A new multi-year agreement was signed between worldwide satellite operator SES and Global Eagle Entertainment (GEE), a leading provider of content, connectivity, digital media and operations solutions to the travel industry, in order to meet growing global demand for inflight entertainment and connectivity (IFEC) services.
Over the past two quarters, GEE has secured additional SES Ku-band capacity, adding bandwidth on six SES satellites to connect airline passengers across the globe. Under the expanding relationship with GEE, SES is also providing teleport services, ground infrastructure and its deeply rooted expertise in the aviation and mobility markets. “GEE continues to expand its global inflight connectivity network with SES capacity to
meet the exciting and rapidly expanding needs of airlines and their passengers around the world,” said Dave Davis, CEO of GEE. “Together with SES, its global fleet, and its high throughput satellites (HTS) that will be launched in 2017, GEE is ushering in the next generation of in-flight entertainment and connectivity that is already reshaping the passenger experience and the industry as a whole.”
“SES is rapidly expanding and evolving its global fleet to remain at the forefront of fast-growing mobile connectivity demand around the world,” noted Elias Zaccack, Senior Vice President, Commercial, Americas, with responsibility for global mobility solutions at SES. “Our aim is to enable airline passengers to enjoy a superb connectivity experience that is comparable to that on the ground. SES is proud to be part of GEE’s high-quality, high-value service offering to its customer airlines.”
As part of its growing relationship with SES, GEE will also utilize major portions of HTS capacity aboard the SES-12, SES-14 and SES-15 satellites, which are currently under construction and scheduled for launch in 2017. SES-14 and SES-15 offer complementary coverage over busy air travel routes across the Americas and North Atlantic regions, Western Europe, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, while SES-12 will serve the fast-growing aeronautical market across Asia and the Middle East.
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Ministers of Economic Profile Met with IMF Middle East and Central Asia Department Director
Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development Levan Davitashvili and Minister of Finance Lasha Khutsishvili met with Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department of the International Monetary Fund, who was on a working visit to Georgia.
According to the administration of the Ministry of Economics, the IMF Resident Representative for Georgia, Selim Chakir as well as Deputy Ministers and the Heads of Departments of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development attended the meeting.
The parties reviewed the issues related to cooperation between Georgia and the International Monetary Fund. The importance of the new three-year program aimed at further strengthening of macroeconomic stability, increasing medium-term growth prospects in the face of existing challenges in the region, promoting the continuation of structural reforms, including public finance management, state enterprise reforms and energy support schemes, was also covered during the meeting.
Georgian side informed the Director for the Middle East and Central Asia Department of the International Monetary Fund about the current situation in the country’s economy, indicators of economic growth for 5 months of the current year, as well as future forecasts. It was emphasized that Georgia has quite a successful experience in managing external shocks and despite the current geopolitical shock, by implementing an immediate and effective economic policy, the economy of Georgia maintains high rates of economic growth, sustainability and macroeconomic stability.
As Selim Chakir noted, the authorities have shown significant progress in the direction of strengthening the regulation and supervision of the financial sector. According to the Chakir, the IMF supports the economic program developed by the government, which is focused on reducing fiscal deficit, inflation and external vulnerabilities, as well as structural reforms necessary to boost growth.
At the end of the meeting, the parties confirmed readiness to continue cooperation in the process of implementing economic and structural reforms important for the country.
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The luxury ferry capable of carrying 1,800 people, the smart bus with no blind zone, the subway train with "Chinese speed" and car production lines filled with Chinese brands ...
Let's take a look at these "Made in China" transportation vehicles in the Middle East.
Produced by Xinhua Global Service
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On 28th August, Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL) held “2021 MENA Webinar: Monitoring Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa” to present human rights violence cases throughout the region and find ways to a constant human rights watch. It especially highlighted cases of the vulnerable and minor social group falsely blamed on being a perpetrator of Covid 19.
