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Reddit, Acting Against Hate Speech, Bans ‘The_Donald’ Subreddit

June 29, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Many Republican lawmakers have accused social media companies of censoring conservative viewpoints on their sites. Mr. Huffman said banning “The_Donald” was not an attempt to specifically target conservatives.

“Absolutely not, full stop,” he said.

In a statement on Monday, Tim Murtaugh, director of communications for Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, did not address Reddit’s move but directed people to Mr. Trump’s app or to text the campaign directly.

The new bans follow the resignation this month of Alexis Ohanian, one of Reddit’s co-founders, from the company’s board of directors. Mr. Ohanian, who said he had been moved by the protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis who was killed in police custody last month, asked to be replaced on Reddit’s board with a black candidate.

“I’m writing this as a father who needs to be able to answer his black daughter when she asks: ‘What did you do?’” Mr. Ohanian, who is married to the tennis star Serena Williams, said in a blog post at the time. “To everyone fighting to fix our broken nation: Do not stop.”

Michael Seibel, the chief executive of the Silicon Valley start-up incubator Y Combinator and an African-American, has replaced Mr. Ohanian on Reddit’s board.

Reddit executives said the site remained a place that they hoped could be a forum for civil political discourse in the future, as long as users played by its rules.

“There’s a home on Reddit for conservatives, there’s a home on Reddit for liberals,” said Benjamin Lee, Reddit’s general counsel. “There’s a home on Reddit for Donald Trump.”

Kevin Roose contributed reporting.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/technology/reddit-hate-speech.html

Filed Under: Media Business

US drug maker says its coronavirus medication will cost up to $5,700 per treatment

June 29, 2020 by Leave a Comment

The US biopharmaceutical company said it would offer a one-price model to avoid the need for country-by-country negotiations that could slow down access. For commercially insured patients, the five-day course will cost $3,120.
The longer 10-day treatment course will cost governments $4,290 per patient and $5,720 for a US patient with private insurance.

“We wanted to make sure that nothing gets in the way of remdesivir getting to patients,” Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day said. The price “will make sure all patients around the world have access to this medicine.”

The company also said it has entered into agreements with generic manufacturers to provide the drug at a “substantially lower cost” in developing countries.

Given the potential to reduce costs for hospitals and to save lives, Gilead said its price of $390 per vial is “well below” the drug’s value.

“At the level we have priced remdesivir and with government programs in place, along with additional Gilead assistance as needed, we believe all patients will have access,” O’Day said.

It has taken nearly two months for Gilead to announce a price for the Covid-19 drug since it received emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat patients.  

US Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) said it has secured more than 500,000 treatment courses of the drug, which it will distribute to American hospitals through September.

“President Trump has struck an amazing deal to ensure Americans have access to the first authorized therapeutic for COVID-19,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar said, adding: “To the extent possible, we want to ensure that any American patient who needs remdesivir can get it.”

Gilead also plans to start human trials for an inhaled version of remdesivir. According to the company, it will continue to invest in ramping up production of the drug to meet demand.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/493240-coronavirus-drug-remdesivir-cost/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

India draws up plan to boost auto exports in the next 5 years – report

June 29, 2020 by Leave a Comment

In an attempt to give a “big push” to the key sector crippled by the coronavirus pandemic, the Department of Heavy Industries (DHI) has come up with a five-year stimulus plan, Reuters said citing government sources. The initial proposal is already being reviewed by local industry groups.

“For autos the government has engaged with various stakeholders. We have to see what needs to be done in the global context,” Reuters cited one of the officials as saying.

Also on rt.com India blocks imports of US products made in China following deadly border clash

It is unclear whether the companies will get funds from the government or enjoy tax breaks as the forms of benefit have not been revealed. An official said that one of the proposals suggests giving companies benefits proportionate to the distance between their facility and sales destinations to compensate for higher warehousing and logistics costs, while another said that the measures could target production of specific car models.

India unveils ambitious plan to become global tech manufacturing hub India unveils ambitious plan to become global tech manufacturing hub

Although details of the initiative have not been finalized, it is already understood that the companies will have to meet several conditions to be eligible for the proposed incentives.

The minimum revenue and operating profit thresholds for car manufacturers are expected to be set at 100 billion rupees ($1.3 billion) and 10 billion rupees ($131 million) correspondingly. The target levels for auto part makers are set to be around five times lower. Moreover, the firms should have a presence in several countries outside India and contribute to research.

