140,000 US children lose parents amid pandemic: Business Insider
More than 140,000 US children have lost a parent or caregiver during the COVID-19 crisis due to coronavirus or pandemic-related causes, Business Insider reported Sunday, citing a new study.
DEC 17: He is one of the world's richest men - sometimes the richest, depending on the price of Tesla shares, his main financial asset. With a string of other high-profile companies under his wing, including Tesla, Space X, Starlink, and Neuralink, he is also a subject of global fascination.
Then, of course, there is his own personal story - the tall, 51-year-old billionaire with 10 children ranging in age from one to 18. His first son died aged just 10 weeks. Musk, who was born in South Africa, has described living with Asperger's syndrome, a type of autism, and stated that his main goal in life is to colonise Mars.
What I have learned is - as, perhaps, with many of us - there are many different faces of Elon Musk.
The persona he projects via his prolific tweets is provocative, controversial and bombastic. He loves a rude meme, knows whatever he says will make headlines around the world, and enjoys trolling the media with ever more outlandish statements and jokes. He likes trying to goad us journalists into writing ever more extreme headlines.
In public, he has learned to be a showman, whether dancing alongside electric-car-making robots, emerging triumphantly from the latest slick Tesla prototype, or being filmed walking into Twitter's headquarters carrying a sink - "Let that sink in" was the gag, playing off a popular meme on the site. This Halloween, he attended a party in leather armour, a $7,500 costume called "the devil's champion".
And yet Tallulah Riley, his ex-wife, whom he married twice, described him in BBC documentary series The Elon Musk Show as "sweet" and "shy".
Veteran Silicon Valley journalist and author Mike Malone, who has known Mr Musk for 20 years, tells me he sees "a very reserved, very smart, very introspective and intellectual guy" who spends long transatlantic flights with him reading complex trajectory tables, trying to work out how to land a spacecraft on Mars.
The pair have a long-standing $5 (£4) bet over Mr Musk's ambition to send people to Mars by 2030. "I said, 'I don't think you can do it - but I hope you do. I hope I owe you the $5,'" Mr Malone says. "That bet's still floating in the air".
Sending people to Mars is a lifelong goal for Mr Musk. Some say it is his take on long-termism - a philosophy favoured by some very rich people which seeks to act in the interests of billions of people in the far future, rather than focusing on the immediate needs of the present.
At some point, the human race is going to have to leave Earth, he says. And his interest in space is clearly signposted in his existing business portfolio. But where, on Earth, does Twitter fit in?
Mr Musk answered that question, this week - in a tweet.
"Social media in general, especially Twitter, were eroding civilisation," he wrote. "If civilisation collapses before Mars becomes self-sustaining, then nothing else matters. Human consciousness is gone."
But how was Twitter "eroding civilisation"?
Mr Musk said, at the very beginning, his aim in buying the platform was to create a 21st Century digital, global town square for discussing society's big issues.
He has written many times about perceived imbalance under the previous regime, arguing that right-leaning views were given less visibility by Twitter staff than left-leaning ones, skewing debate and creating echo chambers where nobody saw material that challenged their existing viewpoint. With some handpicked journalists, he published the "Twitter files", a selected set of internal documents, to support his view.
The amount of abuse and misinformation thrown around on the platform could also be seen as distracting from the real issues Mr Musk wants discussed.
But as anyone who has ever tried will know, navigating that tightrope between allowing free speech and suppressing hateful content is very, very hard.
Maybe there is a connection somewhere in Mr Musk's mind between Twitter and Neuralink, which is trying to create a direct link between human brains and computers.
Could it be that Twitter forms part of his research and he has essentially bought himself a living, breathing neural network of 300 million people sharing their lives, and opinions, in real time, online?
OK, we are in the realms of science fiction. But transporting that to another planet in some form would be one way of taking human consciousness away from Earth - and we know Mr Musk likes a challenge.
Different challenge
Mr Malone may never see his $5 - and betting against Mr Musk is generally a bad idea, entrepreneur Dolly Singh, who worked with him for six years at SpaceX, until 2013, says.
"I would, by rule, never bet against him," she says.
"Anything that's a machine - hands down, he's going to win."
But Ms Singh also thinks Twitter presents her former boss with a different challenge.
"This is going to be harder than he has anticipated - and it's going to be a lot of work for him," she says.
