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Category: 3. Business

  • Prioritized Aczel–Alsina aggregation operators under p, q-quasirung orthopair fuzzy environment for sustainable supplier selection in new energy vehicle industry

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  • Amazon Workers at DJT6 Facility in Riverside Join Teamsters

    Amazon Workers at DJT6 Facility in Riverside Join Teamsters

    Workers Unionize After Staging Midnight Walkout at Key Amazon Warehouse

    Press Contact: Matt McQuaid Phone: (771) 241-0015 Email: mmcquaid@teamster.org

    (RIVERSIDE, Calif.) – Amazon warehouse workers at the DJT6 facility in Riverside, one of the company’s largest delivery stations nationwide, have successfully organized with Teamsters Local 1932 and are demanding Amazon recognize their union. DJT6 is now the fifth Amazon facility in Southern California to join the Teamsters, along with the KSBD Air Hub in San Bernadino, DFX4 in Victorville, DAX5 in City of Industry, and DAX8 in Palmdale.

    Workers at the facility began their unionization efforts with the Teamsters earlier this week by staging a midnight walkout during the holiday peak season, when Amazon workers experience increased workloads and more dangerous working conditions. The newest members of Local 1932 are fighting to win better pay and respect from management for making Amazon one of the richest companies on the planet.

    “Workers at DJT6, one of Amazon’s most important facilities, have been on the front end of Amazon’s abuse for years,” said Randy Korgan, Director of the Teamsters Amazon Division and Secretary-Treasurer of Local 1932. “It is a crime that Amazon makes billions off their backs while they can’t even afford to buy a home near the warehouse. DJT6 workers showed tremendous courage in walking off the job to join the fight and demand their fair share.”

    DJT6 warehouse workers are specifically demanding that Amazon provide an industry-standard minimum salary, health care, and safer working conditions. Workers at the facility report Amazon ignoring workplace injuries and threatening injured workers’ jobs if they take time off.

    “For too long, Amazon has profited off our labor yet denied our rights as workers,” said Samuel Padilla, an Amazon DJT6 warehouse worker. “Now, we are coming to take what we have rightfully earned. Amazon may not listen to any one individual worker, but we will force them to listen to us together as Teamsters.”

    DJT6 is the latest Amazon facility to organize with the Teamsters, joining over 200 drivers in Queens, New York and Amazon CDL drivers in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. To date, nearly 10,000 Amazon workers nationwide are demanding Amazon end its illegal union-busting and recognize the Teamsters Union.

    Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents over 1.3 million hardworking people in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. Visit Teamster.org for more information. Follow us on X @Teamsters and on Facebook at Facebook.com/teamsters.

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  • UAE approves Itvisma gene therapy: A leap in medical innovation – Gulf News

    UAE approves Itvisma gene therapy: A leap in medical innovation – Gulf News

    1. UAE approves Itvisma gene therapy: A leap in medical innovation  Gulf News
    2. UAE approves gene replacement therapy for new age group in spinal muscular atrophy patients  uaebarq.ae
    3. UAE approves use of ‘world’s most expensive drug’ to give sick children hope  thenationalnews.com
    4. UAE approves gene replacement therapy to treat spinal muscular atrophy  Dubai Eye 103.8

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  • Gold prices in Pakistan Today

    Gold prices in Pakistan Today

    Gold prices continued to climb on Saturday, rising in both international and domestic markets, further pushing the precious metal beyond the reach of ordinary consumers.

    In the international bullion market, spot gold rose 0.4% to $4,347.07 per ounce as of 02:17 p.m. ET (19:17 GMT), recording a weekly gain of 1.1%. Meanwhile, US gold futures settled 0.5% higher at $4,387.3 an ounce.

    Earlier, benchmark gold prices had gained $13 to reach $4,338 per ounce.

    Read: Gold prices rise continuously, further increases today

    Following the global uptrend, gold prices in the local market also registered an increase. The price of gold per tola rose by Rs1,300 to Rs456,162, while the rate for 10 grams increased by Rs1,115 to Rs391,085.

    Silver prices also surged sharply during the session. Spot silver jumped 2.6% to $67.14 per ounce, ending the week up 8.4% after hitting a record high of $67.45 earlier in the day.

    Analysts say the sustained rally in precious metals reflects strong investor demand amid global economic uncertainty and expectations of continued monetary easing by major central banks.

