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LDV saved but job doubts remain
Hundreds of workers at vanmaker LDV have been warned there was no guarantee all their jobs would be saved despite a last-minute rescue to prevent the firm going bust.
White van plan: The breakthrough has been warmly wlecomed.
A court hearing originally expected to place the Birmingham-based firm into administration was adjourned today after a judge was told Russian owners Gaz had agreed in principle to sell its entire shareholding in LDV to Malaysian giant Weststar.
Talks to complete a takeover of the firm will continue now following a Government decision to offer a loan of up to £5m to help save the factory, which employs 850 workers.
LDV spokesman Guy Jones said the proposed deal will secure 'as many jobs as possible', but he warned there was no guarantee they would all be saved.
'We hope with the launch of exciting products, we will be able to create new jobs.'
Mr Jones said LDV now had an investor, and the support of the Government, but he acknowledged the motor industry was facing 'unprecedented times'.
In undertaking to buy the Birmingham-based business, vehicle importer Weststar agreed to invest in the firm's plant, which has been idle since before Christmas.
The company has not built any vans since before Christmas, after its Russian owner, Gaz, decided to sell the business.
As negotiations went on last night, Lord Mandelson's Department for Business and Enterprise said it was making a 'one-off' £5m bridging loan available to aid the deal. Business minister Ian Pea
'Whilst completion of the deal is not certain, it would have been irresponsible not to support it going forward,' said Mr Pearson.
'But this is a one-off loan and cannot be extended.'
LDV is owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and in February was refused up to £40m of state aid to fund a management buy-out.
Erik Eberhardson, who led a management buyout bid last month, said: 'I am very pleased a deal has been put in place.'
Unions warmly welcomed the breakthrough, but said trying to secure assistance to save LDV had been like 'pulling teeth'.
Tony Woodley, Unite joint general secretary, said: 'We are delighted at the Government's backing for this company.
'At times it has been like pulling teeth, trying to secure the small measure of assistance needed to save this plant but, with the Prime Minister's intervention, things got moving.
'Months ago we highlighted the potential disaster that could have forced this company to the wall, taking thousands of jobs and skills along the way. Since then we've been working tirelessly to prevent LDV from going under because we believe our manufacturing jobs are worth fighting for.
'But significant credit must also go to Liam Byrne, the local MP, who was determined to keep his constituents who worked at the plant off the dole queue. It is his tenacity, along with our support, that has given this company a fighting chance of survival.
'There's a long way to go yet but now thoughts can turn to building a serious and successful future for this company, and to getting these men and women, who have not built a vehicle in months, back to work.'
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The National Basketball Association (NBA) has secured higher prices in renewed deals with carmaker Kia Motors America and financial services company BBVA, with both brands highlighting the league’s digital platforms as a key value driver.
A rise in brand awareness, brand perception and overall sales in the US were major factors in the decision of carmaker Kia Motors America to renew its position with the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Spanish bank BBVA’s goals for its partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA) will remain the same under its new deal, Carlos Ricardo, director of marketing, advertising and sponsorship for BBVA, told Sports Sponsorship Insider.
Driving customer engagement and generating sales is key to Spanish bank BBVA’s sponsorship strategy.
Raising global brand awareness and technology showcasing is key to Swiss luxury watchmaker Hublot’s sponsorship strategy.
Simplifying the way organisations and individuals use technology is the overarching aim of software company SAP. Sports sponsorship is a great way to reinforce this message, Chris Burton, Head of Global Sponsorship at SAP, told Sport Sponsorship Insider.
The music was pumping at the London Marriott Hotel in Grosvenor Square, London last night, as the UK Sponsorship Awards rattled through more than 20 award categories and three personality awards as part of the event’s 20th Anniversary celebrations.
Day three of the 2014 IEG Sponsorship Conference started at a round table with director of global partnerships for logistics company UPS, Betsy Wilson.
Day two at the IEG Conference in Chicago began with an opening address from Less Ukman, founder and chief insights officer of IEG.
Alcoholic drinks maker Diageo beat a renewal offer from incumbent Bacardi to become the exclusive spirits partner of basketball’s NBA last month.
Euroleague Basketball is searching for two brands to take its roster of second-tier Premium Partners to six, and aims to scrap sponsorships previously sold around its season-ending Final Four tournament and Game of the Week broadcast.
Sponsorship revenue for the 2014 Fiba Basketball World Cup in Spain has passed the €10m ($13.4m) mark after the two most recent National Supporter deals, with private healthcare service Sanitas and mobile operator Vodafone Spain.

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NEWS: @Skepta launches exclusive clothing line 'MAINS' - [@Selfridges]
Skepta has entered the world of fashion. We have seen his music take off globally over the past few years, and is continuing to make waves in countries across the world. It is safe to say he has played a huge part in the uprising of Grime and UK artists in general. But, it is clear for everyone to see that Skepta is not just musically creative.
The North London based artist has built a cult following from his regular reference to 'Tracksuit Mafia' and it has now seen the UK and many other countries become much more receptive of tracksuits and other sportswear. These items of clothing disappointingly carried negative connotations with the 'upper classes' and more wealthy, but as Grime became more and more popular, the artists at the forefront of the scene became influences and role models for the younger generations. Skepta has shaped a generation, and has now took an official step through the fashion industry doors.
After spending two long years preparing and turning his ideas into reality, it has finally been launched and is exclusive to Selfridges. Although the collection is
simplistic and plain with it's limited colour palette, it carries a lot of meaning and their is a lot of thought behind the movement.
Skepta told Vogue Magazine:
"I’m tired of logos. The whole thing was about the ability to wear a tracksuit anywhere. I wanted a tracksuit that I could wear without feeling less entitled than anyone else."
The BBK figure head also told us how this is for life. It is not merchandise, it is a business venture which is not going to follow hypes and trends. Skeppy and his team will be making high quality garments, and the brand will be built with integrity.
Check out the collection below.


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Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL) has surged nearly 21% from its closing low of Rs 1,737.60 on March 01, 2013 on the back of increased traction in approvals from the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) for new product launches. This, in turn, has improved the earnings outlook for FY14.
The company announced the launch of epilepsy drug – Lamotrigine generics – on Wednesday. Currently, GSK’s Brand, Lamictal XR, dominates the market with $300 million sales in the US.
Given the number of players already present in this segment, analysts expect this product to contribute $5 – 10 million annually to DRL’s revenues. Tough Wockhardt has also received the launch approval; it may not be able to launch the drug since its Indian facilities have come under the FDA scanner, which can be marginally incremental for DRL’s revenues.
Going ahead, analysts are eyeing the launch of Vidaza, a drug for used for trading leukaemia and anaemia treatment, which may be a $70–80 million opportunity for the company.
Efforts for the injectibles segment also remain strong. Analysts at Kotak Institutional Equities observe that the recent acquisition of OctoPlus is likely to play a key role in accelerating the development timeline for long acting injectibles and liposomal formulations.
DRL’s other new launches are also doing well. The launch of generics of Toprol XL (an anti-hypertensive drug) launched In September 2012 has yielded good results with Morgan Stanley’s recent data showing the product continuing its traction and Dr Reddy’s dominating with 24% market share.
The other niche products launch of generic Propecia ($140-million brand) with 180-day exclusivity on January 03 has not yet seen any authorised launches, and thus it commands a good market share, which stood at 86.6% for the week ending June 07 – up 60 bps week-on-week, while the innovator was at 13.4 % (down 60 bps week-on-week).
The other recently launched drug for acne treatment i.e. generics of isotretinoin at March-end has gained strong traction. Morgan Stanley data for week ending June 07 shows market share increasing to 2.7% - up 100 bps week-on-week.
Analysts at CLSA add that recent launches like Toprol XL, Zenatane and Reclast/ Zometa are likely to help the company report mid-teens growth in the US generics business on a large base.
Analysts at Kotak increase their FY2014/15E EPS by 4-6%, primarily due to higher gross margin in the PSAI (pharmaceutical services and active ingredients) segment and updated currency assumptions. They have raised their target price to Rs 2,400 for the stock (CMP Rs 2,140 levels).
Analysts at CLSA, on the other hand, have a target price of Rs 2,350 for the stock. As per Bloomberg data out of 39 analysts polled, 30 have BUY ratings on the counter.


