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Enthusiasts Tax reduction is likely to have pushed out fuel demand
Mercedes Formula 1 team is investing in sustainable flight fuel
© Motorsport Images Toto Wolff also personally thinks a lot about the topic of sustainability according to as a "First sports team worldwide", the Mercedes formula 1 team is investing in sustainable Flow fuel. The measure is part of the program with which the racing team from Brackley wants to reach CO2 neutrality by 2030. "Sustainable flight fuel has the potential, the way we travel, and the effects we have on the environment.
with the start of the temporary cutting tax in June, according to industry data, the demand for gasoline has increased significantly.
Domestic deliveries at petrol stations and other recipients rose strongly at the time compared to the previous months, as an evaluation of the official mineral oil data shows. With 1.58 million tons, they even exceeded the pre-corona value of June 2019 by almost 42,000 tons. In spring, the domestic deliveries at petrol had been significantly below the pre-corona values, on average at 1.34 million tons per month.
fuel prices for petrol continues to fall - Super E10 at pre -war level
Munich. Motorists with petrol engines can recharge their batteries again and immediately before the Ukraine War broke out. However, the ADAC does not see the reason for relaxation. © Julius-Christian Schreiner Super E10 has again reached the level before the war. The sink flight of fuel prices continues. Super gasoline of the E10 variety is again at the level before the start of the Ukraine war, as can be seen from ADAC numbers on Wednesday. One liter cost 1.75 euros in the nationwide average o
During this time, the fuel prices had reached the heights of the war in Ukraine. A connection to the sunken demand in spring is not necessarily detectable - but obvious. Accordingly, the temporary reduction in fuel tax by 35.2 cents at petrol - and thus falling prices at the petrol pumps - may now have caused a demand for a demand. At Diesel, the increase in delivery to the previous months was significantly lower, as the data published by the Federal Office for Economics and Export Control (BAFA) show. Here the tax relief with 16.7 cents was also lower.
, however, a side effect of tax cutting should also have led to a strong increase in June. Since the tax does not apply when selling the gasoline at the petrol station, but when it comes to delivery, it was profitable for petrol stations to replace its supplies at the end of May. And drivers also waited for the lower Juni prices. Accordingly, there had been the lowest domestic deliveries of the previous months with 1.29 million tons of petrol. However, as a sole explanation for the plus in June, this minus is far too small.
"It is obvious that the" tank discount "has led to a higher demand," said ADAC fuel market expert Christian Laberer. «It is also psychologically a big difference whether I have to pay 2.10 or 1.75 euros for one liter. This reduces the incentive to be particularly fuel -saving. »
How to Buy a Used Car .
Our tips and expert picks will help you find a reliable pre-owned vehicle at a price you can affordBy Benjamin PrestonUsed-car prices have soared this year, and according to market analysts, they ’re likely to remain high for a while. The reasons are complicated. In short, a global microchip shortage has meant that automakers can’t build new cars fast enough to meet demand. Fewer new cars for sale has increased demand for used cars, pushing prices up more than 40 percent above normal levels this past summer.


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Three new Guatemalan companies added as Authorized Economic Operators
AGEXPORT’s Integrated Exports Services commission (SIEX), with support from the European Union’s AL-Invest 5.0 program, the Tax Administration Superintendence and the Chamber of Industry organized the 2nd edition of the Authorized Economic Operator Congress.
More than 150 exporting and importing firms attended the 2018 Economic Operator Congress, an event that looked to promote this global trade certification as well as display progresses achieved on the Harmonization Agreement of Customs Services of Central America and Panama. The Authorized Economic Operator is a public-private strategic alliance to boost competitiveness as it considers certified companies as secure, trustable and financially solvent in the eyes of national and international customs authorities.
The Authorized Economic Operator is a competitiveness tool that eases and speeds up trade, reducing times and costs at customs. The 2nd edition of the AEO Congress looks to have more companies certified with this tool and have public and private institutions working jointly to raise the country’s competitiveness, said Mr. Antonio Malouf, AGEXPORT’s President.
Experts from El Salvador, Panama, Peru, Mexico and Colombia gave conferences on topics like the importance of the Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) as a competitiveness tool; harmonization of customs businesses in Central America and its benefits, success stories of importing and exporting firms, best practices of businesses in the implementation of the AEO.
At the Customs Intendency we have set competitiveness as our strategic vision. Therefore, we seek to promote international tools developed by the World Customs Organization and the World Trade Organization that give positive results internationally. One of this is the Authorized Economic Operator (AEO). We expect to increase the number of firms being recognized as AEOs as well as harmonize customs services with other countries in the region in order to raise the country’s competitiveness. Nevertheless, this must be a joint effort between public and private institutions with the common goal of looking for a higher development of the country. All our efforts need to be set on achieving this goal, said the Customs Intendent Mr. Werner Ovalle.
Since 2010, 24 Guatemalan companies have been certified as AEOs and these companies have become strategic allies of customs authorities.
Consolidating the Authorized Economic Operator in Guatemala will promote security on trade operations in the country and would benefit certified companies as well as provide higher economic stability. At the Chamber of Industry, we are looking to help our members to understand this tool as a differentiating factor with benefits not only for the country but to businesses themselves, said Mr. Javier Zepeda, CEO of the Chamber of Industry.
Three companies were recognized during the event: CROPA, INDUSTRIA LA POPULAR AND GRUPO VICAL, which are now certified as Authorized Economic Operators and accredited as trustable and secure businesses for Guatemala’s customs authorities as well as to other countries with which Guatemala signs harmonization agreements.
AGEXPORT’s Integrated Exports Services commission will continue its work to raise Guatemala´s competitiveness in global markets and support public and private institutions to promote the AEO, said Mrs. Leticia Salazar, president of AGEXPORT’s Export Services commission.
Along the benefits of being certified as AEO are: expedited access to customs services, simplified declarations to enter or take away goods, lower physical controls and documentations; all of this implying lower times and costs spent in customs.

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January 25, 2014
It's time for the Federal Communications Commission to correct its past mistakes and get tough on broadband providers, a retired FCC commissioner says.
Another day, another new disk drive review at Phoronix. After this week having already shared our Ubuntu Linux test results for the Kingston SSDNow V300, Western Digital WD10EZEX, and Samsung 840 EVO, the solid-state drive for review today is the SanDisk 64GB SDSSDP-064G-G25.
The press calls him a “nearly seventeen-year-old” and he’s reported to be one of the people behind the malware used to compromise credit card data at Target and other locations. He lives in Russia and is said to be the author of the BlackPOS malware that was used against Target and might have been used against Neiman Marcus.
The odd looking Rymdkapsel space station simulator will hit our digital shelves on the 30th January on Steam and directly from the developer.
For those in need of some open-source drama to get your Friday morning started, there continues to be a lot of dissenting views shared between Fedora users and developers over the future of the Linux distribution with the ongoing "Fedora.next" initiative.
The GNOME Project has announced that a new maintenance release of the 3.10 branch of the GNOME Chess application is now available for download, bringing fixes for several annoying bugs, updated translations, and various general enhancements.
The GNOME Project has announced that another development release towards the GNOME Boxes 3.12 remote and virtual machine management application for the GNOME desktop environment is available for download and testing.
It’s obvious that any self-published author needs a Web presence. But where to begin?
For those who aren't yet familiar with Docker, it takes the power of Linux containers (the ability to isolate software on a Linux system so that it can't see other software), pairs them with an efficient file system abstraction for delivering the exact libraries you need to any server, and then makes it all ridiculously easy to use.
For the past few weeks I've had the pleasure of playing with CompuLab's Utilite Computer. The Utilite is a miniature ARM desktop computer powered by Freescale's i.MX6 SoC and is running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. This is a speedy little Linux system that for some workloads can blow past Intel's original Atom Z530 "Poulsbo" SoC system.
This week, we explore the paradox of cloud computing for IT pros, why the cloud actually isn't a threat to IT jobs and the real reason PaaS lags behind other forms of cloud computing.
Nouveau, the reverse-engineered open-source NVIDIA Linux graphics driver that's been in development now for the better part of a decade, is working brilliantly for some NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards while for other NVIDIA GPUs the experience is a sloppy mess.
Samsung is still working towards bringing OpenACC support to GCC. We've seen Samsung developers working on OpenACC for GCC over the past several months -- along with other OpenACC initiatives out of CodeSourcery, etc -- and now there's some new OpenACC GCC Fortran patches.
ITTIA DB SQL version 6.0 brings peer-to-peer replication to smart devices, simplifying interoperability on Internet of Things to distribute locally stored data, where wireless connection is detected.
Games vendor Valve has offered a surprise present to the Debian Linux community, in the form of subscriptions that give Debian project members free, unlimited access to all Valve game titles – past, present, and future – forever.
The open-source WordPress content management system (CMS) project officially released its 3.8.1 update on the evening of Jan. 23 and provided users with bug fixes and stability updates. The 3.8.1 release is the first update to the WordPress 3.8 platform, which was originally released in mid-December 2013.While WordPress administrators needed to manually update their sites from the WordPress 3.7 branch to the 3.8 release, the update for 3.8.1 for many sites is being performed entirely automatically.


