Reuters (May 11)
“Many net zero targets have three shortcomings: incomplete disclosure, confusing terminology, and problems with offsets. Companies serious about net zero targets should include not just so-called Scope 1 and 2 emissions, produced when they make their products, but also Scope 3, created when customers use those products.”
Tags: Confusing, Disclosure, Emissions, Incomplete, Net zero, Offsets, Shortcomings, Targets, Terminology
San Francisco Chronicle (May 9)
“As much as the Warriors’ Stephen Curry and Draymond Green would love to compete for Team USA, with Steve Kerr an assistant on coach Gregg Popovich’s staff, they can’t even begin to imagine what it might be like, in Japan, with the coronavirus pandemic still raging worldwide….
The IOC should be more than merely concerned about the developments of Saturday, when Japan registered more than 7,000 new COVID-19 cases, the country’s highest total since January, due to a rapidly spreading fourth wave driven by more contagious and deadlier variants of the virus.”
Tags: Compete, Contagious, COVID-19, Curry, Deadlier, Fourth wave, Green, Highest, IOC, Japan, Kerr, Pandemic, Raging, Team USA, Variants, Warriors
The Economist (May 8)
“India’s national government looks increasingly hapless. Confronted with catastrophe, the state has melted away” leaving citizens enraged. “Indians are accustomed to ineptitude and meagre support,” but “it is a sense of utter abandonment, especially among the politically noisy middle class, that is driving the anger.”
Tags: Abandonment, Anger, Catastrophe, Citizens, Confronted, Government, Hapless, India, Ineptitude, Meagre, Middle class, Support
WARC (May 6)
With plunging online sales, “Adidas and Nike are the latest western brands to feel the effects of China’s attacks on companies that criticize reported human rights abuses against Uyghurs in the country’s Xinjiang region.” There have also been calls for boycotts of H&M, Burberry and Uniqlo. “The reaction highlights the tension foreign brands face between speaking out, on the one hand, as their domestic customers increasingly demand, and, on the other, risking commercial damage by offending Beijing.”
Tags: Abuses, Adidas, Attacks, Boycotts, Brands, Burberry, China, Customers, H&M, Human rights, Nike, Online sales, Risk, Tension, Uniqlo, Uyghurs
Wall Street Journal (May 5)
“Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is trading at more than $421,000 per Class A share, and the market is optimistic. That’s a problem.” The share price “has nearly hit the maximum number that can be stored in one common way exchange computers handle digits.” Nasdaq Inc.’s system tops out at $429,496.7295 and had to suspend “broadcasting prices for Class A shares of Berkshire over several popular data feeds.” Nasdaq says a fix is in the works for later this month.
Tags: Berkshire Hathaway, Class A share, Digits, Exchange computers, Market, Nasdaq, Suspend, Trading
Washington Post (May 5)
“Now Japan faces its very worst fear: flopping on the world stage.” In COVID-19 vaccinations, this “nation famed for first-world logistical competence is running dead last among the 37 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development…. This dismal performance isn’t just imperiling the Olympics — or the world’s third-biggest economy. It’s challenging basic notions about whether Japan can change at all.”
Tags: COVID-19, Dead last, Dismal, Flopping, Imperiling, Japan, Logistical competence, OECD, Performance, Vaccinations
Crain’s Chicago Business (May 4)
CME’s last commodity trading pits “shut over a year ago because of COVID-19, and the exchange announced today that they won’t reopen.” CME “had already closed floor trading for most futures contracts in Chicago and New York in 2015 as open outcry had fallen to just 1% of total volumes. The options pits in Chicago, with history stretching back 173 years, were the exchange’s last bastion for old-school commodities floor traders.”
Tags: Chicago, CME, Commodity trading, COVID-19, Exchange, Futures, New York, Open outcry, Options pits
Mercury News (May 3)
“Of the many problems confronting Bay Area companies as they move out of pandemic lockdowns and into the workplaces of the future, one issue is proving especially thorny: Do they make their workers get COVID shots?” Legally, they can require vaccinations “as a condition of employment. But just because they can mandate injections doesn’t mean they should.”
Tags: Bay Area, Companies, COVID shots, Employment, Lockdowns, Pandemic, U.S., Vaccinations, Workers, Workplaces
The Economist (May 1)
Taiwan is now “the most dangerous place on Earth.” An extreme “exercise of high-calibre ambiguity has kept the peace” for decades, but that’s rapidly disintegrating as positions polarize. “America and China must work harder to avoid war over the future of Taiwan.”
The Guardian (April 30)
“It is time for a public inquiry. The coronavirus crisis has been an extraordinary period for the UK, and the toll substantial. More than 127,000 people have died, children have lost years of education, and we have seen the largest drop in GDP since consistent records began more than half a century ago…. While the government has done some things well – the vaccine programme is an undisputed success so far – there are sincere, legitimate questions about many of its other choices.*
Tags: Coronavirus, Crisis, Drop, Education, Extraordinary, GDP, Government, Legitimate, Public inquiry, Questions, UK, Vaccine