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  • Mergers and Acquisitions — Reviewing 2025 and Looking Ahead to 2026 – The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

    1. Mergers and Acquisitions — Reviewing 2025 and Looking Ahead to 2026  The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance
    2. Wall Street banked on a flurry of deals under Trump in 2025. It wasn’t that simple  CNBC
    3. The Big Idea That Drove a Strong Year in Tech Dealmaking  The Information
    4. M&A’s Leadership Moment  Forbes
    5. PwC: Netflix/Paramount/WBD Acquisition Drama Spearheads Streaming Consolidation  Media Play News

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  • Christmas ads put on a diet as UK ban on TV junk food advertising bites | Food & drink industry

    Christmas ads put on a diet as UK ban on TV junk food advertising bites | Food & drink industry

    The festive season is traditionally a time of national culinary overindulgence but eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed that this year’s crop of big-budget Christmas TV ads have been decidedly lean and sugar-free.

    From Tesco and Waitrose to Marks & Spencer and Asda, the UK’s biggest exponents of extravagant festive food marketing have put their Christmas ads on a diet to comply with new regulations banning junk food products from appearing in TV ads before 9pm.

    The UK advertising watchdog will officially start cracking down on ads featuring junk food on TV – and in paid online advertising at any time of day – from 5 January. But the UK advertising industry voluntarily chose to start adhering to the new rules from October, making this TV’s first-ever low-fat, low-sugar and low-salt Christmas.

    Gone are shots of Christmas puddings and sweet treats, while healthy products have made a conspicuous appearance. Advertisers have had to cleverly market a wide range of other food to stay within the complex new rules.

    In the climax of Waitrose’s Christmas romance ad, Keira Knightley receives a home-baked pie, while in Lidl a young girl grabs apples for a last-minute addition to the family festive shop.

    Meanwhile, Asda used the fresh fruit and vegetable aisle for the Grinch to make his big entry into one of its supermarkets, and Morrisons opted not to show any products at all.

    Quirks under the regulations rule out showing gravy on the traditional Christmas dinner’s roasted meat centrepiece in festive ads. However, a “marinade, glaze, dressing, seasoning rub or similar accompaniment” will keep the advertising watchdog away, according to the government’s new rules.

    “Advertisers are having to be very strategic,” said Richard Exon, the co-founder of the ad agency Joint. “There is an upside for creativity here. It’s less about the products and more about brands and messaging and keeping to the spirit and letter of the legislation. Mainstream premium brands will be very careful not to breach regulations. A big dollop of common sense will be needed in the first quarter next year.”

    While on-screen viewers are enjoying a merry Christmas, off screen the road to the introduction of the rules has been a bitter battle between health campaigners and the food industry.

    In 2020, Boris Johnson’s government promised to implement a ban on products that were high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) online and before 9pm on TV saying it would come into force in 2023.

    The ban was predicted to affect hundreds of millions of pounds of advertising spend. The original proposals meant that healthy foods such as avocados would be banned, but products such as McDonald’s chicken nuggets and some fries passed the HFSS nutrient profile test.

    In a reworking of the plan, there has been a rebranding of the government’s initiative to tackle soaring childhood obesity to restrictions on “less healthy food”.

    Quirks under the new regulations rule out showing gravy on the traditional Christmas dinner. Photograph: FG Trade/Getty

    There are 13 categories of banned products, although these can make it on screen if it is possible for a food company to reformulate ingredients to meet the HFSS test, and there is an extensive list of often incongruous exceptions and caveats.

    Many items perceived as less healthy are not restricted, such as bacon, cheese, savoury pastries such as sausage rolls, Pot Noodle and Nutella. “Party snacks” are also allowed to be shown, and as such feature heavily in a number of advertisers’ Christmas campaigns this year.

    Conversely, items often perceived as healthier are restricted, such as “sandwiches of any kind”, pretzels and “all products predominantly found in the breakfast cereal aisle”, which includes porridge oats and muesli, according to the regulations.

    Some products that have been reformulated to meet the junk food nutrient rules are still banned as they are perceived to contribute to the obesity issue, such as certain ranges of crisps, chips and pizza.

    “Are we ready? Yes,” said an executive at one big food retailer. “But it is far too complex. There is going to be a long period where the advertising watchdog has to work through complaints from those looking out for products that may break the rules.”

    Earlier this year, health campaigners were outraged when the government decided to allow companies that make junk food, such as a McDonald’s or Cadbury, to run brand ads as long as they did not show an “identifiable” product.

    This followed a threat of legal action against the proposed blanket ban by the food industry. Allowing brand ads would mean that Cadbury could run its famous drumming gorilla ad, for example, before the watershed so long as there were no images of chocolate bars.

    Cadbury’s Dairy Milk advert features a gorilla playing the drums to Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight, with no chocolate bar in sight. Photograph: Rex Features

    “This government pledged to raise the healthiest generation of children ever and yet they’ve ignored the evidence, instead pursuing a policy that essentially enables business as usual,” said Fran Bernhardt of the campaign group Sustain. “Industry will be celebrating another ruined health policy, while the UK’s children have been let down once again.”

