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- Will ifo survey suggest a levelling off in German recovery momentum?
- The drop in German GDP in Q2 was not quite as sharp as previously thought while the household savings ratio near-doubled
- Australian exports slip back and imports surge at the start of Q3, while domestic demand is likely to be held back the renewed decline in employment
ifo indices to suggest a moderation of German growth momentum?
Today’s most notable data from the euro area come from Germany, with the results of the August ifo business survey due shortly. These are expected to be consistent with continued economic recovery, albeit with some suggestion of a levelling off of momentum, particularly in the services sector where the need for ongoing social distancing continues to weigh on activity.
The headline ifo indicator for current conditions is expected to rise further from 84.5 in July, while remaining well down on the high for the year reached in January (99.1). The headline expectations index, however, had already risen sharply over recent months as recovery began, and at 97.0 in July was already at its highest since November 2018, so further improvement in this index looks far less certain. Last Friday’s flash PMIs suggested acceleration in manufacturing (the respective PMI rose 2pts in August to 53.0) but a weakening in services (down 4.8pts to 50.8) so that the composite PMI fell 1.6pts to 53.7 with the composite employment index (46.6) implying ongoing labour market weakness. Today’s survey will give a fresh take on developments in those sectors as well as new insights into retail/wholesale trade and construction, with high-frequency indicators having hinted at a levelling-off in activity in certain parts of the economy after the initial vigorousn rebound.
Drop in German GDP in Q2 was not quite as sharp as previously thought...
Meanwhile, the updated estimates of German GDP published earlier this morning suggested that the decline in economic activity last quarter was not quite as big as previously thought, but was still the steepest on the 50-year series and was roughly twice as severe as the worst quarter during the global financial crisis. In particular, having contracted 2.0%Q/Q in Q1, German GDP in Q2 dropped 9.7%Q/Q (compared to the initial estimate of a decline of 10.1%Q/Q) to be down 11.3%Y/Y.
The expenditure components, published for the first time, inevitably confirmed that all types of private demand fell sharply. In particular, household final consumption expenditure fell 10.9%Q/Q. Gross fixed capital formation in machinery and equipment fell almost twice that pace, down 19.6%Q/Q. But the decline in construction investment was somewhat more moderate at 4.2%Q/Q, and followed a surge in Q1 (5.1%Q/Q). And government consumption provided some support, rising 1.5%Q/Q.
The shock to German external trade in Q2 was also immense, and far more severe than during the global financial crisis. Following a drop of 3.3%Q/Q in Q1, exports of goods and services fell by a record 20.3%Q/Q in Q2. And imports fell 16.0%Q/Q in Q2 having dropped 1.9%Q/Q in Q1.
...while the household savings ratio near-doubled
Among other detail on the performance of Germany’s economy in Q2, employment fell 1.3%Y/Y, the first such decline in a decade. But that drop would have been much sharper without the government support provided via its short-term working (kurzarbeit) scheme. Indeed, the average number of hours worked per person fell a record 8.8%Y/Y, with total hours worked down 10.0%Y/Y. Average wages and salaries per employee fell 4.8%Y/Y, but government support meant that disposable income fell just 0.8%Y/Y. And so, with spending down far more steeply, the household savings ratio near-doubled in Q2 to 20.1%. That increase in household savings, together with ongoing government stimulus initiatives and the extension of the kurzarbeit scheme (which was still supporting about 5.6mn employees at the end of July) should help to ensure continued (if rather patchy) recovery, at least over the near term. The profile of the pandemic, however, remains key.
Aussie exports and employment slip back at the start of Q3:
Today’s preliminary trade figures for July suggest that net goods exports remained a notable drag on GDP growth at the start of Q3. Indeed, according to the ABS, the value of exports fell 6%M/M, almost twice the pace of the monthly increase in June. This reflected a sharp decline in the value of shipments to China last month, driven by a drop in exports of iron ore and copper following record export value levels for both commodities in June. Exports to Japan and Korea also slipped back. But the trade performance was also impacted by a notable increase in the value of imports (up 11%M/M) as domestic demand continued to recover after the initial lockdown. This was partially driven by a rebound in imports of vehicles (up almost 50%M/M) although the level still remained extremely low by historical standards.
Notwithstanding the jump in imports in July, domestic demand seems bound to have been negatively impacted by the resurgence of coronavirus cases and reinstatement of restrictions across Victoria. Some of the initial impact was evident in the latest ABS weekly payrolls figures, which showed that payroll jobs in Victoria fell by 2.8% in the month to 8 August. Overall, the drop in total payrolls was more modest at 1%, albeit leaving them still 4.9% below the level in mid-March when Australia recorded its 100th coronavirus case. Indeed, just 43% of the jobs lost by mid-April have now been recovered, with just 12% in Victoria. And while the number of daily Covid cases has subsequently fallen back, we still expect to see a drop in the official employment figures for the month of August as a whole.
Today in the UK and US:
Looking ahead, this morning will bring the latest UK CBI distributive trades survey for August, which is expected to point to a pickup in retail sales this month as shopper footfall improved further, among other things encouraged supported by the government’s ‘Eat out to help out’ scheme. However, with the government’s Job Retention Scheme being tapered, and several large retailers already announcing their intention to make significant reductions in staffing levels, the survey could flag expectations of tough times ahead for the retail sector.
In the US, today will bring the Conference Board’s consumer confidence survey for August, along with various housing market indicators including July new home sales and FHFA and S&P CoreLogic price indices for June.


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EU is interested in exports of Ukrainian oilseeds – expert
The European Union is principally interested in purchasing of oilseed raw materials from Ukraine, declared Stepan Kapshuk, General Director of the Association Ukroliyaprom, on June 10 at the press-conference "Ukrainian agro-industrial complex and the EU".
According to him, it is caused by the fact that the EU uses only half of its domestic oilseed raw materials to load the processing capacities.
Therefore, S.Kapshuk expressed concern on the article of the Association Agreement with the EU, which proposes to zero the export duties on sunflower seed upon expiration of the transition period (15 years), since imposition of the reporting export duties provided development of the fat-and-oil industry in Ukraine at the proper time.
In addition, the expert noted that if in 2012/13 MY the EU imported 565 thsd tonnes of sunflower oil from Ukraine, then during the first 8 months of 2013/14 MY the index totaled nearly 240 thsd tonnes, while the imports of oilseed raw materials (rapeseed, soybeans, sunflower seed) totaled 2.5 mln tonnes and 2.3 mln tonnes, respectively.
You should be authorized to post comment
Ukraine completed the planting campaign of early spring wheat - Ministry of Agrarian Policy
April 24, 17:20
Ukraine increased millet processing and exports - APK-Inform
April 24, 16:00
Belgian Parliament ratified the Ukraine–EU Association Agreement
April 24, 14:30
Ukraine to increase the transshipment capacities of eight ports — Ministry of Infrastructure
April 24, 12:18
Ukraine: weather conditions are favorable for winter crops, unequal — for spring ones
April 24, 11:45
Ukraine exported over 28.5 mln tonnes of grains – Ministry of Agrarian Policy
April 24, 09:30
Association "Ukroliyaprom" proposes to cancel the state regulation of sunflower oil prices
April 23, 17:10

domain: news


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Philippines cocoa and chocolate firm Cacao Culture is riding the rising consumer demand for healthier products to draw younger consumers to the traditional local drink tablea, also dubbed the ‘healthiest form of hot chocolate available’.
Indian plant-based dairy firms have taken to the courts to prevent their products from being delisted over the use of dairy terms, and are warning the battle will be long despite achieving an initial legal reprieve.
Chinese consumers are taking on average two to three supplement products weekly, with improving immunity, overall health, and digestive system as the key reasons, according to new survey findings by Herbalife.
The New Zealand food and grocery industry has called for more restrictions to be placed on supermarkets’ private label products given the highly concentrated grocery retail market in the country, citing a potential ‘conflict of interest’ which could result...
Newly established Australian firm Openway Food, which owns health food brands such as Red Tractor and Raise the Bar, is aiming for further distribution in Asia after gaining traction in China and the US.


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DELTAGLOBAL CREATES PACKAGING SOLUTION FOR HEAT MYSTERY BOX
The HEAT box is the first of its kind, providing men and women with a monthly subscription box filled with a selection of mystery high-end fashion items.
Subscription boxes have soared in popularity in recent months, providing consumers with a new and exciting way to shop. However, businesses who supply these boxes are conscious of their environmental impact since they are sending out boxes consistently every month, which results in a large amount of waste.
The Packaging Brief From Heat To Delta Global
HEAT came to Delta Global for help with developing an innovative, eco-friendly packaging solution that aims to eliminate the use of plastic lamination and introduces the use of compostable materials. However, the team behind the HEAT mystery box wanted to take their sustainability efforts one step further with just four weeks to complete the project.
HEAT was keen to develop a fully recyclable, luxury box that took advantage of our innovative Delta removable magnet system®. While many luxury boxes use recyclable materials, they feature magnetic closure systems which restrict the recyclability when they come to the end of their lives.
In addition to this, the HEAT team also wanted to use FSC accredited materials so once the magnet was easily removed, the boxes could be completely deconstructed and fully recycled.
The Packaging Solution From Delta Global
Delta Global supported the HEAT mystery box brand by creating custom-designed luxury boxes that elevates its luxury proposition and assists with the wider company brand. Since the boxes themselves play a huge part in HEAT’s luxury offering, they were created to a very high-quality standard.
With sustainability and innovation taking centre stage, we created boxes that were simplistic yet sturdy in design, encouraging a second life through reuse and repurposing.
The magnet can be removed using perforation points built into the box. This allows the customer to remove the magnet quickly and easily should they want to recycle the box. Alternatively, they can choose to keep everything intact to make further use of the box.
The HEAT box can now be completely recycled without compromising on quality and luxury.
The boxes are now 50% faster to make up thanks to the rapid in-house sampling process and streamlined 7 PCS construction method.
HEAT is now able to benefit from more business efficiency.
For more information on our range of innovative packaging solutions, contact a member of our team today. We are proud to have the ability to work with businesses in varying industries to help their packaging dreams come to life.


