Author Archives: Danzig

NASA Invites Competitors to Shoot for the Moon and Beyond – Theredstonerocket

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NASA is inviting additional teams to compete in theCube Quest Challenge. You can still participate in the in-space phase of the challenge and be eligible to win part of a $4.5 million prize purse.

The Cube Quest Challenge, NASAs first in-space competition, incentivizes teams to design, build and deliver small satellites capable of advanced operations near and beyond the Moon. To compete, new teams meeting theeligibility criteriamust obtain a ride to deep space for their CubeSats either through commercial launch opportunities or programs like NASAsCubeSat Launch Initiative.

We welcome new teams to join us in this challenge in pursuit of advancing space exploration, said Monsi Roman, program manager for NASAs Centennial Challenges. When we established the Cube Quest Challenge in 2015, commercial flight opportunities werent as available. Now that technology has advanced and commercial partners are flying payloads, it is a great time to make potential participants aware of the opportunity.

Fifteen university and private developer teams have already competed for prizes to showcase creative CubeSat technologies through ground-based tournaments, or phase one, of the Cube Quest Challenge, which was completed in 2017.

Three winnersreceived spots as secondary payloads on Artemis I, the first integrated test flight of NASAs Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft. These teams have been working on their CubeSats, readying them for launch. Once deployed from the rocket, the teams will begin phase two, the in-space competition.

In-Space Competition

All Cube Quest Challenge competitors, both new and current, will compete in one of two arenas. The Lunar Derby is where CubeSats are to maintain a verifiable lunar orbit. Theres also the Deep Space Derby, in which CubeSats reach approximately 1.8 million miles from Earth.

Once in orbit, the CubeSats must complete various tasks outlined in thecompetition rules documentto be eligible for prize money. To ensure data integrity, each satellite must transmit NASA-provided communications data to be eligible for prize money.

The Next Frontier

The Cube Quest Challenge opens the lunar and deep space environment, thanks to the mastery of several technologies, said Elizabeth Hyde, a mechanical engineer at NASAs Ames Research Center in Californias Silicon Valley and technical advisor for the challenge. The three technology areas we see as important for jumping from low-Earth orbit to deep space are communications, propulsion and radiation tolerance for CubeSats.

Initiatives such as the Cube Quest Challenge aim to make deep space exploration more accessible and open up commercial space opportunities beyond low-Earth orbit.

The next frontier is small satellites. Development efforts are aimed at pushing the boundaries of CubeSat exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, Hyde said.

The competition is a partCentennial Challenges, based at the NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Centennial Challenges is a part of the Prizes and Challenges program within NASAs Space Technology Mission Directorate. The challenge is managed by NASAs Ames Research Center in Californias Silicon Valley.

To register to compete in the challenge, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/cubequest/howtoenter/

For more information of NASAs Cube Quest Challenge, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/cubequest/details

For more information about NASAs Prizes and Challenges, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/solve/index.html

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NASA Invites Competitors to Shoot for the Moon and Beyond - Theredstonerocket

Upcoming NASA Mission Will Send a Payload-Bearing Balloon into the Stratosphere – News – All About Circuits

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Earths atmosphere blocks many forms of radiation and other electromagnetic waves from reaching the earths surface.

While the atmosphere is absolutely essential for life to exist on earth, its presence can impede on our scientific observation of the universe.

In response, scientists have turned to something called space balloons, which carry observation equipment and electronic payloads to complete an exploration mission.

Balloon-bound telescopes can overcome the atmospheric veil. With this instrument, scientists can effectively observe the universe without costly and time-consuming expeditions into space.

In fact, NASA's Scientific Balloon Program has been operating for 30 years and launches 10 to 15 missions a year from locations around the globe.

Balloon missions have both a lower cost and faster turnaround time compared to space missions. This adds the benefit of allowing more updated technology to be deployed and utilized in their missions.

According to NASA's JPL, apayload of a space balloon normally consists of its telescope, science instrument, and such subsystems as the cooling and electronic systems.

The electronic system is an integral part of these missions, generally in charge of managing all of the sensors and logging all of the data. Sensors can typically include GPS, altimeters, thermocouples, and inertial measurement units. Electronic systems also aid in the navigation, and safe return, of the space balloon.

Like many other space missions, space balloons have unobstructed access to the suns light. This makes electronic systems on these missions useful candidates for solar power, presenting many interesting design challenges and opportunities.

Its been well documented that the design of electronics for space (or high altitude) payloads offers unique challenges to engineers.

For starters, leaving the protective canopy of the earths atmosphere exposes the electronics to all sorts of ionizing radiation that doesnt exist on the terrestrial surface. As discussed in a previous AAC article, this has created the need for radiation-hardened (rad-hard) electronics for space missions.

Its also worth noting that far-infrared instruments need to be kept extremely cold, which requires the use of a liquid helium cooling system.

Space balloon missions require improved batteries to store electrical energy onboard. Long-duration balloon flights can experience 12 hours or more of darkness, and excess electrical power generated during the day from solar panels needs to be stored.

These unique demands call for means of more efficient energy generation, better energy storage, and novel low-power electronics.

Last week, NASA announced that work has begun on a new mission that will carry a cutting-edge 8.4-foot telescope high into the stratosphere on a balloon. This balloon, dubbed ASTHROS (astrophysics stratospheric telescope for high spectral resolution observations at submillimeter-wavelengths) will launch from Antarctica and spend about three weeks in the air.

The goal of this mission is to measure the motion and speed of gas around newly-formed stars. During the flight, the system will study four main targets, including two star-forming regions in the Milky Way.

The NASA press release explains,ASTHROS will make the first detailed 3D maps of the density, speed, and motion of gas in these regions to see how the newborn giants influence their placental material. By doing so, the team hopes to gain insight into how stellar feedback works and to provide new information to refine computer simulations of galaxy evolution.

The beauty of unique missions like these is that they push the current state of electronics to meet the demands of space exploration.

ASTHROS will allow scientists to deploy technology for space observations that have yet to be used.Through this mission, NASA hopes to gain a deeper insight into the formation of the galaxy and, if were lucky, bring some technological improvements to earth as well.

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Upcoming NASA Mission Will Send a Payload-Bearing Balloon into the Stratosphere - News - All About Circuits

Unmasking Trends in Maritime Crime in the Caribbean – The Maritime Executive

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The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Heriberto Hernandez (WPC-1114) offloaded 55 bales of cocaine weighing 1,375 kilograms at Sector San Juan July 22, 2020. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Ricardo Castrodad)

By CIMSEC 07-31-2020 06:38:56

[By Dr. Ian Ralby, Lt. Col. Michael Jones and Capt. Errington Shurland (ret.)]

While life on land for most people has been unusually sedentary in 2020 with significant travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders, the maritime space has remained remarkably active. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic the Caribbeans maritime domain has garnered widespread attention on three fronts: cruise ships stuck at sea, both with Covid-19 patients onboard and crew unable to be disembarked; a major increase in U.S. naval presence focused on countering narcotics trafficking, particularly via semi-submersible vessels; and shipments of sanctioned fuel and goods from Iran to Venezuela.

Though the region is being pulled into these issues to some degree, all three of these matters are primarily of an international nature. In examining the issues that are not merely occurring in the Caribbean but are of direct concern to the security, governance, and development of the region, the pandemic provides an opportunity for taking new approaches. By compiling comparative data from before and during the pandemic using maritime domain awareness technology and working collaboratively between states, regional bodies, and independent experts, we can bring to light previously overlooked activities and new criminal trends in the region. This new insight provides vital leads on how to reinvigorate maritime security and ensure that the waters of the Caribbeanamong the most economically valuable in the worldare governed by states and not transnational criminal networks.

Caribbean Maritime Activity During the Pandemic

Between March and July 2020, the Caribbean saw an unprecedented decline in travel owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. In terms of air travel, over those four months the member countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) saw only 4.7 percent of the arrivals and 9 percent of the departures they had seen the four months prior to the declaration of the pandemic. Given such a dramatic drop in travel and tourism, combined with the well-publicized issues surrounding the health security of cruise ships, it would make some sense if the Caribbean also saw a dramatic decrease in maritime activity between mid-March and mid-July. Indeed, records indicate that from March to July 2020, the region saw 48 percent of the port arrivals of the November 2019-March 2020 timeframe. Given this decrease in maritime activity, it would stand to reason that there was a comparable decrease in illicit maritime activity as well. That, however, does not appear to be the case.

Traditional Metrics

Even by traditional metrics of quantities seized, the decline in criminal activity between March and July 2020 did not parallel the decline in port calls. In that period since the onset of the pandemic, the region seized roughly 60 percent the amount of cocaine, marijuana, and illegal migrants that it did between November 2019 and March 2020. Importantly, since early April, the increased presence of the United States Navy and Coast Guard in the region has accounted for more than $1 billion in drug seizures, potentially skewing the seizure figures for the regional states as well. The region, however, has not seen the sort of decline in traditional criminal activities that might be expected under the circumstances. In fact, there were 27 recorded incidents of maritime interdictions between March 12 and July 8, 2020, versus 23 in the longer period between 1 November 2019 and 11 March 2020. Furthermore, seizures in the last few months of birds, goats, cash, and fuel (for some examples), indicate the diversity of smuggling operations running through the Caribbean. Economic hardship may in fact be a growing driver for illicit activity. But these recorded figures are not the only means by which to determine whether criminality has declined in parallel with legitimate maritime activity.

New Approaches

Using Automatic Identification System (AIS) data, a variety of other datasets, augmented intelligence, and machine learning, increasingly advanced maritime domain awareness (MDA) technology can help examine different maritime activities to identify anomalies and instances of suspicious behavior. Whereas maritime law enforcement in the Caribbean has traditionally focused on small vesselsgo-fast speedboats, fishing vessels, and pleasure craft that are generally too small to use AIShigh-volume drug interdictions in other regions in the Caribbean have indicated that traffickers are increasingly using larger vessels for larger drug shipments. By using MDA technology that allows for queries on different activities, a variety of indicators can help shine a light on what has been transpiring in the region during the pandemic and in the time leading up to it.

Focusing on a few factors of potentially suspicious activity can help indicate whether the maritime space of the Caribbean has seen any significant change since travel restrictions began in March 2020. By honing in on vessels that either can be deemed high risk or significant risk based on algorithmic analysis of their movements, or that have corporate ownership and management structures that exhibit risk patterns, analysts can quickly concentrate on vessels that, based on their activities, are likely to have engaged in or currently are engaged in illicit behavior. Focusing on such vessels, and comparing incidents of dark activity, including drifting, sailing below three knots, changes in Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) numbers, meetings, and course deviations, helps paint a relative picture over time.

