demolition of the 26,300-square-foot shopping center, the former Jade Monkey bar, and the Exhaust Pros muffler shop to make way for two four-story buildings that would include 188 apartments, 20,350 square feet of commercial space, and parking. Krupp owns the bar and muffler shop sites but could not purchase the shopping center due to the long-term lease the arcade business has with the current shopping center owner.


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Melania Trump, the former First Lady of the United States, has announced the “Women’s History Month NFT Collection,” which she created in conjunction with artist Marc-Antoine Coulon to honour three qualities that women should strive for: strength, confidence, and inspiration.
Three self-portraits are included in each of the 3,000 editions. Each NFT is a watercolour picture of Melania Trump, along with a discussion of how the illustrations represent the traits.
Melania Trump’s National Fashion Week Collection honours Women’s History Month
Melania Trump has unveiled her latest NFT collection on MelaniaTrump.com, a Parler-powered platform, in honour of Women’s History Month. The new set of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) collection, produced by artist Marc-Antoine Coulon once again to mark Women’s History Month, features 3,000 versions across three portraits.
The Solana blockchain technology is used to create the Women’s History Month NFT Collection. These NFTs allow customers to get their hands on the original digital art file.
Furthermore, at $150 apiece, 1,500 versions of the portrait “Strong,” 500 editions of “Confident,” and 1,000 editions of “Inspirational” are included in the collection.
However, each purchase is made at random. “Collectors will enjoy a sense of surprise because the artwork will not be disclosed until after the purchase,” said Parler.
In honor of Women's History Month, @MelaniaTrump has launched her latest #MelaniaNFT Collection on the Parler-powered platform, https://t.co/CYrYGUHexR. https://t.co/J2Du8tOdgZ pic.twitter.com/qONknK6bPe
— Parler (@parler_app) March 8, 2022
The NFT Collection for Women’s History Month will honour three qualities that women should strive for: strong, confident, and influential.
Melania Trump tweeted in support of Ukrainian women on March 8, 2022, using the terms “strong,” “confident,” and “inspiring.”
Strong & confident women are a true inspiration. In particular, I applaud their resolve during challenging times. Seeing the Ukrainian women & children suffering is heartbreaking. It is difficult to comprehend the level of fear, uncertainty, & trauma families are experiencing.
— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) March 8, 2022
Melania Trump’s Previous NFT Collections
This past year, the former First Lady made a splash in the NFT industry by establishing several of her own. Melania’s Eyes, a watercolour painting of Trump’s eyes, was the first piece in Trump’s inaugural NFT collection, which debuted in December 2021.
Melania Trump auctioned her third NFT collection, ‘Head of State,’ inspired by her stay in the White House, in January 2022. A wide-brimmed white hat worn by the former first lady was featured in the collection, along with a painting of her wearing it.
She also revealed the “POTUS NFT Collection,” which will include ten pieces of digital artwork, each with 500 to 1,750 limited editions.
Disclaimer: These are the writer’s opinions and should not be considered investment advice. Readers should do their own research.


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Minnesota’s retail industry has suffered as consumers cut back their spending.
Retail sales declined 0.9 percent nationwide in October — the biggest monthly drop since November 1991 — and local retailers are feeling the impact.
Even Minneapolis-based Target Corp., one of the nation’s best-performing retailers in recent years, has struggled. The company’s same-store sales have been down three straight months as compared to a year ago, including a 4.8 percent drop in October.
“We expect the recent challenging sales environment to continue into the holiday season and beyond as a result of the economic factors currently affecting consumer spending,” Target President and CEO Gregg Steinhafel said in a statement announcing the October numbers.
Meanwhile, Richfield-based Best Buy Co. Inc. cut its full-year 2008 earnings forecast on Wednesday. “Since mid-September, rapid, seismic changes in consumer behavior have created the most difficult climate we’ve ever seen,” CEO Bradbury Anderson said in a statement.
Of course, things could be worse. Best Buy’s biggest rival, Richmond, Va.-based Circuit City Stores Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday, just one week after announcing plans to close 155 stores.
“The economy is pressuring [Best Buy] as well, but having fewer Circuit Citys in the short term, and the prospect of not having any in the long term, will definitely play well into their hands,” said Dave Brennan, co-director of the Institute for Retailing Excellence at the University of St. Thomas.
Overall, Brennan expects local retailers to cut jobs, report reduced profit margins and reduce inventories. “Generally speaking, the outlook is most likely going to get weaker before it stabilizes or gets stronger,” Brennan said.
Minnesota auto dealers, who used to sell 210,000 vehicles a year, are suffering through their sixth straight down year, said Scott Lambert, executive director of the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association. Last year, local dealers sold 168,000 vehicles.
“This year’s forecast was for 159,000, but I don’t think we’ll make it,” Lambert said. “We’ll be lucky to break 150,000.”
firstname.lastname@example.org | (612) 288-2101


