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The LA-based brow expert will create "Brows that Wow" with the waxing brand.
Satin Smooth, an industry leader in depilatory waxes, recently named Kelley Baker of Kelley Baker Brows as the company's new brand ambassador. Satin Smooth and Baker will team up to create "Brows that Wow" with Satin Smooth's high-quality, Italian-made waxes and accessories.
Baker is the quintessential California girl - a celebrity makeup and brow artist with a reputation for shaping brows to absolute, eye-framing perfection. Her charisma and stunning brow transformations, combined with her social media savvy, have turned her into an internet sensation with a cult following of over 600,000 fans.
Baker brings a fresh, fun approach to brow shaping, making her a natural choice for Satin Smooth's brand ambassador. "If a brow artist is only as good as their tools, Satin Smooth will help create your masterworks," says Baker.
Ten experts shared their predictions for the future of wellness, travel, spa and beauty in Europe.
The Global Wellness Summit (GWS), an annual conference for international leaders in the wellness industry, recently released ten predictions for the future of wellness, travel, spa and beauty in Europe. The organization asked its partner experts in Europe – from CEOs of top travel, spa and beauty companies to leading economists and researchers – to forecast where wellness is headed in Europe. Predictions range from European nations increasingly “legislating wellness” by taxing unhealthy products, to a surge in new wellness properties (and discovery of little-known traditions) across Eastern Europe, to the vast European beauty market being rewritten by both wellness and high-tech approaches, to wellness resorts refocusing on nature, peace and authenticity.
The predictions spark a conversation that will continue at the Global Wellness Summit being held in Kitzbühel in Tyrol, Austria this October 17-19. The theme of the 10th annual conference is “Back to the Future”, where the future of the wellness market will be analyzed through the lens of history, for both Europe and the world.
1. Europe has long been the world’s wellness leader; has seen stagnation in last decade; but investment and innovation is coming.
Sue Harmsworth, MBE, GWS Board Member & 2016 Co-chair; Founder & Chairman, ESPA International, UK
Anna Bjurstram, GWS Board Member; VP of Spas & Wellness, Six Senses; Owner, Raison D'Etre, Sweden
When it comes to wellness, Europe has for centuries been way out in front: with the region (especially Austria, Germany and Switzerland) inventing the truly holistic wellness concept that extends far beyond spa, to include nutrition, fitness, traditional medicine, mindfulness and a powerful connection to nature (kurs, baths, and healing systems like 19th-century Sebastian Kneipp’s, marrying hydrotherapy, herbalism, movement, nutrition and mental wellness).
For so long, the world has had major catching up to do, but in the last decade they (i.e., the Americas, Asia) have: there has been recent stasis in Europe in innovating new, creative wellness offerings. In the future, Europe will (and must) focus on European Wellness 2.0, and private investment in older, once-state-sponsored European spas - as well as new wellness retreat concepts – will heat up to help make that a reality.
2. Wellness will be legislated: European nations will increasingly tax unhealthy food and beverages – and “Big Food” will remake themselves as wellness companies.
Thierry Malleret, PhD, GWI research partner; co-founder/author of the Monthly Barometer; founder, Global Risk Network at the World Economic Forum, Switzerland
More than half of European adults are overweight, with obesity tripling in many European countries since the 80s (WHO). The sheer cost of this epidemic means than more European nations will start taxing unhealthy food and beverages. In March, the UK joined Scandinavian countries, France and Hungary in imposing a sugar tax on canned drinks. The imperfection of the new UK tax (not a brave, broad-based tax on sugar) shows the intense battle-lines between governments and phenomenally powerful “Big Food”. But more countries will take action, and the laws will expand to “bad” fats (like palm oil), high salt and highly processed foods.
Fighting back against the new legislation, European food and beverage manufacturers will reduce the amount of sugar in their products to preempt governments, as they also rebrand/reengineer around “healthy” or “wellness” foods. Nestlé, Europe’s biggest corporation and the world’s largest food company, looks to be taking a radical path: redefining itself as a scientifically-driven “nutrition, health and wellness company,” with plans that its foods will be the vehicle for an entirely new type of medication: both preventive treatments and traditional medicine…rewriting what “food” and “pharmaceuticals” could be in the future. Watch this space.
3. Tourism will be Europe’s fastest growing sector – and wellness travel will grow even faster.
Jean-Claude Baumgarten, GWS Board Member; Chairman & CEO, CREWE Associates; Former President & CEO, World Travel & Tourism Council, France
Tourism will continue to have a very strong economic impact in Europe, and wellness tourism will grow even faster. Europe’s tourism market will grow 2.8% a year over the next decade, outpacing annual economic growth of 1.9% - making it Europe’s fastest growing market, equaled only by the financial sector. As Europe rapidly moves towards a service economy, tourism suddenly has greater absolute value than sectors like agriculture, manufacturing and chemicals – and represents nearly 60% of Europe’s entire retail sector.
And with vastly increased stress, an aging population, and people’s new quest for total wellbeing, over the next decades European wellness tourism will grow significantly faster than tourism overall. For instance, Global Wellness Institute research estimates a 7.3% annual growth rate between 2012-2017. The wellness travel outlook is very positive in mature Northern and Middle European nations; will grow even faster in Southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc., provided their economies continue to strengthen their recovery); and is bullish for the rest of developing Europe (including Russia, depending on economic/political factors) – where it’s safe to say it will expand at the pace of the middle class.
4. “Get Thee to a Wellness Monastery”: European wellness resorts will refocus on deep authenticity, peace, quiet and nature.
Dr. Franz Linser, GWS Board Member & 2016 Co-Chair; Founder, Linser Hospitality; former Olympic ski coach, Austria
The European (and global) consumer is facing unprecedented stress and 24/7 digital connection and “noise.” Radically pressured lives mean we don’t feel well anymore, and it’s creating new desires: for complete time out, uncompromising peace and quiet, and to be close to the forces of nature. And European wellness/spa resorts will increasingly shift their focus from glitzy, amenity-driven, “exotic” luxury to meet these powerful needs. Everything – from resort design/environments, guest rooms, spa treatments and fitness experiences – will shift to intense authenticity and nature…the new stage for self-transformation and “re-finding oneself.”
Equal parts spectacular and simple wellness retreats will appear on top of mountains, deep in the woods and snow, on the water, in the form of everything from treehouses to houseboats. Spas, treatments and saunas will emerge from the basement to burst out into the trees as new “nature cocoons.” The new luxury: sleeping in a glass igloo, wrapped in reindeer skins, with the Northern Lights sparkling above. Wellness retreats being developed in former monasteries (i.e., Schloss Mondsee, Austria; Eremito, Italy) are as much a tangible trend as a perfect metaphor for the future directions in Europe’s wellness destinations: calm, simplicity, wild nature, spirituality and profound self-seeking will be front-and-center…and they will give Europeans (and the world) what they most desperately seek.
5. Spa 2.0: Rise of the European mini-kur
Anna Bjurstram, GWS Board Member; VP of Spas & Wellness, Six Senses; Owner, Raison D'Etre, Sweden
Bathing, and going on serious (10-day-plus) kurs, has always been a way of life in Europe. But now this time-honored, time-intensive tradition is emerging as a much shorter affair. “Mini-kurs” that pack in a 2-3 hour bathing ritual, spa treatments, nutritious food, movement, relaxation, and meditation/mindfulness (in one day or two) will trend. “Taking the waters” and hitting spa resorts will happen in shorter injections because busier Europeans are short on time, and there’s also growing unease about air travel, so people are staying closer to home.
The “wellness staycation” concept, which has been popular in Scandinavian countries for some time, will now spread across Europe. And people will increasingly embrace these much shorter, but still transformational “just being” experiences everywhere from Tylösand Hotel & Spa in Sweden to Fredreichbad in Baden Baden, Germany.
6. A wave of new wellness properties and traditions - from the Baltic to the Black to the Caspian Seas - will be discovered by the world.
Alla Sokolova, Initiative Chair, “Baltic to the Black Sea,” Global Wellness Institute; Co-owner, General Manager, IWC Balans, Latvia
European wellness seekers will increasingly “head east,” from the New Europe stretching from the Baltic to the Black Seas, further out to the Asian Caspian Sea. This region will undergo exciting wellness resort development, opening up their fascinating, little known wellness traditions to the world. So many forces are driving this eastward Wellness Renaissance. As former Soviet republics regain their footing, leading global wellness brands (whether Six Senses in Kazakhstan or Chenot Palace coming to Azerbaijan) are making moves – and the wellness property pipelines are heating up in Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia – and the seaside “Stans.” The region not only boasts an incredible, centuries-old, spa and bathing culture, the modernization of huge, former Soviet medical-wellness health resorts is underway. For instance, the stunning Kemeri Wellness Village & Hotel under development in Latvia (once a 19th-century bathhouse under Tsar Nikolai I, and a Soviet-era health resort with 100 doctors and 1 million treatments performed annually) is a shining example. Set in historic buildings in a National Forest, this new wellness community will include a 5-star hotel and clinic, with programs from balneotherapy to sleep to fertility.
And if the wellness traveler craves new, hyper-authentic experiences, the Baltic-to-the-Black Sea traditions, where Nature is Healer, really deliver. From climate therapy (where precise microclimates, including “doses” of mineral water, sunlight, contrasting temperature and humidity, and exposure to phytoncides from forest bathing, are prescribed – to the unique bathing tradition of the “pirt” (so different than the Russian banya), where forest-gathered herbal “besoms” (bouquets) are applied – to the ancient (and antioxidant) “black smoke saunas” – to a powerful focus on “wild fitness” and music therapy. The Baltic-to-the-Black-Sea nations have some of the most established wellness cultures on Earth, but they’ve flown under the radar. That’s about to change.
7. First true chain of hot springs resorts will stretch across Eastern Europe.
Andrew Gibson, GWS Board Member; VP Spa and Wellness, Fairmont Raffles Hotels and Resorts, UK and United Arab Emirates
Look out for the first true chain of branded hot springs properties (a collection of wellness hotels owned by one company) to stretch from Poland in the North to Moldova in the South. These will be fantastic thermal water retreats integrating medicine and wellness, and capitalizing on Eastern Europe’s (including countries like the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia’s) abundant natural springs and kurs, long-established medical-wellness retreats, and rich-in-culture cities.
Private companies will work closely with state tourism departments to create safe destinations with reduced risk of terrorism, and once developed, this property network will likely become the world leader in “hot springs wellness.” And as the thermal springs movement gathers steam, look for national tourism boards, or group of countries banding together, to promote this new “Hot Springs Road” that will wind across Eastern Europe: from Budapest to the amazing Karlovy Vary spa town in the Czech Republic.
8. Wellness will rewrite the European beauty market: “Beauty from the inside out” overtakes “hope in a jar.”
Jacqueline Clarke, Wellness Research Director, Diagonal Reports, Ireland
The legacy global beauty culture is largely a European creation, where the focus has long been on the “cosmetic” (or external “appearance” and “artifice”). But a megatrend unfolding in Europe (as it has in the U.S. and Asia) is wellness-as-beauty…or “beauty from the inside out.” And this dramatically different philosophy and aesthetic will shake up the marketing strategies and sales monopolies of the big cosmetic/skincare houses. Because the beauty-comes-from-within argument makes the cosmetics (and purely topical skincare) argument look more like hyped “hope in a jar.”
The European wellness-as-beauty wave will inspire new categories that will recast beauty as self-care and prevention vs. mere “cosmetic repair”: a dizzying array of functional solutions, along with a boom in the natural and organic generally (whether applied “within” or “without”). Is it all over for skincare and cosmetics? Hardly. One example: two French companies, L’Oreal (with their Vichy and La Roche-Posay brands) and Pierre Fabre (with Avene) show how wellness creates a new mega-category: healthcare for the skin. These products offer up the European heritage wellness of mineral springs water. And in the future almost every European company will adopt a wellness-as-beauty vocabulary and approach: whether it’s active cosmetics, dermocosmetics, etc. And crucially, with the shift to beauty-as-wellness, greater emphasis will be placed on evidence.
9. High-tech beauty (devices and more aggressive procedures) finally hits Europe.
Michael Schummert, GWS partner; CEO, Babor GmbH & Co., Germany
Near-medical, high-tech, device-driven beauty procedures are a booming market in the Americas and Asia, and they’re about to become one in Europe. We will see European hotel spas increasingly offer sophisticated “I-want-results-immediately” treatments using all types of cutting-edge beauty technology - which might start with a computer precisely analyzing your skin condition, followed by an intensive microdermabrasion peel, ultrasound or needling. At European spas, a “holistic” approach won’t just mean adding yoga, meditation or nutrition to massage, it will mean adding high-tech beauty to the already high-touch menus.
But the international differences will remain huge: while Asia and the U.S. are embracing ever-more-invasive procedures, Central Europe, for example, is only getting accustomed to microdermabrasion and ultrasound. And with the European beauty consumer a unique balance will need to be struck: they want high-impact results, but typically won’t accept any downtime after a treatment.
10. New, important distinctions will be made between wellness, wellbeing and happiness.
Susie Ellis, Chairman & CEO, Global Wellness Institute; 2016 GWS Co-chair & Board Member, United States
Shifts in language indicate shifts in thinking. If we’ve had the term” wellness,” the “quality of being healthy”, with its emphasis on proactive improvement of physical, mental, social, etc. health, since the 1970s, there has recently been a confusion, or even a supplanting, of the concept by the terms “wellbeing” and “happiness” – in Europe and globally. This has been spurred by important research that measures “happiness” (i.e., the “United Nations World Happiness Index”) and “wellbeing” (i.e., the “Gallup Healthways Well-Being Index”) in nations around the world, which captures key measurements like social support, trust in government/business, freedom – in addition to income realities and the physical health of the population. These studies have helped put “happiness” and “wellbeing” on the global stage, with a growing implication that these are “bigger,” more capacious concepts than wellness.
But they also reveal why confusing “wellness” and “wellbeing” is problematic. For one, “happiness” measurements are often not good indicators of a population’s health. One example: Mexico ranked #10 (out of 200+ countries) in Gallup’s well-being report, despite having the highest obesity rates in the world. And these studies capture “perceptual” wellbeing (they survey people). This can skew things: if a population has lower expectations (of money, education, health) they might rate their happiness higher than wealthier nations – and one might feel a little less “happy” if they were surveyed later when they’re sick from a chronic disease. Measuring happiness is very important, but we don’t want to lose sight of the goal: taking action to create a healthier world. It’s not enough to take the “heartbeat” of happiness…we have to change people’s heartbeats.
Europe has much to teach the world about “wellness,” “well-being” and “happiness” (North European nations dominate the UN Happiness Report). But there will be a growing distinction between these terms/concepts there, with wellness becoming associated with health and prevention and wellbeing associated with happiness. In a world where wellness has become a massive, so, heavily commercialized, market, there's a temptation to move on to a fresh, big word. But Europe especially, as the pioneer of holistic wellness, should embrace “wellness” – staying true to the prevention mantle that will be so important for the region, and the world.
For more information on the Global Wellness Summit, please visit globalwellnesssummit.com.
Michele Fenske will serve as the new Vice President of US Sales at Pevonia.
Pevonia recently announced that Michele Fenske will serve as the brand's new Vice President of US Sales. In a press release, the skincare company stated, "An innovative sales leader with more than 18 years of industry experience, Michele started her career as a licensed aesthetician, pursuing her passion of sales and education by working with some of the top international skin care and makeup companies, and has now earned the title of Vice President of US Sales at Pevonia. Her proven ability to produce outstanding results and expand the partner base through effective needs analysis and solution selling techniques has led Michele’s success. Her expertise in building a proficient sales team, training staff to increase productivity, and her love for educating has contributed to her success and alignment with corporate objectives. Michele possesses a demonstrated track record of surpassing goals and company expectations. Her broad spectrum expertise includes leadership and team-building, account management, territory management, prospecting and lead generation, performance analysis and strategic planning."
For more news, please visit PevoniaPro.com.
The theme of this year's meeting was the brand's upcoming 25th anniversary.
Skincare and luxury spa product brand Pevonia recently held its annual global distributor meeting at its headquarters in Daytona Beach, Florida. The meeting, which saw over 100 countries represented, focused on Pevonia's 25th anniversary in the skincare industry.
Pevonia co-founders and owners, Philippe and Sylvie Hennessy, along with brand executives including CFO Rob Livingston, Global Vice President of Marketing and Communication Maritza Rodriguez, Medical Director of Global Education Dr. Christian Jurist, Director of International Business Development Ron Jean, and International Business Director Annette Liles, participated in key speaking and panel discussions covering core business topics in operations, product development, sales, education and marketing.
The meeting also presented some of Pevonia’s exciting upcoming launches including its new and improved Men’s Line, BodyRenew - a chic and budget-friendly bath and body collection, and collections focused on individual scents such as Lavender, Tropical and Citrus. Other notable topics included Pevonia’s Loyalty Program, Holiday Promotions for 2016 and product development for 2017.
For more information, please visit pevoniapro.com.
The energetic class fuses yoga with "Vogueing" for a fun take on fitness.
Fitness gets a fun twist this summer with The Ritz-Carlton, Chicago's brand new wellness offering, Rooftop "Voga." The class, which will be held every Friday at 4 PM beginning June 10th, is a blend of yoga and "Vogueing" - the 80s-style dance made popular by Madonna. Rooftop "Voga" offers an energetic and fun way to incorporate fitness into guests' daily routine.
The class is complimentary for hotel guests and encourages attendees to take their vinyasa to a new level - the rooftop of the historic Water Tower building to be exact! Guests can let loose and work out in a fun, lively environment with stunning views of the Chicago skyline - legwarmers encouraged!
For more information, please visit ritzcarlton.com/en/hotels/chicago/spa.
Twelve beauty entrepreneurs make up the semi-finalists in the contest's two categories.
The Professional Beauty Association (PBA) just announced the 12 semi-finalists who will advance to the final round of Beauty Pitch 2016. Held Saturday, July 23, Beauty Pitch 2016 is part of INSPIRE: A Night Celebrating Beauty Entrepreneurs, which kicks off the PBA’s Beauty Week and Cosmoprof North America’s (CPNA) exhibition in Las Vegas.
The following companies have been selected as Beauty Pitch 2016 semi-finalists:
- Alexandria Professional
- The Brush Guard
- FlipIt! Cap Company
- Hey Honey
- pur~lisse beauty, LLC
- Sunlights Balayage
Three companies from each category will be selected as Beauty Pitch 2016 finalists on Wednesday, June 8th. These companies will advance to the live Beauty Pitch competition, taking place on Saturday, July 23rd.
INSPIRE: A Night Celebrating the Beauty Entrepreneurs will feature networking with some of the industry’s biggest names, including President and CEO of Sally Beauty Holdings, Christian Brinkman; President of Jinny Beauty Supply, Eddie Jhin; President of CosmoProf and Armstrong McCall, Sally Beauty Holdings, Mark Spinks; Vice President of Merchandising and Planning for SalonCentric, Steve Orzel; and celebrity hairstylist Ted Gibson.
6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.: INSPIRE Reception
7:00 p.m. – 8:15 p.m.: INSPIRE Dinner
8:15 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.: Beauty Pitch 2016: Live Competition
10:00 p.m.: Dessert Buffet
Visit https://www.probeauty.org/beautyweek for Beauty Pitch 2016 and INSPIRE registration details. Tickets can be purchased separately for each event.
Net proceeds from the INSPIRE event will be divided equally between the PBA Foundation, an organization supporting industry related charitable initiatives and the historical preservation of the beauty industry, and City of Hope, a world-renowned comprehensive cancer treatment and research center.
Iredale Mineral Cosmetics, Ltd was presented with the President’s “E” Award for Exports.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker today presented Iredale Mineral Cosmetics, Ltd., with the President’s “E” Award for Exports at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. The President’s “E” Award is the highest recognition any U.S. entity can receive for making a significant contribution to the expansion of U.S. exports.
“Iredale Mineral Cosmetics has demonstrated a sustained commitment to export expansion,” said Secretary Pritzker in her congratulatory letter to the company announcing its selection as an award recipient. “The ‘E’ Awards Committee was very impressed with Iredale Mineral Cosmetics’ emphasis on comprehensive market research used for strategic market entry. The company’s investment in multi-language marketing materials and website design was also particularly notable. Iredale Mineral Cosmetics’ achievements have undoubtedly contributed to national export expansion efforts that support the U.S. economy and create American jobs.”
“Exporting continues to be a vital element of our sales growth, and we are honored to receive the “E” Award,” said Jane Iredale, president and founder of IMC. “During the past 22 years, export sales have grown to nearly 30 percent of our total revenue, enabling us to sustain jobs and even expand our work force domestically.”
In 1961, President Kennedy signed an executive order reviving the World War II “E” symbol of excellence to honor and provide recognition to America's exporters. Today, Secretary Pritzker honored 123 U.S. companies with the President’s “E” Award for their outstanding work to reduce barriers to foreign markets and to open the door to more trade around the world.
In 2015, U.S. exports totaled $2.23 trillion, accounting for nearly 13 percent of U.S. GDP. Nationally, exports contributed to the U.S. economy, supporting an estimated 11.5 million jobs.
U.S. companies are nominated for the “E” Awards through the Department of Commerce’s U.S. Commercial Service office network, located within the Department’s International Trade Administration, with offices in 108 U.S. cities and more than 70 countries. Record years of successive export growth and an applicant’s demonstration of an innovative international marketing plan that led to the increase in exports is a significant factor in selecting the winners.
For more information about the “E” Awards and the benefits of exporting, visit www.export.gov.
Pevonia conducts its annual global distributor meeting in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Pevonia conducted its annual global distributor meeting for 2016 by hosting its distributors from around the world at its headquarters in Daytona Beach, Florida. The theme of this year’s meeting, where over 100 countries were represented, was Pevonia’s prestigious 25th anniversary in the skincare industry.
Pevonia Co-Founders and Owners Philippe and Sylvie Hennessy along with brand executives including CFO Rob Livingston, Global Vice President of Marketing and Communication Maritza Rodriguez, Medical Director of Global Education Dr. Christian Jurist, Director of International Business Development Ron Jean, and International Business Director Annette Liles participated in key speaking and panel discussions covering core business topics in operations, product development, sales, education and marketing.
The meeting also presented some of Pevonia’s exciting upcoming launches including its new and improved Men’s Line, BodyRenew, a new chic and budget-friendly bath and body collection and collections focused on individual scents such as Lavender, Tropical and Citrus. Other notable topics included Pevonia’s Loyalty Program, Holiday Promotions for 2016 and product development for 2017.
Pevonia, known for its luxury beauty and spa products recently launched its Stem Cells Phyto-Elite® Intensive Body Corrector, a new body-specific formula that stimulates the reversal of the skin’s aging cycle, and LipRenew Plump & De-Age Treatment, a revolutionary new product that plumps and smooths wrinkles on and around the lips in less than 10 minutes while blurring imperfections and improving the overall appearance of the skin.
The Global Wellness Institute (GWI), a non-profit organization with a mission to empower wellness worldwide through education of public and private sectors, announced it has established 16 wide-ranging initiatives. Each Initiative is chaired by an impassioned thought leader in that unique wellness sector and is designed to solve key industry issues and further the global conversation about wellness in its many forms. Take a look at the initiatives:
1. Baltic to the Black Sea: Although Eastern Europe has a rich heritage of well-being practices, they have remained too little known. This Initiative promotes those wellness traditions that are authentic, effective and relevant to today’s travelers.
Chair: Alla Sokolova, Co-Founder, Balans International Wellness Centre, Latvia
2. Career Development was inspired by the Global Wellness Institute research report, “Spa Management Workforce & Education: Addressing Market Gaps,” which concluded that there were far too few qualified spa managers and spa/wellness career educational options available worldwide. It revolves around three global programs: a mentorship program, internship program and a website providing a wealth of information for anyone considering a career in wellness or spa.
Chair: Jean Guy de Gabriac, Founder & CEO, TIP TOUCH International, Belgium
3. Clinical Wellness Best Practices was founded to help the wellness community and its practices gain credibility among the medical community, including medical researchers, pharmaceutical companies, clinicians, and health insurers.
Chair: Josef Woodman, CEO, Patients Beyond Borders, United States
4. Consulting Best Practices was founded to help businesses evaluate when a spa management consultant would benefit them and to provide guidelines on the selection process.
Chair: Lisa Starr, Consultant for Wynne Business, United States
5. Digital Innovations for Healing The expectation is that we stay technologically interconnected at all times, but our digital dependency is making us less connected to each other, to nature and ultimately to ourselves. This global group of experts is dedicated to understanding the role of mindfulness, meditation and nature in leadership.
Chair: Louie Schwartzberg, Founder, Moving Art, United States
6. Future of Wellness at Work brings together top thinkers and “doers” to offer much-needed new visions for how wellness at work can be implemented in the global community.
Chair: Renee Moorefield, PhD, CEO, Wisdom Works, United States
7. Global Hot Springs is an international taskforce dedicated to exploring the diverse values of geothermal waters for health, tourism and community. Its mission is to educate consumers, unite the deeply fragmented global hot springs community, and drive sustainable investment worldwide.
Chair: Amy McDonald, Owner Principal, Under a Tree Health and Wellness Consulting, United States
8. Hydrothermal Initiative aims to increase transparency and awareness in the design and implementation of all elements of facilities involving thermal and wet treatments.
Chair: Don Genders, Managing Director, Design for Leisure, United Kingdom
9. Minister of Wellness was formed to map out a new governmental function to benefit people worldwide: a Minister of Wellness. The aim is to develop a thoughtful and strategic framework that can be used to build a positive contagion for making well-being a priority in countries globally.
Co-Chairs: Renee Moorefield, PhD, CEO, Wisdom Works, United States and Guillaume Lefevre, President and Co-Founder, THÉMAÉ, France
10. Sustainability was founded to stimulate a provocative discussion about how wellness intersects both on a personal level and on a wider social, economic and environmental scale.
Chair: Bonnie Baker, Managing Partner & Co-founder, Satteva Spa and Wellness Concepts, Mexico
11. Wellness Communities Humans spend the vast majority of their time indoors, but “wellness” has been late in coming to the built environment. This Initiative brings together senior stakeholders from around the world with active commercial interests in communities and buildings proactively developed with the holistic health of its residents, guests, environment and surrounding community in mind.
Chair: Mia Kyricos, President, Kyricos & Associates, United States
12. Wellness for Cancer Most spas have lacked the proper perspective about, and the proper training to support, clients with cancer: to help them reduce stress and increase their emotional resiliency. This Initiative offers a cancer-focused educational platform that trains staff, departments, and locations worldwide.
Chair: Julie Bach, Executive Director, Wellness for Cancer
13. Wellness Tourism was formed to create a global platform of stakeholders in what has become one of the fastest growing tourism segments. It supports the practical integration of wellness into tourism strategy and highlights the vast opportunities for private sector business.
Chair: Anni Hood, Founder and CEO, Anni Hood, Wellness Business Consultancy, United Kingdom
14. World Retreat Study aims to assess the health impact of retreat experiences through a standardized online assessment tool, measuring depression, anxiety, stress, mood, sleep, health symptoms, quality of life, cognitive function (and more) to provide data on the benefits of retreat experiences.
Chair: Professor Marc Cohen, MBBS (Hons), PhD, B MEd Sc (Hons), Professor of Health Sciences, RMIT University and Chair, Australasian Wellness Association, Australia
15. & 16. Two new GWI Initiatives, Beauty, chaired by Mark Wuttke, President & COO, Babor, United States, and Wellness Architecture, chaired by Veronica Shrebeis-Smith, CEO & Founding Principal, Vera Iconica Design, United States, will launch later this year.
Dinair joins "Say Yes to the Prom" to help offer underprivileged girls the prom of their dreams.
“Say Yes to the Prom”, a show patterned after the popular Discovery Communications/TLC show, “Say Yes to the Dress”, identifies low income girls in need and offers them an opportunity to have the prom of their dreams. The focus is to help build courage and confidence by improving the girl’s self-image. The program, now in its 5th season, partners with local and national merchants for donated prom dresses, shoes, jewelry, makeup and hair. The girls are paired with a personal mentor, a “prom-consultant”, who guides them through a day of shopping and pampering. They then get professional hair and makeup done to complement the dress they chose. The day of transformation is finished with a fashion show reveal for the TLC program. Dinair is proud to have participated in this very worthy cause. A huge thank you to the makeup artists that donated their time to help make it possible.
Dina Ousley shares, “We were very honored and excited to be a part of such a worthy event. The kids were so thankful, sweet and deserving. There were tears everywhere. There is no feeling like giving back.”
[Image courtesy of Dinair]


