Preparation is key for having a successful a job interview. What you do the night before a job interview has an impact on your interview. What can you do to make sure this impact is a positive one?



1.Get a good night’s sleep.



Getting a good night’s sleep is the most important thing you can do before an interview. When you’re well rested, you’re more alert and focused, and you won’t have to resort to caffeine or sugar to stay awake. Being sleep deprived can also increase feelings of stress or anxiety, neither of which is helpful going into a job interview.



Of course, it can be hard to sleep because you’re anxious about the interview. If you find yourself having trouble getting to sleep, try a relaxation exercise like meditation or yoga. Whatever you do, take your mind off of the interview – overthinking it is most likely what’s keeping you awake.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="5 Questions You Should Never Ask During A Job Interview (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/current-affairs/2019/01/11/5-questions-you-should-never-ask-during-a-job-interview/" target="_blank">5 Questions You Should Never Ask During A Job Interview</a>



2.Review your resume and cover letter.



Review your resume and cover letter, as well as any answers to questions you might have filled out on the job application. Focus on key statistics you’ve listed, major accomplishments, and relevant skills. This is especially important if you’re applying to multiple positions and sending out different versions of your resume and cover letter.



By reviewing your documents, they’ll be fresh in your mind and you’ll be able to answer any questions relating to them quickly. This shows the hiring manager that you are confident, both in your abilities and in the interview itself. If you have to think too hard about a question relating to your resume or cover letter, it could signal to the hiring manager that you weren’t truthful on your application and raise a red flag.



3.Prepare a list of questions to ask.



Asking questions is one the most critical things you must do in a job interview, so it’s important to prepare some questions in advance. By having a few questions already prepared, you won’t draw a blank when the hiring manager asks you. Great questions to ask inquire about the company culture, job responsibilities, or what a typical day looks like. Review the job description to see if there’s anything from there that you’d like clarified. This will often be covered during the interview, but if not, you’ll be ready to ask about it.



4.Plan out your route.



Plan out your route and how long it will take you to get to the interview location. If you’re driving, consider traffic conditions and weather that could cause delays. If you’re taking public transportation, check to make sure that the subway or buses are running on schedule and nothing has changed due to planned work. If you’re doing a video interview, plan out your location, and check your video and microphone to make sure they work.



Always leave yourself a minimum of 30 extra minutes, regardless of how you’re getting to the interview. If you’re early, you can find a nearby cafe or just sit in your car and relax. Nothing is worse than stressing about being late, except for actually being late. Avoid both of those things by leaving much earlier than you think you need to. For a video interview, get yourself set up 15 minutes early.



5.Plan what you’re going to wear.



Deciding what you’re going to wear in advance takes one less thing off of your mind in the morning and allows you to focus your energy on more important things. Make sure your clothes are free of wrinkles, stains, and pet hair. You can also pack your bag the night before, so that all you have to do is grab it and go in the morning.



By starting your interview preparations the night before, you&#8217;ll be able to focus fully on the interview itself during the day and put 100% of your energy into it.



-Ashira Prossack

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5 Things You Should Do The Night Before A Job Interview

In a world of extremely rapid change, we have seen plenty of things vanish, from rotary phones to electric typewriters to 8-track music cartridges. 



But there is one old-time tradition that seems to be holding on: the thank-you note.



To some it may seem laughably archaic to hand-write a note, drop it in snail mail and hope the recipient gets it a few days later.&nbsp;One study by staffing firm Accountemps found that only 24 percent of job applicants bother to send thank-you notes these days.



But here is the rub: 80 percent of human resources managers surveyed felt those messages were useful in evaluating potential hires.



Devotees of the thank-you note are numerous and cultish &#8211; and swear that it helps careers and finances, as well as personal relationships. A&nbsp;hand-crafted personal touch is not just thoughtful, it actively sets you apart from others.



Manhattan’s Christina Cookman knows all about the subtle power of a thank-you note. The performance and executive coach sends a whopping 200 of them each year.



“The business case for them is that they only take five minutes of your time, and 50 cents,” Cookman said.&nbsp;“I can’t imagine that anyone who gets a handwritten thoughtful note is ever disappointed by that. So even if the payoff is not direct, you are at the very least strengthening a relationship.”



Music manager Clayton Durant got a joint partnership out of thank-you notes. Durant, the head of artist management and branding firm CAD Management, struck a joint deal to work with Ashley Rose, famed Roc Nation songwriter and head of indie music label The Code.



How exactly did that come about? Old-fashioned thank-you cards, sent after the label had worked on one of his artist’s records.



“When I asked Ashley why she felt comfortable having our startup be her first joint venture, she mentioned the thank-you cards we sent to each of her producers, writers and staff,” Durant said.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">EXPRESSING GRATITUDE</h4>



The biggest payoff, ironically, may be the effect thank-you cards have on the sender. In 2016, Indiana University professors Joel Wong and Joshua Brown published a study of college students who had sought counseling for common feelings like anxiety and depression.



Those who were counseled to write letters of gratitude reported better mental health both one month and three months later. Those differences continued to increase over time. As researchers concluded, “If you have never written a gratitude letter before, we encourage you to try it.”



So, how to strike the right “note,” expressing gratitude and powerboosting your career and network at the same time? Some tips:



&#8211; Write them at unexpected times.



Thank-you cards are rote and expected at certain life moments – like, say, in response to wedding gifts. That is well and good, but if you pen them at more unique occasions, you can multiply their impact. Cookman’s most recent one, for instance, was to a manager at a Manhattan Dos Caminos restaurant; her friends had their engagement party there, and he helped her secure some restaurant memorabilia before the location closed down.



&#8211; Make them as personalized as you can.



If you go to the trouble of writing a note, but then make the message something general that could have been written to anyone, you are defeating the purpose of the exercise. That is why Durant made sure each of his notes to the record label’s writers and producers&nbsp;was personalized. “That led to us connecting more frequently to talk about business and new artists,” Durant said.



&#8211; Spring for a stamp.



A “thank you” sent by email certainly counts, but if you are looking to create a true personal touch, real stationery is key. “When a handwritten thank-you note arrives, it is the ultimate act of personalization,” said Patrick Taylor, a self-professed “huge fan” of thank-you letters, who is founder of public relations firm 59Media and former communications VP for Meredith Corporation.



&#8211; Keep them succinct.



Many people are intimidated by thank-you cards because they imagine you have to write the Great American Novel. Not so. Cookman keeps hers to about four sentences – outlining how a person went above and beyond, and the impact it had on her. Her advice: “Make it simple as possible.” -Reuters



Chris Taylor

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A Career Secret Weapon: Thank-You Notes

FORBES WOMAN AFRICA To Be Digital-Only Product



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For our fifth anniversary issue last year, I wrote with pride about the impact made by FORBES WOMAN AFRICA across the continent and while I reflected on the challenges that I had faced while launching the magazine, I also spoke about the value the magazine had created across the continent in showcasing stories of women that would otherwise never have been told. 



From the onset, there was significant scepticism from many quarters about the success of a business magazine focussed on women across Africa. I had thrown caution to the wind as my investment decisions are not only backed by pragmatic business sense but also made through belief and passion.



I quote a paragraph from my note in the September-November issue of FORBES WOMAN AFRICA last year.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2019/03/01/the-most-defining-aspects-of-our-lives/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="The Most Defining Aspects Of Our Lives (opens in a new tab)">The Most Defining Aspects Of Our Lives</a>



“It has been a tumultuous journey as publishing in today’s world is not for the faint-hearted. The content has been simply fantastic and the magazine has risen to be the material of choice for inspirational stories. In the last five years, we have covered stories of exceptional women from all over Africa and showcased their great work in business, entrepreneurship and social development. 



We have discussed the trials and tribulations of women in the workplace and become a champion for equality.



The word ‘equality’ is a living value for us at the ABN Group and I am so proud that we have been able to personify our values through affirmative action.”



What has changed significantly over the last five years is a major transformation in the publishing business. The most radical change has been the complete shift in readership patterns and consequently advertising spend for niche publications. 



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Our generation could not do without the morning newspaper or the pile of monthly must-read magazines. Families would make annual subscriptions to a variety of publications that catered to each member of the family.



Reading was in fashion.Our consumption patterns have changed. The new generation of cord-cutters have done away with the status quo; whether television or print, they want to have the ability to consume content on their own terms. 



This fragmentation is unprecedented and has changed the economic models in the industry. This has given rise to a new generation of web-based media organizations that have the ability to provide content in relevant and efficient capsules.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">It is time for us to start adapting to this need. </blockquote>



With the changing paradigms and focussing on the needs of our readers, it gives me great pleasure to announce that FORBES WOMAN AFRICA will be offered as a digital only platform with effect from April 2019. 



We will be bolstering this with a plethora of events, the first of which is the 2019 Leading Women Summit, on March 8, in Durban, South Africa.



We do expect to come out with occasional editions of the magazine to continue showcasing the journey of exceptional and inspirational women on the African continent.



-By Rakesh Wahi, Founder and Publisher of FORBES AFRICA

Rakesh Wahi

Adapting To The Times

I was recently invited as the keynote speaker at a business networking event in New Delhi. The format and outcomes were a refreshing change from the run-of-the-mill talk-shops we have become accustomed to. 



