Month: July 2023

German automaker Volkswagen (VW) is entering crisis mode, and even the executives are admitting it, with the company’s leader describing a “perfect storm.”

During a meeting with 2,200 company executives, Thomas Schäfer, a board member for the core VW brand, said the company is “under enormous pressure from internal and external factors” and warned that the “roof is on fire.”

Now, the company leader has told his top executives that “the future of the VW brand is at stake.”

Schafter noted that the company is only producing a 3.6 percent profit margin, half that of VW’s competitors, at a time when demand is rapidly collapsing. Shareholders have already long expressed skepticism over the company’s electric car transition, with the shares of the company being cut in half since 2021, falling to €123.

Due to falling demand, the group slashed production at its Emden plant, where electric cars are made, extended plant vacations by a week, and laid off hundreds of temporary workers.

“The next weeks and months will be very tough,” Schäfer warned, according to a report from Tagesschau. The business environment, he said, is a “perfect storm.”

The VW executive stated that costs are running too high in many areas and that structures and processes are “still too complicated, too slow, too inflexible.”

At the top of the list of challenges facing the company is the lack of demand for electric cars despite the company investing huge sums in the division. High inflation, Germany’s recession, and e-car sticker shock for consumers have contributed to a sharp reduction in demand. At the same time, popular e-car subsidy programs, such as Germany’s “environmental bonus,” have been phased out, which has added to the cost of e-cars for consumers.

For VW, the future of its electric car division is now coming into question. The cost of rechargeable batteries has once again risen sharply while low production values raises the cost of producing each e-car. Tesla and Chinese automaker BYD continue to put pressure on VW as well, including with price cuts.

The situation is also calling into question rosy predictions that electric cars would be the future of VW, while growing inventories have led to a glut of cars and few buyers. Schafer says, however, that he wants to turn the ship around and increase profit margins to 6.5 percent by 2026.

https://rmx.news/economy/the-roof-is-on-fire-volkswagen-in-crisis-as-switch-to-e-cars-destroys-profitability/

In one photo, he’s standing in front of an image of Christ that at first glance looks like a contorted statue of the Buddha. He’s dressed in a skin-tight unflattering pull-over that highlights body flab. Around his neck is a long wooden rosary, a misplaced use of a sacramental.

In other photos, his eyes seem to slant in a locked Machiavellian, snake-in-the-grass stare.

Who is he?

His name is Victor Manuel “Tucho” Fernandez, an Argentine Catholic Archbishop and friend of Pope Francis.

Archbishop Tucho is also a Beat Café style poet, who published ‘Heal Me With Your Mouth: The Art of Kissing,’ a small volume of poetry and prose about the art of open-mouth kissing. (Think: ‘Story of O,’ Terry Southern’s ‘Candy,’ Linda Lovelace in ‘Deep Throat,’ and Allen Ginsberg’s famous line, “This form of life needs sex.”)

“The penetrating kiss is when you suck and slurp with the lips. The penetrating kiss is when you stick in your tongue. Watch out for the teeth,” Tucho writes.

Also from Tucho:

“My boyfriend gets a hard mouth when he kisses me. He hasn’t yet learned how to loosen his lips. Lovely!”

“What I like the most is the kiss of peace at Mass. That was the first kiss with the hottie I have now.”

“I love kissing his fingertips. It gets more affectionate than anything else.”

“I once went crazy with the pleasure I was given from being kissed on the eyes. But I didn’t say this because it’s going to leave me blind.”

Tucho, now referred to as “the kissing archbishop,” says that he wrote his book on kissing to “motivate [young people] to release the best of yourself in a kiss.”

He wanted his young, passionate readers to “kiss better.”

In his little book, he warns of certain pitfalls like bad breath, yet he refrains from suggesting a particular brand of mouthwash.

Clever poet that he is, he refers to kissing as “a thermometer of love.”

Surf the Web and you’ll find, as I did, articles on how to kiss if and when you travel to Argentina. Argentines, we are told, kiss on one cheek unlike the double-cheek Europeans, and the triple-kiss Russians.

