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Ford Motor Co plans to invest nearly $200 million in its Cleveland engine plant to build a 2-liter version of its popular turbocharged engine for the company’s North American lineup.
Production of the 2-liter “EcoBoost” engine is expected to start in late 2014. The move will add 450 jobs at the Cleveland factory, which now makes Ford’s 3.5-liter turbocharged engine as well as a 3.7-liter V6 engine, the company said on Thursday.
The second-largest U.S. automaker has heightened its focus on fuel efficiency over the last seven years and the EcoBoost represents a crucial piece of its vehicle strategy.
Ford’s factory in Valencia, Spain currently builds the 2-liter turbocharged engine for North America and Europe. Rising demand for fuel-efficient models in North America prompted Ford to shift production of the engine to Ohio from Spain, it said.
That Valencia factory will continue to make the EcoBoost engine for Ford vehicles built in Europe, and Ford said overall employment at the plant would not be hurt by the move.
Ford introduced its turbocharged EcoBoost in 2009 and aims to boost production of the engine to 1.6 million this year, about 100,000 higher than the company’s previous goal.
Turbocharged engines have grown increasingly important as automakers face stringent fuel-economy standards over the next several years. Ford, one of the most vocal advocates for this technology, says its EcoBoost-equipped models have saved as much as 20 percent in fuel compared with their larger predecessors.
But earlier this month, Consumer Reports magazine found that the benefits of turbocharged engines were overstated. In some cases, turbocharged models are slower and less fuel-efficient, the magazine said.
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Stephen Frye has covered the police beat and courts for The Oakland Press and now serves as online editor for www.theoaklandpress.com.
Informs on and discusses current matters of legal interest to readers of The Oakland Press and to consumers of legal services in the community.
Caren Gittleman likes talking cats. She'll discuss everything about them. Share your stories and ask her questions about your favorite feline.
Roger Beukema shares news from Lansing that impacts sportsmen (this means ladies as well) and talks about things he finds when he goes overseas to visit his children, and adding your comments into the mix.
Join Jonathan Schechter as he shares thoughts on our natural world in Oakland County and beyond.


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The lack of a steady supply of produce has prompted an eastern Saskatchewan Co-op to take matters into its own hands. The board of directors with Legacy Co-op has approved a modular farm project to be operated in Yorkton.
General manager Bruce Thurston said through the project, safe and healthy leafy greens will be grown at their own location. “Given the volatility in price and supply of leafy greens right now, it was a great time to invest in this type of operation,” Thurston said.
Legacy Co-op will add a 10-foot-by-40-foot insulated, prefabricated modular growing system behind the Yorkton Food Store. “The container is currently in the building stages and will arrive for placement in the spring, and the first crop will take six to eight weeks from grow until the harvest,” Thurston said.
The prototype grow unit is being constructed by “Growcers Modular Food Solutions” in Winkler, Man.
Read the complete article at www.chatnewstoday.ca.

domain: news


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Yorkshire Building Society and Rostrum have been shortlisted for Consumer PR Campaign of the Year in the 2022 PRmoment Awards for their work on Building Britain’s Financial Resilience.
Helping to make real life happen is at the heart of the Yorkshire Building Society’s brand promise, supporting people from across the UK when it comes to better understanding and building their financial resilience. Following the impact that Covid and the cost of living crises have had on the finances of households up and down the country, the goal of achieving financial resilience is more important now than ever before.
In 2021, Rostrum was able to bring this issue to life by delivering an end-to-end campaign for Yorkshire Building Society entitled The Nation’s Nest Egg. In collaboration with YBS, Rostrum created the report concept, commissioning research and fieldwork through The Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) before producing the content and designing the research report and executing the media sell-in.
The campaign uncovered that consumers are currently facing a £371 billion savings shortfall when it comes to feeling confident in their ability to withstand a financial shock. Despite Covid-19 restrictions helping some people to increase their stock of savings, UK adults require a nest egg of £17,465 to feel financially secure with the average Brit needing an additional £7,220 to reach this goal.
Campaign highlights included coverage in BBC News, which included a backlink to YBS’s savings tips page, as well as the campaign being discussed on Lisa Aziz’s LBC News breakfast show. Coverage was also achieved in City AM, Yahoo! News, The i, Yahoo! Finance, ThisisMoney and MSN Money – with a total reach of 8 million people.
The full PRmoment Awards shortlist can be found here and results will be announced at a the PRmoment Awards ceremony on 12th May.


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Slimming company Weight Watchers has seen a 19 per cent increase in its shares since the airing of a new ad featuring the company’s newest ambassador, Oprah Winfrey.
Weight Watchers enlisted the help of Winfrey back in October last year. The multimedia star claimed a ten per cent stake in the company after the company had been struggling to stay afloat.
The appointment as ambassador meant Winfrey will become one of the faces of Weight Watchers’ advertising campaigns.
At the time, Winfrey said: “Weight Watchers has given me the tools to begin to make the lasting shift that I and so many of us who are struggling with weight have longed for. I believe in the program so much I decided to invest in the company and partner in its evolution.”
The BBC report since Winfrey’s appointment, the company has “more than tripled in value”, with her stake reportedly worth more than $US148 million.
And now the latest ad, which Winfrey tweeted out to her 30.5 million Twitter followers, has boosted the shares even more.
The ad shows Winfrey explaining why she joined the weight loss brand.
— Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) December 29, 2015
Culture-leading publisher Highsnobiety continues to evolve its local operations with the appointment of Citizens of Culture as its strategic partner across media operations within Australia. Highsnobiety is a premium global brand dedicated to cultural pioneers, with work spanning across digital platforms, print media, documentaries, cutting edge events, a shopping platform and a full service creative […]
An investigation by British broadcaster ITV has found that Amazon is destroying millions of items in unsold or returned stock. The report specifically focuses on one of the 24 warehouses the company has in the UK. According to ITV News, the destroyed items are largely unused and new, either returned items or those which never […]
Australian fashion brand Witchery has partnered with B Corp GlamCorner as part of GlamCorner’s subscription box offering as the demand for everyday essentials soars. This partnership marks another milestone for the Australian fashion industry towards becoming more circular and introducing more paths to reduce textile waste. Customers nationally will be able to rent more of […]
The media, marketing and creative industries are being encouraged to host their own ‘Curry Club for COVID’ before 30th June to help meet the ambitious $100k target set by its organisers. Curry Club for COVID, which was conceived by long-time adtech executive Peter Bray, sales director at Impact, and is powered by industry social purpose organisation […]
The UnLtd Cup is returning for its tenth consecutive year, marking a decade of soccer shenanigans that’s raised nearly $500,000 for children’s mental health charity, KidsXpress. On July 22-23rd, 28 teams from across the industry will battle it out on the soccer field in the two-day tournament at Sydney University Sports and Fitness Centre, Darlington. […]
Australian-bred company Ultra Commerce has acquired New Zealand-based company Vesta eCommerce, a global software business providing leading product data management solutions. The recent acquisition is a significant move for the business, which is Australian born, owned, and headquartered, but has built out a global presence as it pursues rapid growth in the eCommerce market. Connecting […]
Canteen’s latest campaign features the combined talents of Director Luna Laure and creative agency Crater. The campaign strives to raise awareness for young people affected by cancer. The awareness campaign centres around Harry Barentson, who at 12 years of age found out his pregnant mum had cancer. The campaign aims to bring awareness to Canteen’s […]


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The World Health Organisation (WHO) has announced that World Health Day 2015 will focus on the importance of food safety.
The occasion will be used to raise awareness for the increasing importance of food safety in the current globalisation of the world’s food supply.
Committed to maintaining global health, the WHO will offer information for consumers, as well as food producers and health practitioners on various food safety risks and the preventative measures that should be taken to reduce the occurrence and spread of foodborne illnesses.
Strengthening Global Food Safety Systems
As international trade becomes more prominent, countries are sourcing much of their food from overseas. This means that strong food safety practices are more important now than ever before. Infected food now has a better chance of traveling abroad and potentially spreading a foodborne disease internationally.
The consumption of food containing malicious bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemicals is to blame for occurrences of over 200 diseases, from mild diarrhoea to aggressive forms of cancer. In addition, 2 million deaths annually – the majority of these being children – are linked to the ingestion of unsafe food.
As we continue to increase our utilisation of the global food supply, our food safety practices need to be polished into pique condition. It is the responsibility of each and every member of the global community – from food producers to vendors to consumers – to uphold the highest standard of food safety and prevent a global epidemic of foodborne illness.
The World Health Organisation emphasises five key practices for those handling and preparing food:
- Keep clean
- Separate raw and cooked food
- Cook food thoroughly
- Keep food at safe temperatures (stay out of the danger zone!)
- Use safe water and raw materials
Observation of these critical techniques will minimise the likelihood of both global and local foodborne disease outbreaks.
The World Health Organisation and Food Safety
The World Health Organisation is a division within the United Nations and is responsible for providing leadership and support to countries on matters of global health.
The WHO aids countries in the prevention, detection and response to outbreaks of foodborne illness. It abides by a collection of international food standards, guidelines and codes of food safety practices. Using an international information network, the World Health Organisation works together with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation to inform countries of food safety emergencies occurring throughout the world.


