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17/11/2017

Iraqi forces captured the border town of Rawa, the last remaining town under Islamic State control, on Friday, signaling the complete defeat of the group's self-proclaimed caliphate.

24/10/2017

Facebook's News Feed experiment panics publishers

It used to be a tweak in the Google search algorithm that sent a shudder through newsrooms trying to adapt to the online era. Now it is any change in the design of Facebook.

So, an experiment under way in a few countries, where the social media giant appears to be making it harder for users to see news stories, has caused something akin to panic.

The new feature Facebook is trying out is called Explore. It offers all sorts of stories it thinks might interest you, a separate news feed encouraging you to look further afield than just at what your friends are sharing.

Meanwhile, for most people, the standard News Feed remains the usual mixture of baby photos and posts from companies or media organisations whose pages you have liked.

Sounds fine, doesn't it? Except that in six countries - Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Slovakia, Serbia, Guatemala, and Cambodia - the experiment went further.

For users there, the main News Feed was cleared of everything but the usual stuff from your friends and sponsored posts - in other words, if you wanted to have your material seen in the place most users spend their time you had to pay for the privilege.

In a Medium post entitled "Biggest drop in organic reach we've ever seen", a Slovakian journalist Filip Struharik documented the impact. Publishers in his country had seen four times fewer interactions since the change, he said - what had become a vital and vibrant platform for them was emptying out fast.

Other journalists around the world have looked into the future and hate what they see. Their organisations have become addicted to Facebook as the one true way of reaching audiences and going cold turkey would be very painful.

Facebook is of course a business - and a hugely successful one - that makes its money from advertising. So, why would it not want publishers to pay to reach its gigantic audience?
Image caption In six countries, publishers and businesses have had their posts restricted to the Explore Feed unless they pay a fee

But Peter Kafka, a journalist from Recode, tweeted an even more depressing thought: "Conspiracy angle: fb wants more $ from publishers! More accurate, and dispiriting angle (for publishers): fb doesn't care about publishers."

Facebook responded as it often does by saying calm down, dears, it was just a bit of fun.

As the wave of panic rolled around the news media world, the social network's head of newsfeed Adam Mosseri put up a post with the title Clarifying Recent Tests.

It explained that the experiment is aimed at understanding whether people prefer to have separate places for personal and public content.

"We currently have no plans to roll this test out further," he added.

This has not helped much - that word "currently" seems to stick out ominously.

But at least Facebook has done publishers big and small a service. They knew the risks involved in innovations such as Instant Articles - where their works live on the social network - or Facebook Live - where a broadcaster's brand might be less visible to many users.

Now they know that Facebook is at least thinking about a future where news plays a smaller role in the social media experience.

Given Facebook's role in last year's US elections, some may think that's a good thing. But for thousands of struggling media organisations that thought they had found a route forward, it is a chilling prospect.

21/10/2017

Trump says he intends to allow release of classified files on Kennedy assassination

Deadline approaching for classified documents to be released to the public.

President Trump said Saturday that he intends to allow the release of long-classified files on the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, a move that could shed light on a tragedy that has stirred conspiracy theories for decades.

The National Archives has until Oct. 26 to disclose the remaining thousands of never-seen government documents on the 1963 assassination, unless Trump changes course and tries to block their release.

“Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as President, the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened,” Trump tweeted Saturday morning.

However, to what additional information the president was referring was unclear.

The CIA and FBI, whose records make up the bulk of the batch, won't say whether they've appealed to the Trump administration to keep them under wraps.

"The American public deserves to know the facts, or at least they deserve to know what the government has kept hidden from them for all these years," Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of a book about Kennedy, said in an email to The Associated Press.
Will documents on former president Kennedy's assassination finally get released? Video
Rivera: Well past time to release everything we have on JFK

It's unlikely the documents contain any big revelations about Kennedy's killing, said Judge John Tunheim, who was chairman of the independent agency in the 1990s that made public many assassination records and decided how long others could remain secret.