The closed group of entrepreneurs from diverse industries had weekly targets of meeting each other and providing contacts to establish meaningful and outcome-driven relationships. In the interactive sessions, they spoke about tangible dollar-based businesses generated from each other. Very refreshing, I thought. 



They asked me to share my own journey, first as a military man and then as an entrepreneur. My life changed 38 years ago after a near-death experience in the military at the age of 22.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">I was inspired to become proactive and embrace the philosophy of transformation. </blockquote>



My lifelong quest has been to find answers to what drives people to do what they do; why is human behavior so complex and why do people act differently in similar situations.



I asked the group to note five expressions that to my mind
are the most defining in our lives –Circumstances, Making Choices, People,
Opportunity and Change.



As human beings, we are products of our circumstances. In Objectivist Epistemology, Ayn Rand talked about identity. This is derived from our circumstances. We identify things based on individual circumstances. 



One can’t judge anyone’s decisions without knowing the complete background of the individual. We often make mistakes when we have a one-sided view or are blindsighted, especially when we sit in judgement. 



Societies and/or people have different economic, familial or aspirational considerations on the basis of which they behave in a particular way. Extrapolated, someone living in a developed country will have a very different outlook than someone in a closed or emerging economy. 



Circumstances lead us to priorities and the choices we make. At a crossroad, some choose a path that, at times, seems irrational but in reality is the only option the person may have. It reminds me of the story of a farmer who could not buy a horse for his son when it cost him $100 but bought it 10 years later for $10,000; his son was perplexed. 



The farmer patiently explained that $100 represented 50% of his earning when he turned it down but 10 years later, $10,000 was just 1% of his earning. Choices are made in the ‘now’.



The next important aspect are the people we come across in life. Those that influence us and then those we influence. Every leader at the end of his/her life recounts those that mentored them and then those that shared their vision and journey. We cannot live in isolation and therefore form inter-dependence with people that form our universe and circle of influence. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">Everyone you come across teaches you something, some good and some bad; but it’s the summation of your learning. </blockquote>



My own life has been blessed through some of the greatest interactions with some fantastic human beings. There is no regret as each one added to my life. 



People bring with them opportunities which is how we progress; this is true be it national leaders, business leaders or simple human beings trying to find their way in life. When two creative minds come together, there are strains of music that often lead to an orchestra being formed. 



There are solutions and ideas that get discussed. Sometimes, these go on to become world-renowned home runs, some just survive while some fail. In reality, they all try for the same outcome &#8211; to be successful.



Finally, change is the soul of evolution. There is no growth or progress without change. Our world has been turned on its head as technology has caused disruption to become a way of life. All our processes and activities are being redefined in a world now predicated on what is predictive and what is through emotional intelligence. The real task ahead is to recognize change. This is the first step in introspection as humans live in denial. 



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2019/02/01/staying-with-the-narrative-of-change/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Staying With The Narrative Of Change (opens in a new tab)">Staying With The Narrative Of Change</a>



My son once said; bankruptcy is a Kodak moment. Nothing resonates more than the reality of those that fail to recognize change; destroying value through ego or dogmatic policies is a gong for disaster. 



Once the need is identified, the main challenge is to implement and then manage change. We get so used to a comfort zone and accept the status quo and resist change owing to the fear of the unknown. In today’s world however, it’s a lot better to adapt than to perish. 



This evolution from circumstances to change is now over shorter periods of time. In the final analysis, it does not matter what the path is, the key to success is in adapting to the needs of the future and making the necessary changes to survive. The alternative will be a mantle in a museum that will talk about the past and the dinosaurs that were left behind.



-By Rakesh Wahi, Founder and Publisher of FORBES AFRICA

The Most Defining Aspects Of Our Lives

The World Court on Monday told Britain to give up control over the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, and said it had wrongfully forced the population to leave in the 1970s to make way for a U.S. air base. 



Britain split the archipelago off from its colonial island territory of Mauritius in 1965, three years before granting independence to Mauritius &#8211; minus the islands.



In the early 1970s, it evicted almost 2,000 residents to Mauritius and the Seychelles to make way for the base on the largest island, Diego Garcia, which it had leased to the United States.



In a non-binding advisory opinion, the top United Nations court for inter-state disputes said Britain had acted unlawfully in the decolonization process and should relinquish control over the islands, which it calls the British Indian Ocean Territory.



Although the court was not asked to issue an opinion on sovereignty, Monday’s decision in effect urged Britain to hand the islands, which it has controlled since 1814, over to Mauritius.



But Presiding Judge Abdulqawi Yusuf said in a summary of the decision that Britain was “under obligation to bring to an end the administration of Chagos Islands as rapidly as possible”.



The case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as the World Court is officially known, is seen as a test of the legitimacy of deals struck between great powers and small states at the end of the colonial era.



For years Chagossians have lobbied London to let them return. In 2016, Britain extended the United States’ lease of Diego Garcia until 2036 and said expelled islanders could not go back.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">“HISTORIC MOMENT”</h4>



 Mauritian Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth said it was “a historic moment for Mauritius and all its people, including the Chagossians who were unconscionably removed from their homeland and prevented from returning for the last half century”.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Our territorial integrity will now be made complete, and when that occurs, the Chagossians and their descendants will finally be able to return home.”</blockquote>



The U.N. General Assembly asked the court in February 2017 to advise on whether the process of decolonization had been concluded lawfully.



In his summary, Yusuf said: “The court having found that the decolonization of Mauritius was not conducted in a manner consistent with the right of peoples to self-determination, it follows that the United Kingdom’s continued administration of the Chagos Archipelago constitutes a wrongful act entailing the international responsibility of that State.”



Mauritius argued that it had been forced to give up the archipelago to gain independence from Britain. Britain maintained that Mauritius had given up the islands willingly.



By 13 votes to one, the judges backed the decision, which is not binding but carries weight under international law.



Diego Garcia has played an important role in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan since 1991, acting as a launch pad for U.S. long-range bombers. The United States and Britain both voted against the U.N. resolution seeking the court’s opinion.



Philippe Sands, a member of the Mauritius legal team at the ICJ, said the next step would be for Britain and Mauritius to sit down and work out a handover:



“A way will be found to move this forward, safeguarding the interests of everyone but recognizing what the court has said.” -Reuters



-Anthony Deutsch

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World Court: Britain Must Return Indian Ocean Islands To Mauritius

Investors expecting big changes in tone, or radical shifts in strategy from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger in Berkshire Hathaway&#8217;s 2018 shareholder letter were once again disappointed. Berkshire didn&#8217;t unveil a dividend, both believe the whole of the conglomerate is worth more than the sum of its component parts, and they didn&#8217;t brag that hunting for acquisitions in today&#8217;s market was easy.



But there were a few important developments of note. For years, investors have studied succession plans at Berkshire for Buffett, 88, and Munger, 95, and this year&#8217;s letter gave further evidence of what they will be. 



In 2018, Berkshire named Ajit Jain head of its sprawling insurance activities, led by GEICO, National Indemnity and its reinsurance operations, and Greg Abel as head of of its non-insurance operations. Those businesses span utilities, railroads, energy, chemicals, aviation, paints and housing and athletic wear, among others.



A year in, Buffett and Munger seem pleased with the performance of both, who are also now vice chairmen. &#8220;Berkshire is now far better managed than when I alone was supervising operations. Ajit and Greg have rare talents, and Berkshire blood flows through their veins,&#8221; the letter said. &#8220;These moves were overdue.&#8221;



In 2018, Berkshire&#8217;s insurance businesses returned to profitability and ended the year with a record $122 billion in float. Its railroad, utilities and energy business saw operating profits rise 30% to $7.8 billion and the bevy of other businesses that Abel was tasked with overseeing generated a further $9.3 billion in operating earnings, up 29%.



&#8220;Buffett threw a bone to those wanting more on succession by formalizing and endorsing the Ajit Jain and Greg Abel organization structure,&#8221; said Drew Wilson, a portfolio manager at Fenimore Asset Management, which has owned Berkshire shares with little turnover since around the time of the 1987 market rout. 



However, this year Buffett and Munger didn&#8217;t mention their investing lieutenants Ted Weschler and Todd Combs by name in the shareholder letter. &#8220;I&#8217;m guessing we&#8217;ll get a lot of questions wanting more detail at the annual meeting,&#8221; added Wilson, who co-manages the $1.1 billion in assets FAM Value Fund.



 Another wrinkle was Buffett&#8217;s decision to downplay Berkshire&#8217;s book value, an accounting metric that has headlined the company&#8217;s annual results for decades. &#8220;Long-time readers of our annual reports will have spotted the different way in which I opened this letter. For nearly three decades, the initial paragraph featured the percentage change in Berkshire’s per-share book value. It’s now time to abandon that practice,&#8221; said Buffett.



According to him, book value has lost relevance because Berkshire&#8217;s gargantuan $173 billion investment portfolio is a fraction of the firm&#8217;s overall assets, which are now weighted to operating businesses, led by insurance. New accounting rules, he argued, undervalue these operating businesses. Most important, Berkshire expects to repurchase a ton of stock, likely at prices well above book value. 