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ISLAMABAD:The Ministry of Finance on Monday painted a rosy picture of the country’s economy estimating the average monthly growth at around 5% during the first five months of the current fiscal year 2021-22 despite inflationary pressures and consequent tightening of policies.
According to the average Monthly Economic Indicator (MEI) report issued by the finance ministry, there is demand for Pakistani exports by the trading partners despite the spread of Omicron – the new Covid-19 variant. “But we should also not ignore the impending risks including the concerns of the policymakers about the inflationary effects and the resulting policy response,” it cautioned.
However, it said the inflation may ease out in the coming months due to the declining commodity prices in the global market. In addition, relief may also come from continuous government efforts to soften food prices in the local markets by following appropriate fiscal and monetary policies.
While these developments and policies may keep the monthly price dynamics in check, the current stress on the trade balance is expected to soften, easing exchange rate pressure and subsequently stabilising the month on month (MoM) inflation.
The MEI is based on combining monthly data of indicators that are correlated with the gross domestic product (GDP) at constant prices. “Since March 2021, the MEI is on a higher level as compared to the previous months.”
This is based on observed favourable movements in macroeconomic high frequency indicators such as growth in LSM, recovery in Pakistan’s main trading partners and strong growth in imports of capital goods. The momentum in the economic dynamism observed in recent months supported economic activity in November.
According to balance of payment data, exports of goods and services increased by around 13 per cent in November as compared to October.
They have now settled well above the $3 billion mark and are expected to climb further in coming months so as to reach a new higher level. This strong export performance is the result of several positive factors.
First, although the cyclical position in the main trading partners (as witnessed by the CLI) seems to stabilise, the underlying growth trend in those countries remains very strong, following the recovery in their potential output growth.
Second, Pakistan’s real effective exchange rate has been improving significantly in recent months.
Third, the domestic economic dynamism remains strong.
Fourth, specific government policies to stimulate exports are bearing fruit, it said, adding that the main risk factor here is the appearance of a new Covid-19 variant, of which the effects on economic activity are still unknown.
The data indicated that imports of goods and services increased about 5% in November compared to October.
Strong domestic economic dynamism requires imported energy, capital goods and intermediate goods, necessary in the production process. Further, recent increase in international commodity prices have inflated the cost of these imported goods.
However, imports may settle at lower levels gradually in the coming months, it predicted. “Imports are indeed expected to react to higher domestic interest rates, given the historically observed negative interest rate effect on import demand.”
The government continues to implement measures to curb unnecessary imports and to supply domestic alternatives in some markets, especially food products. Also, the baseline scenario is based on a downward correction of international commodity prices. The report added that on the basis of these events, the trade deficit will stabilise in coming months.
The expected developments in export and import activities imply that the trade balance may gradually improve in coming months and settle down at significantly lower levels in the second half of the current fiscal.
Assuming stable remittance inflows, the expected improvement in the trade balance will be reflected in declining current account deficits, such that these deficits remain manageable and finance able.
The government’s fiscal consolidation efforts are paying off in terms of improved fiscal accounts. During Jul-Oct FY2022, the growth in net federal revenues outpaced the growth in expenditures. Resultantly, the fiscal deficit has been brought down to 1.1 per cent of GDP during the first four months of FY2022 against 1.7 per cent of GDP in the same period last year.
With prudent expenditure management and an effective revenue mobilisation strategy, it is expected that the overall fiscal deficit would remain within the reasonable level.
The Federal Board of Revenue tax revenues are performing remarkably well and continue to surpass its revenue target during the first five months of the current fiscal year.
It showed that the FBR was well on its way to achieve the assigned target for FY2022.
This is evidenced by the fact that net federal revenue receipts climbed by 17.4% to Rs 1.2 trillion in July-October period- up from Rs 1.1 trillion during the same period last year. There was a significant rise of 36.7% increase in FBR tax and 5.4% increase in non-tax collection.
Total expenditures, on the other hand, increased by 11.7 to Rs 2.2 trillion in July- October of this fiscal year, compared to nearly Rs2 trillion last year. The increase has been witnessed owing to 8.5% increase in current expenditures and 55.6% growth in PSDP spending.
Consequently, the overall fiscal deficit reduced to 1.1% of GDP Rs587 billion in the first four months of FY2022, down from 1.7% or Rs775 billion recorded in the comparable period of last year. However, the ministry did not give the federal budget deficit figure, which is the real barometer of the public finances.

