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BIONEUTRA – SUGAR ALTERNATIVE MAKER – WINS TOP 2020 CANADIAN EXPORT AWARD
European Parliament Vice-President urges EU to condemn Azerbaijani aggression against Artsakh
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 29, ARMENPRESS. Vice-President of the European Parliament, Fabio Massimo Castaldo urged the European Union to condemn the Azerbaijani aggression against Artsakh.
The Armenian parliamentary standing committee on European Affairs published the statement of the EP Vice-President on its Facebook account.
“I strongly condemn the ongoing violence, and in particular the military operations carried out by the Azerbaijani forces in Nagorno Karabakh. The unacceptable use of military aggression, which led to numerous casualties and injuries even among civilians, totally distorts the possibility of resuming the peace process. This is a gross violation of international law and the dialogue carried out so far within the OSCE. We call on all engaged sites to immediately move back, this military escalation can destabilize the entire region. I am deeply convinced that the EU should raise its voice strongly, by also assessing the possibility of applying sanctions, in case of refusal from the demand to stop the fighting”, the EP Vice-President said.
He stated that together with his colleagues of different EU states he has signed a letter addressed to the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, requesting to make all efforts to immediately cease the fire and launch mandatory mechanisms for possible ceasefire violations as the only mean to restore the necessary trust for the effective dialogue process.
“The European values of pluralism and peace should prevail. Erdogan’s aggressive rhetoric and support to Baku should also be condemned: media sources report about participation of thousands of jihadists from Syria’s north mobilized by Turkey. If this report is confirmed, this intervention is both concerning and unacceptable. We urge all players of the region not to use this conflict as an occasion for expanding their spheres of influence”, the EP Vice-President stated.
On September 27 early morning the Azerbaijani military has launched a massive cross-border artillery attack on Artsakh, including on civilian settlements. Peaceful settlements are also under bombardment, including the capital city of Stepanakert.
84 servicemen were killed and nearly 120 were wounded in Artsakh from the Azerbaijani attack.
Armenia and Artsakh declared a martial law and mobilization.
According to the latest data, the Azerbaijani side has suffered nearly 400 human losses as a result of its aggression. The Artsakh side has destroyed a total of 6 Azerbaijani attacking helicopters, 50 UAVs, 85 armored equipment including tanks, 82 vehicles and 1 aircraft.
Pompeo Thinks Vatican Too Soft on China’s Human Rights Violations
Pope Francis is expected to decline a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has accused the Catholic Church of dropping its moral authority and turning a blind eye to China’s human rights violations in signing an extension of a deal with the country, according to The Guardian.
Pompeo is scheduled to visit the Vatican this week and has been critical of a deal that allows the Vatican to appoint Catholic bishops in China. The deal was signed two years ago.
Critics have said the deal betrays millions of Chinese Catholics, who normally worship at churches off the grid.
“They’re [sending] the flock into the mouths of the wolves,” Cardinal Joseph Zen, the former archbishop of Hong Kong, said at the time.
Two new bishops have been appointed over the past two years following consultation with the Vatican.
Pompeo called on the Catholic church to shine a light on the human rights violations perpetrated by China.
Since signing the deal with China, Pope Francis ignored the imprisonment of at least one million Uighurs and other Muslims. People imprisoned in those prison camps have reportedly been starved, tortured, sexually assaulted, used for slave labor and have their organs extracted.
“The Holy See has a unique capacity and duty to focus the world’s attention on human rights violations, especially those perpetrated by totalitarian regimes like Beijing’s. In the late 20th century, the church’s power of moral witness helped inspire those who liberated central and eastern Europe from communism, and those who challenged autocratic and authoritarian regimes in Latin America and East Asia,” Pompeo wrote in The First Things, a U.S.-based Catholic magazine.
Pompeo continued, “That same power of moral witness should be deployed today with respect to the Chinese Communist party . . . What the church teaches the world about religious freedom and solidarity should now be forcefully and persistently conveyed by the Vatican in the face of the Chinese Communist party’s relentless efforts to bend all religious communities to the will of the party and its totalitarian program.”