&#8220;The math of such purchases is simple: Each transaction makes per-share intrinsic value go up, while per-share book value goes down. That combination causes the book-value scorecard to become increasingly out of touch with economic reality,&#8221; Buffett said.



An unsurprising point, Buffett reiterated his belief that the easy buys of the post-recession market are gone. Thus Berkshire didn&#8217;t make major acquisitions in 2018, but bought $43 billion in public securities, primarily Apple. There were three finer points of Berkshires earnings and shareholder letter worth dwelling on.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Seeing The Forest From The Trees</h4>



No one wants to lose $25 billion in the span of 90-days, especially Buffett. But that&#8217;s exactly what Berkshire reported as it marked its books for a quarter in which U.S. stock markets slumped in October, and then plunged through December. Berkshire&#8217;s investment portfolio was marked down by $27 billion and it recorded a $3 billion impairment related to its share of Kraft Heinz&#8217;s recent $15.4 billion write down, where it&#8217;s a large holder.



 That mark-to-market loss more than wiped out $5 billion plus in operating profits, driving a $25 billion quarterly loss. For 2018, Berkshire lost $17 billion on marks to its investment portfolio, though virtually all of those were on paper, thus overall net income was just $4 billion for the year, a 90% drop.



The loss, however, may go a long way in proving an important point in the shareholder letter. Buffett insisted investors look at the totality of Berkshire&#8217;s assets and the advantaged way in the way they&#8217;re housed. Said Buffett: &#8220;Investors who evaluate Berkshire sometimes obsess on the details of our many and diverse businesses – our economic “trees,” so to speak. 



Analysis of that type can be mind-numbing, given that we own a vast array of specimens, ranging from twigs to redwoods. A few of our trees are diseased and unlikely to be around a decade from now. 



Many others, though, are destined to grow in size and beauty… Fortunately, it’s not necessary to evaluate each tree individually to make a rough estimate of Berkshire’s intrinsic business value. That’s because our forest contains five “groves” of major importance, each of which can be appraised, with reasonable accuracy, in its entirety.&#8221;



The mark-to-market loss may prove the point. There are few, if any, entities on the planet that could bear such marks. In fact, Berkshire still saw its overall cash and book value grow for the year. Those stuck looking at trees might obsess over the daily or quarterly marks of Berkshire&#8217;s growing investment portfolio, or have doubts when specific stocks like Apple falter, but the bigger picture is that its portfolio is housed in a structure that can bear the market&#8217;s inherent volatility. It is one of the biggest advantages Buffett&#8217;s enjoyed in beating the market over many decades.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Stock Buybacks And Retained Earnings</h4>



There are many examples of companies who should be criticized for buying back their stock at overvalued prices thus wasting money, or simply spending cash they don&#8217;t have. The tens of billions of dollars that banks like Lehman, Bear , Goldman, Merrill, Morgan, Citigroup and BofA spent collectively to buy back their shares in 2007 and 2008 as the housing market began cratering is one of the unforgivable sins of the crisis. They didn&#8217;t have the money for buybacks, but used them to delay a reckoning. When each imploded, or had to dilute their stock in government rescues, the folly of Wall Street&#8217;s biggest financiers was astounding.



For companies that do have the money, however, buybacks can still be effective.



Buffett did a good job showing this, using Berkshire&#8217;s holdings in American Express. Berkshire hasn&#8217;t traded Amex in the past eight years, because the company bought tens of billions in stock Berkshire&#8217;s holding has gone from 12.6% of Amex&#8217;s shares outstanding to 17.9%. As a result, Berkshire&#8217;s portion of the $6.9 billion Amex earned was about $1.2 billion, in theory. &#8220;When earnings increase and shares outstanding decrease, owners – over time – usually do well,&#8221; said Buffett.



What was unique in this explanation is Buffett didn&#8217;t dwell on stock prices. Berkshire&#8217;s $1.2 billion theoretical claim on Amex&#8217;s 2018 profits is about equal to the $1.3 billion cost it paid for its shares. 



The price at which buybacks occur does matter, but the most important element in this explanation is whether investors&#8217; holdings are increasing in a sustainably profitable business. In the case of Amex, it is the company&#8217;s fundamentals over time that have likely proven more important to Berkshire&#8217;s gains than the exact price of buybacks. Failed buybacks come at bad prices, but mostly because the business is bad.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">When Berkshire Invests It Isn&#8217;t Just Stocks And Elephant-Sized Deals</h4>



A theme that deserves more study at Berkshire is how it invests cash into its operating businesses. These divisions are becoming more sizable, so it should be no surprise the size of investments are growing. Last year, Berkshire recorded nearly $10 billion in depreciation and amortization on the assets of its operating businesses and invested a record $14.5 billion in plant, equipment and other fixed assets.



As Buffett notes, &#8220;Berkshire’s $8.4 billion depreciation charge understates our true economic cost. In fact, we need to spend more than this sum annually to simply remain competitive in our many operations. Beyond those “maintenance” capital expenditures, we spend large sums in pursuit of growth. Overall, Berkshire invested a record $14.5 billion last year in plant, equipment and other fixed assets, with 89% of that spent in America.&#8221;



This spending may well be among the conglomerate&#8217;s most important and highest return in coming years. As profitable as Berkshire&#8217;s operating businesses were last year, Buffett, Munger, Jain and Abel decided in favor of growth investment, over billions in added profits they could have recorded to impress shareholders. 



What will be the outcome of growth capex at BNSF versus spending cuts by many of its rail peers, or at Berkshire Hathaway Energy for that matter? Don&#8217;t sleep on Jain and Abel as investors, Berkshire&#8217;s owned businesses generated $37.4 billion in operating cash flow last year.



 -Antoine Gara; Forbes Staff

Fortune Magazine Hosts “The Most Powerful Women” Summit In Washington

Three Big Ideas In Warren Buffett’s 2018 Letter To Berkshire Investors

When Donald Trump opened Trump Tower in 1983, it marked a seminal moment in American retail, as six stories of glitzy shops like Harry Winston and Cartier beckoned luxury buyers who strode past a live pianist and a 60-foot indoor waterfall. 



“We got the highest rents ever, anywhere,” says former Trump Organization executive Barbara Res, standing in the pink atrium four decades after she helped build it. 



Times have changed. Gazing around, almost all the tenants are now gone. The hollowing-out began years ago, but it has only gotten worse since Trump entered politics. Nike abandoned its attached flagship store earlier this year, and Ivanka Trump’s accessories business closed up shop as well. 



What’s left is basically nothing but Gucci, Starbucks and The Donald, wall-to-wall. Trump Bar sits atop Trump Grille, next to Trump Café, the Trump Store and Trump’s Ice Cream. It is unlikely Trump pays himself rent for any of them. “Things are all different now,” Res says.



That difference includes profits. Net operating income dropped 27% between 2014, the year before Trump announced his run for president, and 2017, his first year in the White House. 



When the real estate mogul descended the escalator to launch his campaign, in this very building, no one could have predicted the chain of events that would lead to this point. Even among those who gave his moon-shot presidential bid a chance of success, the assumption was that Trump would dump his assets before taking office. 



By refusing to divest, Trump raised an unprecedented question: How would the most divisive presidency in modern American history affect a company built on the president’s persona? Forbes has been working to answer that question since the moment Trump got elected, interviewing nearly 200 colleagues, partners and industry observers. 



While the experiment continues to unfold, in real time, the early results are in. Much as he’s trying—and he’s definitely trying—Donald Trump is not getting richer off the presidency. Just the opposite. His net worth, by our calculation, has dropped from $4.5 billion in 2015 to $3.1 billion the last two years, knocking the president 138 spots lower on the Forbes 400.



Three factors are at play. Much of that decline is due to deeper reporting, which revealed, for example, that the president had been lying about the size of his penthouse. Some of it is due to larger market forces. Trump owns commercial space at a time when e-commerce is decimating brick-and-mortar retail, shaving more than $100 million off his fortune—and no amount of bully-pulpit Amazon-bashing will change that. 



But the third factor comes from how Trump the president affects Trump the brand. Those familiar with him saw his 2016 run as a surreal marketing strategy, and Trump has said as much, telling Fortune way back in 2000, “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.” 



Since his unexpected ascent to the White House, Trump has tried to leverage the trappings of the presidency to benefit his commercial projects, from visits to his golf courses to hosting summits at Mar-a-Lago to launching a new hotel-licensing business aimed at his voters. (The Trump Organization denies the licensing business has to do with politics.)



“My father made a tremendous sacrifice when he left a company that he spent his entire life building to go into politics,” counters Eric Trump, who now comanages the Trump Organization on behalf of the president, in a statement to Forbes. 



“Everything he does is for the good of the American people—he has zero involvement in the Trump Organization and quite frankly to suggest otherwise is outrageous.” (Eric Trump himself, however, told Forbes shortly after the inauguration that he would provide the president bottom-line updates “probably quarterly.”)



Either way, Trump’s mixture of politics and business has proved to be a net loser for him so far. In further polarizing the country, he has also further polarized his business—to the tune of an estimated $200 million hit against his net worth. Understanding how that has happened offers a fresh window into the state of Trump Inc.—and Trump’s America.