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Blurry pictures, unidentified industry sources and social networking sites are where we expect to learn about unreleased smartphones, but the latest one has come from a most unlikely place; the Xbox Live Rewards system. An eagle-eyed gamer spotted a reference to an unreleased device in a survey on Microsoft’s online gaming portal, and quickly let WPCentral.com know all about it.
The phone is the HTC Titan III, and it appeared in a list of top-end smartphones which formed the multiple choice answer to the question “how excited would you be to receive each one of the following smartphones as a holiday gift”. Those taking the survey had to give each phone a score out of five, with five being extremely excited. The Titan III was joined by the iPhone 5, the Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx HD, the Nokia Lumia 920 and the Samsung Galaxy S III.
Both previous HTC Titan phones have used Windows Phone 7, so it’s not a big stretch to imagine a third Titan phone would run the same OS again, only this time it would be Windows Phone 8. Before we were introduced to the HTC 8S and HTC 8X, they were leaked as the Rio and the Accord, and were joined by the Zenith, which subsequently never officially launched. However, back in September, the president of HTC China dropped several hints a new, big-screen Windows phone was in the works.
Could the Titan III be the street name for the Zenith? It was rumoured to have a big 4.7-inch screen, the same as previous Titan phones, but also a quad-core processor. Windows Phone 8 supports multi-core processors, but so far nothing above a dual-core chip has been used in a Windows phone. So, is it a prototype which will never be released, or will it come along during Microsoft’s second wave of Windows Phone devices next year, bringing with it the OS’s first quad-core processor? There isn’t an answer to any of these questions just yet, but using a scale of one to five to show how excited we are to find out more, we’d have give the Titan III a solid five.


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Weekly Games News Roundup
Browse back issues of Weekly Games News Roundup.
Fortnite developer Epic raises $1.25 billion at $15bn valuation
Red Dead Redemption 2 UK sales more than double the first game
Hugely anticipated Red Dead Redemption 2 launches this Friday, review embargo lifts on Thursday
Red Dead's publisher stirs up controversy over excessive working hours
Video games industry worth $3.8bn to UK economy
Magic Leap AR headset starts shipping
Next series of Black Mirror rumoured to be interactive
Reviewers praise Assassin's Creed Odyssey as a series high
Fortnite forces PlayStation 4 to cross-play with Nintendo Switch and Xbox One
New Oculus Quest VR headshot to launch in Spring 2019 at $399
Walking Dead game developer Telltale Games initiates 'majority studio closure'
International gambling regulators unite on in-game practises such as skins gambling & loot boxes
Apple announced three new iPhones - here's the differences explained
Nintendo announced 20 new games for the Switch
Apple expected to unveil new iPhones on Wednesday
Olympics president rules out Olympics eSports as "contradictory to Olympic values"
Google claim Fortnite susceptible to being hacked on Android after bypassing Google store
Tencent's value drops by $20 billion following new Chinese game regulations
Mass shooting at US esports tournament leaves three dead
BBC report of seven biggest announcements at Gamescom last week
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Ford Motor Co. has halted production of F-Series Super Duty pickups at Kentucky Truck Plant in eastern Jefferson County following a fire last week at a plant in MI that makes a component for the trucks. It is unclear when production will resume.
Experts say that if Ford's two F-150 assembly lines remain shut down for more than a couple of weeks, there could start to be shortages. The vehicle generated $41 billion in revenue a year ago, about 28 percent of total sales and the lion's share of its profits. Among other items, Meridian supplies Ford with the magnesium radiator support structure, which holds radiators on the trucks.
"Kansas City Truck who we send our engines to have components that they received from Meridian who caught fire and what's happened is we have Thursday and Friday down, as of right now", said Unifor 200 president John D'Angelo. The F-150 pickup is Ford's best-selling model, as well as its most profitable. The Avon Lake, Ohio plant makes commercial grade trucks, including the "chassis cab" F-350, F-450 and F-550, along with the big F-650 and F-750 heavy duty trucks.
Fortunately for Ford, General Motors doesn't yet have new pickups in the United States markets, and Fiat Chrysler is just launching its F-150 competitor.
That's because there was a fire at a supplier's plant last week.
And likely final-version of SpaceX's workhorse rocket may fly today
The "block 5" version of the craft features a number of design changes the company claims will improve performance and safety. But first it needs at least 7 successful launches before NASA will approve the rocket for human cargo.
Peyton Manning mulling offer to join Panthers bidder
Well, according to a report from the Charlotte Observer , that next step could be getting involved in owning a franchise. Navarro has the backing from Richardson's son, Mark, who believes he is the right man for the team.
Android P Wear OS DP2 available now, rolls back controversial change
Are you excited for Android P? The Google Photos app should get smarter about suggesting who you might want to share photos with. It might, however, initially seem to complicate things a bit as people will need some time to adjust to the new system .
It will also be impacted at the Kansas City (Mo.) Assembly Plant and will also Ford F-Series Super Duty production is down at Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville. It said the plant will continue building the Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon midsize pickups.
Felker said, "We are working closely with the supplier to manage the situation and to determine next steps". The date of relaunching of the Meridian Magnesium plant is still unknown.
It was not clear how long the production disruptions will last and Ford did not specify what parts were affected in the pickup trucks.
BMW and FCA are also reported to be adjusting production schedules this week.
There are relatively few suppliers of magnesium parts, which means the auto companies could be without critical components for some time.


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With Jay-Z’s and Kanye West’s highly anticipated album, Watch the Throne, released last week, the two artists have made headlines for something that is rarely accomplished these days: they prevented the album from being leaked before its release.
While nearly every newly recorded project sees its work leaked to the public, the recording artists did everything they could to learn from past experience and took every precaution.
Email is always a huge risk to projects. “During Dark Twisted, we realized that no one’s email was secure, whether it was Gmail or .mac or iDisk,” says project engineer, Anthony Kilhoffer, who worked with Kanye West on his last album.
No part of the project could be stored online — or even on a laptop hardrive. Anytime they were recording, laptops had their wi-fi turned off and the tracks were saved directly to password-protected external hard drives that were stored in locked briefcases.
The two artists didn’t even use proper studios to record the album. Because draft versions couldn’t be sent by email, collaborators had to visit the temporary makeshift setups that the duo set up in hotel rooms in Sydney, Paris, and New York.
Leading up to the release, members of the production team were confident in their messages shared on Twitter. “It is not going to leak,” boasted Jay-Z’s manager and business partner, John Meneilly (who has only ever tweeted three times as @JMeneilly). “Shouts out to Noah for sleeping with the hard drives for like 10 months straight,” taunted Virgil Abloh (@virgilabloh), the album’s art director. “#WTT-still-aint-leaked-yet.”
According to John Giacobbi, founder of internet security company Web Sheriff, most leaks come from journalists who need to listen to albums before hand in order to review it. Other leaks occur in the CD manufacturing and distribution process. Leaks from people working in studios are less common.
“These days 99% of albums will leak early, it’s just a fact of life,” he says. “The bigger battle really is containing the leak once they have leaked.”
The team’s success in preventing any leaks for the album seem to have paid off. The album has now broken the iTunes one-week sales record, selling almost 290,000 copies in its first seven days.


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Fresh off their $14 million purchase of Le Beau Chateau in Connecticut from the estate of the late, eccentric heiress Huguette Clark, designer Reed Krakoff and his interior designer wife Delphine have just plunked down $28 million to buy a formidable townhouse that once housed the New York Observer.
The home, at 54 E. 64th St., is “like a piece of a castle in New York,” a spy said.
Listing broker Paula Del Nunzio, of Brown Harris Stevens, could not be reached for comment.
The Krakoffs recently sold their previous New York manse for $51 million. They also own property in Paris and the onetime childhood summer estate of Jackie Kennedy in East Hampton, which is called Lasata.


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Possible ExxonMobil Fine By DOT and 3 Dow Movers To Follow
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT): Current price $28.16
Notebook brand suppliers might be cautious about revealing their new products’ industrial designs due to fears that Microsoft could use their designs to benefit Surface products, says DigiTimes. Sources from the upstream supply chain say that the brand vendors no longer trust Microsoft and also its strategy of pushing Surface tablets.
Pfizer (NYSE:PFE): Current price $28.51
More than one Supreme Court justice appeared to be skeptical concerning the practice of brand name pharmaceutical firms paying generic companies to keep their less expensive drugs off the market for a longer time, according to The New York Times, which also said that some of the justices seemed to be interested in issuing a narrow ruling that would not form a precedent.
Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ): Current price $49.47
BGR reports that Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) LTE version of the Chromebook Pixel will ship to customers by April 8. Also, The touch-enabled computer will cost $1,449 and will be compatible with Verizon’s high-speed network.
Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM): Current price $89.98
The United States Department of Transportation has proposed a $1.7 million penalty against Exxon Mobil for its failing to address known flooding risks on one of its pipelines that broke in 2011, according to The Wall Street Journal. The ruptured pipeline allowed 1,500 barrels of crude to spill into Yellowstone River in Montana.
Don’t Miss: Ford Says Sorry for This Thoughtless Ad.


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Used vehicle sales, excluding minivehicles, fell 8.6 percent in July from a year earlier to 396,057 units, down for the fourth straight month, an industry body said Thursday.
The Japan Automobile Dealers Association said the decline may be a result of the surge in gasoline prices that has made consumers refrain from buying vehicles.
There were also more people buying new minicars with better fuel efficiency but with prices equivalent to those for used subcompacts, it said.
By type, sales of used cars with engines larger than 2,000cc declined 6.4 percent to 156,969 vehicles, while sales of cars with smaller engines shrank 12.4 percent to 176,751 vehicles.
Sales of used trucks dipped 0.5 percent to 50,191 vehicles, but bus sales rose 5.9 percent to 1,788.
In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.
By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.


