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ROMEThe tattoo of a Nazi eagle above a swastika that spans the back of Francesca Rizzi leaves no doubt about her political ideology. The 36-year-old winner of an online beauty pageant in which she was crowned Miss Hitler was one of 19 people across Italy put under formal investigation this week for illegally forming a Nazi political party. Her co-collaborators include a 50-year-old female civil servant named Antonella Pavin from Padua who dubbed herself Hitlers Sergeant Major, and a former mobster from the Calabria Ndrangheta mafia who was allegedly in charge of militant training.

Italys anti-mafia and anti-terrorism forces spent two years investigating the group, which has ties to a number of other far-right clusters across Europe, including the U.K.s Combat 18 and similar hate groups in Portugal, Spain and Greece.

Armed special forces carried out the sting operation dubbed Black Shadows in 16 cities from Palermo to Milan Thursday morning after someone alerted Miss Hitler that police were monitoring the group. Fearful she and others involved might destroy or hide evidence, they swooped in.

What they found was more than troubling. In 16 of the homes searched, they found similar caches of weapons including grenades and semi-automatic rifles and explosives. They also found Nazi and fascist memorabilia adorned with swastikas and the faces of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, alongside militant training texts designed to teach new members how to target Jewish people and gays. Their party motto, Invisible, Silent and Lethal, was scrawled on the material.

Prosecutors who led the investigation from Caltanissetta, Sicily, said Thursday that the suspects were creating an openly pro-Nazi, xenophobic, anti-Semitic group called the Italian National Socialist Workers Party. Pavin posted a notice with the groups logo on her Facebook page in July 2018, saying the group would start military training in August.

Forming a Fascist or Nazi party is against the law in Italy under post-World War II legislation passed in 1952, when Italy was recovering from the destruction caused by Mussolinis decision to follow Hitlers ideology. More than 7,500 Italian Jews died during the Holocaust.

But the resurgence of such hate groups has become increasingly troubling in recent months. In November, 89-year-old Holocaust survivor and senator for life Liliana Segre, was put under armed police protection after receiving more than 200 anti-Semitic messages and death threats a day. Her name reportedly appeared in some of the hate messages found at the homes in Thursdays raids. Last week, new street signs that had just been erected in Rome to honor persecuted Italian Jews were desecrated.

Last summer, police found a cache of weapons including a French-made air-to-air missile in the hands of two Nazi sympathizers in the northern town of Turin. It is not clear if they were part of this particular group.

In November, Segre called for a parliamentary committee to combat hate, which passed even though Italys far-right former Interior Minister Matteo Salvinis Northern League party abstained from the vote.

The arrests this week have uncovered an intricate network of hate across the country, with group members communicating on a closed group called Militia on the Russian social networking service VK. Among the messages were calls for the mass castration and extinction of Jews and gays.

Police say they anticipate more arrests.

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Italy's 'Miss Hitler' Among 19 Investigated for Starting New Nazi Party in Italy - The Daily Beast

This March 29, 2018 file photo shows the logo for social media giant Facebook at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York's Times Square. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

SINGAPORE (Kyodo) -- The Singapore government has ordered Facebook to issue a correction notice on an anti-government website's page after the site's editor remained defiant over an article it posted to the social networking site earlier this month.

Singapore had ordered a small alternative news website, the States Times Review, to issue a correction notice on Thursday. But its 32-year-old editor, Alex Tan, now an Australian citizen working in Australia, has refused to comply.

On Friday, a government office that enforces a controversial new law to combat fake news said Home Minister K. Shanmugam has instructed Facebook to issue a correction notice to the States Times Review's official Facebook page.

The so-called Targeted Correction Direction, allows the government to obtain the cooperation of providers of internet intermediary services, such as Facebook, in these types of cases.

If an organization such as Facebook refuses to cooperate, it can be slapped with a fine of up to S$1 million ($730,000), and in the case of a continuing offense, a further fine of up to S$100,000 daily.

The article, headlined "Whistleblower arrested for exposing PAP candidate Christian evangelist Rachel Ong Sin Yen," was posted at 8:05 a.m. on Nov. 23.

Contacted by Kyodo, a Facebook official would only say that the company had received a request from the Singapore government, and its team was currently reviewing it.

Meanwhile, Tan, responding to Kyodo's inquiry, said through email, "I believe the government is merely testing their newly found powers (Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act) and doing a dry run before the coming general election."

The act was passed by Parliament in May and came into force on Oct. 2 despite concerns from some quarters that the law gives too much power to the government to decide what news is fake.

"My response, as you have already known by now, is a flat rejection. Compliance with an unjust law only gives them credibility and acknowledgment."

According to Tan, the Facebook page is merely a distribution point for the Singaporean public as his alternative news websites have been blocked by authorities.