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In the context of: Samsung will use the most advanced manufacturing process to manufacture chipsets for four well-known technology companies. The race to overtake TSMC as the world’s largest chip foundry is on, while geopolitical struggles are tearing apart the age-old economic balance.
It was Samsung Chosen as a manufacturing partner by four of the world’s largest technology companies, according to unnamed industry sources. Nvidia, Qualcomm, IBM and Baidu will employ the South Korean company’s latest manufacturing process to bring their future products to market, while Samsung hopes to gain ground over TSMC in the chip foundry race.
Samsung will use the recently unveiled 3nm node to supply fabless companies’ chip supplies in bulk starting in 2024. Nvidia will use the 3nm node to build its next generation of GPUs, IBM will make its own CPUs, and Qualcomm needs an arm. chipset for smartphones, and Baidu will use 3nm for its cloud data centers.
Samsung has started manufacturing 3nm chips on a large scale back in june. The company says its latest manufacturing technology delivers significant improvements in power efficiency (45%) and chip performance (23%) over the previous-generation 5nm node.
The second generation of the 3nm process is already in development, as Samsung points out there is still plenty of room for more efficiency and performance improvements.
While the company is making strides in the 3nm race, Samsung is the second-largest chip foundry behind TSMC, which nearly triples Samsung’s market share. TSMC is expanding its manufacturing base outside of Taiwan new plants in the United States Let’s start with Meanwhile, Samsung already has an international business approach, with manufacturing plants in South Korea (Giheung, Hwaseong, and Pyeongtaek), the USA (Austin and Taylor), and China (Xian).
Samsung is known for its leadership in the memory business, but the current geopolitical situation could help it gain ground over TSMC to become a competing manufacturing superpower. Many “big tech” companies are looking for new partnerships as well, in an effort to reduce their dependence on manufacturers in China amid the growing diplomatic and economic struggle between Washington and Beijing.


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Food banks, food pantries, and consumers need to step up to the plate by providing foods that will nourish the millions of people in the United States who go hungry every day.
If you think people who suffer from hunger are always underweight and malnourished, you may be surprised to learn that many actually suffer from obesity.
The primary reason is that the cheapest and most widely available foods in the United States are full of sugar, unhealthy fats, and preservatives.
Not only that, but people who are at risk of going hungry often don’t have the time, supplies, or know-how to prepare healthy meals every day.
Today is National Food Day, and Healthline sat down with Ruthi Solari, founder and executive director of SuperFood Drive, a San Diego nonprofit working with hunger relief organizations to change their focus from simply feeding the hungry to nourishing them. The organization also trains volunteers and the public on which foods are healthy and how to cook them.
Six years ago, when Solari started SuperFood Drive, she noticed that a lot of the food being collected during food drives, especially during the holidays, was very highly processed and high in fat, sugar, salt, chemicals, and high fructose corn syrup.
“I thought, even if someone is just eating this food once, this isn’t the best food for you. Could there be an opportunity to use food drives to collect more nourishing foods and more whole foods in their nonperishable form?” said Solari, who is also a certified nutritionist.
Solari provided the following statistics from Feeding America, a national association that represents food banks:
- More than 50 million Americans visit food pantries on a regular basis.
- One in five children gets food from food pantries.
- More than 30 million elderly people visit food pantries.
- One in three returning veterans visits food pantries.
- More than 60 percent of those who visit food pantries have a diet- related disease, such as diabetes or heart disease.
Solari explained that historically, the goal of food pantries has been to serve people who are in an emergency situation. Because so many Americans are living at or near poverty levels due to hard economic times, they have come to rely on food pantries for longer periods of time. This is especially true for seasonal workers who face layoffs during certain parts of the year.
“When I started SuperFood Drive, there was little to no emphasis on the nutritional quality of the food being distributed. It was really about ‘Let’s just fill empty stomachs.’ If you were going to go to a food pantry once, for an emergency, a focus on filing empty stomachs is not a big deal. But now that people are getting those boxes and bags on a regular basis, the quality of food is really important,” said Solari.
How does SuperFood Drive make sure that nutritious food is available? The organization works with food pantries to create nutrition policies, including ones that ban soda, sheet cakes, and other items containing high fructose corn syrup.
Alameda County Food Bank in Northern California, the Philadelphia Food Pantry, and the Santa Barbara Food Bank have nutrition sourcing policies. As a result of working with SuperFood Drive, Feeding America San Diego adopted a nutrition sourcing policy.
“The nutritional guidelines for sourcing food mean that the foods they bring in have at least a certain amount of fiber and are below a certain amount of sugar,” said Solari.
Some food pantries receive up to 80 percent of their food from food drives. “These food drives typically prompt peple to reach in back of their pantries and donate unused or expired food in their house, or buy Hamburger Helper or macaroni and cheese,” said Solari.
What kinds of foods would Solari like to see people donate instead? “Super foods. These are foods with the most nutrient-density per calorie, and they contain lots of vitamins and minerals.”
- black beans, instead of refried beans
- brown rice, instead of white rice
- fruit canned in its own juices, instead of high fructose corn syrup.
- nuts, seeds, and canned fish
- whole grains, such as quinoa, amaranth, and buckwheat
SuperFood Drive teaches food pantry workers and volunteers about super foods so they can educate food pantry recipients. The organization also offers educational resources on its website.
“It’s one thing for people who have a choice not to want to learn about it. When it comes to people who don’t have a choice, that’s where we have a responsibility,” Solari said. “If we provide food, it needs to be food that promotes health.”


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This new report comes from the folks over at Nikkei Asian Review, who claim that Apple might tap the SE line once more to help it regain some market share. According to a new Bloomberg report, Apple is internally testing an iPhone with an in-display fingerprint sensor, technology we've already seen in some Android devices.
Amongst this sales decline, the arrival of a low-priced phone people have been yearning for can certainly boost Apple's numbers.
Needless to say, you should take all of these with a certain amount of skepticism, albeit a second-generation iPhone SE makes sense not only from a cost perspective, but also given that all premium models are getting a larger screen.
To combat sluggish market performance this year, Apple cut prices for its premium handsets in developing markets, which was somewhat effective: discounting the iPhone XR increased sales by 20 million in China, though Apple sales suffered an overall shortfall in the region.
Apple doesn't have compelling offers for these consumers at present. Yet despite its superiority, Apple seems intent on offering users both Touch ID and Face ID. And it's not holding back on glitzy features in this range, such as the new 5G Galaxy A90 with an in-screen fingerprint reader, the Galaxy 9 with four rear cameras, and the Galaxy A80 with a rotating camera. If the last two years are indicators of anything, the company might not sell as many units as it used to do prior to the iPhone X's release in 2017. Bloomberg's report said that Apple declined to comment. The devices are likely to feature a new chip called the A13 or a variant of the A12X in the current iPad Pros, according to CNET's round-up of rumored features.


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TORONTO, ON – Muddy York Brewing has announced the return of one of the most hop-forward beers in its rotating seasonal line-up.
R-100 IPA (7% abv, 70 IBU) takes its name from a British built dirigible that crossed the Atlantic and flew over Toronto in 1930. According to the release announcement, “Citra and Amarillo give this beer substantial hop character with unique flavours of cherimoya and ripe honeydew melon.”
R-100 IPA is available now in 355 ml cans in the Muddy York retail store and online shop.
Source & Photo: Muddy York Brewing mailing list


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Following in the footsteps of Toyota, Japanese automaker Honda will reportedly manufacture components, including batteries and electric motors, for some of its hybrid vehicles in China, starting in 2012. The production shift is meant to reduce the cost of Honda's hybrid vehicles sold in China and, hopefully, boost sales there, too.
Honda has just announced that it is issuing a recall of 528,406 Chinese-made cars. Apparently they need to fix power steering lines and pumps as well as fuel pump relays on the hundreds of thousands of affected vehicles. Seeing as how China is such a large country with such a large number of potential Honda Accord owners, maybe the numbers don't look that big over there, but from our perspective they look HUGE.


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I have very strong opinions about retargeting, as regular readers will know! Marketers seem to be on a crazy high these days, obsessed with the idea that their path to success is to spend more on site retargeting and keep finding ways to increase their audience pool or boost frequency caps to obscene levels.
More spend is better? Garbage! Smarter spending is better.
Over the last two years, I have discussed why marketers should cut their site retargeting budget, how programmatic marketing executions can change retargeting forever and, in a recent iMedia article, why retargeting is fundamentally broken.
But, these are just my opinions; and so, the team at Chango refreshed the Retargeting Barometer, asking more than 50 marketers and agencies what they really think of retargeting today.
The first surprise for me was the rate at which marketers are moving from buying retargeting through their agency to buying it directly from vendors (58%).
About 7 years ago, I was running the European arm of a major ad server, and we were just beginning to see the same type of pattern. Our business was 80%+ agencies, but the incoming leads were nearly all brands — and now the majority of ad server accounts are held by the brands.
The reason? Marketers want control of their own data, and they also want consistency in these core programs, even if they part ways with their agency.
That’s troubling news for agencies, who are already struggling to find new ways to prove their value in this rapidly changing ecosystem. But, as I often help agencies to understand, all is not lost for them — many marketers still need the execution and creative services that agencies bring. If agencies begin to realize that clients want smarter buying, not “more” buying, there are other ways for them to win, too (as outlined in the iMedia article above).
Continue reading on searchengineland.com


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The Maersk Luz with it’s precious cargo of continental cars has departed the Thames Gateway port and is on it’s way to Rotterdam, where it is due to dock at 14:30 today 5th May.
I don’t know if this is where the cars will be dropped off but when there is news I will let you know.
The Sofia Celeste with the equally precious cargo of UK cars is out of satellite contact at the moment but on it’s way to Las Palmas due in in a few days time.
The ship made the UK newspapers last Friday in a report about the South African lockdown and the difficulty maintaining exports through the docks. Apparently our ship is now laden with South African wine destined for the UK as well as a consignment of Satsumas!
In the meantime, Bruno and his team at Destination Rally in Belgium have been on safari in Brussels using their 4×4’s to deliver food and supplies to the needy in lockdown.
Good for them: every bit of volunteering helps get us through this crisis.