“In Argentina, it is customary to give certain people a beso, or kiss, on the right cheek when you say hello or goodbye. If you are not expecting this to happen, or don’t know that it is a thing down here, you will definitely be caught off guard the first couple of times that it happens,” one tourist guide warns.

This in no way it meant to suggest that the country of Eva Peron is all about kissing.

In 1970, the New York Times published a piece, “Militant Leftist Priests Troubling Church and State in Argentina.”

“…The Government is concerned that a bloc of leftist Argentine priests and bishops have become a militant political force in national affairs, including labor strikes, demonstrations and violence,” the Times stated.

In addition, a state security official was quoted as saying that, apart from Communist guerrillas and terrorists involving Peronists in bed with Marxists, “the greatest threat by far facing Argentina today was the militant leftist priesthood.”

Tucho, for instance, who has just been appointed by Pope Francis to head the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, is no gun-carrying leftist, but he was Francis’ ghost writer for Amoris Laetitia, a 2016 exhortation on love that seems to suggest that sexual morality can change over time (just as kisses can change from surface pecks to deep mouth explorations).

Tucho was rector of the faculty of theology of the Catholic University of Argentina from 2009 to 2018.

He was made Archbishop of La Plata, known as the capital city of the Buenos Aries Province, in 2018.

As Archbishop of La Plata, the prelate put his kisses aside when he issued two successive decrees in 2018 that heavily restricted the use of the Traditional rite of the Mass, despite Pope Benedict XVI’s freeing up of the old rite in 2007 in Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.

Francis himself, as archbishop of Buenos Aries, did everything he could to suppress the old rite while supporting puppet Masses and sexy Tango Masses (sans kisses).

When it comes to dancing and popes, however, Saint Pope Pius X (1835-1914) always maintained that the Argentine Tango was a boring dance made for slaves. He also believed that it was off-limits for Catholics.

News of Pope Francis’ appointment of Tucho as the guardian of Catholic orthodoxy sent shockwaves throughout the Catholic world.

The controversy certainly put Tucho on the defensive.

“They refer to a book of mine that no longer exists, that talked about kissing,” the archbishop wrote on his Facebook page.

“I was inspired by a phrase from the time of the Church Fathers that said incarnation was like a kiss from God to humanity.

“At the time I was very young, I was a pastor and I was trying to reach the young. So it occurred to me to write a catechesis for teens based on what kissing means. I wrote this catechesis with the participation of a group of young people who gave me ideas, phrases, poems etc.,” the archbishop added.

Sounding somewhat like William Burroughs in ‘Naked Lunch,’ Tucho added that he wanted to warn young people that “love is in danger” when they have sexual intercourse without kissing.

You can’t just seduce waitresses by slamming them up against a wall like Neal Cassidy and Jack Kerouac did in “On the Road.”

All of this might be fine advice coming from an artist or a poet who doesn’t also claim to be a successor of the apostles.

When Pope Francis was taken to the hospital in early June for abdominal surgery, traditionalist Catholic commentators were quick to write and talk about the pope’s health, urging audiences to pray for him, the successor of Saint Peter, “even if you think he’s a heretic.”

Yet underneath this plea for prayer one felt a certain hopeful ‘something’: could these be the last hours of a pope whom many say has done more to harm the Church than any pope in 1,000 years?

Is this terrible pontificate finally—finally– coming to an end?

When photographs of a noticeably (post-hospital) weakened Francis surfaced, some wondered if the pontiff had been through a ‘purgatorial transition’ in which his globalist transgressions had finally been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit.

Had he had a “blinding light” conversion like Saul of Tarsus?

Would he retract his suppression of the Latin Mass?

Would he rebuke his obsession with the Synodal Path of the German Church and its encroachment into the Universal Church?

To have such hopes is like wishing speeding bullets would stop in midair and descend to earth like punctured hot air balloons.

Francis, abdominal sutures still in place, accelerated his globalist vision with an attack on Bishop Joseph E. Strickland of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas.