Each of these factors is tied to known criminal activities at sea. Dark activity, which is not limited merely to AIS signal loss, but intentionally turning off the AIS transponder, is prohibited under Chapter V of the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Convention. There are some circumstances, even in the Caribbean, where as long as this was logged by the master of the vessel, such activity could be deemed acceptable for the safety of the vessel. But it often is an indicator of illicit activity.

Ships that intend to engage in illicit activitylike meeting with another vessel to embark drugs, transship illegally-caught fish or violate sanctionsmay turn off their AIS transponder to help obscure that behavior. Similarly, drifting and sailing below three nautical miles per hour are uneconomic behaviors for ships engaged in legitimate maritime commerce. While these indicators are not in and of themselves indicative of anything specific, they can suggest a vessel may not be acting legally, particularly if there are other risk factors present. Sailing below three knots may also be an indicator of either dropping off or seeking to pick up packages, often drugs, left in the water for collection. There may even be several days between the dropoff and pickup.

MMSI changes can be routine, but particularly when paired with other activities, can also indicate attempts to obscure either past or future activities. Furthermore, they can indicate changes in ownership and control of a vessel, and when such a change also includes a change in flag, there may be cause for concern as to the intentions of the new owners. Meetings could involve anything from bunkering or legitimate resupplying, to key transfers in a criminal supply chain. And finally, odd course deviations may also be indicators of uneconomic behavior that is tied to illegitimate activitiessuch as looking for geolocated drug packages left on the water for collection.

In looking at the Caribbean, the above chartwhich excludes tankers on account of their unusual challenges caused by the decline in the global oil marketis quite telling as to changes in suspicious activity during the pandemic. Using the same periods from the traditional analysis mentioned earlier (November 1, 2019 to March 11, 2020 and March 12 to July 8, 2020), both from 2019 into 2020 and from 2018 into 2019, shows that there is not a significant decrease in suspicious behavior during the pandemic.

On the contrary, there is actually an increase in dark activity, including drifting, sailing below three nautical miles, MMSI changes, and course deviations in comparison to the same periods in 2019. The only decreases were a slight drop in the number of vessels and a significant decline in the activity in which no one is supposed to engage in during a pandemic: meetings. Compared to the four months prior to the onset of Covid-19 restrictions, there were actually more dark activities and slow sailings during the pandemic than there were before.

Comparing the pandemic period to the period immediately prior is most instructive when considering the traditional datasets above. If the volume of legitimate maritime activity dropped by more than 50 percent and the volume of movement by air dropped more than 90 percent, it would seem that the volume of suspicious maritime activities should have dropped a significant amount as well. Instead, the pandemic saw a 38 percent decrease in the total number of suspicious vessels, a 26 percent increase in dark activity, a 77 percent decrease in drifting, an 18 percent increase in sailing below three nautical miles per hour, a 50 percent decrease in MMSI changes, an 88 percent decrease in meetings, and a 39 percent decrease in course deviations compared to the period from November 1, 2019 to March 11, 2020.

One convenient narrative to explain the increase could involve more ships being stuck at sea, but only if drifting rather than dark activity had risen. While this data is not conclusive, it does indicate that suspicious maritime activity does not operate in correlation with changes in legitimate maritime commerce. As has been noted regarding drug flows, criminals dont waste a good crisis, meaning that maritime criminality is relatively unimpeded by the restrictions that have curtailed legal activities during the pandemic, and criminals may actually be taking advantage of the new status quo. This is new insight and new visibility for the region and digging deeper exposes a number of trends.

Vessel Families

While there has been a push in recent years for maritime interdictions to trigger financial investigations in the Caribbean, perhaps more attention needs to be paid to vessel ownership investigations, either at the national or at the regional levels. If a vessel is arrested either within the region or after having been through the region with drugs onboard, it is possible the vessels owners and operators may have been involved. Therefore, one approach to identifying suspicious vessels deserving of scrutiny is to examine any sibling and related vessels, including vessels of associated companies. Doing so in the Caribbean would require the identification of a list of vessels of interest whose activities immediately raise suspicion.

Reverse Routes

The news has been full of stories about Iranian vessels heading for Venezuela, especially owing to international sanctions. However, in examining the movement of vessels leaving the Caribbean after engaging in suspicious activity, some actually proceed onward to sanctioned countries.[8] At the same time, new routes are emerging, bringing drugs and other contraband from other parts of the world to the Caribbean. This deserves significant attention from the region.

Unexpected Vessels

A traditional narrative that has been contradicted is the notion that illicit goods are moved only in certain types of vessels. The 2019 arrest of the M/V NIKA in Indonesia should serve as a cautionary tale. The NIKA is a cargo vessel that was engaged in illegal fishing, operating almost invisibly on account of its vessel type. No law enforcement agency was looking for cargo vessels conducting illegal fishing. Similarly, for the Caribbean, only searching for container ships may obscure possible suspicious patterns of activity which are also being exhibited by cement carriers, livestock carriers, or reefers which may be engaging in smuggling and trafficking.

Next Steps

The pandemic has forced a revision of how Caribbean entities approach their analysis of illicit maritime activity. The present collaboration has allowed for increased insight into suspicious activities in the region that have otherwise gone unnoticed. The question, however, is how does the region act on this insight? The Regional Security System (RSS) a sub-regional treaty-based security cooperation organization comprising seven states (all of which are also CARICOM member states)is able to use a mixture of fixed-wing maritime patrol aircraft, small boats, and patrol vessels to monitor and interdict maritime crime. But even with these capabilities and extensive cooperation among the states, identifying these trends in such a way as to analyze and respond to them quickly enough to prompt on-the-water interdictions will be a challenge. Furthermore, the current concept of operations in the RSS and those of CARICOM member states are based on traditional understandings of trafficking routes and criminal modalities. As new insights enter the picture, new approaches need to be consideredboth in terms of how to maintain such enhanced maritime domain awareness and in terms of how to respond to it.

What has become clear is that even while much of the world has been stuck at home during the pandemic, criminals have continued to operate in the maritime space of the Caribbean with virtually no detectable decline in overall activity. Just as criminals continue to adapt and innovate amid changing circumstances, so too must law enforcement. Since the pandemic has destroyed the familiar status quo, the states and regional entities of the Caribbean need to proactively reevaluate the range of assets and approaches that can be deployed to identify, understand, and effectively disrupt maritime criminal activity.

To keep pace with and ultimately get ahead of the criminals, CARICOM member states will need to explore a range of tools for addressing the full spectrum of illicit maritime activities. This includes using new technology such as maritime domain awareness platforms, enhancing operational cooperation through CARICOM IMPACS and the RSS, and both adopting and implementing legal instruments such as the Treaty of San Jos. While the pandemic has curtailed and thwarted many good things around the world, it somewhat ironically has helped catalyze this process in the Caribbean.

Dr. Ian Ralby is a recognized expert in maritime law and security and serves as CEO of I.R. Consilium.

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Jones is the Executive Director (Ag) of the CARICOM Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS).

Captain (N) Errington Ricardo Shurland (ret.) is the Executive Director of the Regional Security System (RSS). Prior to this, he served in the Barbados Defence Force for 33 years.

Dr. David Soud and Rohini Ralby of I.R. Consilium and Tonya Ayow, Callixtus Joseph, and Chesley Olliverre of CARICOM IMPACS also contributed to this article.

This article appears courtesy of CIMSEC and may be found in its original form (including illustrations and footnotes)here.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

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Unmasking Trends in Maritime Crime in the Caribbean - The Maritime Executive

Top YouTubers in the Caribbean | Loop News – Loop News Cayman

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The Dominican Republic has the number one YouTuber in the Caribbean.

According to data from Top Dollar Financial Insights Hub, El Flaco WTF has 4.27 million subscribers, making it the top YouTube channel in the region.

Jamaican YouTuber Yanrique is in second-place with 785,000 subscribers while Barbados Brilliant News is third with 580,000 subscribers.

Cubas LifePles follows with 538,000 subscribers while Trinidad and Tobagos Certified Sampson rounds up the top five with 241,000 subscribers.

Top Dollar compiled the top YouTubers in every country in the world using statistical websitesSocialBladeandVidoolyto find out which YouTuber has the most subscribers.

To calculate each channels earnings, they usedBanner Tagto find the average daily views for each channel and estimated how much it was earning using a site calledNoxinfluencer, which estimates earnings based on views and subscribers.

The regions popular YouTubers create content spanning a range of genres from gaming to food.

El Flaco WTF is a social media sensation who started his channel in 2015 in which he gives lively and entertaining commentary on videos and events. According to Top Dollar, he earns US$54,018 a month.

Yanrique Wright, an online gaming personality, is said to earn US$50,266.20 a month while Barbados Brilliant News, which is said to be located in Barbados, is a quirky talk show about things on the Internet. It is hosted by the Gutierrez Brothers. Brilliant News earns an estimated US$158.5 K monthly.

Top Dollar said from their research the most popular YouTuber in the United States is a six-year-old Russian-American girl namedAnastasia Radzinskaya, who is estimated to earn $7.7 million a month from her videos.

Swedish gamer PewDiePie aka Felix Kjellberg has the most overall subscribers on the video platform, netting 105 million total subscribers, earning him approximately $1.16 million a month.

Here are the top YouTubers in the Caribbean

Dominican Republic: El Flaco WTF 4.27 million subscribers, estimated monthly earnings: $54,018

Jamaican: Yanrique 785K subscribers, estimated monthly earnings: $50,266.20

Barbados: Brilliant News 580k subscribers, estimated monthly earnings: $158.5 K

Cuba: LifePles 538K subscribers, estimated monthly earnings: $70,728.90

Trinidad and Tobago: Certified Sampson 241k subscribers, estimated monthly earnings: $19,381.50

Haiti: Komedyen Lakay Official 197 K subscribers, estimated monthly earnings: $4, 290.90

The Bahamas: Crypto Beadles 92.7 K subscribers, estimated monthly earnings: $2401.80

St Vincent and the Grenadines: The Motivator 2 48.1 K subscribers, estimated monthly earnings: $60.30

St Kitts and Nevis: Dr Mungli 33.5K subscribers, estimated monthly earnings: $873.00

St Lucia: The Dating Guru: 28.0K subscribers, estimated monthly earnings: $31.50

Dominica: Chanel Raphael 23.5K subscribers, estimated monthly earnings: $1880.40

Grenada: Laura Forde: 23.2K, estimated monthly earnings: $610.50

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Top YouTubers in the Caribbean | Loop News - Loop News Cayman

Tropical Disturbance taking its time coming together in the Caribbean – WKRG News 5

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Posted: Jul 29, 2020 / 04:27 PM CDT / Updated: Jul 29, 2020 / 04:27 PM CDT

MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) The National Hurricane Center continues to monitor Potential Tropical Cyclone Nine located west of the Lesser Antilles.

