thedynamictrend.com

Sunday, June 21, 2020

On Thursday, UK-based retailer Tesco and Denmark-based retailer Salling Group announced their agreement over selling a large portion of Tesco’s Polish operation to Salling Group. Tesco stated its intention to leave the Polish market altogether, Salling its intention to strengthen its Netto chain in Poland.

The deal covers 301 stores, two distribution centers and the head office. With the acquisition Salling said it seeks to improve its coverage in Southern Poland and, over 18 months at a cost of one billion z?otys, intends to merge these stores into its currently 386 strong Netto chain. Salling also takes over about 7000 employees from Tesco — Netto Poland currently has about 5000 employees. Tesco continues to run 19 stores, which were not included in this package.

The sale price, to be payed in cash, is 900 million z?otys (181 million pounds). In the 2019/20 fiscal year, Tesco said its Polish branch had a 24 million pounds operating loss with a 1368 million pounds turnover; to which the sold units contributed with a 947 million pounds turnover for a 107 million loss. At fiscal year-end, the sold units held a value of 681 million pounds in the books.

UOKiK, the Polish anti-monopoly agency, has to approve the deal. The parties said they expect a decision this year.

Tesco has suffered losses from its Polish operation for several years, as customer preference has shifted away from hypermarkets, Tesco’s preferred store size, to smaller discount stores like Biedronka and LIDL. The Sunday trade ban, introduced in 2018, also hurt sales. According to Notes from Poland (NFP), some discount stores resorted to offer postal services, a loophole which allows Sunday opening hours.

In 2015, Tesco centralized its management in the Central European region, comprising Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, but reverted the decision later on. At the time, the company invested in e-commerce and started home deliveries, but Gazeta Prawna reports only 0.5% of Polish grocery turnover comes from this segment, compared to 7% in the United Kingdom.

In the past few years, Tesco Polska has cut expenditures by streamlining its product range, halving its staff, shutting off home deliveries in parts of the country, and closing off stores, reportedly including last year its Poznan distribution center. Deutsche Welle (DW) reported in mid-2019, 62 Tesco outlets had closed within a year. Staff layoffs left meat, fish and delicatessen departments without designated shop assistants, and forced staff canteen closures and administration simplifications.

Tesco sold its roughly 2000 Thai and 74 Malaysian stores to Charoen Pokphand in March; announced leaving its joint venture with China Resources Holdings in February; and in 2015 sold its South Korean chain HomePlus. Speaking to Portfolio.hu, Matt Simister, Tesco’s CEO for Central Europe, explained that the company held a 4% share of the Polish retail market, compared to its 16% share in Hungary, and stated they want to stay in Hungary. In a DW report in March of last year, Dave Lewis, CEO of Tesco, stated they did not have intentions of leaving Thailand or Poland.

Tesco’s Polish operation, according to Gazeta Wyborcza in March, is too big for a single monolithic sale. The chain’s press release reported 22 sold units in the past year and a half, for around 200 million pounds. NFP named the Kaufland chain and property developer Echo Investment among the buyers.

Both Tesco and Salling entered the Polish market in 1995.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

According to scientists, the land territory of Russia has expanded by about 4.5 square kilometres within the last few years in the Far East due to seismic and volcanic activity.

The gained land was recorded in the Sakhalin Peninsula. Boris Levin, head of the Institute for Sea Geology and Geophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that the increase happened primarily due to two seismic events.

The first, in August of 2007, was when a heavy 6.8 earthquake near the city of Nevelsk in the Far East raised about three square kilometres of seabed above the level of the water. The second was in June of this year, when the Sarychev Peak volcano on the Matua Island erupted. GPS trackers on the Matua island were used to monitor the eruption, and the volcano changed its shape, adding 1.5 square kilometres of land, scientists said.

Geologists also reported that the Kuril Islands nearby were slowly moving towards mainland Russia at an estimated rate of eighteen milimetres per year.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Two buildings have been damaged in a bombing in Athens, Greece on Thursday. The target was a building owned by an agency that manages state real estate.

Nobody was injured in the blast, but the building’s entrance was damaged. A nearby store and a parked car also sustained damage. The homemade device, which consisted of explosives placed inside a plastic bag and tied to a pole close to the target, damaged the Hellenic Public Real Estate Corporation building.

The area was cordoned off by police after the explosion, which occurred at 9:30 p.m. local time yesterday. Bomb disposal experts checked the area following the explosion, while anti-terrorism officers began their investigation. The building is about 250 yards from the Athens police headquarters, and is also close to the Supreme Court.

No claim of responsibility has yet been made, but the Greek conservative government has been attempting to control left-wing terrorism in recent months. One group, the Revolutionary Struggle, was responsible for a failed car bombing against an Athens Citibank office on February 28, and also bombed a Citibank branch in the city on March 9. Greece has been receiving advice from police in London after the increase in terrorist activity and rioting last year throughout the nation.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Netizens have discovered the photograph that was used to create the iconic Barack Obama “HOPE” poster, which became a national symbol during his 2008 presidential campaign in the United States.

Los Angeles, California street artist Shepard Fairey’s poster design is an almost exact match to an Associated Press photo from October 2006 or earlier. Prior reports beginning on January 14, 2009 claimed that the poster was based on a different photo, a shot by Reuters photographer Jim Young from January 2007. However, on January 20, 2009 Flickr user stevesimula and blog commenters identified the Associated Press photo that appears to be a much closer match.

