#global public relations firms

[publicrelationsglobalnetwork]

Fostering Global Reach: The Power of an Independent PR Agency Network and International PR Firm

Welcome to the dynamic world of global PR, where boundaries blur, cultures collide, and communication transcends borders. In this interconnected digital age, the power of an independent PR agency network coupled with the expertise of an international PR firm is a game-changer. Join us as we explore how collaboration within our network and leveraging resources from our international partners can amplify your brand's reach and impact on a truly global scale. Let's dive in!

The Collaborative Strength of an International PR Firm within Our Network

Within our network, the collaborative strength of an international PR firm shines through in its diverse expertise and global reach. Each agency brings a unique perspective and skill set to the table, enriching our collective knowledge and capabilities. By tapping into this wealth of experience, we can craft innovative strategies tailored to specific markets and audiences worldwide. The synergy created by working closely with international partners fosters creativity and cultural insights that are essential for effective communication on a global scale. Through seamless collaboration, we can navigate the complexities of different regions, languages, and media landscapes with agility and precision. This unified approach ensures that our clients receive comprehensive support that resonates authentically across borders. Together, we form a powerful network capable of delivering impactful campaigns that transcend geographic boundaries. The shared passion for excellence drives us to push creative boundaries and exceed expectations in every project we undertake.

Leveraging the Resources of Our International PR Firm in the Network

Our leading international PR firm within the network offers a wealth of resources that can be leveraged to enhance global reach and impact. With offices in key markets around the world, we have a deep understanding of local cultures, media landscapes, and consumer behaviors. By tapping into the expertise of our diverse team members across different regions, we can tailor our strategies to resonate with specific audiences on a global scale. From conducting market research to crafting compelling narratives, our collaborative approach ensures that every campaign is well-informed and targeted for maximum effectiveness. Furthermore, our access to an extensive network of media contacts allows us to secure placements in top-tier publications worldwide. Whether it's securing coverage in leading industry journals or getting featured on popular online platforms, our connections help amplify your brand's visibility on a global stage. In today's interconnected world, having the support of an international PR firm like ours can make all the difference in reaching new audiences and driving business growth.

[reasonsforhope]

"The Hague made international headlines for being the first city in the world to approve legislation prohibiting marketing of fossil fuel-related products and services. This major ruling, issued earlier this month, seeks to limit the promotion of items with a high carbon footprint, such as gasoline, diesel, aviation, and cruise ships. The ban, which goes into effect at the start of next year, will affect both government and privately funded advertisements, including those on billboards and bus shelters throughout the Dutch metropolis.

This groundbreaking legislation establishes an important precedent in the global fight against climate change. Other cities have attempted to limit the reach of high-carbon items through council ordinances or voluntary agreements with advertising operators, but The Hague’s prohibition is the first that is legally binding. It is a major step forward for cities around the world that want to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change head-on.

A response to global calls for action

The prohibition comes after UN Secretary-General António Guterres called earlier this year for countries and media outlets to take tougher action to combat fossil fuel advertising, citing parallels with existing tobacco advertising bans. Guterres stressed that, as with the tobacco industry in the past, fossil fuel businesses are contributing to a worldwide public health crisis—in this case, climate change. Governments can help change public behavior and prevent the normalization of high-carbon lifestyles by limiting their capacity to market.

Several cities have already made tiny moves in this direction. Edinburgh, for example, approved a council vote in May prohibiting fossil fuel-related ads in city-owned venues. The Scottish capital also prohibits enterprises that sell these products from sponsoring events or developing partnerships. However, unlike The Hague’s legislation, Edinburgh’s ban is voluntary and only applies to council spaces.

A legally binding first

The Hague’s new law is significant since it is legally binding. The restriction affects not only specific items, such as gasoline, diesel, and fossil fuel-powered vehicles but also businesses such as aviation and cruise ships. However, the rule exempts fossil fuel firms’ political advertising or efforts supporting a generic brand, allowing these businesses to keep prominence...

The impact of advertising on behavior

Advertising’s impact on consumer behavior is well-documented, and many experts say that fossil fuel marketing undercut climate legislation by encouraging unsustainable behavior. Thijs Bouman, an associate professor of environmental psychology at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, stated that “fossil fuel advertising normalizes the use of high-carbon products and services, making it more difficult to change consumer habits.” ...

Catalyzing change worldwide

The Hague’s move may have repercussions beyond its borders, spurring similar actions in other cities around the globe. Cities such as Toronto, Canada, and Graz, Austria, are already launching campaigns to outlaw advertising for fossil fuels. In the Netherlands, both Amsterdam and Haarlem have outlawed marketing for climate-damaging products like beef, but these measures have yet to become legislation.

Sleegers believes that The Hague’s move will act as a spur for other towns to follow suit. “More cities have a wish to implement the fossil ad ban through ordinance, but they were all waiting for some other city to go first. The Hague is this city,” she said, predicting that more local governments will now feel empowered to act...

As the world grapples with the rising costs of climate change, The Hague’s pioneering move provides a potential model for other cities looking to minimize their carbon footprints. With cities like Toronto and Amsterdam keeping a careful eye on things, this legislation has the potential to start a global campaign to prohibit fossil fuel advertising. 

More cities may follow suit in the coming years, hastening the transition to a more environmentally friendly and sustainable future."

-via The Optimist Daily, September 26, 2024

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How the kleptocrats and oligarchs hunt civil society groups to the ends of the Earth

It's a great time to be an oligarch! If you have accumulated a great fortune and wish to put whatever great crime lies behind it behind you, there is an army of fixers, lickspittles, thugs, reputation-launderers, procurers, henchmen, and other enablers who have turnkey solutions for laundering your reputation and keeping the unwashed from building a guillotine outside the gates of your compound.

The field of International Relations has studied the enemies of the Klept in detail: the Transnational Activist Network is a well-documented phenomenon. But far more poorly understood is the Transnational Uncivil Society Network, who will polish any turd of sufficient wealth to a high, professional gloss.

These TUSNs are the subject of a new, timely scholarly paper by Alexander Cooley, John Heathershaw and Ricard Soares de Oliveira: "Transnational Uncivil Society Networks: kleptocracy’s global fightback against liberal activism," published in last month's European Journal of International Relations:

https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5e5a3052-c693-4991-a7cc-bc2b47134467/download_file?file_format=application%2Fpdf&safe_filename=Cooley_et_al_2023_transnational_uncivil_society.pdf&type_of_work=Journal+article

The authors document how a collection of institutions – some coercive, others organized around good works – allow kleptocrats to take power, keep power, and use power. This includes "wealth managers, company providers, accounting firms, and international bankers" who create the complex financial structures that obscure the klept's wealth. It also includes "second citizenship managers and lawyers" that facilitate the klept's transnational nature, both to provide access to un-looted, prosperous places to visit, and boltholes to escape to in the face of coup or reform. It includes the real-estate brokers and other asset facilitators, who turn whole precincts of the world's greatest cities into empty safe-deposit boxes in the sky, while ensuring that footlose criminal elites always have a penthouse to perch in when they take a break from the desiccated husks they've drained dry back home.