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The UK's national debt tops R45 trillion, and passes 100% of its GDP for the first time in 50 years
- The UK's government debt has hit £2 trillion (R45 trillion) for the first time in history after policymakers doled out "extraordinary" fiscal support during the pandemic this year.
- Britain's debt has exceeded 100% of economic output for the first time since the 1960s, the ONS said.
- The news comes about a week after the UK officially entered into recession as economic output dropped 20.4% in the second quarter.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
The UK's government debt has exceeded £2 trillion (R45 trillion) for the first time in history, according to data released by the country's national statistics authority on Friday.
That indicates Britain's debt has exceeded 100% of economic output for the first time since the 1960s, the ONS said.
This month, the UK officially entered recession for the first time in 11 years as gross domestic product fell 20.4% in the second quarter.
Covid-19's severe impact on public finances showed that the £150 billion borrowed in the first four months of the 2020 financial year almost tripled the £56 billion borrowed throughout the entire previous financial year (April 2019 to March 2020).
The figures reflect a high amount of government borrowing to support businesses and individuals against the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus.
The £26.7 billion that the government borrowed in July "was the lowest monthly borrowing figure since March as fiscal support started to unwind," said Ruth Gregory, senior UK economist at Capital Economics.
"Nonetheless, it is another huge sum and pushes borrowing in the year to date to £150.5bn."
That amount is close to the £158.3 billion of borrowing that the UK recorded in the year following the global financial crisis, "reflecting the extraordinary fiscal support" the government put in place to see the economy through the crisis, Gregory said.
Data released Friday also showed the UK's retail sales have recovered sharply from big declines seen early in the pandemic.
Retail sales rose by about 3.6% this month, slightly above pre-pandemic levels, but "still lag what is expected from a normal July," said Hinesh Patel, portfolio manager at Quilter Investors.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is weighing options to delay his autumn Budget, which is meant to define Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government term, in case of a second coronavirus wave.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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Apple had its strongest quarter for iPhone gross sales in India but, an indication the Cupertino, California-based firm is lastly making progress on this planet’s fastest-growing smartphone market.
Gross sales elevated to 2.3 million items within the fourth quarter, up 34 p.c from a yr earlier, in line with numbers from the market analysis agency Counterpoint. China’s Xiaomi and South Korea’s Samsung bought 9.3 million and seven.2 million smartphones for the quarter respectively, main when it comes to items.
Apple seems to have pulled in additional income than any of its rivals, nonetheless, due to the iPhone handset’s excessive price ticket, in line with Counterpoint’s calculations. The US firm took in an estimated $2.09 billion (roughly Rs. 15,651 crore) for the quarter, edging apart Samsung with income of about $2 billion (roughly Rs. 14,976 crore).
“It is a turning level for Apple in India,” stated Neil Shah, the Mumbai-based accomplice and analysis head at Counterpoint Expertise Market Analysis. “Indians have been keen to lavish cash on premium telephones through the pandemic as a result of everybody’s lives revolved round their units and there was nothing else to spend on.”
Whereas Apple has turn out to be probably the most helpful firm on this planet on the recognition of its iPhone, it has struggled within the 1.3 billion-person India market. Expensive iPhone hansets are far past the attain of many native shoppers, a state of affairs aggravated by stiff import tariffs Apple needed to pay on units made outdoors the nation.
In 2018, the corporate stumbled by a number of top-level govt departures within the nation, sliding gross sales and irate retail companions who protested its on-line low cost practises. Apple bought 1.8 million iPhone items for all the yr, fewer than it bought in the latest quarter.
Since then nonetheless, the expertise big has made an about-face in technique. It is opened its personal India on-line retailer, streamlined reductions, and began native manufacturing of iPhone handsets. It is planning to open company-owned stores in a number of cities within the coming quarters.
In the course of the latest October to December interval, India’s pageant shopping for and gifting season, the telephone maker priced its fundamental iPhone 12 mannequin at lower than Rs. 50,000, providing cashback incentives and straightforward fee plans.
Apple continues to be a troublesome promote in a rustic the place per-capita revenue was beneath $2,000 (roughly Rs. 1.49 lakh) in 2020, in line with World Financial institution information. For the latest quarter, the common iPhone promoting value within the nation was $908 (roughly Rs. 68,000), whereas Samsung’s was $278 (roughly Rs. 20,800) and Xiaomi’s was $172 (roughly Rs. 12,900), in line with Counterpoint.
Whereas Apple’s market share has climbed, it stays within the single digits at simply over 5 p.c for the quarter. Indians bought 44 million smartphones within the interval.
It has challenges past value out there. Apple manufacturing companions, Foxconn and Wistron, have confronted blowback in India due to their remedy of employees. The US firm took the bizarre step of putting a Foxconn manufacturing facility close to the southern Indian metropolis of Chennai on probation after protests about meals security and lodging requirements.
As well as, the nation’s antitrust regulator, the Competitors Fee of India, has begun a probe into app retailer charges.


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This morning, the Kelyniam Global (OTCMKTS:KLYG) stock is expected to come into focus among investors considering the fact that it had made a strong upward move last week.
On Friday, KLYG stock fell 0.36% to $0.14 with 20K shares, compared to its average volume of 102k shares. The stock has moved within a range of $0.1400 – 0.1500 after opening trade at $0.1406.
Receives U.S. Patent for Integrated Fixation Tabs
The company, which is involved in manufacturing and designing customised cranial implants, saw its stock jump by as much as 5% over the course of the previous week. The rally in the stock may have come about due to a key announcement from Kelyniam back on December 1. At the time, the company announced that it had received an Issue Notification from the United States Patent and Trademark Office in relation to a patent for its Integrated Fixation Tabs product.
It goes without saying that it was a significant development for the company and the product in question, which is why the rally in the Kelyniam Global stock was perhaps not surprising. The company had filed for the patent back in 2014 and as things stand, it is going to be in place up until 2037. It was a major development for the company also because of the fact that the product is another market leading product from Kelyniam Global and the patent is going to give the compay much needed protection.
“The integrated fixation patent is one of many marketplace-leading firsts for Kelyniam,” said Ross Bjella, Chairman and CEO. “The company was the first to use additive manufacturing to create custom PEEK implants, the first to receive FDA certification for temporal cutbacks and the first company to consistently deliver custom implants overnight. Receiving this patent validates Kelyniam’s commitment to innovation and our ability to bring leading technology to the market.”
KLYG stock is trading above the 10-Day and 20-Day Moving averages of $0.1238 and $0.1330. Moreover, the stock is trading is the neutral zone with RSI stands at 49.


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LONG PRAIRIE, Minn., April 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Copiers Refurbished, one of the largest independent dealers of refurbished Canon copiers, Ricoh copiers and Toshiba copiers, has released an article outlining the reasons why your office should go 'green', and how Copiers Refurbished can make it easier with one single step.
More and more companies are taking responsibility for the environmental impact their choices can make on the world. In most commercial buildings throughout the United States, recycling is encouraged if not mandatory. Having said that, let's consider a scenario for recycling at the work place that goes beyond the scope of discarded paper and soda cans. Consider that for each 50-story commercial building, there were five companies per floor, each with four copy machines, that is a total of 1,000 copy machines per building. Now if one were to take that number and multiply it by the number of commercial buildings in Manhattan (just so we understand the magnitude) that is a ridiculous number of copy machines! If only 1000 of those companies were to purchase refurbished copiers, or donate the used ones upon purchasing new or leased copiers, imagine the 'green' impact that could have on the environment!
There are countless reasons to purchase a refurbished copier. First and foremost is the preservation of raw materials. The amount of plastics, metals and chemicals including carbon used to manufacture and ship a new machine is markedly reduced every time a refurbished copy machine is purchased.
It takes decades, if ever, for plastics to decompose. Purchasing a refurbished copier reduces the amount of waste in landfills, which ultimately prevents more pollutants from entering our air, soil and water. Purchasing a refurbished copier ensures that a copier does not end up in a landfill, in effect reducing waste.
For additional information on selling a copier to Copiers Refurbished, visit www.copiersrefurbished.com.
Full press release available here: http://www.copiersrefurbished.com/press-releases/how-your-office-can-go-green-refurbished-copiers
About Copiers Refurbished:
For over a decade, Copiers Refurbished has provided customers with the highest quality products, selling brands such as Canon copiers, Toshiba copiers and Ricoh copiers. From keeping chemicals out of landfills, to preserving the raw materials during the manufacturing process, as well as keeping energy costs low, Copiers Refurbished sells copy machines that help make a more positive impact on the environment, and help keep the office green.
SOURCE Copiers Refurbished


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Now that Black Friday is behind us, merchants are busy calculating the sales figures from the Thanksgiving weekend and gearing up for the Cyber Monday. Early statistics show that although the sales on Black Friday at brick and mortar stores has fallen compared to that in 2014, the online sales jumped 14% from the prior year. This is no surprise, internet is becoming a more preferred and convenient shopping channel for the consumers. Forecast also predicts that sales for the Cyber Monday will be the biggest e-Commerce sales event of the year, likely boosting online revenue to a new high for e-Commerce providers and merchants offering sales through the internet and mobile devices.
But how ready are the retailers, e-Commence providers, digital advertisers this holiday season? Internet has become an important vehicle for consumers to search, compare and buy merchandise today. In 2014 US alone has seen annual online sales exceeding $300 billion ‘ a 15% growth from the prior year result. Not surprisingly, the 4th quarter sales accounted for over 31% of the full’year web sales. Internetretailer.com reported that the number of online shoppers will grow 50% from 1.07 billion in 2013 to over 1.6 billion in 2018 – a huge population for merchants to target and lucrative opportunity for retailers, digital advertisers and online publishers to leverage all the available shopping channels, including web and mobile, to win big online, in particular, during this premier shopping season.
The game changer for digital advertising and e-Commerce is to deliver personalized campaigns that will result in greater sales. With the right technology, shopper’s online activities can be captured in real-time so merchants, advertisers, and publishers can use that information to gain better understanding of a specific customer ‘ their shopping habits, reading interests, preferred browsers and mobile apps, so personalized ads can be presented to that shopper at the right time, on the right channel. It’s a real-time race and every millisecond could lead to millions of dollars of sales.
For advertisers, publishers, and e-Commence providers, real-time targeting and re-targeting is not only about capturing consumer behavior data at the time it’s being generated, but analyzing that data in real-time so subsequent actions can be taken right away before opportunity disappears. If your current technology doesn’t support this real-time needs, your holiday (and non-holiday) sales will likely suffer.
Aside from offering personalized campaign in real-time, fraud prevention is also a top priority for merchants and advertisers conducting business through the web and mobile devices, in particular, during the holiday shopping season when the number of online transactions is at all-time high. Technologies that enable real-time detection and prevention of suspicious behaviors and fraudulent transactions will prevent catastrophic outcome for the merchants and advertisers.
Market leading companies such as PubMatic are benefiting from the technology solution provided by DataTorrent to help their clients achieve real-time ad inventory management and targeted campaigns. What’s powering PubMatic’s real-time analytics platform is DataTorrent RTS, an enterprise-class, unified streaming and fast batch analytics platform that analyzes real-time transactions and enables fast responses with sub-second latency. DataTorrent RTS is capable of processing billions of events per second. With such unmatched performance, publishers can conduct real-time ad inventory management based on the ad performance on the fly, while advertisers can deliver personalized campaigns to the consumers based on their online activities instantly. Internet and mobile devices make shopping possible 24×7 so your online stores have to support the on-going shopping activities during the peak season. This means you need a highly reliable, fault tolerant platform to handle the heavy web traffic, otherwise you may be left with many unhappy customers and damaging business outcome. DataTorrent RTS helps you meet this demand by offering extreme fault tolerance with no data loss and human intervention to ensure your business continuity during this critical sales cycle. We encourage you to look into this real-time analytics technology in more details and try it out for yourself: https://www.datatorrent.com/download/.
For all the shoppers, we wish you a pleasant, smooth shopping experience ‘ both online and offline, and score some big deals from your favorite stores. For all the retailers, advertisers and others conducting business online, we wish you a profitable, record-breaking 4th quarter as well as a flourishing year with your online sales!
From all of us at DataTorrent, we wish you a very happy holiday season!


