Bulgaria Bomber Was A Caucasian Dressed Like

Bulgaria Bomber Was A Caucasian Dressed Like A Tourist With A Fake Michigan License Bruno Waterfield, The Daily Telegraph coach online coach online outlet outlet Jul. coach factory outlet online 19, 2012, 10:26 AM 10,132 37 facebook linkedin twitter email print coach factory outlet online Police released airport security footage of a person they say was the Burgas suicide bomber. CNN The bombing of a coach carrying Israeli tourists was carried out by a male suicide bomber with fake U.S. identity documents, officials confirm. The bomber, killed in the attack, was a young man with long hair who was described as a "Caucasian" looking like any other tourist. He was caught on CCTV walking around the airport dressed in sportswear, shorts and carrying a backpack before carrying out the attack on a coach load of Israeli tourists at the airport in the quiet Black Sea resort city of Burgas, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of the capital, Sofia. The death toll was raised to at least eight after the Bulgarian driver of the bus died in hospital overnight. The other six victims were Israeli citizens and the suspected bomber died in the attack, Bulgaria's Interior minister said on Thursday morning. Tsvetan Tsvetanov said the suspected attacker was carrying a Michigan driver's license that was being sent to the FBI for authentication. "The explosion was caused by a man who died in the attack and whose identity has not yet been established," Mr Tsvetanov said at the airport a day after the attack, which Israel blames on Iran. "The suicide bomber, wearing shorts and carrying a backpack, looked like any other tourist. He put his bag in the luggage compartment of the bus that blew up," the minister told a news conference. "His travel document was a fake driving license from the (US) state of Michigan." No group immediately claimed responsibility but Israel was quick to blame Iran and the Hezbollah. Israel's Defence Minister said that his nation is confronting a "global wave of terror" sponsored by Iran. "We are facing a global wave of terror... the attack in Burgas was led by members of Hezbollah and sponsored by Iran," Ehud Barak told Israeli public radio on Thursday morning. "The Al-Qaeda and Islamic Jihad networks also operate globally," he added, citing a long list of recent attacks or attempted attacks on Israelis around the world. His comments came a day after Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, accused Tehran of being behind the attack near the popular Black Sea resort of Sunny Beach and warned of retaliatory measures targeting Iran. "All the signs lead to Iran. Israel will respond forcefully to Iranian terror," he said. Three buses caught fire after an explosion at around 5.30pm local time ripped coach outlet store through a coach carrying 44 Israeli tourists, including many teenagers, who had just landed on a flight from Tel Aviv. Over 30 people were also injured in the attack. The blast was confirmed as a terrorist attack linked to the 18th anniversary of Iran's bombing of a Jewish community centre in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires that killed 85 people "Eighteen years exactly after the blast at the Jewish community centre in Argentina, murderous Iranian terror continues to hit innocent people," said Mr Netanyahu. "This is an Iranian terror attack that is spreading throughout the entire world. Israel will react powerfully against Iranian terror." "Only in the past few months we have seen Iranian attempts to attack Israelis in Thailand, India, Georgia, Kenya, Cyprus and other places," Survivors spoke of the terrifying attack. Tsviti Isaac, who was sitting at the front of the bus, survived the explosion with facial injuries but it is thought that his pregnant wife was killed. "The blow came from below and the side as if a row of seats fell on me. Somehow I left the bus, but then went back for my wife," he said. "I am still looking for my wife I do not know if she dead or alive. But I think she is not alive." Gal Malka, who also survived the explosion, told Israeli coach outlet online Army Radio: "We sat down and within a few seconds we heard a huge boom and we ran away. We managed to escape through a hole on the bus. We saw bodies and many people injured. The whole bus went up in flames." Dimitar Nikolov, the mayor of Burgas told the bTV television channel that the attack was caused by "a very strong explosive that was deliberately placed or brought into the baggage compartment of the bus". The US condemned the attack, with President Barack Obama stating his "thoughts and prayers" were with the victims. Israelis have been targeted in attacks outside their country, notably in Delhi, India and Bangkok, Thailand, in February. Israel suspects Iran of being behind these attacks, which have further added to tensions between the two countries already exacerbated by Israeli warnings against Iran's alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapons programme. The deadly explosion comes after a foiled bomb attack in January targeting a bus chartered to take Israeli tourists from the Turkish border to a Bulgarian ski resort earlier this year. Following an Israeli request, Bulgarian troops were deployed in several ski resorts frequented by Israeli tourists after the bomb was found. The foiled attack was thought to be linked to Hezbollah, the Lebanon based Shia Islamist terror group that receives financial and political support from Iran and Syria. Israeli officials have pointed to the timing of the Bulgarian attack on the anniversary of the 18 July 1994 bombing of the Association Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA; Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) building in Buenos Aires. Iran was blamed for that attack and Argentina has issued arrest warrants for several Iranian nationals including General Ahmad Vahidi, the country's defence minister and former commander of the Revolutionary Guards. Bulgaria has insisted the latest attack came without intelligence warnings. SEE ALSO: Terror Attack On Israeli Tourists At Bulgarian Airport Kills At Least Six > Read the original article on The Daily Telegraph. Copyright 2012. More: Bulgaria Terrorism Israel Iran

