The ever changing world !

United Nations begins informal briefings to select next Secretary-General

New York : Kicking off what he has called a “new and transparent process,” General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft on Tuesday opened informal dialogues with candidates for the next United Nations Secretary-General, for the first time providing an opportunity for substantive and open engagement with the candidates – for the full UN membership and the public.

Calling the process a potential game-changing exercise, he said the informal briefings were part of a very transparent, very interesting discussion about the future of the United Nations.

Over the course of the next three days, the official candidates currently eight of them will answer questions related to promoting sustainable development, how to improve efforts to create peace, how to protect human rights, how to deal with huge humanitarian catastrophes, and how to resolve challenges defined by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

At the end of the process, Lykketoft said, expressing his personal view, one single candidate could emerge, making it difficult for the Security Council which is tasked with making the official selection, as stated in the UN Charter to choose another candidate.

Defining some of the qualities in who would be the best person for the job, Lykketoft stressed independence, strong moral authority, great political and diplomatic skills, and some experience in being at the head of a huge administration.

As part of the informal dialogues, each candidate will have a televised and webcast two-hour timeslot, starting with a short oral presentation. Representatives from Member States will then ask questions, followed by the President of the General Assembly, who will ask a few of the more than 1,000 questions submitted by the general public on social media under the hashtag #UNSGcandidates.

The three candidates who will go before the General Assembly on Tuesday are listed below, in order of appearance. They will present their vision statements, which address the challenges and opportunities facing the UN and the next Secretary-General, and answer questions from the audience.

Igor Luksic is the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration. He is nominated by the Government of Montenegro.

Irina Bokova is currently the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. She is nominated by the Government of Bulgaria.

Antonio Guterres was most recently the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He is nominated by the Government of Portugal.

Opening the dialogues, Lykketoft underscored that as the UN grapples with multiple crises and deals with fundamental questions regarding its own role and performance, finding the best candidate to succeed Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is absolutely crucial.

Much of what we are embarking on on Tuesday is without precedent at the UN, he stressed.

For the first time in this Organizations 70-year history, the process for selecting and appointing the next Secretary-General is being genuinely guided by principles of transparency and inclusivity and the dialogues that we are beginning on Tuesday are at the very core of this change, he added.

Lykketoft reiterated that candidates will be given the opportunity to respond to Member States interventions at regular intervals, with Member States speaking on behalf of groups given priority.

A civil society committee had reviewed all the more than 1,000 questions submitted from 70 countries since 26 February, when the call was opened for civil society to submit questions. The committee had agreed on a shortlist of 30 questions, the General Assembly President said.

The level of interest in these dialogues from the global public and civil society is extraordinary, he said.

Lykketoft said that for the purpose of transparency and inclusivity, each candidate will be asked to respond to one or two questions from civil society, time permitting. He also plans to post 10 of the top remaining questions on his website after the dialogues, and encouraged each candidate to answer them in writing.

UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

9 Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime

Interesting to note and very true too…..
Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them. But, ready or not, here they come.

1. The Post Office
Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.

2. The Cheque
Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks.
Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the checks. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.

3. The Newspaper
The younger generation simply doesn’t read the newspaper. They certainly don’t subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

4. The Book
You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can’t wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you’re holding a gadget instead of a book.

5. The Land Line Telephone
Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don’t need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they’ve always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes

6. Music
This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It’s the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is “catalogue items,” meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, “Appetite for Self-Destruction” by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, “Before the Music Dies.”

7. Television
Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they’re playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It’s time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.

8. The “Things” That You Own
Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in “the cloud.” Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest “cloud services.” That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That’s the good news. But, will you actually own any of this “stuff” or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big “Poof?” Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.

9. Privacy
If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That’s gone. It’s been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, “They” know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. “They” will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again.
All we will have left that can’t be changed are “Memories”…and..if you live long enough…then probably Alzheimer’s will take that away from you too!

i dont think bro that music will disappear even after many centuries

@ashu99213196 wrote:

i dont think bro that music will disappear even after many centuries

@srocks
@Tejaa @Plato @mahidada
@Magus @A2Zdeals @JonSnow

Structural Injustice—The Quantum Agony
Suppose you took a fixed deposit of say Rs one hundred and used another hundred to buy gold. Suppose the rate of inflation is always only ten per cent.
Now the principal value of the two will change as follows:
Fixed Deposit Gold
At the end of the first year Rs 90/- Rs 110/-
At the end of second year Rs 80/- Rs 121/-
At the end of the third year Rs 70/- Rs 123.10
By the end of the tenth year the real value of the fixed deposit will be nil. But the real value of the gold will rise proportionately and the principal value is never lost. If you buy a piece of land then the small amount say Rs one lakh sky rockets to three or four lakhs and then to Rs ten lakhs etc. In relation the Fixed Deposit becomes a subject of the vacuum study in Physics as it simply becomes a part of the Microcosm. As a subject of QM, it fills the bill wonderfully because; the element of consciousness needed in QM is filled by the agony the Fixed Depositor suffers from.
The element of agony is maintained continuously as the interest though always lower than inflation is included in the taxable income. Fixed Deposits thus go from the Macro to the Micro and then to the vacuum with consciousness continuously entangled. One can actually write a treatise on the great junction between QM and FD consciousness—-say under the heading Quantum Agony.

