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Best Cannabis Stocks In The Canadian Market
The Canadian cannabis market and marijuana stocks have been losing ground since March 1st. As a result, new investors now have more opportunities to enter the cannabis market. These companies have expanded into the US and other markets as one of the first countries to have a legal cannabis industry. Remarkably, after numerous delays in federal legalization, the marijuana industry is still quite strong in the United States, despite the fact that marijuana stocks haven’t generated substantial returns for investors.
The development of new products is driving the cannabis industry’s expansion. Yet, things are difficult financially because of problems with the supply chain, industry consolidation, tough regulations, and inflationary pressures. A shortage of skilled workers and insurer interest in covering the market will challenge the industry’s durability. Cannabis companies’ profits were heavily impacted by rising expenses and supply chain problems in 2022, threatening profitability in 2023.
Making short-term investments in cannabis penny stocks is one strategy to profit from the market’s downward trend. Any shares of stock sold for less than $5 are referred to as penny stocks. With the well-known significant daily and monthly price volatility of these cannabis penny stocks, opportunities may exist. Some of these equities have recently posted double-digit percentage returns, which has benefited cannabis investors who are willing to participate in these high-risk/high-reward transactions. Let’s examine the two best Canadian cannabis penny stocks to watch right now.
Top Canadian Marijuana Stocks To Watch Before April
Sundial Growers Inc.
In Canada, SNDL Inc. manufactures, sells, and distributes products linked to cannabis. The corporation’s two main business sectors are retail operations and cannabis-related activities. Via corporate-owned and franchised retail cannabis businesses, it operates in the manufacturing, distribution, and sale of cannabis for adult markets and the private selling of cannabis for recreational purposes. Also, the company manufactures and markets inhalable goods like flower, pre-rolls, and vapes. Under the brand names Top Leaf, Sundial Cannabis, Palmetto, and Grasslands, it sells its goods.
The company’s net revenue increased by 3% sequentially and by 1,501% annually to a record $230.5 million in the third quarter of 2022, up from $14.4 million in the third quarter of 2021 and $223.7 million in the second quarter of 2022. SNDL reported a net loss of $98.8 million for the third quarter of 2022 due to non-cash impairment losses of $86.5 million and adjustments to estimates of the fair value of derivative warrants of $8.5 million. The adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2022 increased by 1689% and 74% to $18.3 million from the second and third quarters of 2022 and 2021, respectively.
The company expanded its Wine and Beyond brand in March by acquiring two liquor retail licenses for Regina and Saskatoon through the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority (“SLGA”) auction. With the help of these licenses, the Company will accelerate the transformation of Saskatchewan’s liquor retail sector from public to private control and enter it with its premium liquor brand, Wine and Beyond.
SNDL Stock Performance
SNDL stock closed at $1.50 on March 22nd, down 24.66% in the past month of trading. The stock has a 52-week price range of $1.45-$8.91 and is down 28.23% year to date. According to analysts at CNN Business, SNDL stock has a 12-month consensus price target of $3.38 per share. In this case, this would represent an increase of 123.56% from its last trading price of $1.50.
Village Farms International, Inc.
Village Farms International, Inc. and its subsidiaries develop, sell, and distribute greenhouse-grown cucumbers, bell peppers, and tomatoes in North America. Also, the company operates in the US and Canada in relation to CBD and cannabis. Pure Sunfarms, a wholly owned subsidiary of Village Farms, is one of the largest cannabis companies in North America. Pure Sunfarms has been given a delta two greenhouse with a cannabis production license, doubling its output capacity. Last year, Village Farms unveiled a brand-new website and logo at www.villagefarms.com.
As Village Farms released its fourth quarter 2022 results in March, its net sales for the entire cannabis business fell (2.0%) from the previous year to $33.2 million, accounting for 47.9% of Village Farms’ overall revenues. Adjusted EBITDA for the entire cannabis segment was $5.0 million as opposed to $6.2 million. Additionally, the fourth quarter and the entire 2022 year saw a 25% year-over-year rise in Canadian cannabis retail brand sales. Also, compared to net sales of $7.5 million with a gross margin of 70.1% and adjusted EBITDA of $1.8 million, U.S. cannabis net sales were $5.3 million with a gross margin of 67.2%.
VFF Stock Performance
VFF stock closed at $0.865 on March 22nd, down 16.02% in the last month of trading. Currently, the stock has a 52-week price range of $0.8210-$6.55 and is down 35.45% year to date. According to analysts at CNN Business, VFF stock has a 12-month median price target of $2.50 per share. In this case, this would represent an upside of 188.02%.
Best Canadian Pot Stocks Under $2
The value of these marijuana stocks in 2023 may rise due to several events anticipated to occur in 2023. Finding the top cannabis companies on the market could be made more efficient by looking at their financials and press releases. Several seasoned traders are actively placing short-term trades in the top cannabis companies in an effort to profit from the recent market volatility. Using technical indicators and chart patterns, decide on the optimal entry and exit criteria before starting a trade. Your ability to close profitable trades will increase if you constantly look for favorable setups. These might be some of the top Canadian marijuana stocks to follow in the cannabis sector, given the volatility of the main cannabis companies this month.
MAPH Enterprises, LLC | (305) 414-0128 | 1501 Venera Ave, Coral Gables, FL 33146 | email@example.com


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As a number of Local Authorities in Scotland move from Level 4 to Level 3 coronavirus restrictions, the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) is calling on employers to ensure the highest standards of health and safety, to avoid a “tsunami” of customers. With some retailers planning on opening for 36 hours without pause, workers health and safety must be put front and centre. Employers should also pay to ensure that staff receive safe transport home if called on to work irregular hours.
Roz Foyer, STUC General Secretary, stated:
“We know that many retail workers are anxious about the days ahead. They fear that the move to Level 3 will mean a rush of customers, stressed and desperately trying to get their Christmas shopping done. Employers must prioritise the health and safety of all staff and shoppers should respect that too.
“A poorly managed reopening could be very damaging to both workers, and the public health of our communities.
“Low pay and disgraceful levels of Statutory Sick Pay does not help. Workers who have previously been furloughed may feel pressured to take on as many shifts as possible or to ignore advice to self-isolate.”
And Foyer called on retailers to follow the example of ASDA who announced yesterday that they will close on Boxing Day.
“The festive period should be an opportunity for everyone to have a rest and enjoy the company of friends, family and loved ones. Many retail workers have worked all throughout this pandemic, the least they deserve is time off work.”
Foyer also pointed to the STUC’ support for trade union USDAW’s petition to urge the Scottish Government to launch a consultation on implementing legislation already in place to ban large shops from opening on New Year’s Day.
“In 2019, USDAW reported that 74% of retail workers reported that they spend too little time with loved ones over New Year. That issue needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.”
For more information, please contact Rachel Thomson, Campaigns & Communications Officer, on 07974966227

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As the third edition of the NFC World Congress opens in Nice, France on September 24, we know we’re going to hear a lot of exciting news about promising offers and technical and commercial partnerships.
NFC definitely seems poised to become one of, if not, the major technology in mobile’s quest to make our lives easier. And it’s certainly no accident if the majority of smartphones sold in Europe since the beginning of the year now come with built-in NFC technology. Nor is it any coincidence if large-scale commercial NFC services are flourishing on every continent and in every industry: banking, transportation, distribution and even smart cities.
So the 2013 Congress will serve to confirm the market’s interest in these “contactless” solutions by collecting feedback from services developed all around the world: Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Russia, Turkey, USA, etc.
As one of the event’s sponsors, Orange will have a large presence at this year’s congress. Thierry Millet (Vice-President Mobile Payments and Contactless, Orange) and François Xavier Godron (Director of the NFC Program, Orange France) will present Orange’s strategy during plenary meetings.
Orange will also use its stand to demo a few innovative products that showcase its complete line of NFC services for the general public. All of our NFC specialists – including engineers, product managers and consultants – will be at the stand to talk about our access control, mobile payment and e-ticketing offers for smartphones.
Whether you’re interested in strategy, technical specifications or operational details, our people will be ready and eager to tackle every aspect of these crucial topics with you.
So we’ll see you in Nice next week at stand #32 as we gear up for the NFC explosion!
image - http://www.nfcworldcongress.com/


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The world's oldest known bread was unearthed in Jordan recently, according to The Jerusalem Post. Made from wild grains such as barley, einkorn or oats, and also tubers from an aquatic papyrus relative, the ingredients were ground into flour and made into a bread that was probably unleavened, a flatbread resembling modern-day pita bread.
What's important about this discovery is that the remains of the charred bread are more than 5,000 years older than the bread that last held the oldest-bread-ever-discovered title, found on a site in Turkey. That ancient bread was about 9,100 years old. The bread found in Jordan is about 14,500 years old.
The recently discovered bread made by a group called the Natufians was baked more than 4,000 years before cultures starting cultivating plants. A nomadic lifestyle doesn't lend itself to farming, but the Natufians seem to be one of the first to live a stay-in-one-place life.
This discovery poses some questions about the origins of agriculture. It was previously believed that bread came after people started cultivating plants. Now, it's more of a chicken-or-egg type question. Which came first, bread making or agriculture? Did farming lead to bread making? Or, did some culture, perhaps the Natufians, figure out how to make bread and upon the first bite feel the same way about bread that Oprah does?
Did the joy of bread inspire them to stay put and farm?
As anthropologists, archeologists, historians and food scientists try to figure out that answer, one thing is probably for sure. Someone is going to decide that since this is the oldest bread known to man, it's the purest, cleanest, most ancient form of eating. So, get ready for the Aquatic Papyrus Tuber Diet. Just wait and see.


