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Google just posted Pixel 4a’s official images on its Canadian store by mistake, but now images have been removed. We’ve been hearing news about Google Pixel 4a for a very long time now. The Google Pixel 4A leak has been taking the world by storm as it leaves everyone wondering when the device would be released.
The last time we have seen that Pixel 4a got certified from FCC, and there was also a rumor that it might get announced on July 13, but that does not happen clearly.
This mid-range device from Google has now been delayed many times, originally its launch venue was Google I/O 2020, but that event got canceled due to COVID-19.
Now it is unclear that when this midrange device will get launch in the market. There is also a chance that now Google has delayed Pixel 4a intentionally due to the launch of OnePlus Nord, as it is the only worthy opponent of Pixel 4a.
Below are the Google Pixel 4A leak specs.
Google Pixel 4A leaked specs:
- 5.81 inch OLED display | Full HD+
- Snapdragon 730
- 6GB | 64/128GB UFS 2.1
- 12MP Main
- 8MP Selfie
- Rear Mounted Fingerprint scanner
- 3080mAh | 18W Fast charging


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American pizza chain Papa John’s Q2 results has shown a 49.9% decrease in net income and 6.2% decline in total revenue for the second quarter ending 1 July 2018.
From $434,778 to $407,959 in revenues, the $26.8m decline is mainly due to lower comparable and commissary sales for North American restaurants.
The restaurant company also reported operating income of $25.36m, compared to $37.21m for the same period in the previous year.
Papa John’s president and CEO Steve Ritchie said: “Earlier this year, we began implementing key changes in how we operate and market our products to refocus on quality and better connect with customers.
“While results have been challenged by recent events, we are committed to these strategic priorities and continue to believe that they will lead to enhanced performance. We have also begun an external audit of Papa John’s culture and will address any improvements that are recommended at its conclusion.
“Our entire leadership team understands the importance of getting our culture and business improvements right. We have important work ahead of us, and I feel certain that with the collective efforts of our 120,000 corporate and franchise team members that the best days for Papa John’s are ahead.”
Alternatively, the company has reported a 12.2% increase in total international sales, as well as a 0.8% increase in international comparable sales.
During this quarter, the restaurant chain opened one company-owned restaurant, 26 franchised locations across North America and 61 locations internationally.
As of 1 July this year, there were 5,247 stores in 50 US states and 46 international countries and territories globally.
The restaurant chain also acquired 34 international stores and closed 44 stores in North America and nine stores internationally.

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Tyson closing York, Neb. plant
April 21, 2008
by Bryan Salvage
SPRINGDALE, ARK. ― Tyson Foods Inc. is ending meat production at its York, Neb. plant on or before June 17 and shifting operations to another facility. The closing is part of Tyson’s plan to consolidate
some of its prepared foods business as part of an ongoing effort to improve production efficiency, company officials said April 18.
"Given the dynamics of the meat business, we must continually pursue ways to operate more efficiently," said Roy Slaughter, vice-president of poultry and prepared foods operations for Tyson. "After careful consideration, we have decided it will be more efficient for another, larger operation to absorb the work done at York."
The York plant processes uncooked meats such as flat iron steak and the Shaved Steak brand, as well as other sliced beef and pork items for various retail and food service customers.
The York facility was originally built as a pork slaughter plant in 1952. It has since been remodeled and operated by numerous companies over the years including IBP inc., which Tyson Foods acquired in 2001.


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Developer news items we found relating to mobile women
Shopping apps that target women will see better profits says new report
Wednesday, October 12, 2016 by Richard Harris
Liftoff has released its annual Mobile App Engagement Index, highlighting trends in how consumers engage with apps and mobile marketers acquire new users. The report highlights gender differences in mobile shopping and gaming in-app purchase behavior, plus other general findings such as seasonality trends. The major takeaway from the data in Liftoff’s App Engagement Ind...


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As part of efforts towards nurturing and mentoring young entrepreneurs, the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), in collaboration with the Catholic University of Milan, Italy, has organised a five-day entrepreneurial bootcamp and business model competition for first-year MBA students pursuing the Impact Entrepreneurship and Innovation programme.
The bootcamp session, held from November 8 – 13, 2021, is an integral component of the MBA programme and aims at providing a common platform for student entrepreneurs to network with prospective investors while obtaining real-time feedback on their businesses.
It was attended by over twenty-five (25) students, and participants had the opportunity to display their products and services during the practicum which was facilitated by faculty members from the Catholic University of Milan.
The students were also provided with tools and resources to develop a value model for customers and ideate a prototype or new business models while learning how to mix the business model stereotypes using the business model canvas.
They also learned how to design the value streams and agile portfolio required to deliver their products and services to their targeted market.
The bootcamp was climaxed with a pitch session where the 25 students were divided into two groups (Stand-up businesses and Start-up businesses) to present a viable business model.
At the end of the competition, Angelina Diyuoh Minski of Eastbridge International School emerged winner of the stand-ups project while Josephine Jacoba Amoah (Positive Impact Consult) won the best start-up model.
Speaking at the closing ceremony, the Italian Ambassador to Ghana and Togo, Her Excellency Daniela D’Orlandi, who was the special guest of honour, reiterated the immense contributions and support of Italian companies to Ghana’s economy.
She disclosed that the Embassy through its Trade Agency and Italian Export Credit Agency is committed to promoting local businesses by facilitating access to technical training, technology transfer, marketing, partnerships and joint ventures between Ghanaian and Italian businesses.
Ambassador D’Orlandi further added that these agencies also offer credit opportunities to Ghanaian-Italian companies.
Present at the event were Prof. Abigail Opoku Mensah, Director of CIEC; Prof. Albert Puni, Dean, Distance Learning School; and Dr. Andrews Ayiku, Coordinator for the MBA Impact Entrepreneurship & Innovation programme.
Other high-profile dignitaries in attendance included Alessandro Gerbino, Director of Italian Trade Agency (in charge of Ghana, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Niger), Mr Nathan Kwabena Anokye Adisi, Chief Executive Officer of the EIB Network, Ouda Moustafa, Execution Manager (Eni), Anna Lixi, a representative from the European Union delegation in Accra as well as some alumni of the MBA programme.


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Plugging high-end gaming desktop hardware into a laptop may be a crazy idea, but CybertronPC has pulled it off.
- Microsoft’s Chromium Edge beta emerges along with a new $30k top prize bounty
- Week in security: Are cybercriminals getting ready to storm the BlueKeep?
- GitHub token scanning comes to Alibaba, AWS, Azure, Google and more
- Google Chrome password study: 25% users ignored a breached password alert
- ASD tells Australia how to adopt DMARC to fight email spoofing attacks


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The run-up in milk prices is expected to continue in fiscal 2024, led by buoyant demand, constrained supply and under-recovery of costs in the previous two fiscals. Demand has rebounded since the easing of COVID-19-induced restrictions on social gatherings and the hotel, restaurant and café segment, and is being fed by rising consumption of value-added products in tune with higher disposable incomes and changing lifestyles.
Supply, however, has lagged due to constrained production resulting from inclement weather conditions. Underfed cattle due to higher fodder prices, and cattle health not being in the best condition due to unseasonal rainfall and heatwave conditions have lowered milk productivity.
This has resulted in a spurt in milk procurement prices, of 12 percent last fiscal and an expected 14 percent in the current one. However, players have not been able to completely pass on the increase in milk procurement prices, which account for nearly 60-70 percent of milk retail prices, considering the increase in retail prices was 6 percent and 8 percent, respectively, during fiscals 2022 and 2023. The sharp contraction in the profit margins of dairy processors last fiscal and in the current one bears this out.
Thus, we expect players to sharply increase retail prices by 7 percent in the next fiscal to make room for margin improvement.


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Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, once held talks with private-equity firm Silver Lake about a possible deal to take the company private, a person familiar with the discussions said.
The talks occurred before current Chief Executive Officer Thorsten Heins took charge in January, according to the person, who asked not to be named because the negotiations were private. The discussions were preliminary and the two sides weren’t able to agree on a potential valuation, the person said. The deal would have allowed RIM to work on a turnaround without the scrutiny of being a public company.
Tenille Kennedy, a spokeswoman for Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, declined to comment. Gemma Hart, a spokeswoman for Silver Lake, didn’t immediately return a request for comment.