Hurricane Hunter crews flying through the disturbance have yet to find a closed center of circulation. Thunderstorm activity has increased with the system, but it is not yet a tropical depression or tropical storm. The circulation center is expected form later tonight and the disturbance will likely be named a tropical storm. It will be given the name Isaias (ees-ah-EE-ahs).

A west-northwest track will continue through the rest of the week. Until this system develops a center circulation, forecast models will be playing somewhat of a guessing game meaning theres still a lot of uncertainty with the long-range track. Right now, it doesnt pose a direct threat here. We will continue to keep a close eye on this and will keep you posted.

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Tropical Disturbance taking its time coming together in the Caribbean - WKRG News 5

Why the Caribbean is the Perfect Private Jet Getaway – Luxury Travel Magazine

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As hot spots in the Caribbean continue to lift restriction to most travelers that can show a negative COVID-19 PCR test result, private jet bookings to various paradise islands have increased during the past weeks, especially for those South Florida-based private aviation companies, strategically located just an hour away from the Caribbean.

Comprised of 28 nations, the regions destination with the highest private aviation demand from South Florida is The Bahamas. The country accounts for most of private flights departing from South Florida towards the Caribbean. In fact, the most requested route for any type of private aircraft within both regions is Miami Nassau, with more than 5,300 flights departing during the last year from Opa-Locka Executive Airport to Lynden Pindling International Airport.

The Bahamas has arguably the best infrastructure in the region to pair with the needs of the private flight market, one of the main reasons that explain the high demand from South Florida, according to BitLux CEO Kyle Patel. He adds, The proximity to The Bahamas from Miami also helps to drive demand, nevertheless, private air clients want full comfort throughout the experience; whether that comes from more private air terminal options or being able to charter any aircraft to land at destination, The Bahamas grants full flexibility for the traveler and the company arranging the flight.

The private aviation experience is usually connected with jet planes and, although the quickest option, a turboprop aircraft is more efficient for shorter routes thanks to design and overall operational costs. Especially for trips of under two hours like the ones from Miami or Palm Beach to any island, turboprops should be considered as a top option.

Overall, the Caribbean offers the exclusivity that many travelers seek while providing the first-rate holiday all visitors deserve. Commercial aviation is indeed the most popular means of transportation for millions each year, but the proximity of the Caribbean to South Florida allows private aviation to thrive within both regions. The following are the top airports from a private aviation perspective when accounting for its infrastructure and vicinity to destination.

Top 5 private jet airports in the region

1) Lynden Pindling International Airport, Nassau, The Bahamas (NAS): formerly known as Nassau International Airport, is the busiest business airport in the region with over 4,000 flights annually, largely thanks to the proximity to South Florida.

2) V. C. Bird International, Antigua and Barbuda (ANU): is the only airport on the island of Antigua and has a solar power plant that provides almost enough energy to power the entire operation.

This destination, with exclusive retreats and luxury resorts, offers an ideal location immensely popular with private jet travelers.

3) Luis Munoz Marin International Airport, San Juan, Puerto Rico (SJU): is one of the busiest terminals in the Caribbean for airline flights and private jet charter operations. It is a popular gateway between the Caribbean and US, while also served by various big-name airlines around the globe.

4) Princess Juliana International Airport, St. Maarten (SXM): is famous for offering one of the worlds most stunning landings, with aircraft coming in low over the beach. The airport serves an important hub in the Caribbean, connecting commercial flights and those in larger private aircraft, with smaller planes headed towards more remote islands.

5) Providenciales International Airport in Turks & Caicos (PLS): accommodates private jet flights of all sizes, with travelers attracted to the world-renowned beaches and luxury resorts, plus the attractive conditions for offshore finance.

You can check a timeline of the Caribbean islands reopening for tourism this summer here.

BitLux provides various services across the air charter industry, but Executive Travel is one that is closest to heart. Whether you are flying for business or leisure, BitLux provides a top tier private jet service that actively exceeds expectations.

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Why the Caribbean is the Perfect Private Jet Getaway - Luxury Travel Magazine

Pirates of the Caribbean: All 5 Ships Captained By Jack Sparrow – Screen Rant

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Here are the ships that Captain Jack Sparrow captains in thePirates of the Caribbean series. Portrayed by Johnny Depp in a career-defining performance, Jack Sparrow is the undisputed heart of thePirates of the Caribbean franchise, starring in all five movie releases since 2003. Rumors continue to swirl around Depp's future on the seven seas, but for many, it's hard to imagine the story continuing without Captain Jack swashbuckling his way from one disaster to the next. But just as Jack is instantly recognizable as an iconic movie character, so is the fictional Jack Sparrow famous (on infamous, depending on your perspective) in the fictional world ofPirates of the Caribbean.

And that reputation is far from unwarranted. Captain Jack has endured ancient curses, arduous voyages, the British Navy,zombie pirates, the kraken and, worst of all, running out of rum. Jack's exploits as a captain of the seas are legendary among his peers and enemies, affirming him as a man to be feared, respected, perhaps even loved, but certainly never trusted. Thisrenown would never have been possible without a series of eventful stints as captain on a host of different pirate ships.

Related:What To Expect From Pirates of the Caribbean 6

Born into piracy, Jack was a prodigious talent in his youth, and after a brief stint with the East India Trading Company, Jack resumed his buccaneering ways, and the 18th century's answer to Keith Richards hasn't looked back since. But which ships and crews wereunluckyenough to call Captain Jack Sparrow their leader?

Even the most legendary pirates often have humble beginnings, and so it goes with Jack Sparrow, who made his bones on the Barnacle as an aspiring young teenage pirate. A (very) modest fishing boat, the Barnacle was devoid of the bells and whistles Jack's later ships would come with, but served its purpose incarryingJack and his budding crewduring their earliest adventures. The Barnacle makes her debut in Rob Kidd's series ofofficialPirates of the Caribbean books, which chronicle Jack's early life long beforethe events ofThe Curse of the Black Pearl. After initially leaving with only 2 crew mates, a barmaid and an aristocrat, the new Captain Jack soon gathered more friends and experienced the kind of magic and mayhem even veteran pirates can only dream of, discovering hidden cities, encountering mermaids, fighting a weather-controlling captain and, of course, seeking treasure.

Although the Barnacle was nothing more than a single-sail vessel, young Jack was able to enjoy the full pirate experience when he used the Sword of Corts to turn the undersized boat into an impressive, mighty warship. Renamed the Grand Barnacle, Jack captained his way to victory over the British, but ventured alone during this period, and eventually, the Barnacle was returned to its former state. Much to Jack's dismay, his first true pirate ship came to a fiery end when the Barnacle found itself on the receiving end of a cannonball intended forhis own father, Edward Teague.

After serving under a selection of pirate captains, including Teague,Rapir and others, Jack found himself unwelcome by the pirate community for breaking their time-honored code. Unable to sail as a criminal, Jack tried to go legitimate and signed up to the East India Trading Company, where his extensive sailing experience made for a rapid rise through the ranks. Jack first stepped onto the company's Fair Wind vessel in the position of first mate under Captain Bainbridge. Despite only being a typical merchant ship, this brig-class was a vast upgrade on the Barnacle and made its sole appearance in A.C. Crispin'sThe Price of Freedom novel in 2011. Somewhat surprisingly, Jack largely stuck to the rules while employed on the Fair Wind, and attained the rank of captain not by mutiny or misdeed, but because Bainbridge was killed during a pirate attack.

Related:Pirates of the Caribbean: Why Jack The Monkey Is Still Undead

As first mate, Jack had a responsibility to assume captaincy of the Fair Wind, and did so with aplomb. As fortune would have it, the invading pirate was once romantically involved with Jack during his swashbuckling days,allowing the newly-promoted Sparrow to succeed in salvaging the cargo from Esmeralda's pirate crew and bringing the vessel home in one piece. Having excelled under pressure, the East India Trading Company rewarded Jack for his efforts bypromotinghim to captain of his own ship.

The most famous ship inPirates of the Caribbeanwas originally known as the Wicked Wench. Jack was assigned as her commander after he refused to be captain of a slave ship, whereas the Wicked Wench was designed simply for cargo. Although it was the East India Trading Company who first put Jack in official charge of the Wicked Wench, his history with the boat stretches back to the battle against Salazar, in which the infamous Spaniard was defeated by a young Jack Sparrow alone at the helm of the Wench during his early piracy days. In astrange quirk of fate, both the Wicked Wench and Jackultimately found themselves in the East India Trading Company, and were now reunited.

Finally the captain of his own ship once again, Jack experienced the same kind of attachment to the Wicked Wench as he did with the Barnacle before, enjoying the freedom of the seas and the mastery of his own destiny. Once again, Jack resisted the temptations of piracy and kept on the straight and narrow during his time on the Wench, but Sparrow's staunch moral code would soon lead him away from the privateering world. Jack's superior, Tom Hollander's devious Cutler Beckett, once again tried to steer Jack Sparrow towards the slavery trade and, once again, he was refused. In response, Beckett banished Jackback into piracy and burned the Wicked Wench, while Jack did what any good captain should and went down with his ship.

With his beloved shipfalling to the depths, Jack made a deal with Davy Jones to raise the Wicked Wench once more. Renewed by magic and christened "the Black Pearl" due to being flame-grilled by Beckett, Jack's ship was now the fastest in the Caribbean and the perfect vessel to start his life of piracy anew. Over the course of thePirates of the Caribbean movies, the Black Pearl regularly flits between the command of Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa,and sees more adventure than ever before. The fabled ship is consigned to Davy Jones' Locker along with Jack inAt World's End and miniaturized in a bottle by Blackbeard inOn Stranger Tides. The last fans saw of the Black Pearl, she was once again captained by Jack Sparrow and seeking fresh escapades.

Related:Pirates of the Caribbean 6: Why Disney Is Rebooting The Franchise

WhenThe Curse of the Black Pearl begins, Jack Sparrow has been deprived of the film's titular ship by Barbossa and is seeking to reclaim the boat from his sworn, undead foe. Jack's interests conveniently align with those of Will Turner, whose lover (Keira Knightley's Elizabeth Swann) has been kidnapped by Barbossa. Together, the unbearably handsome duo plot to escape the port by hijacking one of the Navy's own ships - Captain Norrington's HMS Interceptor, reputedly the fastest in the fleet and second only to the Black Pearl herself. After succeeding in their mission, the unlikely duo of Sparrow and Turner make for Tortuga, where they assemble a pirate crew with the help of Jack's trusted first mate, Joshamee Gibbs.