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MORE than 100 casual and part-time jobs will be created when fast food chain Hungry Jack’s opens two franchise restaurants in the North East.
The move comes 18 years after the chain’s first restaurant opened in Albury and two years after the closure of a Lavington outlet in 2012.
Work is under way on a Hungry Jack’s associated with The Spargo Group as part of Barnawartha North’s new truck service centre on the Murray Valley Highway. It is scheduled to open in May.
Construction of the second restaurant has started at White Box Rise in Wodonga on Victoria Cross Parade, next to Woolworths and is set to open before Easter.
White Box Rise is a second site for the existing owner of Albury’s Hungry Jack’s, believed to have an association with accountants Crowe Howath, formerly WHK.
National marketing manager Paul Tredinnick said Hungry Jack’s was pleased to invest in the Wodonga region.
“We look forward to offering the community the same fresh, great tasting food we serve in more than 360 restaurants around the country,” he said.
Both stores are seeking staff.
“A job with Hungry Jack’s is a great way to kick-start your working life and gain valuable skills,” Mr Tredinnick said.
“We’re supportive of career progression and, in fact, many of our corporate executives started off as crew members in their local stores.”
Albury’s restaurant in Hume Street took over a former Matilda’s in 1996.
Franchise owners at the time, Geoff and Gabrielle Manson, bought the building in a deal believed to be worth more than $1 million.
The store had to be re-built in 2010 after a fire.
About 100 people were evacuated from the fire, which occurred weeks after franchisee John Watson sold to a new owner.
A Lavington store in Wagga Road closed two years ago after sales fell when a Caltex service station shut.


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Sahur Sengkarai is back with its fourth pop-up market, gathering over 20 food vendors in its weekly initiative held throughout the fasting month.
Hosted by local business Aliqpombunai and supported by the Sengkarai Village Consultative Council (MPK), the Tutong-based night event gathered hundreds of patrons from among the local community.
Thanks to its strategic location between Brunei-Muara and Belait Districts, visitors and commuters across districts have an easy access to stop by for their sahur or pre-dawn meals.
Since its inception in 2021, Sahur Sengkarai has been a positive platform for small local vendors to do business and engage with their consumers face-to-face.
Just like in previous years, the sahur event is held three days a week during Ramadhan and attract numerous of people from all walks of life.
In an interview, the founder of Aliqpombunai said that the initiative aimed to create opportunities to local vendors consisting of youth entrepreneurs from Tutong and other districts to market their products.
“Sahur Sengkarai has become a trademark for Tutong District and the go-to place for patrons to have some good night out while having their sahur in an open-air concept,” said Khaliq Roziman.
He added that the pop-up market is held on the weekends; 21-23 March, 28-20 March and 4-6 April starting from 9pm until 1am.
Some of the vendors include The Saucysside Livecook, Abang Shish, Cakoi New York, Peaks, Uncburn, Mikkusu, The Umai Bn and M’s Brew, among others.
The opening night of the fourth Sahur Sengakarai was attended by Acting District Officer of Tutong Mohammad Sofian Haji Basri and Legislative Council member Yang Berhormat Abdul Aziz Haji Hamdan.
THE BRUNEIAN | BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN


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Apple’s Siri feature may be good for some casual fun, but it’s bad for company security.
That’s according to F-Secure Vice President Maria Nordgren, who calls Apple’s iPhone and iPad voice assistant a major security liability for businesses, technology site V3 is reporting.
“Siri, it’s cute right? I like it, but if you ask it a question, the data is not stored on the iPhone — it goes to a data center in Oregon,” Nordgren said at a press conference. “If anyone was interested in that information you’re screwed,” Nordgren said.
With Siri data in hand, hackers could potentially gain access to information such as web searches, location data, and the names of contacts, she warned.
Companies have taken particular umbrage with Siri’s data storing features, which occur as the software processes queries and spits out answers. This information will also improve the speed and quality of Siri’s results over time.
But while that’s good for Apple, it’s bad for any company that wants to keep its sensitive information to itself.
Just ask IBM, which had a sip of the anti-Siri Kool-Aid when it blocked the software on its network. Playing it safe, the company made the move out of fears that Apple or others could gain access to key company information. “We’re just extraordinarily conservative. It’s the nature of our business,” IBM CTO Jeanette Horan told Technology Review last month.
We’ve reached out to F-Secure and Apple and will update this story when the companies respond.
Photo: Man kicking/Shutterstock


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The delayed international rollout of Disney+ means that The Mandalorian’s biggest twists and turns have already been plastered all over the internet, if only so Disney can sell us on some very bad Baby Yoda merchandise while promising that the better stuff will be on the way eventually. So news that international fans will have to wait even longer to see it all is all the more perplexing.
Yesterday, Disney+ launched new locale-specific social media accounts for the service’s upcoming wave of European debuts, the first major wave of additions since the service launched in the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand in November 2019.
While doing that “look, we’re chipper on social media!” thing of introducing itself via a Twitter thread, the Disney+ UK account confirmed several new details about the platform’s launch, including one particularly odd decision: The Mandalorian’s first season will not be available in its entirety when the service launches on March 24, despite the fact that it finished airing in its entirety in the U.S. almost two months ago. Instead, it will roll out on a weekly basis.
In a way, it’s understandable—Disney would quite like you to keep subscribed to Disney+ for as long as possible, and parceling out one of its biggest pieces of original content is a way to guarantee that, rather than people signing up for a month, binge-watching all the Baby Yoda they desire, and then peacing out. But given the fact that it has been such a significant time since the show ended—and that the massive delay between rollouts has meant that Star Wars fans outside of the initially supported areas have taken to, diplomatically speaking, aggressively negotiating some alternate means of acquiring their Mando fix—it seems like an absurd choice.
Especially when, as The Mandalorian was rolling out, Disney and Lucasfilm were incredibly precious about spoilers for the show, declaring they wanted to “preserve the experience” for fans...as long as they were in those initial countries, that is, because it was only a matter of weeks before Baby Yoda was here, there, and everywhere, whether you were trying to dodge spoilers for five months or not. It also raises questions about release parity of other upcoming shows, whether it be Clone Wars, The Mandalorian’s second season, or the arrival of Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision.
Not having parity on a show that has been already available for months in other regions from the get-go does little toward instilling faith that going forward, fans outside of the U.S. will be able to see these shows as they were intended, alongside their fellow fans across the world. Even more so when part of the same thread about this Mandalorian news also included an incredibly vague statement about Disney+’s international content parity, with an attached Falcon and the Winter Soldier gif for good measure:
There is something to be said in this age of streamable, bingeable TV for a weekly roll out—and what it adds to the discussion around a piece of media, ensuring that by and large, the audience is at the same place in the story as each other, instead of having to dance around people who checked out an episode or two versus those who already got right through to the end. But that only works if the entire audience is on that level. Demanding that people wait months and months to get a show like The Mandalorian, only to then tell them they’ll have to wait another couple of months for it to fully roll out, just seems to fly in the face of that. In fact, it feels like this is distinctly...not the way.
Disney+ begins rolling out in the UK, Spain, France, and Italy starting March 24.
For more, make sure you’re following us on our Instagram @io9dotcom.


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The rapid changes in the European VoD sector and beyond during the lockdown were highlighted at the EuroVoD conference which took place today in Venice’s Hotel Excelsior as part of the Venice Production Bridge industry programme.
The ’Diverse, Independent and Sustainable: Building European VoD’ conference featured Guy Bisson of data and analytics firm Ampere Analysis. He provided detailed analysis and number crunching that showed while Covid-19 may have meant lost growth for the industry in general, VoD has benefitted massively from the crisis.
Bisson’s forecasts suggest the next five years will see a €50bn increase in global revenues through streaming while theatrical revenues will dip by €25bn in the same period.
“The slight downside is that consumers believe that after we’re through this, after we’re all out of lockdown and able to behave completely normally, there will be a bit of a backlash and they won’t watch as much or might ditch some of their subscriptions,” Bisson said.
The streaming market is also becoming increasingly crowded. “It’s not all about Netflix anymore,” Bisson said, using a graph to compare Netflix’s global market share in Q4 2015 – when it stood at 43% – to where it stands today, which is 19%.
The independents’ share of the global market has also dropped, primarily because larger platforms are driving the rapid growth in the sector. China, for instance, through Youku, Tencent and iQiyi, now makes up nearly 30% of the global market.
“We talk about SVoD a lot…everybody is obsessed with SVoD. You probably think it is the dominant platform in most markets,” Bisson observed of research that showed the continuing strength of traditional pay-TV.
“That is why ’onboarding’ is still important – doing deals with traditional pay-TV platforms. Netflix very quietly has gone out and done over 100 of these deals and, as a result, is now available on a traditional platform to half of the pay-TV homes in the entire world.”
Bisson predicted 2024 would be the year of “inflection” in western Europe, when the number of homes with SVoD services would equal those with pay-TV, and shared some key insights into audience demographics.
“People who say they watch a lot of European movies and TV series are skewing very young. In a way, it is like the Netflix audience of five or 10 years ago. They’re skewing very young and they skew to a household situation where they live with other young adults or perhaps they are young couples with kids. That is the dynamics at the moment of the audience that really loves European film content and European TV series.”
Further research presented by speaker Michael Gubbins – taken from an as-yet unpublished report for EuroVoD –revealed small and medium-sized European VoD players had experienced rapid growth during the pandemic.
“78% of the services that were interviewed saw an increase in traffic,” he said. “That’s not a small thing. The biggest difficulty for European platforms is to get the attention [in a saturated market].”
The average rise in traffic among these companies, many of them new or niche platforms, was 278%, while established platforms also saw double-digit rises in their traffic. The surge in traffic was complemented by a significant 60% increase in transactions.
“You begin to see these are new audiences that established platforms possibly did not even realise were there.”
With audiences having more time to explore and seek out discoveries, there was a surge, for instance, in the number of creative documentaries watched on VoD platforms.
In what he labelled “subscription stacking”, audiences are now prepared to watch content on multiple platforms, and older, festival-going audiences have been looking at VoD differently during the pandemic.
“Those clichés about what people will and won’t watch are being thoroughly challenged,” said Gubbins.