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November 1, 2022
Which cars, trucks, crossovers, and SUVs won’t be making an encore next year? We have the list. But first, some observations. The dawn of the electric age arrives with the sunset of the sedan. Though unrelated, consumers continue to migrate to crossover SUVs and have begun adopting electric powertrains in greater numbers. It’s an American paradox to want cleaner, more efficient cars but not sacrifice the size and flexibility of larger, heavier, less efficient crossover SUVs. Automakers oblige, and the sacrifices for 2023 include everything from small underperforming cars to the beloved V-8 muscle car.
Crossovers and SUVs accounted for more than 55% of new car sales through June 2022, while cars accounted for about 21%, according to statista.com. That continues a trend started long before the introduction of electric vehicles.
It’s taken 12 years since the first mainstream electric vehicle went on sale—the Nissan Leaf— for many analysts and executives to declare that the market has transitioned from early adoption to mass adoption. It’s been observed that sales of electric vehicles through the first half of 2022 reached record highs, and despite the industry having a down year, electrified vehicles (including plug-in hybrids and hybrids) accounted for 5.6% of new car sales, more than double that of 2021, according to Cox Automotive.
Most automakers have announced plans to end the development of cars powered by internal-combustion engines, and the sacrifices made in the shift to electrification can be seen in this year’s list of cars that will be discontinued between now and the end of 2023. It’s larger than last year’s list of discontinued vehicles.
Contrary to previous reports, the Chevy Trax small crossover will be resurrected and reimagined as a 2024 model that slots between the Trailblazer and Equinox in Chevy’s crossover SUV family. It remains to be seen if the Buick Encore will follow in its, ahem, Trax.
Which cars, trucks, crossovers and SUVs won’t be coming back for an encore next year? We have a couple of lists that might indicate just what to expect/or not.
Among the many cars that won’t be in the offering lineup in the next year or two are a growing bunch of, well, mostly sedans. A sedan lover, this makes me sad but not surprised. Robert Duffer, Senior Editor of The Car Connection, laid out a few in a recent column:
*2022 Acura ILX, entry level compact sedan
*Ford Edge/Lincoln Nautilus
*Ford Transit Connect, cargo van
*Honda Insight Sedan
*HyundaiIoniq (2017 as rival to Prius
*Hyundai Accent; 1990’2
*Hyundai Veloster N (boo)
*Infiniti Q60-six years on the US market
*Nissan Maxima, first launched in 1980’s. Eight generations, 2017 last one
*Nissan Rogue Sport, since 2017
*Ram 1500 Ecodiesel
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It was only a few years ago that some economists were arguing that Europe was “decoupling” from its long dependence on trade with the United States and predicting that the Continent’s future lay with the so-called tiger economies of Asia.
German carmakers, at least, had a different vision of the future.
The recovery in the United States auto market, which produced big earnings growth at Chrysler and Ford in their fourth quarters, has also been a boon for Germany’s big three — Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen.
The double-digit increases in their American sales last year reflected an overall surge in demand by American buyers for European and, above all, German products. Well-designed vehicles and machinery, so coveted a Germany specialty that they can often fetch premium prices, were by far the biggest categories of European exports to the United States.
As a result, overall German exports to America rose 24 percent in October from a year earlier, outpacing the 18 percent growth for euro zone exports to the United States.
In many ways, the success of the German carmakers has let them invest to produce further success in the American market. The German companies are cashing in on years of commitment to the United States, which remained an important market for them even as the global auto industry trained its sights on China.
Volkswagen, for example, has invested $4 billion in the United States since 2008, building a factory in Chattanooga, Tenn., that began churning out Passat sedans in 2011.
“Five years ago, we reset the clock here in America,” Martin Winterkorn, the chief executive of Volkswagen, said in Detroit last month. “The Passat was made in America for America.”
BMW and Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz unit have been making sport-utility vehicles and other autos in America since the 1990s: BMW in Spartanburg, S.C., and Mercedes in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
That presence put them in position to take advantage of the revival of the American market.
Nearly a third of the vehicles that BMW sells in America are built in that country, according to LMC Automotive, a research firm in Troy, Mich. Mercedes and VW both produce about a quarter of what they sell in the United States in local factories.
BMW and Mercedes have also expanded their appeal in the United States by moving carefully into more affordable parts of the market. Mercedes, for example, sells an entry-level Mercedes sedan for less than $30,000.
All of that has contributed to a sales surge. BMW vehicle sales in the United States rose 14 percent last year, including the Mini brand; sales of Daimler’s Mercedes and Smart brands increased more than 15 percent; and Volkswagen’s sales soared 34 percent, including Audi brand cars.
For Mercedes and VW, those were better growth rates than in China, and they helped to offset slower sales there.
The German automakers’ strong financial results contrast with those of European rivals like Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroën, which abandoned the United States market decades ago. Now the French carmakers are short of ways to counterbalance the stricken European market. It is probably too late for them to re-enter the United States, even if they could afford the cost of re-establishing a dealership network.
Mercedes and VW are so well placed in the United States that they even did a little strutting during the televised Super Bowl football championship on Sunday, showing splashy commercials.
In the Mercedes spot, the actor Willem Dafoe, playing the devil, offers a young man a new CLA sedan in exchange for his soul. After a fantasy sequence in which the young man cuddles with the model Kate Upton, dances alongside Usher and overtakes Formula One cars on a racetrack, he sees a billboard advertising the CLA for $29,900. He realizes he can afford one without the devil’s help.
The euro zone recession would clearly be much worse than it is without the income that European companies are bringing in from the United States. While Germany has been the main beneficiary, accounting for 40 percent of euro zone exports to the United States, countries including France, Italy and Spain also recorded big gains in sales in America of products that span categories from chemicals to wine.
Britain, which is in the European Union but not the euro zone, expanded exports to America by 11 percent in October from a month earlier. That made Britain second to Germany in total sales of goods to the United States that month, with about 4 billion euros, or $5.4 billion, in October versus 8 billion euros for Germany, according to official figures.
The renaissance of United States demand is a big shift from a few years ago, when all the action seemed to be in Asia. The realignment has prompted some companies and governments to re-examine their priorities, and it helps explain why European Union leaders like Angela Merkel of Germany and David Cameron of Britain have been pushing hard for a new trade agreement between Europe and the United States. A deal would eliminate tariffs and harmonize regulatory requirements for cars and other products.
America has always been important to German manufacturers.
But the recent pickup in United States demand for factory equipment, which is closely linked to the auto industry as well as natural gas exploration and chemical production, came as a surprise.
After past economic downturns, United States demand for machinery never fully recovered to precrisis levels, said Peter Leibinger, vice chairman of Trumpf, a company based in Ditzingen, Germany, that makes machines used to cut and form sheet metal.
“It was always a step down,” Mr. Leibinger said by telephone from Farmington, Conn., where a Trumpf factory employs about 700 people.
But this time it was different. After an initial plunge following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, Trumpf’s American sales have soared, rising about 90 percent to 274 million euros from June 2010 to June 2012.
The German carmakers are benefiting from a general recovery in the premium end of the American market, as well as from more aggressive financing incentives. But they are also in position to meet demand for less expensive models, as with the BMW X3 SUV, which starts at about $39,000.
Volkswagen, which only a few years ago flirted with irrelevance in the United States, has come back after a campaign that began in 2008 and included a high-tech makeover of the buildings that house Audi dealerships as well as efforts to improve service.
The Passat made in Tennessee is less costly and simpler than the European version. It has helped VW compete better in the United States with the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord.
“The VW brand has historically had more of a cult following,” said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president at LMC Automotive. “The new Passat is larger and more in line with midsize cars in the U.S. It has more mass appeal than cult appeal.”
VW has also invested heavily in marketing in the United States. The company’s Super Bowl spot portrayed an office worker from Minnesota speaking in a Jamaican patois and exhorting his dour co-drones to “turn the frown the other way around.” Then he took them for a ride in a red Beetle. The slogan is: “Get In. Get Happy.” (Some commentators said the commercial was culturally insensitive, but Jamaica’s tourism minister liked it, The Associated Press reported.)
Mr. Schuster said he thought VW sales would continue to grow this year, though perhaps not as fast. In January, sales of the German brands rose less than the American car market over all, although it was not clear if the relatively poor performance was a trend or an anomaly. Over all, vehicle sales in the United States were up 14 percent in January from a year earlier. Mercedes sales rose 11 percent over that period, VW and Audi unit sales rose 7 percent, and BMW and Mini sales were up only 2 percent.
BMW sales were held back by a shortage of products because of heavy demand last year, a spokesman said, adding that the company expected 2013 to be a good year in the United States.
Despite all the talk about Asia in recent years, there is palpable relief among German exporters that the United States is once again a growth market. America remains an easier place for European companies to do business than most emerging markets.
“To us, it’s a market like Germany,” said Mr. Leibinger of Trumpf. “We consider China a huge opportunity, but we do see the risks there.”