The Interceptor serves as Jack's replacement ship during his first true voyage in thePirates of the Caribbean movies, but when the protagonists finally catch up to Barbossa and the Black Pearl, their fortunes take a turn. Proving its reputation for swiftness is not without merit, the Black Pearl catches the Interceptor and Jack's ragtag crew are taken aboard his old ship, with not much in the way of friendly welcome. After taking the crew hostage, Barbossa orders the Interceptor destroyed, and the ship is never seen again inPirates of the Caribbean.

This small sloop wass introduced in 2017'sDead Men Tell No Talesand represented another temporary stopgap while Jack's Black Pearl was otherwise unavailable to him, still shrunken inside Blackbeard's bottle. Coming across the boat while it was marooned on the island of Saint Martin, Jack and his crew mates claimed the appropriately-titled Dying Gull as their own, with Sparrow as its land-bound captain, but few believed the thing would actually float if taken to sea. Fortunately for Jack and his new companion, Will Turner's son Henry, the Dying Gull was indeed seaworthy, and more capable than many gave her credit for. Aboard the Gull, Jack, his crew, Henry and Carina set sail seeking the Trident of Poseidon but were pursued by Salazar, seeking revenge on Jack for locking him in the Devil's Triangle years prior.

With Barbossa in tow, Salazar gains on the Dying Gull, at which point the ship's crew decide they want no part ofSalazar'sPirates of the Caribbeanvengeance against Jack, mutinying and forcing their captain, Henry and Carina to disembark. Gibbs takes the captaincy of the Gull for a brief time,although he swiftly passes the buck onto Scrum before the Dying Gull falls into the hands of the British.

More:Pirates of the Caribbean: Why Zoe Saldanas Anamaria Didnt Return

Star Wars: Every Movie That Tried (& Failed) To Copy The Cantina Scene

Craig first began contributing to Screen Rant in 2016, several years after graduating college, and has been ranting ever since, mostly to himself in a darkened room. Having previously written for various sports and music outlets, Craig's interest soon turned to TV and film, where a steady upbringing of science fiction and comic books finally came into its own.Craig has previously been published on sites such as Den of Geek, and after many coffee-drenched hours hunched over a laptop, part-time evening work eventually turned into a full-time career covering everything from the zombie apocalypse to the Starship Enterprise via the TARDIS. Since joining the Screen Rant fold, Craig has been involved in breaking news stories and mildly controversial ranking lists, but now works predominantly as a features writer. Jim Carrey is Craigs top acting pick and favorite topics include superheroes, anime and the unrecognized genius of the High School Musical trilogy.

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Pirates of the Caribbean: All 5 Ships Captained By Jack Sparrow - Screen Rant

Fake Cyberpunk 2077 beta invites are making the rounds, CD Projekt Red warns – GamesRadar+

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Cyberpunk 2077 beta invites have been making the rounds lately, but they're all completely bogus.

CD Projekt Red addressed the fraudulent beta invites on Twitter. "If you recently received an email claiming to be granting you beta access to Cyberpunk 2077, it's not from us," a tweet reads. "Unfortunately, there have been more of these being sent out over the past few weeks If you are being contacted by a third party claiming to be working with us (an ad agency for example), you can assume it's not genuine." In a separate reply, the studio reaffirmed that it isn't even planning a Cyberpunk 2077 beta to begin with.

After the most recent Cyberpunk 2077 delay, players are hungrier than ever for a chance to see or dare we dream play a bit more of the game, so it's no surprise that now's the time shady third parties decided to send out a wave of fake beta invites.

Relatedly, it's still possible that we'll see a beta for the Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer component, but that isn't going to be out for a few years at least, so you won't hear anything about it for a while. As CD Projekt Red advised, anything you may receive about an upcoming beta is total nonsense, and any Cyberpunk 2077 invites or offers should be double-checked for an @cdprojektred.com email address.

Phishers may also jump on next-gen upgrade options in the future, so remember that Cyberpunk 2077 will be a free upgrade for both PS5 and Xbox Series X.

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Fake Cyberpunk 2077 beta invites are making the rounds, CD Projekt Red warns - GamesRadar+

Grounded Is Happy To Bow Down To Cyberpunk 2077 In This Trailer – GameSpot

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Obsidian Entertainment's upcoming survival adventure game Grounded is looking to offer a unique take on the genre--and now even the trailer is defying convention by shouting out another studio's ostensibly competing game. Of course, pretty much everyone is heaping praise on the game, too.

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The two games couldn't be more different, of course, even though Obsidian is known for narrative-heavy RPGs in the same vein as CD Projeckt Red's. Grounded is a big departure from the norm for Obsidian, with the trailer naming the studio as "the makers of games that are nothing like this one."

Grounded looks more like a Rust-style survival game, featuring combat with monstrously large insects, multiplayer and base-building features--albeit with its inventive Honey I Shrunk The Kids aesthetic.

With Grounded releasing this week, its also a safe enough distance from Cyberpunk 2077's delayed November 19 release to get away with. Obsidian's latest game will drop on July 28 on PC and Xbox One, and will be available on Xbox Game Pass on release.

Obsidian Entertainment recently announced Avowed, a fantasy RPG for the Xbox Series X that probably won't be hyping Witcher 3 in its trailers. It's set in the universe of the Pillars of Eternity series but will be a first-person game instead of a CRPG.

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Grounded Is Happy To Bow Down To Cyberpunk 2077 In This Trailer - GameSpot

CD Projekt Red says there wont be a Cyberpunk 2077 beta following email scam – Digital Trends

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There will not be a beta for Cyberpunk 2077, and emails saying there will be are fake, according to a tweet from CD Projekt Red on Thursday, July 30.

If you recently received an email claiming to be granting you beta access to Cyberpunk 2077, its not from us. Unfortunately, there have been more of these being sent out over the past few weeks. When we contact you via email, itll always come from @ cdprojektred com address, the company said.

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the years most highly anticipated releases, so it makes sense that scammers would use that anticipation to try and extract personal information from players.

When asked if there was going to be a beta in the future, CD Projekt Red said, We do not have plans for that. Sorry!

The company also tweeted to content creators about the scam.

Same goes for content creators. We always reach out directly from @ cdprojektred com domain. If you are being contacted by a third party claiming to be working with us (an ad agency, for example), you can assume its not genuine, the company said.

Cyberpunk 2077,an open-world RPG set in a dystopian world, has been in development since at least 2012 when it was first announced as a follow-up to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.The company said its the most ambitious title it has ever worked on.

The game was originally supposed to be released in April of this year but was postponed to September before seeing another delay. The newest release date is November 19.

The quests, the cutscenes, the skill and items; all the adventures Night City has to offer its all there, the studio wrote. But with such an abundance of content and complex systems interweaving with each other, we need to properly go through everything, balance game mechanics and fix a lot of bugs. A huge world means a huge number of things to iron out and we will spend the additional time doing exactly that, the company said last month when it announced the latest delay.

The company also said it is planning a second episode of Night City Wire, a digital news broadcast about the game in just a few weeks.

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CD Projekt Red says there wont be a Cyberpunk 2077 beta following email scam - Digital Trends

Myth debunked: Comets: harbingers of good and bad news? – Times of Malta

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Comets have brought awe upon those observing them since ancient times. Indeed, particularly bright comets have been attributed to major occurrences in history.

Following Caesars murder, a bright comet appeared over Romes skies that was allegedly bright enough to be seen during daytime Augustus attributed this to Caesar himself.

The star of Bethlehem, which purportedly heralded the birth of Jesus Christ, is also thought to possibly have been a comet.

In literature, comets have also oftentimes been used to profess Earthbound events.

While we now know the true nature of comets, their importance in the solar system is still significant.

Comets are one hypothesized manner in which planets could receive water, organic molecules and other minerals, which could make life possible on planets like the Earth. On the other hand, the collision of a comet with a planet teeming with life could spell disaster for those same life forms, resulting in extinction events.

While comets are therefore not messengers of news, they can deliver the materials required for life to barren worlds and conversely deliver impacts which destroy such proliferating biota.

Independent journalism costs money. Support Times of Malta for the price of a coffee.

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Myth debunked: Comets: harbingers of good and bad news? - Times of Malta

Grape Pips Reveal Collapse of Ancient Economy in the Grip of Plague and Climate Change – HeritageDaily

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While we all try to understand the new reality imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, many look to the past for historical precedents such as the Spanish flu of 1918 and the Black Plague of the 14th century.

The first historically attested wave of what later became known as the Black Plague (caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis) spread throughout the Byzantine Empire and beyond, in 541 CE. Known as Justinianic Plague, after the emperor Justinian who contracted the disease but survived, it caused high mortality and had a range of socio-economic effects. Around the same time, an enormous volcanic eruption in late 535 or early 536 CE marked the beginning of the coldest decade in the last two thousand years (another volcano of similar proportions erupted in 539 CE).

However, scholars disagree as to just how far-reaching and devastating the mid-6th century epidemic and climate change were. This scholarly debate is unsurprising considering that even today, leaders and policymakers around the world differ on the severity and correct response to COVID-19, not to mention climate change. One reason that hindsight is not 20/20 when it comes to ancient plagues is that ancient reports tend to exaggerate, or underrepresent, the human tolls, while archaeological evidence for the social and economic effects of plague are very hard to find.

Recently, a team of Israeli archaeologists discovered new and compelling evidence for a significant economic downturn on the fringe of the Byzantine Empire in the aftermath of a major pandemic in the mid-6th century CE. The research, published today in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), reconstructs the rise and fall of commercial viticulture in the middle of Israels arid Negev desert.

Daniel Fuks, a PhD student in the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University, led the study as a researcher in Prof. Ehud Weiss Archaeobotany Lab, and as a team member of the Negev Byzantine Bio-Archaeology Research Program, Crisis on the Margins of the Byzantine Empire, headed by Prof. Guy Bar-Oz of the University of Haifa. This project seeks to discover when and why the agricultural settlement of the Negev Highlands was abandoned.

Agriculture in this arid desert was made possible through rainwater runoff farming which reached its peak in the Byzantine period, as seen at sites like Elusa, Shivta and Nessana. At Negev Highland sites today, the ruins of well-built stone structures attest to their former glory, but Bar-Ozs team, guided by field archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), Dr. Yotam Tepper and Dr. Tali Erickson-Gini, discovered even more compelling evidence about life during that period in an unexpected place: the trash. Your trash says a lot about you. In the ancient trash mounds of the Negev, there is a record of residents daily lives in the form of plant remains, animal remains, ceramic sherds, and more, explains Bar-Oz. In the Crisis on the Margins project, we excavated these mounds to uncover the human activity behind the trash, what it included, when it flourished, and when it declined.