Some analysts noted that New Delhi should minimize conditions for the auto industry players as the ambitious plan comes amid hard times for most industrial sectors, with demand hit by the coronavirus outbreak.

India became the seventh largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles in 2018 and aims to further expand the sector. However, the pandemic is set to put the expansion plan on halt as the country’s auto exports already nosedived at the beginning of this fiscal year. According to an Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) study cited by the media, the sector suffered a 73-percent decline in exports, falling from $852.3 million in May 2019 to $230.3 million in May 2020.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/493229-india-incentives-boost-auto-exports/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

China launches world’s ‘smartest’ mega hydropower station (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)

June 29, 2020 by Leave a Comment

The launch ceremony was attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Dubbed the ‘smartest’ hydropower station in the world, it is located on the border of the Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in southwest China. The station has been constructed using cutting-edge intelligent technologies, including real-time temperature monitoring and advanced grouting equipment.

Thermometers and cooling pipes have been embedded in the concrete to detect its temperature in real time. The water flow can be automatically adjusted to realize the cooling process of concrete in an intelligent way.

Wudongde is the first dam in the world to fully use low-heat cement that can withstand large temperature differences. The temperature difference, which causes the cracking of concrete and threatens the safety of the dam, is a worldwide problem in hydropower engineering.

RT

Wudongde was designed as a concrete double-curved arch dam with a maximum height of 270 meters. The foundation bed of the dam is only 51 meters thick, which makes the hydropower station the thinnest 300-meter arch dam in the world at present. The “thin” concrete will be able to afford a storage of approximately 7.4 billion cubic meters of water in its reservoir.

The excavation length of the main workshop of the underground power station in Wudongde dam broke the world record with a height of 89.8 meters, equivalent to a 30-story building.

RT

The hydropower station will be able to generate 38.9 billion kilowatts of electricity annually after its 12 generating units start operation. The project is scheduled to be fully completed in December 2021.

RT

The amount of hydropower produced by Wudongde will save 12.2 million tons of standard coal and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide by 30.5 million tons and 104,000 tons every year.

Together with Baihetan Hydropower Station, Xiluodu Hydropower Station and Xiangjiaba Hydropower Station, Wudongde will form part of a cascade of power stations on the Jinsha River. The cluster will have an installed capacity of more than 46 million kilowatts and will generate about 190 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/493219-china-smartest-hydropower-station-launch/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Russian tech company Yadro surpasses China’s Huawei on domestic data storage systems market

June 29, 2020 by Leave a Comment

According to IDC research cited by Russian media, the volume of deliveries of data storage systems in Russia stood at $99.64 million in the first quarter of the year. This is 37.9 percent more than during the same period last year.

The sector continued to thrive despite the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, IDC program manager Mikhail Lebedev said, adding that the research firm sees stable demand from businesses.

Also on rt.com Huawei overtakes Samsung as top global smartphone maker – report

Meanwhile, Russian company Yadro, part of X Holding IT group, has become the market leader. In monetary terms, it had 18.6 percent of the share in the external storage systems market, 0.2 percent more than Huawei, which topped the list in the previous quarter. The Russian tech firm delivered nearly 65 percent of data storage systems. The US’ Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and NetApp, and Japan’s Hitachi rounded out the top five.  

Yadro is focused on designing and developing server and storage products for enterprise workloads. At the end of last year, the company was four percent behind its Chinese rival in monetary terms, but had already outpaced other companies in volume.

Also on rt.com US government plans 5G market intervention to break dominance of China’s Huawei

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/493207-russian-company-outpaces-huawei/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

US shale pioneer Chesapeake Energy goes bust under mountain of debt

June 29, 2020 by Leave a Comment

The Oklahoma City-based company said it had been forced to enter chapter 11 protection because its debts of $9 billion were unmanageable. It has entered a plan with lenders to cut $7 billion of the debt and said it will continue to operate as usual during the bankruptcy process.

“We are fundamentally resetting Chesapeake’s capital structure and business to address our legacy financial weaknesses and capitalize on our substantial operational strengths,” Chesapeake President and CEO Doug Lawler said.

“By eliminating approximately $7 billion of debt and addressing the legacy contractual obligations that have hindered our performance, we are positioning Chesapeake to capitalize on our diverse operating platform and proven track record of improving capital and operating efficiencies and technical excellence,” he added.