Bishop Strickland, a conservative firebrand who once accused Pope Francis of “undermining the Deposit of the Faith,” was the subject of a Vatican investigation a few weeks ago. These investigations, called Apostolic Visitations, usually don’t fare well for the one being investigated.

As the Catholic News Agency reported,

“News of the inquiry into Strickland comes following his participation in a Eucharistic procession and prayer rally in Los Angeles on June 16, organized to protest Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers for honoring an anti-Catholic drag group at the team’s annual Pride Night game.”

Then, in a rush against time (and ill-health), Francis appointed 21 new cardinals, prelates in total alignment with his woke theological and Synodal Path obsessions, all but guaranteeing that the next pope will be something of a mega-Francis.

Francis’ revolution, as one Catholic observer noted, is an “unending revolution world without end.”

Among Francis’ picks for the red hat in October, will be the kissing Tucho archbishop who says that when we kiss we should “Watch out for the teeth.”

In the meantime, this disastrous pontificate rolls on its merry way, expelling faithful priests who offer the traditional mass, and promoting fake Catholic (criminal) families like the Biden’s in Washington.

“Ten years after that catastrophic vote [to elect him] in the Sistine Chapel,” writes Vatican observer Damian Thompson, “We have reached a moment of extreme crisis in the life of the Church.

He continues:

“Francis is tightening his control of the Vatican’s machinery, with no plans to retire. A new pope would have been nice—a couple of years ago. Now I think it’s too late. The Church may never recover its moral authority.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/gutting-the-catholic-church-with-deep-tongue-kisses/

In 2018, the ADL announced that it was no longer in the ‘kindness’ business. “Forget Kindness. Schools Need to Foster Social Justice,” Jinnie Spiegler, the ADL’s curriculum director, barked.

By three years old, Spiegler claimed white children in America are already racists.

Spiegler, an obsessive leftist with seemingly no Jewish interests, whose Twitter account promotes antisemitic leftists like AOC, Cori Bush, and Ilhan Omar, has a singular obsession.

“When my daughter was 3 years old, I taught her the word stereotype,” she revealed in one article. “I figured that planting the seed might yield fruit soon enough.”

Planting leftist ideological seeds in children is what the ADL’s education programs do.

While the ADL claims to fight antisemitism, like a lot of activist groups it discovered that there was a much better way to pay the bills by getting into the business of diversity training and education. That freed the ADL from having to solicit Jewish donors or to care about antisemitism.

When Jonathan Greenblatt, a former Obama operative, took over the ADL, its annual revenues were $56 million and had been roughly in that range throughout the decade. A year later they shot up to $65 million, then $76 million and totaled $91 million in 2020. With revenues having nearly doubled in 5 years, the odds of ousting Greenblatt remain vanishingly small.

The ADL shares a fundraising firm with Planned Parenthood, the NAACP  and the ACLU, but it also has developed a massive nationwide presence in the educational system.

Its educational ‘No Place for Hate’ arm claims that it’s present in 1,800 schools reaching 1.3 million students in one school year. It offers “anti-bias” workshops and training, online and in person for teachers, and curriculum and ‘non-hate’ certification for schools. According to the Seattle branch of the ADL, “workshops cost a school or district $1200″. Activists have documented contracts with school districts amounting to tens of thousands of dollars each.

But one of its more successful areas is also where its teachings may violate state law.

Florida’s ‘Stop Woke Act’, signed into law by Gov. DeSantis, bars subjecting any student to the idea that anyone is morally superior or oppressive on account of their race. The ADL’s ‘No Place for Hate’ handbook however demands that students “explore, recognize and acknowledge your privilege” and defines racism as “the marginalization and/or oppression of people of color, based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people”

The familiar message here from critical race theory is that only white people can be racist.

This violates the Stop Woke Act’s warning that schools may not teach that “an individual’s moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, sex, or national origin.”

The ADL operates its ‘No Place for Hate’ program in Florida. One press release bragged that “22 public schools in Miami-Dade County were designated as ‘No Place For Hate’, including all 8 City of Miami Beach Public Schools”.  Another claimed that it was present in 234 Broward County public schools which is the 6th largest district in the country with 270,000 students.

