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Dozens of supporters of far-right PEGIDA movement waving German flags poured into the streets of the German city of Nuremberg on Sunday to protest immigration policy and the Turkish presidents recent Nazi taunts, as they celebrated the local branchs anniversary.

The event saw participants, carrying national and party symbols, gathering around 1pm in central Jakobplatz before marching down the streets for a rally. Despite the declared peaceful nature of the gathering, police undertook extra efforts to ensure security and prevent potential clashes with rival groups, cordoning off the streets along the PEGIDA activists route.

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While it was reported that a counter-demonstration was called for by a local Nazistopp union, no incident has been reported at the PEGIDA rally, which centered around the movements traditional anti-Islam and anti-immigrant agenda.

Violence-free and united against religious wars on German soil, read one of the placards at the head of the procession.

READ MORE:Clashes erupt as PEGIDA, pro-immigration supporters hold rival rallies in Denmark (VIDEO)

Another called on the Germans to wake up unless they want to see the rule of the Sharia law as the countrys near future.

Sharia law will become the supreme law. The constitution will land on the garbage heap of history. Do you want this? Then finally wake up! the sign read.

The activists also denounced NATO and the EU with a banner calling for resistance to NATO warmongering and EU dictatorship and for direct popular democracy.

Apart from that and feeding into fears of a perceived Islamization, the organizers of the rally also took aim at recent rhetoric by Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who drew parallels between the Third Reich and modern Germany, igniting the ire of its government and public.

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"Your practices are not different from the Nazi practices of the past," Erdogan said in March, after several rallies in support of a controversial Turkish constitutional reform were canceled by the German authorities over security concerns. Despite a strong rebuke from the German government, with Chancellor Angela Merkel calling Erdogans remarks unjustifiable, the Turkish leader continued the taunt, most recently stating that he would only stop comparing European governments with Nazis when they cease calling him a dictator.

READ MORE:Massive PEGIDA rally in Dresden marks 2 years of anti-immigrant movement (VIDEO)

One of the speakers at the PEGIDA march, prominent far-right activist Michael Strzenberger, lashed out at Erdogan, accusing him of being the only one who uses Nazi practices, alleging that the Turkish leader, known for his authoritarian penchant, is copying the seizure of power by Hitler, known in Germany as Machtergreifung.

PEGIDA, (which stands for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West) has been thriving on popular discontent with the migrant influx since its emergence in Dresden in late 2014. Its rallies spread far outside the Germany borders and have been held across all Europe in recent years.

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PEGIDA marks anniversary with Nuremberg march against Islamization, EU & Erdogan (VIDEO) - RT

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greets the crowd during a mass opening ceremony in Sancaktepe District of Istanbul, Turkey on March 26, 2017.

By Hatice Senses Kurukiz, Fikriye Susam Uyar, Sefa Mutlu and Kenan Irtak

ISTANBUL

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday slammed again the Swiss government over a mass meeting of the members and sympathizers of the PKK terrorist group in capital Bern.

Some 250 PKK members and supporters took part in a rally in front of the Federal Parliament building in the Swiss capital Bern on Saturday. In the meeting, a banner read "Kill Erdogan", picturing him with a gun pointed at his head.

"It is very interesting indeed that this terrorist organization is taking to the streets hand in hand with their [Switzerland's] leftist parties," Erdogan said during an opening ceremony in Istanbul's Gaziosmanpasa district.

The president was referring to the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (SP) and The Swiss Green Party which supported the meeting, which saw no police intervention despite the banner calling for Erdogan's death.

The rally was also attended by supporters of the far-left terrorist group DHKP-C, and YPG, the armed wing of PYD, which is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK.

"Where is this place? Switzerland. Where is this place? The Netherlands. Where is this place? Belgium. Where is this place? Germany," Erdogan said in reference to the EU countries allowing public demonstrations of the PKK.

"When we say this, they get upset. Don't. What goes around comes around," Erdogan added.

The president said Turkey did not harbor any hostile feelings for any country or society, and just wanted to establish "the best" relations with everyone.

"I have a message for our neighbors, and in particular the European countries, U.S. and Russia. We are not enemies with anyone. Quite the contrary, we would like to establish the best possible political, economic and social relations with each country and society," he said.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry summoned Saturday the Swiss counselor in Ankara to convey the government's reaction to the rally, as Ambassador Walter Haffner was out of the city. Haffner was summoned Sunday.

The PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- resumed its armed campaign against Turkey in July 2015 and since then has been responsible for the deaths of approximately 1,200 security personnel and civilians, including women and children.