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Facebook’s latest admission that it made a mistake in measuring advertising-related behavior on the site is a refreshing display of transparency, but it also happens to be the 10th time the company has made such an admission in less than a year.
The most recent screw up is a relatively minor one, in the grand scheme of things, and only affected a small number of advertisers and a tiny number of clicks. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s the latest in a long line of similar errors, and that trend isn’t helping the social network’s pitch that it is the future of advertising.
In the most recent case, the company mis-categorized certain kinds of clicks that were made by users interacting with ad-related video carousels on mobile devices. Even if someone just resized the carousel, Facebook defined some of those as clicks that took them to the advertiser’s website.
Since advertisers typically pay more for clicks that bring a user to their site, this miscalculation resulted in some brands paying more than they should have.
Facebook said the bug only affected 0.04% of all the ad impressions on the site, but nevertheless it is still issuing refunds to some advertisers who were affected, and promising that the problem has been fixed.
The larger issue that arises from all of these mistakes is that advertisers are drawn to Facebook [fortune-stock symbol=”FB”] in part because their ads, and all the various ways in which users can interact with them, can be measured in a thousand different ways. Using that data to target users and behavior more specifically is one of the site’s key selling points.
To be told that this doesn’t work sometimes isn’t the kind of message advertisers want to hear, as they contemplate moving millions of dollars in ads from more traditional venues such as TV.
On top of that, the latest error comes right in the middle of the “Upfront” campaigns that cable networks and other media outlets are holding to try and woo advertisers, and one of their key messages is that the data coming from digital entities like Facebook can’t be trusted.
The most common criticism is that Facebook and Google “grade their own homework,” as more than one ad manager has put it. In other words, they tell you what the metrics for your campaign are, but few are validated by any kind of third party.
In the NBCUniversal Upfront presentation on Tuesday, advertising head Linda Yaccarino scoffed at the idea of doing brand-awareness advertising on Facebook instead of on TV.
“What the hell is a view any way?” she asked the crowd of ad executives. “Has a ‘like’ ever walked into your store, purchased your product or drove a car out of the dealership?”
ESPN, meanwhile, made much of the fact that it is not only going to tell advertisers who watched their pitches via live-streams and in places like bars and restaurants, but all of this data will be verified by Nielsen, the leading TV audience-measurement company.
There are some in the TV business who are skeptical of Nielsen’s ability to measure such things accurately, but at least the sports network is trying.
Facebook has also been making some moves towards soothing the advertising industry’s concerns about the reliability of its measurement, especially after some of its more egregious errors, like the one where it said it over-estimated video views by as much as 80% for two years.
Among other things, the social network has expanded its third-party verification efforts to bring in more partnerships, including one with Nielsen and one with comScore.
After months of criticism, Facebook also recently agreed to have its advertising data audited by the Media Ratings Council, something a number of industry groups including the Association of National Advertisers had been asking for for some time.


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Technology companies continue to become bigger in the startup ecosystem. In the world of tech startups, hype and anticipation are never in short supply. The emergence of most innovative startups changed things for better tomorrow. As high-speed internet and smartphones became an integral part of our lives, numerous companies flourished.
According to the report by Nasscom, India added more than 1,600 tech startups in 2020, making it the third-largest tech startup hub in the world. This is the highest addition in three years and takes the total number of tech startups to 12,500, including 12 new unicorns.
The 'Goa Getaway' package from IRCTC is for February next year. (Photo credit: Twitter/@IRCTC_Official)
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Like most manufacturers as of late, Motorola has been extremely busy trying to get the latest and greatest version of Android from Google to all its smartphones. And up next is a few more carrier Moto X variants.
Earlier this month Motorola issued Android 4.4.2 KitKat to the Moto X in Canada, which was quickly followed by a few in the US. Sprint started and immediately halted their update, and currently T-Mobile and US Cellular users are already enjoying the latest version of Android. Today though, it appears that both Verizon Wireless and Sprint are officially ready to roll out the update.
Yesterday we confirmed the Verizon Moto X was expected to receive Android 4.4.2 KitKat soon, as soak test (beta invites) started arriving for users to try the new software. Today though, Verizon has already confirmed it’s live, and issued an official changelog and support page.
As expected the update is rather minor considering the main changes were to Android 4.4 KitKat, which Verizon sent to the Moto X before any other device, and now the 4.4.2 update has incremental fixes and tweaks. Below is the changelog of what users can expect once it arrives.
With Verizon giving the green light we can expect the software update for the Moto X to Android 4.4.2 KitKat to start arriving within the next few days. As usual you can head into settings > about phone > check for updates to see if it’s ready for you.
Also, we’ve confirmed thanks to Android Police that after a few initial problems, today Sprint has resumed the Android 4.4.2 KitKat update for its Moto X after a short delay to fix a few issues. Both of these devices should see the update arrive momentarily, and we’ll update if we hear of any further delays or problems.
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Business confidence on the rise in Morwell a year after Hazelwood's closure
It has been a long and often painful 12 months for the Latrobe Valley since the Hazelwood power station shut down one year ago.
Not only did it mean the loss of hundreds of direct jobs from one of the region's biggest employers, but also thousands of others whose businesses relied on Hazelwood's continued operation.
However, there has been a quiet resurgence in Morwell's small business sector.
We spoke to two of those businesses: one that was open before Hazelwood's shut down, and one that's opened since.
'Morwell's not dying'
Todd Lambourn opened Cont Coffee, in Morwell's Church Street, one year before Hazelwood shut down.
It was a different time then, in an area that's long been defined by the four brown coal-fired monoliths — Hazelwood, Yallourn, Loy Yang A and Loy Yang B.
But Mr Lambourn said that while the wider community may have felt the pinch, it was a necessary shakeup for the town.
"Morwell's not dying, Morwell's not dead, the mine shutting didn't destroy Morwell at all," he said.
"I think it's a step in the right direction, away from being the dirty coal town that we've been known as for a really long time.
"Change sucks but I think it needed to happen.
"I haven't noticed much change since the mine shut, which I know sounds really shitty, and I have to pretend like Morwell's going into decline because people are losing their jobs, but I haven't noticed any difference."
Mr Lambourn is just one of several younger people who have set up shop in recent years, and he says that's been driven by a desire for better offerings.
"It's really hard when you want to live in Gippsland but you do want good quality stuff that often is lacking up here.
"I find it really inspiring, it's great."
He said Cont began with just two people, "but now we need three people to cover our busiest period in the mornings".
"Our business is definitely growing every week, and that's been continual over two years that we've been open."
However, Mr Lambourn said that was in part because of the specialised nature of his business.
"We're a really niche cafe.
"We say that we get about 10 per cent of everyone, so 10 per cent of the council workers, 10 per cent of the police, because we do such a high standard of coffee [and] not everyone's into that."
The number of businesses in the Latrobe City Council area has also increased, driven mostly by construction, and the number of businesses leaving town has halved since Hazelwood closed.
But Mr Lambourn said the local council could be doing more to encourage that.
"Maybe more incentives for small businesses to actually open up. Being a bit nicer with the rates and stuff that you have to pay when you're opening up a business.
"Maybe even talking to some of the landlords of the empty shops and just say 'let's do reduced rent for 12 months just to give this person a chance'.
"I find a lot of people in Morwell hold on to empty shops for tax write-offs or whatever, so I think let's push them out and give these young people who actually want to do something a chance to do it."
Positive times ahead
Donna Hicks opened Dear Delilah Florist, on Morwell's main street, nearly one year after Hazelwood shut.
She said she never had any doubt about setting up shop in the town.
"I'm from Morwell and I live in Morwell, so I can still see that there are positive times ahead," Ms Hicks said.
"I've run this business from home for the past three years and I do a lot of weddings, people come from other towns into Morwell for me to do their wedding flowers.
"When you say Morwell people are a little bit negative towards it, but there are still lots of people in town that work and do have jobs and are willing to spend some money."
Like Mr Lambourn, Ms Hicks said identifying a gap in the market was key.
"I have the confidence in my product as well," she said.
"It's got to be a service or a product that you can provide to a high standard, that's the most important thing.
"If you've got something people will travel for, being in Morwell is no different."
But Ms Hicks said getting her business off the ground did not happen without hard work.
"This is a shop that had been empty for a couple of years and it was sitting in the main street of Morwell, Commercial Road, looking very run down so we did have to do a lot of work to it.
Despite the losses of hundreds of jobs from Hazelwood and Carter Holt Harvey's sawmill in Morwell, the town's unemployment dropped from 21 per cent in December 2016 to 15.6 per cent 12 months later.
Ms Hicks said Hazelwood's closure has also had some positive effects on the town.
"People that live here are, I guess, coming together and wanting to bring things to Morwell," she said.
"People that live here know that there's still potential in the town.


