On paper, it looks like Scott Larsen is doing better than his father was at the same age. At 29, Larsen has a college degree and earns more money, but he doesn't feel he's moving up in the world.
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It's what you always feared what would happen when you're on a ride like this — a whole seat falling off while the ride is in motion — but in this case, it actually happened.
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Add to your game collection with a certified classic! Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Platinum Edition includes the core game, six DLC packs, and the Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm expansions for 58 percent off at just $49.
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Share a creepy good time with your friends with "Betrayal At House On The Hill." With numerous scenarios to choose from, and a layout that changes with each session, this eerie board game holds up well to multiple play-throughs.
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"With caucuses and primaries now about to begin… we will not be able to garner enough votes in the election to elevate our conversation any more than it is now," she wrote.
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* Iranian state TV, citing a military statement, says the country 'unintentionally' shot down a Ukrainian jetliner, killing all 176 aboard * Iran had denied for several days that two missiles downed the aircraft. But then the U.S. and Canada, citing intelligence, said they believe Iran shot down the aircraft * Iran has since blamed 'human error' for shooting down the plane on Tuesday. The government also offered an apology to families. * The plane, en route to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, was carrying 167 passengers and nine crew members from several countries, including 82 Iranians, at least 63 Canadians and 11 Ukrainians, according to officials * On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration revealed that American lives were possibly saved after it issued a notice barring U.S. civilian planes from flying over Iran and Iraq
Iranian state TV, citing a military statement, says the country 'unintentionally' shot down a Ukrainian jetliner, killing all 176 aboard, after mistaking the aircraft for a hostile, enemy target.
The statement came Saturday morning, local time, and blamed 'human error' for shooting down the plane on Tuesday.
Specifically, Iranian officials says the aircraft 'took the flying posture and altitude of an enemy target' as it neared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps base and attending personal didn't recognize it as a passenger plane.
'Under these circumstances, because of human error, [the plane] came under fire,' the statement read, according to the New York Times.
Following the grave mistake, Iran's government have offered an apology to families.
WNU Editor: As mentioned in a previous post. Iran had no choice. If they tried to cover this up no airline in the world would then fly into Iran. They had to come clean, and to do so quickly.
More News On Iran Officially Acknowledging That It Accidentally Shot Down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752
Tensions between Iran and the United States have simmered for decades since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but in recent weeks their longstanding tensions appear to be boiling over.
This week, Tehran launched attacks against two large airbases hosting US and coalition forces in neighbouring Iraq, in retaliation for the US's unilateral assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leaders last week.
Soleimani was revered in Iran, whom the US claimed was plotting "imminent attacks" against its personnel in the Middle East as the reason for the killing, without specifying what they were.
WNU Editor: It is not only the bases that are present in the Middle East that are formidable, but it is also the military power that the U.S. can project from the US itself that should give the Iranians pause.
Even countries that have broken ties with each other need to communicate in times of crisis and war.
That includes the U.S. and Iran, which have not had an official way to talk directly to each other since President Jimmy Carter cut off diplomatic and consular relations in April 1980, as part of the Tehran embassy hostage crisis.
The link has never been restored.
But international diplomacy has found an ingenious solution to the problem of communication between countries that have broken ties.
From Wikipedia: The Flight of the Phoenix is a 1965 American drama film starring James Stewart, produced and directed by Robert Aldrich,[4] and based on the 1964 novel The Flight of the Phoenix by Elleston Trevor. The story describes a small group of men struggling to survive their aircraft's emergency landing in the Sahara Desert, and stars Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Hardy Krüger and Ernest Borgnine. The ensemble cast includes Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser, Christian Marquand, Dan Duryea and George Kennedy as other passengers on the aircraft.
A cellphone video. An international dispute. The world is more confusing—and more exposed—than ever.
To be alive in 2020 and connected to the immense information network is to experience a rich confusion of images, videos, social-media posts, and reportage about everything, all the time. The latest example: a Ukrainian-airliner crash outside Tehran. The plane, a Boeing 737-800, crashed shortly after takeoff yesterday, killing everyone aboard. There were unconfirmed rumors and general confusion and Twitter threads with videos, pictures, and analysis of what might have happened. (A missile? A malfunction?)
The crate containing purportedly the two black boxes recovered from the crashed Ukrainian airliner, Boeing 737-800, is seen in this still image taken from a video, in Teheran, Iran January 10, 2020. IRIB VIA WANA/Handout via REUTERS
DUBAI (Reuters) - Tehran said on Friday it wanted to download black box recordings itself from a Ukrainian airliner crash that killed all 176 people aboard, amid Western suspicions the plane was brought down by an Iranian missile, probably by mistake.
The crash has heightened international pressure on Iran after months of friction with the United States and tit-for-tat military strikes. Washington killed an Iranian general last week in Iraq, prompting Tehran to fire at U.S. targets.
Iran, which denies the Boeing 737-800 was downed by a missile, showed the voice and flight data recorders on state TV on Friday but said it could take a month or two to extract data.
* French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Iran getting bomb 'not an option' * He spoke as EU ministers and NATO secretary general set for emergency summit * Le Drian insisted the Vienna deal 'is not dead' and hopes to salvage it
Iran is close to developing its own nuclear weapons, France's foreign minister warned today.
Jean-Yves Le Drian said if the regime carried on violating the 2015 deal restricting its weapons programme then it could become a nuclear power in just 'one or two years.'
Tehran has been gradually breaching aspects of the deal since President Donald Trump walked away from it in 2018 and imposed crippling economic sanctions.
The Associated Press changed a headline Thursday night that implied that the strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani last week resulted in a Ukrainian passenger plane being shot down by mistake by an Iranian anti-aircraft missile.
Pentagon officials have told Fox News that U.S. intelligence increasingly points at the airliner being accidentally struck by a Russian-made missile, killing all 176 people on board the flight, just hours after Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles targeting two military bases housing American and coalition troops.
* Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced new sanctions on Iran's metal exports and eight senior Iranian officials. * The penalties came days after Iran fired missiles at U.S. targets in Iraq in retaliation for an American airstrike in Baghdad that killed Iran's top military leader, Qasem Soleimani. * On Wednesday, President Donald Trump said that the U.S. will "immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime."
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced new sanctions Friday on Iran's metal exports and eight senior Iranian officials.
The penalties came days after Iran fired missiles at U.S. targets in Iraq in retaliation for an American airstrike in Baghdad that killed Iran's top military leader, Qasem Soleimani, last week.
After the missile strikes, President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the U.S. will "immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime."
* Debris from the Boeing 737 which crashed with 176 on board has been removed from the crash site in Iran * Ukrainian Foreign Minister revealed Friday that Ukraine has been granted access to the plane's black box * Tehran has indicated that it will not allow the US to analyse the flight recorders recovered from the plane * US, Canada and other Western countries believe the passenger plane was shot down by two Iranian missiles * Footage showed the Ukraine International Airlines jet exploding with 176 passengers and crew on board * Iran angrily denied the West's missile claims today, calling them 'psychological warfare' and a 'big lie'
Iran has bulldozed the crash site where a passenger jet came down two days ago, sparking fears of a cover-up after Tehran today denied the West's 'big lie' that Iranian missiles shot down the plane.
It comes as Ukraine has been granted access to the plane's black box flight recorders, Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said on Friday.
He added that they were receiving 'full cooperation' from the Iranian authorities. Kiev sent around 50 experts to Iran to take part in the probe after the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 went down near Tehran on Wednesday, killing all 176 people on board.
On the day the U.S. military killed a top Iranian commander in Baghdad, U.S. forces carried out another top secret mission against a senior Iranian military official in Yemen, according to U.S. officials.
The strike targeting Abdul Reza Shahlai, a financier and key commander of Iran's elite Quds Force who has been active in Yemen, did not result in his death, according to four U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The unsuccessful operation may indicate that the Trump administration's killing of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani last week was part of a broader operation than previously explained, raising questions about whether the mission was designed to cripple the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or solely to prevent an imminent attack on Americans as originally stated.
"Second rocket, third rocket came I thought 'This is it, we are getting rocketed." a U.S. source told Military Times, describing the deadly Dec. 27 rocket attack against an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk that killed an American contractor and wounded four U.S. troops.
Nearly 30 rockets would rain down on the Kirkuk base that houses Iraqi troops, American commandos and U.S. contractors. Army Gen. Mark Milley, the Joint Chiefs chairman, would later go on to describe the Iran-sponsored attack as an intent to "kill American soldiers sailors, airmen and Marines…. 31 rockets aren't designed as a warning shot."
"When there was that silence after the rockets, the personnel around me got together to run towards the bunkers. That's when we saw the armory was on fire," the U.S. source told Military Times, recounting the Kirkuk attack.
WNU Editor: My father was a soldier in the Soviet army during the Second World War. Because he was studying math in university, he was quickly made an officer who was responsible for directing artillery fire against the enemy. He experienced return fire on numerous occasions, and in his opinion words cannot describe the fear and horror on what it is like to be put in such a situation. I never forget one story that he told me. He was the only survivor from a barrage, and it was from friendly fire. It was a Katyusha rocket attack that wiped out everyone with the exception of him. As he told me. The only thing that you can do when you see a wave of rockets approaching your position is to look for a hole and hope that you will not be ripped to pieces.
* Iraq's prime minister wants Pompeo to work out a roadmap for withdrawal * He called the strike on Iranian general at Baghdad airport a sovereignty violation * The Iraqi parliament voted for resolution calling for troops to go following attack * The two men spoke by phone Thursday * 5,200 U.S. forces are propping up Iraqi security and helping contain ISIS
Iraq's caretaker prime minister asked the U.S. secretary of state to start working out a road map for an American troop withdrawal from Iraq, his office said Friday, signaling his insistence on ending the U.S. military presence despite recent moves to de-escalate tensions between Iran and the U.S.
Adel Abdul-Mahdi made the request in a telephone call with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday night, his office said in a statement. He also told Pompeo that recent U.S. strikes in Iraq were an unacceptable breach of Iraqi sovereignty and a violation of the two countries' security agreements.
* A Russian warship got dangerously close to a US destroyer in the Arabian Sea this week, forcing the American vessel to sound off five loud blasts of its horn * The blasts helped avoid a collision between the two. The US Navy released a statement and video of the nail-biting encounter on Thursday * A Russian warship is seen in the footage as it 'aggressively approached' the USS Farragut, getting within about 60 yards before altering course * 'The Russian ship initially refused but ultimately altered course and the two ships opened distance from one another,' the statement said. * Tensions are high after a December 27 US drone attack killed Quds commander Qassem Soleimani, a key leader in Iran, which fired back with missile strikes
A Russian navy ship 'aggressively approached' a U.S. Navy destroyer in the North Arabian Sea on Thursday, the US Navy's Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said in a statement on Friday.
The Fifth Fleet said the US destroyer USS Farragut sounded five short blasts and requested the Russian ship alter course.
'The Russian ship initially refused but ultimately altered course and the two ships opened distance from one another,' the statement said.
* Nancy Pelosi announced she will bring to the House floor next week a resolution to transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate * She gave no indication on the timing of a vote * 'I have asked Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler to be prepared to bring to the Floor next week a resolution to appoint managers and transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate,' she wrote to Democratic lawmakers * Senate could likely have the articles by the end of next week * Pressure was increasing on speaker to transmit them
Nancy Pelosi announced Friday she will bring to the House floor next week a resolution to transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate so Donald Trump's trial can begin.
The move comes after the speaker faced increasing pressure from her party to allow the president's trial to begin and signals an end to her three-week standoff with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
She gave no indication of what date the vote would occur and told her Democratic lawmakers she would consult them on next steps at their weekly party meeting on Tuesday.
The U.S. has been developing hypersonic weapons since the early 2000s, according to a Congressional Research Service report published in July last year
* Donald Trump said on Wednesday that U.S. is currently building 'many' hypersonic missiles * He made the comments during his national address on the escalating tensions with Iran after the missile strikes on U.S. troops * The hypersonic missiles being developed can travel at more than five times the speed of sound * Unlike ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons don't follow a ballistic trajectory and can maneuver en route to their destination * The Pentagon has also previously said the U.S. has been working on the development of hypersonic weapons in recent years * The push for testing and deployment of hypersonics comes after years of stop-start development and a need to now catch up with China and Russia
President Donald Trump has revealed that the United States is currently developing 'many' super-fast hypersonic missiles and boasted that the American weapons were 'big, powerful, lethal and fast'.
It comes after the U.S Army awarded a $2.5 billion contract to aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin to build them with the aim of having at least one ready by the end of next year.
Trump's mention of the hypersonic missiles was dropped briefly into his national address on Wednesday as he spoke of the escalating tensions with Iran just hours after Iranian forces fired missiles at military bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq.
It is no secret that the U.S. has been working on developing hypersonic weapons, but Trump's speech implied that multiple missiles were currently being built.
#UPDATE Hassan Rezaeifar, head of Iran's air crash investigation committee: "The Ukrainians must hand over the plane's insurance document to us & compensate for all the damages caused!"
RUSSIAN officials dubbed US President Donald Trump's assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani "illegal" last week in an apparent show of support for Iran – but Russian President Vladimir Putin may have had some alternative reasons for supporting the Middle Eastern country according to an Iranian expert, speaking in Express.co.uk in an interview on Thursday.
WORLD WAR 3 was on the brink and US President John F. Kennedy was more than just concerned, according to notes from a secret Cabinet meeting seen by Express.co.uk, where he warned of "learning lessons from Hitler" and to "persist by securing with force".
THE Tempest Fighter Jet is a "critical national endeavour" which will have to be delivered on a "unprecedented" timescale - but one which is achievable as a result of British know-how, an industry expert heavily involved in the project has said.
IRAN was plotting attacks on four US embassies, including the one in Baghdad, prior to the air strike which killed military commander Major General Qassem Soleimani, US President Donald Trump has claimed.
FORMER British ambassador to Iran Sir Richard Dalton has said he believes the shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner won't result in a total breakdown of relations between Iran and the west.
IRAN military officials have via a statement read out on state TV admitted to "unintentionally" shooting down a Ukrainian International Airlines plane after it took off from Imam Khomeini Airpot.
THE European Union sees its role in the Iran nuclear deal as a matter of great prestige – but now the bloc is watching helplessly as its one and only foreign policy victory hurtles towards oblivion.
(SANTA MONICA, Calif) — Neil Peart, the renowned drummer and lyricist from the influential Canadian band Rush, has died. He was 67.
His representative, Elliot Mintz, said in a statement Friday that Peart died at his home Tuesday in Santa Monica. The band posted a message on Twitter also confirming the news.
“It is with broken hearts and the deepest sadness that we must share the terrible news that on Tuesday our friend, soul brother and band mate over 45 years, Neil, has lost his incredibly brave three and a half year battle with brain cancer,” the band wrote. “Rest in peace brother.”
Peart was revered for his drumming skills, but was also the band’s key songwriters, known for his fantastical lyrics. The respected musician placed fourth on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time, just behind Ginger Baker, Keith Moon and John Bonham.
Peart, alongside bandmates Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, were inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, and honored for combining “the signature traits of progressive rock with a proto typical heavy-metal sound.” Their most known songs include “Tom Sawyer,” “The Big Money” and “The Spirit of Radio.”
“We’ve always said it’s not something that meant a lot to us, but we knew our fans cared so much to be validated like that — that their favorite band like their favorite sports team should be celebrated as champions,” Peart told The Associated Press when Rush was inducted into the Rock Hall. “We always knew that was the case and certainly to see it blossom after this is a testament to the truth of that.”
Peart was born on September 12, 1952 in Ontario.
When Rush formed in 1968, its original lineup included Lifeson, bassist Jeff Jones and drummer John Rutsey. After a few weeks, Lee replaced Jones, and in 1974 Peart replaced Rutsey weeks before Rush’s first U.S. tour.
Rush’s first album with Peart — now the band’s principal songwriter — was 1975’s platinum-seller “Fly by Night.” They released a second album that same year, “Caress of Steel,” which reached gold status.
But in 1976 the band marked a major breakthrough with the album “2112,” which sold three million units in the U.S. Rush’s most successful album was 1981’s “Moving Pictures,” which sold four million copies and featured the rock hit “YYZ,” helping the band earn its first-ever Grammy nomination (they earned seven nominations throughout their career).
Rush’s 1990’s “Chronicles” was a double platinum success, while 11 of the band’s albums were certified platinum and 10 albums reached gold status.
The band was heavily influential and fans of Peart and Rush paid tribute on social media.
“Today the world lost a true giant in the history of rock and roll. An inspiration to millions with an unmistakable sound who spawned generations of musicians (like myself) to pick up two sticks and chase a dream. A kind, thoughtful, brilliant man who ruled our radios and turntables not only with his drumming, but also his beautiful words,” Dave Grohl, who inducted Rush into the Rock Hall, said in a statement Friday. “I still vividly remember my first listen of “2112” when I was young. It was the first time I really listened to a drummer. And since that day, music has never been the same. His power, precision, and composition was incomparable. He was called “The Professor” for a reason: we all learned from him.”
Jack Black tweeted, “The master will be missed — Neil Peart RIP #RushForever.” Gene Simmons called Peart “a kind soul,” while Chuch D of Public Enemy recalled being inducted into the Rock Hall on the same night as Rush, saying backstage he and Peart shared “a unique moment without much word. Rest in Beats my man.”
Slash, Bryan Adams, Paul Stanley and Questlove of The Roots also paid tribute to Peart.
“Thank you for inspiring me and for all your help and advice along the way, especially in the early days when you took the time to talk to a young green Danish drummer about recording, gear and the possibilities that lay ahead,” Metallica’s Lars Ulrich wrote on Twitter. “Thank you for what you did for drummers all over the world with your passion, your approach, your principles and your unwavering commitment to the instrument! Rest In Peace.”
In 2015, Peart announced he was retiring from touring.
Peart is survived by his wife, Carrie and their daughter, Olivia Louise Peart. He was also an author and published six books.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced Thursday that apprehensions at the U.S. Mexico border — a figure generally considered the most accurate measure of migrants who have attempted to enter the U.S. — have decreased for the seventh consecutive month. But immigration experts and advocates say that trend is likely the result of a crackdown on migration by the Mexican government.