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Patience and an openness to contemplation will be essential for audiences to appreciate Godfrey Reggio's black-and-white reverie.
4K won't get anyone excited if there's no way to get the format into homes, or worse, if it looks no better than today's HDTV.
Netflix has developed a new version of its Android app that delivers 1080p HD video for select titles — compatible with Google’s new next-gen Nexus 7 tablet with a higher-resolution screen — while…
If pay TV providers were forced to sell channels a la carte, retail prices would skyrocket — with ESPN costing in the ballpark of $30 monthly — and the industry overall would lose half its revenue…
While Ultra High Definition 4K TVs were first introduced at January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Sony has become the first hardware maker to ship its new line of screens through its…
Pixel by pixel, pic by pic, John Knoll is approaching living-legend status.
So the cycle of history is: Cinema gets a head start, TV catches up, cinema panics and lurches forward. Repeat.
Consumer electronics companies are hoping 4K Ultra High Definition TV will be the next big thing, but parts of the TV biz are proceeding like it's already here.
As hyped as it's been at this year's CES, Ultra High Definition 4K television has been a technology searching for a reason to exist. But a panel Thursday agreed that UHD is essential for bringing the…
Television manufacturers have a pretty new picture they hope will entice consumers to replace their current flatscreens.
Sony is revising its summer 2013 calendar: The studio has pulled its "RoboCop" reboot from the Aug. 9 slot and put in Neill Blomkamp's "District 9" sci-fi follow-up "Elysium."


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Soy, corn and tomato products are among the first kinds of transgenic or genetically-modified foods that must be labeled to protect the rights of consumers, according to a recent regulation issued by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture that will take effect tomorrow.
While there is no large-scale manufacture of transgenic products as yet in China, transgenic foods have already entered Chinese citizens’ lives through imported agricultural products, many of which have been genetically modified. Most of the large quantities of soya beans that have been imported from the United States and Argentina in recent years have been genetically modified. And over half of soybean oil available in China contains transgenic ingredient.
To protect consumers’ rights to information and choice, the state promulgated “Regulations on Administration of Agricultural Transgenic Biological Products” last year. The recent Ministry of Agriculture’s “Regulations on Labeling Agricultural Transgenic Biological Products” demands all listed transgenic biological products be labeled.
Among the first listings of agricultural transgenic products are soybean seed, soya bean, soybean powder, soybean oil, soybean dregs, corn seed, corn, corn oil, corn powder, rapeseed, rapeseed dregs, cottonseed, tomato seed, tomato, and tomato sauce.
Consumers purchasing these agricultural products should read the labels carefully to identify any transgenic ingredient.
(中国青年报 [China Youth] February 27, 2002 by Zhang Dongcao, translated by Zhang Tingting for china.org.cn)


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Tuesday, June 25, 2013, 03:14 pm PT (06:14 pm ET)
Supply of Apple's Thunderbolt Display reportedly drying up for second time in 2013Third-party retailers are reporting stock-outs, or near stock-outs, of Apple's 27-inch Thunderbolt Display, once again fueling rumors that the company is preparing to release an upgraded Retina display model.
A number of resellers, including Adorama, Fry's, CDW and MicroCenter are all sold out of the Thunderbolt Display, reports MacTrast, while PowerMax MacConnection and others are running low on inventory.
The supposed stock-outs mirror an identical situation seen in February, when even larger companies like Amazon and J&R noted Apple's Thunderbolt Display was sold out. At the time, it was speculated that Apple would soon reveal a thinner version of the product more in line with the redesigned iMac.
While it is unclear whether Apple is indeed preparing a successor to the current Thunderbolt Display model, which hasn't been updated since its debut in 2011, a high-resolution wallpaper discovered on Apple's servers hints at possible refresh. The image in question is the blue-and-green wave background seen in Apple's OS X Mavericks promotional materials. At 5,120-by-2,880 pixels, the wallpaper has dimensions exactly twice that of the current Thunderbolt Display and 27-inch iMac.
On Topic: General
- 'BadUSB' malware lives in USB firmware to remain undetected, unfixable
- Apple activates in-house content delivery network, begins migrating content downloads - report
- Samsung earnings disappoint as company blames competition in smartphone space
- Apple said to cut some 200 jobs from Beats as acquisition closing date looms
- Apple order fulfillment ranks first among online retailers with average delivery time of 2.3 days in June


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Thank you for reading the news about Too hard to move a couch? Rental startups see a market and now with the details
Aden - Yasmine El Tohamy - Companies aim to rent furniture to millennials who don't want to commit to big purchases or move heavy furniture
Zachariah Mohammed's living room is filled with stuff he doesn't own.
He pays $200 a month for the sofa, side table, bar cart, dining table and four chairs in his living room. It's worth it, the 27-year-old New Yorker says. If he needs to move, which he's done twice in the last 12 months, he won't need to lug a sofa across the city or worry if it will fit in a new place. The furniture-rental startup, Feather, will swap out items for something else.
"We don't want to be stuck with a giant couch," says Mohammed, a social media manager at a software company, who lives with Pete Mancilla and their dog.
Feather, Fernish and other companies aim to rent furniture to millennials who don't want to commit to big purchases or move heavy furniture and are willing to pay for the convenience.
It's part of a wave of rental culture that includes Rent the Runway, focused on women's designer clothing, and even Netflix and Spotify, which let you stream from a huge catalog rather than buy individual TV show episodes, movies or songs.
"They're moving a lot. They're changing jobs a lot," says Thomas Robertson, a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, describing the types of people who would use the services. "Why would you want to be saddled with furniture?"
The furniture-rental companies target high-income city-dwellers who want a $1,100 orange love seat [$46 a month] or $980 leather bench [$41 a month] - but only temporarily. The furniture itself is a step up from Ikea.
"I'm 32 years old and have lived in 25 different places, five different countries, 12 different cities," says Chan Park, who co-founded online furniture rental company Oliver Space last year. He constantly bought and discarded cheap furniture. Then he moved to a furnished rental apartment in Singapore. "It was probably the first time my adult life that I felt like I was truly at home," Park says.
These startups are in just a handful of coastal cities, with few users, but seek to grow. They offer furniture from Crate & Barrel, West Elm and smaller brands.
Others are renting out home goods, too. Rent the Runway recently added West Elm pillows and quilts. Ikea is testing a rental service in several countries outside the US, including Switzerland and Belgium.
Renting may make sense for a generation that sees "life as transient," says Hana Ben-Shabat, the founder of Gen Z Planet, a research and advisory firm.
These were the details of the news Too hard to move a couch? Rental startups see a market for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.
It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Khaleej Times and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.


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Apr. 12 – As the Indian economy develops, the need for massive improvements in its transportation network also increases.
With Mumbai’s first monorail service about to be launched and those familiar street level cantilevered rail lines now weaving their way above the city’s roads, other places in the country have already started taking notice. All three major monorail companies – Bombardier, Scomi and Hitachi – are setting up operations in India because of anticipated demand. Continue reading
Mar. 24 – India said it will soon offer duty-free and quota-free market access to the least developed countries during a World Trade Organization presentation last week.
India will allow 14 least developed countries including Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Cambodia, and some African nations easy access to the Indian market without imposing a tax or quota. Items such as cotton, cocoa, cane sugar and garments will be included in the list of duty-free goods. Continue reading
Mar. 23 – India is opening nine road projects worth more than US$1 billion each for bidding in the coming months in an effort to improve its underdeveloped infrastructure sector.
India is one of the major emerging economies in the region with various untapped business opportunities for foreign investors. The upcoming road projects are expected to garner interest from companies in Europe, the United States and East Asia. Continue reading
Mar. 17 – The list of operations that can be carried out independently by special economic zone authorities has been expanded to include establishing space for banking and warehousing services.
Previously SEZ developers were required to get approval for the latter. “It has been decided to further expand the list of default authorized operations…the development commissioners /unit approval committees may allow the developer/approved co-developers duty-free goods and services for these default authorized operations,” said the commerce ministry in statement. Continue reading
Mar. 11 – Indian companies are expected to resume hiring from April to June with the organized sector forecast to create one million jobs by 2011 backed by the strength of the improving economy according to two global employment trend surveys.
According to the Employment Outlook Survey compiled by the human resources consulting firm Manpower, two in every five Indian companies plan to hire more people in the second quarter of the year. Another survey by human resources services provider Ma Foi Management Consultants said that polled companies were upbeat about their prospects for 2011 although most are still cautious about the coming second quarter. Continue reading
Feb. 25 – India’s Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has proposed widening the scope for India’s service tax to include the entertainment business for the upcoming Union Budget 2010-11.
Currently, entertainment is separately taxed by states and as a service tax by the central government with no prevailing uniformity on taxation since taxes are paid on a case-to-case basis. Continue reading
Feb. 9 – India’s domestic economic growth is forecast to reach 7.2 percent for 2009-10, against the 6.7 percent recorded a year ago, according to advance gross domestic product estimates released by the Central Statistical Organization (CSO).
As per forecast estimates, per capita income is set to rise to US$945 from US$864 in 2008-09, an increase of nine percent. Farm output is expected to contract by 0.2 percent while maintain moderate growth. Moreover, the manufacturing is estimated to grow by strong 8.9 percent. Continue reading
Feb. 9 – India’s Finance Ministry is considering a rate of 16 percent for the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) for both Center and states combined on companies and traders with annual turnover of US$21,609 and above.
The new tax will help simplify goods production by setting one tax structure instead of India’s current multiple tax structure. The GST will only be levied once at the point of supply thus decreasing costs for consumers. Continue reading


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Last week, this Chevrolet Camaro-based 2012 Trans American Muscle Bandit Freedom Edition fetched $150,000 for the Disabled American Veterans at the Orange County Barrett-Jackson charity auction.
Read This Article
Following the Great Recession, there arose a great rise in popularity from V-6 engines to four-cylinders.
The Colorado will weigh about 889 pounds less than a comparable Chevy Silverado
The upcoming 2015 Chevrolet Colorado small pickup inches closer to production, and drops some of its disguise along the way.