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One of Australia’s largest and most successful coffee shop/cafe chains has announced plans to expand into the mid-range steakhouse food service market, with intentions to roll-out up to 100 Ribs & Rumps restaurants over the next ten years.
The Coffee Club has grown from a single cafe 20 years ago to 270 outlets across Australia and overseas, mostly franchise-owned, following the boom in coffee consumption across the nation.
Recently the company took on a large equity partner – a Thai-based company with strong franchise connections with the McDonalds and KFC brands – fuelling speculation that it might be in the mood for vertical expansion beyond the already crowded café segment.
This week Coffee Club announced its first major acquisition in its quest for growth – steakhouse franchise Ribs & Rumps, formerly owned by Meat & Wine Co, which has five outlets in Sydney and the Gold Coast, and two overseas.
A company spokesman said the chain would sit mid-way between ‘lower-profile’ steakhouses like Hog’s Breath, Sizzler and Outback Jack’s and top-end ones like “The Cha Chas and Moo Moos of this world.”
Coffee Club sat in much the same middle-market segment, providing some synergy between the two businesses, the spokesman said.
Mid-priced steakhouse chains have not always found the going easy in Australia, with businesses like Outback Steakhouse and Lone Star Tavern enjoying nothing like the support they see overseas.
One explanation for that put forward by a respected Beef Central contact this week was the nation’s endearing love of the ‘pub/club’ scene, with subsidised meals (often steaks) fuelled by poker machine royalties.
Coffee Club plans to build-on and improve the Ribs & Rumps model, opening two new restaurants in Queensland by the end of November – one in Brisbane’s trendy Fortitude Valley and the other in the mining-driven Central Queensland city of Mackay. Others are likely to follow early next year in Melbourne and regional cities like Wollongong and Townsville.
The grand plan suggests there will be 10 Ribs & Rumps outlets established each year for the next ten years. While beef volumes would be relatively modest in the early stages, if the business grows at anything like the rate envisaged, it will become a very large food service beef customer indeed.
One report suggests each outlet would be about 400sq m in size, with the intention of turning over $4-$5 million each per year.
The existing Coffee Club cafés are already large users of red meat in Australia, particularly for items like steak sandwiches and Thai beef salad. The extended café/bar/restaurant franchise model also includes burgers and various steaks.
JBS Australia is the supplier to that contract, portioned and pre-prepared through major providoring company, Bidvest.
The steak sandwiches are sold at a price point, but still requiring consistent, good quality grassfed rumps. New beef products, including some with well-known brand identity, are also under development for the Coffee Club chain.
At one point some years ago, the Coffee Club was close to adopting seam-cut MSA rumps for use in its popular steak sandwiches, but the plan was never executed.
Two different reasons were given by sources close to the project. The first was the unanticipated labour cost associated with seaming rumps, and the different demand for individual sub-primals like eye medallions, rostbiffs and rump caps. Another Beef Central contact suggested Coffee Club was simply looking for cheaper options than what MSA rumps could provide.
HAVE YOUR SAY


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There's a revolution underway in the use of big data, and Hadoop, the open-source distributed computing system, is at the center of it. Apache Hadoop is most often associated with MapReduce data processing, but it also includes a distributed file system and subprojects including the Hive data warehouse. All of the above were at the subject of success stories, accolades and palpable excitement at today's Hadoop World in New York City. Executives from Yahoo!, Facebook, eHarmony, IBM and JP Morgan Chase were here offering insight into how Hadoop is changing expectations for analysis of big data.
Sharing a few highlights from today's presentations, here's what these organizations are doing with Hadoop:
The Hadoop World event was presented by Cloudera, a software and professional services firm focused exclusively on Hadoop. The firm announced Cloudera Desktop, a new Web-based, user-friendlier (though still programmer-oriented) interface for Hadoop applications. The Desktop can be used with on-premise implementations of Hadoop or cloud-based instances hosted on Amazon EC2. Amazon executives were also on hand today to discuss use of Amazon Elastic MapReduce, which is a Web services-based implementation built on the Hadoop framework. Amazon announced a partnership whereby customers can specify Cloudera instances within Amazon Elastic MapReduce in order to secure that vendor's professional services and support.
Cloudera founder Christophe Bisciglia opened the day saying that Hadoop is fast becoming pervasive and an increasingly obvious choice not just for Web companies but for all types of companies with big-data challenges and opportunities. Judging by the enthusiasm and numbers of attendees here today (surpassing 500), the big-data revolution has swept out of Silicon Valley and is reaching mainstream corporate data centers.There's a revolution underway in the use of big data, and Hadoop, the open-source distributed computing system, is at the center of it. Apache Hadoop success stories and accolades were shared today by the likes of Yahoo!, Facebook, eHarmony, IBM and JP Morgan Chase at Hadoop World in New York City. Here's a sampling of highlights...


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“On TV and Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in programmatic TV and video.
Today’s column is written by Jayant Kadambi, co-founder and CEO at YuMe.
Once upon a time not so long ago, summer TV was considered a dead zone, with only a wilderness of reruns and game shows to pass the time until September, when the good stuff is back on the air.
Those times are long gone. In the upcoming weeks, content players, including TV networks, prestigious cable outfits and popular over-the-air mainstays, will continue to debut big-budget shows they hope will capture the attention of viewers during the hot months. Some observers, however, are paying less attention to what’s on screen than what screen it’s on. The real battle, they say, isn’t between shows, but between linear TV and connected TV for the heart of American viewers.
It’s true that the two are at odds with each other in several ways, such as competing for budgets between separate agency media teams. There is, however, an untapped opportunity for these two platforms to work in tandem to achieve success for advertisers. Although linear TV is still a valuable way to reach a massive audience, for example, adding connected TV ad placements can increase incremental reach, making ad dollars work harder.
Consumers tuning in to linear TV and connected TV are not mutually exclusive. Advertisers running campaigns across both have the opportunity to reach consumers across both platforms, which can drive brand metrics. A recent ad effectiveness study from Interpret demonstrated that consumers who were exposed to the same ad on both showed nearly 70% higher brand consideration than those exposed on linear TV alone.
This doesn’t discount the staying power, audience reach and impact of linear TV. With the number of US households with pay TV subscriptions topping 116.4 million, or 84% of all Americans, this is hard to beat when it comes to sheer volume. Linear TV also benefits from established and trusted measurement tools like Nielsen, a step that is only recently being taken for connected TV.
There is also convergence between connected and linear TV formats. ESPN is streaming more content than ever for cable-endowed connected TV users, while linear TV marketers are increasingly turning to technology-driven tools, such as programmatic advertising and ad insertion. These innovations are driving a more dynamic approach to linear TV targeting, ultimately improving advertisers’ ability to reach their targeted audiences across all screens.
The convergence is undeniable, as is the subtle but discernable shift in how people consume content. Consumers who only watch linear TV are obviously unreachable by connected TV. Likewise, consumers who have cut the cord are completely unreachable on linear TV. But this latter group is growing, particularly among millennials. An integrated approach can ensure marketers don’t lose sight of this shifting but desirable demographic.
Sizing Them Up
So how can the apples of connected TV be compared to the oranges of linear TV?
As a best practice, advertisers should approach measuring connected TV and linear TV by executing a brand study from a third-party ad effectiveness vendor. Often, linear TV and connected TV are evaluated separately, using different metrics as success factors. This is a result of linear TV and connected TV typically being bought by different teams or departments within an organization.
Using an ad effectiveness brand study, advertisers can compare the two platforms side by side and focus on big-picture impact, including growth in awareness, consideration and intent, rather than just evaluating impressions delivery, GRPs and video completions.
The truth is that both linear and connected TV can drive consumer attention and complement each other. Marketers know that linear TV is often a critical component to a successful brand campaign. But we also know that linear TV inventory is guaranteed and scarce. Connected TV can offer opportunities to pick up relatively affordable impressions that capture hard-to-reach younger viewers, as well as compensate for existing scarcity in a given television market.
Multiple touch points are a good thing. Making an impression on two platforms, linear and connected TV, is better than just one.