Tobacco use and exposure to second-hand smoke linked to more than 20% of deaths from coronary heart disease
A new report produced by WHO, the World Heart Federation and the University of Newcastle Australia for World Heart Day celebrated globally on 29 September, confirms a well-established causal link between tobacco smoking and morbidity and mortality related to coronary heart disease and urges all tobacco users to quit.
Every year, coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death and disability globally, causes the loss of 9.4 million lives. Of these, about 1.9 million (or approximately 21%) are attributable to tobacco use and exposure to second-hand smoke. Across the WHO European Region, where 26% of adults smoke, every fifth death from coronary heart disease was caused by tobacco use in 2017, accounting for approximately 480 000 lives lost.
The brief in a series of Tobacco Knowledge Summaries shows that smokers are more likely to experience an acute cardiovascular event at a younger age, and that the risk to heart health substantially increases even among occasional tobacco users or those who smoke only one cigarette per day. Furthermore, the evidence shows that all types of tobacco and nicotine products contribute to heart disease, with smokeless tobacco being responsible for around 200 000 annual deaths globally from coronary heart disease. E-cigarettes are also not harmless; their use raises blood pressure which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Health benefits of quitting smoking
The effects of giving up smoking on heart health can be seen almost immediately:
- Within 20 minutes, heart rate and blood pressure drop.
- Within 12 hours, the carbon monoxide level in blood drops to normal.
- Within 2–12 weeks, circulation improves.
- A year after quitting, the risk of coronary heart disease is about half that of a smoker’s.
- 15 years after quitting, the risk of coronary heart disease is that of a person who never smoked.
Tobacco control interventions in the WHO European Region
The policy measures in line with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which are increasingly being adopted by countries in the WHO European Region, are proven to make a major difference to heart health. Increases in tobacco taxation, for example, have been directly linked with a reduction in tobacco consumption, thereby leading to better heart health.
Anti-tobacco media campaigns and graphic health warnings have also brought a better understanding of the dangers of tobacco use for heart health. Smoking cessation interventions are a cost-effective measure for preventing coronary heart disease and reducing both short-term and long-term health expenditure. The implementation of comprehensive smoke-free legislation also yields health benefits, including reported reductions in acute coronary events, tobacco-related hospital admissions and deaths.
Preventing coronary heart disease deaths caused by tobacco requires a comprehensive approach with multisectoral cooperation and the engagement of health systems. Health care providers, such as general practitioners, nurses, pharmacists and cardiologists, should raise awareness about the harms of tobacco and second-hand smoke to the cardiovascular system, as well as the benefits of quitting tobacco.
Buddhist Times News – PM Modi says India accords highest priority to Sri Lanka
PM Modi says India accords highest priority to Sri Lanka
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PTI
By — Shyamal Sinha
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a grant assistance of 15 million dollars to Sri Lanka for the promotion of Buddhist ties between India and Sri Lanka. Briefing the media this afternoon, Joint Secretary (Indian Ocean Region) in the External Affairs Ministry Amit Narang said the grant will assist in deepening people-to-people linkages between the two countries in the sphere of Buddhism.
Mr Modi and his Sri Lankan counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa held the first-ever India-Sri Lanka Virtual Bilateral Summit today. They agreed that the Indian side would facilitate the visit of a delegation of Buddhist pilgrims from Sri Lanka in the first inaugural flight to Sacred City of Kushinagar. Kushinagar Airport was designated as an international airport recently recognizing its importance as a Buddhist site. Both sides also agreed to explore opportunities in the areas of Ayurveda and Yoga.
Narang said the funds could be used for the construction and renovation of Buddhist monasteries and supporting the clergy. It was agreed that the Indian side would facilitate the visit of a delegation of Buddhist pilgrims from Sri Lanka in the first inaugural flight to the sacred city of Kushinagar.
Both leaders were unanimous that the ancient cultural links between India and Sri Lanka are special and must be nurtured further. Mr Rajapaksa made a special mention of the Jaffna Cultural Centre which is an iconic project built with Indian assistance. The centre is almost ready and the Sri Lankan Prime Minister extended an invitation to Prime Minister Modi to inaugurate the project.