Fergus Kee puts Fitbug Holdings though its paces

Fergus Kee puts Fitbug Holdings though its paces Stockopedia May 5, 2011, 11:05 AM 40 coach online outlet coach factory outlet online facebook linkedin twitter email print Stockopedia Stockopedia is a UK-based financial news source focused on improving the visibility of smaller companies and investment themes that are often overlooked by the mainstream media Recent Posts 28 Scottish AIM stocks - and lots to worry about Small Cap Value Report (11 Sep 2014) - SAL, DEMG, NPT, SEA 5 Red flags that could have saved you from Tesco's Dividend Cut When Fergus Kee took on the role of executive chairman at AIM quoted Fitbug (LON:FITB) in April this year, it was a decision that he didn’t take lightly. For the ex-Bupa executive, who invested £200,000 of his own money in the business on his arrival, the prospects for Fitbug are significant. With a technology offering that blends online health and wellness coaching with a device that allows users to track their achievements, Fitbug is aiming to tackle the burgeoning market for preventative healthcare, particularly in the US. It is an area that Kee knows well, and his knowledge and contacts in large corporations across the sector could be about to open the door to a fighting fit future for Fitbug. Fitbug was the last in a portfolio of health and fitness oriented businesses run by AIM group ADDleisure plc, which was restructured and renamed in late 2009. Fitbug became the sole focus and with £1.2 million bagged from a share placing at the time of transition and a further £0.6 million raised last October, the company has looked to finish developing its platform and work harder on striking up partnerships with its business-to-business strategy. It already works with companies including PruHealth in the UK and its sister company The Vitality Group in the US, Nectar, the UK loyalty programme, and various primary care trusts (PCTs) as well as distribution partners Yorbody in the Netherlands and Belgium and SCIFIT in the US. In the six months to June 30, 2010, the company saw revenues increase by 91% to £0.8m while pre-tax losses came in at £0.3m against £1.0m a year earlier. The company is now hoping that a pipeline of deals will pull the company into profit during 2011. Fergus, you have had a great deal of success in the recent past at Bupa. What was it that attracted you to Fitbug? A number of things. Obviously a big chunk of my career has been the last 18 years at Bupa where, for the last 12 years, I’ve been on the Executive Committee and at the table for most of their big calls. I have also run a number of Bupa’s big businesses, the UK Health Insurance business with 3.5 million members, the UK Wellness business and a business in the US which Bupa acquired a number of years ago called Health Dialog. That is a health coaching and care support business that employs about 1,000 nurses, mainly supporting and helping US health insurers and big US employers. The bulk of my time at Bupa has really been in private healthcare and health systems generally, with a strong focus on wellness and corporate health. Stepping out of Bupa I am keen to remain in the health space but, in particular, to get involved in businesses which I think are likely to be successful and winners for the future in that space. I didn’t lightly join Fitbug as executive chairman or invest in the business. So I certainly believe they have got potential for the future, particularly in the US. Tell me about Fitbug’s background and its technology. The major founding shareholders were Allan Fisher, who was the founder of Holmes Place, the health chain, and David Turner, who was the joint founder of LA Fitness. They backed the business with a managing director called Paul Landau, who came in after spending about six or seven years at Accenture (NYSE: ACN). Their focus was on developing health or wellness platforms or solutions that were relevant not to the 10% of people who are fairly healthy and go to gyms anyway, but to the 90% of people who aren’t. The sole focus of the business of Fitbug Holdings plc is now on the Fitbug business and platform. They have had a fairly difficult few years as they have incurred losses, partly as a result of investment in developing the platform and partly because of the struggle to gain traction on growing revenues and making sales. They have now got to a stage where the platform is built and working and proven in the market place. The market itself is turning in the UK, internationally and particularly in the US to look for this type of solution and ways that really can bring together activity tracking and nutrition but also motivate and engage people to change their behaviour. Given that health and wellbeing is a competitive market, where does Fitbug fit in? There are a number of competitors in the States in and around this area but they are primarily focused on selling direct to the consumer in the B2C market. What is different about Fitbug is that from Day 1 it has been built as a B2B play. They will sell to consumers and you can buy the product in the UK and the US over the internet, but the primary customer groups are big B2B customers, such as health insurers, large coach outlet sale corporate employers, employee benefit consultants such as Aon or Mercer, or wellness intermediaries. They then either implement it or sell it on to a corporate client or build it in as part of a wider wellness offering as a key component. The US market in particular is really relevant for a number of reasons; it is just so much bigger, the population is bigger and the spend on healthcare is vastly bigger and rising at a rate that is unaffordable for large employers in the country generally. If current trends carry on it will be 20% of GDP in the States by about 2017/2018, which everybody accepts is unsustainable but there are no obvious changes being made to slow down coach online outlet that trend, so ‘likely to get there’ would be my assessment. So what you have got is a latent