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Instagram has launched a new feature called Reels, which is simply imitating what the short video app Tik Tok does. The new feature in Instagram allows recording 15-second videos, selecting music clips on them, then sharing them as a story on the social network owned by Facebook, and the Reels feature can also be found in a special section of the Explore tab within the app.
In nearly all functions, the Reels feature is the same as TikTok, but is integrated within the Instagram app. Simply put, if Facebook buys a TikTok app from its parent company ByteDance, and integrates it into Instagram as is, it will be this new product.
Wait, isn’t Tik Tok for sale in the market right now? Yes, this is true, but of course Facebook cannot consider acquiring another emerging social app, and it is currently under investigation about the same practices with other social apps.
Therefore, with the difficulty of the purchase process, Facebook did what it would do if the purchase failed. Yes, activate imitation and destroy mode for this app. To be fair, there is one difference. Instead of fearing the possibility that the government of China will collect your data, you can be sure that Facebook is collecting it as usual.
Instagram Reels Not The First Try!
The timing of the global launch of Reels was very important, given the uncertain future of TikTok in the United States, as the Trump administration is considering either banning the app, which is owned by the Chinese company, entirely or forcing it to sell its operations to an American company. However, Facebook’s plans to respond to TikTok threats have been underway for some time.
In late 2018, Facebook released a version similar to the popular video-sharing app TikTok called Lasso, but the app did not take off and was shut down this year. Despite its lack of success as a standalone product, Lasso represents Facebook’s ability to run large-scale beta tests that do not generate any profits, allowing the company to collect a huge amount of user behavior data, which can be used when creating new features for its main applications, as it does with Reels feature on Instagram.
After Lasso tests, a Reels feature was released in Brazil in November 2019, and it was called Cenas, to see how Instagram app users would respond to a different type of mobile video experience. Then these tests expanded outside the US to markets such as India and parts of Europe this year.
Facebook and inflated sense of paranoia!
Far from ridiculing this entire absurd position, Facebook’s product development roadmap appears to focus more on supporting and promoting itself against a smaller, smarter competitor, rather than offering any kind of really new or really innovative features. Well, when was the last time you remembered Facebook offering us an innovative feature? In fact, when was the last time a fake Facebook app or feature was successful? Maybe it was Instagram posting of stories, oh moment please, this is also a copycat of a Snapchat feature also called, coincidentally, stories.
This is not to say that the Reels feature will fail or be bad, so if TikTok disappears tomorrow, its users will find a familiar and usable alternative from a network they know well: Instagram. The problem here is that imitation is very different from innovation, and it seems that Facebook is so concerned about its position within the world of social media that it is difficult to remember the last time the company introduced any development or innovative new feature in a useful way within this world.
In reality, this happens to every business at some point. Work grows, then finds a level of success, and tries to stay at that level, and certainly no one will be able to deny that Facebook has achieved tremendous success in the world of social communication, but the problem is that with the magnification of this success, the sense of self is amplified, and the attempts to impose more and more control over The market and the competitors, and the more attempt to imitate and crush them completely, then amplifies an increasing sense of paranoia, with which it is difficult to think of innovative features or solutions.
Could Facebook imitate TikTok’s “secret sauce”?
The Reels feature definitely didn’t cost the company any need to think, and it required virtually no product or market research. And it certainly isn’t that difficult for a team of talented engineers, like those who work at Facebook, to copy an app they already have on their own phones.
But is that really the best that a company the size of Facebook can offer right now? Are you just copying and mimicking other social media apps?
Then there is the fact that the thing that makes TikTok so popular is not only the distinctive interface of the application, yes it is very easy to record, edit and upload video inside the app. But the app’s real secret mixture is inside its algorithm, this is where all the magic happens, that algorithm that makes the user stick to the phone inside the app for hours and hours without even realizing it.
On the other hand, for Facebook, the algorithm is where the headache begins. Because the process of reverse engineering the algorithm is much more complex than engineering the user interface and application code itself, which is why it can be called a “secret mix”, which is what makes it different.
The question on Facebook is what makes it so different from the rest, regardless of the sheer size of the company? The first part of the question, “What makes it different,” is the same question that every business needs to answer.
Conversely, if you spend all of your time trying to eliminate your competitors by imitating their features, you can easily lose track of innovation. Ultimately, innovation is a much better way to delight your customers than to provide a service they already get elsewhere and better.


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Will your rebate accounting come back to haunt you? Settle down around our campfire, and we’ll share some cautionary tales…
It’s a chilly October evening. You’re sitting alone in your kitchen, reading your favorite industry blog. Then, with a startling suddenness, your phone begins to ring.
You answer and a stranger’s voice says your name. Then, they tell you where they’re calling from. Your blood runs cold.
It’s not a masked killer, hiding inside your cupboard. It’s much worse.
It’s Martha calling from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). She wants to talk about the profits your company posted in the last quarter. Specifically, she wants to know how you accounted for your rebates.
Horror stories like this one are all too common. And to celebrate Halloween, we’ve gathered together a few to chill the spine of distributors and vendors alike…
Heads roll at Target
Department store Target Australia was on track for $53m in earnings before interest and tax for the first half of FY2016—some $17m down on the same period in FY2015.
In an apparent attempt to address the shortfall, senior managers at Target decided to use rebate agreements to artificially boost its earnings. It arranged rebate programs with over 30 different suppliers for the first half of FY2016, promising that, in return, it would pay higher prices during the second half.
By March, Target’s parent group, Wesfarmers, had begun an investigation. By mid-April, three of target’s senior managers had quit, and Wesfarmers’ Managing Director had described their actions as “mind-blowingly stupid”.
Monsanto gets haunted by its ghostly rebate programs
A few months earlier, U.S. agribusiness Monsanto Company—best known for its flagship product, Roundup—had experienced its own rebate nightmare.
According to the SEC, “Monsanto’s sales force began telling U.S. retailers in 2009 that if they “maximized” their Roundup purchases in the fourth quarter they could participate in a new rebate program in 2010.”
The problem? If you use a rebate scheme to incentivize sales in one financial year, you need to record a proportion of the costs related to the program in the same year—unless you want to find yourself in breach of U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
Instead of recording the cost of this program in 2009, Monsanto delayed it until 2010, materially misstating its consolidated earnings in corporate filings.
In the words of Scott W. Friestad, Associate Director in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, “Monsanto devised rebate programs that elevated form over substance.” These ‘ghost’ programs would ultimately lead to an $80 million penalty for violating accounting rules.
Tesco commits “market abuse”—and a regulatory nightmare ensues
In 2018, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority said that Tesco plc and Tesco Stores Ltd had “committed market abuse” in relation to a trading update published in 2014.
The update stated an expected six-month trading profit for Tesco plc of £1.1bn. A matter of weeks later, the multinational retailer published a further update announcing it had “identified an overstatement of its expected profit”. According to the Financial Times, this overstatement was due to inflated estimates of rebate income owed.
When you combine the company’s agreed compensation package for investors with its plea deal with the Serious Fraud Office, the cost of Tesco’s mistake totals £214m.
The gruesome death of Dick Smith Holdings
Branches of Dick Smith Electronics were, until recently, a common sight on the streets of Australia and New Zealand.
But when Dick Smith Holdings (DSH) collapsed in 2016—leaving creditors more than $260m short—receivers Ferrier Hodgson made some shocking allegations. “By reason of DSH’s treatment of rebates,” their letter claimed, “DSH was able, in effect, to “borrow” profit from a subsequent year.”
Liquidator McGrathNicol subsequently found that the retailer's buying decisions were driven by supplier rebates rather than customer demand—sacrificing product mix for short-term profit.
A grim tale from the archives—Royal Ahold
At the turn of the millennium, U.S. Foodservice (now U.S. Foods) was already a major distributor of food to restaurants, hotels, schools and hospitals. When it was acquired by Dutch company Royal Ahold in 2000, its vendor rebate activities came under the purview of Ahold’s independent auditors Deloitte & Touche.
Initially, all seemed well. Then, in 2002, D&T discovered problems that caused them to not only suspend their current audit, but withdraw their audit opinions for the previous two years. For fiscal years 2000 through 2002, Ahold overstated net sales by approximately EUR 33 billion ($30 billion). For fiscal years 2000 and 2001 and the first three quarters of 2002, Ahold overstated operating income by approximately EUR 3.6 billion ($3.3 billion) and net income by approximately EUR 900 million ($829 million).
On February 24, 2003, Ahold announced it would restate earnings for FY2000, FY2001, and the first three-quarters of FY2002—reducing them by a total of over $500 million. Ahold's original SEC filings for at least fiscal years 2000 through 2002 were materially false and misleading.
That same day, the company’s stock price lost almost two-thirds of its value, and its Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer resigned.
What had happened? According to testimonies from U.S. Foodservice insiders, its upper management had suggested bonuses were at risk unless sales increased in the last quarter of 2002.
The company’s chief operating officer had proposed a solution—order large amounts of inventory, immediately recognizing the vendor rebates. The strategy would not only pave the way for the company’s costly restatement of its earnings, but for a massive excess of inventory which, in some cases, had to be sold at a loss.
Bristol-Myers Squibb underpayments catch up with them
From 2007 to 2013, BMS allegedly underreported AMPs for multiple drugs by improperly reducing the reported AMPs for service fees paid to wholesalers. From 2014 to 2016, they also improperly excluded additional value received pursuant to price appreciation provisions in contracts with wholesalers, which also lowered the AMP amount. By taking those actions, BMS allegedly underpaid quarterly rebates owed to the states and caused the United States to be overcharged for its payments to the states for the Medicaid program.
Fraudulent claims get the better of Priority Healthcare
Priority Healthcare had to pay Roche Diagnostics $43.3 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that it fraudulently submitted claims to insurers and pharmacy benefit managers for Roche’s Accu-Chek blood glucose test strips that put Roche on the hook for tens of millions of dollars.
Roche claimed in its 2018 complaint that it had to pay more than $37.5 million in “unwarranted” rebates to insurance companies and PBMs for blood-glucose testing strips that either were different, pricier versions of the test strips patients actually received or were not shipped to patients at all. Roche also contended that Priority Healthcare’s efforts to introduce new pharmacies caused it to pay millions of dollars per year in unwarranted rebates for the tests.
Don’t have (rebate) nightmares…
As we’ve seen, inaccurate rebate accounting can lead to some very unwelcome consequences. And it isn’t always the result of a deliberate attempt to mislead the market.
Often, the sheer number and complexity of a company’s rebate agreements can cause it to stray from the safe, bright path of financial compliance, into the shadowy woods where GAAP is contravened, profits misstated, and dire prices paid.
That’s one reason why robust rebate management solutions, like Enable, are so vital. They help provide a single, auditable source of truth for rebate agreements—so you can protect your business against rebate accounting nightmares, and sleep a little easier.