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Vocalis up ahead of results
Shares in speech technology specialists Vocalis Group spurted in early morning trade on Friday as buyers returned after recent weakness ahead of first half results due next week. Shares in Vocalis gained 27p or 9.26% to 312- 1/2p.
Two weeks ago the share price jumped to a record high of 355p, having stuck at around 100p for much of the past year, amid surging investment interest in technology and Internet-related sectors of the market.
Vocalis's results for the six months to 30 September will be released next Thursday. 'The price has jumped as the market is looking to the results. Buyers like the high-tech and internet aspect of our venture,' a company spokesman said.
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On Thursday, Twitter announced the winners of its inaugural "Twitter Awards" live @TwitterAds.
"Twitter is a huge part of our lives," said Per Peredson, global ECD at Grey, who served as one of the judges, "and it's time to honor great creativity on this unique platform."
The "Ready. Set. Race." campaign sought to ignite the racing spirit in fans and increase engagement around the annual Daytona 500 stock car race. With a branded @NASCAR emoji and the Twitter logo painted on the Daytona infield, @NASCAR introduced the Hashtag 500 race on Twitter. The campaign invited fans to "race" for real driver gear—flags, helmets, bent metal from crashes—in real time by tweeting specific hashtags at different moments during the live race.
The campaign brought in 13,000 mentions in one minute—a record for the largest social media spike in history, according to Twitter. From the campaign, the brand saw a 22.5% increase in followers watching live and 640% increase in Twitter followers.
Airbnb couldn't run a TV spot during the Oscars, so the brand used this campaign to tap into the Oscars audience. The campaign asked the Twitter audience which movie it would most like to live in and then tweeted back with listings that matched their dream locations.Then, Airbnb tweeted listings that looked to be straight out of the Oscar-winning movies, as the winners were announced on TV.
The campaign generated 63 million impressions and 1.3 million video views, more than any other brand during Oscars weekend.
Made a mistake while using Calculator? Swipe to delete and keep crunching numbers. pic.twitter.com/K8UN2gour8— Apple Support (@AppleSupport) August 15, 2016
Apple Support wanted to reduce its customer service response time. The team picked up conversations with customers and incorporated rich media into their responses.
The campaign saw 150,000 likes and retweets since launching in March 2016.
To tackle the sexist comments written about female athletes before and during one of the world's largest sporting events, Dove encouraged viewers to tweet offensive statements back to the original sources with the hashtag #MyBeautyMySay.
The campaign generated 40,000 tweets, reaching 321 million people. It also gathered more than 1.2 billion earned-media impressions.
"Hungerithm" monitored Twitter's collective mood and sentiment around meal times, so that when the mood on Twitter plummeted, so did the price of Snickers. The Hungerithm connected social promotion to in-store purchases by allowing people to check Twitter's mood every 10 minutes and claim coupons on their phones.
On Twitter, the campaign received 30 million earned-media impressions. Brand mentions increased by 120%, which helped fuel website visits that reached 400% above benchmark. More than 150,000 Snickers were sold in Australia's 7-Eleven stores, a 67% year-over-year increase.
This story first appeared on campaignlive.com


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THE UNDERSTATED JOURNAL GETS EMPHATIC ABOUT PUNCTUATION: Let the inevitable comparisons to The New York Times’ T begin: The Wall Street Journal’s new glossy magazine has officially jettisoned the name Pursuits in favor of…WSJ. That’s W-S-and-J — period included. (So, too, let the punctuation wrangling commence.) A spokesman confirmed the name: “Its understatedness suits the personality of the Journal and avoids the pretense and artifice of many bad magazine names. The three letters happen to be typographically quite pleasing. And its simplicity gives us enormous flexibility visually and semantically.” The logo was designed by Tomaso Capuano, who was recently hired from The Times of London to be art director at WSJ., and who designed The Financial Times’ How to Spend It. The spokesman said the idea was the consensus for business and editorial, “because both sides believed it would resonate with both readers and advertisers respectively.” The magazine’s editor, Tina Gaudoin, will take WSJ.’s early materials on a “road show” to advertisers in London, Milan and Paris next month, with U.S. appearances in five cities following in April. — Irin Carmon
SOMETHING COOKING: Emeril Lagasse’s food franchises, which include his television programming and expanding cookbook businesses, is set to be acquired by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., but don’t expect a magazine to follow. MSLO chief executive officer Susan Lyne said Tuesday during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call that Lagasse will instead work in some capacity with MSLO’s current roster of magazines, such as the Everyday Food franchise, to build brand awareness. The deal with Lagasse came to fruition through a personal relationship with chairman Charles Koppelman. “Emeril never marketed the company,” said Lyne of the deal, reportedly worth $50 million in cash and stock, adding that he was not in the market to sell.
As for the quarter ending Dec. 31, MSLO revenues were up 22.1 percent to $118.5 million over the same quarter the prior year. Net income more than doubled to $33.3 million. The company reported that fourth-quarter results were mainly driven by royalty revenues from its merchandising relationship with Kmart, which is coming to an end. In publishing, revenues for the quarter jumped 15 percent to $49.4 million, led by strong ad gains at Martha Stewart Living. However, while better, the publishing side remained in the red, with operating losses of $1.1 million, compared with a loss of $2.2 million in 2006. Ad revenues increased 30 percent in the fourth quarter, with pages up 12 percent at Martha Stewart Living, 9 percent at Everyday Food and 8 percent at Body + Soul. Lyne noted that in 2007, Blueprint, which was shuttered in December, had $7 million in revenues. At the start of this year, Martha Stewart Living raised its rate base to 2 million, Everyday Food is now at 900,000 and Body + Soul increased to 550,000. — Amy Wicks
This story first appeared in the February 20, 2008 issue of WWD. Subscribe Today.
MORE REASONS TO ‘TUBE: Marie Claire, Seventeen and Good Housekeeping have launched YouTube-branded channels and more are on the way. Thanks to a deal between Hearst Magazines Digital Media and YouTube that was unveiled Wednesday, 15 Hearst print and online publications, including Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Cosmopolitan and The Daily Green, will provide lifestyle content online, contests and allow viewers to upload personalized videos. For example, Harper’s Bazaar readers will be able to view the latest on fashion and beauty, and cooking videos will be posted from the editorial staff at Good Housekeeping. A spokesman declined to discuss terms of the deal.
Hearst’s Good Housekeeping, Redbook, Country Living and House Beautiful; Condé Nast’s Domino and Architectural Digest, and Time Inc.’s Real Simple are also involved in a partnership with AOL. These magazine Web sites will provide monthly features for a new AOL domestic hub, called AOL Home. Channels on the Web site will be divided into decorating, entertaining, green, do-it-yourself and organize and cleaning. — A.W.
BOOK DEAL: Stacy Morrison, editor in chief of Redbook, is the latest editor to receive a book deal. After a bidding war between six publishing houses, Simon & Schuster Inc. won the right to publish Morrison’s book, which will be a “prescriptive memoir” about her divorce, called “Falling Apart in One Piece.” “I want to comfort those that are going through the same things,” she said.
Morrison received a six-figure deal, but hasn’t started writing the book. She predicts it will be published in 2009, at the earliest. She added that it will cover the times she has been “wowed and surprised by timing,” such as when her husband said he wanted to leave, while they were raising an eight-month-old son and she was interviewing for the editor in chief job at Redbook. Or the time she found out her house started to flood while interviewing President Bush in the White House (the results from the interview appeared in the November 2004 issue). At this point, she said it’s too early to predict whether she’ll go on a book tour. — A.W.


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Two Chinese nationals are facing up to 20 years in jail in the US after being found guilty of stealing 5,000 Apple iPhones worth $3 million by exchanging them for fakes.
The cunning duo, Haotian Sun, 35, and Pengfui Xue, 33, both residing in Maryland, used counterfeit handsets to exchange with Apple for genuine articles, claiming the ‘originals’ were broken and in need of repair.
“Sun and Xue received shipments of inauthentic iPhones from Hong Kong at UPS mailboxes throughout the DC Metropolitan area,” said the US Department of Justice (DoJ), announcing the verdict. “They then submitted the fake iPhones, with spoofed serial numbers and/or IMEI numbers, to Apple retail stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers.”
IMEI stands for International Mobile Equipment Identity and is a unique 15-digit number used to check a device’s origin. It’s not clear whether the ploy was clever enough to fool Apple employees, or if Sun and Xue simply made off with the exchanged genuine handsets before the IMEI could be checked.
The pair’s fraud campaign took place between 2017 and 2019, during which time Sun opened eight UPS store mailboxes using his Maryland driver’s license and university identification card.
However, US postal inspectors caught up to their crimes at the end of that period, arresting Sun and Xue and bringing them to trial at a federal court in the District of Columbia.
The two will be sentenced on June 21st and could each get up to two decades behind bars for conspiracy to commit mail fraud.
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#Trump Tariff List Targets High-Tech Minerals That #US Needs
#China’s grip on rare-earths supply is so strong that the #US joined with other nations earlier this decade in a World Trade Organization case to force the nation to export more of the materials, not less, after prices spiked amid a global shortage. The WTO ruled in favor of the U.S., while prices eventually slumped as manufacturers turned to alternatives.
Imposing duties will “bring home to the American public the reality of how much of what they use in everyday life contains these technology metals,” Jack Lifton, the Michigan-based founder of rare earth consulting service Technology Metals Research LLC, said by phone. “The Chinese mine the rare-earths, they separate them, they refine them. This is the long-term trend and a 10 percent tariff will not do anything to stir any domestic production in the U.S.”
Read more at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-11/trump-s-tariff-list-targets-high-tech-minerals-that-u-s-needs


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CVS Caremark Corp., a drugstore operator and pharmacy benefits manager, plans to buy back up to $6 billion worth of its stock over the next several years.
The company, which said it would buy back the shares over an unspecified multiyear period, plans to provide 2013 guidance and an outline of its capital allocation strategy during its analyst day Dec. 13, CNBC reports.
Woonsocket, R.I.-based CVS Caremark Corp. (NYSE: CVS) has about 7,400 stores and more than 60 million plan members. The company reported net income of $965 million in the second quarter ended June 30 on revenue of $30.71 billion.
CVS has more than 25 stores in the St. Louis region, according to the company's website.