According to data released Thursday, 32,858 people were apprehended at the border in December 2019, including unaccompanied children, family units and adults who traveled alone. That’s a decline from the previous month that saw 33,511 apprehensions. An additional 7,762 were deemed “inadmissible” by CBP in December — which researchers say is how asylum seekers are counted by the agency — totaling 40,620 enforcement actions last month. Though numbers have steadily decreased since May 2019, apprehensions for fiscal year 2019 overall were still nearly double the year before.
CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan in a public statement Thursday said that the decline is “a direct result of President Trump’s network of policy initiatives and our ability to effectively enforce the law, enhance our border security posture and properly care for those in custody.” However, border and migration experts tell TIME the reality is much more complex and is likely the result of action taken by the Mexican government, which has acted out of pressure from the Trump Administration to curb northward migration.
“Probably a limited amount of credit — or blame — should go to the U.S. treatment of people at the border and U.S. border policy,” Heyman says. “A larger amount of the credit or blame should go to the country of Mexico doing the dirty work of the United States.”
A series of policies since the start of the Trump Administration has aimed to deter asylum claims and unauthorized migration to the U.S., including a Zero Tolerance policy that separated thousands of parents from their children. But migrants fleeing violence and poverty continued attempting to reach the U.S. border, say researchers who spoke to TIME. What has changed is their ability to reach the border.
The Mexican government — under pressure by the U.S. — has stepped up enforcement of immigration laws, resulting in the the country deploying its recently formed Mexican National Guard. The force has sometimes violently prevented migrants from arriving at the U.S. border, according to accounts my multiple Mexican media outlets. The National Guard and the Mexico office of Security and Civilian Protection did not immediately return TIME’s request for comment.
In July, U.S. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador thanked Trump for acknowledging Mexico’s efforts, according to Reuters. “I am grateful that even President Trump is making it known that Mexico is fulfilling its commitment and that there are no threats of tariffs,” Lopez Obrador said.
Mexican National Guard members prevent Central American migrants from crossing the Rio Bravo, in Ciudad Juarez, State of Chihuahua, #Mexico. #AFP 📸 Herika Martinez pic.twitter.com/x4NGkspYIP
CBP did not immediately respond to TIME’s request for comment.
In June, Mexico announced plans to deploy thousands of National Guard forces to the northern border, and an additional 6,000 to its southern border with Guatemala in response to a threat by the Trump Administration to impose tariffs on Mexican exports to the U.S., a move that likely could have devastated the Mexican economy.
“Mexico is completely economically vulnerable to the United States,” Heyman says. “We threatened Mexico with economic disaster, and Mexico has moved in the direction of doing whatever the United States wants.”
Jeremy Slack, an assistant professor of geography in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at UTEP who primarily studies deportation, also believes Mexico’s involvement is the leading cause of decline.
“We didn’t see a major difference in terms of what’s going on in Central America,” Slack tells TIME. “Short answer. One hundred percent, the reason for the decline is related to Mexico’s use of the National Guard to stop people traversing Mexico.”
On Friday, DHS Acting Secretary Chad Wolf spoke to reporters in Yuma, Ariz., and acknowledged Mexico’s work to combat migration northward. He called Mexico’s actions “unprecedented.”
Another policy, known as “metering,” has resulted in thousands of asylum seekers waiting in Mexico for their turn to claim asylum at a U.S. port of entry — they have not been counted in CBP’s apprehension or inadmissible statics, according to Heyman and Slack. At least an additional 56,000 have already claimed asylum but have been returned to Mexico to wait for their court proceedings.
Central Americans have also not stopped attempting to migrate north, according to Jason De León, a professor of anthropology and Chicana/o and Central American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, who is also the director of the Undocumented Migration Project, a long-term study of unauthorized border crossing. “We have made it more dangerous to cross Mexico, and much more expensive, and we’ve prolonged the process, but people are still very much coming,” he says.
The U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service has sent a formal extradition request to the U.S., asking that the country return Anne Sacoolas to face trial for the killing of teenager Harry Dunn, according to Reuters.
Sacoolas, the wife of U.S. diplomat based at at an Air Force base in England, was charged in December for the death of Harry Dunn, a 19-year-old who was killed while riding his motorcycle in August after Sacoolas allegedly crashed into him with her car. Sacoolas then fled to the U.S. and claimed diplomatic immunity, causing international controversy.
“Following the Crown Prosecution Service’s charging decision, the Home Office has sent an extradition request to the United States for Anne Sacoolas on charges of causing death by dangerous driving,” a Home Office spokesperson told Reuters in a statement. “This is now a decision for the U.S. authorities.”
The Home Office did not immediately return TIME’s request for comment, but the U.S. State Department tells TIME the extradition request is “highly inappropriate.”
“This was a tragic accident, a young man has lost his life, and his family is grieving. No one could hear about this tragic accident and not feel incredible sadness over this loss,” a State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement to TIME. “The President, the Secretary of State, the U.S. Ambassador in London and others in our government have all expressed sincere condolences to the Dunn family for this tragedy.”
“The United States has been clear that, at the time the accident occurred, and for the duration of her stay in the U.K., the driver in this case had status that conferred diplomatic immunities,” the spokesperson added. “The Foreign Secretary stated the same in Parliament. It is the position of the United States government that a request to extradite an individual under these circumstances would be an abuse. The use of an extradition treaty to attempt to return the spouse of a former diplomat by force would establish an extraordinarily troubling precedent.”
The Dunn family has been adamant in relation to Sacoolas’ extradition, and met with President Trump at the White House in October. Trump attempted to have Sacoolas meet with the family at the White House, the Dunn family says, but they declined.
“It’s about Harry, it’s not about politics,” Charlotte Charles told TIME in October during the family’s visit to the U.S. “It shouldn’t be about the governments and it shouldn’t be us worrying about this becoming a political brawl or whatever. It’s about our boy, and making sure that it doesn’t happen to another family.”
Radd Seiger, the Dunn family’s spokesperson, told The Guardian that the family is “confident in the knowledge that the rule of law will be upheld.”
“They will simply take things one step at a time and not get ahead of themselves,” he added. “However, no one, whether diplomat or otherwise, is above the law.”
(HAVANA) — The Trump administration is banning charter flights to Cuban cities besides Havana in a new tightening of U.S. restrictions on the island.
In October, the administration banned commercial flights to cities outside the capital.
The State Department said in a press release Friday that charter operators would have 60 days to wind down their flights to Santiago, Holguin and seven other cities across the island, and put a new restriction on the number of charter flights to Havana’s Jose Martí International Airport.
“‘Today’s action will further restrict the Cuban regime’s ability to obtain revenue, which it uses to finance its ongoing repression of the Cuban people and its unconscionable support for dictator Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela,” Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said in the statement.
The new restriction leaves both leisure travelers and Cuban-Americans without an easy way to travel to destinations outside the Cuban capital. Driving from Havana to eastern Cuba can take more than 12 hours on poorly maintained and often dangerous roads.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said on Twitter that the new measure was a “serious violation of human rights and freedom of travel of U.S. citizens and hinders family reunification.”
On Jan. 4 President Trump created an international uproar when he first suggested that Iranian cultural sites were legitimate military targets. “They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way,” he told reporters on Air Force One the following day.
The response to those comments was surprisingly encouraging. Not only did preservationists, historians and international law experts express outrage – including the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s director and CEO calling such threats “abhorrent to the collective values of our society” — but there was significant criticism from across the political spectrum, including from some of the President’s strongest supporters. “We’re not at war with the culture of the Iranian people,” Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on Monday.
While Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper has given his assurances that international law will be respected and cultural sites will not be treated as military targets, and the President himself has backed off his threats, the initial threat raises deeper questions surrounding the role of culture, memory and place in conflict. Why does threatening cultural and historic sites with attack strike such a chord? What does it say about the intrinsic power of the past? And how can that power be harnessed to unify and create a strong foundation for respect across difference?
On one level, this outcry in support of protecting cultural heritage suggests that a majority of people recognize, almost intuitively, that a historic temple is never just a historic temple.Iran is home to countless incomparable sites, including 24UNESCO World Heritage Sites, such as the ancient city of Persepolis and the Masjed-e Jāmé (“Friday Mosque”), each of which contributes to the identity of the Iranian people. To imply such sites are targets is a wider act of aggression.Indeed, throughout history, threatening to eradicate a group or a nation’s culture has almost always been about something more – namely, about eradicating people themselves. Cultural destruction has forever been part and parcel of ethnic cleansing. In 2001, when the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas —two 6thcentury statues, each well over 100 feet tall, carved into a cliff in central Afghanistan — the reasoning given by the militant group was that the statues “have been gods of the infidels.”The fact is that the destruction was part of a much larger campaign to eliminate the region’s Hazara ethnic minority, for which the statues were of irreplaceable religious significance.
CNN via Getty ImagesThe giant Buddhas of Bamiyan are destroyed by the Taliban government on March 12, 2001 in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. The two enormous statues, measuring 175 feet in height, were carved into sandstone cliffs at Bamiyan by Buddhist worshippers who traveled the Silk Road from China in the third century A.D.
The destruction of cultural sites — from libraries to places of worship to museums — is ultimately about erasing a people’s entire history. During the Bosnian war in the early 1990s, Serb and Croat forces destroyed or damaged hundreds of mosques in their efforts to rid the region of Muslims. In Zvornik, which had been a historic Muslim trading post on the Drina River, so many traces of the town’s past had been eliminated that Brano Grujic, the Serb-installed mayor there, could falsely boast in 1993 that “there were never any mosques in Zvornik.”As Helen Walasek, the author of Bosnia and the Destruction of Cultural Heritage, writes, sites such as archives and museums were targeted in part because they reflected Bosnia’s pluralistic past. Such attacks were aimed at “eradicating any trace of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s historic diversity and traditions of coexistence.”
The current conversation around preservation of cultural heritage in the Middle East comes at a critical time for the region, when conflict and atrocity have put a number of marginalized cultures at risk. In Iraq, the genocide of the Yazidi people, a religious minority that were terrorized by ISIS in a systematic attack beginning in August 2014, threatened to eradicate not only Yazidis themselves but any record of them — in large part because their religion and traditions are orally transmitted. That makes initiatives to erect museums and memorials dedicated to them — something supported by many, including Nadia Murad, a Yazidi human rights activist and co-recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize — particularly urgent.
While cultural heritage is not the only way we form bonds with others, it is one of the most powerful and effective means of doing so across barriers. It is heartening to see the public outcry at this latest threat, but the risk to cultural sites during conflict remains extraordinarily high. This is especially so given the limited funding for multilateral organizations dedicated to their protection such asUNESCO, from which the United States formally withdrew a year ago. If our children and our children’s children cannot access the most fundamental aspects of our own histories and those of others, they will never be able to identify the common threads that bind us all. And it is only through this binding that we can tap into — and act on — our shared humanity.
(MEXICO CITY) — At least two people were killed at an elementary school in northern Mexico Friday, when an 11-year-old opened fire on his teacher and classmates with two guns, authorities said.
Coahuila state Gov. Miguel Angel Riquelme said the sixth-grade shooter and his teacher died.
The preliminary investigation showed that the student arrived at his classroom, told a classmate, “Today is the day,” and asked permission to go to the bathroom, Riquelme said. After 15 minutes he had not returned and his teacher went to look for him. He emerged from the bathroom firing two guns. The shooting ended when he shot himself, he said.
Among the wounded were five students and a gym teacher, Riquelme said.
The governor said the shooter lived with his grandparents and that his mother had died some years ago. He said the boy had not presented behavioral problems before in the school. Investigators were looking into reports that the boy was influenced by a particular video game.
Images from the scene showed worried parents arriving at Colegio Cervantes to pick up their children Friday morning. It is a private school in downtown Torreon across the street from a large park.
Torreon is an industrial city with foreign assembly plants.
School shootings are rare in Mexico. Friday’s incident was reminiscent of another in January 2017 in the northern city of Monterrey. In that case, a student opened fire in a private high school. He killed a teacher and wounded two students. The shooter died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
(WASHINGTON) — An American warship was “aggressively approached” by a Russian Navy ship in the North Arabian Sea, the U.S. Navy said Friday.
Navy Cmdr. Josh Frey, spokesman for U.S. 5th Fleet, said that the USS Farragut was conducting routine operations Thursday and sounded five short blasts to warn the Russian ship of a possible collision. He said the USS Farragut, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, asked the Russian ship to change course and the ship initially refused but ultimately moved away.
Even though the Russian ship moved away, Frey said the delay in shifting course “increased the risk of collision.”
(Bloomberg) — A tweet from a Japanese billionaire to distribute 1 billion yen ($9 million) to his followers is attracting plenty of attention.
Yusaku Maezawa has pledged to give 1 million yen each to 1,000 of his Twitter followers who reposted a message from his @yousuck2020 account. It has been retweeted 4.1 million times since the New Year.
Maezawa, 44, who founded online fashion shopping site Zozo Inc., is used to the attention. He’s already behind the most-retweeted Twitter post after pulling the same stunt last year: 4.3 million and counting. That time, though, he offered just 100 million yen to 100 people.
He isn’t the only one who has promised money to online followers. Democratic Presidential candidate Andrew Yang last year offered $1,000 a month for 12 months to anyone who retweeted him.
Maezawa has earned a reputation as one of the world’s biggest spenders, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into everything from Basquiat paintings to a Hermes-upholstered private jet and a down payment for a ride on Elon Musk’s rocket.
He can certainly afford it. Even after his latest giveaway, Maezawa will have a $3.6 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
But for those suddenly hoping to benefit from Maezawa’s largesse, some bad news. The deadline for his Twitter contest was Jan. 7.
Andrew Baker knew he had found something special when he heard the hissing noise coming from inside the metal trap he and a team of researchers had set out in the rainforest in eastern Australia. None of the mouse-sized marsupials called antechinuses that he had been studying made a similar sound. Further research proved Baker, a mammalogist at Queensland University of Technology, right. In 2014, the animal he discovered was officially identified as a new species: the black-tailed dusky antechinus.
But time is already running out to study the creature, which lives on the rocky, muddy slopes of forests between Queensland and New South Wales. Since October, fires have ravaged the rainforest it calls home, and they’re still burning. Baker says the number of black-tailed dusky antechinuses has been dwindling for years because of hotter temperatures and drier conditions, which are also killing off its food source of insects and spiders.
The antechinus is just one of the country’s unique plants and animals whose existence is threatened by the devastating combination of climate change and the bushfires tearing across Australia this season. Conditions created by climate change may further hinder habitat recovery, causing fragile populations to collapse and leaving Australia forever changed.
“If temperatures continue to ramp up, hot seasons lengthen and cooler seasons shorten, then during critical periods of forest recovery there are likely to be more fires,” Baker says. “This will only further jeopardize habitat stability and place any recovering animal populations at even higher risk of extinction.”
The bushfires, which have killed more than 20 people and destroyed more than 2,000 homes, are still burning. On Friday, thousands of people evacuated their homes in the country’s southeast as fires moved in. The fires have blazed a trail of destruction across more than 25 million acres—an area about the size of the U.S. state of Indiana.
The bushfires have taken a catastrophic toll on wildlife across Australia. Chris Dickman, an ecologist at the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Science, has estimated that more than a billion animals maybe have been killed or will die as a result of the fires.
Haunting images of badly burned koalas and charred kangaroo carcasses have grabbed international attention and led to millions of dollars in donations for recovery efforts. But it’s the species with smaller habitats and fewer numbers that are more vulnerable to being wiped out.
Gary Cranitch—Queensland Museum Antechinuses breed each year in a two-week frenzy, at the end of which all the males drop dead. They are found nowhere else in the world.
As many as 100 plant species classified as threatened could have already had their entire habitats burned by fires this season, says David Keith, a fire ecologist at the University of New South Wales. Australia’s plant life, more than 90% of which is found nowhere else in the world, evolved to survive fires—but perhaps not the kind of unprecedented blazes that this season has brought, Keith says.
Last year was the hottest and driest on record in Australia, according to a report released Thursday by the country’s Bureau of Meteorology. In December, Australia experienced its hottest day ever recorded, with temperatures averaging 105° Fahrenheit across the country. It’s these conditions, experts say, that have caused one of the worst bushfire seasons on record in Australia. “Climate change is supercharging the fires that we’re seeing now,” says Lesley Hughes, a professor of biology at Macquarie University and a Climate Councillor at the Climate Council of Australia.
John Woinarski, a professor specializing in conservation biology at Charles Darwin University, says those conditions create particular concern for species with small populations and living ranges. He is worried about the future of animals like a forest-dwelling rat-kangaroo called the long-footed potoroo; the greater glider (a fluffy, possum-like creature); and several species of animals that live on Kangaroo Island in South Australia.
On Kangaroo Island, sometimes sometimes referred to as “Australia’s Galapagos,” around 380,000 acres have already been devastated by fires. The fires, which started with a lightning strike in late December, are still burning.
Ray Tipper—Natural Resources Kangaroo Island A female glossy black-cockatoo. This species’ habitat was destroyed in fires on Kangaroo Island
There is grave concern for Kangaroo Island’s endangered glossy black-cockatoo. Before the fires, there were about 400 on the island, says Daniella Teixeira, a Ph.D. student at the University of Queensland who studies the species. Teixeira, who is currently more than 1,000 miles away in Brisbane trying to finish her thesis on the birds, says that it’s been devastating to see pictures of the landscape where the cockatoos she studied lived.
“I know the trees and the birds that nest in those trees and they’re all gone,” Teixeira says. “I was actually there the moment that the baby bird flew out of the nest, when it took its first flight and joined the flock,” she says of one nest.
NASA Worldview This satellite image shows the areas on Kangaroo Island that have been burned by the bushfires in late December 2019 and early January 2020.
Other conservationists are in a frenzy searching for surviving Kangaroo Island dunnarts, another mouse-sized marsupial, which researchers say could also be facing extinction. The creature was endangered even before the fires began, with only about 500 left on the island.