The study of seeds found in archaeological excavations is part of the field known as archaeobotany (aka paleoethnobotany). The Bar-Ilan University Archaebotany Lab in which most of this research was conducted is the only lab in Israel dedicated to the identification of ancient seeds and fruits. Prof. Ehud Weiss, the labs head, explains that the task of archaeobotany is to get into the pantry or, in this case, the trash of ancient people and study their interactions with plants. Archaeobotany reconstructs ancient economy, environment and culture, but the way there is not easy. Grain by grain must be sorted through endless sediment samples, looking for seeds, identifying them and counting each one, as it is written if one can count the dust of the earth, then your seed too can be counted (Genesis 13:16).

For the present study, nearly 10,000 seeds of grape, wheat and barley were retrieved and counted from 11 trash mounds at three sites. Identifying seed and fruit remains is a unique capability of our lab, says Weiss, and it relies on the Israel National Reference Collection of Plant Seeds and Fruit held in our lab, and on years of experience in retrieving, processing, and analyzing plant remains from sites of all periods in Israeli archaeology.

One of the researchers first observations was the high numbers of grape seeds in the ancient trash mounds. This fit well with previous scholars suggestions that the Negev was involved in export-bound viticulture. Byzantine texts laud the vinum Gazetum or Gaza wine as a sweet white wine exported from the port of Gaza throughout the Mediterranean and beyond. This wine was generally transported in a type of amphora known as Gaza Jars or Gaza Wine Jars, which are also found in sites throughout the Mediterranean. In Byzantine Negev trash mounds, these Gaza Jars appear in high quantities.

Daniel Fuks, the Bar-Ilan University PhD student, sought to determine whether there were any interesting trends in the relative frequency of grape pips in the rubbish. In a Ted-style talk hosted by Bet Avichai last year, he said, Imagine youre an ancient farmer with a plot of land to feed your family. On most of it, you plant cereals like wheat and barley because thats how you get your bread. On a smaller part, you plant a vineyard and other crops like legumes, vegetables and fruit trees, for your familys needs.

But one day you realize that you could sell the excellent wine you produce, for export, and earn enough cash to buy bread and a bit more. Little by little you expand your vineyard and move from subsistence farming to commercial viticulture.

If we look at your trash and count the seeds, well discover a rise in the proportion of grape pips relative to cereal grains. And thats exactly what we discovered: A significant rise in the ratio of grape pips to cereal grains between the 4th century CE and the mid-6th century. Then suddenly, it declines.

Meanwhile, Fuks and Dr. Tali Erickson-Gini, an expert in ancient Negev pottery, took this to the next level. They checked whether there were similar trends in the proportion of Gaza Wine Jars to Bag-Shaped Jars, the latter being much less suited to camelback transport from the Negev Highlands to the port at Gaza. Indeed, the rise and initial decline of Gaza Jars tracked the rise and fall of the grape pips.

The researchers concluded that the commercial scale of viticulture in the Negev, as seen in the grape pip ratios, was connected to Mediterranean trade, attested to by the Gaza Jar ratios. In other words, a novel archaeological testimony to an international commercial economy from some 1,500 years ago was discovered!

Like today, this situation brought unprecedented prosperity, but also greater vulnerability to shocks. In the mid-6th century, there were a few such shocks that could explain the decline. One of them was Justinianic plague, which had a high death toll in Byzantium and other parts of the empire. In the article, the authors explain that the resulting contracting market for Gaza products would have detrimentally impacted the Negev economy, even while trade at nearby Gaza may have continued If the plague reached the Negev, it could also have harmed the local production capacity and supply of agricultural products in general by inducing a shortage of agricultural laborers.

A different shock of that period was a volcanic eruption of global proportions in late 535/early 536 CE, which covered the Northern Hemispheres atmosphere with dust and caused decade-long global cooling (another eruption of similar magnitude occurred in 539 CE). This led to drought in Europe, but may have increased precipitation, possibly including high-intensity flash flooding, in the southern Levant, causing detriment to local agriculture.

The Sisyphean task of sorting and counting seeds may not appear to be the most exciting, but the research on archaeological plant finds is innovative and influential, while also demonstrating the ingenuity and insightfulness involved in ancient peoples interactions with plants. Guy Bar-Oz, of the University of Haifa, states,: The discovery of the rise and fall of commercial viticulture in the Byzantine Negev supports other recent evidence unearthed by the Crisis on the Margins project for major agricultural and settlement expansion in the 5th to mid-6th century followed by decline. It appears that agricultural settlement in the Negev Highlands received such a blow that it was not revived until modern times. Significantly, the decline came nearly a century before the Islamic conquest of the mid-seventh century.

Two of the most likely triggers for the mid-6th century collapse climate change and plague reveal inherent vulnerabilities in political-economic systems, then and now. The difference is that the Byzantines didnt see it coming, explains Fuks. We can actually prepare ourselves for the next outbreak or the imminent consequences of climate change. The question is, will we be wise enough to do so?

BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY

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Grape Pips Reveal Collapse of Ancient Economy in the Grip of Plague and Climate Change - HeritageDaily

Unsustainable transition? Hydropower and the post-Covid recovery in Georgia – Open Democracy

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The Covid-19 crisis has provided further evidence of the dramatic consequences of the destruction of large ecosystems caused by rapid development in large parts of the globe. As the growing list of countries affected by the pandemic are struggling to mitigate its deep social and economic impact, investment in large infrastructure has been hailed by some as the basis for a green new deal able to foster a sustainable recovery.

Indeed, ahead of the crisis, the construction of hydropower plants had already been supported, by large international banks and governments alike, as one of a number of ways of fostering a transition to a sustainable and a green economy. As investments in renewable energy have been rising, global hydropower installed capacity reached 1,308 gigawatts in 2019.

Amongst the countries that have followed this green development pathway, Georgia has sought to make the most of its mountainous territory by planning no less than one hundred projects across its waterways. However, a close look at some of these large hydro projects highlights their unsustainability, raising questions about the broader idea of a transition to a green economy that provides their justification.

On 22 July this year, crowds of protesters gathered in Kutaisi, Georgia to voice their opposition to the construction of two large hydropower complexes: the Oni Cascade and Namakhvani HPPs in the mountainous region of Racha-Lechkhumi in central Georgia.

The Namakhvani HPP is composed of two interconnected dams and it is currently the largest hydropower project in the country, with a projected total capacity of 400 megawatts at a cost of US$750m. The authorisation to build this HPP came, somewhat abruptly, at the beginning of the year, almost a decade since the project was first announced in 2010.

The preliminary works for this mega infrastructure started at the beginning of June in the municipality of Tsageri. As the workers from Turkish company Enka Renewables, the majority investor behind the infrastructure, alongside Norwegian company Clean Energy, started laying down a small bridge on the Rioni river, a group of villagers gathered in the proximity of the building site to host a wine festival and rally celebrating their traditions and to discuss the dam under construction. One of the attendees, having taken up the mic, raised a question: why such hurry? Whose time is this project running on?

Despite the long gestation and multiple interruptions of this mega project, this simple question captures the issue at the core of the opposition to this transition infrastructure - namely, the lack of engagement of the project with the territory it is intended to transform. In recent years, the different stages of the project's approval scoping, environmental impact assessment (EIA) and consultations have been rushed through, often unlawfully according to local critics. At the same time, estimates of the damages that might incur from the construction have been minimised.

Indeed, according to Georgian environmentalists, the EIA submitted by the company Enka Renewables was approved by the Georgian government despite lacking a range of compulsory surveys. Although the population of the valley is small, opposition to the project has progressively grown bringing together local communities, environmental activists, scholars and NGOs from within and outside Georgia.

At the wake of the projects inception, the environmental NGO Green Alternative has demanded a revocation of its permit. In the aftermath of the rallies, the Public Movement to Save the Rioni Valley released a list of demands addressed to Georgian president Salome Zurabishvili, requesting the interruption of the works, a revocation of the development permit and an inquiry into the damages caused by the partial collapse of another dam, the Shuakevi HPP, which has been developed by Clean Energy, also involved in Namakhvani. If the construction goes ahead as planned, the consequences of this accelerated process might be disastrous and stretch much beyond the valley where the plants are set to rise.

As research from the Institute of Earth Science in Tbilisi has shown, the Main Caucasus Thrust belt is the most active tectonic unit of the region, generating the highest magnitude earthquake recorded in the Caucasus in 1991, which triggered major landslides and buried two villages.

The high humidity, steep topography and complex geological settings of the Racha-Lechkhumi region, which includes the Rioni valley where the HPPs are planned makes it extremely vulnerable to landslide processes, while high precipitation in the area makes steep mountain slopes unstable. For example, in 1987 a landslide blocked the Rioni River for 15 minutes by temporarily forming a dam near Mekvena, a village that will be partially flooded by the proposed Namakhvani reservoir. As Tea Godoladze, the director of Georgias Institute of Earth Sciences has argued, flooding the valley may also induce further and much larger landslides than have hitherto occurred due to the pressure generated as the valleys walls become progressively saturated.

The hazards highlighted by Godoladze were not seriously considered by the EIA approved by the Georgian Minister of the Environment. Geologists have repeatedly called for a rigorous geophysical and geology survey of the valley to be undertaken, and to ensure an effective system of geophysical monitoring is put in place. The construction of the dams, however, has already begun, leaving these vital assessments unattended.

While the development of the project is accelerated, the time of local communities, however, seems to matter less.

For an entire decade, the as yet unrealised plan to flood part of the Rioni valley has stalled the refurbishment and upkeep of existing infrastructure connecting it to the rest of the country, resulting in the progressive isolation of the valley and its inhabitants. Despite its infrastructural and socio-economic decay, the valley has remained the site for the production of several endemic high value crops, the most important of which is the Tvishi wine. The wine, named after one of the villages where it is produced, is a semi-sweet white wine very popular both in Georgia and on the international market, especially in Russia. It owes its sweetness to the local terroir, characterised by high humidity levels. In recent years, and in parallel with the planning of the dam, several winemakers have established organic vineyards in the valley, benefitting from state subsidies.

Wine, moreover, is not the only high value endemic crop found in the area. The slopes of the Khvamli massive that towers over the valley are home to a variety of herbs that locals collect to make teas, ointments and condiments. The women and men who collect and transform herbs and the winemakers, are currently at the forefront of the protests against the construction of the dam, as they argue the changes in the territory caused by the reservoirs will permanently affect humidity levels, spoiling the local terroir and destroying its endemic flora and fauna. This rich local expertise has, up to this day, been overwhelmingly sidelined in accounts of the dam project coming from the company and the state.