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Sweet Squared introduces new premium face masks range
Sweet Squared have partnered with luxury Austrian brand ARMARGENTUM to exclusively distribute their premium nose and mouth coverings in the UK and Ireland.
Available in four colours – black, white, taupe and denim – these stylish face masks are handmade using true Swarovski crystals. Featuring unique ribbon fastenings for superior fit, they're also reusable and can be washed at 60 degrees and higher.
“The ARMARGENTUM masks are OEKO-TEX certified which means they have been rigorously tested for the presence of harsh chemicals, so you can be sure they're 100% safe for you to wear around the nose and mouth area,” say the team at Sweet Squared.
In addition, the anti-bacterial cotton-blend insert of the masks is made with SILVADUR™, which the brand explains is widely known for its antimicrobial technology. “The use of SILVADUR™ ensures microbes can be killed off by emitting silver ions when microorganisms are encountered,” they detail.
“As we prep for back to work normalcy, it's important now more than ever to ensure high standards in salon hygiene,” comments Sweet Squared co-founder, Samantha Sweet. “We only offer our pros the very best quality in terms of keeping them and their clients safe. What I love about these face masks is that they're comfortable and look beautiful; they tick all the boxes.”
For more information, contact 0333 000 7000 or go to sweetsquared.com


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The 10 most popular long-haul vacation destinations for Irish people in 2020
Planning your next holiday?
Despite only being a few short weeks into 2020, we'll readily admit it: we're already dreaming of our next holiday.
Especially with the way the weather's been lately.
Earlier this week, Travel Counsellors released their annual Top 10 List of Long and Short Haul Bookings in January.
And considering the fact that January felt like it was never going to end, it's not surprising to hear that the company's busiest day for bookings was January 31.
What better way to banish the January blues?
Adventure tourism was the biggest trend for those booking holidays in January 2020, replacing the traditional 'fly and flop' trip according to the leading premium travel specialists.
A rise in the popularity of soft adventure - like trekking, safari, skiing and surfing - saw January travel bookings to South Africa and New Zealand more than double in popularity compared to the same time last year.
“Last year South Africa was in sixth place on our Top 10 List of Long Haul Bookings, this year it is third. The country was ninth in the standings in 2018, so it seems that the adventure tourism of South Africa, with its untamed wilderness and scenic beauty, has won over Irish holidaymakers," General Manager of Travel Counsellors Ireland, Cathy Burke said.
"We have requests in from people looking to zip-line over the Koekedouw River, snorkel with seahorses in the famed Knysna lagoon, and safari at Kruger National Park. South Africa really does offer a soft adventure option for people of all ages.”
She added that New Zealand was another country in which they had seen a "rapid rise" - although it didn't make the Top 10.
"It is an adventurer’s paradise with opportunities to try activities like scuba diving, hot air ballooning and rock climbing; especially in adrenaline-packed Queenstown," she continued. "It is a stunning country and New Zealand is sitting just outside our Top 10 List despite such a surge in bookings.”
The top two rankings for 2020 long-haul bookings remained unchanged on 2019 for TravelCounsellors, with the USA top of the list yet again. Mexico, with bookings up 15 per cent on the same period last year, took the number two slot.
They were followed by South Africa, Vietnam, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Canada, Mauritius and Thailand. The two new nations who returned to the top table after failing to make it onto last year’s list were Indonesia (up 59 per cent) and Thailand, whose bookings rose 33 per cent from 2019 figures.
Other destinations that saw a significant increase in bookings included Jamaica (up 179 per cent), Malaysia (up 127 per cent), Brazil (up 90 per ent) and Tanzania (up 62 per cent).
On the top European destinations list, Spain took first place yet again, while Italy, Portugal, Greece and newcomer Finland rounded out the remaining top five slots.
“It is clear from bookings that Christmas 2020 is already on the minds of the Irish public,” Cathy continued.. “Family bookings to Lapland — where you’ll find reindeer sleigh rides through snowy forests, cosy cabins, and of course the chance to meet Santa — for winter 2020 have been flying in and they are the sole reason Finland has made onto Europe’s top five.”
Top 10 Long Haul
- South Africa
- United Arab Emirates
Top 5 Europe


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Goodbye 2020, Hello 2021!
With everything that has happened over the past year, we thought we’d take a quick look back at 2020 and a look ahead to what’s in store at Vision One for 2021. It’s certainly not been the best year for most of us, but here are a few moments that brought us a little joy, so sit back and enjoy this peek into the not so distant past!
New Team Arrivals
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic and the devastating impact it has had on many lives, it is great that we are able to continue offering opportunities for new members to join the Vision One team! At the beginning of the year, Helen Mole joined us to help bolster our client development team. We’ve also welcomed Raluca Bobutanu into our research team, who has made an immediate impact specialising in qualitative research and online focus groups. Most recently, in December we were also joined by Mollie Hannigan, our latest Digital Marketer.
Alongside our new team members, some of our staff decided to be pioneers, being the first in the 21 years of Vision One to welcome a child into the world! Just like London busses, we were not only blessed with one but rather three new babies! Not too long now till we have our very own mini Vision One 5-a-side football team!
Working from home
Like many other businesses, we have been busy working from home for the past nine months – discovering that it works much better than we first thought!
Nevertheless, it may have passed your attention that we have relocated our Liverpool Office to Mann Island and the wonderful location that is the Albert Dock. Mann Island is home to many of the city’s best creative and tech-driven companies. Granted, we’ve not been able to maximise the use of our prime real estate, but we’re all optimistic that we’ll be back soon!
We are always grateful for the opportunity of working alongside so many great brands and businesses and delighted to be their trusted partner in many cases. We love to promote the wonderful work these brands do – please check out our Twitter for all the latest news. Below are just some of the exceptional brands we have the pleasure in partnering with this year:
“BEST MARKET RESEARCH
Amongst the uncertainty and confusion this year, we were delighted to pick up several awards thanks to the incredible team here at Vision One. Of particular note, we won The Drum Recommends award for “Best Market Research Agency (2020)”. What makes this particularly special is that this is the second time in three years, and we are the only agency to have achieved this.
With our Charity Walk up Snowdon delayed once again until 2021, we switched this up and tied it in within our Christmas Party, and decided to host a Murder Mystery Whodunnit, with special thanks to Macmillan for producing such an excellent dossier for us to be able to raise money for such a special charity. The night was a hit with our whole staff and involved some fabulous acting, accents and outfits, raising a grand amount of £400 for our antics!
The Year Ahead
Looking forward to 2021, we have been busy developing some exciting new products, which we look forward to releasing later this year. Finally, we would like to sign off this message by saying a big ‘Thank You’ to the NHS and all the frontline workers who have kept us all going. We wish everyone the very best for 2021 and a safe and prosperous year.


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Veganz, Germany’s largest vegan-only supermarket chain, has seen great success opening stores across its homeland and throughout Europe, but now the company will be making its largest expansion yet as it looks to open their first U.S. store in Portland, Oregon in 2017.
The chain has only been around since 2011, but Germany attitude towards eating healthier or more ethical foods has led to a rapid expansion. It’s not only vegans showing up to shop at Veganz though as founder Jan Bredack revealed to Eco Watch that “80% of his customers are neither vegan nor vegetarian.”
What may help the chain break into the American market is that Veganz puts their focus on selling prepared food items instead of focusing on selling the raw ingredients to make your own dishes. Shoppers will be able to find an assortment of fake sausages, steaks and various junk-food inspired items on the shelves.
Veganz original goal was to open in Portland later this year, but for unknown reasons that date has been pushed into 2017. According to a tweet sent out by the company, the location will be a part of a vegan mall close to downtown Portland.


