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Emex is Electricity For Business - Energy saving dashboard.
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The prestigious award of Entrepreneur Of The Year was presented at The Greater Newburyport of Commerce’s annual meeting on Wednesday May 12, 2010 by Chamber President Ann Ormond.
Redpath Creative, a Prince Edward Island based marketing and promotions company, launches a website that celebrates Canada's smallest province and its incredibly affordable seaside real estate.
The German government has come under fire after it was revealed it is planning to set up a body to tackle the spread of fake news stories which mainly benefited far right parties.
George Orwell, in his famous book 1984, portrayed a nightmare vision of the future in which everything was censored, even the way people were allowed to think.
The move by the German government, according to local media, is targeted at fake news stories on social networks and political propaganda which they say is often coming from Russia.
The move would have ramifications for fake news spread on social media, such as content that allegedly helped see Donald Trump get elected as the next President of the United States.
It is also believed that this alleged propaganda tends to benefit right-wing populist parties, but critics say it should not be up to officials to decide what is ‘fake’ and what is ‘factual’ as this could lead to a deliberate deception of citizens and state censorship of the media.
Those in favour of the observation body, which would operate under the aegis of the German chancellery, have said that it will allow the government to regulate what they have called the “lying press”.
The body would be geared towards curtailing the dissemination of fake news on social networks, although local media said there would be “grey zones”. This is in keeping with the European Commission’s intentions to keep a close eye on social networks, although some have speculated that being effective in this endeavour could prove to be an uphill battle.
Ironically, those who appear to be most in favour of the move, including the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) who view it as a “ward against disinformation”, are also those most likely to be targeted by it, according to reports, as their arguments, which are often spread on social media, are often in contradiction with the government’s official position on issues.
He said that the public discourse may not be permanently damaged by the fake news, “but it is not up to an official to decide what is true and what is not”.
Bernhard Rohleder, the head of the IT industry association Bitkom said: “Even the courts regularly fail” on this question. He called the position a “censorship monster”, which is already doomed to failure.
The body is scheduled to be discussed by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the coming new year.
A privacy group has filed legal action against the U.K. government for conducting mass surveillance on citizens across the U.K., including accessing data about people located in the U.K. that is collected and passed on by the U.S. National Security Agency.
The claim in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal is based on disclosures through newspaper reports by former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, about the surveillance programs of the NSA and British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). The tribunal was set up in 2000 to consider complaints about the use of intrusive powers by intelligence services, law enforcement agencies and public authorities.
One of the programs cited in the complaint is called Prism and reportedly gives the NSA real-time access to the content on servers of Internet companies like Facebook and Google. The Internet companies have denied their participation in the program. The other program referred to in the complaint, called Tempora, is said to be a GCHQ program for tapping fiber-optic cables and sharing the data with the NSA.
The reports about mass surveillance in the U.S., U.K. and some other countries have triggered off a variety of legal actions. In the U.S., Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) asked the Supreme Court on Monday to throw out an order by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret surveillance court, allowing the NSA to collect all Verizon phone records.
The American Civil Liberties Union also filed a lawsuit in a U.S. federal court last month challenging the legality of the collection of metadata from Verizon customers.
To intercept phone calls, emails, and other communications of individuals located in the U.K., or require the disclosure of that information when it is stored by telecommunications or Internet companies, U.K. authorities must comply with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, according to the complaint from Privacy International. But RIPA does not apply if U.K. authorities solicit or otherwise receive the information from their US counterparts, even if the communications in question were sent and received in the U.K., it added.
The complaint also refers to a news report in the Guardian that under Tempora the GCHQ has intercepted more than 200 fiber-optic cables landing in the U.K.
Tempora was purportedly authorized under certificated warrants issued under RIPA that do not have to name or describe any one person or a single set of premises as the subject of the interception, according to Privacy International. The certificates are renewed on a rolling basis by the Secretary of State for the U.K. Home Office, and do not require judicial authorization or approval of warrants or certificates.
The effect of Tempora is that all communications using fiber-optic cables are subject to the risk of interception, search and storage, putting at risk of interception all Internet and telephone users in the U.K. and other parts of the world, Privacy International said in the complaint.