“It’s not unrealistic to think that this could be a precursor to the extinction of the species, that’s not being dramatic,” says Pat Hodgens, who works on Kangaroo Island dunnart conservation with the non-profit Land for Wildlife. The fires, he says, have left the animal’s habitat in ruins: “It’s a totally changed landscape. In some areas it’s just scorched earth, ash on the ground, burnt rocks.”
His team recently captured their first-ever video footage of the creatures, showing a female with joeys in her pouch. It was particularly hard on Hodgens to see the destruction in the area where the video was shot. “Where she lived and where she was probably rearing her young has been absolutely decimated by the fires, there’s nothing left of the habitat, that’s pretty devastating,” he says.
Any dunnarts that escaped the flames will struggle to find food and shelter in their singed habitat, and will face perils like hungry feral cats.
Kangaroo Island Land for Wildlife A Kangaroo Island dunnart captured by Land for Wildlife cameras after fires in the area.
Baker, who studies the antechinus, is anxiously awaiting cooler weather or rain to put out the fires burning around the creatures’ habitat so he can survey the damage. He hopes to do more research on their strange breeding habits—antechinuses breed each year in a two-week frenzy, at the end of which all the males drop dead—with the goal of finding a way to get them to reproduce in captivity to help rebuild their numbers.
He fears it may already be too late. “We’ve passed the edge,” he says. “Even if they’re still there, we’re on the downhill run towards their extinction, and I don’t know what we can do to turn it around.”
Laxmi Agarwal was 16 years old when her life changed forever. She was out running an errand in New Delhi in 2005 when she was attacked with acid by three assailants, one of whom was a 32-year-old family friend whose romantic advances she had refused. She suffered severe injuries and underwent multiple surgeries in the months and years following. “It was not only an attack on me,” Agarwal says. “I was physically attacked, but my entire family paid for it.”
Channeling her anger into action, Agarwal has since become a high-profile campaigner for banning the sale of acid and received the International Women of Courage Award from Michelle Obama in 2014. After encouraging other acid attack survivors in India to come forward with their stories, her own experience is now being told through the country’s biggest medium: a Bollywood film adaptation directed by Meghna Gulzar and produced by and starring Deepika Padukone. “Laxmi was the one who started fighting for this cause, she was the first one that uncovered her face and she was the one who was unapologetic about the way she looked,” Padukone tells TIME, ahead of the Jan. 10 global release of Chhapaak. “She was kind of a torchbearer for any amendment that we see today in the law regarding the regulation of the sale of acid.”
The release of Chhapaak, (loosely translated as ‘splash’), comes as violence against women in India has made a painful resurgence in the headlines in recent months. Beyond India’s borders, too, women took to the streets to protest violence against women: an anti-rape chant from Chile spread to 200 cities worldwide in December and mass demonstrations took place in France in November to condemn the country’s rising rate of femicide. While Chhapaak focuses on acid violence in particular, Padukone says the current global context underscores its relevance. “It makes us feel like there couldn’t be a better time for a movie such as ours to come out.”
Chhapaak stillsDeepika Padukone stars in new film Chhapaak
In a country where top film stars tend to steer clear of politics, Padukone—India’s highest-paid female actor—has made headlines this week for joining students protesting against the government on Tuesday evening. She stood silently behind a student leader who was injured when masked men, armed with sticks and rods, stormed into the campus of New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Sunday, injuring some 30 people. After photos of Padukone at the protest circulated online, #BoycottChhapaak trended on Twitter, while others praised Padukone for being a rare dissenting voice amid India’s political crackdown under the hashtag #ISupportDeepika.
It wasn’t the first time Padukone has broken from the ranks of traditional A-List Bollywood stars to take a stand on important social issues — having gained a profile as an advocate for mental health and now turning her attention to acid violence. Statistics available from India’s National Crime Records Bureau indicate that 206 cases of acid attacks and attempts to perpetrate acid attacks on women were reported in 2016. Advocates say that unreported cases mean that the real figures are likely to be much higher, possibly as many as over 1,000 attacks per year. According to Acid Survivors’ Trust International, acid attacks in India often occur in public places and in most cases, the attack is committed by a person known to the victim.
After her attack, it took years for Agarwal to feel comfortable with going out in public. The support of family members and friends eventually gave her the strength to do so. “I thought that if these people can see me and they can accept me, why not the entire world?” says Agrawal, now 31. In 2006, she and another acid attack survivor filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court of India to regulate the sale of acid in the country and new criminal laws to deal with offenders. Seven years later in 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, adding restrictions on the sale of acid to individuals below the age of 18.
While the implementation of the regulations vary from state-to-state, Agarwal says that the past six years have seen further strengthening in the law and attitudes to survivors changing in broader society. Her own “Stop Sale Acid” campaign in 2018 encouraged local shop-owners to stop selling acid and offered a certification for those who took an oath to no longer sell it. “2013 was a start, because there was nothing for survivors,” she says. “The most important thing, and the best thing that happened was the other acid attack survivors who took the courage to come out with their stories and be accepted by the world.”
Chhapaak stillsDirector Meghna Gulzar and actor Deepika Padukone on the set of Chhapaak
From Chhapaak’s inception, Agarwal was involved in the production process, meeting with Padukone several times and attending the shooting of the film. “When I saw Deepika playing me, I was so happy to see her look exactly like me,” says Agarwal. While Padukone takes on the lead role based on Agarwal, several other acid attack survivors are featured in acting parts in Chhapaak. “What compelled me to do this project was the spirit that all of these survivors have,” Padukone tells TIME. “It’s also about what they’ve chosen to make of their lives and that experience and that incident, that they’ve not succumbed but have actually come out more victorious and stronger. There’s something for all of us to learn from that.”
Padukone’s own experience of overcoming personal traumas added another layer to the storytelling of Chaapaak. In 2015, Padukone publicly spoke about her struggles with clinical depression and her mental health. That same year, she created the Live Laugh Love Foundation, aiming to reduce stigma, provide education and raise awareness around mental health. She sees the common thread between herself and Agarwal as turning adversity into advocacy. “I would never compare depression and acid violence because they’re completely different, but at the same time, those experiences influenced both of our lives,” Padukone says. “[Agarwal’s] situation was life-threatening in a certain sense, mine was life-threatening in a different sense, yet we both have wanted to overcome that, to fight that, and to make that experience meaningful not just for ourselves but for the people around us.”
For Agarwal, one of those people is her young daughter, who is looking forward to seeing the film. She also hopes that through the film’s portrayal of her journey, it will have a broader impact on attitudes towards acid attack survivors. It’s a sentiment that resonates with Padukone too, who says she learnt a great deal about the challenges survivors face while acting in and producing the project. “On a much deeper level, hopefully we will be able to challenge the notion of what beauty is, or the way we’ve been conditioned to understand beauty,” she says. “I think what they want is to not be treated as anything less than any of us.”
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Explore detailed analysis and information of some of the most popular exchange-traded funds tracking the long- and short-term, high-yield municipal bond market.
The 1040-SR is a new simple tax form for seniors, similar to the 1040-EZ. It arrives in 2019, and you must be at least 65 to use it. Here are the details.
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Both return on equity (ROE) and return on assets (ROA) measure performance, but sometimes they tell a very different story. This is why they're best used together.
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Prasar Bharati Recruitment 2020 | Apply Offline for the 30 Assistant Section Officer Vacancy. Prasar Bharati has announced the circular for the Assistant Section Officer Post. People who need to get the placement in Central Government can register for this Prasar Bharati Jobs 2019. Candidates can apply for the posts through Offline. Applicants can submit the application form for the Assistant Section Officer opens from 21st December 2019 and ends up on 11th January 2020. Get complete details regarding the Delhi Prasar Bharati Job Vacancy in the below section.
Prasar Bharati Recruitment 2020
Prasar Bharati Recruitment board is going to select the 30 eligibles for the Assistant Section Officer post. Applicants ready to select for Prasar Bharati Careers can enroll before the last satisfy i.e 21 days from the date of notification released. Significant dates and links are given below. Refer to the below-provided details and enroll yourself for the Prasar Bharati Recruitment 2019.
Prasar Bharati Recruitment 2019 – Apply Offline for the 30 Assistant Section Officer Vacancy. Prasar Bharati has released the circular for the Assistant Section Officer Post. Individuals who want to get placement in Central Government can register for this Prasar Bharati Jobs 2019. The application link for the Assistant Section Officer opens from 14th October 2019 and ends up on 04th November 2019. Get complete details about the Delhi Prasar Bharati Job Vacancy in the below section.
Prasar Bharati Recruitment board is going to recruit the 30 eligibles for the Assistant Section Officer post. Candidates willing to enroll for Prasar Bharati Careers can register before the last sate i.e 21 days from the date of notification released. Important dates and links are given below. Refer to the below-provided details and enroll yourself for the Prasar Bharati Recruitment 2019.
Prasar Bharati Recruitment 2019 Notification is out. Prasar Bharathi Circular is announced for engaging Managing Executives for SMC and DDK Across India. Young and Dynamic Candidates are invited to fill up 60 Vacancies in India’s Public Service Broadcaster. Individuals not above 35 Years having Marketing experience are suggested to apply for Prasar Bharathi Careers. Application Forms are received from 11th July 2019.
Selected Candidates will be recruited on a Contractual Basis for One year Across India. The last date for receipt of the application forms is 6th August 2019. Interested check with the Notification and start to apply for the Prasar Bharati Jobs. Scroll down to get further details about the Managing Executive Vacancies for SMC and DDK Prasar Bharati Recruitment.
Eligibility Criteria for Prasar Bharati Recruitment 2019
Educational Qualification
For Managing Executive
MBA/ PG/ Diploma in Marketing from a recognized Management Institue/ University
Experience – One year in direct selling with media organization preference.
For Managing Executive Gr – I
MBA/ PG/ Diploma in Marketing from a recognized Management Institue/ University
Experience – 4 years in direct selling with media organization preference.
Age Limit for SMC/ DDK Managing Executive
Upper age limit for the applicants will not be more than 35 Years
Prasar Bharati Recruitment 2019 Application Fee
There is No Application Fee
Managing Executive Salary Details
Post Name
Salary
Managing Executive Gr – I
Rs. 42,000/-
Managing Executive
Rs. 30,000/-
Prasar Bharati Jobs 2019 Selection Process
Written Examination
Interview
How to Apply for Prasar Bharati Recruitment 2019?
Download the Application Structure through the link given below
Enter essential details that are asked for Prasar Bharati Recruitment 2019.
Enclose necessary documents as mentioned in Prasar Bharati Circular.
Send the application form to the Concern
Applications must be reached before the last date. Incomplete applications/ applications received after the last date will be rejected. Candidates can send the application form to the Head of Programme of SMC/ DDK by Mail/ Postal mode.
Note:
Candidates will get a monthly salary including local conveyance and phone charges etc
Candidates should capable to work in a team and to self-start and run with the revenue targets.
Applicants having fluency in English and local language have a preference.
Candidates are restricted to process other assignments during the contractual period.
One year’s contractual period will be expandable based on the requirement of the organization and performance review.
Important Dates for Prasar Bharati Recruitment 2019
Starting Date to Apply
11th July 2019.
Last Date to Apply
6th August 2019
Important Links for Prasar Bharati Recruitment 2019
Prasar Bharati is India’s biggest open telecom office. It is a statutory independent body, Act of Parliament and involves the Doordarshan Television Network and All India Radio, which were prior media units of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The Parliament of India passed the Prasar Bharati Act to concede this self-sufficiency in 1990. The Prasar Bharati Act accommodates the foundation of a Broadcasting Corporation, known as Prasar Bharati, and characterize its synthesis, capacities, and powers. The Act awards independence to All India Radio and to Doordarshan, the two of which were beforehand under government control.
Solapur University Result 2020 Released: Hello Students !!! It’s time to check the results, Yes Solapur University has declared the results for various Courses. Students who have appeared for the Examination can check their results from the official website of the University i.e su.digitaluniversity.ac. Anyone can check the Solapur University Results 2020 for all the students who are studying under the Solapur University. The University offered various Courses like, Under Graduate, Post Graduate, Regular/ Supplementary and other Courses. Those all the Students can check the Solapur University Result from this web page. Also, we have provided a direct link to get the results from the below table.
The University of Solapur has successfully conducted the examination of B.A, B.Sc, B.Com, B.Tech, BBA, BCA, M.A, M.Sc, and Other Examinations 2019. Also, Students may find all the information related to the Examination from this site and official website. Once the University will announce the updated information on the official website, we will also use it to update the latest information to this page. Students also can find the results with the Name, Roll Number, Date of Birth or Year of the Course. Students can get more information related to the Solapur University Results 2020 on our recruitment.guru webpage.
Latest Updated Solapur University Results 2020
Name of the Exam
Result Declared Date
Apply for Photocopy/ Verification up to (for students)
Visit the official website of Solapur University i.e su.digitaluniversity.ac
On the home page, you will find the Examination tab and click on the results.
In the result page, you have to give the Roll number and Year of the Course.
Click on the result link for which course you want to check.
The results will appear on the screen.
Take the printout of the Solapur University Result for future reference.
About Solapur University
Solapur University was established on 1st August 2004 and was inaugurated on 03rd August 2004 by the Governor of Maharashtra. The formation of the university at Solapur was a long-cherished desire of the people of this region. Earlier, to the formation of University, Solapur had a P.G. Centre of Shivaji University for over two decades. The center for P.G. studies had three postgraduate science departments and 7 postgraduate courses conducted in the P.G. departments. With this sound background, Solapur University has been established to cater to the needs of over 60,000 students community. In less than three academic years the Solapur University has the delight of various distinctions. All Students and staff have completed their academic commitment. It is a landmark to state that Solapur University has successfully conducted its examinations and also the results have been declared in record time.
Solapur University Supply/Revaluation Results
Students are waiting for the results if they scored well they will lead to next year. But if they will not get more marks they can apply for the revaluation results. Once they applied for the Examination, the higher level Examiner will check the paper again. They can get the revaluation results within the time. Also if they still get fail marks, they can apply for the supplementary examination. For each and every semester Students can apply for the revaluation after the announcement of the main examination results. Solapur University will take a week or more to process the exam papers to announce the Solapur University Revaluation Results. Do stay updated with the University to know about the Revaluation Exam Results.
JPSC Admit Card 2020: Download all Jharkhand Public Service Commission Recruitment board exam admit card 2020 here. Applied for the JPSC jobs then download the hall ticket for written test, and call letter for interview rounds (selective jobs) online on our page.
Jharkhand PSC usually allows the applicants to download the admit card for the written test online. The board will release the admit card to applicants 15-20 days before the exam date. Hence, if you applied for the JPSC jobs and looking for the admit card, then go through the article and find the link in the sections below.
Applicant searching for JPSC Hall Ticket 2020 is in right place. On our page, we have given the direct link to download the admit card online. To make it easy for the visitors we have given the separate links for respective JPSC careers below. Hence, find the respective link and download the hall ticket today. Aspirants who are looking for interview call letters can download from the link at the end of the page.
JPSC APHO Admit Card 2020
Jharkhand Public Service Commission is going to release in the 01st Week of February 2020 for Assistant Public Health Officer. Hence, Candidates who are eligible to participate in the exam should download the hall ticket by providing login credentials. Check the printed details once before appearing for the examination. The exam date has been declared as 16th February 2020.
The Commission will announce the admit card in the 03rd Week of January 2020. Candidates who have applied for the post of Assistant Engineer can expect the hall ticket at the declared date. Moreover, the Prelims exam date has been declared as 19th January 2020. To get more exam details to download the JPSC Assistant Engineer Admit Card 2019 as soon as possible.
JPSC Assistant Engineer Admit Card 2020 – Download Here
JPSC Assistant Public Prosecutor Admit Card 2020
The Commission has issued the admit card on 23rd December 2019 for the Assistant Public Prosecutor Exam. JPSC APP Mains Exam from 05th January to 09th January 2020. Download the JPSC Exam Admit Card from the below table and carry it for the examination.
JPSC Assistant Public Prosecutor Mains Hall Ticket 2020 – Download Here
JPSC Civil Judge Interview Letter 2019
The Jharkhand Public Service Commission has issued the Interview Letter for the post of Civil Judge on its official portal. Therefore, the admit card will be available at the bottom of the section. Thus, the JPSC Civil Judge Admit Card has to be downloaded by providing valid credentials.
JPSC Civil Judge Interview Letter 2019 – Download Here
JPSC Civil Judge Mains Admit Card 2o20
Jharkhand Public Service Commission released the admit card for the Civil Judge Mains Exam. Hence, the exam date will be printed on the JPSC Admit Card. The Hall Ticket has been released on 11th September 2019. Make sure to download the admit card before the exam date. Hence, the direct link to download the admit card is available on the below segment.
Admit Card is an important document which the applicants need to carry along with them to the exam centre. Candidates who fail to carry the admit card are not allowed to enter the exam centre. Where admit card is your identity that you are the one who applied and came to attend the examination.
Hence, download your admit card today, take a photocopy. We advise to save the hall ticket in pdf format and keep in the drive so that you can access it at any time. However, carry a valid Id proof along with the hall ticket, for verification purpose.
Valid ID Proof’s for Jharkhand Public Service Commission Examination
Aspirants need to carry and Id proof along with with the admit card. Hence, here is the list which you can carry to the exam centre.
Aadhaar Card
Driving license
PAN
Voter ID
Student or Employee ID Card etc.
How to download JPSC Admit Card Online 2020
Click on the link given at the end of our page.
Will be redirected to the official JPSC website
You can find all the JPSC news update on the page.
Find the notification related to you searching for
Click on the link and will be taken to a new page where you can find the admit card link(when released)
Just click on the link and enter the login details (if required) and download your JPSC hall ticket 2020.
Heavy Water Board Recruitment 2020 Notification: Apply Online for 277 Stipendiary Trainee, Technical Officer & Other Vacancies. Heavy Water Board (HWB) welcomed applications from all the eligible and interested candidates to fill up 277 Vacancies in Across India for Stipendiary Trainee, Technical Officer & Other Posts. Job seekers who are looking for a career in the Central Government can make use of this opportunity. Applicants can start applying for these vacancies before the last date 31st January 2020.
