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People in Afghanistan are looking for the return of peace and normal life amid a period of uncertainty.

KABUL, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) — Afghans are expecting peace and harmony, and wish everything to get back on track after the pullout of the last U.S. troops from the country.

“The Taliban firing shots into the air woke me up at midnight. Then I found it was the celebratory firing after the U.S. troops pullout. However, I could not go back to sleep as I was thinking about the loss of my assets in recent days,” money exchanger Najibullah told Xinhua.

“I had a big loss in changing money in recent days. I lost a lot of afghanis and foreign currencies, the afghani is not stable, the exchange rate is rising and falling in hours due to the current political and economic problems,” he said.

Najibullah said he was concerned about the fast changing of afghani to U.S. dollars rate. Currency devaluation directly affected the daily life of the Afghan people, with prices of goods skyrocketing.

The final evacuation flight was conducted in the last hours of Monday night, airlifting the last U.S. military and non-military personnel back home, one day before the Aug. 31 deadline set by U.S. President Joe Biden.

“The United States had withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan after two decades, but the Americans left a mess in our country,” said Khoja Wahid, a Kabul resident, who runs a small factory producing Afghan traditional cloths.

© Provided by Xinhua

“The United States is defeated and it is badly defeated,” said the 42-year-old man.

“Most of my costumers were Afghans living in the United States and Europe. No people came to buy traditional cloths from my shop and I had to dismiss my workers. I was worried about them,” he said.

Wahid said that he was very happy that with the U.S. troops withdrawal, peace would return to Afghanistan. However, the latest security incidents have shocked him.

“I had never thought that bomb blasts and explosions still occurred,” he said.

He referred to a U.S. drone strike against a house in the west of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Sunday, which killed at least 10 civilians, including five children. The U.S. military announced the target was suicide car bomber of an ISIS-K, a local affiliate of the Islamic State group in Afghanistan.

On Aug. 26, an ISIS-K claimed suicide bomb explosion and the ensuing gun firing killed at least 160 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops, and injured nearly 200 others at a gate of the airport, when huge crowds were waiting to board evacuation flights.

© Provided by Xinhua

“Kabul started a normal day on Tuesday, the main business hub Mandawi was open. There was traffic jam in central part of the city. The main exchange market was still closed, many exchangers and vendors were doing small business and changing money on the road outside the market,” another money changer Yar Mohammad told Xinhua.

“I came here to pass time, I am the bread earner of a family of eight. It is difficult to earn money,” Mohammad said.

“Banks are still closed, only government and private bank’s main branches are open,” he said.

“I put my money in a bank before Taliban came to Kabul but now I cannot withdraw my money back,” Mohammad said.

“At this difficult time, I wish the Taliban would urgently form a new government. And I hope the Taliban stand on their commitments for creating a broad and inclusive government as soon as possible to end the uncertainty in Afghanistan,” he said.

Although thousands of Afghan experts and highly educated people have left Afghanistan, the young generation is still determined to stay in the country if peace returns and their safety and security are ensured, he said.

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Tim Cook

 

BBC: Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has received more than five million shares in the technology giant, as he marks 10 years in the job.

A company filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) watchdog shows that he sold most of the shares for more than US $ 750 million (£550 million).

It is part of a deal he struck when he took over from co-founder Steve Jobs.

The award depended on how well Apple’s shares performed compared to other firms on the S&P 500 stock index.
According to Apple’s filing with the SEC, Cook was eligible for the award as the company’s shares had risen by 191.83 percent over the last three years.

It also noted that Apple’s share price has increased 1,200 percent since he became Chief Executive on August 24, 2011.

The company behind the iPhone, iPad and MacBook now has a market valuation of almost US $ 2.5 trillion.
Last year, Cook agreed to a new pay package that runs to the end of 2026.

A SEC filing also showed that earlier this week Cook donated almost US $ 10 million worth of Apple shares to charity, without naming the recipient.

In 2015, Cook said he would give away his entire fortune before he dies and is known to have donated tens of millions of dollars to charity.

He currently has a net worth of around US $ 1.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index.

Cook has often spoken publicly about his concerns over issues including HIV and Aids, climate change, human rights and equality.

He follows other mega-rich US business people who have said they would give away all or a significant portion of their fortunes in their lifetimes.

In 2010, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and investment veteran Warren Buffett launched the Giving Pledge, which called on billionaires to give away at least half of their fortunes.

Earlier this year, Buffett donated to charity another US $ 4.1 billion worth of shares in his company Berkshire Hathaway.

 

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Diwakar Nigam, Chairman and Managing Director (CMD), Newgen Software, talks about his outlook for the company in FY22, Intelligent Document Classification Software, the reason for reduction of promoter stakes and geographies where the company will focus among others during a candid chat with Swati Khandelwal, Zee Business. Edited Excerpts:

See Zee Business Live TV Streaming Below:

Q: The trend for orders of the company is looking good. Going forward what is your outlook for FY22? 