In May 2016, a dozen or so golf course appraisers settled in at Trump National Doral, the president’s 643-room Miami mega-resort, for a few days of seminars and golf. At the time, Trump was steamrolling through the Republican primaries while bashing Mexicans, Muslims and even the pope. So it was no surprise when, inside his resort, the conversation turned to how the tumult was affecting Trump’s golf businesses.



A top Doral executive, of all people, was willing to provide an answer. According to three witnesses, he told the room of appraisers that business at the resort—whose revenues were as big as Trump’s ten other U.S. golf courses combined—was suffering because of the campaign. 



Historically, Doral had drawn much of its clientele from the Northeast, where Trump was and is especially unpopular. “At the time there was a lot of talk about comments that Trump had made,” says Jeff Dugas, who attended the event. “Nobody was extremely surprised.”



Big names like Nascar and the PGA Tour also pulled business from the club. After Trump won the election, Doral lost 100,000 booked room nights, according to someone who knows the resort’s business. While revenues for the Miami luxury hotel market jumped 4% overall in 2017 according to the data analytics firm STR, Doral’s revenues fell by an estimated 16%. 



And that was before a deranged gunman wandered into the lobby earlier this year, draped an American flag over the front desk and began shooting at the chandeliers before he was apprehended by ­police.



Overall, revenue at the president’s U.S. golf properties fell by an estimated 9% in 2017. It goes beyond politics—guests now endure metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs. “It’s not a country club experience,” a source familiar with Trump’s golf business says. “It was captivating at first, but it has become tiresome.” Not even the chance to rub shoulders with a sitting president can overcome this problem: Revenues appear to be down at the three courses Trump visits most often.



A similar scenario has played out in Trump’s traditional wheelhouse: luxury residential real estate. The president still holds roughly 500 condos, co-ops and mansions, all with their own complications, in terms of both hassles and branding. He has 37 units worth an estimated $215 million in midtown Manhattan. 



Prices for condos in Trump Tower have fallen every year since 2015, when Trump declared his candidacy, and are an estimated 33% below their highs. Similar trends are playing out a few blocks away at Trump Parc East, where prices are down 23%, and at Trump Park Avenue, where they have dropped 19%.



In Chicago, values of Trump condos have crept downward, the opposite direction of the overall market. “People bought into the building based on the brand being synonymous with luxury,” says Cyndy Salgado, a real estate broker who once worked for the Trump Organization, selling condos in the Chicago tower. 



“Now many people feel that the brand represents divisiveness, embarrassment and questionable morals.” All told, the shift in perception has erased an estimated $50 million from the value of his residential units in Chicago and New York.



On the Caribbean island of St. Martin, Mario Molinari, a real estate agent, recalls trying to show a Chinese billionaire a villa a few months ago. The seller, he says, was Donald Trump, who was offering 11 bedrooms, an outdoor bar and a private tennis court for $16.9 million. 



But when they got to the gate, the president’s property manager told them they needed background checks to go inside, which typically take a couple of days to process. “It’s too small for me,” the billionaire responded, miffed. More than a year after the place went on the market, Trump still hasn’t sold it.



Such weakness seems to have infected the Trump brand across the board. After multiple bankruptcies, Trump adroitly turned his business toward real estate management and licensing, slapping his name on other people’s buildings, ties, steaks and even a urine test—allowing him to make money while others take all the financial risk. 



But partners at three Trump-branded hotels (Toronto, Panama, New York City’s SoHo) have taken the president’s name off their projects, which helps explain why politics has dragged that segment of the Trump hotel empire down about $30 million, by Forbes’ estimates. Meanwhile, many of his licensing customers, including Macy’s and the mattress-maker Serta, fled in the early days of his abrasive campaign—and the president’s company doesn’t seem to have landed a single new deal since. 



In 2015, Forbes valued Trump’s product-licensing operation at $23 million. It’s now down to a mere $3 million. “He’s so polarizing that people are afraid to do business with him,” says Jeff Lotman, who runs the licensing company Global Icons. “He has significantly tarnished the brand.”



Headaches in the luxury market could, in theory, be offset by Trump’s newfound popularity with the larger, less affluent MAGA set. Four months after their father took office, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. announced a new business venture to bring lower-priced Trump brands to hotels in Middle America. 



Filings released months later indicate that the majority owner of this venture is none other than the president himself, with a 77% stake, positioning Trump to profit from his political stardom. 



But not much has come of it. The Trumps signed deals to brand four hotels in Mississippi, but those agreements generated only $27,000 last year. They told reporters there were as many as 35 other deals in the works—none of them have panned out so far. 



Trump’s business has some bright spots. A few blocks from the White House, at the Trump International Hotel, Trump fans hobnob with cable news stars and Cabinet secretaries. The place turned a $2 million profit in the first four months of 2017, far exceeding the Trump Organization’s expectations. A chunk of that money comes from various GOP organizations, which have pumped more than $1.3 million into the hotel since it opened in fall 2016, according to Federal Election Commission data. 



Despite what seems a violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, designed to keep presidents free from foreign financial interest, the governments of other nations are welcome too. Everyone from Kuwaiti officials to the prime minister of Malaysia has reportedly spent money there. And lobbyists working for Saudi Arabia disclosed that they ran up a $270,000 tab in just six months.



In terms of condo sales, Trump sold one in New York to a woman named Angela Chen, just a month after he took office. Chen paid $15.9 million, $1.8 million more than her downstairs neighbor shelled out for a similar apartment a year earlier. 



The deal sparked conflict-of-interest concerns because Chen is apparently the head of a business called Global Alliance Associates, which claims to use its network with the “highest levels of government officials” to help companies expand into China.



Presidential provenance is also proving lucrative. After Trump made Mar-a-Lago world famous, the club is said to have doubled its initiation fee to $200,000. Fallout from the president’s response to the deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville reportedly prompted roughly 20 organizations to yank events from the club, likely costing Trump over $1 million in revenue. Nevertheless, Forbes estimates, Mar-a-Lago is now worth $160 million—$10 million more than it was before it became the winter White House.



The same goes for the president’s penthouse in Trump Tower. Although declining prices in the building have likely hurt its value, the 11,000-square-foot apartment became a historic landmark the moment Trump won the presidency. Forbes figures the election could have added $10 million to any potential deal.



This phenomenon also extends to the value of Trump’s Boeing 757, which became a backdrop for his campaign rallies. Some plane brokers think it could be worth double the roughly $20 million it would fetch if anyone else owned it (Forbes estimates a more conservative $6 million presidential premium). Eric Roth, who customized the interior of the plane for Trump, says, “What’s a baseball worth? About $3. What about if Babe Ruth signed it? It’s not $3 anymore.”



Some of the presidential profiteering appears more direct: On the day he assumed office, Trump took the unusual step of immediately launching his reelection campaign. 



Donor money kept flowing, and Trump’s companies have kept charging rent to the campaign. The result: America’s first billionaire president has turned more than $900,000 of donations into revenue for himself, without putting up a dime.



As long as he’s president—and refuses to divest his business holdings—Donald Trump will be able to boost his fortune in ways no other businessman can. Three days before Christmas last year, Trump sat in the Oval Office to sign the most significant tax reform legislation in decades. “This is something I’m very proud of,” he said, clutching a black marker. “Great for our country, great for the American people.”



Great as well for Donald Trump. The president famously refused to release his tax returns, but the new bill clearly benefits him. A Forbes analysis shows that Trump could save about 10% on business income. Based on Trump’s 2005 tax return, which leaked shortly after the real estate mogul took office, that could mean as much as $11 million annually. 



Other policies, which went into effect with far less fanfare, may also bolster his fortune. Take tariffs. Higher steel and aluminum prices make it more expensive for developers to build. For someone like Trump, who owns buildings but hasn’t done much construction recently, that ­raises the barrier to entry for competitors. 



His immigration policies, which appear to be raising the cost of construction labor, could have a similar effect. Those two factors are “very favorable to a guy who owns hard assets,” says Dave Rodgers, a real estate analyst at financial firm Baird. 



And while Trump promised not to do any new foreign deals while in office, cutting off a source of growth, opportunities will be waiting once his presidency ends. In the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Kazakhstan, Trump’s ex-business partners felt empowered to move ahead with potential projects, making it clear they are prepared to pay him down the road. 



“The tower will be ready for the Trump mark,” the president’s former partner in Georgia told Forbes last year, “if the Trump mark is ready to come back to the tower.” And Trump has not forgotten about his business: He asked about the Georgia project in a meeting with the country’s prime minister last year, according to the partners. 



For now, though, Trump’s presidency remains a net loser for him, which seems ironic. In not divesting, he set himself up so that his actions, and those of people who engage with his businesses, present perpetual conflicts of interest—or the appearance of them. 



Meanwhile, if he’d liquidated, paid capital gains tax on his entire fortune and created a blind trust to invest it all in the booming stock market, Trump would be $500 million richer than he is today—without the headaches.