That means potentially as many as 270,000 students may be taught that white people are evil.

This disastrous program is being funded by $100,000 in federal funds.

Broward is such an asset for the ADL that its local director, Kiesha Edge, a former black employee of the Florida Department of Health, is now the ADL’s National Director of Education Operations, even while remaining back in Florida, in charge of 450 “education facilitators”

“We live in a society where systemic racism is alive and well,” Edge contended.

The only remaining systemic racism is teaching kids that they’re racist because of their race.

The David Horowitz Freedom Center took the lead in drawing up a K-12 code of ethics to end classroom indoctrination banning “teachers from using their classrooms for political, ideological, or religious advocacy.” But that is exactly what the ADL is doing with ‘No Place for Hate’.

And we’re taking on the ADL’s racist curriculum too.

The old ADL is mostly dead. Kiesha Edge and Jinnie Spiegler are what the organization is now:.  a collection of woke leftist activists who believe that America and its people are evil racists.

ADL officials can be of Jewish ancestry, like Spiegler, or black like Edge or even Arab, like Senior Vice President for National Affairs George Selim, but what unites them is politics.

And the money doesn’t hurt either.

Education and training is what the ADL actually does more than anything else. What had started out as a gimmick with the ADL’s original ‘World of Difference’ program became toxic as it was transformed into ‘No Place for Hate’.

Spiegler, the ADL’s curriculum boss, objected that “many schools hope to engage young people in social action work, yet mistakenly focus on kindness”.  Her ideal was the mobilization of some Parkland students to advocate against the Second Amendment after the school shooting there caused by Obama’s dismantling of school discipline policies.

“The first step is to facilitate students’ learning about the issues in a rigorous and complex way, and then to get them involved in action, advocacy and/or activism,” she laid out.

This year’s No Place for Hate Coordinator Handbook & Resource Guide doubles down on the war on kindness.

“Each year, ADL receives activities from participating No Place for Hate schools that focus on kindness,” the handbook complains. “ADL highly encourages schools, in designing their activities, to move beyond kindness to social justice.”

The ADL’s definition of social justice, one that it’s forcing into schools, is wholly partisan.

Students, Spiegler urges, should not just go “volunteer at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen”, they should “advocate for affordable housing”. Instead of just “tutoring children”, they have to fight for criminals and break up the “prison-to-school pipeline”. Obama’s efforts to break up the “prison-to-school pipeline” led to the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland.

And the ADL states that “each student must have an opportunity to participate in three ADL approved activities”. Parents are not wrong to describe this as partisan indoctrination.

The ADL claims that “as a 501c3 nonprofit organization, we take no position on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for office.” That is not true. Even during the 2020 election, the ADL continued to attack Trump while offering no criticism of Biden. And it certainly does not meet the IRS test of operating “primarily to further the common good and general welfare of the people.”

Its curriculum and its agenda are wholly partisan and like many leftist groups, it operates with the complicity of the IRS and other federal and state regulatory organizations.

But the ADL has bigger issues on a statewide level with its racist educational curriculum.

In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin banned critical race theory and “inherently divisive concepts” from K-12 classrooms. These include the idea that anyone is morally superior or should be “discriminated against because of their race” or that “members of one race, ethnicity, sex or faith cannot and should not attempt to treat others as individuals without respect to race, sex or faith”.

‘No Place for Hate’ has a sizable presence in Virginia including in the Arlington Public Schools.

These are only two of the twenty states where the ADL’s racist curriculum may run into trouble.

The ADL’s education curriculum had started out teaching tolerance, but now teaches intolerance, and advocates partisan politics. Despite the organization’s origins, its handbook is notable for mentioning Jewish people only three times, once in the ADL’s background and twice in its definition of antisemitism.

But the ADL is not a Jewish organization anymore. It’s a generically lucrative leftist group which provides bias insurance to schools while joining in leftist attacks on conservatives.

A few years after Greenblatt came on board, the ADL announced a new program together with eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar: one of the leading funders of the anti-Israel Left. ADL Senior VP Eileen Hershenov was the former general counsel for Soros’ Open Society octopus.