Sabato and other JFK scholars believe the trove of files may provide insight into assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's trip to Mexico City weeks before the killing.

During the trip, Oswald visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies.

His stated reason for going was to get visas that would allow him to enter Cuba and the Soviet Union, according to the Warren Commission, the investigative body established by President Lyndon B. Johnson. However, much about the trip remains unknown.

Among the protected information up for release is details about the arrangements the U.S. entered into with the Mexican government that allowed it to have close surveillance of those and other embassies, said Tunheim, a federal judge in Minnesota.

Kennedy experts also hope to see the full report on Oswald's trip to Mexico City from staffers of the House committee that investigated the assassination, said Rex Bradford, president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, which publishes assassination records.

The White House didn't immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

The FBI declined to comment on whether it has asked Trump to keep the files hidden. A CIA spokeswoman would say only that it "continues to engage in the process to determine the appropriate next steps with respect to any previously-unreleased CIA information."

Congress mandated in 1992 that all assassination documents be released within 25 years, unless the president asserts that doing so would harm intelligence, law enforcement, military operations or foreign relations. The still-secret documents include more than 3,000 that have never been seen by the public and more than 30,000 that have been released previously, but with redactions.

The files that were withheld in full were those the Assassination Records Review Board deemed "not believed relevant," Tunheim said. Its members sought to ensure they weren't hiding any information directly related to Kennedy's assassination, but there may be nuggets of information in the files that they didn't realize was important two decades ago, he said.

"There could be some jewels in there because in our level of knowledge in the 1990s is maybe different from today," Tunheim said.

The National Archives would not say whether any agencies have appealed the release of the documents.

The Archives in July published online more than 440 never-before-seen assassination documents and thousands of others that had been released previously with redactions.

Among those documents was a 1975 internal CIA memo that questioned whether Oswald became motivated to kill Kennedy after reading an AP article in a newspaper that quoted Fidel Castro as saying "U.S. leaders would be in danger if they helped in any attempt to do away with leaders of Cuba."

"Oswald might have had a clear motive, one that we have never really understood for killing Kennedy, because he thought that by killing Kennedy he might be saving the life of Fidel Castro," said Philip Shenon, a former New York Times reporter who has written a book about Kennedy's assassination.

Some of the files will likely remain under wraps, experts say.

It's unlikely the National Archives will release some IRS records, including the tax returns of Jack Ruby, the man who killed Oswald, Bradford said.

Sabato said he also suspects that some key records may also have been destroyed before the 1992 law ordered that all the files be housed in the National Archives.

20/10/2017

Australia just made its last ever car

The last vehicle made by General Motors' Holden unit rolled off a production line in Australia on Friday, bringing decades of car manufacturing in the country to an end.

The red Commodore sedan, produced at a plant in the southern city of Adelaide, capped nearly 70 years of car-making at Holden. For Australia as a whole, it marked the demise of an iconic industry.

After the last locally made Holden, all cars bought in the country will be imported from overseas.

Australia faced a "toxic combination" of problems that "just means it makes little economic sense to produce cars" there, said Michael Mol, an international business professor who's studied the country's car industry.

Its relatively small local market and remote location combined with the rise of cheaper manufacturing powerhouses in Asia left car companies with little choice, according to Mol, who heads the department of strategic management and globalization at the Copenhagen Business School.

Ford (F) was the first to back out, announcing in May 2013 that it was closing its Australian plants. GM (GM) followed suit seven months later, and Toyota (TM) dealt the final blow in February 2014.

Since then, the industry has experienced a drawn-out demise that has raised questions about the future of Australian manufacturing in general.

GM stressed on Friday that Holden would keep roughly 1,000 staffers in Australia, including about 350 in design and engineering. But that's just a fraction of the thousands of manufacturing jobs wiped out by the collapse of the local auto industry.

The problem was that Australian car buyers weren't willing to pay a premium for vehicles that were "Made in Australia," Mol said.