How Trump Is Trying—And Failing—To Get Rich Off His Presidency

Scientists are providing new evidence to answer the longstanding question about why zebras have stripes. It appears stripes make terrible landing strips, bamboozling the fierce blood-sucking flies that try to feast on zebras and carry deadly diseases. 



Researchers on Wednesday described experiments demonstrating that horse flies have a difficult time landing on zebras while easily landing on uniformly colored horses. In one experiment, the researchers put cloth coats bearing striped patterns on horses and observed that fewer flies landed on them than when the same horses wore single-color coats.



“We showed that horse flies approach zebras and uniformly colored horses at similar rates but that they fail to land on zebras &#8211; or striped horse coats &#8211; because they fail to decelerate properly, and so fly past them or literally bump into them and bounce off,” said behavioral ecologist Tim Caro of the University of California-Davis, lead author of the research published in the journal PLOS ONE.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/economy/2018/04/10/south-african-horse-industry-potential-billion-rand-market/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="The South African Horse Industry: A Potential Billion Rand Market (opens in a new tab)">The South African Horse Industry: A Potential Billion Rand Market</a>



Close cousins to horses and donkeys, the world’s three zebra species, known for their black-and-white striped bodies, roam Africa’s savannas eating a variety of grasses. Their stripe patterns vary among individuals, with no two alike.



There had been four main hypotheses about the advantages zebras accrued by evolving stripes: camouflage to avoid large predators; a social function like individual recognition; thermoregulation, with stripes setting up convection currents along the animal’s back; and thwarting biting fly attacks.



“Only the last stands up to scrutiny,” Caro said. “Most biologists involved with research on mammal coloration accept that this is the reason that zebras have stripes.”



African horse flies carry diseases such as trypanosomiasis and African horse sickness that cause wasting and can be fatal.



Breeding high performance bugs for animal feed



The researchers videoed horse flies as they tried to prey on captive zebras and domestic horses at a livery in North Somerset, England. Stripes did not deter flies from a distance, as they circled horses and zebras at similar rates. But the flies managed to land on zebras less than a quarter as often.



University of Bristol biologist and study co-author Martin How said stripes may dazzle flies somehow once the insects venture close enough to see them with their low-resolution eyes.



“In addition to stripes that prevent controlled landings by horse flies, zebras are constantly swishing their tail and may run off if horse flies do land successfully, so they are also using behavioral means to prevent flies probing for blood,” Caro said. -Reuters



-Will Dunham

Plains Zebras drinking

Why Do Zebras Have Stripes? They Make Bad Landing Strips For Flies

Some of the life-changing tech trends the world will see in 2019.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



From automated transportation, to digital pills&nbsp; and social credit algorithms, technological
advancements are growing at the speed of light.



The big question is, can we keep up with the pace?



The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Computer Society, based in New York City, predicts some of the future tech
trends for 2019. 



Deep learning accelerators, assisted transportation, and the
Internet of Bodies (IoB) lead their 2019 technology outlook.



Some local experts weigh in on this from an African perspective and contribute and identify some of the tech trends we can look out for.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Assisted automated transportation</h4>



Assisted transportation is already in use in some countries.




The phenomena of self-driving cars has been growing. 



Although many critics fear that it still needs more time to
test and trial, IEEE experts predict that there will be a wide recognition for
fully autonomous vehicles this year. 



“I don’t think self-driving cars would solve a major social
need in Africa at the moment,” says Aatish Ramkaran, who is a Digital Architect
at Nedbank and Co-Founder of Blockchain Entrepreneurs Club South Africa.



“What we really need are better, more affordable mass
passenger transport systems, as the majority of the South African workforce
live significant distances from their workplaces,” 



Ramkaran adds.



This technology in autonomous vehicles is highly dependent
on deep learning accelerators.



Early last month, a robot was struck down by a self-driving
Tesla Model S. 



Electrical engineer Darryn Cornish predicts that it may take
a while before self-driving cars become a trend in Africa, “mainly because we
don’t have a law around it”. 



He currently serves as the chair for the IEEE in South Africa and is pursuing his PhD in high voltage physics at the University of the Witwatersrand.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Your social media could reveal your credit score</h4>



The IEEE report states that these are algorithms that use
facial recognition and other advanced biometrics to identify a person and
retrieve data about that person from social media and other digital profiles
for the purpose of approval or denial of access to consumer products or social
services. 



“In our increasingly networked world, the combination of
biometrics and blended social data streams can turn a brief observation into a
judgment of whether a person is a good or bad risk or worthy of public social
sanction,” says the report.



“Using social media to check credit scores could work for
someone who doesn’t have the transaction history that’s built with a bank
account,” Ramkaran says.



He says this method attempts to build a psychological
profile using your social media behavior, rather than your banking history, to
indicate whether you would honor your loan repayment.



“Discovery Bank, which claims to be the first behavioural
bank, is taking this a step further by not only observing, but actually
influencing your behavior,” he says.



At the moment, China has been popular for planning to
incorporate a nationwide social credit system. 



It is due to be fully operational nationwide by 2020.



However, a report by Business Insider critiques this method
of checking credit scores as people with low credit scores in China have been
banned from flying, as well as banning students from certain universities as
they have been considered bad students. 



“Li Xiaolin, a lawyer who was placed on the list in 2015, found himself unable to purchase plane tickets home while on a work trip, Human Rights Watch reported. He also couldn’t apply for credit cards,” says Business Insider.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Internet implants?</h4>



We’ve heard of Internet of Things, a buzz phrase that came
with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 



Internet of Bodies (IoB), on the other hand, is exactly
that; internet activity found within the human body. 



There have already been external self-monitoring
technologies such as fitness trackers and smart glasses. 



IEEE now predicts that “digital pills are entering
mainstream medicine, and body-attached, implantable, and embedded IoB devices
are also beginning to interact with sensors in the environment”.



“These devices yield richer data that enable more
interesting and useful applications, but also raise concerns about security,
privacy, physical harm, and abuse,” the report says. 



Critics, however, are concerned that they could be setting
dangerous precedents and courts and regulatory bodies may not be ready for them
yet. 



“The biggest concern for a while now has been around the
transparency and protection of personal data being collected by devices and
their service providers on consumers that wear or have ingested Internet of
Bodies type devices,” says Lee Naik, CEO, TransUnion 



Africa and a digital and technology transformation expert.



Examples of these are smart contact lenses that are being
developed to monitor glucose levels and could eliminate the daily blood sugar
pinprick for people with diabetes. 



Other devices are the Bluetooth-equipped electronic pills
being developed to monitor the inner workings of the&nbsp; body. 



They could eventually broadcast what you’ve eaten or whether
you’ve taken drugs.



Another emerging piece of technology related to the IoB is
the radio-frequency identification chip that can contain details of a person’s
bank details and identification in a chip implanted in the body.



In a report by The Independent, a company by the name of
Biohax has implanted chips in more than 4,000 people.



“Further regulation will be required to protect consumer
interests in relation to the Internet of Bodies, specifically to deal with the
security of consumer personal data which needs to be effectively protected in
balance with consumers receiving further benefits from innovation in this
space,” Naik says.



Despite some of the concerns around IoB, a recent study
published by Market Research Future reveals that the global smart contact
lenses market is set to thrive at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 10.4% during
the forecast period 2017 to 2023.



This could potentially change the way personal health is monitored and personal data is kept, connecting the body to the internet forever.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Cyber security pre-installed </h4>



IEEE experts suggest that a new generation of security
mechanism is merging.



The traditional method of protecting computer systems looked
at software such as anti-virus.



But now, new software uses an active approach such as hooks
that can be activated when new types of attacks are exposed and
machine-learning mechanisms to identify sophisticated attacks.



Already, cyber security solutions company McAfee announced
at the Consumer Electronics Show 2019 that it would extend its collaboration
with PC hardware giant Dell to provide pre-installed security software for its
PCs and laptops.



According to Techradar, Dell Consumer and small business customers who purchase a new PC or laptop will also have the option to protect all of their devices with McAfee by installing the company’s cross-device software on their smartphones and tablets.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Selling your electricity to your neighbor</h4>



According to Cornish, this year, we may see the move from a
concentrated power producer such as Eskom to a micro grid system.



The concentrated power is usually produced in a certain
location and then distributed via transmission lines where it is used by the
consumer.



With a micro grid system, it uses a distributed power
system.



“Little communities have their own little power grids and
can generate power where they use it,” Cornish says.



“In other words, your house would have solar power and
whatever energy you have extra you would sell onto a grid and your whole
community is a micro grid and a system controls who gets power and when.”



Ramkaran says this trend would really work well in Africa.



“The major issue holding back these ‘micro-grids’ are not
technological. We are perfectly capable of building these systems, just look at
Australia and Germany, but regulatory hurdles prevent their implementation
locally,” he says.



Another trend is the emergence of a worldwide power grid. 



According to a Reuters report, the world’s first ±1100-kV
ultra-high voltage direct current transmission line was put into operation last
month in China, marking the project with the highest voltage, the biggest
transmission capacity, the longest transmission distance and the most advanced
in technology in the world, running 3,293 kilometers long and having a
transmission capacity of 12 million kW.



“There are many talks with China, Europe and Asia, to create
a huge high voltage transmission line along the entire continent and possibly
down to Africa. And it would be a worldwide grid that everyone could connect
to.