Of course, it also includes the PR managers and philanthropic ventures that allow the klept to launder their reputation, to make themselves synonymous with good deeds rather than mass murder. Think here of how the Sacklers used charity to turn their family name into a synonym for culture and fine art, rather than death by opioid overdose:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

Beyond providing comfort to "Politically Exposed Persons" and "High Net-Worth Individuals," TUSNs are concerned with neutralizing TANs. Activists in these transnational networks play an inside-outside game: in-country activists will recruit peers abroad to bring attention to the crimes of their local kleptocrats. These overseas partners target the klept in the places they go to play and spend, spoiling their fun – and if they succeed in getting corrupt leaders censured abroad, then in-country activists can leverage that bad press to fight the klept at home.

To fight this "Boomerang Effect," TUSNs seek to burnish corrupt officials' reputations abroad, getting their names on humanitarian prizes, beloved sports teams, cultural institutions and great universities. They seek to capture international governance institutions that might wrong-foot kleptocrats, co-opting them to enable and even celebrate looters.

When it comes to elite philanthropy, TUSNs are necessarily selective. Kleptocrats' foundations don't fund anti-kleptocratic groups – they stick to "education, public health, the environment and the arts." These domains steer clear of human rights questions that might implicate their benefactors. Russian oligarchs love children's charities and disability rights – provided they don't target the Russian state.

If charitable giving is reputation laundering's carrot, then "reputation management" is the laundry's stick. Think of organized copyfraudsters who clone websites that have criticized their clients, then backdate the articles, then accuse the originals of infringing copyright in order to get them de-listed from Google or taken offline altogether:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#dark-ops

Reputation managers also spend a lot of time in court. In the UK – the world's leader in libel tourism, thanks to a legal system designed to let posh monsters sue muckraking journalists into silence – Russian oligarchs have perfected the art of forcing their critics to shut up and go away:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/04/londongrad/#enablers

Indeed, London is a one-stop shop for the global klept, a place were forelock-tugging Renfields will buy you a Mayfair mansion under cover of a numbered company, sue your critics into silence, funnel your money into an anonymous Channel Islands account:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/07/the-klept/#pep

They'll sell you whole galleriesworth of "fine art" that you can have relocated to a climate-controlled container in a Swiss or Irish freeport:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poesy-the-monster-slayer/#moneylab

They'll give your thick-as-pigshit progeny a PhD and never check to see whether he wrote his thesis himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSE%E2%80%93Gaddafi_affair

Then they'll hook you up with a cyber-arms dealer to hunt your enemies by capturing their devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/27/gas-on-the-fire/#a-safe-place-for-dangerous-ideas

But don't let Brexit stop you from shopping for bargains on the continent. The Golden Passports of the EU – available in a variety of flavors, from Maltese to Cypriot to Portuguese – offer the discerning failson access to the luxury good shops and fleshpots of 27 advanced economies, making it a favorite of the Khmer Riche – the junior klept of Cambodia's ruling faction:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/cambodia-hunsen-wealth/

But golden passports are for amateurs. Skilled klepts travel on diplomatic passports, which offer the twin benefits of free movement and consequence-free criminality, thanks to diplomatic immunity. The former Kazakh dictator's son-in-law enjoyed a freewheeling diplomatic life in Vienna; one daughters of the dictator of Tajikistan had a jolly time as an envoy to DC; another, to London (where else?).

All this globetrotting serves a second purpose: when rival elites seize power back home and force the old guard into exile, those ex-monsters can show up in the lands they called their second homes and apply for asylum. It turns out that even bomb-the-boats UK will welcome any asylum seeker who enters via the private jet terminal at City Airport (to be fair, these "refugees" have extensive properties in Zone 1 and country places in the Home Counties, so they won't need housing).

This stuff works. After Kazakh state goons murdered at least 14 protesters at a Zhanaozen oil facility in 2011, human rights groups around the world took up the cause. But they were effectively neutralized by TUSNs, with former UK PM Tony Blair writing on behalf of the Kazakh government to the EU condemning any kind of international investigation into the mass killings (add "former Prime Ministers" to the list of commodities for sale in the UK to sufficiently well-resourced murderer).

The authors close their paper with two case-studies. The first is of the daughters of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, Gulnara and Lola. And President Karimov was indeed a dictator: he trapped his population within his borders, forced them to use unconvertible scrip in place of money, and ordered the murder of hundreds of peaceful protesters, plunging the country into international isolation.

But while Uzbeks were sealed within their borders, Gulnara Karimov became an international player, running a complex network of businesses that mixed the products of the nation's oilfields with her family's fortune. She solicited – and received – bribes from Teliasonera, MTS and Vimpelcom, who were all vying for the contract to provide service in Uzbekistan. All told, she extracted more than $1b in bribes, laundering them through Latvia, Hong Kong and New York. She acquired real-estate in France and Switzerland, and her spree continued until her father collaborated with Uzbek security to seize her assets and place her under house-arrest.

Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva was Gulnara's estranged younger sister. She and her husband Timur Tillyaev ran the Dubai-based SecureTrade, which did extensive business with "opaque Scottish Limited Partnerships," laundering more than $127m in a single year to offshore accounts in the UAE and Switzerland. They acquired many luxe assets – a jet, a Californian villa, and an LA perfumier.

Lola styled herself as the face of the Karimovas abroad, a "philanthropist and cultural ambassador." She was a UNESCO ambassador and commissioned works of monumental art – and also sued the shit out of news outlets that reported factual matters about her family repressive activity at home. She organized AIDS charities in the name of Uzbekistan – even as her father was imprisoning a writer for publishing a book explaining how to have safer sex.

The second case-study is on Isabel dos Santos, "Africa's richest woman," daughter of Angolan dictator Jose Eduardo dos Santos. Isabel's vast fortune stemmed from her personal capture of vast swathes of the third-largest economy in Africa: "telecommunications, banking, diamonds, real estate and cement, among many others." Isabel enjoyed seemingly limitless access to state credit and co-investment, and was given first crack at newly deregulated industries. Foreign firms that invested in Angola were required to "partner" with Isabel's businesses.