Messy network
Mr Musk has talked openly about preferring engineering and code to people. Growing up, he did not understand people did not necessarily say what they meant, he told a Technology, Entertainment, Design (Ted) conference in Vancouver, last year.
In a text message, released as part of court papers for a legal case against Twitter that never actually happened, he wrote: "I interface way better with engineers who are able to do hardcore programming than with program managers/MBA [Master of Business Administration] types of people and/or frankly I hate doing mgmt [management] stuff. I kinda don't think anyone should be the boss of anyone. But I love helping solve technical/product design problems."
His problem is that Twitter is one huge messy network of millions of people shouting, laughing, teasing, trolling, arguing - loud, complex and nuanced.
Mr Musk has already struggled with trying to moderate it, even with a promise of a lighter touch than the previous regime.
And Ms Singh is not the only observer to ask whether he will find it more difficult to run smoothly than he imagined.
'Hard worker'
As a businessman and a leader, he can be brutal - although arguably no more so than other chief executives.
Within one week of buying Twitter, he had laid off half the workforce. Those remaining were asked to sign contracts committing to an "intense" work ethic and long hours.
Pre-Twitter, he was one of the first to call for the staff of all his companies to be back at the workplace full time following pandemic lockdowns.
And he will not tolerate less than 100% commitment from his employees.
Ms Singh describes the Musk she knew as an "incredible leader", determined to "prove everybody wrong" when told he cannot achieve something, and, as is often said about him, a phenomenally hard worker.
"Elon wants to live in a world where he works 80 hours a week," she says.
"It's OK for him to say, 'I expect you to work as hard as me,' because he's not phoning it in from the beach, he's sleeping in a sleeping bag on the factory floor."
Most people, she says, burn out after a while. He does not.
He has installed beds in Twitter's San Francisco headquarters, seemingly for his staff - although, he is understood to be sleeping there himself. He even shared a picture of his two-year-old son, X, wearing a company pass.
Others who worked with him in the 1990s also recall his extraordinary work ethic. He was furious, one said, to find nobody in the office at 21:00 on a Friday night.
Ms Singh says his time is Mr Musk's most precious commodity.
"Think about what it's worth, per second," she says.
You do not need to do the maths to know it is eye-watering.
And right now, he is pouring it all into Twitter.
Perhaps Mr Malone should not spend his $5 just yet. (with inputs from bbc)
Nov 16: In the early hours of 10 November, Qatar airlines flight QR 644 touched down at Nepal's Kathmandu airport.
Among the cargo unloaded from the plane was a large white wooden box. "Human Remains of late Umesh Kumar Yadav, 32 years male, Nepali" was written on the outside.
In Golbazar, 250km (155 miles) south-east of Kathmandu, his father ties up his buffalo outside his brick house. He lives in one of the poorest districts of one of the poorest nations in the world, where opportunity is scarce.
When his son Umesh was offered the chance to go and work in Qatar, one of the world's richest countries, Laxman Yadav sold some buffalo to pay $1,500 (£1,250) to an employment agent who promised to arrange a job.
It's common for agents to visit impoverished areas not just in Nepal, but in Bangladesh and India, offering young men a lucrative job overseas, in exchange for large sums of money to secure them a visa.
The workers are often passed from contract to contract, making it hard for the families to know where their relatives are working, and for whom.
A two-hour drive away in the district of Dhanusha is Krishna Mandal's house. His father Sitesh left to work in Qatar four years ago.
Sometimes Sitesh sent his son selfies while at work. "He told me he worked on water tanks, but didn't tell us too much about what he was doing," says Krishna.
Sitesh was due to return for a visit on 12 October. But just days before, Krishna got a phone call telling him his father had been killed in an accident.
A family friend said Sitesh was been working on sewage pipes, seven feet below ground in the capital Doha, when a heavy mound of earth fell onto him. His death certificate said he suffered "multiple blunt injuries due to solid object impact".
Krishna says he hasn't received a single phone call from his father's employer, or an offer of compensation. The BBC contacted the company Sitesh worked for to get a comment, but they didn't respond.
From Golbazar, Laxman didn't know too much about his son's life in Qatar - he does not own a smartphone and couldn't follow the daily updates Umesh used to post on TikTok.
In his videos, he could be seen dancing in front of Qatar's glitzy skyline or in his dorm-style accommodation with other migrant workers.
Umesh also shared clips of him at work on construction sites - smiling from on top of a ladder, or even - in true TikTok fashion - lifting heavy concrete blocks as a challenge.