“If we are suffering with power problems, we could buy power from China or Russia or whoever has spare capacity, so we get rid of that capacity issue,” says Cornish, who predicts this could happen in South Africa in the next five years. 



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Consumers the new producers</h4>



With the rise of blockchain data, crowdsourcing has become a
growing trend, according to Cornish.



Using a blockchain platform for crowdsourcing helps solve a
variety of tasks through a collective approach.



“We are moving towards a crowdsourced idea instead of having
monolithic entities who create and consumers who consume. We are now going into
the phase where consumers are now producers,” says Cornish.



According to Markets Insider, one of the world’s first
blockchain-based e-commerce verification platform launched a platform by
integrating blockchain, AI and crowdsourcing.



The platform SimplyBrand aims to end online counterfeiting
through a safe and trustworthy digital commerce ecosystem in conjunction with
strategic partner Cobinhood, a leading cryptocurrency service platform
featuring zero-trading-fee exchange as well as an end-to-end ICO service
provider.&nbsp; 



They launched their token pre-sale early last month. 



Within this ecosystem, crowdsourced participants who report
fake products through the SimplyBrand App can “earn token rewards to purchase
brand privileged items or sell them on exchange, while brands can buy tokens
from exchange and purchase brand-protection services,” according to Reuters.



“It would be interesting to see how we will be leveraging
from that but we will be seeing much more of that,” Cornish says. 



Ramkaran says that this trend of peer-to-peer exchange is intensifying.



“With established platforms like Airbnb and Uber, people have become comfortable with buying goods and services from others, however, they’ve also become aware of the high transaction fees they’re charged,” he says.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Personal data becomes personal advertising</h4>



Cornish predicts the rise of big data analytics.



Big data is known as extremely large data sets that may be
analysed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations,
especially relating to human behaviour and interactions.



“If you go into big data, you can start telling a lot about
how a person lives. For example, if someone goes every Friday to buy a specific
item, you could tell whether they get wages as opposed to salaries just from
that load.”



“If you had their health data like Discovery does, you could
collect that data and start targeting ads like Google.”



However, Cornish suggests that it would be interesting to
see if Google would go ahead and collect consumer data as well.&nbsp; 



Naik says that businesses will start to invest in data
science and AI to drive insights from their large and growing big data.



“Big Data will be central to helping businesses understand
consumers better and develop products that best address consumer needs. Ultimately,
big data and artificial intelligence will be a big driver of business strategy
in future,” he says.



Ramkaran says that focus has shifted from ‘Big Data’ to
‘Machine and Deep Learning’, as companies have found more value in how
specially trained algorithms interpret and make decisions on data.



“Tech giants like Facebook and Google have mastered the art
of collecting your personal data, for free, which they leverage for massive
advertising revenues.



“People are beginning to realize how they’re being exploited
and manipulated, but based on the sheer numbers of connected users and power
that these platforms have, it won’t be an easy fight,” adds Ramkaran. 



&nbsp;But with big data
analytics as such, the ethics of tapping into personal information may be of concern.




Cornish predicts that it may take two years or more before
big data analytics will trend.

Internet

Internet In Our Bodies?

vaping1

Is Vaping Really Helping You Quit Traditional Tobacco Cigarettes?

At the end of the third quarter last year, South Africa recorded a high unemployment rate of 27.5%. Townships and informal settlements are at the helm of this problem where the youth lack resources to even apply for jobs.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



A young, unemployed man crosses a busy street on 12th Avenue.



Dragging a greasy trolley filled with trash, he looks at us
blankly as he continues to lug his garbage to the nearest junkyard. 



It is a regular sight and a regular weekday on the streets
of Alexandra, eight kilometers from Africa’s richest square mile, Sandton, in
South Africa.&nbsp; 



Sixteen-seater minibus-taxis dash from corner to corner,
packing their vehicles with enough passengers before making their way out of
the township. 



It is 10.30AM on this sunny Wednesday morning in December. 



The street corners are adorned with colorful tuckshops; they
stand out against the backdrop of the grey homes around them. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="925" height="595" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-39175" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed1.png 925w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed1-300x193.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed1-600x386.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed1-768x494.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 925px) 100vw, 925px" /><figcaption>An Alexandra resident collects trash in order to make a living in the over-populated community. Picture: Gypseenia Lion</figcaption></figure></div>



One of the spaza shops is bright blue with light textures of
yellow paint; a man sits behind a mesh by the sales counter. It is almost
impossible to see his face. 



He offers a young man a cigarette via a peep hole through
the mesh. 



Three men gather to smoke the same cigarette before making
their way to the multi-purpose community center on the other side of the road. 



Each carrying a sling bag and an A4 envelope, they disappear
into a building located at the end of a twirling staircase. Young and old
ceaselessly walk in and out.



The yard is filled with a number of service centers: the
local clinic, revenue service offices, the post office, multiple internet shops
and the Youth Advisory Centre (YAC). 



At the end of the hallway, Themba Mafuya sits collecting
dozens of résumés from the eager youth who are desperately in search of
employment.



He gathers the pile of documents and hands it over to his assistant. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“People are hungry for jobs,” he says as he looks at the unending stream of visitors walking in and out of the center. </blockquote>



Mafuya’s institution creates a database of unemployed youth
within the community with the sole purpose of&nbsp;
collaborating with companies that are looking to hire. 



By working closely with government, YAC reports to the City
of Johannesburg on the state of unemployment in the community. 



Dressed in casual wear, the 29-year-old has a friendly and
positive approach when he advises potential employees. 



“Go and correct the mistakes on your résumé that I explained
to you. Make sure your documents are certified and bring it to me as soon as
possible. Don’t worry, they will hire you,” he tells a young lady.



With Gauteng province being the economic powerhouse of South
Africa, contributing 35% to the country’s GDP, according to recent figures
released by Stats SA, unemployment remains an area of concern – 29.6% of people
live in the province without jobs. 



But the province is not among the lowest performing in the
country. With an unemployment rate of 36.6%, the Free State has the highest
provincial unemployment rate according to StatsSA, in 2018. 



Limpopo, with a prominent rural population, surprisingly,
has an unemployment rate of 18.9%, making it the lowest in the country. 



Townships in the surrounding areas of Gauteng are still
faced with an influx of challenges relating to unemployment. 



Adding to the lack of jobs, social issues play a big part. 



“We need to start doing follow-ups. Ask how many youth have
been employed? Who are not employed? Why are they not employed? Maybe they do
not have a correct résumé and we need to figure out why the employees do not
choose them,” says Mafuya. 



Just a few streets away is a compound adjacent to a block of
fading pink apartments. 



The yard is divided by a muddy passage with small dwellings
on either side.



A smell lingers far beyond the cracks of the cement block as
two buckets get noisly filled with hot water to clean chicken. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="926" height="613" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed4.png" alt="" class="wp-image-39176" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed4.png 926w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed4-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed4-600x397.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed4-768x508.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 926px) 100vw, 926px" /><figcaption>A scene depicting a busy street corner on a late Wednesday morning in Alexandra. Popularly known as Alex, the township has one of the most highest concentrated unemployment rates in Gauteng. Picture: Gypseenia Lion </figcaption></figure>



Alfredah Phuloane introduces herself after she wipes the
chicken remnants off her hands using her multi-colored t-shirt.



With Phuloane is her uncle Velile Ndlovu who is her business
partner.



“As long as I have chicken, they are going. If I have 55,
all of them will be bought. I’ve already sold 25 for the day and we have just
started,” she says.



A helper, who didn’t want to be named, gushes: “I love my
job and I am proud of it.”



She too, like the 27.5% of the South African population who
are unemployed, will celebrate any job that will help them put food on the
table.&nbsp; 



In 2018, StatsSA announced an increase in the unemployment
rate at the end of the third quarter. 



According to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey, there are
16.4 million employed people and 6.2 million unemployed people between the ages
of 15 and 64 years in South Africa.



The latest figures record that the number of unemployed
people in South Africa grew by 127,000 from the 6.08 million in the previous
quarter. 



StatsSA Statistician-General, Risenga Maluleke, says
unemployment, according to the statistics collected, is calculated using the
4&#215;4 rule. 



These are job-seekers in search of employment four days a
week in a four-week period. 



Phuloane, who has been unemployed for three years, took the
iniatitive to start the business when she realized there was a demand for
freshly-slaughtered chicken in her community.&nbsp;




“At the time, when we were slaughtering the chicken for our
own consumption, some people were coming in and asking if we were selling them.
That is when we realized people needed chicken,”&nbsp; Ndlovu laughs. 



Ndlovu leaves the compound at 4.30AM to stand in a long
queue in Linbro Park where he buys the live chickens. 



On his return, at around 7AM, he places the fowl in a
makeshift coop.



With the helper, who earns a sum of money for her
assistance, the trio spend the day processing and packaging chicken for
customers. 



Three years of unemployment led Phuloane, a former domestic
worker, to entrepreneurship.



“If my business does succeed, I want to hire those who do
not have jobs. I want to make their lives simple. They can start their own
businesses then, because you can’t wait for work. There are no jobs now and it
will be difficult,” Phuloane says.