India and Sri Lanka have reached an understanding to extend the MoU on High Impact Community Development Projects for a five-year period beginning 2020. Both leaders agreed to continue the successful Indian housing project and gave instructions to the relevant officials to fast-track the construction of 10,000 houses in the plantation sector. The Joint Secretary said, the discussions were held in a friendly, frank and cordial manner. The outcomes of the Summit are substantial, forward looking and also help to set an ambitious agenda for bilateral ties. Both leaders discussed the economic dimension of the challenges posed by COVID-19.
Prime Minister Modi called upon the new government in Sri Lanka to work towards realizing the expectations of Tamils for equality, justice, peace and dignity within a united Sri Lanka by achieving reconciliation nurtured by implementation of the Constitutional provisions. He emphasized that implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution is essential for carrying forward the process of peace and reconciliation.
Both sides agreed to facilitate tourism by enhancing connectivity and early establishment of an air bubble between the two countries to resume travel.
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From the Archives, 1990: Patrick White, author and stirrer, dies at 78
At home, he has generally been recognised as the long-awaited Great Australian Writer, at least since he won the Nobel Prize.
Although not a popular writer in the ways that Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson are, and though probably many modern Australian novels have outsold his, White was always pleased to find he had sympathetic “ordinary” readers(as distinct from academics, whom he scornfully ignored) scattered through the suburbs that he satirised.
The frequently heard phrase “like something out of Patrick White” reveals how widely he has affected our consciousness, and even readers more familiar with newspaper accounts of his latest controversial political involvement than with his fiction were well aware of him as the Grand Old Man of Australian Letters.
Patrick Victor Martindale White was born in London on May 28, 1912, the son of V.M. White. His early education was at Tudor House, Moss Vale, followed by a stint of jackarooing on the Monaro and around Walgett.
He returned to England to complete his education first at Cheltenham College and then at King’s College, Cambridge.
He travelled extensively in Western Europe and the United States and, during World War II, he served as an intelligence officer in the RAF in the Middle East and Greece. After demobilisation, he settled on a farm at Castle Hill in Sydney’s north-west.
He wrote prolifically for over half a century – novels, short stories and plays – sustaining a level of creativity unrivalled in this country. The variety of his characters and settings, his styles and modes, was prodigious.
Each new work was a fresh and unpredictable departure, but also one which extended, and qualified, his fascination with the paradoxes of human experience, which most often he located in Australia, past or present.
How well qualified he was to present Australia’s human comedy became an issue in the 1950s and 1960s, when he came fully into prominence. Although his first novel, Happy Valley (1939), had won the Australian Literature Society’s Gold Medal, there was not much awareness of him here until the appearance of The Tree of Man (1955) and Voss (1957).
Praised in England and the US (where, like all his novels, they were first published), these reworked the staple Australian family saga of pioneering and the tragic inland journey of exploration in a modernist manner.
This manner entailed a pronounced, if questioning, religious dimension which confused the developing, and opposed, orthodoxies of Australian literature.
For some who favoured democratic social realism, White was outside the native tradition. For others, White’s “universality” was a welcome alternative to an embarrassing provinciality.
From left: Union leader John Halfpenny, writer and academic Donald Horne and author Patrick White lead the singing of Advance Australia Fair on the steps of Sydney Town Hall in 1976. They were “maintaining the rage” over the dismissal of the prime minister, Gough Whitlam, by the governor-general, John Kerr, one year earlier.Credit:Kevin Berry
Personally, White seemed to be outside the mainstream of Australian culture at that time. Given his background, he seemed to many an Anglo-Australian from the colonial past.
Instead of writing about “the Common Man” for an audience of the same, in the “characteristically” Australian way, he seemed an elitist aesthete tainted by the misanthropy of modernism.
It was not until after the war and his decision to return to Australia to live that he engaged fully with his Australian experience. His first truly individual novel, and also his most experimental, The Aunt’s Story (1948), imaginatively projects his memories of his Australian childhood and later wanderings in Europe and America.