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China's oil product exports are expected to grow at a healthy rate in 2018, after a modest rise in 2017, as Beijing relaxes restrictions amid strong lobbying by state-owned oil companies and a forecast increase in refining capacity of around 1 million b/d this year.
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Surveyed sources with state-run oil companies said they expected to get enough quota allocation to meet export demand in 2018 as the government will in all likelihood remove the tight restrictions it imposed in 2017.
Underscoring this, the Ministry of Commerce last Wednesday issued quotas to export 16.24 million mt of gasoil, gasoline and jet fuel under the general trade route in its first round for 2018. This was up 25% from the total quota of 13 million mt allocated under the general and processing trade route in the same round for 2017.
The government is expected to issue quotas for export under the processing trade route in the next few days. The general trade route offers exporters more flexibility than the processing trade route, which comes with conditions, such as the exported product must be produced from imported crude oil and must be from a refinery that has been awarded an export quota.
In early 2017, Beijing said it would maintain China's oil product exports for the year at the same level as 2016. To indicate its seriousness, Beijing cut the export quota allocation in each of the four rounds in 2017 from 2016 levels and ensured that the total quota allocated in the first four rounds was almost equal to the actual export volume of 38.2 million mt in 2016. Beijing typically issues quota by quarter.
This tight quota allocation in the first four rounds resulted in a 15% year-on-year reduction in total gasoline, gasoil and jet fuel exports in September and October to 5.91 million mt as most refiners ran out of quota allocations.
But in early November, the government issued 5 million mt of additional quotas for the three products in a rare fifth round, lifting the total quota allocation for the year to 43 million mt, up 12.6% from 2016 export levels.
"The first batch quotas for 2018, together with the fifth batch of quotas in 2017, indicate the government is relaxing restrictions on product exports after lobbying by exporting companies," said a Beijing-based trader with a state-owned oil company.
EXPORTS SEEN RISING 30-40%
The trader estimated total exports of gasoline, gasoil and jet fuel in 2018 to rise 30-40% from 2017 as it was seemingly easier to get quotas.
The estimate was based on the relatively low base in 2017. Exports saw a slower year-on-year increase in 2017, at around 14%, compared with the 50% jump in 2016, the source added.
Moreover, analysts are expecting an uptick in crude throughput while domestic demand growth is not expected to keep pace.
PIRA Energy Group, a unit of S&P Global Platts, forecasts China's throughput will rise 500,000 b/d year on year in 2018, up slightly from average annual growth of 460,000 b/d between 2011 and 2017.
This could translate to around 14.7 million mt or 316,000 b/d of total increase in gasoline, gasoil and jet fuel production, assuming yields remain unchanged from 2017, which would be for meeting domestic demand growth and/or export, Platts calculations showed.
"Key product exports could rise slightly next year based on domestic supply/demand fundamentals," said JY Lim, a director at PIRA.
China is not a typical oil product exporter and only exports barrels left over after domestic demand has been met.
"But China exporting more and more is becoming a trend as new refining projects come on stream in the next few years while domestic demand growth slows," a second Beijing-based senior trader said.
China is likely to launch 50 million mt/year (1 million b/d) of new refining capacity in 2018, including 20 million mt/year each by Dalian Hengli Petrochemical and Zhejiang Petrochemical.
Meanwhile, Chinese companies have been increasingly tapping into markets further afield -- in the Americas, Africa and Europe -- instead of their traditional markets in Southeast Asia.
"Finding good outlets in the international market is a necessary step to prepare for intensive competition against the traditional exporting countries," the first trader added.
Chinese companies have also been actively looking for retail outlets overseas that can absorb their exports. Both Sinopec and CNPC's PetroChina have petrol stations in Singapore via acquisitions. Sinopec bought a 75% stake in Chevron's South Africa business in March, which included about 800 Caltex-branded service stations. PetroChina is looking at retail and storage projects in Southeast Asia, Africa and South America, according to company sources.
NO QUOTAS FOR INDEPENDENT REFINERS
Independent refineries were not issued export quotas in the first round of allocation for 2018.
The quotas under the general trade route for 2018 were allocated to four state-owned oil companies -- CNPC, Sinopec, CNOOC and Sinochem -- and comprised 6.99 million mt of gasoil, 6.55 million mt of gasoline and 2.7 million mt of jet fuel.
"We will still attempt to apply for export quotas, but need to wait until the second quarter to see whether there is opportunity," said a source at an independent refinery in Shandong. "We believe the government will deregulate the market eventually," he added.
In 2016, 12 Chinese refiners that were not part of Sinopec, CNPC, Sinochem or CNOOC were granted export quotas under the processing trade route and exported a total of around 900,000 mt products. But in 2017 the government stopped issuing quotas to them.


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While the referendum is without doubt the biggest unknown facing the sector, there are many other issues that continue to cause manufacturers concern: from the retail price war to the new National Living Wage introduced in April and the apprenticeship levy, which will affect some firms from next year.
If that weren't enough, companies face an existential skills crisis, exacerbated by the poor image of the sector. Then, there’s the government’s much delayed childhood obesity strategy, which is now expected sometime this summer.
This will put even further controls on the marketing of foods high in fat, sugar and salt to children and could even see reformulation targets set. And then there’s the sugar tax that George Osborne has planned for soft drinks.
With these issues top of mind, it is particularly timely that this month Food Manufacture is conducting its annual online ‘State of the industry’ survey, giving readers the opportunity to share their thoughts with others in the sector and highlight their main areas of concern.
‘State of the industry’
To complete the three-minute survey, please visit the web address at the end of this article, where a short series of questions will guide respondents through different areas, covering everything from market conditions, trading relationships and environmental management, to investment, employment and product development.
To capture an accurate picture, while encouraging openness, the anonymity of all respondents is assured. And, as an inducement for completing the survey, a draw will be made among respondents and £100 in Amazon vouchers will be presented to the winner. The results of the survey and the winner of the draw will be published in the July issue of Food Manufacture.
To complete the survey and your chance to win click here.


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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has fostered progress through technology that resulted in exponential surge in digital transactions, made business easier and Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) took government services to every home, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Friday.
The home minister highlighted through tweets the Modi government’s thrust on use of technology for the benefit of people with the hashtag #9YearsOfTechForGrowth.
“PM @narendramodi Ji fostered progress through technology in #9YearsOfTechForGrowth. The exponential surge in digital transactions made business easier, DBT took government services to every home, and start-ups gave India’s space industry a competitive edge,” he said.
Shah also said that from quantum technologies to green hydrogen, the prime minister nurtured research and development in ‘#9YearsOfTechForGrowth’.
“While innovation sparked start-up revolution in 2 & 3-tier cities, Digital India Mission made information accessible to rural masses ending digital divide,” he said.


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Japanese carmaker Toyota certainly can't be accused of taking its environmental responsibilities lightly. Not content with being among the leaders in the green car race, it is now attempting to tackle traffic congestion.
To do this, it has developed the Big Data Traffic Information Service, which is scheduled to be launched in Japan this year. It will use vehicle locations, road conditions, speed and a host of other parameters to provide data to local governments and businesses in an effort to aid traffic flow.
From June 3, Toyota will accept applications from businesses and local governments in Japan for the new system. The T-Probe traffic information offers traffic volume maps, traffic information, map information and route history; with users able to display information alongside their own content. This could potentially mean the services could be used for disaster relief and other emergency operations.
It is a cloud-based service that will display information via a smartphone, PC or tablet. Information about facilities owned by governments or businesses and locations of commercial vehicles can be shown on its map information while users can interact by submitting their own information and images.
In addition, Toyota is introducing a new smart G-Book service for smartphones that offers full support for a host of mobility options: ranging from walking to traffic information. It will include enlarged views of intersections, voice announcement of place names, 3D displays of landmarks and more. It also allows users to quickly report information such as accidents or traffic jams by touching an icon: and this information is then viewable by others using the Big Data Traffic Information Service.
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Amazon posted a record net profit thanks to its cloud service division Amazon Web Services.
AWS provides the infrastructure for popular websites such as Netflix, Airbnb and Nasa as well as smaller companies.
The retail giant’s Prime service, which offers free shipping on products and exclusive film and TV content, also grew in popularity as Amazon announced better than expected revenue for the second quarter.
Total revenue was $30.4bn, up 31 per cent from the same period in 2015 and almost a billion dollars more than analysts predicted.
The company’s net sales rose 31.1 per cent to $30.40bn with net profit reaching $857m.
The driver was AWS, which grew 58.2 per cent to $2.89bn.
“It’s been a busy few months for Amazon around the world, and particularly in India,” said CEO Jeff Bezos in a statement.
“We launched a new AWS region, introduced Prime with unlimited free shipping, and announced that Prime Video is coming soon, offering Prime members in India exclusive access to Amazon Original Series and Movies – including original content featuring top Indian creators and talent.”
Amazon has been given the green light to test deliveries using drones in the UK.
The Civil Aviation Authority has agreed to allow the online retail giant to experiment with a ‘Prime Air plan’ which would seek to deliver products to customers using the unmanned airborne vehicles within 30 minutes.
Meanwhile Google’s parent company Alphabet smashed forecasts with its quarterly revenue announcement.
And the day before, Facebook smashed expectations in announcing its quarterly profits and revenue.