Isabel claimed to be a "self-made woman" – a claim credulously parroted by the western press, including the FT. She used her homegrown fortune to become a major player abroad, especially in Portugal, where she was represented by the leading Portuguese law-firm PLMJ. Her enablers are who's who of corruption-loving lickspittles: McKinsey, Ernst and Young, Boston Consulting Group, and the Spanish BigLaw firm Uri Menendez.

Isabel cultivated a public facade of philanthropic giving and public spirited activism, serving as head of the Angolan Red Cross. She attended Davos and spoke at the LSE (she was also invited to Oxford, but her invitation was subsequently rescinded). On social media, she dismissed critics of her wealth and corruption as "colonialists," decrying their "racism" and "prejudice."

Isabel dos Santos's corrupt sources of wealth were finally, irrefutably exposed through the Luanda Leaks, in which the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists mapped the network of "top banks, management consultants and legal firms that were central to dos Santos’s operations."

Both case studies shed light on the network of brilliant, driven enablers and procurers without whom the world's greatest monsters would falter. It's a rare window on a secretive world, one that is poorly understood even by its inhabitants. As Michael Mechanic wrote in Jackpot, his 2021 book on vast, intergenerational fortunes, the winners of the lucky orifice lottery often lack any real understanding of how The Money is structured, grown and protected:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#affluenza

This point was reiterated by Abigail Disney, in a brave piece on what it's like to grow up subject to the oversight of these millionaires who babysit the children of billionaires:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/19/dynastic-wealth/#caste

This is an important contribution to the literature. We naturally focus on the ultrawealthy individuals whose reputations and fortunes are the subject of so much attention, but without the TUSNs, they would be largely helpless.

Going to Burning Man? Catch me on Tuesday at 2:40pm on the Center Camp Stage for a talk about enshittification and how to reverse it; on Wednesday at noon, I'm hosting Dr Patrick Ball at Liminal Labs (6:15/F) for a talk on using statistics to prove high-level culpability in the recruitment of child soldiers.

On September 6 at 7pm, I'll be hosting Naomi Klein at the LA Public Library for the launch of Doppelganger.

On September 12 at 7pm, I'll be at Toronto's Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/24/launderers-enforcers-bagmen/#procurers

Image: Sam Valadi (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/17086570218/

CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

--

Colin (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palace_of_Westminster_from_the_dome_on_Methodist_Central_Hall_(cropped).jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[beardedmrbean]

A House committee revealed Friday that the Pentagon, other US agencies and the European Union — in addition to the State Department — have funded a for-profit “fact-checking” firm that blacklisted The Post.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) wrote a letter to the firm, NewsGuard, demanding more details about the public-private collaboration that led last year to the State Department being sued by conservative outlets that were labeled more “risky” than their liberal counterparts.

NewsGuard has briefed committee staff on contracts it had with the Defense Department in 2021, including the Cyber National Mission Force within US Cyber Command; the State Department and its Global Engagement Center; and the EU’s Joint Research Centre.

“The Committee writes today to seek additional documents and communications from NewsGuard related to all past and present contracts with or grants administered by federal government agencies or any other government entity, including foreign governments,” Comer informed NewsGuard CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz.

“The protection of First Amendment rights of American citizens is paramount and attempts by government actors to infringe on those rights is dangerous and misguided,” the chairman warned.

The Oversight panel in June opened its investigation into NewsGuard’s apparent participation in a government-funded “censorship campaign” to allegedly discredit and even demonetize news outlets by sharing its ratings of their reliability with advertisers.

Comer also expressed concern about NewsGuard employees sharing social media posts exhibiting left-wing bias, in violation of the company’s policies, and the firm throttling disfavored outlets’ “misinformation” — which in at least one case included a published academic study on the failure of lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“These wide-ranging connections with various government agencies are taking place as the government is rapidly expanding into the censorship sphere,” the chairman wrote. “For example, one search of government grants and contracts from 2016 through 2023 revealed that there were 538 separate grants and 36 different government contracts specifically to address ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation.’”

The right-leaning websites the Daily Wire and the Federalist filed a civil complaint against the State Department in December 2023 for allegedly using taxpayer dollars to fund firms like NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which smeared the outlets as “purveyors of ‘disinformation.’”

Both firms have relationships with social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, as well as advertisers like Dell Technologies, ExxonMobil and Nike, prompting concerns about how their “disinformation” ratings would affect business.

In 2022, GDI distributed a “Disinformation Risk Assessment” that rated the “riskiest” sites for factual news as the Federalist, the Daily Wire, Newsmax, the American Conservative, Reason Magazine and the New York Post, among others.

The New York Times and the Washington Post were ranked as among the “least risky.”

In a statement Friday, Crovitz said: “When the Trump administration first asked us for our data and insights about disinformation campaigns from hostile foreign governments in 2020, we contracted with them on the condition that such work be strictly limited to disinformation from hostile governments, not US publishers. We’re proud that NewsGuard’s data and analysis has helped defend Western democracies against Russian, Chinese and Iranian disinformation. NewsGuard was created as a transparent alternative to censorship by governments or big tech companies, and we do not censor any content.”

The 2020 and 2024 elections have brought so-called “anti-misinformation” and “anti-disinformation” efforts to the fore — with The Post’s bombshell scoop on Hunter Biden’s laptop being falsely labeled a Russian plant by then-candidate Joe Biden.

Some Democrats have since been suggesting that the only way to defeat pushback to their policies is by crushing the First Amendment.

President Biden’s ex-climate envoy John Kerry even called the constitutional freedom “a major block” to keeping people from believing the “wrong” kinds of things.

“You know, there’s a lot of discussion now about how you curb those entities in order to guarantee that you’re going to have some accountability on facts,” Kerry told an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“But look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda, and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence,” he said.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, also downplayed free speech protections during a 2022 appearance on MSNBC’s “The Reid Out.”

“I think we need to push back on this. There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy,” the Minnesota governor inaccurately stated.

Comer has asked for NewsGuard to provide by Nov. 8 all records of its contracts, grants or other work with the Pentagon, the State Department and any other federal agencies or departments.

[tengritexas]

Alright here we go chat

Im playing an interesting game endorsing a candidate on tumblr but Im going to anyways. You can like it not like I dont care its cool.

This blog is aimed to remain apolitical but in the past few months its become increasingly hard to do so. Im now at the point where I must encourage you to vote.

I will be publicly endorsing Donald J Trump. And while Im certain that upsets most of my followers its important to clarify Id rather be your friend and win a heart than win a mind.