On returning to Australia with Manoly Lascaris, the Greek poet he met during the war who became his life-long companion, White, in response to what he felt was the provincial pettiness of local critics, assumed the role of proud Proustian recluse or Joycean exile at Castle Hill at a time when it was a rural retreat on the outskirts of the city.
In the 1960s, in novels, short stories and plays, he lashed out at what he saw as the philistinism and materialism pervading contemporary Australia, epitomised in the mythic suburb of Sarsaparilla, modelled on Castle Hill.
This was an extraordinarily prolific period, with the novel Riders in the Chariot, the plays The Season at Sarsaparilla and A Cheery Soul, and the short story collection The Burnt Ones appearing in successive years from 1961 to 1964. The heavily satiric phase in White’s writing also coincided with a more general awareness, assisted by Barry Humphries (whom White admired), that post-war Australia was characterised by values that were essentially suburban
With comic satire, White was relocating “literature” (usually thought of as remote, and most often imported) in the contemporary and the familiar. The stimulus his example provided other writers cannot be overestimated: here was the internationally known author of The Tree of Man and Voss, which by comparison now seemed quite classical, engaging playfully and often savagely with the immediate and the mundane.
This stimulus can be seen most markedly with the drama. After the earlier-written The Ham Funeral was rejected for the 1961 Adelaide Festival, but given a successful fringe production outside it, White wrote The Season and A Cheery Soul (later revived at the Sydney Opera House).
Satiric but also affectionate towards suburbia, they broke with the prevailing realist conventions. In spirit and techniques, many plays of the”new wave” dramatists a few years later had much in common with them. In the short story and the novel White was also making writers, and perhaps more importantly readers, aware of a wider range of possibilities.
In 1964 Patrick White and Manoly Lascaris moved from Castle Hill to Centennial Park. The novel The Solid Mandala (1966) was the last of his”Sarsaparilla” books. Sydney and Sydney society provided most of the settings for his next novels, The Vivisector (1970) and The Eye of the Storm (1973), and the “shorter novels” collected in The Cockatoos (1974).
With the move to Centennial Park came increasing involvement in political issues. White’s opposition to censorship and the Vietnam War, and his concern over Aboriginal rights and urban development, led to his publicly supporting Labor in 1972.
In 1974, the year after he won the Nobel Prize, he was named Australian of the Year. After the dismissal of the Whitlam Government, he returned his Order of Australia and became a supporter of constitutional reform and republicanism.
A bitter critic of the Fraser Liberal Government, he soon became disillusioned with the new Labor Government’s policies on uranium mining and foreign alliances and supported the Nuclear Disarmament Party instead.
Once assumed to be a reactionary Anglophile, White later revealed himself to be a patriotic progressive. Although his politics were of an idealistic rather than a party kind, they involved a lot of marching and speechmaking, even as his health declined.
His writing, once hailed or attacked for being more “universal” than Australian, also reveals a deep involvement with his own country, its history and potential.
The major historical conflicts that have provided Australian writers with distinctive themes – conflicts between the Aborigines and white settlers, between the convicts and their governors, between Sydney and the Bush – recur throughout his works, as do versions of his own experiences, all presented with an unprecedented eye, and ear, for social differences and tensions.
In 1976, White returned to the historical novel with A Fringe of Leaves, based on the story of Eliza Fraser, and in 1978 his return to the stage was marked by Big Toys, a contemporary morality about public corruption focused on the uranium issue (two other plays followed in 1983).
Patrick White, November 1961.Credit:Staff photographer
His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass, appeared in 1981. A merciless, and artful, self-examination, it omits his many acts of generosity such as his support for Aboriginal education, his presentation of a collection of paintings to the NSW Art Gallery, and his setting aside money from the Nobel Prize to establish an award for older Australian writers whose work has not received adequate recognition.