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Ahead of this week’s Readmagine, Dosdoce’s Javier Celaya issues a new report on Spanish-language audiobooks and ebooks in 2022.
Raúl Padilla López, the Guadalajara fair’s founder, was a controversial figure in Mexican culture whose death has been confirmed a suicide.
Dosdoce’s Javier Celaya challenges the Spanish-language publishing industry to expand its share of a fast-widening audio ‘ecosystem.’
FGEE reports that Spain’s exports of children’s books increased by 3.4 percent, to €24.2 million in 2021, with Mexico as a primary market.
Amid calls for better and more comparable data among publishing markets, Nielsen’s BookData makes a timely expansion in Colombia.
The pandemic has heightened the need for strong metadata management in the Mexican marketplace, say principals of MVB.
With more than 62 million Hispanics in the United States, demand for Spanish-language books is on the rise, specialists say.
Guadalajara’s book fair has closed with 806,805 visitors, and Sharjah Book Authority’s guest of honor pavilion drew at least 450,000.
In this program from the Mexican Publishers Association, IPA’s Karine Pansa calls accessible publishing ‘not only a good decision, but also a good commercial decision.’
Raúl Figueroa Sarti, founding director of F&G Editores, receives the Guadalajara International Book Fair’s 2022 Editorial Merit Prize.