The privacy group has asked the tribunal for a declaration that Tempora is in violation of various regulations including RIPA and the European Convention on Human Rights. It has also asked for an order to destroy all unlawfully obtained material. The complaint also cites rights to privacy and freedom of expression in ECHR to ask the tribunal for a declaration against the Secretary of State for not ensuring that there is in place a legal regime governing the soliciting, receiving, storing and transmitting by U.K. authorities of private communications of individuals located in the U.K. which have been obtained by US authorities.
Former Press Gazette Journalist of the Year Andrew Gilligan has joined The Sunday Times as senior correspondent.
Gilligan joined Telegraph Media Group as London editor in 2009 and left the paper amid a wave of senior redundancies in May.
Around a dozen staff left the paper as it announced a “smart working” restructure. Those made redundant in addition to Gilligan included chief foreign correspondent Colin Freeman, Middle East editor Richard Spencer, feature writer Harry Wallop, deputy editor Liz Hunt and home affairs correspondent David Barrett.
Gilligan wrote for the Telegraph part-time whilst also working for London mayor Boris Johnson as his cycling commissioner. After taking up the cycling commissioner role Gilligan became a senior reporter at the Telegraph.
At the Sunday Times he will have a brief to work on investigations and exclusive stories. He will be part-time at the title whilst also working for the Policy Exchange think tank.
Gilligan spent four years as the Sunday Telegraph’s defence correspondent from 1995 to 1999. He then became the BBC’s defence and diplomatic correspondent, but resigned in 2004 in the wake of the David Kelly controversy.
It was his report on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about the case for going to war in Iraq that sparked a major row between the corporation and the government.
Gilligan joined the Evening Standard in 2004 and won the Press Gazette British Press Award for journalist of the year in 2008.
The BPA judges praised his series of stories revealing allegations of corruption surrounding the office of then-London mayor Ken Livingstone.
Gilligan was also a runner-up in the Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism in the same year. He was also shortlisted this year as a reporter of the year in the Press Awards.
A Milwaukee woman is facing various felony charges after Menomonee Falls police caught her with several drugs while she was being arrested for shoplifting at CVS, N83 W15550 Appleton Ave., on Nov. 22, according to a police report.
Jennifer Lind, 56, was charged Nov. 26 in Waukesha County Circuit Court with felony possession of cocaine and THC, both second offenses. She was also charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia, obstructing an officer and retail theft after she was caught stealing hair clips from the drugstore, according to police.
A CVS manager called police after noticing that Lind had spent an unusual amount of time in the restroom and left empty hair clip packages there. When police caught up to Lind, who was walking to the McDonald's across the street, and asked about the stolen items, she admitted to taking the clips, as well as a winter hat and reading glasses, said the criminal complaint.
But Lind lied when police asked for her name, giving her sister's name instead of her own. Police were able to identify Lind by her real name after a record check.
While searching Lind's purse during the arrest, police found .03 grams of cocaine, 1.49 grams of crack cocaine, .59 grams of THC and a smoking pipe.
Lind was convicted of possession of cocaine in December 2011.
Her preliminary hearing is scheduled for Dec. 14.
Gritters are heading back out on Northumberland’s roads as winter approaches.
Last year, Northumberland County Council bought seven new state-of-the-art gritters to increase its fleet which cover thousands of miles each year.
Costing more than £100,000 each, the hi-tech machines help ensure the county stays open for business, whatever the weather.
This year the process has become even more streamlined, thanks to technology developments over the past 12 months.
During last winter, the council thermally mapped and updated all the current primary gritting routes.
Over the summer, highly detailed information has been extracted and a new thermal map of the primary gritting routes produced to help staff determine which routes will need to be treated and when.
Coun Glen Sanderson, cabinet member for environment and local services, said: “With thousands of miles of roads in the county, our workforce is always well prepared to meet the challenges of winter weather.
“We have an extremely professional and dedicated team committed to keeping our roads safe for which I am very grateful.
“Thankfully, we have access to some state-of-the-art equipment which is developing every year so we can establish exactly where needs gritting and at what level.
The opinion-page article ''In Russia, Don't Tie US Aid to Privatization,'' March 1, is most interesting. As an occasional consultant in Eastern Europe, I found it helpful because it gives an American view of aid and measures results from a different perspective.