Her uncle on the other hand, who worked as a recycler in a
recycling company, decided to quit his job in late 2018. 



When Ndlovu rejected a job transfer to South Africa’s
capital Pretoria, it suddenly made him one of the thousands without employment.




The formal sector recorded job losses of 65,000 people, and
agriculture lost 1,000 employees in the third quarter of last year.



Without the promise of an increase, had he accepted the job
in Pretoria, Ndlovu’s expenses would have increased by $111 to travel 41
kilometers to the north eastern part of Johannesburg. 



He decided to quit.



“We realized that there is a big opportunity in the
township. We are trying by all means to not rely on anyone. We can take our children
to school. No one will suffer if they think about starting a business,” he
says. 



Social engineer Action Setaka, from the organization
ACTIVATE! Change Drivers (ACD), who advocates for the unemployed, says there is
a copious amount of injustice hampering access to employment.



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It is even worse in the townships. 



ACD is a network of young people interested in driving
change for the public good of the country through innovation and activism. 



For Setaka, unemployment has become a commodity for business
and institutions to exploit those desperately in search of work. 



From the seemlingly endless amount of documentation required
when applying for governmental posts, to the costs of printing and accessing
the internet at internet cafés, money is required.



It does not end there. 



“Transportation costs for traveling to interviews; posting
of résumés cost money, which benefits the internet cafés; data to browse job
opportunities and mobile networks make money out of this. Searching for
employment requires money, yet you find people who claim that our young people
are lazy and, therefore, they are not prepared to find work,” Setaka says.



The dire plight of the jobless youth in Alexandra is not in
isolation.



Similar circumstances reverbarate throughout the townships
of South Africa.



Another township, much like Alexandra, with compounds filled
with shacks, is swarming with people seeking jobs for survival. 



Located in the northern part of Johannesburg, Diepsloot has
the highest concentration of unemployed people in Gauteng. 



This is according to the Gauteng City-Regional Observatory
(GCRO)’s Mapping Unemployment publication, released in August 2018. 



The location, established in 1994, has grown into a
community with a population of more than 160,000 with an estimate of “24,737
shacks alongside more than 5,000 formal housing units, such as RDP
(Reconstruction and Development Programme) houses, self-built houses on
serviced sites, and a small number of bank-financed houses,” as quoted in
Diepsloot, a brochure compiled by the Johannesburg Development Agency. 



Based on the StatsSA 2011 census, the GCRO map shows the
concentration of unemployed people in areas that had rates worse than the
provincial median in 2011.



According to GCRO statistics, “the square kilometer areas
with the highest concentration of unemployed people are observed in townships
such as Alexandra and Diepsloot and contain 4,965 and 8,758 people”.



Diepsloot’s South African Youth Project (SAYP) general
manager, Clifford Legodi, says gaining access to employment for unemployed
youth in townships is harder than it is for youth who grow up in urban regions.
This points to a system exclusion due to the lack of access to resources. 



Thus, the development programs that will meet the demands of
the working environment will, in turn, open up opportunities. 



It starts with breaking norms. 



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“Young black people or previously disadvantaged communities
are still using the traditional method of taking a taxi, printing a résumé or
going to the offices. We felt that it was important to incorporate an online
skills program. You look at their online presence. How they apply for a job
online. Are they actually keeping a good online profile and how to secure
opportunities in time?” Legodi says.



SAYP is a youth development organization aimed at the
empowerment of young people by giving them the skillsets to utilize the
opportunities around them. 



This is done through the ‘Power Through Jobs’ program
offered by the non-profit.



Life skills, work-readiness, and getting a job are some of
the main points of focus for the youth of the township. 



Online job-searching skills have been implemented in order
to keep up with the evolving working environment.



Through encouragement and continuous skills development,
Legodi says the notion of staying in one position will fade away, and the youth
of Diepsloot will aspire to climb the corporate ladder.



“If they can conduct themselves in a professional manner,
they will gain credibility,” he says. 



The population is dominated by black people and for Legodi,
the lack of opportunities within their reach means that those who are able find
employment will have to travel long distances to get to work.



“Diepsloot has its own reputation that is quite limiting for
young people to get opportunities out there. 



“The media also has a bit of an influence, bad news sells. A
lot of the things you see are about the crime, but everyone is treated equally
within the community,” he says. 



“The mistake we have been making in the past when it comes to
addressing unemployment, is that we tried to develop a program that put
everyone in the same box. We tend to forget that people come from different
geographical locations and they are exposed to different lifestyles.” 



Twenty-nine-year-old Thapelo Tau sits in a living room
watching television. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="921" height="611" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-39177" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed2.png 921w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed2-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed2-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unemployed2-768x509.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 921px) 100vw, 921px" /><figcaption>Thapelo Tau of Alexandra. Picture: Gypseenia Lion </figcaption></figure>



It is noon and he is catching up on his favorite shows in
the home he shares with his mother and two sisters.



“I have been unemployed for five or six years. It has been
difficult to look for work. Many people here give up and they just sit at home
and watch television,” he says. 



He spends most of his time on his phone and reading.



“You may take your documents to look for work, but when you
leave, they tear it up. We just give up because there is nothing we can do. I
have an uncle who has been looking for work for a long time. He just stopped
looking,” Tau says. 



When approached for comment, the uncle dismisses the
interview in vernacular. 



“We are looking for work. We can’t even speak English,” he
says. 



English is widely considered the language of access in this
nation where there are 11 official langages. Those who can’t speak the language
are almost always immediately excluded from public participation.



“The problem that we have seen with people from townships is
self-confidence. They get afraid when they have to leave their comfort space.
They then need to present themselves in a different way, they have to adjust to
a different lifestyle to showcase an approach,” says Legodi. 



Afri-Berry founder and director, Relobohile Moeng, says the language barrier is one of the biggest challenges for the youth in the townships. Going the extra mile for an intern who lacked verbal communication skills, she offered mentorship and guidance. “The confidence part I had to build in, as her mentor,” attests Moeng. 



Townships have the undying potential to contribute greatly to the country’s aggregate economic growth; this can be achieved only if the high populations are granted the opportunity to play their part in the economy. Alexandra and Diepsloot are testament to the facts. 



In the interim, Ndlovu, much like the rest of the unemployed population, strives against all odds, hoping against hope to continue to put food on his own table whilst feeding his community.

Unemployed3

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Move over Lagos. Accra is campaigning hard to bring
international tourism and business to its verdant shores.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Outside Accra’s shiny new Kotoka International Airport is a
fleet of 30 black Land Cruisers waiting for a motley group of 60
African-Americans gripped by wanderlust. 



The airport, birthed from the partnership between Ghana
Airports Company Limited (GACL) and Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), now
processes around 1,250 passengers per hour with a goal of welcoming some six
million passengers each year to the leafy West African country, according to
Joshua Otchere of Ghana Immigration Service. 



This is Ghana’s attempt to become the hub of sub-regional
travel by distinguishing itself from the likes of Lagos. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="920" height="612" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ghana1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-39165" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ghana1.png 920w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ghana1-300x200.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ghana1-600x399.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ghana1-768x511.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 920px) 100vw, 920px" /><figcaption>Women sell fish at a thriving market in Accra. Picture: Getty</figcaption></figure>



“We are now offering better services, faster turnaround
times from airlines and a world-class experience when traveling, which we
believe will compete with the rest of the world along with great retail
spaces,” says Otchere.



It is a fitting welcome to the star-studded group of
visitors including international supermodel Naomi Campbell and actors Idris
Elba, Anthony Anderson and Rosario Dawson among many others. Ghana, once a
major hub for the transatlantic slave trade from the 16th to the 19th
centuries, has several historical ties with the USA. 



Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo declared and formerly
launched ‘Year of Return Ghana 2019’ for Africans in the diaspora in Washington
D.C., in September last year with the aim of uniting Africans on the continent
with their brothers and sisters abroad. Tasked with playing her role to make
that vision a reality is fellow Ghanaian and Chief Marketing Officer of William
Morris Endeavor, Bozoma Saint John. 



“I had an audience with the president after meeting him at
an event by the Africa-America Institute in New York where we were both
presented with awards. During my acceptance speech, I spoke about Ghana and
when I came back to Ghana, he asked me what I was going to do to represent
Ghana in the diaspora,” says John. 



“He said he was proud of my achievements but what am I going
to do specifically to help promote Ghana. I took it to heart and I thought
about all the friends that I have invited to Ghana throughout the years and all
of those who have changed their opinions about what Ghana is and sometimes it
was only after a week. So I knew how powerful that process was,” she says.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="407" height="558" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ghana2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-39166" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ghana2.png 407w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ghana2-300x411.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ghana2-219x300.png 219w" sizes="(max-width: 407px) 100vw, 407px" /><figcaption>Traditional dancers in Ghana. Picture: Getty</figcaption></figure></div>



The former Chief Brand Officer of Uber immediately reached
out to Hollywood star Boris Kodjoe to brainstorm on how they could get more
people to join them to discover Ghana and the Full Circle Festival was born.