A: COVID is going, and we all are active in expecting it and thinking that there will be progress. In the last two years, we maintained our status but were able to grow less. This year we are looking at high double-digit growth. So, our company has been growing at a CAGR of about 21-22% just before the COVID years. The last two years have been more stable because new business suffered. Our old customers kept giving us business and we kept working but there was a problem in bringing new business because neither we were able to travel nor were able to meet the customers. I think, it has affected a bit due to which we were not able to grow a lot and saw a growth of just around 4-5%. This year, we are looking at much higher growth rates. Our company also works across the world and just around 27-28% of our business comes from India. We get big business from the Middle East, Africa, US and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Some of these markets have opened completely, like the US, but you don’t know when the markets will be closed once again due to the COVID like Australia was completely open but suddenly, Sydney and Melbourne were closed. So, we are looking at good numbers and good progress. I think that the market is looking up, so we will be able to grow. This is our reading and I think every IT company is also going to grow, the only thing is depending on the size how much have we grown, growth may be small but there is the possibility of growth for us. 

 

Q: Recently, you have further enhanced your Intelligent Document Classification Software. What’s the quantum benefit here in terms of further client acceptability and incremental sales of the software ahead?

A: What happens, when a person chooses a platform, like the ECM platform, then generally he chooses a platform for the whole enterprise, then works on it. So, you have to have a comprehensive view of that platform. Similarly, if someone buys our ECM (enterprise content management) platform, which is document management in simple layman terms, so in that, they want to have different facilities. So, if you don’t have an intelligent document management facility then you will not be able to identify private documents, for instance once upon a time, someone went and added his Aadhaar card or Credit card and archived it. Now, the government says that these things must not be displayed, so, we have to go and search them in our document images and then hide them. So, this is about it and for doing this we have to have intelligent document management and intelligent document classification so that you can classify these documents and then edit those documents and mask those documents among others. This enhances the business because now it is becoming a necessity. These product platforms take a lot of time to be created and also from time to time, as things progress and new needs start evolving, you have to continuously upgrade them otherwise you will not remain relevant, and you will lose out in the market. So, we keep doing this work continuously and also take patents for this, bring new technologies in place and do new things. I think, this is what we have been doing and everything as evolves, market edge increases. 

Q: The promoters in June 2021 sold 10.57% stakes and reduced the promoter holding from 65.73% to 55.16%. First what has been the reason for the stake sale and secondly what is way ahead?

A: There is no such plan and this plan come on the way just because our investor bankers informed us that our liquidity in the market is quite low in numbers and value and if you want larger investors to come in the liquidity has to be increased. And that is why we went ahead and diluted some amount of share but still, we have around 55% share and not only 55% if you include our employees who have got a large amount of stock option that will amount to another 8-10%. So, I think, we are still between the promoter and the employees, we own a very very large percentage. So, I don’t think that it is the aim, as a result, we have got very large investors who came in and now will become anchors in our organization and they provide the stability and provide us with good standing in the market. There is no plan for further dilution. 

Q: How has been the deal pipeline and which kind of deal wins is expected going ahead in the next 3-4 quarters? Which geographies do you feel would contribute the most to your growth?

A: The market is huge, and the potential is very very big. We have been operating mainly in a very small market of Africa, the Middle East, India and the APEC, while the largest markets are Europe and the US. And the US in a short while in the last 4-5 years has become about 30% of our turnover and it is growing. If you have a look at the US market, then for these products the US Market is about 60% of the world market. So, I think that is where we are focusing as we feel that it is a huge market and has a huge potential to go. We already have around 60 customers in the US, North American market and now, we are finding that many big people are going for these things. Up to now, we were going for small and mid-sized business and our excess to the big enterprises’ Fortune 2000 companies was very poor, what we are doing now is that we are collaborating with large system integrators, you name anybody in India, and they are collaborating with us and they are standardizing on our products and are trying to take to the Fortune 2000 market. That is where we are seeing our biggest progress. So, it is the insurance and financial services market is the largest market for us to begin with. 

 

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Originally Appeared Here

highlights

Terror struck Kabul airport on Thursday as thousands of Afghans and foreigners clamoured to flee the country, more than a week after Taliban took control of the capital. 

1. Up to 60 dead in Kabul airport blasts as airlift deadline looms: BBC
2. The Pentagon confirmed that 12 US service members were killed in the blasts, with a further 15 wounded.
3. The blast is suspected to have been carried out by Islamic State’s Khorasan unit. 
4. US Military Central Commander General McKenzie says the US are prepared to take action against those responsible for Kabul attacks.
5. He added about 1,000 US citizens are still believed to be in Afghanistan.
6. US expects Islamic State will attempt more attacks in Kabul: Pentagon general

WION brings you developments from the ground zero in this live blog as and when they happen.

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