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Erdogan criticizes Swiss government over PKK rally - Anadolu Agency - Anadolu Agency

International Trade

TO GROW EXPORT SALES, INVEST IN BETTER TOOLS, PLATFORMS, AND APPS: They will simplify and enhance distributor management and allow you to move to Exporting 201.

Companies that have had some export success selling though distributors often reach a point where their sales growth flattens or stalls. This series outlines the key steps needed to truly make your export business strategic, with sustainable group.

But warning: this is not an easy process, and requires some investments that may take a little time to pay back, as well as a bit of faith. Take comfort that many companies have made this shift, and have never looked back.

In our previous articles, we discussed the importance of changing your mindset, the way you find and invest in distributors, and improving your skills sets and processes.

In this installment, we examine another key step that companies need to make to move their export business to the next level to Exporting 201 and that is: upgrade your tools.

When companies first start exporting, theyre not sure if it makes sense to invest much in things like tools, software platforms, or apps. Business plans consist mostly of projected sales forecasts. Sales vs. forecasts are tracked with excel spreadsheets. Outlook or Google calendar may suffice for scheduling business reviews.

But by the time youve signed up several distributors, the whole support process can become difficult to manage. Key pieces of information about your distributors and that your distributor need reside in different places and systems. Its often a challenge to track down promised sales tracing reports. Keeping new personnel trained in a timely manner and even keeping on schedule with business reviews can become difficult. Providing several distributors with requested information such as product data and marketing collateral on an ad hoc basis becomes time-consuming and distracting.

To effectively manage a network of indirect sales partners, distribution managers need centralized information and automated processes.

Here are some key tools that Exporting 201 companies invest in to more effectively manage their distributor network and to make them easy for their partners to deal with:

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM ) platform with customization or a module to specifically support distributors. There are even specialized Partner Relationship Management software packages that combine some or all of the functionality below.

Learning management tools. This might include a formal Learning Management System platform, or assistance creating on-demand learning modules. A learning platform allows exporters to help train distributors and new personnel quickly and consistently, as well as track training progress, verify learning effectiveness, and ensure any certifications for installations, repairs, and upgrades are maintained.

A dedicated partner portal/central content management system. This is generally a web/cloud-based application that provides a central content management system for partners to access things like product pricing, marketing collateral, company policies and procedures, current business plan, training materials, demo videos, product information, and communications. A partner portal eliminates version control issues, and minimizes one-off requests from distributors.

Contract management software. This allows suppliers to track key contract terms, dates, and goals.

Supply chain software to improve forecasting, track shipments in transit, better manage inventory and order fulfillment, and consolidate shipments to reduce costs and improve service.

Apps, including current price and product availability, shipment status, product information, and other key information from mobile devices.

Local-language website pages to help support foreign sales; ideally, these are locally-hosted and optimized for SEO in each language.

True, its sometimes difficult for an export manager to convince management to make significant investments in technology platforms. However, most or many of these tools also will make the companys direct sales force more effective, and often benefit other company functions. Even small investments in apps can help automate processes, standardize data, and make it easier for distributors to do business with you.

To truly grow your export sales, make the move to Exporting 201 by investing in better tools, platforms, and apps to simplify and enhance your distributor management.

Doris Nagel is the CEO of Globalocity, and has 25+ years of hands-on global experience, focusing on strategic partnering, indirect sales channel management, and market entry. Shes a frequent speaker and author, and is currently working on a book on international distributor networks.Join Globalocitys upcoming webinar, where well show how the distributor onboarding process enables your distributors sell better and faster, and stay more engaged.

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Move to Exporting 201 - Global Trade Magazine (blog)

Fake It To Make It is a game that puts you in charge of a website devoted to creating and spreading fictional and/or sensationalised online "news" articles. It has been put together by someone who clearly knows how online media works, and that makes it more than a little frightening.

Amanda Warner, the game's designer, says Fake It is primarily inspired by "the Macedonian teenagers who profited from fake news leading up to the 2016 election in the United States".

The game takes place entirely within the confines of a publishing platform, where you're tasked with either writing or copying (like, literally copying) sensational news pieces, pushing them out onto the internet and making sure you get paid for your work (or lack thereof).

An overview of the main game screen, tracking things like your income and story performance.

As someone who spends 9-10 hours a day looking at a platform like this, and who despite ten years in this job still gets a little queasy at the disconnect between how easy it is to hit "publish" and how many people end up seeing your stuff, playing the game was a weirdly queasy experience. Very much a "there but for the Grace of God" moment.

Always game to try different emotions.

The platform you use looks real. The methods you use for maximising your audience looking at what's "trending", what people are into and who is talking about it are real. Even the game's focus on keywords, Twitter followers and SEO tags are grounded in online publishing.

