Updates from Cyprus
In the first nine months of Russia’s war in Ukraine, a Polish business group says, Ukrainians started 14,000 companies in neighboring Poland. Now, those Ukrainian entrepreneurs are succeeding and making contributions to their country’s war efforts. For VOA, Lesia Bakalets reports from Warsaw.
Source: Voice of America
Fusion Risk Management, Inc. (‘Fusion’ or the ‘Company’), a leading provider of cloud-based operational resilience, business continuity, and risk management software and services, today announced a strategic growth investment from Great Hill Partners, a leading growth-oriented private equity firm. The majority investment will allow Fusion to enhance its go-to-market and product innovation capabilities, while continuing to accelerate the pursuit of several attractive organic and inorganic growth opportunities. Existing investor Vista Equity Partners (‘Vista’) will remain a significant minority shareholder in Fusion, along with Catalyst Investors and Level Equity Management. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Fusion has grown rapidly in recent years as organizations in regulated and non-regulated end markets shift from reactive approaches to proactive, real-time frameworks that unite risk across employees, third parties, processes, and technologies. The Company’s leading platform empowers its diverse base of 400+ blue chip customers with the knowledge and workflows they need to better mitigate threats, minimize downtime, maintain operational resilience, and sustain critical operations in the face of unexpected crises such as pandemics, geopolitical events, natural disasters, cyber-attacks, and more. ‘As the risk landscape continues to evolve, now more than ever businesses need an agile and flexible operational resilience framework to navigate disruption and drive sustainable growth,” said Michael Campbell, CEO of Fusion Risk Management. ‘Today’s milestone is a testament to Fusion’s capabilities in delivering data-driven, actionable insights that enable customers to develop dynamic plans and proactively address the risks and disruptions that have become ‘business as usual.’ We’re confident that Great Hill will be an invaluable partner as we leverage their deep industry expertise and resources to further unlock the potential of our platform and accelerate our mission to make true business resiliency a reality.’ ‘Fusion is a clear leader in the risk management space, driving unparalleled value for its customers by providing them with the comprehensive tools they need to become more aware, prepared, and resilient,’ said Chris Busby, Managing Director at Great Hill. ‘The Company fits the exact profile of the type of business we aim to invest in: high-growth companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Leveraging our significant software and growth-investment experience, Fusion has tremendous potential to capitalize on opportunities ahead amid significant compliance and regulatory tailwinds and to continue deepening its strong, longstanding customer relationships. We’re excited to partner with Michael, the entire management team, and Vista to strengthen Fusion’s position at the forefront of operational resilience and risk management software.’ ‘Since our partnership began, Fusion and Vista have been focused on transforming the Company into a leading platform through product innovation and scaling its go-to-market capabilities to meet customers’ growing demand to build resilient organizations,’ said René Yang Stewart, Co-Head of Vista’s Endeavor Fund and Senior Managing Director. ‘We are thrilled to continue this momentum by welcoming Great Hill Partners and embarking on the next chapter of Fusion’s growth trajectory.’ In addition to Fusion Risk Management, Great Hill Partners’ portfolio of enterprise software companies includes eloomi, BigChange, Auvik, Varicent, Totango, and Intapp, among several others. Prior software investments include Reflexis Systems, Reward Gateway, PlanSource, ZoomInfo, and more. William Blair and Company served as exclusive financial advisor to Fusion Risk Management. Kirkland and Ellis LLP served as legal advisor to Great Hill Partners and to Fusion. About Fusion Risk Management, Inc. Fusion Risk Management is a leading industry provider of cloud-based operational resilience software, encompassing business continuity and disaster recovery, risk management, information technology and security risk management, crisis and incident management, and more. Its solutions empower organizations to make data-driven decisions with a holistic, agile approach and enable them to deliver on their brand promise through disruption. For more information, visit www.fusionrm.com. About Great Hill Partners Founded in 1998, Great Hill Partners is a private equity firm targeting investments of $100 million to $500 million in high-growth companies across the software, digital commerce, financial technology, healthcare, and digital infrastructure sectors. With offices in Boston and London, Great Hill has raised over $12 billion of commitments and invested in more than 95 companies, establishing an extensive track record of building long-term partnerships with entrepreneurs and providing flexible resources to help middle-market companies scale. Great Hill has been recognized for its industry leadership, being ranked #3 in the 2022 HEC Paris-Dow Jones Mid-Market Buyout Performance Ranking, which evaluated fund performance of 563 leading private equity firms between 2009-2018. For more information, including a list of all Great Hill investments, visit www.greathillpartners.com. About Vista Equity Partners Vista is a leading global investment firm with more than $96 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2022. The firm exclusively invests in enterprise software, data and technology-enabled organizations across private equity, permanent capital, credit and public equity strategies, bringing an approach that prioritizes creating enduring market value for the benefit of its global ecosystem of investors, companies, customers and employees. Vista’s investments are anchored by a sizable long-term capital base, experience in structuring technology-oriented transactions and proven, flexible management techniques that drive sustainable growth. Vista believes the transformative power of technology is the key to an even better future – a healthier planet, a smarter economy, a diverse and inclusive community and a broader path to prosperity. Further information is available at vistaequitypartners.com. Follow Vista on LinkedIn, @Vista Equity Partners, and on Twitter, @Vista_Equity. This material is not a CNA editorial material and CNA shall not bear responsibility for the accuracy of its content. 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Source: Cyprus News Agency
Turkey neutralized 115 terrorists in April, the country’s Interior Ministry said on Tuesday.