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Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has begun its livestream from the PlayStation Experience in Anaheim, California, showcasing some of the titles attendees can expect to see on the show floor, with some videogames being shown for the first time. Just like the Paris Games Week (PGW) conference the company has jumped right in with several announcements for PlayStation VR, revealing Wipeout VR and a very special virtual reality (VR) experience based on The Last Guardian.
Most PlayStation 4 owners should have heard of The Last Guardian as it was one of the biggest releases in 2016. Developed by SIE Japan Studio while being designed and directed by Fumito Ueda from Team Ico (Ico (2001) and Shadow of the Colossus (2005)), the title is a third-person puzzle adventure experience where you controls a young lad who must cooperate with half-bird-half-mammal creature, Trico, to succeed.
For the VR title SIE has created a cut down experience that’s now first-person. Shawn Layden, President & CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment America (SIEA) and Chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios said on stage that The Last Guardian VR Experience has been based on the original title rather than porting part of it. He did say that it’ll offer around 15 to 20 minutes of gameplay.
While this isn’t much, and more akin to the tech demos that littered VR headsets in 2016, the experience is completely free, created as a Christmas present for all PlayStation VR’s loyal players. It’ll launch next week via PlayStation Store on 12th December 2017.
SIE has been massively discounting PlayStation VR over the past few weeks because of Black Friday, which has led to the headset achieving some pretty impressive sales figures and putting the HMD well ahead of its PC-based rivals Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
Expect there to be plenty more announcements over the weekend, all of which VRFocus will keep you updated on.


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As a global sports icon Oscar Pistorius has various sponsorship deals, including one with sports giant Nike, thought to be worth $2 million a year.
South Africa's M-Net cable TV channel said it was pulling adverts featuring Pistorius off-air immediately.
Earlier, a Nike spokesman in London said before hearing of the murder charge that the company was "saddened by the news, but we have no further comment to make at this stage".
Icelandic prosthetics manufacturer Ossur said:
I can only say that our thoughts and prayers are with Oscar and the families involved in the tragedy. It is completely premature to discuss or speculate on our business relationship with him.
More top news
Another Briton named as Jason Robert Parnell is missing after the accident near the popular Koh Samui island resort.
The text-to-register service allows mobile users to add their number to the Telephone Preference Service 'do not call' database.
A consumer report found that a number of once-a-day sunscreens decreased in protection by an average of 74% after six to eight hours.


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Much of the editing work on Wikipedia is too mind-numbingly repetitive for humans, so automated bots do it instead. But keeping track of automated editing has always been hard … until now.
Criminals are increasingly using the internet to turn dirty money into a spotless shade of green. Now a report written for the United Nations lifts the lid on many of these increasingly popular techniques.
Sure, lithium-ion batteries have risks, but so do gasoline-powered cars.
Transcranial direct current stimulation works, and you can try it at home.
The Singularity Summit approaches this weekend in New York. But the Microsoft cofounder and a colleague say the singularity itself is a long way off.
An analysis of the most highly contested articles on Wikipedia reveals the controversies that appear invariant across languages and cultures
A prototype glove recognizes pen strokes formed in thin air and turns them into text.
Coat a layer of graphene with chlorophyll and you get a remarkably sensitive light-activated switch, say physicists.
Hostility to the use of wearable computers and cameras threatens to limit their benefits, says Steve Mann.
The seeds of destruction for both iOS and Android app stores have already been sown – by none other than Google.


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Business 3 weeks agoDennis Wafula
Crypto exchange Wex loses NZ domain over fake registration details
Following the closure of the BTC-e cryptocurrency exchange in 2017, Wex, a digital assets trading platform, took over its operations. Since then, it has been providing cryptocurrency exchange services and was reported to have paid off part of BTC-e’s outstanding debts.
Trouble, however, came calling—again—after Wex got caught up in a fake identity case. According to reports, the directors at Wex allegedly registered their internet address using fake contact details. For this reason, the New Zealand Domain Name Commission (DNC) revoked the wex.nz domain.
The DNC announced that it had suspended six Wex domain names following the commission’s “enquiries in to the accuracy of the registration details for each of these domains.” DNC said it “initiated an investigation following complaints made to it.”
Other than wex.nz, the DNC has suspended a number of domain names—wexbet.nz, wexcash.nz, wexcoin.nz, wxcash.nz and wxcoin.nz—that lead to the same cryptocurrency website.
According to the commission, suspending the Wex domain names was made “in accordance with enforcing data validation measures under the .nz Principles and Responsibilities policy.” It stated, “The Commission wants .nz to be a safe, trusted and secure domain name space which is supported by its data validation process.”
“The individual who registered the domain names was not able to verify their contact details—and having valid contact details is a prerequisite for any .nz domain name holder,” the commission said.
Wex customers, however, decried the suspension, claiming the commission’s move led to huge losses. The .nz domain registry urged those affected to get in contact with law enforcement where they suspect fraud or crime-related activity. Victims are also advised to file reports with Netsafe, an independent body constituted to provide a safe online environment for people using the internet in New Zealand.
New mirror wex.link
Meanwhile, the crypto exchange took to Twitter to reassure its clients, urging them to “Use our new mirror wex.link.” This is one of several updates it has posted in recent months, including a couple of warnings about fake sites with similar addresses, such as wex.ac and wex.mn. Additionally, it put up a message about the listing of Monero (XMR) from August and some updates about maintenance-related interruptions in July.
Since its inception, Wex appears to have been operating on the wrong side of the law. The Russian-based cryptocurrency exchange, first came to the spotlight in 2017 after its founder, Alexander Vinnik, was arrested for allegedly taking part in a $4 billion fraud. The investigations are still ongoing in the U.S. and Greece. Back then, Wex exchange was under the name BTC-e.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BSV is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
Business 12 hours ago
Swiss executive government wants laws more suited to blockchain
The Swiss Federal Council believes that the country’s laws could be better adapted for integrating blockchain. In its report, ‘Legal basis for distributed ledger technology and blockchain in Switzerland,’ the council said that the existing ...
Business 13 hours ago
2 crypto investment projects face 90-day suspension in Italy
For precautionary reasons, Italian securities regulator Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB) has suspended two projects that were reportedly offering fraudulent crypto investment schemes in the country. Effective Dec. 12, Bitsurge Token ...
Business 21 hours ago
France: AMF blocks four more crypto firms
The Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), the financial authority in France, warned the public against unauthorized investment offerings in the country. According to the announcement, the financial authority stated that they had blacklisted four more ...


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By John Lee.
A Northern-Irish businessman, who was jailed for stealing more than £500,000 in fraudulent VAT repayments, has been ordered to repay £113,472 or serve a further three years in prison.
The man had claimed to be building water purification plants in Basra and Mosul, but didn’t have the funds to pay for the goods and services required to build the plants.
According to a report from Londonderry Sentinel, he told suppliers he needed invoices in advance to get letters of credit from the Iraqi Government to fund this multi-million dollar contract, and used the invoices as part of a false VAT refund claim totalling £567,420.17.
(Source: Londonderry Sentinel)
(Fraud image via Shutterstock)
Comments are closed.


