By Kagondu Njagi
NAIROBI, July 19 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A sculpture of a giant tap spewing plastic waste greeted delegates at U.N. environment talks in Kenya earlier this year – a reminder of the urgent need for them to agree a global pact to curb plastic pollution.
People around the world are facing increasing pressures on their day-to-day lives. Food, energy bills and living costs are rocketing as inflation reaches record levels due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and rising global instability.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation has spoken to people living in 18 countries around the world in an attempt to gauge the human impact of the crisis.
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The conductive fast-charging system as we know it today has drawbacks such as long dwell times, high power demand from the grid, availability and reliability issues, and the need for end-users to deal with heavy cables, dirty connectors, and buggy user interfaces. Battery-swapping is an emerging technology that aims to address all of these shortcomings. Besides easily upgrading battery technology, reducing the purchase price of EVs (by decoupling the cost of the battery from the EV), and massively decreasing charging times, it is also important to note that the battery swapping stations themselves can become independent energy storage facilities with grid-balancing ability. As we electrify the various vehicle segments, can battery swapping be considered a viable recharging strategy for them all? Continue reading
Andrew Firmin is editor-in-chief at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, and one of the lead authors of the 2022 State of Civil Society Report.
For the past couple of weeks, mass protests have brought the South American nation of Ecuador to a standstill.
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Successful family businesses have common characteristics that drive their performance and continuity from one generation to the next, finds a new global report by KPMG Enterprise and the STEP Project Global Consortium. According to the report, three key characteristics help to sustain their success: a strong entrepreneurial orientation across the generations; family connection and attachment to the business; and ambitious next-generation leadership. Continue reading
Winston & Strawn LLP announced that the Firm will reimburse travel expenses for personnel who have to travel out-of-state to obtain an abortion.
The Firm initiated this policy following the recent Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. As a result of that decision, the right to an abortion is now determined under state law. Continue reading
Geneva Financial Home Loans (Geneva) announces the release of a professionally produced song, ‘Good Human’, in support of their BE A GOOD HUMAN initiative to inspire change in the world through human action. Continue reading
GoCardless, the global leader in direct bank payments, has announced its plans to acquire Nordigen, the freemium open banking data provider, as it builds on its vision to become the world’s bank payment network. GoCardless will incorporate Nordigen’s next-generation open banking connectivity — offering the widest coverage in Europe, connecting to more than 2,300 banks in 31 countries — into its account-to-account network. Continue reading
Over half (53%) of social housing residents surveyed say they have used credit or a buy-now-pay-later service to cover an essential household cost such as a food shop or a bill in the last 12 months, according to the latest output from the Resident Voice Index™ (RVI) initiative. The survey of over 5,200 social housing residents on the impact of the cost of living crisis also reveals that nearly seven in 10 respondents (68%) worry all or most of the time about meeting normal monthly living expenses. Continue reading
To commemorate MSME Day 2022 on June 27, Alibaba.com and AliResearch Institute, Alibaba Group’s research arm, published the report “Challenges, Responses, and Transformation of MSMEs in the Post-Pandemic Era”. The report takes a multi-focal look at how Micro- Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) fared through the pandemic to provide a better understanding of what action businesses took in order to survive, revealing key findings that include: Continue reading