This is where your Facebook Uncle's posts come from.

It's fictional and abstract, then, but so is actual online publishing. While most tags are short, sharp and comedic, they're also so close to actual "bad content" that the whole thing ends up coming across as a simulation as much as a commentary.

Indeed, the whole thing feels so authentic that as Warner admits, she's aware that it could almost be used as a training tool.

I'm willing to take the risk, because I think the potential for positive change in players is worth it.

My hope is that by making players more aware of how and why fake news is written and distributed, that they will be more sceptical of what they encounter in the future. In general, I think that better understanding how and why we are manipulated by others, for profit or power, is worthwhile knowledge to have.

Ideally, these are the actions, attitudes, and beliefs I would like to see in players of this game.

You can play the game in your browser here.

That first approach seems to always work. And while political scandals might seem like they'd dominate proceedings, there are still plenty of celebrity scandals and puppy videos to work with as well.

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My Mass Effect playthrough was the most straight-laced, male heterosexual journey you could imagine. I boned Ashley, despite her space-alt-right leanings. Then I boned Miranda, because I mean, I'm only human. Garrus was just my mechanic. The guy stuck at the bottom of my ship fixing shit. But then I discovered something. Women dig Garrus. Like they really dig Garrus. Despite being a bird-insect-alien with mandibles, women really want to bone the ever-loving heck out of Garrus. I had one question. why?

Everyone's favourite real-time strategy game is getting a face-lift. As Blizzard president Mike Morhaime announced at this weekend's I <3 StarCraft event in South Korea, the original game and its Brood War expansion are both getting an HD overhaul and being repackaged as StarCraft. Remastered, due out later this winter.

Originally posted here:
Fake News Video Game Is A Little Too Real - Kotaku Australia

Reader Resource

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Many business owners are under the impression that online marketing is extremely complicated because some online marketing efforts fail miserably, while others are responsible for massive returns.They assume performance is related to the marketing budget, what is being marketed and who its being marketed to.

Sure, that can all come into play, but its more about the marketing strategy.

It doesnt matter if you are a small mom-and-pop shop with a budget of $1,000 per monthor a large brandspending six figures monthly -- the same three steps will contribute to a successful marketing effort. Lets look at each one.

Related:How to Use Social Media and Not Feel Overwhelmed

You need to determine who your ideal customer is and what problem you are solving. For example, my performance-based agency works with larger brands, spending at least $50,000 monthly on paid ads and typically relying heavily on Facebook.So, we know we have to target large brands with healthy budgetscurrently advertising on Facebook and interested in a performance-based relationship.

When you are very specific with who you target, it allows you to create a message and offer that speaks directly to that target. You must also make sure your pricing aligns with your ideal customer.

You cant attach a premium price to your product or service if your ideal customer has an average or below average income. You could have the best product or service but if its priced out of reach, they will never connect with your offer, explains Joe Baldwin, CEO of EssayLook.

Related:10 Questions to Ask When Creating a Social Media Marketing Plan

Let me quickly explain what I mean by smart marketing. If you are targeting people aged 35 to 45 with a life insurance offer, you dont want to be running Snapchat ads -- thats the wrong platform. Highly targeted Facebook ads would work better.

Here are just a few questions you need to ask yourself:

When you have the answers to these questions it tells you what social networks and websites you should be running paid ads on and what devices you need to target. If you are selling a health product to millennials, thenmobile targeting is a must, whereas an ad targeting the 50+ demographic would want to primarily target desktops.

Related:12 Social Media Mistakes That Entrepreneurs Make

Engagement is the last step. Its responsible for generating salesand creating brand supporters that, over time, turn into lifelong customers. There are several different types of engagement.

For example, say youhave a very appealing Facebook ad that drives your perfect customers directly to an offer. You might get some likes and shares on the post, but the click-through to your offer, and then ultimately the conversion, is the engagement that translates into revenue.

Not all offers are a good fit for a direct approach. Many will require that your perfect customer is placed in a marketing funnel, where they are then presented with valuable content, designed to eventually convert them into a sale. Asking for an email address is a very small commitment, so its very easy to quickly fill your funnel up with prospects as long as your offer is enticing and provides value, advises Tyler Chilton, CEO of Mayflower Electronics.

These simple three steps should be the foundation of all your online marketing efforts. It doesn't have to be complicated.

Jonathan Long is the founder ofMarket Domination Media,a performance-based online marketing agency, blerrp, an influencer marketing agencyand co-founder of consumer productSexy Smile Kit&trade...

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3 Steps for Explosive Online Marketing Growth - Entrepreneur