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Twitter finally launches its app for Windows 10 smartphones
Twitter for Windows 10 smartphones brings features such as Moments, group messaging, video sharing, the ability to quote tweets and more.
Effectively updating its universal Windows app to support desktops and tablets, Twitter has launched its app for Windows 10 smartphones, a media report said.
While newly-launched smartphones already have this new app, for existing Windows Phone devices, Microsoft officially plans to roll out Windows 10 Mobile in the first quarter of 2016, VentureBeat reported on Wednesday.
"When bringing the app to mobile phones we carefully considered each section of Twitter and how the user interaction translates from desktops and tablets," Twitter product designer Angela Lam said.
"We found that 90 percent of the UI (User Interface) and interaction models could be shared from these devices to mobile phones, but there were places where we decided to make adjustments to optimise for each," Lam added.
Twitter for Windows 10 includes almost all the new features the social network has recently implemented, including Moments, group Direct Messages, camera support (shoot, edit, and tweet videos), and quote tweet.
You can even check out top tweets, search, check out profiles, and peruse Moments without logging in, the report said.
Twitter for Windows Phone includes a dark theme, which the company says was popular and has thus been included in the updated Windows app, that is available on desktops and tablets as well, not just phones.
The app can be downloaded from the Windows Store.
Follow HT Tech for the latest tech news and reviews , also keep up with us on Twitter, Facebook, Google News, and Instagram. For our latest videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel.


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On Tuesday, January 14, 2013 the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia Circuit said, "No, no, no," to the FCC's Net neutrality rules passed in late 2010. The story managed to give Gov. Christy and his bridge a bit of a nudge out of the limelight but I found most of the coverage to be inadequate at clearly defining the issues and what is at stake.
First, it's important to know who the players are. There are (1) Internet broadband providers such as Verizon and (2) content providers such as Netflix and Facebook, and (3) consumers (those of us who use the Internet). The court's decision impacts content providers directly, not consumers, but the impact of the court's ruling is likely to ultimately affect consumers.
Second, it's useful to understand that prior to this federal appeals court decision, the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Net neutrality rules required Internet service providers [aka broadband providers] to provide consumers with equal access to all lawful content without restrictions or tiered charges, treating all web traffic equally.
Verizon Communications, Inc., a broadband provider challenged the FCC's rules asserting that the FCC had no authority to impose anti-discrimination rules (Net neutrality rules) on broadband providers. This is a victory for Verizon and other broadband providers. (Think of who you purchase Internet service from like Verizon, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, AT&T etc., these are all Internet service providers/ broadband providers).
Internet content providers are all of the websites that we visit or join like Netflix, Facebook, Blogger, Word Press, state, federal, and local government sites, etc. This ruling has the potential to interfere with the ability of content providers to provide their content at higher speeds unless they pay a higher cost for access to the Net to the broadband providers.
The FCC continues to have authority to regulate broadband access which means that if can regulate content providers but under this ruling, the FCC cannot regulate broadband providers. The concern is that the broadband providers, which are much larger than content providers, will levy higher costs on the content providers for providing higher speed Internet connections.
Increases in costs for higher speed Internet connections would likely put some content providers out of business, and prevent smaller content providers from ever setting up their Internet site. Content providers who can pay increased fees for higher connection speeds will have an unfair advantage over sites with slower connection speeds and Net neutrality will be a thing of the past.
The court's decision is unlikely to result in any costs for use to be passed along to the consumer as the FCC continues, under this ruling, to have authority to regulate broadband access. However, this ruling, if it stands on appeal, will impact consumer access to a broad variety of content providers and have a chilling effect on the development of new content on the Internet.
This is purely speculation on my part, but I do think that if this decision survives appeal, it's reasonable to believe that content providers will be chomping at the bit to get the FCC to lessen its control of content providers and allow them to pass on some of their increased cost for high speed access to consumers.
In addition, the only guarantee that we have that Internet broadband providers will provide equal access to all consumers is their pledge to do so. The lawyers for the broadband providers insist that nothing will change for consumers and we will continue to be able to roam merrily about the Internet. However, consumer advocacy groups fear that the broadband providers will begin charging content providers for higher Internet speeds, causing some sites to shut down and others to curtail their offerings or restrict access to some areas of their sites to fee paying consumers. In other words, no one is clear as to exactly what repercussions there will be as a result of this ruling.
The President sums up the administration's position in support of continued Net neutrality. According to the administration, "The President remains committed to an open Internet, where consumers are free to choose the websites they want to visit and the online services they want to use, and where online innovators are allowed to compete on a level playing field based on the quality of their products."
The simplest solution would be for Congress to redefine the FCC's authority to make it clear that it includes setting rules that govern the broadband providers, a step which the Democrats have offered to take. However, the Republicans are advocating a hands off position, agreeing with the Internet providers that the FCC rules "inhibit investments and are not necessary to ensure unrestricted access to Internet content."
This is the short version of a somewhat complex decision. There's a decent article on the federal court's decision here.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbus Circuit is also available online.


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The latest CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner and certainly one of the most exciting young designers on the scene today, Alexander Wang, showed his collection to a packed house which included notables like Anna Wintour, Sarah Jessica Parker, Zoe Kravitz, and former model-muse Erin Wasson.
His collection was inspired by the 1992 “Batman Returns” film and with an abundance of form-fitting black looks that came through loud and clear. That said, the end of the show featured a number of looks which incorporated bra detailing that was very reminiscent of eighties Madonna/Jean Paul Gaultier, but with a harder edge.
Overall the collection was sexy, sleek, and a lot more tailored than one might have expected. A number of the pieces featured cut-out details (notably on pants), a trend we’re seeing starting to emerge this season. This is a collection clearly meant for the young, fabulous, and slim – especially the off-the-shoulder looks and those that had leathers fringed with foxtails.
Wang has truly found a way to turn basics into powerful statements and his looks were styled beautifully with matching accessories – including bold sterling silver pieces, sky-high booties, studded bags, and belts that were fierce.
His collection’s signature studded handbag, in fact, which will retail for $850 and has already been seen on Mary-Kate Olsen, might well just be Fall’s new “it” bag – a fete for a designer who last year only showed five handbags.
Images excerpted from the Fashion Spot forums.


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Seattle-based Total Reclaim says it will appeal a penalty imposed by the Washington Department of Ecology for improper shipments of material.
Total Reclaim last week was fined $444,000 for sending mercury-containing flat-screen TVs and monitors to Hong Kong, where they allegedly weren’t disposed of safely, potentially harming workers and the environment.
According to the Washington Department of Ecology, Total Reclaim admitted it sent electronics overseas for several years. The actions were captured by trackers and hidden cameras put in place by the Basel Action Network, which issued a report on tracking findings earlier this year.
In a statement, Total Reclaim said even though it is appealing the fine, it will work with the state. Total Reclaim also said it stopped exporting the materials months before the state’s investigation began.
The company also listed a number of steps it is taking to improve its performance, including the use of new equipment that will separate mercury-bearing fluorescent tubes from TVs and monitors for recycling. It is also retrofitting a machine that is able to capture mercury that spills during decommissioning of electronics, according to the company’s statement. Total Reclaim’s sister company, EcoLights Northwest, specializes in recycling fluorescent lamps and other mercury-containing devices.
Total Reclaim also plans to hold independent audits and share its technology with other recyclers.


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Home » HBO Max Is Lastly Coming to Roku. The Stock Is Rising.
HBO Max Is Lastly Coming to Roku. The Stock Is Rising.
WarnerMedia to deliver HBO Max to its platform. Roku stock was rising in after-market buying and selling, following the information.
HBO Max, AT&T’s (ticker: T) reply to NFLX”> Netflix
(NFLX) and Disney+, launched in May. WarnerMedia plans to launch all of its 17 movies subsequent yr on HBO Max on the identical time they arrive in theaters. Marvel Lady 1984 will start streaming on the service on Christmas this yr.
Platforms like Roku enable customers to entry streaming companies from their dwelling rooms. The corporate will get a reduce from ads and subscriptions on its platform. Hashing out phrases of such agreements is probably going what held issues up.
“Reaching mutually beneficial agreements where Roku grows together with our partners is how we deliver an exceptional user experience at an incredible value for consumers and we are excited by the opportunity to deepen our longstanding relationship with the team at WarnerMedia,” Scott Rosenberg, senior vp of Roku’s platform enterprise, mentioned.
Earlier this month, Citi Analysis analyst Jason Bazinet pointed to HBO Max becoming a member of Roku as a possible catalyst for the stock to rise. He additionally pointed to a possible addition of Discovery’s discovery+ app.
Roku stock popped 4.3% in after-hours buying and selling Wednesday. Such features got here after the stock rose 1.8% throughout common buying and selling. The stock has soared 143% up to now 12 months, because it has added hundreds of thousands of customers throughout the pandemic.


