HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 22 March 2021 – Amidst a global biodiversity crisis, Hong Kong authorities seized a record breaking 649 metric tonnes (MT) of rare and endangered wildlife in 2018 and 2019, according to a report released today by ADM Capital Foundation (ADMCF), which monitors the trade through the city.

Photographs: Paul Hilton / Earth Tree Images, further press materials: http://bit.ly/2OTHc9b

In its latest wildlife trade report, “Still Trading in Extinction: The Dark Side of Hong Kong’s Wildlife Trade” ADMCF detailed Hong Kong’s growing wildlife seizures (2018-2019), prosecutions (2017-2020) and the city’s continuing role in the global illicit wildlife trade.

Based on government data, the report shows that volumes of wildlife seized in 2018 and 2019 surpassed all annual totals for the preceding decade with the exception of 2015. Figures indicate a shift in trade dynamics with a decline in ivory in trade following the local ban, pangolins at devastatingly high levels and a worrying diversification of other endangered species seized.

Indeed, the “Other Endangered Species” seizures, including everything that is not ivory, pangolin or wood, were at an all-time high in 2019, a threefold increase over the previous year, which itself was a threefold increase since 2017.

“It is vital that decisive action is taken to change our city from being a hub for the illegal wildlife trade to become a global leader in the fight against it” said Sophie le Clue of ADM Capital Foundation. “If not, we will continue to inflict irreversible damage on the world’s biodiversity and suffer impacts long into the future.”

Facilitating enhanced enforcement to stem the illegal trade in Hong Kong, a Member’s Bill submitted by Hong Kong law maker Elizabeth Quat was tabled in LegCo’s Environmental Affairs Panel today. The proposed policy reform to amend the Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance (OSCO) to include wildlife offences in its schedules, could demonstrate Hong Kong’s global leadership in combating wildlife trafficking.

“This bill to amend OSCO is urgently needed and we commend the government for responding to the global biodiversity crisis” Said Amanda Whitfort, Associate Professor of Law at The University of Hong Kong.

The 1,404 seizures over the two years reflected in the report also included almost 7,000 live animals. This meant that in 2019 alone, over 2,300 seized endangered animals had to be euthanized by government authorities.

“The unrelenting rise in Hong Kong’s wildlife seizures is a clear signal that we cannot continue to ignore the wildlife traffickers who exploit our city” said Dr David Olson, Director of Conservation at WWF-Hong Kong.

Wildlife contraband seizures consistently rank within the top five customs seizures in terms of value, annually. The value of 2018-2019 seizures was estimated at HK$207 million according to government data. Sentences for convicted carriers ranged from a fine of HK$300 to 32-months imprisonment. “Enforcement in the wildlife trade typically focuses on carriers of the products instead of investigating what are often syndicates behind the trade” said Dorothy Cheng of WildAid Hong Kong.

Members of Hong Kong’s Wildlife Trade Working Group formally delivered a co-signed letter to the Chairman of Panel on Environmental Affairs, in support of the Member’s Bill.

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – Media OutReach – 22 March 2021 – 2020 proved that the only constant is change — organisations were forced to unlock new levels of investment in transformation in order to adapt, remain resilient and ultimately change the way we work forever.

Perhaps one of the hardest things for businesses was the uncertainty — overnight, technologies that were once 3-5 years away are now commonplace. This alone placed enormous pressure on IT teams tasked to do more with less.

To get to grips with the latest technologies and innovation without breaking the bank, IT News Africa and industry experts alike are set to lead the digital transformation conversation at the Digital Transformation Webinar on 24 March 2021.

Under the theme ‘Using Hybrid Cloud Agility to Put your Organization Ahead‘, this free webinar will tackle how to take advantage of the cloud. It will impart knowledge on how to build a solid IT environment that allows organizations to navigate difficult global situations, making the right architectural decisions to unlock freedom without sacrificing security and control and “right-size” VMs to minimize resource waste to maximize application performance.

Confirmed Speakers Include:

• Kumaran Selvarajalu, Senior General Manager at the Payments Banking Association Of South Africa
• Dr. Michael Modiba, Cloud Engineer at Standard Bank
• Martin Walshaw, Strategic Account Manager at Nutanix

Who Should Attend:

CIO, CMO, Chief Digital Officer, Head of Customer Experience, CTO, Strategy Director, Digital Transformation Manager, CSO, Chief Digital Officer, Chief Data Officer

How to participate:

Register for this virtual conference HERE

For more information on this webinar visit: https://itnewsafrica.com/events/event/digital-transformation-webinar/

CLIFTON, NJ – News Direct – 20 March 2021 – As a business continuity solution distributor, Microdium has seen numerous cases where cyber-threats have ransacked companies in Southeast Asia. The increasing complexity of the cyber-threat landscape has led the company to explore a comprehensive, highly-effective cybersecurity solution.