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Chamber’s Q5 Business Retention and Expansion Program produces results for local businesses
The Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce and its Quantum Growth Partnership (Q5) are continually working to better the community, serving as a catalyst to help create a strong, growing economy through talent, leadership and collaboration. One way the Chamber provides this kind of leadership is through its Business Retention and Expansion (BRE) program.
What is the Business Retention and Expansion program?
The Chamber understands a significant part of economic development begins with assisting local businesses in their efforts to both retain existing clients and employees, as well as expand their business. As a part of the BRE program, the Chamber meets with local businesses -- from the heart of downtown Springfield to every corner of Sangamon County: to gather critical and specific information related to growth, expansion, and specific challenges in our business community.
When possible, the Chamber provides resources to assist with those challenges or leads the process of bringing others together to address various needs that have been identified. The information gathered during the business interviews is also provided to community leaders and policy makers in order to address identified issues related to growth, expansion and creating a better business climate in Springfield and Sangamon County. The Chamber met with more than 100 businesses in 2014 and 2015.
What changes have been made for the program in 2016?
In 2016, a new component has been added to the BRE program with the hope of gathering additional information, while creating and fostering synergetic relationships within specific industries. Along with our individual business visits, The Chamber is now hosting an industry specific monthly luncheon. The luncheons have already proven to be beneficial in two ways, introducing business leaders that were not previously connected, as well as creating environment for honest conversations regarding industry specific challenges.
Any recent success stories?
During two different BRE visits with company officials located in the I-72 and Wabash industrial park area, businesses wanted additional options for telecommunication services, including internet and phone. Businesses taking part in the survey reported that their current internet service had disruptions on almost a monthly basis, with outages that could last over a day. This became problematic as businesses moved more toward technology and internet for their supply chain management needs. Q5 staff initiated communications with area businesses and telecommunication providers. Existing service was identified as an option and new services were recently installed. The businesses who originally brought this issue to our attention have reported satisfaction with the outcome.
Want to take part in the BRE program?
To participate in the BRE program or learn more about the Chamber and its Quantum Growth Partnership, email Jim Nelson at firstname.lastname@example.org or visit www.gscc.org.


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A Punjab-based business is taking luxury shawls from India to the world. Pranav Malhotra, managing director, , Pashtush, has talked about how Facebook has helped him do this.
Pashtush is an Amritsar-based company that exports Indian luxury shawls around the world and Facebook has played a key role in making this happen.
Managing Director of Pashtush, Pranav Malhotra, has discussed bringing the intrinsic work of weavers and artisans from the areas of Punjab, Kashmir, and Himachal Pradesh to the rest of the globe. He has also explained how Facebook assisted him in bridging this gap during the lockdown.
Pranav says, “Pashminas are famous in Paris… That was something I did not know. Most of these shawls are created in India.”
Pashtush distributes its handcrafted items to 120 countries, including France.
Pranav’s brand of premium shawls, scarves, and ties for men and women is his attempt to carry on his family’s history.
Pranav comes from one of Amritsar’s oldest shawl-making families. His great-great-grandfather was once a yarn trader.
Shawls and stoles are seasonal items, which made it difficult for people in the trade to maintain a consistent source of income.
Pranav was inspired to eliminate intermediaries and hire local talent after meeting a brilliant weaver selling sugarcane juice on the street.
Pashtush was created in the end of 2017 when they launched their website.
It is a combination of the words ‘Pashmina’ and ‘tush,’ which both signify wool.
Furthermore, one Pashtush shawl takes five to six months to make, as it urges craftsmen to take their time in making the shawls.
Previously, the craftspeople would lose six months of wages.
However, Pranav now claims that they earn 2.5 times more using Pashtush.
He says, “Before Covid-19, Pashtush had doubled its business and has xpanded at a 2.5x rate, in the last fiscal year,.”
Pranav claims that Meta and its apps have aided the company’s transition from a wholesale to a direct-to-consumer model.
According to him, Facebook and Instagram helped us significantly to do justice to Pashtush’s items since they allow you to convey a story.
He describes the reach and impact these platforms may have on an artist, particularly during the lockdown.
Pashtush and the craftspeople behind the business now have a newfound purpose thanks to Facebook and Instagram.
Pashtush now ships its products across the country, as well as to Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America, where the winter months overlap with Indian summers.
Their markets include include the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the Middle East.
Pranav says, “We export handicrafts to China on a net basis.”
Pranav speaks of his future goals, “We are looking to expand up our digital business. We will extend to unexplored markets such as non-English speaking countries after establishing a successful business in the United States and the United Kingdom.”


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Archive for December, 2010
May the new year bring happiness, love and prosperity to you and yours. Wishing you a Happy New Year!
A new coalition of some of the world’s biggest clothing brands, which together amount to around 60% of global apparel sales, has agreed to develop a new environmental hang-tag for clothing that will allow shoppers to immediately assess the environmental impact of their purchases. The news of a brand new ‘Sustainable Apparel Coalition’ was revealed by Yvon Chouinard, founder of outdoor brand Patagonia, in early November. His company has been working with the likes of Wal-Mart, C&A and Levi Strauss on the new project after a meeting at Wal-Mart where the idea was first raised. “We have been working with Wal-Mart to ‘green’ its business which has ultimately led to the formation of a new coalition of retailers and brands which make up between 50 – 60% of world clothing sales”, he said.
Non-disclosure agreements have already been signed and it’s expected that the European/US outdoor eco-index and Nike’s Considered Index Tool will be put at the disposal of the other non-outdoor brands involved in this ground-breaking project. The formation of the new coalition will be officially announced in January 2011.
Chouinard told Ecotextile News that the coalition also includes household names such as JC Penney, Nike, Gap, Coles and “many others” who are working towards “an eco-index for consumers so that they can instantly identify the sustainable credentials of a product”. He said the new consumer label project is expected to take two years to finalize and complete – a very ambitious time-scale. “The industry has decided to take this step in advance of government legislation”, Chouinard told us, “the brands wanted to take the initiative before governments did”.
The coalition is sure to have a revolutionary effect on the global textile supply chain and provides an interesting insight into current brand thinking but it also raises some concerns within the textile sector about how this new eco-textile label can be both policed and certified. “The opportunity for greenwashing is an obvious concern”, said one textile NGO, “they will need the involvement of credible, third-party organizations to help develop the new label system”. The brands will also have to map their entire supply chains – a huge undertaking on its own.
To ensure this project is transparent, Ecotextile News calls for the full engagement and involvement of the relevant NGO’s in the USA, Europe and Asia. In particular this includes the new Textile Exchange in the USA, the RITE Group in Europe and perhaps the SFBC in Hong Kong. Regional consumer protection organizations should also be engaged to ensure it actually delivers what it sets out to achieve.
~Reported by John Mowbray of Ecotextile News~
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and wonderful holiday season with family and friends!
Recent market research reports examining the technical textile markets indicate that the nonwovens industry could become the first sector to move away from synthetic fibres based on petrochemicals. This is now looking increasingly likely following an announcement by the giant consumer goods company Procter & Gamble (P&G) that it will switch to the use of 100% renewable or recycled materials in all of its products.
Its Auburn, Maine site became the first P&G manufacturing plant in North America to achieve zero waste to landfill. The feminine care facility, which produces household brand Always®, worked with both employees and suppliers to implement a process that beneficially uses 100 percent of its waste. A majority – more than 60 percent – is recycled or reused, while the remainder is converted to energy.
Their GARP (Global Asset Recovery Purchases) team connected the plant with a site solution provider, who helped sort all recyclable materials and convert existing non-recyclable materials to energy through incineration. The electricity from incineration is used by the incineration facility and the excess is sold to the local power company. The GARP team says it has diverted tens of thousands of tons from landfills while delivering tens of millions of dollars in cost recovery to the company in the past year alone.
The achievement of these sites to reach zero waste to landfill demonstrates continued progress toward P&G’s long-term environmental vision. This vision includes having zero manufacturing waste globally going to landfills, instead being beneficially reused and ending up in valued waste streams. The company also has a goal to achieve less than 0.5 percent disposed manufacturing waste by 2020.
Christmas can be a hectic time of year for many people but you can ease the stress by choosing to shop online. You can’t beat having items shipped directly to your front door in place of busy streets and pushy crowds.
With only 2 weeks left until Christmas, you’d better get busy shopping. Whether you’re buying for friends, family, colleagues or that “hard to buy for” people in your life, we’re sure you’ll find something perfect in one of the following Gift Guides.
Enjoy shopping and know that you’re making a difference by choosing to support handmade, independant and eco friendly companies!


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- Yesterday the FJP attended GigaOM's paidContent 2012 held at the TimesCenter in NYC. This year's theme was At the Crossroads, and a host of notable speakers discussed hits, misses, opportunities, and strategies in the digital media industry.
- Here is paidContent's intro to the event:
We are at a critical point in the transformation of the media business. The past year has seen the rise of tablets and the accelerated transition of magazines from print to digital; the rapid ascent of e-books and the slow descent of bookstores; more viewing of online video than ever but in ever-decreasing lengths. Digital advertising growth is maturing—and in some cases, slipping. If your responsibility is to make money from content, what should you do next? If the answer was easy, we’d all be on vacation. It’s not—so join us at paidContent 2012, our acclaimed media industry forum, for top-level discussion about what’s working, what hasn’t and what’s showing the most promise.
- Here's some of the feedback on Twitter:
“The platform is the new throne where content reigns and content is king,” he [James McQuivey, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research] notes. “And the platform promise can make or unmake a king at any time.” The iPad might be sitting on the throne now, but as competitors build up the promise of their platform, the game of thrones rages on. [Full Article]
The biggest challenge for a media company like Meredith is shifting the focus from customer acquisition to customer engagement across platforms, Meredith chief digital officer Liz Schimel said at paidContent 2012 this morning. Part of that means making the brands available on the right platforms, but not all of them. “We get approached by a lot of companies and say no,” Schimel said. “HP knocked on the door, and we said no, we’re not going to do that one.” Most of Meredith’s readers are “mass-market women,” so if a platform or device is “too male-centric or too niche, we don’t do it.” [Full Article]
[Jim] Bankoff [CEO and Chairman of Vox Media] was speaking at a paidContent 2012 panel with incoming USA Today publisher Larry Kramer and John Paton, a longtime newspaper veteran who is now CEO of Digital First Media. Kramer and Paton addressed the familiar challenge for newspapers of how to manage legacy structures while trying to keep pace with nimbler digital natives like Vox. Paton described newspapers’ longtime practice of repurposing existing content as a lousy strategy and predicted that papers’ cost-cutting phase would last another five years. [Full Article]
- The pitched war between content owners and technology companies doesn’t have to persist if media companies would acknowledge and adapt to the new realities of digital distribution, said Fred Wilson, managing partner at Union Square Ventures. “I think those (traditional media) industries will survive and thrive, they just need to move from a fairly monopolistic distribution system to a wide open distribution system,” Wilson said. [Full Article]
- For many news sites, HTML5 has become the default form of coding. Even if a publisher is pushing out a mobile app, it’s often an HTML app in a native wrapper. When deciding whether to follow an app or a Web browser model, the decision isn’t a technology one — native code versus HTML5 – instead, it’s a distribution decision, said Mark Johnson, CEO ofnews aggregator Zite. [Full Article]
- Thinking of what they produce as information rather than content to be packaged, (John Borthwick) the Betaworks CEO said, puts the focus on the value of that information to users, and the package or delivery system — whether it’s a magazine or a newspaper or a mobile app — becomes secondary. Only that way can media companies figure out what and how their users want, he said. [Full Article]
[John] Marshall [editor and publisher of TalkingPointsMemo.com] appeared with Vivian Schiller, chief digital officer of NBC News at thepaidContent 2012 conference, where the two talked about how social media has influenced and reshaped the news business. Marshall said social media is part of a larger continuum that began with the Internet and the rise of blogs. With social media, he said, the news business has become frictionless and fluid and, in some cases, chaotic. But it’s helped wrest control away from traditional news powers and helped do away with the notion of a news cycle. [Keep Reading]
- The quotable Matt Mullenweg, founder of Wordpress and Auttomatic, received much praise and many Twitter mentions:


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AOA welcomes return of VAT free shopping for international visitors
Airport Operators Association has welcomed the return of VAT free shopping for international passengers.
Commenting on the fiscal statement, Karen Dee, Chief Executive of the Airport Operators Association (AOA) said: “We are pleased that the government has listened and reintroduced VAT free shopping for international visitors. The imposition of VAT placed our airports at a significant competitive disadvantage compared to our European neighbours and its reintroduction will provide a real boost to our aviation, travel, and tourism industry as we continue to rebuild from the impacts of the pandemic. The government must now go further and act on arrivals duty free in the upcoming budget.
“The renewed focus on infrastructure projects, creation of investment zones and broader fiscal measures are welcome and must be used to support the recovery of UK airports and place our aviation industry back at the heart of the UK economy.”
TAKE A READ:


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TD Auto and U.S. Bank are the latest auto lenders to sign on with Shift Technologies, an online car retail and financing platform, Co-Chief Executive Officer Toby Russell told Auto Finance News. The newest additions enable San Francisco-based Shift to offer consumers financing options across the credit spectrum. “To be totally transparent, a lot of […]
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Start your free one week trial today for access to the latest industry news and trends.


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Why sustainability is the future of travel
Tuesday 17 Jul 2018
As ‘overtourism’ quickly becomes the buzzword of 2018, it’s clear that sustainability is no longer optional for the travel industry. A new white paper from one of the world’s leading luxury travel organisations shows that the idea is moving firmly into the mainstream.
The white paper, from industry leader Virtuoso, is entitled Sustainable Tourism: From Trend to Transformative Movement, and takes a holistic look at the idea of sustainability. It identifies three key pillars in its approach: identifying and recognising industry best practice, increasing training for industry staff, and promoting consumer education.
The concept of sustainability has shifted over recent years. Where once it was enough for hotels to minimise the washing of linen or get rid of mini disposable toiletries in their bathrooms, today’s travellers expect more. Virtuoso’s Asia Pacific Managing Director, Michael Londregan, believes “there’s this new idea around sustainability being cultural; are we actually ruining the cultural footprint of where we’re going? And are the cultures and the people that are actually in the places we go being affected? Is that becoming unsustainable?”
It’s a question that the former Secretary General of the UN World Tourism Organization Taleb Rifai asks as well: “will tourism bring us one billion opportunities to make the world a better place, or one billion disasters?”
The industry must now focus on expanding its understanding of sustainability to encompass environmental, social and cultural factors, as well as actively supporting and promoting operators who work towards this goal. Educating travellers and encouraging sustainable behaviour is essential as their numbers and global reach continues to grow rapidly.
Millennials are firmly in the lead of the new generation of sustainability-focused tourists. Virtuoso found that this group are three times more likely than their counterparts to seek out travel companies that are committed to sustainability. They are the generation who has grown up with modern ideas of environmental impact and cultural sensitivity, and these influence their decisions across a wide range of topics. Millennials have a strong sense of civic responsibility and are more likely than any other group to be interested in giving back to their travel destinations, according to research from Travel, Technology & Solutions group.
Ultimately, sustainable tourism is the way of the future and travel providers must adapt and embrace in order to ensure their survival. They must learn to create products and curate journeys that appeal to the modern environmentally and socially conscious traveller.
PC: Luxico Alkira Eco Retreat


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Despite almost three months of quarantine, forced citizens maximize the use of cashless payments, the popularity of cash quickly returns. Experts believe that, despite all the efforts of the banks and the regulator, to get away from “real” money will not come soon. Not ready and businesses, especially small, and citizens.Moscow credit Bank (ICB) and the company “Eleksnet” (joint self-service network of more than 10 thousand ATMs and terminals) analyzed the behavior of citizens in the use of cash. According to him, the volume of daily cash withdrawals from ATMs reached January levels, but still below Feb by 16%.In February compared with January, the volume of cash withdrawals increased by 122% in March on the background of the beginning of the pandemic in the fashion industry, it has increased by 8% (at the end of the month have already started to apply restrictions). In April, during the most severe restrictions of movement of citizens, the reduction was 44% in March. The first positive trend, however, appeared in may — an increase of 2%. In June, the volume of cash withdrawal has increased by 36%. The situation is similar in the market Astra Bank offers (entrepreneurs themselves contribute revenue to the Bank through the terminals and ATMs).”Cash payment is to trade more profitable because of the cost, despite the fact that the Central Bank forced payment system to reduce tariffs on Internet-acquiring in some areas to 1%, the cost of cash handling is 0,2–0,5%,— said the managing Director of Elecsnet Denis Mayorov.— Cash as a tool for calculations continue to be popular among the population, and the growth of self-service suggests that has not happened globally redirect individuals in a non-cash payment channels”.In the CBA, who campaigned of citizens in the conditions of pandemic not to use cash, “b” was assured that the users ‘ interest non-cash payment instruments is maintained. “But we did not plan and do not plan to restrict circulation of cash money and refuse cash. Citizens should have the opportunity to choose,” assured Tam.So, Alfa-Bank, “Kommersant” reported that “in June see the growth in the number of transactions at ATMs by 18% compared to may and April.” According to the Executive Director of the Bank “Russian Standard” for the development of Elena Petrova, the demand for cash is recovering, although not fast: “If the large retail chains, small and medium business mandatory accept cards for payment, micro businesses and self-employed — while less”. In the savings Bank say that despite a slight rise compared to may, in June, the demand for cash withdrawals is still below last year’s volumes. Head of non-credit products Raiffeisenbank Maxim Stepochkin from the end of March sees “a steady decline demand for transactions cash withdrawal in ATMs,” and hopes that “these habits will remain after the pandemic.”Independent experts, however, these hopes do not share. “The demand for cash is restored because of the removal of restrictions and increasing the volume of services for which there is cash, says chief investment strategist “BCS” Maxim Sheyin.— Not all self-employed rush in the official field.” According to the head of the Board of Directors of JSC “Kcell” Alexei Buyanova, cash prefer the clients themselves. “The reasons for this not so little: banknotes reliable and don’t depend on any devices, it is impossible to track cash operations, there are no limits and so on,” he said. The transition to cashless inhibited by several factors, says a member of the General Council of “Business Russia” Alim of Bichenov, and sellers, in some cases, set up such conditions, and citizens are familiar cash payment method.Ksenia Dementieva has changed the behavior of buyers and sellers during pandemicity next
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SAN DIEGO, Sept. 26 -- Cymer Inc. said that it has installed its 200th DUV excimer light source in Europe. The ELS-6000 was installed late second quarter and is currently in production at a major chipmaker's fab in Dresden, Germany.
Brian Klene, Cymer's senior vice president of marketing and business development, noted, "Shrinking design rules and increasing device complexity resulting from new materials have created new manufacturing challenges. As chipmakers' requirements become increasingly stringent, we want them to know they can rely on Cymer to help them deliver the most advanced semiconductor devices to the marketplace. Our commitment to the semiconductor industry has been unique, and has enabled our customers to maintain continuous productivity gains by shrinking the chip size. We intend to remain the key to our customers' future competitiveness."