    Earlier this month, the Food Foundation released its annual report, which found that food companies had been shifting their ad spend into other media before the TV and online ad ban.

    Food companies’ spend on outdoor media such as billboards and poster sites – which are only subject to junk food ad bans if they are located within 100 metres of premises such as schools or leisure centres – rose 28% between 2021 and 2024.

    The report found that McDonald’s had increased its outdoor advertising spend by the biggest percentage across the three-year period.

    While viewers are unlikely to have picked up on the trimmer advertising this Christmas, they may well do when Easter rolls around: Shots of chocolate eggs are banned, and so, too, the quintessential hot cross bun, unless food companies can come up with a healthy-eating version.

    “Advertising agencies are problem-solvers,” said Paul Bainsfair, the director general of the trade body the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. “They have just had to adapt and use their ingenuity to find solutions for their clients – something they have always been so good at.”

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  • Grants to help young women in Cornwall explore aviation careers

    Grants to help young women in Cornwall explore aviation careers

    Director of TECwomen CIC, Caitlin Gould, said: “Our Take Flight programme has been building year on year and with this support we will continue to grow our reach and inspire more young women across rural and coastal locations.

    “Young women are crying out for opportunities, especially programmes designed specifically to support them and help them thrive,” she added.

    The government said aviation was a “rapidly growing” sector following the approved expansion plans for Gatwick and Luton airports and the push for a third runway at Heathrow.

    Aviation, maritime and decarbonisation minister Keir Mather said the government fund was “helping to break down barriers to opportunity and encouraging the next generation to aim high”.

    “Alongside securing the future of the aviation industry, this is about ensuring young people from all backgrounds can see and learn about the varied and often highly skilled jobs and future opportunities,” he added.

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  • For Berkshire and Buffett, Jan. 1 marks a new age: Retirement for Omaha’s Oracle – Nebraska Examiner

    1. For Berkshire and Buffett, Jan. 1 marks a new age: Retirement for Omaha’s Oracle  Nebraska Examiner
    2. Warren Buffett’s 90/10 Rule: A Simple Strategy to Enhance Your Investments  Investopedia
    3. Why doing nothing is the hardest—and smartest—investing skill  livemint.com
    4. KUVR – For Berkshire and Buffett, Jan. 1 marks a new age: Retirement for Omaha’s Oracle  Rural Radio Network
    5. A Treasure Trove of Business Wisdom! Buffett’s 1990 Lecture at Stanford Law School: Want to Make Big Money? Focus on ‘Fishing in a Barrel.’  富途牛牛

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  • Jim Ratcliffe chemical firms received up to £70m of UK state aid in last four years | Ineos

    Jim Ratcliffe chemical firms received up to £70m of UK state aid in last four years | Ineos

    Chemical companies owned by the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe had already been granted as much as £70m in UK state aid in the past four years, before this week’s £50m government bailout for its Grangemouth plant in Scotland.

    State aid to Ineos in the last year alone was between £16m and £38m, according to government disclosures published this week. Since August 2022 the company has received between £28m and £70m.

    The government stepped in on Tuesday to give Ineos £50m to support Grangemouth, fearing that without it the UK would lose its last plant making ethylene, an important material for making plastics. The government also backed a £75m loan guarantee, while Ineos will invest £30m of its own money.

    Ineos had already closed the next-door oil refinery in September 2024 with the cost of 400 jobs, in a huge blow to the community and a political problem for the government.

    Ratcliffe, who is worth $14.5bn (£11bn) according to Bloomberg’s billionaires index, asked the government for help in October.

    It comes at a time when the expansive group of Ineos companies, controlled by the 73-year-old, has been under financial pressure, in part because of the big increase in energy costs after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

    Fitch Ratings downgraded Ineos’s credit rating in September, in a sign of increasing concern over its ability to repay its debts. Ratcliffe has also had to spend heavily on his off-road car venture, the Ineos Grenadier, as well as seeking to turn around Manchester United, in which he holds a minority stake.

    Most of the previous state aid to Ineos came in the form of tax breaks in return for “voluntary agreements to reduce energy use and carbon dioxide emissions”. The tax breaks for Ineos’s plants in Grangemouth and Hull are reported as ranges, rather than giving precise figures.

    An Ineos spokesperson said the aid was not “special treatment” for Ineos, but was “awarded against strict criteria, and available to any UK business that qualifies”.

    Ratcliffe this week welcomed the £50m support for the chemicals business in a statement included in a government press release. However, Ineos issued a separate release that contained much more critical comments, in which the billionaire strongly criticised government policy, including carbon taxes that are paid by industrial users on their energy bills.