In Flaws in the Glass White was frank about his homosexuality, a subject that he had addressed in The Twyborn Affair (1979), the novel that had appeared immediately before the autobiography. A text for the post-modernist present, The Twyborn Affair showed White continuing to respond provocatively and playfully to changing social and literary attitudes.
As ever, White’s new work broke out of the categories his interpreters have attempted to force him into. The more fervent, and humourless, have attempted to canonise him as a saint or a sage.
Playfulness also characterised his 1986 novel, the slighter Memoirs of Many in One.
Patrick White remains the greatest Australian writer to date by far, not only because he produced more major works than any other Australian writer has but also because, beyond that, he transcended the cultural divisions from the past which he encountered on returning to Australia after the war.
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He was both contemporary and a traditionalist, an Australian and simultaneously an international writer; his works are both local and universal, realist and symbolic, social and metaphysical.
Lesser writers (and critics) might see these as necessarily opposed categories. White assimilated them, playing them against each other.
Once seen as aloof from Australian “reality” and culture, White changed our perceptions of these, as they have themselves changed over the long time he was writing about them.
White’s being here contributed to those changes and to an altered consciousness of Australia. He opened up “the country of the mind” and, like Voss’s, his spirit is still there.
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Handling soil with care: Conservation Agriculture’s role in post-2020 CAP
Despite being taken into consideration only slightly in the EU’s current farming subsidies programme, Conservation Agriculture is set to play a central role in the green architecture of the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Conservation Agriculture (CA) lends itself easily to misinterpretations, as the term ‘conservation’ often indicates activities involving the preservation and restoration of degraded natural habitats to improve biodiversity.
However, although CA also promotes biodiversity, it mostly addresses issues referring to a different phenomenon: soil degradation.
Soil organic matter has been increasingly depleted thanks to land-use intensification and mono-cultures, while the use of heavy machinery stresses the soil by causing ground compaction.
CA works to address this via a suite of farming practices designed to avoid physical degradation, such as growing a permanent protective plant cover on the soil and advocating for an agricultural production system based on a total or partial reduction of ploughing and tilling.
According to the European Conservation Agriculture Federation (ECAF), agronomic practices included in CA are based on three core principles to be fulfilled concomitantly: minimum soil disturbance, maintenance of permanent soil covers and cropping system diversity.
Advocators argue that these practices can bring economic savings for farmers in terms of energy efficiency, while also contributing to decreasing greenhouse gases emissions and building resilience of the agricultural system to climate change.
No-tillage and soil cover
Among the CA’s practices, no-tillage and groundcovers are the most widely known.
No-till, or reduced-till, agriculture is the practice of planting crops without tilling the soil, which is the conventional way of preparing the soil for planting by digging, stirring, and turning it over.
Although no-tillage and reduced tillage can help prevent run-off and erosion, the practices have been slow to take off in Europe.
According to the European Commission, reduced tillage or conservation tillage is practised on around 21.6% of the arable land in EU, while no-tillage is applied to only 4% of arable land.
In a parliamentary question filed last March, the Bulgarian MEP Atidzhe Alieva-Veli asked the EU executive whether it is going to promote the implementation of ‘no-till technology’ by including it as a green measure in the post-2020 CAP.
For the liberal lawmaker, “no-till technology is an approach that should be encouraged as a regenerative form of agriculture that ensures not only high agricultural productivity but also soil regeneration.”
Replying to Alieva-Velli, the Commission recognised the environmental and climate-related benefits of reducing mechanical disturbance of the soil, adding that the CAP already supports specific practices aimed to protect soil against degradation, including minimum or zero tillage, conservation of crop residues and green covers.
As for ground-covers, they refer to the periods of the year when the soil is covered by residues or crops, including catch or cover crops.
Cover crops are efficient in reducing soil and nutrient loss by keeping the land continuously covered with vegetation during the whole year.
In the EU-28 during winter of 2010, 44% of the arable area was covered with normal winter crops, 5% with cover or intermediate crops and 9% with plant residues, while 25% was left as bare soil and 16 % of the arable area soil cover was not recorded.
Putting the ‘CA’ in CAP
In the EU’s current farming subsidies programme, a number of measures relevant to CA were included in the rural development policy, known as the CAP’s second pillar.