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The coverage of an outbreak usually follows a familiar story arc – people get sick; additional illnesses roll in as the investigation unfolds; media shares what people can do with the product to protect themselves and finally, sometimes a source is fingered.
In Canada’s lettuce-linked E. coli O157 outbreak, we’re in phase three – what can you do?
One challenge in answering that question is the Public Health Agency of Canada hasn’t released (or doesn’t know) exactly what types of romaine lettuce are linked – and whether it’s sold as a head, or chopped (like in a salad kit). The ‘what can you do?’ is influenced by that.
According to Global News, one of the risk management steps a home chef could employ is washing the lettuce. Even if its washed, bagged and ready-to-eat.
Jason Tetro, a visiting scientist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, explained that the bacteria is typically not found in produce such as lettuce. Instead, it’s in the water that’s used to irrigate produce on farms. For example, he said the water from a nearby river could be contaminated with manure from cows on the farm.
But Tetro explained that if lettuce is properly washed, it can minimize the risk of contamination.
“If you are buying lettuce, romaine or otherwise, make sure each leaf is given a good washing under warm to hot water,” he advised.
Using “friction,” or rubbing the leaves with hands, is one way of making sure any bacteria is washed off.
Does pre-washed lettuce need to be rinsed?
The shorter answer, according to Tetro, is yes.
“Let’s put it this way, did you see the person who washed it? No,” he said, explaining that consumers can never be too sure of how the produce was cleaned.
“It’s much better for your own safety that you do something yourself.”
I disagree when it comes to prewashed bagged lettuce from a regulated processor who’s managing food safety, because of what these folks wrote:
Recommendations for Handling Fresh-cut Leafy Green Salads by Consumers and Retail Foodservice Operators
Mary S. Palumbo, James R. Gorny, David E. Gombas, Larry R. Beuchat, Christine M. Bruhn, Barbara Cassens, Pascal Delaquis, Jeffrey M. Farber, Linda J. Harris, Keith Itoto, Michael T. Osterholm, Michelle Smith, Katherine M.J. Swanson
Biblographic citation: Food Protection Trends, vol. 27, no. 11, pp. 892-898, Nov 2007
Volume 27, Issue 11: Pages 892–898
A panel of scientists with expertise in microbial safety of fresh produce was convened to review recent research and re-evaluate guidelines for foodservice and restaurant operators, regulatory agencies with oversight over food facilities, and consumers for handling prewashed bagged salads. The guidelines developed by the panel, together with materials reviewed by the panel to develop the guidelines, are presented. The background materials reviewed include published research and recent recommendations made by other authoritative sources. The panel concluded that leafy green salad in sealed bags labeled “washed” or “ready-to-eat” that are produced in a facility inspected by a regulatory authority and operated under cGMPs, does not need additional washing at the time of use unless specifically directed on the label. The panel also advised that additional washing of ready-to-eat green salads is not likely to enhance safety. The risk of cross contamination from food handlers and food contact surfaces used during washing may outweigh any safety benefit that further washing may confer.


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Maybachs are hardly a rarity in the Emirates. Forking out more than $350,000 for automotive luxury scarcely bats an eyelid among the UAE’s glitterati. And yet sometimes fate plays a dutiful hand. Our recent excursion to downtown Dubai, for example, uncovered this.
Produced by German [ahem] coachbuilders Xenatec (whose most recent exploits included armoured limousines), this Cruiserio Coupe was part of a hyper-exclusive million-dollar range launched to improve Maybach’s ailing sales.
But pitted against the formidable Bentley Continental, the Cruiserio failed to hit the sweet spot and only eight were sold. Those double-brake calipers couldn’t slow Maybach’s financial downward spiral, and the company will close its doors in 2013.
A sad-end for Daimler’s luxury brand, certainly. But it’s nice to know that luxury still has a quirky side >>>
Source – autoblog.com


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VR is undoubtedly one of the fastest growing pieces of tech around.
Virtual Reality headsets are selling like proverbial hotcakes – with over 12 million sold in 2016.
Google has been proactive in the VR movement, rolling out the incredibly affordable Google Cardboard (5 million sold so far) and Google Daydream.
Google Daydream according to Google is “A platform for high-quality, mobile virtual reality, made to take you on incredible adventures.”
And, the fact that Google now uses the domain “vr.google.com” to showcase their new VR tech highlights how important they view it.
However, the most important step Google took with VR came a little under the radar.
Search Engine Land wrote in their 2016 blog that “With little fanfare, earlier this year Google rolled out a way to embed 360-degree VR media for headsets in search engine optimizable web pages accessible via desktop and mobile. That’s right, immersive VR videos and images for VR headsets can now be optimized for search, accessed directly from Google and experienced on desktops and mobile devices, with or without the need for a native mobile app or VR headset.”
Perhaps future marketers will be recommending VR-friendly content alongside your blogs, videos, and infographics.
In practice, this could mean real estate websites having a VR walkthrough of their properties, companies showcasing a VR video of their office or a host of other applications.
It will certainly be interesting to see where VR goes, and whether it becomes ingrained with SEO as we have seen with mobile in the last few years.