Heavy Water Board Recruitment 2020
Online Applications are invited from eligible candidates for appointment to the following posts in Heavy Water Board, various Heavy Water Plants & Other Units of DAE located in various parts of India. Applications will be accepted ONLINE only. For more information candidates can check the details from the Official website of HWB is www.hwb.gov.in recruitment 2020.
Eligibility Criteria for Heavy Water Board HWB Recruitment 2020
All the candidates who are going to apply for the Stipendiary Trainee, Technical Officer & Other Vacancies should refer to the official Notification for more information. Here we have provided Educational qualification, Age limit, Salary details & Others for Heavy Water Board Recruitment 2020.
Educational Qualification
Post Name
Academic Qualification
Technical Officer
B.E or B.Tech with minimum 60% marks in the respective discipline from a recognized university with 4 years of relevant experience after obtaining the requisite qualification.
Stipendiary Trainee
Diploma in relevant discipline & B.Sc with minimum 60% marks in the respective discipline
Nurse
12th & Diploma in Nursing, B.Sc Nursing, Nursing A certificate with 3 years experience in Hospital
Scientific Assistant
Diploma in Civil Eng & B.Sc with minimum 60% marks in aggregate
Technician
Minimum 60% marks in 10th or 12th with Science & Maths
Sub Officer
10th pass or equivalent plus Sub officers course from NFSC or from CISF FTC. Persons having valid Heavy Vehicle Driving License will be given preference.
Stenographer
10th pass or equivalent
UDC
Degree of a recognized University or equivalent with an aggregate of 50% marks
Driver
10th Pass
Driver cum Pump Operator cum Fireman
12th or equivalent with minimum 50% marks + having valid Heavy Vehicle Driving License and 1-year Experience
Age limit for Heavy Water Board Recruitment:
Applicants can refer to the HWB Recruitment 2020 notification for more information.
HWB Salary Details:
Candidates can get the Salary as per the organization norms.
Application Fee:
Kindly refer official notification pdf provided below.
HWB Career Selection Process:
Candidates will be selected for the HWB Stipendiary Trainee, Technical Officer & Other Jobs is based on the performance in the following tests
Written Test (Some)
Interview
How to Apply for HWB Stipendiary Trainee Recruitment 2020?
Steps to Apply for Heavy Water Board Recruitment 2020:
Firstly, candidates can visit the HWB official website i.e. www.hwb.gov.in
Check for the official notification for Stipendiary Trainee, Technical Officer & Other posts
Download the pdf and read the given instructions carefully
Candidate before start applying should keep the properly scanned copies of necessary documents ready.
Fill in all the necessary details asked in the application form
Upload scanned copies of your recent photograph, signature and scanned copies of necessary documents
Pay prescribed application fee
After successful completion of application forms take a printout for further reference.
Important Dates for Heavy Water Board Jobs 2020
Application Starting Date
11th January 2020
Application Closing Date
31st January 2020
Important Links for Heavy Water Board Recruitment 2020
Heavy Water Board (HWB) is a constituent unit under the Department of Atomic Energy in the Government of India. The organization is primarily responsible for the production of Heavy Water (D2O) which is used as a ‘moderator’ and ‘Coolant’ in nuclear power. Other than Heavy Water, HWB is also engaged with the production of different types of nuclear grade solvents. India is one of the largest manufacturers of heavy water in the world.
The research in Heavy Water production was initiated by the Chemical Engineering Division of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in the 1960s and was continued by the Heavy Water Division of BARC where a Pilot Plant was operated for studying the H2S-H20 exchange process. While these studies were in progress, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) commissioned the first Heavy Water Plant in India at Nangal, Punjab, India on the premises of National Fertilisers Limited (NFL) in 1962.
NHM Assam Admit Card 2020 Released for Community Health Officers. Thus, the admit card is now available to download at the below table. Make sure to get the NHM Assam Hall Ticket on or before the exam date i.e. (12th January 2020). Moreover, the board has issued the admit card on 10th January 2020.
NHM Assam Admit Card expected in January 2020 | The National Health Mission Assam is going to release the hall ticket for the Food Safety Officer and Drug Inspector Exams. Hence, the board has declared the tentative exam date in the month of January 2020. So, we advised the candidates to keep track of the official portal to get the exact admit card date and the exam date.
The Assam state has released the admit card with candidate’s information and the exam details. Thus, the Food Safety Officers and the Drug Inspectors exam details will also be available on the printed NHM Assam Admit Card 2020. Be clear with the details provided while downloading the hall ticket and print after that.
Student Name
The venue of the Exam Centre
Date & Time of the Test
Reporting Time to the Exam Hall
Gender (Male/ Female)
Roll Number
Duration of the Test
Space for Invigilator's Signature
Registration Number
Name of the Test Centre
Space for Applicant's Signature
Name of the Exam Conducting Board
Photograph of the Student
Applicant's Date of Birth
Name of the exam
Important Guidelines for the Exam Takers
Full Name of the Applicant
Examination Centre Code
Signature of the Board Counselor
NHM Assam FSO, Drug Inspector Exam 2020
The National Health Mission has announced the tentative exam date in the month of January 2020. Thus, Aspirants who are eligible to participate in the examination should download the NHM Assam Admit Card from the direct link provided at the end of the section. Thus, Aspirants should be updated with the knowledge of NHM Assam Food Safety Officers and Drug Inspector Exam Pattern and Syllabus for the exam preparation.
Apply for various Assam Government Jobs 2020 by checking the eligibility and the last date of the application submission.
ID Proofs along with MHRB Assam FSO Admit Card 2020
Along with the admit card aspirants need to carry the original identity proofs to the exam hall. Moreover, Aspirants must check with the details in the NHM Assam Admit Card after printing it. If any mismatches found with the admit card kindly inform the board to make the changes in it.
Aadhar Card
DSSSB Admit Card
College ID
Ration Card
Driving License
PAN Card
Voter ID
Any Valid ID Proof Issued By Gazetted Officer
Bank Passbook
Passport
How to Download MHRB Assam Admit Card 2020?
Click on "NHM Assam Hall Ticket" Link.
Enter the Login details.
Fill the Captcha appeared in the image.
Log in to get the NHM Assam FSO Admit Card.
An Admit Card page will be available on the screen.
Fill all the mandatory details.
Click on to the download option and download the admit card.
Take a print out and carry for the Exam.
Direct Links to Download NHM Assam Hall Ticket 2020
Gondwana University Result 2020Released: Dear Students !!! Gondwana University has released the Sem examination result according to the Faculty of Department. Those who have attended the Winter 2019 Sem exam for B.E of various fields, BA, B.Sc, B.Com, L.L.B, MA, M.Sc, M.Com, M.Tech and also various other courses can check the updated Gondwana University Result Winter 2020. We have provided with the direct link which will take you to the Gondwana University Official Website. Moreover, all the students can check the Gondwana University Summer/Winter Result 2020 on this recruitment.guru webpage without any confusion.
Gondwana University conducts Sem examination as subdivided into Winter and Summer sessions. The University has released the Summer Session exam results and also Gondwana University Result for Winter 2020 for the previously conducted exams. Those who are searching for the updated Sem exam results can get it here through Online mode. Affiliated colleges and students who are studying under the Gondwana University can check with the Sem examination result for the B.E, BA, B.Sc, B.Com, MA, M.Sc, M.Com, BCA, BL, MCA, M.Tech and also various other courses from the below-given table. The Gondwana University Results 2020 should be selected according to the Faculty of Department to get their respective results.
Latest Gondwana University Results Winter 2020: Click Here
The University of Gondwana is a university established in 2011 in the city of Gadchiroli, in the state of Maharashtra, central India. It takes its name from the Gondwana region in central India. On July 23, 2010, the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly unanimously passed a resolution to establish the University of Gondwana for the region comprising the districts of Chandrapur and Gadchiroli. The resolution was proposed by the Minister of Higher Education and Technology of the time, Rajesh Tope. The new university was incorporated by notification in the subsection of section 3 of the Maharashtra University Act of 1994. On September 27, 2011, the University of Gondwana was expelled from RTMNU, Nagpur.
Gondwana University Revaluation Result 2020
Gondwana University conducts regular as well as supplementary examination for those who are studying under the University. Those students who have failed in the main Sem examination has one more chance of getting passed in the exam. Those who wish that their examination paper should be evaluated once again to improve their scoring can use up the revaluation opportunity. For each and every Sem Students can apply for the revaluation after the announcement of the Gondwana University Result of the Main examination. The Gondwana University will take a week or more to process the exam papers to announce the Gondwana University Revaluation Results. To get the updated Gondwana University Result of Revaluation to check out the Official Website @ gondwanaexams.org. as well as on this page.
FSSAI Food Analyst Admit Card 2020 Released – Get the direct link to download the admit card from the below section for the Food Analyst Examination. Thus, the board has issued the FSSAI Admit Card on 10th January 2020. Moreover, the FSSAI Exam will be held on 18th January 2020.
FSSAI Food Analyst Exam Date Notice 2020 – Check Here
FSSAI Admit Card 2019 has recently uploaded the Admit Card on 22nd June 2019. The admit card has been released for the 275 applicants of Assistant, Jr, Assistant Garde I, and others. Hence, those who have completed the Registration successfully can get the FSSAI Hall Ticket 2019. Likewise, the board releases the Exam Date on its official website. Read the article completely to get the steps to download the FSSAI admit card.
FSSAI Admit Card 2019
As Examination Dates are out now so for downloading their FSSAI Various Posts admit card link is active now. By providing their valid credentials candidates will be able to download their Admit Card. Hence, Candidates can download the admit card from the below section. Here, we provide you with the direct link of the FSSAI Hall Ticket for the aspirant’s convenience. Moreover, Applicants can get complete information about the FSSAI admit card 2019 from this webpage.
FSSAI Administrative Officer, Technical Officer exam will be conducted through Online Mode only. Hence, to attend the exam candidates have to carry the FSSAI admit card. Hence, the board will not send any hard copy of FSSAI hall ticket to the candidates. Moreover, Candidates must download FSSAI admit card to enter the examination hall. However, the admit card has been released on 22nd June 2019. Find the below-given details in the admit card and fill it carefully to download the valid Admit Card
Name of the Applicant.
Exam Date, Time & Centre.
Post Applied for.
Application or Registration Number
Father Name and
Important Instructions.
FSSAI Exam 2019
Food Safety and Standard Authority of India has announced the exam date from 24th July to 26th July 2019. Moreover, All the Candidates should make their presence at the exam center before 30 Minutes. So, Candidates have to download the admit card from the end of the web page. Get all the instructions about the FSSAI exam in this section. Candidates will have 120 minutes to complete the examination. Hence, all the candidates should go through the FSSAI Exam Syllabus 2019 to make your exam preparation easy. The question will be in Bilingual both English and Hindi.
For each wrong answer, 1 mark will be detected as negative marking. 4 Marks has been allocated for each correct answer. Question Paper will hold Multiple Choice of questions. So, Prepare according to the exam pattern given by FSSAI Board.
To download FSSAI admit card, User ID and Password is a must. So, Candidates have to log in by using the needed information. Moreover, follow the instruction mentioned in the hall ticket at the exam center. However, candidates must download the admit card before the exam date. Check to the details in the FSSAI admit card after downloading it. Carry any one of the original ID proof listed below for the exam.
UKPSC Result 2020 Released@ ukpsc.gov.in: Check UKPSC Assistants Conservator of Forest Merit List, Cut off Marks here. The officials of Uttarakhand Public Service Commission has announced the UKPSC ACF Result 2020 on 10th January 2020. Applicants who have appeared for the UKPSC Assistants Conservator of Forest Exam 2019 can check your results from this page. Candidates those who appeared for the exam can check the full details of UKPSC ACF Result 2020 from this page.
UKPSC Assistants Conservator of Forest Exam Result 2020: Uttarakhand Public Service Commission had declared the UKPSC Assistants Conservator of Forest Result 2020 on 10th January 2020. Therefore, the UKPSC has conducted the Examination for Assistants Conservator of Forest on 03rd November 2019. Uttarakhand Public Service Commission has commenced this recruitment to fill 45 vacancies of Assistants Conservator of Forest posts. For this post, the selection process consists of the written test and the interview. Here, We will update the direct link to download the UKPSC ACF Result 2020. And also get the UKPSC Assistants Conservator of Forest Cut Off Marks & Merit List 2020 here.
Uttarakhand PSC ARO, Translator, Typist, Assistant Librarian Result 2020 – Uttarakhand Public Service Commission has conducted the Examination to fill 65 Vacancies of Assistant Review Officer, Translator, Typist, Assistant Librarian Posts on 29th December 2019. Many aspirants applied for those posts and completed the written test successfully. Moreover, the UKPSC Department is planning to declare the UKPSC ARO, Translator, Typist, Assistant Librarian Result 2020 tentatively in the month of January 2020. Hence, all the participants can get the UKPSC Result 2020 from this site using the direct link given in the below section. And also download the UKPSC Cut Off Marks, Merit List 2020 from this page.
UKPSC ARO, Translator, Typist, Assistant Librarian Result 2020
UKPSC ARO, Translator, Typist, Assistant Librarian Result 2020 – Click Here
UKPSC CJ Result 2019 Declared– The result of the UKPSC CJ Exam 2019 will declare from the official website of the exam conducting authority and released through online mode. All the examiners who are eagerly searching for the result announcement now they can check their results. Based on the result, the candidates are qualified for the further selection process. The Uttarakhand Public service commission has successfully conducted the Civil Judge Exam 2019 on 1st September 2019 in various Examination centers. The UKPSC CJ Result is released on 28th November 2019.
Uttarakhand Public service commission Civil Judge Result 2020- Click Here
UKPSC Economics & Statistics Officer Result 2020 @ ukpsc.gov.in. The officials of the Uttarakhand Public Service Commission are planning to release the UKPSC ESO Result 2020 in the month of January 2020 (Tentatively). Moreover, the officials had conducted the UKPSC Economics and Statistics Officer Exam on 17th November 2019. And also download UKPSC ESO Cut off Marks and Merit List Here.
UKPSC Economics and Statistics Officer Result 2020
Uttarakhand Public service commission ESO Result 2020 – Click Here
UKPSC ACF Cut Off Marks 2020
The UKPSC Assistants Conservator of Forest Cut Off Marks 2020 will release before the Result. The Cut Off Marks means the minimum marks that should be scored by the candidates to get qualified in the exam. Aspirants who have scoredthe UKPSC ACF Cut Off Marks 2020 will be known to be selective in the UKPSC ACF Exam. Candidates can check the UKPSC ACF Cut Off Marks 2020 from the official portal.
UKPSC ACF Merit List 2020
The UKPSC ACF Merit List 2020 contains the names and register number of the candidates who secure top marks in the exam. Those top marks aspirants will have the chance to go for the next level Interview process. The officials will release the UKPSC ACF Merit List along with the results. Aspirants can check the UKPSC Assistants Conservator of Forest Merit List 2020 form the official website @ ukpsc.gov.in.
How to check UKPSC ACF Result 2020?
Visit the Official website of the Uttarakhand Public Service Commission ukpsc.gov.in.
On the home page click on the results tab from the left side menu.
A new page will be open, in that click on the related link of UKPSC ACF Results.
The UKPSC Assistants Conservator of Forest Result will display on the screen.
By Rashmi Rajput & Jaikishan YadavMUMBAI: Edelweiss Group chairman Rashesh Shah was asked to join an Enforcement Directorate probe into alleged violations of foreign exchange rules amounting to more than. Rs 2,000 crore but he did not turn up for questioning and sought to appear at a later date, officials said on Friday. The agency is likely to issue fresh summons next week, they said.Shah's Mumbai-based financial services group is part of a probe involving a Thane-based firm, Capstone Forex, according to officials. The role of a major Indian movie production and distribution company is also under probe, they said without naming the entity.Edelweiss Group issued a statement on Friday saying none of its companies had any transactions with Capstone Forex.It also dismissed reports in a section of the media in this regard. "The summons was issued under certain sections of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) on January 3 and Rashesh Shah was asked to join the probe on January 9, but he has sought a later date," an official in the know of the development told ET on condition of anonymity. "We are starting with him to understand why Edelweiss was involved in these transactions. The other firms related to these transactions will also be called in due course." 73197896 Capstone Forex allegedly created bogus tourist lists and illegally remitted foreign exchange overseas, according to officials. "In order to provide credit balance to this company, Edelweiss Group companies and another firm under probe allegedly issued cheques to this Thane-based company for buying dollars and transferring under current account. These dollars were remitted to shell companies, which subsequently withdrew the money mostly through cash," said a second official."There has been fraud at two levels – one, foreign exchange was illegally remitted by creating a bogus list of travellers and, second, a corporate like Edelweiss Group helped in illegal procurement of foreign exchange," said the official. "While the major player in this looks to be the Edelweiss Group, the other entities which also helped provide credit balance to the Thane-based firm will be called in due course."The role of each party in the transaction is being ascertained, as are complex layers of transactions involved, said the official. "We want to probe who is the ultimate beneficiary of these shell entities and who floated them in the first place. Was this done with the dual intention of evading taxes and hoarding funds offshore?" said the official.In its press statement, Edelweiss Group said, "We have received a communication from the Enforcement Directorate to appear and provide information about Edelweiss Group companies' dealings with a company called Capstone Forex Pvt Ltd. We would like to state that none of our companies have any transactions with this company….""We further deny wild and baseless allegations contained in the news items which are apparently attributed to unidentified sources. We are in fact shocked at the spread of unauthenticated allegations and the inference being drawn from it," it said.According to people aware of the matter, Sanjay Nathalal Shah, an independent director in certain entities linked to Edelweiss Group, is alleged to be a close associate of the owners of Capstone Forex. Shah is an independent director in entities including Edelweiss Finvest and Edelweiss Fund Advisors, which was amalgamated in February last year along with four other entities with Edelweiss Agri Value Chain Limited, as per a filing with the stock exchange.The financial statement and director's report of Capstone Forex, reviewed by ET, show that the company reported revenue of Rs 314.41crore from operations in March 2018, a whopping increase of nearly 1,800% from Rs 16.69 crore a year earlier. In March 2016, the company had reported a total income of Rs 4.89 crore.