Also on rt.com US oil dominance is coming to an end

A leader in the fracking industry, Chesapeake Energy was using unconventional techniques to extract oil and gas from the ground. The company was founded in 1989 by Aubrey McClendon and Tom Ward with an initial $50,000 investment. It has focused on drilling in underdeveloped areas of Oklahoma and Texas, largely abandoning traditional vertical well drilling, employing instead lateral drilling techniques to free natural gas from unconventional shale formations. The method has come under scrutiny because of its environmental impact.

The energy major, which has reached a market valuation of more than $37 billion, was first hit during the global financial crisis of 2008, which sent energy prices into the abyss.

The 2020 oil price crash during the coronavirus pandemic has caused the company’s untapped oil and gas reserves to decline in value, making it hard to borrow against those assets.

Chesapeake posted an $8.3 billion net loss during the first quarter of 2020. It also reported nearly $9.5 billion in long-term liabilities, and just $82 million in cash.

Also on rt.com A third of global energy companies will shed jobs due to Covid-19, warns World Energy Council

Earlier this month, Chesapeake skipped interest payments of $13.5 million, according to filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The company had a 30-day grace period before it would be considered in default.

The energy giant’s share price has dropped more than 93 percent since January, from $172 to $11.85 as of close on Friday.

A study released by the global accountancy firm Deloitte this month said that the US shale industry is entering a period of “great compression” and could face up to $300 billion in losses and a wave of bankruptcies due to the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 200 US oil producers have filed for bankruptcy protection in the past five years.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/493204-shale-chesapeake-files-for-bankruptcy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

The Long, Unhappy History of Working From Home

June 29, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Quora said 60 percent of its workers expressed a preference for remote work, in line with national surveys. In a Morning Consult survey in late May on behalf of Prudential, 54 percent said they wanted to work remotely. In a warning sign for managers, the same percentage of remote workers said they felt less connected to their company.

One very public setback for remote work was at Best Buy, the Minneapolis-based electronics retailer. The original program, which drew national attention, began in 2004. It aimed to judge employees by what they accomplished, not the hours a project took or the location where it was done.

Best Buy killed the program in 2013, saying it gave the employees too much freedom. “Anyone who has led a team knows that delegation is not always the most effective leadership style,” the chief executive, Hubert Joly, said at the time.

Jody Thompson, a co-founder of the program who left Best Buy in 2007 to become a consultant, said the company was doing poorly and panicked. “It went back to a philosophy of ‘If I can see people, that means they must be working,’” she said.

The coronavirus shutdown, which means 95 percent of Best Buy’s corporate campus workers are currently remote, might now be prompting another shift in company philosophy. “We expect to continue on a permanent basis some form of flexible work options,” a spokeswoman said.

Flexible work gives employees more freedom with their schedules but does not fundamentally change how they are managed, which was Ms. Thompson’s goal. “This is a moment when working can change for the better,” she said. “We need to create a different kind of work culture, where everyone is 100 percent accountable and 100 percent autonomous. Just manage the work, not the people.”

But it is also a moment, she acknowledged, when working can change for the worse.

“It’s a crazy time,” Ms. Thompson said. “When you’re a manager, there is a temptation to manage someone harder if you can’t see them. There’s an increase in managers looking at spyware.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/technology/working-from-home-failure.html

Filed Under: Small Business

Airbus production likely to plunge 40% over the next 2 years in aftermath of Covid-19

June 29, 2020 by Leave a Comment

“For the next two years – 2020/21 – we assume that production and deliveries will be 40% lower than originally planned,” the CEO said in an interview with Die Welt newspaper.

Also on rt.com ‘Bleeding cash’: Airbus warns of deeper job cuts with ‘survival at stake’

It was earlier reported that the aviation giant is likely to see production down by a third, but that was in reference to the results the company posted at the end of 2019, Faury explained. The 40-percent cut refers to company’s initial plans for the next two years, meaning that only around 40 aircraft per month will be rolled off the production line.

Lower production also means that Airbus “will return to the level we were at about 10 to 15 years ago,” the CEO said. While the plane maker does not want to significantly change its industrial footprint, it will have to “turn every stone” at its facilities to reduce costs.

Also on rt.com ‘Tsunami of job losses’: Airlines going bust firing HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of employees as pandemic crushes global travel

To cope with the fallout from the pandemic, the company will have to shed thousands of jobs. While Faury did not reveal the exact scale of the measures, promising to announce the decision in around one month, it was earlier reported that up to 15,000 jobs could be cut. That’s more than 16 percent of its 90,000-strong workforce. 