“We chose to partner with Comodo because of the ease of use of the Dragon platform and the auto containment technology. Auto containment is a killer feature compared to everything else on the market. Why offer 99 percent when you can have 100 percent threat protection? Plus, the pricing is attractive, and the cherry on top is the superb support team,” says Sher Khan, Cybersecurity Director at Microdium.

Microdium also selected Comodo for its SOC-as-a-Platform; it was something that none of the other vendors that Microdium had previously worked with or spoken to had available. Comodo’s next-gen SOC-as-a-platform (SOCaaP) includes people, processes, and technology and offers fully white-label capability for any MSSP or enterprise. It saves the company’s partners time and money with zero capital outlay.

“The increasing complexity of the cyber-threat landscape and industry-specific requirements demand solution specialists. Through our Comodo partnership, our partners, resellers, and managed service providers can offer their customers everything from Managed Detection and Response (MDR) as a service to custom SOC-as-aService, and enterprise solutions with no initial investment,” says Schumacher.

Watch Microdium explain why they chose Comodo

Comodo’s Managed Detection and Response offering provides a 24/7 Security Operations Center delivered as a Service (SOCaaS). Comodo’s MDR provides a team of security researchers that extends a company’s IT team to safeguard systems and infrastructure.

“Comodo is very advanced and competes with the Enterprise solutions at half the price. With Cloud-Based EDR and Complete Endpoint Management with RMM Capabilities, it will be a sweet spot even for SME businesses.” Said M.C.Sajiv, CEO of Microdium.

Melih Abdulhayoglu, Founder and Chairman of Comodo, says, “We look forward to a strong future with Microdium. By providing cybersecurity solutions that allow Microdium to deliver better IT security solutions to their customers, we’re helping them minimize the average cost of cyber-attacks targeting companies in Malaysia and Singapore. Comodo is excited to help Microdium in their mission.”

About Microdium

Based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Singapore Microdium partners works 100% with resellers, system integrators, and OEMs to deliver innovation and cost-effective business continuity and cybersecurity solution for enterprise computing environments.

Watch Microdium explain why they chose Comodo

About Comodo

Comodo is the world’s leader of next-generation open source cybersecurity, with the industry’s most disruptive innovations.

We help customers stop breaches with groundbreaking auto containment technology that neutralizes ransomware, malware and cyber-attacks. Our complete cloud-native framework delivers a zero-trust architecture with active breach protection for the most comprehensive defense against zero-day threats. Comodo’s cybersecurity products maximize intelligent sharing between every component of the platform, therefore providing superior security. We are the only company that analyzes and gives a trusted verdict for 100% of files on a network.

Comodo leverages innovation to celebrate and support the cybersecurity community by offering the very first open source endpoint detection and response (EDR). We believe that an open source model using community-powered collaboration will ensure that every organization has access to the industry’s most sophisticated EDR.

Headquartered in Clifton NJ, Comodo’s global development team and threat intelligence laboratories deliver innovative, category leading, security solutions for thousands of companies’ endpoints, network boundaries, and internal networks. For more information visit https://www.comodo.com/

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – News aktuell – 20 March 2021 – It is with great sadness that Elsa Peretti’s death yesterday from natural causes was announced by her family office in Zurich and by the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation. The designer, who was famous for her creations for high-end US jewelers Tiffany, passed away in a village close to Barcelona, Spain, at the age of 80. Her legacy comprises a body of exceptional design work as well as a foundation dedicated to humanitarian, environmental and conservation causes. A true citizen of the world, her absence will be strongly felt within all the different circles where she played such an active and creative role.

A pioneering designer

Elsa Peretti was born in Florence and educated in Rome and Switzerland. She later returned to Rome to pursue a degree in interior design. By 1969, she had established herself as a fashion model in New York and Barcelona and was also beginning to design her own jewelry.

American fashion designer Giorgio di Sant’Angelo used a few of her pieces in a fashion show, where they were an instant hit. By the following day, she was the toast of New York. It was during this period that she met the legendary US fashion designer and seventies icon Halston, who became her lifelong friend and with whom she collaborated frequently. Halston also introduced Elsa to US jewelers Tiffany & Co. in 1974, with whom she rapidly started working in an exclusive collaboration which was to last throughout her entire career.

Her inspiration was often drawn from everyday items – a bean, a bone, an apple could be transformed into cufflinks, bracelets, vases or lighters, scorpions and snakes were turned into appealing necklaces and rings, often in silver which was one of her preferred materials. She herself stated that ‘There is no new design, because good lines and shapes are timeless’, and indeed her pieces are as modern and wearable today as they ever were.