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7.37 -0.00 (-0.03%)
After hours: 4:00PM EST
|Bid||7.37 x 1800|
|Ask||7.38 x 3200|
|Day's Range||7.29 - 7.39|
|52 Week Range||6.39 - 18.62|
|Beta (3Y Monthly)||1.63|
|PE Ratio (TTM)||52.68|
|Earnings Date||Feb. 5, 2020 - Feb. 10, 2020|
|Forward Dividend & Yield||N/A (N/A)|
|1y Target Est||11.34|
ANGI Homeservices (ANGI) delivered earnings and revenue surprises of 33.33% and 0.43%, respectively, for the quarter ended September 2019. Do the numbers hold clues to what lies ahead for the stock?
DENVER, Nov. 06, 2019 -- ANGI Homeservices (NASDAQ: ANGI) posted its third quarter financial results on the investor relations section of its website at.
ANGI Homeservices (ANGI) doesn't possess the right combination of the two key ingredients for a likely earnings beat in its upcoming report. Get prepared with the key expectations.
If you own shares in ANGI Homeservices Inc. (NASDAQ:ANGI) then it's worth thinking about how it contributes to the...
DENVER, Oct. 16, 2019 -- After the close of market trading on Wednesday, November 6, 2019, ANGI Homeservices (NASDAQ: ANGI) will post its third quarter results at.
(Bloomberg) -- IAC/InterActive Corp. is moving forward with a spinoff of Match Group Inc. after turning the owner of the Tinder online dating app into one of the best-performing internet stocks.IAC said Friday it formally recommended the move to a special committee of its board. The tax-free transaction would distribute shares of Match to IAC stockholders, formally separating the two companies. It would also collapse the dual-class common stock structure that has allowed IAC to maintain control.Match has been one of the star performers in IAC’s portfolio of companies. The shares have gained more than sixfold since its initial public offering in 2015. In the second quarter, Match accounted for 41% of IAC’s total $1.19 billion in revenue.IAC Chief Executive Officer Joey Levin said in August that he was considering a spinoff of Match as well as ANGI Homeservices Inc., the company’s other top money-maker. For now, ANGI will stay within IAC.“We don’t currently expect to turn our attention to the question of a spin-off until a Match Group transaction has been completed,” Levin said in a statement.To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Schatzker in New York at firstname.lastname@example.orgTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at email@example.com, Molly SchuetzFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
ANGI Homeservices, a global leader in home services, announced a partnership for their brands HomeAdvisor and Handy with Nextdoor, the world’s largest social network for the neighborhood. With this new partnership, homeowners on Nextdoor will now have the option to find and book one of HomeAdvisor and Handy’s vetted and highly-rated local home service professionals when they are searching for local service recommendations.
Today, ANGI Homeservices (ANGI) announced the promotion of Michael Wanderer to Chief People Officer, effective immediately. Previously SVP of People at Handy Technologies, which was acquired by ANGI Homeservices in October of 2018, Mr. Wanderer will now oversee global human resources, talent strategy and recruitment, retention and development at ANGI Homeservices, which includes leading brands HomeAdvisor and Angie’s List in addition to Handy.
ANGI Homeservices (ANGI) has witnessed a significant price decline in the past four weeks, and is seeing negative earnings estimate revisions as well.
(Bloomberg) -- IAC/InterActive Corp. is considering giving up control of its top two money-makers: Match Group Inc. and ANGI Homeservices Inc. in an effort to streamline its sprawling operations. The stock jumped on the news.In a letter to shareholders Wednesday, IAC Chief Executive Officer Joey Levin said the company is “considering spinning our two large publicly traded subsidiaries,” adding that IAC may ultimately decide to do nothing. “We sincerely haven’t decided yet what’s best.”At the end of March, IAC owned 98% of the voting interest in ANGI and 97.5% in Match, according to company filings. The two companies have dominated IAC’s portfolio for years. IAC also reported second-quarter earnings Wednesday, with Match accounting for 41% of the total $1.19 billion in revenue, and ANGI accounting for 29%. IAC reported earnings per share of $1.19, beating the average analyst estimate for 96 cents.IAC is a media and internet company that owns more than 150 brands and products, including Match, ANGI, the video-sharing platform Vimeo and news website The Daily Beast. The company is owned by billionaire media mogul Barry Diller, who has been involved in the recent discussions about potentially letting go of its two star performers, Levin said in an interview.“We have done this a lot of times throughout history," Levin said. “We are not empire builders." When IAC’s businesses are big enough and strong enough to stand on their own, “that’s when we consider a spin off," he said.Match’s shares have gained more than seven-fold since its initial public offering in 2015. On Wednesday, its shares rallied the most ever after reporting surprisingly positive second-quarter earnings, with huge subscriber growth in the online dating app Tinder. The strength of Match’s financial results caused IAC shares to gain 11% Wednesday. They spiked 6.5% in extended trading after IAC’s earnings results and news that the company is considering spinning off Match and ANGI.IAC bought consumer-recommendation website Angie’s List in 2017 and combined it with its HomeAdvisor online-review business to create a new publicly traded company, ANGI Homeservices.IAC previously spun off the online travel giant Expedia into its own entity in 2004. Four years later, it shed HSN TV, Ticketmaster, Interval International and LendingTree.“We have been restructuring this company for 20 years," Diller said in an interview on Bloomberg TV in 2016. The reason “is not for external purposes or for how you show it to the world, it’s for how you function internally and how you manage," he said. “Continuing to streamline makes sense."To contact the reporters on this story: Olivia Carville in New York at firstname.lastname@example.org;Jeran Wittenstein in San Francisco at email@example.comTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at firstname.lastname@example.org, Molly Schuetz, Andrew PollackFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
ANGI Homeservices — which operates HomeAdvisor, Angie's List and other brands — is naming Handy CEO Oisin Hanrahan as its new chief product officer. It was acquired last year by ANGI (a publicly traded subsidiary of IAC). According to today's announcement, he'll continue to do that in his new role, while at the same time overseeing product strategy across the entire ANGI portfolio.
Following an announcement on July 18, 2019 stating that Koios would use CBD supplied by Colorado-based Keef Brands in its Fit Soda™ line of beverages, the Company has added Keef Brands President and COO Travis Tharp to its advisory board. Mr. Tharp has held growth-oriented roles in operations-intensive firms including home services marketplace Handy, which ANGI Homeservices Inc. later acquired. Tharp's role as an advisor to Koios will complement the Company's relationship with Keef Brands as a supplier of CBD.
DENVER, July 17, 2019 -- After the close of market trading on Wednesday, August 7, 2019, ANGI Homeservices (NASDAQ: ANGI) will post its second quarter results on the investor.
ANGI Homeservices (ANGI) has been upgraded to a Zacks Rank 2 (Buy), reflecting growing optimism about the company's earnings prospects. This might drive the stock higher in the near term.
Tech companies such as Uber are waiting too long to go public, suggests ANGI Homeservices CEO Brandon Ridenour.


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Google recently changed its smartwatch platform’s name to Wear OS, and, since then, the company has put a focus on improving the platform in every other way, too. But one of the areas holding it back was the processor in those smartwatches.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 hasn’t aged well. But that really isn’t an issue anymore, because Qualcomm has just announced the Wear 3100 platform. This time around the company is putting a major emphasis on battery life, with different modes offering a focus on fitness, battery life, and fashion. Qualcomm confirmed that the new platform is shipping beginning today, with Montblanc, Louis Vuitton, and Fossil the first companies set to offer the new platform in their smartwatches.
Inside, the Snapdragon Wear 3100 features a “high-performance quad core A7 processors, the highly efficient integrated DSP, and a new ultra-low power co-processor”, with that co-processor being very small (only “~21mm2”) and designed to handle ultra-low power operations. The new platform also includes “a new wearable power management sub-system (PMW3100) to support lower power and higher integration”.
Here is how Qualcomm describes its new modes:
“Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform, based on the new ultra-low power system architecture, is being used to help bring new personalized experiences to next generation Wear OS by Google based smartwatches. Three such personalized experiences include the Enhanced Ambient Mode, Dedicated Sports Experiences, and Traditional Watch Mode. The Enhanced Ambient Mode helps the smartwatch to meet consumer desires for a fashion watch by supporting a smooth second hand, up to 16 colors, live complications and improved brightness. The Dedicated Sports Experiences is designed to allow active users to go for an ultra-marathon, swim long distances, bike for miles, or hike the mountains with GPS and heart rate turned on for the duration. The Traditional Watch Mode is designed to make it possible for consumers to continue to enjoy their beautiful watch for extended periods of time. Each one of these personalized experiences are supported by offloading the display and sensor processing from the A7 processors to the ultra-low power co-processor.”
Qualcomm says that when compared to the Snapdragon Wear 2100 platform, the Wear 3100 offers a significant boost in battery life, between four and 12 hours longer depending on the action. The platform supports three variants: Bluetooth and Wi-Fi tethered smartwatches, GPS tethered smartwatches, and 4G LTE-connected wearables as well.
This sounds like a huge boost for Wear OS in general, and hopefully the performance and battery life matches Qualcomm’s goals.


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February 09, 2018
Boyle Trades Nashville-Area Retail Asset
The property, Providence Commons, traded for nearly $30 million. Fully leased, the center is anchored by a Publix grocery store.
Boyle Investment Co. has sold Providence Commons, a 110,137-square-foot retail center in Mount Juliet, Tenn., an eastern suburb of Nashville. The new owner, TA Realty, acquired the property for $28.2 million, according to Wilson County public records. Late last year, the buyer divested from a different suburban retail asset in Northern California.
Located at 631 S. Mt. Juliet Road, the shopping center sits one mile south of Interstate 40 and is 15 miles east of downtown Nashville. Anchored by a Publix supermarket, Providence Commons is 100 percent leased to a number of shops and restaurants including Tuesday Morning, Pizza Hut, Anytime Fitness and Precision Eye Care. The 21-acre parcel includes a future development area of approximately seven acres. The property is situated next to Providence Marketplace, an open air, big-box shopping and entertainment center.
TA Realty is retaining Boyle to handle leasing and property management for the asset, and the company will additionally provide development services. An HFF team led by Jim Hamilton and Richard Reid represented the seller in the transaction.
Originally Published in Commercial Property Executive
By Jeff Hamann


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It's no secret that the major auto companies knocked it out of the park with their May sales. But dig a little deeper into the numbers, and you can find some even better signs of strength for certain areas of the economy.
The auto companies don't break down their results beyond the total sales numbers. They combine fleet sales along with retail sales, so it's hard to get a read on how the US is really doing.
But AutoNation, the country's largest vehicle sales company, is now giving us some insight.
Starting today, AutoNation will begin releasing its own monthly sales figures, and will provide more detail than the big auto companies.
For May, AutoNation's sales were up 22 percent, matching what we saw from some of the big automakers, including Ford , General Motors and Toyota.
But get this: Pickup truck sales were up 50 percent year-over-year. That's a huge sign of strength for American small businesses, according to AutoNation Chairman and CEO Mike Jackson. (Watch Jackson's comments here).


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Fantastic Sams Recognized For Excellent Customer Service
Newsweek names our hair salon franchise one of America’s Best Companies for Customer Service
We’re proud to announce we earned a spot in Newsweek’s inaugural 2019 list of America’s Best Companies for Customer Service.
Newsweek listed Fantastic Sams, one of the oldest full-service family hair salon franchises in the U.S., as one of the top three hair salons in America when it comes to customer service. You can see the full ranking here. Among the reasons we earned this honor were the likelihood of customer recommendations, the quality of communication with customers and our range of services.
“It’s important to Fantastic Sams that our customers enjoy their salon experience; we want it to be the best part of their day,” says Denise Gorlick, Fantastic Sams Vice President of Operations. “Earning a spot in Newsweek’s inaugural list of America’s Best Companies for Customer Service demonstrates that our franchisees are making our customers happy, proud and satisfied. It’s why they keep coming back and recommending our salon services to others.”
To create the list, Newsweek collaborated with analytics firm Statista to conduct an independent survey of more than 20,000 U.S. customers. They were asked how likely they would be to recommend brands to friends and family. Respondents also evaluated brands based on quality of communication, technical competence, range of services, customer focus and accessibility.
This is one of several recent accolades for Fantastic Sams. The company also earned a spot in Entrepreneur magazine’s 2019 Franchise 500® list, the world’s most comprehensive franchise ranking. Fantastic Sams consistently earns placement in the annual ranking due to the brand strength and support we offer franchisees.
About Fantastic Sams
Fantastic Sams is one of the world’s largest salon franchises, offering women, men and children quality hair care at an affordable cost. Refining its business model over the course of four decades, Fantastic Sams is the oldest franchised unisex salon in North America. The company revolutionized the hair salon franchise industry in the 1970s by introducing a no-appointment-necessary experience to the full-service hair salon. Now the franchise has nearly 1,000 locations across the country, and it continues to grow. Fantastic Sams is headquartered in Massachusetts and it is owned by Dessange International, a multinational European luxury salon and beauty products company.
Explore our franchising opportunities
Discover how you can become an owner of one of our hair salon franchises by filling out the form on this page. You can also learn more about the franchise offering by exploring our research pages.


