Coming up on today’s program the Red Sea conflict has escalated again, how will this affect the shipping industry going forward? TikTok Aims to sell $17.5 Billion Dollars worth of merchandise to Americans this year and as water continues to dry up in the Panama Canal, is it worth saving? Just a week after the United States had announced they were sending militant groups into the Red Sea to protect cargo vessels traveling through, the Yemen Houthis strike again. As war in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine continue, Yemen militants continue their attacks and have made it clear that until aid is sent into Gaza, they will continue attacking any ships they believe are destined for Israel. This will now increase the delays in expected arrival of goods, pushing costs up again and making it more expensive to transport items. Thomas O’Brien who owns a family gaming and gifting business in the United Kingdom had shared in a recent interview with the BBC that with the new attacks by the Houthi militants and the rerouting of the ships, his shipping costs have soared by 250%. With the new attacks in the Red Seas and conflicts escalating even with the reinforcement of US Militants, Mr. O’Brien and other UK business owners are extremely worried about the new prices in shipping costs and delays to be expected. With these new delays, business owners who rely heavily on shipped products will now have to plan with their counterparties as the way things are currently happening, there will be a lot of chaos. If it is a case where you rely on a manufacturer in another country and you had already agreed to increase the orders and shipment by a particular day or week, having things pushed back an additional one or two weeks will run the risk of missed sales and opportunities. Some manufacturers may be flexible and able to increase the production volume for you in advanced, but if they serve hundreds, thousands or even millions of other clients, then it may be a little bit more impossible for them to make all these adjustments and changes to suit you. Chinese super giant social media app TikTok has recently announced that they plan on increasing their merchandise sales to US consumers to US$17.5 Billion Dollars. If you are unaware, TikTok had launched TikTok shop somewhere around mid-2023. This allows for brands to connect with content creators and so they would be able to link their products directly in their videos and consumers can purchase directly without leaving the app. The company plans to focus on the entertainment and viral videos to expand the growth of the marketplace TikTok shop. Something their rivals would not have access to. TikTok which was founded over 10 years ago by former CEO and founder of ByteDance Zhang Yiming and cofounder and current chairman Liang Rubo, not only built but exploded the social media app in popularity and value to now be worth over US$200 billion dollars. At a time when the social media space was dominated by Instagram with their picture sharing ability and Snapchat with their disappearing messages after 24 hours, TikTok came with something new, fresh and unique. So the term TikTok trend became popular and during the COVID-19 pandemic, artist would release their songs to streaming site where persons would take up on the TikTok app and do dances or some crazy challenge that took the world by storm. The Panama Canal is currently experiencing below normal levels of water. About a century ago woodlands were flooded with water to create a vessel in which ships could move through the east and west. However with the adverse weather temperatures experienced in 2023 and unusual El Nino weather patterns, the canal is still yet to recover from the droughts experienced earlier in 2023 as water levels are currently 6 feet below normal levels.