Rather than rush the development of major infrastructure projects such as this, the Georgian government should learn from the spectacular failures of some recent hydropower developments.

Two of the large HPPs recently built in the country, the already mentioned Shuakevi HPP in Adjara and the smaller Dariali HPP, have partially collapsed, creating extensive damage to local ecosystems and, in the case of Dariali gorge, killing nine people. While these collapses were not foreseen by the companies leading their development - amongst whom is Clean Energy, one of the enterprises currently involved in the Namakhvani project, local communities, scholars and NGOs had been warning against the hazards for years prior to the developments completion.

At the time, however, these complaints had fallen on deaf ears, including those of the large international investors backing the projects. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, who has placed the transition to a green economy as a top priority for its developmental vision, backed the development of both failed projects and until recently had been considering committing to support the Namakhvani HPP.

In late 2019, the EBRD, after a formal letter from the Green Alternative NGO, decided against supporting the project, reportedly due to its negative assessment of the dams impact on the endangered fauna of the Rioni river. The river was listed amongst the potential sites to be included in the Emerald Network, protected by the Bern Convention, however, its candidacy has been subsequently withdrawn by the government in order to allow its use for hydropower production. Despite not being involved in this particular project, the EBRD has played a key role in promoting the idea of transition on the basis of which investments in hydropower have been justified, in Georgia as elsewhere in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Formed in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, the EBRDs core mission has been to foster the transition to market economy in the space left behind by the Socialist bloc. Most recently, however, this original calling has been integrated by a new transition concept which defines a well-functioning market economy as more than justcompetitive; it should beinclusive,well-governed,green,resilientand integratedas well. Under this banner the bank has financed in the past five years over 60 hydropower projects in south eastern Europe and the Caucasus. As Bankwatch reports, many have provoked serious damage to the fragile ecosystems that have hosted them.

For the past three decades, Georgias socio-economic development has been contained within this mutating framework of transition. The imperative of transition, and the market-driven deregulation at its core, has, in some ways, replaced the drafting of a concrete development strategy for the country. In the case of the energy sector, the OECD reported that, despite contracting consulting firm McKinsey & Company to aid with the production of an energy development strategy in 2018, Georgia has nevertheless to this day failed to adopt a comprehensive framework.

The development of the Namakhvani HPP has been described by Georgian economy minister Natia Turnava as necessary to the countrys energy security, however as the UNECE notes in their recent report, in the absence of a national energy strategy and supporting policies it is difficult to assess energy projects compatibility with national supply and demand trends as well as energy security concerns and long-term environmental objectives. In the rush to complete the long-awaited transition(s), therefore, Georgia seems to discount the very practices that will enable its populations to reap the benefits of its many infrastructural investments.

The global spread of the coronavirus should be a lesson about the irreversible consequences of the exploitation of the ecosystems in which we live. Discounting the impact that infrastructural projects have on their environments in order to achieve economic development is a false economy, the consequences of which are often only recognised subsequently. If it happens, the construction of the Namakhvani HPPs will give rise to a series of inter-related socio-economic, ecological and geophysical changes that together may have destructive and unpredictable consequences locally.

There can be no good transition without a deep engagement with all of the elements of this complex puzzle. For this reason, as scholars committed to support the creation of a more sustainable world, we join those who call for the immediate interruption of the construction of the Namakhvani HPP and Oni Cascade.

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Unsustainable transition? Hydropower and the post-Covid recovery in Georgia - Open Democracy

A future written in the past? – ft.lk

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If the Gotabaya-Mahinda combo succeed in gaining a massive majority at the upcoming parliamentary election, Sri Lankas future maybe akin to the worst of her past including mob-violence and economic collapse. How can there be peace or stability, if the guiding ideology of the state sees a potential enemy in every non-Sinhala-Buddhist?

By Tisaranee Gunasekara

This day, 27 years ago, Sri Lanka was burning.

During Black July, Sinhala mobs murdered not just Tamil men, women and children; they also killed prospects of peace and stability. They torched not just Tamil property, but also to prospects of economic development.

Black July was the darkest episode in the post-Independent history of Sri Lanka, a colossal failure in morality, decency and civility. It also constituted a critical abnegation of reason, sanity and intelligence. The orgy of violence gave wings to the separatist cause and to the LTTE. It opened the floodgates of war and insurgency (the JVP was proscribed in its immediate aftermath, to provide the UNP government with a scapegoat).

The opening up of the economy in 1977 had caused a massive surge in growth and employment and income generation. Like with every such radical transformation, it had also resulted in huge socio-economic dislocations. By the early 1980s inflation was skyrocketing and economic inequality has reached alarming levels. Faced with growing discontent in the Sinhala South, the government adopted the time-tested method of scapegoating the minorities.

Blaming Tamil businesses for Sinhala poverty and Tamil professionals for Sinhala unemployment was not limited to rank racists such as Cyril Mathew. Even relative moderates like Ronnie de Mel saw a use value in racism. The Tamils have dominated the commanding heights of everything good in Sri Lanka, the then Finance Minister opined in the immediate aftermath of Black July. The solution was to restore the rights of the Sinhala majority (The wages of envy The Economist 20.8.1983).

In the eyes of its perpetrators and defenders, Black July was a necessary measure of political chastisement and socio-economic recalibration. For many a Sinhala supremacist, it epitomised the ideal Sri Lanka, a land where even the most poorest and marginalised Sinhalese was more potent than the richest, the most highly placed non-Sinhalese. The same mindset was evident in the attacks against Christian churches in the early 2000s and in the recent mini-riots targeting Muslims.

So long as people who subscribe to such thinking are confined to the political and societal fringe, the harm they can do is limited. But if they enter the mainstream, then violence and instability become the norm.

Today, those who believe in the corrective capacity of anti-minority violence are not just in the mainstream; they are vocal and active in the corridors of power. The Rajapaksas may or may not believe in the racist ravings of their more extremist supporters. But (like S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, Sirima Bandaranaike and J.R. Jayewardene) they have no compunctions about using the resultant hysteria for their benefit. After all, the Gotabaya-Mahinda government even tried to turn a global pandemic into a Muslim problem and did succeed for a while.

A country that is forever mired in some sort of majority-minority conflict can never know peace, never be stable, never prosper. Black July was both an outbreak of barbarism and of stupidity. It was destructive and self-destructive. Developing a way of existence with the minorities based on tolerance and justice is in the interests of the majority community as well. That is a basic lesson of Black July and its aftermath, a lesson the Rajapaksas are ideologically incapable of learning.

The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration failed to counter racism. Theirs was a sin of omission. With the Rajapaksas, racism is a weapon of choice, to be used tactically or strategically depending on the need. And the need would grow, as the economic crisis worsens, heaping hardships not just on the Sinhala poor but also the middle class.

If the Gotabaya-Mahinda combo succeed in gaining a massive majority at the upcoming parliamentary election, Sri Lankas future maybe akin to the worst of her past including mob-violence and economic collapse. How can there be peace or stability, if the guiding ideology of the state sees a potential enemy in every non-Sinhala-Buddhist?

The two-thirds mania: from Referendum 1982 to Election 2020

Before Black July came another incident of monumental stupidity and criminality that cast a long shadow over Sri Lanka the referendum of 1982.

Knowing that the new PR system would deprive it of the two-thirds majority it gained in 1977, the J.R. Jayewardene administration decided to evade a parliamentary election via a referendum. The government won the referendum and retained its absolute power, but only at the cost of undermining the system.

Had the Jayewardene government not been obsessed by the two-thirds mania, had the referendum of 1982 not been held, had there been a normal parliamentary election in 1983, Sri Lanka, and Sri Lankans, would be in a different and in all probability a better place today. But the pursuit of absolute power generates absolute stupidity, even in men of undoubted intelligence like J.R. Jayewardene.

Today we are at a similar inflection point.

What will the SLPP do with a two-thirds majority? Abolish the 19th Amendment for starters. What would that mean in practical terms, for the country, for the people?

Lethal violence was the norm in Lankan elections until the 19th Amendment instituted an independent election commission. Since then, three elections were held, without a single loss of life. This is the fourth election, and so far, no one has been killed or seriously injured. And when the SLPP candidate for Puttalam Sanath Nishantha led a vehicle parade riding a number-plate-less motorbike sans a helmet, it became news because such open violation of election laws is now an anomaly rather than the norm.

Those who yearn to abolish the 19th Amendment intend to return to a past when elections were fought not like peaceful contests but like mini-wars. Is that the future we want?

In 2014, when the then President gathered his kith and kin to celebrate Sinhala Avurudu in Medamulana, the attendees included Chief Justice Mohan Peiris (http://www.adaderana.lk/news.php?mode=head&nid=1829). Peiris had been handpicked by the Rajapaksa brothers to head the Supreme Court after they hounded out chief justice Shirani Bandaranayake via an illegal impeachment. Rewarded for his obedience, Peiris wore his subservience to the Rajapaksas like a mantle of honour.

The 19th Amendment restored judicial independence to a great degree. That democratic pillar is not completely dead yet. For instance, this month, the Court of Appeal struck down the illegal decision by the Gotabaya-Mahinda cabinet to abolish permit requirements for sand transportation. The abolition of permit requirement had played havoc with the environment, and as the AGs Department admitted to the court, it was done in violation of the Mines and Minerals Act.

Had the 19th Amendment not been in place, the government could have got away with this illegal and destructive decision. Is that the past we want to return to?

This month, an archaeological site in Kurunegala was destroyed, allegedly on the orders of the SLPP mayor of the city. The Rajapaksas are protecting alleged culprit. Mahinda Rajapaksa tried to use racism to justify this act of vandalism, saying that King Buvanekabahu II had a Muslim wife. When Gotabaya Rajapaksa was asked about it while on the campaign trail, he dismissed the incident with his signature laugh and a few incoherent words. The cabinet did not discuss the matter, and the police is yet to make a move against the alleged culprit, even though the expert committee appointed by Mahinda Rajapaksa recommended that the perpetrators be punished.

This incident clearly demonstrates what the future will hold if Gotabaya-Mahinda combo wins a massive majority. Such empowerment will give a free rein not just to the ruling siblings and their family but also to their supporters, including the worst of them. Crime and abuse by the rulers and their acolytes will become the norm again, as the police watch helplessly from the sidelines.

Is that the country we want to return to?

The Rajapaksa supporters hint that a two-thirds majority for their masters will strengthen Sinhala dominance and keep the minorities in place. An overly empowered Rajapaksa government will indeed make minority lives more insecure, precarious even. But the same violence will be unleashed on the majority community, the moment they step out of line, as the Rathupaswala example demonstrates.