While the aviation industry will be reeling from the coronavirus crisis for a long time, Airbus expects production volume to pick up in 2023 and return to pre-crisis levels by 2025.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/493199-airbus-production-drop-coronavirus/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Marty Baron Made The Post Great Again. Now, the News Is Changing.

June 28, 2020 by Leave a Comment

“You may have seen the announcement of our new initiatives focused on race, ethnicity and identity,” Mr. Baron wrote to Ms. Hilton.

Ms. Hilton was not interested.

“I have seen over the years that diversity roles, particularly for black women, are the fastest way to be sidelined out of the most important conversations about coverage and hiring,” she wrote back. “The moniker lets other managers think the work of improving representation and newsroom culture doesn’t fall on them.”

Mr. Barr, one of the managing editors, said the job would, in fact, focus on coverage, even if it might not involve directly managing reporters. “This is a job that brings together the journalism and the leadership of the room,” he said.

That new editor will face questions about identity and journalism that extend beyond race. Two Post employees said editors had barred a Post reporter who publicly accused another journalist of sexual assault, Felicia Sonmez, from writing about the subject, citing the appearance of conflict of interest in her public comments. But it’s hard to imagine reporters are expected to be neutral on the issue of sexual assault — and the decision seems almost a caricature of the old idea that only people imagined to have no stake in an issue, often white men, can cover it.

It can, in this fraught moment, be difficult to untangle the forces driving the arguments about newsroom culture, objectivity and fairness. There are, no doubt, real disagreements around the issue of how much journalists’ opinions, identities and experiences should shape coverage and be shared with their audience, and when “objectivity” simply means a dominant point of view.

But one clear strain in the tensions at The Post is simply, and sometimes hilariously, generational. In the happier times of early January 2020, the writer Maura Judkis blew up the internet with the article “People are seeing ‘Cats’ while high out of their minds.” It featured irresistible testimonials from people who described watching the film of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical while on marijuana, psilocybin mushrooms or other substances, such as: “The most terrifying experience of my life. I swear to God my soul escaped me.”

Mr. Baron, who had not seen the piece before it was published, erupted, two Post employees said, furious that the story was “glorifying recreational drug use,” one of them said.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/28/business/media/martin-baron-washington-post.html

Filed Under: Media Business

Facebook Boycott: Starbucks and Diageo to Pull Ads

June 28, 2020 by Leave a Comment

The retailer said on Tuesday that it was suspending paid ads on Facebook and Instagram through July.

The automaker, which includes the Honda and Acura brands, said on Friday that it would withhold ads from Facebook and Instagram in July, “choosing to stand with people united against hate and racism.”

Jen Sey, the chief marketing officer of the clothing company, wrote a blog post on Friday criticizing Facebook’s “failure to stop the spread of misinformation and hate speech on its platform” and saying that “this inaction fuels racism and violence and also has the potential to threaten our democracy and the integrity of our elections.” Ms. Sey wrote that Levi Strauss would suspend advertising at least through the end of July, adding that “when we re-engage will depend on Facebook’s response.”

On Friday, the fitness apparel retailer voiced solidarity on Twitter with the boycott campaign and said that it was “actively engaging with Facebook to seek meaningful change.” A Lululemon spokeswoman said that the company would suspend paid ads on Facebook and Instagram.

“We’re in. We’re out,” the retailer wrote on Twitter on June 19, saying that it will stop posting content and buying ads on Facebook through July, but will continue to put free posts on Instagram. The company spends more on Facebook than it does on any other platform besides Google.

The outdoor products company said on Sunday that it would immediately remove ads globally from Facebook and Instagram at least until the end of July, “pending meaningful action from the social media giant.” The retailer will continue posting unpaid content on Facebook, which it said is its second-largest paid advertising platform.

The retailer said on June 19 that it was pulling all advertising from Facebook and Instagram in July.

The coffee chain said on Sunday that it would “pause advertising on all social media platforms while we continue discussions internally, with our media partners and with civil rights organizations in the effort to stop the spread of hate speech.”

The consumer goods giant, one of the biggest advertisers in the world, said on Friday that it would stop running ads on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter in the United States for at least the rest of 2020, citing a “polarized election period.” The company, which owns brands such as Dove and Lipton, said that “continuing to advertise on these platforms at this time would not add value to people and society.” Ben Jerry’s, an ice cream brand owned by the company, said on Tuesday that it was joining the boycott.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/business/media/Facebook-advertising-boycott.html

Filed Under: Media Business
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