Eight of the neutralized terrorists were senior operatives, Ismail Catakli, spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, said at a monthly news conference in the capital Ankara.
Turkish authorities often use the term “neutralized” to imply the terrorists in question surrendered or were killed or captured.
Turkish forces carried out 10,759 security operations across the country in April, the official said.
Over 11 million checks were also conducted throughout Turkey last month to ensure compliance with the government’s COVID-19 measures, Catakli added.
Source: Anadolu Agency
Russian security services have prevented an attack on a military hospital in Crimea, the Federal Security Service (FSB) revealed in a statement on Wednesday. The officers detained a suspect and seized improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from him, the statement added.
Though the identity of the suspect has not been made public, a video published by the FSB shows a bald, bearded, middle-aged man being escorted by officers. According to the FSB, the man was in possession of at least two IEDs: One that contained nails designed to serve as “killing agents” and another one that had “an incendiary effect.”
The video shows what appears to be a Molotov cocktail in a glass bottle, as well as a small metal can and an unidentified object wrapped in a piece of cloth with wires coming out of it. According to the statement, the suspect planned to attack the Russian Defense Ministry’s Navy Hospital in the Crimean capital, Simferopol.
The man has been charged with plotting a terrorist attack, as well as illegal acquisition and possession of explosives. The investigation and intelligence gathering operations are ongoing, the FSB said, without revealing if there are any other suspects in this case.
The developments come just a week after a 52-year-old Russian-Ukrainian citizen in the Crimean city of Kerch was arrested on suspicion of intending to plant an explosive device at a power system facility. He has been charged with plotting an act of sabotage and now faces 20 years to life in prison.
According to FSB director Alexander Bortnikov, since Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, the security services have prevented 118 terrorist attacks in the country, many of which were being prepared by young people and minors.
In April, Bortnikov also warned that Western and Ukrainian intelligence services had launched an “aggressive brainwashing and recruitment [campaign]” in an attempt to involve Russian youths in sabotage, extremist activities, and terrorist attacks against their own country.
Source: Russia Today
The British government will be held accountable for the environmental and public health damage caused by its decision to supply depleted uranium ammunition to Ukraine, as will the troops who use the munitions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has warned.
Peskov reiterated that there is abundant data on the long-term effects of depleted uranium, based on medical information gathered in former Yugoslavia. NATO forces extensively used munitions containing DU during their campaigns in the Balkans in the 1990s.
“The data is quite sad. The British must realize that they will be held accountable” for the supply of this type of ammunition to Ukraine, Peskov told journalists on Wednesday.
“And certainly the people who will be personally deploying the munitions must realize that they will not only be irrevocably hurting themselves and their compatriots, but will also be held responsible for it,” he said.
The comments came after the UK confirmed the delivery to Ukraine, as promised, of armor-piercing shells for Challenger 2 tanks. Their cores are made of the dense byproduct of uranium enrichment.
The Russian Embassy in London stated that it “has by now become self-evident” that the US and its allies are willing to turn Ukraine into “not only an anti-Russian military ‘shooting range,’ but also a radioactive landfill.”
The planned shipment of the shells was first announced by the UK last month. The government said at the time that its military assessed the potential hazards of depleted uranium use on the battlefield as “low,” contrary to Russian warnings.
Source: Russia Today
A woman who lost her life savings on a casino-style application is now suing the responsible company, according to a report on Tuesday.
Kathleen Wilkinson, a grandmother from rural Montana, injured her spine in 2016 and then saw a slot machine ad that appeared on Facebook.