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Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Local Online Spend Climbs Despite Setbacks
Last year, according to the firm’s “Annual US Local Media Forecast,” US local ad spending reached $130.2 billion, or 55.3% of the total. That was lower than the $141.3 billion BIA/Kelsey projected in February 2009 and a significant drop from the $156.3 billion spend on local advertising in 2008.
BIA/Kelsey reported significant declines in almost every medium studied, and lower than expected growth in the interactive sector.
Total local advertising spending will continue to stagnate through 2011, while 2012 will bring “meaningful recovery.”
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Old MacDonald has to follow the rules
Farmers are invited to attend a "food rules" workshop from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Dec. 11 at the University of Illinois Extension-Winnebago County office, 1925 S. Meridian Road, Rockford.
Consumers are demanding fresh, local produce at an increasing rate and regional farmers are stepping up production, including shelf-stable products processed directly at local farms to meet that demand. Farmers are sometimes unaware of the many rules and regulations that apply to producing, transporting, and selling meats, eggs, cheese, jam, pickles, or baked goods, and this workshop will provide important information.
Cost is $10; register at www.thelandconnection.org/farmers or 847-570-0701.
P.S. Yeah, I know that NOT all farmers look like this guy...


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The day Paul A. Sperry fell overboard while sailing on the Long Island Sound in the mid-1930s, he probably wasn’t considering his future stores’ designs, or whether his forthcoming creation would be sold in stores at all. But roughly 81 years after the event which triggered the invention of the Sperry Top-Sider shoe, the namesake brand was ready for a reboot.
Historically appealing to boat enthusiasts, Lexington, Mass.-based Sperry produced the first boat shoe in the U.S. that featured a non-slip tread design.
Over the past century, Sperry has gone from designing niche sailing shoes to selling mainstream footwear, yet throughout its complex history, it’s maintained a visual identity synonymous with boating. Presently, that’s evolving.
Sperry recently expanded its accessory and apparel offerings, which it wanted to showcase in store, leveraging the opportunity to connect to a wider audience.
“Sperry wanted to maintain the heritage customer they have, but also present itself in a way that’s interesting to a younger consumer,” says Seattle-based Ron Singler, senior vp, sector leader, retail stores, CallisonRTKL (Baltimore). Singler explains, however, the ideal customer isn’t necessarily defined by age, but rather, by lifestyle.
“We call our target consumer ‘the Intrepid,’ ” echoes Heather Dietrichson, director of design and construction, Wolverine Worldwide (Richmond, Ind.), the parent company of Sperry. “This consumer is bold, adventurous and courageous; not afraid of [a] challenge, and one who would ‘jump in.’ ”
Finding ways to support the expanded merchandise offering proved to be an obstacle for the design team.
“The merchandising capacity was a big deal,” says Singler. “The stores vary in size, and they were looking to up the ante with the apparel and accessory mix. A younger consumer is more accustomed to accept a denser presentation.”
In old locations, fixtures lined perimeter walls. Now, accessories, apparel and shoes commingle on the sales floor, displayed together on collective fixtures, providing more opportunities for storytelling.
Singler explains another hurdle was preserving the connection to the brand’s sea heritage, while broadening the appeal: “The previous version of the store was very East Coast,” says Singler, “but there are also people on the West Coast that really dig Sperry Top-Siders, too. It didn’t have to just be a Northeastern thing.”
This was accomplished through subtle design details (like dock ties as fixture handles) and with playful graphics referencing water. The materials, flooring and lighting exude a contemporary sea shack ambience without being literal.
“[We wanted to] evolve the clean, white New England beach house design to reflect a grittier, patina environment … [to] value our New England seacoast heritage and also celebrate that our brand is global and seaworthy to reach other markets,” says Dietrichson.
Another way of elevating authenticity was by promoting its original product: “Sperry wanted to maintain the notion of their core heritage footwear,” Singler says. “We resolved this by creating a life preserver feature wall that anchored the back of the store … the orange color draws attention and allows us to highlight the classic Top-Sider footwear as a foundation. It became a destination.”
Sperry, Lexington, Mass.
Wolverine Worldwide, Lexington, Mass.
Design and Architecture
CallisonRTKL, Baltimore: Ron Singler, pic; Cindi Kato, pm; Mitch Pride, lead designer; Beta Hsu, lead designer; Kate Lee, project architect; Michael Trenary, project architect.
Outside Design Consultants
Oculus Light Studio, Culver City, Calif.
Architect of Record
Shremshock, New Albany, Ohio
Unique Structure, Marion, Iowa
Carlson Group, Chicago
Green Choice Flooring Intl., Holland, Mich.
Villa Lighting, St. Louis
Life Preserver Focal Wall
Dillon Works, Mukilteo, Wash.
Photography: Aaron Leitz Photography, Seattle


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Publicis Groupe, due to merge with Omnicom in the near future (as POG according to its enemies), is splashing out £35m to buy London media agency Walker Media according to a report in Campaign. Walker is 75 per cent owned by M&C Saatchi which will retain a 25 per cent stake.
Walker will be rolled into Publicis media agency ZenithOptimedia alhough it will remain as a separate brand in the UK, where it does most of its business.
Which, on the face of it, won’t do much to help ZO in the UK where it is still reeling from the loss of £135m L’Oreal and the consequent departure of CEO Tim Hipperson.
Walker representatives, headed by CEO and co-founder (with the departed Christine Walker) Phil Georgiadis (left) may feature on ZO’s new ‘management board,’which has replaced the CEO job, at least temporarily. It would surely have made sense to put Georgiadis in the ZO CEO hot seat although this may not suit his personal plans (he is reported to have already made £3m from selling Walker shares and still has just under five per cent).
As for M&C, it means even more cash flowing into its coffers (last year the founding shareholders sold its Golden Square building for a reported £40m) and, maybe, an admission that it can’r really compete in the international media stakes against juggernauts like WPP’s mighty GroupM.
Omnicom and Publicis, meanwhile, are now the proud owners of yet another media brand. This brings the total to about 13 in the UK, which seems a bizarre number. There seems to be a big rationalisation job there for someone, most likely OMG’s Colin Gottlieb (another former media independent founder to have done rather well out of the largesse of the big marcoms groups).


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One of the key players in the universe of Mafia 3, Thomas Burke, has been introduced.
Mafia 3's protagonist Lincoln Clay has a number of major associates in the game. These characters each control part of his criminal empire, and each one is very different from the rest.
We've already been introduced to Cassandra the Voodoo Queen, the ruthless leader of the Haitian Syndicate. Today, developer Hangar 13 has released a new video to introduce Thomas Burke the Anarchist.
Burke is the leader of the Irish mob. Like Cassandra, he too has a score to settle with the Italian mafia, who pushed into his territory. It looks like he's going to be the most unhinged of the group.
Mafia 3 is out on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on October 7.https://www.vg247.com/wp-admin/media-upload.php?post_id=595584&type=image&TB_iframe=1