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Thomas Cook on the brink: 178-year-old British travel giant could go bust on SUNDAY and strand 180,000 tourists abroad, as ministers plan for biggest ever peacetime rescue mission
- Company insiders fear Thomas Cook, founded in 1841, could go bust within days
- Whitehall is already drawing up plans for a mass repatriation of British tourists
- The company employs 21,000 people in 16 countries, including 9,000 in the UK
- Have you been warned your holiday plans might be affected? Email firstname.lastname@example.org
Thomas Cook was on the brink of collapse last night, plunging the holiday plans of hundreds of thousands of customers into turmoil.
Despite battling to secure a rescue deal, the 178-year-old travel firm could go bust as early as Sunday, according to insiders at the company which is facing a £200million black hole.
That would leave 180,000 customers stranded abroad – and dash the plans of hundreds of thousands of families who have booked Thomas Cook flights or holidays.
The demise of one of the world's oldest travel companies would also lead to huge job losses and leave the taxpayer facing a hefty bill to bring stranded customers home.
A Thomas Cook Airbus plane takes off from Palma de Mallorca last year. The possible demise of the company would lead to huge job losses
Q&A: The future of Thomas Cook
Why is Thomas Cook in such a state?
Bosses have blamed Brexit uncertainty but the reality is it has become saddled with a £1.6 billion debt mountain after years of mismanagement and over-expansion. In July, the firm announced it had struck a rescue deal led by its biggest shareholder, Chinese conglomerate Fosun International, as well as its banks. Together they agreed to stump up £750 million to save it from bankruptcy. This emergency injection was topped up by another £150 million from other key backers including hedge funds, to see it through the winter.
Isn't that enough to keep it afloat?
Thomas Cook's lenders, led by Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds, are demanding another £200 million or they will pull the plug on the deal. The banks have already handed Thomas Cook a £675 million overdraft and are running out of patience. They fear the firm still does not have enough cash to tide it over during the off-peak season, including to pay suppliers and hoteliers. This has resulted in a stand-off, with Fosun and Thomas Cook's hedge fund backers refusing to pay up, and the banks unwilling to budge.
Why can't they just bide their time?
Thomas Cook bosses fear they will have to call in the administrators within days if neither side agrees to stump up the funding. It is a criminal offence to continue trading – and to take holiday bookings – when insolvent. Another reason the crisis is coming to a head is Thomas Cook's Atol licence is up for renewal on October 1. Every company is required to hold an Air Travel Organiser's Licence issued by the Civil Aviation Authority. Travel companies also have to put down deposits for hotel bookings for the following summer by October 1 – another reason why Thomas Cook's position is so precarious.
What does this all mean for customers?
If Thomas Cook collapses imminently, about 180,000 customers will be abroad. Those who have booked a package holiday should be protected by the Atol scheme. This means they will be entitled to continue their holiday and fly home with another airline. But many face the prospect of being stranded for some time, as there may not be enough space on flights. Whitehall officials are preparing for the emergency repatriation of tens of thousands of holidaymakers. But it could take up to two weeks to bring everyone home.
And those who have future bookings?
Hundreds of thousands of people who have booked holidays could also see their trips cancelled. If they have Atol protection, they are entitled to a refund or alternative holiday. Those who booked flights only should be able to claim a refund if they used a credit card and it cost more than £100.
The Mail can reveal that Whitehall officials have already drawn up plans for what would be Britain's biggest peacetime repatriation. Known as Operation Matterhorn, it has been put together by the Department for Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority.
Senior sources suggested it could take up to two weeks to bring all Thomas Cook customers home if the company goes under.
Thomas Cook has been struggling under the weight of £1.6billion of debt and tumbling profits. Debt-fuelled expansion and a series of poor bets on where Britons would want to travel and how many people would book flights has left its finances in crisis.
The company is locked in desperate negotiations with its lenders, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Bank, over a salvage deal.
In July, bosses announced they were hammering out a rescue deal with Chinese company Fosun, Thomas Cook's largest shareholder, and a group of hedge funds which owned its bonds. But a group of banks who lend to Thomas Cook, including RBS, are apparently threatening to scupper the rescue deal. They are demanding an extra £200 million be pumped into the rescue package, sources close to Thomas Cook said.
Unless RBS backs down, Thomas Cook's board will have to call in administrators within days. This could happen as early as Sunday, the Mail understands, and the company has lined up administrators from Alix Partners to step in.
Last night, reports of the company's troubles saw Thomas Cook bombarded by messages on social media from customers worried about their holiday plans.
Gavin Wilson wrote on Twitter: 'What are the chances of my return flights to Vegas next month going ahead? Are Thomas Cook gonna be saved or are they about to go under?' On its Twitter site, Thomas Cook assured holidaymakers that it would be around 'for many years'.
But an industry source said last night: 'Unless the management team can point to a viable transaction soon, they have a clear legal duty to cease trading.
'To put it bluntly, they're running out of options.'
If Thomas Cook does fail, the taxpayer will be left with a huge bill. It would cost about £600 million to bring home the 180,000 Thomas Cook customers who would be abroad if the company collapsed early next week, industry experts estimate.
Thomas Cook package holidays are protected by the Atol scheme, which means customers are supposed to be brought home free of personal cost and refunded for any holidays which don't go ahead.
However, customers who bought only flights through Thomas Cook would not be protected under the scheme.
A couple look at holiday offers in the window of a Thomas Cook branch in Redcar. Tens of thousands of customers could be left stranded abroad if the firm goes bust
And at the moment, the scheme – which is funded by the travel companies via a levy on travellers – contains only £18 million and is not big enough to cover the costs of a Thomas Cook collapse.
The Mail understands this would leave the Department for Transport having to scratch around for the remainder.
Last night, RBS denied that it was responsible for putting pressure on the deal. A spokesman said: 'We don't recognise this characterisation of events. As one of a number of lenders, RBS has provided considerable support to Thomas Cook over many years and continues to work with all parties in order to try and find a resolution to the funding and liquidity shortfall at Thomas Cook.'
The failure of Thomas Cook would be a huge blow to Britain's travel industry. It served 22 million customers last year, operates more than 550 high street stores and employs 22,000 staff. If the rescue deal does go ahead, Thomas Cook will split into two parts – an airline business and a tour operator.
Most of it will fall into the hands of the Chinese, as Fosun – which already owns Wolves FC – will invest £450 million.
Guy Anker, of the Moneysavingexpert consumer website, said: 'This is extremely worrying news for hundreds of thousands of people who have booked holidays with Thomas Cook, particularly those who are abroad already.'
Thomas Cook declined to comment last night. A Department for Transport spokesman said: 'We do not speculate on the financial situation of individual businesses.'
Thomas Cook's 178 years of history are under threat with firm on brink of collapse
Thomas Cook is Britain's oldest tour operator and viewed as the inventor of the modern package holiday.
Named after its founder, a Victorian cabinet maker, the firm is now 178 years old.
Cook's first trip, on July 5, 1841, involved chartering a train to take 500 Temperance supporters 12 miles from Leicester to a meeting in Loughborough.
Cook, a supporter of the movement which campaigned against alcohol, charged travellers a shilling per head.
His idea to run tours had come almost a month earlier when he was walking from his home in Market Harborough to Leicester for a Temperance meeting.
Cook later recalled: 'The thought suddenly flashed across my mind as to the practicability of employing the great powers of railways and locomotion for the furtherance of this social reform.'
Victorian cabinet maker Thomas Cook (pictured) founded the holiday firm in 1841
A pair of vintage advertising posters for Thomas Cook, offering holidays in Britain and abroad
Thomas Cook's World Ticket Office in Jerusalem, offering trips to Palestine
His early trips involved rail journeys in the Midlands for local temperance societies and Sunday schools.
Commercial tours began in 1845, with a trip to Liverpool, and expanded to organising transport from Yorkshire and the Midlands to the Great Exhibition of 1851 at Crystal Palace.
The visionary businessman went international in 1855, organising trips to Europe and then North America, along with the launch of a 'circular note' - a precursor to traveller's cheques - which could be cashed for local currency.
In Egypt, a fleet of steam ships were launched to take tourists along the Nile, and also used to convey British troops as part of attempts to break the siege of Khartoum, in Sudan, in 1884-85.
After the deaths of Thomas and his son John Cook in the 1890s, business continued to boom when the firm was inherited by John's sons Frank, Ernest and Bert.
An advertisement for 'Cook's Nile Service', a cruise on the Express Steamer 'MS Hatasoo' run by Thomas Cook & Son Ltd, circa 1900
A poster from 1930 (left) offers a Thomas Cook steamer ride along the Nile while another advert from 1929 (right) promotes a winter sports trip to the Continent
A centenary event for 'Cook's first Swiss tour' is held in London in 1963. The 178-year-old company is now at risk of going into administration
One new hit was winter sports holidays, plus tours by motor car and commercial air travel.
The Cook family sold the firm to the Belgian owners of the Orient Express in 1928.
During World War Two, the company was requisitioned by the British government, then sold jointly to the UK's four main railway companies, before becoming part of nationalised British Railways.
Thomas Cook was at the forefront of the post-war overseas holiday boom but still also provided breaks within the UK, including at a holiday camp in Prestatyn, North Wales.
It returned to private ownership in 1972, initially purchased by Midland Bank, hotels group Trust House Forte and the AA, then becoming wholly owned by Midland.
The chain rapidly expanded its high street travel agencies and bought up smaller rivals.
Thomas Cook temporarily passed into German hands in the 1990s before merging with UK firm Carlson Leisure Group in 1999, then returning to German ownership in 2001. It was floated on the stock exchange in 2007.
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Caburn Telecom is pleased to announce an agreement to supply River Motorhomes IoT data for on-board Wi-Fi for their range of luxury motorhomes. River Motorhomes is a leading supplier of luxury motorhomes for sale and short or long-term self-drive rental. Caburn Telecom is a leading supplier of IoT technology and connectivity enabling customers from multiple sectors to operate and manage their connected devices.
If the pandemic has shown us anything, it’s that connectivity is a vital aspect of any industry – especially healthcare. Connectivity helps hospitals, GP Practices and other healthcare facilities to


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Cherry lips, crystal skies, and red cups! Red cup season is approaching quickly, with free reusable cups set to debut soon! This holiday season at Starbucks, however, will be much different! It’s time to shake it off with Taylor Swift’s favorite Latte. On November 12, 2021, Starbucks announced a collaboration with Taylor Swift to promote the release of her new album Red by offering customers a way to order her favorite Latte — a Grande Caramel Nonfat Latte.
Starbucks looks pretty excited about their partnership and promises to play her new music throughout all stores. Starbucks even launched a Taylor Swift Spotify Playlist for “Swifties” who visit Starbucks through the window.
How To Order Taylor’s Latte
Taylor’s favorite Starbucks drink, “Taylor’s Latte,” can be ordered at any Starbucks location by asking your barista for a Grande Caramel Nonfat Latte, or don’t be afraid to ask for a “Taylor’s Latte.” Starbucks has also included a way to order through the app. Order Taylor’s Latte through the Starbucks app by clicking on “It’s Red Season.”
Taylor’s Latte Calories
The truth is, this Latte has always been on the Starbucks menu and doesn’t even qualify as a Starbucks secret menu item! Taylor’s Latte is simply a Caffe Latte with non-fat milk and four pumps of caramel syrup.
Simple! The best part?
Taylor’s Latte Summary
Taylor Swift was not the only country superstar to release a new album this week. Jason Aldean just released the first half of a new 30-track album called Macon. Where’s his Latte? Then again…maybe he’s not the latte-sipping type?
For all you Swifties out there, today brought big news….big coffee news! It’s time to celebrate the history of the Starbucks red cup in a blank space, where haters, gonna hate!