ET INTELLIGENCE GROUP: The December quarter performance of Infosys was a mixed bag. While revenue and profit growth was broadly on expected lines, the operating margin was below the Street's expectations and there was no visible revival in the major verticals of financial services and retail, which together contributed 47% to the total revenue in the quarter.The favourable outcome of the internal audit committee regarding the whistle blower allegations will be a near-term positive for the stock. The audit committee assisted by an independent legal counsel has concluded that there was no evidence of financial impropriety or misconduct by the company's executives.While this would settle the doubts in the minds of investors for the time being, it would be prudent for them to know that the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in the US where the company's depository receipts are listed, continues to investigate the matter. Infosys also faces class action lawsuits by stockholders in the US. In addition, Indian regulatory authorities have sought information from the company on the matter.On the operating front, the company reported a strong $1.8 billion worth of large deals for the December quarter. The employee attrition rate at 19.6% fell for the second consecutive quarter.Revenue from the fast growing digital offerings rose by 40% year-on-year. It formed 40.6% of the total revenue of $3,243 million compared with 31.5% in the yearago quarter.An analysis of the trailing 12-month (TTM) incremental revenue in dollar terms in each of the past few quarters reveals that the company has shown a sustained momentum since the September 2017 quarter when it had hit a low of $558 million.Over the next two years, it gradually grew to $1.1 billion in the December 2019 quarter. The year-onyear growth rate of the TTM revenue also improved to 9.5% from 5.6% in the said period.What may cause some concern is the continued weakness in the finance vertical, which constituted 31.5% of the total revenue in the third quarter. It revenue grew at a slower pace of 6.2% year-on-year compared with the 10.3% growth in the previous quarter. Against this backdrop, the marginal upward revision in the company's FY20 revenue guidance at constant currency to 10-10.5% growth from the earlier 9-10% growth may not prompt analysts to make major revisions to earnings estimates.The stock recovered to Rs 738.3 on Friday from Rs 643.3 on October 22 in a reaction to the whistle blower complaints. It was trading above Rs 770 before the allegations. The audit committee's report on Friday denying any wrongdoing by the executives and the robust new business may help the stock to reclaim this level in the short term.Whether it is able to sustain it will depend upon measures taken by the company to improve operating profitability and revive the growth of finance and retail verticals.
NEW DELHI: Protests, masked mobs, police 'inaction', Right vs Left, vice-chancellor vs students… and one of India's best institutes for higher education and research — that's Jawaharlal Nehru University.Headlines on JNU may frequently centre around agitation and student politics, but the big story is that it's currently one of India's top-ranked academic institutes and has been so in recent annual rankings.JNU is the only central university, in fact the only varsity, among top eight Indian institutes in the 2019 National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). This HRD ministry ranking system, widely followed in the country, had IIT-Madras at the top spot in 2019, and the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, in second position. JNU is at the seventh spot. The other five places in the top eight were occupied by the IITs.The NIRF, launched in September 2015 by the HRD ministry, ranks institutional performance on the parameters of "teaching, learning and resources", "research and professional practices", "graduation outcomes", "outreach and inclusivity", and "perception". It assigns scores to every institute (see graphic).The ranking methodology assesses an institute's student strength (including at doctoral levels), teacher-student ratio, published and granted patents, number of PhDs, percentage of students who are from other states and disadvantaged sections and who are women, besides perception of academic peers. 73197593 JNU's academic performance has improved as the frequency and intensity of student agitations gathered pace in recent years. The university has been rocked by protests since 2016, and it has improved its overall score in the NIRF from 61.53 in 2017 to 68.8 in 2019.In 2017, JNU also won the President's Visitor's Award for the best university.Interestingly, other universities that have seen student protests and agitations recently — Jamia Millia Islamia, Aligarh Muslim University, Hyderabad University and Jadavpur University — also score well in rankings.In the NIRF's university rankings — a smaller subset that exclude institutes such as IITs — JNU came second in 2019, Hyderabad University stood fourth and Jadavpur University was sixth. Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia were at the 11th and 12th spots, respectively.Since 2016, JNU academics have been conferred with various Visitor's Awards. And in 2015, still fresh from the student agitation over Rohit Vemula's suicide, Hyderabad University won the Visitor's Award for best university. Academics from both Jamia and AMU have also won the Visitor's Awards since 2015, when these awards were introduced.
MUMBAI: Offering relief to operational and unsecured creditors as well as provident funds, the new Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS) board has decided to revise the distribution framework for group resolution.It has proposed to release 55 companies from the moratorium. Some of these companies are under the corporate insolvency process or facing liquidation, and a few entities have limited business operations, the board told the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT).The board has proposed a mechanism for distribution of the financial bid, or liquidation, amounts for considering interest of each set of creditors. After distribution of net sale proceeds to creditors under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code's (IBC) 'waterfall' mechanism, the remaining amount will be distributed to each class of creditors on prorata basis.Once approved, this will set a precedent for group resolution."Based on analysis of the current position and challenges, the assessment of the new board is that the revised distribution framework is a fair and equitable manner of distribution of relevant sale proceeds, and is in the best interest of all stakeholders and creditors," noted a board report sent to the NCLAT through the ministry of corporate affairs, a copy of which has been seen by ET.An IL&FS spokesperson declined to comment on the story.IL&FS defaulted on its debt obligations in August 2018, triggering a financial sector meltdown in India. The government-appointed board took over IL&FS in October that year, and made Uday Kotak its chairman. The board is addressing a total outstanding debt of Rs 94,000 crore, of which IL&FS Transportation Networks Ltd, IL&FS Energy Development Company Ltd, IL&FS Financial Services Ltd and IL&FS together holds Rs 48,000 crore.Provident funds of companies such as Philips India, SAS Employees Provident Fund Trust, British Airways' Cabin Crew Pension Fund, PLC Staff Fund and superannuation fund are estimated to have invested Rs 15,000-20,000 crore in IL&FS group entities.Distribution of proceeds from sale of wind energy assets is pending, and will be based on the revised distribution framework. Orix has bought seven special purpose vehicles from IL&FS for Rs 5,920 crore.Sale of wind, road and education assets is likely to fetch around Rs 18,000 crore. The board is actively considering alternatives such as infrastructure investment trusts for value maximisation of assets with debt of Rs 10,300 crore.The company has received a binding bid for Chongqing Yuhe Expressway Company, which has debt of Rs 1,600 crore. It is considering the Swiss challenge process for sale of its technology, environment and BPO assets. The board also expects recovery of Rs 3,000-3,500 crore from sale of real estate assets, including the IL&FS headquarters in Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai.Parent company IL&FS took equity ownership in roads, power companies and educational institutions, which led to it promoting hundreds of companies. Much of its debt is equity in operating companies — difficult to recover as other assets are yet to generate cash. Six entities are already under the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process. Resolution has been passed for seven entities, while eight are green entities with no debt and are under monetisation. Six are trusts with no operations and five have insignificant assets.The board observed that creditors are concerned about maximising recovery at individual entity level, without regard to its adverse impact on other creditors.
NEW DELHI: More than 20,000 offline retailers have told India's top smartphone makers — Xiaomi and Samsung — that they will boycott the two brands if there's no stop to deep discounting and aligning with ecommerce players.In similar but separate letters dated January 10, the All India Mobile Retailers' Association (AIMRA) also said that if deep discounting continued online, brick-and-mortar retailers could also "simply deduct the difference and sell at online prices."ET has seen a copy of the letters, which were addressed to Mohandeep Singh, senior vicepresident, mobile business, Samsung India and Sunil Baby, director, offline sales operations, Xiaomi."When brands can control offline MOP (market operating price), it is only imperative and fair that they should control the deep discounting," the letter said.73197806 Offline mobile traders are fighting against exclusive deals between brands and ecommerce platforms such as Flipkart and Amazon, and demanding simultaneous offline launch of products at the same price."We feel the time has come for brands to take our issues seriously, else retailers and associations will not fear to boycott the brands. We are not in favour of force, but if the current scenario demands it, we shall not withdraw," the letter said.Both Samsung and Xiaomi declined to comment on ET's queries.Retailer associations have been relentlessly campaigning against exclusive deals, cashback offers and 15-20 day prior online launches by mobile brands. After grievances were submitted to mobile manufacturers many times, Vivo, Oppo and Realme assured their retail partners that they would launch products and variant at the same time and at the same price across channels."Apple does not have any exclusivity among their sales channels, while OnePlus has just entered the offline channel. AIMRA has written to OnePlus as well to end exclusivity completely," said Arvinder Khurana, president, AIMRA. He added that among the top selling brands, Xiaomi and Samsung have been pain points for long."Xiaomi especially does preferential sales by launching its products online an average 21 days beforehand. After robust online sales, it becomes difficult for offline retailers to push Xiaomi products, as their attractiveness has diminished," Khurana said. He claimed that around 30 smartphone models were enjoying exclusivity and preferential sales during the festive season.
NEW DELHI: Automobile sales in India last year fell the most in more than two decades, as slowing economic activity, high vehicle prices and stricter lending rules damped demand.In passenger vehicles, an easing in the pace of decline in December, though on a low base, and an improvement in the rolling average in the last three months of the year led the industry to suggest that the worst may be over.Sales across the automobile sector, from passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles to two- and three-wheelers, fell 13.77% to 23.07 million units in 2019, as per data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) on Friday. Passenger vehicle and two-wheeler sales fell the most since the industry started reporting numbers, by 12.75% to 2.96 million and 14.19% to 18.57 million units, respectively, last year. The fall in commercial vehicles was the most in six years at 15%, to 854,759 units.73197766 In December, sales of passenger vehicles such as cars, utility vehicles and vans fell 1.24% to 235,786 units. Sales of commercial vehicles and two-wheelers declined by 12.23% to 66,622 and 16.6% to 1.05 million, respectively, while overall, sales dropped 13.08% to 1.41 million. "In passenger vehicles, the three-month rolling average is indicating a trend reversal," SIAM president Rajan Wadhera said. "Enquiries have started going up, but sentiments have not improved to a level where we can see growth. That will take some more time."Slowdown in the broader economy and weak consumer sentiment continue to impact fundamental demand, he added.New launches in the utility vehicle segment did help draw some buyers. For the year, while sales of passenger cars fell 18.91%, those of utility vehicles rose 4.78%. Utility vehicles accounted for 34% of sales of passenger vehicles in the Indian market during April-December, the first nine months of the ongoing fiscal year, compared with 13% in fiscal 2011.A sharp increase in acquisition costs due to higher insurance premium and implementation of stringent safety rules hit two-wheeler sales. While sales of scooters dropped 16.03%, those of motorcycles fell 12.92%.SIAM president Wadhera cited farm out, which he said was "not good" last year, along with high vehicle prices for the steep fall in motorcycles sales in rural areas.Wadhera expects demand to increase in the coming months ahead of the switchover to BS-VI emission standards on April 1, when prices are set to go up."BS-VI will add 8-10% to vehicle costs. Individual organisation will not be able to wholly absorb this cost and will have to pass it on to customers. This will have an impact on demand," he said. "We expect some pre-buying this quarter. If the government announces the vehicle scrappage policy, it will help the industry."
After contracting for three consecutive months, Index of Industrial Production (IIP) grew at 1.8 per cent in November on the back of improving manufacturing sector. The IIP growth in November 2018 was at 0.2 per cent. According to the National Statistical Office (NSO) data, the growth in the manufacturing sector was 2.7 per cent as against a contraction of 0.7 per cent in the same month last year, PTI reported. The IIP growth during April-November came in at 0.6 per cent, down from 5 per cent in the same period of 2018-19. As per the NSO data, 13 out of the 23 industry groups in the manufacturing sector showed positive growth during November 2019 as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year. Here's how economists reacted to the IIP data.Deepthi Mathew, Economist, Geojit Financial ServicesIt is a good sign for the economy as IIP turned positive after three months of contraction. From the consumption point of view, it is welcoming that the consumer non-durables has turned positive. However, consumer durables are still in the negative territory, contracting for the last six months. Sunil Kumar Sinha, Principal Economist, India RatingsWe believe turnaround in factory output growth from degrowth to growth though is a welcome sign, it still cannot be interpreted as some kind of a green shoot on the industrial front as a number of key use-based sectors such as consumer durables, capital goods, basic goods and infrastructure goods are still showing degrowth. Unless and until the majority of the use-based sectors show positive growth on a sustained basis, it would be difficult to believe that Indian industrial sector has come out of the woods. Rumki Majumdar, Economist, Deloitte IndiaThe latest IIP numbers come as a relief to the market and policymakers, as the activity in the industry sector showed some traction. On a month-on-month basis, growth has been broad-based with capital and durable goods showing considerable improvement. Relative to the previous year, growth in manufacturing has been impressive, although it could not build on the past month's growth momentum. Karan Mehrishi, Lead Economist, Acuité RatingsMinor recovery in the IIP is a function of a favourable base effect, which will continue to benefit until the end of the financial year. On these lines, manufacturing, which was contracting continuously for the previous three months has received a fillip from the contraction in November 2018 (base year). Segments without such benefit are maintaining their negative outlook, baring consumer non-durables (use based).
Mumbai: Oil marketing companies and upstream companies are likely to re-rate in 2020 as privatization theme picks up and there is sustained strength in marketing business performance, said foreign brokerage UBS. Moreover, refining margins are likely to recover due to International Maritime Organisation norms 2020 and Bharat Stage VI norms, it said. Gas transmission businesses could recover with higher availability of domestic gas and liquefied natural gas, said UBS. The brokerage has upgraded GAIL India to buy and downgraded Gujarat Gas and Mahanagar Gas to sell. UBS has retained buy ratings on Reliance Industries, oil marketing companies and Oil & Natural Gas Corporation. The brokerage said RIL, BPCL, ONGC, and GAIL are its most favoured stocks:Reliance IndustriesCMP: Rs 1,547.70Rating/Target Price: Buy/1,750Refining complex upgrades were completed ahead of schedule for IMO 2020, with the petcoke gasifier also under stablisation, said UBS. Petrochemical margins face near-term headwinds; however, feedstock flexibility and integration are providing some respite, it said. The brokerage expects re-organization of Jio and the digital platform strategy to be a compelling investment proposition. UBS expects retail segment performance to remain strong with robust margins. Thecompany remains on track towards deleveraging and right-sizing the balance sheet, said UBS. BPCLCMP: Rs 470.25Rating/Target Price: Buy/600BPCL has prepared ahead of schedule for IMO 2020 and will benefit from higher complexity and widening light-heavy differentials, said UBS. The brokerage said its superior marketing performance is reflected in its stable market share and highest throughput per outlet among state-owned oil marketing companies. Strategic privatization could providea significant upside case, said UBS. ONGCCMP: Rs 124.10Rating/Target Price: Buy/200The brokerage estimates that ONGC is discounting nearly $50 per barrel Brent and has been trading significantly below long-term valuation multiples. The fundamentals remain strong, driven by a stable oil price outlook, no cooking fuelsubsidy burden and diversification of earnings from downstream investments, said UBS. GAILCMP: Rs 125.40Rating/Target Price: Buy/160The brokerage expects GAIL's earnings tol rebound with increased volume from the gas transmission and marketing segments, as well as a recovery of the commodity segment. Major pipeline projects, including the Urja Ganga project and the Kochi-Mangalore pipeline, are coming online in FY21-22, said UBS. The brokerage expects the petchem and LPG segments to return to higher profitability as of FY21-22, as commodity prices seem to have bottomed out.
Mobile phone retailers have reached out to leading cellphone manufacturers on Friday that brands need to control online deep discounting as they work closely with the online channel and since they already control the market operating price for offline stores.Cellphone retailers under the umbrella of their apex national body, All India Mobile Retailers Association (AIMRA) has informed brands like Xiaomi, Samsung and OnePlus that unless online discounting is controlled, retailers will deduct the difference and sell at online prices and may even consider boycotting the brand altogether. "We feel the time has come for brands to take our issues seriously, else retailers/associations will not fear to boycott the brands. We are not in favour of force but if the current scenario demands it, we shall not withdraw," said the letter written by AIMRA president Arvinder Khurana.Last month too, AIMRA had shot a letter to the brands warning them that they would sell at online prices if online discounting is not controlled and recover the balance from distributors and may even boycott the brands. Oppo and Vivo subsequently shot a trade advisory assuring retailers of launching similar products at the same time in both online and offline stores and at same price. Realme too has assured the same. AIMRA executives said Xiaomi, Samsung and OnePlus are yet to communicate any decision in this regard. Earlier this week, AIMRA held a national convention in New Delhi where more than 20,000 retailers and distributors from across India participated to push the brands to meet its demand. Mobile phone retailers had also downed shutters for a day across the country as protest."This only goes to show the abysmal state of business across the country…November and December 2019 registered the worst business seen in 15 years," the letter said.Khurana told ET that thousands of cellphone stores have shut shop in the last one year. "The existing e-commerce policy prohibits exclusivity, but the brands have worked around it by continuing to roll out exclusive models. We are pressing the government to plug these loopholes, stop online predatory pricing and set up a regulatory body to ensure the policy is complied," he said. As per US-based market tracker International Data Corporation, online accounts for more than 45% of total smartphone sales in India. It said smartphone sales in India during July to September period were driven by e-commerce with offline sales declining by 2.6% year-on-year. AIMRA, along with traders' body Confederation of All India Traders, has been protesting against e-commerce discounts since Diwali. These two organisations have made multiple representations to the government, whereby commerce minister Piyush Goyal had even warned of strict action against e-commerce marketplaces if the e-commerce policy was violated.
Hiring activity has shown a 10% rise in December 2019 as compared to December 2018, says the Naukri JobSpeakThe major contributors to this growth were industries like BPO (27%) Pharma (18%) and IT – Software (18%). Demand for job roles in ITES/ BPO (31%) and Accounts (16%) also led to this overall uptick in hiring.Amongst cities, Hyderabad (27%), Pune (14%) and Delhi (11%) led the way in terms of growth in hiring. Demand for entry-level professionals (0-3 years exp.) and senior-level executives (4-7 years exp.) grew by 16% and 12% respectively."The year ended on a positive note, with a 10% increase in overall hiring. Hyderabad and Bangalore have been posting consistent growth in hiring over the last six months and if we look at the year as a whole IT – Software has seen a growth of 28 % compared to the year before. The year gone by has seen growth in jobs and we are cautiously optimistic going forward," said Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com in a statement.