Holden's executive director of manufacturing, Richard Phillips, insisted that the company's Adelaide workers kept standards high right to the end.

"In the final years of production, we have been building categorically the best-quality cars to ever roll out of this plant, and our last car was our best," he said.

19/10/2017

The left wants America to be more like Europe: Varney

FBN's Stuart Varney on the left's efforts to make America more like Europe.

Why would anyone want America to be more like Europe?

Strangely, that’s exactly what the left wants—especially the coastal elites.

Remember Bernie Sanders singing the praises of Denmark? They like a socialist economy, cradle to grave security, total job security (you can't fire anyone in Europe) and they just love those super-strict gun laws and the environmental laws. America's left is very much in-sync with the “oh so civilized” Europeans.

Have you seen what's going on in Europe these days?

In Eastern Europe, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic are in open revolt against Germany's insistence that millions of Muslim migrants should roam freely throughout the continent. Austria has just elected a 31-year-old leader who feels the same way. To say that Europe is socially divided is an under-statement.

It is politically divided too. Brexit? The Brits want out. Catelonia? Barcelona wants out of Spain. And watch out, the Flems and Walloons are not exactly united in Belgium.

Terrorism? It’s ripping Europe apart. Welfare? The European system is not sustainable. And yet, the left wants our medical system to be like theirs. They want open borders, like theirs. Gun laws, like theirs. Green laws, like theirs. And of course, reign in the military.

The good news is the left is losing this argument. As Europe's problems become ever more apparent, the attraction of Europe declines.

We are just at the start of a presidency that will redefine America's position in the world. It will redefine what America is all about. Good. It’s time we made the case, forcefully, that America is the land of individual freedom. A capitalist economy that promotes growth and prosperity.

18/10/2017

Here's how much money companies stashed overseas in 2016

Nearly three-quarters of Fortune 500 companies held some cash overseas last year, according to a new study, with tech giant Apple (AAPL) leading the pack.

Seventy-three percent of Fortune 500 companies, or 366 businesses, operated one or more subsidiaries in tax haven countries in 2016, according to research by The U.S. PIRG Education Fund and the Institute in Taxation and Economic Policy Opens a New Window. . These 366 companies collectively maintained more than 9,750 tax haven subsidiaries, and the 30 companies with the most money stashed overseas operated more than 2,210 offshore divisions, according to the study. Some of the most popular destinations included the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, where more than half of companies with tax haven subsidiaries maintained an outpost.

The two groups found that collectively, U.S. companies had $2.6 trillion stored in tax havens last year, and 30 companies alone accounted for 68% of those offshore profits. Meanwhile, just four companies make up 25% of that total: Apple, Pfizer (PFE), Microsoft (MSFT) and General Electric (GE).

Apple, the biggest offender, alone held $246 billion offshore, which means it would owe more than $76 billion in taxes to the U.S. government if that money was onshore. Pfizer has 157 tax haven subsidiaries, which cumulatively hold nearly $200 billion in profits offshore.

Only 58 of the 366 companies with money offshore officially disclose what they would pay in U.S. taxes if they brought that money back onshore. These companies owe $240 billion in additional federal taxes, according to data analyzed in the report. Applying the same rate to the remaining companies would mean $752 billion would be owed to the U.S. government, if all of the money was repatriated at once.

President Donald Trump and his administration have been working to make the U.S. a more attractive investment opportunity for companies by reforming the tax code. One of the major ways they hope to do that is by lowering the corporate tax rate, from the current 35% to 20%. The GOP said this would spur investment and create job opportunities across the country.

The U.S. PIRG also says Congress can act promptly to eliminate loopholes in the tax code that allow corporations to use tax havens.