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Ross Dress for Less plans three more Oahu stores
Scoops Who’s moving, buying, opening, changing, winning
Ross Dress For Less has chosen South King Street in Honolulu as the location of its next new Oahu discount retail clothing store.
Black Development, MCG Architecture and Allied Builders will overhaul a space formerly occupied by a Longs Drug Store.
Shannon Wilson, district director for Ross stores, anticipates the store will open sometime next year. She said she could not comment further.
A source familiar with the Oahu retail market told PBN that Ross plans to open two more stores on Oahu in the coming year — one in Ewa Beach and the other at a location yet to be determined.
Hiring levels for each store will depend on store size, the source said, but typically the company brings in about 75 to 100 employees. Collectively, that means Ross will be adding approximately 225 to 300 new retail positions to Oahu’s job marketplace in 2013.
Ross has 13 locations throughout the state: one on Maui, two on the Big Island and 10 on Oahu.
Asked whether the market will be able to support three more Ross stores on Oahu given the addition of three T.J. Maxx stores in May, the source said discount retailers typically benefit from close proximity to each other. As PBN reported in June, some of the smaller, independent retailers are more likely to feel the impact. That is already the case, for instance, in Waikiki.
On Kauai, many residents have been clamoring for a Ross store because there are no large discount clothing stores on the island. The source said Ross has been looking for opportunities to enter that market for some time and has attempted to negotiate leases, but property owners won’t budge on rates.
Vanessa Van Voorhis covers tourism, hospitality, health care, law and advertising for Pacific Business News.
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Until the end of June, special five-course dinners paired with Austrian wines will be served on Monday evenings at Wallsé, 344 West 11th Street. The cost is $80: (212) 352-2300.
During June at Fleur de Sel, 5 East 20th Street (near Fifth Avenue), Champagnes will be featured on Monday evenings, and sold at half-price with dinner.
Brooklyn and Beer
Through Oct. 15 ''100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,'' an exhibition about the history of brewing in Brooklyn, will be on view at the Brooklyn Historical Society, at Pierrepont and Clinton Streets in Brooklyn Heights. The museum also has a beer garden that is open on Fridays from 6 to 8 p.m. through Aug. 27.
The exhibition is open Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Fridays 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m.
Admission is free for members and children 12 and younger. For nonmember adults it is $6; for students and people 62 and older, $4.
A dinner pairing non-Italian wines with Italian food will be held on June 9 at 7 p.m. at Felidia, 243 East 58th Street. The cost is $135 plus tax and tip. For reservations: Laura Supper at (212) 758-1479. FLORENCE FABRICANT


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DROMET has recently opened a new high bay warehouse, which will enable it to further expand its production and distribution capabilities, as well as focus on targeting the European market.
Established in 1994, DROMET Fastener Systems produces a wide range of products such as threaded rods, studs, U-bolts, anchor bolts and many other special products according to customers’ requirements.
DROMET is a family owned business, with vast experience within the market. In-house production accounts for 60% of the company’s turnover. Another branch of its activity is the distribution of DIN standard parts and supplying key brands of fixing products to the local Polish market.
“At the beginning of our activity we were focused on the Polish market, mostly producing threaded rods for the big local distributors,” explains Daniel Drązikowski, export manager at DROMET. “However, as the market developed, we managed to set-up our special parts production and deliver trusted quality to key players on the Polish as well as the European market.”
In 2008 DROMET decided to focus on export and initially targeted Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark. “We already had some customers in these markets and we saw that there was an opportunity to develop them even further,” mentions Daniel. “We have now extended our distribution system across numerous European countries, with exports accounting for 30% of our business. We have also developed cooperation with partners in Russia, and the Ukraine, where we see huge potential to grow.”
A key factor in DROMET’s future growth plans was the expansion of its warehouse capacity in 2016. “Adding the new warehouse was a big step for us, as it enabled us to expand our production capabilities into the space left by the old warehouse,” points out Daniel. “Previously we were very crowded, and the flow of material was not effective. However, now we have been able to add additional production machines, as well as improve the production flow.”
DROMET was also able to expand its tooling department. “We have a lot of experience within the company. Employees have been here 15 – 20 years and know a lot about the processes, which gives us the ability to produce tooling, flanges, and rolling dies, for special parts in-house,” adds Daniel. “Over 70% of the dies that we use are produced internally, and we can create unique tooling for individual machinery and for special parts, which makes us very competitive and flexible within the market and means we do no rely on external suppliers.”
Throughout the company’s growth, a commitment to quality has always been at the core of the business. “Initially it was very difficult to convince new customers from western markets that we could consistently supply the products and quality they required,” states Daniel. “Step-by-step and year by year we built our reputation to become recognised as a quality approved supplier to key brands in the European market. Quality is a key factor of our activity. Being able to consistently supply this value to customers is an essential part of being a professional manufacturer and helped us to grow.”
As DROMET has grown so has the Polish fastener market and its potential. “The Polish fastener market, and especially production capabilities, have grown significantly within the last ten years,” states Daniel. “Previously each supplier tried to be effective and competitive with every fastener product. However, now manufacturers have specialised in certain products, which is definitely making the market more professional.”
“I believe that Polish manufacturers through the last 10 – 15 years have learnt a lot from western brands who initially set-up within Poland. We learnt about the value of quality, improved our efficiency and invested a lot into production processes.”
“Joining the EU in 2004 also undoubtedly had a major impact to our market development. A big advantage of manufacturing in Poland is that we have a good source of raw material here and every part of the production process, including coating and heat treatment, is based within Poland. By improving the infrastructure over the last decade, it is now a lot easier to transport products around the country, which makes the whole production chain more efficient and means we can be more flexible.”
Daniel concludes: “In Poland we have huge capabilities, we are competitive and we learn very fast. As we are close to the rest of Europe, we can guarantee short lead times of quality products and customers can take advantage of this partnership.”
“At DROMET our plan for the future is to constantly improve efficiency. We are also looking to invest more in tools and materials to be more competitive with special parts made from stainless steel, and parts for the automotive industry, as we see big potential in these markets.”
“We will also be exhibiting at Fastener Fair Stuttgart 2019 and we are very excited to invite all visitors to our stand so that they can see the products and services that we can provide.”
Will joined Fastener + Fixing Magazine in 2007 and over the last 10 years has experienced every facet of the fastener sector - interviewing key figures within the industry and visiting leading companies and exhibitions around the globe.
Will manages the content strategy across all platforms and is the guardian for the high editorial standards that the Magazine is renowned.


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You want the best– best prices, best quality, best value– but when you’re in the grocery store surrounded by everything claiming to be number one, how can you know which best is best?
Whole Foods is hoping to make that answer easier than ever: the sotre released a produce rating system that permits shoppers to gauge their produce’s quality based on a “good,” “better,” or “best” rating.
This new ranking system takes a look at factors that may bring harm to both human and environmental health and then makes its rankings accordingly. The program’s end goal: ranking 100 percent of Whole Foods’ produce (and it already ranks a sizable 50 percent of its foods across the country, so it’s off to a good start).
But What About The Bees?
But that’s not all the good Whole Foods is hoping to spread: it’s also working to keep pollinators safe from harmful neonicotinoid insecticides, which are often seen in the form of seed coatings. Experts have consistently claimed that these scary insecticides could be at least partially responsible for the huge bee extinctions seen recently, also known as colony collapse disorder.
Because of the program’s influence already, we’re beginning to hear from both fruit and veggie farmers that they’re putting together bee-friendly habitats while simultaneously attempting to lower or get rid of pesticides entirely on crops across the U.S., offers Eric Mader, assistant pollinator program director for The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. As we can see through this example, one positive change in the food industry has a way of causing a ripple effect throughout the rest of it. If one large company like Whole Foods starts to provide more information to their consumers, other popular food stores will eventually have to do the same just to remain relevant in today’s ever-changing world.
Personally, I’ve never been big on our buzzing buddies. But as someone who was severely allergic to their stings throughout my childhood and was close to some major consequences after stepping on a bee in the grass as a youngster, even I can now understand the importance of bee health for our planet’s ecosystem to run smoothly. The fact of the matter is, regardless of our personal feelings, bees are crucial to the survival of many of our plants; not to mention, how would we get honey without bees? It’s easy to look the other way on such a large-scale disaster such as this, but it’s important to follow Whole Foods’ footsteps and start making the right choices for bees.
This article is made available for general, entertainment and educational purposes only. The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of The Joint Corp (or its franchisees and affiliates). You should always seek the advice of a licensed healthcare professional.


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June 21, 2016
The development of WordPress and the increase of available plugins has made it more and more feasible for people to easily build their online stores, but with a lack in innovation, payments are still one of the most underdeveloped areas in e-commerce. With limited checkout options, unreasonably high processing rates (2.9% + $0.30) and merchants bearing chargeback liability when it comes to fraud, online merchants are in an unfavorable position with no real possibility for profit maximization. Being an ethical hacker and coming from a payments processing background, James really understood these pain points and has entered the space with a goal of finding a sustainable, innovative solution for e-commerce. In this session, he will share his expertise and experience with us, providing insights on processing rates and online fraud, as well as how the shift to EMV has impacted these. Further, he will take a close look at 3D Secure and other technologies and best practices to overcome these problems. This is an excellent meetup for those using WooCommerce or those accepting payments through Gravity Forms.