@B@R_0_0_D wrote:

Structural Injustice—The Quantum Agony
Suppose you took a fixed deposit of say Rs one hundred and used another hundred to buy gold. Suppose the rate of inflation is always only ten per cent.
Now the principal value of the two will change as follows:
Fixed Deposit Gold
At the end of the first year Rs 90/- Rs 110/-
At the end of second year Rs 80/- Rs 121/-
At the end of the third year Rs 70/- Rs 123.10
By the end of the tenth year the real value of the fixed deposit will be nil. But the real value of the gold will rise proportionately and the principal value is never lost. If you buy a piece of land then the small amount say Rs one lakh sky rockets to three or four lakhs and then to Rs ten lakhs etc. In relation the Fixed Deposit becomes a subject of the vacuum study in Physics as it simply becomes a part of the Microcosm. As a subject of QM, it fills the bill wonderfully because; the element of consciousness needed in QM is filled by the agony the Fixed Depositor suffers from.
The element of agony is maintained continuously as the interest though always lower than inflation is included in the taxable income. Fixed Deposits thus go from the Macro to the Micro and then to the vacuum with consciousness continuously entangled. One can actually write a treatise on the great junction between QM and FD consciousness—-say under the heading Quantum Agony.

….
Gone above of my mind

Can u share ur whatsapp contact ?

Ha..ha..
I found this , definable in the ivy leave of dd.
(Ivy league includes dpock, achi heel , Mangus hapus, d seekh etc )

@ashu99213196 wrote:

Can u share ur whatsapp contact ?

Yes
Its 16 13-2 1 18 15 15 4

@B@R_0_0_D wrote:

@ashu99213196 wrote:

Can u share ur whatsapp contact ?

Yes
Its 16 13-2 1 18 15 15 4

@ashu99213196 wrote:

@B@R_0_0_D wrote:

@ashu99213196 wrote:

Can u share ur whatsapp contact ?

Yes
Its 16 13-2 1 18 15 15 4

U r A masterpiece

@ashu99213196 wrote:

@B@R_0_0_D wrote:

@ashu99213196 wrote:

Can u share ur whatsapp contact ?

Yes
Its 16 13-2 1 18 15 15 4

U r A masterpiece

Deletecit

Mohamed Hafez , MBA
Manager- Risk Management & Quality Assurance at UTi Worldwide
If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.

In today’s business world, many companies/business firms strive for creating a competitive advantage, but few of them really know how to achieve and keep a sustainable competitive advantage.

What is the meaning of competitive advantage?

Simply, The competitive advantage is delivering a greater value to consumers/customers than what they used to get from the competitors.

The competition nowadays is very tough, many competitors are trying to chase the biggest market share therefore, each company should take the necessary action to deliver a superior value/service to the client, this is what we call a creation of a competitive advantage.

Please check the below model, it can easily explain the meaning of competitive advantage, however we will need to clarify in depth how to create the competitive advantage.

How to create a competitive advantage ?

The majority of the famous economists, marketers and business entrepreneurs believes that there are three generic strategies to create a competitive advantage.

Cost strategy :- A company follow this strategy by being the lower-cost producer/service provider comparing with its competitors.

No additional service given here, the two competitors are delivering the same product/service to the customer but one of them are delivering this product/service with a lower price.

Not all companies are able to follow this strategy, only companies with great resources/assets could do this.

companies must be very careful when following such a strategy, simply because lowering the cost could negatively impact the quality of product/service and then it will lead to failure.

Differentiation strategy :- In this strategy, a company deliver a ‘’non-price’’ feature to the client that make the company different and superior to its peers.

Differentiation has many sides, it could be PEOPLE differentiation, PRODUCT differentiation, SERVICE differentiation, INNOVATION differentiation, etc..

I have personally received a competitive advantage service this week from HSBC bank, I have two bank accounts with two different banks, I am registered to the internet banking service in the two banks but HSBC is giving a competitive advantage by delivering a free of charge ‘’security token’’ to customers which is giving more privileges in transferring between accounts and enhancing the security of the internet banking service.