When the killing (of three Sinhala people) in Rathupaswala was over, a villager asked a soldier why he did not use rubber-bullets. The soldier replied, We cant mollycoddle people with rubber bullets (The Sunday Times 11.8.2013). It was no accident that the Rajapaksa regime sent the 58th Division implicated in the White Flag incident to teach the Sinhala people of Rathupaswala a lesson in obedience. Add to it the fact that Brigadier Deshapriya Gunawardana, the commanding officer accused of ordering soldiers to shoot at the unarmed protestors, was promoted to the rank of major general by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the message is clear a massive majority for the Rajapaksas will boomerang on the Sinhalese someday.

Economic insanity

A Chinese firm has reportedly been awarded the contract to develop a smart card system for Sri Lanka Railways (http://www.newswire.lk/2020/07/25/china-secures-deal-for-sri-lanka-railway-smart-card-system/).

This in a country with a superlative information and communication service industry.

According to the governments own Export Development Board website, ICT services have become the fourth largest export earner in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan ICT metal is behind the innovations that power international stock markets, telecommunication and transportation systems in Europe and the UK... Sri Lanka is emerging as a world's ICT destination of choice. The island is steadily transforming itself into the most preferred ICT hub in Asia thanks to the availability of the most precious resource in the world talent.

Clearly our globally recognised talent is not good enough for the Gotabaya-Mahinda government. So we are getting a Chinese company to provide ICT services to our railways. So much for Gotabaya Rajapaksas much hyped fidelity to meritocracy and technocracy.

According to the EDB website, our ICT sector employed more than 85,000 people by 2017. At a time when the economy is tanking and unemployment is rising, giving the railway contract to a fully competent Lankan firm would have made even more economic sense than usual. Yet the Rajapaksas have reportedly not done it. Was it because of our growing financial dependency on China?

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa began his tenure by dealing a devastating blow to the countrys revenue base with his senseless tax cuts. By March 2020, the Central Bank was compelled to undertake an orgy of money printing, reportedly the largest in our history. As a result, the rupee came under severe pressure and around $ 1.3 billion in foreign reserves were lost (Economy Next 6.7.2020). The rulers obviously see no downside in churning out notes and the Central Bank is too cowed to tell them otherwise. Therefore the possibility of even worst binges happening in the future cannot be ruled out.

The government is trying to get out of paying frontline health workers their entitlements using the lack of money as an excuse. The same government has money enough to engage in ventures that can only be called insane, such as a research project undertaken by the Civil Aviation Authority The King Ravana and Lost Heritage of Aviation Dominance (http://www.sundaytimes.lk/article/1122522/caaslto-conduct-research-on-king-ravana-lost-heritage-of-aviation-dominance). It is perhaps no accident that the current chairman of the CAA was once President Gotabayas travel agent.

There cannot be much doubt that if elected with a huge majority, Gotabaya-Mahinda combo will resurrect other wasteful projects such as the Homagama Cricket stadium (26 acres, 60,000 spectators, 30 to 40 million dollars) and give the main contract to another Chinese firm. After all who but the Chinese would lend us colossal amounts of money for such wasteful projects?

If the Rajapaksas gain the power of their dreams, political irrationality will be compounded by economic irrationality. As the economic malaise worsens and the political discontent increases in consequence, the governments usage of ethno-religious racism as a weapon of subjugation and control will grow. A new vicious cycle of violence and counter-violence will be born, destroying all prospects of peace, stability and development, as happened in the Lost Decade of 1980s.

Will we opt for that past on 5 August?

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A future written in the past? - ft.lk

Microsoft’s takeover would be a win for TikTok and tech giants – not users – The Conversation AU

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In what seems to be a common occurrence, Chinese video-sharing app TikTok is once again in the headlines.

After months of speculation about national security risks and users data being harvested by the Chinese Communist Party, US President Donald Trump has announced plans to ban TikTok in the United States any day now.

In response, a deal is being negotiated between TikToks parent company ByteDance and US software giant Microsoft. If successful, Microsoft will take over the apps operations in the US and potentially also in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

A US ban would not be unprecedented. India barred TikTok last month, alongside dozens of other Chinese-owned apps and websites.

According to reports, ByteDance has agreed to sell some of its TikTok operations to Microsoft. The deal, which is unlikely to progress before mid-September, would appease US regulators and could be seen as a way forward for TikTok in Australia.

Microsoft has indicated any takeover would include a complete security review and an offer of:

continuing dialogue with the United States government, including with the president.

Moving ownership to a US company could help address concerns surrounding the perceived influence of the Chinese government over TikTok. But there will need to be strong oversight to ensure existing user data is transferred entirely to Microsofts control.

While Microsoft has pledged to ensure TikTok data are deleted from servers outside the country after it is transferred it would be difficult to prove copies had not been made before control was handed over.

Whats more, a Microsoft-owned TikTok may not appeal to everyone. Some may think Microsoft is too closely tied to the US government, or may consider it a monopoly holder in the personal computing market.

Also, it would be naive to think foreign governments will not be able to covertly access US-stored user data, if they are so inclined.

Should the deal go ahead, it may open an opportunity for the Australian and New Zealand governments to align with a US-supported initiative.

Australia is still deciding how to proceed, with the Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media due to hear from TikTok representatives on August 21. The committee has been tasked to look at the influence of social media on elections and the use of such platforms to distribute misinformation.

TikTok wont be alone though Facebook and Twitter are both due to attend. It is, however, unlikely the Microsoft acquisition will have much influence on the proceedings as the deal is still in the early days of discussion.

Microsofts acquisition may introduce fresh concerns about the US governments influence over TikTok. Although, this is perhaps more politically palatable than potential Chinese government influence over the app given the Chinese Communist Partys unsavoury record of privacy abuses.

Perhaps the only winner from the deal would be ByteDance itself. A product that is increasingly disliked by foreign governments will only become harder to sell with time. It would make sense for ByteDance to cash out its asset sooner rather than later.

The deal would also likely earn it a significant payout, given TikToks millions of users.

Read more: TikTok tries to distance itself from Beijing, but will it be enough to avoid the global blacklist?

Despite ongoing allegations, there is no solid evidence of a threat to either national security or personal data from using TikTok. Many of the concerns hinge on data sovereignty specifically, where data are stored and who can use and access them.

TikTok has responded to allegations by stating its user data are not stored in China and are not subject to Chinese government influence or access.

That said, while TikTok user data may well be stored outside China, it is unclear whether the Chinese government has already secured access, or will seek to do so later through legal channels.

Read more: China could be using TikTok to spy on Australians, but banning it isnt a simple fix

There are, however, other potential issues that may be driving the USs concerns.

For instance, in 2018 an unexpected consequence of sharing fitness tracker data through the Strava website inadvertently revealed the locations of secret US military bases.

Thus, services such as TikTok which are meant to be relatively benign (if used ethically) can, under certain circumstances, present unexpected threats to national security. This may explain why Australias defence forces have banned the app.

Read more: Strava storm: why everyone should check their smart gear security settings before going for a jog

Threats from the US against TikTok are not new.

The countrys Secretary of State Mike Pompeo indicated TikTok was being examined by US authorities in early July. And suggestions of a national security review go as far back as November last year.

However, in regards to Trumps most recent threat, one contributing factor may be the personal feelings of the president himself.

There are theories much of the new hype over TikTok could be a reaction from Trump to an ill-fated political rally in Tulsa.

A number of TikTok users reserved tickets to the Trump rally and didnt show up, as a protest against the president. The rally saw only a few thousand supporters attend, out of hundreds of thousands of allocated tickets.

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Microsoft's takeover would be a win for TikTok and tech giants - not users - The Conversation AU

Apple, Microsoft And Other Tech Giants Top Forbes 2020 Most Valuable Brands List – Forbes

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People queue outside the Apple new flagship store at Sanlitun on July 17, 2020 in Beijing, China.

When it comes to brand value, its hard to topple Big Tech. On Forbes 2020 list of the 100 most valuable brands, the top five are the same as last year: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook. And while the first four have maintained or increased their pace of growth, Facebook has fallen. In fact, the social networks brand value declined by 21% between fiscal-year 2018 and fiscal-year 2019.

Several brands had notable shifts in the annual rankings, which examines financial data from the previous fiscal year. Visa rose from 25th to 18th, Adidas went from 61st to 51th, and Netflix jumped from 38th to 26th. Some luxury brands also saw significant changes, with Chanel going from 79th to 52nd and Cartier from 64th to 56th.

This years list includes several newcomers: Nintendo, Hennessy, Burger King, and AXA are in the top 100. Meanwhile, some of the companies with the biggest losses were legacy tech companies like GE, HP Inc., and IBM, which saw total values decrease by 14%, 12%, and 10% respectively. Phillips, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Kelloggs were knocked off this year's rankings entirely.

Theres a stickiness to brand value thats pretty astounding when we think about it, said Christie Nordhielm, a marketing professor at Georgetown University. So at the same time that tech and the new brands are taking off, there is a stickiness to brandboth specific brands and corporate brands. And that ladders up to brand valuations, and sometimes that stickiness gives the false sense of security that can go badly. Just like everything were experiencing now, there is a lag effect.

Notably higher this year was Walmart. The retailers brand value increased 12% year-over-year to $29.5 billion while jumping in the ranks from 26th to 19th.

Walmart has been putting a lot of effort into modernizing their delivery and trying to compete, Nordhielm said. Theyre up against Amazon, and thats a tough competitor, but Walmart is not a shrinking violet. Theyre not going to go down quietly. In a sense, Amazon is helping Walmart and forcing them to raise their game.

There were also some big drops, especially in the auto sector. While Mercedes-Benz fell from 17th to 23rd and BMW dropped from 21st to 27th, Nissan has been knocked off the list entirelyfalling from 81st just a year prior. Other declines in rankings included Wells Fargo (42th to 69th) and and KFC (86th to 96th).

Forbes

Brand value often falls because companies have a hard time defending brand positioning, according to Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern Universitys Kellogg School of Management. As a result, companies can struggle with competition, leading to declines that reflect the pressure put on them.

HP (Inc.) is a brand thats really struggled to define itself, Calkins said. The best brands are really well defined. And when you have a brand that loses its distinctive meaning it is almost always going to struggle in the market and then the valuations.

Older brands with newer competitors also saw losses in value and ranking. For example, Gillette continues to face mounting pressure from startups like Harryswhich was acquired last year for $1.4 billion by Edgewell Personal Care, parent company of Schickand Dollar Shave Club, which Unilever bought in 2016 for $1 billion.