Member states and regions can include these measures in their rural development programmes according to their specific needs and priorities.
Some aspects related to the main principles of conservation agriculture were also supported under Horizon2020, the EU’s funding for research, and the European Innovation Partnership on agriculture productivity and sustainability.
However, the real step forward for CA’s uptake is expected in the post-2020 CAP reform, as conservation agriculture practices can be promoted under the new system of eco-schemes, the ‘green architecture’ of the programme.
Eco-schemes are available under the direct payments framework, which constitutes the biggest chunk of EU farming funds.
CA practices are listed in three out of ten ‘Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions’ (GAECs) of the new eco-scheme and include rotation, no ploughing, soil cover, winter crops and crop rotation.
The eco-schemes aim to reward farmers for going even further in the implementation of sustainable agricultural practices, beyond the mandatory requirements set by conditionality.
As proposed by the Commission in the future CAP, these types of practices can contribute to meeting the enhanced environmental and climate ambitions of the agricultural policy.
As in the previous programme, CA practices could be promoted through environmental and climate management commitments available under the rural development framework.
[Edited by Natasha Foote/Zoran Radosavljevic]
Jaswant Singh Khalra was remembered at the Human Rights Council
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the death of Jaswant Singh Kharla CAP Freedom of Conscience, United Sikhs, Khalra Mission Organization and the author of the book The Valiant – Jaswant Singh Khalra Gurmeet Kaur made a statement to the UN during the 45th session of the Human Rights Council.
According to the president of CAP LC,
“it is time for the truth to be revealed and for the families of the victims to know the truth about the fate of their loved one” and continued saying that “it is the duty of the Indian authorities to shed light on this crime against humanity”. (Their full statement can be seen here)
Jaswant Singh Kharla’s crime is to have uncovered, according to his book
“thousands of state-enforced disappearances, illegal detentions, custodial killings, and mass cremations of the Sikhs under government’s orders, which constitute the Sikh genocide”.
After its discovery Jaswant Singh Kharla took as his mission to stop the “government’s tyranny” by exposing and “holding it accountable through legal means”.
On January 16, 1995, he made public evidence of 3,100 illegal cremations of disappeared persons in just three crematoria from one out of the then thirteen districts in Punjab. He estimated there were a total of 25,000 cremations of disappeared persons throughout the state.
On September 6, 1995, Jaswant Singh Khalra himself was abducted in broad daylight, tortured in illegal custody for 52 days before being shot dead; his body dismembered and dumped into the very canal that was used to dispose other bodies that he had set out to find.
Author Gurmeet Kaur who wrote The Valiant – Jaswant Singh Khalra said:
“Twenty-five years later, we hope the government will not obstruct efforts to document the gravity of the state-sponsored genocide before nature takes its course and the aging witnesses and parents of the disappeared die”.
Much Upside Left In Pinterest
Lately, social media company Pinterest (PINS) has been in the news, mostly for the right reasons. Founded in 2010, the company is mainly a visual search engine that helps people share ideas about their hobbies and interests.
Like any other ad-based internet business, Pinterest has also experienced its share of disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, the stock is positioned much better than most of its peers on operational, strategic, and financial fronts. Pinterest is already up YTD (year-to-date) by 114.06%, while peers such as Snap (SNAP) and Twitter (TWTR) are up 51.19% and 36.79%, respectively.
The pandemic has forced many businesses to increasingly offer a range of digital solutions. This e-commerce growth will most likely fuel a rapid increase in the share of digital advertising. The importance of social media in connecting businesses and consumers is only going to increase further. Hence, although uncertainty is ravaging the global economy today, a stable and well-funded social media business like Pinterest can prove to be a big winner in the post-pandemic world.
Pinterest has been growing its subscriber base at breakneck speed, especially during the pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a blessing for Pinterest, with the user base growing much faster than what was warranted by the seasonal trends. With the relaxation of shelter-in-place restrictions, the company saw a moderation in user base expansion in May 2020. However, despite this, engagement levels have remained strong both in June and July 2020.