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Bitcoin’s plunge extended to almost 30 per cent Friday as the frenzy surrounding digital currencies faced one of its biggest tests yet.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency approached US$10,000 as this week’s selloff entered a fourth day with increasing momentum. It touched a record high US$19,511 on Monday. Other cryptocurrencies also tumbled, ethereum dropped as much as 36 per cent and litecoin slumped as much as 43 per cent, according to composite prices on Bloomberg.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Bitcoin dropped to as low as US$10,776, before recovering to US$12,768 at 11:16 a.m. in New York.
It last traded below US$10, 000 on Dec. 1, when the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission agreed to allow trading in bitcoin futures. For the week, the decline is as much as 39 per cent. The price of the digital coin had more than doubled in the prior three weeks.


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Photo Credit: Rennon Kiefer
Southwest Airlines Offers Interest-Free Payment Plans On Flights As Low As $49
Southwest Airlines has teamed up with Uplift to offer interest-free payment plans on the carrier’s flights— including those to Hawaii. The ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ option is valid on tickets as low as $49 one-way and trips through August 31.
This means you can take a flight as soon as tomorrow and choose to pay later— in either three or six-month installments— with no late fees or penalties.
“We are thrilled to expand our growing partnership with one of America’s most beloved airlines offering customers a budget-friendly way to experience the aloha spirit of the Hawaiian Islands,” said Tom Botts, Chief Commercial Officer of Uplift in a press release.
“Since the launch of our partnership in April 2021, we continue to see strong growth and customer adoption of Uplift’s easy payment options. This incredible offer of interest-free installments makes a Hawaiian vacation a reality for travelers who already enjoy Southwest’s friendly hospitality and low-cost fares, and new customers as well.”
Southwest currently has routes to the beautiful Hawaiian islands of Honolulu, Hilo, Maui, Kona, and Lihue; with nonstop service from cities across the continental U.S. like as Las Vegas, Long Beach, Sacramento, Los Angeles , Oakland, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Diego, and San Jose.
“We know there is a strong travel demand to Hawaii and are excited to fly our customers to the Aloha State,” Jonathan Clarkson, Southwest Airlines Vice President of Loyalty, Partnerships, and Products said in a statement.
Visitors and returning residents currently traveling to Hawaii are required to be at least 14 days past their first round of vaccine shots. Those who aren’t fully vaccinated must provide proof of a pre-departure negative COVID-19 test, or you must quarantine for five days.
For more information on this partnership, terms of the ‘buy now, pay later’ plan, and to book, you can visit http://southwest.com/uplift.


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Nintendo Switch's online service will be released in September of this year, Nintendo of America has revealed.
In a tweet, Nintendo has simply revealed the service, seemingly titled Nintendo Switch Online, will debut in September, though no specific date or other service details were provided.
Until its launch, usage of the Switch online app for mobile and online multiplayer and functionality in Switch games will remain free to all Switch owners.
Jonathon Dornbush is an Associate Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter @jmdornbush.


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A DJ has turned the tables on expensive running costs by switching to the all-electric Nissan e-NV200.
Ross Winhall, who runs Buckwild Entertainments, had been spending around £250 a month travelling to gigs and delivering equipment in his old diesel van.
But since switching to the e-NV200 he has more than halved his monthly outlay, with the savings covering the cost of leasing the vehicle.
Lower maintenance costs – another major benefit of the e-NV200 – are also helping to minimise the total cost of ownership.
This, in turn, is helping Ross win new business by keeping his prices competitive.
The businessman, who lives in Pulroan, Cornwall, said: “I looked into the numbers and it’s a complete no brainer.
“I was spending hundreds of pounds on diesel every month just getting to and from gigs. But with the e-NV200, my running costs are almost non-existent as I can charge for free at many service stations.”
He added: “It’s not just cheap to run though. It’s also fantastic to drive.”
The e-NV200 is based on the Nissan NV200 – International Van of the Year 2010 – and utilises the proven technology of the record-breaking Nissan LEAF.
In addition to low running costs and zero emissions mobility, users also benefit from low maintenance costs that make for unrivalled total cost of ownership – £1,200 lower than a conventional diesel van over four years – and an unbeatable proposition for businesses large and small thanks to the unique driving experience of the e-NV200, drivers will feel less fatigued due to the lack of engine vibration in the cabin.
Meanwhile, the model, which is priced from £13,568 in panel van form (incorporating PiVG), offers a class-leading 4.2m3 capacity and an impressive 703kg payload.
Ross added: “It’s a great way to save money and the environment. It’s also a fantastic way of drawing attention to my business. Every time I stop at a service station to charge up people always come up and ask me about it.”
For more information about Buckwild Entertainments, visit www.buckwild.co.uk


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Whether as drivers or passengers, we all have faced a pneumatic issue on the road. At least in my city, where tracks are far from being uniform, a flat tire is a common and time-wasting incident. Knowing the great versatility of 3D printing for a while now, I’ve been wondering why we can’t just 3D print an airless tire; Fortunately, French tire manufacturer company Michelin seems to have a futuristic solution on its latest concept tire!
Michelin’s 3D printed concept tire could theoretically last the entire lifespan of a car
Michelin made public a new concept tire for the future of sustainable mobility. This is a puncture-proof, airless, 3D printed tire made of biodegradable filament; Dubbed the “Michelin Visionary Concept,” it was unveiled on the Michelin stand at Movin’On, the international summit on sustainable mobility, in Montreal (June 13 to 15).
Inspired by the structure of coral, it is stiff at the center and gets gradually softer as it approaches the outside edge; This last is for achieving maximum versatility on the road.
In case it was a reality, the tire would suit changing weather conditions.
Tire’s re-printable tread
The concept tire would be re-printable with the right amount of rubber; This is the main benefit of being airless. Michelin sees a green future for reprinting tires and on its ‘Print&Go’ station we can realize how the app works (watch the video at the end of the post).
“Your tread instantly adjusts to your driving conditions, whenever necessary, using just the right amount of materials. A tread […]modified and replenished at will; without wasting any resources, time or money, and which protects the environment for the generations to come.”
Michelin Visionary Concept tire has special sensors. These allow drivers to monitor performance via special onboard app; Put in a nutshell, the driver would choose to reprint the tires at the press of a button.
Eco-Friendly Biodegradable tires
As a matter of fact, the planet needs our help. Out coming products require to be the most eco-friendly possible; The new Michelin tire is biodegradable thanks to all ‘bio-sourced’ materials used on its production.
The promising future of Michelin’s 3D printed tires
Even though Clermont-Ferrand-based company is not actually taking this further than the prototype stage for now, the concept suggests that its R&D teams are at least thinking of using additive manufacturing sometime. The lead designer of this project, Mostapha El-Oulhani, said:
“it is a showcase of our expertise as well as a promise of the future…”
Meaning we still have to wait for the tire to be out in the market.
However, Michelin is currently holding 19 patents relating to the VISION tire projects; According to the company, protecting all aspects of its design process and materials are a priority. Meanwhile, rival tire companies, like Goodyear, have also unveiled its own vision for the future of 3D printing tires; Certainly, these are quite different designs, but 3D printing is a strong element in all manufacturing processes.
It seems that Michelin is crashing the traditional manufacturing mold process with this new 3D printing tire concept.
Stay updated with 3dprinterchat, More news coming up soon!


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While the company is approaching one year of consecutive weekly harvest, and supplying 2,000 retail locations, the losses have continued to stack up.
On Thursday, Land-based salmon farmer Atlantic Sapphire announced net losses of US$51.5m for the second quarter, 2021. This tops last year’s losses of US$10.7 million for the same period.
The company attributes some of the problems experienced to increased demand for liquid oxygen due to covid. Shortages forced the early harvest of some 100,000 fish at sub-optimal weights. This can have an impact on “regulations, supply chain and construction activities in the group”, the company noted in its quarterly report.
“As of today, deliveries of oxygen in Florida are subject to extremely high demand from health and community safety customers. Limited supply of oxygen to the United States, combined with US federal working time restrictions on truck drivers, has limited their ability to deliver oxygen. This is expected to continue in the coming weeks. Ultimately, the consequences and timeline of the coronavirus are still unclear, and the overall effect on business is uncertain.”
For the time being, Atlantic Sapphire must reduce the feeding of the fish.
On Twitter, CEO Johan E. Andreassen expresses a hope for an early increase in feeding. Because without feeding, there will be neither biomass growth nor salmon to harvest. Then there will be no income either – while the costs continue to stack up.
Stock prices for the Miami based company plummeted by 20.8 per cent after the company announced the losses. Atlantic Sapphire shares are now trading below NOK 60 – for the first time since 2018.
Total harvest volumes for the first half of the year were 1,275 tonnes, up from 989 tonnes the previous year.
Atlantic Sapphire is best known for its Miami Bluehouse salmon. According to the company’s report, Atlantic Sapphire now estimates that 3,000 tonnes of harvest volume from the Miami plant can be pushed forward from the second half of 2021 to 2022. Lower harvest volumes are expected during the first half of 2022 due to lower numbers of fish.