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USDA to allow Sharwil exports to mainland
Avocado industry officials say the financial impact of exporting Big Island-grown Sharwil avocados to the mainland could rival coffee and macadamia nuts.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday announced it would allow the export to 32 states and Washington, D.C., starting later this year. The rule lifting an export ban, in place since the early 1990s, will go into effect in a month, but export may only take place between November and March.
That’s fine, Hawaii Avocado Association President Tom Benton, who also grows avocados on his Captain Cook farm, said. That export season coincides with Sharwil harvest season.
“It’s going to be building a new industry from scratch,” Benton said. “It’s all doable.”
Allowing the exports is a great opportunity for farmers, he added.
“We’ve had a closed market for so long now,” Benton said, adding that farmers already sell the avocados in-state. The anticipated increased demand from mainland buyers will likely drive up the price, including for local buyers, at least for now. “In time, it will balance out.”
Rancho Aloha owner Bruce Corker, who sits on the Hawaii Avocado Association board, said he expects to see the price for Sharwil double once exports begin.
“For agriculture, it’s going to be a tremendous boost,” Corker said. “I would predict Sharwil avocados will rival coffee in terms of revenue.”
About half of his farm is dedicated to avocados, the other half is coffee. Corker said he expects to see more farmers begin planting avocados, which take about five years to go from planting to harvest. Farmers could get Sharwil avocados sooner, though, if they grafted material from a Sharwil tree onto another avocado variety.
The USDA, in the early 1990s, prohibited shipping avocados from Hawaii to the mainland to prevent the spread of pests, particularly a fruit fly species. The regulations did allow Sharwil avocados if the fruit underwent fumigation or a combination of fumigation and cold treatment, which officials said can have “unacceptable adverse effects” on quality.
The USDA, in announcing the rule approval, said Hawaii grows about 13 percent of U.S. avocados. California grows 76 percent of the avocados, mostly the Hass variety.
Florida grows the remaining 11 percent. USDA officials said they expected the Sharwil exports to make up about 0.5 percent of all avocados that are not Hass avocados sold in the U.S., and about 0.2 percent of all avocados sold within the country.
“While the rule should benefit Hawaii’s avocado producers by allowing them to use a systems approach to mitigate pest risk, making the sale of Sharwil avocados to the continental United States more economically feasible, the quantity that is expected to be shipped would not significantly affect the mainland avocado market overall or the more limited market for non-Hass varieties,” the rule report said.
Benton said the USDA’s decision to lift the ban was another “feather in the cap” for the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, who championed the cause for decades. After Inouye’s death, avocado farmers contacted U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, who collaborated with the state’s three other congressional delegates to support lifting the export ban.
“This USDA ruling will directly benefit Hawaii farmers and our economy,” Hirono said in an email Wednesday morning. “Advancing local food has long been a cornerstone of my push to make our state and economy more sustainable, and I’m very appreciative the USDA has made this critical ruling.”
The states where the avocados may be shipped are: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming, as well as the District of Columbia.


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Tweety Bird, a Life in Pictures: Animated Superstar, Fashion Icon, and Beyond
Happy Birthday to Looney Tunes MVP Tweety Bird! The one and only turns 80 this year and to celebrate Warner Media has kicked off global events to highlight the milestone.
Over the years, Tweety has become an animation icon not just on the small screen with the Looney Tunes shorts but on the big screen in movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the Space Jam films. And what living person in the ‘90s didn’t have Tweety emblazoned on their denim jacket or overalls? The yellow canary has always been a fashion icon and an inspiration to artists worldwide.