“Kudos to my former boss, George Soros,” she gushed.

Hershenov oversees the ADL’s partnership with the Aspen Institute, funded by Soros. The joint ADL-Aspen program’s civil society fellows included the founding Co-Director of the Open Society Foundation’s Economic Justice Program.

Small wonder that Greenblatt attacks any critics of Soros and the ADL, formerly critical of the Nazi collaborating billionaire, now has a page dedicated to defending the antisemitic leftist.

The ADL’s funders and partners list increasingly resembles those of most leftist activist groups with $1 million from Craigslist’s Craig Newmark, the Rockefellers, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation. There’s nothing Jewish here.

As an organization, the ADL doesn’t belong in Jewish circles, and its educational curriculum doesn’t belong in any schools.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-adls-racist-school-curriculum-violates-florida-law/

Scotland: “Non-binary” Man Found Guilty of “Indecent Assault” of a Minor Given No Jail Time, Despite Being Repeat Sex Offender https://t.co/nKw17GvAX0

— The Gateway Pundit (@gatewaypundit) July 17, 2023

If the Oppressed can earn $11.25 million by repeatedly showing up late for work until they get fired, how much can they rake in by failing a teachers’ exam? Plenty:

Failing the New York State teachers’ exam really paid off — especially for a Queens man who learned this month he’s getting a $2 million windfall over it.

Roughly 5,200 black and Hispanic ex-Big Apple teachers and once-aspiring educators are expected to collect more than $1.8 billion in judgments after the city stopped fighting a nearly three-decade federal discrimination lawsuit that found a certification exam was biased.

“Biased” means the test had disparate impact. That means members of certain groups were less likely to pass it.

This is why we have no standards anymore. Apply standards and you will attract the attention of the racial grievance industry, which will loot you into oblivion.

One reason the jackpot is so extravagant is that taxpayers will be…

…footing the bill for many of the plaintiffs to collect pension checks based on time never worked after they reach retirement age, plus their health insurance.

Adding insult to injury,

The city is also on the hook for the plaintiff’s lawyer’s fees, a sum that totaled more than $43 million last year.

The looting will continue until either we overthrow moonbat rule or the whole country goes bankrupt.

https://moonbattery.com/paid-2-million-for-flunking-teachers-exam/

A 27-year-old Syrian was taken into long-term custody in the Harburg district of Hamburg following indications of a planned attack. The large-scale operation took place in a refugee accommodation.

Harburg – On Friday, a spokeswoman for the police in Harburg confirmed that a 27-year-old man was taken into long-term custody after a large-scale operation took place in the district of Harburg to avert danger.

The decision for this operation was taken after a “tip-off” had emerged in cooperation with other authorities. According to a report in the German news magazine Der Spiegel, the police received tips from a foreign intelligence service about a possibly planned, Islamist-motivated suicide attack. Only a few months ago, a foreign intelligence service also provided information that led to the arrest of a terror suspect in Hamburg.

Based on the available information, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution started the operation in a refugee accommodation in Tostedt. However, no explosives or weapons were found during the search.

According to Spiegel, the suspect taken into custody is said to be a Syrian who had previously asked people to pray for him on social media before taking down his profiles on all networks.

The police took the man into custody for eleven days. According to the Lower Saxony Police and Regulatory Authorities Act, up to ten days of detention can be imposed for suspected criminal offences, and even up to fourteen days for terrorist offences.
The Tostedt District Court ordered the detention and the suspect is still in custody a week later. As the investigation is still ongoing, the police spokeswoman could not disclose any further information.

Currently, the investigation into a suspected planned attack is in full swing. The police expect further results in the next few days.

https://www.kreiszeitung.de/lokales/niedersachsen/in-gewahrsam-potenzieller-selbstmordanschlag-verhindert-polizei-nimmt-27-jaehrigen-syrer-92402858.html

Almost one in two German medium-sized businesses are considering closure or moving abroad, citing too much red tape and higher taxes.

The damning indictment of Germany’s business climate was revealed in a survey conducted by the Federal Association of Medium-Sized Businesses (BVMW).