Next years top 100 could look different than this years as the fallout from the Covid-19 crisis and economic downturn continue to affect both the largest and smallest companies around the world. But as for now, companies with big gains in 2019 like Amazon, Netflix, and PayPal also seem on track to be big winners during the pandemic when it comes to trends in e-commerce, streaming, and shifts in payments.

People have long said brands are going to fade away and arent so important now with the internet," Calkins said. "You dont need to rely on the brand and just read reviews. But what you see is brands remain incredibly important and incredibly strong. They create value in different ways now, but there is no doubt when you look at these companies that brands have real value for these companies.

Methodology

After assessing a universe of 200 global brands with a significant presence in the U.S., our first step in valuing each was to determine revenue and earnings before interest and taxes. We then averaged earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) over the past three fiscal years (2017 through 2019) and subtracted from earnings a charge of 8% of the brands capital employed, figuring the average brand should be able to earn at least 8% on this capital. Forbes also applied the corporate tax rate in the parent companys home country to the net earnings figure and then allocated a percentage of those earnings to the brand based on the role it plays in its industry. To this net brand earnings number, we applied the average price-to-earnings multiple over the past three years to arrive at the final brand value. For privately held outfits, we applied earnings multiples for comparable public companies.

Brands By The Numbers

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Apple, Microsoft And Other Tech Giants Top Forbes 2020 Most Valuable Brands List - Forbes

Google, Other Tech Giants Extend Work From Home – TheStreet

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Google (GOOGL) - Get Report is extending its work from home policy until summer 2021.According to the Wall Street Journal, the tech giant is extending the policy until at least Julyof next year. Work from home has become the new normal for many, as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has forced people to stay at home.

On July 15, tech giant Amazon (AMZN) - Get Report extended its corporate work-from-home until January 8.

We continue to prioritize the health of our employees and follow local government guidance, an Amazon spokesperson said.

Similarly, Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Report said its employees could continue working from home through October 2020. Apple (APPL) also told its staff that a full return to U.S. offices won't happen this year.

If your store is closed, please sign up for Retail at Home, please talk to your manager, because we really need to make sure that we shift our teams to greet our customers remotely in this time,Apple executive Deirdre OBrien told its staff. We may need to be working remotely for some period of time.

In May, Facebook (FB) - Get ReportCEO Mark Zuckerberg said thatas much as 50% of its employees could be working remotely within next 5 to 10 years. Another social media giant Twitter (TWTR) - Get Reporttold its staff in the same month that they could permanently work remotely.

There has been an increase in the number of coronavirus infections in many states including California, Florida, South Carolina, North Dakota, Kentucky, and Hawaii.

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Bengaluru: 110-year-old woman recovers from COVID-19 infection in just five days – Times Now

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Bengaluru: 110-year-old woman recovers from COVID-19.  |  Photo Credit: AP

In a rare instance, a 110-year-old woman, named Siddamma, recovered from the deadly COVID-19 infection in Chitradurga. After being admitted to a nearby hospital on July 27 (Monday), the elderly woman has certainly led the way in dealing with the virus, on the back of high immunity, to emerge on top of the disease in just five days.

The centenarian woman has, thus, been discharged from the hospital and headed back home on August 01 (Saturday) itself. This news comes as a huge boost for many in the country as the number of cases continues to rise in many parts. Talking about the state of affairs in Karnataka, it continued to witness a high rise in COVID-19 cases with as many as5,172 people being tested positive (as on August 01). Thus, the state has been seeing over 5,000 cases for quite some time now. So far, the state of Karnatakahas witnessed 1,29,287 cases of COVID-19 patients.

On the other hand, if one has to see the positive side, 3,860 people have beencured and discharged from the hospitals. Overall, 53,648 people have been discharged in the state. Talking about the death toll in the state, it has surged to 2,412 following 98 people losing the battle versus theCOVID-19.

Meanwhile, Bengaluru now accounts for13,494 active containment zones. In total, the tally has crossed the 20,000-mark.

There are several restrictions in containment zones. A person cannot go out whereas no one can also enter the containment zone as well.Around five houses on our road were sealed and we were not able to go outside even to get groceries. The civic body did not supply them to us. After a few days, one of the residents in our area broke the seal and ensured that there was space for one person to step out to buy essentials, a resident of a containment zone was quoted as saying by The Hindu.

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Bengaluru: 110-year-old woman recovers from COVID-19 infection in just five days - Times Now

WW3: Satellite pictures capture THOUSANDS of Chinese troops stockpiling tools across border – Entertainment Overdose

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Bck in My 20 Indin soldiers were killed in border clshes with their Chinese counterprts which were fought with metl brs, rocks nd clubs.An unconfirmed number of Chinese troops re lso believed to hve died in the hnd-to-hnd fighting.n>

However ccording to Indis The Print news service, lrge concentrtion of Chinese troops hs gthered in the Aksi Chin border region.

Indin militry sources told the service this ws mking the Indin Army cutious bout the disenggement process.

They dded: There is fer tht the Peoples Libertion Army (PLA) is intentionlly delying the disenggement process to sustin it till winter nd then open new front, possibly in the Northest.

Chin withdrew troops from the contested Ldkh re following Mys dedly border clsh, but the region remins tense.n>

China has reportedly deployed extra troops to its Indian border (Image: GETTY)

Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in border clashes in May (Image: GETTY)

Indin medi reports stellite imges from Shiqunhe in the Tibet Autonomous Region show the build-up of 5,000 Chinese soldiers nd their equipment.

Movements were llegedly first detected by Indis EMISAT spy stellites.

In ddition to the troops the imges purportedly show lrge quntity of hevy vehicles nd tents.

New helicopter lnding sites re lso sid to be pictured.READ MORE:n>Chin thret Fersome new Indin fighter jets wrn Chin of conflict

Anti-Beijing protest in India (Image: GETTY)

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Speking to The Print n Indin Government figure sid New Delhi hd boosted its own forces in response.

They sid: Chin hs built up troops in lrge numbers.

We, too, hve brought in lrge number of troops into the Ldkh sector.

The tlks re very protrcted, nd it seems Chin is intentionlly drgging them.DONT MISSn>

Chin wrns Britin to sty out of Indin border row[SHOCK]Chins brzen strtegy in Ldkh exposed Fog of confusion'[REVEAL]Indi nd Austrli tem up s World Wr 3 fers erupt[CONFLICT]

Chinese forces have reportedly been reinforced along the Indian border (Image: GETTY)

India has responded to Chinas move with its own military buildup (Image: GETTY)

Chin no longer enjoys the surprise fctor.

They hd the first-mover dvntge in Ldkh initilly but they hve been countered there nd everywhere now.

Following Mys dedly clshes nti-Beijing protests broke out cross Indi.

The Indin Government responded by bnning number of Chinese pps, including TikTok, on ntionl security grounds.n>

Simon Tck, n nlysis from the US Strtfor group, emphsised how importnt the region is for Chin.

Speking to the New Zelnd Herld he sid: Controlling the source nd course of rivers tht run from Ldkh lso provides gret del of environmentl security for Chin, s the Himlyn mountins in the region re n importnt source of wter to the res below them on either side.

Chin initilly lunched its militry push into Ldkh in My, when the regions snow- nd ice-covered vlleys hd just strted to thw.n>

India and China fought a short border was in 1962 (Image: GETTY)

But s winter begins to settle in November, the entire region will once gin be covered in deep snow, which will mke continued build-up of both Chinese infrstructure nd troops in Ldkh difficult.n>

Chin nd Indi fought loclised month-long wr long their contested border in 1962.n>

The conflict, which left severl thousnd ded, ended with n unesy cesefire.n>

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WW3: Satellite pictures capture THOUSANDS of Chinese troops stockpiling tools across border - Entertainment Overdose

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These two write-in candidates want to replace Larry Householder – The Bryan Times

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Jay Conrad voted for Larry Householder just two years ago.

Now, Conrad wants to replace him.

I was angry, he said about Householders recent arrest for alleged involvement in a bribery scheme. I was frustrated. Super disappointed. I voted for Larry personally in 2018. To me, it was almost like a slap in the face.

Robert Leist too wants to represent the district, saying voters deserve an alternative choice from the incumbent.

Conrad and Leist have both filed as write-in candidates for the Ohio House of Representatives 72nd District, which includes Perry, Licking and Coshocton counties east of Columbus.

It will take an unusual set of circumstances for either to have a shot at the seat this November, but it is possible.

Despite his arrest, Householder remains on track to be elected to his third-consecutive term. He was unopposed in the Republican primary this spring and no Democrat filed to run against him in November.

The FBI investigation has complicated things. Householder was voted out of the speakers chair in a unanimous vote Thursday morning, but he remains in office as a state representative. House members could separately vote to expel him from the legislative chamber, but the Republican majority chose not to Thursday and do not appear willing to do so.

Even if they did expel Householder, that would not necessarily impact his status as the unopposed candidate on the 2020 ballot.

Householder would have to choose to withdraw himself from electoral contention.

The first date to watch is Aug. 10. That is the last day a political party can choose a replacement candidate to fill a vacancy from withdrawal or disqualification of the partys primary winner.

If Householder withdraws from the race before Aug. 10, the Republican Party can choose a replacement to appear on the ballot thus effectively rendering the write-in candidacies moot.

Should Householder withdraw after Aug. 10, that would leave no Republican or Democrat on the ballot thus giving eligible write-in candidates a shot.

The deadline for write-ins to file is Aug. 24.

Conrad had intended to campaign for an open state senate seat in 2022. Those plans changed on July 21 when he learned of the Householder arrest.

Conrad, a Lancaster native now living in Perry County, served for two years at the Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia. He later worked for a chemical plant in Columbus and is set to begin a job in Heath as an aerospace product technician for Boeing.

He described feeling outraged that Householder would betray the publics trust after having taken an oath of office.

I was a Marine, Ive taken that oath before, Conrad said. To some people that doesnt mean anything. Its just words. But to me, it means everything.

If elected, Conrad said he would caucus with the Republican Party.

Leist, a Libertarian, has also filed for the seat as a write-in.

2020 has been chaotic enough without having uncertainty regarding our state representation, Leist said in a news release announcing his candidacy put out by the Libertarian Party of Ohio. I have listened to voters concerns regarding this matter and am honored to give our district another solid option.

Leist is a lifelong resident of Coshocton and previously campaigned for the local city council in 2019. Hes worked for Kraft Heinz in Coshocton for three decades and currently serves as a maintenance coordinator.

He described having worked closely with the National Libertarian Party and has served on the Libertarian Party of Ohios Central Committee.

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These two write-in candidates want to replace Larry Householder - The Bryan Times