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No plastic bag every Saturday in Ipoh from June 1
IPOH - The Ipoh City Council (MBI) will implement the No Plastic Bag campaign, in which 20 sen will be charged for the use of a plastic bag on Saturdays beginning June 1.
Ipoh mayor Datuk Rumaizi Baharin said the campaign aims to reduce single-use plastics in Ipoh to ensure environmental sustainability.
"The Licensing Department in collaboration with the MBI Environmental Health Department held an engagement session with 120 traders last May 18 and as a result, 22 (18 per cent) business premises registered as Plastic Bag Free Premises.
"The premises include hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores, fast food restaurants, chain stores and pharmacies. The campaign involves 1,378 premises and the collection of plastic bag charges will be conducted through the issuance of additional conditions in the business licence or permit,” he said in a statement today.
Rumaizi said the campaign was also implemented to support the Roadmap Towards Zero Single-Use Plastics 2018-2030, which was launched on Oct 17, 2018.
"Premises that provide and charge users 20 sen for a plastic bag will receive a No Free Plastic Bag Day Premises certificate, while premises that do not supply plastic bags will receive a Plastic Bag Free Premises certificate.
"All participants need to display their certificates at their respective business premises to ensure the campaign’s success,” he said.
He said the collection of the 20 sen charge would be handed over to the city council to be used to implement environmental sustainability programmes for school students and the general public, as well as recycling campaigns. - BERNAMA


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Longtime Portland, Oregon, coffee roasting company Ristretto Roasters has announced it is permanently closing, effective next week.
The announcement comes as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to take its toll on direct-to-consumer coffee businesses throughout the United States, and nearly two years since the business was embroiled in controversy following comments made by owner Din Johnson’s wife Nancy Rommelmann.
The company, founded by Johnson, a Portland native, began roasting in Northeast Portland in 2004. With high-quality, often traceable specialty coffees roasted in vintage Probats, the company served a prime example of the growing Third Wave movement in the independent coffee mecca, eventually growing to serve four branded cafes as well as wholesale accounts throughout the region.
In a post titled “Hello, we must be going,” the company this past weekend wrote, “To all Ristretto Roasters customers, after fifteen years, the time has come to pull up stakes and fold the tent on our Portland-based coffee roasting operation. We started with a tiny café in Portland’s Beaumont neighborhood, and it’s been a blast growing into other locations and lines of business, from wholesale to mail order to working directly with growers overseas. We thank the many thousands of you who’ve been with RR for all or part of this ride.”
In January of 2019, 30 then current or former Ristretto employees issued a letter condemning the views expressed by Johnson’s wife, author and vlogger Nancy Rommelmann, who was the co-creator of a YouTube series called #MeNeither, according to a Willamette Week report.
In the series, which has since been removed, Rommelmann and co-host Leah McSweeney questioned the motives of sexual assault survivors.
Although state records listed Rommelmann as a manager of Ristretto, Rommelmann told The Oregonian at the time that the records were outdated and that she was not a part of the company.
Ristretto had already permanently closed two of its four Portland cafes prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company said its last day roasting will be Tuesday, Dec. 15.


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It goes beyond the bowling balls, bags and shoes on display at Tom Kelley’s Pro Shop.
The reason the Omaha bowling pro shop first survived, and later thrived for the past 40 years is the two generations of family serving its customers.
Tom Kelley Sr. opened the shop – situated in Westgate Plaza at 3401 S. 84th St. on Aug. 11, 1980 – after learning the bowling business while working at the Rose Bowl for 19 years.
He learned to measure, fit and drill bowling balls, developing a huge clientele. He and his late wife, Emilie, and then 15-year-old son, Tom Kelley Jr., were the original employees of the pro shop. Son Wade Phillips and daughter Kaye Morris joined later.
Today, the pro shop is run by Tom Jr. and his wife, Xan.
Ron Petak, a longtime Omaha bowler and a regular customer, said he won’t take his bowling business anywhere else. “The Kelleys are just good people,” he said. “They treat their customers right, and they know the business.”
In fact, Petak only allows the Kelleys – first Tom Sr. and later Tom Jr. – to drill his bowling balls. The Kelleys, he said, take time with their customers to learn about their game before beginning their work. “It goes beyond putting three holes in a bowling ball.”
Tom Sr. explained: “We know our customers. We ask them questions. The right questions.” The key is to make the ball feel comfortable in the bowler’s hand, Tom Sr. said.
The Kelleys realize each bowler’s hand is unique – which means drilling has to be customized and each ball has to be laid out to match its player’s game. The pro shop still provides same-day service for ball drilling. “We’re always trying to improve what we do,” Tom Jr. said.
Word spread and soon local bowling center employees were referring their business to Tom Kelley’s Pro Shop – pointing out the quality work done there.
Tom Sr. opened the shop during a time when the bowling industry, which hit its heyday in the 1950s and ’60s, was in transition.
In 1980, AMF introduced the black Angle urethane ball, which featured new technology and was twice as expensive as the plastic and rubber balls of the day. He bought 200 black Angles – that proved to be a worthy investment.
The pro shop's continuing success is a reflection of investing in new technology, staying focused on customer service and providing quality products, Tom Jr. said.
League and tournament bowlers, Tom Jr. said, are an important segment of the customer base, requiring the best in equipment and service. The Kelleys also welcome customers who are new to the game for recreation and fun.
“We help them find the right equipment to fit their skill level,” Tom Jr. said.
On any given day, customers will find 180 balls, 60 styles of shoes, 100 bags and a wide assortment of accessories.
“Our pro shop ranks among the Top 5 nationwide for square footage and inventory" according to industry sales reps who travel the country, Tom Jr. said.
Tom Kelley’s main shop in Omaha and satellite locations in Norfolk and Columbus draw customers from a six-state area and fans nationwide.
“We have transplants call and ask us to drill their new ball – because we have their measurements on file,” Xan Kelley said. “We’ll ship their ball right to their doorstep.”
Some customers have been with the pro shop for its 40 years, Tom Sr. said. Some even date back to his Rose Bowl days.
Customer loyalty means a lot.
“They come back because they know the job will be done right,” Tom Jr. said.