According to the poll, 26 percent of all medium-sized company directors across Europe’s powerhouse have considered shutting down their business, while 22 percent have expressed interest in moving their operations abroad.

Directors cited a constant stream of new regulations hindering their ability to operate in Germany and a hefty tax burden, as the two main reasons for their dissatisfaction.

A third of directors believe that Germany has become too bureaucratic to do business in. Meanwhile, more than a quarter reported higher taxes and customs duties as their biggest obstacle, while others cited a shortage of skilled workers as a hindrance to their operations.

“The results of our survey are more than just a warning signal,” said Markus Jerger, BVMW’s executive chairman.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) comprise the backbone of the German economy, employing more than 40 million of Germany’s 45 million-strong workforce.

And many believe they are being taken advantage of with high taxes, or left behind and deprioritized by the federal government. One particular area of concern for SMEs related to the digitization of industry, which the BVMW believes is creating a chasm between the multinationals financially capable of adapting their operations in the digital age and those who can ill-afford to do so.

“In order for our economy to remain competitive in the future, we need a boost in digitization!” Jerger said recently.

the performance of the state and public administration is lagging behind. And the dependency on the huge technology giants is increasingly limiting the opportunities for medium-sized companies,” he added.

It isn’t just German companies whose confidence in the country as a place to do business is waning. The number of foreign investments in Germany has fallen for the last five years, with last year seeing the lowest level since 2013.

According to the Ifo Business Climate Index, confidence in the German economy has plummeted in recent times, and the country ranked fourth from the bottom in terms of competitiveness in a study comprising 21 industrial nations back in January.

“If nothing is done, the burden of bureaucracy will kill family businesses,” warned Rainer Kirchdörfer, chair of the Foundation for Family Businesses, at the time.   

https://rmx.news/germany/half-of-german-medium-sized-businesses-want-to-shut-down-or-move-abroad-as-confidence-crisis-grows/

“Chances for Western Europeans to Become Extinct Greater than for White South Africans” https://t.co/4rwLr8OUy2

— The Gateway Pundit (@gatewaypundit) July 17, 2023

On 16th July, Twitter user Sharanya Shetty shared a horrifying ordeal she had to face during her visit to IKEA in Bengaluru, Karnataka. As per her tweet, a mouse fell on her table from the ceiling while she was having food at the food court.

She wrote, “Guess what fell in our food table at IKEA. I can’t even. We were eating, and this rat just dropped dead… Most bizarre moment ever!”

Wtf.. guess what fell in our food table at ikea 🤕🤕🤕🤒🤒 I can't even.
We were eating and this rat just dropped dead..
Most bizzare moment ever!@IKEA@IKEAIndia pic.twitter.com/R45C1BCNkc

— Maya (@Sharanyashettyy) July 16, 2023

Speaking to OpIndia, Sharanya said it was her first time at IKEA. Two of her friends and the son of one of the friends accompanied her to IKEA located at Nelamangala – Majestic Service Road, Manjunatha Nagar, Nagasandra, Bengaluru. After reaching the store at around 11:30 AM, they did some shopping, and one of her friends said he would go and pick up some desserts from IKEA’s food court. He asked them to keep the trolley in the parking area and meet him at the food court.

He went ahead and collected the food while she went to keep the cart at the corner. “I went back and looked for him. He waved from a place, and when I reached there, he handed me a chocolate cake and asked me to take it. This was the time when the rat fell from the ceiling. It was crazy and unbelievable. Everybody around us was eating and looking at the table while we were trying to find someone to do something about it. We called two cleaners and then another guy from Embassy group. That guy called another lady from IKEA, who then went on to call somebody else.”

While they waited for someone to help, nobody from the store came to cordon off the area or at least cover the rat’s dead body. “Instead, the tables around were let to continue eating. They took some time to come and change the table,” she added. Furthermore, Sharanya said no one bothered to do anything about sanitizing the area and went on by just changing the table.

She said, “I didn’t create a scene because there were way too many people, and it would create havoc. So I simply walked off to see what they would do, and what they did was terrible. There was no system in place. Kids and babies were eating around and on the table kept in the same place.”