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The tonnage of cocoa beans processed in Europe in the third quarter by the likes of Barry Callebaut and Cargill has risen by 4.7%. Euromonitor says the industry is playing catch up and rising cocoa butter prices may led to more expensive chocolate for...
ADM (Archer Daniels Midland) Cocoa has released a new addition to its Unicao range of cocoa liquors from Ghana cocoa beans, following the release of a similar product from its Ivory Coast facilities last month.
Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) has announced that it will expand its cocoa processing capabilities at its facility in Singapore to enable it to keep pace with growing demand for cocoa and chocolate products from Asian markets.
ADM Cocoa is launching a new chocolate ingredient in dispersible powder form, highlighting a pressing market need to overcome technical challenges of using melted chocolate in dairy products, beverages and confectionery.
Leading cocoa and soybean processor ADM is making a few changes in
Europe announcing two new appointments at its product support and
development (PSD) Centre in Koog aan de Zaan, the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic sweetener...


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Extreme Mobility: How Businesses Are Getting Through the Storm
As New York and the Eastern Seaboard begin the recovery process after Superstorm Sandy, businesses in the region are getting back to work — and probably more aware than ever about how reliant they are on mobile technology. Over the last few days, companies that were able to keep the doors open have gotten by with a truly mobile workforce.
The ability to work remotely — and act on a business continuity plan — proved crucial for companies like Ernst & Young and General Electric, which were able to keep running thanks to existing work-from-home infrastructures. Digital firms like BuzzFeed and Fab.com set up pop-up offices, while big banks like Goldman Sachs and Citibank shifted their operations to offices not affected by the storm. UBS booked hotels for staff to ensure a power supply.
In most cases, businesses were being powered by a gaggle of iPhones, laptops, and Wi-Fi cards, operating out of living rooms and local coffee shops. And thanks to the rise in cloud-based data storage, mobile access to company Intranet, and a host of virtual communication tools (from instant messaging to Facebook and Twitter), many such companies say they hardly missed a beat.
But mobile-only work hasn’t been all smooth sailing: A quarter of all cellular and broadband cable and Internet service went out across the 10 states effected by Sandy. And with over 8 million homes and businesses losing power, the problem deepens (though the lack of power has led to some creative ways of recharging). Then there are companies like Gawker and Huffington Post who were shut down entirely because their servers got flooded.
Still, for one BusinessWeek journalist who conducted a day’s work on an iPhone, Superstorm Sandy proved to be a ringing endorsement for enterprise mobility. It may, in fact, convince more companies to embrace a more mixed approach to telecommuting. What will be interesting to see is how user habits and data may have changed during the storm. How were employees using their devices when solely limited to them? What did they need — and not?
As Foot Locker CEO Ken Hicks, who lost power, summed it up for the Wall Street Journal: “You can be reasonably self-sufficient with a cellphone and a lantern.”
Image from Flickr via TPM.


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by Peak Positions
Original article appeared in the Wall Street Journal
No one really knows how many licks it takes to get to the center of a 116-year-old company, run by one of America's oldest CEOs. The Chicago company, home of Chicago Personal Injury Attorney has become increasingly secretive over the years, severing nearly all of its connections to the outside world. Tootsie Roll shuns journalists, refuses to hold quarterly earnings calls, and issues crookedly-scanned PDFs for its earnings releases. The last securities industry analyst to maintain coverage of the company stopped last year because it was too hard to get information.
"I think the only way you can get a tour is by jumping over the fence and sneaking in," said the last analyst to attempt the task, a representative of a Cleveland firm. Find a Workers Compensation Insurance Quote appropriate for your state.
The chairman and chief executive of Tootsie Roll is a bespectacled man in his 90s who has headed the company for 50 years. He runs it with his 80-year-old wife, Ellen.
Decades of acquisitions have given Tootsie Roll a product gallery of mostly antique—though profitable—candy brands, including Charleston Chew, Sugar Babies, Junior Mints, and Blow Pops, in addition to the company's chewy, brown namesake. Mr. Gordon likes to joke with visitors about the Tootsie Roll's robust shelf-life, and he and his wife have worked hard to ensure that the company stays out of the clutches of competitors. Companies like this require Walkin Coolers for storage. The Gordons control the company, primarily through their majority ownership of its powerful class B stock, each share of which is worth 10 votes to common stock's one vote.
But in recent years, anemic growth and shrinking profit margins—as well as the ruling couple's age and lack of any publicly disclosed succession plan—has raised questions about Tootsie Roll's future. Revenue inched up 2% last year, to $528.4 million, while profit slipped about a fifth to $43.9 million. Host a website that promotes your company with an Illinois Web Hosting Company.
Gabelli Funds LLC, and GAMCO investors Inc., run by activist investor Mario Gabelli, gobbled up shares in the company in 2008, when major candy company mergers were heating up, raising his stake to just under 6% from an initial holding of around 1% it had held for decades. Shipping Software expedites the shipping process for major manufacturers.
"We know at some point it makes sense for there to be a sale," said a Gabelli analyst. "I've always thought this is a business that is difficult to compete with much larger companies." Shipping Systems that use multiple transportation modes keep shipping costs down.
Tootsie Roll's Chicago headquarters is a modern-day Willy Wonka factory. A Milwaukee Personal Injury Attorney can assist you in seeking personal injury recoveries. Massive puffs of steam billow out of humming machines on the roofs of the gray cinder block and red brick buildings, which sit surrounded by off-kilter "no trespassing" signs. The Gordons haven't granted an interview in years. The company declined repeated interview requests, saying "we have opted to use our quarterly earnings releases as a way to provide continuing updates to all business media at once."
Mr. Gordon is currently the oldest CEO of a business listed on the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq Stock Market, according to research company S&P Capital IQ. The company's proxy statement in March lists his age as 92, and his wife's as 80. The three non-Gordon members of the Tootsie Roll board ranged in age from 65 to 74, and at least one other top executive is over 70.
The Gordons have given no hint that they intend to retire and no indication of health problems. "Their age is no concern, none whatsoever," said a midnight shift employee of Tootsie Roll's Chicago factory. The company also has plants in four other states, as well as Canada and Mexico.
With their control of Tootsie Roll comes perks. Mr. and Mrs. Gordon each get an official salary of $999,000 a year, which the company says is a cap on executive salaries for tax reasons. The pair together received total compensation of $7.6 million last year. That includes bonuses as well as $1.2 million the company spends annually for the Gordons' use of a company plane to visit factories and to commute between their home in Massachusetts and their Chicago apartment, which the company pays $10,000 a month to rent.
Tootsie Roll says it was started in 1896 when Leo Hirshfield first began making the chewy chocolates named after his daughter in New York City. After a few corporate name changes, it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1922. In the 1950s, Mrs. Gordon's father managed the business and he eventually passed control of the company to Ellen, who is now president and chief operating officer. Mr. Gordon became CEO in 1962 and has held the job since.
A Tootsie Roll spokeswoman says the company has a succession plan that has been shared with the board but declines to make it public. There is no public indication that the Gordons' four children have any interest in taking over management of Tootsie Roll. Some observers think that is part of the reason the couple is holding on to control well into their golden years.
Under the Gordons, Tootsie Roll took off in the 1970s, acquiring Mason and Bonomo, maker of Dots gumdrops. Its 1970 commercial, featuring an animated child asking "Mr. Owl" and other animals how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, was an enormous success that the company trumpets to this day.
The unknowable answer: "It depends on a variety of factors such as the size of your mouth, the amount of saliva, etc." the company says on its website. "Basically, the world may never know."
In the '80s, Tootsie Roll acquired Charms, maker of Blow Pops, and in the '90s it bought brands including Sugar Daddy's and Junior Mints. In the early 2000s, the company added Andes Mints and Dubble Bubble to its catalog.
In all, the company has nearly doubled sales in the last two decades without spending big money on advertising or getting distracted by unnecessary acquisitions.
"They stayed focused, bought commodities cheap, and spent money inside," said a representative from a human resources consulting firm, who consulted with the company in the 1980s.
"They didn't buy anything that didn't fit," he added, noting that the Gordons never acquired a subsidiary that couldn't "plug in" to the existing candy business.
Candy industry buyouts have accelerated recently. In 2008, Mars Inc. bought Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. with the help of billionaire Warren Buffett, creating the third largest private company in America with revenue of $30 billion, according to Forbes magazine. In 2010, Kraft foods, Inc. acquired Cadbury PLC in a deal valued at over $19.5 billion. Hershey Co. last year bought Canadian confectioner Brookside Foods Ltd., and is widely expect to make other acquisitions to boost sales.
While its operating profit margin has fallen by roughly half in the last decade, to 11% last year, Tootsie Roll's relatively steady success makes it a delicious proposition for potential buyers, said a human resources firm who has consulted with the company for the past 30 years.