“First it was fun. Then I started spending money on it a little bit. Then I got to be more and more,” she told NBC News.
Wilkinson spent $50,000 on the app, which she said ruined her life. “You become addicted like anybody that had never been in a casino before, and they go back there every single day.”
Others told the news outlet they lost between $10,000 to $400,000 playing similar games on various apps.
DoubleDown Interactive, which is used by millions of people every month, including Wilkinson, reported annual revenue of more than $273 million in 2020.
“Once a player is acquired, our proprietary analytic tools dissect their playing behavior on a granular level,” according to the company’s financial statement.
Wilkinson’s attorney, who recently reached a $155 million settlement with a similar firm, Big Fish, in a class-action lawsuit, is now suing DoubleDown.
Social casino apps, which interact with players through apps and videos, have seen a stark rise in users during the coronavirus pandemic due to lockdowns.
Source: Anadolu Agency
In the second half of 2022, average household electricity prices in the EU continued to show a sharp increase compared with the same period in 2021, from 23.5 euro per 100 kWh to 28.4 euro per 100 kWh in the EU, and from 23.0 euro per 100 kWh to 32.6 euro per 100 kWh in Cyprus, according to data released by Eurostat, the statistical service of the EU. Average gas prices also increased in the EU compared with the same period in 2021 from 7.8 euro per 100 kWh to 11.4 euro per 100 kWh in the second half of 2022. These prices are the highest on Eurostat’s record. After a significant increase in prices that started before the Russian invasion of Ukraine but skyrocketed up to the second semester of 2022, electricity and natural gas prices have recently shown signs of stabilizing, partly due to policies and interventions by EU governments. EU countries opted for various measures, such as reducing taxes and fees, temporary tax waivers to consumers, price caps, providing lump sum support or allocating vouchers to final consumers, and some countries applied regulated prices. Compared with the second half of 2021, the share of taxes in the electricity bill dropped sharply from 36% to 16% (-18.3%) and in the gas bill from 27% to 14% (-15.8%), with all EU countries putting in place governmental allowances and subsidies or reduce taxes and levies to mitigate high-energy costs. Household electricity prices rose in all EU members, except Malta (-3%, in national currencies) and the Netherlands (-7%), in the second half of 2022, compared with the same period of 2021. Prices in Malta are regulated, while the Dutch government supports consumers with lump sums and taxes reduction. The highest increases were recorded in Romania (+112%), Czechia (+97%), Denmark (+70%), Lithuania (+65%) and Latvia (+59%), while the lowest were in Luxembourg (+3%), Austria and Germany (both +4%), and Poland and Bulgaria (both +5%). Expressed in euro, average household electricity prices in the second half of 2022 were lowest in Hungary (10.8 euro per 100 kWh), Bulgaria (11.5 euro) and Malta (12.8 euro) and highest in Denmark (58.7 euro), Belgium (44.9 euro), and Ireland (42.0 euro). Meanwhile, gas prices increased during the same period in all EU countries that use natural gas (Cyprus is the only member state that does not). Gas prices (in national currencies) surged the most in Czechia (+231%), Romania (+165%), Latvia (+157%), Lithuania (+112%) and Belgium (+102%). There were only two increases below 20%: Croatia (+14%) and Slovakia (18%). All price increases are from the energy and supply component, mainly driven by the recent energy crisis. Expressed in euro, average household gas prices in the second half of 2022 were lowest in Hungary (pound 3.5 per 100 kWh), Croatia (pound 4.5) and Slovakia (pound 4.9) and highest in Sweden (pound 27.5), Denmark (pound 20.8) and the Netherlands (pound 19.3). The price of natural gas for households in Sweden was 157 % higher than the EU average price. However, natural gas use in Sweden is very limited.
Source: Cyprus News Agency
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a decree establishing a mechanism for temporarily taking over foreign assets. In its first practical application, the Federal Property Management Agency was put in control of the Russian subsidiaries of Fortum and Uniper, energy companies based in Finland and Germany, respectively.
The decree allows for the temporary state takeover of assets deemed to be “of paramount importance for the stable functioning of the Russian energy sector,” the agency said in a statement. Germany’s Uniper SE held a 83% stake in a Russia-based energy generation and distribution company Unipro, while Finnish state company Fortum Oyj controlled over 98% of its local subsidiary, with a total power generation capacity of 11.2 and 4.7 gigawatts respectively.
