The Telegraph (July 1)
“Twenty-six years ago today, Hong Kong was handed over to China on a promise…. Beijing made the commitment, under an international treaty, to protect Hong Kong’s freedoms, the rule of law, human rights, way of life and autonomy.” China has effectively “ripped up its promises. If there is one lesson from the city’s suffering, it is that China cannot be trusted on any commitments it makes to the West.”
Tags: Autonomy, Beijing, China, Commitment, Commitments, Freedoms, Hong Kong, Human rights, International treaty, Promise, Rule of law, Suffering, Trusted
Investment & Pensions Europe (December 23)
“After seeming to hit a wall last week, negotiations” at COP15 ultimately “yielded an agreement on biodiversity – in a move that some hope will make it easier for the finance sector to address nature-related risks to their portfolios.” Similar to the breakthrough Paris Agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework “lays down a plan for dealing with the ecological crisis over coming years,” codifying a “commitment to ‘take action’ to conserve 30% of land, sea and freshwater sources by the end of the decade – known as the ‘30×30’ pledge.”
Tags: Biodiversity, Breakthrough, Commitment, COP15, Ecological crisis, Finance, Freshwater, Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Land, Nature, Negotiations, Paris Agreement, Portfolios, Risks, Sea, Take action
Foreign Affairs (September 2)
“Europe’s supposed commitment to seeing Russia held to account for its actions in Ukraine seems to be trumped by its undeniable energy needs.” An overfocus on symptoms and quick fixes obscures “the path toward energy security.” Absent “coordinated foreign policy—not fragmented individual national responses…. EU member states will find themselves constantly threading the needle between upholding their values and meeting the basic needs of their citizens, a precarious exercise that will hurt the European project itself.”
Tags: Basic needs, Citizens, Commitment, Energy needs, Energy security, EU, Europe, Foreign policy, Fragmented, National, Responses, Russia, Symptoms, Ukraine, Values
Washington Post (September 15)
President Trump claims “America’s cities are in flames” and a Biden election would leave the suburbs engulfed in flames. Meanwhile, wildfires have refocused attention on the issue of climate change. Speaking to the real “fires of the present and future” which are “raging across much of the Western states, devouring towns and turning the sky red,” Joe Biden is now “going further than any party nominee has before and talking like someone with a genuine commitment to strong action on climate.”
Tags: Biden, Climate change, Commitment, Election, Flames, Genuine, Strong action, Suburbs, Trump, U.S., Wildfires
Institutional Investor (May 24)
Quants may be able to “fundamentally transform the ability of investors to find companies that embrace ESG principles.” Beyond crunching more widely available ESG data, some hope that unstructured data, ranging “from people’s comments on social media to data mined from online retailers,” can reveal “hard-to-measure issues like corporate culture or a commitment to the environment.”
Tags: Commitment, Corporate culture, Data mining, Environment, ESG, Hard-to-measure, Investors, Quants, Social media, Unstructured data
Reuters (November 30)
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “needs to initiate a change in direction by releasing all caught up in the frenzy of collective punishment, dialing back on Turkey’s emergency laws and revising Turkey’s overbroad terrorism laws.” The witch-hunt has trampled too many basic rights rights. “Not long ago Turkey was on a path of commitment to protect those very rights and values. It’s not too late to return.”
Tags: Commitment, Emergency laws, Erdogan, Punishment, Rights, Terrorism, Turkey, Values, Witch hunt
Wall Street Journal (September 3)
At age 64, Diana Nyad succeeded in swimming 177 km from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage, something she’s been trying to do since 1978. She overcame jelly fish, sharks and strong currents to accomplish her inspiring 53-hour feat. “Enduring such hardships takes extraordinary perseverance, even a touch of fanaticism. Yet by such commitment do human beings change the world, explore new heights, or stretch the boundaries of physical endurance.”
Tags: Boundaries, Change, Commitment, Cuba, Currents, Diana Nyad, Endurance, Florida, Hardships, Jelly fish, Perseverance, Sharks, Swimming, U.S.