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Sharechat has partnered with leading international transfers specialist, OFX, to help our investors save time and money when transferring money overseas.
We recommend OFX as the most convenient, secure and transparent way for today’s global citizens and global businesses to make transfer money to more than 190 countries. They are the only international payment platform to offer 24/7 trading and customer support – all while offering better-than-bank exchange rates.
Paying international invoices, loan and mortgage repayments, property purchases or simply sending money to a family member abroad are just some of the reasons our customers use the OFX service.
Sharechat investors can enjoy:
- Zero OFX fees* on ALL transfers
- Highly competitive exchange rates across 55 currencies
- Expert advice and risk management tools to help minimise exposure to currency volatility
- 24/7 online access and telephone customer service
- Access to market commentary and rate alerts
There are countless providers out there able to transfer your money overseas, but only a handful offer this crucial service as their core offering. OFX is a company that offers simple and secure international money transfers online. The company’s Head of Asia Pacific, Scott Redmond, says the process differs substantially depending on the institution used.
It can be a cumbersome space for banking providers, and this is often reflected in high fees, poor exchange rates and very little service. But companies that focus solely on money exchange usually offer competitive exchange rates and fees, a friendly online customer interface and supportive customer service, Redmond explains.
Established providers aren’t just focused on slick online experience at the lowest possible cost. Aside from expert knowledge, established providers have an arsenal of infrastructure including well established banking networks and customer service, he adds. “What this means is that the customer can access great rates and low fees, knowing that their money will arrive at its destination safely and securely,” Redmond says.
Of course, an essential part of international money transfer is the delivery of funds, Redmond explains. “If you think about it in terms of a delivery company, would you choose the cheapest option with little assurance about when the package will arrive, what condition it will be in or how the company will help if the package is lost?”
Melbourne energy efficiency company Shine On conducted an internal audit of systems and processes, uncovering a far higher cost for international money transfers than necessary a few years ago.
Managing director and founder James Johnson says his first priority was finding a provider with the best rates. A number of unexpected benefits followed. “I didn’t realise at the time, but the slow and restrictive payment system we used through our bank had been really slowing us down,” Johnson says. “Orders weren’t processed until payment had been received, and this sometimes took up to three days, slowing up production, delivery and then installation for our customers.
“Not only this, but we had to give confirmation by 2pm for exchanges on any given day, and this was just not always possible for our business.” Johnson says.
Switching to OFX offered greater flexibility, with payments turned around within 24 hours. Johnson estimates he has also saved more than AUD$80,000 on international money transfers since switching to OFX four years ago.
Redmond explains that customers can complete a lump sum transfer when timing is critical, however this requires them to be comfortable with where the market is trading and the value they receive from their provider.
Alternatively, customers can split the transfer amount into portions. “This works well for clients who have a modicum of time and are keen to take advantage of exchange rates at different times,” Redmond says. For example, a customer with a transfer requirement of AUD$50,000 can choose to break this up into parcels of $10,000 by booking in separate transfers at various points in time and exchange rates.
“In this scenario, the customer will end up with five transfers, and while there will invariably be a variety of exchange rates across these five transfers, the benefit is by not putting all your eggs in one basket, they end up with the dollar average of the exchange rates,” Redmond says. Whichever you choose, it’s important to note that there are few savants in the world of foreign exchange, so the likelihood of picking the top of a market subject to so many influences is slim.
“To this end, the customer needs to go back to first principles and consider whether they are receiving good value from their foreign exchange provider across exchange rates, fees and services,” he says.


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There seems to be a growing wave of Surface Duo enthusiasts that are finding new ways to capitalize on a dual-screen smartphone experience, and proving how effective the device can be at being a Swiss Army-like device for gaming.
It's now less than three days away from the Surface Duo release, and a lot of people are curious about the Surface Duo. Here's what people are saying.
Bill Gates recently took to Reddit for a Ask Me Anything session about Coronavirus.
As of now, there has been official word from Microsoft regarding warranties, recalls or replacement procedures.
At the time of writing many users have taken to the Surface subreddit and are complaining of possible quality control issues with their brand new products.
With only a brief hands-on experience, the app feels swift, well thought and makes very good use of animations, overlays and acrylic highlights in its windowed presentation.
Similar to the rest of the Office suite and File Explorer, the background of OneNote now mask the bright white with a muted black and dark grey color scheme.
Similar to enabling a dark theme in the new Edge browser, users will need to visit the flags section of the browser here, to turn it on, for now.
The company's new Chromium-powered web browser will be available for testing as a separate download in early 2019.
Xbox Servers is down on the coldest day in history. I've never wanted a girlfriend more than today.
Microsoft's Xbox Adaptive Controller is amongst the magazines fifty Best Inventions of 2018.
Tons of questions were asked during Bill Gates AMA, and we're picked out a few of Bill Gates top answers. The topics range from beer, crypto currency, running for president, and much more.
Gates will be hosting a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) today at 11 am PST, so be sure to visit the Reddit thread and fire away with those burning questions.
Reddit is now calling out a Microsoft marketing campaign, saying it stole fan art for both PUBG and the Xbox One X
Microsoft's Bing will be picking up some-powered search features, and Microsoft will also be partnering with Reddit to deliver Intelligent Search Results and Business Intelligence Tools.
The studio behind Marvel Heroes Omega is dolling out a bit of bad news for fans and customers as it's closing up shop and no longer supporting the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 platforms.


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"The global food allergy and intolerance products market is projected to exceed $26 billion by 2017" according to a new report by companiesandmarkets.com. This is due to dramatically "increased diagnosis of digestive health conditions, growing interest for wheat-free and gluten-free diets, improved labeling regulations, and tastier and innovations in the category."
While this is great for us as consumers of allergy friendly products, makes you wonder where this is all going doesn't it. Just what has big business done to our food chain to be making us all so sick?
Labels: Latest Allergy News, research


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Cruising the open road in a minivan doesn’t sound like the coolest thing in the world. But there’s a long line to rent one of Native Campervan’s retrofitted Dodge Grand Caravans, say founders Jon Moran and Dillon Hansen.
“We’ve seen a huge ramp-up since Memorial Day, our entire fleet is out right now and it is pretty much booked up solid from June to July,” said Hansen. “Unfortunately, we’ve already had to turn down a considerable amount of business.”
BusinessDen spelled out the appeal in April: it’s cheaper than an airstream or other ways to travel and camp with its average cost of $99 a night. The first 100 miles a day are free, and the minivans come with a double bed and a kitchen. Native Campervans also rents some gear, like tents.
For now, the company only has six vehicles and is not focused on adding more. After accepting bookings for vans that didn’t exist, the company had to hurry to get the vehicles they have now.
“We’ve done as much of that cramming as we can,” said Moran. “We feel like we’re at a good spot now where we should stop buying vehicles and start planning for the future.”
In that future, they hope to have more Colorado renters, maybe those new to the state and looking to get outside. Thus far, Native Campervans have a lot of international travelers taking the van out for about two weeks at a time, sometimes more like a month.
“We’re based here for a reason, we want people in Colorado,” said Hansen.


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Wichita loved to sup at Steak and Ale for 30 years. Now, there’s hope it could return BY DENISE NEIL | The Wichita Eagle When Wichitans wax nostalgic about restaurants from the past that they miss, the chain Steak and Ale — home of the Kensington Club steak and bountiful salad bar — [...]
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Legendary Restaurant Brands Executes Licensing Agreement for Two Bennigan’s On The Fly Virtual Kitchens in Iowa
Legendary Restaurant Brands Executes Licensing Agreement for Two Bennigan’s On The Fly Virtual Kitchens in Iowa Iconic restaurant brand set to open for delivery only in Coralville and Dubuque this month Dubuque, IA (RestaurantNews.com) Bennigan’s is kicking off a year of accelerated development by bringing its signature made-from-scratch menu items to two [...]
After 45 years of fostering deep emotional connections with its guests, pent-up demand for Bennigan’s Legendary, made-from-scratch signature items remains as strong as ever. When faced with the COVID-19 crisis, the iconic restaurant brand quickly moved to put the health and safety of its guests, team members and franchise partners above all else. At the same time, Bennigan’s [...]
Dallas, TX (RestaurantNews.com) Bennigan’s acclaimed menu innovation is satisfying guests across the world who yearn for bold, chef-inspired dishes and handcrafted cocktails.For a limited time, guests can celebrate the season with Bennigan’s Summer Shenanigan’s menu! The Legendary brand renowned for its chef-driven American fare and friendly Irish hospitality is taking guests on a culinary journey through [...]
Guest's nostalgia and deep emotional connection to Bennigan's builds frequency and loyalty maximizing sales and profits for our franchise partners.
AND THE LEGENDARY CHAIN HAS DONE SO BEFORE. Bennigan’s CEO Paul Mangiamele doesn’t believe the restaurant industry was overbuilt ahead of COVID-19. It was under-demolished. "There were a lot of restaurants out there that had no business operating as a restaurant, whether it was an independent or a small, mom-and-pop, or a brand that [...]
On July 29, 2008, all remaining Steak and Ale locations closed as part of a Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding. Now after nearly 12 years, Steak and Ale is poised for an epic comeback. Created in 1966 by the late Norman Brinker. The iconic restaurant chain with its dimly lit ambiance, billed itself as offering [...]
Peoria, AZ (RestaurantNews.com) Even during a worldwide pandemic, Legendary Restaurant Brands is successfully moving forward with its franchise development, proving its growth has no intention of slowing down.Legendary Restaurant Brands Chairman and CEO Paul Mangiamele announced today that the company has executed a franchise agreement with Leo Nguyen to bring Bennigan’s On The Fly to Peoria, Arizona. Bennigan’s On [...]
To Our Legendary Guests/e-Club Members At Bennigan’s nothing is more important than the health and well-being of our guests and team members. That has never been more true than today. We are writing to share with you some of the additional measures we are taking – on top of our already-stringent safety and cleanliness standards – to ensure that our restaurants [...]
Record-breaking new restaurant sales and continued unit growth define 2019 for iconic restaurant brand Bennigan’s - the iconic brand known for its chef-driven American fare and friendly Irish hospitality - has wrapped up another successful year after implementing its innovative market development strategy. Pent-up demand and deep emotional connections for Bennigan’s signature menu items [...]