The road to “solving” self-driving cars is riddled with challenges from perception and decision making to figuring out the interaction between human and robots.
Today we're announcing that joining us at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI on March 3 at UC Berkeley are two experts who play important roles in the development and deployment of autonomous vehicle technology: Anca Dragan and Jur van den Berg.
Dragan is assistant professor at UC Berkeley’s electrical engineering and computer sciences department as well as a senior research scientist and consultant for Waymo, the former Google self-driving project that is now a business under Alphabet. She runs the InterACT Lab at UC-Berkeley, which focuses on on algorithms for human-robot interaction. Dragan also helped found and serve on the steering committee for the Berkeley AI Research Lab, and is co-PI of the Center for Human-Compatible AI.
Van den Berg is the co-founder and CTO of Ike Robotics, a self-driving truck startup that last year raised $52 million in a Series A funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures. Van den Berg has been part of the most important, secretive and even controversial companies in the autonomous vehicle technology industry. He was a senior researcher and developer in Apple’s special projects group, before jumping to self-driving trucks startup Otto. He became a senior autonomy engineer at Uber after the ride-hailing company acquired Otto .
All of this led to Ike, which was founded in 2018 with Nancy Sun and Alden Woodrow, who were also veterans of Apple, Google and Uber Advanced Technologies Group's self-driving truck program
Many investors — including me — spend most of our day doing the same things people have always done in our job: in my case, due diligence, deal execution, etc. However, being a "microinfluencer" is now part of the job description.
In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 followers. Traditional celebrities or influencers with millions of followers have a large service industry and tech stack to serve their needs. But the standard toolkit of a microinfluencer is still evolving.
The challenge is that my time and money budget for "influencing"–content creation and marketing– is minimal. Also, since I'm not trying to be a full-time marketer, I can't use some of the standard celebrity techniques. I can't pick fights on Twitter; date other celebrities; or swear a lot at conferences. These vectors work for a lot of celebrities and for some businesspeople and politicians, but I'm uncomfortable with them and it will impede my ability to do the rest of my job. Plus, my wife doesn't let me date celebrities.
Amazon has fired a number of employees after they shared customer email address and phone numbers with a third-party “in violation of our policies.”
The email to customers sent Friday afternoon, seen by TechCrunch, said an employee was “terminated” for sharing the data, and that the company is supporting law enforcement in their prosecution.
Amazon confirmed the incident in an email to TechCrunch. A spokesperson said a number of employees were fired. But little else is known about the employees, when the information was shared and with whom, and how many customers are affected.
“No other information related to your account was shared. This is not a result of anything you have done, and there is no need for you to take any action,” the email read to customers.
An email to Amazon customers, saying an employee was fired. Amazon said multiple employees were fired.
In a separate incident, Amazon said this week that it fired four employees at Ring, one of the retail giant’s smart camera and door bell subsidiaries. Ring said it fired the employees for improperly viewing video footage from customer cameras.
Updated headline to clarify that an unknown number of employees were fired.
This story was reported in partnership with health news site The Mighty.
Every day, millions of new medical images containing the personal health information of patients are spilling out onto the internet.
Hundreds of hospitals, medical offices and imaging centers are running insecure storage systems, allowing anyone with an internet connection and free-to-download software to access over 1 billion medical images of patients across the world.
About half of all the exposed images, which include X-rays, ultrasounds and CT scans, belong to patients in the United States.
Yet despite warnings from security researchers who have spent weeks alerting hospitals and doctors’ offices to the problem, many have ignored their warnings and continue to expose their patients’ private health information.
“It seems to get worse every day,” said Dirk Schrader, who led the research at Germany-based security firm Greenbone Networks, which has been monitoring the number of exposed servers for the past year.
The problem is well-documented. Greenbone found 24 million patient exams storing more than 720 million medical images in September, which first unearthed the scale of the problem as reported by ProPublica. Two months later, the number of exposed servers had increased by more than half, to 35 million patient exams, exposing 1.19 billion scans and representing a considerable violation of patient privacy.
But the problem shows little sign of abating. “The amount of data exposed is still rising, even considering the amount of data taken offline due to our disclosures,” said Schrader.
If doctors fail to take action, he said the number of exposed medical images will hit a new high “in no time.”
Over a billion medical images remain exposed. Experts say the number is getting worse, not better. (Image: supplied)
Researchers say the problem is caused by a common weakness found on the servers used by hospitals, doctors’ offices and radiology centers to store patient medical images.
A decades-old file format and industry standard known as DICOM was designed to make it easier for medical practitioners to store medical images in a single file and share them with other medical practices. DICOM images can be viewed using any of the free-to-use apps, as would any radiologist. DICOM images are typically stored in a picture archiving and communications system, known as a PACS server, allowing for easy storage and sharing. But many doctors’ offices disregard security best practices and connect their PACS server directly to the internet without a password.
These unprotected servers not only expose medical imaging but also patient personal health information. Many patient scans include cover sheets baked into the DICOM file, including the patient’s name, date of birth and sensitive information about their diagnoses. In some cases, hospitals use a patient’s Social Security number to identify patients in these systems.
Lucas Lundgren, a Sweden-based security researcher, spent part of last year looking at the extent of exposed medical image data. In November, he demonstrated to TechCrunch how easy it was for anyone to view medical data from exposed servers. In just a few minutes, he found one of the largest hospitals in Los Angeles exposing tens of thousands of patients’ scans dating back several years. The server was later secured.
Some of the largest hospitals and imaging centers in the United States are the biggest culprits of exposing medical data. Schrader said the exposed data puts patients at risk of becoming “perfect victims for medical insurance fraud.”
Yet, patients are unaware that their data could be exposed on the internet for anyone to find.
The Mighty, which examined the effect on patients, found exposed medical information puts patients at a greater risk of insurance fraud and identity theft. Exposed data can also erode the relationship between patients and their doctors, leading to patients becoming less willing to share potentially pertinent information.
As part of our investigation, we found a number of U.S. imaging centers storing decades of patient scans.
One patient, whose information was exposed following a visit to an emergency room in Florida last year, described her exposed medical data as “scary” and “uncomfortable.” Another with a chronic illness had regular scans at a hospital in California over a period of 30 years. And one unprotected server at one of the largest military hospitals in the United States exposed the names of military personnel and medical images.
But even in cases of patients with only one or a handful of medical images, the exposed data can be used to infer a picture of a person’s health, including illnesses and injuries.
Many patient scans include cover sheets containing personal health information baked into the file. (Image: supplied)
In an effort to get the servers secured, Greenbone contacted more than a hundred organizations last month about their exposed servers. Many of the smaller organizations subsequently secured their systems, resulting in a small drop in the overall number of exposed images. But when the security company contacted the 10 largest organizations, which accounted for about one-in-five of all exposed medical images, Schrader said there was “no response at all.”
Greenbone privately shared names of the organizations to allow TechCrunch to follow up with each medical office, including a health provider with three hospitals in New York, a radiology company in Florida with a dozen locations and a major California-based hospital. (We’re not naming the affected organizations to limit the risk of exposing patient data.)
Only one organization secured its servers. Northeast Radiology, a partner of Alliance Radiology, had the largest cache of exposed medical data in the U.S., according to Greenbone’s data, with more than 61 million images on about 1.2 million patients across its five offices. The server was secured only after TechCrunch followed up a month after Greenbone first warned the organization of the exposure.
Alliance spokesperson Tracy Weise declined to comment.
Schrader said if the remaining affected organizations took their exposed systems off the internet, almost 600 million images would “disappear” from the internet.
Experts who have warned about exposed servers for years say medical practices have few excuses. Yisroel Mirsky, a security researcher who has studied security vulnerabilities in medical equipment, said last year that security features set out by the standards body that created and maintains the DICOM standard have “largely been ignored” by the device manufacturers.
Schrader did not lay blame on the device manufacturers. Instead, he said it was “pure negligence” that doctor’s offices failed to properly configure and secure their servers.
Lucia Savage, a former senior privacy official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said more has to be done to improve security across the healthcare industry — especially at the level of smaller organizations that lack resources.
“If the data is personal health information, it is required to be secured from unauthorized access, which includes finding it on the internet,” said Savage. “There is an equal obligation to lock the file room that contains your paper medical records as there is to secure digital health information,” she said.
Medical records and personal health data are highly protected under U.S. law. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) created the “security rule,” which included technical and physical safeguards designed to protect electronic personal health information by ensuring the data is kept private and secure. The law also holds healthcare providers accountable for any security lapses. Running afoul of the law can lead to severe penalties.
“As Health and Human Services aggressively pushes to permit a wider range of parties to have access to the sensitive health information of American patients without traditional privacy protections attaching to that information, HHS's inattention to this particular incident becomes even more troubling.” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA)
Deven McGraw, who was the top privacy official in the Health and Human Services’ enforcement arm — the Office of Civil Rights, said if security assistance was more available to smaller providers, the government could focus its enforcement efforts on providers that willfully ignore their security obligations.
“Government enforcement is important, as is guidance and support for lower resourced providers and easy-to-deploy solutions that are built into the technology,” said McGraw. “It may be too big of a problem for any single law enforcement agency to truly put a dent in.”
Since the scale of exposed medical servers was first revealed in September, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) called for answers from Health and Human Services. Warner acknowledged that the number of U.S.-based exposed servers had decreased — 16 servers storing 31 million images — but told TechCrunch that "more needs to be done."
“To my knowledge, Health and Human Services has done nothing about it,” Warner told TechCrunch. “As Health and Human Services aggressively pushes to permit a wider range of parties to have access to the sensitive health information of American patients without traditional privacy protections attached to that information, HHS's inattention to this particular incident becomes even more troubling,” he added.
Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights said it does not comment on individual cases but defended its enforcement actions.
“OCR has taken enforcement action in the past to address violations concerning unprotected storage servers, and continues robust enforcement of the HIPAA rules,” said the spokesperson.
“We will continue doing our best to improve the global situation of unprotected systems,” said Schrader. But he said there was not much more he can do beyond warn organizations of their exposed servers.
“Then it’s a question for the regulators,” he said.
Yohei Nakajima is an investor at Scrum Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund based in San Francisco, and Senior Vice President at Scrum Studio, helping global corporations connect and work with innovative startups.
In recent years, the venture capital and startup worlds have seen a significant shift towards globalization. More and more startups are going global and breaking borders, such as payments giant Stripe and their recent expansion to Latin America, e-scooter startup Bird's massive European expansion, or fashion subscription service (an investment in our portfolio) Le Tote's entrance into China.
Likewise, more VC Funds are spanning geographies in both investment focus and the limited partners, or LPs, who fuel those investments. While Silicon Valley is very much seen as an epicenter for tech — it is no longer the sole proprietor for innovation — with new technology hubs rising across the world from Israel to the UK to Latin America and beyond.
Yet, many have commented on a shift or slowdown of globalization, or "slobalization," in recent months. Whether it be from the current political climate or other factors, it's been said that there's been a marked decrease in cross-border investments of late — leading to the question: Is the world still interested in U.S. startups? To answer this and better understand the hunger from foreign investors in participating in U.S. funding rounds, both from a geographic and stage perspective, I looked at Crunchbase data in U.S. seed and VC rounds between the years of 2009 to 2018. The data shows that cross-border investments are far from dead — but they are getting smarter and perhaps even more global with the rise of investments from Asia.
TikTok has spawned countless memes formats from its creative effects, challenging Instagram for the filtered video crown. Now nearly five years after launching Boomerang, Instagram’s back-and-forth video loop maker is finally getting a big update to its own editing options. Users around the globe can now add SlowMo, “Echo” blurring, and “Duo” rapid rewind special effects to their Boomerangs, as well as trim their length. This is the biggest upgrade yet for one of mobile’s most popular video creation tools.
The effects could help keep Instagram interesting. After so many years of Boomerangs, many viewers simply skip past them in Stories after the first loop since they’re so consistent. The extra visual flare of the new effects could keep people’s attention for a few more seconds and unlock new forms of comedy. That’s critical as Instagram tries to compete with TikTok, which has tons of special effects that have spawned their own meme formats.
“Starting today, people on Instagram will be able to share new SloMo, Echo and Duo Boomerang modes on Instagram” a Facebook company spokesperson tells TechCrunch. “Your Instagram camera gives you ways to express yourself and easily share what you’re doing, thinking or feeling with your friends. Boomerang is one of the most beloved camera formats and we're excited to expand the creative ways that you can use Boomerang to turn everyday moments into something fun and unexpected.”
The new Boomerang tools can be found by swiping right on Instagram to open the Stories composer, and then swiping left at the bottom of the screen’s shutter selector. After shooting a Boomerang, an infinity symbol button atop the screen reveals the alternate effects and video trimmer. Mobile researcher Jane Manchun Wong spotted Instagram prototyping new Boomerang filters and the trimmer last year.
Typically, Boomerang captures one second of silent video which is then played forward and then in reverse three times to create a six second loop that can be shared or downloaded as a video. Here are the new effects you can add plus how Instagram described them to me in a statement:
SlowMo – Reduces Boomerangs to half-speed so they play for two seconds in each direction instead of one second. “Slows down your Boomerang to capture each detail”
Echo – Adds a motion blur effect so a translucent trail appears behind anything moving, almost like you’re drunk or tripping. “Creates a double vision effect.”
Duo – Rapidly rewinds the clip to the beginning with a glitchy, digitized look. “Both speeds up and slows down your Boomerang, adding a texturized effect.”
Trimming – Shorten your Boomerang with similar controls to iPhone’s camera roll or the Instagram feed video composer. “Edit the length of your Boomerang, and when it starts or ends.”
The effects aren’t entirely original. Snapchat has offered slow-motion and fast-foward video effects since just days after the original launch of Boomerang back in 2015. TikTok meanwhile provides several motion blur filters and pixelated transitions. But since these are all available with traditional video, unlike on Instagram where they’re confined to Boomerangs, there’s more creative flexibility to use the effects to hide cuts between takes or play with people’s voices.
That’s won TikTok a plethora of ingenius memes that rely on these tools. Users high-five themselves using an Echo-esque feature, highlight action-packed moments or loud sounds with Duo-style glitch cuts, and conjure an army of doppelgangers behind them with infinity clones effect. Instagram Stories has instead focused on augmented reality face filters and classier tools like layout.
TikTok Screenshots
Hopefully we’ll see Instagram’s new editing features brought over to its main Stories and video composers. Video trimming would be especially helpful since a boring start to a Story can quickly lead viewers to skip it.
Instagram has had years of domination in the social video space. But with Snapchat finally growing again and TikTok becoming a global phenomenon, Instagram must once again fight to maintain its superiority. Now approaching 10 years old, it’s at risk of becoming stale if it can’t keep giving people ways to make hastily shot phone content compelling.
A cannabis company won a CES award for 2020. Called Keep, the desktop storage device features biometric security to secure cannabis products, and looks good while doing it. The CTA gave them an Innovations Award Nominee in October and then weeks later told the company they were unable to use the word “cannabis” when exhibiting.
Keep Labs decided to stay home and not exhibit at the massive Consumer Electronics Show, potentially missing out on distribution deals, funding and increased brand awareness.
Vaporizers, cannabis and tobacco alike have long been found on the CES show floor. They’re often hidden under different names, like aromatherapy devices. This year is different. They’re gone from the show floor. I spent hours in the halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Sands Expo center. The vapes are missing from the 2020 show.
That could change, according to a spokesperson for CES. The trade group behind the show is evaluating if cannabis has a place at CES.
The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) runs CES. It’s the largest such trade event in the world and attended by some 200,000 people. After speaking with a CTA spokesperson, it’s clear the trade organization knows its under close scrutiny and yet it’s still willing to blur lines to allow some companies ancillarily to cannabis to exhibit. That is, if they don’t talk about the device’s true intention.
In the past, sex tech was explicitly banned, so companies like OhMiBod exhibited under Health and Wellness. Vaporizers could be categorized as aromatherapy devices. Emails obtained by TechCrunch show the CTA has told cannabis-adjacent companies it can exhibit if cannabis is not mentioned on the show floor.
Keep Labs submitted its cannabis storage device exhibit under the “Home Storage” category. Upon its acceptance, the CTA nominated the device to the coveted Innovation Award and told the company it could present, as long as it doesn’t mention cannabis. You see, to the CTA, Keep Labs’ product is acceptable as it could have another purpose other than storing cannabis gummies; it could, in theory, be used to store candy gummies. Keep Labs told TechCrunch that avoiding saying “cannabis” goes against the company’s best interest, so it decided to skip the show.
Canopy Growth operates several prominent brands in the cannabis space. Like Keep Labs, it feels CES is not the right place to exhibit its wares if true intentions need to be hidden.
The Canadian company announced a new line of vape pens and cartridges in late 2019. With smart features and an app component, it would be perfect fodder among CES’ high-tech exhibits. The company also owns Storz-Bickel, a vaporizer company with historic roots that could exhibit in this CES gray area.
Canopy Growth acknowledges it’s banned from the show while some smaller competitors are able to exhibit by skirting the rules.
Canopy Growth CTO Peter Popplewell tells TechCrunch he still attends CES. It’s essential for him and Canopy Growth’s brands, even if the company isn’t exhibiting. For him, as the CTO, he’s meeting with component makers and suppliers.
“As the largest producer of legally produced medical and recreational cannabis and hemp products, and now a hardware manufacturer, Canopy Growth is constantly looking for ways to provide next-generation innovation to our customers and enhance their cannabis experience," Popplewell told TechCrunch. “Within its portfolio of brands, Canopy has brought to market five different vaporizer products this fiscal year and our R&D pipeline is full of exciting developments.
“CES is the tradeshow where I am able to meet with a host of component manufacturers that help us develop safety features on our devices — such as accurate temperature control and locking the devices to address the unique needs and concerns of cannabis users," Popplewell said.
Pax is one of the largest cannabis hardware companies and does not exhibit at CES. To be clear, Pax still has a presence in Las Vegas during CES, even though it’s not at the show itself. Like many companies at CES, Pax holds meetings and attends third-party events during CES. This lets the company bypass the CTA’s rules and still access CES attendees.