I do this for the sake of perserving a good conscious for myself

My reasons for endorsing Donald J Trump are as follows

-The shift of Taxes to Tarrifs:

Under the Trump administration you will not be taxed on tips or for working overtime. Instead that money will come from Tarrifs placed on China which will double as support for american factories and american jobs.

-The chronic health epidemic:

Robert Kennedy (under the trump administration) aims to stop the chronic health epidemic which I think is crucial not only for American youth but also for global health moving forward

-Defunding of CIA operations

Literally just yesterday multiple agencies raided a man over a rabid squirrel in what almost seems like a twisted comedy sketch.

Keep it plainly there are 2 sides of the CIA, one of which does not like you and wants to keep (what I believe) very important spiritual discoveries from the public eye. These discoveries need to become more publicly available

UNDER TRUMP, the CIA lost considerable funding which I believe has led to both assasination attempts. Trump hires private investment firms our of fear that this previously mention sector of the CIA acts autonously and unconstitutionally. This was briefly mentioned in the NASA UAP hearings of 2023

-Media machines/Smoke and Mirrors

I believe the media machine is a marvel of the elite class that currently rules America. I still have not been presented with a case of how Harris will solve the very real and very critical issues (thats not to say they arent there I merely havent seen them) her campaign has been essentially smoke and mirrors. If she wins it appears to me more so a victory for the media machine (which I have a personal vendetta against) than it being because of her capabilites

-Moral conscious and the Eagle Pass Crisis

I am a Tengrist and believe I should not disturb the natural order of things. Harris as the border czar has disturbed the natural order of Texas autonmy. She has done something which seems to me extremely irresponsible. Threatening to shoot Texas rangers and sending in national guard is something I will take serious. Those are my friends, my brothers, the people I see in class and you will not threaten my neighbors.

- The global stage and forever wars

While I think Trump makes overly ambitious claims that "the ukraine war will end in a month" and "israel will stop fighting in a month". I still think this is comperatively more optomistic than his counterpart. I personally do believe Trump having the only administration in which no war started is remarkable. The track record favors Trump here (though I do not believe he will wave a wand and create peace)

- What I do not see on the ballot

I have not seen any suggestions or signs of Trump wanting to take away any rights that the American people already possess. There seems to be this idea that we will move backwards. He supports LGBTQA+ platforms, He supports many diverse universities. Even recieved endorsements from Trans communities. I have seen people argue that your rights are on the ballot, I have not seen this to be true unless you are of the 1% that owns bump stocks (he did want to ban those but its related to guns)

Its your vote, and I suggest you vote your conscious as well. But I hope youll take these points into consideration.

For the sky, for the ground, for the soul.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lee Fang and Jack Poulson at The Guardian:

Last November, just weeks into the war in Gaza, Amichai Chikli, a brash, 42-year-old Likud minister in the Israeli government, was called into the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to brief lawmakers on what could be done about rising anti-war protests from young people across the United States, especially at elite universities. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again now, that I think we should, especially in the United States, be on the offensive,” argued Chikli. Chikli has since led a targeted push to counter critics of Israel. The Guardian has uncovered evidence showing how Israel has relaunched a controversial entity as part of a broader public relations campaign to target US college campuses and redefine antisemitism in US law. Seconds after a smoke alarm subsided during the hearing, Chikli assured the lawmakers that there was new money in the budget for a pushback campaign, which was separate from more traditional public relations and paid advertising content produced by the government. It included 80 programs already under way for advocacy efforts “to be done in the ‘Concert’ way”, he said.

The “Concert” remark referred to a sprawling relaunch of a controversial Israeli government program initially known as Kela Shlomo, designed to carry out what Israel called “mass consciousness activities” targeted largely at the US and Europe. Concert, now known as Voices of Israel, previously worked with groups spearheading a campaign to pass so-called “anti-BDS” state laws that penalize Americans for engaging in boycotts or other non-violent protests of Israel. Its latest incarnation is part of a hardline and sometimes covert operation by the Israeli government to strike back at student protests, human rights organizations and other voices of dissent.

Voices’ latest activities were conducted through non-profits and other entities that often do not disclose donor information. From October through May, Chikli has overseen at least 32m shekels, or about $8.6m, spent on government advocacy to reframe the public debate. It didn’t take long for one of the American advocacy groups closely coordinating with Chikli’s ministry, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, or ISGAP, to score a powerful victory. In a widely viewed December congressional hearing on alleged antisemitism among student anti-war protesters, several House GOP lawmakers explicitly cited ISGAP research in their interrogations of university presidents. The hearing concluded with Representative Elise Stefanik’s viral confrontation with the then president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, who later retired from her role after a wave of negative news coverage.

[...] Other American groups tied to Voices have pursued a range of initiatives to bolster support for the state of Israel. One such group listed publicly as a partner, the National Black Empowerment Council (NBEC), published an open letter from Black Democratic politicians pledging solidarity with Israel. Another group, CyberWell, a pro-Israel anti-disinformation group led by former Israeli military intelligence and Voices officials, has established itself as an official “trusted partner” to TikTok and Meta, helping both social platforms screen and edit content. A recent CyberWell report called for Meta to suppress the popular slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

[...] Haaretz and the New York Times recently revealed that Chikli’s ministry had tapped a public relations firm to secretly pressure American lawmakers. The firm used hundreds of fake accounts posting pro-Israel or anti-Muslim content on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram. (The diaspora affairs ministry denied involvement in the campaign, which reportedly provided about $2m to an Israeli firm for the social media posts.) But that effort is only one of many such campaigns coordinated by the ministry, which has received limited news coverage. The ministry of diaspora affairs and its partners compile weekly reports based on tips from pro-Israel US student groups, some of which receive funding from Israeli government sources. For example, Hillel International, a co-founder of the Israel on Campus Coalition network and one of the largest Jewish campus groups in the world, has reported financial and strategic support from Mosaic United, a public benefit corporation backed by Chikli’s ministry. The longstanding partnership is now being utilized to shape the political debate over Israel’s war. In February, Hillel’s chief executive, Adam Lehman, appeared before the Knesset to discuss the strategic partnership with Mosaic and the ministry of diaspora affairs, which he said had already produced results. “We are changing administrations. Just last week, MIT, the same president who was lambasted in front of Congress, took the step of fully suspending her Students for Justice in Palestine chapter for crossing lines, and for creating an unwelcoming environment for Jewish students,” said Lehmann, referencing the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sally Kornbluth. Hillel International, CyberWell, the NBEC, the Israeli ministry of diaspora affairs and Voices of Israel/Concert did not respond to a request for comment.