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|By Business Wire||
|May 27, 2014 11:30 AM EDT||
Consumer Cellular, the number one rated cellphone service for the fourth consecutive year and exclusive wireless provider for AARP members, officially surpassed the 1,000 full-time employee milestone this month. The company plans to continue hiring at its three call center locations to serve its growing, nationwide subscriber base effectively.
Consumer Cellular operates call centers at its Portland headquarters as well as in facilities in Phoenix, Ariz. and Redmond, Ore. Continued hiring at each location has allowed the rapidly growing carrier to handle an increasing volume of calls for new service, new phone orders and customer service consultations. The practice played a crucial role in enabling the carrier to reach its one-million subscribers milestone in February 2013.
“At Consumer Cellular, it’s all about the people. We are thrilled to have such a smart, dedicated and engaged workforce; they truly are the drivers behind all of the success we’ve seen within the past several years,” said John Marick, CEO of Consumer Cellular. “We are proud to be a thriving source of job creation in each of our local communities, and we will continue to hire in order to further support local economies, their residents and the growing Consumer Cellular subscriber base.”
Consumer Cellular has 270 employees at the Phoenix location, 460 in Redmond and 280 in Portland. The company expects to continue hiring in each location throughout 2014 in order to provide its growing customer base, expected to reach 1.75 million by year’s end, with continued exceptional customer support.
For more information about Consumer Cellular, visit www.consumercellular.com.
About Consumer Cellular
Consumer Cellular is the exclusive wireless provider for AARP members and a top-rated carrier that provides no-contract cellphones and service plans to those 50+. Founded in 1995 on the belief that everyone should have affordable access to the safety and convenience of cellular service, Consumer Cellular is privately held with more than 1,000 employees. The Portland, Ore.-based company utilizes the nation’s largest voice and data network, which covers more than 300 million people – or 97 percent of the US population. Consumer Cellular’s wireless phones and plans are sold nationwide at leading retailers such as Sears, Target and RadioShack dealer franchise locations, as well as direct to consumers at www.consumercellular.com or (888) 345-5509. The company has been ranked on the Inc. 5000 list for five years in a row and received the No. 1 rating in PC Magazine’s 2014 Readers’ Choice Awards survey. For cellphone tutorials, features, applications and company news, connect with Consumer Cellular on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+.
With major technology companies and startups seriously embracing IoT strategies, now is the perfect time to attend @ThingsExpo in Silicon Valley. Learn what is going on, contribute to the discussions, and ensure that your enterprise is as "IoT-Ready" as it can be! Internet of @ThingsExpo, taking place Nov 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, is co-located with 17th Cloud Expo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the most profound change in personal an...
May. 25, 2015 04:00 PM EDT Reads: 2,990
P2P RTC will impact the landscape of communications, shifting from traditional telephony style communications models to OTT (Over-The-Top) cloud assisted & PaaS (Platform as a Service) communication services. The P2P shift will impact many areas of our lives, from mobile communication, human interactive web services, RTC and telephony infrastructure, user federation, security and privacy implications, business costs, and scalability. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Robin Raymond, Chief Architect at Hookflash, will walk through the shifting landscape of traditional telephone and voice services ...
May. 25, 2015 03:00 PM EDT Reads: 4,287
The 17th International Cloud Expo has announced that its Call for Papers is open. 17th International Cloud Expo, to be held November 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, brings together Cloud Computing, APM, APIs, Microservices, Security, Big Data, Internet of Things, DevOps and WebRTC to one location. With cloud computing driving a higher percentage of enterprise IT budgets every year, it becomes increasingly important to plant your flag in this fast-expanding business opportunity. Submit your speaking proposal today!
May. 25, 2015 02:00 PM EDT Reads: 4,573
Explosive growth in connected devices. Enormous amounts of data for collection and analysis. Critical use of data for split-second decision making and actionable information. All three are factors in making the Internet of Things a reality. Yet, any one factor would have an IT organization pondering its infrastructure strategy. How should your organization enhance its IT framework to enable an Internet of Things implementation? In his session at Internet of @ThingsExpo, James Kirkland, Chief Architect for the Internet of Things and Intelligent Systems at Red Hat, described how to revolutioniz...
May. 25, 2015 02:00 PM EDT Reads: 4,927
All major researchers estimate there will be tens of billions devices - computers, smartphones, tablets, and sensors - connected to the Internet by 2020. This number will continue to grow at a rapid pace for the next several decades. With major technology companies and startups seriously embracing IoT strategies, now is the perfect time to attend @ThingsExpo, June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City. Learn what is going on, contribute to the discussions, and ensure that your enterprise is as "IoT-Ready" as it can be
May. 25, 2015 01:15 PM EDT Reads: 2,426
The security devil is always in the details of the attack: the ones you've endured, the ones you prepare yourself to fend off, and the ones that, you fear, will catch you completely unaware and defenseless. The Internet of Things (IoT) is nothing if not an endless proliferation of details. It's the vision of a world in which continuous Internet connectivity and addressability is embedded into a growing range of human artifacts, into the natural world, and even into our smartphones, appliances, and physical persons. In the IoT vision, every new "thing" - sensor, actuator, data source, data con...
May. 25, 2015 01:00 PM EDT Reads: 6,442
Container frameworks, such as Docker, provide a variety of benefits, including density of deployment across infrastructure, convenience for application developers to push updates with low operational hand-holding, and a fairly well-defined deployment workflow that can be orchestrated. Container frameworks also enable a DevOps approach to application development by cleanly separating concerns between operations and development teams. But running multi-container, multi-server apps with containers is very hard. You have to learn five new and different technologies and best practices (libswarm, sy...
May. 25, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 2,298
SYS-CON Events announced today that DragonGlass, an enterprise search platform, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. After eleven years of designing and building custom applications, OpenCrowd has launched DragonGlass, a cloud-based platform that enables the development of search-based applications. These are a new breed of applications that utilize a search index as their backbone for data retrieval. They can easily adapt to new data sets and provide access to both structured and unstruc...
May. 25, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 2,105
There's Big Data, then there's really Big Data from the Internet of Things. IoT is evolving to include many data possibilities like new types of event, log and network data. The volumes are enormous, generating tens of billions of logs per day, which raise data challenges. Early IoT deployments are relying heavily on both the cloud and managed service providers to navigate these challenges. In her session at Big Data Expo®, Hannah Smalltree, Director at Treasure Data, discussed how IoT, Big Data and deployments are processing massive data volumes from wearables, utilities and other machines...
May. 25, 2015 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 4,294
Buzzword alert: Microservices and IoT at a DevOps conference? What could possibly go wrong? In this Power Panel at DevOps Summit, moderated by Jason Bloomberg, the leading expert on architecting agility for the enterprise and president of Intellyx, panelists will peel away the buzz and discuss the important architectural principles behind implementing IoT solutions for the enterprise. As remote IoT devices and sensors become increasingly intelligent, they become part of our distributed cloud environment, and we must architect and code accordingly. At the very least, you'll have no problem fil...
May. 25, 2015 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 2,091
SYS-CON Events announced today that MetraTech, now part of Ericsson, has been named “Silver Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9–11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York, NY. Ericsson is the driving force behind the Networked Society- a world leader in communications infrastructure, software and services. Some 40% of the world’s mobile traffic runs through networks Ericsson has supplied, serving more than 2.5 billion subscribers.
May. 25, 2015 09:45 AM EDT Reads: 1,771
The 4th International Internet of @ThingsExpo, co-located with the 17th International Cloud Expo - to be held November 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA - announces that its Call for Papers is open. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the biggest idea since the creation of the Worldwide Web more than 20 years ago.
May. 25, 2015 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 2,062
The worldwide cellular network will be the backbone of the future IoT, and the telecom industry is clamoring to get on board as more than just a data pipe. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Evan McGee, CTO of Ring Plus, Inc., discussed what service operators can offer that would benefit IoT entrepreneurs, inventors, and consumers. Evan McGee is the CTO of RingPlus, a leading innovative U.S. MVNO and wireless enabler. His focus is on combining web technologies with traditional telecom to create a new breed of unified communication that is easily accessible to the general consumer. With over a de...
May. 25, 2015 06:00 AM EDT Reads: 4,812
Disruptive macro trends in technology are impacting and dramatically changing the "art of the possible" relative to supply chain management practices through the innovative use of IoT, cloud, machine learning and Big Data to enable connected ecosystems of engagement. Enterprise informatics can now move beyond point solutions that merely monitor the past and implement integrated enterprise fabrics that enable end-to-end supply chain visibility to improve customer service delivery and optimize supplier management. Learn about enterprise architecture strategies for designing connected systems tha...
May. 25, 2015 05:00 AM EDT Reads: 6,071
Cloud is not a commodity. And no matter what you call it, computing doesn’t come out of the sky. It comes from physical hardware inside brick and mortar facilities connected by hundreds of miles of networking cable. And no two clouds are built the same way. SoftLayer gives you the highest performing cloud infrastructure available. One platform that takes data centers around the world that are full of the widest range of cloud computing options, and then integrates and automates everything. Join SoftLayer on June 9 at 16th Cloud Expo to learn about IBM Cloud's SoftLayer platform, explore se...
May. 25, 2015 04:45 AM EDT Reads: 3,284
SYS-CON Media announced today that 9 out of 10 " most read" DevOps articles are published by @DevOpsSummit Blog. Launched in October 2014, @DevOpsSummit Blog offers top articles, news stories, and blog posts from the world's well-known experts and guarantees better exposure for its authors than any other publication. The widespread success of cloud computing is driving the DevOps revolution in enterprise IT. Now as never before, development teams must communicate and collaborate in a dynamic, 24/7/365 environment. There is no time to wait for long development cycles that produce softw...
May. 25, 2015 04:15 AM EDT Reads: 4,311
15th Cloud Expo, which took place Nov. 4-6, 2014, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, expanded the conference content of @ThingsExpo, Big Data Expo, and DevOps Summit to include two developer events. IBM held a Bluemix Developer Playground on November 5 and ElasticBox held a Hackathon on November 6. Both events took place on the expo floor. The Bluemix Developer Playground, for developers of all levels, highlighted the ease of use of Bluemix, its services and functionality and provide short-term introductory projects that developers can complete between sessions.
May. 25, 2015 04:00 AM EDT Reads: 6,438
From telemedicine to smart cars, digital homes and industrial monitoring, the explosive growth of IoT has created exciting new business opportunities for real time calls and messaging. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Ivelin Ivanov, CEO and Co-Founder of Telestax, shared some of the new revenue sources that IoT created for Restcomm – the open source telephony platform from Telestax. Ivelin Ivanov is a technology entrepreneur who founded Mobicents, an Open Source VoIP Platform, to help create, deploy, and manage applications integrating voice, video and data. He is the co-founder of TeleStax, a...
May. 25, 2015 04:00 AM EDT Reads: 6,552
The Internet of Things (IoT) promises to evolve the way the world does business; however, understanding how to apply it to your company can be a mystery. Most people struggle with understanding the potential business uses or tend to get caught up in the technology, resulting in solutions that fail to meet even minimum business goals. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Jesse Shiah, CEO / President / Co-Founder of AgilePoint Inc., showed what is needed to leverage the IoT to transform your business. He discussed opportunities and challenges ahead for the IoT from a market and technical point of vie...
May. 25, 2015 04:00 AM EDT Reads: 6,925
Grow your business with enterprise wearable apps using SAP Platforms and Google Glass. SAP and Google just launched the SAP and Google Glass Challenge, an opportunity for you to innovate and develop the best Enterprise Wearable App using SAP Platforms and Google Glass and gain valuable market exposure. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Brian McPhail, Senior Director of Business Development, ISVs & Digital Commerce at SAP, outlined the timeline of the SAP Google Glass Challenge and the opportunity for developers, start-ups, and companies of all sizes to engage with SAP today.
May. 25, 2015 03:00 AM EDT Reads: 5,162


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PepsiCo To Use Potato Water To Help Run Its Chip Factories
Food Giant PepsiCo is taking new initiatives to achieve more sustainability in its factories.
PepsiCo has come up with a novel plan to reduce the water consumption in its factories. It aims to recycle the water extracted from potatoes to run its potato chip plants in the UK. 80% of a potato is water and PepsiCo uses around 350,000 tons of potatoes annually.
Walter Todd, PepsiCo’s Vice President of sustainability for Europe said in an interview to The Guardian that in the process of cooking the potatoes, water is boiled off and lost, so the challenge for them is to find how to capture that water and use it in their operations, thus conserving the water from the mains. He says, within 10 years, they plan to source all their water for the four crisp factories in the UK from these potatoes, thus taking them off the water mains completely.


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New Delhi: In a bid to attract private investment, railways on Saturday held consultations with industry representatives to firm up PPP-model in rail infrastructure projects.
"We tried to engage stakeholders on wider consultations for formulating private participation in port connectivity, wagon leasing and private freight terminals (PFT)", said a senior Railway Ministry official who participated in the investors' meet here.
The meeting was attended by senior Railway Ministry officials and representatives of companies like Adani, Ultra Tech, Rewas Port, Ennor Port, Prism Cement, Coal India and Singreli.
Chairman Railway Board Vinay Mittal explained the salient features of these policies and sought suggestions from the industry to prepare a roadmap for private participation in rail infrastructure projects.
The meeting with the industry assumes significant as it came a fortnight before the Rail Budget 2013-14.
"There were a few suggestions from the industry which will be duly incorporated, said the official.
Railways has eased conditions for firms to procure and lease rail wagons to other businesses in an attempt to make the Wagon Leasing Scheme more attractive for the private sector.
It has lowered the eligibility bar for companies, extended the validity of the one-time registration and given more freedom to firms in sourcing of wagons, the official said.
According to the new norms, a company with a net worth of Rs 100 crore could operate under the Wagon Leasing Scheme. The earlier norms required a company to have a net worth of at least Rs 250 crore.
On private freight terminal (PFT), the official said now a PFT operator can handle various types of goods for the Railways and provide value-added services such as storage and distribution.
"So, by allowing companies to earn revenue by handling cargo of various types, we expect to get some incremental cargo and attract some cargo from the road as well," he said.
First Published: Saturday, February 9, 2013, 19:33


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Getting a little thin on top?
Coffee and other caffeine-rich beverages could be key in curing baldness.
German researchers say caffeine blocks a chemical known to damage hair follicles.
Unfortunately downing a cup or even two probably will not do much good.
Researchers say the average male would need at least 60 cups of coffee to equal the amount of caffeine needed to produce a result.