Earlier this week Pax released its Era Pro vaporizer that features PodID, a clever feature that brings a lot of information to the user.
Pax VP of Policy Jeff Brown, tells TechCrunch he’s puzzled by the CTA’s stance.
“CTA’s stubborn refusal to allow cannabis companies on the show floor is both comic and puzzling,” Brown said. “Cannabis is fully legal in Las Vegas, and there are multiple dispensaries within a mile of the convention center. Inside, companies offer an open bar in their booth, and hundreds walk the floor with a drink in hand.
“Nobody is asking to consume at CES,” Brown added. “There’s a lot of interesting technology being developed to take the guesswork out of weed. There are vaporizers with apps that tell consumers what they’re smoking, they detail the chemical attributes, and provide controls to measure each dose. There’s even a numeric lock to make the vaporizer unusable by children.”
As he told TechCrunch, this technology is legal, and cannabis itself is legal in 33 states and Canada.
“Unfortunately, you’re not going to learn about it at CES,” Brown said.
Right now, even in 2020, there are ways around the CTA’s ban. In the case of Keep Labs, the CTA granted the company permission to exhibit — as long as cannabis wasn’t mentioned. The company decided that to exhibit without saying “cannabis” wouldn’t do the brand justice. They don’t want to shy away from cannabis.
This is the puzzling part. The CTA will let companies exhibit, as long as their true intentions are hidden. The CTA used to do the same with sex toys, too.
In the run-up to the 2019 show, the CTA awarded sextech maker Lori DiCarlo with an Innovations Award. It later rescinded the award after the trade organization decided it was too sexy for CES. Fallout followed and expanded as the show opened, and sextech was found throughout the show floor, despite the ban affecting Lori DiCarlo. As with cannabis, the CTA allowed sextech under the guise of as “personal massagers” alongside therapy and sports massagers in the Health and Wellness category.
The CTA introduced the Sex Tech category for the 2020 show on a trial basis. I’m told the category will likely live on to future shows, too. This is how the CTA operates, the CTA told TechCrunch. It trials a category, and then if it works out, the category is rolled into the show.
“For us, cannabis is a tough decision,” a CTA spokesperson told TechCrunch. “It’s complicated, and the laws are changing quickly. We are watching closely, and I would not be surprised if, at some point in the future, it was part of the show.”
The CTA tells TechCrunch it continually looks at the regulatory environment, pointing out that cannabis is still an illicit substance at the federal level in the United States. The CTA however acknowledges cannabis is legal in the state of Nevada.
Nevada is one of the 33 states in the United States where cannabis is legal in some form. In Nevada, it’s legal to consume for recreational uses. The state law allows for cannabis consumption in a private residence, making it illegal to consume in a hotel, public space or convention center. There are dozens of cannabis dispensaries within miles of CES.
Cortney Smith’s vaporizer company DaVinci is based in Las Vegas and has exhibited at CES a handful of times. As he tells TechCrunch, the company didn’t have a problem presenting on the show floor, but “didn’t paste pot leaves all over.”
Smith explained that he feels the CTA’s radar has grown more sensitive in part by the vaporizer scare in 2019.
“In the past, [cannabis products weren’t] challenged,” Smith said. “So when we were there, as a cannabis vaporizer, we did not get scrutinized because [the CTA] was not on alert.”
DaVinci isn’t exhibiting this year despite recently launching a new product. The dry herb DaVinci IQ2 just hit the market and is among a new crop of vaporizers designed to bring more transparency to cannabis use. It uses on-device processing to track and record active compounds produced per draw. The sleek device and smartphone app would look at home among the latest gadgets found at CES.
As he puts it, if CES doesn’t want the business, there’s an opportunity for other trade shows to pick up cannabis products and run with it.
“CES has competition,” Smith said. “There are other consumer electronics shows around the world that would love to steal their thunder and star power. And the chance [the CTA] takes when they limit their innovation — like no sex toys or no cannabis — it gives the opportunity to some other electronics show to welcome adult toys or adult devices. So I guess they’re willing to make this compromise to play it safe.”
General Motors could be bringing back the Hummer brand. According to this report by The Wall Street Journal, an all-electric Hummer pickup will be sold under the GMC brand and LeBron James is enlisted to help market the vehicle.
There are no details about the pickup's capability, including electric range or seating capacity.
The move revives one of GM's more controversial brands and pushes it in a different direction. The Hummer brand was often known for its large, quasi-capable SUVs. The Hummer H2 was the poster child for gas-guzzling vehicles in the early 2000s. The brand's revival and electric revamp might confuse consumers accustomed with the Hummer of old.
The vehicle is set to be announced during the Super Bowl with an advertisement featuring LeBron James, the WSJ says. If that's true, the auto maker is likely set to bring the model to market in a year or two. That's along the same timeline as another classic brand goes electric — the Ford Mustang.
The changing of the guard at Alphabet continues. Roughly one month after Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced they’d be stepping down as the CEO and president of the search giant’s parent company, one of their top lieutenants, Alphabet’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, told employees that he, too, is leaving the company.
In a memo shared with Bloomberg and reprinted below, Drummond said that “with Larry and Sergey now leaving their executive roles at Alphabet” and the company “entering an exciting new phase,” he is, after “careful consideration,” retiring “to make way for the next generation of leaders.”
His departure can’t surprise many in Silicon Valley. In November, Alphabet's board of directors opened an investigation into how executives at the company have handled misconduct claims, forming both an independent subcommittee and hiring a law firm to look into the issues. Presumably, much of their attention was focused on Drummond, whose long-ago extramarital affair with one employee with whom he shares a child first surfaced in a story by The Information in 2017, and who more recently married another employee from Google’s legal department.
Though Alphabet has long supported Drummond — he helped incorporate the company when it was founded in 1998 and remained one of its top executives — the corporate giant came under pressure to do something after Drummond’s earlier affair began to garner unwanted attention. Specifically, the former employee with whom he shares a child, Jennifer Blakely, published a post on Medium last summer in which she described Drummond as a serial philanderer who left his wife for her, then left her and the son that he fathered with her for another now-former Google employee.
Blakely also claimed Drummond had had "an affair with his 'personal assistant' who he moved into one of his new homes."
One day later, Drummond issued a statement of his own, acknowledging his relationship with Blakely and their "difficult break-up 10 years ago." He went on to state that, "Other than Jennifer, I never started a relationship with anyone else who was working at Google or Alphabet. Any suggestion otherwise is simply untrue."
Days after issuing the statement, Drummond married a Google employee he'd been dating.
Not everyone was supportive of Drummond inside the company. In addition to employees who’ve pushed back against the company’s culture in recent years, Bill Maris — who founded Google’s venture arm and as the unit’s CEO reported directly to Drummond — had a strained relationship with him, Maris says.
Specifically, Maris tells Axios that Drummond is why he left GV back in 2016. “I had been asked in the past why I left . . . David Drummond is the reason I left Google. I simply could not work with him any longer. It's that simple. We have very, very different ideas about how to treat people, and this was a long time coming.”
Drummond made a substantial fortune throughout the course of his career with Google, then Alphabet. He was paid $47 million last year. According to stock filings tracked by CNBC, he also sold $77 million worth of stock earlier this month, following sales of more than $70 million in November and again in December, just before Page and Brin said they were departing their roles.
Roughly six years ago, Brin also reportedly dated a Google employee while still married to his first wife, 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki.
Both Page and Brin remain on the board of Alphabet. Drummond’s last day with the company will be January 31.
Drummond’s note to employees follows:
More than 20 years ago, Larry Page and Sergey Brin first asked me to help them with their unincorporated startup. Of course, that startup would grow to include more than 100,000 employees and make a positive impact on the lives of people around the world. From the beginning, I felt privileged to work with Larry and Sergey to realize their commitment to making information more universally accessible and useful, and was thrilled to join Google full-time in 2002.
With Larry and Sergey now leaving their executive roles at Alphabet, the company is entering an exciting new phase, and I believe that it's also the right time for me to make way for the next generation of leaders. As a result, after careful consideration, I have decided to retire at the end of this month.
As I do so, I'd like to thank everyone with whom I've had the privilege to work so closely over the past two decades. Whether we were fighting alongside others around the globe to protect and expand freedom of expression; pressing to make sure copyright law continued to foster openness and creativity; designing an unconventional but dynamic corporate structure that has served Google so well; putting together industry-changing acquisitions that served as the foundation for some of Google's most popular products; creating and evolving the rules that protect our users; or establishing start-up models to help unleash the potential of our amazing Other Bets: I have always relished the opportunity to work with such talented colleagues.
In particular, I have loved building and being a part of the legal team: your dedication, drive and leadership in helping digital innovation flourish has been amazing to behold. I have also been energized and deeply impressed by my time with the corporate development, public policy, trust and safety and communications teams, as well as the folks at GV, Capital G and Jigsaw. These groups' relentless creativity and herculean efforts to further Google's ambitious mission have been beyond inspiring. I'd also like to thank BGN and all of the company's employee resource groups, whose tireless efforts continue to make the company better.
I know this company is in the best of hands, and I am excited for what the future holds for Google, for Alphabet and for me. But, as I move on, I'd like to thank Larry and Sergey and each and every one of you for providing me with the most engaging, challenging and rewarding professional environment that anyone could hope for. I am deeply grateful.
Our net lack of shock is underscored by the Vision Fund itself, which signaled late last year that it wants portfolio companies to get profitable and get public. The cuts are therefore a little more than unsurprising; we should have anticipated them.
The New York-based company that raised nearly $340 million while private, according to Crunchbase data, expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CSPR.” Its S-1 filing includes a $100 million placeholder figure for its possible capital raise.
The company will need the money, as it loses money and burns cash. Let’s explore just how a mattress company does that.
Growth, loss
In the full years of 2017 and 2018, Casper recorded revenue of $250.9 million (net of $45.7 million in “refunds, returns, and discounts”) and $357.9 million (net of $80.7 million in “refunds, returns, and discounts”). That worked out to growth of 42.6% in the year.
Over the same two periods, Casper lost $73.4 million and $92.1 million on a net basis, respectively.
In the first three quarters of 2019 versus 2018, Casper put up $312.3 million in top line (net of $80.1 million in “refunds, returns, and discounts”), up just over 20% from its year-ago three-quarter tally of $259.7 million in revenue (net of $57.7 million in “refunds, returns, and discounts”).
The company’s net loss during the three-quarter period rose from $64.2 million in 2018 to $67.4 million in 2019. The company’s net losses are generally rising (though slowly so far in 2019), while its growth decelerates.
In contrast, and to the company’s favor, its operating cash burn is slowing. From $84.0 million in 2017 to $72.3 million in calendar 2018, Casper slowed its operating cash consumption further in 2019, to just $29.7 million in the first three quarters of the year, compared to $44.9 million over the same period of the preceding year.
But the company’s slowing growth and stiff losses using regular accounting methods (GAAP) could strain its valuation. Casper was valued at $1.1 billion in its most recent funding round.
While the company’s gross margins aren’t bad for a non-software company (49.6% in the first nine months of 2019), the firm spent over 73% of its gross profit last year on sales and marketing costs. That figure indicates that Casper spent heavily to generate growth, growth that came in at about 20% so far in 2019, as reported.
That fact implies that growth will remain constrained, as the firm can’t afford to spend too much more on the line item. Which begs the question: What’s the value of a firm that is showing slowing growth, non-recurring revenue and sticky GAAP losses?
The company’s adjusted losses aren’t much better. Looking at its adjusted EBITDA, a profit metric so distorted to flatter that it’s nigh a funhouse mirror, Casper only marginally improved on its 2018 tally looking at the first three quarters of that year (-$57.5 million) in 2019 (-$53.8 million).
Investors
Casper has raised from IVP, Lerer Hippeau, Target and New Enterprise Associates. The firm raised seed capital back in 2014 along with a Series A. Lerer and NEA were most active back then, looking at its funding history.
The company raised $55 million more in 2015, and a far-larger $170 million in mid-2017. A $100 million round came in 2019 that set it up for its 2020 IPO.
This company’s IPO is a pricing question. And one that will impact a host of startups that both compete directly with Casper or operate in a different vertical with a similar business. Get hype.
When the Lora DiCarlo wagon finally arrives, the rolling glass box's back door opens and another journalist pops out to get on his way. The sex tech company has a week packed full with 20-minute rolling interviews with a curious tech press. No time to spare; I step up, sit down, and we're on our way.
Driving down the Las Vegas Strip in a transparent box is a curious, extremely Vegas experience: puzzled tourists and confused CES attendees gawk from the sidewalks. Four of us are sitting in a makeshift living room with fuzzy white carpet: CEO Lora Haddock, Enzo Ferrari Drift DiCarlo (her fuzzy black-and-white Pomeranian), and a colleague, who holds Enzo in their lap. A four-foot-tall faux sex toy sits in a corner, swaying occasionally.
It's been a hell of a year since the sex tech startup was at the center of a firestorm after the CTA unceremoniously revoked its Innovation Award. By July, the CES organizer found itself eating crow via a press release and agreed to allow sex tech companies to exhibit on a "one-year trial bias," spreading them out amongst the broader category of health tech at the show's Eureka Park startup exhibit space.
Most cookie consent pop-ups served to internet users in the European Union — ostensibly seeking permission to track people’s web activity — are likely to be flouting regional privacy laws, a new study by researchers at MIT, UCL and Aarhus University suggests.
“The results of our empirical survey of CMPs [consent management platforms] today illustrates the extent to which illegal practices prevail, with vendors of CMPs turning a blind eye to — or worse, incentivising — clearly illegal configurations of their systems,” the researchers argue, adding that: “Enforcement in this area is sorely lacking.”
Their findings, published in a paper entitled “Dark Patterns after the GDPR: Scraping Consent Pop-ups and Demonstrating their Influence,” chime with another piece of research we covered back in August — which also concluded a majority of the current implementations of cookie notices offer no meaningful choice to Europe’s Internet users — even though EU law requires one.
When consent is being relied upon as the legal basis for processing web users’ personal data, the bar for valid (i.e. legal) consent that’s set by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is clear: It must be informed, specific and freely given.
Recent jurisprudence by the Court of Justice of the European Union also further crystalized the law around cookies, making it clear that consent must be actively signaled — meaning a digital service cannot infer consent to tracking by indirect actions (such as the pop-up being closed by the user without a response or ignored in favor of interacting with the service).
Many websites use a so-called CMP to solicit consent to tracking cookies. But if it’s configured to contain pre-ticked boxes that opt users into sharing data by default — requiring an affirmative user action to opt out — any gathered “consent” also isn’t legal.
Consent to tracking must also be obtained prior to a digital service dropping or accessing a cookie; only service-essential cookies can be deployed without asking first.
All of which means — per EU law — it should be equally easy for website visitors to choose not to be tracked as to agree to their personal data being processed.
However, the “Dark Patterns after the GDPR” study found that’s very far from the case right now.
“We found that dark patterns and implied consent are ubiquitous,” the researchers write in summary, saying that only slightly more than one in 10 (11.8%) of the CMPs they looked at “meet the minimal requirements that we set based on European law” — which they define as being “if it has no optional boxes pre-ticked, if rejection is as easy as acceptance, and if consent is explicit.”
For the study, the researchers scraped the top 10,000 U.K. websites, as ranked by Alexa, to gather data on the most prevalent CMPs in the market — which are made by five companies: QuantCast, OneTrust, TrustArc, Cookiebot and Crownpeak — and analyzed how the design and configurations of these tools affected internet users’ choices. (They obtained a data set of 680 CMP instances via their method — a sample they calculate is representative of at least 57% of the total population of the top 10,000 sites that run a CMP, given prior research found only around a fifth do so.)
Implicit consent — aka (illegally) inferring consent via non-affirmative user actions (such as the user visiting or scrolling on the website or a failure to respond to a consent pop-up or closing it without a response) — was found to be common (32.5%) among the studied sites.
“Popular CMP implementation wizards still allow their clients to choose implied consent, even when they have already indicated the CMP should check whether the visitor's IP is within the geographical scope of the EU, which should be mutually exclusive,” they note, arguing that: “This raises significant questions over adherence with the concept of data protection by design in the GDPR.”
They also found that the vast majority of CMPs make rejecting all tracking “substantially more difficult than accepting it” — with a majority (50.1%) of studied sites not having a “reject all” button. While only a tiny minority (12.6%) of sites had a 'reject all' button accessible with the same or fewer number of clicks as an “accept all” button.
“An 'accept all' button was never buried in a second layer,” the researchers go on to point out, also finding that “74.3% of reject all buttons were one layer deep, requiring two clicks to press; 0.9% of them were two layers away, requiring at minimum three.”
Pre-ticked boxes were found to be widely deployed in the studied CMPs as well — despite such a setting not being legally valid. (On this they found: “56.2% of sites pre-ticked optional vendors or purposes/categories, with 54.1% of sites pre-ticking optional purposes, 32.3% pre-ticking optional categories, and 30.3% pre-ticking both.”)
They also point out that the high number of third-party trackers routinely being used by sites poses a major problem for the EU consent model — given it requires a “prohibitively long time” for users to become clearly informed enough to be able to legally consent.
The exact number of third-party trackers they found being packed like sardines into CMPs varied — with between tens and several hundreds in play depending on the site.
Fifty-eight was the lowest number they encountered. While the highest instance was 542 vendors — on an implementation of QuantCast’s CMP. (And, well, just imagine the “friction” involved in manually unticking all those, assuming that was one of the sites that also lacked a ‘reject all’ button… )
Sites relied on a large number of third party trackers, which would take a prohibitively long time for users to inform themselves about clearly. Out of the 85.4% of sites that did list vendors (e.g. third party trackers) within the CMP, there was a median number of 315 vendors (low. quartile 58, upp. quartile 542). Different CMP vendors have different average numbers of vendors, with the highest being QuantCast at 542… 75% of sites had over 58 vendors. 76.47% of sites provide some descriptions of their vendors. The mean total length of these descriptions per site is 7,985 words: roughly 31.9 minutes of reading for the average 250 words-per-minute reader, not counting interaction time to e.g. unfold collapsed boxes or navigating to and reading specific privacy policies of a vendor.