This investigative report reviewed recent government hearings, Israeli corporate filings, procurement documents and other public records. While private individuals and foundations primarily fund many of the organizations devoted to pro-Israel advocacy, most likely without foreign direction, the records point to substantial Israeli government involvement in American politics about the Gaza war, free speech on college campuses and Israel-Palestine policy.

The Guardian reports that Israel Apartheid State has documents detailing efforts to shape US opinion on the Gaza genocide in favor of the pro-Israel position.

Read the full story at The Guardian.

[koreanboybands]

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄��� 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 ! Domestic Sales Team │ Wooyoung Jeong, Associate Achieved first place in company-wide sales in the shortest period of time! An all-rounder who captivates customers with a bright smile

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄! Logistics Team │ Deputy Manager Choi Jong-ho Filling ATINY’s heart with love The king of fast and accurate Sunshine Bear delivery!

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 ! Financial Accounting Team │ Assistant Manager Song Min-ki Power T-like thorough financial management and Precise work processing is a big win!

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄! Human Resources Team │ Assistant Manager San Choi Firm value judgment and likes people like a cat Ace with all friendly communication skills

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄! Product Development Team │ Employee Yeosang Kang Because ATINY’s skin is precious..! Smart Doberman researcher

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄! Public Relations Team │ Team Leader Seonghwa Park A star of marketing who makes the brand shine through meticulous and delicate communication

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄! Overseas Sales Team │ Assistant Manager Jeong Yunho A global sales king who is reaching out to the world by shaking the hearts of everyone in the world with

𝙉𝘼𝘾𝙄𝙁𝙄𝘾 𝙓 𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙕 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄! Management Strategy Team │ Team Leader Hongjoong Kim The best captain who leads the achievement of corporate vision and goals

[dailyanarchistposts]

I wanted to share some thoughts I’ve been having recently about the idea of a “Universal Basic Income” or UBI that has become an important topic of discussion in the US recently.

This January, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist firm called Y Combinator issued a “Request for Research” to explore the idea of a guaranteed income. [1] In the proposal, the firm requests applications from researchers interested in examining what happens when you give a set of people a basic income for a five-year period. The underlying assumption is that they want to know if people will blow free money on heroin, basically.

Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator and its “philosopher king” according to the Awl, summarized his interest in the problem of income inequality in an essay called “Economic Inequality”: “when I hear people saying that economic inequality is bad and should be eliminated, I feel rather like a wild animal overhearing a conversation between hunters.” [2] After facing criticism for saying this, Graham removed this language in an updated version of the text. [3] The essay is a gripping read. Graham begins by acknowledging himself as a “manufacturer of income inequality” and “an expert on how to increase income inequality.” Graham strikes me as an important, articulate figure explaining how contemporary robber barons in the early 21st century understand the capitalist system.

So UBI is an idea that’s floating around and it’s no surprise that it’s coming from an economic sector, venture capitalists, who make money by investing in companies which are exploring ways to eliminate jobs on an enormous scale. The idea is emerging at the outset of what bourgeois economists are calling “Industry 4.0.” [5] This fourth industrial revolution (after mechanization, water/steam power; mass production, the assembly line, and electricity, and computers and automation) will involve cyber-physical systems, the “Internet of things” and cloud computing, according to its contemporary prophets. But in addition to the enormous profits capitalists hope to make from this transformation in the foundations of the contemporary economy, they are also recognizing the political problems it might produce, in particular the very real possibility of substantial increases in unemployment as new technology enables companies to eliminate jobs once previously considered untouchable.

Truck driving is an important example of how this transformation might take place. Auto companies, as I’m sure everyone knows, are actively pursuing partnerships with Silicon Valley in order to bring computers into cars. In spite of all evidence of the problems of global warming from carbon-based fuel consumption, these companies are actively pursuing self-driving cars. [6][7][8][9]

The problem with this technology, which relates to truck driving, is that driverless technology is actually extremely expensive. Recently, a company called Otto launched with a view toward migrating the technology for driverless cars to trucks. In an interview I heard on the radio, one of its founders noted the expense associated with driverless technology, something like $50,000. For a consumer vehicle, such technology would effectively more than double the cost of a car. But for a semi-truck, that might only add an additional 33% to a truck that would otherwise cost $150,000 or so. The article cites the public health risk that trucks pose — they account for 5.6 percent of miles driven while causing 9.5 percent of the country’s accidents. The article also notes that driverless technology could allow drivers to nap, allowing the trucks to stop less frequently. But the article also notes that there are over 4 million trucks on the road, transporting over 70 percent of the country’s cargo. Let’s face it: there is a real chance that some ambitious trucking companies will seek to eliminate jobs by implementing this technology. Even that modification — sleeping and never stopping — would eliminate jobs. Initially developed as a palliative to long, lone commutes by individual workers, driverless technology can be almost seamlessly converted into an engine of massive job loss. [10][11]

So what is at stake with a Universal Basic Income is that capitalists are recognizing the potential to automate through “Industry 4.0” and want to pursue it. But they also recognize the enormous social dislocations automation on this scale would unleash. And, as Graham says, they would like to not be hunted in the streets and eaten.

The left, as ever, is divided into thousands of competing camps on this issue. One Jacobin article distinguishes between a “livable basic income” (LBI) and a “non-livable basic income” (NLBI), arguing that a UBI would need to be established on a level “high enough to eliminate the need to work for a wage.” [12] I’m not convinced by this, and it also seems, in the context of this article, to support the Jacobin’s interest in reviving not so much a basic income but full employment. The Endnotes collective has criticized this approach as the “primary contradiction” of the labor movement, that is, “that the generalization of one form of domination was seen as the key to overcoming all domination.” [13] Or, more pithily, “Everyone is being proletarianized, and so, to achieve communism, we must proletarianize everyone!”

This approach, Endnotes claims, understands the factory “as the foundation of socialism, not as the material embodiment of abstract domination.” Endnotes demurs on providing strategic guidelines, however, and that vacuum ends up being filled by thinkers like Nick Snick and Alex Williams, authors of Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work and the #Accelerate manifesto. The latter argues for unleashing “latent productive forces” in technology that a capitalism economic system holds in check. [14] The manifesto suggests that technology has no politics, basically, and the authors want to explore its expansion as a way of creating an alternative to capitalism. I’m not entirely convinced, however, that this technological accelerationism won’t ultimately result in a Matrix-style scenario in which the working class basically functions as batteries fueling a “clean” or environmental future for a few capitalists.

Anyway, I hope this provides some basis for future discussion on another important aspect of contemporary transformations in capitalism, alongside our discussion of the emerging “green” economy.