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Navigating uncharted waters
I attended an EU exit meeting last week (hosted by the Food and Drink Federation) at which industry was given an update on Brexit progress (or not, as the case may be, amid continued whispers that Article 50 will be extended until the end of June).
What an eye-opener.
Take food labelling, for example. Defra has declared that traceability must be preserved, in order to protect the rights of the consumer to know where their food has come from. Fair enough. But the reality of that means that manufacturers are facing a mind-boggling array of potential new rules and regulations.
For example, post-Brexit, when it comes to Country of Origin Labelling, it will no longer be accurate to describe a UK product as being of EU origin, nor can the EU organic logo continue to be used (unless authorised by the EU).
Also, From December 2020, a Food Business Operator’s address on a label must be a UK address (or an address in the EU for exports). And when it comes to Geographical Indications, there will be a new GI UK logo.
The exasperation in the meeting room was palpable.
Yet while it’s easy to criticise the government’s handling of the impending EU departure, it’s also hard not to have sympathy for the civil servants navigating uncharted, not to mention rather choppy, waters. I genuinely believe they’re doing the best they can in a very difficult situation. After all, it can’t be much fun spending your working days up a rather smelly creek… without the aid of a paddle.
For more information on food labelling changes after Brexit, visit: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/food-labelling-changes-after-brexit


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LFA 33-34 Lobster Fishery Set to Open Nov. 30
Above photo: Shelburne County lobster fisherman Josh Garron paints buoys for the upcoming season in Southwestern Nova Scotia. Kathy Johnson photos
Weather permitting, the commercial lobster fishery in Lobster Fishing Areas (LFA) 33 and 34 will open on Nov. 30 this year.
The largest lobster fishery in Canada, more than 4,000 fishermen will head to sea aboard the 979 licenced vessels in LFA 34 and 683 in LFA 33 for the six-month season.
Given the economic turmoil and ...
Cautious Optimism Surrounds Opening of LFA 35 Fishery
There’s some optimism among licence holders as the first of the fall commercial lobster seasons in western Nova Scotia gets ready to open.
October 14 is dumping day in lobster fishing area (LFA) 35 in the Bay of Fundy.
“The old guys used to say if you didn’t catch them in the spring, you’ll catch them in the fall” and considering the spring season was “historically awful, I think there’s a lot of optimism among the licence holders in LFA 35 because the last few days of the ...
P.E.I. Spring Lobster Season Better Than Expected
The 2020 spring lobster season on Prince Edward Island could have been better, but it certainly could have been worse.
“The spring season in a nutshell, I think it went better than most people expected,” said Jerry Gavin, executive director of the Prince Edward Island Seafood Processors Association.
“When we started the season, labour was down 30 per cent, all plants had to have a COVID-19 response plan and protocols in place. There were concerns about the safety of the workers and ...
Lobster Exporters Cautiously Optimistic Markets Will Continue to Recover
Above photo by Kathy Johnson
While lobster exporters have been facing some COVID-19 obstacles moving product into China this summer, not all the news is bad.
“In general, markets have recovered faster than we expected and we are cautiously optimistic that this will continue through the summer,” said Geoff Irvine, executive director of the Lobster Council of Canada (LCC).
Irvine said the European Union markets are “opening slowly with volumes increasing in live and processed ...
These days, nearly all commercial food products are grown, harvested, cut and packaged in accordance with specifications.
Governments specify the minimum requirements that must be met to ensure consumer health and safety. Food retailers, restaurant operators and other food service organizations specify additional requirements to ensure their products will be attractive to consumers, meet targeted price points and fit into their production and distribution systems. Both sets of specifications ...
Strength of Frozen Lobster Means We Survive the Summer
Two things have combined to help both the snow crab and lobster fisheries avoid the worst-case scenarios that were feared back in April.
First, government stimulus programs and employment benefits have protected consumer spending to a large extent. And what people are not spending going out, they are spending on the seafood they crave when they see it priced aggressively at retail.
So, we have the strongest snow crab market seen in years and we have a good recovery of interest in frozen ...
Construction of Air Cargo Logistics Park on Schedule at Halifax International
Above photo: The construction of a new $36-million Air Cargo Logistics Park at Halifax Stanfield International is on track for completion in spring 2021. Contributed photo
The construction of a new $36-million Air Cargo Logistics Park at Halifax Stanfield International is on track for completion in spring 2021.
Announced a year ago, “construction of the Air Cargo Logistics Park continues to move on schedule,” said Glen Boone, Director, Cargo and Real Estate Development via ...
Lobster, Seafood Marketing Promotions Stepped Up
Promotional efforts to help drive market demand for Atlantic lobster and seafood have been stepped up in recent months to try and counter the impact of COVID-19 on the industry.
“To help drive demand as the world recovers from the pandemic, we are implementing our LCC marketing strategy and working with provincial and federal governments on many promotional projects for lobster and Atlantic Canadian seafood in general,” said ...
One for the Ages
Unprecedented Lobster Season Ends in Southwest Nova
You might say that the lobster season in southwestern Nova Scotia has worn out its welcome this year.
“Enough is enough,” said one fisherman as he tied up at the Clark’s Harbour wharf to offload gear on May 28.
Prevailing foul weather throughout the spring coupled with a low shore price and little in the traps had many fishermen in lobster fishing areas (LFA) 33 and 34 landing their gear ahead of the May 31 closing ...


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The authors of Max Payne and Quantum Break talked about his next project
The Studio Remedy known for such hits as Max Payne, Alan Wake and Quantum Break. Last year the team broke the partnership with Microsoft and now announces a new project under the mysterious codename P7. The novelty will be available for multiple platforms, including PlayStation 4 – this console porting proprietary Remedy engine Northlight Engine. Earlier this month, the Finnish Studio has signed a contract with 505 Games for a joint release of a new game.
In a press release P7 described as “cinematic, third-person shooter in the universe of Remedy with an intriguing history and most in-depth game mechanics”. The teaser has left fans in anticipation of new information, but creative Director Sam lake announced some of the details.
“We are developing the idea of a strong storyline, characters and construction of the gaming universe, as we did in the past, but want to find ways to entice players to spend more time – not just to play again, and to stay for the weekend. Looking to move in this direction, but not to lose what they already have”, – told the lake.
Meanwhile, the developers do not want to reveal all the cards at once:
“We don’t want to talk about everything, as on past projects, – said the Director of communications Thomas Fluff. – We spoke too soon and everyone was waiting for a very long time – more will not do so”.
“It’s always the search path. We believe that this process of constant repetition, and when development comes to a standstill, or there are some surprises- we must change the concept, and is the key to creating a good game,” adds Sam lake.
We will remind, Remedy games are relatively short and don’t have multiplayer and this combination does not ensure easy success in the modern gaming market. However, the Studio has plans to implement a multiplayer mode in future projects. The company also plans to sell shares to strengthen financial independence. It only remains to wait for information on P7, as the game is now at an early stage of development.
- Made in China #70: another win for robot over the human, an antidote to WannaCry and other news
- In Russia presented the first computers based on the processor “Elbrus 8S”
- Leaked renders, confirmed the rumors about the OnePlus 5
- TSMC is preparing to test the 7-nm processors for 12 key partners
- In the App Store twice as many developers-millionaires than Google Play
- Review Injustice 2 — even better than Mortal Kombat


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46 Best Met Gala 2023 Red Carpet Looks
While the year’s traditional awards season may now be behind us, the 2023 Met Gala is here to remind you that 2023’s most major red carpet looks are only just getting started.
Forever host to some of the most spectacular celebrity fashion moments, while much of the UK spent ‘the first Monday in May’ basking in some eagerly-anticipated bank holiday sunshine, things were a whole lot more hectic across the pond as agents, celebrities, designers and stylists finalised the finishing touches for what was about to be one of the most talked-about events of the year.
Co-chaired this year by Penelope Cruz, Dua Lipa, Michaela Coel and Roger Federer – with Emma Chamberlain, LaLa Anthony, Derek Blasberg and Chloe Fineman hosting the annual livestream – there’s no doubt that the next few hours are going to play host to some seriously memorable looks.
While attendees are encouraged to go as big as they dare in the fashion stakes, they are steered in in a certain direction by the event’s annual theme.
Much like the 2017 Met Gala – which held the theme Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between – as well as 2011’s iteration – Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty – the 2023 Met Gala theme was revealed in September to be in honour of one designer.
Titled Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, this year’s red carpet will showcase a sartorial tribute to the late designer who was best known for his role as Creative Director at Chanel, as well as his work at Fendi, Chloé and his eponymous brand.
Keep scrolling to take a look at all of the major red-carpet moments from the 2023 Met Gala as the stars arrive…
For more from Glamour UK’s Fashion Editor Charlie Teather, follow her on Instagram @charlieteather.


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Kate Middleton has three wedding dresses prepared for her April 29 marriage to Britain’s Prince William.
The future princess is alleged to have chosen her favorite by designer Sarah Burton—who currently works for the Alexander McQueen label—but has back-ups in case details are released prior to the nuptials at Westminster Abbey.
One of the three is thought to have been created by Jasper Conran, who created the gown for Princess Margaret’s daughter Lady Sarah Chatto in 1994.
According to the Daily Mail, writer Anne Chertoff said: "FashionEtc has learned that Jasper Conran may have landed the plum assignment; however, he is not alone.
"Sources tell us that Middleton has commissioned three wedding dresses from three different designers."
Rumors have been rife about which designer Kate will pick for her wedding dress, which will be seen by an estimated television audience of two billion people.
However, it is believed British designer Alice Temperley is involved in some capacity, after she was seen meeting with the 29-year-old future royal’s sister Pippa and mother Carole.