Honorable. Essam Shiha, chairman of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) shared human rights issues in the Middle East during the pandemic like inadequate healthcare to detainees, vaccination inequality to Palestinians, and suggested a role of all levels of society to build more resilient societies.
And Mr. Mogues Worku, Executive Director of Lem Ethiopia stressed the necessity of education to minimize the gap between the poor and the “Violation of human rights should be stopped be it at national or international level for peace and security of the planet. Education that coined respecting human dignity and human rights should be applied from the lower to the higher level of education system to let the coming generations enjoy peace and security”.
HWPL has stressed the role of states and civil society to ease the tension caused by the pandemic. To find solutions to protecting from violence, HWPL has endorsed international cooperation for sustainable development and raising awareness of peace building, including voluntary work, webinars on human rights in the Middle East, and peace education for students and citizens. Its recent joint statement on Myanmar’s human rights crisis advocated seeking peaceful solutions without armed conflict.
Following this event, there will be the 7th Anniversary of the September 18th HWPL World Peace Summit for peace and the cessation of war sharing results of a year that help emphasizing the role of civil society to build sustainable peace in a pandemic-hit new normal like this event.
Press-release of the HWPL
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On 26th June, Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL) organized “2021 Middle East webinar: Overcoming Human Rights Violence during Pandemic” to exchange ideas to ease social tensions and examine human rights issues during COVID-19 crisis.
HWPL has been working on human rights initiative through a series of webinars with personnel from civil society, dealing with various human right issues. After the webinar with Egypt in April, HWPL held an online discussion to further address the human rights violence in dealing with COVID-19 in the Middle East.
The virus intensified existing discrimination and violence towards social and religious minority groups. The webinar aimed at addressing the issues and sharing the perspectives from the in-depth analysis and Human Resoruces(HR) experts’ presentations.
President of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, Hon. Essam Shiha called for the cooperation of the society, “Multilateralism is indispensable that these key players coordinate and collaborate to promote and integrate core values of human rights in all dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental).”
Mr. Asrawan Ibrahim Zrary, Zoroastrian from Iraqi Kurdistan stressed the necessity of respecting common grounds shared by each religion. “We must look for common points between religions for the purpose of increasing love and spreading peace. And tolerance, although there are some verses in a particular religion that are called abrogating and abrogated, and hatred must be renounced and the other accepted as he is and not as I want.”
Ms. Iman El Damarany, who also participated in the last webinar addressed the importance of ensuring human rights and safety of media to uncover the truth, “Journalists suffer from some problems in many countries of the region, and that there must be international legislation and binding laws imposed by the United Nations to protect journalists from any harassment.”
HWPL continues its webinar series to comprehensively tackles the social justice and human right issues worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. As an upcoming event, HWPL will hold a Youth Empowerment Peace Workshop(YEPW) online on 27th June in its commitment for the youth. HWPL peace education teachers' training will also take place in Iraq starting from this month.
Press-release of the HWPL
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760 fintech applicants from CEMEA region entered the competition with innovative payment and commerce solutions to solve the payment challenges of tomorrow
Tbilisi, June, 10, 2021 – Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) Visa today announced the regional winners for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) in its Visa Everywhere Initiative, a global innovation program and competition for startups and fintech companies.
First place for CEMEA and $15,000 in prize money went to Payze of Georgia. Payze now advances to the global finals being held on September 14 with $100,000 in prizes available including $50,000 for the overall winner.
Founded in 2020 by Giorgi Tsurtsumia and Kakha Gelashvili, Payze is an innovator of financial transactions, helping businesses in CIS countries accept payments from around the world through a single integration. By April 2021 Payze has been processing more than serving more than 200 merchants growing 35% month over month in gross transaction volume.