Not only has the subscriber base expanded at a very healthy rate, but customer engagement has also been pretty high. With an MAU (monthly active user base) of 416 million, the platform has been helping its customers to tackle various COVID-related use cases.
In the U.S., a significant number of older users have returned to the platform since the start of the pandemic. But the bigger jump came from Gen Z, where people under the age of 25 years has grown faster than those over 25 years.
Now, this highly engaged and fast-growing subscriber base is an underexplored monetization opportunity.
Agreed that the YoY revenue growth in the second quarter was only 4% and ARPU (average revenue per user) dropped YoY by 21%. But that was understandably an outcome of weak advertiser demand. Starting in May, Pinterest has seen demand from the CPG (consumer packaged goods) vertical on the back of robust demand for essential products.
Excluding the second-quarter performance, which has been an aberration, the company has managed to consistently grow revenues YoY, exceeding 30% since the second quarter of fiscal 2019.
There was also one major positive highlight even in the second-quarter revenue performance and that is the company’s solid revenue and ARPU growth in international markets. The company’s investments in developing direct coverage and sales support functions in English-speaking markets outside the U.S. and in Western Europe seem to be now bearing fruit.
The international business remains a major opportunity, considering that it accounted for 15% of second-quarter revenues despite making up almost 75% of the user base. Pinterest is focused on replicating all of the ad-tech tools, insights, and formats which worked in the U.S., to leverage the international market opportunity. The company has also recognized that the majority of ad-spend in Europe happens through agencies. Hence, Pinterest is working on developing tools that would help ad agencies. The company is also seeing untapped revenue opportunities in Latin America and parts of Asia-Pacific.
What differentiates Pinterest from peer Twitter is a pretty clear roadmap towards the monetization of its customer base. The company remains confident in monetizing most of its global user base in the next two years. The company has also been aggressively deploying automation tools such as automated bidding for conversion optimization and tag adoption through partners such as Shopify (NYSE:SHOP) and Google Tag Manager (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) for increased conversion visibility. These tools, coupled with effective measurement of business metrics and improved shopping experience on the platform, are expected to play a pivotal role in convincing small- and medium-sized businesses to direct their ad dollars towards Pinterest.
Pinterest has guided for third-quarter revenues to grow YoY (year-over-year) in the mid-30s percent range, despite assuming deceleration in growth rates starting July associated with back-to-school environment and COVID-19 uncertainties. Analysts are also estimating solid double-digit revenue growth for the company for many more years to come.
Social commerce is another major monetization opportunity for Pinterest
Pinterest has been working to reduce its complete reliance on ad spending. This strategic move could not have come at a better time. The changed consumer behavior triggered by the pandemic will be a major growth driver for social commerce. The social commerce market is expected to grow at a CAGR (compounded average growth rate) of 31.4% from $89.4 billion in 2020 to $604.5 billion in 2027.
In May, Pinterest partnered with Shopify (SHOP). This can prove to be a very lucrative collaboration, considering that the Pinterest community is known for high shopping intent, with almost 80% of the users basing their shopping decisions on pinned items.
According to the press release, “The new channel will allow U.S. and Canadian merchants to tap into this audience to seamlessly turn existing products from their store into “Product Pins” on Pinterest, as well as add a shop tab to their profile on Pinterest, for free organic promotion. Shopify merchants can also promote their pins as a paid ad, bringing customers directly into their brand’s online store for purchase.”
This partnership is expected to bring in a significant amount of purchase commissions for Pinterest, which can provide the much-needed acceleration in its ARPU in the coming quarters.
The company has a robust balance sheet and positive cash flows
Despite the very promising growth story and all the investments that are going in to monetize the ever-expanding opportunity, the company has managed to maintain a strong balance sheet. Pinterest had a cash balance of $1.7 billion and total debt of only $151 million on its balance sheet at end of June 2020. The company’s net operating cash flow was $37.80 million, while free cash flow was $146.32 million for the period from July 2019 to June 2020.