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Elon Musk assured advertisers he wouldn't let Twitter turn into a "free-for-all hellscape," but there's apparently one change that would cause some of them to bail out on the social media platform.
The Tesla mogul is expected to finalize a purchase of the company this week, but advertisers are concerned about his plans for the platform -- which includes ending Donald Trump's indefinite suspension for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection, reported the Wall Street Journal.
The former president, who now posts on his own Truth Social website, has said he would not rejoin Twitter, but his return could drive away about a dozen well-known consumer brands represented by the leading ad-buying agency GroupM.
Kieley Taylor, global head of partnerships at GroupM, said other companies are waiting to see how things shake out, while she expects to hear from other clients if Trump returns to Twitter.
IN OTHER NEWS: Kanye West freaks out on Instagram saying he lost billions
“That doesn’t mean that we won’t be entertaining lots of emails and phone calls as soon as a transaction goes through,” Taylor said. “I anticipate we’ll be busy.”
Twitter relies on advertising revenue, but the company takes in a much smaller slice of digital ad spending than Amazon, Google or Meta Platforms, with just 1.1 percent of the market share.


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Pop meets street art. For the first time, international artists and designers from the street art scene will come together at the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf. More than 300 works of photography and graphic design, as well as graffiti, sculptures and designer toys, will be presented in spectacular displays to create a colourful Gesamtkunstwerk of pop culture
Many of the artists chosen for this exhibition come from skateboard and graffiti scenes. They grew up with characters like Homer Simpson and Knight Rider – which is why this exhibition is also a chance to reconnect with 90s pop culture icons. Since then, street art has become so popular that millions are paid at art auctions for works by artists like Banksy or JR. Shepard Fairey, who designed the notorious “Hope” campaign poster for former US President Barack Obama, has also found worldwide fame.


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iGB Affiliate’s Lisbon Affiliate Conference will be hold on Oct 17-20 during a Feira Internacional de Lisboa in Lisbon, Portugal. Although it strictly starts on Oct 17, a genuine beef of discussions is found from a second day on.
Speaker Tiago Almeida, CEO of Egamingservices, will be giving an overview of a Portuguese affiliate market, that will embody players in a industry, regulations, and projections for a mobile first and online markets.
Next, Sara Global Ventures Regional Director Adrian Niculescu will benefaction a ‘Next Gen Social Media Class,’ that aims to uncover how affiliates could boost patron rendezvous and build a code “at a lowest cost.” Niculescu will be looking during strategies “to effectively foster your advantages and pronounce to your business in their possess language.”
Speakers Dagmar Janssen, Head of Search during Global Gaming Group, and Rickard Vikstrom, owner of Internet Vikings, will concentration on benefaction trends in a ever-changing landscape of hunt engine optimization (SEO). They’ll be running we in “assessing areas for investment to produce a biggest return,” presenting important real-world examples.
For a speak on offered an associate business, 8020Research.com owner Tiz Gambacorta will be display how to best value your business, a best venues for advertising, and how to get a best offered price.
Niculescu, along with Review It Ltd CEO Alan Phillips, Get Digital COO Paulo Faustino, Daddy Marketing Resources CEO Prash Patel, Expozive President Nicc Lewis, and Catena Media Head of Marketing Varun Mathure, will be deliberating calm strategies “with genuine bottom line quantifiable results.”
Speaker Lazar Keshinov, executive of Balkan Media Group, will demeanour during marketing on Facebook, during a same time that Ryan Hamada of Ryan Hamada Consulting will speak about “email strategies that rivet gamers and boost conversions.”
Irish Wonder SEO Consultant Julia Logan will speak about disastrous SEO, and what to do to best detect it and strengthen your website.
ConversionBet CEO Dan Morrison will be display how to boost acclimatisation rates in a time when “over 80% of trade that hits gaming sites leave but registering.”
Patel, along with Sidan Media CEO Simon Rosen and FXPRIMUS CMO Vince De Castro will speak about creation business “your advocates and micro-influencers.”
Fili Wiese, SearchBrothers.com SEO Expert, promises a “no-hype session” that provides “highly actionable SEO tips.”
The final contention of a day will have XLMedia MA Head David Levy, Better Collective MA Head Michael Kopec, and Net Gaming Europe AB CEO Marcus Teilman vocalization on mergers and acquisitions, looking during a stream attention and regulating box studies of high-profile deals.


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Best Buy in the US is reportedly selling the HP Touchpad for just $99 as the retailer gets rid of its inventory of the soon-to-be-defunct tablet.
In Brisbane, the Sydney morning Herald reported that one retailer sold 6,000 units in an hour.
Last week, HP announced it was to ditch its Touchpad tablet range and seek a buyer for its PC division, while confirming its acquisition of UK software company Autonomy for £7.1bn.
HP said it will examine strategic alternatives for its PC business over a 12- to 18-month period, which could lead to the division being separated, spun-off or sold.
Unfortunately for UK people trying to get their hands on a TouchPad, Best Buy UK is still selling it for £429.
However, in an article from Computer Weekly's sister title MicroScope, Salman Chaudhry of analyst firm Context said distribution sources had told him the channel may be prepared to slash prices to shift stocks of Touchpads, rather than force HP to accept returns.
HP said Touchpad owners can look forward to an over-the-air update that will enhance the platform and add functionality and a growing applications catalogue.
In theory, users may be able to run an operating system like Android on top of webOS, which would extend the life of the device and enable people to access the Android marketplace apps. A cheap Touchpad is not a bad alternative to Kindle, and make a decent digital picture frame, if nothing else.


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The cat and mouse chase between Netflix and VPNs
As long as there are motivated users across the globe, VPN services will keep expanding the resources to scale their infrastructure to beat geo-restrictions.
Netflix has come a long way from where it started as a subscription-based DVD service provider to now a streaming service global giant Its catalog exceeds thousands of titles, which ultimately translate into hundreds of thousands of hours of content.
In fact, it is one of the rare few streaming services that enjoy extensive network coverage. Currently, Netflix can be accessed in over 180 countries, excluding China, North Korea, and Syria.
As massive as its content inventory may be, it doesn’t come without any disparities. To begin with, the entire Netflix content library is not available in every country. With the exception of the US that has the highest number of titles, other countries have limited access to the content.
In fact, even the US library may lack some titles that may be available in other countries. For instance, German Netflix viewers can watch The Americans, which is an FX network show, but the US viewers can’t unless they shell out some extra bucks for another streaming service such as Amazon Prime.
Arrival of the Knight in the Shining Armor
To fight this discrepancy, internet users have taken refuge in virtual private networks (VPNs). A VPN allows users to encrypt their browsing activities and use anonymous IPs to hide everything they do on the Internet. Using the same principle, a VPN also allows users to access content that may not be available in the users’ region. It does so by replacing the users’ real IP with the country’s IP address where the content is available.
Netflix doesn’t seem to mind users accessing different regional libraries as long as they are paying for the endless hours of entertainment. However, some external forces pressure the streaming service into exerting stricter control on its content. Consequently, Netflix is left with no other choice but to ban VPNs.
An Unending Feud Begins
It has been four years since the start of the unstoppable war between Netflix and VPN services across the globe. The war began in early 2016 when Netflix drew the first-blood by cracking down on users circumventing Netflix regional restrictions through proxy services or unblockers.
The streaming service began displaying an error message, “You seem to be using an unblocker or proxy. Please turn off any of these services and try again,” to infringing viewers.
When even that didn’t stop motivated viewers from bypassing geo-restrictions, Netflix immediately turned its weapons towards the source of that motivation: VPN services.
The streaming service had to go down this route to demonstrate to its media partners and studios that it would stick to the deal, protect their content, and comply with the licensing deals as agreed upon.
Netflix delivered on its promise by identifying and then blacklisting the entire IP pools associated with proxy, unblocker, and VPN services. Netflix’s then vice president of content delivery architecture, David Fullagar, stated in a related blog post, “Some members use proxies or ‘unblockers’ to access titles available outside their territory. To address this, we employ the same or similar measures other firms do.”
Fullagar further added, “This technology continues to evolve, and we are evolving with it.”
As anyone could have guessed, the outcry over the Netflix VPN ban was swift across online communities:
“We have the smallest selection in the world with @NetflixPT. Closing VPN access will probably mean cancelling subscription.”
“I guess Netflix don’t want my money then. Lots of other ways to watch movies and shows for free. Goodbye Netflix”
“This is as bad an idea as #blockbusters not buying @netflix when they had the chance. European content is not great.”
Some users were even aware of the reason behind Netflix’s decision of banning VPN services:
“They will never ban paying customers for using a VPN. Netflix itself doesn’t care about people circumventing the region block. It’s the media distribution companies who are causing this. They’re forcing Netflix to take measures against unblockers.”
Netflix Has Its Reasons
When studios produce movies and TV shows, they then strike a deal with the broadcasters where they first decide where the broadcaster can show the content. Sometimes, the studios broadcast their own content if they have a television network or online streaming option. Other times, they need the help of broadcasters.
For instance, Homeland is a Showtime production which can be watched on the studio’s proprietary streaming service in the US. But since Showtime isn’t accessible outside the US, it made a deal with Netflix to broadcast the shows in regions other than the US.
At the end of the day, it is the studio’s call to mention in the licensing deals where it wants the distributor to broadcast the content, and failing to meet that would mean a breach of contract.
Since Netflix is also a distributor to dozens of studios and media houses, it has to abide by the licensing deals. Plus, it also puts Netflix at their mercy.
To ensure that their content’s broadcasting rights are protected, Netflix can take all the necessary measures, and that includes banning VPNs.
Has Netflix Succeeded?
Netflix has succeeded in hammering a good number of VPN services over the years, restricting their IP addresses. In fact, many VPN services have stopped offering Netflix accessibility as they no longer can do it due to IP restrictions. However, many of those VPN services had a limited number of VPN servers and the respective IP addresses, which made it easier for Netflix to crack down on such services.
But services with extensive infrastructure are hard to stop, such as PureVPN that owns over 2000 servers located in 140 countries and 180+ locations. These top-tier services have ample resources and the means to put up new servers and buy new whitelisted IP pools as soon as the older servers and IPs are blocked.
As long as there are motivated users across the globe, VPN services will keep expanding the resources to scale their infrastructure to beat geo-restrictions imposed by streaming giants like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Disney+, to name a few.
Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.
- 4 things everyone should know about free VPN sites and extensions
- This company was just exposed for secretly harvesting user data through VPN and ad-blocking apps
- Mozilla is releasing a $5 VPN app for Android – Here’s how to try it
- How can I set up my VPN on my router?