The move will “ensure the uninterrupted operation of companies significant for the national economy and eliminate the risks of the political position of a number of unfriendly countries influencing” the security of Russia.
The original owners are considered to have temporarily lost control of the property, but not forfeited it outright. The measure “helps preserve the investment climate in Russia and reduce the outflow of capital from the country,” the agency added.
The decree also establishes a legal framework that enables the Kremlin to take over more foreign assets should other countries seize Russian private or government property in their jurisdictions, or threaten the national, energy, or economic security of Russia.
Germany and Poland have so far seized an estimated $22 billion in assets belonging just to two Russian companies, Gazprom and Rosneft, according to media estimates. In June 2022, Berlin took over Gazprom Germania GmbH. In November, Warsaw confiscated Gazprom’s 48% stake in the EuRoPol GAZ joint venture, the owners of the Polish portion of the Yamal-Europe pipeline.
The Polish subsidiary of Novatek, which dealt in liquefied natural gas and other hydrocarbons, was also seized. Its assets were put up for sale earlier this month.
In September last year, Germany seized Rosneft’s stake in three major oil refineries, accounting for 12% of the country’s total refining capacity. Rosneft’s complaints against the move were dismissed by German courts. A law enacted by the Bundestag on April 20 may allow the outright expropriation of Russian assets by Germany.
The US government has sought to seize Russian state and private assets frozen under the Ukraine-related sanctions and turn them over to the government in Kiev, a move that critics have said would change the very nature of sanctions from an instrument of pressure to purely punitive.
Source: Russia Today
Six flights with evacuees from Sudan are expected to arrive in Larnaka on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Theodoros Gotsis said, noting that the majority of passengers who arrived on the three flights on Tuesday evening and in the early Hours of Wednesday, have already departed from Cyprus. In his statements outside the Larnaca Joint Rescue Coordination Centre, Gotsis said that Cyprus acts as a transit station in the process of evacuating civilians from Sudan. He said flights had started arriving since Tuesday night, and that yesterday’s arrivals from Sudan included 10 Cypriots. ‘The process continues today, six flights are expected,’ he said, noting that it is important to mention that the majority of passengers who arrived on the three evening flights have already departed from Cyprus. This shows the process involved in activating the ESTIA National emergency plan, he noted. He said Cyprus acts as a transit station in the process of evacuating civilians, while, for any other contribution needed from the services of the Republic of Cyprus, everything was ready. He added that services from other Ministries involved, namely Defence and Health, were also standing ready, as well as organisations such as the Red Cross and others. All services were fully mobilised, he said, adding that this was important ‘because Cyprus is really contributing to a humanitarian crisis taking place in our neighbourhood’. Asked about the number of passengers expected to arrive on Wednesday, Gotsis noted that the three evening flights brought about 240 people, and the aim was to have a smooth flow to be able to provide proper help if and where needed. He noted that there are conditions on the ground, which is something that is taken into account as to the margins for the continuation of this operation.
Source: Cyprus News Agency
A senior operative of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), the group behind the 2016 defeated coup in Turkey, was arrested by the Turkish police in Istanbul on Tuesday, according to security sources.
Ibrahim Tatar, a founder of the covert structure of the FETO in Africa, was arrested from the terror group’s cell house in a police operation in the Umraniye district of Istanbul.
Wanted for being a member of an armed terror organization since 2016, the suspect was accused of using ByLock and having an account in Bank Asya, a FETO-linked bank, and it was determined by the Turkish police’ intelligence bureau that he had worked for many years in companies that supported the organization.
It was learned that Tatar served as FETO’s Democratic Republic of Congo “country imam” between 2005 and 2013, initiated the organizational structure in Congo, and established the “Dawn Schools” that support the organization in the country and served as its general director.
The police seized four mobile phones, five memory cards, a flash memory, and many written and digital materials at the address.
Meanwhile, Turkish police in Ankara arrested another fugitive senior FETO terror group member, who was dismissed from the position of lieutenant commander in the Turkish army, according to security sources.
The suspect, who was dismissed from the Turkish Naval Forces Command in 2018, was arrested as a result of the anti-organize crime police operation in a luxuries building complex where he was hiding.
According to information obtained by Anadolu Agency, the suspect, identified by the initials S.K., was wanted for attempting to destroy the constitutional order and being a member of an armed terror organization.
A special team was set up to capture the former lieutenant commander, who was determined to be a fugitive for about three years.
The team carried out the operation to the address at night.
FETO and its US-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, which left 251 people martyred and 2,734 injured.
Ankara also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.
Source: Anadolu Agency