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Nokia Announces North American Version of the N96
Article Comments 3
Aug 26, 2008, 3:00 AM by Eric M. Zeman
updated Aug 26, 2008, 7:08 AM
Today Nokia announced that it will make a dual-band 850/1900 HSDPA version of the N96 specifically for the North American market. It will be available in the fourth quarter. Final pricing has not been determined.
Mar 10, 2021
Asus today announced the ROG Phone 5, its newest flagship gaming phone, following the ROG Phone 3. The ROG Phone 5 brings the ROG Phone series up to date for 2021 with a Snapdragon 888 chip, Android 11, and 65-watt fast charging for its huge 6,000 mAh battery.
Jun 7, 2021
Apple today announced iOS 15, the next version of its core software that powers iPhones. Version 15 is not a major overhaul, but does add a long list of new features.
Apr 6, 2020
TCL has announced select launch details for its first proper lineup of TCL-branded phones: the TCL 10 5G, 10 Pro, and 10L. The 10 5G will come to a "major" US carrier "later this year".
Aug 19, 2021
Motorola today announced a new premium-tier phone: the Motorola edge (2021). The headline features are a 108 megapixel main camera and a large 6.8-inch display with adaptive refresh up to 144 Hz.
What about AWS?


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The grandson of a Ghana king and a 19-year-old programmer in Atlanta both agree on one thing: The Western world doesn't understand Africa. Their solution? Make a video game about the continent.
In December, "Africa" the video game will join the universe of massive multiplayer online realms like "World of Warcraft" and "City of Heroes." The game's backers hope players will be enticed to pay a monthly fee not to live among the usual fantasy heroes and elves but to delve into a land of 13th century African civilization and mythology, crossing the virtual Sahara on a camel, journeying to Timbuktu and fighting as a Zulu warrior against the lion equivalent of a werewolf.
"We felt very strongly that video games can help increase understanding and education about Africa and get the unmotivated public fired up about what is going on with Africa," said John Sarpong, grandson of Ashanti king Prampeh of Ghana, exiled by the British from 1895 to 1924. Sarpong has spent recent years running Africast, a company that broadcasts African programming over the Internet.
Less reserved, Adam Ghetti, the teenage creative director at Rapid Reality, the company actually creating the game, said he hopes the game will right some wrongs. "The white American board developers of the large MMO development companies out there right now don't honestly have the right background and knowledge on the continent of Africa and its lore, mythology and rich history, and quite honestly neither did I," said Ghetti, who is white. "They just don't teach it over here." The game is designed, in part, to change that.
Many gamers have been to virtual Africa before, even if they don't realize it. Possibly they were too busy shooting. The military spy adventure "Metal Gear," released in 1987, was set in South Africa. The opening battles between Master Chief and Covenant aliens in 2005's "Halo 2" are waged on the African island of Zanzibar. More identifiable use of the African landscape has been equally ballistic: "Black Hawk Down" centered on gun battles in 1990s Somalia, and "Call of Duty 2" soldiered players to World War II-era North Africa.
None of these depictions quite matches the game plan cooked up by Ghetti and Tracy Spaight, the game's 35-year-old lead designer and a decade-long visitor of online worlds. "Perhaps you could be the mansa, the king of Mali, or the emir of Morocco if you were well enough organized and had a tribe of people that backed you," said Spaight of the possibilities "Africa" will offer.
That doesn't just mean the game presents a different way to play Africa. It also, as Sarpong and the Rapid Reality team note, presents a different way to be black in a video game. "Everybody was kind of getting sick of jacking cars and pimping people," Ghetti said.
When bucking industry trends, it doesn't hurt to be brazen. That's a quality plentiful in Ghetti, who Spaight said is "from another galaxy" and jokes is just 14. Five years older than that, Ghetti protests. He does acknowledge that half a decade ago he was already figuring out how to make MMOs by "basically taking them apart." Ghetti now boasts that Rapid Reality, an upstart with no games published yet but a few dozen employees including some MMO vets, can outperform the majors.
"The average cycle on MMOs is two to four years," he said. "We can turn out the same content, better graphics, better gameplay in eight months to a year." He said games from his company, including "Africa," will have graphics that surpass the current industry gold standard of the Unreal Engine 3. When he talks about the ability for every computer-controlled character in "Africa" to react uniquely to each human-controlled character, he scoffs at prospective doubters. "They say it's impossible. Maybe if we were doing it in the archaic way everyone else tries to do it."
"Africa" will be a vessel for Ghetti and Spaight's ambition. They want a virtual world that functions dynamically: antelope that find new pastures when grassland is scorched, drum music fully customizable by players and used — as in real ancient Africa — as an alternate langue. They want players to be able to become famous and change the map. More flexible than the mostly developer-controlled "World of Warcraft" but more restrained than the free-living "Second Life," "Africa" would let a tribe of 100 players establish their own officially recognized empire, but only after the equivalent of 12 hours of play across 48 weeks. For the less hard-core, play can be done casually as a fighter, merchant, musician or even a human who can turn into a bird.
Ghetti said he thinks the setting will present gamers a welcome and surprisingly rich change of scenery. "The African mythology back from 1200 to 1400 A.D. is thousands of times richer than the J.R.R. Tolkien series of novels," he said. "Don't get me wrong, he was an amazing individual with brilliant ideas. But that's been milked for 80 years now."
Sarpong has an extra hope for "Africa": He envisions it being played in Africa. He knows that MMOs are typically the terrain of those with the high-powered computers that are required for entry. But "Africa," which will be distributed via the Internet, will be designed to run well even on the less powerful computers frequented by Africans in their countries' cybercafes. "For the first time they can have the experience as well," he said. "That is something that excites me greatly."
And just as "Africa" might give Africans a new window to the virtual world, Spaight spins a theory on how it will affect views of the real. "I think MMOs could literally be a tool for world peace and better understanding," he said. "Maybe you make a rich, immersive environment where you could walk around these great classic cities and explore these empires and you'd get a sense of what the way of life would be like in the glorious path of these societies."
For more on "Africa," visit Africa-MMO.com.