    “The answer is NOT decarbonisation by deindustrialisation,” Ratcliffe wrote. “Without a strong manufacturing base, the economy will continue to decline. High energy costs and punitive carbon charges are driving industry out of the UK at an alarming rate.”

    In further comments to media outlets this week, Ratcliffe described carbon taxes as “the most idiotic tax in the world”. He argued that the taxes leave UK plants at a disadvantage to foreign rivals, which do not have to pay the extra costs. Most chemicals and plastics are not part of the UK’s initial carbon border adjustment mechanism, a tax on high-carbon imports such as steel, glass, cement and fertilisers.

    An Ineos spokesperson said: “Ineos has invested over £400m at Grangemouth in the last five years to keep it one of the most efficient chemical plants in Europe and to protect skilled jobs. UK chemicals have had a brutal year, yet everyone relies on this industry every day. If we don’t make these essential materials in the UK, they are imported instead, often from higher-carbon production abroad.”

    Colin Pritchard, head of sustainability and external affairs for Ineos’s Olefins & Polymers division, this week said the money for Grangemouth would be devoted to improving energy efficiency, cutting its carbon emissions and improving performance.

    He said the site, which runs an ethylene cracker that takes North Sea gas and liquified petroleum gas from the US to make its petrochemicals, had been under “extreme pressure” from surging energy costs linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the UK’s carbon taxes.

    Ineos has previously received tax breaks worth hundreds of millions of euros from the EU. Ratcliffe was a prominent backer of the campaign to leave the EU.

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  • GhostPairing explained: New WhatsApp scam that many are falling for (HT Tech)

    GhostPairing explained: New WhatsApp scam that many are falling for (HT Tech)

    A new and highly deceptive WhatsApp scam is catching users off guard by exploiting a feature many barely think about: device linking. Dubbed GhostPairing by cybersecurity researchers, the scam allows attackers to quietly take control of a victim’s WhatsApp account without hacking passwords, stealing SIM cards, or intercepting OTPs.

    Cybersecurity researchers say GhostPairing is especially dangerous because it spreads through trust. (REUTERS)

    Instead of breaking WhatsApp’s security, GhostPairing relies entirely on social engineering. Victims are tricked into approving the attacker’s device themselves, making the attack both effective and difficult to detect.

    How the GhostPairing scam works

    The scam usually begins with a message that appears to come from a trusted contact. It could say something harmless like, “Hey, is this you in this photo?” or “I just found your picture.” The message includes a link that shows a familiar-looking preview inside WhatsApp, often resembling a Facebook photo or post.

    Once clicked, the link opens a fake webpage designed to look legitimate. The page asks the user to “verify” their identity before viewing the content. In reality, this step initiates WhatsApp’s official device-linking flow. Users are prompted to enter their phone number, after which WhatsApp generates a numeric pairing code.

    The fake page then instructs the user to enter this code inside WhatsApp, presenting it as a routine security or verification step. By doing so, the victim unknowingly links the attacker’s device to their account.

    From that moment, the attacker gains full WhatsApp Web-style access. They can read chats, download media, send messages, and receive new conversations in real time. Crucially, the victim’s WhatsApp continues to work normally on their phone, which means many users do not realise they have been compromised.

    Why the scam spreads so easily

    Cybersecurity researchers say GhostPairing is especially dangerous because it spreads through trust. Once an account is compromised, attackers use it to send the same malicious links to the victim’s contacts and group chats. Messages coming from known people are far more likely to be clicked, allowing the scam to propagate quickly without mass spam or obvious red flags.

    The attack was first observed in parts of Europe, but experts warn that there is nothing region-specific about it. Any WhatsApp user could be targeted.

    No hacking involved, just misuse of features

    What makes GhostPairing particularly concerning is that it does not exploit a software vulnerability or weaken encryption. The scam uses WhatsApp’s device-linking feature exactly as intended, but manipulates users into approving access under false pretences. Linked devices remain active until manually removed, meaning attackers can retain access indefinitely if the user does not check their settings.

    How users can protect themselves

    Staying safe from GhostPairing requires awareness rather than technical fixes. Users should regularly check WhatsApp’s Linked Devices section and remove any unfamiliar sessions. Any request to enter pairing codes, scan QR codes, or “verify” accounts through external websites should be treated with suspicion.

    Enabling two-step verification adds another layer of protection, and unexpected messages, even from known contacts, should always be verified before clicking links.

    Cybersecurity experts warn that scams like GhostPairing highlight a growing shift in digital threats, where attackers focus less on breaking systems and more on exploiting human trust.

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