interest in the US in wellness interventions and devices which can help improve health and slow down that rate of increase. Fitbug ticks that box but Obama’s recent healthcare reforms, in addition to bringing 45 million new people into the private insurance market, have also allowed both employers and health insurers to set aside or rebate up to 20% of their total healthcare spend for behaviour change initiatives. At a simple level it might be to go on a smoking cessation programme and get $500 back. At a more sophisticated level it might be to engage on this Fitbug programme with an underlying device in tracking technology which provides tangible proof back to the payer around behaviour change and you’ll either get direct rewards or you will have your health insurance family premium reduced, or whatever. Fitbug is well placed to play into that space, partly because of their historic B2B focus but also because of the track record and experience they have built up working with coach factory outlet online people like PruHealth in the UK around reward platforms. Fitbug is already working with some significant company partners but how does a small company build momentum in its marketing and get its brand and concept out to the market? I think they are helped significantly at the moment because there are few players in this space and quite a lot of interest. So it is naturally easier to get through the doors of larger organisations. Secondly, because they have been on the road for about five years now they have built up quite a lot of experience and a body of evidence that it works. That is with some of their corporate clients but also with clients such as the NHS and some of the primary care trusts in the UK and with some of the partner organisations, like Holmes Place International. In terms of my involvement as executive chair there will really be two areas of focus. The first is traditional corporate governance and oversight of strategy and business development, but the other one is using my own contacts and relationships and knowledge of the market to help get Fitbug involved with large organisations at a higher level. So in US terms it is going in at executive vice president level as opposed to going in at junior executive level. Presumably that could be very significant for the company? Yes. It is still a very small business in terms of a share investment, but a small number of large orders from the US could fundamentally change the financials and the profitability of the business. That is partly because they are at a stage where they have now done the bulk of the development expenditure, so they have got that behind them, but partly because it is getting to a stage where the revenue from the UK and international business, excluding the US, can almost cover the operating costs and draw the business near to breakeven. So from a profit point of view any additional big orders from the US will be highly profitable at a marginal level. How do you see the business developing from here? I think it develops in a number of areas. The development of the software platform is pretty much complete but logical steps to broaden it out a little bit further would be a mobile phone app, which we will have in place by the end of Q2; we are working on that at the moment. One of the strengths of the business, and, in a sense, one of the ways it has evolved over the last couple of years, is that it has moved from being a device business to a platform business that has its own devices. So one next stage on from that will be to broaden the range of its devices through the rest of this year. That will mean moving from USB type devices to wireless devices at a more expensive price point and also an entry level device at a lower price point, but also to have blood pressure monitoring and scales and weight monitoring on a wireless basis. The second component of that is to increasingly integrate with other suppliers’ devices, people like Polar on heart rate monitoring and so on. So we have the platform at a software level and consumer offering level and intend to broaden the platform at a device level, but then the big thrust from there is really strategic partnerships. It is not necessarily pushing the Fitbug brand in its own right but having relationships with bigger health coachoutletonline organisations or health insurers who have a very significant number of customers and a part of their offering would then be powered by Fitbug. How many people are actually using the system and how could that change? The numbers are still fairly modest. There have been about 100,000 people through the programme now since the business was started. There are 40,000 active users today. So you can immediately get a sense of what a large corporate account win that brings, say, 10,000 employees does to the business and that is quite a realistic expectation in the US market. Finally, the Fitbug management have a stake in the business and are incentivised with further options. How should other shareholders in the business interpret that? We recently put out an announcement about share options, and that was an award of share options to myself, Paul Landau and David Turner. We have been very conscious of the dilution to shareholders over the last year or so, so we have deliberately set a fairly high bar for those share options. In terms of exercise prices we have set prices of 5p, 7.5p and 10p, but unusually we have also said no options can be converted until the share price moves above 15p. That really is, we think, right in terms of aligning key executives’ interest with shareholders’ interests, but it is also, in a sense, our measure of confidence in the future prospects for this business. Fergus, thank you for your time. That’s great Ben, thank you. Stockopedia Read more posts on Stockopedia » More from Stockopedia:Small Cap Value Report (23 Sep 2016) - BDISmall Cap Value Report (22 Sep 2016) - BEG, TFW, FISH, TMMG, SSY, SAAHow to PEG down growth shares at a reasonable priceSIF Portfolio: Are recent falls a buying opportunity at Hamp;amp;T Group?Small Cap Value Report (21 Sep 2016) - SWP, WINE, EGS, DX., DSG