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Pulse Australia has signed an agreement with its Indian counterpart, Indian Pulse and Grain Association (IPGA), for greater exchange of information on Indian pulse crops.
Earlier this month during the Pulse Conclave in Delhi, Pulse Australia, along with other Australian industry representatives, participated in meetings with IPGA and a Government-led Roundtable with Indian officials.
“We will now get to work, with the help of all the pulse industry and the Australian government, to see how we put this in place. It’s a positive outcome.”
Pulse Australia directors, along with representatives of Grain Producers Australia (GPA), Grains Industry Market Access Forum (GIMAF) and the Australian Government and Austrade officials in India, facilitated a series of meetings to discuss the implications of recent tariff increases on pulse imports to India.
“There is no doubt India has a better understanding of how this impacts Australia as a supplier. While we don’t see the tariffs being removed in the short term, we have opened the door on how any changes in the future might be handled – and that’s a plus,” said Mr Goddard.
“A whole-of-industry approach from Australia has definitely helped us have a unified position.”
Chairman of Pulse Australia, Ron Storey, said Australia’s pulse industry has come a long way in the last few years.
“While we expect to step back a little from the all-time record Australian crops of 2016/17, the benefit of pulses in Australian farmers’ crop rotations is well embedded,” he said. “We need to maintain this momentum and engagement with the customer marketplace is essential.”
“Pulse Australia will continue to work with the Australian industry and all our customers to ensure there is a reliable supply base in Australia and a range of market options for those crops. Plant protein is a growing part of future global diets.”
Canada secures Indian promise
Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited India last week and returned with promising news for his country’s pulse exporters.
Mr Trudeau said in a statement after he met with Indian Prime Minister Nerendra Modi that the Indian Government has promised to ease quarantine rules for import of pulses from Canada.
On Friday, both sides committed to ‘finalise an arrangement within 2018 to enable the export of Canadian pulses to India, free from pests of quarantine importance, with mutually acceptable technological protocols’, according to the statement, as reported by the Business-Standard. Click on the link to read further details on the Business-Standard website.
HAVE YOUR SAY


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updated 02:15 pm EDT, Fri July 27, 2012
Pantech Star Q for Verizon shows up in early photos, may cost $100 on contract
The first images of the Verizon-bound Pantech Star Q 4G LTE handset have appeared online thanks to an anonymous source. The handset is due to replace the Pantech Breakout and was previewed by an FCC filing from earlier this year. The 4G-capable handset should come in at $100 on-contract at Verizon, though this is yet to be confirmed.
AndroidAndMe shared the images of the phone, along with some hardware specs. They are believed to include a 1.5GHz, dual-core Snapdragon S4 CPU along with a four-inch, 854x480-pixel display. There is otherwise a three-megapixel rear camera and a lower-resolution front camera. Android 4.0.4 will be preloaded onto the device. The phone slides open horizontally to reveal a five-row hardware QWERTY keyboard. Wireless connections for music and short-range file transfer are handled by Bluetooth 4.0.
Seemingly, the only piece of key information missing is a ship date for the device.


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Support the NLBMDA
Lampert Yards is doing it.
Ferguson Lumber is doing it.
Zarsky Lumber is doing it.
They’re supporting the National Lumber & Building Material Dealers Association (NLBMDA). We should all be doing it.
Speaking at the 2010 ProDealer Industry Summit—co-hosted by the NLBMDA and Home Channel News—Lampert Yards CEO Dan Fesler did the math.
There are 24 words in the Pythagorean theorem, he pointed out.
There are 179 words in the Ten Commandments.
And there are 26,911 words in the U.S. government regulations on the sale of cabbage.
“That’s why we need an organization like the NLBMDA,” Fesler said. “All legislation is bad, and what we really do is work to make it better. You’re either at the table having a discussion, or you’re what’s for dinner.”
During the NLBMDA’s transition ceremony, incoming chairman Joe Collings of Indiana-based Ferguson Lumber accepted the ceremonial gavel. Then, in a smooth radio voice—the kind of voice a politician would give his right arm for—Collings delivered the definitive argument for a strong, national association of lumberyards.
“The NLBMDA was founded to give dealers a national presence, clout with lawmakers and advocacy with regulatory agencies on a federal level,” he said. “To be the voice as well as the muscle needed to professionally represent membership in the unique environment of national government.”
Cases in point:
The NLBMDA pushed for and won exceptions to OSHA rules governing articulating boom trucks—exceptions that will save dealers, on average, thousands of dollars each.
The NLBMDA has taken legal action to support dealer interests against a woefully inept EPA lead remediation program.
“During the following year, you will see the association continue to build upon its unwavering founding principals, by continuing to be a first-class advocate for its members in governmental affairs,” Collings said.
Next year, Cally Coleman Fromme, of Victoria, Texas-based Zarsky Lumber, will take the gavel from Collings. She already has advice for LBM dealers: “Come to the table. Contribute. Be a part of the conversation to make a difference,” she said. “Let your voice be heard.”
Of course, the regional associations are the backbone of the lumber industry, providing guidance, networking, knowledge and support on the local level, where the rubber meets the road.
There exists a shining example of a successful organization composed of regional bodies, connected by a strong national federation. It’s called the United States of America. More than two centuries of peaceful power transfers and hundreds of millions of people enjoying the blessings of liberty and democracy through a combination of state and national organizations.
Support the NLBMDA. It’s the American thing to do.
Tillman appointed to lighting company board
Cree Inc., the Durham, N.C.-based manufacturer of LED lighting products, has elected Robert Tillman to its board of directors. Tillman, 67, is the former president and CEO of Lowe’s. After his retirement from Lowe’s in 2005, he became a member of the board of directors of the Bank of America Corp. until 2009.
Tillman will serve on the compensation committee of Cree’s board of directors, the announcement said.
Cree is a publicly traded company with annual revenues of $867 million. Its products include LED fixtures and bulbs for both the retail and commercial markets and semiconductor solutions for wireless and power applications.
Quarterly sales slip 3.2% at Huttig
Huttig Building Products, the St. Louis-based distributor, reported net sales of $127.2 million for its last fiscal quarter, which ended Sept. 30, a 3.2% decline from sales of $131.4 million in the same period of 2009.
Sales declined in building products but increased in all other product categories in 2010 from 2009, the company reported in an SEC filing. Millwork sales increased approximately 6% in 2010 to $58.4 million. Building product sales decreased approximately 15% in 2010 to $54.9 million. Wood products sales increased approximately 15% to $13.9 million in 2010.
The company posted a net loss of $4.5 million for the three-month period, compared with $1.1 million for the same period a year ago.
On Sept. 30, Huttig amended and restated its existing credit agreement with a four-year, $120 million, asset-based senior secured revolving credit facility, according to the filing.
Huttig is a two-step distributor of lumber, panels, decking, windows, doors, fasteners and other building materials. The company serves 41 states through 27 distribution centers.


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At Nielsen, we believe that our panels make our company stand out. We devote a great deal of time and resources to ensuring that our panels produce high-quality data. By combining big data with smaller data sets from carefully chosen and measured households, we believe that we provide a higher...
Radio continues to reach a large segment of Americans when they’re on the move, offering advertisers the ability to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time.
The combination of data integration and data enrichment enables sophisticated analytics to produce effective, actionable business intelligence—intelligence that was previously locked away in different systems.
Today’s shoppers are, in many cases, omnivores, but they’re playing the field when it comes to exploring meat alternatives in their search for dietary protein. In fact, protein-seeking consumers are more likely than ever to consider all the options available to them.
A transaction today involves more than just an exchange of payment for goods and services. It involves an exchange of data and is a reflection of trust. In this report, we’ll review and link out to viewpoints on the consumer opportunities in play today to win that trust.
Consumers are increasingly embracing a flexitarian lifestyle, delving into both traditional meat and plant-based alternatives.
This year’s winners represent a wide range of business situations across food, beverage, personal and home care. Some transformed brands; others tacked challenges with competing in saturated categories; and some adapted heritage brands to stay relevant amid an evolving FMCG landscape.
How big will this year’s Prime Day be? While there’s little doubt that it will continue on its upward trajectory, the growth areas might surprise you.
In the last decade or so, Americans are increasingly thinking of—and shopping for—their pets as furry family members. The humanization of pets is driving trends across the pet food industry that align with many of the trends we’re seeing in the human food and beverage industry. But the...
Americans aren’t drinking the way they were just a few years ago. An abundance of choice and the influence of health and wellness trends are re-shaping behaviors and preferences. There are ways, however, to break through. That’s because today’s consumers are seeking experiences—both in...
The FDA has began hearings examining the potential de-regulation of cannabidiol (CBD) from hemp within food products. This could have a major impact on the U.S. consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry—particularly for the snack and confectionery category.
It’s not everyday that a brand-new segment of consumer packaged goods (CPG) products arrives on the scene, not to mention one that we’re projecting will create billions of dollars in sales. But that’s exactly what’s happening with legalized cannabis and cannabis-infused products in the U.S.
While we expect sustainable-minded shoppers to spend up to $150 billion on sustainable products by 2021, sustainability is starting to drive gains in everything from resource management to product packaging.