Two years ago, I worked on an industry-restructuring project in Eastern Europe and had to contend with the local members of the team who undermined the work, fearing that ''Westerners'' had been hired to sell off the industry. Their fear was groundless because independent consultants for PHARE (the European Commission Aid Programme for Eastern Europe) are not given specific instructions, and in this case the recommendations did suggest a slowing down of the privatization process.
I feel that Western European aid, contrary to what the author says about American aid, is rather vague in its objectives and spends its money on projects that are not always well defined and do not lead to tangible results. I would rather see a World Bank approach, in which the donor and recipient agree to specific, measurable goals (not just the project terms). This is gradually happening in some instances between the World Bank and PHARE.
Bilateral aid programs, between donor and recipient, are better managed because they are specific and have achievable goals.
Energy Voices Will Europe pass on a shale gas revolution?
US diplomatic envoy Jason Greenblatt and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: Kobi Gideon / GPO via Netanyahu’s Twitter account.
Throughout his election campaign and thereafter — even while fulsomely praising Israel and vowing to treat us as a true ally — US President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that his former deal-making experience would enable him to resolve the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Some Israelis became euphoric with the defeat of Hillary Clinton. They assumed that with Trump’s commitment to supporting Israel, his downplaying the settlement issue and even questioning the inevitability of a two-state solution, combined with his pro-Israeli advisers and family, they had a green light to act unilaterally. Naftali Bennett, head of the Jewish Home party, and radicals from Likud called for massive settlement expansion outside the settlement blocs and immediate annexations.
However, Trump unequivocally requested that Israel not initiate major settlement activity until joint guidelines were agreed upon. He spoke warmly to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, invited him to Washington and made clear that the US intended to facilitate the peace process, reiterating, however, that differences must be determined in direct negotiations between the parties.
This led to pathetic accusations that Trump was following the precedent of former presidents, abandoning his electoral undertakings concerning Israel, treating Abbas as a moderate and returning to a bottomless pit in which nothing will change.
Critics noted that US Defense Secretary James Mattis had a long-standing record of opposition to settlement expansion and previously considered linkage to Israel as an obstacle to dealing with the Arab world. Mattis then initially selected as his undersecretary for policy Anne Patterson, the Obama administration’s ambassador to Egypt who promoted ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and was an apologist for the Palestinians. He was subsequently compelled to withdraw her appointment.
Michael Ratney, former US consul general in Jerusalem, and Yael Lempert, who was senior director for Israel, Egypt and the Levant in Obama’s National Security Council, both currently remain at the White House. Lempert accompanied Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, on his visit to Israel and the PA.
Skeptics also suggested that the failure to immediately move the US Embassy to Jerusalem is a result of Arab pressure and the continued influence of the old anti-Israel elements, and that Trump is distancing himself from his uninhibitedly pro-Israel profile.
As of now, this pessimism about Trump is unjustified. It fails to factor that for the first time, despite the presence of a sprinkling of officers with records of anti-Israel hostility, the overwhelming majority of the US administration and its intimate advisers share long track records of pro-Israeli activity. They include Greenblatt and David Friedman, the new American ambassador to Israel — both Orthodox Jews and long-standing supporters of Israel.
Trump is not beholden to any of the failed policies of his predecessors. His objective is to build a genuine US-Israel alliance while exploring opportunities for renewing the peace process. This is in stark contrast to Obama, whose bias and hostility to Netanyahu and Israel encouraged him to diplomatically exonerate the Palestinians and undermine Israel.
To date, the administration has honored its commitment to treat Israel as a special ally. The retention of foreign aid to Israel when other aid programs were drastically cut back and the aggressive US response to the demonization of Israel by United Nations agencies is almost breathtaking for Israelis accustomed to US indifference.
Trump has created channels through which the US and Israel can, wherever possible, plan future strategies together.
But in his determination to test the water and seek to renew the peace process, Trump has stressed that Israel does not have a blank check for unlimited construction in the settlements. He has conveyed his views discretely to avoid assault from the media, so both parties may be able to make compromises without confronting domestic upheavals.
Netanyahu has repeatedly warned the radicals in his government that taking unilateral steps without coordination with the Americans could have disastrous consequences as Trump would almost certainly feel betrayed and could become quite bellicose.
Responsible Israeli leaders must now propose solutions that will enable separation from the Palestinians, elimination of incitement and terror, retention and hopefully annexation of the settlement blocs and ensuring security to guarantee that we do not find Iran or Hamas encroaching on our borders.