14/10/2017

The Weinstein Co. explores possible sale as experts warn it won't survive

While the sexual harassment accusations continue to mount against disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein with new victims emerging daily, the focus has now shifted on whether or not the company he co-founded with his brother, Bob, will be able to survive the firestorm of allegations with many experts warning that is it unlikely.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the company is already exploring a sale or a shutdown and is unlikely to continue as an independent entity, a person closed to the company said. The outlet added that there were already a handful of interested buyers.

The news comes after both Goldman Sachs (GS) and Amazon (AMZN) announced early Friday that they were exploring options to sever ties with the company even after the board ousted Weinstein on Sunday.

“For production companies including Amazon, the fallout is just starting. Harvey Weinstein will be forever remembered as the next Bill Cosby. For a company already past its luster, already struggling to produce commercial hits, supporters and contracts will be almost impossible to find,” Richard Levick, Esq., Chairman and CEO of LEVICK, a public relations and strategic communications firm, told FOX Business.

Instead, Levick said TWC will only be looked at as a “target” and a “symbol of a dying Hollywood culture” going forward.

“Who would take their calls?” he said.

According to multiple reports, The Weinstein Company, which was founded in 2005, was hoping a name change would help distance itself from the scandal. The change was planned for the upcoming awards season.

Earlier this week, the board of directors, who fired Weinstein, released a strongly worded statement, that said they “are shocked and dismayed by the recently emerged allegations,” and the news comes as an “utter surprise.”

Yet, according to TMZ, Weinstein’s 2015 employment contract, had a clause that said "if he gets sued for ‘sexual harassment’ or any other ‘misconduct’ that results in a settlement or judgment against TWC, all Weinstein has to do is pay what the company's out, along with a fine, and he's in the clear."

Sallie Hofmeister, a spokesperson for TWC, told FOX Business that the company has no comment on whether or not the clause existed.

"Based on the information revealed to date, it is unlikely that the Weinstein Company will survive this crisis under their current name or a new name. The Weinstein Company did not respond appropriately to serious allegations of sexual harassment over a multiple year period, and now they have completely lost their stakeholder confidence and their company reputation,” Linda Welter, CEO of the Caliber Group, told FOX Business.

Welter added that when a majority celebrities, investors, vendors and the public all lose confidence in your company, it is like a “perfect storm that will lead to disaster."

Eric Schiffer, CEO of Reputation Management Consultants said he believes the company is going to blow up like a “death star.”

“It will be bought or sold off in parts,” he said.

Kris Ruby, branding expert and President of Ruby Media Group, said at this point, the damage may be insurmountable for TWC and it will need a lot more than a new name and a rebrand to repair the damage that has been done.

Rob Frankel, branding strategist and expert at Frankel & Anderson in Los Angeles agreed that name change isn’t going to help them start over.

“More than a decade after the Enron scandal, people still introduce Accenture as ‘the old Arthur Andersen Company,’” he said. But adds that despite all the drama he doesn’t believe the company is over.

Karen Post, author of the book “Brand turnaround,” also compares TWC to Arthur Andersen after the Enron meltdown and said the best course of action going forward is a complete makeover, including leadership.

“It may be best to fade away that company brand and come back with new leadership, [a] new name and new rules of conduct,” she said

11/10/2017

Nice to know what we are sitting on

06/10/2017

Manufacturing jobs booming, but may be harder to fill

When South Korean appliance giant LG broke ground for a new one-million-square foot washing machine factory in Clarksville, Tenn. in August, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was side-by-side with LG North American President and CEO William Cho cheering a project that is expected to create 600 jobs and perhaps many more in the years ahead.

“Our Clarksville factory has great potential to increase other products over just washing machines,” Cho said during an interview with FOX Business. “We have 310 acres...and we are just holding one-quarter of that, producing washing machines, the other three-quarters will have potential to extend our home appliances.”

The plant, LG’s first in the U.S., is set to open in the first quarter of 2019 and may add to the U.S. pipeline for future manufacturing jobs. Cho says the company will focus some of its recruiting and hiring efforts on nearby Fort Campbell to tap what he describes as military veterans that are “more skilled workers.”

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