1 Kraft Heinz shuts plants, cuts 2,500 jobs (BBC) Food
giant Kraft Heinz is closing seven factories and cutting 2,600 jobs in North
America in an effort to reduce costs. The cuts are in addition to the 2,500
workers in the region the company announced it would let go in August.
Wednesday's cuts will account for almost 6% of its
workforce and will take place over the next two years. The two firms merged in
a $46bn deal in July to create North America's third biggest food company.
The cutbacks are part of the new company's plan to
save about $1.5bn in operating costs by the end of 2017. The maker of
well-known brands such as Macaroni and Cheese Dinner and Heinz Ketchup also
said it would close a nearly 100-year-old Oscar Mayer meat plant in Wisconsin
and move the operations to Chicago. The company is controlled by the Brazilian
investment firm 3G Capital, which is known for trimming costs.
2 Facebook profit up (BBC) Facebook has reported a
spike in profits in the third quarter on the back of increased advertising
sales. The social media company reported net income was up 11% to $891m for the
period between July and September compared with $806m last year.
Facebook also reported strong user growth in
developing markets. Investors have been waiting for signs that Facebook has
made money from Instagram and WhatsApp, and for increased revenue from video.
The company, which is already the world's largest
social media site, reported it gained 60 million new monthly active users in
the third quarter, bringing its global users to 1.55 billion. A growth in
monthly active users means greater reach for advertisers using Facebook. The
company said Facebook and Instagram account for one in every five minutes
Americans spend online.
Facebook has been focused on efforts to get more
small businesses to advertise on its website. Last week the company introduced
a new slideshow feature that allows advertisers to produce lower cost videos
for their products.
Investors had been watching to see the levels of
spending as Facebook looks to grow and move beyond basic social media. It
bought the virtual reality company Oculus Rift for $2bn in 2014. Oculus is
virtual reality display that individuals wear on their heads. Many media
analysts think it could change the gaming industry.
3 Italy is top winemaker (San Francisco Chronicle) Italy
is the biggest wine producer in the world this year, pushing France back into
second place, as good weather in most European countries pushes up production —
and keeps a lid on prices for consumers.
The European Union's farm federation said quality
and yields of the harvest were good, with production rising 2.7 percent to
171.2 million hectoliters. Italy had a 12 percent increase in volume to reach
50.3 million hectoliters.
Spain, though, saw its production fall to 40.6
million hectoliters this year from 53.6 million hectoliters the year before
when a drought ravaged some of the vineyards in southern regions. In
comparison, the US had an estimated level of production of 22.1 million
hectoliters, with Argentina, Chili and Australia hovering around the 12-13
million mark.
4 Bhutan, nation of 90% joy (Tim Dowling in The
Guardian) News from the International Conference on Gross National Happiness, says
Bhutan’s happiness index rose from 0.743 in 2010 to 0.756 in 2015. “Is this
fast or slow?” asked Bhutan’s prime minister in his keynote speech. “We do not
yet know. We are still learning what is a ‘good’ growth rate!” He sounds jolly.
The notion of GNH was first introduced by Bhutan’s
fourth king in the 70s, when he announced that “gross national happiness is
more important that gross national product”. The GNH index is a number crunched
from happiness survey statistics across nine “domains”, of which only one is
living standards. Others include health, education, psychological wellbeing,
time use, community vitality and cultural diversity.
GNH is a blend of hard numbers, subjective
perceptions and virtually unmeasurable concepts, but it works pretty well in
Bhutan, provided you’re not among the 17% of the population – mostly Hindus of
Nepalese origin – expelled from the country in the 90s. It’s one way to get
your GNH index up – kick out that oppressed minority.
In the last decade the idea of GNH has gained
international traction. In the US some states measure the genuine progress
indicator, alongside gross state product. In 2012, the UN released a World
Happiness report. And the UK’s Office for National Statistics recently started
measuring national wellbeing.
In Bhutan, people’s perceptions of their own health
worsened even as healthcare indices improved. Still, 91% of Bhutanese are
classed as either narrowly, extensively or deeply happy. Joy-wise it’s roughly
on a par with Denmark, even though Bhutan’s adult literacy rate is around 60%
and its GDP per capita puts it well below mid-table in world rankings.
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