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One of the fundamental points that Indian policymakers and politicians haven’t understood since independence is that India needs to encourage manufacturing that employs low skilled and unskilled workers.
The public sector enterprises that were launched after independence concentrated on skilled manufacturing, and in the process did not create much employment. The Make In India programme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, made the same mistake initially.
As Ruchir Sharma writes in The Rise and Fall of Nations-Ten Rules of Change in the Post Crisis World:
On 22 June, 2016, the Modi government made a small but very important change in the labour laws that govern the textile sector in India. As the press release put out by the Ministry of Textiles pointed out: “Looking at the seasonal nature of the industry, fixed term employment shall be introduced for the garment sector. A fixed term workman will be considered at par with permanent workman in terms of working hours, wages, allowances and other statutory dues.”
The fact that the move has come nearly two years after Modi became the prime minister tells us that the Indian establishment still remains enamored by the idea of skilled manufacturing.
Nevertheless, this is a very important move. As Amrit Amirapu and Arvind Subramanian write in a research paper titled ‘Manufacturing or Services? An Indian Illustration of a Development Dilemma’: “Historically, there have been three modes of escape from under-development: geology, geography, and “jeans” (code for low-skilled manufacturing).”
In fact, the East Asian countries that escaped poverty did so by jumping on to the jeans or the low-skilled manufacturing bandwagon. As Amirapu and Subramanian write:
There is no reason that India should have been attempting anything else. But such was the marketing spin, first around public sector enterprises and then around information technology, that manufacturing that employs low-skilled workers was sort of looked down upon. But at the end of the day public sector enterprises and information technology needed skilled workers and given that they could create only so many jobs. And this was nowhere near the number of jobs that India needs.
Most estimates now suggest that India needs to create around one million jobs every month, for fresh individuals who are entering the workforce.
The textiles sector has the ability to create many low-skilled jobs and that gives it a tremendous fit with India’s natural competitive advantage i.e. low-skilled labour. In fact, as Arvind Subramanian and Rashmi Verma point out in a recent column in The Indian Express: “Every unit of investment in clothing generates 12 times as many jobs as that in autos and nearly 30 times that in steel.”
But the irony is that when comes to textiles, even Bangladesh is doing better than India. As Mihir S. Sharma writes in his book Restart-The Last Chance for the Indian Economy: “Before the expansion of trade, thanks to new international rules in the twenty-first century, India made $10 billion from textile exports, and Bangladesh $8 billion. Today India makes $12 billion-and Bangladesh $21 billion.”
So what happened here? The textile industry, explains Sharma, needs to turnaround big orders quickly and efficiently. This means that really long assembly lines are needed. As he writes: “100 people can sequentially work to make a pair of trousers in least time. In Bangladesh, the average number of people in a factory is between 300 and 400; in the South Indian textiles hub of Tirupur, it’s around 50.”
India has very few factories that actually employ more than 500 people. Now compare that with China. The largest garment manufacturing factories in China have a workforce of 30,000. In fact, even Bangladesh has garment manufacturing units with 10,000 workers. In India, the numbers rarely go beyond 1,000 workers. In fact, in India, the garment manufacturers prefer to split their workforce into many units, instead of employing a lot of workers at one unit. This basically comes from the fear of not being able to retrench workers.
In fact, Subramanian and Verma make a similar point in their column in The Indian Express where they say that“an estimated 78 percent of firms in India employ less than 50 workers with 10 percent employing more than 500 workers. In China, the comparable numbers are about 15 and 28, percent respectively.”
This leads to a situation where the Indian companies operating in the textiles sector do not have the economies of scale required to compete globally. One of the reasons the Indian companies cannot compete globally is because they can’t hire and fire workers according to the demand for their products.
The government has now introduced the concept of the fixed term contract which allows textile companies to hire workers for a fixed period, instead of offering permanent employment. Up until now companies had been hiring contract workers, who in many cases are not paid as much as permanent workers even though the work being done is exactly the same. The fixed term contracts will also allow companies the flexibility to hire according to their demand. And they won’t have to keep workers on the rolls even when they don’t actually need them.
In fact, this is one factor which has led to many textile companies not taking on more business in the past because once they had hired workers, they wouldn’t have been able to let them go. As the Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-2012) pointed out in this context:
In case of garment manufacturing, a lot of demand is basically export demand. This means that the demand tends to pick sometime before Christmas and New Year, and then it falls. In an ideal scenario this would mean hiring workers just a few months before Christmas and then letting them go, after the garments have been made and shipped. The fixed term contracts will allow companies to do just that, by hiring workers through the formal job market, instead of working through contractors, and short-changing the workers.
The fixed term contracts will encourage textile companies to hire more workers. Nevertheless, they will still think going beyond 100 workers (or 300 workers in some cases) because then the Chapter V-B of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, is likely to kick-in.
This article was originally published in Vivek Kaul’s Diary – a newsletter that cuts through the noise and presents actionable views on socio-economic developments in India and the world. He is the author of a trilogy on the history of money and the financial crisis. The series is titled Easy Money.
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This Wednesday, July 27 at the BCBG store in Georgetown (3210 M Street) from 6:30-8:30 p.m. there will be a dual preview party for BCBG’s fall line and book launch for Beth Harbison and Sarah Pekkanen.
Beth Harbison and Sarah Pekkanen are two New York Times bestselling authors who are both from the D.C. metro area. Beth and Sarah will be signing copies of their new books ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE TO REMIND ME and SKIPPING A BEAT, and books will also be available for sale. We hear Beth's Shoe Addict series is being made into a movie, and will star Academy Award winning acress Halle Berry.
In addition to bottomless champagne and appetizers, the first 150 guests will receive gift bags that are worth more than $150, and there will be drawings for prize giveaways worth more than $500.
GuestofaGuest has two tickets for two lucky tweeters. Be our guest--we will pick two lucky tweeters that retweet this message, #GoGBook to come with us for free!
Don't want to risk it? Buy your ticket here.


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Following the roaring success of the inaugural Classic Virgins day at the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon, a repeat event is to be held on 29 March.
The hands-on, informative event is aimed at those considering buying and owning a classic car and gives them a chance to ride in a range of classic vehicles on country roads.
The day will give participants information about the theory of classic car ownership including choosing a car, finance, insurance, club support and social scene.
There will also be some hands-on experience in the workshop enabling new owners to tackle basic maintenance with greater confidence.
The afternoon will be dedicated to driving with a range of cars made available by enthusiasts.
Emma Rawlinson, Lifelong Learning Officer at the HMC said “After the success of our first experience day, we’re delighted to offer participants another chance to learn more about classic car ownership. After the event, participants will be in a better position to make an informed decision about buying a classic car without the added sales pressure”.
The event is only open to over 18s and costs £50 per person including lunch, refreshments and museum entry. Click here for more information.


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10 Nov 2021
Australasia’s independent vehicle safety consumer advocate, ANCAP SAFETY, has today welcomed the announcement by the Australian Government to introduce an Australian Design Rule (ADR) mandating the fitment of autonomous emergency braking (AEB) in light vehicles.
The new Australian Design Rule specifies the regulatory requirement for AEB systems to be fitted on newly-introduced vehicle models from March 2023, and all models on sale in Australia from March 2025 – slightly behind the European regulatory introduction timeframe of July 2022 and July 2024.
ANCAP has been strongly encouraging the voluntary fitment of AEB technology across the Australian and New Zealand fleets through its national community awareness and advocacy activities since 2012, and more formally through its safety testing and star rating program since 2015.
“Today’s announcement by the Australian Government to mandate autonomous emergency braking is a welcome step in closing the gap to ensure all new vehicles are equipped with this life-saving technology,” said ANCAP Chief Executive Officer, Carla Hoorweg.
“A key role played by ANCAP is to build consumer awareness, confidence and demand for vehicle safety features and technologies through its non-regulatory approach. AEB has consistently been shown to improve safety outcomes, and our latest analysis of new light vehicle sales shows 89.5 per cent of all new vehicles sold - 222 models - were available with AEB.”
“This is a significant achievement, and the automotive industry is to be congratulated for its efforts in achieving such a high fitting rate ahead of regulatory intervention,” Ms Hoorweg said.
“Voluntary fitment alone however cannot achieve full market coverage. The mandating of AEB will push manufacturers that have been slow to introduce this technology to catch up – ensuring 100% of new Australian vehicles will have the benefit of AEB from March 2025.”
Australian Design Rule 98/00 (car-to-car AEB) and ADR 98/01 (car-to-pedestrian AEB) implements the provisions of UN Regulation 152 for the Australian market, and will apply to all passenger cars, off-road passenger cars and light goods vehicles (MA, MB, MC and NA category vehicles).
AEB has been shown to reduce police-reported crashes by 55%, rear-end crashes by 40% and vehicle occupant trauma by 28% . These safety benefits are expected to improve further following the introduction of the ADR and evolution in the sophistication of AEB systems being encouraged through ANCAP’s safety rating criteria. It is estimated that the implementation of ADR 98/00 and 98/01 will save 580 lives and avoid 20,400 serious and 73,340 minor injuries – net benefit of $1.9 billion.
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Dear primemLast week the London Covid Business Forum came together to discuss the Government’s roadmap out of the lockdown.
The Letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson is signed by Sadiq Khan, with British Beauty Council CEO Millie Kendall MBE being one of the other signatories.
The Letter reads:
“Dear Prime Minister,
Last week the London Covid Business Forum came together to discuss the Government’s roadmap out of the lockdown.
We welcome the roadmap, which provides more information for Londoners about what the next few months may look like if we continue to make progress in reducing the spread of the virus. The health of individuals and the health of our businesses are intertwined.
It is important that lessons are learnt from previous lockdowns and we are committed to doing everything in our power to support businesses to survive this crisis and to ensure that London maintains its global pre-eminence as a centre for international business, culture and tourism. To give London’s businesses the best chance of being able to survive, recover and reopen when it’s their turn, they need ongoing support, more detail, and further reassurance now.
For many businesses which fall into the latter timeline of the roadmap, any semblance of reopening in an economically viable way is still many months away. As the beginning of the new financial year approaches, businesses are making decisions now about the future of their businesses, including making decisions that directly impact their employees.
We therefore urge you to immediately prioritise the following urgent steps:
- Continue business support for as long as social distancing restrictions remain in place;
- Confirm the continuation of the furlough scheme;
- Confirm an extension to the business rates holiday for retail, leisure, childcare, and hospitality businesses, that was due to end in March 2021 to end of 2021;
- Confirm an extension to the reduced 5% VAT rate for hospitality, holiday accommodation and attractions, currently due to end 31 March 2021 to end of 2021.
The Central Activities Zone (CAZ) acts as the engine room to the city. The safe reopening of Central London will be fundamental to the long-term future prosperity of the capital. London has always benefitted from huge levels of both domestic and international tourism – but that has virtually dried up due to the pandemic.
Recent analysis showed that over the course of 2020 visitors from overseas and the rest of the UK spent nearly £11 billion less than in 2019. Last week, the Mayor announced a proposal to invest a further £5m to support the reopening of central London. This will include a brand-new drive to attract Londoners and UK tourists back to hard-hit retail, hospitality and cultural venues.
London’s vital visitor attractions have not been able to benefit from the majority of 2020’s bank holidays. To make the most of the gradual reopening through the spring and summer, the GLA and key stakeholders are working towards building key moments of activation that showcase central London’s public spaces and cultural icons.
To give the biggest boost to the economy and to maximise on the opportunity of reopening, we are calling on the Government to:
- Invest in the city centre recovery with, at a minimum, match funding the Mayor’s £5m investment into reopening the London economy.
Agree to an additional bank holiday in September, as proposed by industry organisations such as the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions.
We all stand ready to work alongside you to ensure that London once again returns to its pre-pandemic levels of prosperity.
Mayor of London
Vice President & Vice Principal (London), King’s College London
Chief Executive, London Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Director of Strategy & Policy, London First
Director, Association of Leading Visitor Attractions
Regional Secretary, TUC London, East and South East
London Policy Chair, FSB
Millie Kendall MBE
Chief Executive Officer, British Beauty Council
Chief Executive Officer, Night Time Industries Association
Professor Angus Knowles-Cutler CC FRSA
Deputy Chair, the London Economic Action Partnership
Beer & Pub
Policy Chair, City of London Corporation
Chief Executive, Heart of London Business Alliance
Chief Executive, UKHospitality
Caroline Norbury MBE
Chief Executive, Creative Industries Federation
Chief Executive Officer, Camden Town Unlimited & Chair, Transition Board Business Reopening Strategy Group
Sir Peter Rogers
Chairman, New West End Company
Chief Executive, Croydon Town Centre Business Improvement District Ltd”
Read the letter here.