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Mattress Firm to close 700 stores in an effort to survive
Mattress Firm to close 700 stores in an effort to survive
Mattress Firm files for bankruptcy
08 October, 2018, 05:14
The company and its subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 restructuring in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in DE with hopes of implementing a prepackaged reorganization plan.
The nation's largest mattressretailer has filed for Chapter 11 protection in DE as it works to cancel hundreds of leases and close stores. It now has more than 3,300 stores in the United States.
Mattress Firm - which operates 10 stores in the Treasure Valley - has a store a third of a mile north of the North Merchant Way location, at 16594 Midland Blvd., but it appears it will remain open.
"The Mattress Firm recapitalization also represents a further positive step in the wider Steinhoff restructuring process", van de Merwe said.
According to court documents, Mattress Firm has more than $1 billion in liabilities and has more than 50,000 creditors.
Steinhoff bought Mattress Firm in August 2016 for R33bn. As part of the filing, Mattress Firmplans to close 700 of those stores in the months "leading up to the holiday season".
Redditors argued that the chain had too many stores in the U.S. given that mattresses are a product that is typically bought every seven to 10 years.
A store at 16375 N. Merchant Way in Nampa is listed among those being closed. Mattress Firm purchased Sleep Experts, a chain of 55 mattress stores in Dallas and Austin, for $65 million in 2014. The company declined to make Stagner available for an interview.
The bankruptcy filing comes as parent company South African-based Steinhoff global Holdings has seen declining revenues and sales, amid increased competition from online startups like Casper.
It announced that it had secured commitments for $250 million in debtor-in-possession financing to support operations.
"The past few years have been tough for Mattress Firm".
Its parent company, Steinhoff International, is dealing with major problems including accounting irregularities, forcing its CEO to resign in December 2017.
Stores could help Casper stand out in a crowded mattress market.
According to research published past year , snakes were responsible for 27 deaths in Australia between 2000 and 2013. Mr Donoghue was born in Shoreham by Sea, West Sussex, and his family moved to Australia when he was six years old.
Ream's first outing this season ended in a 3-0 loss to Everton, and this did not go any better for the United States defender . The former Borussia Dortmund forward completed his epic brace at stoppage time after being perfectly set up by Ramsey.
With designated penalty takes Sergio Aguero not on the field, Mahrez moved Gabriel Jesus aside to take the responsibility. Referee Martin Atkinson was absolutely right to award Manchester City their penalty in the dying moments.
According to the researchers, there is weak evidence that justifies Vitamin D supplements' efficiency in improving bone health. An analysis of older studies notes that taking either high or low doses of vitamin D supplements didn't improve bone density.
Ahead of Saturday's vote, eyes were also on three other key swing votes, one of whom denounced Kavanaugh in a Friday floor speech. In the end, there was indeed a two-vote margin, the closest nomination vote since 1881.
Actor Khary Payton, who plays King Ezekiel on The Walking Dead , was one of the first cast members to remember Wilson on Twitter . - Scott Wilson , best known recently for his role as Hershel Greene on " The Walking Dead ", has died according to TMZ .
Democrats, of course, have the bulk of the incumbents in competitive Senate races on the 2018 map that are closely contested . He was facing three allegations of sexual misconduct that lacked in evidence or corroborating witnesses.
As you've probably guessed, Apple only makes the diagnostic software available to its own stores and authorized service providers. It will only be unlocked if the Service Toolkit 2 is used by an Authorized Service Provider.
Police said the accident occurred Saturday afternoon when two cars collided in Schoharie County, near the state capital, Albany. Kirby said that Columbus Day weekend is the busiest weekend of the year for the store, and that it was packed.
The Haitian civil protection agency said there was no tsunami warning following the quake , which was felt across the country. Early reports coming from the country is that at least one person has died and a number of others were injured.
Who will come out on top in the battle of the managers Mark Hughes or Maurizio Sarri? "I am really happy with him", Sarri said . With the look of things, Chelsea are now a major contender in the EPL alongside Liverpool and Man City.
Yazidi activist Nadia Murad awarded Nobel Prize
Nadia Murad, a Yazidi rights activist and survivor of sexual slavery by Islamic State, won the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. She was "given to more than 10" ISIS fighters, Murad later recalled, and passed around to be sexually abused, sometimes hourly.
Hamilton on brink of fifth title after Japan win
He was then fourth after Verstappen ran off the road at the chicane, and in rejoining the track, bumped Raikkonen on to the grass. He was penalised five seconds and could well have finished second without it, having crossed the line 1.3 seconds behind Bottas.
US Senate heads to final vote on court nominee Kavanaugh
Throughout the day Saturday, hundreds of protesters - many dressed in black garb - descended on the east steps of the Capitol. Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Joe Manchin , both regarded as swing votes, said they would support Kavanaugh.
Steven Gerrard could have Ryan Jack back for Hearts showdown
At the end, it's the teams and the clubs that win the game . "It didn't look too serious, so there's a chance but we don't know". City travel to Anfield this weekend in an eagerly anticipated early-season clash of the Premier League's top two sides.
LG V40 ThinQ with 6.4-inch OLED Display & Five Cameras Launched
The standout feature of this device will be the five cameras , there are triple cameras on the rear and dual cameras on the front. As mentioned earlier, the LG V40 ThinQ comes with a Penta camera setup, with three cameras on the rear and two on the front.
First Lady Melania Trump's Visit to Lilongwe, Malawi
As she says, the campaign is "shining a spotlight on successful programs and organizations that teach children tools and skills". She then took to the Nairobi National Park where she spotted rhino, giraffe, hippo, buffalo, zebra and other wildlife.


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Home-improvement retailer Lowe’s Cos. Inc. was hit with two downgrades Wednesday, a day after its vendor, appliance-maker Whirlpool Corp., reported weaker-than-expected earnings and told investors to brace for more trouble ahead.
The world’s biggest seller of fridges, washing machines and other household goods WHR, +3.38% cut its forecast for the rest of the year amid slumping demand in North America and the collapse in the value of the British pound after the U.K. vote to leave the European Union, known as Brexit.
Chief Executive Jeff Fettig told The Wall Street Journal that the anxiety-inducing U.S. presidential election is crimping spending, as consumers hunker down for the outcome. The news sent Whirlpool stock to its biggest price decline in its 44-year history.
J.P. Morgan analysts said the report illustrates the difficult and uneven consumer environment and the impact of moderating home sales on companies that sell to home buyers, including Lowe’s. Analysts downgraded the stock to neutral from overweight and lowered their price target to $72 from $87.
“The backdrop for the consumer (and to a certain extent home-related products) started to show some cracks a year ago when higher-end home furnishings retailers like Williams-Sonoma WSM, -11.23% and Restoration Hardware RH, -5.37% began to see weakness,” they wrote in a note. “The softer trends moved downstream this year with weakness at Target TGT, -1.34% Michael’s Cos. MIK, -0.23% and Dollar General DG, -0.32% .”
Lowe’s LOW, -0.46% has revamped its assortment to focus more on big-ticket items, in a move that has created risk in a weak consumer environment, they wrote. The company is facing difficult comparisons in the next two quarters after benefiting from last year’s unseasonably warm weather, and increased spending on advertising and promotions will create more pressure, they wrote.
“The big question is whether the election is causing the volatility in sales that many retailers have discussed and whether trends will bounce after it,” they wrote. “Thus, while we risk stepping aside with trends potentially set to improve, given the tactical set up discussed below (i.e., tougher comparisons fueled by weather and advertising/promotions) and considering LOW’s mix and historical greater sensitivity to environmental factors, we believe a downgrade is prudent.”
Don’t miss: Your next home may be a shipping container
Wedbush analysts downgraded Lowe’s to neutral from outperform, agreeing there is plenty of data to suggest a slowdown in underlying home improvement sales growth. Analysts argued that the slump is being caused by more than just uncertainty around the election and even the slowing of existing home sales. They cited the underwhelming earnings from a range of companies, such as Lowe’s rival Tractor Supply Company TSCO, -0.69% big-ticket discretionary product sellers such as Harley-Davidson Inc. HOG, +0.00% and mattress-maker Tempur-Sealy International Inc. TPX, +1.07% as well as the likes of Whirlpool, paint-maker Sherwin-Williams Co. SHW, +0.71% and home goods-maker Masco Corp MAS, -0.29%
Lowe’s has benefited in recent years from improvements to its merchandise presentation and rollout of indoor and outdoor project specialists.
“However, these benefits may be fading as demand growth softens,” they wrote. While some of that sentiment is baked into the share price, it still has little room for outperformance.
Lowe’s shares were trading down 2% Wednesday, and are down 12% in the year so far, while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.22% has gained 4.4%.


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The sporty denim editorial featured in the latest issue of ELLE Sweden is perfect for the fall season. Comfy and chic in a retro 70s-influenced way, the sporty denim fashion looks will make getting away for the weekend a priority this year. Of course, people can still enjoy these outfits in the city as well.
Shot in studio by photographer Honer Akrawi, the sporty denim editorial stars model Lara Mullen. The brunette beauty was styled by Josephine Aune, who pulled layered pieces from such labels as Cheap Monday, BLK DNM and Levi’s. The sporty denim style is perfected with messy tresses courtesy of hair stylist Dejan Cekanovic and a flawless face by makeup artist Pari Damani.


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The father or mother firm of bitcoin choices alternate operator LedgerX has raised $11.4m in a Series B funding spherical.
The spherical for Ledger Holdings was led by Miami International Holdings and Huiyin Blockchain Venture Investments, the startup introduced this morning. MIH is the father or mother firm of Miami International Securities Exchange, LLC, an choices alternate operator. Huiyin Blockchain Venture is a subsidiary of funding conglomerate Huiyin Group, launched final 12 months with tens of millions of dollars price of backing.
The spherical comes as LedgerX awaits final approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for its bitcoin choices buying and selling service. It first obtained temporary approval from the company – which regulates bitcoin and different digital currencies as kinds of commodities – in late 2015.
In statements, representatives for the agency highlighted the regulatory push, indicating that the funding would, in half, assist these efforts.
LedgerX CEO Paul Chou mentioned in an announcement:
“In the short term, these investments will further our application to become a regulated exchange and clearing house for bitcoin options. In the long term, these strategic investors will help us enter additional marketplaces and territories.”
The startup beforehand raised $1.5m in seed funding from a gaggle that included Google Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Image by way of Shutterstock