In fact I am in favor to the differentiation strategy and not the cost strategy, customers always seeking additional tangible services with the same quality, however and as mentioned above, the cost strategy could be also very successful if we consider quality.

Focus strategy:-

In this strategy, companies direct their attention to narrow product lines, buyer segments, or geographic markets. “Focused” firms will use cost or differentiation to gain advantage, but only within a narrow target market.

For example a freight forwarder will focus on the Air product or CL, or a manufacturer will focus on a specific region, country.

It is common that you find a company stronger than another company in a region in terms of investments/market share and profit.

Which strategy is better to follow to create a competitive advantage?

It depend on many factors such as the company resources, the nature of the market, the consumer behavior and many other factors, however, I am personally prefer the differentiation strategy as both of the cost and focus strategies have their side effects, it needs another post to explains these side effects but would be happy to discuss them in the side discussions.

In the previous post, I discussed the strategies and the reason behind ‘’why strategies fail?’’ we should highlight here that one of the strategy’s purposes is creating a competitive advantage, not just a competitive advantage but a SUSTAINABLE competitive advantage.

Why a sustainable competitive advantage ?

Simply because if a company establish itself in an area of advantage, the competitor will strive to fill in the gap and be reach the similarity.

Example:- If a bank offer the internet banking services as a competitive advantage, all the other banks will follow to offer customers the same services. ‘’10 years ago, only few banks offered this service, Today, nearly each single bank has this service, even the local banks’’

Example 2:- A hotel offering a free shuttle bus pick up, all other hotels will seek to provide the same.

So, the achievement of a competitive advantage is not always permanent/long lasting, therefore it is very very hard to reach a sustainable competitive advantage but it is still essential and possible.

How a company would be able to reach a sustainable competitive advantage?

A company can reach a sustainable competitive advantage only if offered the customer/consumer a Rare,Valuable and Inimitable service/product.

Valuable—it has a very tangible value for the customer.
Rare—Not common or easily obtained.
Inimitable—Can not be copied by competitors.
if a company not reaching a sustainable competitive advantage, in this case the competitive advantage will not worth value and will turn to a normal service/product.

Wrap-up

Setting one or more competitive advantage is very important and essential in today’s tough and aggressive competition, A company could be lucky to obtain more than one competitive advantage, however, any company should carefully select its own competitive advantage and not just striving for a competitive advantage for the sake competitive advantage, a company should also keep evaluating its competitive advantage and see if competitors obtained the same or not, a company should also obtain a real competitive advantage that really add value to customers, for examples some companies saying ‘’our people are our competitive advantage’’ but does these companies really invest in their employees to be a competitive advantage? in addition, does the competitive advantage really achieved a tangible results? ‘’ generating more profit-Market share, fame,etc….’’

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-dont-have-co...

I have gathered some business quotes that really relevant to the competitive advantage . ‘’ Please see below’’ the first and the last quote are intentionally repeated because this quote is the most direct/straightforward one, to the point quote

Mohamed

Written by

Mohamed Hafez , MBA

Manager- Risk Management & Quality Assurance at UTi Worldwide

rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.
5) It’s frustrating when you know all the answers but
nobody bothers to ask you the questions.
6) Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician.
7) Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.