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Globe lone PH telco recognized at GSMA Mobile Connect Reception
Globe Telecom was the only Philippine telco to have been recognized by the GSMA during the Mobile Connect Reception Founders Accolade and Networking held at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain as part of the GSMA-led Mobile Connect initiative.
Globe was awarded as one of the founding Mobile Network Operator (MNO) partners for GSMA’s Mobile Connect: Project 1 Billion initiative. GSMA announced that the GSMA Mobile Connect mobile-based authentication solution is now available to 2 billion consumers globally. Since the solution was introduced at Mobile World Congress 2014, 34 mobile network operators (MNOs), including Globe, have launched the service in 21 countries.
As part of its commitment to enable the shift to a digital nation and empower Filipinos around the world to fully embrace their digital lifestyle, Globe joined the global initiative to protect its customers from the growing number of fraudulent activities and scams in the digital space.
Working with the GSMA closely, Globe launched Mobile Connect in the Philippines in light of the rapid growth of data and internet penetration in the country, exposing more users to online fraud and scams. GSMA’s Mobile Connect aims to securely authenticate, authorize and identify a subscriber accessing content using the inherent security of the mobile device owned and carried by the end user.
“With Mobile Connect, Globe is adopting a globally-accepted standard to protect our customers from the various cases of cybercrimes via a safe and secure platform. In today’s digital world, this initiative will definitely bring about sustainable and long-lasting impact to the global economy, and we at Globe are very happy to bring this innovation to Filipinos to ease them away from the worries of online fraud,” says Glenn Estrella, Vice President for Digital Media at Globe.
It also provides secure and convenient access to digital services that can be unlocked with the use of a secret PIN. It functions like Google’s Two-Factor authentication where the subscriber is asked to enter the code they get via SMS or USSD, to verify that they have the device with them when accessing a site or an app.
While initially focused on secure and convenient log-in to digital services, Mobile Connect is evolving to deliver secure authorisation of digital transactions and to add context and attributes about the user and the transaction to increase convenience, trust and security for the users and the online service providers, while respecting the users’ privacy.
Operators offering services based on Mobile Connect include América Móvil, Axiata Group (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka), China Mobile, China Mobile Pakistan (Zong), China Telecom, China Unicom, DNA, Elisa, Indosat Ooredoo, Mobilink, Mobitel, Orange (Egypt, France, Morocco, Spain), Sunrise, Swisscom (Switzerland), Telefónica Group (Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Spain), Telenor Group (Bangladesh, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Thailand), TeliaSonera (Finland), Telkomsel, Telstra, TIM and Turkcell (Turkey).
The Mobile Connect Reception Founders Accolade and Networking celebrated some of the biggest milestones achieved by the initiative as well as recognized key contributors and partners. It also allowed partner MNOs to network and meet with the Mobile Connect ecosystem. ADVT.