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Fungies.io is a no-code SaaS platform for the gaming industry. The start-up, which is based in Poland, has raised a $850K Pre-seed round. Investors in the round include Depo Ventures, Czech Founders VC, Necto Labs, CV VC, Outlier Ventures, Tatum, and StartupYard.
It wants to ‘disrupt’ the gaming industry by allowing indie gaming studios to set up their own customisable web storefront in minutes – the tools for these smaller firms will encompass digital game distribution, in-game transactions, and private game server monetisation. The platform seamlessly integrates with Stripe.
Fungies says it has plans to ‘integrate with a multitude of third-party apps, including Mailchimp, Zapier, Intercom, and numerous marketing tools’. And it hopes to onboard 2,000 game developers and publishers to the platform within the next year.
"We firmly believe that gaming commerce will continue to soar in value in the coming years, given that players already spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually on in-game items and assets, both Web2 and Web3. Our mission is to equip game studios with the essential tools to self-publish directly to their players,” says Duke Vu, CEO of Fungies.io.


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Overnight commercial fire in Fresno
A store in a strip mall caught fire around 2:00 a.m. Thursday morning at Belmont and Chestnut in Fresno.
Click here to read the full story.
No profanity or inappropriate comments will be allowed.
Offensive posters will be blocked from future postings.
High: 89° | Low: 64°


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The Tax Take
The new Beps rules mean smaller economies could lose tax revenues and foreign direct investment
For a few hours last week the tax story wasn’t this week’s budget. Competing for attention was the OECD’s Beps proposals, a new set of rules to tax multinational companies. You’d think that in a country where so many of our workers are employed by the multinational sector and which relies on companies to pay more than 10 per cent of all taxes collected, any changes imposed from outside on how we tax companies would...
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Content is king – just ask Netflix as rivals attempt to steal its crown
A WarnerMedia-Discovery deal puts the spotlight on streaming wars as around 100 platforms vie for the attention of often fickle audiences
Tom Maguire: Tax changes we make now could help business for years
The way we did business a few months ago may never return – so the opportunity is to make changes that will both aid recovery and set us up well for our new futures


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We talk WIRe, our business model and brand research futures on the HappyMR podcast
We sat down with Jamin Brazil of HappyMR at last month’s IIeX conference to chat about some of the things we have going on at Alter Agents. Our CEO, Rebecca Brooks, took some time to dive into her involvement with Women in Research (WIRe), how we approach research partnerships and some of the new projects we have coming up on how the industry needs to approach brand research differently.
She started out the interview – which was held right before the WIRe event at the conference – speaking to her involvement with the group. As a long-time member, the Los Angeles event lead, a participant in the WIRexec program and a mentor, Rebecca is committed to WIRe’s mission. She talked a bit about her two-year long mentorship with a WIRe mentee and what it takes to be part of the program.
Jamin then asked her to share a little bit more about Alter Agents and our approach to research. She said, “We are a full-service market research consultancy that is methodology agnostic, vertical agnostic, doing both qualitative and quantitative research for large and small brands. We have found that our niche isn’t in a particular type of research or a particular industry, but rather centers on clients that need a true consultative partner.”
She likes the opportunity to be a partner in the broader sense – dig in deep with the client as to why the research is being done and what decisions are going to be made with the data. In addition, Rebecca believes an important step is helping to evangelize research findings across a client organization, including presentations to the C-suite.
They then dove into some conversation surrounding how brand category affects purchase behavior; something we’ve been thinking a lot about at Alter Agents lately. Rebecca touched on how technology is driving consumer convenience, pushing to eliminate as many barriers as possible for the consumer so that they can get to the purchase stage. This is changing how brand categories are defined, and thus changing the way we should be approaching research.
She says, “Everyone’s getting really used to convenience and expectations are rising, so you have this tension of brands striving to meet consumer demands for convenience but then in doing so are losing some of the brand focus.” We are currently planning an original research study on just this topic, so look for results this summer to find out more!
For the complete podcast, visit: https://happymr.com/wire-series-rebecca-brooks-alter-agents/
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AirBridgeCargo Airlines (ABC) and Sky Fresh signed a service-level agreement last week to launch the new Sky Fresh platform that digitalizes cargo acceptance checklists and allows the Moscow-based carrier to manage cargo via a smartphone or tablet.
In addition to digitalization, the Sky Fresh online web platform centralizes data from acceptance checklists, giving ABC the ability to monitor freight movements for time- and temperature-sensitive shipments at each step of the transportation chain, and send of automated notifications to all supply chain stakeholders.
ABC said that the agreement enhanced transparency of operations, traceability, efficiency and the possibility to take corrective and preventive actions, if needed, as all data will be made visible on the platform in real time
Fedor Novikov, global director of pharmaceuticals for ABC, said that, “We foresee it propelling the quality of our abcPharma product, bringing it to the next level by eliminating the potential of human error.” Novikov added that the new platform would, “make the whole process of transportation more transparent, customized and accurate.”
Earlier this year, Fen Lasseel, business development manager at Sky Fresh, talked to Air Cargo World about his company’s efforts to digitalize air freight:
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3 of 3Image
Telefónica's TU app text
Telefónica is not the first operator to release an OTT communications app — T-Mobile USA launched the Bobsled VoIP app for smartphones last October — but TU Me is the most comprehensive package yet to come from a cellular carrier.
The app draws its contacts from the user's phone address book. Telefónica's spokesman said there are no plans as yet to link it to social networks such as Facebook, but pointed out that users could invite their address book contacts to also download the app.
Disruptive Analysis's Dean Bubley, who has long been advising operators to create their own OTT services, reacted favourably to the app's release.
"I definitely like the OTT aspect and the potential virality," Bubley told ZDNet UK in an email. "It looks 'designed' as much as 'engineered', which is a good thing."
However, the analyst expressed concern about the way in which the app bundles many communication types.
"I'm less certain about the idea of putting all comms in a single app," he said. "I think there's value in fragmentation into multiple services, as it allow individuals to better segregate their personal comms 'universe' much better."
Image credit: Telefónica


text: Whether it is in India, where farmers burn crop stubble, or B.C., where loggers burn harvest slash, a lot of potential energy and nutrients are going up in smoke unnecessarily. Takachar, a startup out of the University of BC, is hoping to address this problem with a mobile bio-reactor that will allow farmers and loggers to turn their forestry or agricultural waste into useable products, like biochar. …“Current technologies for turning biomass into usable products are large-scale and centralized, which means they only work well if the source is nearby,” Kung said. …Takachar currently has five machines undergoing field tests in India, California and B.C. The machine uses pyrolysis to turn organic waste into products like biochar, which can be used as a soil nutrient in regions with acidic soil, while sequestering carbon.


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Apple (AAPL) -0.80% despite blowout Q1 as iPhone sales soar
Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook said that he was “proud” of the tech giant’s performance in Q1 after it powered past earnings expectations, following strong overseas sales of its iPhones.
Late on Wednesday, Apple said that earnings for the three months to 31st March came in at $1.40 per share, which was 118% higher than a year ago and 41 cents ahead of the Wall Street consensus.
Group revenues also soared 54% to $89.58bn versus the comparatively conservative $77.35bn forecast.
However, Apple shares actually dipped in trading on Thursday after CFO Luca Maestri warned of a “steeper than usual” revenue decline in the future due to the ongoing semiconductor shortage, which is affecting its supply chain.
While this could be an issue, the strength of Apple’s latest showing was impressive, with revenue gains across all of its divisions.
The performance of its iPhone division, which has shown signs of slower growth in recent years, was emphatic as high demand in China pushed revenue to $47.94bn, up 65.5% compared to Q1 2020.
Mac ($9.10bn, +70.1%) and iPad ($7.8bn, +79.4%) revenue also surged as consumers flocked to Apple devices for both work and play during the pandemic.
Services, an area that Apple has focused on recently, grew 26.7% to $16.90bn, while Other Products revenue brought in 24% more at $7.83bn.
Apple also announced a $90bn stock buyback programme on Thursday.
In a conference call, Maestri said that revenue growth would still be strong in Q2, but stopped short of providing detailed guidance due to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic.
Despite the blowout quarter, Apple shares fell on the Nasdaq and were trading around 0.80% lower at $132.51 just after midday ET.
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Capitalising on the popularity and explosive growth of its Ramada brand in the South Pacific, Wyndham Hotel Group has announced the signing of two new franchise agreements for Ramada hotels in New Zealand.
The agreements for Ramada Resort Reia Taipa, located in a coastal town in Doubtless Bay on New Zealand’s North Island, and Ramada Suites Albany, located in Auckland’s thriving North Shore, will bring the total number of Ramada properties in the country to eight and play an important role in the hotel group’s strategic efforts to grow the brand in New Zealand.
“According to a report issued by Colliers earlier this year, New Zealand is experiencing a travel industry boom with unprecedented growth and occupancy levels, which we are well-poised to capitalise on as we continue to expand in the country,” said Barry Robinson, Wyndham Hotel Group’s President and Managing Director, South East Asia and Pacific Rim.
“In addition to highly desirable destinations, both new Ramada resorts will provide excellent services and facilities, meeting the expectations of travellers who associate our world-acclaimed brands with quality accommodation options.”
The 32-room Ramada Resort Reia Taipa has undergone two years of extensive refurbishments by its owner, New-Zealand-based Taipa Management Limited, and will offer a combination of deluxe and superior studios, suites and apartments upon its opening later this month. Approximately 20 minutes from Kaitaia Airport, the beachfront resort will also feature an onsite restaurant, a bar, a spa, a swimming pool, a tennis court and small conference facilities.
“Taipa provides the perfect base to explore northern New Zealand, from Bay of Islands to Cape Reinga and Hokianga, and we are thrilled to introduce the world-renowned Ramada name to this region,” said Levin Da Costa of Taipa Management Limited. “We believe that leveraging the strength and reputation of the Ramada brand will attract business and leisure travellers from across the globe.”
The agreement for the 66-room Ramada Suites Albany builds on the strong relationship between Wyndham Hotel Group and New Zealand development company Safari Group, who recently announced the development Ramada Suites Queenstown Remarkables Park. Two other joint ventures between the companies, Ramada Suites Auckland Federal Street and Ramada Suites Christchurch City opened earlier this year.
Ramada Suites Albany will offer stylish accommodation neighbouring some of Auckland’s key attractions including Westfield Albany, North Harbour Stadium and Massey University. The development plan includes a mix of studio, one and two-bedroom short stay apartments as well as residential apartments and car parking. An onsite café, restaurant and bar are also planned to complement the hotel. Retail space will also be available.
“Ramada Suites Albany is the first new major hotel development on Auckland’s North Shore in many years and will serve a thriving business community and leisure market,” said Michael Osborne of Osborne Consulting, who assisted the parties to negotiate the franchise agreement.