“We are excited and proud to share that the winner of Visa Everywhere Initiative in CEMEA is originated from Georgia. The fact that the Georgian startup became the main finalist of Visa Everywhere Initiative in CEMEA among 760 applicants proves that Georgia is not only the world’s leader in contactless payments, but also has a great influence on the world’s fintech map. We are proud, that Visa, leading the way in the development of cashless economy in Georgia and the Caucasus region, is an active initiator of a such range of programs and strives to create a stable cohesion between the ideas and their implementation connecting fintech companies and traditional players of the financial system all over the world. Success attend you during the finals, Payze!”,mentioned Diana Kiguradze, Country Manager for the Caucasus region.
Also honored at the June 9 CEMEA regional finals was Safepay of Pakistan, which took the Audience Favorite award and $10,000 in prize money.
TechCrunch is a leading online publisher focused on the tech industry, being the heart of the global startup ecosystem. As a media partner of Visa Everywhere Initiative, TechCrunch hosted the CEMEA regional finals in the live-streamed format. Thanks to their continuing support, the finalist virtually presented their solutions to the payment challenges of tomorrow to an expert panel of judges.
The expert panel of judges included:
- Shereen Abdulla, Senior Manager, DIFC Fintech Hive;
- Neil Caldwell, Senior Vice-President, Head of Merchant Sales & Acquisitions, Visa CEMEA;
- Ines Rocha, Director for Financial Products, SME Finance & Development Team, EBRD;
- Tad Tilahun, Senior Vice-President, Head of Products and Solutions, Visa CEMEA;
- Otto Williams, Senior Vice-President, Head of Partnerships, Innovation & DigitalSolutions, Visa CEMEA;
- Rena Zuabi, Value Creation, Disruptive Investments, Mubadala.
"Winning Visa Everywhere Initiative is a testament of the hard work our team is putting forward, and we are extremely proud of this achievement. It was fascinating and at the same time challenging experience competing against the best startups in the region, but it was a growth point to us as a startup which has been contributing to the process of receiving and managing online payments of any tech company or person in the CIS region. We are grateful to Visa for providing all 760 applicants in CEMEA with this unique opportunity and believe that the tools and technologies Visa offers are crucial for the further development of payment ecosystem”, told Giorgi Tsurtsumia, co-founder, Payze.
The Visa Everywhere Initiative helps fintech innovators in two ways: as a program, it plugs them into the network of startups that our product teams from all over the world access when searching for solutions; and as a competition, it gives them a forum in which to make a pitch to a panel of payments experts, win prizes and gain wider attention.
The competition is tailored to startups and fintechs with great products already in market and gaining traction - and looking for an extra push from a global, trusted brand like Visa to gain scale.
In all, five companies advanced to the CEMEA regional finals. Besides Payze and Safepay, the other three finalists were:
- Habtamu Tadesse, Founder & CEO, ArifPay, Ethiopia
- Alexander Grishin, Executive Director, Corp.bank, Russia
- Michael Femi Simeon, Co-Founder & CEO, VPD Money, Nigeria
The focus of this year’s competition is on products that deliver innovative payment and commerce solutions to consumers and businesses. These encompass the market areas of: Enablers of digital services and digital issuers; Digital issuance; Value-add for merchants and/or consumers in regard to finance; and Small to medium-sized business recovery. In overall more than 2000 applicants participated in the competition.
In the global finals, which will be live-streamed on TechCrunch, Payze will compete against regional winners from Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America.
About the Visa Everywhere Initiative
The Visa Everywhere Initiative is a global, open innovation program that tasks start-ups and fintechs to solve payment and commerce challenges of tomorrow, further enhance their own product propositions and provide visionary solutions for Visa’s vast network of partners. The program launched in the U.S. in 2015 and quickly expanded into a global program with more than 7,000 participating startups. To date, startups have collectively raised over $2.5 billion in funding, and the program has been activated on six continents - touching more than 100 countries. For more information, visit visa.com
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About Visa Inc.
Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of connected commerce on any device, and a driving force behind the dream of a cashless future for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information, visit usa.visa.com/about-visa, visa.com.ge, facebook.com/VisaGeorgiaGE
News Release of the Visa