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Abu Dhabi Ports―the master developer, operator and manager of ports and industrial zones in the emirate―handled 19% more general & bulk cargo in the first nine months of 2015 compared to the same period in 2014. The volumes increased to 11.28 million tonnes in the first three quarters of 2015 from 9.49 million tonnes in the same period last year.
This was announced at the first Annual Breakbulk Middle East Conference & Exhibition being hosted by Abu Dhabi Ports at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC) from October 25 to 28, 2015. The event themed “Projects Meet Logistics” brings together around 2000 (two thousand) logisticians from around the globe.
Abu Dhabi Ports set a record during the first three quarters of 2015 by handling the highest volumes of general & bulk cargo in two consecutive months―July and August. Combined volumes of around 2.86 million tonnes in these two months marked the highest volumes of general & bulk cargo ever managed by Abu Dhabi Ports.
Captain Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi, CEO of Abu Dhabi Ports, said: “Abu Dhabi Ports’ increased general & bulk cargo volumes in the first three quarters of 2015 prove that our strategy to invest in innovative technologies, state-of-the-art infrastructure and customer focused services has paid off!”
“We are pleased to host the Breakbulk Middle East 2015 for the first time in Abu Dhabi. This is a great opportunity for industry players to learn new trends and developments in logistics and projects sectors,” Al Shamisi said.
Zayed Port, the oldest commercial port in Abu Dhabi, handled the vast majority of steel imported and exported through the Emirate. Zayed Port also witnessed 13 per cent growth in general & bulk cargo volumes in the first nine months of this year compared to the same period in 2014.
New modern cranes and other equipment, and implementation of new technologies like Jade Master Terminal―a terminal operating system ―as part of an ongoing upgrade have helped Abu Dhabi Ports optimise its productivity across the ports. The surge in general & bulk cargo volumes across Abu Dhabi Ports indicates rising import and export activities related to industrial and infrastructure development projects in the Emirate.
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The World is cruising to Nelson this summer.
And the Europa, Seabourn Sojuorn and Hanseatic.
The four cruise ships have confirmed that they will visit the region this summer and Nelson Tasman Tourism expects that trend to continue.
NTT international marketing manager Loren Heaphy says four cruise ships have booked to come to Nelson this summer with another seven the following year. Each of the ships carries around 400 passengers and is seen as at the “high end” of the market.
To be allowed on the Europa ship – which is arriving here on Boxing Day this year – each passenger must have a net worth of at least $5 million, with each cabin worth around $300,000 and monthly costs at $30,000.
Loren says these passengers spend a lot of money and NTT has worked hard for several years to work with local operators and to develop a package that suits their needs.
That could include a trip to the Abel Tasman, staying a night in a luxury lodge or shopping on Trafalgar St.
She says the possibility of a 2000 person ship visiting Nelson in the future is very real with Port Nelson now able to host ships that size. “We haven’t got any that size yet but we are working very hard on it and once we get one, and if we host it well, we’ll get a lot more.”
Lynda Keene, CEO of Nelson Tasman Tourism, says Nelson is increasingly becoming a viable competitor with other national ports. “Nelson is renowned internationally as a premium tourist destination, and attracting more cruise ships to the region has been high on our list of priorities.”
She says the region has a strong reputation in hosting cruise ships after last summer and she sees the market growing over the next few years. “Last week we hosted one of the largest inbound tour agencies in the region to help with cruise ship package development and the agent was very impressed with what the region has to offer.”
Nelson mayor Aldo Miccio says the region will benefit from an increasing number of ships visiting the region. “Nelson Tasman Tourism and Port Nelson have done a great job in helping to attract more cruise ships to our region. My aim is to work with local retailers, Uniquely Nelson, Port Nelson and Nelson Tasman Tourism to see if we can put together some packages that encourage visitors to stay within the CBD, and revitalise that economy.”


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NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of BlackBerry (BBRY) are rising on Monday on reports that Ford (F) is turning to the beleaguered tech company to power its Sync voice-activated system, a blow to its current arrangement with Microsoft (MSFT). Ford has built more than 10 million vehicles worldwide that are equipped with Sync software.
Shares of BlackBerry are rising on Monday on reports that Ford is turning to the beleaguered tech company to power its Sync voice-activated system.
A partnership would be a significant achievement for BlackBerry, which has been struggling for years. In effect, Ford will be ditching Microsoft, whose voice-activated software has been the basis of Ford's Sync system since it was introduced in 2007.The news was originally reported in The Hansen Report, which said Sync 2 has been criticized for being glitch prone and difficult to operate. Via a spokesperson, Ford has said it will continue to work with Microsoft, although it was not specified in what capacity. BlackBerry's QNX Software Systems is already featured in Audi and BMW vehicles -- but would significantly expand its presence, as Ford has built more than 10 million vehicles worldwide that are equipped with Sync software. At last check, shares of BlackBerry were climbing almost 8% to $9.85. In New York, I'm Brittany Umar for TheStreet. --Written by Brittany Umar in New York
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Apple TV 4K users who encounter software problems can now rely on their iPhone to restore and reset the device, eliminating the need to contact Apple support. With the release of iOS 17 and tvOS 17, Apple has introduced a new troubleshooting step that allows users to use their iPhone to fix issues with their Apple TV.
Prior to this update, the process of restoring an Apple TV required plugging the device into a Mac via the rear USB port. However, this option was not available for the 4K model, leaving users with no choice but to seek assistance from Apple for servicing.
With the new functionality, when an Apple TV HD or later model with tvOS 17 or later experiences problems, an image of an iPhone will appear on the TV screen. Users can then unlock their iPhone and hold it near the Apple TV. A prompt will appear on the screen, guiding users through the steps to reset the device. Once the reset is initiated, a confirmation message will show up, indicating that the Apple TV is recovering. Users can then resume using their iPhone normally while the Apple TV resets in the background.
TVOS 17 offers several other updates and features for Apple TV. It introduces FaceTime to the TV screen, a redesigned Control Center, an “enhanced dialog” mode, and the ability to locate a misplaced Siri Remote using an iPhone. Both tvOS 17 and iOS 17 are now available to Apple users.


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- Shares in major suppliers for Apple are taking a hammering Thursday after the tech giant announced a shock slowdown.
- Companies which produce microchips, sensors, and accessories for the California company are nursing major losses.
- AMS, an Austrian firm which produces facial recognition sensors used in the iPhone X, has lost 20% and is the biggest faller on the Stoxx Europe 600 index of major European companies.
- Apple's shares are down 7.7% in premarket trading. You can follow live at Markets Insider.
Shares in major suppliers for Apple are taking a hammering Thursday after the tech giant warned that it expects revenues to be as much as $9 billion lower than previously forecast in the first quarter of the year.
Apple's stock is down around 7.7% in premarket trading, or more than $56 billion in market capitalization. The news also dragged shares of a whole host of companies which manufacture components for Apple devices such as iPhone and iPad, many of whom rely on the California company for a significant proportion of their revenues.
Here's a snapshot of the carnage as of around 1.20 p.m. GMT (8.20 a.m. ET):
- AMS, an Austrian firm which produces facial recognition sensors used in the iPhone X, has lost 20% and is the biggest faller on the Stoxx 600 index of major European companies.
- The Switzerland headquartered STMicroelectronics, which builds imaging and proximity sensor products used in Apple's iPhone X, is 9.2% lower Thursday.
- Dialog Semiconductor, a UK-based semiconductor maker with an exclusive contract to make power management circuits for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch has seen its Frankfurt-listed shares fall 8.2%.
- Germany's Infineon Technologies, which makes chips for the iPad, has dropped around 4.4%.
- Logitech, the Swiss tech accessory maker has lost 5.8%. It supplies accessories sold in Apple retail stores including chargers, mice, and keyboards.
- In the US, Advanced Micro Devices, a semiconductor company in California, slumped 2.4% in premarket trading. So-called FAANG peers (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) also slumped at least 1% each. Microsoft is down 1.5%.
- Hong Kong-listed Apple suppliers AAC Technologies fell 5.4% and Sunny Optical plunged 6.8%
Apple cited a slowdown in China exacerbated by President Trump's trade war, the strong US dollar, and reduced battery replacement prices as reasons for its revenue slowdown. The company estimates that revenue for the first fiscal quarter would come in around 7.6% lower than a previously expected $84 billion. The original guidance called for revenues between $89 billion and $93 billion.
Away from Apple suppliers, financial markets in general have been hit by news of Apple's weaker than expected performance, with major share indexes around the world losing ground in the European morning.