On 26 October, Umesh posted a video of himself dancing at night in front of some skyscrapers running adverts for the upcoming World Cup.
It was the last post he'd ever make.
Umesh's cousin, also called Laxman, and also working in Qatar, got a call on 27 October to say he had died. He went with others to the construction site to find out how.
"They told us Umesh was taking the scaffold lift up, when it touched something and broke, and he fell down," he said.
"They should have taken care of safety at the workplace," Laxman says. "They should have checked everything and only then allowed people to work."
The BBC has been in touch with the construction company Umesh worked for - they strenuously deny a lapse in safety caused his death.
"The accident occurred as a result of his negligence and recklessness," their statement said. "The worker who died was very careless on the site and was notified many times to abide by the safety conditions like the rest of his colleagues, but to no avail."
Since World Cup construction began in Qatar, reports have emerged of the difficult conditions for and deaths of migrant workers.
Qatar's government says it is committed to "ensuring the health, safety and dignity of all workers employed on our projects". It told the BBC it has improved health and safety regulations.
But new figures given to the BBC by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre show that in the past year there have been close to 140 cases of violations of workers' rights, with around half relating to health and safety issues.
They believe the true figure might be higher, partly due to fear of reprisal.
The BBC has seen more than a dozen death certificates of workers from across South Asia over a six-year period. Many cite the cause of death as "multiple blunt injuries". Families say they still want answers.
While Umesh's coffin made its way from the airport to Golbazar, his father Laxman and dozens of other villagers prepared for his last rites - collecting piles of wood and hay to start the fire.
In Nepal it is tradition for the eldest son to light the pyre. Laxman held Umesh's son, 13-month-old Sushant, easing a stick into the baby's tiny hand so he could start the fire.
"He used to support us. We have loans to pay, and his young children to support," Umesh's mother Sumitra said, her face wet with tears. "He was my hero." (with inputs from BBC)
LAUSANNE, August 17 : Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI) (NYSE: PM) today announced the launch of IQOS ILUMA, the latest and most innovative addition to their growing portfolio of smoke-free products for adults who would otherwise continue to smoke or use nicotine products.
Today, this range of better and satisfying alternatives to cigarettes includes multiple generations of the IQOS tobacco-heating system, the No. 1 heated tobacco product in the world.1 Uniquely, the new IQOS ILUMA becomes the brand's first tobacco-heating system to introduce induction-heating technology, which utilizes no blade and requires no cleaning.
"Our objective is a world without cigarettes; a world where cigarettes are replaced by smoke-free alternatives that are a better choice than continued smoking," said PMI CEO Jacek Olczak. "We have launched several generations of our IQOS heated tobacco system; expanding our portfolio to offer constantly improved, science-backed solutions that take advantage of advancements in technology and address pain points heard from consumers. This commitment to continuous innovation plays a significant role in our ambition to deliver a smoke-free future. The launch of IQOS ILUMA, our most innovative device yet, gives adult smokers another better choice and represents an important leap forward in our efforts to accelerate the end of smoking."
The IQOS ILUMA series offers two devices in Japan: IQOS ILUMAPRIME and IQOS ILUMA. Both devices use new induction-heating technology but offer different designs to allow adult users to select the device that best suits their needs and preferences.
The innovative heating technology in these devices is the SMARTCORE INDUCTION SYSTEMTM that heats the tobacco from within the new TEREA SMARTCORE STICKTM. These newly designed sticks are to be used only with IQOS ILUMA,2 which features an auto-start function that detects when the TEREATM stick is inserted and automatically turns on the device.
These bladeless devices offer a cleaner way to heat tobacco from the core, without burning it, to provide a more consistent experience, no tobacco residue, and no need to clean the device. Additionally, they generate no combustion and no smoke, and PMI's market research indicates that IQOS ILUMA provides a more pleasurable experience compared to previous IQOS generations.3
"IQOS ILUMA is our most innovative offering to-date and the new flagship in our portfolio of science-backed, smoke-free products. Its breakthrough induction-heating technology heats tobacco from within, without burning, so there's no smoke, no ash and, like previous IQOS devices, it emits, on average, 95% lower levels of harmful chemicals compared with cigarettes,"4,5 said Michele Cattoni, Vice President Heated Tobacco Platforms at PMI.