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Tesco is promising to take some of the pain out of the weekly grocery shop for parents by offering free fruit for children to munch on.
The UK’s biggest supermarket tested the initiative in Scotland last year and will now offer a selection of apples, citrus fruit and bananas for parents to pick up at the start of their shopping trip in 800 UK stores. The retailer is facing fierce competition from fast-growing discounters Aldi and Lidl, and is looking for ways to win over shoppers.
The idea came from one of its checkout assistants, Maria Simpson, who works in a Lincolnshire store. She suggested that handing out free fruit to children would provide a healthy alternative to sweets – often a last resort for harassed parents.
Two years ago Tesco became the first major retailer to remove sweets and chocolates from its checkouts and in 2015 it announced all the children’s lunchbox-sized soft drinks it sells would have no added sugar. It expects to give away 1m pieces of fruit each month as part of the new healthy eating push.
“We are Britain’s biggest greengrocer, so we want to make it easier for parents to get their children eating more healthily,” said Tesco’s UK chief, Matt Davies. “As a dad, I know it can be tricky getting children to eat their fruit and vegetables, so we’re hoping this initiative will help create healthy eating habits that will stay with children as they grow up.”
The British Heart Foundation has welcomed the idea. Its chief executive, Simon Gillespie, said: “It’s a positive step towards improving children’s health throughout the UK and helps parents ensure their children get their five portions of fruit and vegetables every day.”
Tesco group chief executive Dave Lewis, a former Unilever executive, is trying to rehabilitate the company . He has encouraged staff to improve the service for shoppers under the slogan “every little help makes a big difference” with initiatives such as distributing unsold food to charities and tackling food waste.


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Washington, Jan 30 (ANI): Tickets for the first weekend of this year's 'Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival' reportedly sold out within 15 minutes, even when computer users reported widespread problems in attempting to purchase weekend passes.
Long wait times and site crashes plagued those attempting to purchase tickets for the more-in-demand April 12 weekend of the annual music festival's in Indio, California, the Los Angeles Times reported.
However, the tickets for April 12 continued to be purchased up to two hours after they were said to be sold out.
Also, the tickets for the weekend of April 19 still appeared available at the time of this posting.
Tales of ticketing woes filled the Coachella Facebook page, with many reporting that the festival's ticket agency Front Gate would log users out or fail to load once a user's credit card info had been entered.
Even as users were having trouble giving Front Gate their payment information, the company tried to calm nerves, and posted on Front Gate's official Facebook account- "Oh there are SO many people buying. Hang tight, try again in a minute.... THANKS for all your patience!". (ANI)


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More than 5,000 sites, including sites belonging to the NHS, ICO, local councils and the Student Loans Company were hit by a cryptocurrency mining campaign that exploited a popular plug-in to infect sites with a malicious script.
Cyber-criminals set up a malicious website that spoofed the original Reddit site and stole login credentials of unsuspecting visitors, yet managed to obtain a valid SSL certificate from a domain registry.
To prevent fraud, online retailers need to widen their cyber-security perimeters to encompass virtual geographies such as the deep web and social networking sites to identify and block fraud threats before they are executed.
The Central Intelligence Agency can take some small comfort that as WikiLeaks was preparing for its latest dump of the spy agency's Vault7 hacking tools, a group of hackers was busy defacing WikiLeaks' homepage.
Prospective Newcastle University students are being scammed into handing over details and making payments for fake courses.
As part of its #NoHacked campaign, Google has published figures on the state of website security, and the trend doesn't look good.
Undetected coding error allows sensitive customer information to pour from sites since September - now fixed and believed unexploited
Mozilla is introducing the first major piece of its multi-process architecture with its latest browser version, Firefox 50.
New research from Web Foundry that polled 1,000 parents of children of school age suggests that UK schools need to invest in their online strategy.
The National Childbirth Trust has become the latest victim of hackers seeking to plunder data from every source possible on the internet.
M&S website closed for two hours as customers see the account details of others. Retailer says it was an internal issue, not a hack, and no financial details were disclosed.
The Malaysian government is preparing itself against cyber-attacks threatened to occur two days before National Day on 29 August.


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One of Derry’s most famous buildings and businesses is looking to make some upgrades to keep up with today’s market.
Sam Patel, owner of the East Derry Store, has been looking to add room to his store that will include a 25 seat restaurant. Patel proposed the idea to the town’s Planning Board on Sept. 20, so they could review and hopefully accept the current site plan.
Patel was accompanied to the meeting by Tim Peloquin of Promised Land Survey, who further explained the details of the plan.
According to Peloquin, Patel is hoping to make this addition because he feels that general stores like his are a dying breed and he needs this restaurant to help keep his business strong.
“It would greatly increase his business motto and his opportunity to survive and thrive,” Peloquin stated.
The building itself has already been framed and built, but Patel is unable to properly open the restaurant until he gained the proper approval from the town. He and Peloquin were also seeking acceptance of plans for additional parking next to the store. Although the new parking would be abutting the Upper Village Hall, Patel had reached an agreement with the East Derry Improvement Society to push the idea forward for the benefit of both sides.
Members of the society were also in attendance to voice their support, one of whom was David Mills, one of the directors for the society, who stated that they and Patel had come to a verbal agreement on the matter.
However, members of the board began to express some confusion over the site plan and what exactly was being done to the surrounding area to produce this new parking lot. They were worried about the lack of a written easement between the two sides and the complications that would cause. There was also concern over the effect that this would have on the Upper Village Hall, which has been a major historical landmark in Derry since 1875, even serving as Derry’s Town Hall at one point.
“This is clearly a unique situation,” member Jim MacEachern noted.
Jurisdiction for the plan was accepted by all members except for Mark Connors and Brian Chirichielo, on the grounds that they felt not even jurisdiction should be accepted without a more complete site plan. As a result of this confusion, review and acceptance of the site plan was moved to the board’s next meeting on Oct. 4, giving the applicants time to clear up the blueprints for the board.