“Boris and I thought about who we could invite. It wasn’t
about just getting the biggest names, it was about inviting our friends who
have influence both in Hollywood and in the business circles who can come to
Ghana and really enjoy the experience,” says John.



The country came fourth out of 19 countries in CNN’s list of
top places to visit in 2019. In addition, there have been massive
infrastructure projects, digital skills training for millions as well as
substantial investments into the startup ecosystem. 



“Google is setting up its Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
in Accra and that shows just how far we have come as an economy and country,”
says Franklin Cudjoe, President of Imani Centre for Policy and Education, a
leading Ghanaian think-tank.



This year, Ghana is attempting to ramp up its tourism
status. The initiative is set to attract some half a million tourists, with
about 350,000 coming in from North America, while the rest will come from the
Carribean, South America and Europe, according to Ghana Tourism Authority
(GTA).



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="917" height="605" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ghana4.png" alt="" class="wp-image-39167" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ghana4.png 917w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ghana4-300x198.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ghana4-600x396.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ghana4-768x507.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 917px) 100vw, 917px" /><figcaption> In the middle, Chief Marketing Officer of William Morris Endeavor, Bozoma Saint John. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure>



“We expect a lot of networking and business opportunities to
come out of this unique initiative especially between Ghana and the USA that
will generate revenues for local industries in Ghana,” says Akwasi Agyeman,
Chief Executive Officer of GTA.



For the attendees of the recent Full Circle Festival,
however, the experience is somewhat more about a deeper spiritual connection.
Activities included a visit to the historic Cape Coast castle as well as
tourist hotspots like the Royal Senchi resort and a trip to Lake Volta,
Africa’s largest artificial reservoir.



“It is hard to explain what it feels like when you spend time in a place where double-consciousness doesn’t exist, the freedom to just be, the peace of mind and to be closer to your ancestors’ spirit than you have ever been. 



 “To feel the dreadful weight inside the slave dungeons and then the surge of empowerment when you step back into your life with a newfound purpose and 400 years of collective survival energy behind you. To connect with your royal heritage and to see the beauty in your culture that can never be denied. To eat the food and dance all night and connect with people who carry such effortless joy and pride, I simply love Ghana,” says actor Kodjoe.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="461" height="566" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ghana3.png" alt="" class="wp-image-39168" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ghana3.png 461w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ghana3-300x368.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ghana3-244x300.png 244w" sizes="(max-width: 461px) 100vw, 461px" /><figcaption>The Full Circle Festival at the Labadi Beach Ghana. Picture:Getty</figcaption></figure></div>



It has been 400 years since the first enslaved Africans
arrived in North America. For many, the impact of the slave trade cannot be
overlooked. 



For John, this is the beginning of a journey of
enlightenment for her friends in Hollywood. It is time to play her part for
Ghana by bringing awareness to the destination as a tourist hotspot for the US.




As CMO of one of the biggest talent agencies in the US, her
opinion certainly holds weight. And there is no shortage of passion when it
comes to the country that seems to have now captured the attention of corporate
America.

accra

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Software pirates have hijacked technology designed by Apple Inc to distribute hacked versions of Spotify, Angry Birds, Pokemon Go, Minecraft and other popular apps on iPhones.



Illicit software distributors such as TutuApp, Panda Helper, AppValley and TweakBox have found ways to use digital certificates to get access to a program Apple introduced to let corporations distribute business apps to their employees without going through Apple’s tightly controlled App Store.



Using so-called enterprise developer certificates, these pirate operations are providing modified versions of popular apps to consumers, enabling them to stream music without ads and to circumvent fees and rules in games, depriving Apple and legitimate app makers of revenue.



By doing so, the pirate app distributors are violating the rules of Apple’s developer programs, which only allow apps to be distributed to the general public through the App Store. Downloading modified versions violates the terms of service of almost all major apps.



TutuApp, Panda Helper, AppValley and TweakBox did not respond to multiple requests for comment.



Apple has no way of tracking the real-time distribution of these certificates, or the spread of improperly modified apps on its phones, but it can cancel the certificates if it finds misuse.



“Developers that abuse our enterprise certificates are in violation of the Apple Developer Enterprise Program Agreement and will have their certificates terminated, and if appropriate, they will be removed from our Developer Program completely,” an Apple spokesperson told Reuters. “We are continuously evaluating the cases of misuse and are prepared to take immediate action.”



After Reuters initially contacted Apple for comment last week, some of the pirates were banned from the system, but within days they were using different certificates and were operational again.



“There’s nothing stopping these companies from doing this again from another team, another developer account,” said Amine Hambaba, head of security at software firm Shape Security.



Apple confirmed a media report on Wednesday that it would require two-factor authentication &#8211; using a code sent to a phone as well as a password &#8211; to log into all developer accounts by the end of this month, which could help prevent certificate misuse.



Major app makers Spotify Technology SA, Rovio Entertainment Oyj and Niantic Inc have begun to fight back.



Spotify declined to comment on the matter of modified apps, but the streaming music provider did say earlier this month that its new terms of service would crack down on users who are “creating or distributing tools designed to block advertisements” on its service.



Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds mobile games, said it actively works with partners to address infringement “for the benefit of both our player community and Rovio as a business.”



Niantic, which makes Pokemon Go, said players who use pirated apps that enable cheating on its game are regularly banned for violating its terms of service. Microsoft Corp, which owns the creative building game Minecraft, declined to comment.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">SIPHONING OFF REVENUE</h4>



It is unclear how much revenue the pirate distributors are siphoning away from Apple and legitimate app makers.



TutuApp offers a free version of Minecraft, which costs $6.99 in Apple’s App Store. AppValley offers a version of Spotify’s free streaming music service with the advertisements stripped away.



The distributors make money by charging $13 or more per year for subscriptions to what they calls “VIP” versions of their services, which they say are more stable than the free versions. It is impossible to know how many users buy such subscriptions, but the pirate distributors combined have more than 600,000 followers on Twitter.



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Security researchers have long warned about the misuse of enterprise developer certificates, which act as digital keys that tell an iPhone a piece of software downloaded from the internet can be trusted and opened. They are the centerpiece of Apple’s program for corporate apps and enable consumers to install apps onto iPhones without Apple’s knowledge.



Apple last month briefly banned Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc from using enterprise certificates after they used them to distribute data-gathering apps to consumers.



The distributors of pirated apps seen by Reuters are using certificates obtained in the name of legitimate businesses, although it is unclear how. Several pirates have impersonated a subsidiary of China Mobile Ltd. China Mobile did not respond to requests for comment.



Tech news website TechCrunch earlier this week reported that certificate abuse also enabled the distribution of apps for pornography and gambling, both of which are banned from the App Store.



Since the App Store debuted in 2008, Apple has sought to portray the iPhone as safer than rival Android devices because Apple reviews and approves all apps distributed to the devices.



Early on, hackers “jailbroke” iPhones by modifying their software to evade Apple’s controls, but that process voided the iPhone’s warranty and scared off many casual users. The misuse of the enterprise certificates seen by Reuters does not rely on jailbreaking and can be used on unmodified iPhones. -Reuters



-Stephen Nellis and Paresh Dave

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Scientists have discovered in 2.1-billion-year-old black shale from a quarry in Gabon the earliest evidence of a revolutionary development in the history of life on Earth, the ability of organisms to move from one place to another on their own. 



The researchers on Monday described exquisitely preserved fossils of small tubular structures created when unknown organisms moved through soft mud in search of food in a calm and shallow marine ecosystem. The fossils dated back to a time when Earth was oxygen-rich and boasted conditions conducive to simple cellular life evolving more complexity, they said.



Life emerged in Earth’s seas as single-celled bacterial organisms perhaps 4 billion years ago, but the earliest life forms lacked the ability to move independently, called motility. The Gabon fossils are roughly 1.5 billion years older than the previous earliest evidence of motility and appearance of animal life.



The Gabonese shale deposits have been a treasure trove, also containing fossils of the oldest-known multicellular organisms.



“What matters here is their astonishing complexity and diversity in shape and size, and likely in terms of metabolic, developmental and behavioral patterns, including the just-discovered earliest evidence of motility, at least for certain among them,” said paleobiogeochemist and sedimentologist Abderrazak El Albani of the University of Poitiers in France.



The identity of these pioneering mobile organisms remains mysterious. The fossils did not include the organisms themselves.



The tubular structures, up to 6.7 inches (170 mm long), originally were made of organic matter, perhaps mucus strands left by organisms moving through mud. 



The researchers said the structures may have been created by a multicellular organism or an aggregation of single-celled organisms akin to the slug-like organism formed when certain amoebas cluster together in lean times to move collectively to find a more hospitable environment.



“Life during the so-called Paleoproterozoic Era, 2.5 to 1.6 billion years ago, was not only bacterial, but more complex organisms had emerged at some point, likely only during some phases and under certain environmental circumstances,” El Albani said.



In comparison, the first vertebrates appeared about 525 million years ago, dinosaurs about 230 million years ago and Homo sapiens about 300,000 years ago.



The evolutionary experimentation with motility may have encountered a setback relatively soon after the Gabon organisms lived because of a dramatic drop in atmospheric oxygen 2.08 billion years ago.



The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. -Reuters



-Will Dunham

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