Trump is approaching the situation from the grassroots level rather than starting with an end solution. He is also behaving in stark contrast to Obama, who sought to initiate talks based on accepting the indefensible 1949-armistice lines as borders and deeming Israel to be an occupier of all territories beyond the Green Line — something that no Israeli government could contemplate. While the Palestinians refused to come to the negotiating table, Obama allowed Israel to be condemned as the obstacle to peace negotiations. Meanwhile, the Palestinians were given carte blanche to intensify their incitement and sanctify terror.
The mission of Trump representative Greenblatt is to report on the views of both parties. He met leaders in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Amman, stressing to all Trump’s determination to achieve a genuine peace.
He did not make any suggestions to Netanyahu beyond conveying the need for Israel to rein in unlimited settlement construction, liaise with the Trump administration and avoid unilateral initiatives that could create a crisis. For the first-time, a formal US representative also had an official meeting to ascertain the views of settler representatives. Israeli leaders from Right to Left who met with Greenblatt spoke positively about him.
He also called on the 82-year-old Abbas to halt the incitement and terminate payments to families of imprisoned terrorists. Abbas, as in the past, again pledged his commitment to achieve a peace settlement.
If Israel plays its cards well, the Palestinians will damn themselves. In stark contrast to former US Secretary of State John Kerry, who refused to confront the Palestinians and blamed Israel for the breakdown in peace negotiations, ultimately the Palestinians will be required to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and give up on their demand of a “right of return” for five-six million descendants of Palestinian refugees.
Unless the PA dramatically reverses its core objectives — which is almost inconceivable — for the first time, the United States will clearly expose the intransigency of the Palestinian leaders and demonstrate that their end goal is not a Palestinian state but the elimination of Israel. If Abbas acts true to form, the myth of moderation and Palestinian victimhood will be exposed and the Palestinian leaders will be condemned as terrorists.
At this point, the genuine friendship and support of the United States will enable Israel to move forward and determine its borders. Israel will also be able to initiate further economic activity and cooperation to improve the Palestinian standard of living, which in the long term may lead to a peaceful compromise based on self-interest.
But as Israel emerges from the humiliation of the Obama era, the development of a common front against Iran between Israel and Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia also obliges Israel to step warily.
In the meantime, we must hold back, limit potential confrontations and strive to reach accommodations with Trump, enabling him to test the waters for his “grand deal” and discover for himself whether there is any way in which to achieve a meaningful modus vivendi with the Palestinians at this stage.
Netanyahu faces a very difficult challenge in his effort to avoid potential confrontations with Trump. He is under enormous pressure to impose limits on settlement construction during the period that Trump engages in his effort to achieve the impossible with the Palestinians. The radical wings of his coalition have the capacity to break up his government over this issue and he will need to walk the tightrope. At the same time, he is aware that the clear majority of Israelis would endorse his approach, and the odds are that they would also re-elect him as prime minister. Who else could replicate his ability to steer the negotiations with Trump and simultaneously maintain a good working relationship with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin?
PHOTO BY SARAH SHATZ On Thursday, January 31, Jon Nakamatsu's finely judged reading of Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto was not only drop-dead elegant, but also full of the composer's signature energy.
The ability to program an interesting concert is one of the less-celebrated weapons in a conductor's arsenal. On Thursday night, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra Music Director Ward Stare's programming was inspired. The conductor paired Rachmaninoff's "The Isle of the Dead" - Russian late-Romanticism par excellence - with the work that is still the coolest kid in the modernist class, Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring."
These two works indeed have almost nothing in common, but they did bookend an engrossing concert. Add in a favorite soloist, pianist Jon Nakamatsu, in a delightful performance of Beethoven's Second Concerto, and you have quite a satisfying menu.
Like Beethoven's Ninth and a few other standard repertoire works, a performance of "The Rite of Spring" is always an event. This 1913 ballet score no longer causes riots when it's performed, as it reportedly did at its premiere. It's a pity; I'd kind of like to see a ruckus at an RPO concert.
Now more than 100 years since it was written, Stravinsky's "Rite" is a beloved piece, which is odd for a ballet depicting a human sacrifice. I certainly love it. Ward Stare certainly does too, though his cold, objective interpretation might be described as tough love. This approach would not work for Beethoven's Ninth, but it's just fine for Stravinsky, whose musical objectivity yields beauty.