A second part of the research involved a field experiment involving 40 participants to investigate how the eight most common CMP designs affect internet users’ consent choices.
“We found that notification style (banner or barrier) has no effect [on consent choice]; removing the opt-out button from the first page increases consent by 22-23 percentage points; and providing more granular controls on the first page decreases consent by 8-20 percentage points,” they write in summary on that.
They argue this portion of the study supports the notion that two of the most common consent interface designs — “not showing a 'reject all' button on the first page; and showing bulk options before showing granular control” — make it more likely for users to provide consent, thereby “violating the [GDPR] principle of ‘freely given.’ ”
They also make reference to “qualitative reflections” of the participants in the paper — which were obtained via survey after individuals’ consent choices had been registered during the field study — suggesting these responses “put into question the entire notice-and-consent model not because of specific design decisions but merely because an action is required before the user can accomplish their main task and because they appear too frequently if they are shown on a website-by-website basis.”
So, in other words, just the fact of interrupting a web user to ask them to make a choice may itself apply substantial enough pressure that it might render any resulting “consent” invalid.
The study’s finding of the prevalence of manipulative designs and configurations intended to nudge or even force consent suggests internet users in Europe are not actually benefiting from a legal framework that’s supposed to protect their digital data from unwanted exploitation — and are rather being subject to a lot of noisy, distracting and disingenuous “consent theatre.”
Cookie notices not only generate friction and frustration for the average internet user, as they try to go about their daily business online, but the current situation is creating a faux veneer of compliance — atop what is actually a massive trampling of rights via what amounts to digital daylight robbery of people’s data at scale.
The problem here is that EU regulators have for years looked the other way where online tracking is concerned, failing entirely to enforce the on-paper standard.
Enforcement is indeed sorely lacking, as the researchers note. (Industry lobbying/political pressure, limited resources, risk aversion and regulatory capture, and a legacy of inaction around digital rights are all likely to blame.)
And while the GDPR only started being applied in May 2018, Europe has had regulations on data-gathering mechanisms like cookies for approaching two decades — with the paper pointing out that an amendment to the ePrivacy Directive all the way back in 2002 made it a requirement that “storing or accessing information on a user's device not 'strictly necessary' for providing an explicitly requested service requires both clear and comprehensive information and opt-in consent.”
Asked about the research findings, lead author Midas Nouwens questioned why CMP vendors are selling so-called “compliance” tools that allow for non-compliant configurations in the first place.
“It’s sad, but I don’t think anyone is surprised anymore by how few pop-ups comply with the GDPR,” he told TechCrunch. “What is shocking is how non-compliant interface designs are allowed by the companies that provide consent pop-ups. Why do they let their clients count scrolling as consent or bury the decline button somewhere on the third page?”
“Enforcement is really the next big challenge if we don’t want the GDPR to go down the same path as the ePrivacy directive,” he added. “Since enforcement agencies have limited resources, focusing on the popular consent pop-up providers could be a much more effective strategy than targeting individual websites.
“Unfortunately, while we wait for enforcement, the dark patterns in these pop-ups are still manipulating people into being tracked.”
Another of the researchers behind the paper, Michael Veale, a lecturer in digital rights and regulation at UCL, also expressed shock that CMP vendors are allowing their tools to be configured in ways which are clearly intended to manipulate internet users — thereby flouting the law.
In the paper the researchers urge regulators to take a smarter approach to tackling such widespread violation, such as by making use of automated tools “to expedite discovery and enforcement” of non-compliant cookie notices, and suggest they work ‘further upstream’ — such as by placing requirements on the vendors of CMPs “to only allow compliant designs to be placed on the market.”
“It’s shocking to see how many of the large providers of consent pop-ups allow their systems to be misconfigured, such as through implicit consent, in ways that clearly infringe data protection law,” Veale told us, adding: “I suspect data protection authorities see this widespread illegality and are not sure exactly where to start. Yet if they do not start enforcing these guidelines, it’s unclear when this widespread illegality will start to stop.”
“This study even overestimates compliance, as we don’t focus on what actually happens to the tracking when you click on these buttons, which other recent studies have emphasised in many cases mislead individuals and do nothing at all,” he also pointed out.
We reached out to the U.K.’s data protection watchdog, the ICO, for a response to the research — and a spokeswoman pointed us to this cookie advice blog post it published last year, saying the advice it contains “still stands.”
In the blog, Ali Shah, the ICO's head of technology policy, suggests there could be some (albeit limited) action from the regulator this year to clean up cookie consent, with Shah writing that: "Cookie compliance will be an increasing regulatory priority for the ICO in the future. However, as is the case with all our powers, any future action would be proportionate and risk-based."
While European citizens wait for data protection regulators to take meaningful action over systematic breaches of the GDPR — including those attached to consent-less tracking of web users — there is one step European web users can take to shrink the pain of cookie consent pop-ups: The researchers behind the study have built an open source browser extension that can automatically answer pop-ups based on user-customizable preferences.
It’s called Consent-o-Matic — and there are versions available for Firefox and Chrome.
At release the tool can automatically respond to cookie banners built by the five big CMP suppliers (QuantCast, OneTrust, TrustArc, Cookiebot and Crownpeak).
But being as it’s open source, the hope is others will build on it to expand the types of pop-ups it’s able to auto-respond to. In the absence of a legally enforced “Do Not Track” browser standard, this is about as good as it gets for internet users desperately seeking easier agency over the online tracking industry.
In a Twitter thread last month announcing the tool, Nouwens described the project as making use of “adversarial interoperability” as a pro-privacy tactic.
“Automating consent and privacy preferences is not new (DNT and P3P), but this project uses adversarial interoperability, rather than rely on industry self-regulation or buy-in from fundamentally opposed stakeholders (browsers, advertisers, publishers),” he observed.
However he added one caveat, reminding users to be on their guard for further non-compliance from the data suckers — pointing to the earlier research paper also flagged by Veale, which found a small portion of sites (~7%) entirely ignore responses to cookie pop-ups and track users regardless of response.
So sometimes even a seamlessly automated “no” to tracking might still sum to being tracked…
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.
A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? Positive adjusted EBITDA, or something close to it.
That’s the message from scooter unicorn Lime, which announced this week that it was cutting about 14% of its staff and closing a dozen markets. The staff reductions, numbering about 100, come as the company has touted efforts to improve its profitability — going as far as setting targets for when it might reach capital freedom, as well as highlighting the matter in a recent corporate blog post.
What’s going on? Unicorns, once hungry for growth, are now hell-bent to show current (and future) investors that their businesses aren’t unprofitable quagmires. Profitability, or movement towards it, is hot, and Lime is a good example of the trend — as is Getaround, which also wrote about its own layoffs this week. Let’s dig in.
This week, Sisense, a player in the business intelligence space, announced a $100 million investment. As TechCrunch reported, the round pushed the company’s valuation north of the $1 billion mark, making Sisense the world’s newest unicorn.
That moniker will last a day, we’re sure.
TechCrunch caught up with Sisense CEO Amir Orad and CMO Harry Glaser to discuss the company’s business scale just a few days ago; Sisense is a member in our newly-created $100 million ARR club, having first surpassed the threshold after buying Periscope earlier in 2019 and later with its original operations. What follows is an edited transcript that we’ve shortened to the key bits regarding the round that gifted Sisense its horn.
Mozilla has warned Firefox users to update their browser to the latest version after security researchers found a vulnerability that hackers were actively exploiting in “targeted attacks” against users.
The vulnerability, found by Chinese security company Qihoo 360, was found in Firefox’s just-in-time compiler. The compiler is tasked with speeding up performance of JavaScript to make websites load faster. But researchers found that the bug could allow malicious JavaScript to run outside of the browser on the host computer.
In practical terms, that means an attacker can quietly break into a victim’s computer by tricking the victim into accessing a website running malicious JavaScript code.
But Qihoo did not say precisely how the bug was exploited, who the attackers were, or who was targeted.
Browser vulnerabilities are a hot commodity in security circles as they can be used to infect vulnerable computers — often silently and without the user noticing — and be used to deliver malware or ransomware. Browsers are also a target for nation states and governments and their use of surveillance tools, known as network investigative techniques — or NITs. These vulnerability-exploiting tools have been used by federal agents to spy on and catch criminals. But these tools have drawn ire from the security community because the feds’ failure to disclose the bugs to the software makers could result in bad actors exploiting the same vulnerabilities for malicious purposes.
Mozilla issued the security advisory for Firefox 72, which had only been out for two days before the vulnerability was found.
Homeland Security’s cyber advisory unit, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, also issued a security warning, advising users to update to Firefox 72.0.1, which fixes the vulnerability. Little information was given about the bug, only that it could be used to “take control of an affected system.”
Firefox users can update their browser from the settings.
Cherry has long been the de facto standard for mechanical keyboard switches. Since mechanical keyboards are, almost by default, significantly more expensive than membrane or dome-switch keyboards, that has kept the company out of a large part of the market. Now, on the last day of CES 2020, the company is launching its new Viola switch, the company’s first fully mechanical switch for the value market, meant for keyboards that will cost somewhere between $50 and $100.
As the Cherry team told me ahead of today’s announcement, its engineers spent well over a year on designing this new switch, which only has a handful of parts and which moves some of the complexity into the circuit board on the keyboard itself. A lot of the work went into designing the new self-cleaning contact system (which the company quickly patented) and to ensure that the switches’ materials would be able to handle regular use despite the simplicity of the design.
Because of this new design, the new Viola switches are now hot-swappable, so if one ever goes bad, swapping in a new one shouldn’t take more than a few seconds. And because the company stuck with the same industry-standard cross-stem design for attaching keycaps, keyboard manufacturers can reuse their existing designs, too.
Like most new switches, the Cherry Viola supports LED lighting, which in the case of this new design can be mounted right on the circuit board of the keyboard.
If you’re a keyboard aficionado, you won’t confuse the new Viola switch with any of Cherry’s high-end MX switches. For a lot of users who want a mechanical keyboard at a value price, this looks like it’ll be a great option.
I didn’t get a chance to spend a lot of time with the new switches, but as best as I could tell, the current version resembles a quiet MX Brown switch. Cherry itself discourages any comparisons, though. Even the name is clearly meant to remove any confusion that this switch is part of the MX series. And while Cherry has plans to offer similar switch variants as the MX Black, Brown, Blue and Red, it won’t recycle those colors for those switches either. While the company tells me it isn’t all that worried about the new switches cannibalizing the MX market, it’s not leaving that to chance either.
One major difference with the Viola switches is that Cherry isn’t giving any guarantee for how many keystrokes they will withstand — at least not yet. The company tells me it may give some guidance at a later point.
Like all other Cherry switches, the Viola switches are built in the company’s factory in Germany and all of its suppliers, too, are building their products in the country as well.
For the MX switches, though, the company is now raising its guarantee from 50 million keystrokes (which was already a lot) to 100 million. Some pro-gamers actually reach those numbers (and the switches usually continue to function well beyond that), but for everybody else, it’s just an assurance that the company stands behind its products. To achieve this, the team made some minor adjustments to switches and especially the guide rails on the inside of the switch housing. That won’t change the actual typing experience, though.
The first keyboards with the 100-million MX switches are already available, and the first Viola keyboards will become available soon.
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week we had TechCrunch’s Alex Wilhelm and Danny Crichton on hand to dig into the news, with Chris Gates on the dials and more news than we could possibly cram into 30 minutes. So we went a bit over; sorry about that.
We kicked off by running through a few short-forms to get things going, including:
Danny talked about the acquisition of Armis Security by Insight for $1.1 billion, the VC round for self-driving forklift startup Vecna and an outside-the-Valley round for Houston-based HighRadius.
Turning to longer cuts, the team dug into the latest from SoftBank, its Vision Fund and the successes and struggles of its enormous startup bets. Leading the news cycle this week were layoffs at Zume, a robotic pizza delivery venture that is no longer pursuing robotic pizza delivery. Now it’s working on sustainable packaging. Cool, but it’s going to be hard for the company to grow into its valuation while pivoting.
Other issues have come up — more here — that paint some cracks onto the Vision Fund’s sunny exterior. Don’t be too beguiled by the bad news, Danny says; venture funds run like J-Curves, and there are still winners in that particular portfolio.
After that, we turned to China, in particular its venture slowdown. The bubble, in Danny’s view, has burst. The story discussed is here, if you want to read it. The short version for the lazy is that not only has China’s venture scene slowed down dramatically, but startups — even those with ample capital raised — are dying by the hundred. But one highly caffeinated Chinese startup continues to find growth in the world’s greatest tea market.
Google has announced which search engines have won an auction process it has devised for an Android “choice screen” — as its response to an antitrust intervention by the region’s competition regulator.
The prompt is shown to users of Android smartphones in the European Union as they set up a device, asking them to choose a search engine from a list of four that always includes Google’s own search engine.
In mid-2018 the European Commission fined Google $5 billion for antitrust violations attached to how it operates the Android platform, including related to how it bundles its own services with the dominant smartphone OS, and ordered it to remedy the infringements — while leaving it up to the tech giant to devise a fix.
Google responded by creating a choice screen for Android users to pick a search engine from a short list — with the initial choices seemingly based on local market share. But last summer it announced it would move to auctioning slots on the screen via a fixed sealed-bid auction process.
The big winners of the initial auction, for the period March 1, 2020 to June 30, 2020, are pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo — which gets one of three paid-for slots in all 31 European markets — and a product called Info.com, which will also be shown as an option in all those markets. (Per Wikipedia, the latter is a veteran metasearch engine that provides results from multiple search engines and directories, including Google.)
French pro-privacy search engine Qwant will be shown as an option to Android users in eight European markets. While Russia’s Yandex will appear as an option in five markets in the east of the region.
Other search engines that will appear as choices in a minority of European markets are GMX, Seznam, Givero and PrivacyWall.
At a glance the big loser looks to be Microsoft’s Bing search engine — which will only appear as an option on the choice screen shown in the U.K.
Tree-planting search engine Ecosia does not appear anywhere on the list at all, despite appearing on some initial Android choice screens — having taken the decision to boycott the auction because it objects to Google’s “pay-to-play” approach.
“We believe this auction is at odds with the spirit of the July 2018 EU Commission ruling,” Ecosia CEO Christian Kroll told the BBC. “Internet users deserve a free choice over which search engine they use and the response of Google with this auction is an affront to our right to a free, open and federated internet. Why is Google able to pick and choose who gets default status on Android?”
It’s not the only search engine critical of Google’s move, with Qwant and DuckDuckGo both raising concerns immediately after Google announced it would shift to a paid auction last year.
Despite participating in the process — and winning a universal slot — DuckDuckGo told us it still does not agree with the pay-to-play approach.
“We believe a search preference menu is an excellent way to meaningfully increase consumer choice if designed properly. Our own research has reinforced this point and we look forward to the day whenAndroid users in Europe will have the opportunity to easily make DuckDuckGo their default search engine while setting up their phones. However, we still believe a pay-to-play auction with only 4 slots isn’t right because it means consumers won’t get all the choices they deserve and Google will profit at the expense of the competition,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Qwant also told us: “Qwant has repeatedly called for all competitors to be granted access to the mobile market in an open manner, with the same chances for all to be chosen by users as their default search engine. We don’t believe it is fair from Google to require competing search engines to pay them for the chance to be offered as an alternative to Google, when Google was found to abuse its dominant position through its Android mobile system. Nevertheless, given the importance of the mobile market for any ambitious search engine, we had to participate in this first bidding process and are relieved that users finally have the possibility to choose Qwant as their default search engine on Android devices in some countries. We wished it was the case in all countries and that our competitors had all the same opportunity, since search engines should compete on their merits and not on their capability to pay Google for a slot in a choice screen.”
This report was updated with additional comment from Qwant
Just Spices, the German-founded spice mix brand, is disclosing €13 million in Series B funding. The round is led by Five Seasons Ventures and Coefficient Capital, with Bitburger Ventures also joining.
A direct to consumer play, Just Spices offers two main product lines: Spice Mixes and "IN MINUTES".
The first consists of various spice blends, with new blends being developed based on the sales and customer feedback data the startup is amassing.
The second, launched in 2018, is recipe-driven, offering 27 "fix" meal preparations that sees Just Spices provide the recipe and spice mix needed to prepare a quick meal, with only a few additional fresh ingredients required to complete the dish. It appears to share some similarities with SimplyCook in the U.K.
“The need for innovative, fast and still balanced solutions in the food sector is greater than ever,” says Just Spices co-founder and CEO Florian Falk. “On the one hand, people have less time available so food has to be as uncomplicated as possible, but on the other, we still have wants and needs… With Just Spices, and especially with IN MINUTES, we offer a carefree alternative, which consumers can be confident is fast and tasty whilst still fitting into a conscious, healthy diet.”
As part of its customer acquisition strategy and to power a product development feedback loop, Just Spices says it has built a vibrant, active digital community of home cooks. More than 60% of its sales are generated online, and the company claims to be one of the most followed spices brands in Europe (on social media). And certainly the startup is investing in content, including operating its own in-house studio and producing podcasts.
“We want to become the world’s largest lifestyle spice brand,” adds Falk. “To achieve this, we have not only built a fantastic partnership network, we have brought together an amazing team. We want to bring the joy and fun of cooking to many more people.”
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Yes Bank, director spar: Bank says RBI asked it to review Agarwal's fit and proper status In a letter to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and marked to the RBI, ministry of corporate affairs and exchanges, Agarwal has cited compliance failures and pressed multiple charges of mismanagement in capital-raising exercises by Yes Bank CEO Ravneet Gill.
Commercial coal mining to usher efficiency: Pralhad Joshi, union coal minister The first commercial auction is expected in another 4-5 months. I want to have a detailed consultation with stakeholders before bringing out the first such auction. We expect the industry to react positively to this progressive and forward looking decision. We want the exercise to be very 'participative'.
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“The need for innovative, fast and still balanced solutions in the food sector is greater than ever,” says Just Spices co-founder and CEO Florian Falk. “On the one hand, people have less time available so food has to be as uncomplicated as possible, but on the other, we still have wants and needs… With Just Spices, and especially with IN MINUTES, we offer a carefree alternative, which consumers can be confident is fast and tasty whilst still fitting into a conscious, healthy diet.”
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