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Sprint Corp. and the Communications Workers of America agreed on a 30-month contract Tuesday to cover 540 workers in Sprint's Central and North Florida local telephone operations. The agreement came less than two hours before a scheduled 1 p.m. strike deadline. The union agreed to accept a contract that is six months shorter than it wanted, and the company made concessions on a health-care cost sharing package. Union members are expected to vote on the contract within a month. Sprint also settled with CWA locals in Indiana, Oregon, Tennessee and North Carolina.
RESORTQUEST TO MOVE TO DESTIN
ResortQuest International said Tuesday that it plans to relocate its headquarters from Memphis, Tenn., to Destin in the Florida Panhandle. The move will bring key executives closer to the company's largest local operating unit, Abbott Resorts. ResortQuest also will move its accounting operations to Florida. After the move, the company will have about 1,600 employees in the Destin area. ResortQuest is a vacation rental management company, with a portfolio of more than 20,000 properties, including about 600 in the Orlando area.
GLAXO STILL SHIPPING DRUGS
GlaxoSmithKline backed off a Tuesday deadline for cutting off supplies of its drugs to Canadian companies who sell prescription medicine to bargain-hunting Americans. A company spokeswoman said the drug maker still intends to stop supplying Canadian wholesalers and pharmacies with drugs that they export to Americans, but was working out details so that Canadian consumers would not be affected.
ENERGIZER TO BUY SCHICK
Battery maker Energizer Holdings Inc. is getting into the shaving business, announcing an agreement Tuesday to buy the Schick-Wilkinson Sword unit from Pfizer Inc. for $930 million. Schick-Wilkinson ranks second to Gillette Co. in production and sale of men's and women's razors and other shaving products. The deal will put Energizer and Gillette, which makes Duracell batteries, in direct competition for two key consumer products.
KERKORIAN SALE DRAGS MGM DOWN
Shares of film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer plunged almost 19 percent Tuesday after its principal owner, billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, said he intends to sell 28.75 million of his MGM shares to generate a tax loss. Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp., the holding company that owns both MGM and casino and hotel operator MGM Mirage, filed the registration Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell the shares. Kerkorian's stake in MGM will drop from 77.3 percent to 67.3 percent after the sale. MGM shares dropped $2.61 to close at $11.40 on the New York Stock Exchange.
TREASURY BILL RATES TUMBLE
Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills fell in Tuesday's auction with the rate on three-month bills dropping to the lowest level since the summer of 1958. The Treasury Department auctioned $17 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 1.160 percent. Another $15 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 1.190 percent. The three-month rate was down from 1.180 percent last week and was the lowest since three-month bills averaged 0.984 percent on July 28, 1958. The six-month rate was down from 1.230 percent last week and was the lowest rate on record.
GERMAN AIRLINE TO TRIM ROUTES
German airline Lufthansa said Tuesday it will cut routes in Europe and take more aircraft out of service in response to a continuing drop in business travel. The carrier said it would consider further measures to shore up earnings. The airline said nine aircraft would be taken out of service April 1, including three from regional partner airlines. It did not say which routes would be affected.
Brokerage Charles Schwab Corp. reported a fourth-quarter loss of $79 million, or 6 cents a share, compared with a loss of $13 million, or 1 cent a share, in the year-ago period. The loss followed a third-quarter loss of $4 million, giving Schwab its first back-to-back quarterly deficits. Excluding one-time charges, Schwab earned 7 cents a share, a penny below analyst estimates. Fourth-quarter revenue totaled $996 million, down from nearly $1.1 billion the previous year. For all of 2002, Schwab earned $109 million, or 8 cents a share, on revenue of $4.14 billion. Schwab has a customer service center in Maitland.
Ford Motor Co. posted a fourth-quarter loss of $130 million, or 7 cents a share, compared with a loss of $5.07 billion, or $2.81 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter. Excluding one-time expenses, Ford earned 8 cents a share in the quarter, a penny a share more than the forecast of analysts. Revenue was $41.6 billion, up $869 million from a year ago. For all of 2002, Ford posted a loss of $980 million, or 55 cents a share, on revenue of $162.6 billion.
3M Co. reported fourth-quarter earnings of $511 million, or $1.29 a share, up from $381 million, or 96 cents a share, a year earlier. The results beat analysts estimates by a penny. Sales increased to $4.14 billion, from $3.86 billion. For the year, 3M earned $1.97 billion, or $4.99 a share, on sales of $16.33 billion.
Citigroup, the nation's largest financial institution, reported fourth-quarter net income of $2.43 billion, or 47 cents a share, down from $3.88 billion, or 74 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding special items, earnings were 47 cents a share, a penny better than analyst estimates. Net income for the year was $15.28 billion, or $2.94 a share.


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Are you worried about chemicals in your foods? According to the frightening results of a new study, you should be worried.
Independent tests on several popular American food products found that many samples contained residue levels of a weed killer named glyphosate.
The tests were led by non-profit organizations like Food Democracy Now and The Detox Project. The companies released a report this past Monday about their findings titled “Glyphosate: Unsafe On Any Plate – Food Testing Results and Scientific Reasons for Concern”.
The report describes how glyphosate, a type of herbicide, was found on cookies, crackers, popular cold cereals, chips, and other food products routinely consumed by American children and adults.
Tests were completed at Anresco, a US FDA-registered laboratory, which used chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) to verify the results. This testing method is “widely considered by the scientific community and regulators as the most reliable for analyzing glyphosate residues”, according to a report from EcoWatch.
The FDA Never Tested for Glyphosate Until This Year
The FDA has been under scrutiny for its efforts to combat herbicide in foods. The FDA regularly tests other foods for herbicide residue. However, it wasn’t until earlier in 2016 that the FDA decided to test foods for glyphosate.
Oddly enough, the FDA suspended its glyphosate residue testing last week.
Is Glyphosate Really that Bad for You?
Inevitably, trace amounts of some chemicals are going to end up in food – even if you eat it directly from nature in the middle of a forest in Siberia or some other remote place.
So is glyphosate really that bad?
Well, it’s been under the spotlight for over a year. We can trace the attention on glyphosate back to when the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified the herbicide as a Group 2A carcinogen.
In layman’s terms, that means glyphosate is a “probable human carcinogen”, or cancer-causing compound.
Why was that classification a big deal?
Well, glyphosate is the world’s most widely used herbicide. It’s also the key active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup and hundreds of similar products.
You can view a map of estimated glyphosate use across America here. That map comes courtesy of Food Democracy Now! and The Detox Project’s report. As you can see, glyphosate usage is widespread.
As we speak, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is finalizing a risk assessment for glyphosate to determine whether or not future use of the herbicide should be limited.
To be clear, the world’s largest health organization has classified this chemical as a probably cancer-causing compound in humans. That’s why people are freaking out that there’s glyphosate residue in their foods.
Which Popular Foods Contain Glyphosate?
Anresco tested 29 foods that you commonly see on grocery store shelves. Glyphosate residues were found in all of the following foods:
-General Mills’ Cheerios (containing 1,125.3 parts per billion)
-Ritz Crackers (270.24 ppb)
-Kashi Soft-Baked Oatmeal Dark Chocolate Cookies (275.57 ppb)
-Other foods with mixed ppb readings included Kellogg’s Special K, Triscuit Crackers, Doritos, Oreos, and Stacy’s Pita Chips
-Certain baby foods have been found to contain glyphosate residue
How does glyphosate end up in these foods? Well, it’s sprayed on a wide variety of conventional crops before harvesting, including wheat, oats, and barley along with a range of fruits and vegetables The EPA reports that glyphosate plays a crucial role in the production of at least 70 food crops.
Food companies have not yet responded to the news.
What PPB Dosage is Required to Cause Health Problems in Humans?
The US EPA has set a maximum residue limit, or MRL, for most commodities (like corn and soybeans). These limits vary between pesticides and herbicides, and they also vary between commodities.
However, the EPA may have to revise their limits after research shows that Roundup can cause liver and kidney damage in rats at only 0.05 ppb, while levels as low as 10 ppb can have toxic effects on the livers of fish. When you look at the ppb ratings above, it’s easy to see why there’s cause for alarm.
America’s Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for Glyphosate is Higher than Most Other Countries
US regulators are also under fire for setting an acceptable daily intake (ADI) for glyphosate that’s much too high – at least compared to other countries.
The US has set the ADI for glyphosate at 1.75mg per kg of bodyweight per day, while the European Union’s ADI is 0.3.
The ADI is designed to be 100 times lower than levels demonstrated to cause no effect in animal testing. Many people are wondering how the US and EU came up with such drastically different numbers.
Is the EPA Bought By the Agrichemical Industry?
America is one of the few democracies in the world that allows money to play such a blatant and crucial role in its policy-making. That’s why environmental organizations around the world are criticizing America’s policymakers for being bought off by the agrichemical industry – which is why America’s limits (and acceptable pesticides) are so different from those used in the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, these same organizations are calling for a permanent ban on the use of glyphosate. Stay tuned for more information on this pressing herbicide issue as we move forward.