Fairey had revealed that he found the photographic basis for his four-color screen-printed design using Google Image Search, but could not or would not identify which photo he used. News broke of a supposed source only days ago. According to an earlier attempted analysis by Michael Cramer, it was a photo from TIME magazine which was reversed and stretched slightly. That photo was credited to “Jonathan Daniel” of Getty Images, but this turned out to be a misattribution. Reporter James Danziger of The Daily Beast tracked down the actual photographer for the TIME shot, Jim Young, and in his words “solved the biggest photographic mystery of the 2008 election”. Reuters also celebrated their photo as the basis for such a phenomenon as Fairey’s poster, and a print of the photo was sold to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. But it took only a few days for internet sleuths to show that, while similar, the Jim Young photo was not the one Fairey used.

The most convincing evidence that a different photo is indeed the one comes from Flickr: stevesimula produced a graphic comparing the two purported sources. The side lighting in the alternative photo creates highlight and shadow areas closely matching those Fairey used in his high-contrast stencil-like image, and the overlaid images line up precisely from Obama’s eyes to the shadow on his collar to his tie. Jim Young’s photo would have required manipulation to simply match the profile of Fairey’s design, even without considering details like the highlights and shadows.

The actual photo came from the Associated Press, as Wikimedians discovered using the “reverse image search engine” TinEye.com. That tip led photographer Tom Gralish of The Philadelphia Inquirer to the original photo through a Google image search for both “Obama” and “associated press”. The original contained IPTC metadata identifying the creator as Mannie Garcia, which Gralish quickly confirmed. The shot came from an April 2006 event where George Clooney, not then-Senator Obama, was the main attraction: Clooney was addressing the National Press Club about his trip to Darfur.

Fairey’s appropriation raises questions of intellectual property, as apparently no attempt was made to secure reproduction rights from the Associated Press. Sales of the image (on posters, clothing, and other paraphernalia) were used to fund the production of more posters in support of the Obama campaign, and raised Fairey’s public image considerably. A large hand-finished collage version was recently acquired by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery. The purchase price is not known.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

According to US health officials, New York state governor David Paterson has declared a state of emergency in the state as a result of the H1N1 swine flu outbreak.

The Associated Press news agency reports that the six-page declaration was issued because at least 75 people have died of H1N1 related illnesses in New York since April. Three have died from H1N1 related illnesses just this past week. The declaration also says that human cases of the virus are on the rise.

Paterson says he issued the declaration because “a disaster has occurred throughout New York State, for which the affected local governments are unable to respond adequately.”

The declaration will allow health officials more access to the H1N1 vaccine and the seasonal flu shot. It will also allow for an increase in the number of vaccine doses available in the state and will allow more health care facilities to administer the vaccine, including dentists and pharmacists. Schools with health centers will also be allowed to administer both vaccines.

Despite the declaration, officials stressed that there is no reason to worry. A spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Health, Claire Pospisil, said that “it [the declaration] helps us to be more prepared.”

The order came shortly after US president Barack Obama declared a national emergency last Saturday, a response to the spreading of the virus, which has now been circulated in 46 states.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Starting in September, British schools will inform parents of their child’s weight in an attempt to deal with the growing issue of obesity, according to an announcement by the Department of Health (DoH).

Nearly 23% of children aged 4-5 are overweight or obese, with that figure growing to nearly 32% for children aged 10-11. Standard procedures in schools involve weighing and measuring children in schools to determine their body mass index (BMI). The information is passed on to the National Health Service (NHS) to determine the extent of obesity in the area.

Parents will soon be sent a letter of their child’s weight, including advice on what to do if the child is overweight. However, government ministers have ruled that “offensive” language, such as “obese” or “fat” will not be allowed to be used in the letters, with words such as “overweight” being used instead.

The letters will provide useful information to parents, such as the problems caused by obesity like diabetes, and how to overcome these problems. Research has shown that parents often do not realise their child is overweight, and the letters will be a “wake-up call” to them.

“We have to get the balance right between being a nanny state and a neglectful state,” said Will Cavendish, the director of health and wellbeing at the DoH.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Occupy protests in two Irish cities have been cleared in the last two days. Dublin’s Occupy Dame Street was cleared by police while the local council cleared the abandoned Occupy Waterford site.

The early hours of Thursday saw the Dublin site raided and cleared by Gardai (police). Gardai cited health and safety concerns over the camp, with St Patrick’s Day festivities planned. Irish tourism minister Leo Varadkar previously called it “disappointing” the campers would not move while the celebrations were ongoing. “I understand they feel very strongly about their politics but I’m sure they don’t want to damage the festival,” Varadkar said.

“[Our] priority is to ensure that all of St Patrick’s Day events and celebrations pass off smoothly and that all participants and the large crowds of spectators at the parade can access and egress the parade route without a risk or threat to their health and safety,” said a Garda statement. They claimed to have asked for “assistance and co-operation, however this was not forthcoming,” and said it took hours to clear the site. The clearance began at 3:30 am local time.

A single arrest was made but the individual was released without charge. Around 100 officers cleared the site, which almost filled the plaza before the Central Bank. Cleaners later cleared all signs of the camp. It had been in place since October, but pallets and solid structures replaced the usual tents of Occupy protests earlier this year in response to local weather. Fifteen people who had been staying overnight were removed.

“We are not stopping any time soon, it’s all hands on deck now, we are going to carry on”, vowed protestor Saoirse Bennet, who was on-scene when police arrived.

Waterford City Council yesterday dismantled the empty camp in their city while Gardai looked on. The quayside protest was abandoned after internal disputes; only two youths and a homeless person were found in the 5:30 am raid, but at one stage the protest had 40 residents. Gardai took the youths “home to their parents,” said a spokesman. “The people we found there had nothing to do with Occupy Waterford.” Needles and drugs were found, but nobody was arrested.

Occupy Galway may be the next to go: After months of tolerance, Galway City Council have claimed “serious health and safety concerns” justify legal eviction proceedings if the camp does not pack up voluntarily. John Walsh of Occupy Galway said the camp was lawful and would remain.