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The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition 2017 is one of the big pop culture moments in Q1 of 2017. Here is everything you need to know. Updated.
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition is a massive online and print event. The sports magazine managed to make its special Swimsuit edition a thing everybody is talking about each year.
Don't Miss: Super Bowl 2017 Commercials & Advertisers
Sports Illustrated announced on January 10th that Aly Raisman and Simone Biles are featured in the SI Swimsuit 2017 edition. The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition 2017 will be released on Monday Feb. 13, 2017.
Sports Illustrated released a new teaser video for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2017 edition on January 18. Fans can get a glimpse of the locations, swimsuits and sexy bodies of the swimsuit models. The identities of the models is kept secret.
The VIBES by Sports Illustrated Swimsuit festival will take place in Houston on Feb. 17 and Feb. 18, marking the end of the SI Swimsuit edition launch week. The tickets are on sale now here.
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Models 2017
Sports Illustrated started to reveal the swimsuit models featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition 2017 on January 10. Athletes Aly Raisman and Simone Biles are the first models that Sports Illustrated revealed for the 2017 Swimsuit issue.
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition 2017 Release Date
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition 2017 will be released on Monday, February 13, 2017. SI Swimsuit will reveal this year’s highly anticipated special content, including the 2017 cast of swimsuit models, cover star, issue debut, a live-streamed red-carpet launch party in New York and more.
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition
Last year the magazine featured three different Swimsuit cover models. Plus-sized model Ashley Graham, UFC fighter Ronda Rousey and model Hailey Clauson appeared on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition 2016.
Sports Illustrated is busy since months casting models for the 2017 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. Dozens of casting videos of potential swimsuit models are available on SI.com. Models invited to the 2017 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition castings include Genevieve Rokero, Danielle Herrington, Rachell Vallori, Lada, Leila Lopes, Alexandria Morgan and Gabriella Kuti.
SI has not yet revealed any famous models, athletes or celebrities that will be featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition 2017. Maybe Kate Upton will make a comeback to the swimsuit edition. Also still under wraps is the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition 2017 release date.
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition 2016 release was is on Monday, February 15, 2016. In 2017 the swimsuit edition is likely to be released on February 13 or February 20. The release on newsstands is accompanied by a digital release, live events and possible TV show again. The 1-hour Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2016 Revealed show aired on TNT. It was the first time the swimsuit edition was featuring with its own show.
The Time Inc. owned Sports Illustrated Swimsuit franchise reaches more than 73 million people annually, and more men 18 to 34 than the Super Bowl.
The iconic franchise now spans more than 20 product extensions in digital social, broadcast, publishing, mobile and consumer products, along with supporting a vibrant experiential marketing business.
Since debuting in 1964 Swimsuit has become a pop-culture phenomenon and an established launching pad for successful careers in TV, fashion, business and film including those of Kathy Ireland, Cheryl Tiegs, Tyra Banks and Heidi Klum. The 2017 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue is the 53rd.


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Google has announced an updated version of the Android Automotive emulator that has support for Google Play Store, meaning that devs can now test more parts of their apps without the need for an actual car running the platform.
The new emulator makes it possible for software developers to create their apps from one end to another a lot easier and without waiting for cars with Android Automotive to become available.
“This means developers no longer have to wait to get their hands on a vehicle, but can design, develop, run apps right within the emulator, and can now test distribution via Play Console by requesting access,” Madan Ankapura, Product Manager, Android, says.
The app push
In addition, Google also announced that more apps are being developed for Android Automotive, presumably paving the road for the ecosystem to expand beyond the media a… (read more)
Read more at: Source link


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Out-Law News 3 min. read
28 Aug 2013, 10:40 am
In an interim report (12-page / 724KB PDF) it has published as part of its ongoing review into mobile banking, the FCA flagged up a number of risks associated with carrying out banking and payment activity on mobile phones and called on companies involved in providing such services to help tackle and resolve those risks.
One of the issues raised by the regulator was in relation to challenges presented by small screens and keypads on mobile devices.
"While many of these services are relatively new, there is a greater chance that consumers may encounter difficulties using mobile banking, compared with more traditional services," the FCA said. "This could result in consumers making errors, such as paying the wrong recipient or entering an incorrect amount."
"Mobile phones, with their smaller screens and limited keypad, may make these errors more likely, therefore it is important for us to understand how firms are mitigating this risk. We also want to understand whether firms have appropriate processes in place to resolve mistakes if they do occur," it added.
The FCA also raised concerns about the potential for fraud, the risk to data security and the potential for service disruption around mobile banking services.
In addition, it warned that companies face challenges when using third party providers to deliver mobile banking services and said that companies also need to take steps to meet anti-money laundering rules after identifying potential problems in the verification of payments made via mobiles.
"For firms to comply with their legal and regulatory requirements they must have systems and controls in place to identify, assess and mitigate the risk of financial crime," the FCA said. "Mobile banking and payments are new services for firms and consumers to access and transfer funds. Therefore we need to ensure that firms have proportionate and risk-sensitive systems and controls in place."
"From our research, we believe this is especially relevant for mobile banking services that are not linked to the customer’s current account. We will consider the extent to which firms should carry out additional checks to verify the identity of the payee and recipient. Mobile banking may also make it challenging for firms to identify and report suspicious transactions," it said.
"We have seen firms take measures to prevent the risk of money laundering through mobile banking and we know that having robust systems and controls can be an effective mitigant against such risks. It is important that these risks are adequately mitigated, especially where firms are moving into more advanced forms of mobile banking, such as facilitating overseas payments," the regulator said.
Banking law expert Tony Anderson of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said that advancements in technology present a regulatory challenge to banks. He predicted that new product designers will work more closely with in-house compliance and legal teams at banks when developing new mobile banking and payment services now that the FCA is taking a greater interest in the area.
"Changing technology presents both opportunities and threats to banks," Anderson said. "Mobile banking is a feature increasingly demanded by consumers that want the ability to transact on-the-go at a time of their own convenience and banks that get their mobile banking services right, through apps and other software, stand to gain a competitive advantage."
"At the same time, banks need to be sure that they meet all their regulatory obligations when providing services via this evolving technological landscape. How can they be sure, for example, that they can comply with rules around data security when new devices are launched to the market or when users change between handsets? The FCA’s review will prompt banks to assess their arrangements with third parties. They will want to ensure that their arrangements with both device and product providers address issues such as the liability for outages and other technological glitches that impact on mobile banking consumers," he added.
The FCA said that it will now analyse how a sample number of mobile banking service providers meet the challenges it has identified in order to establish whether they are "meeting our expectations and treating their customers fairly".
As part of this testing the FCA said it would evaluate the strategies companies have in place for mobile banking, including in relation to their decision making and product governance. It also plans to look at the way the providers design mobile banking products to see how they address risks that arise, as well as assess how the companies deal with complaints from mobile banking customers.
The FCA will also test whether the information companies are displaying to mobile banking customers is "clear, fair and not misleading, and whether the content is appropriately aimed at the target audience".
The regulator is due to publish a final report from its review before the summer next year.


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SLASPA launches Seaport Trade Facilitation
The Saint Lucia Air and Seaports Authority (SLASPA) officially launched its new Seaport Trade Facilitation Initiative, dubbed “Less than Container Load (LCL)” on Wednesday. The LCL will allow local companies to facilitate trade with CARICOM countries, Martinique and Guadeloupe.
SLASPA’s General Manager Keegan Cox says that the initiative embraces the development of small manufacturing companies and local businesses in St. Lucia. “LCL ensures that our importers and exporters enjoy a 35 per cent reduction in the cost of freight by virtue of how it is designed,” Cox explained.
Permanent Secretary Titus Preville in his remarks said “We should see those lower costs being reflected in lower prices to the consumer at the supermarket.”
The initiative provides a 35% discount per cubic foot on dockside, stevedoring and destuffing charges for LCL CARICOM origin Cargo. Six months after the launch, SLASPA will also be allowing mixed loads.
Prior to the launch of the initiative, SLASPA held a series of consultations with stakeholders including the Chamber of Commerce, St. Lucia Manufacturers Association, St. Lucia Small Business Association and seaport stakeholders who gave valuable insight and feedback. The Chamber of Commerce has said the benefits of the LCL
initiative will be far-reaching, especially since there is a greater opportunity for local businesses to boost sales and expand into regional markets.
GM of SLASPA Keegan Cox.


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Buffett joins scorn of modern monetary theory and ‘danger zones’
Powell has said the concept of MMT is “just wrong.”
FULL TEXT: Warren Buffett's annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders
Focus on operating earnings, pay little attention to gains or lo...
Does a Harvard degree really matter? Tim Cook, Mary Barra's success shows otherwise
Only one CEO from top 20 companies in last year’s Fortune...
Arnault overtakes Buffett to become world's third-richest
Arnault’s 2018 gains rival those of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person.
Buffett wishes his successor will keep Berkshire together
Says market conditions make it tough to find more big companies to invest in.
In a shift, Buffett says focus on Berkshire's stock price
For nearly three decades, Buffett has led his shareholder letters with a discussion of book value.
Buffett theory for 'Elon Tusk' riddle turns out to be total bunk
Some of the most entertaining guesses hinged on the chief executive officer changing his name on Twitter to “Elon Tusk,” with an accompanying elephant emoji.
Over time, Berkshire will be a key repurchaser of its own shares: Buffett
In the 13-page letter, Buffett lamented the new Generally Accepted Accounting Principles policy that slammed Berkshire’s bottom line in 2018.
Warren Buffett's firm reports $25B 4Q loss on paper stock losses
That's down from last year's profit of $32.6 billion, or $13.19 per B share.
Warren Buffett is ditching the method he uses to evaluate his performance
In past, Berkshire only bought back shares when they were trading at 1.2x book value or cheaper.
Buffett appears to fault Trump, laments M&A dearth in Berkshire letter
Berkshire ended 2018 with $172.8 bn of equities, but most suffered double-digit declines.
Warren Buffett hints at share repurchase by Berkshire, finds prices high for a big acquisition
He warned investors against owning businesses at sky high prices.
Buffett doubles down on banks as Berkshire trims Apple stake
Buffett had long praised JPMorgan’s Dimon even as Berkshire didn’t invest in the stock.
Buffett praises Geico's $50 billion man who quietly stepped down
In 2018, Geico’s underwriting profit was $2.4 billion, rebounding from a $310 million loss the previous year.
Warren Buffett’s annual letter is coming soon. Here’s what to expect
Analysts are looking for any guidance Berkshire might provide on its sharebuyback program.