Tan is an engineer in Sydney and recently become an Australian citizen.

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Singapore orders Facebook to correct anti-government website - The Mainichi

Indias global ranking as a nation brand has risen from 9th place to 7th place this year, according to the independent consultancy Brand Finance. With a brand value of US$2.6tn, the nation has witnessed a 19 per cent growth.

In an effort to uplift industries hit by an economic slowdown, Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman has announced measures to slash corporate taxes. FM has urged industries to leverage technology to reduce Time to Export or Turn-around time. Processes will become seamless as export clearances will be digitised to eliminate manual services.

As against this background, we do anticipate investments to increase in the wake of US-China trade tariffs. Chinese telecom companies have made a beginning. For players like Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, Lenovo and Oneplus, India is a promising market. Local production and all mobile related allied services are expected to get a boost.

Moon Mission

It is destination Moon, as India this year embarked on its second lunar mission to explore the uncharted south pole of the celestial body. Its spacecraft Chandrayaan-2 developed by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh in July. Its lunar orbiter, the Vikram lander, and the lunar rover Pragyan were all developed in India. Chandrayaan-2 entered lunar orbit, but the Vikram hard-landed within 500m of the designated landing site, so the mission could not succeed.

Yet this is Indias ambitious complex mission, which aimed to study the exosphere, surface as well as the sub-surface of the Moon in a single mission. It resulted in new space-tech insights in the form of throttle-able engines, sensors and algorithms that were developed for the Lander.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has described Chandrayaan-2s Moon journey as an ISRO spirit thats running through the country.

Appropriately so, as the number of space start-ups is increasing. This can be attributed to the growing demand for low-cost satellites. Space technologies are being explored to make payloads somewhat economical.

Low payloads can be used for industrial applications. Smaller satellites can be commercialised for diverse applications. They can be leveraged for capturing images of crops, geo-spatial patterns and cityscapes. Broadly speaking, their data can throw light on agriculture, weather and urban planning. Even vehicular movements as well as marine life can also be captured.

Going ahead, this will lead to a vendor ecosystem. Once a government-state owned domain, space tech has now become a favourite choice of start-ups. Space-enabled applications include navigation, communications, remote sensing, and science and exploration. What is awaited is the long pending space law which needs to be passed in Parliament. Once this falls into place, start-ups will have a clearer vision of space.

Many of the space start-ups have been incubated in premier educational institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc). Encouragement also comes from ISRO, the primary space agency of the Indian government.

ISRO has for the first time invited companies to build five polar satellite launch vehicles (PSLVs). This move from ISRO is a means of promoting Make in India, a vision of the Government of India (GoI).

ISRO which is into its 50thyear, has opened out new space related avenues. It is in the process of developing a communication-cum-surveillance satellite for the Indian Navy. The satellite which will be ready by 2022 is being readied to keep a vigil on the warships, submarines and aircraft around the Indian Ocean by strengthening the shore-based operations. This 1,589 crore contract between the Indian Navy and ISRO is for the development of Gsat-7R, a new satellite to aid the Gsat-7 or Rukmini geostationary naval satellite orbiting since 2013.

India continues to reinforce its space-astronomical capacities. This time round, the Hanle village in the cold desert of Ladakh is in the news. The Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) houses the countrys first robotic space telescope. The telescope has been conceptualised to observe the universe, with its dynamic and transient events. It can capture cosmic events that happen in timescales much shorter than light years or years, days and even hours.

The office at the Hanle village is an outcome of a multi-nation community-oriented activity comprising universities from various parts of the world including UK and the US. Called GROWTH, an acronym for Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen, it has been established to observe the universe, with its transient events.

The fact that the Hanle is at an altitude of 4,500 metres, makes it one of the worlds highest astronomical observatories. Thats how it has emerged as a telescope viewing site comprising the Himalayan Chandra Telescope, the gamma-ray array telescope (HAGAR) and the imaging Cherenkov telescope (MACE).

Fintech to enable MSMEs

An inter-ministerial panel on fintech has submitted its final report to the FM. The panel has recommended that a legal framework should be in place to protect consumers when they use digital services. Basically the panel suggests that technologies like AI, blockchain and ML should be leveraged for governance processes, taxation and financial services.

Finance providers require a standardised regulation technology (regtech). The panel suggests that an institutional framework needs to be developed to cater to specific use-cases of supervisory technology (or SupTech), testing, deployment, monitoring and evaluation.

These suggested measures are intended to facilitate the MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) sector in its finance-related processes. The panel also suggests that Reserve Bank of India (RBI) develops cash-flow based financing for MSMEs.

The development of an open-API (application programme interface) MSME stack based on TReDS (Trade Receivables electronic Discount System) data validated by the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) and a standardised and trusted e-invoice infrastructure designed around TReDS-GSTN integration are among other suggestions.