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In January-August, Boryspil International Airport serviced 5,816,254 passengers, up by 66% YoY. In particular, over the eight months of this year, Boryspil Airport provided air service to 3,339,622 passengers traveling by regular flights and 2,476,632 traveling by charter flights. In August, Boryspil Airport serviced 1,251,316 passengers, including 827,556 passengers carried by regular flights and 423,760…Details
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The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) purchased $159 million on the interbank foreign exchange market last week, according to data provided by the central bank. According to the results of foreign exchange interventions, the National Bank bought $159 million on the interbank foreign exchange market between August 30 and September 3. The regulator also sold…Details
People from Taiwan have increased their spending in Lithuania’s online stores amid growing ties between the two countries. According to the data from Taiwan’s institutions, residents of the island’s seven large cities made approximately 112,000 credit card payments, worth more than 2.5 billion new Taiwan dollars (around EUR 76 million), in Lithuanian stores between February…Details
In order to increase the export, sale, competitiveness and awareness of Georgian wine abroad the government of Georgia has decided to co-finance marketing campaigns of wine companies in export markets except for CIS countries. Agriculture Minister Levan Davitashvili announced that the government had approved the new state program to promote Georgian wine abroad. The program…Details
The international credit rating agency Fitch Ratings (Fitch) has published a statement on Latvia’s credit rating, where it has been maintained the level of A- with a stable forecast of future credit rating, the Latvian State Treasury reports. In the statement, published on September 3, Fitch highlighted the credible policy framework of Latvia, the country’s…Details
In 2020, power plants produced 5,516 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity, which was three quarters of the production the year prior, data from Statistics Estonia showed. The volume of electricity produced from oil shale decreased by a half. Helle Truuts, an analyst at Statistics Estonia, said electricity production from renewable energy sources continued to grow last…Details
The gross international reserves of Kyrgyzstan increased by $205.37 million over the past month, official website of the National Bank of the country said. As a result of August, the reserves reached $2,860.74 billion. This is the highest level of the reserves in 2021. At the same time, since the beginning of the year, the…Details


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When Rene Ramirez launched his food truck in 2018, he planned to locate it in Grand Prairie. But he quickly learned that would be difficult, if not impossible, because of the city’s restrictions on food trucks.
“We live in Grand Prairie and wanted to work in Grand Prairie,” Ramirez said. “But we couldn’t make it work.”
Ramirez’s truck, 225 BBQ, instead landed a permanent spot in nearby Arlington in 2020.
An online petition with more than 1,200 signatures is now asking Grand Prairie officials to consider loosening food truck restrictions. The petition argues that food trucks can become a draw for the community while benefiting residents.
A city spokesperson said food truck regulations are being reviewed in an effort to balance the interests of food trucks with brick-and-mortar restaurants.
Grand Prairie currently allows permanent food trucks at two sites: Asia Times Square and Premium Outlets. To set up temporarily elsewhere, food trucks must request a special event permit, which is reviewed by the city on a case-by-case basis.
Ramirez has set up at the outlets, but says the mall’s high fees — $500 for a weekend — cut too far into his profit. And he applied for a special events permit, but found the process too cumbersome and gave up.
Malcom Chakery, who started the online petition, said cities in Texas and nationwide have managed to support food trucks without hurting brick-and-mortar restaurants.
Chakery, who runs Grand Prairie News, suggested the city provide more pop-up opportunities and permanent locations for food trucks, such as the farmers market.
“We’re looking for more opportunities for small business owners,” he said. “I love our brick-and-mortar spots, but I think there’s room to be a little more business-friendly to food trucks and carts.”
Ramirez’s 225 BBQ is now set up in the parking lot of Division Brewing in downtown Arlington. Since opening, the menu has expanded from barbecue to include birria tacos and ramen, which almost always sells out.
Ramirez said he hopes to open a brick-and-mortar location in the next year or so. It will most likely be in Arlington.
“I’ve always wanted to open a restaurant,” he said. “The food truck was just a baby step to get our foot in the door.”


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In its continuing quest to build an world populated by young Windows users, Microsoft is preparing a software package that it will sell for $3 to the governments of developing nations. The package will include the basic Windows XP Starter Edition, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 and other as-yet-unnamed educational software applications. The $3 Windows pack will be available later this year, and it will be sold exclusively to governments that provide accessible computers in their children's schools according to the BBC.
In addition to the obvious humanitarian goal of providing enabling technological tools to the world's underprivileged kids (which should be applauded), the software package will enable Microsoft to help curb piracy of its software in developing nations. Windows remains one of the most pirated pieces of software in the world, and Redmond is hoping the $3 package will make an end run around bootleggers.
The more cynical view of the initiative, dubbed "Unlimited Potential," is that Microsoft gets the opportunity to hook the world's kids on Windows, creating a new generation of Microsoft customers.
Assuming purely altruistic motives, I still have to ask: can the $3 Windows package make a difference?
Look at the One Laptop Per Child project's XO Children's Machine. It runs Linux and costs $150. There's also Intel's Classmate PC (pictured above) which runs an embedded version of Windows XP and will sell for about $250-300. These are the best low-cost options for developing countries right now, and since sale of the $3 software package stipulates that governments provide computers which can run the OS, the hardware requirements for the PCs will be high enough to cost the governments more than that. If you were a developing nation buying 1 million computers, how would you spend your money? You'd probably want your dollars to go as far as possible.
And would you add $3 to your overhead on each machine to get Windows? Or would you choose a free option like Edubuntu, which is easier to customize and has better support for older hardware?


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For Immediate Release: November 26, 2014
As Black Friday Approaches, Caution Urged When Purchasing Small Electronics
Precautions should be taken to protect children from swallowing coin-sized batteries.
RALEIGH -- Insurance Commissioner and State Fire Marshal Wayne Goodwin is reminding parents and caregivers to take special precautions to protect children from the dangers of battery-operated gadgets as we enter the traditional start of the gift-giving season.
According to the National Capital Poison Center, more than 3,500 cases of swallowed button batteries are reported to U.S. poison control centers each year…and the threat is growing fast. The number of cases where children have been seriously hurt or have died after swallowing a battery has quadrupled in five years (2006-2010) compared to the five years prior (2001-2005). All fatalities and 85 percent of major injuries were among children 4-years-old and younger.
If swallowed and not removed promptly, larger button batteries can cause death or burn a hole through a child's esophagus. Serious complications can also occur when small batteries are placed in the nose or ear - another situation where urgent removal is critical.
To protect children from the hazards associated with button batteries, follow these tips:
- Never leave batteries out. Store spare batteries and batteries to be recycled out of sight and reach of young children. Wrap used batteries securely and discard them where a child can't find them.
- Check all household devices - including remote controls, singing greeting cards, talking books and other devices - to be certain the battery compartment is secured shut. Use strong tape to secure compartments that kids can open or that might pop open if the device is dropped. Only purchase products that require a screwdriver or tool to open the battery compartment, or that are closed with a child-resistant locking mechanism.
- Don't allow children to play with batteries or with battery-powered products that have easily accessible batteries.
- Make sure all hearing aids for children have child-resistant battery compartments and make sure the lock is activated when the child is wearing the aid.
- Alert family members who wear hearing aids about the importance of keeping the batteries out of reach of small children at all times.
For more safety information and a full list of potential products containing button batteries, go to the National Capitol Poison Center at http://www.poison.org/battery/tips.asp or to thebatterycontrolled.com/.