Footnotes

[1] blog.ycombinator.com

[2] theawl.com

[3] paulgraham.com ; paulgraham.com

[5] en.wikipedia.org

[6] www.freep.com

[7] fortune.com

[8] www.seattletimes.com

[9] www.brookings.edu

[10] www.cnbc.com

[11] medium.com

[12] www.jacobinmag.com

[13] endnotes.org.uk

[14] criticallegalthinking.com

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Climate experts fear Donald Trump will follow a blueprint created by his allies to gut the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), disbanding its work on climate science and tailoring its operations to business interests.

Joe Biden’s presidency has increased the profile of the science-based federal agency but its future has been put in doubt if Trump wins a second term and at a time when climate impacts continue to worsen.

The plan to “break up NOAA” is laid out in the Project 2025 document written by more than 350 rightwingers and helmed by the Heritage Foundation. Called the Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, it is meant to guide the first 180 days of presidency for an incoming Republican president.

The document bears the fingerprints of Trump allies, including Johnny McEntee, who was one of Trump’s closest aides and is a senior adviser to Project 2025. “The National Oceanographic [sic] and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories,” the proposal says.

That’s a sign that the far right has “no interest in climate truth”, said Chris Gloninger, who last year left his job as a meteorologist in Iowa after receiving death threats over his spotlighting of global warming.

The guidebook chapter detailing the strategy, which was recently spotlighted by E&E News, describes NOAA as a “colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future US prosperity”. It was written by Thomas Gilman, a former Chrysler executive who during Trump’s presidency was chief financial officer for NOAA’S parent body, the Commerce Department.

Gilman writes that one of NOAA’S six main offices, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, should be “disbanded” because it issues “theoretical” science and is “the source of much of Noaa’s climate alarmism”. Though he admits it serves “important public safety and business functions as well as academic functions”, Gilman says data from the National Hurricane Center must be “presented neutrally, without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate”.

But NOAA’S research and data are “largely neutral right now”, said Andrew Rosenberg, a former NOAA official who is now a fellow at the University of New Hampshire. “It in fact basically reports the science as the scientific evidence accumulates and has been quite cautious about reporting climate effects,” he said. “It’s not pushing some agenda.”

The rhetoric harkens back to the Trump administration’s scrubbing of climate crisis-related webpages from government websites and stifling climate scientists, said Gloninger, who now works at an environmental consulting firm, the Woods Hole Group.

“It’s one of those things where it seems like if you stop talking about climate change, I think that they truly believe it will just go away,” he said. “They say this term ‘climate alarmism’ … and well, the existential crisis of our lifetime is alarming.”

NOAA also houses the National Weather Service (NWS), which provides weather and climate forecasts and warnings. Gilman calls for the service to “fully commercialize its forecasting operations”.

He goes on to say that Americans are already reliant on private weather forecasters, specifically naming AccuWeather and citing a PR release issued by the company to claim that “studies have found that the forecasts and warnings provided by the private companies are more reliable” than the public sector’s. (The mention is noteworthy as Trump once tapped the former CEO of AccuWeather to lead NOAA, though his nomination was soon withdrawn.)

The claims come amid years of attempts from US conservatives to help private companies enter the forecasting arena – proposals that are “nonsense”, said Rosenberg.

Right now, all people can access high-quality forecasts for free through the NWS. But if forecasts were conducted only by private companies that have a profit motive, crucial programming might no longer be available to those in whom business executives don’t see value, said Rosenberg.

“What about air-quality forecasts in underserved communities? What about forecasts available to farmers that aren’t wealthy farmers? Storm-surge forecasts in communities that aren’t wealthy?” he said. “The frontlines of most of climate change are Black and brown communities that have less resources. Are they going to be getting the same service?”

Private companies like Google, thanks to technological advancements in artificial intelligence, may now indeed be producing more accurate forecasts, said Andrew Blum, author of the 2019 book The Weather Machine: A Journey Inside the Forecast. Those private forecasts, however, are all built on NOAA’S data and resources.

Fully privatizing forecasting could also threaten the accuracy of forecasts, said Gloninger, who pointed to AccuWeather’s well-known 30- and 60-day forecasts as one example. Analysts have found that these forecasts are only right about half the time, since peer-reviewed research has found that there is an eight- to 10-day limit on the accuracy of forecasts.

“You can say it’s going to be 75 degrees out on May 15, but we’re not at that ability right now in meteorology,” said Gloninger. Privatizing forecasting could incentivize readings even further into the future to increase views and profits, he said.

Commercializing weather forecasts – an “amazing example of intergovernmental, American-led, postwar, technological achievement” – would also betray the very spirit of the endeavor, said Blum.

In the post-second world war era, John F. Kennedy called for a global weather-forecasting system that relied on unprecedented levels of scientific exchange. A privatized system could potentially stymie the exchange of weather data among countries, yielding less accurate results.

The founding of weather forecasting itself showcases the danger of giving profit-driven companies control, said Rosenberg. When British V. Adm Robert FitzRoy first introduced Britain to the concept of forecasts during Victorian times, he was often bitterly attacked by business interests. The reason: workers were unwilling to risk their lives when they knew dangerous weather was on the horizon.

“The ship owners said, well, that means maybe I lost a day’s income because the fishermen wouldn’t go out and risk their lives when there was a forecast that was really bad, so they didn’t want a forecast that would give them a day’s warning,” Rosenberg said. “The profit motive ended up trying to push people to do things that were dangerous … there’s a lesson there.”

[lawbyrhys]

The CrowdStrike Outage Impact on Law Firms

In case you weren't aware, late last night into early this morning, CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm, sent out an update to Microsoft software which led to a global outage due to patch issues within their Falcon virus scanner platform. Many law firms around the world employ this software, with the relationship only growing since the partnership with Factor to assist in higher-stakes transactional legal work.

How did the outage actually impact the legal world at large, though? Let's break it down.

Lawyers and law firms were generally unaffected beyoind small-scale inconvenience—at least in the United States. For example, the New York Unified Court System was impacted, as were law publications like Law.com. As stated above, most law firms, courts, and tribunals nationwide were minority impacted or felt no impact whatsoever, as is the case with the Bar Council and sets of chambers. The extent of damages otherwise was limited to temporary disruption to operation, website glitches, and indirect impact on suppliers. UK law firms, though, experienced the bulk of the chaos as it concerns bank communications and payment transfer issues, particularly with staff who aren't member-facing. These issues also appear to have been mostly resolved quickly.

Internationally, impacted firms are using the outage as an opportunity to affirm contingency plans, and similar business continuing policies are in place, as well as

Alex Brown, the head of digital business for international law firm Simmons & Simmons, wrote the following on his LinkedIn: “As we rely more on digital infrastructure, ensuring robust and resilient systems is becoming paramount for companies and society. This event will likely draw increased regulatory and government attention to safeguarding our digital operations.”