Of Robots & Drones

What is interesting is that robots have made their way into a cross section of verticals. We have robots that have doubled up as bearers in restaurants. In its latest avatar, a robot has shaped up as a humanoid robot assisting a teacher. The scene may seem like a sci-fi film, but its a thermal physics class at an international school in Bangalore. Conceptualised as Eagle 2.0, the robot is a teacher assistant. Media reports reveal that a collaborative learning model has been created, whereby Eagle 2.0 delivers content with summative assessments. Hopefully a time will come when robots will assist various verticals.

Healthcare services in rural and remote locations have been a challenge. This is where drones or unmanned aerial vehicles fit in with their unique offering. All that it requires is a drone to bring the spotlight on to a primary healthcare centre (PHC) in the Tehri district of Uttarakhand in North India. As reported in the media, the drone has flown 36km over the Himalayan terrains to transport blood samples from the PHC to the district hospital. Clearly the time taken by the drone to accomplish this task is much less than the regular commute by road. This has raised hope for health services to be delivered in remote locations. A first move, this drone delivery could be described as a game-changer in the health segment.

Global E-commerce giant Amazon has opened its massive campus in India, which is its first owned campus outside the US. Hyderabad in south India is home to Amazons 1.8 million square feet of office space. In terms of total area, the campus is Amazon's single largest building in the world. Spread over 9.5 acres of land, its also the largest technology base outside Amazon's headquarters in Seattle. Along with engineers and managers, the Hyderabad campus has software development engineers and machine-learning professionals.

Amazons India presence cannot be seen in isolation. Other global retailers like Walmart have also deepened their footprint in the country.

An overview indicates that the supply chain network of e-commerce companies is growing. The companies have scaled up their partnerships with MSMEs and artisans to create a user experience that is personalised in nature.

Lets look at trends in the overall e-commerce space. Pocket-sized loans from banks are encouraging digital spending in India. Encouragement also comes from mobile-payment apps that give consumers pay-later options.

Smartphones are affordable, and that includes data as well. This is being leveraged by retailers to rope in online customers into their fold. Smartphones are the preferred device for online shopping.

Weve also seen the rise of Phygital, a combination of physical and digital stores as preferred by retailers. E-commerce itself has given rise to several employment options given the requirements of logistics, inventory management and vendor management.

As per the October 2019 KPMG report titled Disruptive Companies and Business Models, e-commerce and social networking are the most disruptive business models. In maintaining its position atop the list of most-disruptive business models over the next few years, e-commerce continues to capture attention with its dramatic growth prospects. Global e-commerce spending is expected to increase from $3.5tn in 2019 to $6.5tn in 2023, according to eMarketer.

Social networking was second on the business models list. Similar to e-commerce companies, social media companies are striving to capture ever-larger shares of the consumers attention and wallet, with new offerings like exclusive and original content, live sporting events, augmented/virtual reality, educational services, and crypto currencies. As of January 2019, more than three billion people, over 40 per cent of the worlds population, were using social media on mobile devices, according to a report from We Are Social and Hootsuite Media.

Satya Easwaran, partner and head of telecom, media and technology sector for KPMG in India, added that India is seeing a similar trend in technology disrupting business models. With over one billion mobile subscribers and more than 665 million internet subscriptions, Indias mobile-first economy is shaping the contours of new business models in B2C and B2B businesses. E-commerce and social networking have changed consumer behaviour, leading traditional business models to innovate and transform. Retail, financial services, and technology are the sectors likely to be most disrupted because of tech innovations.

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View from India: Space tech boosts rise of Brand India - E&T Magazine

Chevy Chase Trust Holdings Inc. grew its position in Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) by 5.9% in the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 645,524 shares of the social networking companys stock after acquiring an additional 35,903 shares during the period. Chevy Chase Trust Holdings Inc. owned 0.08% of Twitter worth $26,596,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Nuveen Asset Management LLC raised its position in Twitter by 17,011.6% in the 2nd quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 10,494,744 shares of the social networking companys stock worth $366,266,000 after purchasing an additional 10,433,413 shares during the last quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC raised its position in Twitter by 331.4% in the 2nd quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 7,337,600 shares of the social networking companys stock worth $256,082,000 after purchasing an additional 5,636,902 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Twitter by 2.0% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 78,372,606 shares of the social networking companys stock worth $2,735,204,000 after acquiring an additional 1,510,879 shares during the period. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. grew its holdings in Twitter by 23.1% during the 2nd quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. now owns 5,919,539 shares of the social networking companys stock worth $206,592,000 after acquiring an additional 1,110,127 shares during the period. Finally, Nikko Asset Management Americas Inc. grew its holdings in Twitter by 44.0% during the 2nd quarter. Nikko Asset Management Americas Inc. now owns 3,168,974 shares of the social networking companys stock worth $110,597,000 after acquiring an additional 968,905 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 71.68% of the companys stock.