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If you are a living, breathing person with a small amount of disposable income, you have, at some point in your life, probably bought a frivolous thing that ended up being a waste of money. That thing may be a fancy pair of shoes, or perhaps a silly hat. And for a handful of very wealthy people, that thing is apparently yachts — not just regular yachts, but superyachts.
Superyachts are like regular yachts but bigger and therefore more expensive. Yachts are large, but superyachts are huge: Think 100 feet or longer. If a yacht is a symbol of luxury and excess, a superyacht is a symbol of even more luxury and excess.
Sales of these massive vessels are way up, Bloomberg reported last week, and the PPY (price per yacht, a term I just made up) also appears to be on the rise. Last year, the seafaring superrich spent $2.9 billion on these vessels — a 21 percent increase from 2016 — according to the Superyacht Intelligence Agency (which is real). There have been “nearly 300” superyacht sales this year, compared to 249 such sales in 2017.
This may not seem like a huge jump in sales, but these boats cost hundreds of millions of dollars and require full-time maintenance crews; we’re not talking about an easily accessible or rapidly expanding market here. “We look at it as a ballpark 1,500 to 2,000 serious ultra-high-net-worth individuals who drive the industry,” William Mathieson, the editorial and intelligence director of the Superyacht Group, told Bloomberg. In addition to your standard yacht amenities, like swimming pools and helipads, these boats often come equipped with submarines and missile defense systems. (David Geffen’s $590 million yacht reportedly has a basketball court).
But, it turns out, these floating monuments to wealth aren’t the smartest financial decision. Unlike real estate or blue-chip art, which can rapidly appreciate in value, superyachts tend to depreciate, and most owners lose money on resale.
Maintaining these vessels is an extra expense on top of the sale price, and it doesn’t come cheap. Even if you keep the boat docked for most of the year, you still have to pay to dock and maintain the superyacht, and you have to pay the salaries of its captain and crew. Bloomberg estimates that superyacht owners pay about 10 percent of the boat’s total value in upkeep each year, meaning that a $500 million boat like Geffen’s would cost at least $50 million per year to maintain.
Most superyacht owners don’t spend nearly enough time on their boats to make the cost worth it. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos spends so little time on her $40 million yacht — one of at least 10 ships belonging to the DeVos family — that a group of vandals managed to set it free over the summer. (The yacht liberation cost a reported $5,000 to $10,000 in damages, which is not a lot compared to the $40 million that the yacht cost in the first place.)
Rich people — sorry, ultra-high-net-worth individuals (or UHNIs) — often go to great lengths to show that they’re just like us, even when they objectively are not. These superyachts would be symbols of extreme luxury and ostentatious wealth even if they didn’t sit unused for most of the calendar year. And unlike other UHNI purchases — art, stocks, luxury condos — superyachts aren’t even a good investment.
So why do they buy giant ships that sit empty for most of the year and depreciate the second they’re sold? Because they can.


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What is a Startup
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model.
The term of startup refers to a company in the first stages of operations. Startups are founded by one or more entrepreneurs who want to develop a product
It is often a general perception that working in industry giants, especially from the currently outperforming and consolidating IT sector, brings in huge and hefty bucks for software engineers.
It can be agreed upon that this is not an entirely false notion, especially given the fact that software engineers with considerable years of experience earn handsomely in India, compared to peers of the same experience in other industry segments.
However, according to a recent finding published by Weekday – a startup company that helps firms find the best of engineering hires, the per annum salary packages of software engineers working at product startup companies or good IT startups are earning better than the ‘traditional’ IT giant names like Infosys, TCS, and Wipro.
Highest remuneration paying startups
Weekday has taken in salary data from more than 50,000 engineers and on computing and analyzing the collected figures, has found that IT startups pay their software engineers handsomely.
ShareChat pays the highest remuneration to its mid-level software engineers.
The Bangalore-based Mohalla Tech’s company ShareChat pays nearly Rs 47 lakh per annum to software engineers with an experience of around 4 years.
The fintech startup CRED and the e-comm platform Meesho pay an annual salary of Rs 40 lakh and Rs 39 lakh to their engineers with similar experience.
According to the data shared by Amit Singh of Weekday, the engineers working at product startup companies like Sharechat, CRED, Swiggy, and Meesho, among others, get paid a lot more than the annual salaries paid to their counterparts at IT giants and behemoths.


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On October 13, 2021, the 25th China Plastic Recycling and Recycling Conference (ChinaReplas2021) was held in Ningbo. Jiangxi Green Recycling Co., Ltd. participated in this exhibition and discussed the development prospects of plastic recycling under the "14th Five-Year" circular economy with colleagues and experts at the exhibition. It won the "Golden Apple Award" for innovative applications of recycled materi.
As the most mature, international, and professional plastic recycling industry professional exhibition in China, ChinaReplas2021 emphasized the collaborative development of the industrial chain and continuously expanded ideas on the exhibition concept of "transaction, exchange, and friendship". The exhibition built an efficient and accurate platform for exchanges and cooperation in the entire industrial chain of recycled plastics. There were a wealth of conferences and professional activities on site, gathering many exhibitors and enterprises to bring leading solutions for plastic recycling. It interacted and shared wonderful moments with online audiences at home and abroad in real Time.
Figure 1 The exhibition site (Source: WeChat public account of New Observation of Waste Plastics)
The 2020-2021 annual plastic recycling "Golden Apple Award" award ceremony was grandly announced at the opening ceremony of the exhibition. Known as the "Oscar Award" in the plastic recycling industry, the "Golden Apple Award" aimed to help those enterprises which had made efforts and changes in the country for industry progress, innovation, and environmental protection, and improved influence ofrecyclable plastic products, technologies, and people around the world. With its R&D team,GER had greatly improved the purity of refrigerator ABS plastic through process development and optimization.It developed high-end ABS-GER-M2 series products that met the requirements of EU RoHs, REACH, and other high standards,which could be applied to export children's toys and other high-end ABS-GER-M2 products. It successfully won the "Golden Apple Award" for the innovative application of recycled materials at this conference.
Figure 2 The awarding scene (the second from left was Lv Huaixing, Dean of JiangxiGER Polymer Materials Research Institute)
As a scientific and brand-new economic development model, the circular economy is of great value to achieving the goal of carbon neutrality, and the significance of the "Golden Apple Award" lies in this. As an influential award, it will continue to affect the whole people, change social cognition and consumer behavior, and make the relationship between plastics and humans more harmonious. As an award-winning company,GER will be more active in product technological innovation under the current situation of "controlling plastic pollution" and "dual carbon goals". It will contribute to the promotion of the collaborative innovation and development of the industrial chain and the realization of the "grand goal of a zero-waste plastic circular economy", thereby demonstrating the responsibility and responsibility of theGER.


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Australian business leaders warned of the danger of succumbing to the coronavirus panic sweeping the world, including Telstra chairman John Mullen, who said COVID-19 wouldn't be worse than influenza for most people.
As Qantas Airways became the most high-profile corporate victim of the epidemic, other leading companies tried to reassure Australians that trade with China is operating mostly normally and there was no need for a consumer spending strike.
"The level of overreaction to what's going on is just a level I would never have expected for something," Mr Mullen told The Australian Financial Review Business Summit in Sydney on Tuesday.
"Obviously it's a terrible thing, But the average person, if you're under 60, it's not worse than the flu and yet it's turning our economies completely on their heads."
Retail giant Wesfarmers and iron ore supplier Fortescue Metals Group said there were already signs that parts of business in China are returning to normal, or were never significantly disrupted.
"To be honest in the last few weeks we've seen an improvement so we've started to see factories in China get back on line," Wesfarmers chief executive Rob Scott said.
"We've seen supply chains free up and the shipping lines improve. So whilst there's been a bit of a delay in getting product in it's been improving.
"What's concerning us is more the global and domestic impacts on the demand side. Then there will be a recession. If they don't travel there will be a recession."
Fortescue chief executive Elizabeth Gaines said she didn't want to be complacent, but "at the moment we are still seeing strong demand for seaborne iron ore" – one of Australia's biggest exports.
"There's no change to payment terms," she said. "Our customers are still producing steel. So largely it's business as usual."
Institutional investors were less sanguine, although emphasised that the managers of their companies were focused on getting through the COVID-19 crisis in strong shape.
"At the moment it is pure fear out there," WaveStone Capital principal Catherine Allfrey told the summit. "We want to invest in companies for the long term that will get through this."
The number of people infected is doubling every six days, biosecurity professor Raina MacIntyre said, although the death rate is below 1 per cent.
Australia's most valuable company, BHP Billiton, said the sudden downturn could be an opportunity to buy assets cheaply, and reverse the industry's record of making acquisitions when commodity prices are at their peak.
"I'm not sure if there will be any opportunities that come from this, but if there are we're actually in a position to act," chairman Ken MacKenzie told the conference. "I think the sort of great example of that stands out at the moment is the iron ore price."
Like Ms Gaines, Mr MacKenzie said that there had not been any disruption to iron ore exports, which were worth about $64 billion in 2018.
Like most companies, though, BHP's immediate focus is on the welfare of its staff rather than strategic moves, the company said.
"We're doing a lot of work there in terms of reducing travel requirements," Mr MacKenzie said. "We have mining camps where we have thousands of people co-located in mining camps and so we're monitoring people there for flu symptoms and we have put some people into isolation."
Another of Australia's biggest exports, university education, hasn't discussed shutting down campuses, as some US universities have, according to Vicki Thomson, the chief executive of the Group of Eight, although budgets are going to have to be cut.
"Nearly $3 billion of our revenue comes from those students who are not here yet," she told the Summit. "There's a different conversation happening with our chief financial officer operators and our CEOs in that regard and so then we start to have discussions around deferral of capital expenditure [and] wage freezes.
"Although I see the Qantas CEO has just announced that he won't be taking a salary for a year. So we'll see whether any of the vice-chancellors follow suit on that one and I hope it doesn't trickle down to their CEOs."
Atlassian has a team of about eight staff working around the clock on its response, and employees in its San Francisco, Mountain View and New York City offices are working from home, founder and co-chief executive Mike Cannon-Brookes said.
With more than 100,000 people around the world infected, companies operating from empty offices are going to "participate in the world's biggest telecommuting experiment across the globe in the next couple months", he told the two-day conference.
"We'll see how it all works. We have a significant portion of our workforce out of that, that already works remote. So when we send another few thousand people to work remote it's not a massive change in how we do business. It'll be a massive change for other people."
Privately, one board member at the conference predicted a decline in pressure from investors for corporate action on environmental, social and governance policies known as ESG.
At the conference, Coles chief financial officer Leah Weckert discussed a topic that has been the talk of the virus. She said Coles' suppliers had responded to the "unprecedented" demand by filling semi-trailers with toilet paper destined for Coles big stores "through the pipe as fast as we can".
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- Charlotte Rimmer
- Sarah Thompson, Anthony Macdonald and Tim Boyd