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Last year Christian Dior dismissed celebrated designer John Galliano over anti-Semitic comments caught on film. Since Galliano`s controversial dismissal, the entire fashion world eagerly awaited news of who would replace him after over a decade with the label. On Monday news broke that Raf Simons would take over the reins.
While the world waited for a decision, Bill Gaytten has been standing in as head designer for the Parisian design house. Even though many were convinced that he would remain as head designer for the label, everyone seems pleasantly surprised with the decision to bring on Simons.
Bill Gaytten for Dior S/S Haute Couture
After Galliano`s dismissal last year a string of labels announced changes in their designers. In late February news broke that Jil Sander is returning to her label after eight years, leaving Raf Simons without a design house, triggering rumors to surface about him moving to Dior. Similarly, after news broke that Stefano Pilati was leaving Yves Saint Laurent, everyone was almost certain that he would take over at Dior. Finally countless rumors will cease with Sander`s move.
Simons is expected to bring his simple elegance to Dior reinventing the label. Furthermore this will be Simon`s first chance to create a couture line.
Although there have been a string of rumors and a complete rearrangement of three major labels, the world fervently awaits the new Dior.


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The coronavirus also known as Covid-19 has been in the news a lot and a stoked fear and anti-Asian sentiment. Misinformation has spread about the outbreak which originated in China and has affected businesses in China towns across the country.
A Business owner says winters are typically slow in terms of foot traffic because of the weather but this year it’s slower than normal, fears of the coronavirus may be to blame. The business isn’t slowing down but I don’t know how many percentages.
Lisa saying helps her mom and sisters after more than 30-year-old family-owned Bake Shop st. Anna what keeps them afloat, for now, are their regular customers but they’ve seen a dip during the weekend.
Two confirmed coronavirus cases in Illinois the carriers are from a Chicago suburb. A 44-minute drive from Chinatown the women here want to stress that fact and also that Chinatown is open for business.
Down the street at an Asian grocery store, the manager we spoke to said the store has lost about 10 to 20 percent of its customers so they found a way to make ends meet.
Chinese restaurant MCC B has seen a 30% loss of customers Kyle the owner said he’s seen a decrease in customers of Chinese and Asian heritage.
This isn’t just happening in Chicago’s Chinatown we look through nearly 200 news reports and found at least 11 china towns across the U.S. have also felt an economic impact those places include New York City Philly San Francisco Long Island Seattle LA Oakland and Houston.
In Houston, the coronavirus scare has crushed major Chinatown businesses after a rumor circulated through social media that a store owner was infected and that his shop was closed.
Kenneth Lee from Houston’s Asian Chamber of Commerce said businesses have yet to recover from this misinformation. There’s no single case happened in Houston, all this is false information and then people should come back to shop to eat as usual.
In order to alleviate fears, some Chinatowns have taken proactive approaches to address the situation Houston has held several press conferences with politicians and health officials and so did Chicago’s Chinatown Chamber of Commerce. She says the risk to the general public from this new coronavirus remains low at this time no need to wear masks in public, no need to cancel events and certainly no need to avoid coming to Chinatown.
After New York magazine reported that some New York City Chinatown restaurants felt like a ghost town. New Yorkers and visitors showed their support by attending a recent lion dance parade. Chicago has also kept the recent Lunar New Year parade as planned even though there were fewer attendees than last year.


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One of the most hyped of shoes to drop this year is just over a week from its official release, the Gamma Blue Air Jordan 11.
The first time Gamma Blue has touched the Jordan 11, which seems to be the theme for Jordan Brand this Winter (Jordan 12’s also releasing in the same colorway).
For the shoes, which have a predominate black uppers (mesh and patent leather), small hints of gamma blue and varsity maize make it’s way giving them some pop. Added in is the blue translucent sole which actually doesn’t look bad on this particular colorway.
If you’re wondering how are the quality is on the Gamma Blue 11’s? Sorry to burst your bubble but more than likely you will be disappointed. The materials used are fine, traditional patent leather and mesh that are comparable to the Bred 11 that released last year (Concord and Space Jam seemed to have higher quality materials). What Nike/Jordan Brand failed on was the construction. Glue stains can be seen on the uppers. In fact, small separation can be seen where the sole and midsole meets and where the patent leather comes into the midsole.
Releasing December 21st 2013. This is a general release so a lot of stores will have pairs and you can expect restocks to happen in the near future.
Air Jordan 11 Gamma Blue
Black/Gamma Blue-Black-Varsity Maize
December 21st 2013


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Displaying items 109-120 of 262 » View wsbt.com items only< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11-22 Next >
Pop2itApparently Rihanna -- whose histrionics are unrivaled, even by the likes of Kim Kardashian -- wasn't getting enough attention with all those gorgeous, half naked women around, so she decided to try to steal the show....
Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2012: Adriana Lima, Miranda Kerr and Candice Swanepoel pretty in pink backstagePop2itCBS won't air their annual holiday special, the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, until Tuesday, Dec. 4 but the show itself is going down tonight at the Lexington Avenue Armory in New York....
For The Baltimore SunWedding day: Sept. 13, 2012 Her story: Dani Moore, 38, grew up in Columbus, Ga. She is a real estate agent for Exit Realty. Her father, the Rev. Edward Moore, is retired from the Army and is the associate pastor at Holsey Monumental Christian Methodist...
Marko Jaric isn't the only member of his family trying to make a comeback. "My wife is now in her own training camp because she needs to get ready for a Victoria's Secret shoot," Jaric said after Saturday's practice. That would be Brazilian model...
When Tyrone Richardson said this column generates a lot of feedback, he wasn't kidding. I learned that firsthand Monday, my first day on the job as the new Retail Watch writer. I was born in the Lehigh Valley. I've watched the Lehigh Valley grow. But...
PIX11.comStudents from Westchester Community College designing outfits made from retailer shopping bags for stylish women from the Junior League as part of a Design Wars competition during the event. Each student was given 50 shopping bags from their preferred...
KIAHRacist lingerie? Yes, apparently there is such a thing. Victoria's Secret has "taken off" a newly launched lingerie collection "Go East" from its website, after one particular get-up called 'Sexy Little Geisha' was labeled racist by offended critics. For...
Tags: Social Issues, Halloween, Racism
Los Angeles TimesLOS ANGELES -- Stop us if you've heard this one before: HBO dominated the Emmy nominations announced Thursday morning, picking up 81 nods for viewer favorites such as "Boardwalk Empire" and "Game of Thrones" as well as comedy newcomers "Girls" and "Veep."...
A former Victoria's Secret model was in downtown Indianapolis Sunday, to speak to and motivate dozens of Hoosier girls. Kylie Bisutti was the key note speaker at the Called Out to be Real event, thrown together by Get Real inC., a Christian based non-...
KIAHWe've heard of women having 100 of them or even one on the elliptical machine, but have you ever heard of a breast orgasm? When I saw the headline on the Huffington Post it definitely "grabbed" my attention. Turns out that some women can reach climax...
Tags: The Huffington Post
Nov 8, 2012 | Zap2It
May 31, 2012 |Story| WGNTV-LTV
Nov 7, 2012 | Zap2It
Nov 12, 2012 |Story| WGNO-LTV
Oct 8, 2012 |Story| Baltimore Sun
Oct 6, 2012 |Story| Chicago Tribune
Oct 6, 2012 |Column| Allentown Morning Call
Oct 3, 2012 |Story| WPIX-LTV
Sep 26, 2012 |Story| KIAH-LTV
Jul 20, 2012 |Story| KTLA-LTV
Sep 23, 2012 |Column| WXIN-LTV
Sep 21, 2012 |Story| KIAH-LTV
Original site for Victoria's Secret topic gallery.


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Manchester United has launched legal proceedings against Sega Publishing and Sports Interactive (SI) over the use of the club's name in the video game Football Manager.
The club has claimed infringement of its trade marked name through its inclusion in the game, as well as of its logo due to the fact that SI used a simplified red and white crest alongside the club's name rather than the team's official logo. They stated that “consumers expect to see the club crest next to the name Manchester United ... and this failure to do so amounts to wrongful use”.
Sega and SI, in their defence, indicated their repeated use of the club's name in video games dating back to 1992 "without complaint by the claimant" and argued that such use of the name was legitimate in the context as there was no risk of confusion or damage to the club's trade marks.
The business of sports has exploded over the past two decades to the extent that elite-level sports clubs are now among the most valuable brands in the world. However, as I have mentioned before, COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on the world of sport and its revenue streams.
On this basis, it is not surprising that Manchester United are looking to tighten protection for their registered rights to ensure that consumers are left in no doubt as to the club's image and visual representation. To separate the name from the badge may have been seen by them as too great a disconnect when compared to extensive use of the two together on a wide range of merchandise products.
Success for United in this case would set a precedent that many other clubs would surely be keen to follow. It will be interesting to see to what extent the biggest names in sport continue to allow the use of their trade marks in this kind of setting in future.
Sega and SI say the use of the club’s name is “a legitimate reference to the Manchester United football team in a football context” and has been used in Football Manager and its predecessor Championship Manager since 1992 “without complaint by the claimant”.