Elsa Peretti’s designs are in the permanent collections of the British Museum in London, England; The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas. In recognition of her remarkable work, Tiffany established the Elsa Peretti Professorship in Jewelry Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology, the first endowed professorship in the history of FIT. Among other honours, the designer was given an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from FIT in 2001. She also received the 1971 Coty American Fashion Critics’ Award for Jewelry and the Rhode Island School of Design President’s Fellow Award in 1981. In 1996, the Council of Fashion Designers of America named her Accessory Designer of the Year.

Philanthropic work

Elsa Peretti was renowned for her witty charm, openness to others, kindness and generosity. She had a deep humanitarian calling and supported cultural, scientific and educational initiatives as well as committing to the defence of human rights. In 2000, she created a charity in honor of her father, the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation. The Foundation supports a broad range of projects for the promotion of human and civil rights, with a special emphasis on the right to education, children’s rights, and women’s rights and dignity. Proposals are solicited internationally, and the Foundation has supported requests from around the world, including initiatives on behalf of unrepresented people and oppressed minorities, to defend their right to exist and preserve their culture. It also supports medical and scientific research projects to promote physical and mental health, as well as specific interventions including the building of hospitals and other sanitary facilities. It has funded public awareness campaigns for wildlife conservation and environmental protection, and promotes culture and the arts. The Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation has financed more than 1,000 non-profit projects in more than 80 countries, for a total investment of over EUR 56 million.

Sant Martí Vell, her Catalan refuge

The small village of Sant Martí Vell in Catalonia was always close to her heart. In 1968, she bought a mustard-yellow house there, which she lovingly restored over the next ten years and which had become her preferred residency over the past few years. While living abroad, she subsequently had entire segments of the village restored, acquiring and preserving further buildings including the church, and supporting the excavation of Roman ruins and the archiving of the village’s history. She also established a working vineyard, which has marketed fine wines under the Eccocivi label since 2008.

She promoted the visual arts and fostered the consolidation, protection and dissemination of the historical, artistic, cultural, architectural and craft heritage of Catalonia. In 2013, Elsa Peretti was the first non-Catalan person to be awarded the National Culture Award by the National Council for Culture and the Arts (CoNCA).

A few things people have said about Elsa Peretti:

She is one of the greatest jewelry designers of the 20th century and has taken us beyond the realm of commercial success into design history. She is a halo for the entire brand.” – Michael Kowalski former chairman and CEO of Tiffany and Co.

“Elsa brought out all these things—the bone bracelet I remember best. Everything was so sensual, so sexy. I just loved it. It was different from anything I’d ever seen, and I’d seen a lot. I’ve only really worn #Peretti jewellery from then on.” Liza Minnelli talking about Elsa, Vanity Fair, August 2014.

“She looks at the thing, but she just doesn’t look at it. She touches it, she turns it around, back of it, front of it, side of it. To really get to the object she is looking at, and that’s what comes through” Hiro talking about Elsa.

“She was the most unique, most wonderful, most chic woman I had seen for years. With that men’s hat and that marvelous gait… ” Joe Eula on Elsa – Vogue Italia , 1996.

“She doesn’t come from one locked culture, it’s all blended. It’s not American, it’s not Europe, it’s not Japanese, it’s Elsa” Hiro on Elsa from “Elsa Peretti 25 years Retrospective” 1999.

“We believe Elsa’s work to be a continual testament to the truth that great design transcends fashion, the heart of our company philosophy. She is one of the greatest jewellery designers of the 20th century and has taken us beyond the realm of commercial success into design history. She is a halo for the entire brand” ” Elsa’s work has a unique instinctive elemental magnetism. She is a design genius” Michael Kowalski Former CEO of Tiffany and Co from an interview for How to Spend it

“In Japan they have an honor bestowed on extraordinary individuals. If we were in Japan, and all over the world, Elsa Peretti would have this honor. She would be considered an international living treasure. I am in awe of Elsa – I always have been because she possesses the very rare combination of the most individual chic made even more individual by her simplicity, kindness, and startling vision. She is a woman who has assisted in creating a new notion of beauty for the rest.” Ralph Rucci, couturier, Lampoon Magazine, Maggio 2020.

“Elsa brought a new intensity, a new commitment, a new passion to our focus of design” Mike Kowalski From “Elsa Peretti 25 years Retrospective” 1999.

“She’ll notice someone’s shoes. She notices something in a corner that you know, most people wouldn’t notice, and she’ll pick up on it and say: “Well isn’t this beautiful? Look at this” …you know. She makes you see things.” Liz Franceschini, from “Elsa Peretti 25 years Retrospective” 1999.

“All of us at Tiffany feel a deep sense of loyalty to Elsa and she’s always returned that loyalty.” William Chaney, From “Elsa Peretti 25 years Retrospective” 1999.