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Red meat, potato and dairy sales have received a boost from the reopening of takeaways as Brits return to their pre-shutdown eating habits
After a fall in sales at the start of lockdown due to fewer collections and the closure of drive-thrus, the takeaway market has returned to growth for the first time in four months, up 2 per cent compared to March.
And according to Kantar, takeaway orders even exceeded the pre-Covid high during the first two weeks of July, with consumers generally returning to their pre-lockdown eating habits.
While this has been largely driven by collections and drive-thru orders, Britain’s delivery orders were now more than double the four weeks to March 22.
AHDB highlighted the role of the reopening of large chains such as McDonalds, Greggs and KFC accounting for 58 per cent of orders prior to lockdown.
AHDB Retail Insight Manager Rebecca Gladman said the closure of the big name fast food brands had hit the potato and beef sectors hard. Lamb and cheese were the only sectors to benefit but have also benefited from the increase in sales.
According to AHDB estimates, lamb volumes were up 89 per cent in the 20 weeks to July 12, with kebabs being key to growth. Pizza has accounted for most of the growth in cheese volumes which were up 83 per cent during the 20-week period.
Pork has returned to year-on-year growth, with increases coming from a variety of sources such as Chinese takeaways and ham and pepperoni pizza. And a nine per cent growth in beef volumes has been helped by burger sales, with AHDB estimating Big Macs alone accounted for 24 per cent of growth during the 20 weeks.
Despite fish and chip shops having a bigger share of the market under lockdown, potato volumes fell due to the absence of big brands. However, June and July have delivered a better performance for the potatoes sector, but not enough to offset those early losses.


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People are happy to shop online for books, CDs and electronic goods, but are less convinced when it comes to clothes and shoes.
Market researcher E-buyersguide.com says serious barriers must be overcome before consumers feel confident enough to buy these goods online.
The main reasons are uncertainty over accurate sizing, delivery costs, problems over returning items and quality concerns.
"Apparel presents a real challenge for online retailers because it is such a high-touch item," said Irwin Barkan, chairman of E-buyersguide. "It is more difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison about an online purchase when factors such as colour, texture and fit come into play".
For the small percentage of people that bought clothes and shoes online last year, the main draws were a large merchandise selection, free delivery and low prices.
"Many online apparel shoppers are looking for a specific clothing item from a known brand," said Barkan. "Once they make the decision to shop online, factors such as price, delivery and selection become important, and they seem to care less about who is selling them the product.
"This a clear challenge for online retailers. To succeed they need to look at ways to transfer the strong in-store loyalties to the Web, and look for ways to add more value to the online shopping experience."
Cotton seedling freezes to death as Chang'e-4 shuts down for the Moon's 14-day lunar night
Fortnite easily out-earns PUBG, Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018
Meteor showers as a service will be visible for about 100 kilometres in all directions
Saturn's rings only formed in the past 100 million years, suggests analysis of Cassini space probe data
New findings contradict conventional belief that Saturn's rings were formed along with the planet about 4.5 billion years ago


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Royal Mail could be hit with heavy fines after failing to hit its delivery targets last year as the communications regulator Ofcom launches an inquiry into the beleaguered postal service.
Quality of service targets require Royal Mail to deliver 93% of first-class mail within one working day of collection; deliver 98.5% of second-class mail in three working days; and complete 99.9% of delivery routes on each day that a delivery is required.
However, the company confirmed on Monday that it had missed all these targets, with just 73.7% of first-class mail being delivered within one working day. It would not be the first time it has been penalised for missing delivery targets after receiving a £1.5 million fine in 2019.
Tracing its history back to Henry VIII, “the Royal Mail was still one of the jewels of Britain” until very recently, said The Telegraph. But it has fallen on hard times as corporate mismanagement, competition and a terminal decline in letter writing has left it struggling to stay above water.
What did the papers say?
The former state-owned monopoly service has endured a tumultuous decade since it was privatised in 2013 by David Cameron’s coalition government. It has spent much of this time “attempting to revamp the business to cope with the long-term decline in the posting of letters and the rapid increase in online shopping, fuelling increased volumes and competition in the more lucrative parcels market”, said The Guardian.
With e-commerce returning to pre-Covid levels following a surge in online goods and Covid testing kit deliveries during the pandemic, Royal Mail is “saddled with a vast, expensive network from Land’s End to John O’Groats, and a government-mandated universal service obligation (USO) to deliver to every postcode of the UK six days a week for a flat fee”, said The Times.
“It also has a highly unionised workforce that does not want the value of pay and benefits to be eroded,” said the paper. And “now its handling of the nation’s letters is under the microscope”.
In what Sky News described as “a contentious hearing” with MPs on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) select committee in February, Royal Mail chief executive Simon Thompson admitted prioritising more lucrative parcels over letters.
Last week, he announced he was stepping down following a bruising two years at the helm, just days before the company’s annual results are expected to “lay bare the damage inflicted on the 507-year-old postal service by a bleak year in which it was battered by 18 days of strikes, a slump in parcel deliveries and a cyber-attack on its international delivery operations”, said This is Money.
The biggest problem, according to The New Statesman’s Will Dunn, is that “the core service it is required to provide – universal delivery at fixed prices – is expensive to operate and declining in popularity”. The amount of addressed letters being posted is down by 23% since 2019 and is now about what it was in the mid-1930s. But while they may be in long-term decline, letters still generated 44% of the company’s revenue in its last financial year.
“It won’t be long till the letter itself becomes completely redundant,” said The Telegraph, at which point “Royal Mail will simply become a parcel delivery service like DPD, but probably less reliable”.
According to Refinitiv data, analysts predict Royal Mail will report a loss of £500 million for the year to the end of March, compared with a profit of £416 million in the previous year. A warning that it was losing more than £1 million a day and could be forced to call in administrators if the situation did not improve has led the stock price of its parent group International Distributions Services (IDS) to drop more than 30% from last year.
The challenge for a successor is “to continue Royal Mail’s never-ending modernisation programme – but, in theory at least, Thompson has done the hard yards of overseeing a deal with the union”, said The Times. The paper reported that the company plans to shed 10,000 roles from its 150,000-strong workforce as it seeks to tackle its costs and wants to renegotiate the universal service obligation to ease its financial pressure. While it would continue to deliver parcels seven days a week, one long-term option would be to drop Saturday letter deliveries.
It’s worth noting, said Dunn, “that the social value of the Royal Mail’s services is high; its communication services are still relied upon by millions of people, a significant proportion of whom are elderly or vulnerable. And in an ageing society, a regular door-to-door presence could be vital; some in the industry have suggested a further diversification into services such as meter readings.”
He said “it is all but inevitable” the letter and parcel delivery arms of Royal Mail will split. “The government will then have to decide whether a company that has been integral to British identity for five centuries is worth taking back on as a public service or being allowed to wither away, becoming another bankrupt subsidiary of UK plc.”


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Prom night can be one of the most exciting nights for a teenage girl, but it can also be one of the most expensive.
Priscilla Beckham with the Zonta Club said a prom dress can cost $500 or more, which can leave a teenager with a lot of prom pressure.
"They can come into this prom boutique, look at the array of dresses that we have, try them on, have their mom with them," Beckham said.
Last year, they helped more than 600 girls from Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma.
This year, they hope to exceed that number.
"It's incredible to see how a young woman can feel so incredibly beautiful when they put that dress on, you feel like a princess, which everyone wants to be at some point in their life," Beckham said.
The Zonta Club isn't the only organization having a prom dress drive, the Glam Prom Dress Closet in Tyler is having a drive on March 30 and 31 at Cindy's Event Center.


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Writers of books are preparing to boycott Google’s attempt at building a digital library online, accusing the Web giant of trying to re-write copyright laws.
J K Rowling, Philip Pullman and other British authors have signed a petition headed by American fantasy author Ursula le Guin, which argues that Google's cunning plan would "render copyright essentially meaningless".
Le Guin's petition has been signed by 365 other writers and was delivered to to a US judge on Tuesday.
Google Books plans to carry published works that are out of copyright, plus "snippets" of current titles with the option to pay to read a full copy. Google is offering authors $60 per title on its virtual shelves, plus a share of revenue. Authors are obliged to to opt out of the scheme, rather than opt in. The deadline for opting out was Tuesday.
Google paid $125 million last year to resolve a copyright case with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers and establish an independent "Book Rights Registry," to funnel revenue from digital sales to authors and publishers.
The settlement was subsequently limited to books registered with the US Copyright Office by January 5, 2009 or published in Australia, Britain, Canada or the United States.
Le Guin is calling for the US to be exempted from the deal, a move which would render it useless.
The petition here, claims the settlement was negotiated by the Authors Guild "without consultation with any other group of authors or American authors as a whole."
"The Guild cannot and does not speak for all American writers," Le Guin wrote. "Its settlement cannot be seen as reflecting the will or interest of any group but the Guild. We ask that the principle of copyright, which is directly threatened by the settlement, be honored and upheld in the United States," she continued, concluding, "We urge our government and our courts to allow no corporation to circumvent copyright law or dictate the terms of that control."
A Google spokesperson said: "If approved by the court, this settlement stands to unlock access to millions of books in the US while giving authors and publishers new ways to distribute their work."
But Harry Potter author and multi millionaire JK Rowlings' lawyer told the Times, the settlement would "purport to change US and international copyright rules".
Philip Pullman’s agent, wants to know: “Why should we have to do this because Google decided to set something up which is clearly for the benefit of Google?
“Google can’t afford to do it without the support of major authors — they have to come back with a better deal.”
Neither Pullman nor Rowling want their books to appear on the proposed service.