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The Chinese embassy’s Consul General to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Mr. Liu Kan has described China- Nigeria bi-national relations as healthy and productively on high speed.
With every certainty, the Consul General emphasised that Nigeria is China’s second major export destination in Africa, adding that China Customs record declared that trade volumes between both countries amount to 18.1 billion USD. In this session with Vera Anyagafu, Victor Gotevbe, & Prisca Duru, Liu also spoke on reports he is getting from Chinese construction companies operating in Nigeria, Nigerian agricultural sector, standard of goods from China, visas and other issues of interest.
What is the volume of trade in non-petroleum goods between Nigeria and China?
In recent years, the economic and business cooperation between Nigeria and China has developed rapidly. Now as Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria is China’s second major export destination in Africa, meanwhile, China is Nigeria’s largest source of imports and third major trade partner. According to China Customs, the trade volumes between our two countries amounted to 18.1 billion USD, increased by 33.2% over 2013, highest in history, and the volume of non-petroleum goods are about 88% of total. With the rapid development of China and Nigeria’s economy, I am firmly convinced that our two countries can benefit greatly from our economic and trade cooperation, realizing common development.
China has now become “The world’s manufacturer” and a lot of made in China goods are much sort after in Nigeria. There are often complaints about inferior goods being shipped from china to Nigeria and very often these inferior goods are not detected by either Nigeria’s SON or NAFDAC. How can the quality control authorities in China ensure that these inferior goods being shipped to Nigeria do not tarnish the reputation of Chinese manufacturers who are known for quality goods?
I have worked in Nigeria for one year and answered the questions on quality issues from local media for several times. In my opinion, these questions should be taken in an objective and correct attitude; after all, most Chinese goods in Nigeria are in low price but high quality. I can assure Nigeria people that Chinese good are trustworthy.
The Chinese government attaches great importance to the quality of “made-in-China” products and has taken a series of measures to regulate and supervise the production, sales and export of Chinese goods. China has established a comprehensive law system to enhance the quality control, and substandard products in China are strictly prohibited by the Production Quality Law of PRC. In China, all products shall comply with the requirements of State mandatory criteria and safety technical norms. Especially in recent years, we put in a great lot of efforts on improvement of supervision mechanisms, which is widely recognized by the international community and domestic and foreign companies. That is why we can see and purchase fine quality Chinese goods with low price at any corner of the world today.
In the meantime, Chinese companies and markets have also made significant efforts to improve commodity quality by, for example, strengthening internal management, awareness and mechanisms, positive progress has been made in these areas. China today not only export light industries goods but also high-tech products and equipments to the world, which are welcomed and praised by the customers for the good quality and low price.
There are very few poor quality Chinese products in Nigeria market. In my opinion, some factors that violating laws of economy may stand behind it. We know the fact that products are made in accordance with laws of economy, and good quality means more inputs of research, materials, management etc., which will be reflected in a higher price. However, not every Nigerian people could afford the price and costs of high quality goods, and there is a large demand for cheap goods in Nigeria. In recent years, as required by Nigeria businessmen, some low price Chinese products are imported into Nigeria, which to some extent meets the daily need of ordinary Nigerians, nevertheless low price in some degree would sacrifice the quality of products. But we believe such situation would be temporary, and we oppose the exaggeration and hype of those quality issues that violating the laws of economy, and it is not the right attitude to solve the problem. In recent years, both Nigeria and China has adopted measures to solve quality issues of products. The Chinese government and the relating Nigerian departments, such as SON and NAFDAC, closely cooperate. For example, we successfully conducted high level official visits to both sides, China also hold some training programs for Nigeiran quarantine and inspecting officers to promote cooperation on quality control. I am convinced that with a closer cooperation, Nigeria and China will establish a healthier and better market.
Would China consider partnering with Nigeria government, setting up and funding vocational skills, acquisition centers in Nigeria, since such centers would produce skilled workers that would encourage Chinese manufacturers to set up factories in Nigeria?
In recent years, the China-Nigeria relations present a momentum of comprehensive and stable development. Remarkable achievements have been accomplished in various fields of our bilateral relationship. Under the new situation, China is ready to work with Nigeria to further enrich the China-Nigeria strategic partnership, consolidate the traditional friendship, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, strengthen support each other, and better benefit of the two peoples.
China will continue to make efforts to strengthen inter-government exchanges and cooperation, which includes supporting Chinese companies in Nigeria to train local talents by imparting the modern technology and the necessary skills to the Nigerian youth who wish to work in the multi-national enterprises.
For example, Huawei, a multinational Chinese telecommunication company, always focuses on bridging the digital divide, technology transferring and professional training as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy. Huawei has established the only West Africa telecom technology training center in Abuja; so far the training center has trained more than 5000 local engineers. Huawei also set up one of its regional network operations centers (RNOCs) in Lagos, which is capable of maintaining all networks managed by Huawei in Africa, providing 400 job opportunities for local senior engineers. Since 2013, Huawei and Nigeria Federal Ministry of Communication Technology has organized an ICT basic knowledge training program for 1,000 girls to encourage more Nigerian female to participate in ICT industry.
China has a robust agricultural sector. How can China assist Nigeria in terms of agricultural machinery, improved seedlings and technology in Nigeria’s quest for food security?
Agriculture is a vital industry in both China and Nigeria. Although accounting for only 9 percent of arable land worldwide, China produces food for 20 percent of the world’s population. Nigeria, the biggest African country in terms of population, and has vast arable land, also harbors great potential in Agriculture. China is willing to share the agric technology and the experience of agricultural development, and push a closer cooperation on Agriculture with Nigeria.
The two countries have made much progress in cooperation in agriculture since about 500 Chinese experts initially took part in the Nigerian National Special Program for Food Security, funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 2003.The experts, based in 36 Nigerian states, have helped the benefiting communities overcome shortage of water supply for drinking and irrigation while training local farmers for planting, fishing and beekeeping skills.
Chinese enterprises are ready to invest in Nigerian agricultural sector. For example, the well known CGCOC Group set up a Green Agricultural Development company in Nigeria in 2006 and has operated in WARA Agricultural Park of Kebbi, Nigeria since then. Currently, WARA Agricultural Park has become an important link in the Nigerian agricultural production chain. The crop breeds, sophisticatedly cultivated by the farming techniques adapted to the local environment, have occupied a significant share of Nigeria’s agricultural markets.
Nigeria might also attract more Chinese investors and agro-technicians to its agricultural sector, especially in farming, fishing, aquaculture and agricultural processing areas. To this end, Nigerian government might put in place incentive policies in agriculture, including tariff rate on importation of agricultural chemicals, spare parts of processing machinery, and tax rate for agricultural production and processing in Nigeria.
What kind of report have you been getting from Chinese construction companies operating in Nigeria?
Nigeria has grown rapidly over the past decade. It has become the largest economy on the African continent and the 26th largest in the world. However, the need for infrastructure construction is still high since the large population and rapid development of both urban and rural area of Nigeria. Chinese companies can well meet the need for their advanced technology, experience, capacity, and most importantly, their willingness to make contribution to the development of the economy, society and people’s livelihood of Nigeria.
In recent years, some outstanding Chinese enterprises come into Nigeria for assisting the construction and exploring development opportunities, many important and livelihood projects are in full swing, and will soon play significant role and effectiveness for Nigerian people.
According to the feedback from our companies, most of them have good relationship with their collaborators, they have a cordial working relationship, and these projects are progressing well. But some also complain to us of that the security situation is not optimistic, and some other factors such as inefficient public services, poor performance of contracts, untimely implementation of relating preferential policies also affected the progress of the projects.
As for the new year of 2015, the Chinese government will continue to encourage and support competent Chinese companies to invest and develop in Nigeria, the emerging and potential magic land, and conduct technology transfer and localization.
We expect that Nigerian government will take more steps to assure foreign investors that their interests, personal and property safety will not be violated.


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Thanks to the upcoming Obamacare law retailers are cutting hours at a rate not seen in three decades.
Thank you Democrats.
Retailers are cutting worker hours at a rate not seen in more than three decades — a sudden shift that can only be explained by the onset of ObamaCare’s employer mandates.
Nonsupervisory employees logged an average 30.0 hours per week in April, the shortest retail workweek since early 2010, Labor Department data out Friday show.
Even as retail payrolls have kept rising, with rank-and-file employment up 132,000, or 1% , over the past year, aggregate hours worked have fallen 0.9% over that span.
The average retail workweek was 2% shorter in April than a year earlier, the steepest sustained decline since 1980, an IBD analysis found.
The retail workweek recovered steadily as the job market strengthened from the start of 2010 until the spring of 2012. Since then, it has been all downhill, with the apparent pace of decline accelerating in recent months.
This reversal doesn’t appear related to the economy, which has been consistently mediocre. Instead, all evidence points to the coming launch of ObamaCare, which the retail industry has warned would cause just such a result.
After destroying small business Barack Obama is going on an American jobs tour this week. Barack is the worst jobs president since the Great Depression… And that was BEFORE the Obamacare implementation.


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Back in the saddle
Sainsbury is deservedly reaping the financial rewards of staying horse-free. Unlike peers such as Tesco and Asda, the UK supermarket didn’t find equine DNA in its food products in the first few months of 2013. That helped it achieve a surprisingly strong 3.6 percent jump in like-for-like sales excluding fuel. Sainsbury’s brand resilience offers fresh justification for its premium rating.
True, the outperformance was about more than just accurate food labeling. Even before the horsemeat scandal became a cause célèbre in the middle of the group’s fiscal fourth quarter, sales were already strong, according to a person familiar with the situation.
But it is clear that Sainsbury’s basic strategy – pushing own-brand products and extensive marketing to reassure customers that its prices are no higher than peers – is back on track. It came unstuck around Christmas when rivals cut prices, pushing like-for-like sales growth down to 0.9 percent. That now looks like just a wobble.
The investment story could yet be undermined by the late discovery of rogue meat in a frozen lasagne. Assuming that risk is receding, Sainsbury has bragging rights from its reliance on domestically sourced beef and chicken and rigorous controls on frozen food sourced from abroad. While hard to measure, that’s good for consumer trust in the name.
Sainsbury trades on 11.9 times its expected year-end earnings, ahead of Tesco’s 11.4 times by a nose, according to Thomson Reuters Eikon estimates. That is justified by slightly stronger earnings growth forecasts.
Justin King, the chief executive, has the bit in his teeth. And yet he is slowing capital expenditure to 1 billion pounds this year, against initial plans to shell out 1.1 to 1.2 billion pounds on new stores and expansions. Although peers are trying similar cuts, it’s a gamble that rising inflation – evident in figures released on Tuesday – squeezes UK consumers’ incomes. If he has made the right call, and Sainsbury stays scandal-free, the premium rating should be comfortably sustained.