OpIndia tried calling the IKEA store but could not connect. We have sent an email regarding the incident, and the mail bounced from their media contact email ID.

Interestingly, this is not the first time IKEA Bengaluru has been accused of maintaining low hygiene standards. During the research, we found that a person named Arjun Maniath left a review on Google Reviews stating he found a fly on the Mango cake at IKEA. In a sarcastic tone, he wrote, “Mango cake made with delicious house fly.. unfortunately, I don’t eat house flies so missed the opportunity.. superb hygiene also.. please visit IKEA Bangalore for more…”

Why IKEA has a Food Court?

At first, it may appear as if IKEA’s food court does not benefit the company much. However, as per IKEA’s own research, around 30% of the shoppers visit IKEA just for the food. Reports suggest that the company made around USD 2.24 billion from food sales alone in 2017. It is considered to be among the top food retailers in the world.

The food court at IKEA not only impacts the revenue model but also improves sales. The food court is believed to change how customers think, feel and act at any IKEA store worldwide. Food’s smell and taste are directly linked to dopamine release, a hormone that gives the person a state of happiness. Customers are more likely to spend extra at the store as the mood shifts. The former head of IKEA food operations once said in a statement, “We’ve always called the meatballs’ the best sofa-seller. When you feed them, they stay longer, they can talk about their [potential] purchases, and they make a decision without leaving the store.”

As per an Economic Times report from 2018, Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA’s founder, realized that people buy less when they are hungry. He said, “It is difficult to do business with someone on an empty stomach”. The first self-service cafeteria in IKEA was opened in 1958. Initially, it was priced cheap, and the aim was not to profit but to bring people to shop at IKEA. The idea is to encourage people to spend more time in large stores. The more time they spend, the better their chances of spending more. This is why well-maintained public toilets exist in stores like IKEA.

https://www.opindia.com/2023/07/a-dead-rat-fell-on-food-table-bengaluru-ikea-customers-left-horrified/

Plans to build a major new mosque in the historic tourist centre of London thought defeated in 2020 have gained a new lease of life, with Westminster Council approving a variation of the plans — allegedly “on the quiet” — to see an iconic building kitted out for worship.

The London Trocadero, a central London property known from countless tourist photographs and once a major tourist attraction in its own right, is set to have a new mosque built inside. Owned, as previously reported, by Malawian-born, London-based billionaire developer Asif Aziz, the Trocadero is to get what is said to be three floors of worship space with capacity for 390.

Per the Council’s own planning minutes, the plans are a considerable step back from the previously proposed conversion which would have seen space for 1,000 in the mosque. It was argued in council that other nearby mosques are already at capacity and noise considerations are not considerable as no external call to prayer is to be broadcast.

The Soho Society objected to the proposed capacity of the venue and said it should be cut from 290 to 250, arguing on public safety and pavement congestion grounds. The council rejected the concern, saying queuing outside the mosque at peak times was “unlikely to occur” and recommended the development for approval.

The plans were originally rejected after they gained considerable media attention and the council received thousands of submissions on the matter, both against and in favour after rival campaigns to support or oppose the development formed.

Westminster City Council was then a Conservative-controlled authority, but since the 2022 elections has been a Labour majority. Former Westminster Tory councillor JP Floru said this change of control may explain why this plan has now emerged again. Floru, who is an openly gay man, also expressed his concern over the proximity — a matter of yards — of the mosque site to London’s famous Soho gay district.

He told Breitbart London: “This permit is an invitation for trouble. Last time there were thousands of objections; this time it was approved ‘on the quiet’.

“This ‘flagship mosque’ will cater for few local residents. Westminster residents and tourists already have to suffer the daily blaring out of Islamic music through loudspeakers from a stand on Leicester Square. This new mosque is right next to the gay district; and therefore the question arises: how will the mosque’s authorities react to the handing out of gay leaflets at the exit?”

.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/07/17/plan-to-build-mega-mosque-on-londons-iconic-piccadilly-square-back-again/