"The Rite of Spring" abounds with first-chair solos, and the RPO's playing of them was beautiful and detailed - highlighted by Matthew McDonald's reading of the bassoon solo, which gets the piece off to such an arresting start. Another poignant moment was the quiet, syncopated duet for muted trumpets in Part II, with amazingly focused pianissimo playing from Herb Smith and Paul Shewan.
The appeal of "The Rite of Spring" is not just in the rhythms, but also in the Russian folk-inspired melodies, in which a few notes twist and turn within narrow intervals. Just don't expect to hear them on soaring violins: The melodic interest is almost entirely in the wind and brass sections. The RPO string section seemed to enjoy playing all its slashing, crunchy chords Stravinsky seems to use the strings almost as percussion instruments. As for the percussion, it was startlingly precise, and indeed, just plain startling in places - all to the good in this piece.
The RPO does not play this piece all that often, and last night's performance faltered here and there. In Part II's "Evocation and Ritual of the Ancestors," we heard a jarring measure or two that could only be described as a near-train wreck.
Stare and the orchestra quickly got back on track, however. The brief mishap apparently energized them, since the piece's conclusion was very exciting and very accurate. Tentative moments aside, once this "Rite of Spring" hit its last shrieking chord, I'd have been happy to sit through it again, immediately.
Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky only met once, during their mutual exiles in Beverly Hills in the 1940's. They interacted cordially then, and on this program their music interacted very effectively, as Stare balanced the barbaric yawp of "The Rite" with Rachmaninoff's lusciously morose "The Isle of the Dead" - two works written a few years apart that could hardly be more different. Stravinsky once sniffed that Rachmaninoff the composer was "a painter in oils," and in fact this tone poem, written in 1907, was inspired by a famous, death-haunted painting showing a soul being rowed to a mysterious island in a tiny boat.
Rachmaninoff's orchestral color scheme here is dark, darker, darkest, and the mood is obsessively melancholy. The opening, evoking a boat's oars constantly dipping into deep waters, is in a seesawing 5/8 time signature. There is a bit of respite in the contrasting lyrical section - perhaps a dead soul reflecting on the past life - a tremendous climax, and at the very end, the "Dies Irae" chant from the Mass for the Dead. The journey is over.
This item is definitely not in the RPO's heavy rotation, but the orchestra played it handsomely, in an interpretation whose dark veneer was perhaps more elegiac than powerfully tragic.
As writers of program notes never tire of pointing out, Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto is not actually his second, but his first. It is also routinely described as the most conventional of Beethoven's piano concertos. It is definitely not heaven-storming Beethoven, but it is an imaginative and substantial piece. The great pianist Glenn Gould called it "remarkable," and if you need more proof, Beethoven himself played it frequently in his early, piano-virtuoso years.
The Second Piano Concerto also strikes me as a work that is smack in the middle of Jon Nakamatsu's sweet spot as an interpreter. "Elegant" can be a two-edged adjective in describing a performance; Nakamatsu's finely judged reading of this concerto was not only drop-dead elegant, but also full of Beethoven's signature energy. The pianist added just enough percussiveness to lyrical passages to keep them from drooping, and his playing of the "Adagio" was hypnotic, particularly at the end: wonderfully focused and wonderfully poetic.
Twitter announced today its Twitter Lite app is expanding to 21 more countries, which makes the data-saving app available to more than 45 countries in total. The app was introduced last year with the goal of bringing in more users from emerging markets to Twitter. Similar to other data-saving apps, like Facebook Lite or YouTube Go, Twitter Lite is designed to load faster on slower network connections, like 2G and 3G, and also has a smaller footprint, so it takes up less space on the phone.
The app was first launched as a test in the Philippines in September, before rolling out to a couple dozen more countries in November.
Twitter’s hope is that by addressing the needs of those low-bandwith users in international markets, the company could help increase its overall user base, which has remained fairly stagnant.
Today, the company is making the app available to 21 countries, including: Argentina, Belarus, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Morocco, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Romania, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.
These join the other markets where Twitter Lite has been available, such as: Algeria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, Israel, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Malaysia, Nigeria, Nepal, Panama, Peru, Serbia, El Salvador, South Africa, Thailand, Tunisia, Tanzania and Venezuela, in addition to the Philippines.