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Beijing, China (CNN) -- A handful of homegrown micro-blogging sites emerged about the same time Twitter started to gain a small, yet steadily growing, share of Chinese Internet users, beginning about 2007, around a year after Twitter was launched in the U.S. in 2006.
While almost all of the early Chinese micro-blogging pioneers faced the same fate as Twitter, most of the sites are now back online and are fiercely competing to gain a share of what many predict will soon be an exploding population of Chinese micro-bloggers.
Alex Mou is the founder of one of them. He started a Twitter-like site called Zuosa, which was shut down for "self maintenance" on July 21, around two months after Twitter was first blocked in early June.
"We were closed for self maintenance for a couple of days," Mou said. "Others were indefinitely closed. We had some inappropriate messages that we needed to delete, and then it was OK."
Since Zuosa has been back online, Mou has been working hard to cultivate a community that seems to be willing to blog about everything except subject matter that might offend the Chinese government.
"You have to watch yourself," Mou said. "You have to do some monitoring, filtering and stuff." Some observers say the self-censorship that micro-blogs in China inevitably must follow in order to survive will deter the country's 300 million Internet users from using them.
"Because of the situation we are in right now, for real micro-blogging to become popular in China, it is very difficult," said Xue Ying, co-founder of BloggerInsight, a blogging community that provides research on China's high tech industries.
"They are trying to control the content. That is the very opposite of the philosophy of micro-blogging."
Yet those who run China's Twitter clones disagree, arguing their sites employ features that will attract Chinese Internet users already accustomed to socializing and sharing information on the Web.
More than 90 percent of Chinese broadband users use social media, compared to 76 percent in the United States, according to a study from San Francisco-based Netpop Research. Zuosa, as well as other Chinese micro blogs, like Digu and Sina Microblog, a site launched by web portal Sina.com, allow users to upload pictures and embed videos to go with their 140-character limit posts. In contrast, only text can be posted directly onto Twitter.
Some of the services interface with Twitter as well, allowing members to update their Chinese Twitter and the real one simultaneously.
Chinese sites can also be seamlessly updated through many of the country's popular chat services, enabling them to become a natural extension of the instant messaging culture that permeates the web here.
"They are working to use popular Chinese services and integrate them into micro blogging," said Lu Gang, co-founder of OpenWeb.Asia, a workgroup focusing on the Asian Internet industry.
Some chat providers are even starting their own micro-blogs. Tencent Holdings, which owns QQ, the most popular Chinese instant messaging platform, recently launched a Twitter-like service called TaoTao.
Microsoft was beta testing MSN Juku, a micro-blog service linked with Windows Live Messenger. However the project was recently "suspended indefinitely" after Plurk, a popular social networking site in Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines, claimed Microsoft copied its code. Microsoft investigated and has now acknowledged a third party vendor had copied some code. The software giant says it takes full responsibility and is discussing the matter with Plurk.
"If you look at how the Chinese use the Internet, instant messaging is huge," Thomas Crampton, Asia-Pacific director of 360 Digital Influence, a blog of the Ogilvy Public Relations firm, said.
"Twittering is sort of a more social version of that, so I think it is well within the [Chinese] social media ecosystem."
Mobile phones are another important component of China's burgeoning micro-blog ecosystem, especially as 3G smart phones permeate the market after the government rolled out the service at the beginning of 2009. Similar to people in the West, Chinese can send tweets to micro-blog sites via text messages, another one of the most popular forms of communication in the country.
Yet as network speeds get faster, companies are positioning themselves to take advantage of micro-blogging via the mobile web.
"Our goal is to build a new generation messaging platform for mobiles," Jeff Tao, founder of Hesine Technologies Inc., a Beijing-based company that has developed an interface allowing mobile users to interact with multiple micro-blogs at once.
"I can bundle a phone with 15 social network sites so the same blog can be posted to 15 sites with just one single click," Tao said.
"It will have a big impact on the mobile community."
According to Tao, the free software has been downloaded on 200,000 phones since it was launched a few months ago.
"Free" is a feature Chinese micro-blogs are trying to move away from, and many are exploring ways to turn growing communities into revenue streams.
Zuosa is earning money from users willing to pay to receive posts via text messages written by Master Xue Cheng, one of China's more famous Buddhist monks.
"His followers are our first paying users," Mou said. "Although it is very new we can see that some people are willing to pay to receive important information."
MySpace China is also studying how to incorporate celebrities to coax users into paying for its 9911 micro-blog service, said its CEO Tony Wei.
"We haven't decided yet," Wei told CNN. "It will depend on our negotiations with the agents of the celebrities."
9911 has a partnership with Youku.com, China's version of video-sharing Web site YouTube, allowing users to easily post film clips from the site, Wei said. Members can record audio files via mobile phone and post them as well.
"It is very special," Wei said.
While some say attempts to commercialize China's Twitter-copycats are rendering them as portals filled with nothing but entertainment fluff, those who use the sites see it differently.
"I find it interesting," Jeremy Goldkorn, a Beijing-based blogger who "tweets" in Chinese on infotainment portal Sina.com's micro-blog site said.
"There is a real exchange of ideas going on. There is stuff that exists at the margins of what is acceptable in China."
Yet for those who wish to micro-message outside the margins, there is still Twitter in China.
Despite government efforts to block the site, the country's so-called "Great Firewall" is leaky enough to allow Chinese tweeters to use Twitter itself versus a micro-blog alternative.
"It is a risk of course," said Michael Anti, a Chinese Twitter user who has more than 10,000 followers on the site. "But still people do it. The Twitter community is booming and is expanding. It is fantastic."


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Ford Motor Co.’s turnaround is on track, chief executive officer Alan Mulally told the handful of shareholders who bothered to show up in Wilmington, Del., for the company’s annual shareholders meeting.
The slender turnout didn’t prevent a proposal that would have broken the Ford family’s grip on the company. The proposal was supported by 27 percent of the shares voted during the meeting. The strong vote for the proposal suggests the majority of Ford’s non-family shareholders would prefer to end the family grip on the company. It also guarantees it will be voted on again next year.
One of the few shareholders at the meeting ripped chairman William Clay Ford Jr., saying he was a failure and a loser, according to an account provided by the Associated Press.
Ford CEO Alan Mulally, however, tried to put a good face on the company’s manifold problems by saying the company was making steady progress in organizing to meet the challenges.
“As we go forward, you can expect from us what I expect from my team — clearly stated goals and candid assessments of our progress based on facts. Ford Motor Company already has a proud history to gain inspiration from, and many hopeful developments to build on,” he said.
Mulally also noted Ford has several successes last year, despite reporting a $10.5 billion loss. “We had record sales in
“Meanwhile, consumer surveys shows the quality of our Ford, Lincoln and Mercury products in North America is now equal to
Mulally, however, said Ford’s North American sales are under continuing pressure. “But we've made great progress in building products consumers want to buy. Just three years ago, 70 percent of our
Ford’s financial results in the first quarter were better than expected, thanks to cost-cutting in
Mulally also said the goal of the company’s ongoing reorganization is to build more of the products “that people want and really value.”
“We are moving quickly and making real progress, but it’s going to take time to turn things around. As we go forward, you can expect from us what I expect from my team — clearly stated goals and candid assessments of our progress based on facts,” he said. “Our products also will define us as the company that cares about its customers and their communities.”
“Bill Ford and I share the same vision of building clean, fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly vehicles that protect their passengers and our planet. We believe that a company that acts responsibly and is concerned for the greater good will not only be admired, it will be rewarded with growth and sustained profitability,” he added.
Next Land Rover Lighter Like Jags? by Marty Padgett (5/9/2007)
Autocar reports on aluminum-bodied Landie.
Ford Shuts Casting Plant, Idles Another by Marty Padgett (5/7/2007)
“Way Forward” ripples hit engine capacity.
2009 Ford F-Series Caught Testing by KGP Photography (5/3/2007)
Revamped truck taking on Tundra, Silverado.
April Sales Slow Significantly by Marty Padgett (5/1/2007)
Even Toyota drops as housing effect hits autos.


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Digital technologies are present in all segments of the manufacturing industry. By making use of the data available along the value chain, manufacturers optimize their operations, increase the quality of products and manage their after-sale services on the market.
Various initiatives pertaining to digitisation have been launched by governments to help businesses generate manufacturing solutions for the next generation. Yet, Europe needs to pool its resources and act in a coordinated manner to cope with the increasing pressures from competitors across the world. The business models in the manufacturing industry are evolving fast, making it necessary for our policy-makers to explore new measures providing manufacturers with the right framework conditions. New collaboration avenues must also be developed for manufacturers and ICT actors, ensuring Europe is a centre of excellence for digital manufacturing. Manufacturers need to master the use of data available in the industrial context, because that data is the new oil for the economy. For these strategic reasons, we have chosen digitisation as the theme of this CECIMO magazine edition. We hope to provide our readers with different views on policy and the business aspects of digitisation.
Other key developments in the European machine tool industry are covered by the CECIMO magazine. With the EU removing sanctions on Iran, a large and untapped market opens up for European machine tool builders. Concerning skills, CECIMO, together with its member associations, has recently launched the European Machine Tools Alliance for Skills improving the delivery of vocational training in the sector vis-a-vis new technologies. Regarding energy-efficiency, the industry is now looking for the best ecodesign instrument.
Don't wait any longer to discover the exclusive content of our latest CECIMO magazine. Download it here.