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Financial regulators who are tasked with regulating Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are failing to bring in adequate regulations and should get advice from tech entrepreneurs and institutions, Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group has said.
Writing in response to the news that the UK Financial Conduct Authority has banned the sale of cryptocurrency derivatives and exchange-traded notes to retail customers, Green accused regulators of poor knowledge of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
“Some regulatory bodies display a staggering lack of understanding of this sector and perhaps they need to be educated by billionaire tech entrepreneurs, amongst others, on what is the future of money,” said Green.
“Billionaire tech entrepreneurs, most major financial institutions, and an ever-growing number of retail and institutional investors are increasing their exposure to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This is not a coincidence. They are all paying attention. They know that digital currencies are to money what Amazon was to retail.”
He argued that “some financial regulators of major markets cannot, seemingly, see the intrinsic value of cryptocurrencies”.
“They are adopting a head-in-the-sand approach and issuing bans rather than focusing on establishing robust regulatory frameworks,” he added.
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“Do they honestly believe that there is no place for, and no value of, digital, global, borderless currencies in an increasingly tech-driven world?”
Bitcoin regulators and the fight between centralisation and decentralisation
DeVere sees the core of the issue to be a fundamentally misaligned view of the future of money, between a centralised view held by regulators and the decentralised approach championed by Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
“Some financial regulators exclusively believe in and are focused on the traditional, centralised system of money,” he said.
“I would suggest that they need to also be open to a new, decentralized, non-sovereign, digital, global currency.
“Whether they like it or not, the world has profoundly changed and moved on in recent years. It can’t, and won’t, go backwards.”


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"I think it's the best thing to come out of Jaguar since the E-Type," says Ian Callum, design director for Jaguar, regarding the C-X16 Concept.
The British luxury brand has not confirmed production plans for the 2-passenger sports car. Yet based on Mr. Callum's enthusiasm for the C-X16, it seems only a matter of time until it does.
Full Coverage: 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show >>
Photos: Best of Los Angeles 2011 >>


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Adobe Gets Back to Business on iPhone Dev Tool
The folks at Adobe are wasting no time getting back to business. With Apple having removed the restrictions on Thursday that had previously blocked Adobe's Flash to iPhone porting tool, Adobe is now back work on developing the tool for subsequent releases of Flash Professional. With 24 hours of Apple's announcement, Adobe stated on it's website that work would resume immediately. "We are encouraged to see Apple lifting its restrictions on its licensing terms," the company said, "giving developers the freedom to choose what tools they use to develop applications for Apple devices."
In addition to Apple's revelation that iOS would, at long last, be open to third-party development tools - that is, "as long as the resulting apps do not download any code" - Apple also published to everyone's pleasant surprise the App Store Review Guidelines
. With an infamously private company like Apple suddenly becoming more transparent and flexible, it's no wonder that there are plenty of developers with renewed excitement about iOS this weekend. Of course, no one is more excited about the change in policy at Apple than the people at Adobe.
"Apple’s announcement today that it has lifted restrictions on its third-party developer guidelines has direct implications for Adobe’s Packager for iPhone, a feature in the Flash Professional CS5 authoring tool," Adobe stated in a press release. "This feature was created to enable Flash developers to quickly and easily deliver applications for iOS devices. The feature is available for developers to use today in Flash Professional CS5, and we will now resume development work on this feature for future releases."


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Aston Martin Teases its Most Extreme Street Car Yet
Aston Martin has officially confirmed that its most extreme street legal car ever is all geared up for the Geneva Motor Show in March. The company officially released a teaser image along with a teaser video and promises this will ‘the most extreme Vantage to date’. As expected, the car manufacturer has not revealed any technical details as of now, but we can expect the new Vantage to feature the same V12 engine as the race car. That engine unit churns out 565bhp in the V12 Vantage so we can expect the GT3 to churn out as much as 600bhp.
Going by the image, we can expect the Vantage GT3 to sport an aggressive design, the standout feature being the massive fixed rear wing. In addition, we can also expect a combo of carbon fibre and aluminum bodywork along with a faster steering ratio, louder exhaust and a variety of multi-tone paint jobs.
Production is expected to be around not more than a 100 units marking the end of Vantage’s nine-year production run. Meanwhile, a DB9 replacement based on an entirely new platform is expected in 2016. It should soon be followed by a new Vantage which gets inspiration from the new DB10 concept, set to be James Bond’s next ride. Check out the teaser video below-


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Flipkart acquiring eBay India; raising US$2B investment: Report
By Sainul Abudhen for e27,
eBay is the sixth largest player in the e-commerce space in India after Flipkart, Amazon, Shopclues, Paytm, and Snapdeal
Three days after Bloomberg reported that Flipkart has closed a US$1 billion in fresh funding, Indian technology portal Factordaily writes that the Bangalore-headquartered e-commerce leader is acquiring eBay’s India operations.
Once the deal is done, eBay India will get folded into Flipkart, the report added citing unnamed sources.
eBay is the sixth largest player in the e-commerce space in the country after Flipkart, Amazon, Shopclues, Paytm, and Snapdeal.
As per the Bloomberg report, which appeared early this week, Flipkart has already closed a US$1 billion funding round from Microsoft, eBay, and Tencent Holdings, with plans to raise an equal amount. This will value Flipkart at US$10 billion, up from US$5.39 billion when its minority investor and the mutual fund managed by Morgan Stanley slashed Flipkart valuation by 3 per cent last month.
Bloomberg had in September last year reported that Flipkart was in advanced talks with global retailing giant Wal-Mart to secure up to US$1 billion in funding for a minority stake. As per the Factordaily report this deal is not closed yet and the US retail giant could invest in the company in the medium term.
Started in 2007, Flipkart has been locked in a bitter battle with Amazon to become the numero uno in India. The e-commerce giant, once considered as the poster boy of the Indian startup ecosystem, has been in a shambles for the past couple of years. Flipkart, one of the first home-grown tech companies from India to enter the coveted global Unicorn startups club, has lost out to close rival Amazon, which came to India five years after the former’s launch in 2007. Flipkart enjoyed an invincible run until the entry of Amazon in 2012, and it has since been losing ground. The US-based company acquired signifiant marketshare and tens of thousands of consumers through a systematic marketing strategy and by offering better user experience and services.
In 2014, Flipkart had raised US$1 billion to become the first Indian company to raise such a huge amount, from investors including Tiger Global, Russia-based DST Global, and Accel Partners.
The company recently roped in Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Managing Director of Tiger Global Management, as its CEO. Under his leadership, the company has started showing signs of a turnaround.


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Vietnam's garment-textile sector eyes 10% growth in 2018
Vietnam’s garment-textile sector is aiming for a growth of 10 per cent this year despite immense challenges in the global markets, according to Le Tien Truong, director general of the Vietnam National Textile Garment Group. To achieve the target and enhance its competitiveness, the sector will improve quality and ensure timely deliveries at reasonable prices.
The use of technology will be enhanced to increase automatic production, as well as IT-based management and workers’ skills, according to a news agency report.
Vietnam’s garment-textile sector is projected to face huge challenges and fierce competitions in 2018, particularly from China, Myanmar and Cambodia. (DS)


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Madhya Pradesh Police has summoned executives of Amazon.com Inc in connection with a case of marijuana smuggling.
The police are investigating a case where the e-commerce platform was allegedly used for smuggling marijuana.
Bhind superintendent of police Manoj Kumar Singh said on the basis of secret information, Kallu Pawaiya (30) and Dhaba owner Brijendra Tomar (35) were arrested from Bhind Gwalior Road on Saturday and recovered 20 kg of marijuana.
The police reportedly found that the arrested persons were using Amazon’s India shopping website to order and smuggle marijuana to various states.
As per the report, the smugglers allegedly used the Amazon India platform to order and deliver marijuana, which is listed under the guise of dry stevia leaves, a natural food sweetener.
So far, the Amazon platform was allegedly used for selling 1,000 kg of marijuana worth 148,000 dollars, the police said in its statement.
The report quoted the SP Manoj Kumar Singh as saying that Amazon executives have been summoned to explain how their platform could be used for the sale of banned substances.
“The international company has the power of artificial intelligence, so it’s a big thing happening on their platform,” Singh said, adding, “There is involvement of Amazon at many levels in this marijuana delivery – from providing logistical support to delivery.”
“The lawyers from Amazon will probably visit us tomorrow,” the police officer said.
Meanwhile, an Amazon spokesperson in a statement said the company is investigating whether there was any non-compliance by a seller.
The Amazon spokesperson said: “We do not allow the listing and sale of products which are prohibited under law to be sold in India.”
The company spokesperson said they would cooperate with the authorities.
Bhind Superintendent of Police Manoj Kumar Singh said on a tip-off, Kallu Pawaiya (30) and Dhaba owner Brijendra Tomar (35) were arrested from Bhind Gwalior Road on Saturday and recovered 20 kilograms of marijuana.
“Kallu used to source the marijuana from Vishakhapatnam through a reputed international e-commerce firm to Gwalior, Bhopal, Kota, Agra and other areas of the country. Brijendra helped him in the business,” he had said.
Kallu has so far sold one tonne of the contraband and transacted business worth Rs 1.1 crore, the SP had said.