"However, unlike our previous tobacco-heating systems, IQOS ILUMA has no blade. That means no tobacco residue or cleaning-ever. With this, and other product features, we aim to address consumer pain points that may have hindered some adult smokers from beginning or maintaining their journey away from cigarettes in the past." IQOS ILUMAPRIME and IQOS ILUMA are available in Japan for pre-order on IQOS.com beginning August 17, 2021 and for purchase at IQOS stores on August 18, 2021.
As of June 30, 2021, PMI's smoke-free products are available in 67 markets.6 The company has stated its ambition to be present in 100 markets with its smoke-free products by 2025. There are more than 20 million users of the IQOS tobacco heating system globally, and PMI estimates that more than 73% (approximately 14.7 million) of these men and women have switched completely to IQOS and stopped smoking with the balance in various stages of switching.7 PMI's ambition is that by 2025 at least 40 million PMI cigarette smokers who would otherwise continue to smoke will have switched to smoke-free products.
Furthermore, the company's ambition is that more than half of its net revenues will come from smoke-free products by 2025.
IQOS ILUMA AND IQOS ILUMA PRIME
IQOS ILUMAPRIME is available in a new design that uses elegant, anodized aluminum combined with a texture wrap. The device is available in four colors and is customizable both in terms of connected features via the user's smartphone and offline with a wide range of accessories, including charger wraps and holder rings. The design of IQOS ILUMA is similar to that of previous IQOS generations but provides an enhanced tobacco experience with improved draw and stick-by-stick taste consistency-available in five colors with further accessory options, such as holder rings and interchangeable doors.
Both devices offer adult users the ability to have two consecutive uses without recharging the holder and include advanced features that can be enabled or disabled-by the IQOS app-such as smart gestures, auto-start, various illumination modes, alerts, and the ability for the user to lock and unlock their device when needed. IQOS ILUMA is our most robust device to date, and, as it has no blade, there's no need to clean the device.
Philip Morris International: Delivering a Smoke-Free Future
Philip Morris International (PMI) is leading a transformation in the tobacco industry to create a smoke-free future and ultimately replace cigarettes with smoke-free products to the benefit of adults who would otherwise continue to smoke, society, the company, its shareholders and its other stakeholders. PMI is a leading international tobacco company engaged in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes, as well as smoke-free products, associated electronic devices and accessories, and other nicotine-containing products in markets outside the U.S.
In addition, PMI ships versions of its IQOS Platform 1 device and consumables to Altria Group, Inc. for sale under license in the U.S., where these products have received marketing authorizations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) pathway; the FDA has also authorized the marketing of a version of IQOS and its consumables as a Modified Risk Tobacco Product (MRTP), finding that an exposure modification order for these products is appropriate to promote the public health. PMI is building a future on a new category of smoke-free products that, while not risk-free, are a much better choice than continuing to smoke.
Through multidisciplinary capabilities in product development, state-of-the-art facilities and scientific substantiation, PMI aims to ensure that its smoke-free products meet adult consumer preferences and rigorous regulatory requirements. PMI's smoke-free product portfolio includes heat-not-burn and nicotine-containing vapor products. As of June 30, 2021, PMI's smoke-free products are available for sale in 67 markets in key cities or nationwide, and PMI estimates that approximately 14.7 million adults around the world have already switched to IQOS and stopped smoking. For more information, please visit www.pmi.com and www.pmiscience.com.
1 Source: PMI global estimate of total in-market sales of heated tobacco units as of December 2019 (excluding China and U.S.).
2 IQOS ILUMA is designed to be used only with TEREA SMARTCORE STICKS. IQOS ILUMA and TEREA SMARTCORE STICKSTM must not be used with previous IQOS generations, as this may cause damage to the device. As TEREA SMARTCORE STICKSTM contain a sharp metal part that can cause serious injury if swallowed, they must be kept out of reach of children and pets, and must not be ingested or disassembled.
3 Source: Studies conducted in Italy and Japan with a total of 714 IQOS users, November 2020 to March 2021.
4 Important information: It does not necessarily equal a 95% reduction in risk. IQOS is not risk-free and provides nicotine, which is addictive. Only for use by adults.
5 "95% less" represents the average reductions in levels of a range of harmful chemicals (excluding nicotine) compared to the smoke of a reference cigarette (3R4F). See Important Information on www. iqos.com.
6 Source: Philip Morris International 2021 Second-Quarter Results. 7 Source: Philip Morris International 2021 Second-Quarter Results.