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Activision unveils the Platinum Games-helmed The Legend Of Korra game
Activision has announced that they have a new game based on the anime series The Legend Of Korra coming to current and next-gen consoles later this year.
The Legend Of Korra is in development at Platinum Games and it will be the first game the Japanese action specialists have made that is licensed from TV or film.
The Legend Of Korra will arrive as a download on PS4, PS3, Xbox One and Xbox 360 in the autumn.
- Bungie explains their latest weapon balancing efforts in Destiny, promises more is coming
- Blizzard aiming to release Hearthstone on Android tablets by the end of the year
- Former BioWare man Casey Hudson hints at an Oculus Rift project
- Dark Souls on PC to switch from Games For Windows Live to Steam next month
- Square Enix announces details and pricing on the premium livestream of Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival 2014
- First Challenge Mode DLC arrives next week for Alien: Isolation
- Metallica to close out this year's BlizzCon
- Free DLC adds a new skin and runes to Shadow Of Mordor
- ESL Gaming app arrives for the Xbox One


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* SA Tourism has appointed FCB South Africa as its new lead marketing agency, to handle a complete package of communication, including above-the-line, below-the-line, through-the-line, PR, digital, and media planning and buying. The agency will handle both domestic and international marketing.
*. Interesting news is that KWV has launched its own proudly South African hand-crafted Kalahari truffle-infused super-premium London dry boutique gin named Cruxland. A total of nine exotic signature botanicals has been infused in the 100% grape spirits. The product will be sold locally, via Yuppiechef, and internationally. (received via media release from Tin Can PR)
* The 25th Veritas Awards is calling for entries, which close on 25 August. The Awards toast the best South African wines and brandies, which will be announced at a gala dinner on 9 October. Tastings of Double Gold and Gold winners will be hosted nationally thereafter. (received via media release from Marlene Truter Communications)
* Graham Beck winemaker Erika Obermeyer will introduce her Game Reserve range at the One&Only Cape Town, pairing her wines with a 4-course Wine&Dine dinner at Reuben’s on 25 August. Cost is R395, inclusive of the wines. (received via newsletter from One&Only Cape Town)
* The Pepperclub Hotel & Spa invites First Thursday visitors to experience the artwork they have displayed in the hotel lobby, and to taste wines of the Baccarat range this Thursday 6 August. Tapas are available to try with the tasting, while DJ Paul Franks makes the music. (received via media release from Epic MSL Group)


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Instagram is wildly popular with consumers and advertisers alike. Find out which innovative campaigns are grabbing attention.
YouTube has introduced a messaging feature inside its app to enable users to share videos and facilitate group chats without leaving the application. The service is being rolled out initially to a small section of YouTube users.
360-degree photos are coming to Facebook’s News Feed and the Samsung Gear VR.
Google has updated DoubleClick for Publishers to make it easier to sell native ads that look good across device screens and experiences including mobile websites, apps and desktop sites, the company said Tuesday.
At long last, Instagram's old-school icon is going away in favor of something more modern — a lot more modern. Instagram announced today that it's introducing a colorful new icon for its main app, as well as matching icons for apps like Layout and Hyperlapse.
More Articles ...
- Amazon Video Direct to go head to head with YouTube
- Tumblr Labs Allows Users to Test Experimental Features
- Twitter Brings Augmented Reality to ‘The Voice’
- Snapchat experiments with charging for interactive video ads
- 25 Tips for Taking Better Mobile Photos From Instagram Influencers - Free Guide
- LinkedIn reportedly wants to be hub for business news


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Antoine de Saint-Affrique, its chief executive, said China’s gourmet chocolate market was on track to eclipse all others as more bakeries, hotels, restaurants and caterers move into the segment.
Speaking in Shanghai, he said: “China has the potential to become the biggest gourmet market in the world. The question is not if it will happen; only how fast it will happen.
“That’s why we are expanding our offerings in China for chocolate artisans, pastry chefs and other professional users of chocolate.”
Euromonitor International, the market analyst, has forecast lightning growth in Asia-Pacific’s chocolate market, while China’s US$2.8bn chocolate confectionery category could grow to some US$3.9bn by 2021.
According to George Zhang, Barry Callebaut’s managing director in China, increasing disposable income among middle- to high-income consumers will drive growth in the premium category. This group is increasingly likely to buy expensive chocolates as gifts, while many are in the market for novel forms, he added.
“Consumers are seeking new chocolate trends, for example chocolate with health benefits, new tastes such as green tea flavour chocolate and innovative chocolate forms for a variety of exciting chocolate experiences,” Zhang said.
To meet demand, the Swiss company is planning a “refreshed” range of premium chocolate and cocoa products for professionals under its established European Callebaut, Cacao Barry and Carma brands, alongside its Van Houten Professional range.
The company will target almost a dozen of China’s biggest cities and incorporate a digital marketing platform through the ubiquitous WeChat messaging app to “create a broader community of chefs and chocolatiers across the country, enabling them to upgrade their skills and to network with other professionals,” it said in a statement.
“Our ambition as the global cocoa and chocolate leader is very clear: we need to be the market leader in every place that really matters, and China is clearly one,” De Saint-Affrique added.
Elsewhere in China…
Construction underway for new Firmenich plant in Zhangjiagang
Firmenich has begun construction of a new flavours plant in Zhangjiagang that it hopes will cut supply times for customers in its second-biggest market.
Boet Brinkgreve, regional president of the privately owned Swiss flavours and fragrances major, said the new plant’s increased production will be “critical” for Firmenich’s future in China for a variety of reasons when it opens in 2019.
“This cutting-edge plant is designed to not only increase our operational efficiency, but also to optimise our environmental footprint.”
The plant, which will operate alongside existing manufacturing facilities in Shanghai and Kunming, will allow water recycling on site, and has been designed to recover heat from cleaning water and building ventilation.
"By significantly increasing our flavour production capacity there, we are accelerating our customers’ access to our flavour solutions,” Brinkgreve added.


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Following a visit in March, where they came under fire from frustrated residents, members of the Co-operative management team returned to Stonehaven and District Community Council this week to highlight how they had addressed some of the issues raised.
Co-operative regional manager, John Kelly, opened the discussion saying that they “appreciated” being asked back. He then went on to describe some of the measures taken to improve the Co-operative stores in Stonehaven which were described in the March meeting as “appalling.” Complaints included a lack of choice in-store, empty shelves, staff attitude and prices. One of the issues which Mr Kelly spoke about addressing was the issue of heating in the store, he explained that they had spent £28,000 getting a new heating system installed in the David Street store.
He also explained that more improvements were planned as the Market Square Store is due for a refit in January. It was revealed that recently the Co-operative group had spent £1.5 million on the Stonehaven stores. He said: “I am really, really pleased and encouraged by progress and what I saw in the store when I visited tonight.” He did however accept that more can be done in the stores. He said: “We have made improvements but there is still more we can do.” The co-operative group carried out a number of surveys within Stonehaven, including an independent survey, to give them a clear view of the issues the stores experience. Of the surveys, Mr Kelly explained that one of the results of the surveys which he found “pleasing” was “the praise for staff was high.”
Community Council members and the public at the meeting accepted that improvements had been made, however they still had some concerns about the stores. One Community Council member expressed his concern over the Co-operative groups monopoly in Stonehaven and asked if they had intentions to expand further in the Town. Co-operative board member Liam Smyth addressed this issue. He explained that he would be happy to live in a place where everything you need; holidays, funerals and weekly shopping, can be provided by one company. However he did admit his view was slightly “jaundiced.” He said: “I think there is a difference in having a monopoly and behaving in a monopolistic way.” He explained that the continued investment in the stores shows they are not behaving in a monopolistic way. He also added that there were “no plans” to extend in the Town.
Another issue which was raised was the continuing issue of prices in the stores and the cost of petrol in the Town. The Co-operative representatives explained they would look into petrol prices and that they had aims regarding prices in-store.


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A new survey conducted by FOREO, the wellness and beauty tech brand from Sweden, reveals that we are in a confidence crisis - with a ‘compare and despair’ culture rife, particularly among women.
The study of over 2,000 respondents was carried out for FOREO’s Boost Your Glow campaign to celebrate the launch of the latest skincare gadget, the LUNA Mini 3, which promises to give you glowing skin is as little as 30 seconds. The brand quizzed the nation on their social media habits to discover the impact it has on our lives, and is now calling out for women to champion themselves and others in a bid to glow with confidence both inside and out. Key insights of the survey revealed:
- 61 per cent of women admit to ‘compare and despair’ syndrome (they regularly compare their appearance to others on social media)
- 50 per of people wish they could apply a filter to themselves in real life
- One third of women admitted to feeling down about their appearance after scrolling through social media
- 96 per cent of UK women admit to using filters in order to improve the appearance of their skin. Despite this, 73 per cent of women don’t like to see filters or airbrushing, preferring instead to see real skin
Working with the world’s first and only ‘comparison coach’, Lucy Sheridan, FOREO is campaigning for women to champion not only other women, but themselves too. Lucy has helped thousands of people through her private practice and workshops to ditch the ‘compare and despair’ mentality and go #comparisonfree, breaking the cycle of looking at others in order to build a happier and healthier relationship with themselves and with social media. For too long now, women have felt uncomfortable accepting a compliment or singing their own praise. It’s time for women everywhere to not only prioritise self care, but self love.
Commenting on FOREO’s survey and campaign, Lucy says: “I think it’s important as it shows a deeper understanding of what people experience on the day to day and demonstrates care for consumers beyond the surface appearance. It shows an acknowledgement that what is happening on the inside will have an effect on what shows on the outside.”
So how do we boost our confidence both inside and out? “Confidence is an inner power that is unique to each of us as individuals and like any muscle, the more we work it the stronger it gets,” says Lucy.Kerbing comparison anxiety – here are Lucy’s top tips for exercising your inner confidence muscle:
- Redefine what confidence looks like. “Define what confidence means to you and then work towards it e.g. speaking in a work meeting, contacting that blogger you admire... it’s for you to arrive at.”
- Change your approach to social media. “Be part of this shift happening where instead of judging and dismissing people feeling themselves, we celebrate and applaud it. It’s your feed so take control - show up and show the world who you are. Show your life, your skin, your style and whatever else makes you feel fully expressed.”
- Say yes to compliments. “Receiving attention for ‘just being us’ makes many of us uncomfortable. And yet a simple ‘thank you’ and nothing else can help us get better at taking compliments and improve our perceptions of ourselves.”
- Curate and define a positive social media space. “It’s not just a case of muting and unfollowing what makes you feel not so good, but boosting your feed with what lifts you up too. There is inspiration to be found, friendships to be made and fun to be had on social media but we need to go and find it based on our own needs and wants.”
- Don’t confuse confidence with arrogance. “Confidence is a fuel for our pursuits and the more fuel we have the higher we can fly.”
The new LUNA mini 3 is available from Harrods, Selfridges and Cult Beauty, RRP £139The online survey was conducted by Atomik Research in September 2019, with 2,003 respondents.