@Magus @vishusgh
@mahidada @asoka

The Origin of Basic Questions

Restricted as we are on the surface of the earth or the lithosphere and surviving because of the basic rhythm among the Lithosphere, troposphere, hydrosphere and the resulting Biosphere, we have developed the most basic or fundamental questions say—why, how, when, what, where etc.I feel these basic questions are the results of our imprisonment. Entire language and grammar etc are based on this basic confinement. Your understanding or connecting to the modelled or conceptualized base is the outcome of this basic imprisonment. We are starting from this fundamental ‘suffocation’.
Now agreeing that this suffocation is inescapable, we are resorting to technology and the techno-logic. This techno-logic pervades every aspect of our modelling or conceptualization. We are under the techno-frenzy or the surrender frenzy to the metaphor—the machine. Our entire language—subject,verb,predicate,object,adjective,adverb,conjunction,interjection,gerund etc and the dictation of these bases in the method of thinking and expression have made the very Holistic approach meaningless or baseless or logic-less.
When we accept that the Universe about 13.6 billion years ago was one single unit—the Singularity—these bases, then, were meaningless. Has that meaningless-ness really changed at all? We all know that an atom is empty space, but nevertheless we devised the periodic table, isotopes, quarks, leptons—-the standard model, concepts that absolutely depend on the techno-logic., based on the techno and mathematical symbols, a field which the ordinary earthlings cannot enter unless familiarized with this Newtonised invisible spectrum. But is it really advancement in thought or bluff including bluff to self? When the atom itself is empty, how can you justify these categories?
The first fundamental or basic question is the origin of consciousness or thought and thought manifestations. There is an urgent need to free the Holistic approach from religions. Names of Gods too are categorization and as a result prejudging. I cannot tell what we have to do, as I really do not know, but I guess that one may start with Pranayama, yoga… and experience the perception then.
As it is, the problem is which questions to ask, before we seek answers. The Microcosm of the invisible spectrum is simply unlanguageable. In the quantum world, if you send one photon with a thousand holes in its front, that single photon goes through all the thousand holes at the same time!!!!The situation there is baffling. We have to depend on technology but we are not machines, and mechanical understanding and emotionalized understanding are different. Mechanics and emotions do not agree with each other and we just can never achieve the absence of emotional bias demanded of today’s sciences. We can devise only emotion laden questions, but we simply cannot develop any emotional interaction with things which we can neither see nor conceptualize. Like blind persons we clutch technology. It is like depending on a supporting stick when one is blind. You plod with the stick so that you do not fall, a totally personal interest dominated situation. When you use technology to explore the Microcosm, you are in the same situation—-you are dominated by your personal circumstances. We have to discover the questions first.

@JonSnow @Patel @Plato

@ashu99213196 wrote:

i dont think bro that music will disappear even after many centuries

@B@R_0_0_D

@B@R_0_0_D

In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide.

Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they got bankrupt.

What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 year – and most people don’t see it coming.
Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again?

Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975.
The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore’s law.

So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became way superiour and got mainstream in only a few short years.

It will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.

Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Welcome to the Exponential Age.

Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.
Uber is just a software tool, they don’t own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world.
Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world.
This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.
In the US, young lawyers already don’t get jobs.
Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans.
So if you study law, stop immediately.
There will be 90% less laywyers in the future, only specialists will remain.

Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 time more accurate than human nurses.
Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans.
In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self driving cars will appear for the public.
Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted.
You don’t want to own a car anymore.
You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination.
You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving.
Our kids will never get a driver’s licence and will never own a car.
It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars for that.
We can transform former parking space into parks. 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide.
We now have one accident every 100,000 km, with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 10 million km.
That will save a million lifes each year.

Most car companies might become bankrupt.
Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.
I spoke to a lot of engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; they are completely terrified of Tesla.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper.
Their car insurance business model will disappear.

Real estate will change.
Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.

Electric cars will become mainstream until 2020.
Cities will be less noisy because all cars will run on electric.

Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can only now see the impact.
Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil.
The price for solar will drop so much that all coal companies will be out of business by 2025.

With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water.
Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter.
We don’t have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water.
Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.

Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year.
There will be companies who will build a medical device (called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek) that works with you phone, which takes your retina scan, you blood sample and you breath into it.
It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease.
It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medicine, nearly for free.

3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from 18,000$ to 400$ within 10 years.
In the same time, it became 100 times faster.
All major shoe companies started 3D printing shoes.
Spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports.
The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amout of spare parts they used to have in the past.
At the end of this year, new smartphones will have 3D scanning possibilities.
You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home.
In China, they already 3D printed a complete 6-storey office building.
By 2027, 10% of everything that’s being produced will be 3D printed.

Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: “in the future, do you think we will have that?” and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner?
If it doesn’t work with your phone, forget the idea.
And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed in to failure in the 21st century.

Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years.
QThere will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.

Agriculture: There will be a 100$ agricultural robot in the future.
Farmers in 3rd world countried can then become managers of their field instead of working all days on their fields.
Aeroponics will need much less water.

The first petri dish produced veal is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018.

Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows.

Imagine if we don’t need that space anymore.

There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market shortly.

It contains more protein than meat.

It will be labeled as “alternative protein source” (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

There is an app called “moodies” which can already tell in which mood you are.

Until 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying.

Imagine a political debate where it’s being displayed when they are telling the truth and when not.

Bitcoin will become mainstream this year and might even become the default reserve currency.

Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year.

Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it’s 80 years.

The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more that one year increase per year.

So we all might live for a long long time, probably way more than 100.

Education: The cheapest smartphones are already at 10$ in Africa and Asia.

Until 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smartphone.

That means, everyone has the same access to world class education.

Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child learns at school in First World countries.

We have already released our software in Indonesia and will release it in Arabic, Suaheli and Chinese this Summer, because I see an enormous potential.

We will give the English app for free, so that children in Africa can become fluent in English within half a year…….

@JonSnow
@mahidada@@

villa savoye cat, France