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Musk causes uproar by backing German far-right party ahead of key elections
[Latest] Hyaluronic Acid Market Likely to Experience a Tremendous Growth by 2030(Bloomberg) — The global boom in AI has turned an obscure 139-year-old Japanese company into a stock-market star. Fujikura Ltd., which makes wire cabling for data centers, is the best performer on the Nikkei 225 Stock Average index, with its shares surging more than 400% this year. It will join the MSCI global standard indexes on Nov. 25 as the sole addition from Japan while eight other companies from the country will be removed. The firm is a classic ‘picks and shovels’ investment as tech companies and utilities pour money into building out the necessary infrastructure to support AI. Construction of the data centers, electricity supplies and communications networks needed for AI will require at least $1 trillion of spending, according to an analysis by Bloomberg News. The rapid growth of the industry has surprised Fujikura itself. “The demand for data centers has skyrocketed since around 2022,” said Kazuhito Iijima, Fujikura’s chief financial officer, in an interview. “We didn’t quite understand it that well at that time, but it became clear this year that it was all about AI.” Fujikura, which counts Apple Inc. among its biggest customers, specializes in fiber optic cables. Its products have some of the smallest diameters in the industry, which allows them to be used in narrow spaces without the need for additional tunneling, according to Iijima. The company boosted its operating income guidance earlier this month by 17% to ¥104 billion ($674 million) for the current fiscal year. It gets over 70% of its revenue overseas, with about 38% coming from the US. Global data center capacity is expected to rise at an average rate of 33% annually through 2030, according to McKinsey & Company. “The area is still in the early stages of development,” said Kazuhiro Sasaki, head of research at Phillip Securities Japan. “The amount of data will increase as the scale of the system becomes larger and more data is added, so this field itself should continue to grow.” The company traces its roots to 1885, when founder Zenpachi Fujikura started making wires insulated with silk and cotton. Over the centuries, it grew with the country’s industrialization, supplying cables for the burgeoning automotive industry, utilities and Japan’s bullet trains. The current boom stands in stark contrast to 2020, when the company posted its first loss in more than a decade. The Covid pandemic and trade tensions between the US and China ate into Fujikura’s sales. With Donald Trump returning to the White House next year, the company is determined to avoid the threat of tariffs in its largest market. It has taken measure to comply with the Build America, Buy America Act, which requires that manufactured products and construction materials used in infrastructure projects are produced in the US. “We have just completed setting up a production base, which is BABA-compliant, for ultra high-density optical fiber cables in the United States,” said Iijima. This will protect its business “even if new issues arise that are disadvantageous to imported materials,” he said. The massive run-up in the shares has made the stock expensive. Fujikura is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of about 29 while those of its peers such as Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. and Furukawa Electric Co. are trading at 11.8 and 20 respectively. Analysts are bullish on the company with 10 buys, 3 holds and no sells. Still, some think its rivals will offer better returns. “There should be more upside for Furukawa and Sumitomo Electric given the huge out-performance for Fujikura,” said Andrew Jackson, head of Japan equity strategy at Ortus Advisors Ptd Ltd. After being surprised by the AI boom, the company says it has already identified the next big opportunity — nuclear fusion. The prospect of theoretically limitless clean-energy has won the backing of multiple billionaires, including Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. While the technology has not been proven to work for large scale production of electricity, if and when it does, there will be a need for cables and wires. “We hope that this will become a pillar of the industry from 2030 onwards,” Iijima said.Mid-inclination orbit provides more SAR-imaging opportunities at middle latitudes of the globe for ICEYE customers. HELSINKI, Finland , Dec. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- ICEYE, the global leader in SAR satellite operations for Earth Observation and persistent monitoring, announced today that it has launched two new satellites to its constellation of SAR satellites. Both satellites expand the availability of ICEYE's latest imaging technology to deliver additional 25 cm imaging capacity. The satellites were integrated via Exolaunch and launched as part of the Bandwagon-2 rideshare mission with SpaceX from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, USA . Both satellites have established communication, and early routine operations are underway. With today's launch, ICEYE has successfully launched 40 satellites into orbit since 2018, with nine satellites launched in 2024 alone. The new SAR satellites were launched into mid-inclination orbits; compared to a polar orbit, these mid-inclination orbits provide more than twice the collection opportunities at middle latitudes of the globe. ICEYE customers have many areas of interest in these middle latitudes (+/- 45 degrees), and these customers will benefit from increased persistence over these regions. Customers with imaging interests outside these middle latitudes will continue to benefit from the frequent revisit enabled by ICEYE's dozens of satellites