It's obvious the outage has had a massively felt impact, but will anybody face consequences?

CloudStrike Holdings, Inc. could face related legal ramifications, as Pomerantz LLP is investigating whether various employees at CrowdStrike were engaged in illegal business practices, such as securities fraud, on behalf of CrowdStrike's investors and interested parties.

Needless to say, it's a technological shit show.

While this post is about the impacts on the legal world, CrowdStrike did release a statement on the situation that I will share here.

“We’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, travellers, and anyone affected by this, including our companies." - CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz via NBC reports.

Was anybody impacted by the CrowdStrike Windows outage last night? Personally, I was not. I was working late and was on a midnight call with a client when I heard about it, but since I was using my work iPhone and wasn't actively accessing any systems at the time; I only found out last night from a friend of mine who works bank security on the East Coast. That said, though, when I walked into work this morning, conversation was ablaze on the topic; although none of us reall had any tangible harm done, it was still an interesting discussion over our morning coffee.

What about you, though? Were you affected?

[publicrelationsglobalnetwork]

PRGN Announces The Winners Of Its Second Annual Best Practices Awards Competition

The Public Relations Global Network (PRGN) announces the winners of its second annual Best Practices Awards here on September 28 awards ceremony and dinner, according to Mark Paterson, PRGN president. In this competition there were 120 entries in 13 categories. There were a total of 37 awards distributed consisting of 13 gold, 12 silver and 12 bronze. Read more…

[sussex-newswire]

"Abesi Manyando, author and founder of the public relations and branding development firm Abesi PR, [says] the Royal Family's schedule will have no 'significance' on the success of American Riviera Orchard because Meghan herself is a 'very relevant figure' in media and her popularity is 'not limited to Britain'.

"She explained to the Express: 'I think Meghan’s brand will do very well no matter when it’s launched. I do think there is a higher demand for its release since her popularity has increased globally and outside of Britain.

"'So launching this year would be great but there’s no rush because she’s a very relevant figure in media. I do not believe there is any significance with timing the launch of her brand based on when the royals are working or not since her popularity is not limited to Britain.'

"The expert also dismissed claims that the duchess is 'struggling' to find staff for her new brand made recently by a UK-based royal commentator, saying: 'I don’t believe that she is having a difficult time staffing her brand because there is zero evidence of that and the criticism is second-hand hearsay.'

"Ms Manyando previously told the Express, that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's recent trip to Nigeria has boosted their popularity and built up even bigger anticipation for the launch.

"She explained: 'When Meghan wears something it immediately and factually sells out or triples in demand and sales. We saw this with the extreme demand for her outfits during her Nigeria trip. It’s like the Princess Diana effect. I believe there is high anticipation'...

"'So whenever she does release her brand of products it’s going to be very successful, especially in the United States.'"

[mariacallous]

X appears to be working with a well-known Republican consulting group, seemingly to handle the messaging around the social media platform’s suspension in Brazil.

When WIRED emailed X for comment about the rapidly evolving situation in Brazil, a reply came from Michael Abboud, the managing director of the conservative consulting and public relations firm Targeted Victory. According to his LinkedIn, Abboud worked for the State Department in the last year of the Trump administration and as press secretary for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s campaign.

Targeted Victory has had contracts with several Republican campaigns and political action committees (PACs) this election season to the tune of more than $75 million, according to OpenSecrets. The group’s largest client is the Republican National Committee, which spent $11,128,739 on the firm between January 2023 and May 2024.

In his emailed reply, Abboud referred WIRED to a company statement from X about the suspension of the platform in Brazil, and said to reach out with further questions.

Elon Musk, X’s owner, has become more overt about his personal political views in recent months. In July, shortly following the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump, Musk said he would be backing his candidacy for president. He then said he’d establish a PAC to support Trump to the tune of $45 million per month (he later backpedaled on the exact amount).

WIRED reached out to Targeted Victory and Abboud directly, and neither immediately responded to a request for comment.

X would not be the first tech company to work with the group. In 2022, reporting from The Washington Post found that Meta had hired Targeted Victory to run a campaign to sour public opinion on TikTok. The messaging campaign focused on framing TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, as a threat to Americans’ privacy and to the mental health of teens and children.

An emailed response from Targeted Victory on behalf of X is particularly notable; when journalists contact the press team at X, they rarely receive a reply. When Musk took over Twitter in 2022, one of his first moves as CEO was to lay off a substantial number of the company’s 6,000 employees. That move included not only the vast majority of the platform’s trust and safety team—the people who keep hate speech and disinformation off the platform—but also the company’s communications team.

For nearly a year, the auto-response to the press email returned the poop emoji. More recently, the auto-response says “Busy now, please check back later.”

But X and Musk have been having an unusually rough time in the public eye over the past few weeks. After X violated an April court order from the Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court, which had required the company to remove certain accounts and content that the court said spread disinformation about the integrity of the country’s elections, Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered access to the platform blocked in Brazil. The country is X’s third largest market, and for months Musk has railed against Moraes online, calling him a dictator, accusing the court of censorship, and even comparing him to the Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort.

Meanwhile, Nick Pickles, the company’s head of global affairs, announced on Thursday that he was resigning, and investors are saying their investments in the company are performing substantially worse than any had predicted.

[caspianlegalcenter]

Caspian Legal Center - Law Firm in Azerbaijan

Caspian Legal Center is one of the best law firms in Azerbaijan, located in the heart of Baku, established by professional lawyers and tax consultants. Our experts have extended experience at local large companies, law firms and public bodies such as the Ministry of Taxes, Central Bank and the Ministry of Economy. For more information about our team, visit People. We provide a wide range of legal, tax, accounting and immigration services and related Azerbaijani law consultancy. Alongside its trusted professionalism, our services are practical and prompt for very reasonable fees compared with other ranked law firms in Baku. We are proud to inform that our Legal Practice and Tax Practice have been ranked and recognized by various international ranking agencies and institutions separately, including Legal 500, IFLR 1000, Chambers & Partners, International Tax Review “Tax Firm of the Year” Award in CIS, ITR World Transfer Pricing and ITR World Tax. For more, visit About. As one of the top law firms in Azerbaijan, we have extended experience in business formation and legal entity set-up, corporate and commercial deals, contracts and transactions, immigration, employment, litigation, as well as excellence tax consultancy and accounting services competing with other international firms in Azerbaijan. For more, visit Services. We are an internationally ranked law firm in Azerbaijan, providing mentioned consulting services in very diverse industries, including oil and gas (particularly related to PSA-Product Sharing Agreements and Host Government Agreements), energy and natural resources, oil-gas, renewable energy, finance and banking, ICT, construction, hospitality, industrial manufacturing and machinery, agriculture and F&B; industry, education, professional services and retail industry. CLC is among the very few law firms in Azerbaijan which supports large foreign businesses, including several GLOBAL FORTUNE 500 companies, and other large multinational enterprises from about 40 countries representing diverse industries and well-known local companies. Last but not least, being distinct from law firms in Azerbaijan, we provide one-stop-shop practical support with our tax and accounting team, as complementary to legal services. Accounting implementation of tax services brings added value to our practice-based tax advisory.