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Stories by Isaac Anumihe
Incidences of abuse of the fast-track status given to some companies is now a cause for concern to the Federal Government. The government is tinkering with the idea of proscribing the policy to bring sanity to the ports. The fast-track policy was introduced into maritime operations to reduce congestion and facilitate the process of clearing goods from Nigerian ports.
Before the introduction of the policy, clearance of goods constituted a problem in the Nigerian ports to the extent that cargoes that would have been cleared within 24 hours took more than three weeks to clear. Importers were paying huge sums of money on demurrage accruing from the delay of their vessels and this invariably impacted on the prices of imported items in the market.
It is against this backdrop that most of the importers took their goods to neighbouring countries like Togo and Benin Republic to clear. Togo has less than 24 hours clearance schedule. Besides that, Nigeria was losing revenues that would have accrued from duties and taxes on goods. Worse still, these goods cleared in other neighbouring countries were smuggled into the Nigerian markets at very reduced costs, thus impairing the growth and development of local farmers. The result was that both the Nigerian farmers whose products compete with the foreign ones and the government whose revenues were being diverted to other countries were losing out.
So as part of measures to arrest this ugly trend, the Federal Government took some strategic steps towards boosting revenues in the ports.
These include reducing the number of government agencies operating in the ports and introducing a fast-track policy, which empowers some notable importers to bring in goods without going through the rigours of screening. But recent discoveries have shown that most of these companies who have fast-track status have grossly abused it. Some of them have been engaged in smuggling contraband, under-declaration of cargoes and false declarations of their imports, using their fast-track status as cover.
Recently, one of the beneficiaries of the policy, Nigerite Nigeria Plc, the leading manufacturers of FC roofing sheets, FC ceiling sheets and vinyl floor tiles, brought into the country, substances confirmed by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) as cocaine.
The items were discovered in eight bags (25 pieces per bag) of unidentified substance found in 1 x 20ft container No. CMAU 045195/0 and weighing 214.732kg. The seizure ranks among the highest in terms of volume.
According to Tincan Customs Area Controller, Bashar, Y. U., the level of seizure is unprecedented given the volume of the substance. “This is no doubt a spectacular and remarkable seizure considering the well articulated Intelligence Coordination Mechanism adopted and harnessed by the command in its resilience to achieve desired results.
“It is a highly-condensed substance. And the container is CMAU0451954/0. It is a one by 20-foot container belonging to Nigerite Nigeria Limited. It is processed by Elevation Transactions Limited, which is the clearing agent at NPA commercial building, Lagos. It is among other 17 by 20-foot containers. But we picked particular interest in this one because of the intelligence attached to it,” he said.
But Nigerite’s Procurement Manager, Mr. J. O. Amata, said that his company will find out how such an item was found among other consignments in the container.
However, Tincan Island Customs Relations Officer, Mr. Uche Ejesieme, confirmed to Daily Sun that any beneficiary of fast-track involved in such infraction risks withdrawal of its licence in addition to prosecution.
Recall that other beneficiaries of the policy have in the past abused their status, a situation that prompted the Federal Government to want to proscribe it.
During a recent meeting with key stakeholders in the maritime industry, the Controller charged them to continually educate and sensitise members of their various organisations on the need to support the Federal Government and the Nigeria Customs Service through honest declarations in all their documentation.
“A major constraint, which we have continued to address is the issue of false declaration, deliberate misapplication of harmonised system code on items, among other infractions. However, I am confident that with the measures we have put in place, it will be practically impossible for anybody to manipulate or circumvent the process without being caught,” Bashar said.
Speaking on the measures and plans to further enhance the capacity of the command to deal with some of the vices, the controller pointed out that he remained fully committed and determined to deliver on his mandate, promising to ensure that the various operations in the value chain are compelled to key into the change ideology of the Federal Government.
“We will continue the strategy of stakeholder engagement, training and re-training of our personnel as well as collaboration and synergy with the critical agencies in line with the vision and mission of the Comptroller General, Col. Hamed Ali (Rtd), and his management. We will continue to remain on top of our mandate through strict adherence with the extant laws for maximum revenue generation,” the Comptroller noted.
Customs threatens to prosecute importers of vegetable oil
Controller, TinCan Island Port, Bashar Yusuf, has threatened to facilitate the prosecution of importers of 20 containers of vegetable oil wrongly declared as sodium phosphate.
Speaking when he intercepted the contraband, Yusuf noted that the importation contravenes the import regulations, particularly Sections 46 & 47 of the Customs and Excise Management Act, CAP C 45, Laws of the Federation, as amended.
In a statement, Yusuf vowed to deal decisively with non-compliant importers or their agents, while assuring those who are compliant with the extant laws of his readiness to ensure facilitation of their legitimate trade.
The discovery is coming on the heels of the renewed vigour and enthusiasm of the Customs officials in blocking all flash points of revenue leakages. According to the controller, a certain clearing agent named Patwed Investment Company, presented three Single Goods Declarations (SGDs) with C-No. 102101, purporting to be having seven containers of 7588pk of disodium phosphate, while another seven containers and six other ones had different pkgs of the same consignment – disodium phosphate.
He stated that upon examination with other relevant agencies, it was discovered that none of the containers had disodium phosphate other than 25kg kegs of vegetable oil.
Answering questions on the implications of such infraction, the controller maintained that his command will stop at nothing in its resolve to ensure that 100 per cent examination is conducted on all cargoes to nip all manner of infractions in the bud in line with the change mantra of the Federal Government and the Comptroller General of Customs.
The Controller also pointed out that painstaking investigation will be conducted to identify those behind the illicit act for prosecution.
FG moves to dredge Calabar port to boost operation
Indications have emerged that normal business activities will soon resume in Calabar Port following the Federal Government’s plans to dredge the river to attract bigger vessels.
The indication was given by the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mr. Emmanuel Olajide Adesoye, when he took other members of the board on a facility tour of the Calabar Ports in Calabar.
The Chairman who visited ECM Terminals in the port expressed dissatisfaction over the lull in business activities in the ports, saying that because of the shallow water level, which makes vessels dread the port, Calabar would have yielded more revenue to the government than what it is doing presently.
“It (Calabar Port) is a little bit shallow. It needs a lot of dredging. We need to make it accessible by big ships that can come here and do business with us. So these are the kinds of challenges we need to take on and try to resolve as we go on in this business,” he said, while acknowledging the business opportunities inherent in the port with better management.
“Most of these facilities are excellent facilities. They are opportunities waiting to be tapped. These are areas that can help Nigeria in terms of incomes, especially foreign currencies, if properly developed. But there are also challenges, especially the drought situation in the area,” he further explained.
Adesoye, however, did not give a timeline within which the dredging would commence but noted that it has to be budgeted for. He indicated that before work would commence on the dredging, a survey would be carried out first to know the areas to be dredged because not all areas of the water is shallow.
“I may need to talk to the management of NPA to find out how quickly they can do the survey so that we can know exactly what timeframe we are looking at. Definitely, we want it done as quickly as possible because everyday that we don’t do this thing, it is a loss of to the nation,” Adesoye, noted.
To ensure that shipping activities resume in the area as quickly as possible, the Chairman voted for a short term solution to the problem.
“I will vote for short term solution for this particular one depending on the nature of the project we need to carry out. In some projects, short term could be three months, six months, nine months. And even could be one year, one and a half years or 18 months, whereas medium term solutions could be 24 to 36 months. But I will offer short term in this matter,” he suggested.
On the incentives to prospective investors and importers to the port, he admitted that no incentive is greater than dredging the ports to attract businesses.
“One of the incentives is to make sure that the drought line is okay because when it is okay, there are business people that are ready to trade with us and we want to trade with the others. We are going to do a lot of information-sharing so that people will know that this place is ready for ships to come on board here. That is one of the things we are going to do. I think we are going to work on the security to make sure that this area is safe to transact business,” he said.
Earlier, the General Manager of ECM Terminals, Kingsley Iheanacho, highlighted the challenges concessionaires were having in the ports, which include shallow drought.
He stated that ECM bought state-of-the-art equipment when the Federal Government concessioned the terminal to it on August 1, 2007 but the equipment, he said, are rotting away because of lack of use.
“We incur costs in keeping the equipment we bought pending when the river will be dredged. We used to have gum arabic, sesame seed and cocoa but now they are no longer coming,” he lamented.
Iheanacho said the terminal is operating on drought of 5.1 meters, thus shutting out vessels that operate on over 600 metres. He told the board that there are huge investments that are being threatened because of the shallowness of the river.


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The American tradition of “Black Friday” is also in Rome.
Tomorrow, Friday 25, Many shops of the city will provide discounts and promotions, also extending their opening hours.
All the biggest shopping centers and some shops in the main shopping streets join the initiative, but also many internet sites, which are the ideal for those who prefer to avoid the huge crowd and take advantage of a little shopping comfortably at home.
Rome and other Italian cities have been participating to Black Friday for some years, while for Americans is an usual day.
This is not just a simple sales day for customers.
Finance and experts consider this day a meaningful projection about how will be the annual consumption, especially with the arrival of Christmas.
It will be a money saver Christmas or not?
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The rise of the dark web has changed many things for criminals. Long a haven for the buying and selling of drugs, weapons, fake ID, and confidential data, new research has also shown that advanced phishing kits are becoming increasingly available.
Not that phishing is a new phenomenon. The practice has been around almost as long as email itself, and has always been an important part of a cyber criminal’s toolkit. Despite the risks of phishing being much more widely known, however, it retains its status as one of the dominant forms of cyber-attack, withsome reports claiming that 91% of cyberattacks and data breaches begin with a phishing email.
Joint research between CyberInt and Check Point now points to an even more worrying trend. The new kits they discovered for sale on the dark web potentially allow anyone, even those with relatively little technical knowledge, to run their own phishing scam. With such easy-to-use tools available, such kits could lead to an unprecedented explosion in phishing attacks.
Before I take you through the juicy details of the new phishing kits available, let’s spend a moment reminding ourselves of just how damaging phishing can be.
Phishing: A Reminder
You are probably sick of reading about phishing attacks, and how to avoid them. Guides on how to protect yourself against such attacks are a staple of any reputable (and some non-reputable) cyber security site, and almost everyone now has some form of knowledge of how such attacks work, and thinks they know how to avoid them.
Given the wealth of information out there, however, and the length of time that users and businesses have been aware of the risks of phishing, there is a real danger that familiarity breeds complacency. Far from diminishing, phishing attacks are actually on the rise, and are becoming increasingly sophisticated.
Whilst the consequences of falling foul of a phishing attack can be disastrous for individuals, it’s also worth remembering thatphishing attacks result in the loss of billions of dollars by SMEs every year. In addition, phishing attacks have become more targeted, with ‘spear phishing’ – highly personalized attacks often exclusively directed at powerful individuals – emerging as a growing trend.
Phishing for Everyone
The most worrying thing about the new phishing kits that CyberInt and Check Point have discovered, however, are that they put these sophisticated techniques into the hands of anyone with even a basic level of tech knowledge.
Phishing kits have been available on the dark web for years, and have been a relatively cheap option for the would-be cyber criminal. Typical kits cost $20 - $50 a go, and promise to capture basic details about victims, such as generic passwords or other simple information that can then be used to mount a more sophisticated attack.
The newly discovered kit is a different beast altogether, and costs significantly more. It has been developed by a user known as [A]pache, and provides a full (and legitimate-looking) site for capturing victims’ financial information. The sophistication of the software also means that it comes with a correspondingly larger price tag: around $300.
What you get for your money is quite impressive, however. The phishing kit allows you to build a number of fake sites that are pretty good copies of a number of well known e-commerce portals. Though primarily focused on Brazilian retailers, criminals also have the option of impersonating Walmart and other US companies. The results are really quite good:
Using the kit, even an inexperienced attacker can build a fake site, and populate it with items ‘for sale’. The kit even comes with advice for would-be attackers to price their fake products competitively, and provides a ‘victim information management’ panel where financial details can be harvested, as Check Point show.
Whether this kit, or others like it, will be a success remains to be seen. The research report contains no details on how many have been sold. In fact, since Check Point also managed to track down the Twitter account of the author of it, we would expect it to be taken down fairly soon if it can be proved – and this is a big if – [A]pache committed a crime in Brazil.
Whatever the outcome, however, the appearance of this phishing kit suggests that such advanced kits are likely to become a common commodity in coming years.
Given this, what can you do to protect yourself?
If you are sick of reading about phishing in general, you are probably already aware of some of the strategies you can use to protect yourself, your data, and your business. Though kits like [A]pache’s are becoming more and more sophisticated, at a basic level the best way to avoid phishing attacks remains the same: learn how to spot a phishing email, learn how to spot a fake website, and consider running phishing simulations to put this knowledge to the test.
Beyond this, you should also make sure that any sites you look after are hardened against phishing attacks. Whilst getting your own information stolen might be a personal disaster, being responsible for the theft of your customers’ data can bring greater consequences, possibly culminating in legal sanction. For that reason, learning how to protect your customers from phishing attacks is a necessity
At the most general level, however, what these new phishing kits teach us is that it pays to be ever vigilant against new attacks, even if we are bored of reading about the same old techniques.