in polar orbits. ICEYE's unique mix of mid-inclination and polar orbits provides its customers with deep revisit capabilities for targets all around the globe. The new satellites will serve ICEYE's commercial missions as part of the world's largest SAR satellite constellation owned and operated by ICEYE. Rafal Modrzewski , CEO and Co-founder of ICEYE said: "This launch marks another significant milestone in ICEYE's ability to provide our customers with a rich diversity of collection opportunities. We bolster our industry-leading SAR constellation and expand our customers' collection opportunities in the areas most important to them." Today's launch is another step forward in ICEYE's steady drumbeat of innovative breakthroughs in Earth Observation. This year alone, ICEYE has, for example, introduced Dwell Precise, a new 25 cm imaging mode that offers its customers the highest-fidelity 25cm imaging capability, and adds advanced capability to ICEYE's line of Dwell products; launched an API that allows customers to directly task its SAR satellite constellation; and launched ICEYE Ocean Vision to provide actionable intelligence for maritime domain awareness. About ICEYE ICEYE delivers unparalleled persistent monitoring capabilities to detect and respond to changes in any location on Earth, faster and more accurately than ever before. Owning the world's largest synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation, ICEYE provides objective, near real-time insights, ensuring that customers have unmatched access to actionable high-quality data, day or night, even in challenging environmental conditions. As a trusted partner to governments and commercial industries, ICEYE delivers intelligence in sectors such as insurance, natural catastrophe response and recovery, security, maritime monitoring, and finance, enabling decision-making that contributes to community resilience and sustainable development. ICEYE operates internationally with offices in Finland , Poland , Spain , the UK, Australia , Japan , UAE, Greece , and the US. We have more than 700 employees, inspired by the shared vision of improving life on Earth by becoming the global source of truth in Earth Observation. Media contact: press@iceye.com Visit www.iceye.com and follow ICEYE on LinkedIn and X for the latest updates and insights. View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/iceye-expands-its-earth-observation-capabilities-with-launch-of-two-sar-satellites-for-mid-inclination-orbit-on-the-bandwagon-2-mission-with-spacex-302337876.html SOURCE ICEYE
Replacing the century-old criminal laws with a new set of legislations for introducing a modern and technology-driven criminal justice system, rolling out the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act and fire-fighting to check unabated violence in Manipur kept the Union home ministry busy in 2024. Assisting the Election Commission in holding the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir without major incidents and bringing down the violence in Naxal-affected states and northeastern region are the other key highlights of the country's crucial ministry. While the population enumeration exercise Census continues to be on hold for past four years as no decision has been taken by the ministry as to when it will be carried out, the ministry created five year districts in Ladakh and renamed Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar Islands as Sri Vijaya Puram during the year. The three new criminal laws -- Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam -- replaced the colonial-era Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act of 1872 respectively. हमने कहा था कि हम CAA लाएँगे... We said that we would bring the CAA... pic.twitter.com/QAlQ2UMQ8S Speaking to ANI on CAA. https://t.co/YEPMstF5vq The new laws came into effect from July 1. Home Minister Amit Shah, who piloted the legislations, said the new laws would give priority to providing justice, unlike the colonial-era laws that gave primacy to penal action. "These laws are made by Indians, for Indians and by an Indian Parliament and marks the end of colonial criminal justice laws," he said. Shah said the laws were not just about changing the nomenclature but bringing about a complete overhaul. "Soul, body and spirit of the new laws are Indian," he said. The new laws brought in a modern justice system, incorporating provisions such as Zero FIR, online registration of police complaints, summonses through electronic modes such as SMS and mandatory videography of crime scenes for all heinous crimes. According to home ministry officials, the new laws have tried to address some of the current social realities and crimes and are going to provide a mechanism to effectively deal with these, keeping in view the ideals enshrined in the Constitution. The CAA, which was enacted in December 2019 for granting Indian nationality to persecuted Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi and Christian migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who came to India on or before December 31, 2014, was rolled out in March and the first set of 14 people were granted Indian citizenship under the law in May. Shah termed the occasion of granting Indian citizenship under the CAA as a "historic day", saying the decades-long wait of those who faced religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan is over. After the enactment in 2019, the CAA got the president's assent a few days later but the rules under which the Indian citizenship were supposed to be granted were issued only on March 11 after over a delay of four years. The passing of the CAA in 2019 sparked protests in different parts of the country with agitators terming it "discriminatory". Over a hundred people had lost their lives during the anti-CAA protests or police action in