There are a few risks to consider
Although Gen Z has been seen to engage more with the Pinterest platform and explore more of its newer functionalities and services, this may not be the preferred demographic for advertisers. With a growing chunk of the subscriber base belonging to the less wealthy category, advertising rates may take some hit in the coming quarters.
Like any advertising dependent media company, Pinterest’s growth is also invariably tied to the rate of economic activity. Signs of slowing recovery can be seen, as the impact of fiscal stimulus seems to be drying up and new COVID-19 cases continue to emerge. Pinterest had been seeing a gradual improvement in ad demand from the low of April to pretty strong demand across verticals and objectives in July. However, a significant part of this demand, especially in sectors such as retail, travel, restaurants, and automotive, depends on the macroeconomic environment. Historically, retail has been a major ad-spend driver for Pinterest and the ongoing pace of retail store closures can be a major headwind for the company. While ad-spending from pure-play e-commerce and direct-to-consumer retailers has been at healthy levels, these businesses form a small part of the company’s sales mix. Hence, we see that a more prolonged economic recovery can have a detrimental impact on ad-spending and affect Pinterest’s financial performance at least in the short run.
Third-quarter earnings performance will now include a one-time payment of $89.5M, to cancel the lease on the new San Francisco space. Although a hit in the short run, this move can save the company’s annual capital spend by around $440 million.
Verdict
Pinterest is trading at a P/S (price-to-sales) multiple of 18.89x, quite above the 10.27x multiple of Twitter and somewhat more than 18.57x multiple of Snap (NYSE:SNAP). Yet, I believe that there remains upside in Pinterest based on secular tailwinds coupled with a very focused company strategy. A top-line growth over 30% is quite difficult to get at P/S multiples below 20x. Hence, Guggenheim analyst Michael Morris’ price target of $48 seems to be achievable in the next 12 months. You can check other analysts’ ratings and target prices here.
Considering the uncertainties posed by the ongoing pandemic, Pinterest seems to be a good pick for growth investors for retail investors with slightly above-average risk appetite.
Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Food loss and waste ‘an ethical outrage’, UN chief says on International Day
Last year, the UN General Assembly designated 29 September as the International Day, recognizing the fundamental role that sustainable food production plays in promoting food security and nutrition and highlighting the essential need to reduce food loss and waste.
In addition, with the COVID-19 pandemic underlining the fragility of food systems, and worsening food loss and waste in many countries, Secretary-General António Guterres called for “new approaches and solutions” to solve the challenges.
“Food loss and waste is an ethical outrage. In a world with enough food to feed all people, everywhere, 690 million people continue to go hungry and 3 billion cannot afford a healthy diet,” he said.
Squandering natural resources
“Food loss and waste also squanders natural resources – water, soil and energy, not to mention human labour and time. It worsens climate change, given the significant role of agriculture in generating greenhouse gas emissions,” added Mr. Guterres.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), around 14 per cent of food produced globally is lost between harvest and retail, with significant quantities also wasted at the retail and consumption levels. The figure is higher in the case of fruits and vegetables, where more than 20 per cent is lost.
When food is loss or wasted, all the resources that were used to produce it – including water, land, energy, labour and capital – go to waste. In addition, the disposal of food loss and waste in landfills, leads to greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change, said FAO.
Sustainable Development Goals
The critical issue of reducing food waste is also highlighted in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with Goals 2 and 12 calling for achieving zero hunger, and halving food waste and reducing food loss by 2030, respectively.
“While many countries are taking action, we need to step up efforts,” said the Secretary-General, highlighting that the inaugural observance of the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste comes as the world prepare for the 2021 Food Systems Summit.
“I urge countries to set a reduction target aligned with SDG 12, measure their food loss and waste and act boldly to reduce it. Policy action in this area should also be included in climate plans under the Paris Agreement [on Climate Change],” he said.
Many businesses should take a similar approach, continued Mr. Guterres, calling on Individuals to shop carefully, store food correctly and make good use of leftovers.
“Let us work together to reduce food loss and waste for the benefit of people and our planet,” added the Secretary-General.