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Companies that lie must be hit harder, Herald Sun, 28 November 2016
When it comes to household brands, who do you trust? That’s the question Australians were asked earlier this year as part of a Reader’s Digest survey. The top three were vacuum cleaner manufacturer Dyson, and battery makers Energizer and Duracell. But what’s more interesting is who came in at number four: paint manufacturer, Dulux.
Unfortunately, Dulux’s time atop the trust list might be short-lived. Earlier this month, the company was fined $400,000 by the Federal Court for misleading its customers. Dulux claimed that its outdoor paint could reduce the temperature of a house by up to 10 degrees.
If true, Dulux’s outdoor paint would’ve been a cool product indeed. Unfortunately, as soon as the temperature rose on Dulux, their claims began to peel away. When they couldn’t brush off the criticisms any longer, Dulux admitted that they didn’t have the evidence.
Alas, Dulux is not the first coat in Australian false advertising. Every year the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission receives 14,000 complaints of misleading and deceptive conduct. The competition watchdog can only take a small share of these complaints to court. The list of companies that have been reprimanded by the competition watchdog or the Federal Court over the last 12 months reads like the ‘who’s who’ of big companies, including Jetstar, Virgin, Arnott’s, Uncle Tobys, Optus, Harvey Norman franchisees, Kogan, Nurofen, Unilever and Volkswagen.
False claims aren’t just a casual annoyance, they also damage our economy. I estimate that the companies that were found to have misled and deceived consumers last year operate in industries with over $200 billion of revenues annually. This is a sizeable chunk of the Australian economy.
The problem is straightforward: when companies can get away with lying, they stop competing. Why compete on price if you can get away with hidden shipping charges? Why work to make a nourishing product if you can falsely label it as being ‘fresh and healthy’? Why bother creating innovative products if you can make any unsubstantiated claims you like?
Allowing companies to get away with misleading and deceiving consumers damages the competitive dynamic of our economy. It means less innovation, higher prices and less production, as well as more dangerous products. Trust is fundamental for markets to operate effectively. Eroding that trust can have substantial economic and social consequences.
Unfortunately, the problem appears to be on the rise. Complaints to the competition watchdog of misleading and deceptive conduct are up one-third over the last three years. Last year, Australians lost a record $229 million to scammers. That’s more than ten dollars for every person in Australia. Customers with less education and poorer social networks are particularly vulnerable to rip-offs. So what can we do to arrest this problem?
A central problem is that the penalty for misleading and deceptive conduct is too low. The penalty faced by Dulux for its ‘ice paint’ claims represents 1/5000th of its annual turnover. This is the equivalent of a speeding fine of $16 for the average full-time worker. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chair Rod Sims has warned that companies see these penalties as a mere ‘cost of doing business’. Federal Court Justice Michelle Gordon argues that these penalties do little to deter illegal conduct.
Currently, the penalty for breaching the Australian Consumer Law (which includes misleading and deceptive conduct) is a maximum of $1.1 million. This is a drop in the paint-bucket for big companies. It means that if you rip off consumers, you pay only one-ninth as much as if you breach the competition provisions of the Australian Competition and Consumer Act.
Labor went to the last election with a common sense policy to address this problem. We proposed that the penalty for breaching the Australian Consumer Law be increased to the same level as that for anti-competitive conduct: $10 million. Importantly, we also proposed to use some of the revenues from these increased penalties to double the competition watchdog’s litigation budget, giving it more firepower to go after companies that flout the law. The independent Parliamentary Budget Office estimates that this would still leave the federal budget $62 million better off over the next four years.
Raising the penalties to ripping off consumers is a practical way to reduce the damage that deceptive conduct does to consumers and to the economy. It’s time to stop trying to gloss over the problem, and treat misleading conduct as the stain it really is.
Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and the Shadow Minister for Competition. This opinion piece first appeared in the Herald Sun on Monday, 28 November 2016.


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Microsoft on Wednesday patched an enterprise security tool that had blocked some copies of Chrome from updating.
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Grab your hoverboards, gang: The next generation of Android phones is on the way, and it's going to feel a bit like something out of Back to the Future II.
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Users of Google's Docs hosted office productivity suite will now be able to edit word processing documents from their Android and Apple iOS devices, Google announced on Wednesday.
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Android-based smartphones with NFC (Near Field Communication) will help turn mobile phones into wallets, but there are issues that have to be solved before that happens, according to analysts.
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2015 has become the most unsafe year for Mac users
OS X users rarely think about the fact that their computer may be vulnerable to cyber attacks. It just so happened that all the attention of the creators of the malware was aimed at Windows users. However, researchers in the field of security Bit9 + Carbon Black Threat Research found that cloud-free times of Mac users are in the past and ever since faster all over them gathering clouds of cyber attacks.
It is understood, despite the fact that Apple is working on its OS and security regularly releases updates, the main reason for the lack of a large number of malware for OS X was the low popularity of Mac computers. Today, however, they are much better, and it means that more personal data can be obtained from them. The Mac computers were also often used in the workplace, and those computers also may be of interest to hackers.
With increased sales of Mac growing number malware for OS X, and the results of the study showed that in 2015, the number of detected malware is five times the number of attacks over the entire period from 2010 to 2014. There is no reason to believe that in 2016 the desire to attack computers running OS X diminish, the number of malware will only increase, and it is possible that many Mac users will be forced to install anti-virus software.