various parts of the country. To allay fears of a section of Muslims and students regarding the CAA, the home ministry, a day after the CAA rules were issued, asserted that the Indian Muslims need not worry as the new legislation would not impact their citizenship and has nothing to do with the community which enjoys equal rights as their Hindu brethren. The ministry made it clear that "no Indian citizen would be asked to produce any document to prove his citizenship after this Act". Intermittent violence continues to rock Manipur, where the first bout of ethnic clash between majority Meiteis and tribal Kukis was witnessed in May 2023. Even after the death of about 260 people, injury to hundreds and displacement of thousands of people, peace continues to be elusive in the northeastern state. Though there have been efforts from the central government to bring the warring communities into negotiating table, sporadic violence continues there. Members of the ruling BJP were also not spared. Mobs set fire to the residences of several BJP legislators, one of whom is a senior minister, and a Congress MLA in various districts of Imphal Valley in November besides making a foiled attempt to storm the ancestral house of Chief Minister N Biren Singh. Seeing the fragile situation, the Centre in November reimposed the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in Manipur's six police station areas, including the violence-hit Jiribam. On December 24, the Centre appointed former union home secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla as new Manipur governor, in an apparent bid to help itself find a lasting peace. However, it is to be seen how Bhalla will walk through the difficult terrain of the sensitive state. Jammu and Kashmir witnessed a relatively peaceful assembly elections, which was held after a gap of 10 years. According to a presentation given by the home ministry to a parliamentary panel, there has been over 70 per cent decline in terror-related incidents in Jammu and Kashmir since 2019, when Article 370 was scrapped and the erstwhile state was bifurcated into two Union Territories -- Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The ministry said in 2019, as many as 286 terror-related incidents were reported in Jammu Kashmir and the number came down to just 40 in 2024 (till first week of November). In 2019, as many as 50 civilians were killed in terror-related incidents and the casualty figure came down to 14 so far this year. On attacks on security forces, the home ministry said a total of 96 such incidents were reported in 2019 and it went up to 111 in 2020 but since then there has been a steady decline and the number of such attacks came down to 95 in 2021, 65 in 2022 and 15 in 2023 and five so far in 2024. About casualties of security forces, the ministry said altogether 77 security personnel were killed in various incidents in 2019. In 2020, 58 personnel were killed, 29 in 2021, 26 in 2022, 11 in 2023 and seven so far in 2024. Violence perpetrated by Naxals also witnessed a decline. There has been 72 per cent less violence by Maoists while the country has seen an 86 per cent decline in deaths by Naxals in 2023 as compared to 2010. In a recent visit to Naxal-affected Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, Shah appealed to the Naxals to give up the arms and join the mainstream and said otherwise they will have to face the strong action of security forces. He said the rehabilitation of the surrendered Naxals is the responsibility of the government. Shah said the government is committed to make India Naxal-free by March 31, 2026 as a comprehensive three-pronged strategy is being adopted to free all affected areas in the country from the menace. The work for India's much-delayed decadal census and the exercise to update the National Population Register (NPR) has not started yet, thus changing the future census cycle completely. Since 1951, the country's census was conducted at a gap of every 10 years but the census work in 2021 could not be carried out due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So far no formal announcement has been made on its next schedule. Last month, the home ministry made it clear that any NGO which is involved in anti-developmental activities, religious conversion, incite protests with malicious intentions, has linkage with terrorist or radical organisations will face cancellation of its Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA) registration. According to the law, all NGOs receiving foreign contributions have to be registered under the FCRA or else is not allowed to accept foreign funding. The home minister last week started the process of rehabilitation of Bru tribal community members in Tripura following a quadripartite agreement signed on January 16, 2020. The pact was signed among the governments of India, Tripura, Mizoram and representatives of Bru organisations for the permanent rehabilitation of Bru migrants in Tripura. As many as 6,935 families with a population of 37,584 are being rehabilitated in 12 villages in Tripura. The Bru tribals were displaced from Mizoram following ethnic violence in lst 1990s and early 2000s. Continuing its thrust on comprehensive development of villages located in remote areas along the border with China, the government allocated Rs 1,050 crore for 2024-25 under the Vibrant Villages Programme (VVP) that will benefit select villages in 19 districts in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh. The central government has approved the VVP as a centrally sponsored scheme on February 15, 2023, with financial outlay of Rs 4,800 crore for the financial year 2022-23 to 2025-26 for comprehensive development of the select villages in 46 blocks in 19 districts abutting the northern border. (Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)