[climatecalling]

A groundbreaking California law will force large companies doing business in the state – including major global corporations – to disclose their planet-heating carbon emissions. The measure, signed into law by the governor, Gavin Newsom, on Saturday, will be the nation’s first of its kind, serving as a blueprint for national climate accountability. It comes as federal regulators have dragged their feet on crafting similar rules, which could be finalized this month. SB 253 will require California regulators to create rules by 2025 for public and private companies whose annual revenues exceed $1bn. That affects about 5,300 corporations, including Chevron, Wells Fargo, Amazon and Apple. By 2026, those companies will have to publicly disclose how much carbon is produced by their operations and electricity use. Critically, by 2027, they will also be required to report emissions generated by their supply chains and customers, known as “scope 3” emissions, which are highly controversial among business interests, including the fossil fuel industry. A companion bill passed by the state’s legislature, SB-261, would additionally require businesses with more than $500m in yearly revenue to disclose their climate-related financial risks beginning in 2026, or face annual penalties. Both bills will make new data public beyond California’s borders, which supporters say could be game-changing.

[suhaliyaqureshi]

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) and Their Relevance to Indian Firms

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, or SPACs, have become a buzzword in global financial markets. As an innovative way to take companies public, SPACs offer a faster and more flexible alternative to traditional Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). While the model has gained significant traction in the United States, it presents a unique opportunity for Indian firms looking to expand and raise capital abroad. However, challenges related to regulatory frameworks and market risks still persist. This blog explores what SPACs are, their advantages, and how they might fit into the Indian corporate landscape.

What is a SPAC?

A SPAC is essentially a “blank-check” company with no commercial operations. Its sole purpose is to raise funds through an IPO to merge with a private company, allowing the target company to become publicly listed without going through the traditional IPO process. Investors buy into a SPAC based on the expertise of its sponsors, trusting them to identify and acquire a promising target. If no acquisition takes place within a set timeframe (usually 24 months), the SPAC must return the money to investors.

Key Characteristics of SPACs:

Speed and efficiency: Companies can become publicly listed faster than via a standard IPO.

• Lower regulatory scrutiny: SPAC mergers avoid much of the red tape associated with IPOs.

• Pre-negotiated valuations: Target companies can negotiate valuations with the SPAC sponsors rather than relying on fluctuating market conditions.

The Global Rise of SPACs

SPACs became especially popular in 2020 and 2021, accounting for nearly half of all IPOs in the United States during that period. Successful companies like Virgin Galactic and DraftKings used SPACs to go public, paving the way for others to explore this model. Investment banks, venture capitalists, and private equity firms have embraced SPACs as a quick, lucrative way to introduce companies to public markets.

Why SPACs gained momentum:

1. Volatile markets: During periods of market uncertainty, SPACs offer companies more predictability in terms of valuation and timeline.

2. Demand for faster capital access: Startups and high-growth firms, particularly in sectors like technology and healthcare, found SPACs an attractive way to secure investments.

The Relevance of SPACs for Indian Firms

Indian firms, especially those in technology, fintech, renewable energy, and pharmaceuticals, are increasingly eyeing global markets. SPACs offer a convenient way for these firms to list abroad, particularly on exchanges such as the NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Advantages of SPACs for Indian Firms:

1. Global Market Access: Companies looking to expand internationally can benefit from SPACs by gaining a listing on prestigious foreign exchanges.

2. Flexible Valuation Models: Indian startups and unicorns often find it challenging to secure favorable valuations through traditional IPOs. SPACs offer them the opportunity to negotiate more favorable terms.

3. Capital for Growth: Indian firms in growth-intensive sectors can leverage SPAC mergers to secure quick funding for global expansion.

Challenges Indian Firms May Face

While SPACs hold immense potential, Indian companies encounter several regulatory and market barriers in leveraging this route effectively:

1. Regulatory Uncertainty: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has yet to create clear guidelines on SPAC transactions, adding a layer of uncertainty for companies and investors.

2. Foreign Exchange and FEMA Regulations: Indian firms must navigate the complexities of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) regulations to raise capital abroad.

3. Speculative Nature of SPACs: Not all SPACs find suitable acquisition targets, leading to market skepticism and reputational risks.

Examples of Indian Companies Exploring SPACs

Some Indian firms have already started testing the SPAC model. For instance, ReNew Power, a leading renewable energy company, merged with a U.S.-based SPAC to get listed on the NASDAQ. This case shows that Indian firms, especially in industries aligned with global trends like sustainability, can find success through SPAC mergers.

In addition, startups in the tech and digital economy sectors are increasingly considering SPACs to bypass the lengthy regulatory processes involved in listing on Indian exchanges. However, SEBI’s reluctance to recognize SPACs domestically means these companies currently need to explore foreign exchanges for listings

What Lies Ahead: Will SPACs Become a Mainstay in India?

As Indian companies continue to expand globally, SPACs offer an alternative path to raise capital and build international credibility. If SEBI introduces SPAC-friendly regulations, India could see a surge in SPAC-based listings—both domestically and internationally. Additionally, financial hubs such as Singapore and Hong Kong are emerging as attractive venues for SPAC deals, offering Indian firms new avenues for public listings.

Conclusion

SPACs present a promising yet challenging opportunity for Indian firms looking to expand and raise capital in global markets. With advantages such as flexible valuations, quicker listings, and access to foreign capital, this model can benefit high-growth Indian companies in technology, healthcare, and renewable energy. However, regulatory uncertainties and market risks need to be addressed for Indian firms to fully capitalize on this trend.

As the world watches the evolution of SPACs, Indian firms and regulators must adapt to these changing dynamics. With the right policies in place, SPACs could become a pivotal part of India’s global corporate strategy.

By understanding and engaging with this evolving financial mechanism, Indian firms can position themselves for success in global markets. As you build your corporate law portfolio, tracking these trends will showcase your knowledge of innovative legal and financial strategies—an essential skill for future corporate lawyers.