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In the latest show of support for Bitcoin, Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) said in late December that it would start accepting bitcoins for payment in June. And some small brick-and-mortar retailers across the U.S. are already accepting the digital currency.
Overstock.com, the largest retailer to throw its weight behind Bitcoin, is reviewing several third-party firms that facilitate Bitcoin transactions, The New York Times reported.
In a commodity system fraught with fraud and ever-changing value, we are surprised to see major retailers jumping on board with bitcoins. Bitcoins can be purchased and exchanged for standard currency, such as dollars, Euros and yen, at bitcoin exchanges. In mid-November, the value of Bitcoins jumped to $900.98 for a single bitcoin and then the value fell just as quickly as it rose.
The FBI is warning retailers about a recent rash of credit card fraud that involves jamming retailer’s satellite signals with – you may want to sit down for this one – simple aluminum foil.
When card systems are down, thieves have been able to purchase cigarettes and high value electronics without paying for them. “If you’re a small business owner, you need to be aware if your credit card system is down and someone is purchasing something, you need to make sure that it’s really down and it’s not something that’s blocking your system,” FBI Supervisory Special Agent Vicki Anderson said on the podcast, “FBI This Week”.
As a longtime retail reporter and advocate, I feel sorry for Target (NYSE: TGT), the subject of perhaps the biggest card heist in U.S. history linked to one retailer.
As a consumer who used my debit card at Target during the doomed November 27 – December 15 time period, I certainly wish my card data had been better protected.
From a retailer’s point-of-view, however, Target is just as much a victim as its shoppers. Week after week, Storefrontbacktalk.com reports on the fact that credit and debit card thieves have become much more sophisticated in their skimming and electronic theft methods. They are simply outwitting retailers’ systems and their employees.
As of December 9, 32 million Americans had not even started their Christmas shopping. That is an overwhelming number of people who are desperately looking for last-minute deals online, trying to avoid the crowded stores.
In fact, a recent National Retail Federation (NRF) survey, conducted by Prosper Insight & Analytics, found that 49.9 percent of shoppers plan to do the rest of their shopping online, the highest percentage in the survey’s 11-year history.
Already, holiday e-commerce spending has set records, topping $19.2 billion as of December 17, a 20.6 percent increase over the same period last year, according to comScore.
It is gratifying when criminals seeking to rip off retailers and consumers are caught and brought to justice. That is exactly what happened last week (December 11), when the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York charged 23 individuals with participating in a large-scale counterfeit credit card scheme.
Officials say the criminals obtained more than 1,000 stolen credit and debit card numbers and created counterfeit credit and debit cards with the stolen account information. The group then utilized teams of “shoppers” to make more than $2 million of unauthorized purchases at retail stores located throughout the U.S.
Add Home Depot (NYSE: HD) to the growing list of major U.S retail chains offering same day delivery.
Starting next year, the national home improvement retailer plans to spend at least $300 million on supply chain improvements to increase online sales and offer same day delivery service.
Home Depot plans to open three new fulfillment centers in California, Atlanta and Ohio over the next two years, The Wall Street Journal reported. It will also transform its warehouse technology systems and add same-day delivery service for professional contractors as well as customers who are in the middle of projects and need supplies within hours.
Just this week, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and PayPal (NASDAQ: EBAY) shored up their future mobile payments businesses by acquiring companies specializing in this area.
Amazon will soon be competing with PayPal, Square, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and others already in the mobile payments market with its acquisition of Italian mobile payments startup GoPago.
Home Depot (NYSE: HD), Target (NYSE: TG), Macy’s (NYSE: M) and a host of other merchants and retail organizations are appealing a $5.7 billion settlement in the long-running court battle between retailers and card issuers over interchange fees.
On December 13, Visa and MasterCard agreed to settle the lawsuit filed by retailers in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn. The $5.7 billion settlement is considered to be the largest antitrust settlement in history.
Most major retailers reported increased sales this holiday from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, thanks in part to m-commerce.
Notably, mobile spending reached $314 million on Black Friday, out of the total $1.512 billion spent online that day, comScore found. Plus, mobile sales accounted for $350 million of Cyber Monday’s $2.085 billion in online sales.
M-commerce sales accounted for nearly 21 percent of total Black Friday online sales and 17 percent of Cyber Monday sales.
And Wal-Mart Stores’ (NYSE:WMT) executives gave thanks for the spike in mobile traffic that greatly benefited their Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. The traffic from mobile devices to Walmart.com between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday was more than 50 percent of total traffic, up a significant 40 percent from last year, according to Walmart.
More than 20,000 payment cards have been compromised at retailers’ and restaurants’ point-of-sale terminals and servers since August, thanks to a new malware botnet.
The tech that the criminals have used in this case is one of the first-known –and very advanced –botnets targeting POS terminals. The “infections” observed by IntelCrawler in this case allow attackers to corral large numbers of POS devices into a single botnet, Ars Technica wrote on its web site.
“The interface makes it easy to monitor the activities of infected machines in real time and to issue granular commands. In short, they are to POS terminals what ZeuS, Citadel, and other banking trojans are to online bank accounts,” Ars Technica wrote. The code helping to streamline the process has been dubbed StarDust, a major revision of the Dexter malware that targets POS devices.
As we have discussed here before, more retailers are adding technology to track customers’ traffic and purchases in stores, from iBeacons to infrared sensors. The practice is becoming so common, in fact, that the Future of Privacy Forum estimates that around 1,000 small and large retailers are using some type of sensors to monitor the pathways their customers take throughout the store.
Macy’s is the largest and most recent example of a retailer effectively using customer tracking in an attempt to increase customers’ purchases this holiday season. In November, Macy’s installed Apple’s iBeacon technology in certain stores in New York and San Francisco, in partnership with rewards app Shopkick.
Shopkick’s shopBeacons enable shoppers with iPhones and some Android phones to have their Shopkick app “woken” up by a signal from Bluetooth transmitters when they enter Macy’s, even if their phones are in sleep mode, according to The Wall Street Journal. As a customer who has opted in walks through a Macy’s store, they might see special offers based on the products they are near, Cyriac Roeding, Shopkick’s CEO, told the newspaper
This is the first time we have heard of customers of a major national fast food chain being the victims of retail credit card fraud. Hundreds of victims lost thousands of dollars in October and November after thieves use malware to pull the Bojangles customers’ card information, and sold the numbers to a third party. The criminals took the scam of step further, making new cards with magnetic strips (cloned cards).
Investigators say hundreds of customers of at least five Bojangles restaurants in Asheville, Waynesville and Hendersonville, N.C., along with stores in Greenville, S.C. and western Tennessee were impacted.
Retailers expect to lose an estimated $8.76 billion in return fraud this year - $3.4 billion during the holiday season alone, according to a new survey.
The National Retail Federation’s (NRF) 2013 Return Fraud Survey found that 5.8 percent of holiday returns are fraudulent, up from 4.6 percent last year. Plus, a significant 60.3 percent of retailers said that the return fraud they experienced was linked to organized retail crime groups.
Malissa Nelson, director of marketing and eCommerce at Dean and Deluca, spoke on FierceRetail's webinar, "How Retailers Are Embracing Omnichannel Strategies to Improve Customer Experience," and shared how the foods retailer connects with customers in store and online, and the number one way to get customers to trust brands.
This is the worst time of year for beauty retailer Sephora to make it difficult for its shoppers to buy their products, but that is exactly what is happening.
Some shoppers in Sephora’s VIB Rouge customer loyalty program – dedicated to customers who spend at least $1,000 per year – have been banned from online purchases. On beauty blogs, the VIB Rouge customers report that Sephora.com banned them from making purchases after they placed too many orders.
Like two peas in a pod, the holiday season rings in an increase in gift card fraud. Gift cards are being purchased in stores and online in record numbers and criminals see this as a prime time for skimming and online card fraud.
Consumers loaded $112.3 billion onto gift cards in 2012 alone, according to Mercator Advisory Group, representing a lucrative windfall not only for retailers but also for thieves.
A very serious gift card scam that developed this year involves phoning in bomb threats in an attempt to force retailers to hand over prepaid cards’ identifying information.
Numerous retail organizations and research firms predicted that there would be a significant rise in holiday shopping via mobile devices this holiday season, and it turns out they are right so far. Early reports indicate that Cyber Monday’s overall online sales topped $2 billion, shattering last year's U.S. e-commerce record of $1.465 billion.
Plus, 18.3 percent of all online sales across the 2,000 major retail sites that the Adobe Digital Index 2013 measures came from tablets or smartphones, an 80% increase over last year.
Mobile traffic exceeded 17 percent of total online sales, an increase of 55.4 percent over 2012's Cyber Monday, according to IBM Digital Analytics data. Retailers catering to smartphone and tablet users benefited the most, with mobile traffic accounting for 32 percent of site visits, a 45 percent rise from last year.
It is retailers’ shortest holiday shopping season in years, so cue the ridiculous publicity stunts. That is what I thought soon after Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos made his grand announcement about delivery drones – which are years away from being utilized – on “60 Minutes” the day before Cyber Monday.
But hey, Amazon is not the only one. Kmart launched the earliest holiday TV campaign this year on September 9, in an effort to promote its layaway program for holiday gifts.
It’s not that Amazon’s delivery drone idea is absurd. It’s just that the grand scale in which it was announced – with such curious timing – allows the e-commerce giant to be the butt of jokes and parodies, which it has this week.
Negative online reviews have been a problem for retailers since they began selling items online. Bad ratings on third-party review sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor along with Amazon and shopping sites can literally cost businesses thousands or millions of dollars in lost sales.
In fact, 80 percent of online shoppers have changed a purchase decision based on a bad online review. That amounts to an alarming amount in lost sales and damaged reputations. Some retailers and hotels have taken matters into their own hands, suing the review sites over lost sales and damaged reputations. In one case, an owner whose hotel was listed at the top of TripAdvisor’s “Dirtiest Hotels in the U.S.”, sued TripAdvisor for $10 million.
All retailers and any business that processes payments should have a new document on hand that is meant to prevent and mitigate some of the millions of dollars in losses from card data breaches annually.
When the Payment Card Industry (PCI) released its updated Data Security Standard 3.0 earlier this month, it said that companies should create a data flow diagram showing all the individuals, systems, and applications that have access to cardholder data. This idea first came about, PaymentsSource reported, after a hacker produced a color-coded scheme showing where sensitive data was stored at his targeted organization.
“In the majority of compromises we’ve seen over the past few years, the merchant was trying to do the right thing but was unaware that cardholder data existed in a location that was not being protected. What these compromises have demonstrated is the business value for having a clear way to identify where the cardholder data is in your organization,” Troy Leach, chief technology officer for PCI’s Security Standards Council, told StorefrontBacktalk.