Shares of NYSE TWTR opened at $31.17 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $24.20 billion, a PE ratio of 56.67, a PEG ratio of 0.53 and a beta of 0.58. The company has a current ratio of 8.69, a quick ratio of 8.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28. Twitter Inc has a 1-year low of $26.26 and a 1-year high of $45.85. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $32.72 and a 200 day moving average price of $37.72.

Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, October 24th. The social networking company reported $0.17 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the Zacks consensus estimate of $0.10 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $824.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $875.21 million. Twitter had a net margin of 47.67% and a return on equity of 6.07%. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 8.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.21 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Twitter Inc will post 2 EPS for the current year.

In related news, VP Matthew Derella sold 4,668 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $39.68, for a total value of $185,226.24. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Ned D. Segal sold 8,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $29.36, for a total transaction of $234,880.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 99,950 shares of company stock valued at $3,576,078. Company insiders own 2.65% of the companys stock.

A number of analysts have commented on TWTR shares. Canaccord Genuity lowered their target price on shares of Twitter from $46.00 to $35.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 24th. They noted that the move was a valuation call. Cowen set a $41.00 target price on shares of Twitter and gave the stock a hold rating in a report on Monday, October 21st. Susquehanna Bancshares set a $34.00 target price on shares of Twitter and gave the stock a hold rating in a report on Friday, October 25th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on shares of Twitter from $37.00 to $33.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a report on Friday, October 25th. Finally, Wedbush reaffirmed a hold rating and set a $34.50 target price (down previously from $42.00) on shares of Twitter in a report on Friday, October 25th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-five have given a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the company. The company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $37.24.

Twitter Company Profile

Twitter, Inc operates as a platform for public self-expression and conversation in real time. The company offers various products and services, including Twitter, a platform that allows users to consume, create, distribute, and discover content; and Periscope, a mobile application that enables user to broadcast and watch video live with others.

See Also: Stock Symbols and CUSIP Explained

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Chevy Chase Trust Holdings Inc. Purchases 35,903 Shares of Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) - Riverton Roll

Al Sharpton credited Sen. Kamala Harris for her criticism of Mayor Pete Buttigiegs claim that he can better understand black Americans because he is gay.

Buttigieg, 37, has struggled to earn support from black voters in key early states like South Carolina during his presidential campaign. He has argued, however, that his sexuality helped him to understand the feeling of oppression often felt by black Americans because gay men have not always had equal rights either.

While I do not have the experience of ever having been discriminated against because of the color of my skin, I do have the experience of sometimes feeling like a stranger in my own country, turning on the news and seeing my own rights come up for debate, and seeing my rights expanded by a coalition of people like me and people not at all like me, Buttigieg said during the CNN debate earlier this month.

[Related: 'A modern-day Pharisee': Buttigieg's evangelical brother-in-law urges him to 'repent' of abortion views]

That argument has been destroyed by many prominent black Americans, including his 2020 Democratic competitor Harris. After the debate, she told CNN, What he did on the stage, its just not productive, and I think its a bit naive.

Sharpton, a racial activist and MSNBC host, commended Harriss response, telling the Washington Post this week, I think Kamala had a point, and I understood what she was saying. He said he appreciates the effort Buttigieg is making in the black community and admitted that he is evolving, but said the South Bend, Indiana, mayor still has a long way to go.

Do I think hes where he needs to be? No, Sharpton said.

Earlier this week, Buttigieg was called a lying motherf---er by the Root columnist Michael Harriot after video from the mayors 2011 campaign resurfaced showing him questioning whether poor children have parents who value education. Buttigieg called Harriot afterwards to hear him out and discuss how he can work to improve his image among black voters.

The South Bend mayor has climbed in the polls recently, even taking the lead in Iowa. Harris, 55, has struggled to climb above 4% in the polls. The RealClearPolitics polling average has her at just 3.8% support, while Buttigieg sits at 11% support.

Sharpton, 65, became a public figure during the 1987 Tawana Brawley case. He claimed that the black teenaged girl had been kidnapped and raped by a gang of white men. Without evidence, he alleged that assistant district attorney in Dutchess County, Steven Pagones, was in this gang. A court cleared Pagones of the charges, and he eventually won a defamation lawsuit against Sharpton in 1998, who was ordered to pay $65,000 in damages.

He has since become a highly divisive figure with many on the right saying he is a race-baiter and many on the left singing his praises, including Harris who claimed Sharpton had "spent his life fighting for what's right and working to improve our nation, even in the face of hate."

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'Kamala had a point': Al Sharpton rejects Buttigieg claim that being gay is like being black - Washington Examiner