The Israeli military on Tuesday said operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were “approved and validated” even as US special envoy Amos Hochstein visited Lebanon in a bid to de-escalate tensions amid cross-border exchanges between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters. Read our liveblog to see how the day’s events unfolded. Source link
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Lawyers representing X in Brazil told the Supreme Court on Friday that “operational faults” have allowed users who were ordered blocked to stay active on the social media platform. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week had asked the social media giant to explain why it allegedly did not fully comply with earlier rulings ordering the company, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, to block certain accounts. In a 20-page legal document, X’s lawyers said the owners of the accounts had sought to circumvent court-ordered restrictions to continue using the platform by making new accounts. It added it has not reactivated any of these users. A report by Brazil’s federal police seen by Reuters last week showed accounts on X that top courts had ordered blocked were still active on the platform by early April, being able to gain new followers and to live-stream videos. X said on Friday that the police report had tracked six accounts, from a total of over 200 accounts Brazilian top courts have ordered it to block …
Woking-based TT Electronics, which provides products for performance critical applications, said it was on track to deliver a 10% operating margin this year after a strong 2023 financially and operationally. Reporting results for the year to December 31, 2023, the firm said adjusted profit before tax was £43 million, up from £40.4 million in 2022, on adjusted revenue of £613.9 million (2022: £617m). READ MORE: TT Electronics reports growth in trading update Free cash flow came in at £23.9 million with cash conversion at 92% and leverage reduced to 1.7x. The company said order book visibility remained above historic, pre-Covid levels. Peter France, who joined TT as CEO last October, said: “The group has delivered against the priorities that were set for the year: strong free cash generation has led to further reduction in leverage, and our strong order book was converted into double-digit operating profit growth, with good operating margin progression supported by a recovery in our P&C business.” He said he saw “considerable” opportunity to unlock further value in the business by strengthening …
New MP14 metro trainsets supplied by Alstom at the Saint-Ouen depot, in the northern suburbs of Paris, on December 3, 2020. BERTRAND GUAY / AFP If all goes well, passengers won’t notice a thing. On February 26, after two weeks of complete closure, service will resume on Paris’s metro Line 14, unchanged, between the stations Saint-Ouen to the north and Olympiades to the south. But in reality, everything will have changed. The line’s automatic control software, launched in 1998 by Siemens, will have been replaced by a new-generation tool. “The current system was still very efficient, but insufficient for the extension of the line, which will operate with three times as much rolling equipment as when it was launched,” explained Stéphane Garreau, who is in charge of this huge project for RATP, the Paris public transport body. It is to be completed before the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer. Line 14 will be extended in two directions: by 1.5 kilometers to the north, to the new Saint-Denis-Pleyel station, and by 14 kilometers to …
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has demanded rapid changes in the operations of Ukraine’s military and announced the dismissal of the commander of its medical forces. The Ukrainian president’s move was announced on Sunday as he met defence minister, Rustem Umerov, and coincided with debate over the conduct of the 20-month-old war against Russia, with questions over how quickly a counteroffensive in the east and south is proceeding. “In today’s meeting with defence minister Umerov, priorities were set,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “There is little time left to wait for results. Quick action is needed for forthcoming changes.” Zelenskiy said he had replaced Maj Gen Tetiana Ostashchenko as commander of the medical forces. “The task is clear, as has been repeatedly stressed in society, particularly among combat medics, we need a fundamentally new level of medical support for our soldiers,” he said. This, he said, included a range of issues – better tourniquets, digitalisation and better communication. Umerov acknowledged the change on the Telegram messaging app and set as top priorities digitalisation, “tactical medicine” and …
Ben Boissevain Contributor Ben Boissevain is the founder of Ascento Capital, a boutique investment bank that provides advisory services for M&A, capital raises and valuations to technology companies in the U.S. and internationally. More posts by this contributor Key issues you should consider before signing an international merger deal Mark-to-market to arrive at a realistic valuation and improve your fundraising odds There is no question that this market is tough for tech startups. The market meltdown today can be compared to the dot-com meltdown in 2000 and the Great Recession meltdown in 2009. But even in tough markets, there are many survivors. This article explores survival tips for startups — for both operational and corporate finance. For the many companies that do survive, there will be an opportunity to grow faster since fewer competitors will fight for market share and corporate finance conditions will improve. An excellent example of survival is Amazon, which was on the verge of bankruptcy in the dot-com meltdown in 2000. Amazon’s stock price plummeted from $106 to $10. Amazon survived …
5 steps that actually work for fast-scaling operations businesses Julia Ivzhenko Contributor Julia Ivzhenko is head of operations at Futurra Group, an IT company with Ukrainian roots that develops math service MathMaster. Developing a fast-scaling business with a supply side in the early stages requires growing with high dynamics and little resources. Operational mistakes while scaling might have an exorbitant price. We faced it when we decided to break into edtech and launch an education app that aims to provide experts the ability to answer millions of students’ requests in an online chat, almost instantly. We started with a team of 20 people, which was enough to cover the demand in the early stages. To make the business profitable, the real race started: The marketing team had to scale the number of users, while operations had to follow their pace and grow the supply side. We scaled demand without considering team resources. We got up to speed quickly: 120+ experts were solving 3,000+ math tasks daily. We staked on the high pace to survive on …
What does it take to turn an unknown startup into a household name? The ability to scale. It’s the Holy Grail that every early-stage startup founder chases. Scaling internal operations may lack the glamor of funding rounds and founder profiles, but it’s essential heavy lifting for startup success. Founders looking for inspiration need look no further than Airbnb and Instacart. These two respected companies share important similarities. They scaled to massive size, and each added to their initial wins: Airbnb Experiences and Instacart ad network. We’re thrilled that Naba Banerjee, director of trust product and operations at Airbnb, and Asha Sharma, COO at Instacart, will join us for a session called “How to Build Intelligent Startup Ops that Will Scale with Your Business.” You’ll find it on the Builders Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, which takes place on September 19–21 in San Francisco. Scaling is no simple feat — if it were, every startup would be a unicorn. Both Banerjee and Sharma are consummate leaders with visibility into two companies that have practically turned scaling …
